Quote of the Day

Heard on a children's television show:

Just sit there and practise until your blisters harden into callouses.

Damn, I should have been using that one on my students all along.

Early Morning Wash Job

For work yesterday the Roster Gods granted me the pleasure of having to do a 4am Excavator wash. It's been ages since I've been rostered on to do one of those – I tend to get stuck elsewhere doing other things and miss out on all the fun.

And it is fun.

Alright, you get shit all over you. It's freezing at this time of year and you're pressure blasting with water – which means that you will be standing outside in a long sleeved shirt with two jackets over the top, two bright white sperm suits over that, both of their little white hoods up over your beanie adorned head and a hardhat on top. Looking like a slow moving marshmallow. And you will still be freezing. After three hours solid of pressure blasting, you will also be saturated even through all those layers.

But...

You're using a gun with 4000psi behind it. They're easy to hold when you're used to them, but there's still a kick that will send a beginner backwards. You get up there in the dark and carve away at the grease and mud covering this huge machine and work your way toward the dawn.

I had chunks of mud an inch thick and the size of a man's shoe blasting off the top of this machine in the path of my water gun. All around me there was destruction caused by me, and only me. Oh, therapy. It was brilliant. After the destruction and debris is blasted off the side and into the dark the machine emerges as clean, shiny, and - of course – overwhelmingly orange.

Somewhere near the end of all this comes the other bonus of the shift... Dawn. I love seeing the sky change shade by shade as I'm working. It comes as a surprise every time. I look up from my destructive path for a second and realise There's a tinge of blue to go with those stars now and it makes me smile. It carries with it this indescribable burst of energy and wonderment mixed together. It's exciting. It gives me this wonderful feeling of awe at the way the world works.

It also means I can see any bits I've missed before we hand the machine back to the service crew.

It's crap, it's dirty, it's freezing, and it has the remarkable property of reminding me that it's great to be alive.

Breaking Down

Seven golden rules for healthy eating habits

1. Drink plenty of water.

2. Eat more fruit and vegetables (at least two servings of fruit and five servings of vegetables every day).

3. Manage your portion sizes.

4. Eat less processed food.

5. Eat regular meals – don’t skip meals – and always eat a healthy breakfast (e.g. bowl of natural hi fibre cereal with sliced banana and low fat milk).

6. Restrict your alcohol intake.

7. Limit your intake of “extra” food. These foods are not essential to provide the nutrients the body needs and some contain too much added fat, sugar and salt. Examples include lollies, chocolate, biscuits, cakes, pastries, soft drinks, chips, pies, sausage rolls and other takeaways. Choose these foods sometimes or in small amounts.

I went to an osteopath yesterday. What a disaster. All my conceptions of my own health are out the window.

I thought I was strong. No. My back is in severe pain because my muscles have degraded so much through bad nutrition that I don't have the strength to support my own body weight. There I was thinking I had just overstepped things a little. I thought I just needed a little adjustment and I'd be okay again. Good to go. Not a chance.

The weight that I am now, which I thought was reasonbale, but still about seven kilos over where I'd like to be, is actually fourteen kilos above the upper limit of the healthy weight range for somebody of my height. Fourteen to drop before I'm even on the border of it.

The tension in my neck is ridiculous.

My muscle tone is terrible.

This has all happened through years of constant abuse, lack of nutritous eating and proper exercise and of course, the word that is spat at me as a devil by every health professional I've seen: Smoking.

My blood pressure, however, is spot on. And my pulse is good. Conclusion? My body is fucked but I have a good heart.

I'm crushed, to be honest. I really thought I wasn't that bad heathwise and now that it's all come crashing down around me I feel like curling up into a ball and crying for a while. There's a small glimmer of positivity there - this is a good wake-up call to lead a healthier, more active lifestyle. To lose more weight. To give up or cut back on the smoking. It's an uphill battle that I wanted to fight and climb through anyway. But that hill just seemed to morph from a small ascent into something size of fucking Everest. Not many people have the skills to get past base camp there! How the hell are me and my fourteen extra kilos with zero knowledge of proper healthy lifestyle going to ever be equipped to tackle this one? Will I ever reach the top and do I have the guts and abitlity to maintain my balance when I get there? Will I teeter on the top for a while before my strength runs out and I go rolling back down again?

Gender and the Bathroom

I've started wearing ties again. Oh Fuck, it's been about two years since I felt comfortable enough in one. Let's just say that the elements I surrounded myself with in the time in between were rather quick to judge and I fell for it, slowly but surely cutting out the little masculine things I enjoyed. At the time I was kidding myself that I was fitting in. Now I see it as a major setback in my personal gender explorations.

Anyways, tonight I stepped out in a dress shirt and a tie. Apart from the fact that my chest still sticks out far more than I'd like it to, I looked good. I was happy. All I needed to do was to avoid checking myself out in side profile and I'd be fine and confident in my manufactured masculinity. Happy and fine as a non-gender-specific polymorphous individual.

I'm lucky to be sharing a very supportive environment now. The people around me are not just okay with me expressing who I am, they are encouraging me to explore it more, even. It feels great to be filling out my own skin again.

The fact that there are differences between my reality and that of other people became apperent when I went to the bathroom at the club we were having dinner at just this evening. I went to the bathroom for obvious reasons, and also to tidy up my apperance. I adjusted my tie in the mirror as I was turning to leave. At the same time, a poor older lady was walking in. She looked at me and I could see the embarrassment in her eyes. Panic that she'd walked into the wrong bathrooms. She walked backwards out the door and checked the sign.

Shit.

First thought: I don't want a scene here at all.

Second thought: Fuck you, lady. I wear who I am on the outside. I'm sure you piss in the same bathroom as your husband at home anyway.

Such a dilemma. I felt for her confusion, yet was angered by her narrow-mindedness.

Perhaps I just need to remind myself that other people's thoughts and reactions are their own, and not mine?

Quote of the Day

"Vic's back is like a jigsaw puzzle that doesn't fit together."

Object of Affection

I want one.



It's rare these days for me to make a decision based on pure sexiness of an item. I tend to be influenced more by functionality of an item rather than looks. A nice, sleek looking car? Why the hell would you do that? Can you fit a drum kit in the back of it? No? What the fuck would you want it for then??

But wait just one second.

I want that one.

It gave me a funny feeling in my crotch. It made my mouth open. It made my eyes glaze over. It made my heart rate quicken and I don't want to stop looking at it. I want to stroke it.

What the fuck will happen when I sit on one?