the sentiment's not right

Title from "Explain" by Sarah Blasko. If you've known me for a while you've heard this story already, and probably heard me use the phrase a fair few times.

One of the things I do in my jobs, frequently, is have what I think of as a 'hooker moment.' These are the times where I'm working--usually about three quarters of the way through a long, especially shitty shift--and I stop and think thoughts along the lines of, "I could be doing something else right now. I could be a stripper. I could be a drug dealer. I could be a street-walking junkie in a third-world country. And it would still be better than this." Then I realise I'm full of shit and regain my zen. This story is about the biggest hooker moment I have ever had.

When I was working at a fast food joint, I had minor hooker moments with alarming frequency. See, I worked at two different stores in the franchise, both at train stations. One was basically a direct link to nearly thirty pubs and clubs, and the other one was across the street from a twenty-four hour meth clinic. Most of my hours were night shifts, when, obviously, the meths and drunks were at their most active (and most inebriated.) I actually preferred serving meth heads to serving drunks, because the meth heads were at least fairly happy. The drunks ran the fucking gamut. Some of them were happy, some of them were delirious, some were sobbing, some were suicidal, some were projectile vomiting (just guess who got to clean that one up--in fact, almost all the jobs involving the dining room at night came to me, for various reasons,) and some were, of course, cranky sons of bitches.

Now, I don't hugely want to say which chain I worked for (I worked there for quite some time and didn't leave that long ago--in another couple of months it should be safe to say,) but all you really need to know for this story is that it was open 24-hours, and served, among other things, chicken burgers.

I'm lousy with remembering people's faces during a shift, but AngryDrunk stuck with me because he made a point of staying far, far too long while placing his order so he could call the black girl on the counter a nigga whore and the Asian boy working in the kitchen a job-stealing slant. For the record, that's a really, really good way to get unpleasant things added to your burger--spit, phlegm, and if the person making it is male and has enough time, well... We didn't, of course (there was a manager around who was very sensibly keeping a close eye on the food,) and in the end I served him with what I like to think of as composure. (Note: my brand of composure is largely based on the thought that if I'm nice, he'll go away faster. Usually it works. However...)

I give AngryDrunk his order and he goes away. The drink machine runs out of that foul black sugar-and-tar mix they use to make soft drinks in fast food stores, so I go out back and change it, as well as doing a couple other little maintenance-y things. This takes maybe twenty minutes total--when I come back, AngryDrunk is leaning on my register. I was later told that he'd come back about a minute after I'd left, and waited out the full twenty minutes for me in silence. I can tell already that he ain't here for a free refill. I go over to the register and take my sweet time setting it back up. Only when I have subliminated need to apply a preemptive punch to AngryDrunk's face do I look up, smile brightly, and say, "How can I help you, sir?"

AngryDrunk grabs me by the wrist and glares at me. For a guy who should probably be comatose by now, he sure can talk fast--though it's hard to pick out the words through the slur. "Thizzburgah," he proclaims, "tayzz lie SHIT."

Fortunately I have some experience in translating drunken-asshole-ese. I pry his fingers off my wrist with my free hand and say, "I'm sorry to hear that, sir. If you want, I can get my manager to re--"

He decided he didn't want to let me finish the sentence, and grabbed my wrists again. "Nuh nuh nuh nuh nuh, fex m'burgah, horrr!"

This next paragraph happened in a matter of about two and a half seconds: AngryDrunk threw the burger at me. I dodged. He grabbed me and twisted my wrist, hard. I yelled. My manager stuck his head out. The other counter bitch came over to try and pry his hands off. The manager ran into his office to call the train station's security. Several muted "crr-ack" sounds come from the inside of my wrist.

Security eventually arrive and haul the man off--they restrain him by sitting on him--and an ambulance is called. My co-worker and one of the security guys both heard the sounds of my wrist breaking--even if they hadn't, it's swollen to about five times it's normal size, and is rapidly shading through red and into purple. I'm given a bucket of ice to put it in and a free large fries. The ambulance turns up, and the nice paramedics give me a big 'ole shot of painkillers once they'd loaded me into the van. A trip to the ER and an x-ray later, it was found that my wrist was broken in four places. I got to wear a cast for about three weeks and a brace for some time after that. AngryDrunk got charged with assault (not specifically by me; the corporation that owned the fast food store did most of it, and took most of the payout from the civil case.)

Believe it or not, I didn't quit that job for another year after that. But I remember thinking grimly, as I sat in the back of an ambulance with my broken, distended wrist in my lap, "This would not have happened if I worked in a brothel."

it makes me smile

Title from "Smile" by Lily Allen.

I've actually at work and have been surprisingly busy this weekend, so I'm a bit too dopey to post something substantial. Sorry. In the mean time, you all know Fugly Horse of the Day, right? No? Well check it out if you haven't already. Basically it critiques irresponsible breeding practices in horses, as well as educating people about conformation and suchlike. As a rider myself, I love that blog, and it makes me increasingly greatful I live in an area where the only breeders who haven't gone bankrupt have national show winning animals in their ranks.

Anyway, the point is, a dear friend of mine has started a new blog too; Mutt Puppies On Trial. It's about designer dogs, puppy mills, and all the things Fugly is about... but for dogs. Invaluable if you're in the market for a small dog, or any given puppy, really. And wonderfully written; this is one of the girls I'm co-writing a novel with. You can already tell she's scathingly brilliant, can't you?

sitting on my roof in the land of the forgotten

So here I sit, sifting through the mass of emails that have accumulated in the two days since I bothered to check my accounts. In total 96 message, 22 of those junk, 5 of those eBay-related, 18 pertaining to university.

Some of the rest--about twenty or so--have come from a rather creepy person who, in the same two days, has also left twelve messages on my answering machine. I'd consider a restraining order, but knowing this rather creepy person, I believe it would do more harm than good--and besides, it's very easy for me to add him to my spam filter and delete his messages.

Which still leaves about thirty emails just from friends and family, of course... but as you probably know if you're reading this, I am a writer, and I come from a family of very prolific writers--not novels, but rather letters and emails. Most of my writerly friends are much the same. So whenever I actually remember to check my inbox, I spend a good hour or two catching up on everything I've missed.

In this case I am particularly relieved, because my aunt, uncle, and cousins in New Orleans have just checked in to say they're safe and staying with frends in Seattle. As most of you will know, a couple of very large hurricanes have been hitting America recently. The news in Australia hasn't covered it much, and even if it had I don't watch a huge amount of TV, but my family has had to evacuate from first Gustav, then from Ike when it hit... was it Texas? Either way, they've ended up in Washington, preparing to rebuild their house for the second time in a handful of years--Katrina hit them pretty hard, too.

I don't mean to imply anything--oh hell, what am I saying, of course I mean to imply things, but other people have already done it better. Go listen to "The Gov Did Nothing" by John Butler Trio. That's the song this blog's title comes from. I'm not hugely into politics; as long as I can afford to fill up my car with petrol and buy me some Cadbury Hazelnut now and then--and presumeably World War Three isn't being started--I can't say I give much of a damn about the political scene at all. But sometimes things get to be quite frankly ridiculous, as I feel they are in this case.

On a side note--the new airport security sucks, by the way. The last time I went to the airport it was the domestic one, where it isn't so bad, but I went with two of my friends to pick someone up from the international airport, and even though we weren't actually getting on a plane, it was still ridiculous. Between us, we got a lighter and a nail file through the security gates--they simply weren't picked up by the checks. Supposedly we could each hijack a plane with those. My friend's sister (who, not-so-coincidentally, happens to be the image of blonde-haired blue-eyed big-breasted beauty,) got pulled for a random stripsearch by a male guard. I will probably rant about this again some other time, because it really annoyed me, but right now I'm going to go bake a birthday cake.

it's coming into summer and the weather's fuckin' wicked

Today's song title comes from "Fig Jam", by Butterfingers. It's the companion song to "I Love Work", also by them--listen to that first, if you have a chance. They do have swearing and sexual references, but frankly if you're reading my blog, I'd advice you to become inured to those quickly.

You'd think, given some of the fabulous people I know, I'd get up to all sorts of exciting things, but that's really not true. The main reason for that is because all the fabulous people I know have the same sort of schedule I do; i.e., batshit insane.

As an example, yesterday.

I got up at about five in the morning to the sounds of my dog freaking out and the cockatoos in the tree outside mocking her. Those birds are wicked; they like to eat the grass seeds on our lawn, then, when my dog comes out to chase them, perch on a tree exactly half an inch out of reach of her jaw when she's in full spring. I believe this is conclusive proof that birds and reptiles are related; the lace monitors, goannas that grow up to two metres long and usually only appear in hottest parts summer, do exactly the same thing. My dog is apparently fun to torment.

I had to work that morning. This wasn't great, because as far as I'm concerned, the mornings are for sleeping in after pulling an all-nighter on the lab report I totally forgot was due in two days. Fortunately I had finished the damn thing by around one, so I was operating on four hours of sleep instead of none. Equally fortunately, my current job is pretty cushy, and I decided that calling in sick wasn't worth it, because I could probably sneak in a nap on the desk at some point.

So I printed my lab report, ate breakfast (some leftover roast chicken and two cupcakes--very nutritious, I know,) got my shit together, and headed to work at about 7:30. I work for a friend of a friend of one of my professor's, and the job won't last much longer because I'm just a temporary fix--the woman who'd usually be there broke her leg in three places getting hit by a car, so, until she's ready to work again by midway through October, I'm filling in. All I do is answer the phone and fill out paperwork. The place itself is fascinating--a laboratory at a university dedicated to cutting up post-mortem human brains for various research purposes. My job there, however, is dull enough that they can't find someone to do it full time. There's at least two other girls who take the morning shifts, and one other girl who works afternoons when I don't.

I arrived at work at about eight, clocked in, answered the phone twice, and promptly fell asleep on the desk. As I've said, it was dull, so suffice to say I left at 12:30 when the other girl arrived and went to uni.

I handed in my assignment, booted up my laptop, and logged into the Repo chatroom (have you heard about Repo? No? If you like Saw, Rocky Horror, Sarah Brightman, Anthony Stewart Head, Bill Mosely, Skinny Puppy, Paris Hilton, or horrible things happening to Paris Hilton... you may like Repo. Here.) Just as I came in, one of the writers, the director, the music producer, and Bill Mosely signed in. I have excellent timing sometimes.

A friend of mine, Genet, told me she'd be coming in to drop off her report before four, so I decided to sit around for a while. When she didn't show up by 4:15 (and the temperature started to drop rapidly) I gave up, packed up my laptop, and headed for my car. Lucky for Genet, I stopped to get petrol not more than five minutes away from uni, because she called me as I was about to pull out of the petrol station saying she'd just arrived. I went back, had a very late lunch with her and Labrador (fish and chips and a tub of Greek yoghurt from the affectionately named 'Sewery') and gossiped relentlessly about the behaviour of certain people at a social event we both attended. I went home not long after that to feed my dog and prepare myself for today.

Today, just in case you're interested, was just as dull as yesterday; the most interesting part was attending a class about the pros and cons of various psychiatric drugs and the subjectivity of treatment.

Now that I, Genet, Coyote, Labrador, Finch, and most of my other university-going friends have a week's break coming up, we may actually do something interesting--but honestly, I wouldn't hold your breath. After the semester we've had thus far, most of us will be catching up on sleep.

flying in the face of science

I think I may have to use song lyrics for all my post titles. This one is from Astronaut (A Short History of Nearly Nothing) by Amanda Palmer. Which would, in addition, make a beautiful title for an autobiography or a quantum physics text book.

My friend, Edie, equally pseudonymous and who may on occasion be referred to as Hyena, has a blog dedicated to her writings. This strikes me lately as a good idea, especially since I'm moving gradually into the realms of Vaguely Professional (i.e. I've made a total of about $1000 off my writing in the past three years, which is a step up from zero over the prior eight years of writing and seems like a landmark.)

So, to introduce myself, I write under several different names but when I publish in the mainstream will be using this one; Emele Duncan. This blog will probably be used for either
a) high-brow discussion of the arts and occasional updates on my writing progress,
b) various ramblings about life, the univserse, and everything, or
c) option b interspersed with option a.

Most likely it will be one of the latter. High-brow doesn't come naturally to me.

A quick list of works in progress, in order of their likelihood of being finished;

• two lab reports and three essays for university, which are rather dull
• a short story (under 3000 words) to be used for a competition
• a collaborative novel about surviving a hypothetical World War Three, co-authored with Pilot and Coyote
• a couple of short stories based on the aforementioned collaborative novel
• a novel about werewolves which may be used as the basis for a NaNoWriMo project
• a novel about vampire sekrit agents, about 100,000 has been eaten by MS Word... twice.

Full of excitement, yes?