A degree in counting

The autism group tonight was interesting. I liked the topic of sensory stimuli. I used to have problems with sensory overload, and wrote about them on this blog. I talked about my (what I think were) out-of-body experiences. Rhiannon finds sensory overload a serious problem, and often refuses to go out because of it.

I asked the facilitator to waive the "no politics" rule in the wake of the election. She happily did so. The salient point from our discussion was how the non-voting population is skewed so heavily towards poor and sick people, who are unlikely to vote National. What a difference just a tenth of the 700,000 1,000,000 non-voters (I forgot to include those who didn't enrol) could have made. Now John Key and National can ram through whatever policies they like. Which could be pretty much anything. I don't remember a whole heap of policy discussion emanating from them. (I'm hopeful that it won't actually be that bad.)

Labour are all over the place unfortunately. They remind me of the Tories in the UK between 1997 and 2003 - they went through leaders at about the same rate as Labour have in NZ, were deeply divided within the party, and seemed to lack any sense of direction.

I wonder who my parents voted for (I never ask them directly). Well, with Mum I don't have to wonder at all. Dad has always been much more of a floater and has voted Green and Labour before (and Lib Dem in the UK) but, you know, he now lives in a household with 2000 vehicles per 1000 inhabitants, owns four properties, and goes on cruises for heaven's sake. Why wouldn't he vote National?

There was a lot of discussion of the results at work today. People were looking at the interactive Herald page that shows the results from each polling place. Someone was trying to figure out a way of fiddling the Ohariu boundaries to gerrymander Peter Dunne (who got 0.22% of the party vote) out of parliament.

I took this picture in Berhampore in the weekend before the election. Pretty neat I thought. The division symbol is quite appropriate.

I was thinking that as I'm reasonably good at counting (as Rhiannon says, I've got a degree in it) I should probably get myself involved in the vote counting of future elections. I should look into it. I wouldn't mind even doing a council election - it would be interesting to see the complex STV system with all its quotas and preferences unfold.

That's all the election talk you're going to get from me. It's been a very choppy day (weather-wise) today.

Update (Tuesday morning): I was woken by a reasonable shake last night. It was a 5.5, a lot bigger than the one on Friday night.

Jobs and election picks

I've signed my new contract. I'm not too happy with my job if I'm honest. Today I was really wishing it was 2001 and I was sorting mail and heaving the sacks. Or even 2002, when my parents went to Australia for a few weeks, and I was at home by myself. We had a bumper crop of plums, far more than I could eat, so I bagged them up and sold them on the doorstep. On market day, when there was probably five times the normal level of foot traffic past our front door, I was a busy man.

It was great following Scotland's referendum today, seeing so many people united in a democratic process. There were some amazing photos - what a picturesque part of the world it is. The "no" side, with 55.3% of the vote, won a more decisive victory than I expected. Good luck to them now they've decided to stay with the UK. What really impressed me was the turnout - 84.6%. If only we could get that level of participation in our election tomorrow. (In 1984, NZ got a whopping 93.7% turnout when they ditched Rob Muldoon. In a FPP election, where many people's votes hardly matter, that figure is staggering. They must have really wanted him out.)

Last time I didn't do very well with my predictions. This time I can make one fairly confident prediction for election day: I won't be on TV. Otherwise, it's quite hard. It's been a crazy campaign, and some of the protagonists have been equally crazy. How will the huge rise in advance voting affect the result, if at all? How will the people of Christchurch vote? And so much hinges on whether the Conservatives make it. I've been wavering on this but I now think they'll fall just short. It could even be so close that they're over 5% on the night but drop under when the specials are counted (a scenario that's far more likely than the reverse).

Here are my picks:
National..............56 seats
Labour.................34
Green...................15
NZ First...............10
Internet Mana......2
Maori....................2
ACT.......................1
United Future.......1
Total..................121

I've been invited to an election party tomorrow night.

Update: It's 11:30pm and we've just had an earthquake - a 4-point-something.

Release of energy

Although my work situation isn't filling me with happiness, depression-wise I haven't been too bad in the last week or two. It goes to show that unhappiness and depression are two quite different things. But yesterday there were signs that I was making a descent, and today I went into a tailspin. Right on cue, we had a significant earthquake shortly before 4pm today, which lasted about thirty seconds but of course felt longer. The epicentre was in a different location to the big shakes we had last winter; it was close to Eketahuna, 33 km deep, and measured a hefty 6.2. I sent the tennis commentators a message, to say how good their commentary was and to mention the earthquake, and they read it out.

I was at home today - it was Wellington Anniversary - and it's just as well I've only got a four-day work week before I go away (I'm going down south next Monday). My only real team-mate has taken the week off, my boss hasn't, and I'm feeling like crap and with little energy, not far off how I felt over the Christmas/New Year period.

I put an ad on NZ Flatmates and got a surprising number of inquiries, more than I did from TradeMe. And of course that's a good thing. But having to even think about flatmates or jobs or anything like that feels beyond me.

The only way is up

Saturday's tramp was every bit as exhausting as expected, but I felt so much better for it. We did a loop, walking to the top of Kapakapanui the steep way, and coming back down the not-so-steep (but plenty steep enough for me) way. Only four of us did the walk, if you can call it that because all four limbs were required. The summit was at an altitude of 1100 metres, a 960-metre climb from the starting point. We waded through a stream at the beginning; I quickly felt out of my depth. I'd expended a lot of nervous energy in the previous two days and that probably didn't help. This was the steepest part of the track. My heart was pounding and I struggled to keep up; the leader put me at the front. After that I kept up a decent pace, with The Only Way Is Up playing in my head. We saw four mountain goats including a baby one (a kid of course). It felt good to reach the top. The low cloud meant we couldn't see a thing up there, certainly not the amazing view you get in the brochure.
We had lunch up there and gradually made our way down, stopping briefly at a DOC hut. It wasn't an easy descent - it was extremely muddy and slippery. Just as I could feel my feet warming up, they were back in the cold water: we crossed the stream nine times at the bottom. I felt pretty good at the end - I could do with this sort of workout more often.


I did the driving - about an hour each way. As I said before, I get nervous when I'm carrying multiple passengers because it's something I rarely do, and I always think I'm being judged. I shouldn't have been too worried on Saturday - everybody was nicely subdued. My car is more suited to this kind of driving than what I normally do around the city. When I lived in Auckland I went on long drives at the weekends all the time, but that's when I was younger and didn't have to worry about money so much (isn't it supposed to work the other way?).

On Friday we had our after-work boat trip. My stomach had been churning and I'd made regular trips to the loo - I'd been dreading it, not the boat bit but the people bit. The boat was quite a majestic catamaran that our company had chartered. There were two resident dogs - a Dalmatian and a Japanese Spitz. The sea was almost totally calm, making for a very pleasant trip out to Somes Island and back. One of my colleagues, we found out, lived on a boat for five years. “And now I’m working for …” She prefixed the name of the company with "effing". It's always interesting talking to her. Unlike some people in her role (taking calls from customers) she hasn't been institutionalised by working for an insurance company. The people bit, yes, that was hard work, as was the bit where they gave out awards for amazing this or awesome that. One award was a monetary prize for getting the most points (how you get points I don't really know). The woman who received the most points, by a mile, had just left the company, and there was a tie for second place. How did they resolve that? By splitting it 50:50 (money is good like that - it splits easily)? No, by tossing a coin. When we got back on land, some people continued their evening in a bar. It was nice having the next morning's tramp as a valid excuse - I got home around eleven.

Yesterday morning I rang Dad - he's in the UK until the end of the month, sorting out furniture for their latest flat. My brother was out. His mood has lifted immeasurably since he got back to England. He still has a short temper though - it's a trait he's got from Mum's side of the family. Dad and I agreed that would be nice if he could curb that, but if it's in your genes what can you do?

After hobbling to the market to buy all the vegetables and eggs I'll now be eating, Martin came over. I asked him if he'd be interested in flatting with me. He has a guitar and a drum kit, as well as a record player and a selection of vinyl. He's had to leave most of that at his parents' place for lack of space at his current flat - I said he'd be welcome to keep it here. I offered him $190 a week and I'll see what happens. We talked about our relationships with our parents. He said he never got much affection from his mother and could never hug her now - it would just be "really awkward". Wow, that's sad.

It's day two of my new diet and I've already transgressed. A glass of wine at my cousin's place last night, a chocolate chip cookie tonight, milk in my tea and coffee at work when I just wasn't thinking. Bacon and eggs for breakfast is something I could easily get used to though. I posted a comment on whole9life.com, talking about the challenges of a strict exclusion diet when you're depressed, and my slight skepticism of the regime. I got a helpful reply, but then the topic vanished and I could no longer log in. I thought for a minute I'd been banned and IP-blocked for speaking out of turn, but no, there were problems with the site. In conjunction with the diet (or my feeble attempt at it), I'm still weaning off Efexor. On 1st October I dropped to 75 mg.

Tracy and Tom came over last Monday night to play board games. We played a rather good co-operative game where you had to recover the parts of a plane to fly out of a desert before you die of thirst or get buried by a sandstorm. It came right down to the last card - make or break - and unfortunately for us it was break. The game was good but the best part of the evening was the chat.

I've felt two earthquakes in the last week - at about 5:30am on Wednesday (an awkward time) and 7:30am yesterday.

I've yet to vote in the local elections, not because I don't care, but because I have no clue who to vote for. I only know of two of the candidates, and I don't think name recognition is a very good basis for casting a vote. Oh, and I'm fed up with those billboards that mention "reviving" Wellington. It isn't dying!

Six point oh no

At 2:30 on Friday we all got under our desks as the latest "big one" shook the building. Despite being a 6.6, a tick above last month's big shake, it didn't feel quite as violent. What really got me this time was the look of terror on some people's faces. They looked, dare I say, shaken up. So that was work over for the week, although we had to wait for the all-clear before we could go home. It's at times like these that I'm grateful I can just walk home; the roads were gridlocked as people wanted to get the hell out of the city on a Friday afternoon. I had a look around my flat when I got home; there were no additions to last month's plaster cracks. I spoke to one of the other owners - we agreed that for a building that's supposed to be as dodgy as hell, it's come out of these two big shakes remarkably well. That nine-storey lift shaft on Lukes Lane, which will hopefully come down soon, has become a symbol of Wellington's earthquake risk. This time the small town of Seddon really felt the full force of the quake - I was reading about a couple who had moved there to get away from Christchurch.

The size of the subsequent aftershocks has taken me by surprise. We got a 6.0 as I was ordering fish and chips. Fish Fins in Newtown were still open - I'd been looking forward to that all week. "Would you like lemon salt and pepper?" Yes please ... uh oh ... holy shit ... are you OK? I had visions of vats of hot oil toppling over - at least the hospital isn't far away. We've had a bunch of fives and high fours, some of which have woken me up, and I haven't really wanted to go to sleep in the first place. My body clock is way out of whack right now.

Mum and Dad have used the shakes as an excuse to ring me almost hourly. They're driving up this way soon to take four paintings to a watercolour exhibition. I'll be seeing them on the 30th - I think they'll be staying here for six nights. Yesterday Dad and I had (another) argument about home ownership. I'm beginning to regret going anywhere near the property market.

I spent ages last night trying to watch 56 Up without my making my computer terminally ill with viruses. It was showing at the film festival but my brother was here, it was his birthday, the weather was good, and it simply wasn't going to happen. I eventually found it online, complete with Chinese subtitles, and watched all three parts. I last saw the series in 1998 (42 Up as it was then) and what an experiment it has been - effectively a real-life soap opera that only airs once every seven years. Neil was the most interesting of the lot, and the one I could relate to the most, but all the participants were fascinating in their own ways and I found all of them likeable (except perhaps Pete who seemed a bit conceited to me, and only participated this time to promote his band). Many of them shared a dislike for the programme ("people think they know everything about me") and I can hardly blame them - there is something eerie about it. But those same people also felt morally obliged to take part, and I suppose it helps if you get paid for it. Perhaps the biggest surprise is that all fourteen participants (ten of whom are blokes) are still alive - you'd have got long odds on that in 1964.

I'm about to watch some folk music at the Museum of City and Sea with some people from Meetup.com. Update: The music was good and it helped me relax a bit. The bloke who played the Irish songs had been to Kerrytown where my grandfather was brought up. On the way back I took a picture of the offending lift shaft, complete with bouncers.

Weekend with my brother

I had an enjoyable weekend with my brother; mentally he's already on the plane to the UK. We went to Te Papa and saw the Andy Warhol exhibition - neither of us knew much about Warhol outside his pictures of Marilyn Monroe and Campbell's soup tins, so it was enlightening for both of us. That was Saturday, my brother's birthday. In the evening we went out for a Thai meal on Cuba Street.

On Friday we just wandered around Wellington in the morning (he hadn't really seen the city before) and in the afternoon I took him to Lyall Bay - which was packed with surfers - and watched planes take off and land. That evening we went over to my cousin's place - she hadn't seen my brother this century.

Yesterday morning we went to the market (and had a really bad coffee that took ages to get). Later I took him to the south coast again and we had quite a long walk to Red Rocks, hoping to see some seals. They must have been feeding I guess - there wasn't a seal to be seen. Last night we went over to my cousin's again. She was pretty insistent that we come over - I'd have been happy to make a meal at home and chat with my brother.

Wellington could hardly have provided better birthday weather for my brother. I also thought the city would provide a quake-free stay for him too, but alas just after 1am we were both woken by a short, sharp shake measuring 5.4. Apparently I was running around like a headless chicken. The big shake of the 21st has made me über-sensitive. Within the last hour I felt yet another small shake (Geonet tells me it was a 4.1 - in fact I didn't feel it but I heard it). The seismologists at GNS Science have copped some criticism for providing "meaningless" probabilities. I've seen comments like "why don't they just admit that they haven't got a clue?" I totally agree that they have no idea of the exact timing, location and size of future earthquakes. But they don't claim to. And many of their detractors don't really understand probability. "You said there was only an 11% chance of a five-point-something in the next 24 hours." Yes. "But it happened." Yes. We never said it wouldn't.


My brother left this morning and it's anyone's guess when we'll see each other again.

It hasn't been a good week for public transport in southern Europe. After the train crash in Spain killing 79 people, a bus has plunged off a viaduct in southern Italy leaving at least 38 people dead.

I saw a counsellor in my lunch hour today. More about that some other time. I think it's a positive step.

Big day for my brother

What should be the final chapter of my brother's saga will play out tomorrow. Let's hope common sense prevails and his ex-fiancée, an extremely poisonous and vindictive woman, doesn't cause any more damage to him than she already has. I'll be in touch with him during the day. Our body corporate AGM takes place at 6:30 tomorrow; the earthquake risk issue was already the elephant in the room before the recent shakes so it could be a marathon meeting. Hopefully the guts of it will be over by the time my brother's flight gets in around nine. I've taken Friday off work. I'm not sure what we'll do yet. The film festival is on - I really want to see 56 Up but I'm not sure that's my brother's cup of tea. We'll probably go on a long walk, weather permitting. He turns 32 on Saturday but he's never been a big one for celebrating birthdays. The most important thing is that I see my brother at all. He flies to the UK next Thursday and has vowed not to renew his NZ passport nor ever set foot in the country again, and although I'm sure his attitude will change, it's likely to be a long time before I next see him.

Last Saturday I did the Southern Walkway with four others including the leader whose extreme enthusiasm nearly drove me around the bend. She was about to change jobs; I don't envy her new colleagues. I didn't get much of a feel-good sensation from the walk (I didn't want to be with people) although the exercise surely did me some good. Danielle was there - she clearly doesn't like dogs (unlike many Aspies who are very fond of them). We finished up at Island Bay and could see the destruction caused by last month's storm.

Am I supposed to be excited by the arrival of the royal baby? Because I'm not. I'm much more excited about my friend Mandy's baby. A university friend sent me an email with news of people from the past. When faced with such news it's hard not to make comparisons: while other people have hopes and dreams and goals and plans and kids and stuff, I'm just going through the motions.

I've compared notes with my workmates and I'm alarmed by just how many aftershocks I've felt. If I had kids and plans and stuff I might not have felt so many, but I do seem to be in the dodgy zone. I've felt almost as many quakes as the smart-arse in Auckland who submits felt reports on Geonet, claiming to have noticed every single one.

Earthquakes - focusing the mind?

As expected I didn't get much sleep last night. I left the radio on most of the night - somehow that made the aftershocks more bearable. I slept upstairs to be close to the front door so I could make a quick exit if I needed to. National Radio has just one guy on the night shift which runs from midnight till 6am. At one point he was having microphone problems. It was starting to droop, he said, and was in need of some Viagra. Then he read out the shipping forecast with a lot more emotion than you'd get in the (iconic) UK forecasts. "Fifty knots in Puysegur. Five-oh. That's a biggie."

The aftershocks seem to have abated. At about 10:45 this morning we had a 5.2 shake while I was on the loo but I haven't felt a significant shake since. Our work building was closed all day today and we won't be re-entering until noon tomorrow. Overall Wellington hasn't fared too badly. If the quake had hit directly under the city as it did in Christchurch in 2010 and 2011, instead of being out at sea, the story would have been very different indeed.

Tonight I played two games of 7 Wonders with Tracy and Tom. In early September Tracy is having an operation to have her thyroid gland removed.

If anything my mood has improved since the big quakes. Maybe they've helped focus the mind. I've seen probability estimates of further large shakes - from the various figures bandied about it seems nobody has a clue what might happen next. Trying to predict earthquakes is notoriously difficult.

Too much excitement for one day

What a weird day. I slept really badly last night, then at 7:15 I was woken up by an earthquake I never thought would end. It must have lasted a minute but it felt more like a week. It was a 5.8. Then after yawning my way through all the necessary chores and grocery shopping, the big one hit as I was talking to Mum on the phone. I hit Mum with a barrage of expletives as the 6.5 quake ripped plaster off the walls outside my flat. I ran outside onto the street, still talking on the cordless phone. I've got a couple of cracks in my apartment around a beam. The aftershocks aren't helping and they're coming way too thick and way too fast. I can't imagine how I'll sleep tonight. Up until now I've been fairly blasé about earthquakes. They've been exciting more than anything. That's all changed today - these shakes are above my excitement threshold I'm afraid.

My brother is due to fly up to Wellington on Thursday. I'm really looking forward to seeing him.

Shock treatment

I slept through my alarm this morning, dragged myself out of bed (and off to work) eventually, and didn't wake up properly till the earthquake hit just after nine. I felt a small jolt followed by a much bigger one that lasted a few seconds. When my boss got under his desk I decided to follow suit. It seems kids are the best people at dealing with earthquakes: my cousin said her boys instinctively got under the table. The timing of the shake wasn't bad for me: when you're not performing, any distraction is welcome. It was a 5.7, tying for the biggest shake I've felt in Wellington, centred at the top of the South Island, at a depth of 16 km. I didn't feel any of the aftershocks.

At various points in the week I thought I was losing my mind. It goes without saying that I won't be attending tomorrow's function. At least at work I can maintain some illusion of normality.

Yesterday when I mentioned the mortgage situation to my doctor, he said I could just get a higher-paying job, like the one that landed me in so much poo in the first place. Is he incentivised for every milligram of Efexor I take, or what? He's trying to pull me back into the vortex of jobs that could kill me. I don't dislike the bloke but as I said last night, he doesn't know me.

The reality is that I'm earning the same (in raw dollars) as I was in 2005, and a dollar buys you about 20% less than it did then. Back then I was flatting in Milford, paying $140 a week in rent. Now I'm trying to pay off this sodding great mortgage on an earthquake-prone apartment. And unless my app takes off, my prospects of increasing my earnings are severely limited. I don't have many marketable skills. Not in this day and age anyway (100 years ago, being able to add and multiply figures would have got you a lot further than it does now).

I'm going on another tramp tomorrow.

It's a me problem

I'm making some progress with the puzzle stuff. It's given me - for the first time in years - a reason to want to get out of bed in the morning, even if I can't work on the puzzles until the evening.

I went to the autism group again on Monday. I keep asking myself, should I keep going? I haven't had a diagnosis, and have no real intention of getting one, so part of me feels like a fraud. But it gives me the chance to meet people (I haven't done much of that lately) and hopefully, in a very small way, even help one or two of them.

I talked more than usual at Monday's session, maybe because some of the louder ones were absent. We talked about the rules of the group: no religion, no politics, and now no sex. And no "inappropriate" interruptions, a rule which one bloke, who's been going since last September or so, had difficulty with. He seems to have problems that go beyond just the autistic spectrum (and his unibrow). Out of nowhere he'll butt in to talk at length, in his staccato style, about some bad childhood memory. He often talks about "unfinished business" from his childhood, even though he's now 38. He reminded me of the movie Eagle vs Shark where Jarrod is desperate to get back at the kid who bullied him at school. I should also mention that he has an obsessive fear of contamination.

Our previous facilitator is about to return from maternity leave; this meant that her temporary replacement was there for the last time. She was in tears; she'd become quite emotionally attached to her role at Autism NZ and the people at the group. When she started she had a bad habit of treating people on the spectrum as if they were kids, but she's improved since then. It was sad to see her have to make such a reluctant departure.

John Key's recent comments that Wellington is dying (which were tongue-in-cheek I think, but still not clever) have made Wellingtonians stand up and think, shit, we're pretty lucky to be living here. For a city of under half a million, there's heaps going on. It sure as hell ain't dying. OK it hasn't all been beer and skittles for me in the two years I've lived here, and I haven't made a lot of friends, but that's mostly due to a me problem, not a Wellington problem.

We had an earthquake on Monday afternoon, a short sharp shake that only lasted a second or two. It was a 3.6 but felt bigger to me.

Putting it out there

We had another big turnout at tonight's autism meeting. Seventeen showed up including a stand-in facilitator from South Africa who did a good job I thought. We were split into two groups - the loud group and the one I was in. Being in the quiet group gave me the opportunity to talk more than usual; I talked frankly about my inability to form relationships and my desire to work for myself some day. I took the email address of a timid guy who's had as much success in relationships as me (albeit in less time); I'm hoping we can share some ideas. Tracy was there - she really hasn't been well lately. Her number one goal was to start a family. Another woman had a goal (or rather an un-goal) never to have kids. The South African woman said to me, "you seem to lead a pretty normal life" when I told her about my job and my flat. But that's exactly it. It might look normal but it sure as hell ain't.

I've been feeling a bit low the last couple of days. Yesterday was another beautiful day. I went to the waterfront market, bought lunch (a butter chicken wrap) and enough fruit to feed a small army (the stonefruit has been great this summer), then took a walk along Oriental Parade. They were taking the Hobbit frontage down from the Embassy with a giant crane. There were a lot of teenagers milling about by the waterfront, doing all the things I never did at that age, and that's often a trigger for a downswing in my mood. Bizarrely I'll sometimes feel better in bad weather because I won't see so many people out enjoying themselves to compare myself against. I slipped and slapped yesterday but neglected to slop - as a consequence my knees and ankles turned bright red.

I've just finished another book. This one was a true story about a group of MIT students who lived the high life for a couple of years by beating blackjack for millions of dollars. Word of their exploits gradually got around, they had to take more desperate measures (like wearing disguises) to keep their operation going, and eventually they packed it in. Fascinating stuff, and I was firmly on the side of the students while reading the story because card counting (in my book) isn't cheating at all. I had no idea quite how sophisticated the big casinos' camera networks were (and that book was written ten years ago).

Julie, who turned 67 last week, goes into a rest home on Wednesday. I hope it's just a temporary measure. It's so sad to see someone in that much pain, with no friends or family for support. I'll still pop in to see her every Tuesday.

The Solomon Islands were hit by a massive earthquake last week. The quake caused a tsunami and for a short while New Zealand was on a kind of yellow alert. Nothing came of it and we could all just carry on with our lives. In the Solomons, where they keep getting strong aftershocks, the situation is rather different.

Panic attack with a positive spin

I had a panic attack at work today. At about 3pm, out of the blue, the whole office seemed to spin for a few minutes as if I'd had far too much to drink. After the storm passed I still felt pretty yick for the next half-hour. I haven't had one like that for ages.

In my last post I forgot to mention Saturday morning's earthquake. Maybe I'm getting blasé about them now. It struck at 7:20 while I was still half-asleep. It was a significant shake but not enough to prise me out of bed.

Probably the biggest news story of the last week has been that prank call (not the one my work colleague made to a florist yesterday, but the one those Australian radio hosts made to King Edward VII hospital). The whole episode, which I found quite funny at first (how did they succeed with an accent that bad?!) but of course turned utterly tragic, is extremely unfortunate. Although their prank was perhaps ill-advised, there was no malicious intent on the part of the radio hosts; I just hope they aren't scarred for life by this.

I hope I can survive the Christmas party. I expect I'll need various tactical drinks and pees.

Some pictures from Saturday's tramp: an ostrich at Karori Sanctuary, an out-of-place modern castle (we saw someone hoon out of the castle grounds in a Porsche), a view looking back towards southern Wellington, and a World War II bunker.

September and the smell of spring

September is one of my favourite months. In the UK we would sometimes have an Indian summer (and boy could they do with one over there now) while enjoying the plums, apples and berry fruit. Here the smell of spring is in the air. In Septembers past the milder weather would give me the urge to step onto the tennis court. I clearly remember that feeling from September 2005 when I studied for two actuarial exams while listening to US Open tennis coverage on the internet. That remains one of my favourite grand slams (perhaps because Agassi made the final at the age of 35) even though I didn't see any of it. I worked hard for those exams and passed them both. After the exams I took a few days off work and went down to Dunedin with my parents. I remember Coldplay's excellent X&Y album came out at that time. I also voted in a general election for the first time (I was quite excited by this for a number of reasons - I was intrigued by the vagaries of MMP, the election would be close, I had to cast a special out-of-electorate vote, and most importantly I was still naive enough to think it might make a difference to my life who won).

Seven Septembers on, things have changed a bit. I'm no longer playing tennis, or even watching or listening to it, and I've knocked actuarial work (I hope) firmly on the head. Last night I saw my cousin and her family for the first time in five weeks. Today I met up with a few people from the depression group; I had a coffee and a beer at Mac's Brewery, then we spent an hour at the Museum of City and Sea.

I've felt two earthquakes this weekend. Yesterday afternoon's shake (a deep-focus 5.5 centred close to Rotorua) lasted a couple of seconds while the jolt at 4:10 this morning (a 4.0, much shallower and closer to Wellington) lasted only a split second - I probably wouldn't have felt it if I hadn't just woken from a weird dream.

Mum and Dad have just got back from their Baltic cruise, where they stopped off at such weird and wonderful places as St Petersburg, Tallinn and Helsinki. They'll soon be flying to Split, where they invented a popular banana and ice cream dessert as well as that manoeuvre gymnasts do where they have their legs wide apart.

Seven!

Half an hour ago, as I was perusing the earthquake-related bumph in the LIM and visualising a big yellow sticker being slapped on our apartment building, we had pretty significant jolt here. It was a magnitude 7.0 (yes - I was way off the mark with my guess of 5.5) but 230 km deep, centred over South Taranaki. So it was felt over a wide area. It was a slow rumbling shake that seemed to go on for half a minute but was probably ten seconds at the most.

Bombshell

On Tuesday I got a letter from the council: "Your apartment building has been identified as potentially earthquake prone. The IEP (Initial Evaluation Process) for the building has been assessed with a score of less than 34." In fact it scored just 21, i.e. it only meets 21% of current standards, whatever that actually means. What it means for me is that I could be faced with a massive bill and an unsellable apartment (except at a knock-down price) until the strengthening works are carried out, if they are deemed necessary (I'll find out in December whether the building is an official earthquake risk).

Obviously I wasn't a happy bunny when I got this news. I thought I'd done my homework before I bought this place - the council told me it would be exempt from any assessment because the apartments were built in 1996-97, well after the 1976 cut-off. But now they say that the original building was constructed in about 1960 and was extended, converted into apartments and strengthened (inadequately in their view) in the nineties. The LIM (which I paid for last December) even says: "Year first constructed - 1990-1999". I emailed the chairman of the body corp committee who seemed as shocked as me. He thought I might have a valid claim with the council. To be honest when I bought this flat I was more concerned about the cost of strengthening work, which I might be faced with now, than the actual earthquake. Let's face it, if the fault line that runs through Wellington ruptures and we get a massive quake, heaps of houses and flats here will be toast. If you were really worried about earthquakes you wouldn't live in Wellington.

Tuesday and Wednesday weren't my best days (mental health-wise) but I improved towards the end of the week. Yesterday is a day I'd like to forget however. The atrocious weather made it a good day for online poker but I suffered my worst ever one-day loss (just over US$200). That didn't put me in the best of moods for a night out with Giuseppe at the Southern Cross (an enormous bar only a few minutes walk away, but as I'd never walked past it I never knew it was there). He brought two female friends along, and we listened to some music put on by the Alliance Française (which I used to be a member of); to be honest most of the music washed over me and I was glad we only stayed there two hours which seems to be my limit. Last night I almost wished I was back in Auckland, despite my misgivings about the place. At least I knew people who I felt comfortable around. And I wouldn't have bought an earthquake-prone building had I stayed there: they don't have many earthquakes and I couldn't have afforded a property anyway.

Talking of French music, at the waterfront market today two French blokes (with an accordion and a guitar) were playing this song by La Rue Ketanou (I preferred their version of it to the YouTube one).

Mum and Dad are currently in Turkey, on an organised two-week tour. I didn't think that would be their cup of tea, least of all Dad's, but they're enjoying it even if they're finding it a bit hot. They've emailed me using a Turkish keyboard which (like their alphabet) contains two I's, one with a dot and one without. İ don't thınk they quıte knew whıch İ to use where, so theır emaıl came out lookıng a lıttle weırd.

The news desk

My parents are now in the UK having spent two nights in Hong Kong. I got an email from Dad this morning - he'd sent it from the library in St Ives using a keyboard whose space bar didn't work properly so a lot of the words were merged together. Maybe it was a German keyboard. They'll be going to Wales soon for my grandmother's farewell, to coincide with what would have been her 90th birthday. Then they'll be spending two weeks in Turkey.

I forgot to mention that while my parents were here recently, an old oak writing desk (that used to reside in Gran's house) was delivered to my flat. I guess you'd call it a bureau. It originally belonged to my great-grandfather (my dad's dad's dad) - he was given it in 1929 as a leaving present from his work. Stuck to the inside is a list of names and addresses; there's even a three-digit phone number (287).

A sizeable earthquake hit northern Italy early this week, causing some loss of life and considerable loss of history.

I went to the depression group tonight at the noodle bar. It went reasonably well.

Gutter balls

This morning’s quake was a short, sharp jolt. It wouldn’t have lasted more than a second or two. Some people seem to think it resulted from the current supermoon.

On Tuesday – the first of the month – I lowered my Efexor by another notch. I’m now on 225. I’m hoping that by when I finally reach zero I might be able to *feel* again. I experienced some minor panic attacks on Wednesday between about 4 and 7pm. Whether they were withdrawal symptoms (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSRI_discontinuation_syndrome#Venlafaxine) I don’t know. I’ve also had a cold (again) this week.

I spoke to Richard on Thursday – he’s been going through a rough patch lately with depression. Thankfully he has a fairly extensive network of support in Auckland, so I’m confident he’ll come through this difficult spell. He takes one of the tricyclic types of antidepressant. My Efexor is an SNRI. Citalopram, the stuff I took from 2001 to 2009, is an SSRI. Then there’s the MAOI type, which sounds like it was discovered on Easter Island (Tracy takes one of those).

We had a record turnout of sixteen at Monday’s autism group. Surprisingly, given that 80% of people on the spectrum are male, nine of us (including the facilitator) were women. I can’t say enjoyed the group that much, mainly because of the high turnout. Of course in Auckland there would often be twice that many in attendance but you could move around more easily and didn’t feel quite as “locked-in”. This coming Friday there’s a showing of Blackadder III at the Repertory Theatre. Tracy is a huge Blackadder fan and suggested that we see Friday’s performance. I’ll be going, along with four or five others (women only as far as I know). At Monday’s group, people recited lines verbatim from Blackadder and a bunch of other shows. Now Blackadder is very funny I agree, but I never obsessed about it (or any other programme for that matter) to the point of word-for-word recall. I’ve always struggled to fit in, and on Monday it seemed I didn’t even fit in amongst the misfits.

Last weekend’s lead story in the Dom Post was of a 33-year-old autistic man who has been denied a basic human right by being allowed outside for less than two days in the last year. It’s shocking to read of such cruelty in such a progressive part of the world as this. It would be amazing to help somebody like him. Going down that path is one of my four ideas of what my next job should be.

On Thursday I went to the depression group at the noodle bar on Cuba St. I’m not sure what to make of that group. A lot of the talk revolves around online dating. Relationships have been off the map for me for such a long time that I have very little to add to the conversation. There are two NZ-based dating sites: Find Someone and NZ Dating. If you just want sex, apparently you join the latter – I think it has a “shag now” facility, a bit like the “buy now” button on Trade Me.

The depression group also arrange “events” at the weekend every now and again. Today nine of us went bowling at the Lanes in town. For some reason socialising has become even harder for me of late. I found it very hard to relax. We only played one game: I opened my account with four rather embarrassing gutter balls and had just 20 at the half-way point but finished on 85. We then sat in the sun, then I had a coffee with the six-foot-five bloke; like most people there's more to him than meets the eye.

My parents are coming up on Thursday for three days, so I spent most of yesterday cleaning my flat.

Earthquake

We've just had an earthquake here. Decent-sized shake. I'm guessing mid to high fours.
Update: It was a 4.2 at a depth of 30 km, so I'm more shake-sensitive than I thought.

No let-up for Christchurch

Just what Christchurch residents needed for Christmas: more quakes. They copped a bunch of them yesterday including a 5.8 and a 6.0. I was outside for the first of those, and didn't feel it, but I was in the living room with Mum and Dad for the second one which we certainly felt. I'd never felt a "proper" shake prior to this month but I'm now almost getting accustomed to them. I was lucky that I flew into Christchurch the night before.

Some good news for Dad - he has sold four more paintings at what has been a very successful exhibition for him in Timaru.

This morning I hit a tennis ball for the first time since April. Mum used to play a lot - this season she's joined the local club. This morning we knocked up for an hour at the Woodbury courts. I enjoyed it more than I imagined I would. We were both rusty - and Mum couldn't run down as many balls as she used to - but maybe I'll look at joining a club in Wellington next season. I remember playing - and losing - on those courts in '89 for St Joseph's, the school I briefly attended in Temuka.

We'll be off to church in half an hour. Dad and I only "do" church once a year. Tomorrow we're having Christmas dinner at my aunt's house in Timaru.