What's wrong with me?

OK, I already know the answer. It's "a lot". But my biggest flaw is a complete inability to handle most social situations. My only real coping strategy is to take myself out of the situation entirely but sometimes that isn't possible. On Friday we had our staff Christmas party. It was during a work afternoon so I couldn't exactly just vanish into the sunset after we'd all eaten. The food was good but having to talk made it a lot less enjoyable. I hardly drank anything because I was babysitting my cousin's kids that evening, giving me a good excuse to miss the after-party. Four hours were more than enough for me. I'd have much preferred four hours stuck at an airport - yes there are lots of people at an airport but you don't have to talk to any of them and you can at least pass the time by reading a book or staring at all the Rolexes you'll never be able to afford. I just wish I could get something out of these sorts of events, or at least not find them hellish, but it's been this way for nearly twenty years.

The Auckland autism group had its Christmas party last Saturday. It would have been a far more enjoyable (and meaningful) occasion for me than the party I did attend the previous day. I was delighted that they introduced an annual Emma Foster Award to be given out to somebody who has shown a number of positive qualities such as courage, perseverance, initiative, helping others and helping the environment. Fittingly Richard won the inaugural award. I suggested to Jen Birch that they name something after Emma to ensure that she is never forgotten, and this is a wonderful way of doing just that.

I've still got plenty to do to ensure that my offer goes unconditional before Christmas. Some of that will depend on the council getting the LIM done on time (and that the results are all OK). Going unconditional pre-Christmas would enable me to can move in three weeks earlier than otherwise (and crucially before the lease on my current place expires). Then I'll have to finalise the terms of my mortgage, which is where the title of my blog really comes into its own.

On Wednesday I'll be going a meeting at the local tramping club with a woman from the autism group. Hopefully I'll get to see a bit more of Wellington (and the rest of NZ) in the new year while meeting people and burning a few calories (which I need to) at the same time.

I'm flying down to Christchurch (unfortunately I couldn't get a flight to Timaru) on Thursday evening. The break should do me good.

Edit: Kim Jong-Il isn't just ill, he's dead.

Phew!

I can't say I enjoyed the final - it was too tense for that. Things didn't go according to the script at all. Something must have been wrong with Piri Weepu - he would have struggled to hit a barn door from ten feet - and when Aaron Cruden had to go off I knew we were in for a nail-biting evening. Then up stepped Stephen Donald (who had never played in a World Cup match before!) to kick his penalty two inches inside the upright. The French played an absolute blinder and scored almost immediately after; the All Blacks somehow clung on to their single-point advantage for the next half-hour. The match could so easily have slipped from their grasp but considering how well they played throughout the tournament, they deserved the win. I was hugely impressed with the French for how graciously they handled such a close loss after being the better side in the second half. Dusautoir was a worthy man-of-the-match. As for the IRB fining the French team for their challenge to the Haka, that's serious overkill but perhaps we shouldn't be surprised.

Overall the tournament has been a real success, helped greatly by Kiwis' passion for rugby, their willingness to get behind some of the smaller teams, and the Pacific Island population who supported their teams with such fervour. On one of my lunch breaks I almost got crushed in a Samoan sandwich in the central city. My only regret from the final is missing out on some betting opportunities with the TAB. I haven't bet on sports for years, and would really think twice before betting on a sport like rugby where my knowledge is pretty sketchy. But $3.80 on a close All Black win - by twelve points or less - looked overpriced to me. Another one that stood out was a "race to ten points". The ABs were clear favourites to reach ten points before France did. However the third possibility - that neither side would ever get to double figures - paid a whopping $50.

Good news - I got my lease extended until 18th February. Tomorrow I'll be taking a look at a flat in Mount Cook.

Last night I spoke to my brother - he's currently based in Poole on the south coast but has just bough a one-bedroom apartment in St Ives, where we grew up.

Compatibility issues

I went swimming tonight at the Freyberg pool as I now do every Tuesday. As mentioned at last night's autism group, the Germanness of the pool's name is apt: ve vill not haf fun in ze pool. All the lanes were busy, right from the aqua-jogging (a.k.a. swogging) lane to the slow, medium and fast swimming lanes to the swim squad lanes. I stuck firmly to the slow lane of course.

Last night's group was great actually. There were two very nice new people and a lot of very enjoyable (and at times quite amusing) conversation. It's a real joy to see someone's face light up when they are excited about a particular topic, as happened on a few occasions last night. I'd really like to get to know some of them better, preferably by meeting up outside the fortnightly sessions.

The meeting came at a good time for me. Yesterday was a bit stressful with the realisation that I might have to be out of this flat soon. My lease expires on 15th November; the flat has just been sold, the new owners still want tenants but, as I found out yesterday, on a one-year contract. That's a hell of a long time. Far too long for me. If I can negotiate something in the coming days, great, otherwise I'll have to be out of here pretty sharpish. A pain in the butt really because I was happy to stay here for the time being, just without the inflexibility of being locked in for so long.

Also increasing my stress levels was a phone call I got on Friday with a potential offer of an actuarial job, subject to an interview. In February following my can-we-just-get-this-over-with actuarial interview (not the one for my current job) I promised to myself I'd never have another such interview. Declining the offer (which I did today) was the only sensible option, for a whole raft of reasons. Today, by the way, is the sixth monthiversary of my job. When I started I had serious doubts as to whether I'd survive that long. I should however mention that I achieved absolutely nothing at work either yesterday or today, so I'm surviving but that's about it.

On Thursday I met somebody I hadn't seen since I was nine. Rose came from Temuka - her parents were friends with mine when we lived there - but now lives in Wellington. She's single and works as an art teacher. My mum and her aunt (I think) swapped our phone numbers. It was funny meeting up with someone I hadn't seen for 22 years and wouldn't know from a bar of soap. We were in the café on Cuba Street for a couple of hours - longer than I'd planned. We had a coffee and a small meal; we got on OK but I ran out of things to say. We agreed to meet up again some time, probably to see one of the many live bands in Wellington. Then on Saturday Rose rang me to say that it was good that we met but that "nothing romantic would come of this - we're not that compatible". This was a bit of a surprise comment because I'd never suggested anything like that, but I think she was concerned our families were trying to hook us up.

As I was writing this, I got a call from my parents; they're coming up for a quick visit the weekend after next, having snagged flights from Timaru through Air New Zealand's reverse auction for a very cheap $78 return for the two of them.

The joys of work II - and some cause for alarm

As I said in my last post, I get on OK with my immediate colleagues. I guess we're all relatively experienced (in terms of age at least) - there are no Kids of '88 in our team, no tricky Gen-Y upstarts to deal with. I'm not so sure about some of the other people on my floor however. The bloke who sits opposite me and works in Finance is six foot five and twenty stone. Now he's fine, but his boss (a she) most definitely isn't. I really feel for the big man, as well as the woman he sits next to. "Now the figures in the 87002 account don't reconcile with the 70501 account, and did you forget about the 54101? How long have you been here now? How could you possibly not remember? This really isn't good enough." And so on, and so forth. It isn't pretty to watch and can be quite distracting. It's interesting though how having a boss from hell can create solidarity within a team. In a similar vein, we had a variety of full-day workshops in my last corporate job, ostensibly to instil in us the company's values: unity, integrity, fraternity and whatever else. But the real reason (perhaps) that they ran the workshops was that most of the staff hated them and would want to rebel, together, against them - thus creating unity and fraternity via the back door.

Last Thursday at 8pm I heard an alarm go off. It sounded a bit like a car alarm, maybe 50 or 100 metres away. Oh wait, maybe it's a fire alarm. It doesn't sound like it's in this building though, so unless I get a knock on the door I'm staying right here. Then someone knocked on my door. "It's a real fire! Get your tag!" What tag?! "OK don't worry, just get out!" And I got down those stairs pretty quickly, thankful that I lived on the fourth floor and not the ninth. Of course it wasn't a real fire at all but a six-monthly drill. The alarm could do with being a bit louder if you ask me. And that tag, well I've since found it attached to the fire extinguisher, which was last checked in June 1989. It was good to meet some of the other residents out in the car park. The subject of earthquakes came up, and supposedly this concrete building (constructed in 1970) would hold up OK, though I'm not convinced. Christchurch had another big aftershock yesterday - a magnitude 5.5 - followed by a string of smaller tremors.

The joys of work

I've now spent about 240 hours in my latest workplace and as yet I've hardly mentioned it. Maybe that's a measure of how much my current work means to me. I hope not. Certainly there have been days when I'm pretty sure I've achieved nothing, but I haven't yet had a day when I've achieved less than nothing (I sure did in my last big corporate job), so that's got to be a positive.

Our office is near the top of a skyscraper and, on a sunny day like we had today, offers a panoramic view of the city and the harbour. There are seventy of us, or thereabouts, with a similar number on one of the lower floors. Considering it's the end of May, a surprising number of Christmas decorations adorn the office. There also some interesting signs, such as the two contradictory ones in the loo: "Save power - turn off the lights" and "DON'T switch off the lights - repeatedly turning the lights on and off reduces the life of the bulbs by 50%." So you can't win.

I'm in a team of six. Luckily my immediate colleagues all seem nice enough people. My boss is fortyish; his wife is in the same profession. The bloke I sit next to is just a shade older than me; he's got a small son whom he wants to ensure doesn't follow in his father's footsteps, instead hoping that he becomes handy with a hammer. The only female member of our team is 28; she emigrated from China at the turn of the century, since when she's acquired an extremely good command of English. None of those L-and-R mix-ups. She lives with a Kiwi partner.

The number two in our team, certainly in terms of experience, is a particularly interesting bloke. He's talkative and speaks quite passionately and at length about certain issues. His keen sense of humour often revolves around word play. I wonder whether he might have Asperger's, albeit in a mild form considering he's got three teenage kids and has no problem dealing with "life stuff" as far as I can see. That leaves only the boss; he's in his late fifties, is softly spoken and as yet I haven't had a lot to do with him.

The good news is that it seems whatever was getting up my nose last week didn't come from this flat at all. And talking of the flat, I bought some furniture for it yesterday. I haven't bought a lot of furniture in my life so far, so I have very little idea of how much it should cost. I spent a little over a grand on a chest of drawers, a bookcase and a bedside table. Is that a lot? Who knows?

Nutters Club etc.

All Saturday night and half of Sunday it chucked it down. It really was a ludicrous amount of rain even by Wellington's high standards. When it cleared up I grabbed some fruit and vege from the market - a cheaper and more interesting option than New World or what have you - then got the dreaded red light when I tried to swipe myself in. Due to a mistake or miscommunication, and all the other crap (normal and abnormal) I've had on my plate, I thought I had one more day in my apartment than I actually did. To get back into my flat I had no choice but to charge an extra night (and $130) to the company - which I'll probably have to pay (and even if I don't, my boss and all the HR people will think I'm hopeless). It's always the way for me - save a few bucks here, lose one-frigging-thirty there.

After all that shambles I moved into my new fourth-floor apartment. It's big enough, has a nice view and gets the afternoon sun, but it's a bit grubby, is starting to come apart at the seams, and has a slight prisony feel about it. The movers are coming tomorrow. We'll have all sorts of fun and games getting all my stuff (or not) into the flat.

I had a 20-minute walk to work this morning but I might as well not have bothered. My head was filled with this fog which made everything practically impossible. You needed GPS to navigate your way around all the labyrithine spreadsheets but I couldn't pick up a signal.

Last night I listened to the Nutters Club show on Radio Live. As an eff-why-eye for the 75,432 Kiwis who read my blog, the show runs from 8 till 10 on Sunday nights. The highlight of the show was undoubtedly Michael Kimber - a very eloquent bloke who has suffered from mental health problems and severe insomnia. To paraphrase his most salient point, he said that depressives you hear about in the media are either celebrities or sociopaths; 95%+ of depressives are neither (and most are in fact the polar opposite of both categories).

Got to go. Hopefully this week I'll see Paul. I need something to cheer me up.

Home at last

Auckland was struck by a deadly tornado this afternoon. At least one person was unlucky enough to lose his life; there are reports of a second fatality. Tornadoes are extremely rare in New Zealand but as one-in-fifty-year events now tend to occur every other week, maybe we shouldn’t be too surprised. The Albany Mega Centre (a large shopping mall) lived up to its name – it was the “mega centre” of the twister. In future I’ll be even more inclined to avoid shopping malls than I already am. I’ve texted everyone I know back in the Big Smoke – they’re all thankfully OK.

In contrast it has been a glorious day in Wellington, as usual. Now I feel vindicated by my decision to leave Auckland and escape all their nasty weather.

The flat search has finally come to an end. What a relief. I’ve taken a two-bedroom apartment on the fourth floor of a tower block in Mt Victoria, overlooking the Basin Reserve. My flat should get the sun, so I can look forward to basking in Wellington’s endless summer. With sorting out accommodation and everything that happened in Auckland, it’s been an extremely busy day of texting on my forty-buck phone. On the way back from signing the application form I found a cheap eatery on Courtenay Place, not far from the Blanket Man, called Cozy Bar (or something like that) – I got a chicken and salad roll and a rocky road cake for four dollars.

The other big news item has been Osama bin Laden’s death. His name was on everyone’s lips in late 2001 but lately I’ve hardly heard him mentioned. I found the chants of “USA, USA” in Washington at the news of his death a little disturbing – that hardly seems a good way of increasing the nation’s worldwide popularity.

So I can cross finding a home off the list in big fat marker pen. I can almost – dare I say it – relax.

Update: I just spoke to my brother on the phone. One of his friends had been killed in a motorbike crash in the UK. He doesn’t know whether he’ll be back for the funeral. He’s now lost so many friends in so many accidents it’s almost unreal. I’m looking forward to seeing him on Friday.

Juggling eggs and feeling scrambled

Yesterday was an up-and-down sort of day. On a “mood scale” from 0 to 10, I swung back and forth from a hopeless 1½ to a just-about-manageable 4. I entered a couple of inner-city lifts that normally stopped at real estate agents’ offices but yesterday weren’t going anywhere. I didn’t care. It was quite nice being in a lift. In Dick Smiths I was overwhelmed by all the lights and noise but sensibly got out before I did thousands of dollars worth of damage. I also chatted briefly with the busker I met last weekend. He juggles with up to four Head tennis balls, often dropping them. I can manage three and had a go myself. I asked him what the trick was for doing four; it looked to me like an optical illusion where you do two in each hand simultaneously. He only had 70 cents sitting on his rug; I threw him another 70. I suggested he might get more money if he diversified a bit – different coloured balls, tennis rackets, clubs, I even mentioned eggs. He just nodded and chuckled. I could do his job, if only I had the balls, so to speak.

Yesterday I was losing it, swearing and punching pedestrian crossing buttons, but when my mood scale was at four I steeled myself to view two flats. The first was in Brooklyn, right next to the cinema. I mean right next to the cinema. It had a spacious deck, but all you could see from it was the cinema wall. I couldn’t have fitted my bed in either of its two bedrooms. The 77-year-old landlord was charming and it’s a shame I’ll almost certainly never see him again, but I still couldn’t take the place. The other was in Te Aro – I walked to it from my apartment – and was potentially great but a bit pricey. If I was moving in with a flatmate it could have been a goer.

I got home and writhed around on my bed. Oh shit. I’ve got all this stuff to do with no hope of ever doing it. I rang Brendan in Auckland and we spoke for 2½ hours. I don’t think I’ve ever talked on the phone for that long before. He was very helpful; I’m lucky to have him as a friend. We clarified what I already knew, that applying for the job in the first place wasn’t particularly clever. Brendan was going through a bad patch himself a few months ago and he seems a lot better now.

It’s really hard to care about flats, my job or a lot else at the moment. Nothing excites me any more. My get-up-and-go has got up and gone. I really wish I could get it back.
In that earthquake claims job, for a minute there I actually cared what I looked like when I walked out the door in the morning.

Two things to say about Wellingtonians:
1. You lot who keep complaining about the weather obviously haven’t got very big problems.
2. “It’s too far away.” Bollocks! You have no idea what “far” is.

I’m struggling a bit with the complexities of living is 2011. What the f*** is Blu-Ray? Bluetooth? How does a T-stick work and why should I care? So for me, Good Friday’s supermarket sweep at Hamilton’s Pak ‘n’ Save was a good news story. The store automatically opened as usual, even though it was a public holiday, due to a computer glitch. No staff were present so people just filled their trolleys to the brim and left without paying. What was wrong with a man or woman with a key?

I might pop to the cinema (if I can face it) to see Paul. The film I mean.