Mum and Dad: away for over four months

Yay! The un-updated Blogger is back!

Mum and Dad came up last Thursday and spent three nights here. We got on pretty well. They were very helpful even if they insisted on rearranging my flat when I was out. I’d like to see their reaction if I moved virtually every item of furniture in their house. They’re flying to London the day after tomorrow and won’t be coming back till late September.

On Friday I saw Blackadder III at the Repertory Theatre. I’m glad I did. I never found Blackadder hilarious and I wouldn’t say Friday’s performance was side-splittingly funny either, but it still got enough laughs out of me to make it worthwhile. Getting a Chinese bloke to play Baldrick worked surprisingly well.

On Saturday my cousin and her family came round to my flat for a pizza as I finally made use of the Hell vouchers that Tommy’s gave me in “celebration” of my big purchase. So for a couple of hours my flat’s population had swelled to eight. I only have three seats, or four if you count the one that’s supposed to be outside.

I bought one of those chairs on Trade Me. Picking it up from Newtown last Wednesday was quite an effort involving unscrewing the legs in the pouring rain using the seller’s screwdriver so I could get it in the car. I then had major difficulties driving back: I could hardly change gear or see where I was going. Luckily I didn’t have to go far.

I now see Julie in Hataitai every Tuesday night. She needs someone to talk to. Last Tuesday I was able to make sense of some of my problems during our chat. I don’t need a diagnosis – I know what’s wrong with me, even if I’m unsure of the root causes. What I don’t know is how to fix my problems.

The middle of last week was a struggle for me, particularly at work. Wednesday afternoon was my low point; at least I resisted the temptation to bang my head against the toilet wall. Sometimes my anxiety and depression almost totally dominate my thought processes, to the point where nothing else matters. That’s what Tuesday, Wednesday and most of Thursday were like in the office.

Ten years ago I was in the middle of my final exams (all nine of them) at university. I studied a lot for those - up to twelve hours a day. Looking back I wonder where all that motivation came from. It had nothing to do with graduate jobs (which I thought were mostly crap), I know that much. Really it was the feeling that I hadn’t achieved as much in my academic life as I should have, and here was my one big chance.

We didn’t have our usual facilitator at Monday’s autism group. Because of this, the session turned into an even bigger free-for-all than it usually is. Adam, the rotund chap who likes all things Texan, seemed to think he ran the show. Towards the end of the evening the subject of pi came up. Tracy could remember the first however many digits of pi thanks to a cleverly-crafted poem in which each digit is represented by the number of letters in the corresponding word. But how does it deal with zeros, I asked. Tracy then said that there are no zeros in pi. I was willing to bet her a virtually infinite sum of money that the decimal expansion of pi does in fact contain zeros. It would be quite remarkable if it didn't; there would be huge implications for all kinds of stuff, though exactly what I’m not sure. Plus I would have been on a pretty good wicket with my bet: it’s easy to prove that there are zeros (look, there’s a zero!) but mighty difficult to prove that there aren’t (even if none of the first million digits is a zero, the million-and-first might be). Tracy then used her pi app on her phone (maybe it was just the internet) to find that pi does indeed contain zeros, which are represented in that poem by ten-letter words.

The Premier League football season ended in dramatic fashion last weekend, with Man City scoring twice in injury time to steal the title from United’s grasp. Some of the pictures on TV of supporters of both sides seem almost laughable: how can this be so important?
Birmingham City, in spite of an action-packed 62-game season, missed out in the race to make it into the top flight. The top two teams in the Championship go up automatically with the next four fighting it out for the third promotion place. Birmingham finished the regular season in fourth place and faced Blackpool (who finished fifth) in a two-legged play-off. It sounded like Blues had a bit of a shocker, both in the away fixture (where they were lucky only to lose 1-0) and for most of the home leg. In the second game Blues conceded either side of half-time to go three behind overall. They replied with two goals but couldn’t find the elusive third which would have forced extra time.

Greece might be about to leave the euro and it’s an absolute calamity. How will anybody, in Greece or the rest of the euro zone, possibly cope with this? I lived in France in 2000-01 during the last days of the franc. Posters were put up to tell people which countries would join the single currency, what the new notes and coins would look like, how many francs equal one euro and so on. Some time in 2001 an extra country – Greece – appeared on these posters without anybody batting an eyelid. Since then five more countries have been admitted. If even the idea of leaving the euro is causing such mayhem, perhaps it shouldn’t have been quite so easy to join in the first place.

My parents' stay and one ring to rule them all

Mum and Dad spent four nights in Wellington last week and flew back to Timaru yesterday morning. We got on really well, maybe because I was at work all day and only saw them in the evenings! They really liked Wellington - it was the first time they'd spent more than a day here - and they said what I've been thinking in the last few weeks: all things being equal (which they rarely are), Wellington is miles better to live/work/eat/sleep in than Auckland. You can be yourself here more easily, it's got a soul that Auckland desperately lacks, and everything is far more convenient: the waterfront, shops, markets, eateries, bars, cinemas, theatres, etc.
Now I just need someone to experience all that stuff with. There are two problems I face: (1) people are scary, and (2) when I'm depressed I don't give a damn about "stuff". However I'm currently in my longest non-depressive spell for months.

We ate out twice, once at a tasty Thai and on Friday at an even tastier Italian. Those would be two of my three eating-out choices, the third being the rather bog-standard fish and chips. On Thursday we saw Soap at the St James. We were in the "cheap" seats (which at $50 they hardly were) at the front of the back section, if that makes sense. But as the show started everyone gradually moved forward to fill any gaps in the rows in front of them. Apparently it's tradition at the St James to do that; in my (limited) experience if you've got tickets for row J or whatever, you have to stay there. We did advance a few rows once we'd figured out what was happening, then it was on with the show. I didn't know what to expect, but it wasn't what we got. I guess I expected more water, some bubble bath, you know, soap. What we did get was an enjoyable mix of comedy and circus. We wondered if the performers were Russian gymnasts who didn't quite make the team. My favourite part (there were many contenders) was the woman who lay on top of a bathtub and juggled various objects with her feet.

After telling Mum and Dad how bad my flat was, they were pleasantly surprised. I think lowering their expectations (to almost zero) was a good move on my part. On Saturday I took them to the airport - a seven-minute trip which impressed them. Hopefully they'll be back fairly soon, and I can get a not-too-expensive flight to Timaru in the near future.

At 3:30 yesterday, disaster struck. I shut my front door behind me, and instantly I knew what I'd done. Shit. I'd locked myself out. After some serious fannying around (making phone calls, leaving messages in desperation, wondering if there was a caretaker with a master key, thinking of ways to force my way in, and finding out how much a locksmith would cost) I found one of the property managers' landline number in the White Pages. Some more farting around ensued but she got the spare key out of the office on Courtenay Place. I met her there; she charged me $50. A locksmith would have been about $250. I still had my car keys and was tempted to spend two nights in my car if I was locked out until Monday. I got back into my flat at sixish. That was a drama I could have done without but it was an accident waiting to happen. Having my car keys and my arsenal of house keys on separate rings, I was asking for it. I'd nearly locked myself out several times before. I've now got one ring (to rule them all) - a lot of keys to carry around but it's the only sensible option.

This morning we had blue sky and bright sunshine, the temperature was well into the teens and people at the waterfront market seemed to think spring was on its way. By afternoon the temperature had nosedived and it was horrible out there. Despite the weird Wellington weather, I think the move to my new(ish) home will be worth it in the long run.