to a friend of mine who has been avoiding me. It’s her birthday today. She sent one back at least. All it says is “Ta”. I was too scared to call her.

Not sure what her problem is. I did a balance on her last year. She practically threw me out of the house after, and has avoided me ever since. We have been friends since we were 12 years old, so this really hurts.

Time to dig out the Chilout t-shirt. www.chilout.org

THE prospect of children returning to detention under the Howard Government's tough new rules for dealing with boatpeople threatens to rekindle a rebellion among Coalition MPs.

The Government's decision to force all illegal arrivals, including children, who reach mainland Australia by boat into offshore immigration detention centres could sideline reforms introduced in June in response to a backbench revolt led by Liberal MP Petro Georgiou.

….

The Government announced last week it was extending its 2001 "Pacific solution" after a diplomatic stoush with Indonesia over the granting of temporary protection visas to 42 Papuans who made it to the Australian mainland by boat.

The changes require illegal entrants to Australia, whether they reach the mainland or not, to be sent to one of three immigration detention centres for processing – Nauru, Christmas Island and Papua New Guinea's Manus Island.

….

The Opposition sought to capitalise on the ructions within the Government, with Labor immigration spokesman Tony Burke warning that a range of reforms introduced last year in relation to children and families in detention were under threat. Mr Burke said there was no official classification of the Nauru and Manus Island facilities as detention centres, leaving open the prospect of children being locked up.

"All of that is contingent upon people being held in what is defined as a detention centre. Manus Island and Nauru are not," he told the Nine Network.

"That means under John Howard's proposal, children in detention can happen again. We can see indefinite detention back. All of the changes that were heralded last year as a quantum leap by Petro Georgiou are over – it's a quantum backflip, 10 months later and one canoe later."

* Coffee grown on land cleared of rainforest.
* Cocoa grown using child labour.
* Tea grown on plantations with unfair wage policies.
* Over-fished and endangered fish species.
* Coffee grown by large plantations paying unfair wages.
* Cocoa sprayed with dangerous pesticides.
* Force-fed animals.
* Battery-bred and -fed chickens.
* Ice-cream made with palm oil grown on cleared land.
* Food that has been flown resource-consuming kilometres.

Fair Trade, according to Amnesty International, "targets socially conscious consumers who would be willing to pay a bit extra at the supermarket in exchange for the assurance that Third World farmers received a reasonable return for their labour."

It's fair trade fortnight coming up.. so look out for more fair trade goods in the supermarket soon.

Some producers have been interviewed by SMH in an article entitled Coffee with a conscience.

Fair Trade Fortnight runs from April 29 to May 13. For a full calendar of events, go to http://www.fta.org.au/ftf06

I'm actually quite a shy person.  I know that I come across as intimdating.. possibly because of (a) height – I'm taller than average (b) face – studies have shown that folks feel more at ease with people who show teeth when they smile.  My teeth are set well back and don't show when I smile. (c) Intelligence.  (I'm too lazy to hide it.)

And of course the introvert thing.

More and more I'm thinking that interviewer / owner guy is intimidated by me.  He had trouble making eye contact with me, has mentioned "egos" a few times on the phone to me.  Anybody who thinks my natural aloofness is egocentricity doesn't have much of a clue, really.  They have mistaken shyness for something else.  And 'sakes, it's an interview, I'm supposed to be selling myself here.  He also said something like "this feels like a marriage". 

Tres weird.  I think I need to run, now.

From the season finale of "Six Feet Under"(2004 season). The late Nathaniel
Fisher, Sr. speaks with his son David:

—————————————————–

  Dad: "You're not even grateful, are you?"

  David: "Grateful? For the worst fucking experience of my life?"

  Dad: "You hang on to your pain like it means something. Like it's worth something.
  Well let me tell you it's not worth shit. Let it go! (Rolls eyes to heaven) Infinite
  possibilities and all he can do is whine."

  David: "Well, what am I suppose to do?"

  Dad: "What do you think? You can do anything you lucky bastard…you're alive!
  What's a little pain compared to that?"

  David: "It can't be so simple."

  Dad: "What if it is?"

Here I sit on my blood red couch in the candle light.
On my left, two gold grapefruit and some chocolate royales.
On my right, a bottle of muscat, a box of cigars, and some 6" stilettos.
In front of me, Blade.
One, AND two.
Along with "From Dusk till Dawn", one, two and three.
In a pile on the floor, in the dark, the most heinous.
24 episodes of Buffy.

All my vices.
Arranged beautifully around me, like offerings,
like glittering artifacts to take into the afterlife.

Door opens. Door closes. Soft footsteps. My companion.
No words. No need. Familiar. Comfortable.
Some knowing looks. The mischevious smiles of a very dear friend.

Lady Death doesn't always come to dance.
Sometimes she comes to watch DVD's in my candlelight and..
to remind me that death is OK.
That sometimes, a thing
NOT dying is the only true evil.

Fragrant smoke rises like incense into the air as ashes fall.
The muscat is sickly sweet and the grapefruit wedges are bitter.
Two pairs of pretty crossed feet are languidly served up on the coffee table altar.
And a pale skeletal hand with a great French polish reaches out of the shadows..

to press "PLAY".

I have a work collegue that I need to talk small talk to for 5-10 mins a day. If I don't, she starts dissing me to people and causing trouble for me.

WTF is with that!?

I pay my "dues" to her but I resent every minute of it.

And there is a girl at college, luckily she is only in a few classes because she has taken to sticking to me like Clamp the Mighty Limpet and I can't seem to get her off.  WHY ME!!?!?!

I'd much rather talk to imaginary people on the internet instead of Misses Chatty Cathy.  You can't scroll the drivel real-time.  As another introvert pointed out to me, these extroverts latch onto introverts like life-savers because, unlike other extroverts, we are not waiting for a pause in the conversation so that we can interject something about ourselves.  We are actually capable of listening.  Which is manna from heaven for an extrovert. 

They will snort as much of that listening shit as they can get.

Caring for your Introvert

This job interview thing is dragging on.  and on. and on.  I'm so frustrated I could scream.

I've been stuffing around at work all week because I've been in limbo over it.  I've never experienced this type of interview stress before.  I need some more irons in the fire so I don't feel so anxious about it.

The second interview involved a trial in the office for a couple of hours, which the guy who rund the business did not stay around for.

Anyway, he has said that he is happy with my skills etc but he feels he does not have a picture of what I would be like to work with. So he wants me to have another trial half a day. He asked me some pretty tricky questions and told me that he felt he needed to break past the facade.  (Hmm…  it's an INTERVIEW.. I'm supposed to be acting PROFESSIONAL) Anyways, I'm cranky that he didn't stay around for the first half day and now wants me to do another half a day.  I have to make those hours up and it makes for a very long week.  He should have stayed for the first "trial" time I was there.. or made an alternative time if he couldn't make it the first time.  What a waste of my time!!  And now he wants me to do it again!!   Tempted to tell him to get stuffed.

I can't keep taking all this time off for trials. I've had two interviews with this lot so far, one of which lasted 3 hours.

I don't know what to do. I asked for the contact details of their last office manager, called her, she said "yeah, main dude procrastinates." Sure does!!

I've never had this many interviews with the one company in my life.. it feels like I'm being strung along. I think the bottom line is that this guy recognises that I'm good but feels intimidated by me, and isn't sure how that is going to work.

AND I have an exam tomorrow.. AND tomorrow is baby making day.  Not that that is likely to happen with all this other crap going on.

I'm seriously feeling over my life this weekend, I want a new one.  Where do I resign????

I went down to the car thismorning to get something for Linds. As I walked between two cars, waiting to cross the road, a maroon van drove very close to me and I heard a huge BANG!

They had thrown firecrackers at me, which had exploded on the boot of the car right next to me. I thought someone had shot at me!

My ears are still ringing and feel kind of funny, nearly an hour later. I hope there is no permanent damage to my hearing. I called the police about it and I hope they caught them.

Morons. I am beyond pissed.

I guess it just tops off a "great" week.  I lost one of the stones in my engagement ring, and a cat got hit outside of our building on Thursday night.  The lady who did it was hysterical and I ended up helping her move the body off the road.  Hmm.

Last night a sent an email to a few folks.

I don't think people know I was sick.  Well, maybe they do.  I don't want to be a complete whiner about it, but being chronically ill isn't a "small thing".