No sooner am I back before it is time for me to head off again. This weekend is an Artisan conference in Portsea, although thankfully, Ant will be at home taking care of the kids. However, I have struggled with the flu for the second half of this week since returning from Sydney and if the truth be known, this is the LAST thing I want to do right now. However, it is unavoidable and so I head into work later this afternoon to catch a bus with my workmates and head off down the coast for the weekend. Ant is already stressing, although i've pointed out to him that I will be back on Sunday afternoon, just in time to download Doctor Who.
The biggest blessing is coming home to OUR place. A month prior to going on break, Ant asked if friends of his could stay for a week to see about finding a new home. I had been told that they were staying with the partners parents who, not keen on the whole 'gay thing', had kicked them out and they had no where to go. I thought that a week shouldn't be too bad and agreed to it.
By midweek, you couldn't get them sprawled off the couch and Ant had a constant bitch fight just trying to watch what he wanted on TV. Ant had a gut feeling he had made a big mistake.
On the first Saturday, they got up early and left. I assumed they had gone house hunting, since Saturday was the best day for that. A few hours later, they returned home having spent the day down at the South Melbourne Markets buying new clothes and alcohol. The "plan" now was to sit in our back courtyard in new clothes and get pissed. Ant mentioned they had wanted to invite friends over but he put a stop to this - but you have to wonder what kind of people want to spend a weekend by sitting in a small, scruffy courtyard in new clothes and get pissed around midday? We expressed our disapproval and they promptly left for "friends that would party with them".
On Sunday night, it became abudantly clear that this wasn't for a week as they settled back in.
Then they became "ill". Ant came home one Tuesday to find dirty underwear spread across the loungeroom floor, one of them taking up the entire couch, toe nails had been cut on the coffee table along with luncheon meat - no cutting bench - just direct on the coffee table. The house smelled like an ashtray and there was literally no room except for these two (the partner had come home too because the other was ill) to take up. They then sat there, watching tv, and "hitting each other" Beavis and Butthead style. If I heard one more "Ouch!.... Ouch!... OUCH!..." I was going to f*cking kill one of them.
All the while, Ant was becoming more and more resentful. He had no space to call his own and felt like he didn't have a home. I asked he wanted me to talk to them about it but he insisted that he wanted to do it. To make matters worse, we had asked them to mind the cats while we were gone and housesit and now I wasn't sure I wanted them to do it on a couple of levels; firstly, just out of sheer lack of commitment and secondly, the whole experience had soured them staying with us. They were, in essence, incredible slobs. The spare bedroom was like ground zero - clothes everywhere - half eaten burgers in wrappers that had been sitting on the floor for days - glasses on the window ledge - no attempt to do any form of cleaning or dishes - no attempt to hide overpowering body oder - bad smoking smell - walking in to the room to find pieces of my vinyl spread across the room and in their wash basket. The list could go on and on... but it was pretty clear that, as far as they were concerned, there was next to no level of respect for Ant and my home.
The Saturday prior to us heading on break, still there (one of them had "told" Ant that they would be another week - neither had dared mention any of this to me at this point) and we finally receive news that they had got a home. We were relieved and it actually helped things get along a little more. With time not on our side and indecision aiding it, we asked if they would mind the kids. Ant was told that it was "the least they could do" for us letting them stay there, although they couldn't do it Sunday. I was fine with that, as long as the kids were covered from the Thursday that we left till our return Tuesday afternoon. Feeling suspicious though, I gave a spare set of keys to the guys upstairs and to Michael and Jimmy, asking if they could keep an eye on the place too.
Jimmy came over and called us on Friday. He said he had tidied up and done dishes as the place was a mess, and couldn't get over the absolutely disgusting state of the spare bedroom. Bottom line though - the kids were ok and really happy to see him.
Saturday night before we head out, on of the two 'housemates' calls us to tell us that they're "too tired" to continue running around and feeding the cats for us anymore and they won't be coming back now. Ant is extremely upset by the call, saying that it made him feel like he had put them out for doing it and that they didn't even say a thank you or ask how our trip was. In short, he felt used.
I let the guys upstairs and Michael and Jimmy know, who do a sterling job in keeping the kids happy while we're gone.
Upon return, Ant wants to send his friend an SMS to let him know his feelings on my phone (his is always out of credit). He shows me this message: "Hey it's Ant. Just want 2 know what was the problem on Sat night as u both made us feel that we put u out. We asked u more tan once if u can't do it let us know. We had 2 organise stuff from Sydney. It was very hard, plus u told us it was 4 a wk, but ended up a month. U didn't ask but we thought hey we'll b nice. Not even a thank u when u left on the phone Sat. U pushed our friendship 2 far." I told Ant that I thought it was a little over the top and perhaps a little scattered, but he wanted to send it so I told him it was his call.
However, I have to admit that I was surprised at the response we got: "We never once thought you were putting us out and we did say to Ant before you both left that we would not be able to feed the cats on Sunday as we had to go Geelong and had agreed to that. Also we kept asking if there were issues with us staying and we all we were told was no issues."
It felt like a kid answering back and I was rather surprised at the lack of maturity to the response (although felt the stimulus could've been a little better structured around the real point instead of being so emotionally driven).
I couldn't resist it - I sent back a reply: "If I (since Ant sent the lst message) can add my 2c and since I feel Ant's message is a little harsh, I can say I was personally not asked once about issues or about time staying. I think the real issue is more to do with the lack of respect shown to our home. Cigerette butts behind the couch and half eaten burgers on the floor is just poor form and, for both of us, very disappointing. Lawrence."
Again, the response: "We do not know how the burger got on the floor or the butts as they were put into the bin. All we can think of is the cats have gone into the bin. Believe what you will."
Feeling they were missing the point, one last attempt: "Look- bottom line is this - Ant is upset and if his friendship means that little to you that you can't do anything than throw it back on us, then clearly i've been trying to support your side for no reason. You scored accomodtion for a month. Your room was a pig sty. In that regards, we shouldn't have to say anything. I'm surprised your throwing it back at us, Sxxx."
No response.
The real point here is that it should've been raised earlier. They took us for a ride as far as I see it. They treated our home like crap and they got it for nothing. And then when we actually needed something from them, it was "too hard". But now we've come home and, despite finding cigerette butts behind the couch and a dirty shot glass full of cough mixture behind another, the kids are thrilled to see us and we can call our home our own again. Moral of the story - no matter how much your love your friends, there is a time, place and limit.
So, here I am on my final day in Sydney. Ant is up in the room currently dressing and packing his stuff up while I thought i'd sneak down and check out my emails before returning home. We're due out of here at 10am, but our flight isn't till midday so I suspect we're going to be lugging around heavy baggage for an hour or so.
HIGHLIGHTS OF THE TRIP:
* The Home Party - definitely a lot more fun than I was suspecting but I think that was a combination of great music, nice sized crowd and, of course, having David (aka Miss Margeaux) with us. David is such a dear friend who I don't get to see or speak to often enough, but as I was saying to him the other day, it is always going to be quality over quantity and Ant and I have been thrilled that we got to spent so much of our trip up here with him. It was also fantastic to meet one of his close friends, Richard - having heard a lot about him, it was great to finally meet the man in the flesh and spend a little time with him.
* Meeting new friends - it seemed the recovery on Sunday night was riddled with friendly people. Who ever put forward the notion that Sydney people tend to be a little more cliquey clearly haven't been up here for some time because we just found ourselves talking to so many new people, making so many new friends, and extending so many invitations to come to Melbourne some time. So a big thank you to all the Gino's, Dom's and Mike's of this world who made our Sunday night even more fun.
* Hotel Stellar - affordable but rather nice. I'd certainly recommend it to people and it was so close to everything.
* 1973 - My friends will all tell you that i've been obsessed with trying to find a '73' top but have never had any luck. Whilst over in Manly, we noticed that Billabong have just released an entire range of '73' clothes. I didn't go crazy though, deciding to buy a nice green t-shirt as it had the full '1973' on it.
* Warner - Getting to do some work for Warner, and catching up with the gorgeous Kylie Martin again who I can't speak more highly of. Also finding out that Michael Parisi had recommended me to Gordon at Warner's to talk to.
* 'I Like Plastic' - Whilst searching through the many $10 CD stores here, I found a CD compilation that has an obscure 80's dance track I love called 'I Like Plastic'. Not having a CD player here, I've not been able to listen to the quality yet but very excited that i've found this fun piece of retro on a CD. The rest of the CD is fairly crap though, but it is worth the $10 for the one track.
THE NOT-SO HIGHLIGHTS:
* The Weather - It might seem rather hypocritical for a native Melburnian to complain, but the weather here has been cold and wet for pretty much the entire time. I guess it is winter also, so what should I really expect?
* Arq - What kind of club charges $30 to get in and then, during the peak hours (and due to numbers) closes access off between the rooms. Ant, Margeaux and I were trapped downstairs for about three hours until one of Margeaux's more connected friends was able to sneak us upstairs via the back entries so that we could get back to our other friends. The club still had a queue of people waiting to get into the main room at 7am in the morning.
* No CD/DVD - I did have my Ipod, so I wasn't music-less, but the only downside of Hotel Stellar is the lack of DVD/CD players and the fact that the TV reception is pretty crap. But still, it's good accomodation.
In all, i've enjoyed my time in Sydney although I am looking forward to getting back home, seeing the kids and getting the house straightened up. Ant is feeling too well today, so I suspect he'll head straight to bed. I want to get the work done for Warner immediately, party so that I can invoice them but also because i'm actually excited about doing this kind of work again.
Greetings - writing from Sydney here at the moment where Ant and I are currently taking a bit of a break.
We've come up to Sydney for the Queens Birthday long weekend. We thought we would escape the cold and wet in Melbourne in exchange for... well, the cold and wet in Sydney. The weather on the day we arrived was really lovely but it has since gone down hill a bit from there.
We caught up with my friend David last night for dinner, meeting his really gorgeous little puppy Rosie who is all of four months old. She was so adorable that Ant and I wanted to take her home - i'll have to put up some pics when I arrive back home.
I had a meeting with Warner Music yesterday morning, having been approached to work on some special projects for them. We've come up with a few ideas and should know a bit more about that before the end of next week.
Not sure what we're up to tonight - was thinking Super Fag Tag but keep getting mixed signals about it. Outside of that, we're not sure what is really on that is going to be popular. We caught up with Will and Andrew for breakfast this morning and they definitely put our tentative plans into a bit of a spin. Apparently Arq is out of vogue nowadays.
Ant is waiting for me, so best I make a move - write more when I get a chance. :)
Although an update is around the corner (I promise), I had to share this line that was found in a cover letter to us this week:
"In difficult situations, I become child like..."
What the hell does this mean?
Out of all the stupid things you could write in a cover letter, this one leaves me scratching my head somewhat.
Does it mean she chucks a hissy fit if she doesn't get things her way?
Or perhaps it means that when things go wrong, she will totally deny it and act all innocent?
Or perhaps it means that she expects to be spanked and sent to her room without any super?
None of these are really good options and so it does leave me wondering why you would write something in a document that is meant to sell your skill set. It's almost worth getting her in just to explain it!
It doesn't help that the recruitment agency who sent us the CV seemed to act exactly the same way when we asked them what it meant...
