what's new

Oh it's a late one tonight - late home from work I stumble across the traffic lights with lights from several lanes of stilled cars shining at me like I am some uninspired stage performer - spot light, yes, I will just walk past you - how's that for a show?

I wore peep toe shoes and stockings with toes in them today. I've seen it in the magazines, so thought phuk it, I can do that, I can be devil may careish about the rules of fashion. I can wear my favourite shoes and favourite tights together even if they're different colours and even if they're made for different climatic conditions, like strange time travelers thrown together who are never normally seen together in the same season. So I did. And I think they were great.

Tonight I was in the bathroom and saw a giant mummy cockroach laying an egg. It was half out and she scurried and hid in the shadow of a plant pot. Found myself grappling with strange feeling of half repulsion, half empathy. It's not like I think she needs a birthing suite at St Vincents or something but I kind of felt for her that she had to freeze and then scurry, in fear of being squashed by the giant human, in this private moment. It's weird to think that cockroaches actually have sex. They don't look all that cuddly. Of all the animals in the world they really seem like the ones least likely to sidle up for a bit of nookie, don't you think? Somehow too alien and independent for that. You never even see them lazing about, laying down, curled up half asleep, hanging out close to each other or playing together. Maybe that's why they're so creepy to us, they don't seem to have an off button. They're always positioned on all fours ready to go, scuttling along. Like some kind of semi-sentient car with creepy antennae. Hmm, I'm not doing so well at loving all the creatures am I? I do try.

Worked my ass off (ee aw, ee aw) today to help get a proposal in for a project that I'm not even sure I want to work on. But there I am in the team structure, there I am as the contact person. It seems so ridiculous that you're meant to think about these things in such a short amount of time when they influence the shape and flavour of your working days for the next (in this case) year and a half. Do I want to work on (topic X) for half of my working hours? Do I like doing big unwieldy literature reviews and stakeholder engagement on techie issues? I don't even know if I do. Sometimes I think I much prefer looking up close at a very small amount than looking quickly at a lot. This project will be a bit like the latter. I can do that kind of thing but I don't actually like it much, I get antsy that I haven't had time to think about it, let things soak in, get around the detail and nuance. It's also a topic I don't have heaps of cred in and so will be winging it, oh winging it again (sorry - learning by doing), which is ok, but always makes me feel a bit behind, kind of apologetic and defensive when sandwiched up against people who've taken 3 years to do a PhD on something, or industry folk who've worked in that one area for like the last 10 years. And maybe none of that would matter much if I had a cool team to work on it with and I felt like I was learning, but I'm pretty much going to be the team on this one, apart from random bits from other too busy to talk people.

Oh and I'm worried all the stakeholders will be very suity and gruff and technical minded (it goes with the topic), not fun and interesting lateral thinkers or creative types. But that's a terrible cliche and I really have no firm basis for that.

It's hard though, hard for me to say 'yeah, you know what, I don't think so - it just doesn't seem like my cup of tea'. I feel like if I can do it I ought to. I'm needed. I step in to do what's needed. Nevermind what it feels like. Well until half way in when I'm stressed and bored silly and want to scream.

And anyway it's one thing to know what feels maybe not satisfying, and another thing to know what does, and another thing altogether to think that your own feelings matter enough to shape what you do and to express it. But blah, blah, we've been here before.

I should probably right now stick to my own recently adopted self talk maxim of 'you're tired, of course it looks hard right now when you're pooped, but you don't have to figure it out now, have a good night's sleep and see how it looks later'. Or 'glass half full' as one housemate (who is not always that optimistic himself) has been coaching the other recently, in only a semi-ironic way.

So that's whats new here in seagreen land today.