024: When I told work I had plans, I'm not sure this is what they had in mind

I work five to six night a week and usually those precious nights off are when I make plans and reconnect with life outside my work. However, tonight was something different. Tonight, I planned to do nothing. I did get that dreaded call at half past six asking if I could cover a last minute absence, but I couldn't. My nothing-ness was already planned.

House mate had her own work to go to, so I waltzed down to the local to pick up a few essentials. Fixed myself a tasty dinner, poured myself a glass of second cheapest wine in the shop and settled in for a good read.
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 I cannot think of a better way to spend my evenings.

  Kathleen x

018: My Last Kiss When a Little Like This....

Well, first off, I was drinking, so we can just pretend that I had perfect judgment on what was happening around me. It was midweek and we were bored, so we stocked up on cheap wine and decided to see where the night would take us. It wasn’t much of a surprise as to where we ended – the bar known for its cheap drinks that lures students from the three surrounding universities. As the evening progressed, and the wine was washed down with shots, we ended up dancing.

The discounted alcohol had pulled a crowd and before long, my friends and I had separated. One girl had recognised a flame from a previous time and had been pulled in by his charm. Another had been snatched by a tartan clad builder who had pulled her to the quiet of the beer garden to chat. When it was just one friend and I left standing, we staggered to the bar ordered a drink and toasted to our ability to avoid hooking up with any of the short and sniffling men that we too often find.

I however, didn’t get to my drink.

As we waited in line for the bar, a man with a boy’s face started up a conversation. And be it the alcohol talking, or the to the flash of future where I see myself a crazy cat lady, I got my flirt on. Before long we were in a tangle of limbs on the dance floor (my friend had to have the victory drink all on her own) and it wasn’t long before her lent down to my ear and whispered the ever alluring line of “so, my place or your?”

This is the thing I too easily forget about people – is that people kinda want sex and don't share my romantic notion about sharing that with a select few.  I don’t believe in no sex before marriage, I takes all the fun out of begin young – but I’m not really one to fling myself around whenever I feel like it. I need passion and attraction and some sort of connection for me to go to bed with someone and meeting someone by a beer soaked bar is very far from my idea of romantic. It’s a shame really that I am in such a minority because there are good guys out there who would be ready to wait if not for the queue of women who would just rather cut to the chase.

We as a society seem to have regressed back to thinking with our downstairs rather than our up, going back to primitive desires for sex, now and not really thinking about anything else. Have we really lost all ideas about what a relationship is supposed to be about? I mean, penguins have it pretty down pat, why is it taking humans so long to get around to it?

Unfortunately, the part of my brain that decides what is appropriate to say had stopped working several hours ago, and all my ideas about the value of sex in today’s society came tumbling out in response to his rather simple question. The look on his face was priceless and he began systematically searching the club for the friend he had seen me with earlier. And then dissolved back into the crowd.

Maybe I can see why I am single now.  

  Kathleen x 

012: A Decidedly Good Week

Last Monday, I woke up a mess. I had overslept my morning class and a job interview and hair to rival Hermione Granger. I was running late and forgot to mention some crucial experience in the interview and nearly rammed into another car. All in all, it was a pretty shitty morning. And unfortunately, my week followed much the same course. 

Every day I was running late for something, an class presentation on Tuesday, (which literally involved running up five flights of stairs) dinner with my parents and working the late night shift everyday and getting suck in traffic all over the place. And to add to the stress, I had three assignments due by the end of the week and I had forgotten all about them until a few days before the due date. Sleeping and eating became optional extras. 

Safe to say, my week wasn't exactly perfect. 

On the Sunday night, as I drove home from work (it hadn't been a good shift, running late, got a couple of orders wrong and had been teetering on tears since my vacuum had exploded that morning) I decided that my bad week was over. And I was going to have a better week. 

Just with that slight change in attitude, things started to go better. With my assignments in and  a designated 'reading week' (AKA quarter semester break just for my class) and significantly less shifts the world around me freed up and I did it. I had a brilliant night sleep, read a couple of riveting novels and caught up with friends I hadn't seen in a while. I had another job interview, which went brilliantly - sat down and spoke for over an hour about working in hospitality and had the job offered to me on the spot. Had my involuntary life experiences for the week  and finally moved the furniture back into my flat. 

Sunday Morning - the results of a good week in my opinion 

And just to top the week off - had one of my bestest friends 21st - although I did spend some time holding back someone's hair, it wasn't my own, so I can always count that as a bonus.

I find it so surprising how much you are able to change purely by deciding that everything is going to be ok. What happened wasn't so different from the previous week, actually think more bad things happened, but the control I have over my mood and the power of positive thinking really can make an amazing difference to everything that happens. 

Now all that needs to happen is to keep this frame of mind, make it a constant things and everything should be swell. 

007: Candlelit Dinner (for one)

My housemate has gone out for the night, leaving me in our little flat. I love there moments when I'm by myself, when there is no one to impress no one that cares. I made myself a tasty little dinner. Lit a candle or two and dusted off a bottle of wine that I'd been hiding in the cupboard for a "special occasion" and settled in for a night in.

I've been having a rather strange week and as a result, having had a serious lack of Katie-Time. I'm still 'in between jobs' and living rather desperately for each coming pay day. (and with unstable jobs come unstable pay, so they are often few and far between). Every second day is another job interview or another trail shift, each time having to be just as bubbly and employable as the time before. But I'm not phased by this (much to my mothers dismay who continues to ask if I'm eating regularly) I'm looking for the good job and that even harder than finding a regular job. And it's out there, waiting, I just have to find it. 

Also, have been seeing more of my family, introduced to a baby cousin (or second cousin, what do you call the child of your cousin?) and saw my Grandparents for the first time since returning to the country. And have been able to sit down to tea with most of my close friends to brief them on the absurd change that occurred while I was away. And what with uni starting back and the homework already beginning to pile up, a night when I am fully obliged to do nothing is more than reasonable.