my profile got added to the itp site today. yay.

i’m going out with the boy and some friends tonight for dinner and a movie. i’m going to go because and even though all i want to do these days is stay at home and work and worry.

the state of meh is a strange one.

i am in the grip of fever. in the derridean sense, that is.

there is the destruction that takes place with the construction of an archive when, in choosing what to keep, we are also choosing what to forget. last week i sorted through all the letters and cards i’ve kept from all through my life. reading through each one as i re-organised them into a new storage box, i put them into stacks. cards and letters in one pile, programs from performances i’ve been involved in and travel memorabilia in another. ex-boyfriends get their own pile. and a fourth pile - things i no longer want to keep. in choosing what not to preserve, i am re-constructing my future experience of that archive - the next time i go through that box, i will experience my past differently to the way i did this time, just as this was different to the last time (and that cull).

and then there is the destruction born of the accident. the kind that i, of course, am so prone to.

i’m in the process of moving my blog to a new domain and new server space from a host in the states. i figure it will be easier to manage, and i no longer have to trouble poor kat, konvolut’s long-suffering and lovely cyber-admin-accountant. i’m going to start a whole new blog, and i’m going to lay this one to rest - pack it up in an archival folder, put it away to look back on when i’m in need of memory aids for the last 5 years of my blogged life. and in my attempt to preserve and re-house my digital archives, i have gone and destroyed some of it. (not that i expect anyone to, but) if you’re going through some old posts and find some of the photos and videos missing, it’s because i accidentally deleted 104 of 123 files i had in my images folder. don’t ask how - it doesn’t matter. the point is that i did it accidentally, felt the briefest moment of anguish, before realising that actually, it was really a rather apt thing to have happened.

in archiving, something is always destroyed, whether you mean to do it, or not.

when we went to bed last night the rain was mild and when we woke this morning the sun was shining and the only casualty we could see was a fallen palm tree. so we missed steamboat last night for no good reason but i did get to my meeting in sydney this arvo.

the feeling of being stood up by a storm is, i imagine, like when a blind date you didn’t really want to go on doesn’t turn up. you’re relieved to be free of it, but also curious about just how bad it could’ve been. but not too curious. you can live with not knowing, thanks very much.

i guess we’re not driving into sydney for dinner at my parents’ tonight. rats. i was really looking forward to steamboat, too.

looks like we’re not leaving the house tomorrow, either.

(i know posting about the weather is probably scraping blog bottom, and i will come back with proper content soon, i promise; but please, right now, cross your fingers with me and hope that we don’t lose our electricity again. i have a website to construct and i don’t think i can do it without cups of tea! or a computer for that matter.)

that’s exactly the message i left on the boy’s mobile when i rang to tell him the good news, by the way. and then when he got home 20 minutes later (by which time i’d plugged everything back into where it was supposed to be, cleaned up all the extension cords that we’d been using to draw power from the landing, and started a load of laundry) i ran to meet him at the door and we squeed and jumped up and down and danced around like mad things and squeeeeed some more. as you do.

we’ve had electricity for almost 12 hours now, and life is pretty much back to normal. just thought you might like to know.

squeeeeeeeee!

here is the long and short of it:

our power went out 2pm friday. with no electricity we had no access to the internet, tv, or any source of news. our water heater is electric, so no hot showers. so is our stove, and the microwave is of course out of commission, so no hot food. actually, no cold food either, as the fridge was dead. also, no kettle = the complete inability to even have a hot cup of tea, which, as you chinese and british readers might agree, was possibly the worst thing of all.

old technology, new technology: nels makes use of his laptop battery to the very last.

our apartment was leaking water into the lounge, and at points where the storm was particularly heavy, the rate at which the seepage happened meant that the little dam of towels that we built in an effort to stop the water from encroaching further into our apartment became so quickly saturated they had to be wrung dry every 15 minutes. we did this till about 3 in the morning, whereupon we decided to sacrifice half our good bath towels to reinforce the blockade, set the alarm for 7am, went to bed and hoped for the best.

repeated wringing of cold water from heavy towels makes your palms sting. a lot.

saturday came and went and we still had no power. we had quick hot showers, trying to stretch out the use of whatever hot water remained in the tank. we managed to get out to erina fair for a hot lunch, the newspapers, and whatever necessities we could buy that weren’t already sold out. (we got: candles, chocolate, cotton throw rugs to add to the living room dam. we didn’t get: ‘D’ sized batteries or a gas burner. there wasn’t any of either to be found in the whole shopping centre. no transistor radios left, either, but we managed to improvise by getting ourselves a little battery-powered shower radio.)

if i can’t have electricity i can at least have chocolate, dammit. lots and lots of chocolate.

as of right now our apartment is still without electricity and may remain that way for the rest of the week. help. however, looking on the bright side as one must, we have running water, our plumbing is fine, we are safe indoors and warm and dry. compared to other parts of the central and north coast, we are very lucky indeed.

the ses removing post-storm debris. this was just across the road from us. we’re so lucky no trees came crashing in/onto our apartment.

how it is that i’m managing to post this has to do with a stroke of luck we had this afternoon. just as we were preparing to pack our bags and flee to sydney for the rest of the week, we found that power had been restored to our neighbours, as well as the the general building. therefore, with the aid of some very long extension cords, we have been able to draw electricity from the sockets outside to power a few things. so while our stove and water heater still don’t work, we have access to the internet, the use of our computers, and the kettle! so we can make tea! many many cups of hot, hot tea!

we still have to brush our teeth by candlelight though.

tomorrow morning our neighbour is going to get me into her gym on a guest pass so i can have a long, hot shower.

so after a couple of weeks of enquiring about and applying for loans, and being rejected by one bank after another, i got a call from yet another credit provider one thursday morning. the content of the call was unsurprising - my application for a loan had been turned down. the reason, however, was. apparently, they turned me down because i had “already made too many enquiries about loans”. when i asked what this meant, the girl on the phone told me that they had looked at my credit record and seen that i’d approached other banks before going to them, and because of that, they weren’t going to consider my application any further.

this was the first i’d heard about the existence of a credit record of this nature, and i realised that this meant i was at a dead end. i couldn’t try and apply somewhere else because the next bank would do the exact same thing - look at my credit record and reject the application. my fury at my complete lack of agency was second only to my bewilderment - how could i not have known about this credit record thing? why was i not warned that such a thing could happen?

later that afternoon i got a call from a loan broker i’d emailed a couple of days earlier. she asked if i was still interested in applying for a loan and i just cracked. i snapped out that yes, i was, but i’d just been informed that i have a credit record that has apparently blackballed me from every single financial institution in australia, so no, i wasn’t really looking to apply right now because it would be a hopeless waste of time. after the words came roaring out of my mouth i apologised immediately. no matter how bad a day fortnight, taking it out on a complete stranger is bad form. the loan broker, however, was lovely. sounding genuinely sympathetic, she explained to me how the credit record thing works.

apparently if you even walk into a bank, and just express interest in a loan; if you so much as give them your name, they can look up your credit file and put a mark on it. of course, if you look on the internet for loans, and apply online - as they encourage you to do! - this automatically puts marks onto your file from every institution you’ve made an application to, even before they assess your application, let alone reject it.

so of course any bank that brings up your file thereafter sees all these marks and assume that you’ve been turned down by all the institutions listed, and so without even looking at anything else - your actual credit history (if you’ve ever defaulted on a loan, or had credit card trouble), salary, or even how much you’re applying for! - they close your file and stamp it with a no.

the worst of it is that they can do this without telling you that they are. and most people don’t even know of the existence of their record until, like me, someone happens to tell them why they’ve been turned down for a loan.

so if you’re curious about what kind of record has been constructed on your behalf, do as the nice broker advised me, and ask for a copy of yours. you can get one sent to you in 10 working days for free, from these people here.

and that’s all i want to say about that.

yes, i’ve been hiding. no, i’m not dead. thank you, all you concerned people who emailed and called and poked me with sharp sticks to make sure that i’m still alive.

a lot has happened in the last 4 weeks - here are the cliff notes, some of which may have ranty posts to follow (aren’t you lucky?)

money for tisch: the day after my last post, i received one final kick in the guts from the banks. it was the final blow, i was delivered a dead end; being at work i was left with no recourse but to hide in the bathroom behind locked doors sobbing as quietly as i could. not one of my more dignified moments, i must confess.

since then, with the aid of my lovely therapist extraordinaire, i have learnt to refocus on my desire to be there, and to reconsider my aversion to asking others for financial help. so with the loving generosity of my gold-at-heart parents and my ever wonderful partner, we have fashioned a way for me to get there. also, the good folk of citibank in the states, in approving my application for a loan with them - oh joy! - have done much to soothe the wounds inflicted by the rat bastard financial institutions of australia.

tomorrow i will tell you a little cautionary tale about just how rat-bastardy financial institutions here really are. learn from my ignorance, fellow australians. let not my stress-induced high blood pressure be in vain.

the living in terrigal: is fantastic. to be more accurate it has less to do with terrigal and more to do with getting to be with the boy so much more, and how much better that has been than i ever expected. even the 2-hours-each-way commute to work was made bearable by being able to start and end each day in his company. are you nauseous yet? then let me move on to..

work: about which i have the best piece of news yet. for lo! the universe has reminded me yet again that it is looking out for me. i have been offered a job. a contract job that ends, perfectly, a little before i leave for new york. a job at the university and school with which i have a continuing association and long-standing affection for. a job which allows me to work mainly from home. oh, yes. there is a happy rave about the many lollies to be found in that goodie bag, i tells ya.

the best part about the new job, of course, is that i got to leave the old job. which, if you remember, was making me quite, quite unhappy. (there’s a rant about that too, about the frustrations of the casually employed.)

and that brings us pretty much up to speed! except for the bit where 2 saturdays ago, nels gave me my birthday present of a weekend away in melbourne where we saw miss saigon, hung out with the ever gorgeous dea, caught up with my cousins, wandered around the city and took lots of photos. like this one:

another morning, another bank rejection. rejected outright. no lower loan amount negotiable. you don’t fulfil the criteria. ouch.

(i don’t get it. i’m the kind of person who pays off her credit cards in full at the end of every month. i don’t have many assets, but i don’t have debt, either! whyyy? why no love for the ’stee?)

all i am thinking right now is when i finally get there (and i will get there) it will be the sweeter for being so hard-won.

right now i’m going to self-medicate with a bit of chocolate. in fact, why don’t we all go and eat some chocolate right now? go on. step away from your computer for 2 minutes and get one.

mmmm, now isn’t that good?