An easy last few days, unfortunately marred by the fact that I had a headache behind my left eye socket that came and went for the whole time. Apart from Wednesday, when it plagued me during writers group that evening, it only came while I was at work so it might have to do with the office environment. Or maybe it is a psychological infliction caused by office dynamics.
Anyway, la clique isn't so pronounced without Ben and Gill letting the world revolve around them, or is my cynical theory too loud for you? Gill was away yesterday and Ben didn't hang around. According to Funda and Jess, they supposedly went down the coast together this weekend. I also heard that Ben and Clint are looking to move out together, which is a strange and dangerous idea. Also that Gill is going away for a year..? I knew she moved back home to save money for travelling but I didn't realise she was leaving so soon and planning to go for so long.
There was a little chatter about B&G at drinks last night, mostly the "do they think we're too stupid to see that they're together?" variety. I'll just add at this point that I have nothing against Ben and nothing against Gill in a personal sense, but I really don't like how they've handled themselves in these past few weeks. Firstly in the whole clique business in choosing to 'trust' and therefore only associate with a few chosen people, alienating others (some of whom have felt it more than others, er herm) and secondly, both of them treating everyone as if we're stupid. C'mon guys! Transparency would help right about now. It isn't like they have anything to lose by being together because they have no bearing on one another in a professional sense (ie not like my friend and her boss).
Despite the waves of headachey-ness, I had a decent day on Wednesday. I played pretty well at soccer, even though we lost 3-1 and then that evening I went to writers group. We tried a new venue, the Australian Youth Hotel in Glebe and Wendy brought along a new member, her friend Alison. In addition to the usual catch-up then discussion on writing and literature, we also had involved conversations about revenge and interesting deaths (related to writing projects). We are basing our next exercise on Machine of Death, which is a call for submissions for an anthology of speculative fiction works - a nice lead from Dina.
Yesterday was Dougal's last day before he goes to work for the Biennale of Sydney. I'll miss him. Vanessa won't really, despite being close to him for most of his time at RA. I really don't know what happened for her attitude towards him to become so opposite to the early days. I don't think he is a bad guy. I recognise that he's stuck in a rut (though that should change with the career move) and that that can be negative, but she really did turn a cold shoulder when he probably needed her most. Then again, I guess I did that to Stalkie to save myself from being completely drained of cheer and energy. I, of all people, should recognise that people have different tolerance levels.
Anyway, we went to lunch and then went to the pub after work to farewell him. It was a reasonably good night. At the pub we had to split up because there wasn't enough room to fit us all together. The bulk of staff (mainly writers, marketing and management) split from the ephemeral media crowd, most of whom rarely come out and who must have felt ostracised. I made a point of talking to them when it petered down to Jess, Funda and Greg (with cameos by Clint and Rodney) for the second part of the night before enough people left from the big table to squeeze in. I wanted to talk to Rodrigo, David and Lindsay but they'd left by the time I migrated.
Long story short, it got to about 11pm so the 11 of us who remained ended up going to karaoke down the road. Dougal is actually really good at karaoke; Paul and Naomi are pretty good with the mike too. Three hours later, after suffering a few losses, Naomi and Russell (her husband), Ian, Rodney, Dougal, Clint and I emerged from the room, lungs exhausted. Ended up catching a taxi with Ian and Rod (Ian lives on my street, Rod was to meet up with friends in nearby Cremorne). Rod is so hot right now.
This afternoon I met Ness in the city and we went to Golden Century for lunch to splurge on food that we don't usually get to eat at home (Ness' partner Russ doesn't like to eat out and Sir is vegetarian). Then we did a bit of shopping and each ended up inadvertently purchasing things from JB Hi-fi, Temt and Dangerfield. And also ate ice cream for afternoon tea even though we stuffed ourselves at lunch. I guess we did a lot of walking.
Got home and started to do all this stuff online and then accidentally closed my browser before I finished my first attempt of this entry, an email and some research on the DivaCup (if you're male, don't go there) (seriously). Sir and I decided to go to Shakespeare on the Green even though it looked like rain but fortunately it didn't rain and we had a good time. Tomorrow I'll see Faun for the first time since her trip to India. We're going for a picnic to Victoria Park in Glebe so I hope the weather still holds. If not, I guess we'll have to take shelter at her place. Nothing doing otherwise. Cheers.
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