Summer lovin'

Summer time has always been my favourite season. I love it. Gone are the frozen tentacles of wintry muscle ache, the short days, the long cold nights where you can see your breath in front of your face, replaced by blistering heat, warm breezes and summer storms.

I’ve been staying with Lala and Cal since late December, enjoying a relaxing holiday of reading, watching trashy TV and a Queer as Folk marathon with Lala. They are both complaining about the oppressive heat—at thrity-something degrees—while I am relaxing enjoying the balmy temperature. It’s way hotter at home, yet I’ve still been lying around in boardshorts and no shirt with the fan going.

I’ve made a few trips to the city, to the office of the Society I volunteer for, to help out configuring the new computer system and tidy up after a move. The building has a piss-ant air conditioning system that barely has the horsepower to push the tepid air through its ducts. On Thursday I spent nine hours in Chatswood, working for six of them—I splurged and took a two hour lunch-and-shopping break). A third trip is on the cards for this week since one of the terminals was DOA—it looked like it had been dropped from head height—and there have been major issues with the email server. But it’s good to get out.

The emotional rollercoaster of the drug changeover has started to hit a plateau in the last few days, after a fortnight of mood swings. At one point I felt like I was drowning, other times I was flying. The pain in my legs has definitely lessened though—great news—but the mysterious back pains have resurfaced. To be honest the back pain is better in a way because pain killers actually kill it, whereas with leg pains they only take the edge off.

I called the uni housing office on Thursday to ask if my application had been successful, since I hadn’t heard from them. The woman who answered the phone sounded like she’d rather fuck a rhino with a strap on than be working. “HellohousingofficehowcanIhelpyou?” she droned. I asked if I was successful. “What’s your name?” she asked. I told her. There was a silence, then she asked, “when did you put in the applicationin?” I told her late October, I think, and that I had done it in person because I was applying for special consideration. She put me on hold while she conferred with the lady to whom I submitted the application. “She says she’ll contact you next week” she said, then “she’ll be doing special considerations next week”. This makes no sense to me; surely the special considerations are done before everyone else? I suspect my application was never lodged properly and that the woman is now waiting for someone to bow out so I can have a place.

The only problem with this vacation bliss is that Olly, the resident mini poodle, has taken to pissing on my bed. I have been here for two and a half week and have had to change my sheets ten times. Last night we all went to Tom and Amber’s for dinner, coming home at 2am. I jumped straight into bed, pulled the blankets to my chin and felt a damp patch. I silently prayed that it was my overactive imagination but my nose was telling me that it was exactly what my I first suspected. I leapt out of bed, turned on the light and saw a wet patch on my bed. I swore, several times, and then stripped the bed, stuffing the sheets into the washer and turning the matrass over to deal with in the morning.

The next morning I got up, went out for a smoke, and then came back to my room to find another wet patch on the bed. I swore, again, and put the sheets in the wash basket ready to go into the washer once the first load was finished. Cal and I took the matrass outside and, after disinfecting it, laid it on a table in the sun. Shortly after we turned it over, like a steak, so that the sun would dry the other side. Enter summer storm: we went outside to retrieve the matrass as soon as the rain started falling but the damage was done…my matrass was soaked. It is now lying atop the dining room table.

Apart from the copious amounts of dog urine and mysterious back pain, the holiday has been a blast…I’ll be so sad to go, but I have stuff to at home and besides, I’ll be back here in February for Lala’s 25th birthday part and a trip up the coast with the Beach Crew.

Back to reality on Thursday.