Workin' nine to five...*

Calls go unanswered.

Emails sit in the inbox, skimmed over but not read.

A brand new diary, its pages still blank.

The Hound of the Baskervilles rests on the bedside table, Chapter One read but long forgotten.

box of crayons gathers dust and hemorrhages followers (Well. One follower).

It's all because of work. 


How I resent work. Having to work, having to represent someone else's company. Having to smile and be polite to people who are rude to me, who think that because I answer the telephone, they don't need to use their manners. I resent the office divas who demand all but the caller's underwear colour before deeming to have a phone call transferred. I resent the skirt I have to wear and not being able to get further than ten steps away from the desk before the phone rings again. I resent the paper cuts and dry hands from folding and enveloping over nine hundred letters. I resent the seven hundred-plus phone calls I've answered. I resent the sore throat, I resent the sound of my own voice and I resent people who say, "Oh well, just think of the money."

I shouldn't complain, I work with some really lovely people. My bosses are good employers who thank and recognise their staff. But this past week reminds me how much I hate working in an office. It just serves to remind me how right the decision was to quit full-time work and go to university.


Today, Sunday, was my first day off in six days. And it is my only day off for another six days. I felt a sense of panic and anxiety all day:  do I sleep in or get up early to make the most of the day? Do I laze on the couch or do I go out and do stuff? What should I do, what should I do, what should I do? When I was sorting out some boxes in storage, all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Sherlock Holmes, but when I did that, I felt guilty. I needn't have worried too much though because the day was over before I knew it. How depressing.


One simple pleasure of the day however, was finding my hammock, hidden deep within the depths of the storage shed. As soon as it was checked for nasty spiders, I strung it up between posts of the pergola.

The sun was shining and the sky was blue. It felt like forever since that had happened. It was enough to lift me out of my shitty mood. It was a promise of what is to come, maybe both literally and metaphorically.


I have another week of answering the phone ahead of me so I expect this blog will remain just as lifeless during that time. Sorry for being a crappy blogger and thanks for hanging around.


*Sorry if that song is now stuck in your head... Did you just check what the asterisk related to? Are you now singing the Dolly Parton song? Workin' nine to five, what a way to make a livin'. Are you singing it now? You are, aren't you? Ha! Sorry.

I do love an award

Miss Habebi of The Constant Search for More gave me an award! Yay, thank you! And for the three (two? three?) other lovely bloggers who have given me awards, I do appreciate them, I'm just ridiculously lazy.

So the rules are to divulge five secrets facts about myself and then pass the award on to another five.

1. I can't touch cotton wool. The whole texture of those fluffy white balls is physically repulsive. If I do touch it, my hand instantly gets the shakes and I have to do that whole shake-the-hand-furiously to get the sensation out. I don't know what it is, but my grandfather was apparently exactly the same.

2. I never really cared much for children until my niece was born in April 2008. I was living in Ireland at that time and didn't meet her until the last couple of days of the July. In the car on the way home from the airport, she grabbed hold of my little finger and didn't let go for the whole hour. I was a goner. She was even given the same middle name as me: Kate. Now, along with her brother who is nine months old, I'm coming around to the idea of children.

3. I am not a morning person. I eat breakfast in the dark because I can't stand the light. I grunt if someone dares to ask me how I slept. I thought I would grow out of this surly-teenager act, but apparently not.

4. I am shamefully too well-versed on the lives of celebrities. I don't need to add anything else.

5. My first movie-star crush was on Christian Slater. Heathers and Untamed Heart were two of his best.

And now to pass the award onto five other bloggers. I'm going to break the rules (naughty!) and pass it on to only three blogs. The three most stylish bloggers, in my opinion:

Carrie at this free bird

Valerie at Red Vines for Breakfast

Naina at style'n.

Thanks again, Habebi!

Father's Day

This photo was taken in August, 1981 when I was eighteen months old and Dad still had brown hair.

I love you, Dad. 

The Light

Back in high school (feels like just yesterday...), I did three years of Photography. This was before digital cameras and Photoshop took over the world. 

We used old Pentax cameras that looked like they were from the seventies and we spent hours in the darkroom, bent over trays of developer, watching the image slowly appear on white paper. The red glow of the safelight illuminating the room. 

Enlargers, light-sensitive photographic paper, rolls of film, filter 5. Black and white.

The smell of the chemicals, the processes, the romance, the pure creativity of it all. Sitting at a computer just isn't the same (it's no surprise that when I'm writing, I handwrite, instead of typing. I just don't feel as connected to the words). Don't get me wrong, the technology in the photographic world just blows my mind, but it still makes me sad that a practice so wonderful is dying out.

I'm taking Photography this semester at university. I thought all the knowledge of years passed would come back to me in a second. Instead, I get frustrated and swear, sometimes loudly, sometimes under my breath. Nevertheless, I'm beginning to look at everything in another way: Would this make a good photo? I'm framing, thinking in the rule of thirds and considering light.

And amazing light is what immediately came to mind when I stumbled across the photographs of  Metin Demiralay on deviantART.

My eyes linger over these photographs. The flare in the first, the silhouette of the second, the simple prettiness of the third, and the softness of the last. There are so many more at Metin's site, check them out. Some are a bit nudey-rudey, so if your workplace isn't accepting of boobs being viewed (even artistic boobs), it might be best to save it for home.

I love photography. I love how talented people are. It makes me sick with envy.


PS. Sorry if this post has turned up fifteen or so times in your feed, Blogger and the html codes are being a complete expletive.