Resolutions are not my thing. I break them. I get distracted by som...Ohhh! shiny!

Lists are much easier. I can do lists.

• Get fit - this will involve a range of activities, including but not limited to dog walking, swimming, beach walks, ice skating, rock climbing & rollerblading. It will not involve any sort of over-exertion, passing out, or further long-term body damage. While not strictly necessary, losing some weight would be rather good.
• Get out and about - much time has been spent indoors and, more recently, behind desks. I want out! This will include weekend trips, nights out, restaurants, and grand expeditions to far away shopping complexes (a little realism never killed anyone)
• Get dressed - the year of looking smashing. As well as a small truckload of makeup, dye, and copious quantities of wax, this involves tighter tailored shirts, snappy little shoes, higher pockets, and a slate grey pinstriped fedora. It will also involve wearing all of the above instead of simply buying it and continuing to sloth about in PJs and flannies.
• Get organised - everyone gets a birthday card this year. That is the plan anyway. It isn't rocket science. Wait for specified date to appear on the calendar and send a card, easy.
• Get it together - time to be a grown-up. This seems to require earning enough money to complete the above list items, buy a round when required. If it could stretch to a very small pony, all the better.

Now, time to start crossing them off...

I generally assume people expect me to be honest, open, and just a little bit out there, but I'm starting to wonder if that really is the case. Perhaps I've spent so long trying to be everything to everyone that I've become a bit of a nothing. Just another friendly face. No outstanding features, no real substance, just another sugar-coating, self-censoring someone who happens to fall within the definition of friend.

I don't like that. I don't like that one bit.

I used to be so shrewd with people. If they didn't like me, or I didn't like them, I just moved on. Case closed, it was just too much energy wasted, and that was not in plentiful supply. These days, with more energy to burn, I seem to be bending over backwards trying to keep the peace with people. Like them or not, for some reason I don't want to step on anyone's toes. I'm holding back. I'm censoring myself. I'm mirroring behaviours that I find utterly distasteful just so I can fit in.

I am rather peeved that this is what I've become.

Over it.

Annoyed with myself.

Trying a new tack.

I really thought that posting a long and uninspiring questionnaire would help get me blogging again. I mean, really, who would post something like that and have it sitting that the top of the page for months?

As it turns out, that would be me.

Sorry about that.

Still, even though I feel dreadful for abandoning my blog for so very long, it was all for a good cause. I have now finished studying. Completed. Done. Finito. Results are in and other than my complete balls-up effort with the JavaScript assignment, I'm not too shabby :) I can make websites, and I have the piece of paper to prove it (or I will have, come January).
The icing on the cake is that I was actually completing two courses simultaneously rather than just the one. Win! I can now design and administer. I do believe that is the IT equivalent to country and western.

But but but I'm done! Its over! I can start picking up the rest of my life and getting on with things. I can spend time baking hideously moreish cookies, I can mow the lawn before it becomes a buffalo jungle, and I can go out and get absolutely hammered while wearing clothes that would be considered somewhat inappropriate for polite company.

Actually, scratch that last one. A year of sedentary desk work has done my already borderline backside no favours whatsoever. Ho hum. The cookies probably won't help the cause either, now that I think about it, though from what I recall of my cookies it'll be well worth it.

So that is me. I already have a handful of webby projects on the go with the opportunity for a few more down the track. There are plans for a diploma some time next year, because I just can't get enough of management and paperwork. But that is for later. Right now, right this very minute, I'm on holiday and enjoying every second of it!

I love being able to recognise a holiday as different to everyday life. I'm starting to understand what all the fuss is about!

Stolen from Janek and Dan (who no doubt nicked it from someone else)

Only two rules– and you MUST follow them:
1. You can only say Yes or No.
2. You aren’t allowed to explain anything unless someone asks you, so feel free to ask.

I must have looked just a little bit hopelessly and utterly lost.

It might have been the rolled up flannelette shirt and chesty bond singlet combo that did it, or perhaps that I'd ventured out of the house in my never-leaving-the-house-in-these-jeans jeans. Whatever the cause, the result has me both amused and confused.
Sitting next to me are two books on clothing, specifically which bits one should wear to avoid having people offer to loan you books on the subject.

I am still utterly bewildered. Its just clothes, isn't it?

When you get right down to it they are simply bits of fabric that cover up your fuzzy squishy bits. Where the hell did they get enough information to fill two complete books? And why, given that books seem to have enough space for silver glittery sandshoes and bizarre little sweater-ettes that would be hard pressed to keep a toaster toasty, have they neglected to mention the simple beauty of a threadbare flannie?

Still, you can't argue with a book. Books are serious.

So far there are 3 garbage bags and one laundry basket filled with things that I shouldn't be wearing. It isn't so much that they don't fit, though that is certainly the case with my cherry red slides and those mildly wedgie-ish jeans, it is more that they should be fitting someone around 10 years younger than me.

I am now officially hogget. No longer lamb and not quite mutton, and my wardrobe should probably reflect this. No, definitely. It should be unceremoniously stripped of its tummy-flashing lycra boob tubes and replenished with... what does a hogget-aged person wear on a night on the town?

Never fear, I'm sure there is a chapter on it here somewhere...

It is a strange thing to lose someone. Thinking about it, its even stranger to speak of it in those terms. It makes it sound like they've just been temporarily misplaced, like the spare keys to the car.

I've forgotten where I put Roger, has anyone seen him?

I've spent the last week half-expecting someone to call and tell me it was all a joke and that he had indeed simply been misplaced, or to show up at class last night and find him sitting up the front chatting away to someone about their latest photoshop disaster, with the breadmaker merrily kneading away in the corner of the room. They didn't, and he wasn't, and I suppose that is the reality of things.

There is a certain awkwardness in having someone so influential, yet not quite a friend, suddenly wink out of existence. After the initial shock wears off you start to wonder about silly things like if you have a right to feel sad, or if sending sympathy cards to his family would be considered creepy and inappropriate, all the while feeling guilty that your education took away precious time that could have been spent with loved ones. I'm not really one for denying feelings or being appropriate, so the wondering was reasonably short-lived, but it still makes you think.

I even pondered about going to the funeral, and if that would somehow be offensive to his family. Two weeks ago Tuesday I was 5 minutes late for class and scuttled to my seat with a hushed barrage of "sorrysorrysorry". He looked bemused and said "don't be sorry, don't ever be sorry for showing up, it's a good thing". So that settled that.

I'll be there along with my classmates, the faculty staff, his family, some jammin' musos, artsy photographers, local turf farmers, a mishmash of IT and designer types, and whoever else happens to show up. I expect it to be a full house and then some.

I'll be wearing pink. I'll show a bit of skin. Somehow, these things all seem strangely appropriate.

Roger Dodger

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