Friday, 26 August 1994

Dear S,

Hi, just a quick note to send with these Cleo magazines.  Sorry I haven’t written for a while, it’s been brown trousers time at work and I’ve been putting in unpaid overtime again.  Also there’s a new guy in despatch called Mick, and he’s a bit of a puppet of one of the directors, and I’m not too sure if I can trust him not to say anything about the $50 airmail scams, so I’ve been waiting for him to be away so I can send you a few.  Healthy bastard, this is his first day off in over a month, and it’s taken me until three o’clock to realise it!

Dad tells me you’re going to study business law part-time.  I was entertaining the notion of returning to University myself, but it’s been taken over by the PC (Politically Correct) Police here in Australia and it’s not safe to even look at someone without the charge of sexual harassment being levelled at you.  Josh tells me this is not exaggeration.  You can’t call anyone fat, or stupid, or ugly – even if they are.  I mean, what’s the point in existing if you can’t insult people?  I know I wouldn’t last a week at Uni if this is the case.  I’m always putting my foot in my mouth, it’s a really bad habit of mine.  Almost as bad a habit as calling people in the middle of the night – what is it with you?

As for myself, I’ve been leading a life of near monastic abstinence, punctuated with daily self-flagellation for the purification of a sinful mind, caged in a chaste body.  I’ve been eschewing the high life and saving all my dough, other than the $2200 I blew on a new lounge suite, an antique red, three seater Chesterfield that fulfils admirably the pomposity quota necessary for the decoration of my hut.  Only problem is, I won’t let any of my friends sit on it.  Doesn’t matter, they never come around anyway, and to tell the truth, I wouldn’t want them to.  I’m sick of friends.

Saying that though, I have gone out the last two Fridays with some people from work, drinking mainly.  I suppose I had a good time in some ways, but I don’t think I’ll do it again.  I get sick of wearing different faces.  I wear a different face for work because I want the people at work to see me in a certain light.  When you go out and socialize and drink, you tend to let the work face slip and show the social face, and I don’t really think that’s a good idea.  I’m a lousy drunk anyway.  Some people are fun to be around when they’re swoozy, I just turn into Dad, leaning on anything vertical for balance assistance.  As such, I drink pretty rarely these days, which can only be a good thing, yeah?

Anyway, I better go, its nearly mail-time, so I’ll slip this in and hope the “healthy fill-in” doesn’t notice.  See you.

Love J