Thursday, 16 May 1996  8:30am

I switched camps this morning Sis.  I overcame my great fear, and went over to the other side.  You know what I’m talking about.  I bought my cappuccino at Le Croissant Connection, instead of Pomegranites (sic).  I thought to myself ‘Dammit J, yesterday’s excuse for a cappuccino had no fluff on it at all’.  No fluff, nix fluffae, as the Latins would say.  It was a flat white masquerading as a cappuccino, and it wasn’t the first time.  So this morning I strolled straight past Pomegranite’s (sic, again) back entrance and marched right on down to Croissant Connection, checking that Craig (the prematurely grey manager who always give me funny looks) wasn’t there and I croaked out ‘Strong cappuccino to go, thanks’ and it was done.  Quicker service, better coffee.  The reason I’ve been avoiding Le Connection was ‘coz of that Cats Bum dilemma, but she’s gone, there’s a new wave of fifteen year-olds, and they make better coffee than Pomegranites (and thrice, sic).  Maybe I’m getting older, but to me, the new crop of girls at Connection seem indecently young.  The one who served me looked no more than fourteen.  She was wearing poorly applied eyeliner too, which only added to the affect.  Maybe the sweaty bosses make ’em wear it like that to produce an effect of naivete to lash up more excitement from the greasy suits that buzz twitchily around the place.  These suits make my skin crawl, it’s de facto prostitution.  I guess a fair proportion of retail is like that – the modelling industry is nothing but de facto hooking – but it still revolts you when you see it portrayed so crudely.  That’s what I resent probably more than anything, the lack of style.

OH GOD, I get sick of people sometimes Sis. There’s this uber-dork at work, I won’t give his name of course, we call him Nuff Nuff.  As I came in (I’m a little earlier than usual) I caught him looking through someone else’s desk.  Well, he was peering at whatever was on top of it anyway.  I nodded to him to let him know I saw it, and that was all it took.  He followed me to my desk and bored me stupid for at  least five minutes.  That may not sound long, but you haven’t been subjected to the horrors of Nuff Nuff.  He is so dull.

Monday,  20 May 1996  8:30am

So Friday night drinks slurred on to 11pm, just Paige, a friend of hers and I.  We went to the Charles Dickens Tavern, drinking beer from plastic jugs (curiously cheap looking for such a nice pub).

It was a shopping weekend really.  On Saturday I found a new clothes shop.  It’s called American Rag.  There’s three of them. One is this broom closet of a place in Melbourne Central, one’s in Little Lonsdale Street and one is in Southgate.  I bought a black vinyl jacket from the Little Lonsdale Street one.  It’s got one of those upstanding collars that button up to look a bit Chinese.  It was $60 and I snatched it right from under this guy’s nose while he was checking something else out.  Luckily he was too polite to say anything (or he thought it was a horrible jacket and he wouldn’t be caught dead in it).  I saw some nice baseball tops there too, which I might go back and buy. Spend, spend, spend!

Sunday I read borrowed Agatha Christie novels and ate.  Funny, it seemed more interesting to do all that than it is to recount it to you.  Mmmm.

J