changing rooms

My flatmate and I had a bit of a tiff on Sunday night.

It wasn't anything major, one of those little "straw that broke the camels back" sort of deals. Basically Lushlife was right, I probably should have told him how much some stuff (in this case, cleaning up after his dinner parties) annoyed me. Although, in my defence, even as I was snapping at him, I did tell him that if he just let me be until morning, I'd be over it by then. That's sort of the way I work. I get pissed off about something, but it doesn't last long (I think the longest I've ever managed to be in a snit for since reaching adulthood is about 1/2 an hour). The only problem is that this time, he came downstairs in the middle of it and had a go at me and I blew my top.

So what happened? Well, he told me Sunday morning that he was having friends over for dinner on Sunday night, so I made a bit of effort to arrange things so I was out for most of the night (more on that later) to give him the run of the place. So I get home at 11pm and there's dirty plates and glasses all over the kitchen bench. The dishwasher was fully loaded and on, so he'd obviously decided to leave the rest for morning. Only problem is, they hadn't been rinsed so by the time I got home, there were ants crawling all over them.

So I spend the next 10 minutes muttering about him and rinsing the dishes off and wiping down the benches. Towards the end of this time is when he comes downstairs to have a go at me about making too much noise. If I hadn't already been muttering about him with everything, I probably would have just said, "I'm nearly finished now" and that would have been that. But I was already pissed off, so we ended up having a little spat.

Maybe it's a good thing, cleared the air. I'm generally pretty easy-going, so he obviously hadn't realised how much that sort of thing annoyed me. We had the big talk on Monday morning and he had a bit of a go at me for not being a very sociable flatmate. But when he's hardly ever there and when he is, he's either asleep or with his girlfriend, when does he expect me to be sociable?

Anyway, as part of the big talk, my flatmate pointed out that he was planning to head overseas early next year anyway and made it pretty clear that he thought it would be a good idea for me to move out sooner rather than later. Which I don't really have a problem with. I knew I was going to have to move before the end of the year, and I suppose it's better for me to move before the weather gets too hot. It's just that I hate moving and I was procrastinating as long as possible. But that's the way the wind blows.

So I'm tossing up now whether to share again or to get my own place. I did the living by myself thing when I was 21 to 25 and it didn't particularly work for me. I tend to get hermit-like and I don't like that about myself. But I'm older now and I'm definitely a different person. I've lived in all sorts of situations with all sorts of different people and I'm not sure that living on my own would be a bad thing now. At least it would mean that I'd be able to keep the place clean. ;o)

So for this week at least, I'm going to keep my options open. I'm putting out the feelers to see if any of my friends are looking for a flatmate or a move, and I'm going to check out a couple of one bedroom places that are within my price range and see if they're livable. Maybe by the weekend I'll have idea of where I want to go.

The Weekend

So anyway, my weekend. As predicted, I had a quiet weekend. Spent Friday night and Saturday watching DVDs and snoozing. I did catch up with T&S on Sunday. I ended up heading over there about 10am and not leaving until about 8:30pm. It was a good day - we swam and played with the bub and lounged around watching DVDs and went to the park and stuff like that. Very relaxed, but then I always feel relaxed at their place. I've lived with them twice now and they always make me feel welcome.

As I was heading home from their place, I got a text message from the Law Student asking if I'd be up for The Gin Club at the Bowery. I was feeling pretty good and up for a night out, so I said "yep" and headed on over. I arrived just as they were starting their first set, but I have to admit that I didn't pay them that much attention - too busy chatting to the Law Student and I couldn't see anything through the crowd at the bar anyway. I did listen a bit though and I do love their stuff. I think I've mentioned them before - they are sort of like your typical non-traditional Irish band. They actually remind me a lot of the Australian folk bands I used to see with my parents when I was a kid, but without doing the traditional Aussie folk songs. Some ballads, but mostly rollicking high-energy folk that you can dance to. A bit like The Pogues.

I saw one of the guys from Screamfeeder and the old drummer from The Boat People in the crowd. It was one of those crowds that felt like the insiders club and we were the only non-musician people there (though I think that the Law Student knows one of the guys in The Gin Club, so even we were connected! ;o))

I left about 1/2 way through their second set and was home by 11pm. So not a late night, and I only had the one beer, but I guess between that and the emotional upset of the argument with my flatmate, my cold made a dramatic return by Monday morning. And I'm still all stuffy and sneezy. Feeling pretty chirpy other than that though.

Note: I've also only just posted yesterday's blog, which wouldn't go through yesterday, so I saved it until it would.

Listening to: Tamas Wells - A Mark on the Pane