My work is not happening. I am so strung out with horror at my complete lack of productivity. I have no inkling of how to put the ‘framework’ of this ‘project’ together. Not knowing what the project is, is really not helping me either. Nor is the guilt that I have sitting in the bottom of my stomach all day as I sit here flicking from bushfire to ebay, from bushfire to ebay - while all the time I can hear M out the back, working his arse off like a mad bastard. I’m supposed to be in here making the $$$ to keep this thing happening and even if I had someone standing over me about to hack off one of my fingers I couldn’t string together three coherent sentences.

I’m drowning in self-pity self loathing (what? can’t you tell?) and right this very minute is supposed to be the end of my working week. However I’m going to have to just keep torturing myself, and the long-suffering M by continuing to try and string something together until our visitors arrive on Sunday afternoon. All because I’m just too fucking stupid to wrap my head around this stupifyingly boring crap. OK- well, it’s not that bad - some of it is even quite interesting - but as I have no idea how to begin to regurgitate all this information I’ve collected I am just dying a slow death. First of all I was told just to look at a e r i a l firefighting and the c o s t s involved (like - I’m an economist…righhhht) - now it seems to have expanded into economic l o s s assessment (I’m putting gaps in between the letters in the hope that they won’t turn up in a google by my boss), different philosophies to fire and a few other things that I can’t even summon into my aching, but under-used brain. I am so frustrated I could just about kick something.

On a totally different and much better tangent - I called the council today and told them that the former residents here had stuffed the rubbish bin and the final straw had come just before I left when I put the bin out (the lid was never connected properly) and it came back lidless. I think it got eaten by the truck. The woman I spoke to sounded like I’d woken her up - not that that is a reflection her - she was quite nice. Anyway. Ten minutes ago, a bloke in a ute drives up and gives us a new bin. Gobsmacked doesn’t describe me. I mean, I paid my rates (for the first time in my life) but I didn’t expect any service. Certainly not service as good as this!!! (Does this mean I’m getting old and boring? Don’t tell me.)