Met H in the evening. While we were debating which café to patronise he saw James across the road and waved to him. James came over and said hi. Then we picked a café (minus James), although on the way there he said he'd had a surprise call from Kaylee (and the voice in my head said oh yes, that bitch) and blah and blah. I find it odd that she bothers to keep in touch with him. I find it odd in that it just confirms my suspicion that they were intimate when they shouldn't have been.

Well, anyway.

Got coffees and I gave him his birthday card. He seemed annoyed to find I'd included five scratchies and said, "you know I don't gamble" (well, I didn't know, but I do now). Then he amused himself by talking to me in Russian. I wanted to cry. I felt completely horrible. We were there for half an hour, at the end of which I gave him $50 to tide him over. On the way home (for which I did the complicated two-sides-of-a-triangle thing with the buses) I saw one of Nils' friends and amused myself by making him nervous (he once kinda propositioned me at a party, but since then I only make him nervous, so I try to do it well).

Monday 5 May

Cancelled my afternoon therapy appointment because I had a flu shot in the morning and it made me queasy by lunchtime, which was when I was supposed to be leaving.

Thursday 8 May

Upon a special request from mum, met dad for his birthday lunch (he's 68). We went to the Melba Lounge and had toasted French bread with garlicky stuff on top and salad and cheesecake and coffee after. He didn't say much, so mainly we just looked out the window at passers-by. After that he took me to one of the kitsch design shops and said he wanted me to have something fun for his birthday, so I picked out a big melamine serving dish (like for crackers & finger food) with a cow design ($11, on special) but he said that wasn't enough, so I also got a cute purple stress hedgehog (one of those squeezy things that you're meant to handle roughly when you feel aggro) and a set of four glittery pens. Total cost $25 (and he also paid for lunch). If it makes him happy, well and good (and I got some neato loot out of it, which was unexpected, and he wasn't insufferable, so it's all okay).

Friday 9 May

Got tired of freezing my bits off after a shower and went to Harvey Norman and bought a fan heater.

Friday 16 May

Bought a couple of DVDs that were on special and treated myself to a box of KFC's popcorn chicken. Fourth day of non-stop rain.

Saturday 17 May

Rang DQ, cut my nails, Alice took me to lunch and we got rather bloody drunk. :)

Tuesday 20 May

H came by in the evening for about an hour and we had exceptionally good sex. *sighs contentedly*

Wednesday 21 May

Woke up with a sore throat.

Thursday 22 May

Woke up with a full-blown cold. SMS'd H thus: "got yr cold. want it back? haha."

Saturday 24 May

Despite feeling like my head was full of concrete, went up the ladder and cleared the back gutter as soon as the rain stopped, which was just as well, because it started raining again in the evening.

Monday 26 May

H graced me with his presence for a whole 3.5 hours in the evening, only some of which time was spent having sex (although I really didn't want to, just wanted to be close to him, but he was aroused and I didn't feel I could say no). After that we discussed finances and I said that the only way I was going to be able to raise more money (to help him out of debt; he has changed jobs now and will be all right in about 3 months, but meantimes needs to be able to make his car repayments so he can work) was if I took out a loan or a mortgage, and I wasn't keen on trying to get a mortgage because the minimum amount was likely to be more than I would qualify for.

(When my parents split up my father surrendered three of his rental properties to us offspring so we would have security, and also so my mother couldn't force him to sell all of them for the divorce settlement. So now we each own a house. I couldn't afford to live in this area if I was renting.)

Tuesday 27 - Friday 30 May

Did a lot of running around and telephoning trying to find a financial institution that would give me $6000 in a hurry. Could not get a mortgage (for reasons suspected) and although a personal loan would have been a goer, never having had one before I didn't understand how they work and naturally I wasn't going to front up and say "I want to pay off my credit cards, which is $2.5k worth, and get a non-leaking gutter put on the back of the house, which will be about $300, and I want to give my boyfriend $3000 so his car doesn't get reposessed and he doesn't lose everything he's already hocked". Because, y'know, that wouldn't work. (He actually told me how much he owes, counting credit cards and everything, and I just about fainted. We agreed I was not going to be able to pay his entire debt.) So I said "pay off $2.5k worth of credit cards, spend about $2000 on house repairs and another $1500 on house improvements, like a new stove, and replace the bit of fence that's falling down". Which is plausible. Anyway, I have never had any official loan ever before in my life so what I didn't know was that they don't just stick money in your account, they write bank cheques payable to whoever's giving you the goods or services.

Anyway, one bank (the one with the lowest interest rates) was happy to give me $6000 only they wouldn't cover my credit cards (which are with another bank) unless I cancelled them. Oh no!!! I cannot possibly cancel my credit cards!!!! If I did that I'd never be able to buy anything online again, and that would be simply unthinkable! *cries* - Except I didn't say that, I just said, "ah, no, I can't do that, because my insurance comes off my credit card". Which it does. Property insurance, which one has to have, see.

The bank which is my credit card provider wasn't going to give me a $6000 loan because their interest rates are higher and their computer said I couldn't afford the repayments.

Back to bank #1, which suggested a line of credit, only to take the best part of a day to decide I couldn't afford that either.

And then bank #3, which wouldn't give me a line of credit for the same reasons, but would have given me a loan except I would have had to cancel the credit cards. Um, no.

And one last-ditch try with bank #2, which is something-or-other which is different, which is cash in "the account I nominate" (that'll be the cheque account), and which would be super excellent if they fucking approve it... but I won't know til tomorrow (June 2nd).

Also on the 28th, cut my hair. I have been trying to grow it out but I got sick of the knotty bits at the end and just grabbed the lower 2" and hacked it off. For a dodgy home cut job it doesn't look too bad.