Being a small company, work doesn’t have it’s own server room. Instead, they’re at a colocation company.

In recent months, said colo facility have been upgrading their equipment. Amongst other things, they’ve added new racks, and moved their rack switches into the last cabinet on each rack.

If said cabinet wasn’t occupied already, that is. And on our rack, it was. By us.

Thus, last night involved three hours of uncabling, shutting down, recabling, moving servers, starting up, fiddling with DNS, running routines, recabling, recabling, recabling, periodically Hoorah!ing when things worked, recabling more and eventually, relievedly, going home.

(Where, incidentally, I had a nice plumber waiting for me, who informed me that the troubled tap in my washhouse had no washer at al in residence.)

But there are other things about the colo. For one, I’m the only woman that’s there on a regular basis. In fact, I’ve never seen another woman there, and more than one of the colo staff have looked in surprise when they register the presence of breasts.

This makes last night’s faux pas even more entertaining. You see, one of the colo men is .. well, rather cute. And he was leaning over a half-built rackmount, screwing who-knows-what into who-knows-where, and secure in the knowledge that no-one could see my eyeline from my position, I was unabashedly checking him out.

Until his colleague moved out from his position behind the rack. Where he could see me, quite well. Laughing like a hyena, and digging his mate in the ribs…

Or: Why Women Are Stupid; Or: You May Now Point And Laugh.

1) You get the bathroom to yourself.
You may spend as long as you please in the bathroom. You may use all the hot water. Decorative accessorising is permittable (nay, encouraged). You can store all appliances and appurtances of beauty right there on the shower floor / shelving unit / etc as you please, so that you can change your mind about product use three times in the duration of one shower should you so choose.

Did I mention you can spend as long as you please in the bathroom?

2) Beauty routines.
You do not have to hide these from your housemates. Rather, you can sit on the lounge floor on a towel, and wax whilst nattering to folks on the laptop.

If necessary, said laptop can be used for the purposes of Googling for answers regarding said beauty routines. See:

• Suggested length of hair prior to wax application;
• Excess wax;
• Removal of excess wax;
• How to walk around one’s home when one has glued ones’ thighs together with excess wax;
• Removal of the carpet-protecting towel from ones’ thigh when it is stuck to said with excess wax;
• Alternatives to wax.

3) There is no-one to point and laugh.
Enough said.

After all, women have such strange routines, and the seriousness of these activities cannot be overrated! Unsympathetic observers should not be tolerated.

Summary:
You may spend as long as you please in the bathroom, particularly if removing excess wax. Adjustable detachable showerheads are useful in this process.

(You may now point and laugh.)

In the meanderings of random websurfing today, I came across a community by the name of “Fuck Shaving”. Largely women, who have decided that society’s ‘norm’ of smooth skin is a bad thing. Or they can’t be bothered. Or or or.

As these things do, it got me thinking.

By nature, I’m a hairy wench. I got called Beast at primary school, by a particularly vindictive child who delighted in pulling the hairs on my arms till I cried. Needless to say, I couldn’t wait to shave. I seem to recall being one of the last in my year at school to do so – I’m sure Mum had good reasons for delaying the evil moment. Probably my excessive clumsiness – I have scars at the backs of my ankles, from nicks and cuts of razors over the years.

Of course, as I’ve grown, I’ve learned the tricks of the trade. Lotions and exfoliations. Wax. Depilatory creams, which I stopped using after dropping some (unnoticed) on the bathroom door, and coming back half an hour later to find the paint had lifted.

But? I don’t do all these things because Society says I Should. I do it because I love the feel of soft smooth skin. After all. No-one but me sees whether I’ve shaved or not, no-one needs to know about prickles or fur, whichever be my preference.

I guess all women have their rituals. Mine? I wax my arms (I’ll admit, I’m overly conscious of them). And it’s actually fun. Wax in the microwave, wax on, wax off, the odd contortions one must do to reach the undersides of the forearms or the back of the upper arms. Peaceful and content, radio in the background, the cup of tea I’ll inevitably dip the wax stick into at some point. The curious cat whom I must fend off with my feet, as I know the wax won’t do him any good. And the more awkward contortions, generally reserved for the bathroom, when waxing the girlie bits is deemed appropriate.

Or the shower. Hair wet and out of my way, turning the water off so I can use the body scrub properly. Scrub on, rinse off. The long careful strokes, ankles to knees, knees to thighs, backs of knees, kneecap, underarms, rinse razor the last time, click-clack into holder on wall. Hair shampooed and conditioned, the wipe-off of the bathroom mirror so I can pluck my eyebrows, a careful gentle arch. Leaving the bathroom still-damp, finding the body-bar to rub into the skin, climbing into bed with clean hair, clean body, sliding smoothly between the sheets. I sleep naked, and bathed and bareskinned from the neck down, I am even more so.

They’re soothing, these rituals.

I’ve finally made up my mind.

Before I left home, I remember Mum saying that I was dodging the topic of moving into a congregation when I got up North. She was right.

I chose to stay as long as I did because I didn’t want to make her life in her home difficult. I don’t know if that was the right thing to do, but I knew it’d be harder to deal with if I was physically there.

It’s not depression related. Not related to me going to tech, not related to the internet, or my non-religious friends. Nothing to do with the people in any congregation I’ve been to, it’s solely me and my faith. (Faith? Lack of? I don’t know.) I’ve spent a long, long time thinking about this – months – thinking, and praying, and reading, and looking for answers, but simply not finding them. I haven’t made this decision on a whim.

I know this will upset Mum, and the rest of the family, and I wish there was a way to make it so they weren’t. But at some point I guess I have to be honest, and this is it.

I wrote a letter to Mum last night. It was hard to do, and I cried as I wrote. I don’t know how she’ll take it. But, this was my final paragraph.

Please don’t think, in any way, that this reflects on you as a mum. It doesn’t. You’ve been nothing but an amazing mother to me, all along – you’ve worked so hard to get me where I am today, and I’m grateful for it. I couldn’t be where I am or who I am without your help, and I’m proud to have a mother like you.

I’ll leave calling you for now, I don’t want to make this any harder for you. But, please do call me when you’re able to talk to me, I don’t want to lose my Mum.

I love you.
Mahal.

So. My moment of catharsis. Trying to take one more step towards the mahal-I-am, not the Mahal people expect to see.

(And I dyed my hair. Yet another thing I never did whilst living in Mum’s home.)

I got paid today, which was very pleasant. Insurance monies went out, and now I can pay the rent.

I also went food shopping. It’s very pleasant, having my cupboards returned to their usual full status. I have discovered the wonders of the local fruit/vege shop. For $15, I got: potatoes, kumaras, onions, nashis, grapes. Over a kilo of each those things. Plus a small number of fresh beans (yum), and a $1 packet of plain biscuits. All for $15 bucks. This is goodness!!

There’s also a local butcher, but for obvious fridge-related reasons, I haven’t braved their doors yet. Oh, and a bakery who do the most divine loaves of bread.

And, sadly, I filled up my car with petrol. Gas went up again – it’s now $1.669 a litre – so I paid nearly $70 to fill my car. I had about a quarter tank when I started. I am everlastingly glad I’ve acquired a job that allows me to telecommute.

Of course, the other advantage of working from home? I get my stereo, playing my choice of music, 24/7. I love music. I can’t concentrate without it, for a start, and it’s… music isn’t something I like, it’s part of who I am.

I miss having a piano. I didn’t realise just how much I’d miss it, until I’ve had to suffer a month or so without it. Wah!

… ooo-er. I just realised. Having been paid, I now have absolutely no excuse not to get out, move my butt, and go try Ceroc. The next available class is tomorrow night. Eep?