Love and Other Perishable Items Read Online Free PDF

writing that), it is 2:45 p.m. and time for me to leave for my history tute. If I leave right now, and take a circuitous route via the physics building, I may run into Kathy. For the benefit of the new notebook, Kathy is at present—once again—the focus of my Search for the Perfect Woman. She seems to look hotter every day, and while she pretty much ignores me at uni, I do seem to be able to engage her at odd moments when we are at work. She’s dropped down to two shifts per week, though, so that’s a bit crappy. The upshot is that I pretty much don’t have a chance with her. And, you know, thank God, because if I did, I’d have to give up my lifestyle of soul-wrenching loneliness and sexual frustration. I’m too good at it to quit now. I could brood for Australia.
    Harvey out.
    P.S. I didn’t think about Michaela for a good several-hour stretch today. Go figure.

August 14
    I’m writing outside on the lawn today as the sun is out and blessedly warming the back of my neck. Looking forward to the summer break. I have decided to stay on to complete a second major next year after all, because the idea of leaving uni in three months’ time and looking for a real job is quite frankly a little too much for me to contemplate in my (perpetually) delicate state. Seemingly as per, woke up hungover this morning, fully clothed and feeling as if something had died in my mouth. Stumbled into the shower, too ratshit even to jerk off. Put empty wine bottle into my backpack (it upsets my mother to see empty bottles on my bedside table) and left for uni. After a couple of ibuprofen and twocoffees I am almost a human being again.
    Coles is pissing me off royally. Now even Kathy has been made a service supervisor and no longer has to work on those godforsaken registers. I’ve been there as long as her! Bianca only beat me by a few weeks and she’s been a supervisor for months now. They think that giving me the staff trainer role is going to placate me. Well, it’s not. It’s a gristly old bone and frankly they are going to have to throw me a better one. Yes, I get to torture, ridicule, perv on and flirt with (as appropriate) the unending stream of hapless teenagers that keep getting hired, but I still spend most of my time on the registers. Fuck that. If they don’t make me a supervisor by the new year, I’ll either quit or ask Mr. Albertella for a transfer to Perishables or something. As long as it’s not to Canned Goods with that fucker Stuart Green. Anyway, I digress.
    Uuuuum. Yeah. Stuff. Kathy wore a skirt and tights to work last night instead of her usual pants. So that was exciting. I was excited. I’m still excited. So excited I may have to go to Ed’s for a joint or three after work tonight. Take the edge off.
    It’s time for an update on the Search for the Perfect Woman. The Field is as follows:
— Kathy Never in a million years.
— She’s-big-she’s-blond-she-works-in-the-deli Georgia Sanders Ed and Lincoln reckon it’d be a done deal if I got off my arse and did something. They’re probably right—and a man is not a camel. However, I have never, ever been interested in anything she has said.
— Lauren from sociology seminar Pretty token, though. I hardly know her. Funky necklaces. Hates Durkheim.
— Michaela Never in a trillion years. Unbelievably unhealthy for me to have even written it down.

August 22
    Okay. Let me begin by saying I am pretty fucking drunk, and as the wine I quaffed just now cannot possibly have hit my bloodstream yet, I will get drunker still. The reason for my drunkenness is I got a phone call from Michaela today. I was flummoxed, to say the least, at her calling. I thought I made myself perfectly clear about this sort of thing at the airport. That grisly day. But no, she calls me from Perth and starts making pleasant conversation.
    She asks me how I am. She asks me how uni is going; how Mum and Dad are!?!
    I ask her where she is calling from.
    She hesitates—then says she is