Christmas Carols in the Local Park

It seems to be *de rigeur* this year for local parks to host christmas carols that have moved a long way from the hymn-like singalongs I remember and now largely re-create the school rock eisteddfod, crossed with daytime tv and with a touch of an evangelistic Australian Idol. Tonight, a bandstand appeared (complete with black velvet drapes) and a gigantic sound system - ensuring that the Kristmas Karaoke Cheer would be spread far and wide. What really got me, was the mirror ball. I could cope with the light rig, with the coffee carts double parked along the street, and even the tacky plastic candles (batteries included!), but the mirror ball broke me.

Maybe it's just me who associates the mirror ball so closely with disco, nightclubs, rough anonymous sex and recreational drug use. To see it spinning there inside the star (supposedly representing the star shining over their lord and saviour's crib) was truly too outre, even for me.

Happy Birthday Ms Jane

Today is Jane Austen's birthday.
Again.
I would like to say that I have done something terribly literate and symbolic to mark the occassion, but quite fittingly, I attended a small private gathering for dinner and conversation, where almost everyone has known each other a little bit too long and there are no secrets, other than the very obvious. Our own little piece of ivory in Summer Hill.

Rough New Prizes

The wonderful horoscope that I get (http://www.freewillastrology.com) is almost always a stimulating gem. My challenge is to make the time to read it. Sometimes, like this week, when I did read it, a phrase from it rolls around my tongue for days. I love how widely he quotes and how passionate he is about living.
This skill, to turn a moment of enquiry into hope, is a gift - a true glory.
~ ~
ARIES (March 21-April 19): "Listen! I will be honest with you. I do not offer the old smooth prizes, but offer rough new prizes." Walt Whitman wrote that in his poem "Song of the Open Road," and now I'm saying it to you. If you expect the events of 2007 to bring you old smooth prizes, you'll be disappointed. But if you can figure out how to change your attitude in such a way as to actually yearn for rough new prizes, you will be rewarded beyond anything you can imagine. The first hint of how true this is will arrive soon.
~ ~

Tonight I will drift to sleep asking for the mysteries of the dark to bring me rough new prizes to covert.

Gee, That's a good word

It's friday evening, I'm at Petersham train station, heading into Newtown.
The railway guy smiles at me and I ask "Could you tell me please, how long until the next inbound train?"

"Inbound" he says, "Inbound. Gee, that's a good word."

"That would be the traditional word."
"Yeah.I guess. I just haven't heard it for a long time."

This is the *railway* that I'm talking to, and they don't use *inbound*!?

I chuckled the whole 2 minutes I had to wait....

Farewell Drinks

Farewells really bring things into perspective. Maybe that's why we value them ... the opportunity to reflect on  what is valuable about a place, the depth and quality of friendships ... these things are soul full and it can be a wrench to make a break. Then there's the slow creeping excitement that is beginning to permeate things as my responsibilities and worries drop away. All the things that could be, can be. Horizons and hopes. I am starting to be excited by the unknown again, rather than feeling locked down.
It's all in my mind.

It's all in my mind. This lightening of circumstances, this feeling of possibility, it's no wonder that as I have shifted into action about this move, so many other things that have been blocked in my life have started to shift too. I am rediscovering who I might be, and who I don't have to be. I am from a rural place, I have pushed against that and fought it, and wanted to be in this city, and strained here against so much. I created the strain that has sent me into the tailspin, and in this process I feel that I am unmaking it.

A glorious life irony has manifested this week. For years here I have been single, seemingly having a powerful *repulser* field around me. I have so many intelligent, funny, caring friends, yet no one with whom I can share that next level of physical and emotional intimacy, sensuality and pleasure. My forays into online dating have been so very disastrous, I can't even write about it. I have been reconciled to being celibate for so long that it's almost become part of my self-identity. So really, it is of no surprise at all that I have met a *special*someone* just 8 days before I am to leave. This man has the magic pheromone, and backs it up with wit and charm. My decision to leave was heavily influenced by the need to make a connection just like this one. Overnight, I have become Schrodinger's cat.
Did we find each other *because* I'm going, and if I don't go will that perforce result in it falling apart? The ticking hangs over us when we're together, and the pounding of our hearts is eloquent only to the chaos of life.

So drinks last night were great fun, and I only cried once, a little bit. I had drinks, which I haven't allowed myself to do since the gaint bender I went on for my birthday. It's good to live, and to love and sometimes to say goodbye and not know how long for.

Electronic Box

Writing really is the top of the glamour! I feel for this guy...
Bring on the lust, bring on the dreamers.
(Thanks to Maritiming)
---------- Forwarded message ----------
cleaning up my room, i found an email which an algerian "poet" had sent to
my dad a couple years ago, and which my dad had shown me, maybe to
demonstrate the glamour of the publishing world. here are the best bits.

"Dear Sir...
I only wish that it is not clumsy of my part to send these texts thus in your electronic box without no consultation nor no previous agreement of your person. If it can carry prejudice against you, I humbly pray you to want notify me by mail, I will immediately make everything what is necessary in order to apologize...

...If for a lot of writers today, the writing is the top of the glamour, and to become writer, is the object of lust of so many people. You know that for us, if she is not the reason of our murder, she is one of our persecution.
Only god knows, how much we need your help.

...It is a dream for me, one of the biggests, to participate in this beautiful adventure that you direct, and that is you will recognize it gladly the heritage of all men."

Arnold Brings us Together

It used to be that in a situation where I didn't know anyone - say
just like the party I was at last night - my reserve converstional
gambit would be Monty Python. Dropping a Cheese Shop line, or putting
on the voice for "He's not the messiah, he's a very naughty boy" has
revived many a hopeless case, even if it's just long enough to give
everyone a few chuckles, a chance to say their favourite line or move
onto Faulty Towers, and I can move on having completed my role in the
social dance.
I notice that some people prefer The Simpsons, and I agree that this
often works well in general environments, however, I really think it's
just an ice-breaker, not a real arse-saver. This is because The
Simpsons colonises us - it is so self-referential that unles syou've
seen the episode in discussion, or know the characters pretty well,
you won't find it funny. Crash and Burn. You may not believe me, but
there are people who don't watch it, and people who have and
*don't*like*it*.
So what to do?
Increasingly, younger folk have not heard of Monty Python, or if they
have, it's as some kind of entertainment myth. So what to do? One must
develop one's repertoire. Quite unconsciously, in a difficult, stilted
environment with nothing to lose, I tried out some new material last
night, and let me tell you this.
ARNOLD brings us together.

SCHWARZENNEGGER; *that* Arnold.

Everyone has an opinion. Everyone has a favourite film (loved or
loathed). Everyone wants to tell you if they would have voted for him
as Governator, or Presidator. Then, the grace note for the
connoiseurs... Pumping Iron. As ARW says, "there's those who've seen
it, and those who need to see it". It came to me as intuition, I pass
it onto you as wisdom. Next time you're at a suburban BBQ, a singles
night or a moribund work function, remember the secret to drawing
people out of their shells could be as simple as ARNOLD.

"I don't have that much stuff"

Sometimes I say things, and I really really believe them, only to find out later that there must have been some kind of massive denial/delusion field in place at that time, because the statement in question turns out to clearly be SO WRONG, that really, it can truthfully be called a lie.
This week has been one of those times.
"I'm not stressed, I feel fine."
WRONG
"Everything's progressing no problems."
WRONG
"I'm sure the money that guy owes me will turn up any day now. He *did* promise."
WRONG
"Packing won't be too hard, afterall, I don't have that much stuff."
WRONG WRONG WRONG

Who exactly do I think I'm kidding with this shtick? Fracken nobody baby! I am down to single digit days to clear my private museum and archives into boxes and it is going to take a *miracle*. Well, maybe I wasn't utterly delusional, maybe I was uttering what is now fated to become a self-fulfilling prophesy? As each day ticks over and the deadline looms it becomes easier and easier to tell what is dross, and to cull ruthlessly. Perhaps in the next few days as panic erupts, I will just chuck it all out, and so it will be come true - I really won't have that much stuff.
Cool.

In the meantime, I still feel certain that my life can't go on without the 60 floppies I found in a box unopened since I moved in 3 years ago. I probably kept them for a very good reason when I last shifted, and I don't see why I should go double-guessing that now.

Have you got any boxes you can spare?

Sidewalk Economy

I have been releasing furniture and home wares back into the wild these last few days.

It's sad to see some of them go, we've shared quite a while together in captivity, but as we say our thank yous, our last goodbyes, and I shut the gate on them standing there bravely on the sidewalk looking to their future, there's also a release.

New beginnings depend on these little goodbyes and for someone else, there is the excitement of discovery. Just like I had, when I first found them.

 

There's also something very satisfying in materially demonstrating generosity. Mirrors, fans, rugs, chairs, heaters, a fountain, paintings, cupboards, Tvs, microwaves, plates, lamps. All in good working order, most not too scruffy, some things barely used. Question is .... what about the fridge? The first whitegoods I've ever paid money for! Will it too join the great pulsing sidewalk economy, or will I choke at the last minute and pay surly burly men to transport it a thousand kilometers?

Lick This

Do you think that irony is the dominant form of humour in Australia?

What prompts me in this musing is that as I sit here today in my McJob, doing the mail for solicitors and accountants, I notice that all our incoming letters this morning featured the "Eastern Brown Snake"  (which seems to be part of a poisonous animals series) whereas our outgoing letters are all stamped with "Kath & Kim".

Yes. That sums up a lot of businesses in this country.

Are Australia Post's design team constantly chuckling into their lattes? I think so. I know I am.

I've come over all AUSSIE all of a sudden, so Haveagoodweekend and here's to thrashing the Poms in the stick and ball.

Delivering the Goods

Sometimes, I don't need to rant about things.

 

http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/books/2006/11/delivering_the_goods.html

 

How charming, how literate, how I wish I'd said it....

 

 

Leaving it all Behind

Sometimes, humans get on overwhelming urge to walk into the promises of tomorrow ...

Half Way

Half way through NaNoWrMo thing.
Struggling.
Only 10 000 words. Feel creeping sense of failure, and light shame at being so far behind my golden ideal wordcount ... still, having fun, so all else can be forgiven.
Have had *very* bad experience with printer of book. She is a hag. perhaps will blog about it when pain has receeded.

In other news, have decided to move to the country for a while. Cop some 'organic hues', also, whilst free-forming in the park yesterday, managed to develop extended metaphor where cliterous = truffle. Was quite funny. Going to try and work it into the romance book. Still entertaining self...

It Had to Happen

From orbit, the Earth is a largely serene palette of organic hues. It used to be that the only man-made structure visible from space was the Great Wall. Well, times change don't they.

Using thousands of tiles, a fast food company have created what *they* are proud to call an "astrovertisement".

 

I am appalled. Utterly. Yet this is so bad, in such poor taste, that in a dark and sad way it has become hilarious. What an amazing waste of resources this amounts to. The thing is 8129m2. I'm pretty certain that must be at least 4 times larger than our local oval and park.

 

The president of the Junk Food Company adds insult to injury with this mangling of english, "the new advertising idea "contemporises" the brand".

Reality check anybody?

Actually, in a way we're lucky  -  they *could*  have claimed that it was "a contribution to re-balancing global climate warming, by increasing the albedo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Albedo ) of Nevada".

 

My only real surprise is that it wasn't Virgin. Afterall, they have a product relevant to space, but as far as I'm aware, no JFC does... yet.

November always seems to bring change

Is there something in the water in November?

This is the time of year that always seems to bring the most energy, the most charge, and then... change! Maybe more elections and trials should be held in November (I know it clashes with the Cricket!). Perhaps it's just spring getting some momentum, and the sunlight perking up the endocrine systems or somesuch.

Mortals can't always double guess the gods!

 

Word count still not great, but less of an issue.

Week One: Reflections

Well, it's just gone one week in the Write a Novel in a Month gig, and how was the first week?

Devastating. Demoralising. Delirious and Addictive.

 

Strange things happened. Things like laughing out-loud during work when strange plot ideas come to me. Sitting, frozen, for over 20 minutes one night unable to make a single character move from the morass of ideas in my head onto the page. Writing a huge amount of any other thing *except* the novel/s (emails, particularly, but also journaling became very attractive). I have given up reading for this month in support of the writing, and it's confronting what a huge gap that's left. I've also gone cold-turkey on the nightly episodes of Blake's Seven.  That's left a lot of time for sitting in front of an unresponsive computer screen!

 

There's also been the bursts of creativity  and the joy in having a goal - which so easily feels like a purpose. Those cutsie little word count graphs on the profile page are cheering too. They leap so enthusiastically when you enter a new number! Then, there's the beautiful love that blossoms when a character starts to speak and act, and all I have to do, is get out of the way. Yeah - life is good!

 

I wish I could say that this has turned out to be a Walk in the Black Forrest, and that I am cruising on overdrive. That would be a fib, but oh - what a sweet daydream! That's the big leaning - how much fun I'm having being 'out and proud' with this program. They even gave us free tattoos. Genius!

 

OK, roll on week two! It's really turning into a no-lose proposition, even if I miss the stars, I could well make it to the moon!

 

oh, I'm having this *amazing dream* where

Bush gets *humiliated* in the polls, and basically looses power, and even Rubnub Rumsfeld becomes one of his own unknown unknowns, hahaha! then the big man in China goes, like, "we were wrong!" and lets googles run free all over the wild steppes and he goes around smashing all the coal power-plants, and planting flowers and maybe mulberry trees. Then, as the mulberrys start to bloom, all the little children cluster around and laugh, oh how we all laugh to see the sky clearing and the beautiful stars smilling down at us here in eden and Howard appears at the edge of the forrest and he's snorting and grunting, and slowly he turns into a hairy old boar, except that his tusks grow out *over*his*eyes* and his last act as a human is to ratify the Kyoto Protocol, and then he's the pig, and the tusks keep growing!! Argh, and they pierce his own skull!! Arghh!! It's kinda getting scary coz there's blood, and even in his death throes Howard is grunting, but then Serenity powers down into the clearing, and Jayne is hanging off a rope and BAM he blows PIGHoward away with just one blast from Vera, and all the little children cheer! and we start a BBQ, and someone plays guitar and and and and it's really good and and, then I wake up.

 

ah well.

 

Still, it's good about Rumsfeld, and congrats to the Governator - he earnt this one.

Shame File

I don't often rant .... well at least not over email.

But today has *inspired* me to say just one thing.

That thing is "shame".

 

Humans, despite their smell, are precious miracles. Sometimes, it is easy to forget that. The people in the world who vow to serve and protect those precious miracles (such as clerics and politicians), seem to forget it most easily and quickly.

Here's two examples from today's rag - one from each direction:

one from the away team:

 

Jews and Muslims unite against gay rally
Tim Butcher in Jerusalem November 8, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/07/1162661683104.html
 

Great! How lovely for them that they've discovered a common bond in ignorance and bigotry.

 

 

and then one from the home team:

We'll help Indonesia go nuclear
Mark Forbes, Herald Correspondent in Jakarta  November 8, 2006
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2006/11/07/1162661684698.html

 

Gee, isn't that big of us. What a pack of arseholes, "We promise to look the other way while you perpetrate whatever human rights abuses you can think of, sell you dangerous materials, and make any other rules up as we go along, as we see fit. So help us God."

 

Shame, shame, shame.

Bilbo Was Onto Something

Putting one foot in front of the other really does lead to interesting places. Before you know it, you're down along a path and marvelling at mountains for the first time, or the ocean, or the architecture of the Elf, greed of dragons or sheer pig-headedness of politicians.
Sometimes scary in that sense.

This week I have been caught up in the amazing power of denial that the Australian PM maintains. Apparently, global warming is not really of concern to Australians. We have no interest in ratifying the Kyoto Protocol - especially not while China and India exist. Amazing. Hundreds of thousands of Australians walked in cities and towns all over the country on Saturday to show their concern in person, and it was not mentioned at all in our papers - except to say how great Cate Blanchette looked (picture). The London walk got a mention - literally, as a caption to a picture of someone in a polar bear suit.

Even the Hobbits recognised a Nazgul when it screamed through their town. If only we could set the Witch King onto Howard. I'm starting to think it will come to that. Probably in these days of economically rationalist outsourcing the Nazgul are probably keen for small contracts to supplement their week-on-week cashflow. I'll see if Bilbo has their email address ....

(ps. word count on novel/s still pitiful. Batman is turning out to be the Dark Horse, coming up from behind)

Day Two

Day two of my month of literary abandon, and I have exams! I burned-out last night after only about 1200 words and fell into my habitual repose on the couch - an episode of Blake 7. It should come with a warning. It's so very addictive. I'm certain it's the potent combination of beautiful BBC diction, and Avon in makeup.

However, I rally.
I go now to the shops (out of coffee and dog-food - says everything there is to know about my lifestyle) and from there it is onward and upward. I will simply push on. After class today, the evening stretches with promise. I got a snappy pep-talk from the site too - very cheering to know that there's 70 000 other people in the world who think that this is a fun thing to do with their time.
My Kinda People!