Festivus

Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, our best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, nonaddictive, gender neutral celebration of the solstice holiday, practised with the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion or secular practices of your choice with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or the choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all.

We also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2008, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make our country great (not to imply that Australia is necessarily greater than any other country) and without regard to the race, creed,color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms:
This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal.
It is freelytransferable with no alteration to the original greeting.
It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her / himself or others and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher.
This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.

Note: No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons have been electromagnetically relocated.

Suburban Rituals: Mowing

Over the weekend, I attempted to mow my yard.
Note "attempted".

There are many things I struggle with in life, far too many really, and sadly, this list is only being expanded by my half-hearted first foray into home ownership.

Since I moved in two months ago, every weekend has been pierced at various (read: early) hours of the day by the cacophonous mating call of the lesser two-stroke mower. A popular Queensland variant of this creature features an unusual symbiont - a weedy thin human male clad only in short short stubbies and the old style thin things. Hat/sunglasses are optional, as is a half-smoked durrie and blurry blue old tatts down the forearms, but accessories do make the man. Lawns are as close as Suburban Queensland seems to have to a soul. Gardens are nice, but you really just need a lawn. The "inifinity" lawn look is popular too - from the edge of your house to the kerb in one smooth unbroken golf-green.

Well, since it rained, I have been pleased to watch a variety of green things sprout and thrust their way competitively into the sunlight in my yard. Some resulted in yellow swaying flowers, some in tiny blue ones - leaving a very pretty haze of almost lilac blue, some just in giant woody tendril structures keen to make a bid for control of the house. I like the idea of a garden, eventually, but it has been a long way down the energy-consumption-priority list lately and I was happy just for it to be green.

When I lost Riley in the yard and had a minor freakout that the thing that lives in the bowels of the Deathstar had grabbed him, I realised it was time to mow. I borrowed the mower from Ma & Pa, got long pants, boots, hat, leather gloves, ear plugs on, over and in. Fired her up and commenced battle.

What an ordeal.

Painful, noisy, uncontrollable, rough, endless.

When the machine over heated after 20 minutes having done about one twelfth of the entire yard I was in complete concurrence.

This is going to take more planning. If I can only do a twelfth at a time, and the grass continues to grow at the current rate, then my initial computations suggest that I will be mowing this lawn for... roughly the REST OF MY NATURAL BORN LIFE.

So there's got to be some other options. Today I am trying to figure out what second job I can get so I can afford to pay to have the whole thing paved, or turned into the set of Narnia, or adding decking to every side of the house over the damn thing, or dug up and put to useful cultivation...

But I don't really have the energy for that either. It's all a bit much. Time for a cup of tea and a crack at the crossword.

Touching Base

Ma often used to say "If you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" and it got to be ingrained. That's not a handy habit for a writer. Life's going on all around, but I don't want to seem like a whinger, so the habit is to clam it up. Swallow it down and get on with going through the motions.

Ma does it herself - a phone call will run out of steam, and she'll say "well, there's nothing else to report" as though we're talking just to entertain me. This last month or so, I've been doing that to myself. Not talking just to be in touch and shoot the breeze, no, it's been a bit "nothing to report" as though there has to be something newsworthy going on in order to say - hey - what's good for dinner? or how funny is it that Dumbledore's meant to be gay? Or, man, I am bored! It's tough to heal the breach when you're not talking to yourself. There's no-one to be the go-between.

The thing I like about this time of year is that there's a push to be in touch *anyway*. If you're into the G-d thing one way or the other, or summer solstice, or just the end of the year (please, please, let the next one bring the good stuff!!) you can just send a message saying "I'm thinking about you, and wishing nice things into your life" and I think that's just brilliant.

So this morning I feel like I'm back talking to myself, and we're patching things up. She's given me some chocolate and said sorry, and I've promised not to shut her out and pretend like nothing's happening. Yeah, it's getting better. Our world seemed to shrink a lot this year and that's quite a weird experience. I think we've passed through the worst of the transition now, and starting to find a way to inject a bit more imagination and humour into things without resorting to outright denial and escapism will be good. (Note future tense there - still learning!)

Anyway, from us and Riley to you and yours, for no reason at all, have a great weekend!

Innocent Fantasies

This morning was a lot like yesterday morning. You know how the work week goes. Alarm clock, stiff knees, bored with breakfast, briefly ponder clothes and pull on almost exactly the same thing again.
But I got a gorgeous phone message from Mez, that she's been daydreaming that we were hanging out together today with her new puppy instead of us both going to work in separate cities. As soon as I read it, I joined in, and imagined us baking something for afternoon tea and maybe I could finally teach her that double handed patience card game. I don't know why I still teach people how to play it - I nearly always loose. I guess it's like Scrabble - I like playing it because it's a good excuse to spend time together and keep the hands busy while joking and laughing and story telling can go on.
Such innocent fantasies. How lovely to know that there's still a source of enjoyment and pleasure to be had that doesn't need a copyright permission or is sullied by a badly made movie spin-off console game. It would be better, of course, to wag work today and be teleported to your lounge room and have a laugh, but there you go. In a moment of personal revelation to you, I confide that I have these innocent fantasies much more often than any other kind.

My favourite one lately, from about 2 weeks ago, was a fully-fledged dream. I was in New York promoting the new book, and Neil Gaiman had a night free in his schedule, so we met at a family restaurant he knows and had dinner. It was good to catch up and the food was well made. Afterwards, we said goodbye on the pavement and he walked back to his friends' place and I caught a cab to the hotel. It was good to see him so relaxed.

Formalising an Accent

Name?
Jayke.
J-A-K-E?
nah - J-A-Y-K-E.

pause...
Aussie Bogan parents huh?
Yeah, 'fraid so.
Poor bastard. Next!

What Happened to November?

...'cause last thing I knew it was October, and things were getting kinda busy.
Gee, you look away for just a minute and the whole political landscape of the country changes!

In more thrilling personal news, I had two (2!) separate house guests during November - Mez and MsJaye both made the trek north and braved the humidity. What fun! Such glee! That makes it four this year - how spoilt and loved I am!

Ipswich remains a lonely exile and this last week has been quiet as well, due to my long-suffering dvd player going on the blink. Ack! No cds, no music other than the radio. Ever hopeful, and well trained by years of using microsoft, I turn it on again each night, patiently waiting for it to recommence operations. After all, this is exactly what happened earlier in the year! I take this time to do a little reading or explore exactly how early I can fall asleep.

I planted out the fig tree and found it very rewarding to dig a hole, and fill it in again. The fig is doing well, which is more than I can say for the mulberry, which has suffered a nasty lopping from the back neighbours. May fortune piss on them! There has been plenty plenty plenty of rain so everything is growing as though to catch up for two years of being thirsty. Ma & Pa's place is an utter biological riot. If you sit still, it feels like you can hear things growing. Kinda creepy. Maybe I've been reading too much scifi.

No, not possible to read too much scifi.

Oh, and the election... well I'm cynically hopeful. Is that possible? Yes. I've had my naive hopes trashed by the ALP in the past, and let's face it - what a disappointing piss-ant backflipper Peter "Once had principles" Garrett has been.

The trouble with elections is that a politician always gets in.

Okay.
Anyway,
December.
December already.
I'm not ready for december already.

Quote from Flaubert - and he knew a thing or two!!

“Be steady and well-ordered in your life so that you can be fierce and original in your work.”
– Gustave Flaubert

The Sounds of Clucking

There was a moment over the weekend when I realised that despite me not enjoying Ipswich as a cultural centre, my new place in and of itself hits all of the points I wrote down at the end of Mastery when we were dreaming of what we wanted our future to hold.

This was about four years ago now, and at that time, the idea that I might one day be a worthy citizen for a mortgage was ludicrous, bordering on delusional. To sit and write out "I want a place surrounded by trees so I can hear birds-song, and there's plenty of natural light, and wood and books. There's beautiful things, a place for my desk and it feels like home. There's a gas stove and a bath tub and music fills it. It is a happy home" was an act of faith almost beyond me.
One of the things that I didn't know I should put on that list, was chooks. I like the idea of chooks, but I am no where near uber-gardener capacity in terms of even planning the garden, let alone caring for food producers, but a neighbour very nearby has some and the morning chook noise is incredibly comforting and pleasurable. I stand in my kitchen, making tea with the cheerful red kettle on the singing gas stove, talking away to the dog (the cat already doesn't listen) and over the fence and between the hills hoists comes the sounds of clucking.

I am holding off putting a clock on the wall in a nod to this beautiful period in the morning when there's tea, the paper the dog and the chooks. A brief interlude of life for living without email and beeping calendar appointments. In a good, basic way, it's starting to feel like a home. Like maybe my home.

A Year in the Blogosphere

This month marks my first year anniversary as a blogger.

Overall I'd say it's been worth it for me, and that I would continue to do it. What the blog has meant to me and done for me has already had about 3 mayor shifts since I started, so I'm quite curious to see what the next year brings!

Ultimate Lifestyle

A funny thing happened on the way to the Colosseum today.
Riles and I were taking the morning constitutional (west of course - he thinks he can walk back to the farm if I loose the leash) and we went past the Ippy Golf Course (the big one, not the pretender at Sandy Gallop). The other day we saw roos there, and we both like the way there's space and nice far horizon.

Anyway, I was just thinking that based on the traffic, first T-off must be 7am. Couples with matching His N Hers golf bags and clubs rolling into the carpark at 6:55am. Then a 4WD swings by with a trailer with a golf buggy on it! I didn't know you could buy them privately. I wondered if that would get better mileage than Audrey for the daily commute - kindof like a neutered beach buggy ride. Anyway, just as I had thought that I had gotten a handle on the Ippy golfing lifestyle, the ULTIMATE LIFESTYLE MOMENT happened. The garage door of the house directly opposite the golf course driveway rolled serenely up into it's catchment and a couple in their own golf buggy cruised the 3 metres of their driveway, sailed across the street, into the golf course and up to the tee!! OMG!
Can you believe it?!

Hi-Larious.
It's thirteen hours later and it still makes me shake my head. In a strange way it's been inspiring. I hope that if I ever get old, I have my priorities that clear!

Enforced Sanity Break

The relentless flow of work I have been slowly sinking under the past two weeks has slowly ground to a halt this afternoon. The Sheltered Workshop email servers are down for the count. After 2 hours of neither giving nor receiving, I am forced to look up and notice that the sun still shines in the window, and that at 5.12 pm I am the last person left in the building.
Hi-larious!

Most excellent, I shall be home before half-past, and walking the dog in the twilight. Unpacking again after dinner and some planning about re-arranging everything. It all looked so serene and pure when everything was in nice neat boxes. The house is starting to look a lot more like somewhere that I actually live, with piles of papers and books in corners, against walls and encroaching everywhere except the bathroom.
Chaos emerging from the sterile purity of cubes. Lovely. Very heartening.

In other news, National Write a Novel in a Month is coming up again quickly - remember to register soon! You don't want to miss out on that crucial first day.

Oh yeah and the federal election got called, but that's late November - our novels should be nearly finished by then!!

Pie Culture

Ipswich embraces much of what I remember being left behind in the 70s. Utes, thongs, chicko rolls, dodgy moustaches, and the pie. Bogan chicks getting off on V8s.

Maybe suburbia has been like this the whole time and I’ve just been ignorant. In that case, ignorance really is its own kind of bliss. Maybe the pie from out of the back of a ute on the side of the road has appeal. Handy – roads are long here. Quicker - Maccas drive through queues are killers. And filling – no one here seems to caught up on nutritional fine print!
The names are right out there too “Big Dad’s Pies” a local franchise going strong. “Joe’s Pies” – calling it how it is.

If you like meat, this is the town for you. Gotta fight for a decent lettuce, but meat from here to kingdom come.

Everybody loves the Elephant

“I’ve shot 630 elephants and 63 men, and I regret the elephants more.”

Attributed to Arthur Jones, 1970. Inventor of the Nautilus machine.

Storms Forecast

This month is really getting away from me.
I've got until friday to get our next quarterly brochure proofed and signed off. I don't really write anything, I'm the in-between person. Not quite senior enough to be editing or making any real decisions. The type-it-up and send it back to the designer, person. Not glamorous, no. Not fulfilling, no. Slightly appreciated and well-paid. These things will do. Tomorrow is the 'send it to all the stakeholders for their approval of their bit' day, and we'll see if the preliminary approvals I got from each of them will hold good. Let's hope so.
Dull isn't it.

I didn't mean to start talking shop. There's been awesome thunder and lightening storms. Very little rain in them, and a bit of hail. Some areas have been devastated - others completely untouched. Everywhere is humid and horrible. Peter was grazing his cows in the long paddock this morning, and as we rolled through them, I saw how bony and tired they all are. His cattle, like ours, are near to death from hunger and creeping malnutrition. If we can squeeze two drops of water out of these storms we'll be grateful for it. In that context, print deadlines don't really mean that much.

I unpacked a few boxes tonight. After nearly a year in storage, it's a wonderful surprise to unearth so many beautiful things and wonder where I will put them all. The kitchen cupboards aren't quite finished yet, and somehow I haven't yet stepped over the threshold of putting anything into the built-ins. Maybe it's the lack of a bed. A home isn't really anchored until you're sleeping there. Until then it's a camp kitchen with an indoor loo. Still, my camp kitchen and indoor loo now have an owl or a Buddha in nearly every room. An eclectic pairing I grant you. It will just get better from here. The lovely Mel arrived today with hand-me-down couches. My vision of a lounge room that can comfortably seat 12 has finally been realised - sadly just about a thousand kloms from any of the usual groups of 12 that I can assemble! A success of its own kind nonetheless.

Street Gossip tells me that the horrid Bogans from Hell over in number 13 (no really!) have already gotten their eviction notice, so there won't be too much more excitement soon (read Police and GBH). "Gosh", says I "that's jolly good news". The folks in 15 had set up their lawn chairs at the fence-line for an uninterrupted view of the moving weekend. Glad to be that entertaining whilst doing nothing but carry boxes in and rubbish out.

For no reason other than it has been the main way I spend my leisure hours these past weeks, I tell you that I am still watching the TV series ROME on dvd. It is brilliant. Really. Bloody. Brilliant. This is my third spin through and it's still growing on me. The dvd extras are wonderful and bring out more and more of the value in the series. Don't get me started on Titus Pullo or Mark Antony. I will gibber, and that is never cool.

Meet Rumi

The horrid case of cold feet and near panic from yesterday has drained away. Much lighter today, and almost whistling and tra-la-laah-ing except, of course, I don't want to draw attention to myself.

Intending to go and look at a dog as a companion for Riley, I have come away from the pound a rather proud new nearly-owner of a beautiful long-haired Turkish Van cat whom I have named Rumi. He's only a young 'un and is at the vet getting his bits nipped off. I really hope I'm not allergic to him - I've never kept a long haired pet. I don't have a photo of him, but he looks almost *exactly* like this cat, but thinner and younger.

Between Riley and the Fig Tree (blooming and blooming) I am feeling very nurturing and content.

Also, some of my not-very-creative (I thought they were dull) ideas are getting through all the hoops at work and some of them (they did spawn like toads) may make it to print!

Praise be! A good day finally!! I shall be taking a long weekend to clean, paint and nest in the new place. I am planning next weekend as well, but as I have so little stuff, it may all be over this weekend. We shall see.

The Ram may have touched the wall but we are secure, and have faith in our resilience.

However, a lot of rain would really really help as well.

The Ram Has Touched the Wall

Commitment is an odd creature, don't you find?
I have not had a close relationship with it so far during my life, so it has been an interesting experience lately as my wishes bring me closer and closer to what have always looked like shoals of certain destruction. I have sought out every other possible path to gaining what I want and they each ended in a cul-de-sac. One, untried and undesirable option left, to commit to living as an employee (not a contractor) to commit to the purchase of large items in the promise that their later (greater) value will support my dotage. Down this path I go, with much trepidation and an exit strategy tucked under one wing.

I have been escaping my own life by immersing myself in the life of Rome. I was bewitched by this, and have started again from the beginning of the series. There's so much to say about it, it will have to be another discussion. What I really wanted to turn over, was this one point, very early on, where Mark Anthony says, with a huge passion, "the ram has touched the wall!" and they're off! What the?!

The whole Roman way of life was a commitment in terms that are quite hard to reconcile with our modern/post-christian morals. This particular comment was compelling and I could not make out what it was about, but from the context it clearly had great importance.

So I looked it up, and here's a good explanation from someone else who's name I have lost:
"It was a strict policy of battle. When a city was to be under siege, they had a chance to give up, to submit to Rome’s rule. However, once the battering ram touched the outer wall of the city’s defenses, the commanding Roman officer was not allowed to accept surrender, was unable to give quarter or show mercy.”

“The policy was designed to put pressure on the enemy. If they weren’t absolutely sure they could withstand the siege, they better give up, because once the ram had touched the wall, that was it.”

That was it - indeed!

So here I am, feeling at once both under siege, and at the same time be-sieging my own previous life with these changes and desires for a future. Confused? Oh yes. If I wasn't cautious of mixing times and empires, I'd now segue into a Cassandra theme, but enough altogether.

Let it just be thus, as a koan to my world this week.
The ram has touched the wall.

Dullsville, thy name is Ipswich

OK. This is it. My last night as a free-wheeling, happy-go-lucky bohemian type with no debts, no responsibilities and nowhere to live.
By this time tomorrow I shall burdened and shackled to an odious mortgage. Haunted by the towers of formal papers and hounded in my dreams by the marching column of compound interest I shall wither away into an ever-narrowing dullness. My only conversation will be of painting, furniture or food coupons.

Or, it could be really good. Don't really know.

One thing is certain, Riley doesn't want to leave the farm. Cruel of me to even ask him to give up his ute, his spot in the sun, and especially the wallabies - dead or alive, he loves them all.
"Riley," I say to him "we all have to make sacrifices in this Brave New World." and he wags his tail and runs to my father.

C'est la vie, eh?!

Radio Silence

I haven't been anywhere, done anything or met anyone.

No. Just holding my breath and waiting for the sun and moon to dance around and for the dice to move me 'round the board. I stood so still a bitch pissed on me. Maybe next time not quite so still as that.

I was very nearly bored today. Imagine that! Horrific state of affairs. Tisk tisk.

5 Things I Love about Australia

1. We invented plastic money so you could go swimming and still be able to get a feed after. Also, means that people who keep cash in their jeans pockets aren't suddenly skint every time they do a load of washing. Genius.

2. It's an island. The rest of the world's gotta be happy about that.

3. We make our own rules. Eg. Long socks with shorts are formal enough for the office! (see also "dress thongs") Another eg: No one is really expected to work too hard between, say, the week before christmas and the week after new years - oh, and a coupla days either side of Australia Day. "C'mon mate - it's summer!" (This is not always a great thing: see also Penal settlement and the rum trade, Tampa and Howard in general).

4. Native Fauna and Flora are bizarre by any standards and almost entirely unique. Cool. Endangered, but cool.

5. Generally peaceful. Bit of a flare-up in the 1780s for a while, and recently arms have been taken against citizens when a visiting foreigner was here, oh, and the the whole "we don't trust people arriving by boat" thing, but generally, there's very little bombing, gunfire, and mortal danger from explosives, extremists or warring factions.

There you go - you didn't think I'd be able to get to five, but I did!!

Go yew liddle bewdie!!

Rashi

Rashi looked again at her watch, which of course still wasn't on her wrist where it always always was. The sweat was pooling at the back of her knees and under her breasts. She could smell her skin going sour and her mouth was sticky with thirst. How long would she be held like this?! She looked again at her watch, which of course still wasn't there. With a powerful force of will, she didn't swear out loud, or contort her face, or even clench a fist. That was close. She'd nearly blown it. It brought her back to what was at stake. Very consciously she bought her awareness back to right here, right now. It was important that she not make any moves or sounds that whatever was recording from the other side of that mirror could pick up. She didn’t know what kind of equipment they had, but she knew from the trail transcripts she’d read that it was there, and was often a deciding factor in final decisions. If it ever got to trial. She’d worked so very hard to get here, she wasn’t going to screw it all up right at the last hurdle.

Taking a deep, slow breath, Rashi went to the cot. Gently and evenly, she let the breath out, then paused before taking another. She’d trained for this, she knew she’d get through if she stuck to the plan. This was not the time for fretting over details that were already in place or trying to push things along. The authorities would take their own time, that’s how authorities work. It’s not like this was some third-world cell with a putrid bucket in the corner. Actually it was almost exactly as it had been in the brochure except the blanket on the cot was grey, not navy blue. She was surprised to realise that it was cotton, that open waffle weave style, for some reason her mind had categorised it as a warm blanket. Why there was a blanket at all in this heat was the real mystery. Rashi thought it was a mystery she would ponder as the authorities took whatever time they needed to process her paperwork. After all, she thought, that was pretty reasonable. These things take time. She just wished that they’d left her with her guide book. She trusted that her belongings, her watch, luggage and passport would be returned to her in due course. Meanwhile, she decided, she was free to recuperate from the journey. It had been a very long trip.

Taking a deep, slow breath, Rashi relaxed on her cot in her silent, dim cell and deliberately went to sleep. Australia was worth the hassle to visit. She’d had to decide that a long time ago when she’d applied to her own country for clearance and diplomatic support. A week or two in Visitor Status Processing is a small sacrifice to make. Too late for doubts now.