UK correspondence

(this picture is me and my sister in Hyde Park in London with the Peter Pan statue that JM Barrie gave to the park. Perhaps pictures of Somerset to come)

Taunton is 'the Best Large Floral Town in the South West' and when you drive in from their farm in the village of Curland you go through and past places like Staple Fitzpane, Slough Green and West Hatch, along windy hedged roads that barely fit one car on, let alone two, roads that make my mother say "shit" like I say "fuck" - mother never swears. People on horses wave as you slow down to let them pass safely. Every house you pass is like the last: cute thatched white affairs that you know where built sometime in the last 300 years. By that I mean 300 years ago. The village of Staple Fitzpane is this amazing picturesque thing, almost ridiculous in its Englishness, with a beautiful church up on a hill that overlooks the rest of the village down in its wake. And you can see old men tramping through their fields with canes, waistcoats and those old men hats, with their collie dogs just a bit ahead, looking back to make sure they're not too far behind. Faithful, those dogs. My uncle has one who is presently lying on the carpet in front of the fire with my sister. Their house is the most amazing thing ever: the fireplace has an old bread oven, the kitchen home to an Aga, with millions of pots and pans hanging from the ceiling with chillies drying. Onions hang outside in the garage and you have to go out and cut them down if you need them. You have to take baths because the shower's gone wrong. The fire's only lit every few days because the wood supply is low and it's best to stay downstairs because the Aga keeps the whole of the downstairs warm somehow. Heating doesn't always come on. Grass round here is as green as you like and fog sometimes so thick you can't see a metre in front of you.

My uncle also tells the best stories. He's obsessed with farming and cows and just heaps of traditional country English things. It's actually pretty adorable. He and my aunt own a cook's shop in Taunton which has got to be the sweetest, nicest shop ever. A man just came in today looking for a knife sharpener and my uncle gave him the most involved talk about the different types of knives and sharpeners. He knows all the stock so well, as do all the staff there really. I find it quite fascinating and I feel bad when people ask me for things - as I'm just helping out on the till - and I can't help them out. I try to be as friendly as everyone else but really, this is the kind of store where, after you serve people and they go "thank you very much" my uncle goes "(no,) thank YOU very much". As we were driving home this evening he told me that in England (and Australia) we drive on the left hand side because back when people used to ride horses instead of driving cars, they were mostly right handed and needed their right hand spare to draw out their swords and defend themselves. Of course, the hedge was on the left hand side so you were protected on that side. I don't know whether that story is true but I like to think that it is because it's quite enjoyable. I made it my facebook status anyway so we'll see how it stands up.

"ambient stress"

A few notes after a surprisingly very relevant and important talk at Sticky Institute.

• small town dissatisfaction
• defamiliarise your city

This year I’ve met a lot of people who were once the weirdos in small towns and now in Melbourne they find themselves in vibrant and creative circles, often leaders in their fields. At this talk Maddy Phelan, co-founder of Totoro’s tea house in Newcastle (as part of Renew Newcastle), was talking about how to survive in towns full of bogans and stay enamoured with your city (among other things).

Holidays are good for getting down about your situation. Free of uni (or whatever) now, all you have is heaps of time and less to do with it. No longer can you stay chatting in the caf for hours upon hours or sit there by yourself in hopes – realistic usually – that someone you know will saunter past. There you will remain. Maddy recommended being a flaneur (or flaneuse, if you’re from RMIT). This goth boy said he found a great old house with a virgin lemon tree in the backyard one night out with his friends. Others climb fences, sit on rooves (roofs? How about rooftops) & play guitars. Some of us have to – or is this a choice? – sit on the steps of Fed Square alone with our parker pen slipping from our hand from the grease of the Lord of the Fries burger we had for dinner. This itself isn’t enough to fall back in love with the city. No, it’s more about walking down that road you see from the train window and sitting in that park again finally and ambling through lush opulent streets of Hawthorn royalty, about being on foot rather than public transport, being brave enough to eat alone, to be seen alone.

As for bogans, well we’ll never really escape them. As minister for the environment Peter Garret once sang (yes, remember that? He was a musician) “this is Australia”. Small town dissatisfaction on the other hand I get. It’s easy to get frustrated when there’s no support for young creatives, the wider community doesn’t get involved and nobody turns up to gigs. There can be a lot of apathy in young people in the country. I wish I could come up with a viable strategic plan to go back to my home town and change something somehow. Make the town less about 40 yr old conservative white people (read: Rotarians) and give the young people with something interesting to say a chance.. Maybe..

I guess the good thing about being a weirdo from a small or isolated town is that when you do move to a real good place you usually don’t take it for granted. Usually.

There's A Cat On My Head by Terri Crawford

It was dark and quiet, the still of the night.
No sound at all, a street lamp the only light.
I was all settled in, covers pulled to my chin,
The best part of the dream about to begin.

When suddenly I awoke and I knew not why,
No alarm had gone off, I don't have a baby to cry.
I struggled to wake, it was hard to breathe.
And for some reason I couldn't see.

There was a weight, a pressure on my brain.
I tried to move and only got neck strain!
Then I realized and under my breath said,
"Oh good grief, I have a cat on my head".

A tail lay covering both of my eyes
a foot on my nose, chin covered with cat thighs.
A 13 pound tabby was perched on my head.
Why did he pick here? He has the rest of a queen size water bed!

So I pushed him and spoke and said "Get off of my head."
And he meowed and refused to lay on the bed.
Finally in desperation, with my very last breath,
I shouted "Pounce" as loud as I could and he finally left.

Those who have kitties have to agree,
they are sweet and lovable, a joy to have and to see.
But in the night when trying to sleep
a cat anywhere might creep.

So sometime you might wake in the night
unable to move even though you try with all your might.
Relax, its o.k. don't be filled with dread,
Its just a cat laying on your head.

children's book

When I was younger one of my favourite authors was Shirley Barber. She mostly draws pretty pictures of fairies and enchanted lands. I used to have a doona cover of one of her pictures.. I used to read and reread her book The Enchanted Wood and one of the ballet concerts I was in was called "A Visit to Fairyland" and it was based on that story. You can imagine how thrilled I was. Here are some examples of her work.



this is the background on my computerrrr

and this is just toooo cute



this one was from the Enchanted Wood



fairylove.

Woollen Bits/Children's Book

I have a whole bunch of woollen jumpers but blogspot makes my pictures look weird. Therefore I am annoyed and will not be posting anything.. Boo blogspot.

Anywhom, one of my favourite books when I was a kid was Honey Sandwich by Elizabeth Honey. So many memories!
Here is one of the poems:

“Auntie Dot”

Auntie Dot
hasn’t got a lot.
In her flat
there’s a cat
a loaf of bread
a little blue bed
a rickety table
a friend called Mabel
a baked bean
a magazine
a golden fish
an ancient wish
a rug
a mug
a tin
a pin
a shell
a smell
a cup of the sea
a dead TV
and
me.

woollens

Now look, it's been a week or so and nobody's done a woollen post. This is depressing. To cheer everyone up (or rather, to cheer nobody up) here's mine.



This is an owl my friend bought me last year when I went on a trip to Geelong. There's a really good series of op shops in Geelong, believe it or not, and one that I didn't buy this owl from yet I still recommend investigating is the Mill Markets. Anyway I'm pretty sure the owl was $2 and his name is Paul. There seems to be an abundance of macrame owls out there; I have a feeling this was some sort of fad a little while ago.

I'm going to keep playing this game all by myself. Next one is "a children's book". Doesn't have to be favourites.

My loungeroom smells like paranoia.

things to do: melb edition

Just a few diary notes for the upcoming weeks (or, me paraphrasing and filtering through the ever wonderful 3000)

Bars have markets now, did you know? Hello Sailor Vintage fair is this weekend at the Carlton Hotel. It's pretty rad. There's also apparently some type of garage sale called Lion in Love on Brunswick street that is intriguing me rather.

Onto hydration: Life at the Bottom is a website dedicated to bringing young creatives together to talk about ideas or whinge about unemployment or give us ideas about how to leave the dangerous realm of unemployment. This Wednesday if you find yourself without anything to do, head along to that new hip venue everyone’s talking about, reportedly the new venture of St Jerome’s peeps, 1000 Pound Bend, for a guest speaker. Take your young creative friends. It’s apparently not networking and apparently it’s not scary. There will probably be both pretty girls and pretty boys there. Yessssssss.

I'm interested in going to the second last Wordplay for the year, despite the fact that Celia Pacquola is one of the people going to be there and ever since she had that "random" spot on Rove a few months back I haven't been able to get past her. And she was on Good News Week and was really just trying too hard. Didn't go down to well with me. But maybe if I go to this then I'll get over all those grudges of mine.

BUT WAIT!! I can't go to that because the Voiceworks 21st birthday party is on that night!!

A lot of people seem to be moving house lately (Express Media for example) and the Melbourne Theatre Company is jumping on the proverbial bandwagon and having a garage sale to get rid of a bunch of their old stuff. Can you just imagine how awesome this is going to be? So many props and costumes and miscellaneous other things that could be used for art projects or just personal enjoyment. Or things to jazz up your next trip to Safeway.

If our greenroom at work is anything to go by, this is something you do NOT want to miss. It starts at 9am Sunday 14th November, somewhere in Southbank. It finishes at 3pm, but word is that if you turn up late you may as well not turn up at all. Everyone goes crazy for this stuff, you just take my word for it.

For your ears: The projector-savvy tasty-visual-vivants Projector Obscura will be providing heavenly holograms at the Worker’s Club next Sunday arvo for a sensory extravaganza featuring some real neat bands. I suggest you attend this event before the Worker’s Club becomes one of those places that everyone knows about.. There’s probably about a month to go before you’ll just become another person who’s been there, rather than someone who discovered it early. I’m just sayin’! But seriously, Projector Obscura are fine. And and and they have eggplant chips there. AWESOME.

Oh I should mention that the Newtown Worker's Club is having a craft/makers market over the summer and they want stallholders. You can register online for that one here. And the Order is having a market too, but it's more designy, whatever that means. Probably email them for queries about that one, but I think it starts fairly soon so they might not be accepting stallholders anyhow. Their rooftop terrace is going to be a nice place to hang this summer. Woop.

In a similar vein to Stacey's last post, here's a favourite poem of mine by Erica Jong.

"What You Need to Be a Writer"

After the college
reading,
the eager
students gather.

They ask me
what you need
to be a writer

& I, feeling flippant,
jaunty
(because
I am wearing
an 18th century
dress
& think
myself in love
again),
answer:

“Mazel,
determination,
talent,
& true grit.”

I even
believe it—

looking
as I do
like an
advertisement
for easy
success—

designer dress,
sly smile
on my lips
& silver boots
from
Oz.

Suppose
they saw me
my eyes
swollen
like sponges,
my hand
shaking
with betrayal,

my fear
rampant
in the dark?

Suppose they saw
the fear
of never
writing,
the fear
of being
alone,
the money fear,
the fear fear,
the fear
of succumbing
to fear?

& then
there’s all
I did
not say:

to be
a writer
what you need
is

something
to say:

something
that burns
like a hot coal
in your gut

something
that pounds
like a pump
in your groin

& the courage
to live
like a wound

that never
heals.

---

Recently somebody said that I seem to use a lot of words and say nothing. This is true. But I'll probably just continue doing that. I wish I could be like Erica Jong and just have heaps of opinions and say important things. My fear, unlike her fear of never writing, is that my writing is terrible and that I don't have anything to say. Anyway I guess the point of this post is that I will always strive to be like Ms Jong but fall short. For some time. When I was searching for a copy of the above poem I found a blog that pretty much sums things up.

How to be a Poet
by Wendell Berry


i

Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.

ii

Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.

iii

Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.

semicolons: friend or foe?

Brief grammar post. I know that nobody (including me) gets it right 100% of the time, but there's always a lot of talk about semicolons. I was taught earlier this year that you use them to join sentences that are related, yet can stand on their own. I decided to research common mistakes made when using them and found a few tutorials and a rather useful grammar quiz.

Of course, you can never just do casual grammar research: you always end up getting into trouble or find yourself knee deep in split infinitives. Look, I try to stay away from claiming to be a grammar nazi, because I'm really not at all. I just try my best. I am putting this information out there to inform the general public.

In my opinion, the easiest way to distinguish between semicolons and regular colons is that colons are what you use when you need to say "here something is! look at this relevant point that is usually short!" and semicolons are more like "well here I am saying a few relevant things that could be in separate sentences, but I'm going to connect them with a semicolon because that makes me seem fancy". If you have another way of looking at it, I'd really like to hear. That's the easiest way for me to get my head around it though.

Please do the quizzies from that website, cause they may illuminate your grammar abilities.. or inabilities!

ponies, strudels, etc

Let's do a post about our favourite woollen things. I've read other blogs and they do these things where they ask their readers to post pictures too and leave links. So maybe if I ask our readers to do that they will.

So, Stacey and I shall post pictures of a few of our favourite woollies and then if we have any readers they post pictures of their woollens on their blogs and leave us a link here telling us they did so.

These other blogs do a post like this every week, and one of the people who participates gets to choose the topic for next week. Can be any topic and we just all post pictures (no matter how crappy - mine will be crappy) of whatever the item/thing/topic chosen is.

And so, to reiterate: pictures of favourite woollen items. Short explanations of why. One week.

What Lips My Lips Have Kissed, And Where, And Why

from I Eat Poetry

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

(Sonnet XLIII))
-Edna St. Vincent Millay

who will come?

One day I was walking my sister's old dog along this road in Horsham and the wind was fierce and the rain was hard.
Me and the dog were running like idiots while Sadie by Ms Newsom spurred me on.

You know those times when you feel infinite, or close to it? Infinite in the only way we mortals know how.
That was one of those times.

I know that it will never be as good as running along the edge of a country town with drops of rain and a family hound, but She is coming to Melbourne next year. Just after I come back from England.

I will be there. I wish I could take a beanbag to sit on. I want everyone at the Forum to sit down so we can enjoy her in comfort, but I bet it will be hot and awful.

Today's non-poem poem

Ten Ways to Avoid Lending Your Wheelbarrow to Anybody - Adrian Mitchell

1 PATRIOTIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I didn't lay down my life in World War II
so that you could borrow my wheelbarrow.

2 SNOBBISH

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Unfortunately Lord Goodman is using it.

3 OVERWEENING

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is too mighty a conveyance to be wielded
by any mortal save myself.

4 PIOUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
My wheelbarrow is reserved for religious ceremonies.

5 MELODRAMATIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I would sooner be broken on its wheel
and buried in its barrow.

6 PATHETIC

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
I am dying of schizophrenia
and all you can talk about is wheelbarrows.

7 DEFENSIVE

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Do you think I'm made of wheelbarrows?

8 SINISTER

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
It is full of blood.

9 LECHEROUS

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
Only if I can fuck your wife in it.

10 PHILOSOPHICAL

May I borrow your wheelbarrow?
What is a wheelbarrow?

devondale alley

this one goes out to all the non-readers.

[you know I only mention non-readers in the vain hope that I actually have readers who will get offended by me calling them non-readers. and then comment. to let me know they are real. you guys suck]
[no! I don't mean that at all! I love you!]

Yesterday I bought a skirt and some massive ghetto hoop earrings from Sportsgirl. Sportsgirl is my fave chain store by far, but I never buy things from there unless they're on sale. So these items cost me a total of $45. I made awkward complimentary conversation with the shopgirl about her awesome fringe and me and my housemate tried on tiny hat fascinators to amuse ourselves.

After a brief drink with work people across the road at the Order - we sat upstairs because it was sunny, but the Order rooftop was poorly positioned that afternoon and it was bloody freezing - I came home and decided I wanted to wear my new things and put on makeup to amuse myself. I want to learn how to put on eyeliner properly. It's one of those things that you think would/should be easy, but if you want it to look good then you really should trial it out a few times. Anyway then my housemate and her boyfriend arrived home and I was unamused by their presence and the prospect of having them talk all the way through Love Actually so when Zoe asked me out I leaped at the opportunity to leave the house. Neither of us had any idea what to do though so we both put ideas onto tiny little bits of paper "bigger than confetti, smaller than a banner". I shoved scissors and looseleaf paper into my bag and did this on the train.

Waiting for Zoe. Watching skanks at Flinders street. Why do they think it's ok to wear the things they do? I can't even sum up the atrocities I saw there. Vile.

Devoid of any hat or similar recepticles to place the pieces of paper into and hence draw out and select an idea, Zoe put all the pieces of paper into her pocket and she drew one out that I had written that suggested we go to places we've never been to before and have always wanted to go to. But I said that we shouldn't do anything we really didn't want to do. We ended up going to Old Bar to see this band called the Butcher Birds. We didn't catch all of their set so we heard from one of the guitarists that they were playing a set at Pony later on that evening we decided to get grotty and head there (after a brief stop at the watering hole pleasantly known as McDonalds).

We saw the band again. Zoe saw people she knows. People she didn't want to see. We went outside to the alley across from Pony and made friends with a tall boy with a moustache, a lipring and a furred-leather that read Canadian Club (Wiliam) and this cute little boy from Wellington (Jeremy). We all spoke about milk and sunglasses and Bono and I smiled at the Wellington boy and he smiled back at me and blushed like a child. I asked the wider group if you could possibly use the gum wrappers from extra to roll cigarettes with and then Zoe made a clever joke about needing the gum from regular papers. We headed back inside briefly then came back outside to our friends who had been joined by this lad in a stripey jumper and this tall, thin fellow with a hat who looked like a beautiful indie boy but when he spoke sounded like he came from a farm near Geelong.

The five of us had a session. I loaned Jeremy my scissors to cut the weed and he asked me if I always carried scissors and paper around and then I said paper mostly and that we'd been making notes earlier in the evening. It began to rain and we sought refuge near some ventilation bits of a building. Hat-indie-boy sat on a bin, while William rescued a milkcrate from inside this cage of air conditioners and stood on it like a soapbox. He was so outrageous and just announced the strangest things. I liked his openness and how he was just so inclusive and welcoming. But I have a strange feeling like if we had needed him in a crisis he would run away and flake. Zoe and stripey jumper boy, later named Vaguey Vaguerson, were drawing on the walls of this place with my pens while I stood with Jeremy, William and Hat-indie-boy. Some other people walked into the shelter and Jeremy goes to me "were those people with us the whole time? I don't really know what's going on now. I'm so stoned".



Zoe and I went back inside at some point due to coldness and we were accosted upstairs by a guy who looked like Ozzy & Snape & Morticia & Iggy & Noel Fielding. Not enough like Noel unfortunately. He had a nose piercing as well, but I didn't trust him. We were kind to him and were friendly. So then he found us downstairs later and asked us to mind his drink while he went outside for a smoke. But he took ages and we wanted to see if our alley friends were still there. They weren't. But Spooky Spookerson was out there and he got shitty with us because we left his drink unattended. He ran back inside. We dodged a bullet.

The rest of the morning was spent writing those stories that you write a few lines of, fold over and give it to the next person. It's like a joint, but with words. We also watched stripey jumper guy from before macking on with some babe. It was intense. We wrote a story with this guy with a massive fro and a massive voice.

Story time was over by 6am and we got our respective trams home, stomachs rumbling from Pony-exertion.

---

Just before, I was thinking about whether it is worthwhile posting entries about nights out. Whether I should offer opinions rather than anecdotes. Because maybe nobody cares and nothing I say is worthwhile (this is quite possible). It's too late now I guess. Also, these people who I met once and will never meet again - people who would never remember me anyway - what would they think about having a blog post essentially written about them? They will never read it. Has this happened to me before? I guess that's the majesty of blogging. There's the romance. And I just fucked it up for ya'll.

phat disclaimer

(This is the kind of blog entry I write when I pretend that I have readers)

Today I realised that my philosophy classmates have probably been googling transpersonal solipsism (because it's not commonly written about apparently?) and this blog has probably been coming up. It'd be nice if some people actually decided to read the blog for real from this accidental stumbleupon but I doubt it somehow. Anyway it would be really embarrassing if my teacher himself googled it and saw how reverently I regarded that email. I've come through my "philosophical breakdown" now so I don't really feel as mushily about it as I did then but I'll keep it up just for kicks. Plus I really think it's a good bit of philosophical propaganda.

Also today I was walking down Burwood Rd and I realised how much I really like grooving away while I'm walking. I love singing while I walk and I just do it all the time lately. I was returning home from our favourite Indian restaurant on Glenferrie rd, Sahni's. It has $15 buffets on Wednesday evenings. And they taste so good! Tonight there was this eggplant and potato thing and it was utterly fabulous. Usually we eat and eat until we are sickeningly full but tonight we restrained ourselves. By we I mean my sister and my dear wife Jacqueline. And then I wanted to scope out this place where my dear friend/boss/general awesome person is going to be MC-ing a poetry reading. These events are created by Laura Smith who is Melissa's friend and who I hung out with at TiNA. I rather admire Laura because she seems to be part of this really awesome poet crew. And after TiNA I decided that I want to be a bit more into poetry and writing in general. Of course, it's a rather unfortunate time for me to realise this seeing how university happens to be really alarmingly busy at the moment.

Whilst at TiNA, this little story I wrote was totes put into the Voiceworks zine. And that made me feel cool. So I just want to write something fierce lately. You can't stop me. I'm like a words machine.

Stacey's Seasonal Haiku

spring
i put my hood on
walk through the wet streets
warm spring rain

autumn
people in scarves
jump on
crunchy leaves


summer
the sun on my skin
this infinite heat
this summer's day


winter
tangled in blankets
the glow of my computer
keeping me warm

seasons haiku

autumn

everyone on this train has
red eyes &
a matching red nose.

winter

everyone in Melbourne is sick
& tired. trying to be
cold & romantic.

spring

hours spent choosing clothes
Melboune's wrath is fierce:
weather changes. Wrong again.

summer

my back & shoulders ache
and I'm sure
my lettuce is sweating.

material things

I've posted like ninety thousand videos on facebook tonight so I'll just post this one here instead.



I heard it on RRR yesterday while I was waiting to panel for our Room with a View show. I was like "oh that lyric about adobe slabs sounds familiar" then I'm looking up that lyric and it's that Animal Collective song.. but then I watch the video for that song and I go.. that's not right.. it was a girl singing. And then I found this. And it is amazing. So watch the hell out of it. Oh! Just researched Taken by Trees and it's that girl from the Concretes! No wonder this cover is so awesome

I am going to use this blog for real blogging soon AND I also have been collecting haiku for the haiku task below.

Haiku

friends

escape

my cat

spring

autumn

summer

winter

These are some topics for haiku. GO.

long but beautiful

You don’t think philosophy has relevance to you, your life, or your
career? Are you sure you’re listening? You who drive a car, you who
have accidents, you who get dumped by boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses,
you who get robbed, you who find out your father is not your real
father, you who get into abusive relationships, you who can only find
comfort in eating, you who get diagnosed with cancer or another illness,
you who are getting older, you who are dying.

I really like my philosophy teacher a whole lot. This is an email he sent to us. I am dumb for reposting it, but my sanity relies a lot on correspondences like this.

Having read your journals I ask myself the question:

What is the main thing about Transpersonal Solipsism that students are
failing to understand?

They are failing to understand the distinction between oneself
considered empirically as a particular human person, or persona, or
avatar, and oneself considered transcendentally as the transpersonal
creator and player of all the avatars. Hence they keep asking questions
like: “Why would I have created the world (dream, virtual reality
game) to be as it is rather than something more to my liking?” *
i.e., the ego’s liking, the persona’s liking. They are assuming that
the preferences of oneself as transpersonal creator Self should be
exactly the same as the preferences of oneself as personal self or
avatar.

But this does not follow. There is no reason to suppose that the
various personas or avatars will have the same preferences as the
transpersonal Self. Indeed, there are a couple of excellent reasons to
expect otherwise. First, there are billions of persons/personas/avatars
of the one creator Self in the virtual reality game called the world,
each with its own unique perspective on things and set of likes and
dislikes * from Genghis Khan to Mother Teresa to Apache Indians to
Pygmies to Victorian cockneys to Vikings to monastic flagellants to
modern Melbournians, etc. Obviously they cannot all have the same
perspective and set of likes and dislikes as the one creator Self that
has created and is playing all these different avatars.

Second, remember the idea is that the creator Self has deliberately
deceived itself into forgetting within the game its own status as
creator of the game, all the better to play fully its avatars. One would
not expect the avatars to remember who they really are or their real
perspective and values (unless perhaps they have some kind of mystical
experience and momentarily transcend the game, or there is a glitch in
the dream matrix, or perhaps they meet a local philosopher avatar *
some crazy Morpheus-like character * who attempts to remind them who
they really are: the One).

As avatars within the game, each person will naturally play out that
persona and hence like and approve of certain aspects of life and
reality while vehemently disliking and disapproving of other aspects of
life and reality. Each will be different regarding what aspects they
like or dislike and none (or only a very few) will realise that they are
the One, the creator of the whole game, playing every avatar.

In short: there is no reason to expect that yourself (as creator Self)
will create a gameworld that yourself (as person/persona self) likes in
all respects. That you vehemently dislike many aspects of life and
reality is perfectly in order: it is what you yourself, as creator of
the gameworld, wants in its personas. To put it boldly: you want
yourself to dislike (or be fearful of or depressed about, or be
horrified by) some aspects of this life and reality. That is why you
dislike them.

That would explain why “Man” is so frequently in disagreement with
“God”. That is: individual human beings very rarely feel in accord
with or at peace with “God’s will” * i.e., the unfolding of fate
(game destiny) from moment to moment. That is: we are very rarely at
peace with ourselves (considered transcendentally as God, creator of
this world and of our fate/destiny within it).

If you think about it, there is only one way for a non-servile sort of
person to be at peace with God, life, reality, fate: see yourself as the
sole creator of it * i.e., that no other being is imposing anything on
you against your will. Hence: you as the transpersonal playmaker Self
are the creator of you and your fate as a personal player self. Hence:
you are the author of all your dislikes and limitations. Hence: you are
the creator of the fact that you are fearful or horrified by this or
that in life or that you are a weak and fragile being (in short, a
normal human avatar).

Realising this you might come to like that you dislike some things.
That is your personality/persona to play out. So play it. “Play out
the play” * as Shakespeare said. It is perfectly in order that you
get angry or anxious at this or that, or that you sometimes get
depressed, or that life seems so tragic at times, or you get horrified
at some things (war, earthquakes, bushfires, etc).

Be honest with yourself about how you feel and feel what you feel *
it is okay to have those feelings. Be at peace with the fact that you
are not at peace with it. Hence, if you are angry, be at peace with that
anger. And so on.

What happens? Paradoxically, what tends to happen when you are at peace
with not being at peace about something (angry, fearful, depressed, etc)
is that these un-peaceful emotions start to weaken and wither by
themselves (setting their own pace). Why? * Because you are not
feeding them with further divisiveness and hostile agitation (eg,
getting angry about being angry is just more anger).

In short, let everything be as an integral whole as it currently is in
this moment, including yourself as you currently are. It is perfectly in
order that it is as it is * including that you don’t personally like
this or that much (that you yourself as transcendental playmaker have
created).

Being able to be at peace in life * it all depends on which self and
its values you identify with most. If you identify most with your
personal ego and its values then you will rarely be at peace. You will
be at the mercy of every changing wind that blows. For your personal
self or ego is very fragile and has so many likes and dislikes. Fate
seldom gratifies your personal likes and dislikes * as you may have
noticed by now. On the other hand, if you identify most with your
transcendental transpersonal Self and its values, then you will be able
to let go of your personal ego and its various likes and dislikes more
easily and so be at one with change and fate and death * i.e., God’s
will * i.e., your own higher will. No matter what happens in life you
will always have that sanctuary within.

Ancient Greek philosophers called it eudemonia: the capacity to be
intelligently untroubled and freely happy from within yourself and
thereby relatively immune to the changing flux of fate and fortune. This
is also widely reckoned to be a kind of wisdom * which is what
philosophy is all about. For as we said in week one, philosophy is the
love of wisdom.

making

Tonight I am internet happy.
&
Thought I'd share something with you. I recently decided that I want to be a bit more crafty and creative, so I made myself a little bit of an owl softie. I researched patterns and styles of owls for a little while then just kinda made up my own pattern.. I could be a little more adventurous though. Anyway here are some photos. If you look closely, you can see me wearing a silly headscarf in the background.







I read this guy's tumblr and he always uploads pictures he's taken of himself with photobooth. He's really pretty and can do that, but I can't do it the same. I'll just hide behind my owls.

I think for the next softie that I make I'll just use the floral material for the whole thing and maybe have the wings a plain colour. I wasn't really sure what combination would work the best.. I mean this little fellow is cute, isn't he? He was nice to cuddle last night anyway.

Farmer Wants a Wife is possibly the worst show to ever grace Australia's television screens, amirite?!

not not belonging

Stacey you want me to write about not belonging. I feel like I could write something about how I just went to Horsham and I never feel like that is my home any more simply because all my friends have left and nothing happens there.. but isn’t that just a giant cliché? I think it’s the closest I have to not belonging.

I feel like I don’t belong when I am alone at gigs (this happened to me more last year – have not been to so many gigs this year)

But actually I try to ignore all the things I don’t belong to! Better to concentrate on the things that I do belong to. Dwell not on the negative.

---

Anyway today on the train back to Melbourne there was this bunch of cool kids. By cool I mean French and Italian. I wanted to belong to them & I wrote something vague and vaguely poetic [HOPEFULLY]

---

French boys talking about driving on the left side of the road, snuggling into and leaning on each other with large eyebrows and lazy beards.

A butterfly
in all its splendour
flies alone

I will admit that this topic left me rather melancholy. Also, I hate American spelling.

-Stacey.

Dedication; Gustavo Pérez Firmat
from I Eat Poetry

The fact that I
am writing to you
in English
already falsifies what I
wanted to tell you.
My subject:
how to explain to you that I
don't belong to English
though I belong nowhere else.

The topic for this week is: Not belonging.

from gloom cupboard

Robert Laughlin
Free

There still remain for you and me,
Though all the world exploit us,
Two purest pleasures without fee:
The library and coitus.

omlette

One of the best bloggers on the interwebs is Pip Lincolne. She posts so many sweet things I can barely keep up. Cute websites full of owl pictures and other bits of niceness, like this meme thing. I don't even care that everyone loves/knows her blog. I am just reblogging on the offchance that some "random" people who RSS to my blog (in the ideal/fantasy land that I live in I have secret people who subscribe to my blog) will see/read this post and go to her blog and henceforth enjoy all the loveliness that is Meet Me At Mikes.

And here's the stuff that I am doing

Making : eyes at the television
Cooking : nothing
Drinking : watre
Reading: a book about writers and their lovers/a lot of stuff on google reader
Wanting: this chair to be more comfortable
Looking: at the news
Playing: with my empty mousse thingo
Wasting: time!
Sewing: does knitting count ?
Wishing: that there was more mousse
Enjoying: making funnies behind Jason's back
Waiting: for people
Liking: express media buzzcuts programme for letting me in!!
Wondering: about the power of towers
Loving: my sister's art friends/hayley & amanda's exhibition opening (stay tuned to kym's blog for pictures!!)
Hoping: that I will create some decent ads for this stupid assignment
Marvelling: at the stupidity of Kyle Sandilands
Needing: another cushion for this couch
Smelling: there's still a waft of kebab scent in the lounge
Wearing: large flowery retrostar dress
Following: well I guess I'm now following that owl picture website
Noticing: that everyone is getting into tumblr. what's the deal?
Knowing: it's bedtime soon
Thinking: my bum hurts
Feeling: my sore bum
Bookmarking: owl pictures
Opening: up a can o worms
Giggling: about mousse related things
Feeling: like I wanna go see Taking Woodstock. Emile Hirsch + Dimitri Martin!!

appreciation!

Wooden objects post time.

I recently acquired a lot of hard rubbish, the most of which is wooden, but I kinda have a few little things around that I love a lot more. Also there are fairly obvious things like musical instruments that I adore (piano & oboe obviously) but I think it's nice to talk about small things sometimes. I also just ran around taking dumb pictures of the things on my phone because there aren't enough pictures on this blog for my liking.

So these are matryoshka dolls that my friend Natasha (the Russian) gave me for my birthday last year. the big one has things hidden inside her. Tasha said her mum made her bring them when she moved here so she could give presents to friends. Lucky meeeeee!

This round box here used to be home to yummy turkish delight that my aunt bought me for Christmas when I was staying with her in this little village in England. Neat. And it wasn't the chocolate covered kind - although that kind is yummy too - but the proper .. icing sugar? coated type. Now it is home to badges and other miscellaneous things (like a key from Stacey that reportedly fits nowhere)



This is Jacki's hairbrush. Last Christmas I asked for a hairbrush and I wanted one like this but I got a crappy plastic round one. Jacki didn't even bloody ask for one and she received this beautiful one. Little bitch! So I kinda just use this when she's not looking.

Wooden Things - Stace

Susie says: "let's do a blog post about our favourite wooden objects. up to three things. they don't have to be completely wooden, just mostly woooden."

I'm not sure if the three o's in wooden was a typo or if Susie was just really excited about the whole idea. Basically, I have one wooden thing that I like that I can think of.

That is my record player. It was a gift from my ex-boyfriend. On the lid it has messages from my two best friends and said ex-boyfriend riding on a dragon. Sam, my sig. other, drew a speech bubble connected to said ex saying "I'm fast at sex!" due to his dislike of him.

Apart from the scandal that takes place on the lid, the record player is quite lovely. It also has a CD player, a tape player and a radio player.

Sitting dormant in my record player, is a shiny black vinyl record which states "Townes Van Zandt. Live At The Old Quarter, Houston, TX."

It is relaxing for me to sit in bed and listen to a record; a far better experience than listening to music through the speakers of my laptop. No, this is the real listening experience. The physical, grittiness of the needle running through those grooves, over and over, around and around. Until the needle lays still.

which way to

6 things that make me happy.

The rules:
Link back to the person who tagged you.
List six little things that make you happy.
Tag six bloggers and let them know they’re “it”.

1. working at union arts

2. beautiful bookstores (even though they are usually really expensive)

3. getting to sing songs (and play music) really loud when you're home alone

4. hanging around in the uni caf for hours after classes have finished (talking about very little at all with really good people)

5. wandering around Hawthorn on nice days (it's a pretty place to live)

6. toast (noodles also really, but for the sake of sixness, toast wins) with avocado

Nobody is tagging real people & I don't think I have six people who read this blog regularly so I guess if you read this, please do (apart from Stacey, who already did hers)
oh and Chelsea from the really awesome band Teacups started the whole thing

Colours
Yevgeny Yevtuschenko

When your face
appeared over my crumpled life
at first I understood
only the poverty of what I have.
Then its particular light
on woods, on rivers, on the sea,
became my beginning in the coloured world
in which I had not yet had my beginning.
I am so frightened, I am so frightened,
of the unexpected sunrise finishing,
of revelations
and tears and the excitement finishing.
I don't fight it, my love is this fear,
I nourish it who can nourish nothing,
love's slipshod watchman.
Fear hems me in.
I am conscious that these minutes are short
and that the colours in my eyes will vanish
when your face sets.


The wind is whistling violently through the cracks in the door. It is quite alarming.

- Stace

ending, this week

This poem is from a website called Gloom Cupboard.

Lindsea Kemp
Ending, this week

This week has been nothing but endings.
Sticky endings, pulled apart with little
mucus ropes hanging together.
Clean endings, one schwap
of the axe and cut.
Mixed up endings, where
goodbye sounds like hello coming
from a pair of red Rocky Horror lips
that you later find out
is your sphincter.

This week I realized I am dying.
And for some reason all I want
is a hamburger, greasy.
I want to shove the thin
ground beef patty into my
open mouth. Squeeze a couple
ketchup covered fries in.
Suck frantically at the straw of my Coke
like it is life’s elixir.
My hands are covered
in grease, and I have a
funny feeling my soul is drenched.
Smeared shiny and sticky, I roll
in Hiroshima ash and curl.
I am a sugar covered donut.

This week I haven’t showered,
only spun in my own
fevered nightmares, my sweaty
sheets heavy as a lecher’s kiss—
an executioner’s axe—
the 1.65 ounces of metal
that it takes to put a bullet through
another human’s head.

This week I found the fear of death
hidden behind my puckering
navel. It was hard to find, because
it’s fear of life’s conjoined, bloody fetus.
So ugly, but I can’t turn my Oreo eyes
away. They’re now shrink wrapped and
labeled for resale ease.



This week I knew everything.
The first kiss of a dying couple, Osama Bin Laden’s underwear brand, your mother, the white and yellow Rx bottle used as a teddy bear, the space between the boot and the landmine, the dash in between the dates on the gravestone, a cheap hooker’s retarded brother, the wind on an Ugandan’s face, multiple orgasms, a dying pigeon’s final breath ignored, empty buses, cloudy sunsets, chewed bubble gum, the reason you need to pray.

It’s commonplace, really.
I am nothing. I am everything. I am ending.

Since Susie was blogging about Melbourne, I’d though I’d say a bit about the city I live in, Auckland.

I have lived in Auckland my whole life and feel quite at home here. I know all of the nooks and crannies of this city and it brings me great joy. Some places in particular that I like are:

- The Laingholm, Titirangi area. It is close to where I grew up though it is not too far out of the city to make you feel out of touch with humanity. It is a peaceful place nestled away in the bush, it has an arty sort of feel and the people are so lovely.

- West coast beaches such as Piha, Murawai, Bethells. These beaches are perhaps half an hour drive from civilization but they are quite beautiful. To me, they are what all beaches should be; the booming waves, idyllic surroundings, BLACK sand – all the things that I grew up with.

- K Rd (aka Karangahape Road). I suppose you could call in the cultural centre of Auckland, strangely enough, it is also our red light district. As I now live just off K rd, I am quite used to the medley of strange characters that dwell on the road; the raving lunatics, the homeless, the drunks, the transvestites, the prostitutes and the hipsters. Mostly they keep to themselves. There are a wide variety of op shops, art galleries and cafes – everything a hipster needs.

- Waiheke Island. To get here, you catch a ferry from downtown Auckland; this will take you 30 minutes. The island is actually quite vast; but there are the few popular places that people mostly go to. Whenever I go there, I feel such a wonderful sense of community and it is a very arty community at that. Known for its vineyards and quiet beaches, it is really the ideal place for me.

night creatures

yesterday I escorted a good friend to a meeting at Lucky Coq. While she attended this meeting of hers I killed time by investigating some sweet as stores on the upper (?) end of Chapel street. The non-club end. I never go out on Chapel Street because it is always way too done up for me and you pretty much always get groped, no matter what you do, say or look like.

Melbourne is quite fantastic. If you forgot or don't even know, here are a few reasons why.

-Lucky Coq in Prahan (and Bimbo's in Collingwood/Fitzroy or whatever - it's on Brunswick st) has $4 pizzas at very accessible hours and they are motherfucking tasty as all hell. I had one that is basically nachos on pizza. I felt that I needed to give it a try. They also have decently gourmet ones featuring the likes of salmon and proscuitto and various cheeses.

-abundance of quirky stores in unexpected places. Chapel street for me is mostly full of icky, glitzy expensive places that I will never buy anything from (see: American Apparel, Ed Hardy, various boutiquey places etc). But if you get off at Windsor train station and walk down towards the main bit from there you go past all these really sweet op shops. I think that if it was just slightly bigger, my new favourite op shop would be Fat Helen's. In terms of price I'd put it lower than Retrostar but higher than Savers. We're talking Lost and Found Market prices. They had a fairly good stash of Sega games and swizzle sticks. Oh and Tintin tshirts ($22, fyi). I also went into this really cool store full of antique furniture. It fell into the category of stores that I will never buy anything from, but it was epicly awesome. The kind of place you wander around quite utterly awestruck. There is also a Very Good bookstore pretty much right across from the train station that, when Shu Shu and I entered it, was home to three cats that clearly owned the place. cats just give everything a real good feeling.

-the train system. I know heaps of people don't really get into Connex in a big way, but I personally have always enjoyed the sensation of being driven somewhere. I get into train journeys. I particularly like the way the city looks when you approach it from a south eastern direction; from Prahan way. You feel a bit lower, a bit less important, and Melbourne seems quite grand and slightly imposing. Plus me and Shu Shu saw a real big dog on the way back to the city (see: picture above)

-general bars/restaurants/cafes. I wish I was wealthy enough to always dine out or be out in general. I passed a lot of warm places up that end of Chapel street.

Hey anyway, I love this city. I guess I wanted to tell everyone about it instead of thinking about some other things that are happening inside me.

what? dirty projectors?

I just decided that I really want to blog more and kinda want to post blogs here at my own whim. I also just got a new layout.. maybe a bit pointless because everyone just RSSs these days.. but it's pretty and it came from this really cool girl (I think it's a girl?) over at yummy lolly. I'm pleased to inform ya'll that the layout - indeed all her layouts - are under a Creative Commons license so they're free and I encourage you to download one for your own use because they are really pretty! Just see mine for details.

I want to tell you a little bit of a story about blog-sploration before I go. When you check your Google reader every day it becomes really boring to have only a few things to read.. so I took it upon myself to add more blogs to my library. I actually was googling the Lost and Found Market in Collingwood to check if their website had been updated to something more than the postcard they hand out when you buy something and no they have not. But I had noticed that some girl's blog came up when I googled the market soooo I went there and found it to have a really good list of local blogs that she reads. I encourage a perusal of this list if you live in Melbourne (by you I mean imaginary compendium of blog readers). From there I got Meet me at Mike's, who have this really cool layout that reminds me of these books that I used to have as a child.. THERE, on her website, she suggests you look at this website along with a lot of other handy hints for awesome blog cultivation. SO THEN I GOOGLED FREE BLOG DESIGNS & THAT'S HOW I FOUND YUMMY LOLLY AND NOW I HAVE A PRETTY LAYOUT.

Incidentally, at the same time I was researching gigs in Melbourne (I don't know why; I'm not even there at the moment) on Faster Louder and then went to this other website which is like a general guide to all that is awesome in Melbourne WHERE I FOUND this sorta.. event suggestion thing that was *we are now approaching the actual incident, the purpose of this rant.. purpose???* mentioned at work the other week. Basically, it's like this exhibition of illustrations or paintings or whatever the hell they are and there's this tattooist in the corner who will give you free tatts of his designs! And this is happening tomorrow the 11th of July and next Saturday the 18th. I would like to go for interest's sake (plus I want a tattoo and getting one for free would be fairly awesome) and to see how many people show up to get themselves tattooed!! And so I have subscribed to the RSS feed of this neat website which is actually called Three Thousand - OMG I JUST REALISED THAT IS REALLY CLEVER BECAUSE IT IS THE POSTCODE OF THE CBD!!!

And that is probably enough general commentary about my travels on the interwebs because I could probably be watching something really awesome like Juvies on telly.

My festival would be at my mum's farm, Redrock, near the Grampians (in Victoria) because it is beautiful there and there would be no sort of venue hiring fee. People may drive to and from the event, but cars are not to be utilised during the festival. Also there's Vline, and there would be special buses taking punters from Horsham to Redrock.

One weekend; one stage.

The Parking Lot Experiments
Great Earthquake
yay local bands of complete win and whimsy

Tinpan Orange
chilled out awesome storytelling folk

Croque Monsieur
gypsy folk insanity for dance fun

Teacups
I must see these girls play

John Darnielle & Owen Pallet
uniting to create the superband Mountain Fantasy

Dan Deacon
cos apparently he puts on quite the show?

Laura Marling
Noah & the Whale
Bridezilla

Jens Lekman
oh jensy jens

Lonely Drifter Karen
German cabaret ftw

There'd also be like artist stalls from Wartook & Natimuk - small local towns full of arty/crafty folk

For food.. I'll kidnap a representative from Lazzat's (tasty Malaysian foodz), someone from 'Dirty' Dumplings, get the Dadswell's Bridge Indian Restaurant to have their stall, there will be a jam donut lady, a baked potato person and a stall bearing wares from Cafe Baghdad (general cafe goods of awesome quality).

Toilet/bathroom facilities would be those weird sawdust contraptions they had at falls. So like NOT port-a-loos. There's still TP though, and toilet seats. And I don't feel there's a particular need for shower facilities seeing how it's only for one night.

Channelling the goodness of Golden Plains, there would be somewhere in the realm of 2500-4000 tickets sold (hopefully)

Actually I just realised that this is all very Wimmera-centric. I guess maybe most festivals begin like that..? you want to showcase bands that are really dear to you, a place that is beautiful.. just the kind of thing you want to share with your friends.

My festival would be at Tapapakanga Regional Park just out of Auckland city. I've been to a festival there and it is really beautiful. It is right beside the ocean and it has a really nice space, not overly huge so it would just be a smallish festival. But honestly, festivals in NZ are so wonderful because they are not so big and overcrowded. The festival will be two days long and there is a camping site just a small hike up the hill from where the stages are. Honestly, the only thing for these types of affairs are Port-o-Loos and they are disgusting but also part of the experience. They would, however, be cleaned regularly. There would be a lot of vegetarian, organic food stalls; but also the normal stuff like burgers, pizza, icecream, breakfast food, café food etc. In terms of other activities/events, there would be clothes and crafts stalls, book stalls and crafty things.

The bands I would invite are:

Sigur Ros, Owen, The Mountain Goats, Teacups, Songs: Ohia, Broken Social Scene, Sufjan Stevens, Tegan and Sara, Explosions in the Sky, Mogwai, Scout Niblett, Leader Cheetah, Kimya Dawson, Kaki King, Joanna Newsom, Jens Lekman, Iron and Wine, Emiliana Torrini, Elvis Perkins, Cat Power, Bonnie ‘Prince’ Billy, Belle and Sebastian, Beach House, Arcade Fire, Band of Horses, Andrew Bird.

I also want to invite comedians such as:

Flight of The Conchords, Eugene Mirman, Stewart Lee, Richard Herring, Demetri Martin, David O’Doherty, Ricky Gervais, Zach Galifianakis.

It would pretty much be awesome.

-Stace

the best you ever had

NEW TOPIC: festival curation!!!

If you could organise a music festival

- where would it be? (consider transport to and from venue, also possible buses to local towns during the festival if it is a longun)

- what bands would you invite? (this can be as realistic or unrealistic as you want)

- how many days?

- how many stages/tents

- what food stalls?

- any other activities/events?

- what type of toilet/bathroom facilities? (cause that's a pretty important part of things, obviously)

- around how many tickets would you sell?

aaand that's about all I think for now. Deadline... before Monday the 6th of July

red wine

Saturday morning.
Wake up
Try to work out why I am awake
Realise that it's because I have left my blinds open
Sit up
Check the time
Not the right time to be awake
clothes on the ground
unceremoniously thrown off
stumble to the bathroom
Check the damage
Through blurry eyes
have I been in a fight?
my mouth looks bloody
or like an anti-smoking ad
Because
Before the un-ceremony
Before stumbling into bed
Leaving the blinds open
I drank
and I drank.

blood red wine

fingers clasp the glass stem

liquid swirls as i sway

to music, so

visceral and necessary.

empty glass -

stained lips.

-Stace

Susan, I have devised a new topic: Red wine.

I am currently drinking a glass.

It was $6.99.

Must be written by the end of the weekend.

Egg

I was sitting here thinking about what on earth I could write about eggs. Then I thought, well, a wise man once said that if you can't write about eggs, write about how you can't write about eggs. Or something.. At first I thought of the physical appearance, unbroken: smooth, brown and fragile, broken: liquid, clear and gooey, cooked: yellow and white. Then on TV, Bender was making a cake with eggs. Then I remembered that Sam made eggs for breakfast. There was this whole new egg world that I was suddenly taking notice off. Funny how we only see things when we are looking for them.

From what I gather there is no strict criteria about the way in which we express a topic, let me know if this is kosher.

-Stace

egg1

It must be a

long train ride

for the woman

peeling a hard boiled egg

one one one

hi everyone.

this blog is going to come back with a vengence (I hope)

Stacey Teague and I will be maintaining this blog across the (Tasman? I never know which one is the one between NZ and Aus) sea. 

said she: I was thinking that we should start some sort of writing exercise thing just between us. Like choose a topic and we both have to write about it, whether it’s prose, poetry or just opinion. Let me know if you’re interested.

said I: Onto your idea. I think that’s a good idea! I reckon it should somehow be separate from our emails. Do you have a google account? If you do, I can set you up as a contributor on my blogspot and we can post our responses there maybe? I think that’s possible. I mean I know we both hate blogspot, but it’s essentially a blank canvas as I rarely use it these days. How would we choose topics?

and um here we are.

Topic of the day: eggs

deadline: 5pm Aus time

stupid things that Susie only just realised recently: Katy and Luke Steele are related! & The opening line of Girl in Port is "let fall your soft and swaying skirts" NOT "look for your soft and swaying skirts"

horrid thing seen on the way home from work: an old man hosing a possum in a tree

favourite moment of Thursday: hearing Olsen Olsen as I walked past Polyester

anyway, let the egg-tries commence!

(wild()life)

Why have you buried yourself in the dirt, My Sparrow?
Are you cold?
You look too fat to be cold.
Maybe you wanted to feel safe for a second, wanted to be held
Without relinquishing

your

self

shantysomething

a precurser to this entry (something to keep in mind whilst reading it)
a way to decipher what I mean (a complaint instead of a triumph)
:
why is it so hard to just ask for what you want?

please find more unhealthy exposure to my mind at

livejournal
&
wordpress

livejournal is a liberated version of this blog; it's a lot less concerned with outside opinions, it's a bit more personal and honest. with that said, I do have the power to make certain entries friends only, so if there seems to be an inordinate amount of time in which I have not blogged, it is probably due to me barring them from mere public access.

wordpress, however, is diametrically opposed. I am required to keep this blog for uni and I intend to nurture it quite rigorously over the semester, feeding it with ponderings, implications, theories and other musings of that ilk.

I pseudo-invite my few blogger cohorts and unknown, keen readers - hey, they may exist (or not) - to seek out my prose at these sites simply because they will be more frequented than these hallowed halls. With that said, my favourites over here seem to have abandoned their respective ships for reasons that I am unaware of and so I feel sadly disconnected from their possibly wondrous existences. I am pseudo inviting/initiating interest some other form of communication from well I don't know, some people, and bashfully remind them that if they are not already aware of my email address, it is certainly accessible from my "profile" here or located in their msn contacts. with THAT said, I realise that most of us are busy.

But that is why I am closing up "shop" here for a little while, recommending other places to find me and being a bit selfish and asking for some attention in other arenas.

I would like to call upon the iridescent Regina Spektor's lyrics at this juncture to round up the blog for a little hiatus in a possibly meaningful and hopefully relevant fashion.

people are just people
they shouldn't make you nervous
the world is everlasting, it's coming and it's going

magic numbers

Lately I've been feeling like things are moving on from their baseless, pointless nature. And I with them.

That said, I am also wondering if it's all just a trick and I will go on feeling so goddamn useless and unsubstantial for [the rest of my life] a long time.

Of course I can't lie and say I constantly feel like that. I forget from time to time. But it's something I return to.

Then I also think that maybe I just don't accept happiness and that I just seek out sadness. Or not even. Sometimes I think that I do the same things as everyone and what I think unhappy is is just normal. Maybe I just want to seem like an anomaly. Lately I also think that people just crave individuality and will do anything they can to seem so. Even feign sadness. Maybe I'm guilty of that.

The image of 'happy' I have in my mind is this absurdly ecstatic, overjoyed person who has everything they ever wanted and is consistently excited about waking up every morning. Happiness for me is often little victories.

What is happy anyway? A feeling? An emotion? Most of the time I think that I'm just 'fine', neither unhappy or happy. But fine has negative connotations so whenever you say that people assume there's something wrong. Maybe that's the problem: people go assuming that fine is wrong and so it eventually becomes wrong.

5.52

Guess what
I only keep this blog for less than 3 people
Others I can talk to in person

I still don't like you, blogger. I despise the animosity that you seem to encourage
I don't feel like I can talk about James Joyce here. It seems the wrong place for him to inhabit

I don't like how I feel I am not allowed to talk about myself - that is speak of I - here.

I'm a working girl now and my computer's coming soon so I'll be able to pay attention to everything here a bit more regularly. But also now I work and uni is starting so there's that also.

Ah and I don't know whether I can go to Summertones this weekend because my sister's decided to have her 21st on that day. That disappoints me not only because I wanted to see PLE but also because I will have to go back home the weekend before uni starts.

Finally. My feet hurt a lot and I'd like a new pair of shoes quite soon.

we'll just honey-soy the chicken then figure out what we're doing

I am writing to inform my "readers" that I don't actually have constant access to the internet and will as such be relying on sporradic trips to my uni's library (which are somewhat depressing given that I don't have any other reason to be there and will be forced to spend time there in approximately two weeks) and my sister's house. I was surprised to note that the latter is actually located quite closely to the Hawthorn Library and felt rather surprised and somewhat violated as my real life semi-intersected with my blogspot life. Anyway. The point of all this is that I don't have internet. Or tv. I find myself watching a lot of dvds and going on a lot of extensive tram journeys. My sister's helping us out with a couple of discs of Strangers With Candy.

For some time I contemplated life as a small bird in a cage. I've got nothing against birds in general - save for cassowaries. And I don't really like chickens unless they are bantams though. Well groomed bantams, mind you, none of this ridiculous feathery crap. Feathered ankles will lead to dirty ankles. Then they will get all lumpy and gross.

maybe they were just dream-like

please pretend it's yesterday on the train.... GO

"Fuck the clouds are so pretty today but I can't draw (at all) with a pen (or anything else) so they will have to remain etched upon my memory. There's a small slit in a sheet of heavy blue clouds and the sun's rays are just getting through it, shining two strong sections of beam down to the ground that now looks like the promised land or as if something holy has happened there. I could pretend like God was sitting behind this blueish curtain with a torch, doing some sort of ethereal puppetry for the amusement of his kingdom. But it's just a large ball of gas and a weather pattern in beautiful desultory union. It all makes me 'excited' for winter; at least convinces me there will be some salvation from the dry, harsh summer"

triple cancer

It's funny how awkward people feel/seem/look when strangers approach them. Even if strangers are friendly they are regarded with suspicion.

It doesn't help if they appear or speak quite eccentrically. Yesterday on the tram this scruffy - the bad kind - middle-aged man was animatedly interacting with everyone around him. Fortunately I had my ipod in so I was saved from his outlandishness. I suppose we protect our personal space very dramatically on public transport with mp3 players, sunglasses, reading material, phones or if lucky enough, a friend. This particular fellow deigned to pat the man in front of him on the knee quite jovially. He was loud and spoke to people who were over a metre away. I even utilised the classic technique of looking out the window to ensue I was not dragged into this odd display.

When he got off all of the people around exchanged glances of disbelief and mirth. We had all been baffled by this man's demeanour. I'm sure those closest were genial about the meeting, but like me I would assume they'd have some anxiety as to whether he would have a funny turn. If he was unpredictable enough to engage in such an exchange, what else would he be capable of? There was an instant where he flailed an arm rather theatrically and yelled irritably at a young man attempting to come down the aisle with a suitcase that exhibited a nasty side of his character.

This seems fairly boring and prosaic but I wanted to document my observations about personal space and general boundaries. If there's a purpose it seems talking to strangers is acceptable. Two girls asked me for directions earlier in the day and I didn't know them, yet acquiesced without a further thought. Admittedly I was sending them away from me, so had they been weird girls I would have been fine anyway. Although with that said, some purposes can go quite wrong. At the bus stop an odd, drunk and wet looking young man was asking everyone for a "ciggie". He was apparently too drunk to understand nobody smoked.

[note: why, when people ask for cigarettes, is the negative response usually "I don't smoke" rather than a mere "no"? Seems to me like a subconscious moral highground]

From his appearance you could tell that you wanted to stay away from this creep. He was leering at a lady with her baby. The same lady had been leered at by a man whilst actually ON the bus; a man who had interjected into my conversation with an old school friend at what most would deem unacceptable intervals. As soon as the interrupter spoke of being stoned I knew we wouldn't be paying much more attention to him. Speaking openly about taking drugs with people you don't know, especially in public places, is something I have also noted to be a significant "no-no". So I felt bad for this poor woman with her baby who appeared to be all alone at the bus stop. I was just lucky that I had someone to stand with while I waited for my mum.

jaundice

My response to former idealism

Of course we lost everything in the fire. My horse perished. I'm only seven years old, how was I to understand? Mum stayed behind hosing down everything she could think of til flames leapt at our verandah. Then she came to join us at nan's. I never even got to ride that horse - hadn't even named it. Now it's just a carcass in a burnt paddock. Maybe we'll go back tomorrow if it's safe. At least the telly's working again, not that there's anything on.

vi-oooh-laaay-tion

After a week of immense heat, minimal thought and Ryan Adams having a hissy fit with tech guys, I woke on Monday to find my computer completely missing. It was stolen from my bedroom whilst I was asleep. Being human I had erred to leave my door unlocked that night - in fact as I have done for about the last eight months - and the perpetrator had obviously just waltzed in of their own accord and, finding that I was asleep (read: dead to the world), procured a shiny new piece of technology.

This loss is worsened by the fact that this isn't actually the first computer that has been treated badly in my care. In June, my sister spilt milk on my first Macbook. It stopped working and was later replaced by insurance. After this latest fiasco I found myself quite enraged and still in utter disbelief that something like this could happen. But then mum called me and said that we can get MORE INSURANCE. So I feel pretty happy about that.

In other news on Saturday I went to see Ryan Adams and the Cardinals. They were brilliant but did not play long enough for anyone's liking. I actually thought it was a joke when they walked offstage at 10.30 after playing for about 70 minutes. I got some decent pictures on both my phone and my camera so I imagine they will be forthcoming for perusal. Also last night I went to see Born Ruffians at the East Brunswick Club because I figured that there was no point remaining in my hovel when I could be enjoying Canadians who wouldn't scratch my arm. I imagine pics will surface of that concert also.

I've been toying with the idea of turning this blog into something actually worthwhile reading. Like actually review some of the gigs I go to and post the reviews here. Imagine, a blog with a purpose! How alarming.

Finally, if anyone has a place for me to live this year, just put your hand up. Then put it down. Then put your hands back on your keyboard and tell me via the typed word. Then I will love you.

note: The previous entry is my latest idea for a movie, though admittedly it is inspired by real life. But I can't explain it without sounding like a complete, malicious bitch so I'm not going to try.

The Anti Kosher

Absolutely nothing seems to be right in this obscene heat. That's why I've decided to dedicate my life to taking down a bitch. I'm going to make it my mission in life to bang every boyfriend she has. There's nothing like a little personal vendetta to cool you down. If you don't have air conditioners I suggest you just start plotting some large, complicated vengeance plans.

recycle bananas

When you have nothing pressing in your life - like I don't - you come to realise that pretty much the rest of your existence is comprised of memories and nostalgia in general. And when you go to write your blog you feel helpless because you are in nostalgia's grip and it won't let you go. You can't write about anything that is PRESENTLY HAPPENING, because even if you try to, it is highly unlikely that people will read instantly. You could try to write about the thoughts that come to mind, or what you are currently doing. But why would you, because they are all going to be outdated before you can even write them down. In short, documenting anything seems to be absolutely pointless.

Each time I try to start writing a blog here - not always, but indeed this week - I want to refer to other times I have written. Other people who have written. I know I profess to being a wordlover but if this continues I imagine it could become tiresome.

The grip tonight steers us back to high school.

I found a Vans shoebox under my desk. I looked deep into the box and found myself tumbling forth into a dark abyss. I wildly flailed my arms around in an attempt to stay afloat, but try as I might, I had been ensnared by a force stronger than my limbs could resist. After the initial shock, I became used to the feeling of sinking and began to somewhat enjoy myself. Music washed over me as I was pulled in by this purgatoric spiral, haunting melodies that are still with me today.

*she cannot decide at this juncture whether to speak of the music she was actually truthfully listening to, or whether it is apt to make a funny and so nothing will be included*

Reaching the bottom, I toweled myself off from the sopping songs that had doused me on my fall and cautiously surveyed my surroundings. A young boy clad in an orange jumper and a naff cap with a flap at the back appeared swiftly, taking my towel and disappearing just as swiftly as he'd arrived. Not quite knowing what to make of this ball boy invasion in my reverie, I shrugged and slid open my phone, using it to light my way. The dim light from my phone revealed that I was in fact in what appeared to be a cage. I furrowed my brow, unsure how the ball boy had come and gone from this space so quickly. Shrugging again I noticed a small gap between one wall of the cage and another, and slid through it to what I felt was my freedom.

Outside of the cage, I noticed a few stepping stones set into sand. Seeing no other possibilities and indeed, having nothing else to do, I jumped onto the first, then the other, and another and so on. I subconsciously began counting the stones and after a spell realised that this was the list of 100 things that my friend Jacki liked about me. It was in that instant that a wave of mirth crashed over me, not only upsetting me from my position on the stone, but again rendering me completely soaked. The ball boy was not in sight this time and I knew I had no choice but to remain in this drenched state.

Shaking my head in an attempt to appear comic and also stave off some of the wetter parts of my hair, I was surprised to see a large, broken mail box. Concerned that my flashback had been mixed up with 'The Lake House', I checked under my armpits for Sandra Bullock. My findings were inconclusive, so I apprehensively approached the English-lookin' box. The box struck me as being quite rugged, well-worn and experienced with drugs. Not for the first time, I furrowed my brow and inhaled as I considered what this dilapidated postbox was doing here. Ah, I thought, nearly choking on the strong cigar stench, this is my cousin. Holding my arm over my general respiratory system, I cautiously approached the door of the box and attempted to open it. One hand seemed to be too little force to access the inside, so I grudgingly took my other arm away from my mouth to aid in the divulgence of the post box's contents.

It became increasingly difficult for me to breathe - it seemed like the cigar odour was intensifying - and the effort of pulling this door was really taking its toll. I gaped for air. My arms were aching. I could feel my knees beginning to weaken when all of a sudden, the door broke free of its hinges and I was thrust back onto the ground. I jumped back to my feet and darted to the box. Curiously, after my fall, it seemed larger, and indeed I found that I was unable to peer into the opening that I had just created. My inability to breathe forgotten, I began to search for grooves that I could use to climb the now monumentally sized post box. Due to the darkness, I found it necessary to crouch down to the base of the round, red box in order to fully inspect the situation.

As I ducked down there, I felt a rumbling under my feet. Confused, I stood up again and looked around me. Unable to observe anything in the quarter light of my phone. Then, for the third time in my woolgathering, I was knocked off my feet by a forceful gush of liquid, only this time, it was the Dutch version of eggnog known as advokaat. Spluttering from the gluggy consistency of the latest flood, I prayed for the appearance of the speedy ball boy with my wet towel, but I was left lying in the dark, custard clad and confused.

After a few moments of disappointment in myself, I stood up and considered my options. The consideration was very fleeting as I fleetingly realised that I had no options to consider, even fleetingly. I figured though, that as long as I was doused in a tasty European dessert alcohol, I may as well have a bit of a drink. Procuring about a teaspoonful from my forearm, I realised that the custard was in fact stuck to something. I stretched out my arm and shook it around a little bit. As more of the advokaat came off, it became evident that there was paper stuck to my skin. I beamed with the realisation that if I peeled off this mysterious yet miraculous paper I would not have to continue in the reverie with a yellow sticky substance all over me.

After a spell, it was apparent that the paper was no mere paper. The paper was the leaves of my past. I watched the pile of leaves growing larger and larger, different colours, textures and sizes accumulating at my feet. Whilst peeling I mused that it would be quite pleasant to take a large leap into the pile. There appeared to be paper simply all over my body. I was utterly confused by this, seeing how the advokaat had merely gushed at me from the front. I grew tired of trying to reach for every bit of paper and, after a furtive glance around for any other torrents, jumped right into the leaves. Upon landing, I wobbled slightly, but retained my dignity. I waited. Nothing at all happened. If anything, my arms had somehow accrued more advokaat!

Growing slightly alarmed with this slow paced turn of events, I bobbed down into the pile and started patting the ground, searching for my phone. I wanted to ring anyone, anywhere, to talk about anything. My mind raced irrationally [that is to say, my mind raced though it had no reason to run. Nobody was chasing it, it wasn't training for anything in particular. In fact, it doesn't even like running that much at all]. The dark seemed to close in around me as my ideas dissipated. In fact, most things were dissipating around me. Indeed, my body was evaporating into a thick, pale yellow mist.

Appearing to have retained control of my movements, I misted above the pile of leaves for some time, only now able to actually observe what was printed or written on the paper. There were of course various inscriptions, most of which escape me now, but the most important one read:

YOU WILL WRITE A LENGTHY BLOG ABOUT YOUR TIME HERE, BUT PLEASE DON'T RUIN IT BY GOING ON TOO LONG. YOU SHOULD STOP WHEN YOU GET TO THE PART ABOUT TURNING INTO A MIST.

another semi-important message was:

GET SOME SAVLON FOR THAT WEIRD THING ON YOUR ANKLE

and finally:

LISTEN TO BORN RUFFIANS WHEN YOU DROP JACKI HOME TOMORROW BECAUSE IT'S NICE TO DRIVE AND LISTEN TO THEM

~

Folks, I did only just get back from the mist arena and I'm still not quite sure what happened there or why, but I know that I should respect the wishes of the leaves because one thing I do know is that when I go into my bedroom there's a shitload of paper. More than I peeled off my arms in the reverie. More than you could shear off a sheep. More than a sheer sheap. More than the sheer shape of things to come.