I've just started reading a new novel "A Disorder Peculiar to the Country" by Ken Kalfus. It was pressed firmly into my hands (with a smile) by Mez, along with the always cryptic "I would *love* to hear what you think."Well, I'm not sure where it will go from here, but after 20 pages I'm hooked by a wicked opening setup - a bitterly divorcing couple think each other have died in the september 11 suicide crashes in New York. Both of them experience the day through an unfolding sense of glee. If that's not a dark and clever environment to introduce characters, I don't know what will please you!
Today I'm struggling to keep up with the little red line scrolling down my calendar for the day. It is inexorably mowing down the time left to achieve anything off last week's to-do list. January is already in it's last 8 hours and somehow I need to deal, baby, and move on already. The Client is caught up in "'session', I just don't like 'session'. I want something generic and descriptive".
Don't we all?
That could almost be a request for a philosophy of life.
None the less, this word out of two pages of copy is a stumbling block, and there's no moving on until we resolve the emotions the word is generating. So another meeting pops into next week's schedule.
Writing at home is blocked too.
Possibly also on "session" in a different way.
There's time, that's not the problem.
Every night the ticking of the second hand slows down and time stretches out and retreats into a heat haze with mosquitoes and steroid-driven frogs as the woozy, trippy soundtrack. No, it's the held energy, the focus that's completely missing. Within an hour of leaving the aircon, my brain slows down, energy dissipates and then, shutdown.
Scratching suddenly feels like a triumph.
I need to find a way through this or I will end this year with nothing but a pointlessly over-informed opinion of free-to-air television.
Life is definitely too short for that!
Thursday, January 31, 2008
Saturday, January 26, 2008
Joy of Riley
The sun came out this morning, and for a brief hour or so it was a clear sweet day. From bed I could hear seven or eight bird calls and when Riley and I went walking, it was lovely to hear the birds enjoying themselves and smell the hay of mown lawns. Riley was exuberant running and doing little hop jumps. Then throwing himself into the grass and rolling wriggling along on his side on his back, then trying to snorkel through it. Snuffling and huffing he had no cares or worries, just the sheer joy of being alive and having fun.
The sky was beautiful soft blue, clear and strong above, shading slightly to the edges of sight. Moon worked her way towards the brim, but was sadly fading as sun brightness pushed her to the background. But for our walk she was there and I love those times with sun and moon in the same sky. We’re all together.
The sky was beautiful soft blue, clear and strong above, shading slightly to the edges of sight. Moon worked her way towards the brim, but was sadly fading as sun brightness pushed her to the background. But for our walk she was there and I love those times with sun and moon in the same sky. We’re all together.
Friday, January 18, 2008
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Status: Denied
The Company's New Year resolution was to withdraw net access to Facebook. Ah well, it had to happen sooner or later. You could almost feel the slow drag each morning as hundreds of slightly bored and disaffected staff started to idly log-in and check their buds, super-poke someone or upload some more fun-in-sun shots from the weekend at Wet'n'Wild or the Caxton.
Our new staff member who started this Tuesday looked at me incredulously "What do you mean you can't access any web email or networking?!"
"I *know*!" I said. "Stuck here in every way."
I meant to write yesterday, but I went to my boss's office to ask a single question (that needed a yes/no level answer) and lurched out gasping over 2 hours later with about 5 pages of action points. So, work has picked up again and things are quite busy. That's good really. Instead of it being hump day and me trying to find a way to motivate myself, it's already the end of Thursday. Excellent!
Roll the dice, get paid, pass Go, collect $200.
In other news, I am fascinated with Corey and his unfolding melodrama of the Myspace open party. What a modern moment! The publicity, the posed shots, the inarticulateness, the fuming parents copping flak for having such a dickhead for a son and/or for having left him unattended with an internet account. Hi-Larious! Almost as good as the storm this week in Trash City papers over a local being charged $10 for a chicken and salad sandwich at the new shopping centre. No really - it made the front page!! Plenty of finger-pointing in the Letter to the Editor sections too, I can tell you.
"You have to laugh," I tell myself "but don't try satirising it!"
Reality is plenty strange enough right now.
Our new staff member who started this Tuesday looked at me incredulously "What do you mean you can't access any web email or networking?!"
"I *know*!" I said. "Stuck here in every way."
I meant to write yesterday, but I went to my boss's office to ask a single question (that needed a yes/no level answer) and lurched out gasping over 2 hours later with about 5 pages of action points. So, work has picked up again and things are quite busy. That's good really. Instead of it being hump day and me trying to find a way to motivate myself, it's already the end of Thursday. Excellent!
Roll the dice, get paid, pass Go, collect $200.
In other news, I am fascinated with Corey and his unfolding melodrama of the Myspace open party. What a modern moment! The publicity, the posed shots, the inarticulateness, the fuming parents copping flak for having such a dickhead for a son and/or for having left him unattended with an internet account. Hi-Larious! Almost as good as the storm this week in Trash City papers over a local being charged $10 for a chicken and salad sandwich at the new shopping centre. No really - it made the front page!! Plenty of finger-pointing in the Letter to the Editor sections too, I can tell you.
"You have to laugh," I tell myself "but don't try satirising it!"
Reality is plenty strange enough right now.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
13 Crows
Riley and I went to the oval yesterday for a change of pace. I needed somewhere to walk that there was a path. It's wet everywhere all the time, and all the grasses have seeded. Icky. We went down and the oval had been slashed (at least some parks are getting cared for - everything else is badly overgrown - hence my desire for the paths. Although it does shit me a bit that even though there's no sport on it's still the sport field that gets first attention, not any recreational area. On the other hand, as I seem to be the only person walking for recreation, I can understand that it's too much to ask for an appreciative audience of 1).
Anyway. The grass hadn't been collected, just left there in huge clumps (don't start me) and there was a lot of crows strutting all over the place, cawing, pecking at clumps and generally behaving in a slightly gang-like manner. I know that in Europe there are all kinds of omens indicated by Ravens, their number and their activity. I wonder, are Ravens as common as crows? Everyone would be having omens left right and centre.
So I counted the crows and there were 13. "ooooh" I thought, "that might not be great...." but there were definitely 13, no getting around it, until shortly a whole nother gang flew in and then there were 23 or 24. It was hard to count them while they were milling around and really going for one particular large grey clump (which I was happy to continue supposing was just wet grass and not a rabbit). What kind of omen might this be? Abundance? Being beset by an overwhelming number of enemies? Don't be a rabbit under a slasher?
It remained unclear.
Riley and I did our two circumnavigations and got out of there. Afterall, what good are omens you don't understand when Breakfast is waiting?
Anyway. The grass hadn't been collected, just left there in huge clumps (don't start me) and there was a lot of crows strutting all over the place, cawing, pecking at clumps and generally behaving in a slightly gang-like manner. I know that in Europe there are all kinds of omens indicated by Ravens, their number and their activity. I wonder, are Ravens as common as crows? Everyone would be having omens left right and centre.
So I counted the crows and there were 13. "ooooh" I thought, "that might not be great...." but there were definitely 13, no getting around it, until shortly a whole nother gang flew in and then there were 23 or 24. It was hard to count them while they were milling around and really going for one particular large grey clump (which I was happy to continue supposing was just wet grass and not a rabbit). What kind of omen might this be? Abundance? Being beset by an overwhelming number of enemies? Don't be a rabbit under a slasher?
It remained unclear.
Riley and I did our two circumnavigations and got out of there. Afterall, what good are omens you don't understand when Breakfast is waiting?
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Fungus Estate
Riley and I went for a walk this morning down to an unpopulated estate. It has new roads, lights, footpaths, signposts, everything except houses. No houses. It backs onto one of the reserves, the Bremer, and a picturesque (but way too noisy) railway bridge. There's always plenty of birds in the trees, and as it's on a good rise, a great view of the swollen dirty river broiling it's way towards Brisbane.
I like walking that way because it's a walk that has decent paths and if the mood and the weather are right, we can do it a long way and take an hour, or the practical way and do it in 30 minutes. Riley likes it because it has plenty of sniffing and peeing, and some good stretches where he can have a good run.
The thing I noticed again today, is after all of the rain we've been having how many fungi grow wild. Such a huge variety of toadstools and weird things that look like something a giant animal coughed up out of it's throat. The colours range from softest ivory through to orange leather, and the structures too are amazing. Classic toadstools, and fake mushrooms, then the sides of leather, the blobby ones, the ridgy ones, tiny flimsy looking things just sketched lightly and really pointy ones, caricaturing themselves.
So we were walking through this estate, almost eerie in being completely empty of the houses it was designed for, but walking past a lush and continuous display of fungi. It was an odd juxtaposition, and really set the scene for us to be kidnapped by faeries or fall into a parallel world.
I don't think that happened, unless I've just been dreaming that I'm at work.
I will be a bit disappointed when people finally start building here, even though it is crazy to do all this expensive development and not use it. I wonder what the hold-up is? There aren't even any "For Sale" signs up. It feels so private at the moment, but we'll have to share it eventually. Until that time, Riley and I can sneak down there and dream our separate dreams.
I like walking that way because it's a walk that has decent paths and if the mood and the weather are right, we can do it a long way and take an hour, or the practical way and do it in 30 minutes. Riley likes it because it has plenty of sniffing and peeing, and some good stretches where he can have a good run.
The thing I noticed again today, is after all of the rain we've been having how many fungi grow wild. Such a huge variety of toadstools and weird things that look like something a giant animal coughed up out of it's throat. The colours range from softest ivory through to orange leather, and the structures too are amazing. Classic toadstools, and fake mushrooms, then the sides of leather, the blobby ones, the ridgy ones, tiny flimsy looking things just sketched lightly and really pointy ones, caricaturing themselves.
So we were walking through this estate, almost eerie in being completely empty of the houses it was designed for, but walking past a lush and continuous display of fungi. It was an odd juxtaposition, and really set the scene for us to be kidnapped by faeries or fall into a parallel world.
I don't think that happened, unless I've just been dreaming that I'm at work.
I will be a bit disappointed when people finally start building here, even though it is crazy to do all this expensive development and not use it. I wonder what the hold-up is? There aren't even any "For Sale" signs up. It feels so private at the moment, but we'll have to share it eventually. Until that time, Riley and I can sneak down there and dream our separate dreams.
Tuesday, January 08, 2008
New Year: Same Me
Hiho!
welcome back to the blog one and all!
(This is a speed blog - I've set my timer at 10mins to make myself say hello.)
I have been in denial that 07 is done and dusted, and what better day to build a bridge and get over it that the 8th?! A week and a day! So how was your Festivus? The big news here is Helen! Ex-Cyclone Helen and the Dorothea Mackellar-type floods that's she's brought to the entire eastern seaboard it seems like. I would love it if only:
a) it was less hot and humid
b) there wasn't a really big tree in my yard that the family immediately identified as a "widow maker"
c) there was decent telly and I hadn't already run out of ROME and BSG S3!
Ma and Pa have been flooded-in on the farm now and then. They're rolling in it. A temporary creek has sprung up and is winding it's way through the front paddock. Complete with swimming ducks. Three months ago, we were just hoping the olive trees didn't die. Now the tanks and dams on the property have all overflowed, and the grass is back up to waist-height. Yay! Nature, what can I say?
In other news, going back to work has been a push. Even a little break like a week can really bump me out of all my structural habits (not hitting snooze when the alarm sounds!) and combined, well, there's lead weights on my feet as I drag myself to work in the mornings. I'm sure it will pass ... I heard today that Mars has been in a nasty retrograde mood. Well, if Mars says "talk to the hand" mortals ought to take it easy!
That's my 10min folks. Hope you and yours are well, and enjoying living.
Quote for the day from Neil Gaiman's blog:
"I'm only wearing black until they invent a darker colour."
welcome back to the blog one and all!
(This is a speed blog - I've set my timer at 10mins to make myself say hello.)
I have been in denial that 07 is done and dusted, and what better day to build a bridge and get over it that the 8th?! A week and a day! So how was your Festivus? The big news here is Helen! Ex-Cyclone Helen and the Dorothea Mackellar-type floods that's she's brought to the entire eastern seaboard it seems like. I would love it if only:
a) it was less hot and humid
b) there wasn't a really big tree in my yard that the family immediately identified as a "widow maker"
c) there was decent telly and I hadn't already run out of ROME and BSG S3!
Ma and Pa have been flooded-in on the farm now and then. They're rolling in it. A temporary creek has sprung up and is winding it's way through the front paddock. Complete with swimming ducks. Three months ago, we were just hoping the olive trees didn't die. Now the tanks and dams on the property have all overflowed, and the grass is back up to waist-height. Yay! Nature, what can I say?
In other news, going back to work has been a push. Even a little break like a week can really bump me out of all my structural habits (not hitting snooze when the alarm sounds!) and combined, well, there's lead weights on my feet as I drag myself to work in the mornings. I'm sure it will pass ... I heard today that Mars has been in a nasty retrograde mood. Well, if Mars says "talk to the hand" mortals ought to take it easy!
That's my 10min folks. Hope you and yours are well, and enjoying living.
Quote for the day from Neil Gaiman's blog:
"I'm only wearing black until they invent a darker colour."
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