Thursday, October 29, 2009

Wha jus happ'nd?

I had a good idea that came to me either in bed or the shower (two great spots for ideas, which is why I keep a whiteboard marker in my soap dish and my bedside table has more pens than my desk) but I can't remember it now because I have been completely distracted by the hilarious, random and prurient curiosities the world has to offer.

These have come to me via a wonderful network of curious and humorous souls who very thoughtfully send me things* to liven my days. I have felt a little bit like Mr Universe this week "There's only the signal Mal!" (I've been re-watching SF films in mute protest at Moon only screening in 1[one!] cinema in Qld for its release. WHAT KIND OF A BACKWATER IS THIS?! I mean, that's just rude. I've spent quite a bit of time in capslock this week).

Where was I? Oh. Yes.

So between the fury that is exile, and the fact that I've been trying to do what feels like two and half units of work in one work-time-segment, waaay too much coffee (jumpy!jumpy!overloud!), cooking timeporn, the excitement of a cool T shirt every single freakin day - I love the interwebs!, a vehicle I reckon would be a total booty magnet (ooh, toss up between this and the Tesla Roadster now if I ever become stupidly rich) , the latest from the Governator, there is the mindfuck of the utterly provocative and offensive/hilarious promotional material for the new the new Rammstein album "Pussy"... I can't seem to keep a thought straight in my mind until the next distraction comes along.
Ohh look! A monkey!

* Thank you to Mr Wright, Mez, Joel and Jen for some of the content I refer to here! And to Msjaye for content that is not! Do you want to send me things? Do so using orbitaltorch@gmail.com

Sunday, October 25, 2009

Battle Lines

My sister mentioned in passing yesterday that the family is considering holding an intervention on me. Well there's some news.

Which of my many antisocial and problematic behaviours could they be planning to target I wonder? Could it be my relentless cynicism and brooding depressive belief that life is pretty shit and it is best to pretend otherwise so one doesn't spiral helplessly into an abyss of self destruction? Could it be my venomous and acidic disregard for my fellow humans and seething hatred for politicians, derivatives fund managers and smokers? Could it be my addiction to Spider Solitaire - that sensuous and seductive siren who lures me endlessly onto the rocks of lost time?

No. Apparently, these things don't rate a mention. The family takes it all on board with barely a flicker. There are bigger issues. Issues that threaten the fabric of my life if only I could wake up to their horrible implications.

I look again. Is it the dead lemon tree that I haven't removed yet from the barren (possibly poisonous) part of the yard? No. The trees need trimming? I Mean they're kind of touching those wire things at the front of the house again - that can't be good. No, not that, but yes, they do need a trim. The obsession with re-watching Chronicles of Riddick? Nope. Dodgy and worth keeping an eye on, but no.
What then!?

The evil that hides in plain sight gentle reader is this:
Too many books.

To come here I jettisoned about two thirds of my library, and I have culled and thinned and negotiated ever since. Sure there's a few "rainy day" reads put aside, there's a few in the "maybe read" pile that need to be evaluated, there's the "read once - possibly keep for re-reading" pile, there's the room full of books that fall into the "LOVED IT" category, there's the small collection of first editions, there's non-fiction and reference collection, there's the Batman collection. Very humble collections they are too! There's a few piles here and there I admit. But there are no books in the bathroom! There are no books in the hall! And there are only cookbooks in the kitchen! The shed has only 3 tubs of books, that's not bad considering how much room is in there, but I just don't trust the tubs to stand up to the bugs and pests that rule the kingdom of Shed. All the doors in the house open and close without hindrance. Oh, well, except for that one! But other than that I think the house is, frankly, thin on the ground for intellectual stimulation!

Too many books indeed!
There's barbarians at the gate. Raise the drawbridge! Fly the flags of resistance, rattle your swords in their scabbards, release the monsters into the moat! Prepare for battle!

(Oh, and if you're going to pop by, you're welcome to stay, just let me know a day or two ahead if you can so I can unearth the bed in the spare room, it just has a little "filing" on it for the minute.)

Saturday, October 17, 2009

The First Japanese Teahouse in Qld

Ipswich is building the first Japanese Teahouse in Queensland in the Nerima Gardens -a small(ish - by Qld standards) enclosure in the very freakin large Queens Park.

That's kinda cool. A bit of kimono-zen-calmness is always good to soak up. Maybe this will be somewhere that one might be able to go on an utterly brain-numbingly dull and hot Saturday morning in order to escape the litany of suburban mediocrity and lawnmowers. Some green tea, perhaps some music. The gardens in which is is currently being constructed are lovely and beautifully landscaped with a mix of Australian natives and Japanese classics.

So I enquire.

Once it is built, there will be an official opening ceremony in early November with Japanese ambassadors and a Tea Master. Well that's a bit fancy-pants! Sounds good, so I ask if I can come. No Way. The opening ceremony is by invitation only - no plebeians allowed, no public at all. Oh, I see.
I further enquire, "After the formal proceedings there's bound to be some kind of public element or opportunity. That's what I meant. Can I please come to that?"
"No. There is no public event."
"Oh. So it will just be open to the public after the formal ceremony."
"No," Gives me a look like I am an irritating idiot, "after the ceremony it will be locked up. It's a very special place, you can't just let people into it willy-nilly."
"Right. I get it. So there's just going to be certain days or special events that it is open for the public. Like a museum."
"No. It. Will. Not. Be. Open. To. The. Public."
"Message received and understood. Thank you for your time."

WTF?
This construction is a function of the Sister-City relationship with Nerima in Japan (what are they getting I wonder? - a backyard barbie setup? Maybe a pool with a faux-Balinese shade house?) but there's neither inclination nor resources for integrating it into the "existing cultural fabric" of the area. So why the fuck is it really getting built?!
The cynic in me says so that:
a) It is a "first" and therefore secures the formal ceremony (and therefore press)
b) It is a "first" and therefore secures bragging rights

The chirpy, positive one inside me says - "Don't be so quick to judge! You don't know the whole story! There may be a whole team of people working away on a culturally rich and socially rewarding series of exchanges and events that will happen around this eagerly awaited facility and it is just that they can't officially be announced yet! It could still really work out to be great!"

Maybe she's right. I shall have to wait and see. In the meantime, I can go and visit the garden and see if I can peer into the construction site. I'll take a thermos of green tea and maybe that collection of Japanese Sci-fi I've been planning to re-read. Riley and I will have our own freakin tea ceremony. No kimono required*.


* Unless you use kimono in the direct or literal meaning of "things to wear" in which case, yes, I will be clothed. Riley will be sporting his fur - summer length.

Monday, October 12, 2009

I don't like Mondays

For about eight or nine years I worked in the real world, where what you did and how you did it relly mattered in quite a direct way. That experience was far from cubicles and the monday-to-friday-9-to-5. As you probably know, in the real world, service industries (and like it or not Australia's domestic economy is largely service based) are 7 day operations. Well they are on the central planets. Out here on the rim there's not much that's open on a Sunday, or even a saturday arvo.
But I digress.

I had to make many changes when I took the colonisation shuttle here. The pamphlet said things would be a bit different, but I couldn't have guessed how hard it would be to crowbar myself back into the little box of punching the clock, trying to work on an interface centrally controlled and monitored in work processes based around political expediency and box-ticking rather than service, and with people who've grown up here and think (at best) of everywhere else as only a possible holiday destination (but why pass up a trip to the pleasure boats?). The one thing of all of these that is hardest to swallow is not the petty bitching over imaginary power bases, nor the endless chatter about the best fake tan lotions or speed bleaching of hair. It is the cold, terminal nature of Monday Mornings.

Back in the bustle and business of the central planets, Monday mornings and Friday nights are largely just like any other other moments in the purchasing/pleasuring continuum of modern life. Actual days off may vary. From the inside, Mondays and Fridays are the bi-polar manic days of emotional extremism highlighting the endless cycle of the rat-race and the pathetic occlusion of all that is organic and natural about living. Rigid, imposed and arbitary rules still are the guiding principles of bureaucratic structures, no matter their inefficiency, their pointless focus on attendence and process above output and quality, their heartbreaking monotony.

No sir, I do not like these type of Mondays at all.

Sunday, October 11, 2009

3 Years

For some reason I always think that it started later in the month, but no, the anniversary is on the 11th. Three years then of staring out the window and sharing it with you.

Woot!

The Parable of the Button

Ever seen one of those crime tv shows, where someone opens a door and there's a reverse shot of the shocked faces then they cut back to the room and it is a total disaster zone?
"Some one's trashed the place!"
Well ... my place kinda looks like that all the time. Minus broken stuff and any bodies that you might see on the tv, but papers everywhere and so on - yup that's how it is. I don't invite people round because they just won't fit, plus there's no where for them to sit. It has been a lot worse since I moved into living on my own - no more guilt-driven clean-ups. But there's a reason, and just in case anyone drops over unannounced, I want to have put my justifications on the record.

All you clean, happy, clutter-free folk need to understand something about us OCD (Obsessive Clutter Disorder) sufferers - we're victims in this. Find your compassion for us. We wade through decades of accumulated cruft and kilos day to day, but we're not necessarily weak-willed, stupid or just lazy. We are in complex relationships with our possessions that are governed by a web of interacting issues often-times beyond our control. So you may understand a little of this world, I shall share with you the marvelous moment I had today when I was finally able to take a bag of 6 shirts to the donation box. This is the Parable of the Button.

Origins.
All stories start at the beginning. This work shirt was purchased in 2004 from a one-step-up-from-a-generic-chain-store—clothing-for-women. In plain black and a very hard-wearing cotton-viscose mix, it featured a collar (the mandatory element), buttons up the front (initially benign, but leading to later complications), a generous V-neckline (keeping things interesting, but not saucy) and a roomy fit (essential in a job with regular lifting and shelving of arm loads of books). The very bottom button never suited the casual look I embody and was removed early on and placed in the button compartment of the sewing box. Time passed. Work happened. The shirt did what it needed to do. It featured in the seminal photo-op with Neil Gaiman in July of 05 (ah - happy, hopeful days!), it was there when the crew went for karaoke after work, it was there for my nadir(s) of customer service and the odd scream in the "on-hold" cupboard. The new lowest button took a fair bit of abuse during the normal working tasks and increasingly as my love of veggo Laksa for lunch took the inevitable toll on my never-svelte waistline.

A Shirt Shifts
Working opportunities came and went, changes in jobs, changes in health, changes in cities and houses and the shirt went unused, unrequired, unnoticed.

The Dilemma
An overdue audit of the surviving wardrobe items in 2008 uncovers a limp black shirt, badly in need of an iron (a household drudgery I have now forever forsworn) and missing the essential second-bottom button. The bottom button could be of no consequence to anyone - either hidden by the tuck-in or too formal for the out-hanger. I don't really want to wear such an obviously creased shirt in my workplace and the need to use a safety pin to secure it is pathetic. The saved button is missing and no other one available matches. I can't throw the shirt out, for someone with an iron and a need for it, it would be an op-shop gem, but it cannot be gifted without the button replaced. This is obvious.

The Dance
Over the next 18 months an elaborate and complex dance takes place. The shirt is placed in a public position in the house to remind me to buy a button. The shirt is eventually overwhelmed by cruft and goes back into the 'wash and hide' cycle of laundry. A button is purchased ... and lost. This repeats. I neither want to re-neg on my earlier decision to not throw the thing away, nor to donate it in such poor condition. Yet through the competing demands on my time and energy I cannot for the life of me seem to align the button and the shirt in the same time-space long enough to achieve the desired outcome, which is to mend it and get it out of the house. Complicated further now by needing my glasses, and a threaded needle. This multiple planetary alignment of tools, time and purpose is needed for every single object that is waiting to leave the house. Effectively hundreds of decisions and actions waiting to be completed. No wonder I'm feeling overwhelmed.

Closure
Today, in a triumphant act of will, in about 3 minutes total I completed the attachment of the replacement button to the patient shirt (and that included a complimentary armpit reinforcement). With joy and satisfaction I showed it to Riley who remained unimpressed by what a feat this truly was. I tried the shirt on one more time, just to be certain I was ready to give it up. Then I placed the shirt next to the computer to remind me that I wanted to write this post about it but now, NOW it is next to the door and this afternoon will join the bag of 5 other equally heartrendingly culled and removed shirts and they will be sent on their way into a big blue box on the side of the road.
One less object in the house!

Saturday, October 10, 2009

Malfunction

Sometimes I really hate computers.
My whole post was just replaced by a letter I was capitalising before publishing, and the software autosaved that stupid version over the existing versions.
What I am really steamed about, what that I decided against composing in another program because I have a habit of always saving multiple copies of things unnecessarily and feeling like a worrisome nana with redundant files hanging around.
Until suddenly that just looks like prudent backing-up.
ARRRGH!!!!

Friday, October 09, 2009

The High Ground

It has been a tough week. One where I can't sleep properly at night and nothing seems to go right at work and if I don't scream in the car on the way home then I shout at Riley when I open the door. Not good. Blah blah blah, right?! We've all been there.

Somewhere I haven't been, thank the deities, is shivering under a piece of tarp while some well-fed guy in chinos talks to a black box about how my village/town/city just got totally erased off the face of the planet by a wave, a quake, a fire, a mudslide, a flood or a typhoon. I haven't been sitting there in shock with every single thing I used to use in my day to day life needing to be replaced from stocks that just don't exist, there's no clean water, or food, and I'd rather think about any of that than the death I saw and only just missed out on myself.

Turning on the news this week has really put my petty concerns into perspective. Which is to say, they are trivial. It is something about Australia that I have taken for granted my whole life - we live inside the boundaries of a tectonic plate. While we drift NNE and enjoy our generally placid lives, the edges of this plate scrape and gouge their way along our neighbours' and sometimes this is the result - quakes that lead to tsunamis. Just to make you feel inadequate it can all happen during typhoon season to give that added tropical sense of Armageddon by puring pelting rain that stings as it slaps you.

No matter what problems I have this week, I'm grateful to be in the position of being able to help some people who have got a much rougher end of a much larger pineapple this week.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Ouroboros

Without warning, preparation or preemptive therapy there was a brown snake asleep on the footpath this morning when Riley and I went for our walk. It wasn't in the park, or on the path near the river, none of the places I would expect to stumble across one of the worlds' second most poisonous snake. It was on the footpath, outside a house, not far from a 90s model Commodore. That's really part of the special fear that snakes can produce - I don't really expect them to be right here, right now in the same time-space as me and my dog.

But there it was. Undeniable. Painful death in a long thin sock. Looking, I have to say it, basically innocent and peaceful. Snoozing or sleeping - I couldn't say. It was a coldish morning and it was across a little patch of sun in the dusty grass and it scared the crap out of me. And yes, btw, it was a brown snake - not a dark green tree snake. It's in the head. Pointy little heads bring pointy little teeths.

So what was really strange, once the ghastly ghoulish fascination of watching it just be had passed and I'd walked on, grateful Riley was oblivious on his leash and safely breathing, was that I think I brought this moment to happen. I mean, I made that snake appear in our lives.

It could be a coincidence - there seems to be lots of snakes around this spring and there's been loads of sightings already on properties, at the farm and so on, but this is the first time since I was about 6 that I have seen a live, real snake myself. That's a long time. So I don't really think it is just a coincidence, I think I called that snake into our orbit. You see, last week there was an article in the paper about a guy in the Blue Mountains who does occupational health and safety seminars on the risks of brown snakes for people who work in the outdoors. It freaked me out. I got obsessed over what a horrible job that would be (obviously he doesn't mind), I even photocopied the article and stuck it in my notebook and wrote about how scary it would be to be handling those snakes (he lives with them! There were pictures!) anyway, I haven't been able to get it out of my head all week. Big frackin oops!

What kind of massive brain-wave energy load did I accidentally dump into the universe?! Because here, out of no-where and no-how, one is in the physical plane almost right on my doorstep. I'm really wishing I'd listened more closely to the instructions for manifesting things into the world using visualisation because now I want, very desperately, to undo it. I want to un-think snake and re-think "wooden deck on my house" or "fabulous new novel idea". But I'm stuck in a looping party trick where the more I don't want to think about it, the more clearly I see it in my mind. That's something the self-help gurus tend to gloss-over a bit isn't it, the trouble shooting parts of these theories. Right now you're probably going, don't worry about it! There's nothing in this positive thinking shit.

oh. I guess so... but what about the way that quantum physics suggests* that at a sub atomic, a quantum level, our world is purely energy - energy arranged by some kind of organising structure that you could call "invisible glue" or you could call "ideas". Matter (or "the world") is constantly being effected by the act of observing it . We look at things and we thereby interact with them at one level. But more than that, studies of the brain's function show that seeing or doing something and visualising seeing or doing it are indistinguishable to the brain (There was one guy who did groundbreaking visualisation processes with the USA Olympics and NASA programs, and this guy has also done some work on this too). Indistinguishable. If you're detailed and thorough about it, it has effectively really happened as far as your brain is concerned.

So a week of thinking nothing but SNAKE produces ... guess what? A freakin SNAKE! Oh, I'm starting to feel like I'm swallowing my own tail.

Gentle reader, please think of something very pleasant, and send me a fresh, happy new thought loop to entertain. Just remember, in the words of those magnificent popular philosophers, The Pussycat Dolls, "Be careful what you wish for coz you just might get it."


* Actually they're pretty sure that they know that they really don't know, but as my general reading on QP is out of date, I don't want to overstep myself on this bit.