OMG generic post title

I made florentines.

They are freaking amazing. Hence, I am the best pastry chef ever. Don't bother arguing with me, because you'll lose.

ION, I'm back in the studio, finally. Freaking about time. Not much excitement is going on there, but I'm working, anyway.

Such a Good Thing.

Melange du chose au deux jours

Yesterday I tried to find fabric town, but got lost in 'normal people live here' town. It was lovely, actually. Lots of tiny narrow streets. I found a shopping street that I decided was functional and not uber consumerist and paradoxically went a bit buying things crazy. The ceramics they have here are to die for ... I still want to go back and buy the $50 red mug ... today I managed to only spend money on lunch and entry to a parky thing. What a star! Such restraint!

I've seen no art yet, I keep wandering on foot and getting lost in neighbourhoods or shops, or getting lost on a bike. Tomorrow I am totally going to see some art.

Today there were iris fields, which were frankly a little bit overrated (or perhaps it made me nostalgic for my Mum's garden). It was full of Japanese couples of a certain age, which is nice, and many were doing watercolours of the flowers. Yesterday I bought these dried banana things and they are so amazing that I've now looked up whether I'm allowed to bring them back to Aust (I think so, if I declare them) ... soooo goooooood.

What else happened in Tokyo? My charming host took me to a beautiful bookstore, full of gorgeous books on the twentieth century avant gardes. I can't tell you how pleasing a second-hand bookstore can be made to the eye in this country. I just can't. I exhibited great restraint in not buying the book of photographs of Morandi's studio in Bologna, or the Fluxus artist's book wherein all the contents of a table are described in great detail.

Oh, curry is ready! I'm being so well-looked after.

What a swell party

Topics of conversation tonight included:

*Which Jane Austen character are you most like?
*Does reading Archie comics as a child give you unrealistic ideas about what teenagerhood will be like?
*The emphasis on scatology in French culture
*Cost/benefit analyses in everyday life and 'Freakonomics'
*Hill End
*Sideways [film]
*The woman who gave birth to rabbits (fake!)
*The possible formation of a photographic lighting ownership cooperative

I can't remember any more. There was a lot of wine and food and goodness.

That is all.

Guess what?

This is the third post this month with that title.

*sigh*

Wherefore imagination?

[today was a Good Day]

Guess what?

Yes, it's true. I'm a cake-scoffing age-pluserer.

Oh here's a story - I was at a birthday party once, and I overheard a conversation about capricorns so I cut into it. We talked about what capricorns are meant to be like (as one does). She says, wouldn't it be weird to just bump into someone who has the same birthday as you. I say, yeah, if I ever met Martin Luther King Jr, I would find that strange. She laughs and says she'll probably never meet Elvis, so it might never happen. That rings a bell - what date is your birthday, I say? January 15th, she says. Huh, me too, I say.

And then we fell into a big hole that had been created in the space-time continuum, and - oh, but that's another story.

2008

Welcome to previously unacknowledged readers.

Life in 2008 is going to be interesting. It is interesting already. I have felt like I have a new life with greater frequency of late. I mean, lately I have more frequently experienced the feeling that my life has taken an interesting new turn. That's what I mean.

I like it: it's good. I also know the most amazing people, for which I consider myself very fortunate. I also have a strong feeling of my own autonomy that I don't always feel. Instead of the guilty feeling that it's all about me. [Which it still, of course, is.] I'm feeling perspectival clarity instead of the regularly programmed perspectival distortion. Or maybe I'm just distorting things positively for a change, who knows. I believe it's perspectival accuracy.

Just got to kick this fucked up sleeping pattern.

And eat something.

I'm going to watch No Country For Old Men tonight.

some stay dry and others feel the pain

Man, we just held the nicest dinner party. Sam and Felicity and Chris came. They are all new friends, and the nicest/bestest.

I made salmon with kaffir limes leaves and ginger, a rocket and parmesan salad and roast vegies with garlic and rosemary. We had baba ganoosh and yummy cheese first. We used the lovely embroidered green tablecloth. Maddy made chocolate mousse with cinnamon/honey yoghurt and bluberries for dessert.

It was good!

We drank three bottles of wine and half a bottle of rose.

Life good etc.

Seasonally adjusted

I was offline

now I am back online

me me me

back back back

yay etc

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that it's getting more summery and today I even went for a swim. I love the energy you get when the seasons change.

Last night I watched that new Joe Strummer movie. I have scary lust after circa'80 Joe Strummer. I mean, look (Joe on left, ahem):


And of course:


I like this one too:


Look, I just like him that's all.

Don't worry, regular art-related programming will return shortly.

I'm going through chan-ges

I looked at my keys yesterday and realised that the whole bunch has entirely changed from like four months ago. I have new studio keys, house keys, gallery keys and I've got rid of old house keys and work keys. I don't know my own keys. I have to examine them carefully every time I want to unlock something. Yes, this is a not veiled at all metaphor.

There are a lot of people leaving town/having left of late, and I haven't been very happy about it. I've been all, oh poor me, all my friends are abandoning me, wah wah wah. But I've got it together now. It makes space for all those new friends not yet known well enough and the old friends currently being neglected.

As you can see, everything is always all right and exactly as it would be in the best of all possible worlds. Or whatever the man says.

Ooh, I. Ooh, I. Ooh, I. Ooh, I (just know that something good is gonna happen)

So I decided tonight that I am, big-picture-wise, on track for my upcoming show, and that even if it's not as good as I wanted or not as much work made as I had planned, it is only to the degree that it is always like that and therefore normal.

I will still have to work my 'ass' off all week but that's OK, I'm in the zone now and it finally feels OK. Unsolved problems notwithstanding.

In other news, I saw Mitch at a party the other night and told him about the dream that starred him in the lead role. It totally freaked him out - I barely know him. Now I think he's scared of me. I am the weird inappropriate chick. I thought it was just going to be an unusually good icebreaker at the party... but I don't regret my candidness. If he can't handle starring in the dreams of random strangers ... Naw, bless 'im, e's all right.

See, nothing can taint the good mood this moment.

Good things are happening. I feel good about them today. A couple of days ago I felt like shit and everything was horrible.

That's how you know you are alive, you see.

The joy
!

The suffering
!

I have so much work to do I'm frankly unsure that it's all going to get done. Am I subjecting myself to a humiliating publicly embarrassment? ('humiliating embarrassment' - that's tautological, you know).

I'm freaking out a little bit. Not today though. La di da.

Just for Fun - Totally Random

Having previously been told to stop whining (my life is pretty good, apparently [tone clarification: rampantly sarcastic]), I would like to post the last thing that made me laugh out loud (and there have been a few today; I guess it's a Good Day).

First I should mention that I was perusing the groups on Facebook to which a certain friend of mine named Bobbi-Jo belongs. Apologies in advance for any context-deprivation-induced lack of humorousness that may be experienced.



Note the related groups. Who are these Bobbi-Jo's? My one isn't like that ...

Also: will this love affair I'm having with Facebook ever end?

And lo, thusly it was become truth

At the stinky pub tonight Brennan made me repeat the following affirmations:
"I have the passion"
"I have the passion and I'm going to build it back up again" (don't question the contradictions, it's a direct quote)

Then I volunteered the following;
"I believe in love"
"I have freedom and financial independence" (he liked that one)

Now, quietly (just between you and me, eh?), I'd just like to add;
"I am the kind of person I'd be happy to know, goddamnit, and people who can't appreciate that are just idiots"

La di da

I am listening to the Animal Collective. They make me feel great. Or maybe it's the sun, or the fact that I'm solving this icky video problem.

My video was going to be bits like this




But now it's gonna look more like this (below - damn! how to fix this?).


Plus some other ways. You have to picture it moving yourself. I can't give the ending away.

Sometimes I forget to title posts

Today I watched two full movies and two second halves of movies.

I watched Dogfight and it made me want to go on a date (okay) in San Francisco (still maybe possible, with planning) in the sixties (alright, fantasy it is). But not with a marine. Unless he moves like River Phoenix.

It's a beautiful movie and I'd fucking well recommend it to anyone.

Ditto Spiceworld (for totally different reasons of course), which I watched earlier on. "Hi, I'm Barnaby. So, are you part of this 'Spice' phenomenon?"

"Blah, blah, girl power, feminism, blah"

Nineties nostalgia begins right here.