*cough*

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.

Back and hyperventilating

I'm back from my thingo. I didn't *really* get that much work done but everyone likes to tell me that it will all absorb itself and make sense later. I don't know about that. I think getting work done is getting work done, and not getting work done is not getting it done.

Actually I don't know that I really think that.

So anyway. I feel overwhelmed by the big city and all the work that has piled up in my absence and the money I didn't earn while I was away and all that jazz.

This is the house I stayed in and part of its garden. Well, really, this is a picture of part of the house that I stayed in and a picture of part of its garden.

*sigh*

You may say to yourself, my god! What have I done?

David Byrne is just a magnificent performer. I love this song. I remember hearing it for the first time when I was little in the soundtrack to Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Everything about this is great.

Dream 11/2/08

When I closed my computer to go to sleep, the review I'd been drafting was automatically posted on Facebook, in all its notes-y, drafty glory. By the time I woke up, everyone in the world had read my draft and knew all about what I *really* think.

It's a world of procrastination from where I'm sitting

I'm so tired
I haven't slept a wink
I'm so tired
My mind is on the blink
I wonder should I get up and fix myself a drink
No, no, no

I'm so tired
I don't know what to do
I'm so tired
My mind is set on you
I wonder should I call you
But I know what you would do

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

I'm so tired
I'm feeling so upset
Although I'm so tired
I'll have another cigarette
And curse Sir Walther Raleigh
He was such a stupid git

You'd say I'm putting you on
But it's no joke
It's doing me harm
You know I can't sleep
I can't stop my brain
You know it's three weeks
I'm going insane
You know, I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind
I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind

I need energy

Time's a-wasting

It's 'another post' o'clock

I am striking while the posting energy iron is hot.

In a strange twist of deja-vu-esque 2007-2008 synchronicity, I am shortly to go on another residency.

I am going to this house in a small village for a month:


It's going to be beautiful, productive, peaceful, old, interesting, sometimes lonely and probably some other things that I cannot yet predict.

There, the posting iron will not only not be hot, it won't even exist. That's correct. No internetiendo! It's a gaspworthy thing, yessir.

I will, however, survive.

Meh meh meh

All this rain and dampness is really starting to bring me down.
























Update: today's falls are in fact heavy to very heavy.

Nuff said.

Dream 4/2/08

I have moved to Melbourne. I move in with Teigan and his gf, who is in fact my very short, wacky and extroverted playwright friend Van. She makes her living reading tarot cards in the street. She has a wig on and glasses. Their home is full of sixties design furniture and very intellectual books I haven't read, and their conversations are very involved and lively. Fitzroy, where they live, is unbelievably busy and exciting. I buy bread two doors up from our house. You can just break off what you need and they sell you that. You can buy just a few mouthfuls of a bread roll if that's all you want. The freshness and quality of the food is incredible. The girl at the bakery makes friends with me and walks me around for a while. We go to an improbably happening Turkish or Hungarian bar full of young people dressed as Berlin Communists circa 1930s. They are all dancing to loud, frenetic music. I watch from outside. After, they chat to me and are very friendly, giving me ethnic sweets to eat. I keep walking, feeling like I am somewhere wonderful I cannot appreciate. I meet people on the streets who are all young and interesting and want to talk to me, but it feels lonely. I realise there must be artists I know here, but I don't know where they are. I put a token in a street vending machine and it spits out hundreds of yellow counters. You can redeem them at a couch shop, but it is a scam and you don't get anything for your money. I am balanced on a gate and it tumbles off its hinges to the ground. I realise I have made a terrible mistake moving here. I wonder if it is too late to move back home before the winter comes.

How often do you clean your silver?

Gross-Off

Just keeping you up to date on the kitchen painting extravaganza (ie, we're painting our kitchen). Look at this:


Ew!

That's not even paint going over, it's just a soft wipe of sugar soap with hardly any pressure. It reminds me of that ad from my youth for a product called Tarn-Off, which one was supposed to use to clean metals. It was always so satisfying watching the dirt disappear before your eyes. That's what doing our ceiling was like. Purge! Purge!!

Also of interest is the Justin Timberlake dropcloth. Not everybody has one of these. Below, it can be seen protecting the kitchen table.


Now we've started using it as a tablecloth.

Dream 30/1/2008

I was on a journey with my parents and a friend, I can't remember who. It was on some kind of train, like a carnival ride (a ghost or love train). I realised after a while that we were going to the arctic circle on some kind of tour that was part party. My parents were excited about it. We each had a certain amount of rations including hot drinks in a thermos. I had warm clothes for the weather. We arrived in bitter cold at dusk at the base of a frozen cliff face by a frozen stream. All was white. There was a kind of protected area of rock. Our very old, gnarled but tough and strong leader began to haul up poles and stretching membranes over them to make some kind of geodesic dome for shelter. It was surprisingly warm and cosy. The atmosphere and camraderie among the travellers was very strong and positive, and there was a sense that a great adventure was being undertaken.

ADABTM

Another day, another beer too many. I'm dehydrating in this heat.

Also, I am having flashbacks of my old full-time job. Boo! Working is

SO

BORING

that you have to go for drinks all the time afterwards. It isn't balanced! Sorry about the lame-as post. This is one of those lulls that people have that make them forget that they're actually happy, you know, just the absence of joyful feelings for a little while. I'm tired, is all.

You could fry an egg out here

It's so fucking humid today, I've come over all Slash.
Regarding the coiffeur, of course. This happy little fellow might also prove instructional.

Live and Learn

I was given this book for my birthday (among other thoughtful presents):


I haven't started reading it yet, but I'm looking forward to it. I'd like to be like Joan Didion. She seems so collected, so smart. I feel that I will be smarter, happier, more focused and engaged when I am reading this book. Those qualities will transfer themselves to me.

Lying to George

George is a little bit freaky in this scene, but his passion is magnificent.

Liable for something

I left my bike locked up on Abercrombie St for two nights and it had the wheels stolen off it.

I drank a lot of different kinds of alcohol and suffered a terrible hangover.

I feel all right about these things, because I'm willing to be responsible for the consequences of my actions. Just gotta wear 'em.

What I don't feel so great about is my lack of willpower in getting things done. Doing what needs doing. I don't feel great taking responsibility for the consequences of my inaction. I"m trying to think of an example ... not doing or going to something I said I would and hence feeling empty or guilty.

On the upside, I do a mean lamb roast and potatoes that are to die for.

It's raining, it's raining again.

Well, it's pelting down. I'm going to pour meself a whiskey and go fire up the Weber nonetheless. Fuck it, eh.