like ham but not

Wow, blogspam, who would have thunk it. I mean I've heard of such things but never actually experienced it before. Do you think it was the mention of unclothed women in my last spiel that somehow opened up the portall to junk mail central?? I feel like there I was, a happy little community tv station or at my most glorious, an early Sunday morning on the ABC, when bammo, through some mix up in reception I started channelling late night channel 7 and the free ab buster with every set of steak knives sold ads.
***

Enjoyed long weekend, caught up with Guitar boy and Ivy on their brief but well utilised tour of the emerald city. They were here for family wedding, which sounds like it went well if a little too well endowed with mother of groom tears, and possibly not of joy (pure conjecture, please no one pass that on to the happy couple!). Despite my shitty head cold very much enjoyed sitting in an upstairs city pub (renovated recently, you know the one) and sipping a theraputic shandy, looking at dig pics of their trip to the zoo. Hilarious, I thought, was that very pub had been chosen for a green drinks do, which of course being deliberately completely out of the loop on alll things career related at present, was blissfullly unaware of until bumping into someone I knew once in another role. Was funny then to play guide and get oh just ever so slightly lost as we wove our way through Haymarket (it was that shandy, seriously, must have been strong lemonade) looking for *that* noodle place (you know the one - fake grape vines hanging fromthe ceiling - oh that doesn't actuallly narrow it down, there are several like that...) but fortunately in the midst ofturning it into a very educational if somewhat impromtu study tour (oh, lookee here, UTS library, yes, very good for getting books I have heard, and um, for..) bumped into C-chan and passed the guiding baton as he wove us back on the path to all things noodles. Allso had little beer in a local establishment prior to noodles and was astounded at the affrontery of the decor ( 'I didn't know they still made heels like that..'), but kind of pleased that tile styled lino has maintained its hold on a patch of wall somewhere and that that colour red sits next to dark wood as it was designed to.

Combined catch up with Friday workshop whilst 'in the city'. Took a chance on a wkshop just outside of sphere of theory that I am conversant with. Was a bit taken aback by the alarmingly inhouse school of thought - what another one? It occurs to me that if you think professional buzzwords there will be a journal and an association out there for it. Someties the scale at which the world operates staggers me - from so broad to so narrow. There are people out there who have stuck like some little molecule to just about any topic you can think of and who have made it their own. Who bond over their allegience to this set of thoughts (no matter how purile), who have self congratulatory in-house jokes on it, who conveniently forget their overlap or contradictions with other schools of thought, or the shared history that grounds them, or the bigger picture, or the smaller picture. Really, I am constantly surprised at this patriotism to ideas, themselves brought in and pulled out again each day by the tides of human reflection. Perhaps it all comes from that tribal urge to belong, and the need to make the world smalll enough to feel cosy in, our village small enough that we might stand out, be known for something, feel we have contributed something, maybe that explains this endless carving and defining of sets of values and ways of approaching our work. Maybe the tasks we do are really too simple to engage us so we construct endless towers of theory to amuse ourselves, not even realising that this is why we do it. I might just write an article about it and present it at the next conference of the... of the... association of reflective blogging practice...? The Australasian association of critical non-alignment...The ridgline towns and villages symposium on manufatcured meat products and their implications for on line journaling and identity. Something like that.