hitting those natural high(note)s

Oh gush gush - great choir tonight. Funny and arse and then sublime. Funny, in that it was a rehearsal for a little *gig* on sat night in an arty cafe up here so we all had to be good and run through in real time and yet kept wanting to gossip or talk songs and got frowned at good naturedly by our fabulous choirmistress (that sounds way more B&D than she really is..). Funny also that I have still completely failed to learn the words to one particular Sth African song but that I just sing the first and last few words that I do know extra loud as if that makes up for the mimebling in between. hey, works for me. Arse in that the other *performers* for sat came along too so that before we knew it it turned into a full rehearsal with everyone else doing their thang (hence us not singing for the full hour and half) and us feeling like aliens had taken over our choir practice. Arse in that the *everyone else* incudes, ahem, folk singer, poet and operatic singer. And I use all of those words at the very edges of their definitions in a very generous way... Arse as in the poet lady was so bad, like so so so so so so so so (getting the picture?) bad that at one point I almost got the giggles. Had to try very hard not to. It was so surreal, I felt like I was in the poetry equivilent of that Fat Boy Slim film clip with the dancing. As in - is this really for real and not a scene from a movie? I really can not do it justice here without getting the karmic equivilent of a potts point mortgage... so let me just hint at the horrors by saying: glasses on end of nose, pink satin neck scarf and long cardigan with slightly too short pants (oh oh, I've just bought a flat in mosman).. um... a poem about fairies and one about how hilariously self evidently wrong a non-creationsist view of the universe is by virtue of the stinging logical argument that goats don't spin spider webs. Delivered in shit eating smug manner as if somebody might actually find it funny or WITTY. A.R.S.E. We snuck outside and resumed practice when the folk singer started intro-ing his songs by cataloguing his psychic experiences numerically... So out we went through the spitting rain into a little verandah of an adjacent building, crowding in, like naughty kids, singing requests, dredging up things I could barely remember or had never done before - singing with our eyes closed to really hear it, singing a few people calm who had been cranky, singing us all peaceful, singing us all harmonic, singing us swinging and smiling and making good sounds, quiet and sliding, sweet and yearning, singing raw and roaring, singing silly and laughing and doing funny litle stupid dances, and singing close so we were bumping into each other as we swayed, and singing liking each other, and singing solidarity and singing improvised and singing singing singing sublime.

Career rescue and thinking of *getting a real job*

Well groovers, you will be thrilled, nay, hysterically relieved to hear that I cleared up my previous foot in mouth episode with Ms Manager yesterday. Took the time to stress that contrary to the impression I may have made in our last meeting I think [our industry] is a very valuable, some might even say invaluable sector, and that reallly, the scope for innovation and leadership is simply breathtaking. Breathtaking! In fact, I pointed out, the only eensy wheensy concern that I have about my longevity in said field is you know, the scope to really do creative and interesting stuff and at the same time connect with theory, bounce of like minds and contribute to the body of theory in the field- which has been a little absent in a few previous roles. And on that point, I told her, if I stay for another contract I'd like to do a little bit more to keep my skill levels up - y'know, professional development and all that. She seemed v. supportive and started talking about paying for me to go to workshops - when I pointed out that I actually meant getting more interesting things to work on, and using the skills I have, she looked a little pale. Oh workplaces, bless them.

On that, I've been thinking we need to invent some office gods/desses to attribute the vageries of office life to. We could thank the Goddess Traytoo who looks after photocopiers and printers and gets stormy and tempestuous when people disrespect the yellow toner cartridge. We could rail at the God Perch-arsing who oversees effective stationary ordering and the refilling of tea and coffee in staff kitchens. We could humbly thank Staple - the Goddess of little things that hold everything together.

Hail the hail

Big stormies last night, where did spring go? And today so foggy it was a blanket of white. I walked to work going through a tunnel of mist, and as I walked home I got wet as I walked through drops.

Mixed lollies - random insights into my last few days.

A guy at work has started up a mixed lolly jar. Well in fact it's kind of a mixed lolly bin. Normally I withstand it with absolute finesse - lollies always seem like a wasted opportunity to me, seriously why would you eat a lolly when there is chocolate out there waiting to find a home. So, last week he completely uncharacteristically splashed out and bought mini chocolate bars. The type I haven't eaten for literally years. They went dialobically well with the overbrewed office coffee and I ate so many in one afternoon (4? 6? I lost count) that I almost brought on some kind of hypoglycemic coma. I could almost feel the sugar coursing through my veins. Ah office life. Today I fossicked in amongst jelly beans and chocolate coated irredescent bananna flavoured mini door mats like an addict, looking for one last mini chocolate bar. To no avail. I settled for a jelly bean but it was grainy textured and tasted wrong.

Earlier today I had outfit dilemas, precipitated by an ongoing paucity of clean clothes. I started out in glamourous 70's cocktail wear, realised the error of my ways, found myself in a jaunty 50's style milkbar outfit (seriously, complete with red chiffon print neck scarfe), briefly culdesacced in a very noticeably unhemmed but otherwise this decade skirt, then popped out the other side in grey and black office garb. Which was for the best all things considered. Made mental note not to tell my manager that my normal clothes were wet on the line if asked (unlike a few weeks back when I was wearing sensible black crepe dress to work and got compliment).

Needn't have worried. because I said something rather worse. Well several things. It was mega foot in mouth day. I told her (when asked about my thoughts on my *career*) that I 'just couldn't imagine spending the rest of my working life in *type of organisation we work in*' - then I said it another way, you know, just in case that wasn't clear, said 'you know, I just realised I can't imagine staying in *our field*, you know? Like maybe I could keep working in this type of job long term but I'd have to supplement it with other things to sustain my interest, other pursuits'. It was only afterwards, as I walked away that I thought - 'oh'. Oh as in, oh, this is the person who gets to decide whether I get another contract or not (Cleo career advice? 'yes girls, be sure and play hard to get with your workplace. Nothing excites prospective employers more than absolute disdain for their industry and a demonstrated lack of interest in your own career...') and oh, as in oh, did I just completely dis this person's working life, this person who after all is maybe 15 years older than me and quite satisfied with their role in this industry and sees it as an exciting place to work till the end of their days?? Aaah, nice one all round. Maybe I was destined to do something stupid today and I should have stuck with the poorly chosen outfit and spoken benign words instead of the other way around.

Have a quiet house tonight after a few days of houseguests. Liked it - some noise and colour and raucous chatty fun for a few days. Other people doing the dishes for a change! Dancing in my loungeroom! Showing off my lovely town! I think it wore me out though. That and track work slowing down my commute to the city to a snail pace. By the time I got there for sat night I was just about ready for a nap. Not quite gee'd up for inner city glamour with the lip glossed crowd from the shallow end of the gene pool. Tanned boys in carefully casual hair and shoulders. Long tressed girls in strappy shoes and nice toenail polish and as little else as possible. It was *atmospheric* and exhausting. Seriously, imagine the stride up the entry stairs almost past the waspish door girl only to have her attention snap to you, like some hyena gaurding ancient Greek doors to the afterlife, with clipboard at an accusing angle, to say 'excuse me?'. And the careful walk back down hours later, careful, so careful in backless heels, not wanting to slip and slide on grazed butt cheeks down the stairs past door wasp and the q-ing hopefuls below. Not that glamour can't be fun, but doesn't glamour only exist in comparison to non-glamour? Isn't it only fun because there's a sense of acheivement in having the kind of package that other people will envy? Of knowing that many, countless many unwashed, unlabelled, bad haired, dry lipped, bad-teethed, non-eastern suburbed types will not be there, would not be let in, even if they had the inclination to go? And isn't there something icky about that?

Life drawing tomorrow. Looking forward to it. No outfits at all, there's a solution. Of sorts.

La Luna

Oh the moon is coming up to be very full, very soon. And, as has been the case for a while now, I tend to ovulate on the full moon, bleed* on the dark moon. So, full moon for me is: rearranging my house with energy that could move mountains, the sudden need to change all of my linen and fill the house with the scent of rose-geranium. Eating capers and getting an almost sexual feeling from that metallic vinegar tang. Oh and print making for hours like only a moment has passed.
On the topic, here is a website for an alternative to disposable 'feminine hygeine products'** . Funny how something so simple can seem so absolutely and fundamentally radical, don't you think? And yet, I suspect that really, none of us is that phobic really of our own blood, we just pretend to be because it's the thing to do in this funny, sterile, mechano-phile society of ours. Everything needs to be very very hygeinic and sterile and disposable otherwise we will all die instantly of germs, and worse, even worse, reveal ourselves to be animals, living breathing shitting, farting, crying, bleeding, howling, growling animals - part of everything, dependant on the well being of others, and yet gloriously self-sufficient. Almost the opposite of what we all like to pretend we are now - absolutely seperate from everyone and everything else, and yet completely dependant on the external to feed us, house us, make us happy.
The moon pulling on my water and affecting my tides...

Addendum
Oh I know I should be having an early night but by jingo, I am such a nerd I just web searched all of the above and now just have to share these very groovy websites with you as am very excited by what other switched on chicks have been up to while I have been reaching like a zombie for the disposables from the supermarket shelves in a fog of cramps, fluoro lighting and bad eighties music which i am inexplicably drawn to sing along to but only when I am shopping in the stupor-market. How on earth have I ever survived without a funky leopard skin print reusable pad with a funky silk-screened 'Rag Flag'??

Urban Armor - "kickass alternative menstrual hardware"
Blood sisters - pattern for sewing reuasable pads
Wikipedia - gives a nice overview of the issues (bless that Wikipedia, is there anything it doesn't know?)


*Euww - did she just write 'bleed'?? yes, she did. If you can think of a better, yet accurate term let me know. I just can't relate to 'get my period' as a descriptor. I don't even really know what it means - sounds like something vaguely to do with grammar from an Americal school. And do I 'get it' like a disease that I picked up from a sneeze on a bus? 'Menstruate' is really not a favourite either - it sounds like there are just too many consonants in there and not enough syllables, sounds kind of euphemistic and icky, like a diabolical villain would say as part of a threat. hardly appropriate for this monthly invitation to reflect on our own mortality, on our connection to the cycles of life, on the amazing processes which happen beyond the realm of our consious minds.
** but this does not mean soap, deoderant or handwash, even if it sounds a little bit like that

Today

Was very warm indeed -a nice dry 30ish. Sleeveless weather. Today I was tired and waffled at work. Went to choir again - second week in a row, after my long hiatus which I self indulgently if somewhat inacccurately call a sabatical. Some groovy bluesy songs at the moment, and a few African ones which I am no-where close to knowing the words to. Speaking of music, am enjoying some good library cd's at the moment, getting into the Russian composers. Working my way through Bizet to Puccini, and having some nice early music surprises along the way. Not sure whether the neighbours will be relieved that my relentless love of late night Leftfield and Whitestripes has now been replaced by Tchaicovsky and the relentless Ani and PJ singing along temporarily eclipsed by Dame Kiri... I have not been able to detect any significant change in the ration of floor squeaks per unit of music, so at this stage will have to assume they love it just as much.

aaaaaaaagh

Just to let you know, that I think, fingers crossed, all going well, if the wind is blowing right etc...that I am done for uni for the year. yihah! That means dear friends that I can kick up my heels and play (after I catch up on sleep from tonight and then some of the more critical - as in potentially related to public health - household chores). Phew, procrastinating really takes it out of you.

Oh, and, today was life drawing again. I did some absolute doozies (bad) and one or two good. I think the essay was weighing on my mind and making me grumpy. Grumpy is not the mood you want to be in when drawing. Your people come out lumpy and mean looking. One in particular I love beyond measure - it was a pen and ink bizzo, meant to be all spontaneous, free line and wishy washy suggestion of colour. Which it is, but the free lines suggest that the model was a hunchback and about three times as wide as she actually is, and the washy colour suggests that her skin is made out of asphalt or glue. I brought it home and everytime I look at it I laugh my ass off, actually snort with joy, it's such a good reminder of how cranky I was feeling, and also my favourite benchmark for all future efforts (as in 'is it better than the hunchback? yes! great'). Beats the hobbit feet hands down...