festival

A sudden sydney thunderstorm this morning and I am reeling in post festive season hangover and party recall - 'did I really say / do /kiss...that?' Work is over! Summer is here! Festive season is here! Off to family hols this evening and wanted to wish you all a loverly Christmas. Bring on 2007! Thanks for sharing 2006.

Tres important

The strange stuff at the front of diaries – who designs that? Is that a job? To decide that area codes around the world are important, that conversions of international paper sizes are important (I kid you not) and that each month we will want to keep track of staff leave as well as incoming and outgoing financial totals. Who decides that, for example, the words for ‘hello, where is the toilet?’ in all known human languages is not useful for the front of the diary, or that a chart of the moon not so important. What would you put at the front of a diary as crucial information for all people traveling through space and time?

Oh and

Nice comments - thankyou. Feels like little cyber pats on the back mid marathon sometimes!

Blog as

A while ago Mermaidgrrrl told the story of someone whose blog she had been reading who she then met in RL only to discover that she was nothing at all like she expected from her written word. I think she was all chirpy and green online but all serious and quiet in RL, or maybe it was the other way round, whatever, you get the general idea. And this leads me top reflect on what relationship the blog has, or can have, to the space that we take up as people. Blog as a mirror of all our salient interests and amusing observations - kind of realist portrait? Blog as expression for the highest highs and lowest lows that we filter out from expressing in person lest we seem overly passionate and badly calibrated? A Blog as a rose coloured lensed version of ourselves - a constructed cartoon us - airbrushed, thighs lengthened, ever so much more hilarious and popular? Or vessel for the odd bits and pieces that just need a home at that moemnt you happen to touch finger to key pad? Which sound like idle wonderings, but I think make interpreting the blog as text ever so much more nuanced. If it is mirror we assume that the writer is on highs and lows only in line with what is written - the unexpressed is unfelt. If we take it as their secret repository for cranky tanty and joyous outpouring we leave room for the fact that in betweeen posts the writer is buying cauliflowers, going to the movies, thinking dull things, wondering about haircuts, reading books, scratching their nose, having crushes, doing all the minutae of life. If rose coloured lens we note with a kind smile all the unspoken admissions that could be made, all the self adulation that sneaks through the written word, the seeking afffirmation.

What is my point? I'm not exactly sure, I was just wanted to note that as well as some very exhausted days of little weepings and wondering what the hell I'm doing with my life, and stressing over family Christmas plans and feeling all sorry for myself that I am single and petrified of being in a relationship so not likely becoming unsingle anytime soon, the last few weeks have had good stuff too. Random nice moments in no particular order including some very good nights sleep on my new bed, a surprise parcel from MrMC featuring lovely hand made things from European markets and some lovely words about creativity, some good books read voraciously at airports and in hotel rooms, some nice little house chats with my new housemates, a lovely trip to the art gallery after yum cha with Betty Sue, BSharp and the Angelic miss A.. (draws breath)..getting a deleriously cute handmade tshirt at markets yesterday, seeing a good flick, walking through dark streets on warm nights, my cat curled in a tight ball, some silly beer-fueled philosophising with workmates until way too late after forgetting to eat dinner, new music, a music shop attendant with zany facial hair telling me 'you're cool man' and approving at my rather random selection, some frank and supportive emails exchanged with my mum, MMG and I finally catching each other on the phone, some sillliness leaking out at work, the spark of flirt in someone's eyes as we say good bye on the street and the flutter of hope as I ponder possibility, the laugh of old friends over lunch, tickling Mountain Spice's baby's soft little feet as he pulls strange faces and gurgles, watching I Heart Huckabees for the second time and laughing lots... and so on. As ever, lots to be grateful for.

RIP Stu's gig guide

A friend has been doing gig guides via email for several years now, and they are one of the most well-researched, gentle, detailed and interesting emails I get. He has such diverse taste in music, but all good. So I now share with you what was on Stu's stereo for the last couple of gig guides, in case you want to dabble in new sounds:

November

JOANNA NEWSOM - Ys cd (Drag City / Spunk)
NINETYNINE - Worlds of Space, Worlds of Population, Worlds of Robots cd (Unstable Ape)
VARIOUS - Tropicália cd (Soul Jazz)
DAVID S WARE QUARTET - BalladWare cd (Thirsty Ear)
JOHN COLTRANE - One Down, One Up 2cd (Impulse)
STINA - Pocket Songs cdep (Meupe)
ALIAS - Eyes Closed EP cdep (Anticon)
FENNESZ - Venice cd (Touch)
AMON TOBIN - Solid Steel Presents ... Live cd (Ninja Tune)
YO LA TENGO - I Am Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass cd (Matador)

December

KID KOALA - Your Mom's Favorite DJ cd (Ninja Tune)
AMON TOBIN - Bricolage 2LP (Ninja Tune)
AMON TOBIN - Permutation 2LP (Ninja Tune)
VENETIAN SNARES - Hospitality cd (Planet Mu)
VENETIAN SNARES - Meathole cd (Planet Mu)
EXILE - Pro-Agonist cd (Planet Mu)
SOUNDMURDERER & SK-1 - s/t 2LP (Rephlex)
SQUAREPUSHER - Vic Acid 12" (Warp)
SQUAREPUSHER - Selection Sixteen 2LP + 10" (Warp)
MOUSE ON MARS - Rost Pocks cd (Too Pure)

Exhilerated

Well some people go for coffee in the morning as a pick me up, a sneaky cigggy maybe. Not me. This morning I was feeling all gloomy and wan as the weather and my recent life angst would dictate, having a day off to muse and mellow and wallow and weep if need be (but hadn’t so far). Spending time enjoying the empty house, walking around naked, checking out whether my bottom is the same proportions as last time I inspected it in a full length mirror, seeing how my boobs change shape when I lift up my arms (seriously, tell me I’m not the only one that does this shit) then wondering whether neighbour with adjoining window would appreciate my skinly wanderings so popped upstairs to pop some threads on, but not too many mind, and no shoes or underwear – as a statement of next best thing to nudity. Did some thoughtful potplant rearranging - one out the back to the sick bed, one out to the front of the house to welcome people. Shifting the one out the front millimetres to the left to the right, twisting it just so to show its shiny leaves to best effect – aaah, like that – SLAM. Uh huh, that would be my front door. It wouldn’t, I think to myself, it wouldn’t have just locked me out would it? I twist the brass knob and get no movement. Uh huh, that would be me locked out.

I live in a terrace house – think long and skinny like Charles Dickens England and sharing walls with the two either side, facing the street in a skinny shouldered row. Impenetrable. Fuck. Mind you, the back door is wide open – I can see it in my minds eye, and there is a back yard behind that. Which is capped with a locked garage with electronic roller door. I imagine jimmying rollerdoor and messing with its internal workings, breaking the shed, explaining to the housemates. Fuck. Aaah! Stroke of genius – go to neighbours house and ask to go into their yard and climb the (not that big as I remember it) fence diving our backyards and hey voila, walk into my wide open back door. Yippee. First house – knock knock. Hmm, not home. Vision of these elderly neighbours in sarongs peacefully tendering their orange tree on weekends, I wonder if they might transform into corporate legal types and soulful office corporates on weekdays. Fuck. Go to neighbours on other side. Messy front yard – more cardboard boxes than ours – did they just move in? knock knock. I think I hear movement, maybe see a flash of flesh go past the dappled glass. I’m hopeful. I practice standing there not looking like a salesperson in case they are timid and peek to see who might be accosting them on their doorstep. I try to look very much like a neighbour.

Door opens, head peeks around the door in the way of someone not wearing much in the way of clothes. Hi I’m your neighbour and I was putting out the recycling (lied - couldn’t fess up to having been styling a pot plant) and got locked out. Can I come through and go into your backyard and climb the fence so I can get into my house? I say. He says, opening the door and revealing himself to be tall, dark, stubbled and clutching one handedly at a cream towel doing a bad job at covering his lanky self, sure, knock yourself out, waving his other hand in a manner both offhanded and expansive, lord of his manor.

He is groggy, and I can tell he has just woken up so I don’t talk, just stride purposefully down his hallway, very much wanting to stroll and check out their homewares, feeling somewhat delighted at the crowded interesting, artful disarray of their stuff, but it all goes past me so fleetingly, so tantalising – so many eyefuls to soak in but politeness doesn’t allow me, I don’t even know them, and anyway, now doesn’t seem like the best time for introductions and cups of tea. Boy he is tall. And has disarming dark brown eyes. And bed hair.

We are in his living room, mmm, open plan, and I stop in front of a complicated set of folding glass doors. He reaches up and unlocks something and starts to pull said doors. Mean while someone groans and moves and I realise that there is someone asleep on the couch, clothed, head under a pillow. On the couch! There is such spontaneity just next door to me. I go, oh ok, like this, and reach for some bit of door to pull open, realise its attached, he reaches around to my left and says here, this way, kindly, and I am in a virtual embrace by towel boy, we are almost touching, him with arm around behind me and contorting door in the necessary way. I say oh ok thanks.


Outside now, with him at door in towel, I look at fence and think shit, that is taller than my head and flimsy lattice and flanked with bushes. Fuck. I say, oh, I don’t know if I can climb that. He says, what about at the back around there past the bushes? I walk around past a vined screen and see a little bit of stone wall, sturdier. I go back and say, yeah I think that will be ok, but I might need to use this – pointing at a little wooden chair. He says yeah sure. I take wooden chair and prop precariously on a ledge near the wall, and I stand on it and strain upwards and fleetingly think can I pull myself up that high and anyway where the fuck will climbing this wall take me because our yard finishes there? I dismiss the thought and pull myself up and I am hanging off a thick stone wall which is the wall of our garage and I am pulling myself up to the roof of our garage, and this all happens so fast because I know there is no time to think about not being able to. I stand up and walk along and up the sloping stone edge, avoiding the corrugated plastic which I know might not hold me, walking to the edge of the roof, now somehow on hands and knees crawling over the top – and I can see towel boy still at the door, his head obscured in shadow, his cream towel bright. I check in an instant the other side of the roof for descent possibilities – there is a tree, too close to wall too angled for easy shimmy down, so I stay this side and check out the way down. And I manoeuvre myself around, so that I lower myself off backwards again not thinking can my arms hold me in this strange position but knowing they must, I hang suspended until my foot finds the top of their flimsy fence and I then shift myself around so I lean into the roof, bent arm keeping me joined to it, foot on fence, fronting outwards, facing the handkerchief of dirt below that I must land in and not looking at the deep hole next to it which is the brick stairs down into our garage. Not looking at the large jagged stump in the handkerchief of dirt that I would not be advised to land on. I lower myself and drop. Thud, I’m home! I am cat burglar! I am deft and strong! My heart is beating extra fast, I am exhilarated. I am full of steep edges and sharp drops and fluffy cream towels. I am adventurer. I think lewd puns about future expeditions next door for cups of sugar. I give thanks for homecoming.

Moon doggy howling

Stayed at work way too late last night finishing something that was due today and got all cranky and then sad. I felt realy tired from cranking through to this deadline and also felt tired from not being at home sorting out my life - Christmas plans, life plans, whatever. So found myself having a tear at the desk (nice look, really), and deciding all impromptu to have today off. Which I have done. Figured I've banked heaps of flex time with recent weeks of working and must still be in sleep deficient from the past few weeks. Think also the festive season has reminded me of just how solo this leg of my voyage is feeling of late, ie. just me to consult on christmas plans, just me to plan lazy days of holidays with, just me to give a shit about whether I'm happy or not. Not that I don't feel loved and cared for by friends and family, not that I don't love and care for others, I've just very recently and spectacularly felt lonely. Maybe living with a couple who are a bit more private and less familial than my mountains mates last year has thrown this into sharp relief? Maybe the recent rush of births and conceptions (despite feeling nothing but happy for each one on its announcement and being delighted at all the funny faced new little humans making their way into the world) has made me feel spectacularly single.

Walked home through the city dark still feeling melancholy and like it would be good to have a good loud weep. Which I didn't. Felt a bit like if I was a dog I would be howling moonwards. Had a bath and read Fritjof Capera and consoled myself with tales of quantum phsyics, searching and personal bravery.

The start of a wonderful new relationship

Oh I must say that having a new bed is a lot like having a new lover - makes it ever so hard to leave the bedroom to go do anything useful. Yes, I had my brand new bed delivered today. After a manic morning of bed shopping 2 weeks ago accompanied by BSharp, and many indecisive minutes that Sunday, I finally chose one and today my bed finally arrived! Woo Hooo! All 3 tonnes* of lacquered Austraian timber and foam layered cotton futon-ness of it. Hauled up my spiral staircase and built in situ by two lumbering bepierced blokes. I have already had an impromptu little nanna nap on it, face down as I plonked for my first trial of the bed. Looking forward to experiencing the soft yet firm goodness of new bed in all sorts of other positions and times of day - curled in a ball, snuggled under heavy blankets, snoozing with book on top of covers; early afternoon naps, late night drunked stumbles in, early nights. Aaaah.

*Give or take

In conference (more musings)

For almost a full week I have been in work related group forums away from the office and away from the town I live in. First in running a very full-on 3 day workshop-type extravaganza* and now in attending a conference. The story of the workshop can wait, I’m still processing, will maybe reflect on later. For now I’m in conference mode and will dig deep in my pockets and share with you the random assortments of reflections –the mints and business cards and room keys of the mind that come with events like this.

Firstly, note that I am at this very moment absenting myself from proceedings. Gracefully, hopefully discretely. Lots do – people swing in and out of the sessions, leave early, duck away and come back. And fair enough too. Absorbing new ideas thoughtfully is actually a much more strenuous activity than is generally given credit for. And I presented a paper yesterday (my first peer reviewed for an international conference – but nonetheless I plan to play with some more and submit to a journal soon - woo hoo), so am surely justified in some down time to recover?

The whole notion of being surrounded by the same group of people all day and then returning to spend the evenings together over buffet dinners and plenary sessions is an interesting one. Yesterday after the end of the plenary there was a precious unscheduled hour and a half before we would return to eat together. The women I’d been talking to decided to spend it in the bar, a few metres away from where we had been all day and would shortly return, to chat and drink red wine. Now chatting and drinking red wine is an activity I am generally very much a fan of, but in these circumstances my skin crawled at the thought. ‘Arrrrgh, it’s like a hideous polite well-referenced lock-in!!’ I thought, and promptly excused myself to return to my room, take of my shoes, get changed, make a good effort at finishing my book** and most most importantly - not talk to anyone!! I sometimes wish that you could use character traits as if they were medical conditions*** ‘sorry – introvert, must go recharge before dinner’… or ‘sorry, reflective, must go blog to some like minded souls so I can make sense of the universe in good company’.

Some more random observations. Food – they feed you a lot at events like this, but you never really feel wither hungry or full. I had a craving for really salty pizza last night, after dinner. Maybe it’s something to do with other people picking what you eat, even in a buffet, it’s a really limited range of foods, especially if you are not eating meat.

Eating together at conferences – do you think it’s nerdy to stay for the dinners and mingle like crazy? I could understand if you did, but strangely don’t. I figure if I’m here, I may as well meet some of the people who are also interested in this topic, and try to get an idea of their interesting wavy paths and interests. I also figure it’s a good way to hand out business cards and get other peoples – potential project partners, mentors, clients, friends? Who knows how the people we meet randomly at these strange events might feature later if we let it happen.

Necklaces – women at conferences often wear very funky necklaces, and I myself observe this ritual. Not just that, but I feel an almost palpable surge of gratitude towards other women who are sporting some multi-stranded bead and sequin number that matches their top in a subtly way, or some nuggety amber beads that sing of ancient times and bugs dying in hot honey and Baltic seas. What is that about? Could it be that women have a stronger affinity (either because of biological or cultural forces) to be more broadly multilingual – and the language of colour and the humour of objects speaks more strongly to us? (I’m being metaphoric and exploratory here, not barking mad, just in case you can’t spot the difference). But what is it about the jewelry thing? It’s not so much about status or ‘value’ (ie these are not diamond tiaras we are talking about) but somehow related to distraction and celebration of the joy ion the world, and the need for colour and texture. How is it that men don’t bore themselves stupid when they wear the same plain colours every day, with not a funky accessory to be seen? It’s like a warmed up death.

*Not just an information workshop, but a deliberative forum with randomly selected citizens’ deliberating on environmental policy issues
** reading my book that is – not just popping upstairs to finish penning that novel I’ve never quite started
*** Of course in reality I am completely against the idea of pathologising normal human attributes, and squeezing the range of ‘normal’ into a tight band with the majority of us hanging woefully either end of the scale. I just meant if these could be used like ‘sorry, I have a cold, must go blow my nose’. Maybe a religious metaphor would be better than a medical one? Like ‘actually I’m an orthodox book worm and must go an complete my afternoon reading now’.

On the road

Currently out and about - almost through a week of being away for work. Think academics, butchers paper, high rotation morning teas, suit cases, musty hotel rooms, strange randomly found moments of real conection and honesty in conversations with complete strangers on topics from society's percetions of the nature of science and how this ignores the essential notion of uncertainty and privilidges quantification irrespective of context, to the ego's atachment to opinions and the idea of 'philosophical maturity' which instead allows people to examine new ideas without personal investment, to the nature transdisciplinarity as it relates to those working in systems thinking / sciences, to exactly how different the $3 extra a glass shiraz is compared with the house red. And that.

Presented a paper yesteday - nothing earth shatering - just preesnting a technique for education for sustainability and drawing out some commonalities between some exsting programs. Nonetheless got 2 questions and at least 3 people afterwards keen to find out more because they want to learn from the case studies to apply it to the work they're doing. So that's cool.

Have been patronised by older male academics at least twice. The moment I especially loved was last night when as we sat around waiting for dinner to be served and musing on the afternoon's workshop, we started discussing a particular group technique that was used in the workshop:

Older male academic 1 - 'so what did you all think of that technique?'
Older male academics 2 and 3 - 'oh I'm very familiar with it, used it many times, but I suppose it was useful for those who haven't..' and 'oh yes it can be useful but you know you have to be very prepared, and experienced for it to work..'
Older male academic 2 - 'yes sometimes these things don't work. I remember once in Canberra I had a comeplete failure..'
Me (thinking, yah, this sounds interesting, rare frankess here) - 'oh, what didn't work about it? was it the people, was it because you could have prepared for it differently? What do you think made it a failure?'
Academic 2 (loking at me like I am a frog) - 'well, you know, there were many factors... (I keep looking expectantly). Well, you know the people weren't all that willing to be there. I think the instructions could have been better. The other organisers were - well, maybe I shouldn't have taken the job.'
(We all get up and start moving to diner.)
Academic 2 - (says dismissively) 'Over time you'll get to experience it, you'll have your share of failures.' (or similar)
Me gobsmacked says nothing. But I THINK 'how presumptuous of you to assume that I haven't already been running processes like that for years and don't already have a wealth of experience to draw on. In fact, I was really only asking you because I was mildly interested in some one else's experiences AND TO BE POLITE!!! You sir, seem to be a boring old self-satisfied fart - good evening.'

Or similar.

Musing that it is sometimes hard to be taken 'seriously' (if serious is the measure we aspire to) when you smile nicely, are young (relative to the bulk of folk there), are female and act friendly and interested in other people. There are still a lot of assumptions that people carry around about who has ideas worth offering and what kind of package those ideas will arrive in. If you don't have a beard, a scowl, a mouthful of jargon and a post as a dean of a school you become part of the room decorations (to some). As if you coudn't train a monkey* to chuckly self righteously and talk about epistemology. Mind you, anyone who would operate out of that framework of assumptions is not really someone who's ideas I'm as interested in engaging with as someone radical enough to approach these events with an open mind and willingness to take people as they come.

*I'm not meaning to insult monkeys here. Monkeys are far clever than us as far as I can see as they seem to be able to live to the end of their days without falling under the weight of existential angst and needing medication to get out of bed, without threatening their supply of clean water, air and soil just to make pretty plastic toys to entertain themselves, without leaving each other to die unnoticed in small concrete cells, and without needing to extinguish whole other species through ignorance and selfishness. Oops - didn't mean to sound too misanthropic there, sorry. Must be the bad conference coffee and lack of air...?