Come on in, sit right down and make yourself at home

Took two loverly yelllow curvy dining chairs into the studio yesterday. they were being thrown out by neighbours in the hard refuse collection that the Council runs regularly for waste / reusable items too big for bins. The idea is that they go and get sifted and sorted and recycled where possible. From my experience little of it is rejuvenated and sold as what it started out as (eg. chairs reupholstered and sold back as chairs), but more liveley that materials are broken down and reused as metal, wood chips, etc). Which is definitely better than landfill, but not as great as having an extended life at a higher beneficial use, before being broken down etc. Long way around saying I have no qualms whatsoever in taking things and putting them to good use before the truck comes :)

Anyway, hoiked these off to the studio in the back of a cab. He said "are you moving?" and I thought - hmm interesting new house I'd be having if I was - 2 chairs and a drawing folder....
He also said "Nice house - how much do you pay for rent?", which I always love. I reckon some cabbies should double as financial advisors because there seems to be a small subset who think that their customers' financial situations are fair game for conversation and comment - I figure you may as well be getting informed advice if you're going to be getting comments. It could be a good way to be very time efficient. Can you imagine, all the advice type jobs could happen in taxis. "Hello, I'd like a taxi to the domestic airport, and can that be a conveyencer please, I have some house questions I need answered". It could be called "Advice in a trice", or "Words and wheels"... yeah.

Anyway, off to the studio with chairs, and had a good session. It alll feels really new still, like the first day of school, and the combo of having other people around, and it being quite open plan add to the feeling of 'eek, I'm on show here, better get my shit together and do something, erm, something good', which is of course the antithesis of the approach I am trying to have which is 'this is about fun, process and skill development, and it doesn't so much matter what I make so long as I go and give it attention'. It is intended to be something along the lines of inserting back those double lessons of art on a Wednesday afternoon at school, that helped me get through subjects I liked less, and gave me a chance to daydream and play. This is just a structured approach to making space for the daydream and play.

So, yes, still a little nervous. I remmind myself of choir though, when I was singing ina choir in the mountains, and how at first it was terrifying, I literally thought they would have to ask me to go because I would be blithely singing along off key and putting everyone off, but that never happened, I was fine. I also remember the warm up excerrsises and games at the start of choir and tell myself that that's what I'm doing, I'm just getting warmed up. You can't just walk in and be ensconced in some majestic project, it takes some settling, some decorating, some little things to make room for and pave the way for bigger things; 'From little things, big things grow'.

Anyway it was a nice afternoon, and when I left the sun was on its way down in the backstreets of a cosy inner city suburb, people were in pubs and walking home with takeaway, walking dogs, the jasmine was out smelling nice along with people's dinners from houses, and bouganvillea flowers were painted thick across sides of houses, in a red-purple that was luminescent and made me want to touch it, run my hand across whole lot, ever so lightly, and soak in colour.

Bright lights big city

This is a drawing stuck to my window, as the day changes so does her background, at night she sits in front of dark and city lights.

For she's a jolly good fellow

Happy Birthday to Merri Risa. Spent a lovely evening sharing chat and pink bubbles and cheesy cheesy music. E-Chan is a cutie these days, cruising around like he's been walking for ever. Nice to celebrate the milestones with dear old friends, and she qualifies as both :)

And so say all of us!

Blue Moon

Big moon tonight, full or very close (darn don't you hate it when you've forgotten to commune with the night sky and don't know whether the moon is coming or going?). I had an eyefull as I walked home from (inner west suburb) to (other inner west suburb) tonight. I really like walking, especially on clear, slightly warm nights, still, clear, stars out, skin not afraid of the air. I like walking as a form of trasnport, I like taking 40 minutes to get from A to B and enjoying all the sights along the way. I like the 20ish minute walk to work as a way to wake up, to get quiet time, to think. I have good ideas while I'm walking. Sometimes it's hard not to get waylaid though (oh bookshop, oh sitting down for a quick coffee, oh that would make a good photos, oh oh).

It all got a bit too much at the end of last week and I had to take some time out of the office. Headache that started in my neck and worked up. Stuffy achey head. Needing to be away from noise and distractions. I did a sick-day / work at home day combo deal, which just meant working when I felt like it, in bursts, when I could, rather than having to be in amongst people and deal with every email and phone call and background noise. I like my job, it's virtually my dream job, I say that often and just about mean it. In terms of content/ subject area, areas of work, smart, nice, fun people, integrity, overall values, coffee machine in the kitchen.. etc it totally is. But in terms of how I feel at the end of some weeks, it totally isn't. To be honest I think I'm just not all that well suited to office work - all the contact with people exhausts me (I do realise, yet again that I sound like a complete not quite of this world misanthropic elfling), and I find moving from surface level, keep the balls in the air, fire quenching focus, to deep thought, original ideas, synthesis and analysis really hard. Being pushed and pulled between the two modes of working I find especially frustrating. In fact, I'm actuallly thinking of writing a paper on nuerodiversity (learning styles, intro-extroversion etc) in the workplace and how to make the working environment more accomodating of various preferred modes of functioning, and in doing so figure out what to do to make it work better for me!

Of course to top it all off I'm still seeing "Bob", the therapist, and whilst I don't think therapy itself makes you feel worse, per say, it highlights lots of things that I have already been thinking and feeling, and does prompt fairly regular bouts of self reflection and examining the past - aka bouts of weeping. This can make putting on a happy face and heading into the world of cheery laminex a challlenge too. I guess it's a bit like having a massage, where you might find yourself experiencing sudden sadness halfway through and the next day you might be a bit sore in the muscles, or headachey ('it's the toxins being released from your system'..?) but the day after that you feel glowing and relaxed. Well, I guess this is a long massage in parts and I'm still in a toxin release phase. I've been going for a few months now on and off, and it's the most commitment I've ever shown to such an endeavour. Sure it all began when I had to take a day off work because I couldn't stop crying because of something that had happened with my immediate family one weekend, and I decided I couldn't deal with it one single day longer. So that was a fairly desperate moment, but I think the time was right for having some support to work through other less dramatic, older, ingrained stuff too.

What I am finding interesting, one step away from it all, is the way I feel about being involved in such a process, and the way I feel about doing it in amongst a community of friends, workmates and people in general. I share this just out of interest, in case you ever wondered what goes through other people's heads on this stuff...
- Firstly I think it's no-one else's business, it's private, and secretish, a bit like going to have a pap smear, or maybe getting cosmetic surgery (should you be into that type of thing), maybe something other people do, you presume other people must be doing it because your practitioner stays in a job, but you don't really want to know who, or when, or what exactly they're doing there, and nor do you want them knowing that you're doing it.
- Response number 2, chosen randomly out of the mix, is that it's healthy and proactive and nothing to be ashamed of, and should be respected as valuable preventative health/ wellness measures, like going to see a massage therapist, or getting a pedicure, or eating raw vegetables. It's virtuous, and not your problem if other people have negative conotations, you should go into bat for it, mention it matter of factly to a chosen few.
- Then there's the 'this is really hard work and I want a note to show the teacher' response - something petulant and lip quivering, where you feel a bit hard done by that you are voluntarily turning up regularly to wade through difficult waters, and coming away worn out, distracted and somewhat sensitive to the touch, and yet no-one knows to treat you gently, or give you the benefit of the doubt if you are not operating at your peak performance in one of your many roles. When I feel like this I kind of want to tell everyone that I'm in therapy and have a few glib and indisputable lines to explain what I'm working through, and have them step back with an efficient little nod and nothing more to say on the matter. I want the social-sign equivilent of a mourning outfit from the 1800's (don't worry, not literally, I am not wanting to waft around in dark crinolines and a gothy brooch made from a dead person's hair). I feel like not mentioning it is dishonest, because if I was seeing a physiotherapist for an old muscle injury I would talk about it. If you are sick with a flu, or have a sore leg you can talk about it. If you are trying to change old belief systems, it seems not ok to talk about it. I feel like telling my supervisor, my boss, random relatives, all my close friends (those few who don't already know). I want sympathy, and understanding and a hall pass that excuses me from class.
- The 'ohmygodeveryonewillthinki'mbonkers' response, which firmly kicks in when ever I think of proferring said note for the teacher. This is interesting, because it relates to my impressions of other people's feelings about 'the healing arts' or 'the talking cures'... I worry that people will think I am all problem/ issue and think of that as the defining feature of my life, that they will label, stereotype, lounge chair diagnose, or think me a drama queen, or nuerotic yuppie with too much money on her hands who is buying into Woodie-Allanesque NY style self absorption ... etc.

It's kind of weird to be dealing with very old family stuff, that spans generations, when you don't have brothers and sisters, or anyone else in the family that you can talk to about it. It feels a little lonely. I guess that's one reason I'm seeing 'a professional' about it, to get some independant perspective, to reality check my responses, and to feel ok going into the details of what still feels very private and in many cases too awful to share. It is comforting to be able to check your perspectives with someone who doesn't have an investment in the situation, and you know is ok with hearing the details. Someone who is not going to overdramatise because they've heard lots worse before, nor discount your feelings, who will remind you of the possible experiences of others, and who will never find themselves trying to make polite conversation with the people involved.

Feeling lucky to have access to this resource, and for supportive friends, and proud of myself for putting in the hard yards (including reading reams of family therapy books - ugh).

Realise this might be making my posts a little dull, sorry about that.

daydreamin

Sometimes I dream about what it would like to all - everyone I know and like - be somewhere nice together, somewhere cruisy and intimate, somewhere where we are all our most beautiful, vital, happy and good humoured. Where we would sing soul together and dance in dark crumbly rooms decorated with furnishings that are made by hand and meaningful. Where we would cook together and laugh. Where we would be still and contemplate the new fruit that we pick still cool from the tree in the morning. But especially the dancing and singing, being together and enjoying each other’s company without shame or fear, without envy or criticism, without proving or provoking, each of us the best we can be, each of us satisfied, sexy, whole, alive, being and dying, suspended for this moment between birth and the grave, with no to do lists or agendas, an improbable bunch of star-dust dancing with twinkles in our eyes.

Mindful eating

I get emails from a Buddhist group in Vietnam who run events like special lunches with mindful eating as a type of meditation. they also do walking meditation and the most lovely thing - mindful listening. At these sessions some people come to talk and get things off their chest, and people who are feeling calm and happy act as empathatic listeners - kind of chaotic self organising counselling. I plan to eat my leftovers mindfully today, and not look at lunch as a distraction between two busy tasks.

" When I was four years old, my mother used to bring me a cookie every time she came home from the market. I always went to the front yard and took my time eating it, sometimes half an hour or forty-five minutes for one cookie. I would take a small bite and look up at the sky. Then I would touch the dog with my feet and take another small bite. I just enjoyed being there, with the sky, the earth, the bamboo thickets, the cat, the dog, the flowers. I was able to do that because I did not have much to worry about. I did not think of the future, I did not regret the past. I was entirely in the present moment, with my cookie, the dog, the bamboo thickets, the cat, and everything. It is possible to eat our meals as slowly and joyfully as I ate the cookie of my childhood. Maybe you have the impression that you have lost the cookie of your childhood, but I am sure it is still there, somewhere in your heart. Everything is still there, and if you really want it, you can find it. Eating mindfully is a most important practice of meditation." - Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace Is Every Step 

Nothing and then some

Weekends. Funny isn't it the need to 'do' things. I think having a busy week infects the nature of the weekend. My brain ticks over in work mode, whirring, planning, making grand aspirations about the weekend, trying for the perfect plan which balances select scatterings of glamorous down time ('yes, yes, I'll go read in the courtyard of my fave cafe, yes, I'll potter! I'll go to yoga!') with plans to make and do things, however humble ('oh yes, I'll cook individual lentil pies and freeze them for lunches! I'll do gardening! I'll finish my zine, yes hello Kinkos here I come! I'll go to the studio and make monster t-shirts! I'll catch up on my blog! I'll check my emails! I'll call people back!') and maintenence ('oh yes, I'll order vegies for next week, ahuh, I'll do my washing and make my room ever so tidy and maybe even iron shirts, I'll pay bills, I'll buy birthday cards for my rellos who have birthdays this month') and then, when it actually rolls in, like a big wet wave, I find myself thinking 'hmmm, I'll lie on my bed and feel the breeze and listen to Bob Dylan and think about nothing in particular', 'I'll go out for dinner with my housemates and no particular purpose other than to hang out', 'I'll dance around the kitchen to Justin Timberlake and do the dishes in between songs I feel like dancing to', 'I'll buy another second hand book and as it sits in my hand a solid weight dream up long essays that I feel like writing, but not write them'. etc.

Which is not to say that I don't end up doing some things off this list (ugh, the double negatives!!), it's just more random, the mutually exclusive activities battle it out in my subconscious and I end up doing some combination that later I couldn't quite explain. Lots gets left undone. I stop caring, the list gets fainter, the 'should do' voice gets fainter as a travel further away from the dry land of Monday to Friday. Maybe this is it, the week is ruled by the conscious mind, the weekend gets to be ruled by the subconscious, once you drift fully and deeply into it. Therefore it defies rational explanation, and becomes morphed into a beautiful, inexplicable, but somehow deeply meaningful dreamscape, things that you know are important but that don't have market value because they are slight and translucent and personal.

I did plant herbs and enjoy getting dirt under fingernails. I did do some washing. I lay on the couch and watched precisely the kind of crappy ABC detective dramas that make a tired girl happy on a Friday night. I did have a little cry to my housemate about the shitty end to my week, and all my work worries, we did both laugh through snotty tears over toast at the breakfast table. I did read some of my book and laugh out loud and wonder whether Italo Calvino is secretly my brain double, he manages to say what I think, how I feel, how I see things, and makes them both beautiful and deeply ridiculous. Aaah, just like my weekends.

Maybe one weekend I'll write the ultimate to do list, and it will wind out the back door and down the street, and then I'll tear it up into squares and all the kids and dogs and dreamers in the neighbourhood will set up a big fingerpainting session out on the road of our quiet street, under shady trees, and we will eat cake, and laugh, and paint beautiful wish flags, and all we will wish for is days like the one we are having. We'll tie them up high to the steeples and masts of our houses and leave them there as a reminder of our wisdom, and as talisman to scare away the drab spirits of the working week who would hand wring at us ceaselessly unless calmed by the colourful mess of our joy.

keeping up appearances

Oh there are just so many ways to 'keep in touch' these days aren't there? And so many of them so odd and removed from actual contact. Shall I pop round and visit you? Phone you? Leave a voicemail? Fax you? Friend you? Email you? Contact you on your Blackberry? Send you a message on Facebook? Become your Myspace friend? Instant message you? Text your mobile? Skype you? Add you as a friend on Flickr? Make a sound file and upload it to your website? Write about you obliquely in my blog and hope you read it?

Hitech versions of the other random, oblique forms of contact: Dedicating a song to you on the kind of talk back radio show that you only hear down the cat food aisle of the local grocery shop when you stop by on the way home from work, write a note for you on the kitchen table, send you a letter, send you a note in class, screwed up on graph paper and moist with sweat from clenched hands, scrawl a vague and only half articulated note about the text and our shared lives in the margin of a library book, write in red lipstick on your mirror in the middle of a party, fart a sneaky old dinner kind of fart as we all queue for the check out, buy a t-shirt with a slogan I want to say to everybody, write a novel and say what I want to say to you to everyone, bite your lip unexpectedly in a kiss only semi-domesticated, send you morse code in the shimmer of my eyes gliding obliquely over the top of a beer in a weeknight corner of a pub.

Just musing, just noting, as I enjoy the space on a weekend morning and plan to get in touch with people without a looming visit to work this afternoon to dampen my mood.

Sunday piece of quiet

Oh I worry too much! The weekend is panning out just fine. Caught up with 2 little friends Friday night, went out for a drink at one of the City's many art deco nice tiles style, middle of the city-style, filled with loud suits unwinding, shaven headed bar man who looks like he could be an organised crimester or a personal trainer, or a divorced dad of a 3 year old who'd give all the day care attendants a little thrill as he drops her off 2 days a week and applies his gruff attention and steely gaze to them for fleeting minutes and they admire his strong dexterous hands unhook mini back packs and make the blue pen loook small as he signs at the front desk. Yes, we went there. And despite my angst at disengaging from the working week a few hours earlier than I would have otherwise, I enjoyed it thoroughly. Got absolutely tipsy and verbose after just two drinks, and enjoyed one of those frank 'hey, does everyone think this? do this?' kind of conversations which are illuminating and unexpectedly raw and real feeling. Am very much enjoying the company of people who you can be 'real' with at the moment, where the clamber for cool just aint there, and there is no life one upman/womanship going on. People with whom I can be messy and in progress, and unsure and silly and contradictory, and that's ok. (I think all of my close friends fit into this kind of basket, and anyone reading this is probably potentially-virtually in that category, but there are people who I see socially who are extended contacts in old networks of work friends, and stuff like that, where I feel far more inhibited around, feel like some crucial point of getting to know each other hasn't happpened, and therefore we are moer restrained, more polite, less honest, more strained). I guess there's a philosophical question there about what makes a friend and how compatability is generated or realised - can we become intimate close friends with anyone - is it the sharing of intimacies that creates intimacy, or do we need to find 'the right type of people', 'people we hit it off with uniquely' to create great friends? I like the 'come one come all' theory myself, but in practice it's at least easier with people you hit it off with quickly and or who have similar values and experiences. The people I caught up with Friday night are both quite self reflective people, who read, are interested in what makes people tick, the arts, questioning what kinds of lives they want to lead, and admit their shortcomings and challenges and are good at letting you know that you're OK as is, and are fun - all of which makes friendship very easy feeling and very rewarding. I think those are the kinds of qualities I really appreciate in all my close friendships - being able to be really silly and fun, being able to be really serious, being able to share the crap, and knowing that the liking of each other will weather all of that.

Oops, better hurry this along, was meant to be a quick snapshot of the terrain from the sky, not a rambling tracing of the curve of each river and a snifff at what the leaf letter smells like.

Yesterday I went to yoga and enjoyed stretching out my lower back and challenging my uppper body to suport all of me (ah! upper body strength, ooh, poor wimpy arms), then had a mild wig out about the social event I had planned later in the day, and almost cancelled, but instead just arranged to meet up later. I wont go into it here because it's a very big meander, but in summary, I just suddenly felt like I didn't have the psychological reserves to muster up the slightly more glossy, worldly, apartment-buying, label-wearing, light-chit-chat-making, love-life-explaining(/defending), holiday-plan-expounding persona required for the event. This was particularly influenced by the presence of one person there who seems so unshaking in his approach to life, and by whose standards I guess I'm not much of a success, and suddenly, I just couldn't bear going, but at the same time really wanted to see the others, so compromised, bought myself some time to get a better attitude, then went. Which was great, because the other person had left by then. Admittedly it all would have been easier if I'd been able to fabricate some plausible reason for not having been able to make it earlier, but I couldn't lie, and neither did I feel comfortable telling the truth (aah, you see, I had a crisis of confidence, because I'm aware that my approach to life and yours is slightly different, and I think mine is valid too, but I'm not very good at having a strong sense of self in the presence of others, and you know, I just didn't feel like being judged, so I had to positive self-talk myself into coming, and that took some time), and it made me reflect once again on how understanding we are of things in the physical world posing challenges to our daily activities (ooh the traffic darling, oh you see I had to wait for the plumber, mmm, headache, oh you see I think I pulled a muscle) but not those of the world of the mind, or the inner world (feeling sad, had a bad dream and woke up feeling melancholy so had to go sit in the sun a bit, grieving, not feeling up to idle chit chat with someone I don't really like today).

Was a lovely afternoon though, all beer garden and festival vibe and chat. Then walking through the still warm but just turning cool Saturday night, past girls in bare shoulders and party hair, and a quick detour to the office to get paperwork for Sunday few hours of work planned, then home to the housemates, to drink beer and hang out and watch a dvd, us all up for a quiet one, us all regrouping after busy weeks, a nice feeling of solidarity, of companionship.

Now today I have woken up feeling fresh and carrying that nice sore in the biceps and trapezoids (or some other muscle group in the arm and shoulder region sounding out near the milky way) and optimistic about getting through the work needed by tomorrow. Basketball was cancelled, which was great, giving me more time to work, and then a mid arvo girly afternoon tea and sewing plan with a friend from the 'hood. A 'study break' of sorts.

Enjoying peace and quiet.

juggle juggle

Oh another busy week. Friday here and I’m exhausted and ready for a hot bath.

You know, I think the challenge that I face often is that I am trying to fit in 3 main things into a life that seems to only have room for two of them at any given time. Those 3 things are:
- my work and career – in all it’s erratic, long hour, intense periods of focus, fun nutting out problems and lovely writing up solutions glory
- my interior life – lying in the bath thinking, reading, having quiet time, being at the studio, reflecting about life through writing, blogging about all the things that catch my eye and make me think
- relationships – having a drink with workmates after work, meeting friends on the weekend, seeing and having meals with my housemates, spending time with my cat, getting to the post office to send that parcel, calling mum for a chat, being at home to call my Grandma back, remembering family birthdays

I think I can really pare it all back to these main areas of things that I do. Life admin is probably in there too – cooking, eating, bathing, washing clothes, buying stuff, but I don’t really care all that much about it and it just kind of randomly happens in amongst everything else, and when it doesn’t I eat strange dinners and wear slightly quirky outfits, but don’t mind all that much.

For example – tonight – dinner with friends (lovely! But could also be having a bath and tidying my room, or finishing a section of my desperately due report). Tomorrow – Surry Hills festival with old friends or write up a section or have some down time away from people to think and daydream, write stuff and maybe draw? You see? It feels like I can’t quite fit in a full working life and full social life and full interior life.

And it’s hard to know what to shave time off, because I really really need time to myself, I really enjoy my work, and I do value having good relationships with people and like contact (possibly in small doses). Go part time? Have less friends? Accept that I’m a nerdy hermit and give up the pretense of having a ‘normal’ life?

Off to the pub now. These questions can wait for resolution, beer and chat beckons.

Your fairground hair

These are some pics from the Zine Fair in Newcastle and the exciting production efforts in the kitchen the night before binding my 'zines. Thankin Amberguity, Herr F., Mr T, Ms Dragon and Water Boy for: binding ideas involving nails and nifty needlework, loan of hardware and dilligent hammering, use of spectacular stall, encouragement and fair wandering company, and sightseeing and ginger beer purveying respectively. Thanks guys.

Earth Dance Festival, September 2007, Sydney

Round and round, mash mash

Spin. A friend at work sent around a link to a website to a few of us who sit near each other – she said ‘read this and despair, I wondered what I’ve been doing for the last 30-odd years’. I clicked on it and read short bios of mid twenty year old committee members of an environment group, they all grant for this, scholarship there, started own business here, worked with big name organisations there. Together they made a montage of earnest give a shit, with the glitter of right place right time, the varnish of effort. I agreed that it was a bit humbling. But then I also wondered that this woman should feel like this when she read it. She who studied at one of the biggest name sandstone universities of the world, who traveled in developing (underdeveloped/ majority world, you pick the ideology and terminology) countries helping audit environmental organisations, worked for big name exciting European sustainability organisation, who currently works only part time at the job we both do so she can work one day a week for another environment group, who is a volunteer lifesaver at her local beach – I mean really. I reassured her that spin was a powerful force and that although ‘you can’t polish a turd’ (I really am fond of that phrase) you can do quite a good job of styling it nicely. It’s easy to be daunted by the bios of strangers.

Pulp. Also in the parcel from mum was a mystery novel, reviewed by the author of one of the mystery series that she and I both love. This one is a first novel and is a bit awkward, bit obviously of the genre, but so far so good. I know I’ll read it this weekend, despite having a report to write, people to catch up with, housework to do and a visit to the studio to squeeze in. Sometimes I read more when I’m busy because it helps create a bit of balance. Bath reading is especially lovely. Café reading comes a close second. I rarely read in bed, almost never, because my arms get tired, and to be quite honest, once I’m finally in bed sleeping seems like a much more attractive proposition than reading.

and if you didn't come here to party then why did you come here?

Gosh it's been a long while since I last blogged. I'm really sorry, this blog has its moments of being a bit of a backwater. The words are fresh at first and then you click here, see the same header and leave disgruntled, aware that the posts are getting brackish, pooling, maybe some pond-scum forming. Without movement there is no flow, without flow no oxygen is captured by cold watery hands and folded back into the body of the stream of thought, without oxygen things find it harder to live, only the most hardy and thick skinned perservere, the delicate and subtle beasties languish and don't reproduce, let go of the banks and jagged twigs and let themselves float downstream to somewhere more hospitable. Consider this a cool spring rain come to mix things up a bit, get things moving.

Ahem.

Now. Where was I? Telling stories.

Firstly pesto. Imagine a tightly packed jar of rocket pesto, rocket home grown, homemade in my mum's kitchen, arriving in a suitcase of varied hand me downs and gifts, sent by bus from interstate, the jar of peso bubblewrappped carefully, surrounded by books, big stacks of Literature, old paperbacks of serious radical words, and a collage made by mum and my little brother aged 3 1/2 of the 3 pigs, the wolf stuck on in fluffy grey fake fur, he a blocky little jagged shape with giant boggle eyes. It makes me laugh and makes me feel sad, that they should care about me so much, that he should be so far away, that my experiences of him be mediated by telephone or through drawings or funneled into the space available in a fly in fly out visit. A certain sense of sweet sad loss and of time and of things not being quite the way the should be, of a lost opportunity and of life not waiting while I try to figure out who I am and how I want to live and where I want to live it.

The man at the pizza shop. He has a wide face with wide spaced eyes that make him seem a little otherworldy, his under brow half smile a little cloying, like I drown in its proximity. I become ever so aware of the fact that he sees me walk past, alone, late into the evening, weeknight after weeknight. Not that I fear sinister motives, but just that he has become a mirror to my alone-ness, and of my predictability. His slow burn flirtation, the smile of recognition, and once or twice when I've eaten there, the intimate questions and as I pay the bill, the discount (he tips me). All very familiar for a complete stranger. I am often acutely aware that the pizza man with the wide spaced eyes gives me the most loaded attention I get all week. Sometimes I worry that I would date him if he asked just because I tend to go along for the ride (err, poor choice of words p'raps). I have even imagined what his empty, clothes strewn flat would look like. Not in a sexy way, just out of anthropoligical curiosity. I imagine empty cans, white walls and bright light and the dark impenetrable language shared between him and his wide girthed brother in law. It wouldn't work, I can feel the awkwardness, his cassanova butting up against my ice queen or nerd girl career woman. There's not much scope for finding a foothold in all that, I feel that our personalities would slide right over each other without getting purchase. Ultimately Unfulfilling. The red stamp that many of my idle wonderings end up with after they've been sent to the Romantic Possibility Assessment Department in my brain. Some internal envelopes doing the rounds holding a tentatively penciled outline returning stamped in red, again.

The zine fair. Yes I went to one. Part of an art festival a few hours out of town. Met an old friend (who was once a workmate, then an ex-work mate, and then tentatively a friend, and then by virtue of time and continuous record, an actual friend, and now I think and old friend), caught up also with Ms Snapdragon and Mr T. It was hot and dusty. Mr T had a stall. I had made a zine and put it on said stall. We all sat at the stall and chatted to strangers. Wandered and bought buttons and zines, I bought a boggle eyed badly stitched girl dolly, who I plan to pin and wear as a brooch. Semi-ironically. Or something. The zines were all suitably scrappy and whispered or breathless and teenaged or made as if on a random generator of cut type and photostatted household objects. Some were quasi political in that amorphous, highly insinuating and hyperhbolic, arty kind of way that leaves you a bit unclear as to what they actually suggest get changed and how, but have great scratchy graphics and a gaggle of matching outfitted thin and pierced uni students at the stall. Which, you know, counts for a lot. I felt quite dried out and scatty all day. LIke things are moving just that half notch faster than you and you are running behind trying to figure out what just happpened. I think it was the hot dry wind, and the fact that on the train ride up I sat behind a family with most of the tick a box problems you can think of, and listened to it alll play out, loudly for over an hour. I felt jangled, but like I couldn't move away because if people have such shit lives the least I can do is be aware and bear witness, not slink off to the easy listening carriage and pretend it's not happening. However as a result, I felt wrecked, emotionallly wrung out just from listening to the interactions, the loud rough drug-slurred speech, the unspoken needs left ignored, the car crash of an afternoon the parents had planned, the dynamics, the anxiety, the depression, the overtly sexual behviour and the teenaged daughter cringing in the corner, the drug use, the prison sentence, the neediness. Sometimes I feel very thin skinned around other people like I soak it all in and feel it too. Sometimes think I'm a bit of a delicate flower and also at the same time the rough and uncaring caretaker of the flower, treating myself a little too casually, roughly, not protecting myself from the vageries of the elements, of other people's outpourings.

The hampster wheel. Sometimes work feels like a hampster wheel - right, ready, set go! Spin the wheel! Answer emails, check phone messages, check emails again, edit that document, check that website, quickly hold that meeting, touch base with that, leave a voice message for them, smile at the interns, check the email, make a tea, tell a joke, walk to the printer, breathe, check emails. etc. Well at least on busy days. Some days, especially Fridays, I have such trouble getting myself out the front door and into the office. We have flexible working hours, but sometimes I stretch them until all the flexibility is at its snapping point - ping. Sometimes I just can't bear the idea of going in there - to all the people and all the small talk, all the inane questions, all the interruptions, all the smiling. Does that make me sound like a people-hating, introverted, badly adjusted freak? So be it. Possibly I am all of that, and add erratic and day-dreamy to boot. I just want to be left alone some days, not because I'm upset or sad, but just because my head is full from the last few days inputs, and I need time to let it all settle, I need peace and quiet, I need time to turn ideas into action. I tend to disengage when I feel like this. I sometimes don't go in until late morning, or I head off to a meeting room to work (if it's a writing task people understand, other people do this too). I think sometimes people interpret this as 'she is unhappy' or 'she is stressed', and I lack the language to say 'please don't talk to me, I'm really over people right now' in a way that might make any sense and also not offend. If I had my own office it might be different. If I was an academic and not working on applied research for clients I might find more swthes of uninterrupted time. Of course sometimes I am sad or stressed as well as just feeling in need of quiet time, that is quite the trifecta. In conclusion, I think the whole 5 days a week (plus) shennanigan quite ridiculous. Three days a week would suit me much better, but so far I haven't been brave enough to weather the pay cut.

Dancing around the kitchen. Yes I did this. To Radiohead. It was a funny kind of dance and I looked at my arms move in the lit up glass of the backdoor, with the black night behind and marvellled at such wiggleyness as it was unfolding, feeling removed as if they were someone elses.