See - how nice is that tree out my window?

Greetings from da hood

Well it's been a while since I got online and wrote here. I have been thinking about it, but a flurry of wintery craft, and a rush of finishing up work (with varying degrees of actual completion) before taking some leave, took priority.

I am taking a few weeks off, and boy did I need it. I had started to get to that cranky pants phase of needing a break, where you start to resent people you work with for all sort of unreasonable things... like you know, talking to you, or asking you to do things. Never a very good sign about your reserves of patience or resillience.

I suspect that some of my energy for work has also been sapped by the trends of the last few years - the last few years of working somewhere fabulous with lovely smart committed people, and a coffee machine, and good pot plants, and good, reasonable, useful work.. but not being very good at boundaries - feeling both responsible for everything, and vaguely terrified that I never know enough to be good enough at what I'm doing so overcompensating by never saying no to anything. Ho hum. Sure it's only taken 2 1/2 years to realise that therein lies the rocky road that leads to the slippery slopes of job burn out and crankiness. So, part of this break time is rethinking my role there, what kind of work I want to do (like doing, am good at and feel confident doing), and what kinds of things I actually want to say no to in future. (Note: we are unnusually unstructured in terms of topics and roles - essentialy if you don't say no to things and seem to be able to do them, you will find yourself doing very diverse work, in very diverse topics where it is important to know about teh topic area. I can't say more without blowing the semblance of bloggish coyness about my RL, well life, but imagine that my workplace was a school, and when the physics teacher is sick you get asked to take their lessons, even if you're the music teacher, or canteen lady, or French teacher - and the Physics teacher finds herself another day pitching in making sandwhiches, and all of you together come up together with the school's strategic plan, and make lamington's for the fete. And if you did well at taking the Physics class, you might find yourself doing it as a permanent stand in when enrollments grown and they need a second class. That kind of thing. Which is fine if you're the happy go lucky 'physics, sandwhiches, xylophone, whatever - I'll give anything a go' kind of person, but can be stressful when you're the slightly anxious, yet often high performing 'oh my god what do I know about physics, I can't even remember whether I turned the iron off this morning' self doubter). God that was an awful analogy - let's just let it die there!

Anyway. So there's been that, and also this bigger / deeper question of 'why am I even working in an office job and not doing something more creative?' question, which is not an idle musing, but rather seems like a burning issue that needs addressing in my life. I know that creativity can be expressed in many forms, and certainly there is an element of creativity in analytical thinking and planning and written expression (even of the 9-5 kind) but I do find all in all that there feels like something missing, something kind of dried out, something kind of stultifying and dead in my ongiong experience of the well behaved, rational, ordered, sequential, moderate world of the office. Even with a great coffee machine and nice people.

So. Some time off to do whatever I feel like doing (oh, and some work actually, but at least at home, and on things I want to do - preparing presentations - things that would usually get squeezed into the cracks around everythingelse and I can now do in a bit more of a relaxed way).

I had a few moments of doubt in booking some time out and lpaning to spend them at home. As in 'OMG that's not very exciting - what if I am the world's most boring loser?' but have passed that phase and now feel very happy with tooling about. Today I arranged a knitting project on the couch to check colours and plan next steps, read, wrote, had cups of tea, ate the lentil soup I cooked yesterday, spoke to a friend on the phone, picked up my dry washing from the laundrymat and the woman who runs it introduced herself and we smiled a lot through the fallnigdown fence of our different languages, took photos of the beautiful sky and leaves combo out my window, had coffee in a cafe and shamelessly eavesdropped and daydreamed while I knitted, visited the library and borrowed mystery novels, a knitting book and a how to draw crime noir for graphic novels book. Bliss! Heady goals for the rest of the week include - cook vegetables, buy more wool, get a copy of old Nirvana album (I know - CDs - how old skool), see amovie and go to fabric printing course. Sleep enough. Smile. Stay warm. Daydream & muse lots. Think up great projects.

I hope to recooperate enough this week to begin being a bit more social next week - there are lots of people to visit and catch up with. And next week I might draw some more.

Sweet new bloom

A big hurrah for Guitar Boy and Miss Holly who have heralded in a lovely new addition to the human family :) Welcome little one, may your days blossom with colour, wave gently in the breeze and brighten the world. I note (as Miss B does) that you are already online ( no blog? but on a facespace). When can we start playing scrabble?

More from the Top End

Well, have I been having fun. Not only did we chance by a student needing help with her screen printing, on the way to one of our conference sessions, which my conference buddy and I were happy to oblige, but I also spent time at a stall on Thursday night at the markets, with fabrics printed by women at BIMA, a print workshop on the Tiwi Island of Bathurst. The Tiwi Islands are just North West of the centre tippy top of Australia, and this print workshop is kinda famous, and has been running since 1969. Some of the people working there were there at its inception and have been working there ever since. They do designs using traditional symbols and representations, but are constantly doing new designs and mixes of colour. Their work is really striking and warm. I bought a giant table cloth which I’m going to use as a bedspread (I might ask my mum to turn it into a quilt cover for me). AND as if that wasn’t enough, there was another kind of modern/feral/absurdist fabric designer at the markets, who does quirky images of animals and people, who makes skirts and dresses and stuff, and has said she’ll send me fabric by the metre if I want to order stuff. Yah.

Talky talk - healthy buildings

I love the sound of this workshop, not least because it sounds just on the edge of what the mainstream 'green building' dialogue is about. Plus the venue sounds ace.

"Building Biology
& Creating Healthy Environments
Weekend Residential Workshop for Planners, Designers,
Environment and Health Consultants

When: Sat 16 August (9am) - Sun 17 August (2pm) 2008

Venue: Gudhara Holistic Sanctuary, Southern
Highlands, NSW

Our buildings affect our health and sense of wellbeing. Homes, schools, offices, shops: they all have an impact on us. They affect how we think, feel, sleep and age: even how we interact with each other. By understanding just how this happens,
we're better able to create environments in which people are able to enjoy living, working and playing.

Building health is said by many to be the next wave of construction legislation after sustainability. This ground-breaking workshop will include background research, a wealth of case studies, plus visual examples to illustrate what works, and what doesn’t. You’ll be able to use the practical information and techniques you gain over the weekend straight away in your design practice.

Many of the influences that cause ‘Sick Building Syndrome’ are invisible. However, just because we can’t see them, it doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. Most buildings today are affected to some degree by chemicals, polluted air, disinfected tapwater, geopathic stress, and electromagnetic and microwave radiation electrosmog) – and they all affect our health. There are a whole host of 21st Century health conditions that research is now linking to our homes and offices. These include: depression, allergies, anxiety, stress, insomnia, asthma, immune system disorders, heart conditions, ADD, autism, miscarriage and infertility, short term memory loss, foggy thinking, Alzheimers, premature aging - plus many more....

The challenge for architects and interior designers today, is to become aware of the elements in our buildings that can create health issues, so that they can provide their clients with a safe living environment. Becoming aware enables these problems to be prevented in new buildings at the design phase. The ability to identify the issues and their early warning signs, also allows us to minimise the problems in existing buildings.

This weekend residential workshop is an introduction to the body of knowledge that is known as ‘Building Biology’: the study of the impact that buildings have, not only on our biology, but on our Mind, Body and Spirit. Building Biology goes
“Beyond Green”, in that it not only provides buildings that look after the
health of the planet, but also the health of the people who spend time in
them. Not all eco-homes are healthy homes. The workshop will introduce you to the very real issues currently affecting our buildings, the ways in which they are impacting our health, plus design philosophies and some simple, practical solutions.

The venue

Gudhara Holistic Sanctuary in the Southern Highlands is a 7 acre property run according to permaculture and biodynamic principles. Weekend workshops and retreats are conducted with an emphasis on raising consciousness for personal and global transformation and environmental sustainability. For more information and directions see www.gudhara.org.au phone 0403 203 963 or fax (02) 4841 1336."

Cold chills

I have left the cold grumpiness of winter on the East Coast and come North, for the winter. For the week. For work.

This is more north than I’ve gone for a long while. This actual city I haven’t been to since another work trip, also for a conference, about 12 years ago. And before that on a family holiday, as a teenager.

It’s fucking freezing. Exceuse my French, but it really is. Not in the air, mind you. Not in the actual streets and outsides and beaches and landscapes, but here in my hotel. Icy. Arctic. Penguin. I rang reception. ‘Hi Noel, yes, me again, sorry to bother you, but um, how can I turn off my aircon – it’s freezing in here.’ I get instructions on how to turn the heat up and fan down, but I can’t actually turn the damned thing off. I oblige, and am met with icy jagged stalactite grin, ice teeth dripping, puffs of white dry ice mist bursting through my vents. Just about.

I am about to take a very warm bubbly bath and hope that the chill comes out of my skin and then I can lunge into a strange assortment of every outfit I brought piled on top of every other outfit, and hope for the best.

Maybe it’s a terribly dry and cunning strategy to move people to the warming mini bar or out of the room and down down into the tawdry depths of the (warmer) adjacent casino, with its flashing :blue LED’s and ping ping slot machines, and men looking awkwardly casual in short sleeve shirts and thick necks and guffaws, but feeling a little exposed, and unsure, and unlucky.

Not the glamourous Bond style casino of movie fame here girls and boys, no this is the poor cousin, everyone welcome, slouched and sunburnt, tizzied up for a night out, shaking my paper cup of coins with a big grin. This is ‘oh well, luck knows no colour, no qualifications, no dress size – this place is as much mine for the taking as anyone’s’. It’s sipped cocktails, and buffet dinner, and bleached hair blow-dried, and the nice dress with staggering heels, and men with their waists pulled in tight. It’s zombied at the slots. It’s RSL style carpets. It’s listen to me being holier than though but if I’m honest I’d spend a dollar or two at the pokies only if I was guaranteed I could do it casually, on my way back to my room, an ironic afterthought, and hear the kaching! Of a crazybig win, and me smile demurely and think ‘aaah, see, lucky’. The windfall without the effort – without even letting go of my distaste for the whole affair, the get it all without trying, the great story to tell back home, the takings without the (mis)givings. Which I know is what everyone wants, and no-one gets. So I don’t bother.

I come home (home! How quickly we mark territory ours – to my room I mean) and look forward to hot water on my skin and a cup of tea and chocolate and lying down and white sheets.

Verbelicious

In the spirit of co-creating random pop cultural ephemera, here is a list of the cultcha type things I have recently enjoyed or are about to. Labournig under the misapprehension that just ocz it’s written down it becomes interesting – here is a snapshot of my life through the lens of verbs.
- Reading ‘The Stone Gods’ by Jeanette Winterson. I love all her work in principle and in practice, so this is no exception. Though the rhythm and ideas are very familiar, I don’t like it less for that. I read her when I want those rhythms and ideas. Thinking it feels a little 1984 meets Orlando meets If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller. Also the Artist’s Way, and New Scientist, old Optic Nerves, and pretending to read a bunch of library books about work stuff, but actually reading a library book about a bunch of children’s book artists.
- Listening to an old Herd album and wondering when I can pop out and get their new one. (‘…when things get complex’?). Grinderman. And the rain falling on my washing (I thought it was my dinner boiling, but no, that would be the rain).
- Knitting a green square for a quilt for a refugee project (pink and green because I would want nurturing colours if I was unstuck from my life and set adrift – not more navy blue or brown).
- Dancing only in my bedroom to old hip swing songs and thinking about enrolling in dance classes

- Wearing red tartan. Old skool I know, but very zesty, resolute and warming. Zany earrings from the eighties and earlier.
- Singing in the shower and sometimes humming beyond the bathroom. Thinking of joining a choir.
- Stretching in my bedroom. Oops – I forgot to go to yoga, again. Spiritual bliss, scrawny strong upper arms and nice flexible hamstrings will all have to wait a little longer to be realised.
- Drawing in fits and starts. Conclusions.

- Drinking wine, lots of wintery red wine. Out with friends in cold country towns, and laughing at our own hilarious stories. In kitchens, and talking talking talking.
- Watching bleak but well made Romanian movies about illegal abortion that make me feel sad for all women everywhere fucked and fucked over by men in positions of power, and tonight on tellie maybe Australian reality television in the form of The Farmer Wants a Wife – I know it’s cheesier than fondue, but I love that show. No more Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares on the box it seems; mores the pity.
- Baking vegan banana and chocolate spice cake. My own ad libbing with flavours – could you tell? Great recipe, but does tend to stick to the pan, you have to watch that (paper lined next time methinks).
- Copying a knitting pattern of a lovely stripey short sleeve cotton top in case I take the plunge and progress from squares to garments. Procrastinating photocopying my second zine, and have been doing so for the last 4 months. Oops.


- Loving my little brother who I think is just about the funniest and cheekiest person in the world. Also my mum, who is heroic, practical and thoughtful, busy and kind.
- Writing random stuff about art and life. Quotes. To-do lists. Emails. Reports. Contracts. Day dreams.
- Noting that as I get older I want love to feel less like something new and more like something familiar. More like a composite, more like echoes of all the loves so far brought together and played out in a new tune – something that has all the favourite elements and some surprising, complex and beautiful improvisation. Maybe a jazz standard made new, maybe something new that masquerades as a jazz standard until a closer listen reveals its ironic playful tone.
- Wondering, generally.

To market to market

Wentworth Falls Arts & Craft Market
Sunday July 13
10am - 3pm

Creative & artistic items are for sale including jewellery, Gemstones, cards, clocks, bags, dog coats, paper tole,Pyrography, light refreshments & live music

Free entry and parking.

Great Western Highway. Wentworth Falls
(Opposite Mitre 10 Hardware)

2nd Sunday of Each Month

Phone 0439 729 142 or 4782 7672

oh how ironic

'oh how ironic' is a phrase that mermaidgrrl and I would use *ironically* for many years after an exlover of mine used it to describe something that wasn't reallly ironic at all. Sorry, this isn't funny for you without the backstory, but it is for me.

Anyway. Ironic. Yes, been reading about perfectionism. Stumbled across a really interesting psychology thesis about perfectionism and the workplce - whether there are adaptive and maladaptive types of perfectionism. I am finding the description of all the dioferent conceptualisations and measures of perfectionism fascinating. I especially am enjoying linking up the stuff I've read on a zillion other isms, or developmental psychology, theory of type, attachment theory, etc, and adding this new dimension to it. But, the ironic thing is what a perfectionist I am about my reading on the topic - my thinking goes like this 'well I'm clearly not a perfectionist because I'm crap at lots of things, in fact I rarely get to do anything to the standard that I'd really like to, that I would consider, you know, actually close to perfect' (oh ho ho - a classic trait of someone with perfectionist leanings). And at the same time ' hmm, this thesis is really interesting but what would be better is if I could read these other texts referenced and really get across the thinking and link this with the bodies of work on X and Y and then write an interesting article on Z. Why oh why wont my workplace understand that I need to do that this week, instead of edit reports and do all the stuff I said I'd do; and when will I be given the time and space to do things properly to a depth I find satisfying and meaningful, but at the same time given support so I don't find the whole prospect of fucking up so damned terrifying'. Ahem.

I think it is an interesting concept, but not in it's two-dimensional 'I heard about it on dr Phil and those people are awful' type embodiment. As a frame for getting a handle on what shapes people's expectations, the very subjective nature of acheivement, and for understanding the role of anxiety in shaping people's responses I think it's really interesting. I might even give a quick litttle summary when I've finished reading it, for anyone who's interested.

yo ho blow the man down

Well it is certainlly BLUSTERY today. The kind of ne'er do well wind that tangles washing and blows leaves and dust into your eyes. The kind of wild woolly wind that tangles up your thoughts and plans and makes the day go all unruly. Or at least that's my excuse. Some days you just don't want to go in to the office - am I right? Some days it's not that you particularly dislike what you have to do it just seems all a bit - sigh - dull, and mapped out and prepacked. Somedays I'd rather be tooling around at home and drawing or making scones or having a tea party. Still. Maybe work is the grit I grow my pearl around. It certainly pays the rent, and, well, it's not nice to all the other people who go there to bail on it completely. Am I right?

Wind has also blown my southwards and westwards these last few weeks. Went to the mountains for Winter Magic festival and caught up with old friends and felt some real proper cold winter weather. Drank tea, got drunkish, laughed. Blew me to Melbourne too, just a few days, for work and then a day off to mooch about the funky burbs and catch up with a friend. Drank cofffee, bought comics, played online scrabble together in person (warning this tends to result in accidental playing of each other's hands). Blew home, feeling caught on an upswell, happy, but glad of own bed, home to roost.