Reverbelicious

Harking back to a list made last year (“vebelicious”), here is a new one:

- Smiling about my housemates and I listening to a completely arse DVD of karaoke tunes tonight which I wishfully borrowed because I thought I might knuckle down and practice some and then have some standards on hand next time I find myself in a karaoke den. Smiling at our monotone, grave, spoken word versions of Britney ‘round the kitchen. Ooops we did it again.

- Reading a lot of half finished po faced tomes and big toothed American self cheer books at present. If you stirred them all together I’m sure they’d make: ‘Women from divorced parents who don’t know what they’re doing but who take risks and get what they want anyway, and analyse their dreams accurately, even though they want to do everything at once, and go the way of the samuri and artist, and in a very zen way, with sparkly chakras and great body image thanks to Goddess incantations and Mercury in Aquarius.” Maybe they’re like medication – you’re not meant to take them all at once or they get mixed up and can create strange side effects?

- Listening to animals fucking or fighting or squabbling or raising children – I can’t tell which- out the loungeoom window. Squeaky noises of possums/flyingfoxes/rats. Errm, some zoologist I turned out to be. that was a HECS debt well spent.
- Knitting not a single thing. Far too hot for fluffy threads against fingers.

- Dancing was a surprise benefit of following Miss E’s edict of ‘less work and more spontaneity for 2009’ and tagging along with BSharp to an Eastside party last week after dinner in the city. In the end it was feeling all huddly and chilly with that beachside breeze that got me up and boogying. Hats off to Biz who was channelling his new found condor with some excellent poncho flapping moves.

- Wearing a silly dark low eyebrow skating fringe. My new hat- bought from a surf shop no less. Who ever knew I would even go into a surf shop let alone hanker after an item of apparel from one. I always thought that’s what cities were for- not having to go into surf shops.

- Cooking mixed seed polenta with white bean stew. (Yes made this one up – add pumpkin seeds, sesame and sun flower seeds to the cooked polenta before spreading on baking trays and baking. Oh also – handy hint – bake for 15 then grill (‘broil’ I believe is the correct American term) on hot for about the same. Seriously, otherwise you never get that good golden brown top.

- Walking briskly along the water front of a morning. Running a bit. Being grateful of a good sports bra. Thinking of my heart and making it stronger. Admiring tanned sweaty joggers with swollen biceps and serious faces / serious biceps and swollen faces.

- Sleeping rather fitfully thanks to lone mosquitoes taking aim at any exposed bits and droning at menacingly.

- Returning to the office. Returning to a vast expanse of grey laminex, a to do list, project updates, my own messy files, my potplants dead from neglect, my ambitions, my confusions, my self doubt, my new pot plants sent as a welcome back present from my mum, my frustrations, to consensus building and ruminating, to group process, to squeaky clean do-good nicely educated wide eyed graduate cheer (ooh harsh), to comparisons, to not knowing how I fit, to having to be told what my value is, and not always really believing it. To threads. To areas of work. To change. To hopefulness. To ideas. To all pretending like sitting at a desk all day is normal and not a kind of performance we do to get fed, even if we like it somewhat.

- Watching next door’s dog come up to the fence and snuffle her nose through the hole, whereby I pat it and she licks my hand, and wag tails and I talk icecream-high sweet inane and encouraging things to her about digging and what she’s doing and being a good dog. As if the neighbours can’t hear me. As if it’s a private conversation. As if it’s actually a conversation.

- Loving my new Ikea desk lamp. Olive green and curious looking.

- Writing less. But gradually more.

- Resolving to be open to new relationships. To opening up. To trust people more. To at the same time be responsibly and consistently and appropriately protective of myself, my time, my space. To be ok with saying no. To be ok with saying yes.

- Wondering, generally.