Sea Green

a space

2011-06-13T15:36:00.002+10:00

Golly blogger is so forgiving isn't it? Holding a space in - well, space - for you to think in, write in, share in. Today is a quietish, coldish kind of a day. A scamper to the toilet because you've drunk too much tea kind of a day. A 'can't I just knit on the sofa?' kind of a day. A soup and stewed fruit kind of a day. And it's a long weekend (which doesn't mean much to me because I don't work Mondays), but still, the idea is nice.

I have done some knitting, a glorious mossy moss green scarf made from alpacca fluff, yarned up, and now knitted up with quick sharp light metal needles in a size tinier than I have ever used. It's so light, and textured, I love it. And will love it more when it's long enough to wrap around me in winter. Couch, knitting, Grand Designs and a cup of tea - a glorious way to whittle some moments from the fat of the day.

Its been a weekend of making things, projects. Projects real and imagined, projects talked about but not started, projects you enjoy doing and those you enjoy imagining done or imagine you enjoy doing - very different beasts. I imagine I enjoy finishing publications for work, but don't. I imagine I enjoy long term projects with delayed gratification and gradual completion - but I don't. I am a quick fix addict, a 'show me the fruits or I will not labour' kind of project-or. And this weekend featured long meandering talks with my betrothed about our different relationship to projects - the projects I want done, that he wants to enjoy and linger over, the projects I want to abandon half done to do something else, that he can see the benefit in me seeing through. It's telling, about of each of us don't you think, this, our relationships with the idea of and plan of doing things.

Projects I currently feel guilt about not doing/ doing more of/ doing right now:
- all work things
- getting ready to do my tax
- finally getting rid of those dusty boxes of Goddess knows what under my bed
- sorting my budget
- seeing a therapist to help get over old family stuff
- becoming a calmer/ gentler more spiritually developed person
- meditating/ yoga/ some kind of good for me natural therapy

Projects I want magically done but don't want to do:
- my tax
- getting those leaves in the green bin today, in the rain
- sorting out my regrowth and eyebrows and hairy wintery legs
- a giant cupboard clean out with fresh new cups and dinner set to put in there, and the pantry sorted so there are only plastic containers that have lids (and no feeling sorry for the lidless ones and sneaking them back in in case their lids show up)

Projects I feel I could happily do all week if they were on shuffle through the ipod of my day:
- making shapes out of sculpy ready to make molds and cast them in resin
- knitting
- making soup
- picking flowers out of the garden
- doing my [weight loss / healthy eating plan brand name here] food planning and tracking
- reading library books on vintage costume jewellry and wardrobe refreshing and macrobiotic cooking
- mending clothes and earrings that have been in the broken box for aeons

Projects I think I want to do but am not really sure I would even if I had the opportunity:
- learn to paint in oils and do a series of portraits on all my favourite people from history and win the archibald prize
- start a business doing some wacky workshops or consulting to business on how to do something or other better
- become an art therapist and qualified facilitator and career coach and nutritionist and feng shui consultant

Do we really know what we want? Does what we say we want tell us more than what we actually do?

What do we do to chase pleasure and what do we do to avoid pain?

What drives us to do anything much at all?

How do we feel when projects are unfinished?

I am currently avoiding a very specific project that involves very detailed word and idea crafting, and it's about as appealing as the tax and dusty boxes.

Wish me luck.

Elsewhere

2011-02-06T10:17:00.002+11:00

Have not written here for a bit but have just put some pics here and a story about a craft project here.

Have also been at a very inspiring 3-day workshop full of lovely whimsical, funny academics and practitioners. Feel a bit more inspired about creating the kinds of projects I'm interested to work on at work, rather than following other people's interests. Such a balance between wanting to do 'real world and useful' (ie problems/ issues/ project ideas dreamt up by others) on the one hand, and on the other hand thinking 'you know what, if I'm going to do the work I'd rather it was something I dreamt up and am passionate about'.

a fresh year just out of its wrapper

2011-01-23T10:51:00.006+11:00

Welcome to 2011. I suppose you've already met it? Shy fellow, doesn't talk much, but will probably get going as the evening wears on.

New Year for me has been about homes, and holidays, work, and crafty projects.

Home, in that I'm buying a house! My significant other is already buying and living in it, but as of tomorrow when the bank settles the new loan, we both will be (buying it that is, not living in it - more on that later). Funny how something that previously I had held in my mind as this huge, contested, confusing and slightly overwhelming life decision / stage/ task just crept in as a very tangible, practical possibility with not much philosophical angst (the nature of owning property, the idea of carving up and privately owning land) and surprisingly little commitment angst (I have never even committed to a phone plan, surprises me that signing up to a 25 year loan hasn't freaked me out completely). I think it's in no small part due to the relationship, doing something with someone else can be less daunting than doing it yourself (total hats off to all the single folk who manage to do property solo, you have more courage than me!), and doing it with someone who cares about you and who is practical, stable, good with money and who you trust helps.

So, house. Yes and apart from endless bank paperwork, which fingers crossed should be done with on MONDAY when we are due to settle (property purchase talk for loan is now yours), there has been painting and hardware and door handles. Which I find I like. Except for the unrelenting unfinishedness of it all (for the love of gaia can one room please be completely painted and not have any tools left in it) and also less keen on the purely algebraic tradeoff beween hours spent discussing logistics versus time with your sweetheart doing lovely fun cultural excusions, bushwalks or dinner out. X is time painting and talking about painting (or similar) and y is time doing other things and z is the total time off you have together. You get the idea. This because we don't live together and I still expect Quality Time to be the main thing we do together. It's a transition into another phase of being in relationship I guess, one where you willingly trade some rnr and the money you would have spent on outings to work together on a project you both want done. Fortunately we both enjoy doing hands on things and we work well together, and find doing the house stuff satisfying. I can even handle (large hardware chain) with him, even if it's still not my favourite place to visit (too big and overwhelming and dusty and crammed full of products and raises lots of uncomfortable feelings about consumption and DIY and what happens to all the old stuff etc). Actually, truth be told I quite like the plants and paint swatches and even buy coffee there sometimes.

In terms of living arrangements, for now I am staying put in my inner west share house, and spending at least a day a week at the other house. This seems extravagant probably, and does mean we will save more slowly for the renovations, but it's important for me. I think one step at a time in terms of commitment is my preferred approach, and personal space is by far my most contested and precious commodity - far more precious to me than my finances. I think that when I feel ready I will know, and then I will move in.

Also, moving in would require I swap suburbs (living space aside) and that is something I'm not ready to do yet. Sure, I could so not afford to buy the house I'm renting (unless my income doubled or quadrupled) but I have grown very fond of living the inner city life with cafes a short walk away, harbour views, book shops etc. Suburbia is also a contested concept for me (which significant other doesn't really get, he's very practical and thinks everything that's metro sydney is sydney, ie what's the difference really - that and he loves the quiet of living near bushland) and I do have some reservations about the area (does anyone down there read? does anyone other than me walk anywhere? are all the teenage boys violent thugs who look like they need a good feed and some face wash?). Oh goddess, listen to me - I am a snob, there is totally no two ways about it.

Holidays are the other thing I've been spending time and thought on so far this year. We go away for 5 weeks in late March and all of April to London, other bits of the UK, Scotland and Paris. Holiday is to go to significant other's sister's wedding but using the 'while we're there' principle has grown into a decent sized break with some exciting new places to visit. Am researching old things / afternoon teas/ zine shops/ book shops/ old art/ new art/ new craft/ enviro stuff (as long as its kind of creative and interesting) to see. I know it's a cliche, but I can say with some gusto 'I really need a break'. Not least because.. segway here to work...I am really really tired.

Yes so work. It feels like every December for the last few years (sometimes earlier - last year it was start of November) I get 'over it' and can barely imagine how I'll be able to get through the last days until Christmas break. It's this tired / over it / stopped caring feeling that makes it really hard to ramp up and get anything done. And my job doesn't have a lot of 'busy work' that I can noodle through when feeling demotivated. I suppose like a lot of people's jobs, it's all about making something new, thinking up something new, finding something new, reading more content and synthesising it. But the thing is none of that feels possible when you're tired/ over it / don't care. So I hang in there until the break and then think 'surely this year will be different - I can't be in that position again this end of year' - enter the January Career Crisis. On loop.

And why do I think this is?

Well I have lots of alternating theories about styles of work, work tasks, why I picked the field/ role to begin with, but a few random observations of things that I think probably don't help:
- taking annual leave - last year I took leave to do uni, go to conferences etc because I'd run out of work professional development time to do things. Bad idea. Note to self: annual leave is for resting or adventuring, not for doing extra work that doesn't fit into work time (unless it's particularly fun).
- facing another generation of keen beans - we recruited some young and fresh faced folk last year and I think the contrast between their wide eyed bushy tailed and my lacklustre tail and puffy half asleep eyes has been a shock. It has reminded me of what enthusiasm for what we do looks like and reminds me that I don't have it. Any more? Did I ever? I certainly had anxiety about doing a good job of it, and that provided lots of energy. But I'm not sure I even have that now.
- the exposure to new folk as above has also brought out a rather unbecoming internal response of 'I KNOW THAT ALREADY!!! I DID THAT YEARS AGO!!!!' which booms through my head in a very irritated snippy voice loaded with exasperation anytime someone remarks with wonder about a program they've just heard about or an idea of how to do something which I feel like I know inside out. I feel like I'm surrounded by people just discovering stuff that I have read about, tried, tried again and seen done in several contexts.
- Curiosity. My job requires a lot of curiositity (or discipline and I lack the latter). I feel like doing my job without feeling curious is like eating without feeling hungry - pointless, uncomfortable and kind of makes you feel sick.

It has made me think about cycles of interest and cycles of activity and recharge. I think I could do my job for 6 months of the year - 12 is just far too many. Or I think I could do my job if all I did was review other people's work and come up with ideas and not have to actually read any more technical reports or articles on things I don't care about (namely anything enviro-technical, enviro anything, education anything, anything I've done years of). I feel like I could have done my job for 3 years, but 5 plus (this year is entering the plus) is just too many. I like the idea of sabbaticals, and for me, I would want one every 3 years (or 5 years at the latest)no matter what organisation or field I worked in. Time to do versus time to reflect and review. Time to work in teams with people versus time to work alone. Time to try and then time to write up and share the learnings and find new fields that interest you.

So maybe that's the problem as much as anything (assuming for the sake of argument that the problem is not just that I'm lazy, a whinger, crazy, middle class and ungrateful for having a decent job which after all is permanent and pays the bills and doesn't send me down a salt mine) - cycles. No one really helps you figure out what it is you like from your work and what kind of career you'll need in terms of what the main things are that interest you or you get out of things. Everyone seems to think if you like a topic (trains for instance) and you have a job to do with trains that pays OK and has all the nice cosy things (friendly people to work with! afternoon teas! nice decor! stamps from the teacher when you do a good job! annual leave! a pay packet that chugs upwards each year! status so people are impressed when you tell them at dinner parties what you do!) that thsi will be enough. How do you figure out whether maybe you like learning and after 3 years you'll have it figured out and be bored and that you should move on to something new? Or what the underlying drivers are for you in work and how to do the things that satisfy you most (so that you can keep doing them, and you want to do them well)?

I think there is something about the learning curve, and the kinds of things I like learning about, and how I like to share the learning/ apply it to new situations.

My current job has an aura of diversity about it, but after time I feel a bit like I'm stuck in school, doing the same grade subject each year. Yes, it's year 11 physics again. And year 11 math, and English. Sure the basic thing we'll do is the same, but hey, we have thought up different assignment wording! If we change the name of the client and the town it's based in and the random grant funding it's attached to and make you read new facts and figures from some new reports you might even be fooled into thinking this is something new! The details change, but the tasks stay the same. But I'm surrounded by people who think this is Fun! and Interesting! It makes me want to groan. Or growl in that way and old dog would who is surrounded by very loud puppies who wont let it rest.

So. Lets leave that there and get onto craft projects. My projects for the moment and dreaming for the year are:
- finish knitted rug for charity
- maybe make lap rugs out of the squares I have that I thought I would make a double bed blanket out of
- print and distribute (including to some Euro zine shops if possible while on hols) a bunch of the drawn, written and in a shoe box zine backlog
- run some craft workshops for friends/ friends of friends/ the general public
- submit some illustrations to some publications whilst also learning illustrator, photoshop, making a creative cv, getting an image website up and running and maybe blogging about the process (I call this as yet unstarted project a piece of auto-ethnographical social research the 'I want to be an illustrator' project)
- go to some sewing classes so I can get some basic sewing skills, to help with backlog of modification and new garment ideas
- do a painting class and start a series of portraits of people from history who I find interesting

Oh and finish my Masters. If that's a craft project. Oh I wish it was - if only I could finish it using paintings or perhaps a series of painted dollies about the issues facing strategic planning / enviro policy/ international development. My masters has been limping along erraticaly since 2004. No wonder I'm sick of that too (and the topics are all the same as work - ugh).

Oops, so much for finishing on an up note!

Anyway, that's what's hot and not this January 2011 in the very small corner of the world I'm in.

parallelograms

2010-11-25T08:13:00.000+11:00

Funny how our lives run in parallel isn’t it? Not just that we each do the same kinds of cyclic seasonal and diurnal things in parallel to each other (birthdays, lunch, going to the toilet, getting the flu, getting better), but the bigger struggles/ journeys/ realisations that we each have, no doubt someone out there is having them too. Got a parcel a few weeks ago from a friend overseas, someone I used to work with. He is working in London, doing the same kind of thing he did here, that we both did here. He is smart as a whip, organised, tidy, but inward – he is quiet and reserves comment at work, serious, stern even. He is detail focused and strategic. All that. And. And he yearns for something else, something less deadline bound, desk bound, something that comes from colour and expression. Something where he can be spontaneous, silly, expressive. He wants to be a graphic designer, or do community art projects, or similar. And he does that stuff – he’s designed a bunch of brochures, ads, covers for reports (and done a cracking job) at work alongside of doing his actual work his work (and as a volunteer for a not for profit he volunteers at). Just recently he’s got his first paid design gig, for a shop, he was recommended by a friend. In his letter he talks about how the feedback has been a confidence booster and how he realises that feeling comfortable with it is the only way he’s going to be able to transition career.

It resonates for me as I the past few weeks lash out and be daring and think ‘f*k it maybe I can just do some stuff for fun, and make it a big part of my life, even if it doesn’t pay or pay well or pay well straight away, even if it’s a bit ‘indulgent’, or it rings my ‘selfish’ internal alarm bells’. And I know the main way I can do this is to demystify it. Reach out to the unknown, the far away, and bring it close enough to sniff. Make it known. Sleep with it under my pillow so that it smells familiar and not far away and strange and potentially full of risk. So to speak. So I’ve been meeting with people (who I’ve never met before), talking to them about their experiences, asking for suggestions. Which is funny considering how often I’ve suggested that strategy to others seeking career shifts, but never done myself (because I wasn’t ready, I guess). It brings these options closer and makes them more tangible, less spooky and imbued with otherness.

So he and I both grapple with this in parallel. Making something different feel possible. And before anyone springs to the comments button with a vaguely condescending but steadfastly encouraging comment about ‘of course it’s possible, you can do anything’, let me say, yes yes, I know. But the thing, the really important thing here is there is knowing and then there is feeling. I can know, but have the strongest internal emotional aversion to something. We are more than our rationality, more than our moonlight sliver thin story of rationality. Underlying this are our stories, our fears, our aversions, our survival stories. And they run deep, like roots, running sideways in the dark dirt, we barely remember they’re there until we come across one up close, exposed, with earthy must still dusted along its reedy length. And then we are surprised, and stare in wonder at how far they must reach, beneath this soil that we stand on.

Stranger hobbies

2010-11-25T08:08:00.002+11:00

The bookseller said ‘oops, I stole your five cents’. He reopens the drawer and gets me my change.
I laughed. 'Well that will make you rich', after a pause conceded: 'Well, actually I guess maybe they add up.'
He says ‘ I collect five cents’
I say ‘like a hobby?’
He says ‘ no, in a jar. At the end of the year I have maybe $40 worth, and I don’t know what to do with them'.
He is uncommonly tall, this man, and I have never spoken to him beyond the barest rudimentaries associated with the transaction of book buying. He is so much taller I think of him as living up there on a slightly different slice of life to me. Not tree top versus ground dweller exactly but nonetheless some different piece of sky our faces brush through daily.
‘It’s the kind of thing an old man would do’ he tells me somewhat ruefully, self chastising, but baffled at it to, like this jar and his five cent collecting sits beyond his own comprehension. His face, behind glasses, towering above me with his extra height, lights up, opens when he tells me this. I realise it’s the only exchange we’ve had like this, we are carving our new ground. He seems genuinely baffled at his own proclivities. We laugh together at his unknowable, unchartable, jar of the deep mysteries of ourselves and our own behaviours.

morning calm

2010-11-01T13:22:00.002+11:00

Last day in Korea and I am somewhat sad to go. I have met some lovely people – academics who are soft and gentle but wry and bright eyed with a hunger for learning and a great openness to new ways of doing things – qualities so rare in anyone anywhere. I get invited to dinner at someone’s home and am in awe, I think of how rarely I would ever consider doing that for an international guest to our office. Probably never. Out to dinner somewhere neutral, somewhere where my own lfe is not opened up to them, where I can walk away and have someone else do the dishes and I can go back to my comfortable non-work nest – sure. But to my own home? Probably only if they had been around for several months and I felt like we were friends, then I would. But I can’t think of anytime I’ve been so welcoming to invite someone I’ve known for only a few days and who is about to leave into my home. It makes me wonder at this division between work-life and home-life and how we keep that wall up and why. It shames and inspires me into being more open hearted to visitors in future.

Three is something sweet about the culture here that I can’t quite put my finger on. Locals have talked to me about how it is competitive, how everyone tries to get ahead and do better than everyone else. They also talk about corruption and the very real struggle for job security. But from my comfortable salaried, outsider vantage point all I see is children being adored and being safe, young men who almost universally embody elements of well-groomed and gentle and don’t come across as aggressive or dangerous, the edges between masculine and feminine seem less ferociously guarded, women’s bodies are not uniformly used as commodity in advertising (but not due to any particular rigid religious prudity about bodies), and a softness in the faces of young people, without glazed disaffectedness or hostility.

Adults who wear bunny socks without irony because they’re cute and warm. Road blocks that have cheery faces on them. A transit system where instead of guards that vibe power and the threat of violence in their dark blue uniforms there are signs with pictures of guards as smiling uniformed cartoon squirrels who look joyous that you want to catch the subway and are keen to help. A downtown area where slick new bicycles are left on their stands and not locked up because no-one will steal them. I kid you not. Is that not amazing?

talk? done.

2010-10-29T22:50:00.002+11:00

This thing of being away for work and always feeling like you have just one more thing to do to get ready for the next thing, is actually incredibly tiring. I forget that, between trips. I think that being out of the office is like having a holiday, until I remember that at least the office is safe and familiar, I can sleep in my own bed afterwards, I can have some degree of confidence that I know what I’m doing and not feel like I have to translate my concepts into different cultural contexts, professional backgrounds, and then have it translated into another language. Goddess only knows what it comes out as through that many rounds of translation. I also forget the subtle posturing and quizzing and establishing of common ground that goes on in the conversations between international folk thrown in together in a professional context. Some of it is curiosity, and welcome, and is not some of it (theirs and mine) the chance to wheel out some factoid or personal experience or little nugget of expertise you have, as if to say ‘I know stuff, look at me, I’m clever, I exist’. That, I find absolutely exhausting.

Also I think I would enjoy conferences more if speaking at them was more like stand up comedy – that you could say out loud our fears and foibles, and context, and not just tell the room some success story you’re proud of. I want to name the elephant in the room, all the elephants, it’s like the elephant is all I can see. I want to frame a talk with ‘isn’t it weird that we don’t know each other, and I’ve never even been to your country and yet here I am about to tell you something so random and hope for the best that it means something to you and meanwhile I’m petrified that my story isn’t interesting or that I’m a phony or that actually this whole thing is professional posturing and not something I like’. On second thoughts, maybe listening to everyone’s internal monologue before their talk would not be very funny.

And despite this hyper awareness of the thing I’m doing (let’s face it, probably because of it), I still manage to botch it a bit. I am my own worst conference nightmare. I accidentally become everything I absolutely know that presenters shouldn’t be – intangible, theoretical, esoteric. I have a boring power point presentation and botch the pictures (where did they go? I swear they showed up on my computer) so I am left with a text skeleton without the colourful flesh around it. Even a nicely crafted story that captures key trends in approach to something will only appeal to a tiny sub section of the audience (pedants like me maybe), everybody else likes stories of things they can see and hear and touch. We built this, did this, this happened, this many people came, it was big and red and shiny, and this is how much it cost. Conference goers who are practitioners like tangibles, and my work ends up sounding so woolly (I think). But oh well. Ideas and process innovations are hard to photograph. Maybe this is more confirmation that being the holder of technical knowledge is just not what I love being or doing. I hate to be the expert, my view of reality is something that shifts and dances, how can you pick just one story to tell of it? The map is not the terrain, the cross section is not the engine, my arbitrary decision of how to structure my talk is not the whole of what I see happening or would like to tell you. Conversations are refractory and kaleidoscopic, conference presentations are dull nuggets. Maybe this can be my last conference as a presenter. Maybe I can only do workshops from now on. Is that a reasonable decision to come to? Am I allowed?

I'm tired.
The city is great, the people are wonderful. Frank, gentle, insightful, stylish, pushy, doing cool enviro stuff. The working culture seems delightfully egalitarian and minimally pomp and posturing despite being located in a strong central governance.
The food is fresh and delicious.
The socks with local television stars as cartoons on them are great (but too small for my feet).
I'm tired.
One cup of coffee in the hotel costs more than a plate of pasta and a coffee at a cafe bar down the street which in turn costs twice as much as noodles at the markets.
There is pine nut tea.
The city is safe.
I'm tired.
The people seem to value peace - even hello and goodbye are phrases to do with wishing you peace. Gotta dig that.

Work holiday hotel away talk giving polite conversation remember to eat set alarm don't wake up weird times, look neat, be defferential, talk content, make yourself look like a valuable international guest. etc.

sky bird takes me to strange land

2010-10-26T23:14:00.002+11:00

A quick post from the first moments in a new country (new to me) while I grapple with aching legs, a tiredness so pervasive it feels like I'm floating, and the beginnings of that deep core chill that creeps in when you need to sleep.

Not that the journey is wholly responsible for the tired, that would be two nights of silly not enough sleep before leaving.

The country I've landed in has beautiful script all wiggly and mysterious, it looks like primal drawings everywhere.

The people on the plane were snuggled up tight and sleeping for most of the day, amazing how so many people can be so quiet when the lights are down low.

I realised on landing that I'd done woeful non-reading about where I was coming to, like the worst 'it'll be just like home wont it?' tourist. Leaving the airport I had a strange moment of wondering what was and wasn't legal here. I stopped myself from jay walking just in case.

I am here for just a week including time in the sky, to do various learning and seeing and doing which I will relay shortly.

For now just noting my strange transition moments, my floating in the boundary space from here to there, and of dream becoming reality as the brief random preconceptions I had of this place get burst wide open by an influx of actual experience over the next few days.

oh my

2010-09-12T20:31:00.004+10:00

Today I did a brave thing and looked after my friends' two kids, aged 2 and 4. Not for an hour two while she went to a doctors appointment or got her hair done, no, all day, from dawn to dusk. From morning porridge to bedtime stories and lights out, while parents were far away celebrating her 40th birthday with their third child, who is still a teensy baby.

I got here last night and did hand over with my other friend who had them yesterday, we did tag team over breakfast, and she left by 9.

What are my impressions of carer for a day?

- my legs and feet are sore! I usually sit on my bum all day, this involved a lot of standing, slow walking
- gee the shifts are long aren't they - from 6.30am to 7.30pm I was on active duty (the 2 year old has a nap, the four year old doesn't, and is curious, and can hike chairs around to get into cupboards, so even that 2 hour block of just one child needed supervision) and now after a glass of wine and shower I'm off to make the lunches for preschool tomorrow and pack their bags
- the day goes slow but has so much jam packed in. LIttle attention spans make for many activities. I think we did three separate sessions of drawing and painting at the table, made cubby houses, played in actual cubby houses, played in swings, went for a bush walk, explored the garden, had a picnic afternoon tea, read multitudes of stories, made pizzas, ate, did nappies and wet cloth changes ad nauseum, and ate just about every two hours - busy!
- kids are grubby and their storms roll in and blow over fast, they growl and laugh at their farts, they eat off the grottiest floor or fingers, they are fascinated by things, and sybling dynamics are dynamic and complex

Hats off kid caring mates, you do an amazing job to do this day after day!

howdy doody

2010-09-05T22:22:00.003+10:00

Well howdy from the girl whose blog is a little dustry and cobwebby around the ears.

No excuse really, but trying to study this Semester while working and finishing oodles of extra curricular work related publications has taken the sparkle out of my typing fingers. Sad really.

So studying. What's that like? Well, I think Drew at Toothpaste for Dinner has summed it up nicely here except that while he was probably taking the piss, I'm thinking 'yah, bring it on'. Studying is well, very studious, involves lots of reading and writing. Very little sculpting of concepts in 3-D modelling clay. Very little diarama making or poster decorating or making macaroni necklaces in the style of ancient Egyptian Phaoroes. Very little spontaneous, or creative expression of any kind. And mores the shame really.

Which is probably why I've come to the decision to STOP DOING THAT KIND OF THING very shortly. To that end I am browsing a wide range of courses that I day dream will be more hands on and fun - faciltation/ therapyish/fine arts / design style courses for the most part. Mostly shortish (ie not full degrees), vocational, applied. And once I've finished this Masters I plan to do soemthing along those lines instead. Which, I know will mean more study, but hopefully studying something just for interests sake, not as a carefully chosen career building and save the world strategy will be more fun. All my dreams of 5 years or 10 years into teh future don't ivolve sitting at a desk all day writing reports, so I figure I better change something to get me moving towards the kind of stuff I think I might like to do.

But new ideas are tentative and a bit fragile in the wind, so be gentle with your comments, supportive or otherwise!

Apart from studying I am probably also a little less bloggy these days because I'm in a relationship with someone who I talk to pretty frequently, so lots of my gripes and observations get scattered out into the telephone ether rather than marching across the page here. Also, in a new relationship I feel like I don't want to jinx it or cheapen it by talking out it's details here, and yet to blog about my life and not mention it feels strange.

I have been doing a wine course lately and have found a few of the experiences there kind of funny, was thinking about sharing those with you, so stay tuned... I'll post about that next.

Innuit eating

2010-07-17T19:43:00.002+10:00

I don't really know what Innuit currently eat, or used to eat, but I imagine it involves quite fatty seal meat. And I understand why. These past couple of days have been so COLD (well up my end of the house anyways) in my room with masses of patchily veiled glass windows that I have been craving fatty food. Cold = I want to eat butter (when I normally don't even have margarine). Cold = peanut butter could be my whole dinner. Cold = give me desert and then give me some more. Eek. Nightmare for all things weight loss/ raw food/ healthy eating of food groups.

best shoes IN THE WORLD

2010-07-17T19:34:00.003+10:00

I recently went shopping with a very brave Miss Snap Dragon who endured my pouting and whining as I tried yet more bots that didn't fit. In the end I bought a zippy little pair of pixie boots, along with... the BEST shoes IN THE WORLD. They are blue - but oh what a blue. Inky, squiddy, tealish, gunn metalish. A cold winter sky blue. A grubby blue. A demure and contained blue. A blue of keeping to oneself. A blue of a sea bird's belly. With... the thinnest, most restrained chocolate brown edging. Strappy. All criss cross industrial strappy with an interior platform and firm, no nonsense chocolate wood heel. I pretty much love them. They are indeed the BEST SHOES IN THE WORLD. Only I haven't yet worn them. When the weather warms up I plan to hang my whole wardrobe off these shoes. If a dress doesn't go with these shoes I don't want the dress. If a new work outfit can't be spliced together with these stylish hoofs I simply dont want to wear it. I feel that this is akin to my gumboots as a kid... or maybe that red velvet dress I had at age 7 which I simply utterly adored and felt made everything, every occasion, every moment, better. Bring on spring.

Confer with me

2010-07-17T08:46:00.004+10:00

Went to a conference these past few days.

Had a very surreal moment where during morning tea I approached a presenter and told him 'I really liked your presentation, it was really clear and told a good story', (because I think it's nice to be told, and good clear story telling should be lauded at conferences in the midst of impenetrable waffly ones). He thanked me and said he was so glad to hear it because he'd been nervous. He said he was worried because his presentation was about real examples. I was nodding and saying yes yes. Then he said 'I was almost going to use your organisation's work as an example - you know, talk about the use of rainwater tanks and the electricity needed for pumping and the trade offs between centralised and decentralised systems'. I nodded a little slower and then began to think 'FUUUCK! I have no idea if this is the guy I thought he was. I have no idea how rainwater tanks would have anything to do with the talk I thought I was talking about, which was about international agreements on climate change and biodiversity and wetlands, and how they're made, how they're administrated internationally. I felt my smile kind of wilt on my face as I kept nodding and saying vaguely supportive things whilst my mind raced 'is this the guy I thought it was? How much different can someone's face look up close compared to from the back of the room? Is it possible that nothing I've actually said to this guy makes any sense because in fact I didn't see his presentation? Why do all men in navy suits look the same? Why is his name badge obscured so that I can only glimpse its edge and can't check his name? What are the odds that the only time this conference I've gone up to thank a speaker after a session and I get the person wrong???'.

And really, what are your options in that situation?
- 'Oh excuse me, how embarrassing, I thought you were another speaker. I take I back. Your talk may or may not have been good, I don't know, I didn't see it. You just look so generic I couldn't really tell you apart from any other man here.'
- 'I have no idea why you are talking about rainwater tanks. Have you been taken over by aliens, you really are making no sense.'
- 'oh golly, I'd love to talk but I've just realised I have to dash. I know I approached you to talk, but I now have this very urgent, um, appointment, er. Goodbye'

I was very relieved when his colleague dragged him away for a meeting and I was left alone with my own bewildered mortification.

(Of course , now, and only now, I've figured out how his comment is relevant (I think it might have been about dams and the wetland agreements, and probably something that came up at the end of the session in question time after I'd left to catch another speaker elsewhere. But yesterday I had no such lucidity, and was at least 50% sure that I was speaking to the wrong person).

Other conference observations. Biscuits. I took fruit with me so I could have healthy snacks in the breaks but ended up bringing home two bruised kiwi fruit and a belly full of cookies. Sheesh.

Sexist old men who probably don't even know they are. 'Oh I'd like to come back to the young lady in the back who asked the earlier question'. Excuse me? Would you say 'the old man in the back'? Or would you just say 'I'd like to come back to the earlier question about activism?'. Young women are still such a minority in these suited academic gigs I must say that it's hard not to feel like a novelty. Older women too. And this at a conference where at least the plenary sessions were balanced by gender. I saw a younger woman present a co-authored piece written with a very well known acadamic and was so referential towards him in her talk, so quoting of him and flagging earlier work that I felt my skin crawl. For example (name's changed) 'Chris has done so much work in this field, I'm sure you're aware of Chris' typology. Chris of course has written numerous articles on this matter...' She has a PhD. She was doing a post-doc. She has years of research experience herself. She never once referred to 'my work' or 'my research has addressed'. It made my skin crawl slightly because I could see her being seen as 'Chris' research assistant' and I wanted her to stand that bit taller, speak with that bit more authority, claim her own agency and insights, and maybe because I feel like I've been in her skin before. It's hard if/when you've been socialised to make nice, to recognise other people contributions; but you are trying to work in a sector that is all about claiming your own, claiming expertise, making your own name.

Conference buddies. They make all the difference. Having a few familiar faces there who you have some kind of deeper connection with (ie don't need to be so formal with, know you like each other, can chat about things both more shallow or more deep than the topics being discussed) makes the space feel warmer and more hospitable. Makes breaks less hard work (avoiding death by mingling) and gives the experience some fun rather than just being a sensible serious banging together of brains - which no matter how clever the arguments.

Luminous

2010-07-17T08:44:00.002+10:00

Check out these beautiful tree paintings by Callie Danae Hirsch. Love 'em. Dig her octopie too.
I suggest clicking and enlarging as a lot of detail is lost in the thumbnail.

Job lot

2010-07-07T21:19:00.000+10:00

In response to Merry Risa’s kind comment I must confess, the job I am applying for is not exactly my own. By which I mean, I have a permanent position and get to keep it regardless of the outcome of this application process. What I am actually applying for is an ‘acting up’ position. Which I think sounds hilarious, as if what you are doing is seeking permission to muck around, clown around and misbehave (now that’s a position I would really like and be happy to put in the hours to write the application – not least because I think I have extensive demonstrated experience and skills in that area). But no, it’s really an ‘I think I’m doing more than my position description says, and have been for a while, so can you please acknowledge that and pay me more and change my title and let me have a say in strategic decisions for the organisation’. Etc. So, not quite as dire as actually having to go for your job, compete with others, and have the chance of no longer having a job. Just risking the embarrassment of people saying ‘erm, actually, no. We don’t think you are all that. So be quiet please and keep doing your job’. Application still torturous, interview with colleagues still ick, but risks I suppose are not as bad.

Oh, and have handed it in now. Interview still to go.

hell is endlessly addressing the criteria

2010-06-29T22:36:00.004+10:00

I have been freezing my fingers off typing away at my glass and chilly desk these past few weeks. And what project am I working on, I hear you ask. Is it, a really juicy interesting blog post? Is it scrappy but endearing zine text? Is it a letter to one of many family members who could probably do with a thoughtful bit of mail? Or perhaps, yes perhaps, a solemn and serious scholarly article declaring and suggesting and proposing things all over the place.

Nay! It is non of the above. It is a job application.

A job application. For. A. Job. I. Am. Already. Doing.

Oh yes, girls and boys, I am treading tentatively down the 'acting up' route to job application fun. I am seeking to have my title changed (but only acting mind, not the real thing) and possibly my pay (but extra joyous is the fact that in fact at the next level, in the acting up position it is actually possible to earn less than I am already earning now). I have verily dragged my heels, dragged myself kicking and screaming through this job application process.

I have had to dust off and redo the CV (after 4.5 years), dust off and madly add to the list of projects I've worked on (after 4.5 years of not doing that). I have had to bend and twist my brain cells to think up useful illustrative examples. I have had to stomach churningly deal with the projects I didn't think ended as well as I'd like, or the ones that I won but was too overloaded to work on and had to hand over (like little fostered out kittens that I kind of wanted to keep and feel a bit sad about).

I've had to admit to myself that the list of projects I've worked on looks like I've grabbed 3 people's CV off the copier and glued them together (no no, really, it makes perfect sense to have worked on all those topics, truly. No no, it's fine that there's like 5 bazillion of them). I look at awe at it and think NO WONDER I FEEL SO BLOODY TIRED!

It is like an archaelogical dig through your own 'Career' history. I say 'career' because I think somehow it's such a 1950's or 1980's word. To me it feels more like it's careering out of control on a windy dusty mountain road.

intr.v. ca·reered, ca·reer·ing, ca·reers
To move or run at full speed; rush

Yes it feels like a rush. Rather than career I would like to ponder. I want a meander. A pause. Another word for ones life's work that isn't about rushing. 'So Billy, how is your meander going?', 'Well funny you should ask, I recently went to a meander counselor' that kind of thing. Sounds nicer huh?

Oh yes. But back to the typing. Hell, I tell you, hell. And to know that an array of your coworkers have to interview you. You have to do the I-me-my story, the I-managed, I-wrote, I-collaboratively and consultative took initiative and applied innovation, story to people you work with. I yawned. I got sick of seeing my job application and quite frankly wished it would just go away. I critiqued the stupid criteria. I wished I had done it years ago. I day dreamed about taking another job just to avoid the process.

It really is revolting, in its pedantry, dates, examples, bullet points. Like your working life being trussed up and cleaned up and reduced down to the fine point of arial font and the straight armed marching of lists.

This from the girl who loves getting other people's job applications into shape, my own remains a turgid drama. Well actually that's not true. It is now quite shiny and polished and almost blemish free, and, an hour more editing later, will be quite ready to submit.

And then I can get onto doing something else, get another hobby, as this one is done.

can't anyone stick to anything anymore?

2010-06-25T14:58:00.004+10:00

'I can't help feeling disgruntled by the L party' she mused; 'can't anyone stick to anything anymore?''I feel like you don't get to make a mistake and fix it anymore'. So lamented Miss Snap Dragon.

It did feel rather quick, didn't it? The outgoing and the incoming PM.

Funny how quickly such a big change feels normal.

Poor Kev. I wanted to send him a card. I figure at work the office temp gets a bunch of flowers and card for having worked a few months. You get the 'top job' and when you leave you don't even get a signed card. OK, admittedly, handing the envelope around all of Australia and getting people to cross their names off the front and not lose it on their desks is a big ask (and I know, because sometimes its my desk it gets lost on), but still. Where's the 'thanks mate, appreciate all the effort, all the best for the future' blokey cheer? Where's the gushing 'thanks so much for all your efforts we'll really miss having your smiling face around the office xx' gush? Where's the heartfelt 'you seemed like a half decent bloke, and you probably gave up your entire social life and put your family through hell to do this, Goddess knows it seems to have sucked the colour right out of you, but not to worry some fresh vegetable juice, a good lie in and a nice overseas holiday with lazy mornings and French Toast will do you the world of good. Buck up chum, you did good, thanks.'

It just doesn't seem right to let someone go without saying thanks and goodbye somehow.

What do we say with what we wear?

2010-06-08T22:41:00.002+10:00

So (a few weeks back now), after Toorak I went to the airport, and due at first to my mistakes and then to mechanical repair issues, found myself there for a while.

Thinking Toorak, and thinking of image and prestige, of belonging, I found myself looking at the people in the airport through this lens. Women in particular. Who, I thought to myself, are the monied here, and how is it from what they wear that I draw that conclusion?

It is so obvious to me, or at least the distinction I make so unconsciously but frequently (if somewhat unconsciously) it seems ludicrous to talk about. But sometimes the obvious questions are worth asking, so in that vein, I will answer.

I think the appearance of being wealthy (in that material, I could shop in Toorak way) presents as follows:
- immaculate, professionally done toe nails, fingers too. Wealthy ladies just don’t have unfortunate, half done, last week’s colour chipping off
- shiny hair or perky ponytail hair or bouffant hair but never frizzy ungainly ‘I just couldn’t do anything with it hair’. Bobs – lets face it the standard thick ear length grey bob is distributed unevenly by postcode.
- if older, then sometimes zany, asymmetrical flowing garments, layers, giant statement necklaces
- handbags which are big and stylish and fit everything in. They are rarely scrabbling around trying to get the zip to do up properly, or finding crackers for a child in there, or with things half hanging out because they didn’t plan what they would take today.
- facial expressions – can be fresh, nicely made up, and innocent looking. If sour or hard done by looking there is a whiff of ‘disappointed’ based on the expectation that things could have been better, service could have been better, stocks, shares, the deal could have gone better. It is a distasteful, ‘you just can’t get good service’ face. Or long suffering, ‘my husband is a bore but I put up with him because divorce is distasteful, and the homewares make the marriage worthwhile’ face. Constrast this with the faces of the less monied, especially those with frizzy hair, chipped nail polish and the ill fitting handbag – these people have faces of disappointment that says ‘the big things in life have disappointed me, the goodness of people, the reliability of life to turn out well, but I don’t know that things could have gone better’. This disappointment is accompanied here by a despair, a grief, underlined, circled in lines, which is absent from the annoyed or impatient faces of the monied.

I confess also my own personal hook into all this as just a few weeks ago had my (down my back long and red wavy) hair cut – just under the ears at the front and higher up at the back, and have started straightening it (because otherwise I get an uneven semi-fro). Meanwhile my old glasses became so worn I’ve reverted to a spare pair. These two unrelated acts have changed my visage somewhat, my rambling curly hippy/student/rock chick/ flake hairdo and my sexy librarian/ nerd grrrl/ gay boy fashion designer style glasses replaced with sensible, tidy, power dressing hair and neat, bronzy don’t mess with me business style glasses that a slightly funky but fierce 50 year old seamstress might wear. So, sometimes I get a creeping dread that I have wanna be Victoria Beckham hair, combined with wanna be business woman glasses. I am aware that I present differently with just these two things about my appearance changed, and I wonder how these little changes affect how people see us or people we don’t know read us.

So you can see, my trips to university have really been helping my academic development, as I muse on all the *big* things in life.

Art eats Science

2010-06-08T22:30:00.002+10:00

Came by this recently submitted thesis by Lisa Roberts, 'Antarctic animation: expanding perceptions with gesture and line'.

See Abstract:
http://www.antarcticanimation.com/content/thesis/thesis.php

www.lisaroberts.com.au
www.antarcticanimation.com

I love these creative intersections between art and science. What do you think?

Tracing Toorak

2010-04-20T22:32:00.000+10:00

I walked around Toorak today. It’s not where I live, or even usually visit, it’s just where I was staying these past few days, on a trip to Melbourne for a course. I donned my yoga pants and walking shoes, some raggedy yesterday t-shirt, and gave myself nearly an hour to walk and look. I saw lots of churches, jeepers that suburb has a few, a saintly school, with well groomed children being dropped off, some so tiny it seemed criminal to abandon them with strangers in such an institutional setting, lost as they were in their large blazers and stuffy shirt. I saw a row of gum trees with thick clear plastic tree guards to stop possums from going up there to roost. I thought about this, about being a gum tree nigh on 100 years old perhaps, and missing the feeling of possums climbing over you, the familiar tickle or trace of life up your limbs, the trees rendered empty for the aesthetic preferences of the people living on the ground who have little to do with the workings of trees.

I saw an abandoned sock, brown and striped and crumpled on the foot path. I saw a girl walking her dog, in what I at first thought were sheer leg ins with knee high socks over the top until I got closer and saw that this was some custom built exercise pant with sheer mesh around the backs of the knees and zippers and angled panels. Oooh, fancy. I revised her in my mind, from disaffected teen walking family dog in street wear to serious older lady with training goals. All because of her pants.

After my walk my mind was very alive with ideas, lots of quirky things I thought I would write about. Now, at the end of the day I can barely remember what they were, that seemed so rich and boundless.

Keeping your distance

2010-04-20T22:31:00.002+10:00

This girl I met is doing her thesis on long distance relationships and the use of technology to maintain successful relationships. Or something like that. She tells me that there’s lots of research been done, lots written on how frequently and for what duration people use technology to connect, but that her research will be focused on what people disclose, and the degree of intimacy gained in the interactions mediated by technology. I am somewhat fascinated by this, I feel like maybe somewhere out there is a journal article that will tell me exactly how many minutes long my phone calls should be when distance separates me from a lover, to make sure the wheels don’t fall off, and that our relationship stays deep and strong and connected.

This is relevant to me because I’ve been in a long distance relationship that ‘didn’t work’. This is to say the relationship tumbled apart and it happened in the long distance phase. We weren’t always long distance, although towards the end it like the moon and back. Unchartable distances, unpassable distances, different space time continuum type distances. We probably didn’t see each other often enough, or call often enough. We probably didn’t use the calls for what you should. I imagine that long distance couples who plan to see each other every second or third or even fourth weekend, where the distance and budget can stretch to this, do better than those who see each other only every couple of months.

I imagine that those who speak daily about the details of daily life, cheerfully, longingly but not reproachfully do well. I imagine those who are distant for a shared and tangible reason that both understand and accept, and even better for a defined period of time with an end point in sight, do better than those who are creepingly unsure about why they are apart, or for whose benefit they are apart, or when the apartness will be resolved and the distance brought hurling together, fast motion style, their separate points in space collided.

There is a certain familiar grief around separation in romantic relationships. Think every film with sad goodbyes at train stations, our collective thoughts of war and its sweethearts, lockets and folded damp paper letters, think of modern service people, the tours of duty which may not involve war like the old movies but still involves separation, astronauts hurtled out into black space in their tin rockets, or prison stays with strained visits between scratched plexiglass and lonely nights in empty cells without family, and even those shorter separations, the business trip, the week away to see family, the other commitment, elsewhere, that you do privately beyond the commitment to your relationship.

I am interested now in the notion of long distance relationships because I think I’m in one. Probably it’s not as dramatic as any of the more iconic types. This is only the distance of a few suburbs; with this distance compounded by living in different daily time zones. Me, a nine to five office desk bound typey type, he a night flighty hospitality who. My bedtime is his peak hour. My morning is his sleep time. Like some nocturnal marsupial blinking wide eyes at the bright, and me some languid large lizard who slows to a stop in the dark, and warms up in the sun to be positively active by mid day. We see each other every weekend, so we have not turned into some strange memory, some painful long separated ediface of a couple. Nor have we been thrown into this separate mode recently, we met like this, we have built a relationship on these brief overlaps, these thin areas around the edge where our habit and habitat overlap is where we have become friends. As such the distance is not strange, there is no other better time that we pine for. This is a blessing. There is some grace in not having an idealised past without the tyranny of distance to return to.

I wish there was some formula, some paper that had reviewed 100 lives like ours, and could tell me how intimate to be on the phone, how long to speak for, but I doubt there is. I do know from my own experience that the smallest of things matter when you are not close by. A 5 minute call can feel luxurious when you are used to 1 minute ‘can I call you later I’m just with customers?’. A text message wishing you a good night’s sleep or luck for a meeting brings this person to life, brings them into your life firmly and positions them as a solid and steadfast element at these important moments at days start and end when we look new on our lives and loves and take stock. This positioning as an ally is important.

And while little sweetnesses are easy to send by phone other things are less easy. When a misunderstanding or a scheduling mishap happens, phones are hollow and brittle medium for expressing dissatisfaction or trying to get more information. How many missed calls and missed returns calls volleyed in a row before it starts to feel like a bad game? How many days in a row can you cheerfully weather of not getting to talk, or being cut short because the timing is poor before you start to feel not listened to, disconnected, not cared about? Being heard, having your time to speak, as well as being spoken to, being considered worth telling things to, seems critical to forming bonds. And maybe because we all touch base so often, we have adjusted to this constant reassurance and continued construction of the relationship in virtual space, that we are not resilient to sudden breaks in transmission.

How do people find their niche?

2010-04-17T13:16:00.000+10:00

The Melville Society is dedicated to the study and appreciation of the nineteenth-century American author Herman Melville, writer of Typee, Moby-Dick, and Billy Budd, such short stories as “Bartleby” and “Benito Cereno,” and several volumes of poetry, including Battle-Pieces and the epic Clarel.

We publish the award-winning journal Leviathan and meet twice a year for fellowship and scholarly discourse at the annual conferences of the Modern Language Association and the American Literature Association. We also sponsor International Conferences and tours every other year.

How? How do you one day wake up and decide to join the Melville Society and meet once a year to discuss Moby-Dick, again? I am not saying it's a bad choice, or an arbitrary one, it just surprises me often that people have the clarity of direction to snuggle into one of the quazillion cultural niches offered by pursuits of the mind, and pick it as their own. I'm baffled, amused, curious, and slightly in awe of it. I feel the same way towards these people who join the Melville Society as I do towards someone who decides to live up a tree house, or only eat peanut butter sandwhiches, or that they are going to pick a language to study - 'great!' I think. 'Funky and cool thing to do... but how the hell did you get to that decision? And how did you make it?' How do people find their niche?

Website of the week

2010-04-14T17:51:00.001+10:00

I have been quite taken by this site today. I like the intense faces and good colours and interesting quotes in scratchy handwriting. It's a nice idea for a collection of portraits.

what's new

2010-04-07T23:52:00.005+10:00

Oh it's a late one tonight - late home from work I stumble across the traffic lights with lights from several lanes of stilled cars shining at me like I am some uninspired stage performer - spot light, yes, I will just walk past you - how's that for a show?

I wore peep toe shoes and stockings with toes in them today. I've seen it in the magazines, so thought phuk it, I can do that, I can be devil may careish about the rules of fashion. I can wear my favourite shoes and favourite tights together even if they're different colours and even if they're made for different climatic conditions, like strange time travelers thrown together who are never normally seen together in the same season. So I did. And I think they were great.

Tonight I was in the bathroom and saw a giant mummy cockroach laying an egg. It was half out and she scurried and hid in the shadow of a plant pot. Found myself grappling with strange feeling of half repulsion, half empathy. It's not like I think she needs a birthing suite at St Vincents or something but I kind of felt for her that she had to freeze and then scurry, in fear of being squashed by the giant human, in this private moment. It's weird to think that cockroaches actually have sex. They don't look all that cuddly. Of all the animals in the world they really seem like the ones least likely to sidle up for a bit of nookie, don't you think? Somehow too alien and independent for that. You never even see them lazing about, laying down, curled up half asleep, hanging out close to each other or playing together. Maybe that's why they're so creepy to us, they don't seem to have an off button. They're always positioned on all fours ready to go, scuttling along. Like some kind of semi-sentient car with creepy antennae. Hmm, I'm not doing so well at loving all the creatures am I? I do try.

Worked my ass off (ee aw, ee aw) today to help get a proposal in for a project that I'm not even sure I want to work on. But there I am in the team structure, there I am as the contact person. It seems so ridiculous that you're meant to think about these things in such a short amount of time when they influence the shape and flavour of your working days for the next (in this case) year and a half. Do I want to work on (topic X) for half of my working hours? Do I like doing big unwieldy literature reviews and stakeholder engagement on techie issues? I don't even know if I do. Sometimes I think I much prefer looking up close at a very small amount than looking quickly at a lot. This project will be a bit like the latter. I can do that kind of thing but I don't actually like it much, I get antsy that I haven't had time to think about it, let things soak in, get around the detail and nuance. It's also a topic I don't have heaps of cred in and so will be winging it, oh winging it again (sorry - learning by doing), which is ok, but always makes me feel a bit behind, kind of apologetic and defensive when sandwiched up against people who've taken 3 years to do a PhD on something, or industry folk who've worked in that one area for like the last 10 years. And maybe none of that would matter much if I had a cool team to work on it with and I felt like I was learning, but I'm pretty much going to be the team on this one, apart from random bits from other too busy to talk people.

Oh and I'm worried all the stakeholders will be very suity and gruff and technical minded (it goes with the topic), not fun and interesting lateral thinkers or creative types. But that's a terrible cliche and I really have no firm basis for that.

It's hard though, hard for me to say 'yeah, you know what, I don't think so - it just doesn't seem like my cup of tea'. I feel like if I can do it I ought to. I'm needed. I step in to do what's needed. Nevermind what it feels like. Well until half way in when I'm stressed and bored silly and want to scream.

And anyway it's one thing to know what feels maybe not satisfying, and another thing to know what does, and another thing altogether to think that your own feelings matter enough to shape what you do and to express it. But blah, blah, we've been here before.

I should probably right now stick to my own recently adopted self talk maxim of 'you're tired, of course it looks hard right now when you're pooped, but you don't have to figure it out now, have a good night's sleep and see how it looks later'. Or 'glass half full' as one housemate (who is not always that optimistic himself) has been coaching the other recently, in only a semi-ironic way.

So that's whats new here in seagreen land today.

sorry mr baldie

2010-03-23T22:22:00.010+11:00

Oh so the last few months have whizzed by. In a whirlwind of, wirly windy whizz by-ness.

Since my brief start-of-the-year angst and career crisis I got absorbed in a, well a very absorbing, project at work, that saw me working weekends and basically soaking up every spare minute. I like this, up to a point, because it soaks up any spare time for navel gazing, and career crisising, but I also don't like it because it soaks up time for cloud gazing, and having proper weekends, and sleep ins and all the fun stuff. But it is funny how satisfying that kind of 'completely in motion' feeling can be. Probably a little addictive to my one, maybe still a bit, workaholic self.

For example, I realised I hadn't cooked a meal for 3 weeks, except a sloppy Japanese style curry that caught on fire and I'm guessing breakfast doesn't really count.

I also said yes to help with some recruitment processes at work in that time, which have ended up being astonishingly time consuming. I wont go into details about the how many people/ how many hours / how many meetings nexus, but leave you to just imagine it. Hint - imagine a few more of all of the above, then add a couple more, and you'll get close to gauging how much extra time it's taken. A high point has been actually being able to offer people jobs - that bit is fun, and almost (almost) compensates for all the hard decisions and painful 'sorry you didn't get the job' calls.

But it wasn't my intention to complain (per say...). Just to explain my shitty complete lack of writing or blog-reading. And maybe why my fingers are tired now and probably not channeling much spark or wit or colourful language.

And also, re house moving, you might be wondering what happened there? Well, one of my housemates and I have decided, for now, to stay and split the rent 2 ways rather than 3. It's an expensive-ish but convenient decision, which hopefully will tide us both over till at least the middle of the year by which time maybe we'll each have some more spare time and energy to do something more decisive and different.

Oh and traveling. A couple of trips to Canberra for work. I am not a slick and gorgeous traveler, though I try. I am somewhat daunted still by those other red eye travelers who manage to pince their way confidently through early mornings on patent leather heels and swishy hair and funky handbags, while I walk on the plane slightly bumbling with a shoulder bag and lap top bag and cloth shopping bag full of handouts - somehow there is no combination of arranging those bags that does not result in smacking someone in the shoulder or head as you walk down that aisle. Regrettably. And not just once, but every step you take, over-correcting to protect the people on the left from the laptop you twist a little and accidentally grind through the people on the right with handbag. etc. One look at my shoes (scuffed), hair (newly cut but stoically haywire), makeup (what makeup) should let them know that I don't do this daily, and lack the slick business traveler gene that makes that stuff easy.

The worst though was standing at the end of my row and leaning up to push said laptop into overhead cubby hole only to realise (did he hurrrumph? is that how I knew?) that the man on the end of my row, who's head was disconcertingly at kind of my boob height was getting my handbag in his face. He scowled, and looked offended and so I apologised and by way of apology...I PATTED HIS HEAD! I patted his head to apologise for smacking his head and then realised - of course - that it is not at all cool to pat a baldie middle aged man with pompous military vibes on the head like he is some happy lucky Buddha or small child, but then of course - you can't take it back. So I scuttled into my seat and poked my nose in a book and hoped to disappear.

Website of the week

2010-02-10T08:30:00.001+11:00

My own home never looked so lovely. This lovely site thanks to Derek.

NB I'm not saying I live in Glebe Town Hall!

rare diseases

2010-02-08T16:31:00.004+11:00

"Sorry Ma'am, I have to inform you that you're suffering from localitis"
"What does that mean? What are my symptoms?"
"Well, primarily it means that you will be happy to buy overpriced fruit and veg from the very small shops just corner rather than brave the walk further down the road to the busy but cheaper shopping centre. You may occasionally be secretly thankful that you lost track of time and don't really have time to haul ass to another suburb for errands before dinner. You will likely start to recognise quirky characters in the neighbourhood and they will say hello to you. You will have to wonder if you too are becoming one of those quirky characters and they are thinking the same things about you that you think about them."
"And is it fatal? Will I be able to live a normal life?""
"Hard to say. It tends to be seasonal, you may suffer from periodic bouts, especially after travel, which will be interspersed with normal living such that you may not even be able to tell that you're carrying the syndrome. You may even be able to disguise the symptoms. You will probably end up spending a lot more on bread and having to make do with slightly more withered fruit and veg. Be brave, you could live a long and happy life with this, others have - there's no need to loose hope."

And...
'oh gee my paper needs editing lookee here it's a blog that needs urgent writing instead' bacterial infection
(symptoms - squirmy guilty glances sideways while writing, itchiness around the knees)

And...
'no really the weather will clear and I'll be able to dry my washing' delusional syndrome
(symptoms - wet washing and unusual (but dry) outfits, more so than usual)

And...
'house moving avoidance syndrome'
(Symptoms - irrational bouts of weekend leisure spent watching dvds and going to large hardware stores to browse bathroom tiles instead of house hunting)

And...
'modern life e-intrusion response tick'
(Symptoms - deciding that selectively and systematically cleaning out your email sent box is a cleansing, wholesome, efficient and almost spiritual activity second only to colonic irrigation, Vipassana and plucking your eyebrows. Denying to yourself that it is verging on becoming your new hobby. Feeling a little sad when the emails are gone because there's no more deleting to do).

Ever the realist, he built his table for one

2010-01-27T23:45:00.001+11:00

I guess it could be worse. I could live here - in the elementary school where all the children have died. Or with the egg couple.

Thanks Miss Snapdragon for bringing joy to my inbox.

House, housed, housing

2010-01-23T23:14:00.002+11:00

Argh moving bloody sucks.
(I think/ I remember/ I worry)

Here's the deal: my housemates are breaking up and therefore both moving out and to their separate ways* and we are all waiting until one of them gets work before we move, so no-one is left penniless and on the streets (/back with their parents).

And meanwhile we live here, acting like a major upheaval is not just about to take place.

And meanwhile I wig out about when I will have to move, and to where, and with whom, and when on earth I will get around to packing boxes. And whether it will cost an arm and a leg and I'll somehow get stuck between the cracks of housemates out housemates in and have to pay double rent for an eternity. I worry that my moving crunch time will happen in a deadline fortnight and I'll be weepy and tired and running client workshops with odd socks and rumpled clothes because I've somehow packed the other sock in a box with cds and the iron accidentally got put in with my button collection and I haven't found it yet. Not that I worry too much or anything.

And being relatively new in a relationship of course a teensy teensy part of me goes 'hmm, well, we could live together' - not that I want to (yet. yet?) but it raises it sooner as an idea than it would otherwise. (It's not on the cards, too soon, I'm just saying, it crosses your mind).

And being in my early (well technically early to mid) thirties a largish part of me thinks 'well why are you still renting? Who looks for a share house at 34?'. So moving reminds me that I''m not buying a house and for a bunch of reasons related to budget, income, low confidence in my ability to continue having a steady income, perhaps my general financial flakiness and inability to see myself as an actual grown up, am not actually in a position to do anything other than rent.

Maybe this is a wake up call to get a plan, start saving like crazy and get my financial shit together. Anything to avoid packing boxes for a few years. And actually I'd quite like to tile a bathroom in sea greens and paint an orange and red animal mural on a spare bedroom - is that enough reason to buy property?

* Note - not widely public knowledge yet, please don't mention to other folks if you happen to know them (I've kept mum for over 6 months, but figure I can mention it now that it's affecting my living arrangements)

Well

2010-01-23T22:53:00.002+11:00

Well I did something big today. I emailed a magazine* with some jpgs of illustrations I'd done, along with an 'artists' statement' and asked them to take them to the next design team meeting. By way of back story, I first emailed then A YEAR AGO, and the guy said 'yeah sure send something through we love hearing from new illustrators', so what did I do? promptly filed the email and chickened out and pretended I'd never asked. Naturally. Anyway, I got the bottle up and decided, fuck it, to send them something.
It felt really good actually, like I was being brave and also really honest. the artists statement came out quickly and painlessly and was a coherent story that mentioned my day job and linked it to the work. A friend who works in the arts edited it for me, and helped with some rearranging, but essentially we kept the words I'd used. It felt quite spontaneous, easy and 'right'.
I feel like whether they respond or not, give feedback or not, want to include something I've done or not kind of doesn't matter - I mean I'd like them to say 'woo hoo you rock, send us more, here's a truckload of cash', obviously - but compared to the experience of feeling confident enough to throw my hat in the ring, and not cringe, not be apologetic, to feel happy with some pieces and like I authentically represented myself, it doesn't matter a jot. Just to refer to my work and not mentally put inverted comas around the word. Just to have done it and not feel like a kid running up to someone's buzzer on a practical joke and running away again fast. To feel like it is possible, fine, normal, do-able - that is the prize.
It's funny this thing of self image and what invisible boundaries it imposes on what you do - as it extends, what you feel you can do, and what you actually do extends, like a breath out, like an expansion. Colonizing new territory. claiming new parts of yourself.

*Totally earthy quite deep green magazine that has quite a few illustrations and photos through it

Your favourite toilet

2010-01-23T22:44:00.003+11:00

I was at work the other day (yes, I went back, yes, I'm still there, yes it's actually fine - more to follow), and went to the toilet. As you do. As I was coming out of the cubicle someone was on the other side of the door about to push it. We laughed. She apologised. Then she said, kind of accusingly, 'you're in my favourite toilet!' I laughed and left, and told the girl I was about to have lunch with about the exchange, remarking that in fact the strange thing was that that very same cubicle was my favourite toilet. Rather than look at me strangely and ask what the hell I was talking about (after all, who has a favourite toilet) she said' oh mine is the one up the other end.'
'But mine has the funny little angled door - it's cosy, and its close to the windows, nice light' I say.
She says 'oh no, claustrophobic, and those windows are so cold in winter'
We muse together on the way down in the lifts on whether everyone out there actually has a favourite toilet, and whether there's some kind of pattern to who chooses which one. Your favourite toilet - the new management personality profiling tool (no pun intended) perhaps?

resume normal programing

2010-01-11T12:47:00.002+11:00

Ok ok so I obviously needed to have a giant vent on Friday. Sorry for tortured memoir infused woe-dump. If it's any consolation it made me feel heaps better, and freed up my brain to have a gentle wander around the library, rest day with less feeling stuck.

I think I feel better now after having had a few days to get used to the moving out / replacing housemates options, and actually looking to see what is out there in or close to what I'm willing to pay for rent. I think also a few more conversations with my mum makes me think she's at least thinking through the gritty details of what a change in her living arrangements would entail, and she's catching up with old friends who would be a support network if she went through a big move. Work I haven't been back to yet, but will tomorrow. My churning stomach has abated and I sometimes think just engaging with the 'I could actually leave this if I wanted to' idea is a powerful antidote to the strong feelings of 'but I'm needed there, I couldn't possibly leave'.

I think being further away from my family does help me find space to operate on a more even keel / more supported and positive emotional space. I'd love to be able to be around them and not as affected, and maybe that is happening incrementally, but for now it is much easier from a distance. (Interesting that the family therapy texts differ so markedly in their advice on this - some talk about the danger of 'returning to the poisoned well' - seriously dramatic, eh - others talk about the importance of going back and doing old things in a new way).

And although my lingering protestant work ethic and general desire to be a professional person who does what they say they'll do is strong, I think it's probably a good sign that my little stress heap triggers much earlier action than it once did. ie probably healthier in the long run to have a wig out, feel sick and not go in for a few days, and give space to sort through things and reenter calm and emotionally more resilient, than to battle on for weeks or months with repressed emotional stuff unresolved in the background, until the pile is huge and topples over leaving me stuck with legs poking out the bottom, and takes weeks to get out from. In a less long winded way - probably good that I am noticing my feelings and acting on them sooner rather than later like I have in the past with work-life stress stuff.

And having people to talk to helps so much don't you think? In blogosphere and in real life, to voice things takes some of their power out, and diffuses the voice inside that says 'you can't possibly be thinking that, that's lame/awful/whatev just get on with it.' You voice it and the sky doesn't fall in. You voice it and just feel like a goose, but not a terrible person.

Onwards and upwards eh groovers?

Relief

2010-01-08T11:33:00.010+11:00

I sit in the quiet room of a large old public building that is now a city library. A reading room and computer roonm, and the cool of the chair leg against my ankle, the wide dark shine of the bench tops soothes me.

And today I needed soothing.

It shouldn't surprise me I supose, when I think to the past, that quiet spaces in public feel like a home coming. I knew that when, standing in the local shopping centre eating handfuls of salty impulse cashews like the stressed monkey I am, feeling mind blank at the prospect of going home, at the prospect of going to work, at the prospect of maybe calling my counsellor ('hi bob, yes it's been 18 months, do you have a space available today?'), at the prospect of confessing to my patient boyfriend who came around for emergency hug and moral support last night and pep talk and gee up to get to work this morning that I didn't after all make it to the office, all these things whirling in my head, all these mind blank, short circuits, all these entangled threads, and the entagled threads behind them too, and the thing I think of is the cool, and the quiet, the reverence, and the anonymity of this old building with books in it. And a keyboard. And maybe writing and writing until it all comes out and I feel clean, and balanced, and unentangled.

I wonder on the bus on the way in (almost calm then, a decision made, some of the options closed off momentarily) whether it is the case that I am someone who can endre a lot of stress in one direction but when it comes in multiple directions and from areas that feel connected but seperate then I wig out, fall in a heap. I wonder this because I seem to remember the idea that I can handle a lot of stress. I must be able to. I've put myself in situations that are stressful several times. I seem to like it, or at least not mind. Quitting my job on impulse to travel overseas and work and have nothing to come back to not even a plan! Leaving to move to Sydney on a whim in the New Year with a boot full of stuff and barely an idea of where my new job is or what I'll be doing! Studying two subjects while working 12 hour days in a new job in a new country and living in a tiny room with a family and no space to myself! So, a willingness to take risks, at least at some points in my life. And then there's the endurance of stress. Weathering shitty situations stoically. Surely I've done that too? Handled periods of responsibility and work stress. Handled family dramas ad nauseum and managed to keep myself sane - for the most part. Supported other people through tough times and been supportive and up beat. Haven't I? Or at least this is the vision I have of myself. Strong. Stoic. Able to weather discomfort without complaint. Able to adapt to the vissicitudes of life, stormy seas, chopping and changing direction. Adaptable. A make do-er, a stubborn little plant with roots dug in deep to thin soil in a small pot left up the back of an old lady's house long after she's left the house to her niece and the garden has ceased to be watered.

So today, this week, yesterday I think 'am I'? Or am I actually a dithering wreck?
How is it that sometimes a few characteristics of circumstance are able to wind me with a thump to the guts, take the wind from my sails and leave me gasping, panicking for air? And the bizarre thing is that I have these moments in time delay mode, revealed layer by layer - no one large temper tantrum fuelled teary meltdown that announces itself out loud in full colour, but a niggle, a dread, a mounting sense of disengagement which little by little opens up the door for other feelings and other 'symptoms' until looking at myself I think 'oh - I'm upset'. I look at myself like a cold cliched movie style disengaged professor father peering up from an entomology tray and say 'oh, there are tears - you must be sad. You feel sick in the stomach, you must be worried. Oh, I see you are not going to school today for the third day in a row - do you not like it? Oh, you seem to be trying to attract my atttention, did you want to let me know something?'. It is strange to be so removed from your own feelings that they seem a puzzle to you. And it is like the Professor father archetype ghosting in my self plans my days, very logical, healthful, useful, good for you life plans, and the mute child lives them out and feels them.

So of course I'm not naiive or simple enough to overlook the patterns of the past happening here. The experience of growing up in an emotionally volatile household where parents unresolved family and life issues took centre stage meant that I always felt my own emotional response to life was a liability. When my father was mentioned, at all, any context I would cry quietly, tears coming without me being able to stop them, out of shame and hurt and sense of loss about not seeing my father, and my mother would get angry and tell me that some people's fathers beat them, or lived with them but then died, so really, I wasn't as bad off as them and I should be grateful for my good fortune in avoiding either of those fates. When my childhood cat died, was put down at the vet, my mother cried in hysterics and me and my best friend who lived next door and had come along too comforted her, in the dark on the steps of the vet and I felt a familar coldness and distance as I went through the motions of comforting her. I grew up trying to be 'good' and self reliant. I read a lot. I made friends easily. I was a good listener. I rarely complained about things or demanded things or asserted my preferences (well, until my teens, and when I started to disagree, and assert my own preferences it felt like my mother acted like I had single handedly betrayed her and broken her heart). Unsurprisingly, feelings felt (and continue to feel) very dangerous. Me being sad or angry or dissatisfied and wanting something meant that I wasn't holding it together enough to keep everything (her) on an even keel, and often resulted in me being told I was selfish, or overdramatic or something else that I equated with being 'a bad person' (I'm not saying this was the intent, it just became the shortcut meaning for me, in my child's brain). I eventually left, my emotional distance taking physical form in an effort to keep myself safe from these inherited emotional badlands (which my poor mum inherited herself, a contaminated site bequeathed to her from her parents), to try to establish some kind of boundary by geography where I had never learnt to create one in my heart. So I create huge distances to save myself from situations where I think I am in threat of being subsumed by another's will or needs of me.

And here I am, feeling like I want to run from my job, a job that is very good on paper but I secretly detest much of the time, but feel pangs of guilt and panic when I think of leaving it. I mostly ignore my feelings about it and tell myself all sorts of good sensible reasons why I should stay there except in bursts, when in a rush, my feelings come out and I wail and want out. And in those moments of intense feeling it is as if I must act NOW, right in the very moment, or I will never get out. There is no sense of the value in taking some time to plan, look at options, work towards something, make provisions for myself, there is only 'out, right now'. And in those moments (such as the one I am in the tail end of, which grew from a tiny seed of discontent mid this week)my overdeveloped sense of responsibility which lumbers around yoked to me the rest of the time, is replaced with a fundamental disregard entirely for the needs and wishes of the other. I suddenly don't care at all that there is a deadline, nor that people are waiting for me, nor that it will look bad, nor that bailing manifests me as a flake, exactly the sort of fucked up child of dysfunctional family that I have always tried so hard not to be. I suddenly care way less about the financial realities of having no income, I feel the need to throw myself seed like on the winds of fate, whereas just a week ago the slightest gust of the cold winds of desperation would have frightened me away from even considering leaving.

And in all this I feel like part of it is the search for 'my people'. Not in a religious or ethnic labelled tribe sense, but in a vague 'I'm not sure they're them' kind of way. The people I currently work with are bright and shiny, happy, smart folk with easy going natures and if a rock hard core of ambition then this is politely dusted over with organic sweetness and light. They are Together. They have their Shit Together. And sometimes I feel like the combined good fortune and comfortable ease with which they move in the world leaves me no room for expressing honestly what is really happening for me. So this week I have struggled with going in dragging my post Christmas reality with me, to that collegiate, politely interested tea room chat space - where polite questions and polite answers about hip happenings and quirky observations are palatable, but sincere ruminations about anything not squeaky clean and shiny are not.

The correct answer to "how were your holidays?" is "oh it was lovely, so nice to see family, and get away". Not "well, I thought it was OK because I borderline kept it together while gone but seem to have fallen in a a bit of a heap when I got back. You see my grandma's depressed and not getting out of bed, another one has been depressed for years since her husband died and apparently couldn't muster up any joy without him, and I guess I feel sad and guilty and worried that it's catching when I see them, and kind of helpless that I'm far awar and can't do anything. Then there's my mum, who I think might be leaving her partner, and moving interstate with my little brother, but the whole relationship is fraught and littered with considerations of exes and other children and access isues. And now, my housemates are seperating and moving out, so I have to move house early this year at roughly exactly the same time that uni starts (which I have enrolled in after a 4 year hiatus and was feeling a bit nervous about anyway), and at the same time I've come down with raging career doubt and strange fantasies of a quiet life illustrating children's books over a cup of tea in a quiet little room in a quiet little house somewhere, so coming back here is particularly difficult..."

So instead I came to the library.

revelations, the rapture, radelaide

2010-01-02T20:27:00.004+11:00

Back in Sydders now after week in radelaide/ fabelaide/ oh-I'm-glad-adelaide... (etc). Random things that I chrystallised in that visit (metaphorically, natch, I was not in a biker speed lab):
- I heart Lily Allen - revealed as a main stream pop lamo for once and for all, me.
- I flounder around in the aftermath backwash of the giant waves of other people's fraught relationships when I'm around my family. It's much more peaceful when I'm not. Despite that there are some small pleasures in being there. It gets easier, I feel somehow more resillient each subsequent visit - the longer I am away perhaps? the older I get? the more they each deal with their pasts?
- My Grandparents are all getting on, and my Grandmas in particular are now the Queens of the blunt comment. 'You've lost weight - you'd be a size X now?' one says. The others says' how old are you? So, you're not having children then?'. My gradfather says 'so you have a boyfriend I hear. That's nice. Because it was so long really, wasn't it? Like really quite a long time'. Sheesh guys.
- I am somehow Switzerland, the confidente. 'I'm going to confide in you something' one Aunty says. The other one says 'I wouldn't tell anyone else this, but this morning I heard..'. In response I start to feel like being a simpleton and saying what I think and hear: 'Um, everyone says you're drinking too much and being mean to --. Is that true?' or 'So, I hear you owe thousands in school fees and that's why you moved - is that true?' or '-- says you swear too much around the kids and should tone it down.' I figure that would be a surefire way to have people stop telling me things they don't want to get back to people. Maybe it would open up the doors of the family abode, let some fresh air in, help all the dark musty corners dry out and bleach pale in the sun.
- Ex partners haunt old towns. Even when you're well and truly over (over, over, over) and years (years and years and years) out of the relationship, it is a shock to hear they and their new partner and baby bumped into your Aunty in Coles shoppping for dinner. Well, maybe for better adjusted people it's not a shock, but it was for me. Kind of creepy. Everyone knows difficult exes are meant to gracefully fade away and out of your field of reference, right?

- - -

Today I was at a popular Suydney beach, sitting in the sun. SITTING IN THE SUN! Amost my least favourite thing to do in the whole world, because it is just too HOT, and I feel so BAKED, and everything is so bright and shiny. But actually on my old aqua borrowed towel, and in my pinching rouched aqua and purple granny bathers, and with my glasses off and my non prescription sun glasses rendering the world shady and blurry, the multitudes blending into dappled shade on the beach, I felt quite happy.

- - -

Saw an old friend, from many many years ago - maybe 10 or 15? And was dazzled by her bright blue eyes popping out of her brown face, and her animated converstaion, and her honesty, and the expanse of conversation, and slightly self aware (am I being in awe of her because she's in the entertainment industry? Am I acting different?), and almost was able to forget until straight after eating someone came up and gushed at her about her music. And I say 'is that normal.. Does that happen all the time?' and she kind of shrugs and and grimaces in a 'what can you do, life is wacky' kind of way, and I go 'wow that's really surreal', and we leave. And I have this tiny thread of connection to her life and its rhythms, and in what ways it's different to mine, and in what ways it's the same.

On the dance of the year

2009-12-24T20:15:00.003+11:00

So if the year has just danced its way through 365 days, how did it go? It probably started out a little timidly, shy and getting up off the bleachers, handbag clasped, doing a light nod and toe tap, smiling, just shy of a grimace, hoping no one would watch it. Then it started to get a bit excited, a bit more of an arm waving, jiggy bounce, but surprised - like ooh, hello, look at this. Then it probably started doing some wild moves, like dusting off breakdancing moves it had never tried before but remembered from 80's movies and always wondered what they felt like. Funny year, whooping, and head spinning. Then it got all busy and serious, but not unfun. This might have been more your hard core mechanic tribal moves, in a state of trance. A purpose to the dance, a rhythmic, intense, focused containment. On and on, without room for doubt. By the third quarter, the year probably noticed the change in the music, more mellow, more curls and warbles. The year began doing more open armed, flourishy things, loking around to see whateveryone else was doing, who was around, what was happening to the peripheries. By now, the year is tired and sticky and ready for a good lay down. It has slowed to that smiling, sunburnt festival kind of dance where swathes of flesh are liberated from the confines of cotton elastaine, peeking out, joining in the fun. It is the 'the drugs have worn off' or 'those beers are making me feel tired and dehydrated' kind of feeling. It is the 'am I dancing? What am I dong? I seem to be moving but I think the song is about to finish and actually I'd quite like to sit down' moment.

12 days of Christmas

2009-12-23T18:09:00.004+11:00

Day 1
A man on the bus has a small flakey something hovering above his scalp on a piece of spindly hair above his bald spot. I stare and can't stop. I am fascinated and appalled in turns. I realise that this is not the festive spirit.

Day 2
I keep taste testing my newly cooked biscuits. oops.

Day 3
I go to the work Christmas party. I mingle. I participate in games. I wish I was enjoying it more. Afterwards I go to a coffee shop and enjoy the relative silence of the banter of strangers after a day of small talk with people I know but don't know that well, whose company I enjoy but maybe don't enjoy so well.

Day 4
I buy all manner of 'educational' toys for my cousins, realising that actually I am buying them for the 10 year old self I once was or imagine I was once. Solar powered car making on Christmas day here I come.

Day 5
I change my mind and buy Christmas cards after all. I write three at lunch over a chickpea salad and flat white.

Day 6
I am late for work. On the bus, a friend, calling me to say hello, reminds me that 'it is the season to be jolly'. I laugh and suggest that this is what I will remind the person for whose meeting I am now late for.

Day 7
I eat crackers and wine for dinner.

Day 8
I organise flights to home town after much procrastinating. I plan a middle of Christmas day flight and feel ever so spontaneous and slightly subversive.

Day 9
I go book shopping for Christmas gifts and feel instantly relaxed and calmed leaving work concerns behind, and transported to large print big picture colourful glory of international cook books. I am transported to a life where I cook these things, and have these plates. I am lost in the minutae of Nonya curry pastes and Egyptian spices.

Day 10
I picnic and end up laying down playing scrabble outside on a rug eating cake. Oh the athleticism. Later in the day I make up for it my playing pool.

Day 11
I wrap things using curling ribbon. I plan to join in Christmas eve singing carrols and wonder if I will be busted for my non denominational, atheistic, random spirtualist credentials, and whether I'll be able to blend in ok.

Day 12
I write this post rather than finish a serious workish book chapterish thing. I look forward to being done enough with such things as to shut the chapter of this year and leave them till next year - next decade! - to reengage with.

her touch is at once both...

2009-10-20T19:51:00.003+11:00

hello my dandees, hello my lovelies, hello my rag time guuuurl!
(I think I just ad libbed with those lyrics, but you get the picture - exultant, chipper, hello-ish)

I haven't blogged for ages, here or elsewhere. I haven't read blogs. I haven't commented. I've barely looked at pictures.

I've been busy having a whirlwind romance. Yes indeed, it's true. Seagreen has been dating. "Dating". I may even have a Significant Other. One shouldn't dissect or speculate about these things in blogosphere, wind might change and your face might stay like that. Also having a whirlwind work time. Having a whirlwind of a time in general.

But despite all that slackness, just this very minute something silly caught my eye and the p[lace i wanted to talk about it was here.

Here it is (lifted from an invite to an exhibition):
"[name deleted to protect the innocent]'s art is speculative and socially alert and her touch is at once blithe and existential."

I read it and thought, 'how cool is that, I want to write really wafty and slightly pretentious and very dramatic things like that on my next cv.'

'Sea Green's Power Point presentation for the talk tomorrow is speculative and socially alert and her touch is at once blithe and existential.'

Silly mood I'm in. How youse all?

All about friction

2009-07-22T08:15:00.002+10:00

Went abseiling on the weekend. Almost chickened out because of the 'group fun' element, after a busy week, and wanting some time to unwind alone. But.. had agreed to it months ago, and decided it was the 'type of thing I wanted to do' (or more accurately, that I wanted to be the type of person who would go) so I went.

Was with girls from work, staying 2 nights away, and was surprisingly relaxed, group very forgiving of the random foibles we each had re equipment, food planning, sleep habits etc. First time over the edghe made me feel slightly frozen in the bunny lights of fear, but the next one was wholly exhilerating (and mebbe just a little scary too). 25 metre cliff but a view down a much bigger cliff face and into a valley that seemed positively miles away. When my rope spun around, as I went down the overhang bit of wall, and I could see the whole valley in front of me I may have cussed. Just a little bit, in both panic and wonder, and surrounded by kind of pained laughter, like a really good rollercoaster will bring out in you.

The friction on the rope from teh fancy arrangement through loops is amazing. Physics makesthe whole thing a lot more controlled than you might imagine, and the process of letting the rope through your hand to get movement, is a lot less scary than I thought it would be (ie does not require you to hold your own body weight in the palm of your hand).

Left feeling a bit sunburnt, but happy.

I haven't seen you round these parts

Well it's true I haven't been blogging here (or anywhere), for aaaages, and for a random set of life reasons, including, but not limited to:
- travelling
- getting all sick and fluey on return
- work ramping up
- dating
- having friends and family from out of town visit / return
- computer issues

etc.

I have been doing a teensy bit of writ-draw-ing for my zine, but that has been ant scaled. I have been writing for work, but not much there either.

Maybe it's winter - things slow down, grow slower, conserve energy for the spring, rest in the dark to keep energy for reaching up to face the sun when it comes back. The growth rings on this blog would be very thin in the winter months when sliced through and inspected by an interested logger's eye.

2009-07-04T14:23:00.001+10:00

toothpastefordinner.com

Home!

2009-05-24T08:38:00.002+10:00

Home again as of one seedy still dirty feeling from the airport hour ago. Home again as in one chatty how has the weather been how did you find the service with United taxi ride. Home again as in chirpy 'strange I have lots of energy and I'll unpack now and then do my washing and maybe make a cup of tea' energy rush which is now crumbling in the face of the aeroplane coffee wearing off, my body clock kicking in and the luscious expanse of bed laying with it's arms wide saying 'c'mon, it'll be lovely.

Home and a week worth of stories banked up ready for the telling.

Home and excited 'fresh eyes around the house' sensation which is so nice after being away.

Home and 'have I been inspired by my trip? what is fresh on the to do list now?' musings.

Home, and more stories later.

A quick hello from Montreal, City of...

2009-05-16T12:27:00.003+10:00

Bikes
Yes, they're everywhere. If you were allergic to bicycles, this would not be a good city for you. These bikes also frequently have baskets - made of old milk crates, in jaunty colours. New 'bike taxis' (DIY bikes for hire from stands in the street)scattered liberally and loking very appealing - maybe tomorrow I'll try one...

Blokes
Ooh la la. So this is where all the dark haired, urbanely dressed, lanky and suave or surly and muscly good-jacket-wearing French speaking straight men have gone. Well, now I know. I have to keep a spontaneous little smile in check when I see shortish, solid, behoodied, shaven headed, gorgeous, clear but blank faced youths who look like they're about to be photographed for the Face magazine. Or the kind of tall, casually haired and elegant, bespectacled bookish men with 2 day growth and layers on. They give good eye contact as well - doubly disconcerting.

Biere
Oh local beer is good! There are micro breweries, local brands of bottled beer, beer related somehow to malt whiskey hops, 'spicy' beer, beer made from buckwheat - many and varied beers. And all good.

Boulevards
Wide wide streets, like my hometown of Radelaide (that's hip 'Adelaide, it's so Radical' slang talk, in case anyone is from elsewhere and tries to google it only to find it doesn't actually exist). Not much traffic, not that many people, and tree lined to boot. Easy to cross. Handy little seats for pedestrians. Loverly.

Berry berry curly staircases
Yes metal stairs that run up the coutside of buildings, like fire escapes, like fancy stairways to heaven. All different colours and configurations. They look elegant but ilke they'd be slippery in winter. Haven't figured out why they are all outside the buildings yet and why they never seem to be brick.

Books
Lots of bookstores, in French mostly. I was even given some lovely tattered second hand books from someone I met here, to keep.

Brotherhood
Well you know, 'fraternetie' in that non gender specific sense. Always blown away by peoples' spontaneous acts of generosity towrds travelers - those brief encounters that extend to a 'well if you want me to show you the city I'm not doing anything tomorrow' or 'well let's swap numbers and catch up in New York' or 'well what are you doing now, come with us, it'll be fun'. Also somewhat surprised when I go along for the ride and put the angsty 'OMG anyone offering to do something nice must be a serial killer' instincts on the back burner, and take up random (yet safe)gestures of hospitality. For example, I have a lunch date tomorrow at a Professor of enviro toxicolgy's home, with her young family, and tomorrow night will be meeting random artsy crafty locals at a pub to watch a jazz band with friends of their in it. Next week I plan to call 'Ian' who lives in NY and was at my conference go out for coffee.

and other things beginning with other letters of the alphabet.

Bonjour

2009-05-11T05:20:00.003+10:00

Made it to Montreal! Had extended meandering trip over here punctuated by stop over in an industrial area of Queens, NYC, near the airport. Now, after one night in Montreal, and making myself sleep for 12 hours, my body clock seems to have stopped swinging from 'ON! Excited! Let's go sightseeing!' to 'OFF! Can't move/ eat/ walk/ think - must sleep NOW' every 3 hours which was what was happening before. I'd just go 'woo hoo, second wind, I'm going to go and grab a meal, and explore' and no sooner would I be out dointg that then I'd switch back to 'ooh shit, run out of batteries' and long for bed. Then from midst of deep sleep would 'bing!' to wide awake, after realising I'd only been asleep for an hour and a half. Realising now that a few days of acclimatising pre conference would have been a great feature for the itinerary!
So. Montreal. This not a long post because I promised myself I'd stay offline, and focused, till I presented at the conference - I am so easily distracted! - but felt like a quick and sneaky little post wouldn't hurt anyone.
Grey today and cold. I'm wearing just about everything I packed, all at once.
Bed and breakfast lovely, feel like it was a great decision not to stay in a big hotel. Much cosier here, human touch.
Conference. About to go register, exciting. Slightly nerve wracking. New conference like a big party where you actually don't know the hosts, or what anyone else will be wearing, and whether you'll find anyone to mingle with. You also don't know whether the conversation will be tedious, slightly batty, informative and stimulating, same old, or so esoteric you feel the need to creep away backwards wishing you'd read Foucault and Derrida. Going alone to a confernec very similar to going alone to large party also, you know you're going to have to make a bit more effort on the mingling front, and as a result you may be more likely to meet new people.
I have to remind myself sometimes that I'm actually ok at this stuff - you know the 'hi, so where are you from', the smile nicely, the listening and note taking, the presenting even. I seem to forget and get nervous all over again each time, when really, it's not that hard.
Sorry, just blathering on about me and the conference, very little about this city. First impressions have been good - city feels self contained, grey, grungy, cool without trying, sleety, crouched figures with hoodies under jackets, pedestrian friendly, cycle studded, balcony dotted, spiral staircase wrapped, fillagree treed and delicate morning songed.

Light as a feather

2009-05-08T00:44:00.000+10:00

So excited today I feel like air. Packed last night, with help from the gals, aka Amberguity and Miss Snapdragon, support team of ‘telling like it is’ crew – acting as outfit advisors/dinner cookers /trip packing tipsters. Packed. Talk almost done. Slides conceptualized. Bookings made. Trips planned. Excited excited. Ticking things off to-do list, and it all seems possible, do-able, probable. Travel is like possibility made manifest, such magic in dreaming something up, deciding on a whim and then birthing it into being through the little aggregate actions.

Work also going well, moving along, sense of team. I think what I’ve really noticed this past fortnight is feeling supported. Encouraging, kind and helpful people. I’m sure it's just my frame of mind just makes me appreciate this more, and people have always been like this.

Am also really enjoying my contact with one of the peeps on that random internet dating site. And it reminds me that there are all sorts of people out there, and it is possible that one day I might someone new I want to spend time with.

Feel like I might float away, I’m so light.

Lovely box of chocolates

2009-05-08T00:38:00.001+10:00

So, imagine that you have begun to explore the world of ‘internet dating’. A misnomer really because it’s not like you want to date Google (well actually google’s pretty smart, I might like to date google), or just have ‘dates’ online, in virtual reality (though with second life I guess that’s an option – where you really would have reason to complain that your date was kind of two dimensional …. Ugh, sorry). No ‘internet dating’ refers to internet match making ‘let me be randomly assigned strangers or trawl through a billion thumb nails of people to choose possibly compatible ones’.

I have been doing this for little over a week now and feel like I have experiences almost all of the possible array of interactions, short of actually talking to someone or meeting them.

For example. My first message from someone on the site was to see whether I’d like to be bound in ropes and participate in certain activities involving his pink bits and mine. ‘Tick’ I thought – not as in yes please, tie me up, but as in ‘here we go, my first classic overtly sexual message from a complete stranger creep with control issues’. I felt like it was an experience I’d been half expecting on the site, and I had it out of the way 5 minutes in.

Next was a few contacts with demure, sweet seeming boys which eventuated into periodic messaging. These fellas asked about my day and asked after my health. Discussed books with me, and were frank about their weekends, and were as gallant as any knight in shining, LCD, armour.

More recently I had my first clear (but hip and not creepy) ‘I’d go you’ style reference within an otherwise chatty-and head flirty but not boudoir-flirty conversation (though – see google reference above, we know the two are linked for me). I did ‘a sharp intake of breath’ like the books always have in them but you never really do. I did that. As I reread and thought ‘did he just mean..? Oh yes, oh yes he did’. And then felt a little bit rosy and pleased with myself. And maybe a little bit interested.

And there’s one, who I’m embarrassed to admit, I seem to have slightly pissed off, by reading his information too quickly and responding to his message hastily and getting certain key facts about his life wrong. Whoops.

This myriad of experiences and variety of people. I am currently having to remind myself that it’s probably a bit like a box of chocolates. If you’re being handed the box, they all do look lovely, and different, and sweet and you kind of want them all, a little bite out of each – but generally that is seen as rude, and in fact the person with the box might get the shits and struggle to get it back from you, and taking the orange creams just because you feel sorry for them because no one else seems to like them probably isn’t such a good idea, and also other people might come and nab the chocolates over your arm, as you stand umming and aahing over the little explanations and photos of each, and actually the chocolates might get snooty, and or you might end up not knowing which one you want.

I go to Rio

2009-05-04T11:53:00.002+10:00

Well actually no, that's not true, I don't go to Rio. But I am going to lovely old Montreal and New York (as mentioned every so briefly in passing below). So, just quickly, a bit more on the who when what why how of it all. Conference, followed by holiday. Random mix of acomodation - B&B's, hostels and hotel (specific itinerary produced through a strange algorythm of budget, location and availability). Never been to North America before really except for a brief hourish or so in LA airport as I came through on my way back to Oz from Central America. Hardly seeing the sights, drinking cofee and sitting in airport. So. Very exciting!

Conference is for work, and yes, you'd be forgiven for deducing that things are going rather better back in the office now, after my slow start to the year and, ahem, brief interlude, at the end of last year. The conference looks like it will be really interestnig, great program, interesting topics, interesting side program of mini artsy festivals attached to the main conference. Will tell more details about it when I get back. Oh and I'm presenting. Er. Should be fine, right? Should be a good audience, right? Should be apiece of cake seeing as it's on something I worked on and really enjoyed, right? (Repeat, twice daily, after meals)

So, this week is 'finish the presentation', 'get the outfits ready', 'finalise random bits of trip organising (first night accomodation - note to self, get some)'.

Any general travel tips or suggestions of specific things to see and do in those cities very welcome :)

NB hanging out with BSharp in Noiyoik. [Sorry to tell your holiday news in blogosphere for you miss!]

Make mine a double

2009-04-30T10:43:00.005+10:00

So, stars are sending body doubles to events now. I'm not sure what I find strangest about this article. Is it that:
a) A certain star (allegedly) actually used a body double - the sheer chutzpah, the cheekiness, the 'how on earth did they think up the idea in the first place'-ness of it all.
b) That she sent the double to do the bit I would have actually wanted to do, ie go to the museum, while sending herself off to do shopping, which I would gladly have sent a body double for. Imagine that - someone your height, weight and general shape, with same colourings and taste, who could go do jeans shopping for you for an entire gruelling Saturday! How exciting!
c) If it's not true, and she was just a bit off-colour and 'not her usual self' then who the heck made up such a loopy story to explain it?
d) How do you even go about hiring a body double?
And finally,
e) If you do have one, aren't you obliged, at least by the laws of fiction, to date the same guy in an amusing comedy of errors, or at least try to get your parents back together through a series of hilarious girlish high jinx adventures involving climbing up trees and spying through windows?

Permeating culture with... permaculture!

2009-04-29T16:25:00.002+10:00

Oh I know my word jokes are terrible, but they make me happy so I can't really give them up.

There are a series of events being held around Sydney this weekend for May Day - with a "MAY DAY, MAY DAY THE PLANET IS IN PERIL. DO SOMETHING TO HELP" theme.

The events look lovely, and they are spread out around the city.

See here for more info.

I know, there is a definite sustainability events theme to recent posts. Stay tuned for more, I've hardly got started!

Noyoik

2009-04-29T14:14:00.003+10:00

Have I mentioned that I'm going away? To Canada and New York? Ever so exciting. If I didn't have a head cold right now (it's not pig flu, I swear), and wasn't sloughing around on the couch cleaning out my inbox as suitable brainless busy work, I would probably spend some time waxing lyrical about it. Instead you get an event notification, in case you are lucky enough to live there or in surrounds. I will actually miss this one as arrive afterwards, but looks good.

- - -

An Evening with Ezio Manzini
Where: The Cherry Lane Theater
38 Commerce Street
West Village, NY City
When: Wednesday, May 6, 2009
6:00 - 8:00 PM
Tickets: $20 + $.99 fee.
$9 + $.99 fee for students
Register Here

Ezio Manzini, author of Sustainable Everyday, Professor in Industrial
Design at the Politecnico di Milano, and founder of o2 Italy, will
join us for an evening conversation. Ezio has been on the journey towards sustainable design for over 20 years, and has noticed a growing
trend to move beyond first measures of eco-efficiency, to seek larger vision of sustainability.

contact j [at] o2nyc [dot] org to volunteer.

You walk into a room...

2009-04-27T17:27:00.003+10:00

You try listening to Nick Cave on loop to hum out the background noise and help you concentrate but notice you begin to feel even more tired.

You reach into your bag thinking you've found a snack box of mixed nuts and then realise they're tampons. You don't even have your period, so they're in no way an interesting discovery.

You try to eat fruit, 2 serves a day at least, an in doing so forget to eat vegetables.

You type and your fingers slip changing 'full' committee to 'dull' committee meeting and you wonder how the minutes would have been received by the group if they had gone out with the error undetected.

You write list upon list, a never ending spiralling, Alice in Wonderland like smaller and bigger growing set of lists. To do, to buy, to call. A list of lists to check.

You're wearing 3/4 length woollen sleeves and washing your hands. Water slips down there and your arms are damp. You try taking off the cardigan, but its too cold. You put up with the damp.

You dream about a new lover, serious, dedicated. You dream very specific details of their sexual technique, things you didn't even know you liked.

You henna your hair late at night. It looks like you are attempting to style your hair with melted chocolate. The next day you smell like a warm pot of herbal tea, being served in a stable.

You sit next to someone who is checking their messages on a laptop and laughing, a kind of huffing through the nose, as they hold an unlit cigarette in their mouth.

Eyefuls of city

2009-04-19T14:26:00.005+10:00

A shortish walk from where I was this morning to the centre of the centre gave me so much to think about. It's such a cacophony, don't you think? My walk went something like

Eyes: box squashed, nice shadows, look at lumpy walls with fern growing, people, people, funny teeth, busy at bustop, round man, lit up security guards in blue, picturesque, skinny tourist, shiny sunglasses, oooh rollerblades, old cafe - kitsch? empty? white paint,nice backdrop for ironic photoshoot, my own reflection - argh hair frizzy, and stand up tall girl, round building, love those round builings, T-shirt shop, peer in, can I see, what are those pictures, reflections on glass, peer some more, where is the decimal point in that price tag, I like those frames, look back aruond, argh, two men there smoking, I am being observed, face blunt and tired, lady dozing - the nod I guess from her skin - into an open book, now there is a lady with very purple tights, click clack shoes, short girl funny lips, tall girl, pale downy face and knowing smile, boy with great jeans, bus stop crowded, old lady like a turtle, her neck is shiny and lined eyes peering from hoods, she gives me a shrewd look, slow walking, short dress too close to underpants, cellulite, smallish tattoo, pouchy faced dough nosed man, straight from hotel looking people, matching couple, lumpy fountain, buses dozing, I thought this building was red? Oh no, red is on the inside, blank faced stone out here, argh greasy hair and trolley weilding man, tiny, but his hair is side parted and he brushes it down with deliberate open palm, foyer, hey snazzy, picture, I'd like a wig like that, low couches, quiet in here, peaceful, open, there's the door.

This commentary is entirely usual. As is seeing things and thinking 'aah good photo'. What's new in how I've been seeing things lately is thinking 'how would I do this in black and white?' Thanks to drawing class, in the city at night, I now wonder about rendering shadows, about refelections, about things that are dark in colour but in the light, as opposed to lighter things in shadow, in the same field of view.

Last week I did my first streetscape. Possibly my first ever - which kind of surprises me because I think of myself as someone who draws, but really, my drawing experience is quite limited, and light-on. Post school my drawing has been mostly life drawing (an enthusiastic but short lived bout when I lived in the blue mountains), which doesn't really require a whole landscape, you can kinda just place figure on chair/mat/draped cloth hanging in space, drawing from the imagination (course at NAS a coulpe of years back), which was great fun, and involved drawing actual objects, just kind of stylised, from memory and without actually having anything in front of you, and my own drawing for fun, which is mostly designy/illustratey and lately has involved a lot of monsters rendered in oil pastels and scratchy pencil.

None of which really prepares you for 'how the f**k do I make that dark shadowy patch of the world exist on my page? Where does that end and this begin? Am I really drawing what I see or what my brain is telling me I should be seeing?' etc. Great fun though, if somewhat demoralising at times, when you find yourself shortcutting to that awkward panic that renders (excuse the pun) any drawing flat and painful. There is soemthing magical in the way that images made by hand channel not just your knowledge of the medium but the feeling you have about being there doing the image making. As our lovely tutors point out, it's all about the care given. To be able to look and transcribe and stay with the looking and transcribing without judging the marks you make - and worse judging and getting angry or despondent and trying to change them. To bring an open heart, like a child, and be ok with making changes or learning or even discarding what you made. To focus on the looking rather than the recording, which in tangible terms means actually spending more time looking at the object than looking at the page. It requires a lot of trust, drawing, trust that the looking and the feeling with translate into an image that looks 'good', rather than trying to make marks one by one that look good. If that makes any sense at all...?

So yes, did my first shadowy night time streetscape last week, and enjoyed it immensely, somehow managed to stay with it for the hour and stayed enthusiastic and not judgemental for the entire time. Used charcoal, which is perfect for filling up the page with light and shade. Drew cars, which I don't even drive let alone look at normally, and they came out swell - little round nosed hunkering beasts. Had a tree and signs and a gutter and leaf shadows on a wall, and I loved drawing it all. Funny how some nights it just clicks*.

[*I think it helped that after having felt a bit despondent about my earlier efforts in the class, and kind of having skipped a few weeks ('busy dahling, work you know'), I had a dream the night before last weeks class, in which the softly spoken English tutor told me 'it's ok to not be good at it - that's why you go to a class' and I had a strong feeling that the going and trying was the important bit, that there was soemthing important, and good, in the being there and trying.]

wanting or not wanting to be zine?

2009-04-13T22:55:00.008+10:00

In answer to your question Georgie, no, I haven't been working on any zines of late. I have two new editions of 'Week in Review' that are drawn and written (as of the end of last year) just not copied, bound and distributed yet. I'd really like to finish these as I dreamt up 'a Week in Review' as a four part seasonal tale (erm, not imagining it would span a couple of years!), and have only done two so far.

My local copy shop up and left - which was very sad as I'd just started to feel comfortable in there overdosing on copy fumes and enjoying the peculiar mix of the worst service in the world with the worst fluorescent humming lighting in the world. Now my closest one is further into the heart (huh, assuming it has one) of the big bad emerald city. I think I've been too lazy to go and or, if I'm honest, a bit too self conscious to be busted by suity business district types as I lay my bits and pieces over the copy table. Hey, baby steps. When you're not 23 and no longer wearing plaid skirts with cute long socks and Hello Kitty bobby pins (well not very often), and you're sneaking out of your sensible office job early to go print your xeroxed wonkily drawn manifesto of slacker chic, before heading home to cook a sensible dinner, it can feel kind of naughty. And private. You know, like making zines is kind of like having sex. Like something you're glad you do, that you like doing, and you know lots of other people like doing too, and it's fine to do at any age, but it's just not something you want strangers who aren't doing it watching as you do it awkwardly, in your work clothes, under fluoro lights. Or if that metaphor isn't working, it's something vaguely like that!

I did join an online zine forum - and have now added a button/link in the sidebar below. I haven't quite got around to populating it with much more than a picture, but I did think it would be a good place to put images that didn't make it into the zines, or ideas for future zines, etc.

I'm also on the Sticky shop mailing list, and speaking of which, here are some events they mentioned recently, for anyone who's interested:

MAY: MELBOURNE
Sticky founder, manager and all time legend Luke Sinclair is holding a
zine workshop at Box Hill Community Arts Centre on Saturday May 30th,
1pm to 4pm. The workshop is aimed at teenagers and will take the form
of a discussion around current zine making practises leading to a zine
making project. To enrol in the course contact Box Hill Community
Arts Centre, 470 station Street, Box Hill, Vic 3128, 98968888,
www.bhcac.com.au

MAY: SYDNEY
MCA and Sydney Writer’s Festival Zine Fair
Sunday 24 May 11am-5pm
Museum of Contemporary Art, 140 George St The Rocks
Stall cost $15, bookings 02 92452484

(Sadly I'll most likely miss this one as it's the day I get back from OS)

JULY: MELBOURNE
9 July 6.30-7.30pm
Zine Collection Reflection
State Library of Victoria
Bookings only
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/282493947
or 03 8664 7099

And yes thanks for the distro info, I had come by this site, but not sent any material there. I think for the next two I will. Cheers.

Bloggedy blog

2009-04-13T22:32:00.001+10:00

Oh. And a new blog, the Fergus report, created by a friend. He has a wry sense of humour, and this blog sees him setting it loose on the world of politics. Queensland politics. And yes, this does count to the final exam.

oh oh where does the time go

2009-04-12T19:25:00.006+10:00

Or more to the point - what have I been busy doing that I haven't been here musing on the world and its workings?

Not sure really.

Have been working. Office stuff. Everything on a fast spin wheel at the moment - mini deadlines that each seem laughable in their absurd details and teensy turnaround times, but joined up make big projects work or not work.

Have been drawing. (A bit, mind you I missed the last couple of weeks classes so that can't be it)

Have been having Easter weekend minibreak on the Central Coast with requisite coffee drinking and pottering. Went to a very sweet community hall style book sale yesterday to raise money for a rock pool with 'concrete cancer'. Makes me think we should be taking it a fruit basket and visiting it in hospital... but anyway.

Have been reading trashy mystery novels.

Have been writing lists for myself - suitably Autumnal curled and torn pieces of paper that have blown into gentle piles on my desk. A range of lists. Themed lists usually, that together make quite the Beat poetry. In concert, to the wandering eye, they read like this:
"Charcoal grey or two tone mary janes
Appreciate people
Banannas
Card, present
Tofu hard
Guidebook
Red cabbage
Necklace? make wed pm?
Olive green
Buy henna
Button sewing
Book trip"

I have also been planing a trip to Canada and North America. Spurred by a work trip, and now extended for a bit of a holiday too. Very exciting. Very soon. Slightly nerve wracking. (Delicate nerves, wracked easily??)

Have been wardrobe renovating (see non-vegetable items on list above). More on that later.

conferring

2009-03-26T21:00:00.003+11:00

Ooh went to a conference today and it was borderline punishing. Useful, but exhausting. I tried to stay focused but a combination of factors - low blood sugar due to having forgotten to take healthy snacks for morning tea and avoiding the cake, whirring fan noise, borderline relevant to me talks, disciplinary short hand that went over my head sometimes, too many factoids to follow after a few hours of concentrated listening, and one hard to hear and slightly annoying presenter left me running for the hills sometime after lunch. Which was a shame because I think the better speakers were on this afternoon. Not one to be easily deterred I do plan to trundle back tomorrow and hope for the best. Meanwhile, here is what I scrawled in my notebook when feeling particularly belligerent and unengaged - as an indicator of how I felt about the presenter at the time:

Jug of cream skinned face
with pleased smile
chin jerking backwards
grimace talking
with gash mouth puffing
reedy thin German sounds
voluminous hair, rising upwards
toward laureate heights
forearms jut towards us, with clenched hands
swinging in small circles
flapping, dinosaur, baby bird
hoping to explain
His chin a sail,
raised to the wind, a keel
a stern

Tough audience.

But all was not lost
While sitting and listening, I made up a joke. Yes, truly. And it's borderline terrible, but hey. I was bored.

It goes like this:

"Q. What do you call philosophers wearing frilly shirts, eyeliner and doing robot dancing to eighties synth?
A. The new semantics.

dya get it? dya get it? Semantics! Like romantics! Aaaah hah ha ha ha"

See? Told you it was bad.
Someone mentioned the new semantics in a talk, and I had no idea what that was (or what the old semantics were), and instantly thought of frilly shirts instead.

Mingled
I also mingled. Beelined straight over to someone sitting by themselves and struck up conversation. A well scrubbed, fresh faced, North American man who seems to be doing similar work to what I do - but he is being the interface between policy makers and technical specialists, whereas we often try to be technical expert, interface and policy maker all rolled into one. We had an interesting a passionate discussion about whether entomologists (for example, based on a conference he went to last week) were physically able to give super simple policy advice or whether the languages and needs and drivers of the two groups are so different they can not help but piss each other off and think the other is being unreasonable in their demands. That is a quick sum up, but it was a conversation I found much more interesting than the speaker beforehand.

To do list(en)ing
I did find some great ideas triggered by various aspects of the talks, and jotted down outlines for new publication ideas and reminders for things that had slipped off the immediate to do list. I find conferences especially good for stirring things up, thinking wise - the unexpected aspect I suppose, where it is such a lucky dip what ideas / people/ topics you'll be subjected to, it feels like a random idea generator, which is really useful. That plus the 'nothing else to do but sit and ruminate' which makes day dreaming and ideas noting a legitimate activity for hours on end.

Creative but not all that common

2009-03-15T22:35:00.003+11:00

Interesting project here that relates to representation for visual artists, and ownership.

"One for the Commons is an initiative to bring open licensing, such as
Creative Commons, into the fine arts and design community. The idea of
sharing culture, Open Source software, and a DIY ethos of sharing pervade
much of the communities built around computing and creating. Like the music
industry, and soon the publishing industry, the fine arts and design
community has resisted this epistemic shift as a threat to their control
over intellectual property. This resistance relegates the arts and design to
a position outside the cultural transformation that has lead to the rise of
user generated culture, citizen journalists, and TV shows that are built
entirely around reporting on what is hot on the Internet. Fine arts have the
opportunity to embrace this possibility, or suffer even more marginalization
than the culture wars provided.

We are asking living artists to declare at least one image Creative
Commons-Attribution, or Public Domain. These images will be include in a
book published at the end of the year, entitled "400 For the Commons" or
"534 for the Commons" or however many images we generate in that period of
time. The following year a new book will be published."

heart of darkness

2009-03-09T13:28:00.002+11:00

Oooh that's dramatic. Not really. I just thought I'd share this pic of a bromeliad in honour of the gardening I did on the weekend. Re potted, unpotted, transplated, worm spotted, got dirt under nails, did happy little dances for the ginger plants which have now sprouted through the soil. Admired sweet potato vine. Sweet talked lemongrass. Resuscitated gardenia. Glad I took advantage of the sun before it got all cold and gloomy thanks to cyclones further north.

Event - hyperbolic crochet workshop

2009-03-06T08:02:00.005+11:00

OK so this is tomorrow, which isn't much notice, but how much fun does this sound?

"Come with your crocheting skills to help create part of a hyperbolic crochet coral reef. This workshop will be facilitated by Clair Conroy, Michaela Davies, and Charlotte Haywood of In Stitches. The trio has a background in performance, installation and education.

The project is the first Australian addition to the global crochet coral reef phenomena conceived by sisters Mararet and Christina Wertheimer founders of the US based Institute for Figuring, an organisation dedicated to the poetic and aesthetic dimensions of science and mathematics.

Saturday 7 March
11am-5pm
Meroogal
Cost $35 per person includes lunch and afternoon tea
Bring: Crochet hooks and scrap wool."

See www.bundanon.com.au
or phone (02) 4422 2100 for details

(Image: In Stitches)

Diagrams, curry sauce, kittens and coffee

2009-03-05T22:37:00.001+11:00

Spent the afternoon discussing phone hook ups and questionnaire design and then had a nebulous discussion about ecosystem function versus biodiversity – which was a better measure of what and which made more sense to focus on - we ended up drawing a multicoloured scribbly systems drawing that we then realized looked a little like a little robot creature so I put some claw hands and legs on him and realized it was definitely time to go home. One of those days when after lunch you think “what?? No nap time?? This is inhumane!”. When your eyes ache and you think ‘really? All the way till home time?’. The morning was super productive though, I followed a colleague’s lead and hunkered down in a café with a laptop and finished something and submitted it – very satisfying way to start the day away from emails and chit chat and interruptions. Then workshopped a paper with a colleague and amazingly we cracked it – the whole thing, ,the structure, the evidence base, the paragraphs even. All the other thinking we’d done before today kind of went out the window but it was also somehow the necessary substep to what we did today. Maybe that was my problem – maybe I peaked too soon. Used up all my brain energy too early in the day.

Went out for lunch today, by myself, wandered around Chinatown looking for the perfect jar of sauce for dinner. A few weeks back I visited Angel and Mr J in Marrickville and found a Vietnamese family run grocer and found the best (seriously the best) chili and basil sauce. No artificial anything, vego and super tasty (but no MSG). Anyway, no such luck today – everything had shrimp or cod or anchovy or MSG or sodium benzoate. Settled on a curry paste instead. Yeas, I know I could just have bought chilis and basil and palm sugar and done some dodgy imitation of it myself, but you know those days when you just want the satisfaction of plonking something out of a jar, and having it take responsibility for transforming the raw chunks of things you’ve chopped up into a meal? Then ate lunch at a nice hole in the wall Japanese place and had tofu don. Tried to read my book but realized by brain was too tired and the noise was intense and distracting, so I settled for eavesdropping on the guys sitting next to me, without looking like I was. I think they were in advertising, and they were young and fresh faced and talking about how the things that they would like never ever compromise in work was their relationships with other people, and the quality of their work. I tried not to smile a pained and winsome smile at their naivety, snort derisively, or raise my eyebrows. They also talked about where to get good bonito, and historical trends in tea cup love in Japan. There are worse conversations to be squished in next too, in the bento box style seating plan.

Didn’t quite do all the things I needed to do this week. Do you ever find that the big important single task that’s going to take 4 hours gets nudged compared to all the other smaller 1 hour tasks? Partly because you keep getting interrupted by meetings and partly because you can’t bear to have all those little ones lurking there and partly because it’s not due just quite yet? Yes I know about the time management doodads, the quadrants of urgent and important. But still. This often happens.

Went to a cool cultural event yesterday with Miss Snapdragon. Was a fundraiser/ showcase of an indigenous art residency program, she got invited through work, I was her plus one. One of the performers was dressed in a silky dress that to clung her and had a tired look on her face and sang in a slightly wavery voice but when she sang I got tingles all down my arms and body, skin tingles. Do you ever get that? I get it only occasionally when someone’s telling me something very sad or personal, or in performance when someone is very convincingly wailing or doing something else particularly raw – usually to do with grief. In those moments when the artifice seems stripped back and the true exposed unprotected self is revealed. That one I never experience from books or in relation to things I read. Body reactions. Another one is that hot flush and then prickly tears feeling that can come from listening to someone else’s painful story. Today on the bus I had an involuntary physical reaction to what I was reading – in the middle of an otherwise benign chapter on aspects of brain structure and function it talked about an experiment where a kitten’s eyelids were sewn shut (sewn shut! A kitten! Yuck!). I grimaced and pulled my head back and turned my head away, as if the stitches and kitten were right in front of me. I only noticed it because I was on a bus and aware that the person next to me might have noticed my sudden movement. I felt offended like I’d witnessed a violation. I had to pause and think about it for a bit before I felt like reading on. Then I kept reading and found out that they ended up unstitching the eyelids but the kitten was then blind in that eye for the rest of its life (demonstrating that certain brain functions require stimulation in infancy to develop). I found my lips go tight and disapproving. Funny old body does its own thing. Funny old me, me the body, I react without running it past my conscious mind.

In the return to work this year I have been trying to be much more aware of my body, and its responses to things. Responses to things like stress, outrage, tiredness, boredom. I have several times noticed my shoulders creeping up tight and thought ‘oh, I’m feeling stressed, look at my shoulders’ and then just relaxed them and spent some time thinking about what I’m feeling stressed about and why it feels stressful. Trying for mindfulness, rather than identifying with the stress, or repressing the feeling (my old response of ‘whatever, feelings schmeelings, just get on with it!’).

And finally, reflections on today – coffee. Had four. Each different, different taste and different place. Black plunger coffee at home with housemates. Café coffee made by someone whose expertise is really in sandwich making, my excuse to claim a table and squirrel myself away in the back corner of a quiet room of the cafeteria. Unexpected kitchen windfall coffee offered and made by colleague while chatting at the coffee machine, taken back and sipped through a meeting. Late afternoon tranquil coffee had in leafy surrounds in the local neighbourhood with peaceful murmurs to muster energy for errands and the walk home. Quite a lot of coffees really, but all lovely.

Briefly Brisbane

2009-03-02T16:28:00.002+11:00

Just got back from a quick weekend trip to visit my relatives in sunny Queensland. Occasion was my little brother's 5th birthday and just that I was free that weekend and could. Whole trip totally worth it for even just one of the many funny moments - such as busting him sitting at the kitchen table having carefully removed each of the fancy 'letter' birthday candles from the cake (they spelt out 'happy birthday' all together) and sucked the base clean of chocolate. This before they had been lit, song sung or cake cut and after many previous efforts of us recuing the cakefrom his sneaky poking fingers. (the higgeldy piggeldy lettering of his efforts to pop them back on the cake was esepcially cute. hpbir yahdpayt to you too). Silly games on the trampoline (baby teradactil being born from an egg only to chase each other round in circles was the fave), splashing in water, dragging a wonky old go-cart to the park, reading comic books out loud as bed time stories and having to point to each speech bubble to show where we were up to, hearing serious and detailed explanations of cartoon characters and story lines - all lovely. Great to see my mum too and have cups of tea and chats without feeling like it was a special holiday that needed any extra effort.

Probably one of my quickest trips up there ever - only two days - but greenhousegas emission guilt aside (yes I did offset, but still...) it was good. I figure that the casual drop by visit (as opposed to the long, extended holiday) is what you really miss out on when you live interstate from your family, and is one of the pleasures of sharing life together, so have been thinking that a sprinkling of visits of this kind now and then would be a good idea.

Frocking Fantastic

2009-02-24T08:19:00.004+11:00

So here is the low down on frock swap shops; second hand shops that you can buy summer dresses at.In answer to your question Georgie, I'd probably recommend three contendors, close to Sydney Uni (if I haven't already missed the boat and you've been and gone from your workshop).

Broadway Betty - Paramatta Rd, Broadway, near the corner of city Rd and opposite the duck pond park. This one is a bit fond of the eighties, and is probably targeting people who barely remember the eighties at all because they were born in them. It is a good place to find printed t-shirts, and long bright maxi dresses, and you can probably find and ace pair of giant sunnies to go with said frock. On the down side they have somewhat inflated prices compared to the charity op-shops, but fairly reasonable in the whole world of vintage boutiques (do we count eighties as vintage?). Bonus features include funky music to listen to while you get changed, and the likelihood that your shop attendant will be boldy defining physics, biology and some might say taste in their choice of uber skinny jean, and likely have funky tats or good hair to admire.

The Salvos - this one is about half a block down from Broadway Betty, nestled on the corner of Glebe Point Rd and Paramatta Rd. This is a big store. A BIG store. This is seriously not for the faint hearted, as it has not just a sea of racks, but also eye dazzling array of homewares and strange baskets of new items like soap or cleaning products. This is a shop that you need to be well rested and endowed with great reserves of energy and bargain hunting vigour or it may end in tears. On the up side is that you are almost guaranteed a bargain, and the dress racks sport 60's, 70's and 80's as well as more recent frocks. If you sew and can take something home and alter it (as opposed to needing to wear it the next day as is) you are in even bigger chance of getting a gem.

St Vinnies - Glebe Point Rd (just before St Johns, a few doors down from Glebe post Office). Of the three this would be my choice. This is your standard charity op shop, but relatively small, and staffed by very warm and friendly older ladies with firm opinions on fashion, tea and local issues that they will be happy to share with you if you ask. Ladies dresses (as opposed to..?) are up the front on the RHS, and you are likely to find quite an amazing array of styles, in a fairly small space. Glebe as a suburb has a range of demographics and the stock reflects that - with older lady house dresses from the 60's, English labels from travelers, seventies exotic batwinged numbers, and last few years sensible work frocks. It's also a good place to see some of the local students, artists and 'characters' interacting over exciting finds of red patent leather shoes, or interesting hats. The homewares section is small and hidden, and there are even a half decent array of reasonable priced books.

Happy shopping!

Oh and PS - if you're going to the Vinnies, you might need a little coffee pit stop on the way up or back... I recommend Sappho's on the RHS past Glebe Books. It's a second hand bookshop with a fairly good range of 'literaray fiction' and looks and feels just like how a bookshop should (I reckon). There is a coffee shop out the back, and you can either sit outside in the courtyard in amongst nice tropical plants, enjoying the colourful walls from before the place was rennovated and it was constantly being covered in new tags and murals, or you can find a tiny little wooden indoors table in amongst the books. Both are good.

Teensy art

2009-02-24T08:15:00.000+11:00

Here you can see the albums of artworks made for 2008/09
NanoArt international online competition. The winners of the last year's competition are here.

Woof!

2009-02-15T14:31:00.002+11:00

These are the girls I am looking after while their mum ('mum' / human/ owner) is away in Perth. They are super affectionate in a very quiet and follow you everywhere way. If you pat one the other comes - as if possessing supersonic hearing that can detect the sound of patting from rooms away - and tries to get in the action. The second dog will squeeze up in between your hand and the other dog, making the two of them look a little like hairy pat hungry conjoined twins. They are very sweet though, even if one of them has taken to sleeping on my clothes (aah that'll teach me for leaving them in a pile on the floor). Shiny little black eyes they have.

Am I a Laura Ashley floral house dress?

2009-02-14T00:15:00.005+11:00

So. I was updating my profile on a website - for a kind of art project thingo, and realised that I'd accidentally been earnest and chatty on a site where no one else was! I skimmed through a few other profiles and realised that where I had been cheery, descriptive, and honest, others were going for very brief, stylish, nihilistic, flippant. Fuck! (I thought). This was the online equivalent of turning up to someone's wedding in a blowsy floral ankle length house dress and finding everyone else in very stylin' cocktail frocks. If you know what I mean. It's a self representation dress code, and I fear that actually, I often come in under the mark on edgy, and would be freely and frequently relegated to the earnest table. When did I become earnest? Am I earnest? Earnest and cheery isn't cool. Brief is cool. Random is cool. Fuck it. And not caring is cool. But I care that I don't care, which isn't cool. What if you didn't care that you did care - is that cool? Am I having a monologue here that sounds like it should be from a bad sitcom? Very possibly. And is that cool? Or would it be if I wrote it more edgy, like, with spikey writerly heels.
I don't want to be virtually earnest! I want my online me to be edgy and mysterious and brooding and glamorous. Huh maybe we can design the world's first online image consultants - how to write a profile like you are edgy. whaddyareckon??

Jolie jolie, jolie jolieeeeee

2009-02-13T22:41:00.005+11:00

Had a nice night seeing Jolie Holland play at the Basement last night. Went with a friend of a friend and talked his ear off after a few glasses of red wine. I really should remember that 2 glasses of red wine makes me ridiculously chatty - and not just chatty but frank. And not just frank but detailed. Detailed as in pedantic, and wanting to tell the full picture of every story I feel like telling, detailed. (Nooooo, you never would have guessed that from this blog, right?). Anyway it was fun to see someone play live whose music I hardly know, and to go with someone I hardly know too, all in the spirit of New Year and being more adventurous.

This reviewer sums up the performance really well, and I am too lazy and too badly acquainted with the performer's back catalogue to write anything like that myself, so you can just cheat and go there and pretend I told you about it. I know that is a totally lame 'yeah what he said', but there you go.

And golly it rained last night, like torrential - somehow this made it even better for listening to music somewhere downstairs and cosy. Except for my wet feet (how is it that my cowboy boots leak?) and my friend's wet everything (poor bugger - lucky it was warm inside). As well as her music, I loved her outfit - kind of Little House on the Prairie, good folk, simple living but with attitude. Quaker cool? I also admired her lack of sparkle: she was more of a soft glow, a 'here I am take me or leave me' performer, delivered with that kind of San Fran cool, delicious flat accent and the vague sense that she doesn't really give a shit what you think because she likes what she does anyway. The guitarist was cute (actually, was he the guitarist or bass player? seriously I'm so derr with music I don't even know). He looked a bit like he had the head of a cute curly haired bespectacled 9 year old on the body of Jemaine from FOTC. But not in a creepy way - seriously, you'll just have to trust me on this.

Don't you reckon everyone looks better playing guitar? - I am always reminded of this when I see men on stage elevated from lanky and average looking to focused, driven, mesmerised, cowboy shirt wearing rock gods .. well maybe not rock gods, maybe kind of generic folk pop cuties, but whatever.

That makes two live music gigs so far this year if you count Kristen Hirsch, who did a great spoken word gig for the Sydney Festival, but snuck in some atmospheric scene change music and a few whole songs too. Hoh! And it's not even the end of February!! Just joking - I'm kind of taking the piss, but actually kind of pleased too.

You see, I'm under no grand illusions that this is doing much to completely overthrow my nanna-like social habits, but hey it's a start. I do try to get out and mix it up with the kids you know, it's just that a visit to the crayon (sorry 'oil pastels') section of the art shop, or a solo jeans clad wander down the street to a cafe to huddle round a latte and people watch or stare dreamily out the window is my idea of crazy high paced fun times. Or having dinner with friends or visiting people. Yup, it's official, am basically extreme sport wild socialising diva - of the library, wool shops, op shops, bookshops, loungeroom, and random literary lecture circuit. Oh hang on - exhibition openings, I go to those, and they have people at them.

I think the problem with my social life is that I'm not sure if I have one (a problem that is, I do know I have a social life), but then again I'm not entirely sure I don't (have a problem). I like quiet, daggy, stay at home, DIY pursuits. I like my own company. I like a glass of red and some loungeroom dancing. I like quiet cups and tea and chats with friends. I like that I like this stuff. I'm just also aware that this stuff isn't the stuff that is most likely to propel you out into the world to Meet People (read, people to shag/hook up with/settledown with etc). Anyway, I do like going out as well, I think I'm just a bit lazy usually get my arse into gear to organise stuff. Does anyone actually know of anyone who's hooked up with their dream boat honey bun via bumping into each other hilariously in a bookshop? Or is it really the case that we only ever meet people drunk at parties or bars?

And on that topic, do you think that Jolie Holland ever worries about her social life and wonders if she's a loser because she doesn't go out to see live music? Or that through some perverse twist of fate maybe she secretly pines for respite from the rock and roll lifestyle and wishes she could be wandering up and down library shelves collecting picture books of gardens and books about renaissance buildings or brains or paints, because she doesn't see how being out on stage every night is going to help her meet nice people.

I really can't think why I don't meet flocks of young men as I wander through vintage ladies knitwear at Vinnies. Oh well. I did pick up a lovely sleeveless aqua knit with very cute peep neck and double button arrangement circa 1981 the other day, which totally rocked. Coming soon to an outfit near you.

Little Bo Peep

2009-02-13T14:28:00.002+11:00

Well I don't know if she's lost her sheep but I have to say that the dogs I am babysitting while their owner is away are a little bit like little fluffy sheep but unlike Bo Peep I am very unlikely to lose them as they follow me almost every time I leave one room and go into the next.

It's kind of freaky because they generally rearrange themselves very swiftly and neatly. Every time you turn around they're there, politely facing you, arms out in front of them like little temple dogs, paws neatly arranged, eyes dark and questioning. But they do it in different little scenes - sometimes one sits up, one lies down, sometimes they're right next to each other, sometimes in the doorway, other times right behind you... and so silent. It is reminding me a little bit of a Dr Who episode where the statues creep on you behind your back - but not quite that creepy. They are very sweet dogs, and pretty content. It's just taking me time to adjust to my new furry shadows.

Whether there is a climate for change

2009-02-13T14:22:00.002+11:00

My housemate put his hat in the ring for an NGO run community climate forum - and got accepted! Yah. I'm all warm inside with housematerly pride. I think it's super cool to be involved in these kinds of deliberative forums, and to put aside the time to be involved in a dialogue for something bigger than just your own interests. It's all very civic duty and I think it totally rocks. I know some of the panelists and people I work with have helped organise it so I guess I'm just that bit biased too.

Arty farty all invited to the party

2009-02-12T11:44:00.001+11:00

I thought this was interesting.

"First report from ground-breaking new research shows art’s not just for the elite.

A report on the first year of a major new three-year study of visitors to galleries and museums released by Museums & Galleries NSW today strongly demonstrates the value of galleries and museums to all sectors of the community and puts the lie to the common stereotype of art-lovers as ‘champagne-sipping élite’.

The report, ‘Guess Who’s Going To The Gallery?’, is based on over 2,200 interviews with visitors at twelve galleries and museums in the Western Sydney and the Newcastle/Hunter regions. It presents the findings from the first stage of a major three-year strategic initiative by Museums & Galleries NSW – the first ever state-wide, standardised survey of museum and gallery visitors to be undertaken in NSW."

Too hot to trot

2009-02-07T13:45:00.003+11:00

Holey Moley Guacomole! It's officially a scorcher again today here on the East Coast of Oz, following many weeks of scorcher-ness. I am usually situated close to the water in the mildly more northern regions of the East Coast which seem to miss the relentless dry heat of the more Southern States, and the dripping tropics of the Northern States. Lucky us. ie I live harbour-side in Sydney. But yesterday was a sharp reminder that not everyone in Sydneytown gets it is mild and sea-breeze blown as we do - as I came out west on the train, an hour inland, on my way to a friend's place to house and dog sit, it did feel hotter and hotter.

Last night was really very hot.

I got up super early this morning (for a Saturday) and in the cool morning air swiftly walked up to the shops to stock up on fresh fruit and veg and various seeds and grains to go with the standard pantry stuff my friend kindly stocked up on for my stay. Oh yeah, and vanilla icecream (low fat, so that's just basically a calcium hit right? Almost a health tonic - I'm sure I remember that being in the liver cleansing diet right after slippery elm and lemon juice).

This morning's walk reminded me that this is an awkward suburb, in terms of most people's regard - being somewhere between westie shopping mall dystopia and idyllic mountain towns. It could, perhaps unkindly, be considered to have all the style and grace, visible heritage and abundant greenery of the big western centres like Penrith (that is - little), combined with the super convenience and abundance of facilities that characterise mountain towns (err, sometimes less than great). But that would be a total glass half empty description. It's not really it's fault - it's kind of a boundary town, influenced by being sandwiched between these two zones, and not being particularly and outstandingly one or the other. And it doesn't help that it's main street is carved down the middle with a main road so unfriendly to pedestrians that it has a fence down the middle and a big pedestrian bridge over it. Hardly conducive to connectivity, or a sense of strolling through a peaceful, people friendly town.

But, surprisingly, rather than being scorched and scowling about the deficiencies of local urban design and cross about their unstylish cafes or the lack of shade on their footpaths or the lack of chi chi planters with stylish herbs dotted down their main street, the locals all seemed really nice. I had more people jump up to open doors for me (as I grappled with box of groceries), chat and smile in a an hour and a half than I have in the preceeding month and a half back in the big smoke. And that's despite living in a suburb that supposedly has a village feel and is full of quirky characters, for the city. Posing that age old chestnut - stylish and bitchy or homely and earnest and nice - which do we really prefer?

The optimistic cool of the morning didn't last, however, and now, in the middle of the day it is well and truly hot again. I walked outside earlier to get the dog's food out of the shed that it's stored in, and had the strangely delightful crunchy massage feeling of once thick lush lawn which has now dried to a crisp like some toasted seaweed garnish to a Japanese soup (um - the kind of soup you walk on? Terrible metaphor), cushioning my bare footed steps. It made me smile and I walked around some more just to feel it.

My friend whose house I am sitting on's pot plants are somewhat beleaguered by the heat, and several have lost green to brown on the leaf front. I secretly think her niece who was here the last couple of weeks was a bit patchy with her pot watering, Hmm, handy hint - if you are going to house sit team style (ie the time is being shared amongst a few people), volunteer for the first slot rather than the last slot - less dead plant guilt :) But the niece did leave me lots of additional cute little instruction notes about how things work and where things are, which was nice.

Oh fuck it, it's totally too hot to write anymore. I think I'm going to go have a cool bath and read my book. More tales of housesitting later - including 'what am I doing wrong that the CD player wont work?', 'Can I really bring myself to watch one of the 4 dvds already here or will I brave the heat to head to the store to borrow one?' (prizes if anyone can guess what they are), 'Miniature Lassie dogs - will they save very small people from the broken down well?', 'Other people's bookshelves - what do they reveal about the person?', 'How come when I was at the shops I was clear that I would drink iced herbal tea and water all weekend and now I wish I'd bought some beer?' and the controversial 'Housesitting and cleaning for the visually sensitive - is it ever ok to rearrange things just a little...? aka 'Housesitting interior design challenges for the slightly OCD'.

A growing art movement

2009-02-05T17:19:00.003+11:00

*groan*

Check out this interesting story of street-art-cum-urban-greening gesture that Takeshi Tall Boy Jones sent my way. (Note - Mr T will henceforth be referred to interchangeably as Takeshi Tall Boy Jones in these posts, for reasons that may not even be clear to him, but hey, that's my perrogative as author. Characters in one's writing should not answer back - no?)

Hunting roots and berries in the city, part 1

2009-02-05T16:30:00.004+11:00

I’ve visited a few new places for vego food lately in Sydney town, and thought I’d share what I’ve found. For a city this size I’m always surprised at how few vego places there are. Vego only places are a dream come true for vegetarians because you can peruse the whole menu and order with confidence knowing that there is no sneaky chicken stock or hidden fish sauce squirreled away in your meal. Vego places also usually ‘get’ some aspects of nutrition and taste that an omnivore café often fails to register (eg. that even non meat eaters want protein in their meals, or that after several years a person can tire of some kind of roast vegetable foccacia / Turkish bread/ sandwhich as the only vego option). For the most part dedicated vego restaurants in Sydney are Asian, thanks I guess to Buddhism, and these are great for vegetarians and vegans – vego Asian restaurants are almost exclusively vegan too because dairy doesn’t play a large part in their cuisine (Vietnamese post colonial stuff aside). These are lovely (Boddhis, Green Gourmet, Mamma Chu’s) but are mostly Chinese style cooking, which is great but only one slice (so to speak) of what I like to eat out. There have been some standout ‘nuvo Aus’ style cuisine vego-only places, such as Katoomba’s Nish Nosh, but this sadly lasted only a few years then disappeared. It seems like Melbourne has more of these than Sydney, is that because Melbourne is a city that gives a shit while Sydney is all about bling? (Hate to buy into the North South Eastcoast stereotypes but just wondering).

I personally think there is a real market for a couple more European or American influenced veg restaurants in Sydney. My top three suggestions would be:
- Mediterranean food – regional Italian, Greek, or Spanish or a combo of these
- North-South American food – think California style Mexican influenced
- Somewhere that is organic and all about high brow health food, very seasonal, clean and perky feeling, and posh enough to go for something special

I am also fine with eating at non-veg restaurants (mostly a pragmatic choice for convenience and variety – see above!), especially those with a decent variety of non-meat options on their menus. Lebanese, African, and good Italian places can often offer that – I suppose because peasant food is traditionally often light on meat and they have lots of interesting ways to do grains and beans and preserved vegetables.

African Feeling
1/501 King Street Newton
Ph 02 9516 3130
www.africanfeeling.com.au

African food in a cosy environment, with funky tablecloths and candles. the menu has meat and veg, but the vegetarian options are clearly marked, and extensive in range. One great thing about vego food at African restaurants generally is the supurb range of beans/pulses and grains. No worries about not getting enough of those coquettish amino acids, or getting stuck in a wheat rut. African feeling has a great thing on the menu for the indecisive, or maybe the solo diner wanting variety, which is the mixed plate of main courses. As in choose any three of the above and get a regular sized serve with a little bit of each, for a few dollars more. We did that for the mains – ordering a mnixed plate plus two regular dishes (so we tasted 5 in total), and also the entrees, trying the dumplings, plaintain chips and the lentil triangles. The triangles got the hands down thumbs up but the dumplings we thought were a little like small savoury doughnuts with not much appeal. This is definitely a place to get several dishes and share, and you can take your time as the food works well not piping hot. Vegan friendly as no dairy or egg in any of the mains, so no need to ask for any changes. We ended up with significant leftovers which they graciously packed away into (groovy moulded cardboard) take away containers and had enough for lunch the next day.

Sydney Dumpling King
183 Burwood Rd Burwood
Ph 02 97010055

Found myself in Burwood, and meandered to find a still-open dumpling place after the lunch rush. This one was clean and bright, with friendly staff, free tea, two different kinds of vego dumplings, freshly made (I watched them being made) and one serve is way more than one person would want so you might want to share 2 dishes between 3. Dumplicious.

Green Palace Thai Vegetarian
182 King Street Newtown
Ph 02 9550 5234

My new all time favourite vego restaurant. Don’t be distracted by the bay marie of curry and stir fries (unless you’re in a super hurry or want take away) but go for ordering off the menu instead and you’re in for a treat. There are mock-meat dishes here that cover the full range of thai faves – fish cakes, money bags, thom yum, thom kar gai, larb, stir fries, curries etc. The mock-meat thing I know is a little contentious for some vegetarians, but for me I really admire the cultural history of mock meat and see it as a sign of generosity towards including carnivores / having meals that keep everyone happy, rather than as a sign of a strange inability to let go of the idea of meat in a conflicted vegetarian. What I especially like about the mock meat style menu is the variety – of sauces, textures, dish construction. The tom yum here is excellent, and is one of the things I really miss about being vego, so it was a real treat to find this place for me. Oh, also really good value I think, price wise, and a nice busy, chatty, Newtown atmosphere, where BYO is fine and you get the requisite number of pierced and tattooed and funky folk – great for those days when you can’t quite do the austere silence of Mamma Chu’s for example. It’s like the punk rock version of Sydney’s otherwise chamber music vego Asian eateries. Oh except Bodhis – Bodhis is totally cool and is more like am expensive festival event with PJ Harvey and Phillip Glass and a Russian String Quartet and some kids on the triangle – stylish, high quality and cool.

And work?

2009-01-26T22:44:00.003+11:00

There's heaps of the work story I haven't written about yet, maybe because it's been talked out of me, in various forums and because, maybe like (I can only imagine it is like when) having a baby, when you suddenly find all your most intimate bodily processes become something for dinnertime conversations with almost strangers, and your private parts become public parts, and bits of yourself you previously wouldn't show anyone unless they'd bought you dinner and whispered sweet nothings you find yourself whipping out to any new medico who joins the team and expresses professional interest - when you have a bit of a meltdown at work, suddenly all your private experiences of work and your feelings of stress and your inner thoughts about situations come right out in the open and get talked about, and poked at and spread wide open at meetings. After a while you (although very much appreciating the help and support of people around you and the need for experts to help steer you through it) long to have conversations where you talk about something else, and where your private bits can stay private, and where you can, just for a bit, put it all to one side and enjoy the other aspects of who you are. Only the metaphor is obviously crap because I didn't birth a child, just my own squawking self demanding to be heard and cared for. Which is something.

So a brief, abridged and moderately exposed but underwear still on version goes like this:

So, yes, work. Going back was hard. My desk pot plants had died because no-one had watered them; I almost turned around and left without unpacking my bag when I saw that. My first day was awful - awkward and shit. I couldn't wait to get out of there. Cried a bit that week. Good thing was seeing a vocational psychologist for the first time (who knew they existed? Wish I had, about 8 months ago...)

The second week was better. But still a bit awkward. Needed lots of time to myself. Found having social plans as well as work very stressful. Too much in the way of logistics, too many variables, too exhausting.

The third week (last) was actually good. I felt in good spirits. I felt less awkward being in the office, I actually did some project work, I saw friends. Not only did I have quite a bit of social stuff on (including people coming over for dinner to our pace a few nights in a row) but I enjoyed it.

There's still quite a bit of stuff to work out, and in a few weeks when the work ramps up (lots of projects go quiet this time of year) I wonder how I'll choose what I'll work on (juggling breadth and depth; diversity vs specialision has been an issue in the past), but at least heaps of issues are out on the (grey laminex) table, and I feel supported to work them out. Am also a bit wary still of my own health and state of mind, I guess like recovering from anything (think strained back or something) there is that tension between beginning to feel better and thinking 'phhht - that was then, this is now, I am fine, never felt better I can do everything just fine' and thinking ' I am still in the process of getting through something, I have reduced capacity, I am taking it easy, I have to be careful and look for the warning signs'. I am trying to be realistic and careful but open to being wowed by speedy return to full capacity. Wanting to be 'back to normal' and be treated like being 'back to normal' but also knowing that I need to be patient with myself and deal with the fact that I might not yet be, and rushing things might be counterproductive. Tricky balance.

I do know that I really do not want to back in the space I was in last year, where I was extremely stressed and anxious about work (my workload, my ability to deliver, the quality of the work) and at the same time so exhausted and burnt out from the past few years that I lost perspective about its place in my life had no boundaries in place about what was a reasonable amount of work, or a reasonable incursion into my non-work life, or a reasonable amount of stress to feel and sustain. All of that, I don't want again. So if that means I have to go slow with training wheels and feel like a bit of a dork for a while, c'est le vie. And if it means ongoing work on the structural / institutional arrangements for me at work (workload, diversity of projects, support) and at the same time the inner workings stuff (boundaries, assertiveness, perfectionism, self esteem) then so be it. Better to learn this later in life than not at all, huh? Goddess knows I'm trying!

Put your feet up love

2009-01-26T22:24:00.004+11:00

Oooh had lots to tell you over the weekend but by this time am fairly worn out and quite ready to curl up in bed and finish my book (cheesy mystery - don't ask).

I painted my toenails scarlet tonight, after giving my feet a little bath in a small foot sized tub of hot water, in the loungeroom, and a little scrub, and a bit of a massage. Very hot water. So hot I had to have my feet rest on the edges of the tub and just flirt with getting in there, one little periodic toe dip, until the water was cool enough for a full foot plunge. The anticipation was great though, these weary footsies had a busy weekend, and today propelled me around a house, pitching in to help clean it for a friend of a friend moving. Think skirting boards and door knobs and light switches. Think bathroom.

Friday my feet took me off to see Kristen Hirsch of Throwing Muses fame, for a spoken word gig as part of the festival then home via Chinese New Year markets.

Saturday my poor feet endured outdoor picnics in the heat and later were squished into gorgeous but pinchy heels (I know, but I do it so rarely) and tottled up stairs and to and fro bars.

On Sunday my feet had a restful start to the day as I had a relaxed and lovely lunch with A and J and their new bub but got a work out when I walked up to the main road to find a bus, got distracted by great Vietnamese grocery, remembered I'd forgotten my camera, backtracked, retracked, caught bus and then meandered from bus stop home.

They'll sleep well tonight.

PS posted some old bits and pieces from a month last year - nestled them in with the other bits and pieces of that period - though the librarian in me (note there is actually no librarian in me) was a bit scandalised that I would backdate a posting, even if the material clearly came from then and was meant to go up then. Is it like totally wrong to mess with the blog time space continuum?

Show me the Monet

2009-01-22T22:08:00.002+11:00

So Monet looks like a big grumpy bear. Who knew? Who knew the man that painted sublime pastel landscapes infused with light, light, light would look like a grumpy Walt Whitman brandishing a squint and a paint palette. I know this now because I got to stare at a wall sized reproduction of a black and white photo of the man in his studio, as I stood in line for wine and snacks at the Art Gallery of NSW, which is currently hosting an impressionist exhibition – Monet and various support acts. There is also a video here.

I went with a friend, Mountainspice, who lives a fair way away, whose partner kindly spotted an event in the paper that he thought she might like, and cut it out for her. It was fun going out with her in the city without her kids, felt like teenagers rushing to catch the train to get there on time.

It was hot. Hot and humid.

Even though I stood perfectly still and didn’t otherwise feel hot, a small droplet of perspiration ran slowly down my back as I stood in the main open area of the gallery watching the speakers we’d come to see. In a very crowded room. So busy that the cloak checker said ‘we don’t have room for bags!’ and gestured impatiently at crammed lockers as if it was an absurd and unreasonable request when I tried to check one in.

Then again it was hot.

Nice to see so many people in a gallery. My friend suggested it was probably close to a thousand there for the talk. I didn’t count but she might be right. Hundreds at least. And not just any hundreds but hundreds who have turned up to see cute, earnest, frank and clever greenies talk. Bless them. Bob Brown and Peter Cundell. For those who don’t know, Bob Brown is a Green Senator here in Australia, and Peter Cundell a television personality from a well known gardening show, as well as a peace activist, gardener and general well loved personality. I reckon Peter is half of the colourful and kind old couple you’d have loved to have living next door when you were a kid – who would serve you iced tea in the garden and tell you tales of the old days, and let you dig or hold squirmy handfuls of earthworms and probably send you home with a few lemons or a bunch of camellias for your mum. Bob is the man you’d secretly like to marry if he wasn’t partnered up, gay and likely too cleanly historico-political and slightly forestly ascetic for your indulgent lazy pop culture city ways. Robust, resilient, warm guys with integrity and passion. Men you’d be proud to have as a friend or relative, who you’d trust to make good, balanced, and humane decisions. Who you’d let housesit, or lend your favourite book to.

Even if it was hot and we were standing up the back because we only just got there on time.

Of course the upshot of hearing two speakers, standing up, after a day at work and a rush to get there was that at the end we both needed a little sit down, and found ourselves at the bar/café for a little refreshment. The upshot of which was that we found ourselves still there gas bagging as the gallery came to a close, and the security guards came around giving people five minute pack up and start leaving now please warnings. The upshot of which was I didn’t see Monet. Except on the wall, in a photo. I certainly didn’t get to see his waterlilies. But it is open a few more days, maybe I’ll go back and try again in the day time I'd also like to see Half Light, an exhibibtion of Aboriginal artists using photography for portraits.

Also – Mountainspice wanted me to tell you that she got horrible blisters. New shoes I think.

Big in Japan

Bob talked about the successive periods of cosmological, geological, biological and psychological evolution that has resulted in humans being where they are right now, in this place and time, with the (to our knowledge) unique position of being aware of the impacts we make and being able to change them. He talked about trees and politics but generally what we spoke about was the big times we face and how really, we are at a fork in the road between me-culture and materialism on the one hand, and caring about all other people on the planet and other living beings too. And you know, like really how can we possibly explain to our great grandkids that we knew what needed doing but that really it was all just a bit too hard politically, and inconvenient to do it so we chose to spend money on arms but let kids starve to death; and squander the earth’s resources and head for overshoot instead (my paraphrasing). He talked about joy, and connection with the wild living planet, and of being inspired by nature (like Monet) and seeing the whole picture in a microcosm, and of looking for the light in the gloom.

I sighed a big sigh of happy sad relief when I heard him talk, and did lots of that quiet small nodding that you get at these events. I thought ‘I wish I could call you up for pep talks when I need reminding of all the things I care about’. I thought ‘you are just like Obama but for the trees too’. I thought ‘I really need to leave myself some post it notes at work that say “why do I bother? Because people don’t have clean water and we are still logging old growth forests and if India and China consume like we do we’ll need three more planets.” so that I remember and don’t let myself slide in to the day to day drearies of specific project gripes or petty ego stuff or general career malaise and uncertainty’.

Listening to him I felt like a revolutionary, a vessel for cultural change, a visionary in a small but keen sea of fellow visiony folk – not just an office drone with flaring doubts about her to do list system, mild and lingering doubts about her inability to specialise in a discipline and intermittent doubts about her choice of office footwear or hair style. I realise now that it’s so important to reconnect to that when your initial wide eyed wonder and zest for change-making, your single-minded ‘I want to help save the world’ fervour gets perhaps a little dusty after a decade of report writing and admin and committees and circular decision making and the random vagaries of end of year budget decisions and realising how slow deep change is, and how hard our world views are to see let alone explain to others or rethink. Plus postmodernism and doubt – always being able to see the other side to things. Plus fear of being branded a shallow un-nuanced uni-dimensional radical. Plus fear of being a so tied to any movement that you can be criticised along with it. All of these mediocrities and hypocrisies cloud the view and obscure the beautiful, inspiring panorama you climbed to see in the first place, leaving you kicking at the rubbish on the path instead and muttering cranky things.

Peter talked about his childhood and of art and colour and train rides and carrots. He was cute. He got more laughs.

They were both so positive, I think this was the most striking thing about them as two people who have had their share of setbacks and hardship along the way, but have stayed true to themselves. Which Monet was said to have done too, given that his work was apparently (so Bob tells me) derided horribly by the local European art scene (until he was big in Japan and the USA, and they figured maybe they were missing something), yet he preserved with his unique vision, and kept working despite going against the grain of what was popular.

Welcome to the world little one!

2009-01-22T22:06:00.000+11:00

A big welcome to Angel and Mr J's gorgeous little fellow. Loved the squinty eyed newborn photo and looking forward to meeting him in the flesh soon.

Reverbelicious

2009-01-18T12:19:00.002+11:00

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.

beginnings and endings and the whole shebang in between

2008-12-24T13:11:00.002+11:00

What a year it's been this 2008. I find it so hard to try and characterise something so big and varied as a whole year, to describe its flavour, to chart its beautiful curves. Maybe like a landscape it's best described at different scales - the mountain or river that stands out, some opposites that catch the eye (tall! short! wet! dry!), the scale of the view right in front of you (it lays out like this, rolls like this, is green, is brown) and the view of the peering scientist looking for how things bounce off each other, what begets what, the view of the artist talking all in rapture about light and shade and movement and grandeur, the view of the bespectacled mypoic dirt lover talking about mites and worms and spores and all things small. This year was a year of exploring boundaries for me - boundaries of my self, where I end and what I do starts, limits to energy and willpower, and falling off the edge of the map of coping.

Falling off the map
The last few months of this year have become a landscape that map makers might call 'having a breakdown from work related stress and taking 2 months off to recover' or perhaps the less clinical 'feeling a bit stressed and needing some time off', but anyone who lives in the territory would know that there is nuance and detail beyond description that fills in the space of this landscape. What has been interesting (now is interesting, now I am further afield and can look back and see it) about these past few months (and this is the sweeping past in the aeroplane looking down view, I'm sure I'll write the 'on foot and coming to and entering into the terrain' account later) is how all consuming it was. Strange to be so totally engrossed in just this thing of having time off and trying to look after myself so I would feel better. No achievements, no working towards any other goals than that, no objectives. Just to recuperate. I never realised how it felt to have your body pull rank and say 'enough! I'm taking the reigns!' and have your chattering, thinking, angsting mind overriden.

For almost a month I felt like all I could do was curl up in a ball and rest - or some low key variant on that - like going to the library, like watching hours and hours of old television shows on dvd (2 full seasons of 21 jump street, 2 seasons of sea change, 1 season of hamish mcbeth, without any real sense of irony, just gratitude for the hour they gave me of something to do that didn't make me think, and the way it absorbed me into someone else's - ableit fictional- life and made me feel like I'd done something with my day). I also worked on tidying my bedroom (an abject failure of a project you could say seeing as it still looks like someone is trying to cram a bookstore, a vintage clothes shop, a craft workshop and arts space into the scant space left by a queen size bed in a modest sized room, but hey, that''s share housing in the city for you). The tidying my bedroom project was good because it involved lots of tangible, physical tasks which offered immediate satisfaction, and seemed to symbolise a movement towards order and future potential. I went through my old suitcases of fabrics and sorted and ironed and folded them. I spent at least a whole day doing this, maybe two. I was thorough and slow. I went through old paperwork and shredded anything easy that was out of date and no longer relevant. I went through old cards and letters and not only sorted them and recycled some but bought ribbon and bundled them into piles by person and carefully nestled them into a wooden box (which they now mostly all fit in to). Each of these took days, spread over weeks. It was a completely different timezone - not of 'how much can I squeeze into a day?' but 'I will just do things, something every day, and be kind to myself along the way'.

I made a little motto of 'just do one good thing a day for yourself' to give myself a sense of structure, and to take the pressure off having to sort everything out. Using this rule, it meant having had a long bath in the afternoon made the day a full and productive time. Watching Jump Street was like taking some kind of therapeutic balsm, I laid on the couch and soaked in it. Later as I started to feel better, the one good thing might have been having coffee with a friend, or doing more on the bedroom project, or planting a plant for the garden. The theme was restorative, healing. At first I was a bit confused with the fact that I still had energy to do things - abundant energy some days - and could could interesting meals or rearrange the pot plants, or dig the compost, or cut up old clothes for fabric, or bake cookies; and that worried me. Was I really sick? Did I deserve time off? If I had enough energy to cook quinoa surely I should be at work? Fortunately I had enough people around me saying 'take your time to get better, don't rush it' and (especially insightful I thought given my personality / overanalyitical and self critical tendancies) 'don't worry about the right way to do this, just do whatever you need to feel better'. Later I read a book that had a chapter on burnout and the author was talking about how creativity is a sure fire antidote to burnout - it exercises a different part of the brain to the part you've been overworking, and helps restore your energy. I personally found that to be very true. I didn't go to the studio though. I didn't write (except the occcasional dream in my journal, or the day I wrote approximately 50 million affirmations in crayon and stuck them around my room). I didn't make plans for the future. I didn't think about work or look for other jobs. I didn't email. It was the long dark afternoon on the couch of the soul.

But feeling better (100%? Not sure. Not sure what 100% is or whether I was there anytime recently before I took the time off). More self-protective. More wary of work. Thinking up ways to change the structure / balance of my day job and other interests. More willing to consider leaving and trying something else if I find I can't make it work in a way that makes me feel happy and healthy. Going back part time in january. Will be interesting to see how that goes.

The natives are friendly

Friends have been super dooper important to my this year especially in the last few months when it would have been easy to feel like a bit of a loser and worry that my whole life had fallen in a heap. As it turns out my whole life didn't fall in a heap, just a bit of it. And maybe it didn't have such great foundations and the structure was unsound anyway. So many many thanks (in no particular order and noting that not all these folk visit here, but just for thoroughness, and apols for sounding like a gushing oscar winner) to Amberguity and Mr G who were very cool around da house and handled tears and bad dvds and strange cooking exploits without batting an eyelid, to Miss Snapdragon for many leisurely coffees at my favourite pokey local cafes and rambling chats about all the big things, to Mr S.Bleu for book lending, book talking and japanese cooking, to MerriRisa for outings and dinners and lending her lovely toddler for 'small child therapy' sessions (aka babysitting), C-Chan for the music and never laughing when I haven't heard of them. Further from home friends were important to with big thanks to B-Sharp for the phone calls and postcards from half a world away, Mmermaidgrrrl and Little Mister for being home away from home, Guitar Boy for staying in touch all the way from Radelaide, Rayon Vert for the visit earlier in the year, Tree Boy for taking me to some beautiful places here and in Melbourne, Betty Sue for the inner west pre work coffees, pot plants, and staying in touch post move, Chez for the fun winter trip to the festival, Mountain Spice for being a great mate and sending the cutest little cards to stay in touch, various work maties for staying in contact and prof. Smart for checking in and lending me great books. And family too - my mum, aunty and Grandma in particular have been very supportive and encouraging.

God.

My agent.

All the people at MGM.

Did you bring the guide?

Read quite a bit over the year. Novels, self-help books, books on gardening, feng shui and skirt making. Essays. Dime a dozen mysteries. Kids books. Graphic novels. Now I have my happy typey fingers back and my mind is making snappy sentences I will write some review over here on Booklub Blog in the New Year.

We lost some of our party and gained some along the way

Babies born and some growing ready to be born this year. An old friend (we haven't been in touch for years) died last week, I found out through being invited to his wake on a social networking site. Surreal. I hope he was happy and surrounded by friends and family.

The view from here

I'm looking forward to:
- Christmas festivities - having a few this year, a rolling Christmas, with different folk in different places. My housemates put decorations up - we even have something glittery and silver on our door. Ever so cute.
- Visitors - Catching up with Bsharp when she's in town, and Betty Sue too.
- The New year and all it's fresh start symbolism. Diaries, calanders, making plans.
- Music - Jan and feb look chock full of great live music and I plan to go see some of it.
- Creative projects - dreaming up all sorts of fun creative projects for 2009. Finishing my zine series, continuing with the urban art project with M, C and J. Printing one-off T-shirts, new fabric designs, sewing, maybe learning to paint in oils. I plan to exhibit and sell stuff this year as well as cooking up a few more collaborative projects - stay tuned. let me know if you want to play.
- Seeing what work looks like now - fresh perspective, what shape will it take in my life, what of my 'career' - where to next?
- Writing - back on here, and exploring other places to put words too.
- Summer - sun and water and skin - a great season don't you think?

Hope everyone has a great summer (winter for the northern hemisphere folk). Thanks for sharing an interesting year with me.

Not writing much at the mo'

2008-11-07T13:00:00.003+11:00

'Well derrr, we could see that' I hear you say.
But out of courtesy I thought I'd just let you know that I know I'm not writing, but I will eventually. It's not you, it's me. I'm having a bit of a 'looking inward' and transforming kind of period at present. Have taken some time off work to deal with some stuff.
But I'm sure in god time I'll be back, and will have heaps to say then. Meanwhile I just posted some pics on another blog just to check that I still remember how :)
Hope everyone is well in their patch of the world, and that you are also rolling with whatever kinds of changes are happening in your lives.

The big questions

2008-10-05T11:17:00.006+11:00

I'm about to head off to Newcastle, for a few days, well, the better part of a week. Going for a symposium on art and health (ever so exciting! going in own time as not entirely core to current work, though very related, but didn't want to make a case for it so figured easier to go on flex day). Guy at work lives there but he and his family are on holidays this coming week so he said I could use his place. Exciting! Is now a little holiday (2 days), work (1 day) and symposium learningathon (2 days). Also there is the 'This is Not Art' Festival in Newcastle (also known as TINA), which ends tomorrow, so if I get my skates on super fast I'll be able to go see interesting performances and speakers etc. Ooohhh, coffee in a new town. Oooooh the beach within walking distance. Oooooh learning new things about something I'm interested in. Heaven.

Prior to this weekend, I was still feeling very up and down about work last week. And when I say very up and down, I mean like ocean depths and Mt Everest kind of scale. It ranges across:
- no, I just don't feel like being here anymore, it's time to go, I'll resign on Friday
- I'm in this role as an extension of choices I made way back when about what I 'should' do with my life, but now I'm being more honest with myself and trying to tap into my feelings more I can see that in fact this type of work and working environment just isn't for me
- Shit, maybe I'm just panicking because there is another mini jump in careeryness in front of me (winning quite large(r than I've won before type) projects, managing large projects, potential for promotion possibly) and I don't really identify with the idea of being this responsible, sensible, capable, brainy, office going, ironed outfit wearing grown up woman (who is she?? surely not me??)
- it's ok, this is just an unsettling period while I deal with admitting to myself that large parts of how we work doesn't suit me, next step is speaking up about what I want, asking for help, asking for some readjustment of tasks - then it will all work out fine, it's a period of change and you'I'm not used to defining boundaries for myself so it will feel uncomfortable but end up ok
- I'm so bored with these projects! I can't believe this is all I'll have to focus on for the next 18 months - argh!
- I'll quit next Friday
- I'll do more of the stuff I do like while I'm there and see if that helps
- I need to be honest to myself about what my passions and talents are and find way to devote time to them, not conforming to what other people consider 'a successful career/life', and that means less mediocre plodding to deadlines and managing budgets and filling out forms, and more thinking and connecting with ideas, more expression, more art, more writing, more community based projects or working with small groups of people on transformation, and more innovative new ways of looking at old things, more working at home with music going and stopping to do the dishes for a break if I feel like it, more integrating life and work rather than splitting them, more being honest about my ideas and less feeling like I have to politely ration them. More feeling, less thinking. More colour, less laminex. More admitting to strengths and weaknesses, failings and potential, less pretending that everyone is always cheery and neat and on an emotionally even keel like some programmed office robot who just loves to work for 8 hours a day, but making room for the fucked up bits and wonderful bits. More intuition, less plodding accretive rationalism.

etc.

So, I am part way through drafting (in my head) both a resignation letter and an application for higher duties (temporary promotion). Funny space to be in.

Meanwhile the inner tantrums have helped I think, in terms of raising a whole bunch of stuff that I've been unhappy about. Tangible things I'd like more support with, or just things I'd hoped to do in my role, but because of time and competing priorities had let slip. So I have been thinking much more about how to get some of that stuff to happen - who to talk to, who to ask for help from, who to run ideas past. Am lining up a few 'coffee chats' with people who I think could be potential mentors, or whose own path I'm interested in, and want to find out more. I think I had kind of let all my own wants slip to the bottom as I grappled with never ending deadlines, but now am shining a bit more light on the things I actually want. Haven't ever really met with people to talk about ideas for work and study and stuff before, so think this is a good step in terms of supporting myself better.

My housemate, in the midst of work querying herself, went to see a psychic and mid-way through the reading (she used cards), the woman started talking about a close female friend and a lot of frustration. She said there was a lot, oh so much, frustration, and a relationship that will be severed. She said she thought it could be her job, that she needs time to think. My housemate said 'well, she was thinking about taking some leave without pay to think and then maybe going back' and the woman said 'oh, she's not going back!' in this laughing, emphatic kind of way. So.

Oh, and I went and got my tarot cards read by someone else, the week before* and this woman, who was very focused and asked all sorts of incredibly direct questions, and was adamant that the main thing right now for me is relationships. As in intimate type relationships, and challenging the fear I have. She asked why I was so tentative, told me people aren't meant to go through life alone. (This was all very timely, with a possible new relationship on the boil for me at the moment**.) She told me that I was quite a fearful person, and that this was the main thing I needed to be working on right now. This was interesting to me because I think she's right, but I don't think this is something I project on a surface level - my 'mask' is one of coping, being cheerful, and being brave (and in fact forcing myself to do things even if I'm inwardly panicked about them), but my shadow is very much unprocessed terror, something I'm only very recently beginning to realise.

She asked was there anything else I wanted to talk about, because the reading was coming through as all about the relationship right now. I said that I did want to ask a little bit about work, you know 'what I'm meant to be doing', and she shook her head and said that there wasn't one thing, this one thing that any of us are meant to be doing specifically at the moment, and that this was just a distraction. She asked was there anything in particular I wanted to know about work, one question, and I kind of stammered for a bit and then said something about art/expressive work which has primarily been in the private domain for me and thinking/rational work in the world and for the world, and which one should I be doing. She said that the two are connected and linked like a figure eight, like the infinity symbol, and that when I go to one I take what I have learnt and done in the other sphere to it, that the two inform each other and build on each other, because there is just one of me, and I am all of those things at any given time. Which made a lot of sense to me, and I like very much as an image - the figure eight, moving from one side to the other, both connected, not having to choose. She also said that it was normal to have a period of working only in the private domain, and that the art stuff might make it's way into the world when the time is right, like a birth after the very personal and inward pregnancy. She also said any big changes would be like throwing a spanner in the works, which I didn't need right now because I needed to focus on the relationship. She said it would be great, lots of adventures. She even said 'do you want to know whether you have kids together?' and I said a little bird peep sheepish 'yes'... and so she did a special spread on that. (and the answer? not telling! I have to have some secrets)

So go figure.

* Neither my housemate or I had actually done this before, we were both very excited about getting some help, any help, in figuring out what to do next with work-life stuff
** yes I know, slipped that one in didn't I?? All the usual 'not sure, maybe I'm misreading, who knows where it will go, it's early days, I'm probably making a fool out of myself, not entirely sure what I want' caveats apply.

Long and happy life

2008-10-05T10:40:00.003+11:00

Being happy is important, and is linked to our health - we all know that. This study found that "[..] the effects of happiness on longevity were "comparable to that of
smoking or not". Implications?
- "I'm quitting my job for health reasons - I want to live longer"
- "Please don't be miserable around me - I'm sick of inhaling your passive unhappiness"?
- Signage ... "No whining or whinging within 3 metres of the bar area - we care for our staff's health"

But seriously, also:
"In Veenhoven's findings, published in the Journal of Happiness Studies, a scientific publication founded in 2000, the strongest effect on longevity was found among a group of US nuns followed through their adult life - perhaps reflecting the feel-good factor from belonging to a close-knit stress-free community with a sense of purpose."

I'm up for a close-knit, stress-free community with a sense of purpose - sounds good. I often think that life would be a bit nicer if it was more like monastic living (I'm actually not being sarcastic!). How could we do that large-scale? Transforming our suburbs into friendlier places where we know and like our neighbours? Addressing social isolation and the root causes of poverty and disadvantage? Less advertising to make people feel lacking in everything? Everyone making time to help other people beyond their in-the-same-house family? Less frantic commuting and worrying about money? I'm all about the local these days - my community utopia is a bit like the one I'm in, but with more sharing and helping. Bring it on.

Post Script

2008-10-03T13:29:00.001+10:00

Well lovelies, for all who said they'd like one - your zines should be in the post today. Yah!

laughing at work

2008-10-03T13:20:00.003+10:00

Because I read this. "Hysteria" - at frame 2 I started sniggering. I seem to have the sense of humour of a very smart but silly child. 'It's youmer Kim, youmer' as Kath might say.

Oh one other thing I thought was absolutely hilarious was last week. In a cafe. With Snapdragon, having coffee and talking ways of the world. Guy next to us starts talking about the horoscopes in the Daily Terror (joining in on our conversation - but a very very small cafe, so it felt kind of appropriate). Anyway, she gets a call and walks out of the shop to talk, and he says 'your friend has a lovely energy - very light, very hairy'. And does this hand gesture, like diaphanous, wafty hair coming off her. And I Look at him in slight shock, wanting to grin my face off, thinking ‘hairy energy!! She’s not hairy – I’m more hairy than her…’ and thinking about like a Hobbit, with hairy little feet, or a Womble, like some fuzzy kind of furry creature with hairy energy. And then, he says ‘you know, like she’s a dancer or something’. And I say ‘yeah she was a dancer’ and then I realize he’s said ‘airy’ not ‘hairy’, and he turns back, and I sit there with little tears coming out, trying not to laugh out loud, at my graceful hairy friend. And then I keep remembering it, and how stupid I was, and how strange I thought he was, all because of one letter missing. And even now writing that I start giggling.

Event - construction sustainability and innovation

2008-09-30T16:54:00.002+10:00

Australian Green Development Forum and CSRHebel are proud to present our National Road Show ‘running on empty’ Wednesday 15 October, 7.30am-9am Doltone House, Jones Bay Wharf, Pyrmont.
"International Speaker Prof Dr Fernando Martirena is our key note speaker. ‘Running on empty’ takes an in-depth look at how urban communities in Cuba overcame the challenges and issues they faced as a result of the harsh economic conditions and depletion of resources from the 1990’s. Through the course of the forum experts from both the private and public sectors will examine the possible impacts on the Australian development industry and the urban lifestyle of tomorrow."

Faith Ecology Event

2008-09-26T07:08:00.004+10:00

Came by this on an email network and thought it was a really interesting intersection of spirituality and ecology concerns. You see a lot of Buddhist events in this vein, and I did connect with some very inspiring Christian Nuns a few years back who had organised a Deep Ecology workshop, but although I'd read about stuff happening in the US with other faiths, hadn't seen much here advertised in the public domain.

SEMINARS
The Faith Ecology Network (FEN) presents a series of interactive interfaith seminars, "Earth: Our Common Home".

It is 40 years since the Earth was first viewed by humans from deep space.

Venue: Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 280 Pitt St, Sydney (5 mins from Town Hall)

Time: 6.30pm – 8.30pm

Donation at the door

· Tues: 7th October "Whose Earth is it?"

· Wed: 15th October "The interdependence of humans and other species."

· Wed: 22nd October "How do we inhabit the Earth?"

Speakers and respondents from 9 faith traditions.

Interactive group discussion.

RSVP: annelanyon dot cmi at columban dotorg dotau

Arty stuff

2008-09-26T07:02:00.003+10:00

WETLANDCARE NATIONAL ART COMPETITION 2009

Closing date for entries is 5 December 2008.
To celebrate World Wetlands Day 2009, an international event proclaimed by the United Nations, WetlandCare Australia has organised an Australia-wide art competition offering categories for both Children and Adults, and also a Primary School Prize.
We are seeking artworks on paper exploring the theme of Upstream-Downstream; wetlands connect us all, and we also have a Photography section.
The competition is acquisitive, with the winning works to be used by WetlandCare Australia to promote wetlands and the work of WetlandCare Australia. Entry forms are available at
http://www.wetlandcare.com.au

SUSTAINABLE DESIGN EXHIBITION
TAP Gallery 45 Burton St Darlinghurst, Sydney, Au
SRD Change is an important exhibition of new graduate design and ideas that address our future. Issues of sustainability, environmental change and responsibility, social equity and community. Ideas that often directly challenge conventional expectations and raise the bar to new levels. Annually, exhibits are selected from a diverse range of areas, including industrial design, graphics, architecture, textiles, planning, landscape design and more. Featuring 2D / 3D works, audio/visual content and even high fashion models.
Opened 23 September

Sun kissed

2008-09-25T08:56:00.003+10:00

The light coming through my window was marvellous on this treasured statue I bought in Oaxaca from Josefina Aguilar, one of my favourite living artists. Thought I'd share it with you.

Zine but not heard

2008-09-25T08:42:00.003+10:00

Well Miss B has been posting all regular like despite her recent flurry of freelance. I, on the other hand, have been a little quiet on the Western Front. Bit don't worry, I didn't just implode in a little mound of self reflection and post-conference angst, I've just been busy with work an' all. With the fun bits happening in the 'an' all'. Fun like... my new zine!

Yes, braved Kinkos and photocopied my second edition of 'Week in Review'. Then came home and used the very high tech binding apparatus of:
- my housemate's hammer
- a nail
- a phone book
- some coloured cotton yard
- a darning needle
- a bamboo knitting needle
to bind them.

Sent a bundle to the Zine shop in Melbourne that the lovely Tree Boy took me to when I visited some months back. So, yes hold on to your hats, despite sharing many and varied intimacies with y'all via the world wide interweb, and despite going and talking to many and varied strangers in RL about sensible worky things, this is quite a milestone for me in terms of putting something I've made out in the world. You know - scary, sharing feelings and self expression. Cute little bundle of kindy-style books they were too.

So if you want one, pop in to Sticky institute with $4 in your hot little hand, or email me yr postal details (to ja deyjell y bean a t ho tmail dot com no spaces)for your ever so special free copy for being a seagreen reader. Ooh. And if you make one yourself let me know - we can swap! Yah.

Ughplugh

2008-09-11T12:00:00.004+10:00

Well that went. Yes I gave another talk. This has been the month of talk-giving. And I don’t mean the ‘look here sonny jim we need to have a talk’-talk, I mean the ‘lookee here everyone I have a serious, logical, well-framed set of dot points to deliver to you and I’m not heading out of here until you’ve eaten every last idea on your plate, ok?’-talk.
I had thought this was a good idea – a great way to ‘consolidate some learning’ (seriously, I think in management jargon), recognize my own expertise, promote our organization, inspire me to write some papers – etc. Now, in hindsight, I don’t know that it has been.

Candid appraisal of the last three talks, in random sequence*:
#1 – group of about 20 people, smallish room, I can see their faces, I can walk around a bit, I can sit on table edges and make jokes, ask questions. Delivery went well. I felt pretty happy that I had a handle on the group and their backgrounds, so got to pitch it appropriately. Content was also pretty good I think – if somewhat conceptual, at least I had great handouts and further reading. I think the brief interactive sessions were useful as they had the chance to at least think ‘what might this mean for us at work?’ Finished dead on time. Got a bottle of wine as a present. Felt good afterwards (after the talk, not the wine, though that too!).

#2 – may or may not have got to explore a town away from home as an extra bonus of participating in this one. 70-80 people. Much hyped. Talk preceded by regional radio and (errrgh) television interviews. My first of both of these particular horrors. Not quite so sure how much to make it theory and how much to make it ‘showcase particular project examples’, how much to make it advocacy ‘oooh you should all be doing this, seriously’. Group a nice mix, and a warm feeling, hairy, greenie vibe, people I will likely never see again. Slides way too text laden, too conceptual, too much detail, but my delivery was good. I felt really present, really engaged with the content, happy to ad lib, connected with the audience (er sorry, or is that participants). Felt mildly embarrassed at weightiness of content afterwards, but happy with rapport, and got to chat to lots of nice people at lunch and in the workshop session I co-facilitated, so all in all a good experience.

# 3 – may or may not have been this week. 200 ish people. Many of whom are past colleagues and employers, or current collaborators – but no-one who I’d call a mate. Raised podium. Lights glaring in your face and rest of room made dark in comparison. Nervous. Couldn’t shake nervous feeling, and voice sounded tight through almost all of the talk. Found myself standing with hands clasped behind my back – shocking body language, saying ‘I am not really part of this/ I am going to hold my own hands because I wanna get out of here’. Talk began and I looked at it as if to say ‘you? I have to come up with words to say to you?’. Chose not to use detailed speakers notes, nor to have too many words on the slides. Thought I’d be more creative and try to
a) mostly just speak off pictures or diagrams
b) try a ‘story telling’ approach to paint a general picture of how a particular sector had been doing a particular thing
c) explore some completely unfounded musings
d) develop and explain a new typology of ‘thinking that needs to change to address (issue X)’
e) tell a joke, kind of made up and untested
It was fucking awful. I think in retrospect the content was too theoretical (even more than the other two), and where I tried to summarise trends I ended up just presenting a mish mash of events with no clear story. I felt absolutely no connection with the audience – they were too far away, too many of them, and too blank faced, despite my earnest and protracted (some might say desperate) efforts to make roving and meaningful eye contact. Once I started feeling nervous I was worried they’d think me nervous, and worried that they didn’t know what I was talking about, or thought it was stupid, and then I felt more nervous, and I was worried they’d notice. Also, I started to feel like the whole structure I’d done for the talk was dumb, and I was probably annoying everyone by not just sticking to a case study format. Dang. On the up side the photos were pretty, and I had fun thinking it up. Also my hair was good and nails freshly painted. (You think I’m joking? I’m seriously listing those in my favour – that’s how bad it was). Afterwards I felt mortified. I stayed for morning tea and mingled (thank the Goddess a few people came to talk to me, so I didn’t look like a conference pariah), for the next session and then for lunch, but I really wanted to get out of there, and did so promptly once the plates were cleared and the bell started ringing for the afternoon.

So. Reflections? Point to my story?
Just that ‘giving talks’ is a funny label that we give to a huge variety of situations that can feel very different. That some crazy mix of who will be there, how confident you are that you have something new or interesting to share with them, how confident you are that you know more about a topic and are seen as credible, whether you can interact with the people, whether they are warm and engaged looking or cold and distant, whether you get feedback that you’re talking about something they want to know more about, whether it’s material you’ve spoken about before, whether you have some empirical foundation that you feel you can draw authority from, whether you have a qualification that gives you confidence and theoretical context for a topic, whether you are feeling good about your work generally – etc – that all of things mix around and get baked in the oven to make this thing of ‘giving a talk’. Needless to say, today’s cake flopped, and was probably burnt on the edges to boot. Ho hum. Shame it had to be the biggest cake I was baking, and one I was serving to all the head chefs of the best renowned restaurants (this is a metaphor, it was not a catering conference). Makes me wonder whether I want to be a pastry chef at all, whether working in kitchens in general is my thing (to take that little metaphor and squeeze it dry).

Actually I wonder whether it’s the case that I can bake quite nice little sultana cakes, but I think that there are enough sultana cakes already in the world and want to bake something more exciting, just to see if it will work, just to show everyone that cakes can be different, and then my emu egg and pineapple sky scraper flan flops and I feel sad and wish I’d gone for sultana cake.

Seriously thinking about quitting my job because it feels like the most horrible combination of stressful and boring. Feeling like I want something more immediate, meaningful, human scale, consolidated, warm, supported, and at the same time more strategic, abstract, ideas based which I can feel more confident doing. Today feels like a sign that I am well and truly in the wrong spot.

My housemates and I have been swapping self-help/psychobabbly schtick, this week's fave is some guy off Oprah, who espouses working to your strengths. ie finding what your strengths are and following them passionately - where strengths are not just the things that the world says you do a good job at, but the things that you do that inspire you, make you feel energised rather than depleted, that come easily - rather than focusing on the weaknesses and building a career around the things you're bad at and trying to overcome. I feel like I have built my whole career around my weaker areas, and constantly battle with forcing myself to do tasks that I don't like. Literally all the subjects at school that I liked least I went and made a career around. The technocratic, project management, detail focused, client managing stuff from work that I like least - yep that now feels like my whole job. In a field I feel passionately committed to, sure, and in a nice workplace, surrounded by good people, absolutely, but in a work environment that doesn't suit me, and doing a mix of tasks that stress me out (in their combination) and make me feel constantly self doubting and bored out of my brain. Stultified. Meanwhile the things that come easily and are fun I discount as not being worthwhile or clever enough or serious enough endeavors. Like some of the marketing stuff, big picture ideas stuff, strategic planning, business development, communications stuff. So, pass me a birch branch please, I don't think I'm quite self-flagellating enough...

* yes – blogs, a great place to dump what used to be private reflective thoughts, in a public forum. Hoorah.

Thanks folk
Aw thanks guys for playing along in the comments box :) I realise that call out was the virtual world version of one of those relationship whines 'I just don't think we talk anymore'. Thanks for the book suggestion Georgie, I'll have a look at that one. Love the parallels there with hostage situations B, funny.

Ready read

2008-09-09T13:42:00.003+10:00

Feeling a little tired and overstrung (see - is that even a word?) as I drag my sorry ass through my second week back at work, and feel bad about my avoidance of to do list tasks. Also preparing for giving a talk that I am having some serious doubts about. Anyways. Stumbled by this blog and then really had a little tear. Imagine having chemo for breast cancer rather than grappling with a freaking power point presentation. Puts things in perspective.

Oh. And PS, while on being a bit lame - feel free to post comments anyone. Anonymous fine. Recipes for Grandma's pumpkin soup, your to do list, random suggestions for my life, one funny thing you saw on your way home yesterday - whatevs! I feel like I'm singing in a toilet here, the echo is deafening.

Last chance to comment on this one

2008-09-08T10:42:00.004+10:00

Heya maties, just a reminder for anyone out there vaguely interested in climate change and what the hell Australia should be doing about it, that in 2 days time submissions close for the Greenpaper.

The cut-off date for submissions on the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme Green Paper is 10th September.

This could be a great time to dust off those civic impulses and send even a brief email in response to the paper. If you're looking to see what other people have said about it why not try one of the many community climate change websites out there, or check the website of an environment group or policy group that you trust and respect.

Permablitz news

2008-09-05T17:45:00.002+10:00

What happens when Permaculture and backyard blitz have a few wines and snuggle under the sheets on a cold winter's night? Yep, you got it, Permablitz is born! People working in each others gardens to do a permaculture makeover and learn about gardens, growing and sustainability as they do it. Win-win! Some action in Sydney, and heaps in Melbourne. The following is from their newsletter. Check the website to sign up for info by email.

Events:
** David Arnold and Michelle Margolis will be launching their Permaculture Diary and Permaculture Calendars for 2009 at Veg Out Community Gardens in St Kilda about 3.00 pm on Sunday 7th September. Permablitz is in both :) David will be speaking about Transition Initiatives, arguably the most exciting eco-movement in the world. A great excuse to check out the gardens too, just near Luna Park. http://www.vegout.asn.au/

** Join them at 1pm this Saturday at Ceres on the lawn near the cafe for a free edible weeds walk along the Merri Creek as part of Weedbusters Week (if arguably not entirely in the spirit of it).

Reading:
** This excellent article by George Monbiot explores the research linking poor nutrition to lowered impulse control and poor attention spans in both kids and adults (and consequently crime.) Who needs Ritalin when you can drug the children with a good home grown broccoli.

Event: Global cafe and climate change

2008-09-05T17:36:00.001+10:00

You are invited to join the Make Poverty History Global Climate Change Café for an evening of food, climate change speakers and workshops. Hear from keynote speakers about the human impact of climate change. Take part in interactive workshops to address the big climate change questions and have your say in how Australia should respond to this profound challenge of our times.

5:30pm – 8:30pm Wednesday 17 September, 2008

(With drinks, food, climate friendly actions and stalls)

University of Technology, Sydney

Gallery Functions Centre, Level 6, Tower Building, Broadway

Speakers

Maria Tiimon an I-Kiribati woman working on the Pacific Outreach Project for the Pacific Calling Partnerships

Julianne Richards CEO of the Climate Action Network Australia

Anna Rose founder and co-director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition

Workshops

Roadmap to Copenhagen 2009: what part should Australia take in the post-Kyoto negotiations?

Loosing Your Land and Country, the Pacific experience: what actions should Australia take to support our Pacific Island neighbours affected by climate change?

Climate change, equity and human rights: moving beyond the science and economics: What role should social justice play in deciding Australia and the world's response to climate change?

More workshops still to be announced.

All Welcome! Free Entry

RSVP recommended, or for more details, email Cara Bevington at rsvp@oxfam.org.au

Back Jack

2008-09-04T17:59:00.002+10:00

Yep, back after holidays, to the working week.

I don't really have anything profound to say about it, the soft landing, the rejoining of the 9-5 fold, the getting reacquainted with my desk. Just that I'm here, it was OK, the sky didn't fall in, I went for coffee on the way in on my first day, then met a friend for lunch (and think I did some complaining - sorry) which took around 2 hours, and got seriously teased when I got back in for needing a 2 hr lunch break my first day back. Oh well.

Had a nice lunch on Sunday to mark the end of the holiday, with some of the Inner westie crew (thanks MeriRisa and co). Really enjoying friends and honest conversations at the moment. Makes things make more sense when they otherwise don't seem to make much sense at all!

I am still grappling with exactly what it is I like doing and do well well and want to more of (but I reckon most of us are? or some of us anyway), and meanwhile, how I a get myself to do all the teensy admin tasks that I find wet paint boring but are crucially important for the wheels of projects to keep turning. Aaaah. Not quite back into the swing of deadline fervor and to-do-list ticking into shape. Not through lack of things vying for attention, but just through lack of attention to give. I'm sure I will warm back up and get excited about it all again. Post Cairns I was feeling very sure that I wanted to do more grounded 'community stuff', like grass roots sustainable living and activism stuff, but this week meeting my housemate for wine and having a laugh seemed like my preferred community activity post work. Oh. I also had a surprise retreat mid-week with a group I'm involved with for work. Exhausting! Another night away, talking, planning and very early morning meetings. I think I'm just going along with things as they arise, perhaps I left my sense of urgency behind in an airport somewhere, or in a hotel bathroom, next to my travel toothbrush. Do you think I could call them and ask them to post-pack it back to me?

A good mate quit her job today, we had text message updates and chat along the way. Good on her! Taking the leap without something else waiting in the wings, trusting that she can ditch something she doesn't like and make something new happen.

Exhibition opening a go go

2008-09-04T17:56:00.001+10:00

The Game of Places

9 September - 10 October 2008
Opening Tuesday 9 September 6-8pm
To be opened by Judy Annear, Senior Curator Photography, Art Gallery of New South Wales. Featuring the work of: Eunjong Lee, Kinam Kim, Hosang Park, Eunkyung Shin, Soonkwan Kwon, Curated by Eunjong Lee

Artist and curator floor talk - Tuesday 9 September 4.30 pm, all welcome

UTS Gallery: Level 4, 702 Harris St, Ultimo | PO Box 123 Broadway NSW 2007 | Mon-Fri 12-6pm | T: +612 9514 1652
www.utsgallery.uts.edu.au

Bike art?

2008-09-03T21:26:00.002+10:00

If you cycle and make art you might be interested in getting involved in this up and coming show @ At the Vanishing Point.

Festivale

2008-08-27T18:02:00.004+10:00

Oh, I keep reading about all sorts of fabbo festivals that are planned for up in this part of the world – all of which I’ll miss on my short stay, but thought somewhere out there in blog land might be interested in if trip planning. There is a festival for everything out there!

Arts Cairns Festival 27 August – 20 September 2008 www.cairns.com.au

Bilby Festival 7-14 September 2008 Charleville www.savethebilby.com

Body Art Festival 20-21 September 2008 Eumundi www.austrralianbodyart.com.au

Kite Festival 11-12 October 2008 Coolum www.coolumkitefestival.com

Heart of Gold International Film Festival 25-29 March Gympie www.heartofgold.com.au

पैटर्न recognition

2008-08-27T17:53:00.003+10:00

Well that's interesting - my title is coming through in Hindi. And goodness knows what it says. It's meant to say 'P A T T E R N' as in pattern, recognition.

Anyway, tho' this post is stealing the title of a book I like, it really has nothing to do with that book, I just wanted to say how much I like patterns. Here are some images from a beach trip yesterday and wandering around, a tree from Sydney on the weekend, and some kelp from a lovely day walking around Long Reef a few weeks back. Nature does patterns so well. There's something about these repeated shapes that I find so relaxing and beautiful.

Suitcase planning

2008-08-27T17:51:00.000+10:00

OK here are some tips for those who find themselves in hotel rooms for work trips:

Pack a travel toiletries bag in advance! Yes – do this. Get a second toothbrush, toothpaste, everything else you use as standards body care / cosmetics-wise and keep them in your suitcase. A fave lippy, a necklace. This is a totally foolproof way of trimming your packing time, and making sure you never forget this stuff. Oh so handy. Sample sachets of hand cream and other lotions and potions are very handy and don’t leak – yah.
Tea and coffee – at least herbal teabags (spearmint and chamomile is a good night and day tea, or chai, or rosehip, something cheery, and maybe even plunger coffee and a little plunger.)
Bath stuff – nice vegetable based soap with essential oils, a little bottle of bubblebath.
Music – nothing like a little dance around the room to loud music to get the cobwebs out. This is especially good if you’re staying for more than 2 days, and mostly working.
Healthy snacks – nuts, simple biscuits are small and easy to take. On the first day go fruit shopping and make a fruit (or fruit and veggie) bowl for your room (if there isn’t one). Ever so handy as a snack on the go, or if you miss a meal. I always find fruit is one of those things that I eat if it’s there and forget to eat if it’s not.
At least one fun book – trashy novels have their place, and work travel is possibly one of those. Short stories, graphic novels, fairy tales, mystery novels, inspiring texts, poetry.

This trip – I remembered the first, but not the second or third. The fourth and fifth but not the sixth. Ahh – you teach best the lessons you both need to learn.

Away, again

2008-08-25T17:48:00.001+10:00

Can you see how going way begins to feel like work and staying home feels like fun?
Away again, for work. Not complaining about being here – agreed to come, and is in all likelihoods one of the most beautiful places I’ve been in ages – ever? How can one small city have so many wonderful things tucked away in its outskirts?
But here I am. Slightly upset tummy, acidic, from plane food. That unsettled feeling when your soul hasn’t quite landed even though your body got here hours ago. That empty waiting of a hotel room. Watching television on bed drinking tea. Why is it that doing anything alone in a hotel room seems so sad, so desperate, so lonely?
I feel out of sorts. A mix of things that all make me slightly anxious – a weekend of intimacy and proximity, a plane trip, random self recrimination for not having got my life shit together better. Anxiety about the work stuff. I feel teary and it’s not even before my period.

I did a radio interview today and was worried I had come across like a nodding, laughing puppet – please like me, please let my answer be OK.

But it is so lovely here - maybe I will relax into it.

I live in Noddyland

2008-08-21T23:11:00.002+10:00

Yes it's official - I really do.
I can walk to work. In the other direction I can walk to the studio.
I can walk around the corner to shops and cinema and coffee shops (and we're not talking pack a backpack and tell the ranger when you plan to arrive kind of walk either). I can walk and say hi to shop owners I know, and see Billy the wine shop man walking his bub or chatting with his missus on the street. I can wave and smile to 'thanks sweetie' the bread seller or the cheery laundromat couple who will pat your hand and sell you chillies from their garden. I can be mildly leered at by the same familiar and brightly coloured street paving blokes. People walk dogs. Babies coo in libraries. Older ladies shine in cardies and spiffy do's. There is a flower seller with wares on the footpath. There are freshly baked french pastries from the family business. There are my favourite bookshops. My house is high ceilinged and gets direct sunlight. My room is warm and snug. My housemates and I cook meals for each other and tonight were giggling and dreaming up fun learning activities to do together as a household - like reading a classic play, or maybe a great classic novel. Maybe reading it outloud or acting it out. I buy chirpy potplants and sing. Have I fallen asleep and am dreaming this whole life from some snug and cosy children's book from my past? Am I in a tiny little piece of manufactured western afluence and strife free living? Is this Community? Or is this just what being on holidays feels like?

"I must not write in my blog to avoid doing more important things"

2008-08-20T21:02:00.003+10:00

Repeat 50 times.

Yeah but. I just had to. You know, I had this thing I wanted to tell you. It just couldn't wait. And I really really wanted to tell you.

Well, alright then. But make it quick, and then get back to your work.

Um. Erhem. Ckkrrgh.

Oh spit it out! Now you're just wasting more time.

Well. It went like this.
My housemate said "A shark has taken a dog." All horrified and a bit sad, like, and she was looking at the newspaper.
So I said...

!

I said "I didn't know sharks had pets."

...

Yes, and she looked at me a bit like that. So I said it again, but with more comic pizazz. And then when she still looked at me like that I figured that she didn't approve of me making light of the poor dog's untimely death, so I said "oh, I guess he ate it..." and tried to look a bit repentant and sad. But she still didn't get it, and I realised she hadn't got it all along, and suddenly I just thought that was really quite funny actually, and I had to tell someone. And so that's why...

OK. Well you have now. That's enough, go back to your desk and finish your work please. And next time maybe keep your jokes till lunchtime.