Yo

There was an utterly delightful lady I sat next at the bus stop outside of Brisbane.  She was tiny.  Less than five feet.  English.  During the war she worked at a munictians factory (sp? sorry for spelling).  She was responsible for checking for defects in bomb parts.  From the way she spoke - it was the most responsibility she had ever had and she took it seriously and her children (for she was quite elderly at the time I met her) found her irritating and a useless encoumbarage (fuck one day I will learn to spell). 

She was so lovely and it was so sad that her family didn't appreciate her. 

Another lady I met - and was well appreciated by her family thankfully - and surprisingly turned out to be a dragon of a grandmother about manners and such - she was so much softer with me - I was shocked - she worked in some kind of bunker during the war - in Brisbane for heavens sake - she was taken to work in a car with blacked out windows - she had no idea where it was even now - and they received messages and were in a control room that they had the war maps in like wot they used to push little  models of boats and such out onto maps at.

How awesome, ey?

If I were rich and idol, I would visit old people homes for fun.  They have the best stories because they are based on real ones :)

Humerous attempt at oil painting - first attempt - argh - mixed with oil is going to take too long to dry - scissors!

it is late at night and this is a finger length long - there is no way it is going to also be focused :)  the teeth aren't yellow enough - I want it to remind him of my manic grin when he askes me how are things - lol

It's Friday and I've offerred to go in Monday, cause I want things to go nicely for Office Manager,  but can't see how it will be maintained after I am gone. 

Area Manager finishes Friday and I WANT to do something nice for him as a present. 

In my mind, I believe that hand made presents are more meaningfuly, but in my actual brain I understand that nobody really wants crap handmade stuff.  I am battling with my instincts. 

Probably a bottle of rum would be more appreciated. 

I think I shall paint a picture and a bottle of rum and then the picture can be something that they might like after they have consumed the rum. 
The entire bottle of rum. 
I am no dab hand at painting.
Never have been.
Yet I persist.

Maybe one day I shall paint something other people will like.

I have liked stuff I've painted for myself.  One was inspired by my sister and her first baby.  But she never liked it and seemed rather embarrassed by it. 

I kept it for years but in this last year have chucked it along with a couple of the others I was fond of. 










I have become frustrated with the amount of junk I cart about. 

Particularly in comparison with my 90 year old neighbour.  I don't think he could be messy or cluttered if he tried.

His lounge room has one chair.  One television on a cart and one cupboard.  No rugs.  No dirty cups.  Nada.  Nothing.  Just all clean empty floor. He doesn't even use the ceiling fans because he has a theory that they do more harm than good and he only uses floor fans.

He is a rental agents dream.

But then again, most of his chat is of times gone past - which I don't mind at all - I quite like the idea of being the person that he can revive his memories with.  He talks about his deceased wife and of their trips together.  Of how it was for them when they lived in Western Australia.  Of their life in Victoria.  About how awesome she was at making lamingtons.  Of her love of pot plants and how often he whacked his head on the ferns.  They were the first things to go when his wife died.  Apparently they had lots of garden beds and vegetables when she was alive, but now the yard is all just lawn and things that don't interfere with the mowing.

He talks about when he was stationed in Darwin during the war, and of how he lived on his poker winnings and sent all his money to his wife.  He talks of how some of them men would ferment their own booze in coconuts and the various troubles that ensued.

But it would really be easier to keep things clean if I didn't have as much stuff.

The World of Henry Orient

by Nora Johnson

I am only a page in and it had me at the first paragraph.  My uncle Sidney sent it.  (well actually to my nieces, but he said I should check it out first to see if they would like it - so fuckit - its mine now). 

The first paragraph:

"It was very cold that morning in October.  The sun had risen, but was only a faint orange blur through the gray fog, and the water of the East River was full of chilly silver glints.  I had come early, to avoid the school bus.  I indulged myself in this way once a week, to give myself a few moments longer in the comforting society of strangers, and to be able to stand and stare at the insane asylums on Welfare Island before going into the dreaded school building."

Is that awesome, or what :D

oh gosh

... I think I might need a cold shower now
sigh
here

Well ... its my monday

Oh God! but I LOVE explodingdog.com.

I would so like to just cut and paste every single cartoon from this one onwards, especially the rum fairy one and and and well just all of them are grand.  Simply grand.

And now I am watching committed, which is a movie with Heather Graham in it and which has some very excellent bits and is generally rather gorgeous  - and I am not in anyway influenced by the presence of Casey Affleck - although I am a bit cause I have a thing for him.  Possibly one of the main reasons I wish I could lay my hands on 200 cigerattes though actually I just wish I could lay my hands on it cause it was funny and I really liked the whole elvis costello thing that was going on throughout the whole movie and the resolution.  It was a cack.

:)

Monday

And as I slump my way through the day I ponder is there an actual god of sloth and should I be setting up a shrine that I don't make offerings too?

Yesterday was good, actually the day before yesterday was good.  I was sort of productive.  I mopped my kitchen floor.  I scoopped poop.  I contemplated all the good things I would do the next day.

And then I, I kind of obsesessed about the prospect of no further Terry Pratchett books, and ... I couldn't bring myself to finish the book I was reading.  I read three quarters of the way through and now I wonder if I should set up a bookcase for books I really like and am saving to finish or when I really need them.

It is silly.
I will probably finish it tomorrow.

The first time I read a Terry Pratchett book was when I as feeling very very bad.  I was in a job I hated for an extended period of time, that I felt I had no way out of.  I was on a trip that was terrible.  I was reading a book that made certain death funny.  I was gobsmacked.  It changed my life.  Or if not, it gave me something to hold onto.  I wasn't going to off myself yet because I hadn't read the next Terry Pratchett book.

It is silly, but I am finding it hard to reorganise my sole reason for existance now that he is no longer writing books.

Not that I haven't been unfaithful since.  There are lots of authors I have been devoted to since.  Lots.  Lots and lots.

I have a warm purring cat waiting for me in my bed.  He likes to sleep in the back of my knees.  I shall cut short this contemplation of existential angst and mention that Marieke Hardy has book out for those of a brave disposition.   Called, I think, "You will miss me when I'm dead" or I could be wrong.  I think it is probabably worth being wrong :)  She is a funny chick.

I Love ExplodingDog.com

blah

... and my Uncle is vastly amused - in fact let us do it justice - he is    v-a-s-t-l-y   a-m-u-s-e-d    - that my mother thinks I am so much better for my overnight visit to see them, rather than my overnight visit to listen to the ever so delightful Mike Noga, Dan Luscombe and Glenn Richards.

*happy sigh at just thinking about it*

She thinks he seemed subdued today at their weekly lunch that they will be away for 42 days on a cruise.  He was just last night rubbing his hands gleefully that they would be away so long.  In case, I could not hear it over the phone he told me - lol.

I have bit my tongue clean through.





He has confided that he thinks he could handly the weekly lunches so much better, if they happened monthly or at worst fortnightly.

I no doubt give the wrong impression.
My mother is a very good woman.
She has the best, best, of intentions.
But she is a selfish woman inflicting kind acts on the unwilling and therefore, it is very hard to be grateful.  She only does what she wants to do, and not what you would want her to do, if you were comfortable enough to ask for assistance.  She will not even perform simple errands that do not take her out of her way for others.

People who know me and who have met my mother have been aghast at the way I have spoken of her, until they have spent time with her, and then I cannot deny I am sad when their opinions change.  I would like to think it is just that I am a mean and selfish daughter.

Currently I have been unhappy with my workplace and have since quit.  She vasiliates between making me feel stupid for leaving, or stupid for not begging for a job back, to encouraging me because she has always wanted me to move back in her.

At the moment, because she is about to go away (a month ago it was different), she is in the making me feel stupid and like I should beg for my job back.

This is what she did at my first job which I wanted to quit in the first week.  Even though she knew they were bad employers.  She liked hearing the gossip about their personal life.

I would burst into hysterical tears and have to go off into a quiet place for a year after if anybody mentioned their names.  I didn't even get to leave in good standing, such as I make too much effort to in all other jobs after.  I broke one afternoon and just hopped on my bike and left and she made me go back after Christmas holidays as if nothing had happened.  I have never been so humiliated in my life.  At least, not since.

I remember riding around town considering the large concrete tubes in the public parks and thinking about whether I would ever go home again.  But in the end I was too chicken to choose homelessness.  I wonder sometimes what kind of person I would be if I had made different decisions.

However, regardless of my dream idea of independance, if I had I would not be getting to go see my thoroughly delightful niece perform in the local estedford (sp?) and would be much the poorer for it.  Even if group mime apparently allows performers to make sounds and use props.  Though I cannot deny I would be very interested in looking at the rulebook.

I just hope that next year the group get stuck in a box and have to battle against a strong wind because fuck me this is not my idea of a mime.

Post coi backspace backspace backspace gig

(it still makes me think of a horse and cart more than it does music)


It was like that line from shakespeare.
Something along the lines of and all englishmen abed will think themselves accursed they were not here.
That is how any Augie March fan would feel if they knew what they had missed out on.

It was great.

I sighed a lot
big heartfelt happy sighs

you know how in the shower everything sounds perfect?  It was like the room was a giant shower.  The best eva. 

Brundisum
Apple of my Eye
The Cold Acre
Glimjack
forget the title, but one of my favourites from Glimjack - chorus:  Every morning a new sunrise
The Slant
Here Comes the Night
in celebration for his little sister Sally's birthday and her not being able to afford to come to Brisbane and therefore going to Port Douglas Instead - Bottle Baby
Torpor and Spleen
Turn on you (which he said was his favourite from the album - which is lovely for me cause it means he played it and it is one of the songs from this album that I do tend to hit repeat on, along with the new sunrise [the name will probably come to me as I am drifting off to sleep on the plane this afternoon] and long pigs)
Train
One Crowded Hour
There is no such place
Encore:  The night is a Blackbird

Gorgeous old building with battery powered fake candles scattered about, which flickered realisticly - ish.  On approach could not believe I had the right building.  Then saw little signs.  Followed the arrows.  Instructions to walk through the gardens and up the stairs. 

They turned the light out nearly ten minutes before Mike Noga came on.  I tried to just sit quietly but couldn't take it and got my mobile phone out to light my book, so I can't say whether it was his arse my face was inches away from or ... you have no idea how much I wish I hadn't been looking down at my book as he brushed past my chair on the way to the stage.

A rather impressive spill of wine by one of the leather coated trio in front of me.  Battled the urge to rush to the bathroom for paper towels to clean up the potential slip and trip.  Have spent too long in a Safety Department.

Have been thinking my libido was dead till the ever so delightful Mr Luscombe started playing his guitar.  By golly.  Fuckin' gee wizz he ain't half awesome. {8:12 am next day reads back wot wrote and smacks wrist for such effuscive and blatant sexual objectification - just because some one is pretty and talented does not mean I am allowed to leer at them, I tell myself - bad sammy - go write out lines}

Kept chanting to myself to remind myself "don't be the last one clapping" - cause one can get a bit carried away sometimes, ey?

Possibly we could have done without the discussion of human feces as inbetween song chit-chat, but actually they can do no wrong and therefore, obviously, the human feces was absolutely essential and there should be more of it.

I hate to say it, but it was well worth missing Doctor Who for.

{8:12 am next day:  free internet at hotel - watched it on iview - it was awesome too}

Brisbane pre-gig

So here I am enscounced in my hotel room.
Shoe shod feet resting on bag on bed so as not to dirty the sheets.
I have supped and sipped and now await the long slightly uphill walk to the venue.

Did not give in to the urge to pretend I slept in and missed my plane, which was my initial waking urge.  I hate travelling.

I survived the day with mother and worry at the sudden knife-sharp, only a bit deserved, snarls directed at my step-father.  Their relationship always seemed to work better with a third person in the house to water down the direct interaction and to distract from all the little habits that get to one after a while.

Neither the television nor the bedside lamp appear to be functioning but perhaps I am pressing the wrong buttons?  Perhaps there is another button that needs to be pressed before they will work?  Though they are plugged in and switched on.  Maybe the bathroom light needs to be turned on for them to work?

...
nope
...
Oh well.  Half an hour till I mosey and I have wine and a new (new to me that is since they are both deceased)  Constance & Gwenyth Little novel.  Black Corridors.  They continue to delight me.

Free internet is pretty darned good too :)
ciao

I am feeling better for my days off.
Close to sleeping properly again.

Today I went out.
Went to Willows Shopping Centre.
Which is about the only shopping centre left in Townsville with a book store.

I bought my sick niece a book.
(its getting on nearly three months now, I think - poor spotty tummy)
I bought my brother-in-law a book.
I bought myself a book.
(hardcover too - slaps wrist - bad wasteful sammy)
And, bought my twenty? month nieces a book too.
Called "whose bottom is this"
and it has flaps to open within
to find out whose bottom it is
lol

My kitchen floor has not enjoyed mopping, cause I haven't done it.
The computer game still domeniates my life.
Thus I credit what sleep I have experienced.
I have reached "Glorious" level and am reluctant to move on.
I rather like be classified as gorious :)

blah blah blah

So ...
I have spent the last two working days at home. 
I am working on wombat's behavioural issues with her mother.
ie. I am trying to stop her beating up on her.

I am enjoying their purring and the need they feel to be touching me if we are lying down to read or sleep.  In these cooler months it is a full body snuggle up in the back of my knees.  In summer it is just the bearest touch of a paw, in glancing, on ones leg or arm.  It is cooler still and realised in a forceful curling up on foot on bed with knees up to rest my book on.

I cannot deny the competition for attention is flattering.

The battle to be toilet cat is so far dominated by Sookey.  I have had to keep the toilet lid down to stop stoopid cats falling in and as a result my morning and day and nightly visits are much sort after as a blackmail point of weakness.  I must pat them sufficiently to get them down.  Sookey is queen of the toilet, closely followed by Blossom as cat most likely to be petted whilst I am , um, otherwise engaged
in important business.

Wooliff is lap cat when I am watching television of an afternoon.

Blossom is any time cat.

Mary is owner of the television and visits me of a morning for a head scratch.

Bubba, my sweet and possesser of my heart refuses to come inside at present and is content to bar passage in the driveway whene'er I come home from trips away.

hahahah

hahahahahahahhahahaha
I had forgotten how funny this is lol