Shot from the Hood

43 minutes with headwind

Walked to work as usual this fine morning, thoughts buzzing, wind gusting. Lovely.

Received a postcard last week from my Finnish friend and I've been remembering Vilnius. The Savers-like shop 'Humana' where I passed so many hours and so few litu. The cupboard at my Dutch friends' house full off Dutch treats like stroopwaffle. All those adventures, moments and fun.

There's all the good. So much good.

Hard to face the dreams I have. Nightmares of the stupid misguided times I spent with Enso. I hate myself for thinking of him, but I can't control it. I feel like I need an exorcism.

Strip Seal

I've worked every weekend for months. Ugh.
I looking forward to a long hot summer with frequent holidays from this.
Good news is I'll go to Shanghai and HK on a Study Tour with a bunch of overachievers sometime after I turn TWENTY SEVEN this November.

This have changed. Things are changing. I'm amazed at the new worlds.

Total Eclipse of the Heart

Watched the eclipse on Monday night, thanks to KP.
It was a very convivial atmosphere up on the roof of IKEA, listening to the Astrological Society commentate the eclipse via megaphone.
Megaphone.

Beautiful songs in the morning make for a great day ahead

You know my love this is no dream of mine
But the way you ride those waves makes me want to follow you blind
And what I'm thinking of just this time
Why don't you lay your head down in my arms, in my arms.
Lay your head down in my arms.

Film Festival is Working

Each year I use the Melbourne International Film Festival as an excuse to catch up with friends. And this year it's worked really well - particularly as I've been bad at staying in touch with friends this year.
So I've seen 5 films, all very different, at three cinemas over the past week. Last night I saw 'Everything's Gone Green' with KP and TT. The Forum is such a great venue for movies and Coopers drinking. And the film made me larff and get inspired. Also made me want to go to Vancouver, a place I know nothing about.

Thinking

In 2000 Edward De Bono advised a U.K Foreign Office committee that the Arab-Israeli conflict might be due, in part, to low levels of zinc found in people who eat unleavened bread, a known side-effect of which is aggression. He suggested shipping out jars of Marmite to compensate.

Hmm.

We're being audited so I'm looking for anything to distract me from the hellish task of preparing self-review notes. Had a chai latte at Piccolo and now reading up on De Bono.

Guilty

Lucky Me

I was born, lucky me
In a land that I love
Though I am poor, I am free
When I grow I shall fight
For this land I shall die
Let her sun never set
Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria
Victoria, Victoria, Victoria, 'toria

Thanks, The Kinks...

The Royal Treatment

Three day weekend means terrible Mondayitis on Tuesday. Hmm.
Picked up Ma on Saturday morning from that hospital. Very miserable place and Ma was busting to get out. She's doing ok now I think...
Finally saw 300 and nearly fell asleep. What a boring movie! Was very underwhelmed.
Been reading recipes lately and going on chilly walks. Found 5 buttons since Saturday.

Tinker Tailor

Sometimes I'm just tinkering. And I think we all are.

Clothes swap party last night then visited my lil Ma in hospital.

What I Saw in the Country

Bumper Crop

It was a week ago that I'd found my last button - outside the Night Cat - that great big stripey one. So I was wondering when the next was coming. On my way home I found a big scratched thing on the edge of a building site in Izett Street. Was it technically a button, I wondered...
Then I found a business shirt button, and a big black coat button, and another shirt button.
It was a bumper crop! Four buttons in one day!

Sweet Anticipation

Such a sweet weekend planned.
Friday: drinks; then Korean barbecue dinner with dear friends
Saturday: be quiet cos Charlie is studying; then market for ingredients; then drive to Castlemaine!
Eat drink cook be merry take photos general goodness at this place and surrounds.
Sunday: more of the same plus going to Daylesford Foto Biennale and Artist Market.
Monday: more of the same plus seeing Romulus, My Father at Theatre Royal in Castlemaine.

Buttons Make Me Happy

Finding a button makes me instantly delighted.
Seeing Charlie makes me so happy.
Getting photos back makes me so happy.
Holding a baby fills me with delight.

Our Lady of the Flowers

But now I am afraid. The signs pursue me and I pursue them patiently. They are bent on destroying me. Didn't I see, on my way to court, seven sailors on the terrace of a cafe, questioning the stars through seven mugs of light beer as they sat around a table that perhaps turned; then, a messenger boy on a bicycle who was carrying a message from god to god, holding between his teeth, by the metal handle, a round, lighted lantern, the flame of which, as it reddened his face, also heated it? So pure a marvel that he was unaware of being a marvel. Circles and globes haunt me: oranges, Japanese billiard balls, Venetian lanterns, jugglers' hoops, the round ball of the goalkeeper who wears a jersey. I shall have to establish, to regulate, a whole internal astronomy.

With thanks to Jean Genet.

New Pictures

Lithuanian Hospitality

Something of a cultural weekend. Windy and warm in Melbourne. I watched the first 3 installments of Die Hard, which I'd never seen. Loved them. All ready for number 4 now. Went to St Andrews' Market, bought food, flowers and a 3 dollar red t-shirt. Sunday walked to Camberwell market and scored a waistcoat for a buck. Walked home and felt a bit over it. After some fashion crises Charlie and I got it together to walk to North Melbourne to the Lithuanian Club where we planned to meet my exchange mate and experience some 'culture' in the form of an 'ethnic' celebration.
Unfortunately the dragon ladies at the door shooed us away as we were running late. So we missed our on hearing the 'comb' composition and queuing for pancakes. Instead we sat around the corner and drank and ate... Then headed to a Korean restaurant and ate and drank. K-beer, K-pancakes, K-style seating, K-TV. It was a cultural experience. Bought dessert from the K-konvenience store and walked home.

Would you sell your home to us?

A strange thing came through the letterbox yesterday...

Hillsong

Tumbi Umbi. Tuggerah. Wyong.
These are the places I'm familiar with, having just visited rellies on the NSW central coast.
Things are different there. It's not just like the difference between Prahran and Hawthorn; or Sydney and Melbourne. It's different.
Firstly, yeah the weather is good. But more importantly, everyone is white. Church is big. And weirdly, there are lots of mums much younger than me, pushing strollers around the shopping centres. Public transport? Forget it, take your big-arse 4-wheel drive to the nearest shopping centre. Shopping centres? Everywhere. No old-fashioned strips there - everything is mega.
Lots of golf clubs for the retirees; lots of surfers. We ate our first breakfast at Bay Beach, on the foreshore, off polystyrene. POLYSTYRENE?!

But the big thing, the big weird uncomfortable thing, was that my family up there are religos. They are members of one of those evangelical new-skool churches. Like Hillsong. Maybe it IS Hillsong. My cousins 21st on Saturday was a sit-down dinner for 100. On the stage in the hall, grace was said into the karaoke microphone.