On history. (sober)

I am secretly in love with history. I have never studied history, and I think I don't want to. I'll let you know why. But first, what is history? Where do you draw the line between what we were and what we are now. Family anecdotes are not historical, but someone, for example, the queen, her family anecdotes would be considered historical. So do we discount things that seem un-momentous? That would require that it was known what would end up being important. We don't. Document everything? Nothing, then rely on what we can find out after the fact? What would the Kennedy Assassination have been if Lee Harvey Oswald had twitter?

So I think a lot about history. And what history we'll have left over. And what will be considered historical. I mean shit, what are we doing over-creating and over-depicting. I never understood what it meant for the universe to be really infinite until I looked into peoples words and ideas, and saw it all there. Even unconscious animals and plants are capable of creation and recreation, the molten earth rocks and rivers all change the world. That's infinite.

That means we're changing everything, and making history by doing nothing, something, anything we have to. Does that make evolution historical, or our life, or is history just documenting evolution? Aaron would tell me I was over-dramatizing, being hysterical, or just looking for something that isn't there. But I feel like things just bleed into each other. Sometimes I do something and feel like it's historical, for me, when I learned this, or when I knew I felt something for the first time. That's enough for me. And sometimes I'll learn something about world history and think "this is my history too, I wouldn't know what I know, be where I am without this".

I hope there's nothing truly inconsequential. When this global warming things really starts to make people feel uncomfortable (what Aaron once told me was what most people feared most) they'll realize that nothing you do can be without consequence. I'm quite vindictive. I hope there will be retribution, unlikely but I'm impassioned by the idea of it. Sadistic, really. Anyway, I want to think about history. I want to be immersed in history, but I'm too attached to my own history-in-the-making. My interest in history is tactile and there's no part of my mind that knows "history" but it is there alongside everything I know. History makes the world vast and wonderful. And I guess that's all I know.

On milk.

When I was house-sitting in Ixelles the one thing that really struck me is how difficult it was to get fresh milk. Cafes, restaurants and supermarkets all had exclusively UHT milk. If you don't know the scale of milk/quality I'll lay it out for you: milk -fresh- is "unhomogenized" in Australia you need a special certificate to supply milk unhomogenized because it's supposed to be more stable when homogenized, which is just blending the milk with the cream. There's also pasteurization, which is mandatory here, which is an interesting process, developed by a frenchman to preserve wine (duh).

The scale is pretty simple, the more you do to milk (except chill it) the worse it will likely taste. And there on the far end of the scale, verging on spoiled milk, is UHT. Ultra heat-treated milk has an undefinable taste almost as though someone made milk from entirely non-milk-based parts and just hoped for the best. Anyway, it was worth it when I got to Scotland and unhomogenized fresh milk was standard.

In Australia I think it's a point of heavy contention. Our environment can't really support cattle on such a huge scale, and I can see that even countries like Belgium with rolling greens hills find it more economical to produce UHT. Always an avid futurist I think a lot about what we will have to sacrifice and change to make it through the storm we've brought upon outselves. I think I can handle whatever comes up, and make the right choices environmentally but; where am I going to get my milk?

On topic. (a paragraph)

I've realized reading my last post that despite almost knowing how to comfortably write a paragraph, definitely a necessity in professional writing, I still have no grasp of solitary topics. This is glaringly obvious if you read some of my essays from college and highschool. It is difficult, perhaps impossible for me to write any amount on a single topic without; changing tack somewhere, pointless theoretical referencing or complicated metaphorical ramblings. This is something I hope to overcome in the next few weeks, when I will commences a series of writings on a single literal subject (as I attempted to do some weeks ago with my paragraph on swans, a disaster) and start tonight with a short on my own inability to stay on-topic.

My initial response to the subject of "topic" is to examine my older writings intended to be "on topic". I'm reading through my Dramatic comedy essay. Simple enough in theory but my first paragraph is cloudy and pointless padded with irrelevant points and expressions. It's almost stream of consciousness, using rhythmatic sequences of beats and offbeats, rhymes and tone to create the sound of a paragraph without any of the necessary points. I'm actually having problems finding a better piece to use as an example but I seem to have written two essays in the last eighteen months, and they both blow. I must've written most of my essays the morning before they were due, printed them in the school library and then destroyed them permanently. Which seems a little extreme. I think I had really forgotten how un-academic I was.

(It took me so long to write that, and I think it might all be gibberish AND I'm also reading three things at the moment, proof that I can't focus on one thing for more than three minutes (or equivalent local value))

I meant to write another paragraph about "topic', but then I read Johnny Cashs' wikipedia article.

Tune in later this week for: More Than A Paragraph About Something!

I think I need to have a joint then work on writing a decent post here. I would like to write about Christmas, but I don't really know anything about it. I only vaguely even know why Jesus being born is a big deal. Well, scratch that. What I don't know is why people insist that the BIRTH of person is worthy of a celebration. It seems like accomplishment should be celebrated. Birth is only an accomplishment. So maybe Christmas should be a celebration of a virgin giving birth in a barn with of a horde of useless men and saints and shi surrounding her. THAT'S a christmas miracle.

Let me go get that joint... I was talking to Aaron about this. It seems we smoke too much. I don't doubt it.

I want it to be that every time I want to go one facebook I accidentally get redirected here. Nothing interesting has happened since Lindsay and I had a disussion about Apocalypse now and T.S. Eliot (what?!).

Dear America, does it make you cringe to know that every state law overrides and undermines your precious fucking constitution? Because, right now, you might as well not even have one. It's like a debating point or something, but you would have to go to the Supreme Court to have it count towards anything.

I found out the other day that part of the New Order involved rights of the consumer as a seperate entity from the citizen. I never considered this but theoretically you could have people that contribute nothing to society beside money. And with such a huge population it's inconceivable that everyone actually has something useful to do with their life besides buy shit. Oh wait, that might have already happened. I have such outmoded ideas about society (Socialism! ahahahahahhaha) that I'm constantly being outraged about the possibility of things happening that have already happened. Bright side? I never get bored of politics.

I voted the other day for the guy who wrote Affluenza, if you can find it I suggest you read it. By Dr. Clive Hamilton.

Anyway, the results aren't back yet but my sources (Crickey!) (that's a news source here (yeah it sounds bad, but it's damn good journalism)) suggest preferential voting might tip it in favour of the Greens. Do you have preferential voting in America? The system of "democracy" America subscribes to seems to suggest if the party you vote for doesn't get elected yoiu are a LOSER and have to suffer with a perty you (and most other people) hate. I think America has an alternate ssytem where you also get to vote in the "primaries"(?) on the person in the party you DON'T support but you would hate to see running the show the LEAST. What the fuck kind of democracy is that?

When I'm president I'm to shake all that shit up. And I want to be. I just gotta get me into Harvard...

One step at a time (cackling)...

This is more of the same.

When I had to write essays regularly (almost a year ago now) I would write out a skeletal winding mess of ideas, then come back to it every day to try and make some of these ideas coherent. What I usually ended up with would be much like yesterday's post, several seemingly unrelated ideas, and I would have to pull them together. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn't.

I've been thinking about the computer thing a lot. But the biggest problem I had writing essays for school was that I really hated writing a polished piece all in a little two dimensional box. Before I had my blogs I would write everything on unlined scrap paper, draw diagrams and pictures to sort things out. I'm hardly proficient enough at programming (or proficient at all) to write on a computer how I write by hand. So I figured all I needed to do was learn to write "my way" on a computer, something that's always alluded me. And so I have "Write Now" so I can write whatever I'm pondering, on a computer and try to learn how to make my online research, my live research and my useless ideas come together on a screen.

The problem for me though may in fact be the screen, the low resolution, the slight delay, trying to type as fast as I think, though I'm getting there. Also I write a lot at night, and the glow off my computer screen burns my eyes at about two or three in the morning when I should be sleeping. I could never write, watch movies, talk to people so easily in bed, and I think it's a huge problem. Like most of my mothers side of the family, especially the women, I enjoy being in bed. We've got a bed culture thing happening that I'm continuing the grand tradition of. I also hate chairs and tables, so it all points in one direction: I hate to learn to love and live with my lap-top.

What I was saying the other day about 2D and low res is probably most applicable to my generation. Used to watching bad quality subs and dubs of movies and tv. I have internet TV primarily as my aerial is in some sort of trade embargo with my TV so I've been watching everything on my laptop (impossibly light half kilo or so).

I am a sci-fi junkie. I love speculation and cynicism. Bot of which are served with a heavy hand in science and speculative fiction. Not to mention my love of robots and space. I'm plagued with the late eighties dream that we could have entire virtual worlds a la Lain or to a greater extent The Matrix (which I must've seen before I was ten). i just google searched an noticed that The Matrix has actually sunken into obscurity.

In thisty years we'll understand that The Matrix was to technology what Plan 9 was to space exploration.

More later.

Something important is about to happen...

I had the greatest few days. Where everything is falling into place, and I feel like I understand what I"m up to.

So I was about to go to bed, watch a movie and forget about it. But I feel like I've just woken up after a long sleep, and I should probably commemorate the occasion. When I broke my leg I regretted not photographing the first day when it went blue and black bruised and swollen. That was real damage to my body, that changed how I lived for a long time. Someone when I think about it now it doesn't seem real. Theoretically you can only go one way or another; either saving, observing ceremony and sentiment throughout your life, or living moment by moment, remembering everything through emotions and impulses. I have always been the later, but obsessed with becoming the former. It's easier with social networking and storage accessible from every corner of the world to have information, photos, letters, thoughts, everywhere you are.

My mother, for example, has very little of herself in "hardcopy", everything she wrote was either formal, or for someone else, all the photos of her were taken by someone else, never initiated by her, she has lived and traveled with nothing, and nothing but her mind to record it. Now she uses what she feels to live, not what she's read in book, or imitated from Womens' Weekly. I am in complete admiration of my mother.

Recently I've been hanging with a friend who's just accomplished some serious solo-woman travelling and I am in awe of her cleverness, resourcefulness and balls. She also is very unsentimental and practical.

But back to my droll soul-searching: I am a romantic neurotic person. Not exactly qualified for Platos' "examined life". Introspection may kill me, or at least leave me severely traumatized, and yet I persevere. But every so often I get a wave of dedication to live my life. Maybe once every year. This is now.

Please don't say anything about astrology, though. It might break my heart.

...

I think computers, televisions, any photo or printed image distorts our perception of reality to some degree. It's only two dimensional not to mention made of tiny squares. People often object to having to, for example, suspend disbelief, or object to unrealistic art but we put ourselves in front of screens that make reality look dull. So we use CGI and coulor tint every movie to brighten things up, but for me it only makes reality seem dull, like nothing exciting or movie-worthy happens with any texture. I hate TV. So glad I don't have one. Now if only I could get off this internet...

LET'S BLOG

There are an awful lot of words I love. Recently when talking to a friend about new slang, I discovered, to my dismay (all dis- words are sweet sounding, small and gestural, like children giving flowers)that I'm fond of the word "whatever". Ripped away and examined, every possibly meaning of the word is quite light and free sounding. "Ever" is the unquestionably elegant part of the word matched with the blunt rationalism of "what".

Why do all my thoughts come in these little bowed packages? Never a moving truck, boxes and boxes lugged in. Unpacked. I want my mind to be a mansion. A fucking penthouse apartment. Excuse my frustration. A lot of my anger is directed to myself. Here I am, riding on the tailwind of the only great intellectual species on the planet. How do I allow myself to do nothing?

Artichokes are difficult but delicious.

I think I'll go to bed. And tomorrow I'll wake up and try to live my life.

Saras' blog (must read).

http://letskilladvertising.blogspot.com/2009/11/change-it-up.html

This is a friend of mine's blog. She's working on it for a college assignment but she's also one of the best writers I know. Read it, comment, marvel at her glory. Whatever suits you.

Morning Inglory

Strangely enough after weeks and months of having absolutely no control over my life, everything seems to be working out. Without me having some anything at all (to my knowledge). I'm wondering if my entire life couldn't be improved by me ceasing to live it. The idea has tempted me before. I could hire substitutes to fill various roles for me. Or exclusively work at things I know someone else is doing.

Actually this is probably how most important things seems to get done. Neglect and arm-chair philosophizing.

But much more importantly than that I've discovered I am actually a morning person. A morning person with a crippling addiction to sleep. This past week has seen me up before six almost every day, and it appears as though it's good for me. But without proper monitoring I do end up sleeping for eleven to twelve hours most nights.

So this morning I'm sleeping in because I'm working through the night on this job. I actually woke up at six this morning naturally, but went back to sleep. I like sleep. But is also means that eventually I'm going to have to go back to sleep temporarily during the day just to make sure I can work 'til six tomorrow. These all sound like petty grievances, I know, but the fun part is: All Day Breakfast. I've figured it out. This way I can trick myself into being alert tonight, by pretended my morning just went on for an extra eleven hours. I won't suspect a thing.

Anyway, part of this routine involved making pancakes and listening to the radio. In the process I've discovered I have an as-yet unheard of political leaning. Never Letting Barnaby Joyce Comment on Political Affairs. I'm hoping it'll catch on. Let me explain. In Australian politic most party affiliated members for local seat in the house of commons will vote in Parliament with their party. It isn't mandatory but it's expected. Independant MPs are rare and this means that in a situation where it's easily determined which party will vote which way it's up to the independent members to swing the vote. Especially when Labour has the majority. The vote in quesiton was into an inquiry into the Church of Scientology brought about by Nick Xenophon. Who is also a bit of a douche-bag. Barnaby Joyce was asked to make a comment before he voted. He blathered something about space-ships and Tom Cruise jumping on a couch. WHO ARE THEE ASSHOLES?!

So at least I've kept my sense of morning outrage going throughout the day.

Pouring tea in the dark and trying to remember what I've done tonight (pouring tea in the dark is unexpectedly difficult) I reaized I'm probably not being particularly thourough in my posts. I'll try an get myself and everybody else up to speed with this post.

So what you know is that I got a job. What you don't know is that my laptop charger melted itself and is now, sadly defunct. This happened a few days ago and I'm ecstatic. I hate the internet, but unfortunately I love watching back to back episodes of Seinfeld and porn. So using Marie's instead (except for the porn). I'm also getting up in the mornings, which is another unexpectedly positive influence on my life. Somehow the extra five or six hours of awake-time I get really gel my day. Before I used to have to wrestle myself to sleep but now I find my day gently winds down over a couple of hours so I don't experience the usual painful jolts that once accompanied waking up and falling asleep. Which is great for me, I'm not sure how excited it makes me, but I do feel happy.

My satisfying job involved a lot of physical labour, which I need to stop me from getting anxious. It's also in the suburb with the highest rate of murders and murderers anywhere in Victoria. Unless there was a place with a higher rate that killed itself off entirely. I'm not discounting it. Sometimes I overhear conversations of customers, or th people working at the servo I'm painting, but usually I talk to Sam, who is my partner-in-crime and catalyst for danger, or occupy myself stealing chocolate eggs in an elaborate scheme I've concocted.

Amongst all of this wakefulness, computer damage and work I've not found much time to get on the computer, or much of a want to. But i do need to keep up the writing yet, and there is always more to say.

Tomorrow and today,

ws

This one.

I think I've realized what the problem is with trying to write my blog when I'm working. It's not that i haven't been trying, but everything I start ends up being deleted about two lines in. And if I'm not getting paragraphs, I really don't see the point. So the problem? I don't think much during the day. It makes my job more fun, but when i get home at about four, I have nothing to say.

The flipside to this is I'm having incredibly vivid, complicated dreams involving everybody and anybody I know, doing almost everything. Somehow my mind seems to be compensating for my general lack of stimulation daily by flooding me with ideas and situations while I sleep.

I've always enjoyed dreaming and sleeping, until I met someone reading Jung who kind of made me disregard the joy in dreaming. Jung makes it seem so straight forward and reliable. Recently I've been dreaming about people I knew when I was a child. Most probably because I don't really know any of the people I knew when I was a child. Also hills, mountains, staircases, ladders and escalators. Lots of height.

So naturally I've been thinking about it all and I've come to the conclusion that whatever it is, I don't want to think about it. I have a few things to get done this year but I think I'm probably not handling the pressure too well. Usually when I get like this I'll go for a walk. But I absolutely hate walking around my suburb. Nothing but swanky houses, antique shops and seven-elevens for blocks. I hate it. If I want to go somewhere I like I have to take a tram to the Botanical Gardens. It's not too far, but when I'm there I still know what behind the wrought iron fences there's just more apartments, cars and office blocks.

I think I'll need to go further out the relax. My connections with people who live in nature got cut off when I decided I hated my lover. He's a good person to know, but actually knowing him is a huge strain and rarely worth it. So I hate him, he doesn't know, and I don't know many more people to stay with in the country. I wish I lived in the late 1800s aristocratic circles.

Actually I've been thinking about hellenistic philosophers.

That's all.

Okay. It's been four days. I did get a job, which explains half of it. But also I've been incredibly miserable. Except when I'm a work. I'm a painter. It's very zen. Maybe it's the paint fumes.

I have almost nothing to write about today. Nor did I yesterday.

Have to go answer to door.

Wish I had more friends.

Applications could be posted to... me.

Scones (lazy).

I didn't actually get to write anything yesterday. Luckily I usually post at about midnight so there's no gaping hole where a post should be, I couldn't handle that. Right now I'm getting ready to bake a biscuit au beurre. French for shortcake. Should be fun, but I think I'll baulk and end up making scones (easier) instead. So me.

More after.

FILLER

Just to make sure I do my effing job. A paragraph on... Fuck... Swans!


Swans are an everyday occurrence in the province of St Louis. Nearly four thousands swans travel there yearly to accomplish their divine shopping mission as is written in the Psalms of Gadzooks. As the sea levels rises more swans are finding caves an impractical place to live, in an almost unrelated phenomenon. The people of St Louis are responding in kind, with all the love in their hearts (subject to availability, conditions apply).

Haha. Did it.

Inadequacy.

Hi Blogger,


Look, sorry about everything recently, I've just been a little pre-occupied. I'll try and finish that story too, and write an abstract for that Bambi essay I wanted to write.

Whatever happened to podcasting. That's what I wanna know. Suddenly it all became too much for the average man.

Yesterday I got link (/b/ again, yeah I know "what's /b/?". Motherfucker's ought to be hung) of a woman shooting a northern black bear out of a tree and then her boyfriend fucking her doggy style over it before they let their dogs eat it's corpse.

I'm with Samsam on this one, Blogger, randomized sterilization. It's the only way. That or just universal sterilization. And yet I want a child? How does that gel? Ugh. Just thinking about that video makes me want to shoot some people. Maybe a LOT of people.

Anyway. I wasn't thinking about that until I started browsing facebook, just following one persons friends' list to another then another and seeing what came up. And you can tell someone by five potential acquaintances. And you know what I learnt? People are cunts. Hmmm. This was supposed to be about my failure as a blogger, somehow turned into my disgust and peoples casual evil. And it is casual. It's Thursday afternoons and I hate it.

Maybe I can write about how bored and stability pushes people to extremes. Like shooting a defenseless bear to fuck on its corpse.

Jesus. I have to sleep. This is way way too much.

Still,

ws

My aim for today...

is to get Blogger to come up before facebook on the URL bar of Firefox. Lowering my expectations on this fine Saturday evening.

Dear Blogger,

I've been thinking a lot about your suggestions for labels for this post, and every post. I don't have ten or so thousand dollars for a scooter, and I've just come back from a vacation. I might make myself fall to please you, but I offer instead blogger fan-fiction on the subjects you are most fond.

It's getting a little late, so I think I'll take you to bed with me. I hope I will not disappoint.

Yours (in bed),

white.suit

P.S. It's called The Internet Came For Me

I waited a while out by the beach. At dusk I walked back to my little shack, that straddled the little grassed mounds along the coast and lit all the oil lamps, hoping if you came later that night they would be a beacon for you. I'd taken sick leave, which would run out soon, plus they knew I wasn't sick, and most likely on a paid vacation, very clever I thought. And when that ran out maybe maternity leave, I was so far by then how were they to know. I wasn't actually going back to my job. But anyway.

The next day I went into the village to see you. Just on the computer, but it was enough to satisfy me. There were girls being fisted, a huge black man came on the face of a writhing young asian girl, who was tied to a chair. The money shot onto the chest of a latino in a french maids outfit. Classic. I missed you terribly, but seeing you there was sweet. I wrote in my blog how nice the seaside was here, though the skies were grey most days and the wind blew ferociously. I knew I couldn't just tell you come, you'd have to want to be here, and so I posted on facebook, and made sure to twitter so you knew I was still out here somewhere.

Then I went to the pub. There were a lot of men in the village, a disproportionate amount, but I wasn't interested. I would mention all the funny things you'd said, I'd make in-jokes, ones only you and I would get. I would pity them for not understanding us.They would buy me G and Ts and I would wait just long enough, then mention there was someone else. Not here, I would say, not yet.

But then one man laughed when I didn't expect him to, and joked with me in that oddly familiar way. We got along, it wasn't a betrayal, I thought only of you. He said he lived in a different town but came here for the beach. He offered to take me back to his place, I'm so sorry darling, but listen. I left with him. He had only one helmet for his old yellow scooter so I sat behind him with my hair whipping against the wind as we roared along the cliff-side. The moon was out, and the sea shone and we rode along for what seemed like hours. I thought we'd got to Scotland, and that I was done for, but actually I was asleep and he carried me to his flat.

When I woke up there you were. I was on a short couch in what looked like a living room and he was on the computer just staring at you. I couldn't believe it. He said good morning. I asked where I was and he told me. Apparently he'd felt me asleep just before we reached home, and hadn't wanted to wake me so he took me upstairs and let me sleep on the couch. He'd said since I didn't sleep with him, he didn't feel bad about putting me on the couch instead of his bed. I said he could have made it worse for me. He went to make us coffee and I clambered into the office chair in front of you and smiled. I asked if he minded if I used his computer and then made sure to let you know I was alive and had stayed faithful to you. I quickly searched xtube while he was in the the other room. Went on 4chan, twittered a few times and posted a video of some pug dog puppies on facebook.


That's all for now. Later Blog!

In the defense of staying at home.

It's been really difficult for me to leave the house, recently. Usually there's a school I volunteer at once a week, helping kids learn to read. I like it, but this week I couldn't get myself out of bed. For anything. Usually there's SOMETHING I want to do. I hate having to do things, but I always WANT to do things, and that's usually enough. And when I finally get up, at about twelve-ish, I rarely leave my house, unless it's to water my garden, which is down the stairs against the big brick wall of my neighbors garage. It's been great weather recently and I love standing with the bees in my back yard.

I'd been thinking about how to get ready for uni next year, and all the things I'd planned on doing. I was walking around the house in the shirt I made yesterday (love it) with a bow-tie around my ankle. I'd just learnt to tie bow-ties, simply because I had a diagram and a bow-tie in the same room, inexplicably. I made myself a cup of tea, pulled a book I've been meaning to start out then went and sat in the sun-room. I'd read a page, then stood up on a whim, switched my cup of tea for a glass of water and went downstairs to my garden. Then I walked up an down my drive, checked the mail. Then went back upstairs to the array of enjoyable possibilities I'd laid out for myself. Read the mail, write someone, read my book, finish my tea, attend to my beautiful garden, get changed again (a hobby), start dinner, pick flowers, or lounge. Each opportunity bled into the next and I felt warm and relaxed knowing there was nothing for me to do that I didn't want to and nothing that could ruin anything else for me. It was perfect.

I've spent so much of my life on a razors edge. I love chaos and anxiety, they fuel me, and I could get nothing done without them BUT I have nothing to be stressed about with nothing to do, and it's been causing me endless frustration. Until today.

I went to the Temple of Dionysus in Greece. Usually I hate tourist attractions, or anything attractive. But Ancient Greece is the shit. And sexy as hell. And the Pergamon in Berlin was a total Ancient Greece turn-on, featuring a Dionysus exhibition. Turns out the whole of modern theatre is thanks to Dionysus and anybody who believed they could win his favour via the theatre and wine. And loose women and everything I like and nothing I hate. So out of respect to the only deity I would blow (maybe Neptune, but he'd be huge), I went to check it out.

Sorry about that, it was leading somewhere. The point was I learnt a lot about decadence and indulgence from Dionysus, but in the last month I'd pushed it aside in favour of more pressing concerns. And now when I needed it most back came my inspiration and I spent the afternoon worshipping Dionysus (and myself).

Okay alrighty bye-bye.



Oh! And: http://www.perfectstars.com/comic.php?date=2006-05-01 this is my favourite thing of today.

So I've recently been struck by an overwhelming ennui. I'm not gonna lie, it's pretty damn constant. I find I can only do things when forced, and even then reluctantly. This means when I actually feel like doing things I try not to inhibit myself just in case I don't feel like doing anything after that. So out of nowhere this afternoon (co-incidentally also when I got out of bed) I was really interested in making a shirt. I can sew reasonably well and have a surplus of old clothes to Frankenstein (not a verb, but it will be) and had already given up on the eight or nine important things I could have done instead.

So I made a shirt. I don't feel any better for it. But it is a thing I did.

Go me.

I tried to write somethign about Bambi but then I got pissed off and had to do something else.

Every post I write I delete. I'm just going to copy and paste something about shiitake mushrooms. Also, on a completely unrelated topic, overcompensating.com continues to be hilarious. Letting it Achewood in my favour.

Lentinula edodes, commonly known as the Shiitake, is an edible mushroom native to East Asia, which is cultivated and consumed in many Asian countries, as well as being dried and exported to many countries around the world. It is a feature of many Asian cuisines including Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai. In the East, the Shiitake mushroom has long been considered a delicacy as well as a medicinal mushroom.^[1]

Plastivore

I think I might have an emotional manipulation problem. It's not a big deal, I'm not very subtle, and everyone eventually notices and gives me a wide berth in response.

Whenever I see a friend, a little something in me dies.

"What to do with a surplus of hippos". There are forty hippos at the zoo in Israel. Do you need/want a hippo? Write to Israel.

I'm still trying to overcome this paragraphing problem. Let's see if I can write a paragraph about something now...

Having previously failed a second attempt to write more than two coherent sentences about anything at all, our hero leaps bravely into a third, though falls short, managing to only write a four-part sentence of self-indulgent blather.

Someone quoted Gore Vidal on the radio this morning "Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies". This is something I find it very hard to acknowledge myself. I have very few friends that at our age I could consider "successes". Few child prodigies, fewer happy, averagely accomplished people. Almost all my friends are intelligent creative people. Most people say this. I think you can only see as far on either side of you as the horizon. We can see further due to media sources, etc. But regardless I see my friends as being some fantastic people, and yet mostly unaccomplished. University toppled a few, employment more than a couple more of us could handle. Are we published? Have we found our callings? Unlikely. Unless retail is the new travel writing or slam poetry.

There are two options here. I prefer to think I'm learning, laying in wait for the opportunity when I can push back with all of my intellectual weight and do something significant. In the opposite corner maybe success is a lot harder now we all start from a higher place. Gore Vidal was born into a relatively privileged position. So was I. So was almost everyone I know. I also experience very little of what is know as "envy". I am always deliriously happy to see my friends success, and distraught when they fail. This seems like a lie, but I assure you any major changes in my friends lives is a big deal. And rare. Maybe now I should requote as "Whenever I see a friend, a little something in me dies" (I'm making that my title, by the way). I am so sick of this relative stability and more sick still of seeing it everytime I meet a friend, or talk to them on the phone. Having that reflected back at me is more depressing than if I were the only one of my friends going nowhere.

Here is an example: I just returned from just under four months traveling alone, mostly in Europe. Occasionally with people. There is an observable group that consider this a triumph. The over thirties. Almost everyone else has discovered how easy the world has become with any little sum of money. I personally see my travels with some disdain. It was almost stupidly easy and I am slightly ashamed when someone congratulates me on getting it done. But most of my friends are loath to travel for this same reason, having known almost in advance how almost everything will play out. In the seventies travel was an adventure, now it's a few facebook posts no-one comments on.

I hope for a change. I wish people could see now the actual struggle my generation faces. That is the challenge of seperating ourselves from the computer, the TV, our iPods and mobile phones and facing the world head on. Touching the earth, making things grow, meeting people well outside our social sphere, knowing what things are for us, not what they were for others.


I think that's all, I have to go check a cake I'm baking. I'm having an aunt an uncle for high tea. I will tell you about them later.

white.suit

Anything but the Sport Report, really.

I love the radio. I have the radio on 621 just about all day. It used to be maddening, hearing hundred of other peoples voices over my life. But now there's a little pocket of my mind that switches on with the radio, and knows and loves those voices, and really hears what's playing when I'm trying to do something else. That part of my brain is a go-between for a lot of important information. I trust it to know what I need to know. There's very little reason it would want to subvert me. I'm a benevolent giant nursing it. Mother waiting for it to return home from school.

"How was your day?"

"Well, a freighter sunk off the coast of Australia, past the Coco Islands, a Melbourne man has been charged with beating his wife to death twenty years ago..."

'That's nice, dear."

Starting somewhere.

This is my third or fourth blog. I'd like to say I'd learnt something in my time in the internet, but it wouldn't be true.

This is to keep me actively writing until I start my degree, in case I might ever forget how. Sometimes I catch myself writing in sentences then pressing enter, instant message style. I can barely write a paragraph now. This will all change.

To start I'll have no maximum posts. And will post whatever I feel like, regardless of relevance. I'll also say a lot of things that aren't true. It helps me think. It might be confusing to you, but who are you to me? And I'll post SOMETHING every day. Unless I really can't. But I don't see that happening often. (Though I'm crossing my fingers it does).

white.suit