Final Furlong

6 days of excellent times. Cakes, food, Dali, Brack, NICA, art, shops... It was very good.

I got a new book today: The Plastic Mind by Sharon Begley.

+ planted seedling I obtained from home show.
+ glued magnet back to figure.
+ started making a congratulations card for Janet's new baby.
+ Stirred up more dust as I rifled through a stack of papers looking for something. No sneezes yet.
+ Dusted computers.
+ painted new letters onto the keyboard (worn off).
+ Sorted sewing kit and rationalised 3 boxes into one.
+ Found Ex Libris stamp and tested on a book.
+ Considered 2 books in Avid: Neuroplasticity and Fun sock puppets.
+ Listened to Sufjan Stevens - Michigan thrice.
+ Watched Bellman's provost video.
+ COnsidered statement I read somewhere that "organisation" is an ongoing project. Heaved large sigh.
+ Finished braiding a bookmark that has been in sewing kit for last 5 years.
+ Cleaned out a drawer, found some super glue and old coins. Also found large kit of coloured pencils. And a Metrosexual collage that I had started. The age of the metrosexual now being over, I guess I'll convert the card to something else.

My workplace told me I had to have a holiday. Too much leave balance.

So yesterday was my first day off. It has been flying past already. I've found that it is quickly filling up with numerous little tasks that often get put aside to allow me to socialise, eat, sleep and get things ready for work.

So here's a sampler of things I've done in the past 2 days:

+ beaded 2 necklaces and a pair of earrings.
+ finished painting a ceramic unicorn I actually commenced around 1994 in high school... and glued his horn and leg back on.
+ sorted out my various jewel boxes so that all the bangles are together, necklaces together etc etc... dusty work. Got the sneezes.
+ darned a tea towel. (oh yeah, fun...)
+ arranged my china horses in the new old cabinet that Adam got me. Again, lots of dust as I unwrapped from newspaper.
+ arranged my good wine glasses into the cabinet.
+ sorted through keys and discarded the ones that don't open anything any more.
+ got a new cabin bag, regulated size and all, for $15 from LuggageDirect.
+ dusted some shelves. Sneezes.
+ Attended to mum's email asking me to tell one of her friends how to use RedBubble.
+ Wrote a service email to RedBubble about a bug.
+ Dyed my hair.
+ Unpacked the camphor chest (winter clothes) more sneezing.
+ washed two loads, shook out the lint - more sneezing.
+ breakfast with Tom, coffee with Steve
+ listened to 2 CDs that I had bought months ago
+ glued a broken earring
+ sorted my cupboards (more dust)
+ tended to a bloody nose from blowing nose too much
+ made a lemon cake (some of the best icing eva!!)
+ made a freezer inventory (oh the excitement, make it stop)
+ sent an entry off to the photo thing in the Courier Mail magazine

So I head off to Melbourne 25-30 June.

My school friend had a baby today.

Tom's book is published at last. Word is he got invited to the Brisbane Writers Festival, is that exciting or what!

Other news... people who got back together, people who are splitting up and moving away, people who had moved away who came back to Brisbane, people with medical probs, people who got loan approvals, people who bought a computer and planned to sell it 3 days later... It's been a very busy 2 days.

but not creative...

and Canon is running a pixma comp, due 28 June. Compose 2 scrapbook pages... Also out of creative.

creative cat run out of creative.

*sigh*

I'm determined
to make it out of here alive

I was disappointed by this. I am interested to know how knock off varieties measure up against the original, in this case Cadbury's Top Deck. There is a slight waxiness to the chocolate, but surprisingly it is less sugary than Cadbury's.

In news of other knock offs, Krispy Kreme have lost the fight to call their doughnut "Iced Dough Vo" due to the lawsuit by Arnotts.

Compared to the price of Cadburys, why would you bother buying this?

while waiting for my 7pm appointment.

Roisin Murphy - overpowered
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Sufjan Stevens - Illinois
Sufjan Stevens - Michigan

...and suddenly I am interested in Michigan and wonder whether I should spend a month there.

So a big weekend involving German films. Pool. Karaoke. Pancake Manor. Such an institution the Pancake Manor.

A friend emailed me about some theory to do with entities only being relevant if there are 20 other entities that feed off it.

I have spent so much time in the last few months being angry, withdrawing, denying contact, that if I _had_ 20 entities that fed off me, they have now found new sources for what they need. I have become quite obsolete.

I think if I moved now, interstate, then it could be done with a minimum of fuss. Indeed, I wonder if I could quite easily slip away and begin some time well and truly alone. I am quite into familiarity so it would be a challenge.

But perhaps, a month or two of manual labour a la farm stay, would really be where I need to begin again.

Only some of us are afflicted with that perversity that gleans a smug joy when another patron is caught moving seats at the cinema.

Brisbane has caught on, like wildfire, to the 'effectiveness' of allocated seating. All it means to me is that I can't really 'choose' where to sit (unless I begin making notes on cinema numbers and seat numbers in a small book carried close to my breast). I mean really... it means nothing to my spatial awareness to view a pictogram on an LCD and it doesn't account for screen size for that particular cinema. So as I said, a book for writing down each cinema I have been to and the best seats accordingly. Can I also comment here about how patrons umm and ahh when presented with the choice? Or how they say they don't care, yet make objections when the clerk says "Ok, how about somewhere near the front?"

I have been at the German Film Festival this week. My first film was Wim Wender's new feature, "Palermo Shooting" which I enjoyed in a very shallow way. I mean, Campino, the lead actor, is a well chiselled, tattooed, handsome man and I forgive him for going to the Keanu Reeves facial expression school. Its not that it is even a problem, afterall we are talking about a character who has always lived a well defined life. He is a celebrated commercial artist, people seek him out, anonymous women have sex with him simply because he looks at them and winks, he gets an idea and no one turns him down. He doesn't have to have to have any facial expressions for angst, disappointment, deviousness... Anyway, do we know that death is a friend (those following the Sandman comics will) and that Death is a woman? Also, Death does not approve of taking her photos without prior consent. Death has a soft spot for love, so if you fall in love just before you are due to die it can be a strong argument to stay on Earth a while longer.

In Palmero Shooting, I was subjected to the couple sitting next to me ejaculating disbeliving sighs and grunts. Then the man took off his shoes and stank the whole row out.

In Effi Briest I was lucky to be late and was told to sit anywhere - unfortunately that meant in the second row to the side, so the whole movie was filled with women in period dress having wider faces than they ought to and only on one side. Effi Briest was a delight. I didn't know the story prior to this film, but now it seems to be a Penguin classic I will have to locate. For those in the unknow, Effi Briest, along with Madame Bovary and Anna Karenina, is about a stifling 19thC marriage from the woman's point of view and deals with the negative consequences of adultery. However, in the novel, Effi finally returns to the family home and dies in peace. The film effectively gives the forks to the parents and to Instetten (her husband) and Effi presumably continues her job as a librarian and lives in an apartment by herself.

I was not so lucky in Hilde. Hilde itself is a wonderful, lively biopic about Hildegard Knef, which brought me to tears in the war scenes. Hilde begins her acting training as a teenager in Nazi Germany, spends time in Hollywood getting nowhere, enters Broadway with some success and then returns to a reunified Germany to be a singer. I saw a woman chastised for taking the wrong seat. I myself was sandwiched between people, making escape awkward. The woman next to me had extraordinarily bad breath - each time she sighed it reeked. Then the shoes came off halfway through the film - a moment I could not ignore. No, there was no softly softly creeping through the night. It was a blast from a horn: SHOES ARE OFF! ACHTUNG!!!

I missed some movies that sounded interesting. One of children meeting a mysterious guy who takes them in and turns out that he is the master of evil!! and they must fight him!! Another of a love affair between a spy and interrogator.

The festival runs until Tuesday and sessions are $15 at Palace Centro, New Farm.

BM: Tenterfield is May Day w/e.

Had Cotton Candy ice cream at Baskin Robbins... IT REALLY TASTES LIKE FAIRY FLOSS!!!! Plus most amazing colour out.

Cried at work. Funz.

Saw Garnished (by La La Parlour) at the Judiith Wright Centre and it was entertaining. Their costumes are win! The soundtrack was a riot, so cheesecake. Went with Bellman. Tomorrow night will see 360 by Sydney Dance Company.

If you love contemp dance, see youtube footage of Chunky Move's "Mortal Engine".

Also dinner at Codpiece - a much better upmarket fish and chip shop than Seagrass in West End.

Regional centres of australia... prepare to be chromatikscaled.

In other news German Film Festival starts next week at Palace Centro. I wouldn't doubt that most of them will screen on SBS at some stage, but you may want to feel the vibrancy of the festival, dip in the cultural bath etc etc.

I have been eating chocolate bars without blogging them... their sad empty wrappers don't look good photographed. I feel bad.

Grouphug switched off their comments again. Haha.. trust no one to play nice. This is the internet!

I am hoping to organise (well) a Drawtism at work. www.drawtism.com.au. So far I have the game, but no location, date or cost. I can't actually organise my way out of a single door room at the moment, but oh well.

10pm... how did that happen.

Life travels on.

The last weekend I went to Toowoomba via Mt Mee, Somerset Dam, Woodford and Esk.

This weekend I will be heading up to Kenilworth.

I've swung into Couchsurfing proper and hopefully will be lending a hand to the international bonding of humans cause. I think my first visitor will be as early as the 20th of this month. Huzzah!

Photos of cats on the internet.. That is the only reason the internet was created.

Sharing university research? Transmitting important information quickly across vast distance? Irrelevant.

Meow.

Rating scale:
Don't bother
Will do in a scrape
Average <-----------------------
Better than most
Would throw good money at this product

Aside from the crunchy pie crust pieces, it was not very much like any kind of chocolate tart.

There is certainly an appealing image on the box with its shiny chocolate filling, but such visual temptation is nothing but good marketing. Not even faintly representative of the product.

I'm not a fan of the chocolate filled with chocolate, truffle, mousse or otherwise.

Rating scale:
Don't bother
Will do in a scrape
Average
Better than most <-----------------------
Would throw good money at this product

The only thing that keeps me from hunting down this chocolate ruthlessly is that the raspberry, pecan pieces et al are hardly noticeable. While the cherry in milk chocolate is my favourite out of this series and I have a great love of anything fruity, it is the chocolate itself which wins.

It is such a smooth chocolate, and more than that, such a very solid, meaty chocolate, that it is almost a meal.

People are continually sourcing chocolate bars for me... Alas, they are overwhelming. I still have 20+ in the pantry to be photographed, eaten and reviewed.

about her trip:

8 Feb - We are at that rainforest cafe that we went to in Mt Tamborine. It is nice & cool listening to the water. Gaye is fiddling with her camera.

9 Feb - We went under a waterfall! & got wet. I saw the glowing mushrooms last night & it was very exciting. Now I am buggered. It is cold at night. How are you?

12 Feb - It is pissing down here at the Dandabah picnic grounds Bunya Mountains. I see Bunya trees all around me. They are very beautiful. Gaye and I are still alive.

Rating scale:
Don't bother
Will do in a scrape
Average
Better than most <-----------------------
Would throw good money at this product

This Swiss confection is somewhat like a Lindor but with a light, whipped truffle centre. Each piece is generously large and a nice round dome. Very pleasing in proportions. This one, for those who only know English, is hazelnut.

I hauled myself out of my dwelling on Friday as Amberitus promised a gift of food if I came out to meet her at Aromas. She presented me with the two kinds (the other was chocolate mousse) and asked me to select.

The chocolate itself was a creamy milk, atypical of Swiss chocolate. The sugar content was mild.

Although good enough for a 4/5 ranking, I still have found no other milk treat that tops the king of the list: Cote d'Or's caramelised almond pieces. (I'm sure I have reviewed that before).

---------------------

In this period I have tackled a book. Yes, it is true. This person who has not attempted to read more than 1 book, and not even managed just that each year, has finished a novel in the space of 4 days.

The lucky novel was The Philosopher's Apprentice by James Morrow. I am now reading Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susanna Clarke. I also combed through the Vertigo encyclopedia then digested Petrefax's 4 issues. All on this long weekend.

I was wondering whether I got so angry at books because it was circumstances set by an author which I could never alter by any deed. I remember the triggering moment that turned me off books all these years.

Here you have strong proof that I am a grudge holder. Yeehar.

I'm still withdrawn from society. This evening's outing, something I felt obligated to attend (and I did enjoy parts of it) was so trying that it convinced me that I will really benefit from more of the hermit business.

I wonder if I was ever in control of anything.

I have remembered that the point of alone time was that it allowed me the freedom to behave exactly as I pleased.

I have been claiming large chunks of alone time recently.

I like how I can get bad reactions from people, yet be able to think, "Oh well... I am too depressed to feel bad about it."

I do not get why people get cut because they have extended the hand of friendship and I have refused it. Is it wounded pride? Will you force upon me your goodwill?

I have a concentration span of 10 seconds. I have lost interest in cake. I am still 5 kilos heavier. I broke a plate today - very unusual.

Over the holidays I read: The people look like flowers at last - Bukowski.

I read one thing which makes me afraid:

Beware of women who were never anything but young.

for i am one of those.


The position I've held for a year has finally been advertised. I had a talk about it and it was clear that both my manager and I agree that I don't excel in it.

Do I:

1. grow an ego and feel it is my right to obtain that job (at least through the merit process that follows), since there are plenty of incompetents in workplaces and why should I not be one of those?

2. retire to my previous role which I did excel in, and accept the $130/fn pay cut, possibly suffering under the weight of the incoming incompetent? (yes, of course we could be lucky and someone who does well in that job could be appointed)

I have been told a number of things about myself in the last week, which is all just part of life again. Dishonest. Lacking in integrity. A succubus. Lacking in responsibility. Bland. Passive aggressive. Always on the internet. Lacking in goals. Low level.

I've felt angry. I've felt spent.