Pinball Mind

Ricochet's Random List Of Slightly Unconventional Men That She Thinks Are Tasty

2011-12-03T17:38:00.023+11:00

Disclaimer #1: The men themselves may not be unconventional but they're not dudes I routinely notice other people phwoar-ing over. I know many of these fellows have their admirers but they're usually not as vocal as the admirers of others. So here I celebrate them.

Disclaimer #2: Yes, this is a pictures instead of words post.

Disclaimer #3: Despite the use of the word 'tasty' I still respect them as unique and complex human beings. Who are tasty.

Richard E Grant

Matthew Willig

Oliver Platt

Sean Astin

Grant Imahara

Stewart Wright

Alan Rickman

Richard Ayoade

Martin Freeman

Andy Serkis

Paul McGillion

Seth Green

Peter Lindgren

Clancy Brown

Danny John Jules

OK, I'm going to stop now before Google Images takes out a restraining order against me.

Survivalicious

2011-11-27T23:39:00.009+11:00

Thanks to a friend's copious collection of DVDs, I have been watching a tonne of Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's River Cottage series.

Apart from my new-found certainty that I would like to roll about on his hair like a cat in a basket of towels*, I am also becoming more than a little obsessed with the idea of growing my own vegetables and one day having a passing acquaintance with small-scale sustainable farming.

The last time I blogged about gardening, I got super excited, hopefully not in a drunken-toff-getting-maudlin-about-the-romance-of-the-honest-peasant-carving-a-living-from-the-land fashion.

Since then I've managed to keep my parents' front and back yards in fairly good nick** but I haven't made much in the way of progress when it comes to developments or additions.

Some of this is due to having been sick and sorry for myself at the start of the year, then having been paranoid about getting sick again and feeling sorry for myself about that***, then spending a fair amount of the time I did devote to the task raking up dog hair**** and slowly sifting through the dog area.

The dog area is a fenced off portion of the yard that we sectioned off specifically to keep the dogs in when we had company that wasn't used to dogs, when we had to have the garage doors open to the outside world, or when the sheets flapping on the line begin to look too tempting to twitchy doggy brains.

We haven't been able to use the dog area for dog storage for some years now as our back fence neighbour has two tiny dogs who go out of their gourds with excitement if our dogs are that close to their shared fence and will bark until they're hoarse.

As a result the dog area has, over the course of the years, been filled up with trimmings of the lawn and shrub variety.
Tidying that out without being eaten by spiders, coming across any snakes or disturbing any cute but hissy blue-tongued lizards has been slow going but now that it's almost done I've hit a roadblock in my plans.

Given that the now non-dog area is safe from any digging or frolicking damage I had been hoping it may be perfect for growing some of those sweet sweet veg that I've been dreaming about.

Unfortunately I've since discovered that the handful of large Ironbarks growing in the area excrete a jerky selfish chemical that suppresses the growth of anything else in their vicinity.

Fortunately I discovered this before I'd dug out a bed, lavishly fertilised it and started sowing seeds.

So now the challenge is twofold: secure an area of the yard with some kind of futuristic fencing technology and manage to grow something within those confines.

We have an empty garden bed in prime position with lots of sunshine and a modest amount of space for a starter patch and that is where I am fixing my sights, my completely-inexperienced-at-either-building-fences-or-planting-things-that-then-continue-to-live sights.

I think the fence building montage is likely to involve me, some wooden posts, a mallet, some pliers, some chicken wire, a lot of sweat and dirt and will probably be accompanied with a banjo soundtrack that highlights the level of skill and grace with which I will accomplish this task.

Loosening the soil, testing its pH, and digging in the fertiliser and mulch shouldn't be too technical but I'm sure I'll manage to overcomplicate it in my earnest fashion.

And all the way through this planning process the recurring thoughts that keeps bouncing up in my brain are:

These will be useful skills to have when the zombies rise.
Never hurts to know how to use a mallet and stake in case of vampires.
Hugh would be a handy person to know during either apocalypse because he can grow his own food, preserve it, joint his own meat, brew his own booze and I think he'd go at an attacker with a hammer if he had to.

I'm trying to think serious thoughts about nutrients and environmentally friendly bug-deterrents and water schedules but I just keep coming back to how the ability to build fences to keep zombies out and the ability to grow food to feed myself and the band of survivors I fetch up with will be useful and marketable skills.

And how having a bit of practice swinging a mallet and driving a stake into things will not hurt in the event I ever have to waste any vampires.

I guess I should start looking into the shelf-life of seeds and the feasibility of stockpiling them as I don't want to leave it to chance that I'll be able to learn how to collect and preserve my own seeds before The Rising.

I reckon the stakes will stay fresh so I can just pop some of those aside.

In amongst all this secondary planning I hope I manage to remember to plant the vegetables...

*Not in a pervy way, just a purely platonic frolic in his bountiful curls.

**I don't have a garden at the flat and Mum and Dad are more than happy to let me go nuts in theirs.

***I actually didn't spend that much time feeling sorry for myself, it just mysteriously reared its head when I thought about gardening.

****Good GRAVY, Labradors! Where does it all COME from!?

Farewell Sweetheart

2011-11-22T17:19:00.010+11:00

Yesterday we had to say goodbye to my beautiful cat Pickles.

He was 14 years old, he'd had a good long life and he'd just gotten to a point where an age-related health issue went from making him a bit weak and wobbly to seriously impacting on his quality of life.

It was really hard to let him go but it would have been selfish and wrong of us not to give him that peace.

It's going to take a long time for me to get used to the fact he isn't here any more, he's been with me for exactly half of my life and was such a wonderful companion and friend and such a nutter.

He would perch on your shoulder like a parrot and happily sit there all day whilst you walked around doing other things.
If you bent over to put something down or pick something up he would scoot down to lie in the small of your back whilst you were hunched over and would refuse to get off when you tried to stand up again.

He would chase a torch light across the floor and up walls all evening if you let him, only stopping to regain his balance and shoot you a dirty look when he remembered that you were in charge of the maddeningly erratic moving spot.

He would scramble up ladders and loudly proclaim dominion over all he could see from up there. When he scrambled up onto clothes horses he didn't have time to proclaim dominion as he was busy trying to spread his weight out so the whole thing wouldn't tip over.

He would let you hug him like a teddy bear when you were feeling down and the moment you were feeling better he would wash your nose until you let him go so he could reclaim his feline dignity.

He had the loudest purr I have ever heard and he would lie on your chest purring so hard that if you breathed in at the right time it felt like he was purring right into your heart.

If you couldn't find him it was a good bet that he had somehow wormed his way into the linen closet and was industriously shedding hair all over everything during a luxurious nap. No matter how you tried to secure the closet door he managed to wiggle it open, his skills as a door opener applying equally to sliding doors and clasp doors. He had a good try at turn-handle doors but eventually after years of danging from doorknobs by his front paws, he conceded defeat.

If you gave him a cardboard box he would be happy for months. He'd jump on top of it. Fall off it. Roll past it. Scoot around inside it. Disembowel it. Attack people and other pets from within it. And eventually when you took it away because it was falling apart, he would sit where it had been and stare at you until you found him another one.

Goodbye Pickles, I'll miss you.

1998 - 2011

The Joyful Reunion

2011-11-12T13:04:00.006+11:00

In the glory days of my library visits when I almost lived there, I one day found an audiobook version of The Long Dark Tea-time Of The Soul by Douglas Adams READ by Douglas Adams.

It took some blinking and some reordering of brain cells to fully appreciate this amazing fact.

A book read by the author who wrote it, in the fashion they intended it to be received.

I borrowed it.

I listened to it.

I fell in love with it.

Douglas Adams' excitable and energetic delivery was eternally engaging*.

I borrowed it over and over again until the cassettes were so badly damaged by the dodgier cassette players of the other people who occasionally managed to borrow them, that the library had to retire them.

Then for years that was it.

I was neither old enough nor internet savvy enough to go searching for them online**, they were no longer available in the stores and I had no other avenues of pursuit.

In recent years I tried the stores again with no result, tried the online retailers for the first time and found the only version readily available was being sold for over $100 and seemed to be a copy that somebody had made from recording their own set of cassettes onto blank CDs which they were the selling online.

I gave up.

And then the other day my brother found not only Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul but also Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency online and downloaded them for me.

For this he was elevated to the rank of Best Brother! Favourite Brother! Amazing Brother!***

For me listening to that audiobook is like stepping into the past. Into quiet hours after midnight when the only person awake was me, listening with the volume turned down low, eating bowls of air-popped popcorn because the smell of hot oil popped popcorn would have woken everyone up.

It gives me a wonderful sense of calm and deja vu.

Listening to it again for the first time in years made me feel wonderfully happy but also somewhat guilty.

I'm not that into downloading things from the internets.
I don't mind watching something once if I've missed it on TV or in order to decide whether I like it or not but if I do like it then I want to own it.
I like to pay money for the things I like and to own them properly in lovely complete formats.

Now as hard as I tried when it came to Douglas Adams and his marvellous reading voice, I couldn't make this a reality, I could not find a legitimate copy anywhere. So I made peace with this by making a donation to Save the Rhino which I'm sure Douglas would have been happy with. I don't know who is in charge of his estate these days but given his passion for conservation I think he'd agree that his executor/heir could do without the royalties if it meant helping rhinos****.

And now with my conscience soothed I can get back to listening to this wonderful, weird man rambling gloriously, letting the chaos of his brain spill out into the world, and regretting all the things he never had time to write but being grateful for the things he did have time to give us.

*Whee! Alliteration!

**Many of the online retailers we rely on today may not have existed or at least existed in their current efficient incarnation at that stage anyway.

***Heh, he's my only brother.

****I would find it wonderfully amusing if the benefactors of his estate were wildlife charities in any case.

The Imagination Imbalance

2011-11-06T14:00:00.006+11:00

I've never been afraid of thunderstorms.

As children my siblings and I would sit at the window and watch violent electrical storms tear the sky apart with blinding spidery fingers of light and covered our ears to dampen the inevitable deafening thunderclaps that would follow.
When we could hear again we'd give measured and considered scores out of 10 for each display before shrieking with delight at the next one.

I would imagine what our neighbourhood would look like if enough rain fell to turn the streets into canals and allow us to travel about in dinghies, kayaks and speed boats instead of cars and of course we would act this scenario out for whole days at a time.

One day we were running around playing 'what we would do if everything was flooded' and some well-meaning adult decided to give us a firm but kind talk on the realities of flooding - the property destroyed, lives lost, lives ruined - and ask us if maybe we weren't being a bit insensitive?

We stared at them, stared at each other and ran off to keep playing but the fun had been taken out of the game for that day.

The thing is, now that I'm older I know that having water up to your ceiling would not be great for the neighbourhood but we weren't earnestly suggesting it should happen, random Reality McBuzzkillington!

Why not point out to me that the carpet is not really lava and that if a volcano really did erupt, those of us not killed by the superheated cloud of poisonous gases would probably be asphyxiated by the falling ash?

Why not run up to the kids playing sword fights and explain to them that being stabbed with a sword would really not be all that great? Or that the person you say can't stab you any more because their arm has 'fallen off' probably has leprosy and how gross real leprosy would be?

Kids use play to interact with each other, to learn to understand the world and to develop the parts of their brains that will eventually help them to imagine the lives of other people in an empathetic and responsible fashion.

Don't tell them it isn't cool to pretend you've just disemboweled somebody; they're not desensitised to disembowelling, they're just mucking around.

There are some exceptions to this thinking.
For instance, I can see how people in a community who actually have regular access to guns and who treat these weapons with caution and respect would discourage letting kids 'shoot' each other just in case they ever got hold of a real gun and didn't realise that when they shot their friends with that gun they wouldn't be getting up to swap places.

But the kids that pretend that their towns are flooded aren't going to go bust the dam for funsies.

The kids who pretend to chop off people's heads aren't going to start a skull collection.

The kids who pretend to be monsters who are eating you aren't going to become cannibals.

Just let the little nutters play, age brings context but youth is for imagination.

The Whole Package

2011-10-30T17:32:00.013+11:00

Following on vaguely from last week's themes of marriage and equality, today I would like to talk about why I believe Rick O'Connell and Evelyn Carnahan (later Carnahan O'Connell*) from The Mummy and The Mummy Returns** are cinema's most perfect couple***.

I'll start off by admitting that I love these movies so I might be a bit biased. I essentially wrote every single one of my university essays with these two movies on a constant loop in the background to keep me from flipping out or leaving the room.
But despite my almost Stockholm Syndrome level of regard for them as entertainment, I maintain that the points I am about to make stand on their own.

Why Rick O'Connell And Evelyn Carnahan/Carnahan O'Connell Are Cinema's Most Perfect Couple by Ricochet, age 28

They're Not Perfect And They Get To Stay That Way.
When we meet Rick and Evie, Rick is a jaded and disillusioned soldier who doesn't have the best of luck and Evie despite her academic achievements hasn't achieved much success or regard and is somewhat unworldly. This is a fairly normal introduction to people involved in a romantic movie storyline but what isn't entirely normal is their continuing characterisation. They each have their own areas of knowledge, skill, insecurity and ignorance that form their personalities and their relationship isn't shown to artificially fix or negate these the way a lot of movie relationships seem to. They get to keep their imperfections as well as their strengths and therefore get to keep their personalities. They're not 'fixed' now that they're in a relationship, they're just in a relationship.
They Are Self-possessed Enough To Stand By Their Own Convictions And Don't Back Down Or Defer To Each Other During Arguments.
They don't always agree and when they disagree they do so vocally and confidently. There's no hushing up to avoid trouble or condescending false agreements, they stick to their guns. For the purposes of the movie this was done for drama and comedic effect but in terms of a relationship it is a healthy airing of emotions and shows that they are individuals who are determined to have their say. There is compromise and sometimes they agree to follow one person's suggestion rather than the other but there's none of the simpering or suppressed fuming that is usually put forward as normal in heterosexual relationships.

They Aren't Afraid To Show Fear, Vulnerability Or Doubt In Front Of Each Other.
When things are going completely bonkers-nuts-bad, Rick feels free to look completely terrified and admit that he has no idea if they're going to live, there's no putting on a false front of bravado in order to impress anyone. When their son is in danger the second movie they both show a completely understandable level of fear and concern. This allows an emotional honesty and a deep connection that gives them the opportunity to support each other. When Rick grieves in The Mummy Returns it feels very natural and honest.
They Respect Each Others' Individual Strengths And Don't Harp On At Each Other About Individual Failings.
Rick is good at general jumping around, heavy lifting, navigation, reading situations and getting them out of tough spots. Evie is good at translating, problem solving, archaeology, thinking under pressure and prioritising. They're both good at other things but I'm having a nice lazy generalise here. The point is that they each play to their strengths and don't start yelling at each other when the other person doesn't share the same level of competency in every situation. They complement each other and in The Mummy Returns we get to see that they have managed to build a life together that allows them both to do what they're best at, neither of them having to give that up in order to allow the other partner to follow their interests.
They Maintain A Passionate And Romantic Love For Each Other Even After Years Of Marriage And Raising A Child.
One 'trick' I really despise in movies is the '1st movie has a happy ending, 2nd movie opens up with bickering and recriminations and over the course of the 2nd movie they learn to love each other again' ploy. It's annoying, it feels lazy and it teaches kids that no matter how much you love a person, you'll eventually end up screeching at and belittling each other. They didn't pull that trick with The Mummy Returns and I will always love them for it. After at least 10 years of marriage Rick and Evie still love each other and still treat each other as individuals. They don't swap between being people who are in love to parents when they interact with their child, they are those same people who just happen to be parents. It's the most hope-inspiring depiction of having a relationship and a family and still getting to have a distinct identity that I have seen in mainstream cinema.
True getting to have athletic battles with intruders/aggressors interspersed with public and genuine declarations of affection add a bit of spice and aren't everyone's experience (except in The Incredibles, also a great movie) but their dynamic remains good.
They're Ready To Risk Everything To Save And Protect Each Other And Their Family.
Rick and Evie have their priorities all sorted out. They travel, they have work they love, they have an insanely nice house and a slightly annoying precocious son. And when someone tries to threaten their family, they don't give a damn that their nice house has been shot to shit, they drop everything and they rally together to protect their loved ones.
They Don't Selfishly Protect Their Knowledge/Specialities.
In The Mummy Returns we get to see Evie kicking fairly impressive amounts of ass and wielding a sword in a fairly competent fashion because Rick cares enough about her to teach her how to defend herself. We get to see Rick involved in and more knowledgeable about Egyptian lore, history and archaeology because Evie has shared her passion with him. Instead of keeping their strengths to themselves so that they have 'one thing that they're good at that the other person needs them for' (something that can unfortunately be seen in far too many real life relationships), they offer their skills and knowledge to each other in order to expand each others' experience and capabilities.
They're Able To Function Separately And Confidently Without Each Other When They Need To.
When they have to split up to get things done they do, no questions asked. They don't shilly-shally, there's no screaming or wailing or hesitating. They aren't co-dependent and that is something that is rarely explicitly demonstrated. Even though they ultimately are trying to reunite, they aren't scrambling to get back together because they are freaking out or can't manage without each other which seems to be the case with many action or action/comedy or even romantic/comedy couples.
They Love Each Other.
This might seem a fairly 'well duh' thing to say but the amount of movie couples who only seem to get together as wish fulfilment for the audience, whose only points of compatibility are artificially created by the crisis they've endured together are the ones who end up bickering in the sequel. Rick and Evie have inherent similarities and compatibilities that are demonstrated before they met and which are brought out during their shared crisis. And once the crisis is gone, they still love each other. I mean look at them!
Who rubs their nose on somebody else's nose if they don't love them!?
Nobody that's who.

I rest my case!

*See? Even Evie kept her original surname in her name after marriage!

**I don't include The Mummy: Tomb of the Dragon Emperor because I have thus far refused to watch it. No Rachel Weisz, no my eyeballs. You're probably lovely, Maria Bello, but you are not Evie!

***In the category of movies that I've seen and can remember right now at this very minute.

What's In A Name?

2011-10-23T11:02:00.006+11:00

One of my friends got married last year and much to my surprise, she changed her name.

She's a fairly independent person, her family is very important to her and after her father died she made a big point of commemorating their shared history.

As a result, I was not expecting her to be the kind of person who would giddily start referring to herself as 'Mrs [My Husband's Name]'.

Now another friend in our circle is engaged and is planning to change her name as well.

I have trouble wrapping my brain around the whole thing.

My name is... my name.

It's part of who I am.

I've never really thought about getting rid of it and the fact that other people are so comfortable with doing so confuses me.

I know it's traditional and a lot of people say it's 'easier' but still, unless I was marrying someone with a super awesome surname like Wartooth* I don't think I could do it. And even then I think it would be an addition and not a substitution.

There are all sorts of arguments that usually get trotted out at this point about "If you hyphenate your surnames then what is the next generation supposed to do? How long do you want these names to get?"
At least two women I know who are in long term de facto relationships that have produced children have kept their own surnames** but all their children share surnames with the fathers, not their mothers.

Though it may be unfair, to me that sort of thing always smacks of appeasement.

"Of course they're your children! See? They have your surname!"

"Look! We have children together and they have your surname! They're like little yous! Please don't leave us..."

"I know how you like to own things and now it's like you have your own franchise..."

What with DNA testing it's no longer necessary to use surnames to denote who put what into whom and what the result was and having the kids share the father's surname alone really feels like a matter of possession.

If the children shared the mother's surname alone it would also feel a bit odd as the children are no more just a product of their mother than they are just a product of their father***.

If a same-sex couple get married and adopt a child or give birth to a child, people would acknowledge that a decision would have to be reached that was acceptable to both spouses/parents****. Why do people find it so hard to apply this recognition of individual identity to hetero couples?

There has to be some kind of sensible solution. Or even multiple sensible solutions.

I know stepping away from the 'tradition' means having to think a bit harder about things and have - what might be for some couples - some rather involved and fraught discussions but there are plenty of options:

both keeping your own names with no alterations
one or both of you adding an extra surname either in front of or behind your own
adopting a shared hyphenated surname
making a composite surname from components of both or your originals surnames
making up a badass new surname that has nothing in common with either of your previous surnames

If you choose to take your spouse's name because your own family was an abusive or neglectful train wreck and you want nothing more to do with the name, go nuts.

If your parents named you something cruel and unusual that turns your full name into a little sentence that has made your life hell, I can definitely understand you wanting to change your name*****.

But don't change it just because your spouse's parents/grandparents/family biographer will crack the shits if you don't or because you're worried about people looking at you askance.

We don't accept bullying as acceptable when it comes to partaking in or abstaining from controlled substances, engaging in sexual acts or whether or not to become a parent; why should it be allowed or seen as appropriate when it comes to something as important as your identity?

Catherine Deveny wrote several newspaper articles and a blog post on this topic and when I brought the subject up at work I was actually rather shocked at how conservative most of my female coworkers were, either believing that a woman should change her name 'just because' or using the 'it's just easier' explanation that has Catherine knocking her head against the wall.

I'm sure some people like the idea of changing their name and as long as they're doing it for reasons that they're happy with then that's their choice and right but the whole practice will always weird me out a bit.

*That was just an example, I'm not really thinking about marrying a fictional cartoon character. Toki and I would be totally incompatible.

**It was three but one of the women mentioned got married, took her husband's name and now has the same surname as her children.

***I also know some men are a little paranoid about their likelihood of getting custody or visitation rights after a marital/relationship split and that this option would only exacerbate that anxiety.

****Well, those people who accept the validity of same-sex relationships and/or the existence of same-sex sexual attraction...

*****In any of these circumstances, you could have changed it by deed poll of course but a lot of people don't seem to consider that.

Out Of Toner!

2011-10-16T13:07:00.005+11:00

Imagine...

Imagine that we found out that there was going to be a cataclysmic EMP* event, that every computer and electronic device on Earth would stop working at the same time.

Imagine the panic as we realised exactly how much of our information is stored in exclusively electronic mediums.

Imagine the logistics. No really, think about it.

If we knew we only had a finite time before all that information was lost to us forever how would we handle it?

Scientific and educational facilities would obviously start printing at a rate of knots.

The production and delivery of ink and toner cartridges and paper would be prioritised and possibly would require the use of armoured cars.

Government branches and public services would draft all their people into collating and stacking and waving fans at overheating printers.

Would it get to the point where they started commandeering or contracting civilian printers?

Would civilian businesses cooperate?

What about professional publishing houses? Those best set up to print large amounts of material in an efficient fashion.

Would they accept priority jobs from universities and the like?

Or would they be grimly printing as many of the classics and as many new novels and non-fiction resources as possible before technology is knocked back to the industrial age?

Would there be riots in book stores?

Would libraries be at risk?

Does anybody still know how to construct a reference card system on the dewey decimal system?

Would there be time for the companies that still print camera film to go completely buck wild seeing as digital cameras would soon be nothing more than inefficient paperweights?

What would we do?

*Electromagnetic pulse

Fertility Conspiracy

2011-10-08T19:32:00.005+11:00

Facebook, I understand that you data mine us and then try to sell us things.

That's practically a given.

But either you're really bad at targeted ads, or you're a complete bastard.

I mean, I was cross enough at the WiiFit when it started flinging thinly veiled insults my way but this?

OK, so my Facebook profile says that I enjoy certain kinds of music, so you put ads for different bands and related items on my sidebar.

My profile says I'm a certain age so you make other assumptions from that and mix in a few other ads about 80s cartoons and band reunions.

It also says I'm single and I'd gotten used to all the sidebar spots that were devoted to advertising various dating websites.

Then you gave up on the regular, run of the mill dating sites and started advertising almost exclusively that I should give single dads a chance.

I'm sure there are lots of single dads out there who are great guys who deserve a loving partner and what not but the way the ads are presented gave a very 'And hey, who are they to be picky? You've got them over a barrel!' vibe which I found somewhat creepy.

And when I didn't click on any of those either, Facebook, you took it a step too far.

Why are you showing me ads about IVF information sessions, Facebook?

Yes, I'm single.

Yes, I'm 28.

But no, I have not yet reached the turkey baster stage of life.

So if you want me to keep pretending that you're a social networking site and not the elaborate marketing research tool that you are, you will drop the IVF ads and I won't have to go completely effing mental on you.

Welcome To My Nightmare...

2011-10-01T13:41:00.005+10:00

I'm on a bit of a tight deadline these days.

Having spent most of my life believing that I wasn't 'that into music', only to discover in the last few years that it was because I wasn't introduced to the right music, I am now trying to see as many bands and performers as possible before they all retire and stop touring!

Luckily most of the new music I've fallen in love with is rock and metal and those guys and gals have a history of soldiering on like unbreakable leathery gods, hence today's post.

I've just seen Alice Cooper in concert and it was glorious :-D

Not only is Alice Cooper probably still fitting into just about the same size pants as he was back in the day, he is still 100% committed to his performance.

The sets. The costumes. The theatrics. The musicians he performs with.

All top shelf.

There's a difference between people who are touring because they're broke and people who are touring because they still enjoy it and it's very clear that Alice Cooper falls into the latter category.

And no matter what his age, or how much his face resembles a handbag, there is something rather sexy about a man resting a cane across his shoulders and draping his arms over the ends.

Classic power stance.

From the friends I went with to the people who have been Alice fans since before I was on solids, some of whom had brought their children and grandchildren, thanks for sharing the experience with me.

And for screaming just as loud and high as I did during the best songs and drum solos, that was a pretty impressive effort for the dudes.

Never Grow Up, Never Surrender!

2011-09-25T10:32:00.020+10:00

I've always been a fan of dress ups.
You wouldn't believe how much of my childhood I spent charging around the place pretending to be Indiana Jones, some kind of deposed empress or a brave but kind of thick adventurer walking through a forest infested with wolves that could eat me at any minute*.

But seeing as Australia doesn't go in for Halloween, my dress up adventures pretty much ended once I entered high school.

It wasn't until University that I discovered the joy of comic books and various glorious associated nerderies and became aware of the phenomenon that is cosplay.

Australia doesn't have the sheer number and variety of comic conventions that America has either so you either have to be willing to wait and track one of them down or trick you friends into holding costume parties all the time**.

There are some characters I'd love to attempt if I ever get the opportunity and motivation levels just right.

For instance, as much as I'd love to pitch my voice as low as it can go and rock a Dr Mrs The Monarch costume, I'd be too worried about popping out all over the place to enjoy myself.
And as I have some of the curves but not enough of the height I think I'd be more likely to try Dr Girlfriend incarnation if I had the dedication to put together a slamming pink dress and pill box hat ensemble.

But until that day, I will just keep admiring the efforts of others, some of which I present here for your viewing pleasure.

*This one used to annoy Mum a bit as it invariably involved me stealing the knife sharpener out of the knife block (because it looked like a sword) and running about with it thrust through a sash which was really one of her scarves.

**And if they aren't willing to go to more effort than 'slutty [random occupation]' then what's the point?

The Philosopher's Bowl

2011-09-18T23:01:00.014+10:00

My parents did a fairly good job on educating me about food.

I knew from an early age that milk came from cows, eggs came from chickens, that delicious meat is actually made out of delicious animals, the names of all the vegetables and all the various things Jamie Oliver seems to be so nervous about kids not knowing these days.

But there was one thing I just did not realise for many, many years.

You can make your own soup!

Intellectually I knew it had to come from somewhere and contained, y'know, ingredients but for far too many years I just associated soup with cans.

I guess I knew you could make soup but I put that in the same category as certain pastries.

Sure, theoretically you could make a croissant but I can just about guarantee that without a few years of training or practice, what you'll get will not look like a real croissant. It'll look like a buttery smear of undercooked flobble.

I thought of soup making as a kind of culinary alchemy, only undertaken by the learned and wise.

However, spurred on by the surprising amount of Hourly Comics that showed people making soup (and declaring how delicious it was and how amazing it is that they could have wasted so much of their lives eating the inferior and more expensive soup from tins), I started experimenting with soup making myself.

Guys, did you know that you can just take vegetables, boil them in water*, blend them up and they turn into delicious soup!

It's amazing!

So far I've made a pumpkin and cinnamon soup, a broccoli puree, a cauliflower and leek soup, a hearty minestrone, and a bean and pearl barley soup**.

They've all been delicious.

Chop things up, simmer them for half and hour and you've got a week's worth of lunches just sitting there being delicious at you.

Tell me that's not magical!

Anyway here's the recipe I used for cauliflower and leek soup which is one of my favourites so far.

Ingredients
1 onion
1 small leek
300 g (11 oz) cauliflower
2 teaspoons of olive oil
500 ml (17 fl oz) milk
250 ml (8 fl oz) water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

Peel and chop the onion.
Trim the leek, cut into thin slices and rinse well.
Separate the cauliflower into small florets and rinse in a colander.
Heat the oil in a lrage saucepan and add the onion and leek.
Cover and cook over a low heat for a few minutes to soften.
Add the cauliflower, milk and water, season with salt, cover and bring to the boil.
Lower the heat and simmer gently for 10 to 15 minutes.
Remove from the heat, allow to cool a little, then blend the soup until smooth in a food processor or with a stab blender.
Adjust the seasoning with salt a pepper.

Freaking. Delicious.

*Or a little stock

**I've made this one about 10 times, but I can't make it when my parents are coming around for dinner because English school lunches traumatised my mother so badly that even the sight of pearl barley triggers flashbacks.

Out Of The Loop

2011-09-10T10:51:00.009+10:00

I know some people talk a lot of smack about the internet and social media and how disconnected we're becoming due to overuse of both but in my experience that's bunkum.

I have never felt more connected to the rest of the world, more politically and socially aware and more empathetic than I do now.

I've been lucky in the online friends I've made in the various corners of the internet I've found myself, most of them creative and passionate about a range of things and willing to share that passion without condescending or ranting, all of them interesting, all of them friendly.

I've followed along with various protests, political uprisings, natural disasters, international disasters and historical events and I've felt as if they really have something to do with me.
Not in an egocentric way but in a give-a-damn-about-the-rest-of-the-world-and-the-rest-of-humanity way, either because I know someone personally who is being affected by what is going on or because reading blogs, tweets or retweets written by individuals really pushes home the fact that these things are happening to real people who you'd probably quite like if you ever met them.

This has all been very enlightening and great for my outlook and personal development but it has also highlighted how really horrendously bad my personal grasp of the Australian political system is.

I expect I know more about the American political system (thanks to Fear And Loathing On The Campaign Trail '72) than I can remember about Australian politics from my social science classes in high school.

Let me try to sum up what I can remember for you:

We have an upper and a lower house, the senate and the house of representatives, one is red one is green, I cannot remember which is which on the colour or name or upper/lower count.
Laws need to pass through both houses in order to be passed.
When we vote in Federal elections we vote for the party we want in, rather than the person even though we know which person will get in based on our vote.
In Australia people don't campaign for selection and then get endorsed by their party, whoever is leader of the party gets to be the head of government if their party is voted in. It's all decided in-party way before election time is called and isn't swapped before election unless the current leader is bombing out/useless, and is all done based on how good a job the person is doing in politics, how savvy they are and how they're doing with public opinion.
I can't remember how state elections and government work in relation to federal elections and government, though I do remember the state voting process is different (a lot fewer boxes to number).

That's about it.

I mean, there are other things I know or am aware of but off the top of my head, that's it.

That isn't great.

When I rock up to vote I usually know enough about the various candidates and parties that I know who supports things I agree with or who is highly objectionable but I'm not the most informed of voters, I don't feel like I'm fully engaged with or aware of what's going on.

If a foreign friend asked me what the Governor-General was for or how governors of the different states and territories were selected, I would only be able to give very general and possibly misleading explanations*.

And because of that I just went to the library and checked out Australian Politics For Dummies.

I'm not beating about the bush, I'm starting from the most basic level I can without finding a book with pictures and anthropomorphised legislative scrolls.

Because at this stage of my life, this level of ignorance is just embarrassing.

*The Governor-General, as the Queen's representative in Australia, gives the official OK to any incoming Prime Ministers and signs legislation into law, I think that's it. Only once has a Governor-General actually bunted a Prime Minister out of power.
As for governors of states and territories... I have no idea.

Father's Day

2011-09-04T14:20:00.005+10:00

The older I get, the more evident it becomes that I'm turning into my Father.

At least in some ways.

There's a lot of my Mother in me as well but today is time to talk about Dad.

When my siblings and I were kids and we were on the obligatory summer holiday trip - to the beach or to go camping or to visit relatives who lived enough hours away to make visiting a rare occasion - there were things that Dad did that drove us crazy.

He made terrible puns.
He'd pull over to examine historical markers and sites signposted on the highway when all we wanted to do was get to our destination.
He'd steer with his elbows whilst blowing his nose.
He'd take detours because he thought they looked interesting and we'd never been there before.
He'd tell us 'fascinating facts' and then quiz us about them later.

Drove us absolutely nuts.

But those things that drove us mental, are now the things I love (even if the puns still make me groan) and appreciate. And have started, sadly in some cases, to emulate*.

I never appreciated until quite recently the extent to which my Father, coming from a cultural and familial background that favours and coddles sons**, went out of his way to make sure I always felt capable and worthy and just as good as the boys.
He signed us up for a father-daughter group when I was little which took us on various trips and activities, let us do all sorts of arts and crafts, and where we got to spend time together.
He helped me with my homework but never gave me the answers, insisting that he'd be doing me no favours and telling me that I could do it if I put my mind to it, giving me hints and gently questioning my answers to make me think things out.
He let me take up dozens of different sports and hobbies for as long as they held my interest, and challenged me to be sure I wanted to give them away before I did and that I was doing so for the right reasons***.
He bought me biographies of famous female explorers and athletes and scientists.
He bought me books on many different subjects, novels by many different authors and encouraged me to chase anything I was interested in.
He supported me in my studies and travels.
He still does.
He taught me how to ride a bike, how to fly a kite, how to do all those other kid-friendly things that parents are supposed to teach you but mostly he taught me how to think.

Even all those stupid, maddening things he did on family trips are examples.
He taught me to be interested in the world.
That you should always choose new experiences over repetition****.
That there's never a bad time to learn something new.
That if you're passionate about something you should share it with the people you care about or with anyone willing to listen, and that you should listen to them when they share their passions with you.
He taught me to give a damn.
And I love him for it.

Happy Father's Day, Dad.

*Puns. You must have noticed my tendency dorky alliterative blog post titles by now.

**Italian. Also Irish, do the Irish do that as well? I don't know any stereotypes about Irish mamma's boys.

***E.g. Not because 'It's tooooooooo haaaaaaaaaaaard' or 'I don't want to geeeeet uuuuuuuuuup at 7am' or 'But my friends are doing something else'.

****I don't always follow through on this one (especially when it comes to DVDs) but when I have the opportunity to do something new, I almost always say yes.

Plants I Want In The Garden I'll Eventually Have

2011-08-28T13:41:00.017+10:00

Prompted by the sudden memory of a bush that grew in the garden of the house I grew up in, and the two hour long search for its name that eventually ended in failure and having to ask my Dad who miraculously remembered*, I was set off on another planning jag for my imaginary 'one day' house.

Presented in no particular order, I give you plants that I wish to one day have in my garden.

Rose bush

Eucalyptus tree

Mint

Aloe vera

Lemon tree

Lavender

Pacific blue (or Ceanothus papillosus roweanus)

Frangipani

Passionfruit vine

Silk tree

Honeysuckle

Daphne Odora

*It was the Pacific Blue, by the way, we called it The Bee Tree because bees absolutely loved it.

The Darkside Of The Brightside

2011-08-21T21:10:00.007+10:00

One of the many things that were not quite right with me at the start of the year was that I had quite a serious Vitamin D deficiency going on.

I had half the amount of Vitamin D knocking around in my blood that I should have, so my doctor recommended I get on a vitamin supplement to bring me up to speed and then start spending a bit more time in the sun in order to keep myself topped up naturally.

A few months of little capsules later I was back on track but when I had looked into how much time I should spend in the sun, the information I found started doing my head in.

Vitamin D Facts

The body produces Vitamin D in response to the exposure of your skin to ultra violet radiation from sunlight.
You don't get any Vitamin D from the sunshine that falls on you through a glass window, you can however get sunburn.
If you're outside in the sunshine but slathered up with sunscreen, you will not produce/absorb enough or possibly any Vitamin D.

I picked up a couple of those information sheets about Vitamin D and being 'sunsmart' from the chemist and neither of those wanted to tell me precisely what to do either.

The Vitamin D fact sheet told me what I'd be susceptible to if I continued to have low Vitamin D (osteoporosis, increased risk of cancers and diabetes, all sorts of fun things) , the dietary sources of Vitamin D (fatty and/or deep sea fish, eggs, beef liver etc) and some benefits of having healthy levels of Vitamin D (better sleep, healthy bones and organs, not dying a painful deadly death) but nowhere did it recommend a safe time of day or period of exposure.

The Sunsmart fact sheet listed all the dangers of sunburn and excessive exposure to ultra violet radiation (melanoma, CANCER CANCER CANCER!) and all the things you can do to avoid sunburn and CANCER! (sunscreen, hats, sunglasses, long sleeved/legged clothing, staying out of the midday sun unlike mad dogs and Englishmen) but had no real information on Vitamin D.

I had a search online and found a few handy bits of information but no proper guidelines.
Nothing that said 'You should get at least X minutes of sun during the summer and X minutes of sun during the winter and should avoid sun exposure during hour Y and hour Z in order to minimise the likelihood of sunburn and adverse effects of sun exposure'.

I did find a website that claimed sunscreen companies are masterminding a fear campaign in order to sell more sunscreen and don't care that they are perpetuating a population-wide Vitamin D deficiency that is leading to weaker future generations who are conceived by Vitamin D deficient parents and who then have to live with the resultant health problems for the rest of their time on this Earth*.

The myotherapist I've been seeing to bang my arms back into shape after they crapped out at the start of the year recommended 20 minutes of sun exposure a day taken in the early to mid-morning or from the late afternoon until dusk to avoid the worst of the ultra violet madness in the middle of the day.
It was nice just to get some advice!

So what I've been doing is still applying sunscreen to my face but leaving my arms free and clear for about half an hour on my daily walk before slathering them up too and so far so good.

But it's difficult!

After so many years of having the Slip Slop Slap message drilled into us and the 'No hat, no play' policy at primary school, it's really hard to ignore the urge to dip yourself in SPF30+!

Behold the brainwashing messages that were in production before I was even born!

So I'm doing my best to walk the line between getting too much sun and not getting enough because from all indicators if I cock it up, I will die!

*The health problems from being conceived/gestated by Vitamin D deficient parents are quite real, I'm not sure about the conspiracy part.

Goodbye, Sweet Ambrosia

2011-08-14T17:59:00.007+10:00

I have now been a booze-free zone for over six months.

This isn't due to excessive party times or a dearth of funds, but because when I got sick at the start of the year I came dangerously close to developing a permanent and very uncomfortable inflammatory condition.
My doctor has told me to stay away from caffeine and alcohol for the foreseeable future (possibly forever if a particular blood test score never recovers) to avoid getting sick again, possibly for keeps.

Being booze-free has been easier than I expected it to be.

Part of the ease comes from knowing how I could feel if I decided to risk a tipple and that tipple sent me on a trip to Relapse Town.
Relapse Town is not a place I wish to visit. I drove by it briefly in June thanks to a small amount of chocolate and this reaffirmed my commitment to stay as far away from the poxy place as possible.

Yes, I definitely miss booze but for the most part I think I miss the ability to choose booze more than I miss the booze itself*.

I miss the idea of being able to have a glass of wine at dinner or when travelling. There's something wrong about not being able to have some red if you find yourself in Tuscany or Catalonia** or try the local liqueurs or cocktails of wherever you happen to be.

Anyway, in order to 'celebrate' my six month No Drinky Drinky I've decided to list some of the nice things about being booze-free.

Some Of The Nice Things About Being Booze-Free by Ricochet, aged 28

You save a bunch of money.
No hangovers.
When they put out articles like this you breathe a sigh of relief and when you stumble across articles like this you feel like less of a social pariah.
You can drive yourself and your friends home at the end of the night instead of having to wait forever for a taxi or having to crash at someone's house when you'd really rather be curled up in your own bed.
You never accidentally tell a deeply personal story to someone and then spend the rest of your life wondering if they were sober enough to remember it but not willing to ask them in case they'd forgotten or repressed it and your question brings it back to the forefront of their conscious mind.
You drop a few kilos.
You don't spend your entire party night ducking to the bathroom to tinkle after 'breaking the seal'***.
You realise that 'breaking the seal' is a myth after you see how few drinks you actually feel like drinking when they don't have booze in them. You don't need to go the toilet because you broke the seal, you need to go to the toilet because you've imbibed over a litre of liquids.
You know that the friends you have or keep are the ones who you genuinely like and who like you as a person and aren't just 'OK to hang around with/interesting after a few drinks'.
You remember everything you did at parties.
Less photos of you looking like you're a half-melted Madame Tussauds mannequin will exist to haunt you.

And as a bonus here are my tips for avoiding or minimising booze nostalgia.

Tips For Making Being Booze-Free Less Painful For The Previously Appreciative Drinker by Ricochet, aged 28)

DON'T decide you should check if that bottle of Baileys that's been sitting in your fridge for the last six months has gone off before offering it to your parents to take home. DO NOT sniff that bottle of delicious Baileys.

Actually that's pretty much my entire tip. Don't sniff booze, it'll smell delicious and you'll get sad.

I guess if you have places that you went out to drinking with friends and they're boring if you're not boozing or if going there will only cause you I'm-missing-out sads, you should avoid those too.

But apart from avoiding sniffing booze and checking the ingredients in desserts and some foods that aren't cooked at high enough temperatures to evaporate all the booze, that's about it for me at least.

They smell like the ghosts of Christmases past, the Christmases when you could guzzle Baileys.

*Always nice to find out that you don't have a chemical dependency that you've been in denial about.

**As we often do, amirite? *Pops on monocle*

***Breaking the seal = peeing for the first time during a night on the booze after which you'll have to go to the bathroom over and over again. I have no idea if this term is used in the US or UK, it probably is.

A Rose By Any Other Name...

2011-08-07T01:12:00.005+10:00

"Why is it that you still keep your journal in books?" my Dad asked me the other day as I was scribbling earnestly. "I mean, is there any particular reason you can't do it electronically?"

Well, no... but yes.

It'd just be... wrong.

Apart from demonstrating that I'm such a Luddite that even my father has overtaken me, happily keeping all his affairs in order on a tablet, his question made me wonder why the idea of keeping an electronic journal bothered me so much.

I guess there are a few reasons.

A Beginning And An End - I like the idea of a journal being a finite length. It captures a chunk of your life, as much as you can fit into those pages. It can span years or months, depending on how much you have to say, how much has been going on. It has a beginning and an end. Once you've run out of pages, as long as you're around to do so, you start another one.
An electronic file can theoretically go on indefinitely, stretching out in a long and cumbersome fashion that takes an amount of navigation to find anything you may want to read again.
Fidelity - Sure a book journal could get wet, get mildew, be burnt or lost or ripped or stained, but that would be down to location and bad luck. And even when damaged, it may still be decipherable. Data files corrupt. They can do it for no particular reason, or your computer may get a virus or overheat or shut down or just plain die. Then your memories would be gone. We have books in museums that have survived since the advent of books, scrolls and parchments from earlier still which are still legible.
If it comes to a choice, I trust paper.
Handwriting - Not long ago when asked why he still handwrites his first drafts, Neil Gaiman pointed to studies* that have been done that prove your brain interacts differently with language when you write compared to when you type. It has to pay more attention as you form the words and sentences in your mind, then has to direct the nerves and muscles involved in moving your pen across the page. It's more involved.
You get to chose different coloured pens for different moods or events, different kinds of inks, different types of pen that affect how your writing looks and how you feel about the act of writing. For some people writing a journal can almost be an artistic act.
The fact is that a lot of the history and memories tied up in journals aren't just in the words but are in the physical item, the visual cues. The feel of the book, the scent, the handwriting, crossings out, misspellings and sketches of your younger self, the stains or tears or marks it may have gathered along the way all evoke deeper memories or associated feelings.

These are some of the many things that make re-reading old journals so rewarding, enjoyable and immersive. Not just the words themselves but how they're presented, how you recorded them and how you get to re-experience them.

So yeah, Dad, I guess there is a reason why I still keep my journal in books.
Because it's beautiful and it's the act of creating something as I write that keeps me interested in keeping a journal at all.
The memories are precious but so are the package they're housed in.

*I didn't bookmark the specific article at the time and have no hope of wading through his twitter feed to find it so here are two lifehacker articles on the subject: A Defence of Writing Longhand and Why You Learn More Effectively By Writing Than Typing.

Maturity Is...

2011-07-30T19:28:00.008+10:00

As many of the traditional rites of passage have been rendered purely symbolic by the nature of modern society, it is a lot harder to tell when you've become an adult.

Sure you're over 18, you can vote/drink/drive (not at the same time!)/get married or join the armed forces if the mood takes you, you may have landed a 'big kid' job, if you've moved out of home you are amazed that anybody has agreed to let you be in charge of a house or apartment, but you still feel kind of like you're play acting.

So if you haven't reached any of the optional milestones or if you have but neither they nor the mandatory ones seem to carry enough weight to really convince you, what will?

Whilst I still don't feel like a grown up there are several things that I've identified as personal milestones of maturity, moments that have let me realise that I've grown up a bit.

Acknowledging that I am never going to be sensible enough to stop fiddling with scabs so being practical enough to cover them with bandaids.
Thinking 'I really really don't want to make this phone call' but dialling before I even finish the thought instead of avoiding it forever or until it makes things really awkward.
Actually leaving 15 minutes before I think I need to in order to get to appointments, events or places with time to spare or just on time in the event something unexpected crops up*.
Finding a gold coin** on the ground, getting super excited out of habit and then deciding to leave it there because I don't need it and if some kid finds it, it'll make their day.
Finding that I still have some money left over after I've paid my bills***.

Yeah, they're not the kind of 'coming of age' examples you're ever going to see on a RomCom or find in a YA novel but they're the ones that have, for some reason or another, stuck with me.

These moments and others like them, some without handy anecdotes, have made me realise that I'm better than I used to be at dealing with certain situations or highlighted the self-awareness that comes with experience.

And considering I am still proud - not just nostalgia proud, actual proud - of learning how to keep my skivvy**** from rolling up inside my sleeves when I put on a jacket when I was 4*****, that's about the cream of the crop.

There are also all those slightly depressing moments when you realise that not only are you grown up, you're An Adult and kids old enough to have their own debit cards see you as such, but I'll save those for another time when I'm feeling maudlin or after I've been reading OMG I'M THE ADULT.

*Traffic, forgetting something, the fact I often assume a best case scenario of how long it takes to get from Point A to Point B that doesn't survive contact with reality.

**That's a one dollar or two dollar coin

***... and then spending it on comic books. Hey, baby steps, alright.

****Skivvy = a long-sleeved shirt that you wear in the winter, sometimes a turtleneck.

*****You hold onto your long shirt sleeves with your fingertips before you put them into your jacket sleeves!

It Winds The Yarn Out From The Skein Or Else The Ball Unrolls Again

2011-07-24T02:05:00.005+10:00

I am probably the last person who should have taken up knitting.

Not because I'm a menace with the needles or a danger to myself or find the mechanics overly challenging. It's a soothing and hypnotic pastime once you get into a rhythm.

But knitting is a craft of patterns and following patterns is not my strong suit.

Well, patterns in language I can follow: recurring words, favoured sentence structures, particular devices, pacing and the like.

Anything visual or to do with numbers though... well...

As an example, this year I've been doing a lot of walking. There's a block near work that I like to do my laps around:

it's a known length so I can record the distance I'm walking,
it's long enough that I don't feel like I'm going in circles but short enough that I can get back to my car in short order if I need to, and
because of its length, adding on an extra lap is a gentle, incremental increase.

And for every lap I complete I have to mark up one of my fingernails with a lead pencil otherwise I will - no lie - forget how many times I've gone round.

The first lap I remember, the second I'll know isn't the first, but anything after that could be anything from the third to the seventh and without a physical record I could end up going around for hours in a walk trance.

And this is the mind which is now expected to remember how many stitches, how many rows, when to knit, when to purl, when to stop.

It's going to be tricky, it's going to take a lot of stopping and checking, will probably involve a bit of counting aloud and at least once I may end up with a cardigan that has arms long enough to fit an orangutan but unless I want to just keep churning out an endless supply of scarves, I'm going to have to bend myself to the task.

I think I'm up to the challenge, even if it might require me to mark up more than just my fingernails to keep my place.

At The Core

2011-07-17T21:20:00.004+10:00

This may be a further manifestation of the house planning phase of my life my brain has entered, but I've been noticing houses in various stages of completion and there's something that's been bugging me about them.

Their frames.

Yes, various sources insist that aluminium frames are a terrible idea because in the case of a fire, the heat melts the frames at an alarming rate causing the house to collapse far sooner and reducing the chances of residents being able to get out or rescuers having the time to get in.

That is definitely a concern.

As is the argument that wood harvested in an ethical and environmentally conscious fashion is actually a far more renewable source than a metal alloy that requires mining, processing and a lot more fiddling about.

Both important consideration but still not it.

The thing is... Aluminium frames look so flimsy.

I know that architects and all sorts of smart cookies have done all the calculations and testing to prove that they're structurally sound and I'm not operating under the belief that these houses are likely to fall apart any time soon.

But to me, frames have always been the bones of a house, their strength, their core.

A house that has sheltered families and individuals through the decades, seen the passing of wars and world events, and stood against the centuries would sneer at these spindly constructions.

I think of houses as solid, as enduring, and Aluminium frames just don't fit in with that idea.

How can a house built on such a fragile-looking skeleton ever be a place of strength?

How can it stand the test of time?

Why does this topic make me sound like such a hippy for houses?

I'm not saying that wooden or other non-Aluminium material frames don't have their own issues and drawbacks.

But they look like the bones of houses.

Me Vs Me: Sleep

2011-07-10T01:03:00.006+10:00

I have a love/hate relationship with sleep.

Wait, that's not true, I pretty much adore sleep unreservedly but the love/hate relationship exists in relation to my complete lack of self control with regards to sleep.

I love the luxurious feeling of a long, relaxing lie in.

I love waking up and then choosing to roll over and snuggle back into my blankets.

But I hate that I can wake up, know that I am going to be furious with myself later for not getting up, and then still stick my head back under my pillow and make with the Zs.

Sleep-ins are excellent for when you've earned them, when you feel like pampering yourself, when you've been super-exhausted or on public holidays when you usually would be at work but aren't.

But when you have things that you want to get done, need to get done, were looking forward to having done... and you don't have time to do them because you hit the snooze button, that's where the love/hate part kicks in.

I don't know if it's a generational thing but I don't think I'll ever be one of those 'gets up at 6am every morning like clockwork even 20 years after retirement because that's what I did all my working life' people, and not just because I haven't had to get up at/before 6am for work since I finished working hospitality.

If I don't have to get up - and I mean have to with a capital H, the kind where you might get yelled at or fired or make somebody cry at their own birthday party - then I don't.

A few years ago I thought this was me choosing to live life the way I liked it, with extra sleep.

Now I feel like there's two me's, First Wake Up Me who doesn't give a damn about consequences and lives only to please herself and Second Wake Up Me who has to clean up after her.

It's not that I'm exhausted or lethargic or anything like that which might suggest that I have a medical condition that might explain this behaviour.
I'm just behaving like a jackass.

I know this is going to be difficult habit to ditch and will take a long time to shift behaviour that at this point I've been indulging in for about half of my life but I'm determined to try.

First Wake Up Me has to start pulling her own weight.

And if that means going to bed earlier, chugging water before I turn in and buying the loudest alarm clock money can buy and then putting it where I can't reach it or its power cord from my bed, then that's what I'm going to do.

The Fertility Faction

2011-07-03T00:00:00.011+10:00

OK, I obviously spoke too soon.

Last year a coworker announced she was pregnant.

All the women in the office who have had children got intensely excited.

I congratulated her, anticipated chipping in for flowers in a few months time and forgot all about it.

I missed the predatory gleam in their eyes.

The first salvo was subtle.

The magazines on our lunch table - usually a reliable mix of culinary, design and architecture with the odd Cleo thrown in - was suddenly peppered with parenting periodicals.

The second salvo was slightly more direct.

They began including me in their 'isn't that cute' group emails of pictures of kids frolicking with dogs, drawing on walls, buried in piles of leaves and cosplaying with their parents at Comic Con.

Their stated reason for this was that they thought I liked dogs/vandalism/leaves/cosplay.

I was invited to and attended the baby shower, where I won several games.

They saw this as a promising sign until I made it blatantly clear with my gloating victory dance that my apparent baby-related prowess was down to being a competitive jerk.

At this point the campaign had been running at least two months* and I had started to get a little paranoid and had begun wondering how they got my private email and the ads on my Facebook sidebar to join in.

My junk mail had suddenly given up on selling me V14gr4 and c14l1s or trying to hook me up with my foreign lottery winnings and has been offering me singles of all flavours.

Black singles, white singles, Latin singles, Asian singles, Christian singles, Jewish singles.
All the singles.

My Facebook ad sidebar seems to be trying to kill two birds with one stone and every day urges me to 'Give Single Dads A Chance'.

So far, I have not.

Disheartened by this lack of results, they gave up on both subtle and semi-subtle.

Any time an unmarried guy not biologically old enough to be my Father visited our workplace, they would comment on his various favourable attributes and ask me what I thought.

I thought it was kind of creepy.

I mean I'm all for the sexual equality of ladies having the freedom to perve on appealing dudes but the 'give him some slack, then reel him in, then give him some slack, then reel him in' language used by certain women in these situations make me feel incredibly skeezy.

Especially when the two very nice IT guys came through to do an equipment audit and the moment they were out the door, one particular coworker demanded that I picked out and started dancing the sideways rumba with whichever one I preferred because it was terrible to see a decent chunk of man meat like that go to waste.

When I declined her order to sexually assault the IT guy(s), she began listing friends of hers who were single and not old/crazy/destitute.

At this point two of my friends decided to come to my rescue.

Awkwardly, however, they did this by insisting that I could have had the pick of their friends at any point over the last four years but that I was under no obligation to make such a selection.

Choosing this as the moment to put my earphones on and never ever take them off again, I was spared the rest of that cringefest.

Luckily after the 'take that nerd and make him your own' conversation, they did seem to get the message that I was not going to be taken in by their cunning plan.

This reprieve can probably be more accurately attributed to the fact that our pregnant coworker has recently given birth and they now have a freshly baked bun straight out of the baby oven to coo over and the intense desire to see me opening my own franchise has abated.

I know this is temporary and that one day, they'll hear the bugle call to arms once more, but I'm just grateful for the cease-fire.

However long it may last.

*I say 'at least two months' because given my field tested obliviousness to signs, signals and hints I cannot rule out the possibility that this had kicked off the moment pregnant coworker finished enunciating the letter t in 'I'm pregnant!'

Divine Providence

2011-06-25T23:23:00.007+10:00

I've just got a new TV/entertainment system cabinet because my cousin is becoming a nun!

Uh... I haven't bought it in celebration of her upcoming novitiate.

In August she's entering the convent for her three months of contemplation/extra meditation/xtreme nunning and as such she's been busily giving away her superfluous worldly goods*.

I expect I'm supposed to say I was surprised when she told me what she was planning but I honestly wasn't.

That's not to say I've ever looked at her and thought 'girl is gonna end up a nun'.

She's an attractive, accomplished and personable woman with all sorts of life paths open to her and whilst she's been a practicing Catholic for years she's never been overtly religious or expressed any prior intentions in this direction.

But I can see how it makes sense for her.

And she's one of the few people I know who has the personality, the temperament and the sense of moral responsibility to carry it through.

She's been a teacher for almost 10 years and in that time she's helped a heck of a lot of people, in the course of her work at the school, within her community and parish, and by donating her time to teaching disadvantaged children in other countries on working holidays.

She's been on several pilgrimages with our Grandmother** which I thought she was undertaking predominantly as an aide/chaperone to help 80-to-85-year-old Grandma get around the less accessible parts of the Holy Land, but they obviously stuck with her personally.

She's always been a spiritual person, not a preachy person but an introspective/meditative one and she has a firm sense of social justice.

When I said 'moral responsibility' I didn't mean it in the self-righteousness or blinkered morality way that some might use it, I meant that she is the kind of person to take responsibility for her own actions, to act for the good of others and to take a religious position seriously as an act of service to the community as well as to the church.

I think she'll do well in the vocation if she chooses to take vows and she'll do a lot to help others who need help without asking anything of them in return***.

I'm happy for her.

I am also not unhappy for me and my new TV/entertainment system cabinet.

I've been meaning to get one for ages but never really got around to it...

*most of her furniture, kitchen bits, books and DVDs, anything without deep emotional or personal meaning

**who has entered the pilgrimage phase of being an Italian/Irish matriarch

***up to and including not expecting people to pay lip service to religion in order to receive help, that is not her style

Dear Lady At The Sandwich Shop

2011-06-19T00:17:00.004+10:00

You are pretty awesome.

You're always friendly and efficient and even when it looks like you're having a cruddy day you don't take it out on your customers and you genuinely seem to appreciate it when we try to cheer you up.

You aren't stingy with the ingredients but you know how to hold back on the mayo so it doesn't taste like our sandwiches or rolls are drowning in eggy death unless that's what we've specifically requested.

I like the way you call me 'darl' as if you're about 50 even though you're probably a few years younger than me.

I am very glad that you respect the health code enough to wear gloves when you prepare our sandwiches and rolls.

But the thing is...

You should take at least one of the gloves off before you accept the money for the sandwiches.

Because otherwise, sure you aren't touching our sandwiches with your hands but you are touching them with everything the money you just touched has bumped up against.

I was raised at the tail end of the glorious immune system boosting 'oh Lord, she's eating the dirt out of the pot plant/dog biscuits/something she found behind the couch again, get it off her and rinse out her mouth, she'll be right' era so I'm fairly sure I'll survive whatever money-glove-sandwich contamination might result but others may not be so robust.

And it's also still a sort of gross idea.

Other than that you're perfect and so are your sandwiches.

Yours sincerely,
Ricochet

The Vimeortex

2011-06-13T23:38:00.008+10:00

Guys, I haven't written anything for this week.

I meant to.

But every time I got on the internet I ended up immersing myself rapturously in the 5 Second Films archive.

Sooo... instead of a real post here is a selection of my favourites.

That I culled down from 40 to six*.

There are over 600 videos so you know you should stop and do something else but... they're only five seconds long...

I regret nothing.

Planking from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

Clark Kent's Close Call from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

The Day Before Yesterday When Everything Was OK and There Weren't Any Zombies from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

Late for Work from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

Absence of the Towels from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

Brothers from 5-Second Films on Vimeo.

*OK, seven, I had to include this one for the badass moustache. It isn't on vimeo so I couldn't embed it.

Hot Damn

2011-06-08T20:56:00.011+10:00

So anyway, I was catching up with my webcomics and traipsed over to Coelasquid's awesome Manly Guys Doing Manly Things, as I routinely do, and saw this...

I don't always recognise all the characters Coelasquid portrays due to my low-level involvement in actual game playing and in these situations I of course turn to my old friend the search engine to make sure I'm getting all the nuances.

OK, there's a guy called Vassic...

He's from Dragon Age II...

I'm guessing it's a bit of a talking point that he has a bit of chest hair...

Let's see what the ole image search turns u- Phwoar!

Phwoar!

Phwoar!

So, uh yeah...

Apparently he's a dwarf...

And he's known for having a bit of a hairy chest...

Phwoar...

The Bag Lady

2011-06-06T19:23:00.005+10:00

I have a tendency to take things with me 'just in case'.

This often serves me well as 'just in case' turns up every once in a while and sometimes I or somebody I know benefits from the bandaids, pens, maps and miscellanea that I have on hand.

I've pared down the amount of 'just in case' items from a previous status of 'ridiculous' to their current status of 'not too bad but probably still a little too much' but there's one thing that seems to be slowing me down quite considerably.

My laptop.

Watching with thinly disguised jealousy as a coworker glanced at her watch, swung her bag onto her shoulder and disappeared into the distance in the blink of an eye I wondered why I couldn't be like that.

As I unplugged my power cord.

And disconnected from the internet.

And clicked on the Safely Remove Hardware icon.

And removed my internet USB.

And shut down my laptop.

And put it and all its paraphernalia into its shoulder bag.

And swung that bag onto my shoulder.

And my handbag.

And picked up the little cooler bag I'd brought my lunch in.

'Well, poop on this!' I thought! 'I can get by without my laptop at work!'

I mean, all it does is let me listen to whatever music or talking book I like, allow me to check Twitter/my email/any other websites banned by our work network, hold an array of items that I can transfer across and email to coworkers to enhance my points during arguments or offer distraction during the boring parts of the day...

I can do this...

So starting tomorrow I'm not taking my laptop with me to work.

For a fortnight.

I'd say a week but I already spent Monday wrapped in its loving embrace so that hardly counts* and seems a bit weak.

I'll just put a bunch of music onto a USB and take that instead.

I'm sure I'll be fine.

And even if I'm not this will probably be good for me.

I need to detach a little bit before I pull a full on Serial Experiments Lain or whatever the less technologically proficient version of that might be.

It should also save me about half an hour of farting around per day unpacking/packing up my laptop and I'm going to use that time to go for a walk or something.

If all goes smoothly and I don't crack like an addict who didn't realise just how hard cold turkey was going to be, I may very well make it a permanent arrangement. I expect Future Me and her back/shoulder would thank me for it.

*The fact that next Monday is a public holiday and technically doesn't count also factors into the equation.

Jaws Unbound

2011-05-27T22:51:00.007+10:00

Almost two years ago I slouched along to a consultation at the orthodontist to see if I needed braces, a meeting that ended with me getting the dang things applied that same day in a blur of glue and metal.

Those 21 odd months have passed alarmingly quickly and a couple of days ago I entered The Chair once again to have them removed.

And it feels... a bit weird but not in the way you might expect.

I get used to certain things ridiculously quickly.

Within a week of having braces put on I couldn't quite remember what the interior of my mouth had felt like without them and just shrugged and got on with things.

Now they're off and I'm already forgetting what it felt like to have them on.

At the moment it feels a little bit like somebody smuggled somebody else's teeth into my mouth whilst I wasn't paying attention but that sensation is fading in some sort of advanced rate in proportion to how terrifying that concept is.

My new best friend the '24/7 for 6 months retainer' has made its introductions and wearing it is fine.
There's some discomfort when I take it off or put it back on, which I'm sure that will fade as my teeth get used to the idea that their support network is gone and start standing on their own two roots.

So it isn't my actual teeth that are feeling weird, it's... well, I think I developed some kind of Stockholm Syndrome for my braces.

Towards the end I was nervous to have them removed because I kept envisioning my teeth as having grown dependent upon them and coming loose or wobbling about, falling out or deserting me if I bit into anything firmer than a doughnut because the position they've been gently shifted to was too far for the human tooth to bear!

That fear proved to be what some may refer to as bullpucky.

But for the moment I kind of miss them.

Mostly because I'm a compulsive fiddler and I'd built up a complex little set of games which involved tapping or flicking different protrusions or attachments with the end of my tongue in odd little sequences.

Without braces on that kind of behaviour looks a bit weird.

If I'm honest with myself I'm sure it looked plenty weird when I did have braces on but at least people could work out why I was doing it.

Because I agreed to braces on structural grounds rather than cosmetic* ones I wasn't particularly thrilled or disappointed by my teeth in their new configuration as their old configuration had looked OK.

Because I didn't have to avoid any foods I couldn't bear to live without I haven't gone into a glee-spiral of reacquaintance.

Because they didn't change my self-image or make me feel self-conscious or less attractive I wasn't fussed when they were there and don't feel particularly fussed on that point now that they're gone.

All of which seems to slightly miff all the people who have been saying "I bet you're glad they're gone, hey?"

"Meh" is not the response they expect.

Luckily I'd already had my wisdom teeth out way before this adventure began so I don't even have to worry about those coming in and pushing things about and undoing all those months of good work like some of my friends did**.

I know I'm going to get used to this whole retainer malarky and quite, quite soon I will have a new set of weird tongue flicking games centred around the little wire glued to the back of my bottom teeth to keep me occupied***.

I'm not even sure what I'm trying to say here. It's more musings than anything else.

There was a thing, then there wasn't, doodily doo doodily doodily doodily do.

So, uh, I guess to give some sort of educational value or something I'll say: never forget to floss.

You might think you've brushed your teeth adequately to keep everything clean and shipshape but there are always bits of food squirrelled away in those little gaps and crevices and if left there they rot like corpses jammed into a ravine. Except unlike the putrescent vapours of ravine corpses, the tooth graveyard allows you to waft the stench of death and decay over friends and bedmates. Also it's bad for your gums. So floss your damn teeth.
I promise to stop talking about ravine corpses if you do.

Oh and my apologies to those who might have thought this post was going to be a wicked ass saga about a shark.

*The way they were sitting would have gradually caused severe wearing that would have left me stumpy and steak-less in my autumnal years.

**Imagine wearing braces for almost five years and then having nothing to show for it because your wisdom teeth rolled into town like a gang of outlaws and started shoving all the law abiding citizen teeth around and Sheriff Braces is so long gone that there's no hope of reprieve or order.

***Uh, the wire was glued to my teeth to keep them from ever trying to wander back into their old positions, not as a means to keep me occupied. That's just an unintentional benefit.

Delectable Deduction

2011-05-22T00:52:00.008+10:00

I've been re-watching the beautifully pale and angular Bendedict Cumberbatch and the ever squeezable Martin Freeman in the excellently updated Sherlock and not only has it made me almost pathologically unable to stop scattering adjectives, adverbs and superlatives over everything I write about them, it also got me thinking.

What would Sherlock be able to discern about me?

I wouldn't present much of a challenge I expect but the moment the thought entered my head a little monologue began writing itself.

You have one fingernail shorter than the other nine, a breakage that you've filed smooth but haven't cut the others to match which indicates that you're either pragmatic enough not to care about the length of your fingernails overmuch or you're too vain to shorten them all.

The state of your hair argues against vanity for although clean and uniformly dyed, it isn't styled with any particular care, you've used no products or aids and have bound it back in much the same way you have since you left school.

The ink on your right index finger marks you as someone who works with words, your workplace operating under some terribly archaic practices, but the instinctive tilt of your hands suggests a certain proficiency with touch typing. This either bodes well for them updating their procedures or for your chances of getting work elsewhere when they go under for falling behind the times.

Your slacks are hemmed by the expedient method of turning and securing them with safety pins. As your height is unlikely to be changing at this late juncture and the pants have been hemmed in this fashion long enough to develop a pronounced crease, this is another indicator of your tendency towards inertia.

The collar of your blouse is presentable but not pressed, you've never taken it upon yourself to learn how to iron. This is less laziness and more a point of pride. You don't hide the slight rumple of the fabric but you haven't left the garment long enough for it to become pronounced. A strange rebellion to enjoy as much as you do.

The narrowing of your eyes speaks strongly to how annoying you're finding me right now but the quirk at the corner of your mouth says that you're still going to offer me a cup of tea. I don't suppose I could press you for a biscuit as well?

A Little Space Of My Own

2011-05-15T00:45:00.007+10:00

Oh well if I was ever looking for conclusive evidence that I'm losing my mind I now have it.

I mean, I never had that firm a grasp on my mind in the first place but it is definitely slipping away faster than I anticipated.

I left something out of my perfect house planning.

Something essential.

Something I didn't even remember until I read this article.

A secret room!

What the hell is wrong with you, brain?

How can we live without a secret room?

I very much doubt I'll ever be affluent enough to build a house big enough to contain a secret passage but a hidden room I think I could squeeze into the budget.

I like the elegance of this swinging bookcase.

First reason, the lovely curved double doors are a design feature I like all by themselves.

Second reason, it's a bookcase, which is not only a traditional method of hiding passages and bolt holes but also wonderfully functional.

I think I would have always been drawn to the idea of secret rooms and passages no matter what, especially considering the amount of books* I've read that have featured them, but I had a push in that direction when I was young.

My godfather owned a house that contained one.

I've been jealous of people for a lot of things.

Owning a sweet-ass Voltron figure that actually broke down into the individual lions which contained each of the pilots.

Being able to do backflips on the playground without worrying about messing it up and landing on their head.

Having a bike whose pedals could be pedalled backwards because the brakes were in the handles.

But I have never been as jealous of any of those people as I was of my godfather's son who lived in the secret room.

You entered it through a nondescript looking hallway cupboard which - when you opened it - contained not linens, Christmas decorations or winter wear but a set of quite steep stairs which you climbed in darkness.

At the top of the staircase you pressed up on a trap door which lifted to let you into a narrow but comfortable room which had a small unobtrusive balcony overlooking the very high-ceilinged lounge room.

It was amazing.

I'd never seen a secret room in person before and the idea that you could live in one, that you could have your books and clothes and stereo in one and be able to look out on the rest of the household when your presence or existence may not have been immediately evident or noticed at all...

So. Jealous.

They moved out of the house some years ago and as I was about 10 at the time I didn't have the finances to buy it or the influence to cajole my parents into moving cities and buying it so that I could live in the hidden room but I've never really forgotten about it.

Great swathes of time have gone past without me thinking about it but whenever it has popped up in my brain again I've felt that same wonder, excitement and satisfaction.

So it's going on the list.

Secret room.

Candlestick sconces and fireplaces optional**.

*I only reluctantly gave up on my plans to become Mary out of The Secret Garden when I realised that in order for that to happen my parents would have to die.

**The only option is which colours and of which materials they'll be constructed.

Sick Sick Sick

2011-05-07T20:58:00.006+10:00

I can't think of a better way to start this so I'll just say: I got sick over the Christmas holidays.

It started off just before Christmas with me thinking I'd pulled a muscle in my forearm or given myself tendinitis ten-pin bowling with too heavy a bowling ball the night before and then a couple of days later the other arm started doing the same thing.

After a few days they both started aching and throbbing, they felt hot all the time and didn't like to be left in one place for long when I was trying to sleep.

Then my hands puffed up.

I spent two weeks with cold packs more or less permanently strapped to my arms which had to be rested on a banana pillow on my lap because holding my arms up made me too tired and hurt too much.

I didn't have enough strength in my hands to open a loosely tightened screw-top water bottle let alone type or do anything else.

All I could do was lay about the place watching TV and worrying.
I couldn't even read because holding a book up or even open for longer than five minutes hurt too much.

Then my guts decided to join in and ache and play up for a bit. So not only could I not sit up for too long, I couldn't lie in one position for long either.

My appetite went AWOL, I lost at least 6 kg* in 2 weeks. They weren't kilos I needed, losing them didn't push me into an unhealthy weight range, but it was disconcerting seeing them all wander off at the same time when the most energetic thing I was doing was pressing 'Play All' and gnawing on my lip.

I was in a panic and had been seeing the doctor ever since the symptoms had kicked up from 'slightly annoying' to 'what the hell is going on here!?'.

I had some blood tests done, I had some ultrasounds and a few other scans.

For the most part everything came back normal but a couple of things that should have been up were down and a couple that should have been down were up.

Just when things were at their worst and I was starting to make plans for how I was going to have to move back home with my parents, wondering how my cats would cope with our other cats and what sort of work a person with a functioning brain but crapped out arms could manage, things started to slowly calm down.

As far as we've been able to work out I caught a virus, probably courtesy of one of the many millions of mosquitoes that have come out to play after all the flooding in the last few months, which sent my system into a major freak-out.

Fortunately a combination of the lifespan of the virus and my being a reasonably healthy young-ish person stopped it before it went past the point of no return.
I apparently came within a gnat's wing of developing a permanent inflammatory condition.

I've been back at work since the start of February and every week since then I've felt a bit better. Just being able to be at work and do things like cook and drive for myself have been a huge mood lifter all by themselves.

Most of my blood test scores are back to normal and I have been eating and living like a saint to keep the recovery marching on.

I've had to give up both caffeine and alcohol for the rest of this year to give myself the best chance at a full recovery and avoid the possibility of any kind of relapse.
Depending on how far one of the last scores recovers, I may end up having to ration or forgo alcohol and caffeine permanently.

Nevertheless at this point what I am feeling is incredibly, incredibly lucky.

I have never been that sick before and hope never to be that sick ever again.

I am beyond grateful that I feel as close to normal as I do now and if it takes giving up stimulants to maintain it, I won't even blink.

It's easy to dismiss the phrase 'at least you have your health' when you're healthy and there's something going wrong in your life, or just not going as right as you'd like, but I am never going to take that sentiment for granted again.

Anyway, now that I'm done being serious and disconcertingly earnest the two things I started this post wanting to say are as follows:

When I was physically unable to write I still came up with ideas for my posts and now I'm both mentally and physically able to do so I'm going to start filling in the place-saver drafts I claw typed at the time.
So over the next few weeks I'll be filling in the gaping void that currently lies between December and the present day.
Some of you had already noticed my amazing time defying efforts in this area and oh how I wish your assumptions were true and I could pull a Back to the Future because I would tell Past Me what I'm about to tell Current You.

Wear mosquito repellent all the time.
Just all the damn time.
If you're going outside I want you to spritz yourself with repellent and then I want you to spritz yourself again just to be sure.
All over.
I don't care what the season is - mosquito repellent.
It's worth it, believe me.

OK, maybe I wasn't quite done being disconcertingly earnest.

PS. As hard as it may be to believe this isn't supposed to be a 'downer' post, me and my working arms are in a great mood :-)

*That's about 13 lbs for the imperialists.

Don't Mind If I Do

2011-05-01T00:31:00.008+10:00

Looking at myself in the bathroom mirror as I wash my hands, I can't at first work out what is bothering me about this outfit and then it hits me.

This hoodie makes me look like a Jedi.

It is at least three sizes too big and is of a manly cut for manly shoulders so it drapes like a cowl and draws closed like robes.

And I have no idea where it came from.

I mean, I know where I got it from but before that the trail gets a little muddy.

I'm not making any sense, let me try again.

The universe gives me jackets.

It does.

On no less than three and no more than five occasions, friends or colleagues have approached me holding out a jacket and said "You left this behind."

I didn't, it isn't mine.

I tell them this and they shrug and say something to the effect of "Whatever, it's been sitting here for over a month, you want it?"

And what the hell, sure, why not, free jacket.

They're invariably at least a size too big but always incredibly warm and cosy and no-one has ever, ever come looking for them again.

I've checked periodically for months afterward if anyone has come looking for their jacket until I am gripped firmly by the shoulders by an exasperated acquaintance who requests very, very politely that I please, for the love of God, stop asking. Just. Keep. The. Damn. Jacket.

Seeing as this is a very odd thing to happen to somebody more than once and definitely a strange thing to happen almost a half dozen times I've decided to go the egocentric route and take this as a sign that the universe wants me to be warm.

This means one of two things.

Option 1: I am inherently important.

Option 2: The universe is in cahoots with my mother who never thinks that I dress warmly enough.

Seeing as the universe hasn't started randomly handing me babies* or sending me baby magazines like it did to Lucy Knisley (see 6pm), it is obviously Option 1.

So if you feel obligated to pay me tribute I wouldn't be averse to that.

I expect it to arrive in the form of jackets.

*Mum never used to be like that but in the last five years she's gotten very 'Oh look at the babies!'
It's... disconcerting...

One, Two, Keep A Few, Ninety-Nine, One Hundred

2011-03-26T16:17:00.015+11:00

I know I have some habits that could be considered mildly compulsive.

I like the colours of clothes pegs holding up one item to match.

I like to write journal items in blue ink, fiction or lists in black ink and diary/planner items in pencil.

I like even numbers.

That's essentially it.

They're not rules, it doesn't bother me to break them but I prefer to have things match when convenient.

I was a little worse when I was a kid.

I would actually go out of my way to avoid cracks in the pavement, not because I really believed that stepping on them would break my mother's back but not quite willing to take that chance.

All that said, every now and then I'll do something a bit odd and not know why.

Like this.

This is 197 cider bottle caps.

One day a few years ago I left a cider cap on the draining board next to my sink overnight.

The next night when I had another cider I put the second cap next to the first.

They were joined by a third.

I swept them into a plastic container to get them out of the way.

And then for some reason I just kept adding to them.

I didn't drink more often or more beverages in order to add to the pile, I just added to the pile when I happened to have something to add.

Over a few years, a few summers really, I kept my caps.

And then one day I just stopped.

I really don't know why I started.

I don't know why I stopped.

I don't know why I kept the collection for a few months after I stopped.

It's particularly perplexing because I don't keep collections of anything else.

I didn't care about it in any significant way at the time and it doesn't bother me to pour them all into the bin now.

It's just something I did and now I'm not doing it any more.

So if you ever worry that you're a bit weird, don't worry, me too.

Dot Dot Dot Dot Dot Dash Dash Dash Crash

2011-03-19T00:32:00.007+11:00

The other day I was driving down the highway when somebody coming the other way flashed their lights at me.

I don't know about any of you folks living in other countries but in Australia when someone flashes their lights at you it means one of five things:

There is a kangaroo or other animal near the road.
There is something else obstructing the road.
There is a police car, speed camera and/or booze bus up ahead.
I'm a big douche who is messing with you.
'The fifth one' which I'll explain in a minute.

So anyway, this person has flashed their lights at me.

I'm already doing the speed limit and I haven't had anything to drink so if it's police presence they're warning me about, I'm not worried.

But just in case it's an animal or obstruction, I slowed down to give myself more time to react.

After a certain number of kilometres when nothing had presented itself I assumed that the light flashing had been to announce a Reason 1, that had resolved itself by the time I got there, or due to a good old-fashioned Reason 4.

This morning I realised that I had forgotten Reason 5, when parked facing a glass door I noticed that I had a headlight out.

The thing is, everybody always seems to forget about Reason 5*.

I know I've flashed my headlights at people because one of their headlights is out, in the hope that when they get home they'll check and confirm this fact.
And I can be fairly certain that in most circumstances they've done what I've done and continued pootling around with their busted headlight until they've managed to catch a glimpse or somebody in a position to do so has mentioned it to them in person.

I started wondering if we could devise and disseminate some kind of national-wide system of flashes that would allow us to differentiate between Reason 1 to Reason 4 (the response to which is simply to slow down**) and Reason 5 (the response to which is to get a new headlight as soon as possible as to avoid potential trouble with the police).

But multiple flashes of lights can be difficult to manage in the time between approaching and passing another car, or may not be fully visible depending on conditions.

So I started thinking about devising a system that would allow you to flash just one headlight, thus clearly indicating that you have noticed the other driver has one headlight out.

Maybe you could flash one headlight to indicate busted headlight, flash the other to indicate obstruction on the road, and flash both to indicate police car.

The more advanced and ambitious of us could develop a sort of car headlight Morse code.

But how would the electronics and controls of these wonderful new cars need to be altered or redesigned to achieve this goal?

And what if you're flashing your lights at somebody for Reason 1 through Reason 4 and they assume it's for Reason 5*** because you have a headlight out?

Then of course you might end up with cars running off the road or into the back of each other as they squint and try to follow or remember the significance of various blinking patterns.

Hmm.

Maybe I should just remember to check my headlights.

Occam's razor and all that****.

*Reason 5: Your headlight is out.

**And in the case of Reason 4, to feel miffed about it later.

***Or possibly don't see it at all, depending on which headlight you're flashing.

****I can't think of Occam's razor without thinking of Dr Standish from Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Tea-Time Of The Soul.

Take No Prisoners, Show No Mercy, Leave No Witnesses

2011-03-13T00:32:00.013+11:00

I know everyone has their own ways of dealing with stress and troubling emotions.

Some people exercise.

Some people drink.

Some people knit.

Some people clean their weapons* or do maintenance on their car.

Some people turn on the TV.

For whatever reason, I clean.

When I get super stressed out, I roll up my sleeves and attack.

I guess it might be something about not wanting to think about whatever is making me sad/anxious/angry because whenever this mood grips me, I acquire an intense focus that allows me to power through tasks that I usually have to drag myself into doing and there is no room in my brain for anything else.

It's also good to know that even if I'm using the cleaning as a way to procrastinate or distract myself, I'm doing something practical.
There's a tangible real-world effect.
I've achieved something that improves my surroundings or situation in some concrete way.

If you did an undergraduate degree in psychology, you could probably also argue that being able to organise and control your external environment may help you to begin attempting to organise and control your life.
Or help you deal with the fact that you have absolutely no hope in hell of managing to organise or control your life, at least at this point.

Whatever the myriad of reasons, I find wading into a room fists first and cleaning the hell out of it incredibly satisfying and soothing.

There's a system.
There's a sequence.
And it's wonderfully physical so you can work off anything that's bothering you.

The Procedure

Clear off all the flat surfaces.
Clean them down.
Throw away anything that you cleared off the flat surfaces which isn't needed any more.
Use the flat surfaces to organise those things you've decided to keep.
Empty out the cupboards or storage areas.
Clean inside the cupboards or storage areas.
Throw out the dross.
Use the flat surfaces to organise those things you've decided to keep**.
Clean off the things you've decided to keep, if necessary.
Put all the things you're keeping back into the cupboards or storage areas in an orderly fashion.
CLEAN THE EVER-LOVING HECK OUT OF ALL THE FLAT SURFACES, VERTICAL SURFACES, FLOOR TYPE SURFACES, BUMPY SURFACES, ALL THE SURFACES!
Make a list of anything you may need to replenish or replace now that you've gone through everything.
Sweaty and dishevelled, stagger off for a cup of tea and a collapse before a hot shower and further collapsing, exhausted but content.

At the end of all that, I may have realised that whatever was bothering me wasn't so bad after all, or I might feel closer to being able to deal with it, or I acknowledge that whatever is bothering me is still a poop sandwich but I don't care for a while because check out this freaking spotless room and/or house!
And, honestly, some days that's good enough.

*Not with the intent of doing anything to themselves or others with said weapons, they just find the act of maintenance meditative.

**At this point you may need additional flat surfaces in the form of card tables or similar.

Soundwave!

2011-03-05T23:55:00.009+11:00

Just to round out this summer of music, I also went to Soundwave!

The highlights of which I shall now sing!

Introducing my friend to Stone Sour, which she immediately fell in love with, and hearing her describe Corey Taylor as punk-rock Prince Harry.
Seeing a guy in a wheelchair crowd-surfing, wheelchair and all, when Queens of the Stone Age were playing and Josh Homme ordering the crowd to pass him up on stage so he could rock out with the band.
Rob Zombie singing a weird little song about how the big lads in the crowd should hoist the little chicks up onto their shoulders so that the 'Zombie girls' could see that had grinning guys turning to offer their backs to girls throughout the crowd.
Being completely bewildered by the clothing and masks on the members of Primus.

Rocking out to Slayer and being glad that I hadn't been at the Sydney show instead where Slayer had to cancel because Tom Araya had an ear infection or something.
I got to see Iron Maiden again! Iroooooooooooooooooon Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaiden!
Giggling like an idiot when Dimmu Borgir were on because of Dimmu Burger on Metalocalypse.

Iron Maiden!

2011-02-26T23:54:00.007+11:00

Even though I've listened to a bunch of Iron Maiden, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when I went to see them live.

I was excited to have the chance as I'd only just started listening to them when they came out for their last tour and thought I might have missed out on ever seeing them live.
So when they put tickets on sale for this tour I jumped right on it.

I'd never really watched any footage or any video clips of any of their performances and I was figuring that maybe they would be winding it back a little bit as they've been knocking around for decades, throwing in a little less of the old stage acrobatics in favour of a bit more stationary posing and concentrating on their instruments.

Not. A. Bit. Of. It.

Bruce Dickinson jumps around that stage like a monkey who has managed to chug a couple of triple espressos and has then found some pills in a long-haul trucker's glove compartment.

Janick Gers was practically doing the splits up against speaker stacks, his long thin legs clad in tight jeans and topped off with an almost Skwisgaar Skwigelf-esque belt.

What you could see of Nicko McBrain was going completely mental behind the drum kit.

Dave Murray was doing this cute smile and nod as he bobbed around playing that wouldn't have looked out of place during a folk song.

Adrian Smith and Steve Harris were charging about like mad men, grinning the whole time.

One of the things I liked the best was the sheer range of people there.
The classic black shirted metal fans, people in bright colours, people in summer dresses, people in their work gear.
And the ages! There was at least two families I saw that had turned up with three generations of Maiden fans - the grandparents in their late 60s/early 70s, parents in their 30s and kids about 10 years old.
I saw one dad with his son on his shoulders in the mosh pit and the kid was going off tap :-D

Unfortunately for me I'd had a cold for a couple of days before the concert and just as my friend and I were driving into the city to go to the concert, I completely lost my voice.

I lost my voice!

Here I am at an Iron Maiden concert unable to sing along or roar with the crowd or respond in any way to Bruce Dickinson's cheeky banter!

It was so frustrating!

But even without my voice it was a fantastic night.
Surrounded by other people singing along and grinning and doing all the gestures during Two Minutes to Midnight, I felt right at home.

And if they come back I'm going again because my theory with tours is that every one might be the last one and if you like the band you do NOT want to miss out!

P.S. As we were driving to the arena we went right past Janick Gers taking a pre-concert walk and we yelled G'day to him and he waved and my mate almost lost his mind :-D

Cooking With Ricochet: How To Make Lazy Chicken And Vegetable Pasta Bake

2011-02-20T20:45:00.008+11:00

Serves about 4 depending on how ravenous your guests are.

Ingredients
1 can of condensed chicken and corn soup
500 g of penne
1/2 a barbecued chicken
1 zucchini
1 carrot
1 1/2 cups of grated tasty cheese

Steps

Decide you can't be bothered cooking, opt to have toast for dinner.
Remember your parents are coming over, give up and pull out a lazy recipe instead.
Preheat the oven to 200 °C*.
Put the 500 g of dried penne on to cook for about 10 minutes in a pot of boiling water, with a bit of salt. Probably too much. Damn. Drain it and put it aside.
Grate the zucchini and the carrot, congratulating yourself for not grating your fingers off whilst your parents sit on your couch and flick channels on your TV.
Shred the barbecued chicken, carefully not eating any of it before you put it in the bowl.
Mix the soup, zucchini, carrot, shredded chicken and penne together and pour them into a baking dish. Accidentally drip a bit on the cat who then runs away and hides under the bed and refuses to come out so you can clean him off. Give up as the other cat runs in and starts enthusiastically cleaning soup and chicken off the first cat for you.
Sprinkle the cheese on top of the pasta and bung it into the oven for about 20 minutes.
Put on your oven mitts, pull out the baking dish.
Decide the pasta bake may be cooked but will be more delicious if you grill the cheese a bit.
Take off your oven mitts to turn the grill on.
Blithely pick up the baking dish, turn around to put it under the grill.
Something's burning.
IT'S YOUR FINGERTIPS, YOU IDIOT!
Manage somehow to dump the piping hot straight-out-of-the-oven baking dish onto the cooking range instead of the floor.
Ask your Mum to put the baking dish under the grill whilst you hold your fingertips under cold running water, reminding her first of the importance of oven mitts.
Serve up the deliciously golden brown cheesy, chicken and vegetable pasta bake with some salad.
Keep swapping hands between eating duties and a cold pack during the meal.
Two days later notice that you miraculously don't have any lasting damage, blisters or any indication apart from a callous on one fingertip that you almost burned your stupid fingerprints off.
Cancel planned crime spree.

*That's about 390 °F

Filling The Void

2011-02-13T14:55:00.006+11:00

When I turned six years old my parents gave me a clock radio for my birthday.

Some kids might have thought that a cruddy gift but I was thrilled!

Now the monsters under my bed wouldn't dare come out because they'd think the radio was somebody else talking, somebody else with me.

Take that you nebulous bastards! No more suffocating under the doona for me!

I'm not sure if that's where my preference for having some kind of background noise came from or whether it was just something I picked up along the way.

I do know that whenever things get too much I like to have sound around me, something I can ignore if I feel like it or listen to if I want to.

Especially when there's something that won't stop bouncing around in my head, something that I'm fretting about or waiting for or desperately but unsuccessfully trying not to think about.

And it's useful in those times, it gives me a bit of breathing room, stops me from going into a spiral of 'ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh'.

But when last week I cracked the shits because you can't listen to your mp3 player when doing laps in the pool, I figured I'd let it get away from me.

What was once a coping mechanism had become the norm.

So as a little experiment* I've been turning everything off in the evenings for the last few days.

No TV unless I was specifically watching a show, no surfing or leaving the TV on shows in a 'this will do' daze, nothing left burbling away on the laptop, no radio, no CDs.

And so far I haven't gone wall-climbingly, effigy-buildingly, backwards-writing-on-the-walls-so-the-words-reflect-the-right-way-around-in-the-mirror-when-the-lighting-flashes-ly insane.

Time seems to go a bit slower, I guess because there's less occupying your senses and you can concentrate on whatever you're doing.

I read more in shorter periods of time, household tasks generally don't take as long and unless somebody/something makes creepy or unexplained noises outside my window I get to sleep quite easily and probably sleep more deeply.

I'm unlikely to keep up this regime of quiet time as a permanent arrangement but it's nice to know that it's doable.

That I hadn't slowly wrangled myself into some sort of audio-dependency that I would have to spend months or years weaning myself off.

It's reassuring to know that despite my overactive imagination I haven't somehow brought the monsters of childhood with me in another form.

That I can empty my mind every now and then, even though it doesn't stay empty for long.

That I still make good company for myself when left alone in the quiet.

*On myself. Like a mad scientist.

An Insupportable Hypothesis

2011-02-05T23:48:00.013+11:00

I really don't think you've thought this whole thing through, Rihanna.

The logistics and the realities of the situation.

Sure, it might sound nice as a throw away phrase but do you know what would have had to have happened for you to actually be the only girl in the world?

Have you thought about what would probably happen afterward?

We'll have to assume some sort of global plague as in the excellent comic book series Y: The Last Man because a world-wide gender-based massacre seems very unlikely and would have to itself be caused by some sort of transmittable psychosis (probably lab-engineered).

So there's been a plague, women and girl-children lying dead in the street, bereft men wailing and screaming as the more opportunistic take to looting and trying to establish power-based mini-societies in the aftermath of this civilisation-shaking development.

And you're the only girl in the world.

This can't end well for you, Rihanna.

At its most essential, there are only two outcomes: exile or death.

If your beloved manages to whisk you out of the major metropolitan areas and into hiding or even keep you hidden within a major city your situation will be tenuous at best.

What if there is a riot? Or a war? Or food runs out? Or your building catches on fire? What if there's an epidemic? A pandemic? What if your beloved goes out for food/water/information/to work and never comes back? What if he comes back but is followed by a mugger or a particularly cluey intelligence operative? What if you're seen? What if you start to doubt him? To think that it couldn't possibly be all the women? What if you go out to find out for yourself?

If you are captured for any reason you'll either end up in a laboratory with scientists frantically harvesting your eggs, artificially (or not so artificially) inseminating you and studying you to see why you haven't died yet; or, well, quite frankly you'll probably end up passed from man to man or the exclusive possession of the local powerhouse/warlord who is unlikely to be a gentle and considerate lover.

I know, Rihanna, you might think I'm being unfair to men saying that. I'm not saying that in the absence of a female population all men would resort immediately and with relish to rape but those who rise to power in uncertain and destabilised societies are usually determined and ruthless and probably not well stocked with empathy.
Even if they're intelligent enough to realise you're the only girl in the world they'd also know that you're no Eve, there's no way that in your life time you'd be able to replenish the world's depleted supply of women, so they might as well enjoy you whilst you're here.

So how in our current pre-lady-apocalypse society is the object of your affections supposed to make you feel like you're the only girl in the world?

Lock you in a windowless room and come back daily, whispering shaky, unconvincing reassurances and bringing dented canned goods and meat whose provenance you probably don't want to ask about?

Strapping you to a cold metal gurney under a bright light and talking about you but not to you?

Relentless physical abuse?

At the very best by saying you want to be made to feel like you're the only girl in the world you're suggesting that your lover may only be with you because the only other options are masturbation or reluctant homosexuality, not because you are an appealing and engaging individual in your own right.

It's you, loneliness or wang, Rihanna.

Doesn't sound so romantic now, does it?

Oh sure, I'm probably over-thinking this, reductio ad absurdum and all that.

I'm just saying, maybe you should spend a little more time on your lyrics.

Big Day Out!

2011-01-31T00:55:00.005+11:00

Yesterday I went to RAMMSTEIN the Big Day Out RAMMSTEIN and I saw a whole bunch of amazing RAMMSTEIN bands.

This included RAMMSTEIN!

Before Rammstein I also got to see:

Iggy and the Stooges - Iggy Pop is people jerky, aging skin over defiantly toned muscles. His crowd banter is a bit contrived but his performance was worth the wait.
John Butler Trio - I don't really listen to a lot of their stuff when I'm out in the wild but they have a great energy and are a lot of fun to see live.
Deftones - I'd been hanging out to see them play, enjoyed the set immensely but spent the whole time thinking 'Hitch up your pants, Chino, we can see you underpants. Your pants Chino, they're sagging at the back! PULL THEM UP!"
Birds of Tokyo - I had never heard any of their stuff before yesterday but all the people who went on about Ian Kenny's adorable dancing weren't wrong and they were decent to listen to as well.
Airbourne - The lead singer scaled the stage frame and played guitar from above the lighting rig before clambering back down and using his head as a beating stone to open a beer can. Enough said :-D
And probably some others whose names I've already forgotten...

And then it was Rammstein time.

I cannot stress enough how fantastic Rammstein were.

They were excellent.

I... just... wow.

The stage show, the pyrotechnics, the well-greased German men in leather, the musical perfection.

If I could only see one live concert over and over again for the rest of my life it'd be this one.

Stunning.

My favourite part was when they sang Pussy from Liebe Ist Fur Alle Da...

It was a... special... moment for all of us.

As hard as it was, I walked away partway through the Tool set because I'm seeing them next week at the sidewave and really wanted to catch some of the Grinderman set because Nick Cave has a voice made of sin, velvet and dark chocolate.

Grinderman was a nice way to finish off the night as my feet were caning and I ended up sitting on the grass under the stars and the odd bat with a gathering of other folks staring up in wonder at the group of bearded weirdies and enjoying the crowd around me enjoying the eccentricity.

The venue itself was bigger than I had expected which meant that you didn't hear any of the other acts when you were trying to hear the one you'd picked but which meant you had to make some tough calls during the day if you weren't able or willing to run from one end of the place to the other.
There were a lot more stalls and things than I'd expected which were completely wasted on me because not only did I somehow turn up looking like I was dressed to hitch-hike around Latin America*, I'd packed enough food and water to do just that.
Essentially I looked like a huge dork** but I had a GREAT time.

*Big I-have-come-to-bring-the-good-word-to-the-natives missionary's black hat, red singlet, white overshirt to fend off the sun, black jeans and boots.
**Not terribly uncommon for me to be fair.

Olfactory Senseless

2011-01-22T13:31:00.011+11:00

Maybe at some point, thousands of years in the past, ancient humans had a more highly developed sense of smell than they do now.

Maybe you could sift through a raft of flavours on the air in a more comprehensive, more instinctive fashion in order to survive.

Maybe when greeting each other you could lean forward and each scent how often the other eats protein, tell how long ago it was eaten, use that information to infer how successful their tribe, how good a hunter they were, how viable a mate.

Maybe it played a part in establishing diplomatic ties, making sure you weren't allying yourself to someone too weak to aid you, someone who would be a drain on your resources.

Maybe it helped you walk the line between survival and oblivion on a slightly better informed footing.

But here and now in the present I think you should brush your teeth.

Possibly twice.

Yeesh.

Lazy Days

2011-01-15T13:31:00.008+11:00

I'm sitting at the back door, dusting sand off my feet, being helped and hindered by two damp, happy dogs who break off every now and then to chase dragonflies before coming back to wag water on me and lick my toes.

I've one sunburned ankle, salt in my hair, my skin smells of sunscreen and it's soon going to be time for a cool drink and a nice lie down.

We're at the beach for the week which means sleeping late, walking the dogs, watching one of them try to drink the ocean, good food, swimming, basking in the sun, cheerfully persecuting each other with board games and watching thoroughly inappropriate movies for people who are staying at the beach (they always play Jaws and like fools we always watch).

Today I helped a 3-year old build a series of sandcastles and then we trampled them like a pair of godzillas before running down the beach to kick the waves back into the sea.

God, I love the summer.

An Opportunity Unparalleled

2011-01-07T18:39:00.006+11:00

It's the seventh day of January.

And hot cross buns were on the shelves of the supermarket four days ago.

Easter isn't until almost May this year and yet there are chocolate eggs and bunnies and little lolly chickens taking up a modest amount of space in the confectionery aisle.

I can't remember if this has been a slow process, things creeping onto the shelves a couple of days, a couple of weeks, a couple of months earlier each year before Easter and Christmas.

I'm guessing it isn't as bad in North America at least for Christmas because they have Thanksgiving and Halloween beforehand to keep the yuletide items from appearing too early.

All around me people are bemoaning the greed of corporations or businesses that try to cash in on offering seasonal or niche treats for longer periods of time knowing that people are more likely to give in to nostalgia or temptation but all I can think of is how easy it would be to use this state of affairs to prank a kid.

No really.

The whole situation must confuse the hell out of kids with their tenuous grasp on the nature of time.

They see Easter or Christmas treats on the shelves and they assume Easter or Christmas must be soon and all over the place parents are forced to explain over and over again that there are months to go until then and have to endure tears and requests for eggs, buns, candy canes or marshmallow Santas until the season finally arrives.

Wouldn't it be more fun to run into a kid's room one morning and shake them awake and begin a ruse that would probably scar them for life?

"Bobby! Bobby wake up! Bobby we slept too long!"

"Wuh, what? What's going on!?"

"Bobby, we ate too much at Christmas and our bodies thought we were trying to hibernate like bears and we slept all the way through January, through February, through March and into April!"

"Whaaaaat...!?"

"It's Easter Bobby! You've missed over 3 months of school! I've missed over 3 months of work! Your father and I have probably been fired from our jobs... but look! Easter eggs!"

"WHAT!?"

You've got to admit, it'd be pretty awesome.

The kid staring in fear and confusion at the people still on their Christmas holiday, taking your word for it that they're on their Easter break.

The kid boggling at the walls of chocolate eggs and Easter accessories on display in all the shops.

Sure, they'd probably need years of counselling afterward but you know what?

It'd be worth it.

Resolution Dissolution

2010-12-26T00:51:00.007+11:00

Ah, once again my friends we find ourselves here.

New arbitrary chopping of time into bite-size-chunks assessment of things done or undone time.

And once again I've managed 2 out of 3 of my resolutions.

I watched a swag of lovely new movies and I donated some blood.

Unfortunately it wasn't as much blood as I was intending to donate - as my body is somewhat possessive of the red stuff and threatened to take my consciousness away if we continued - but I tried.

I didn't get around to crochet because, oddly enough, I got distracted by knitting. I found a sad, abandoned unfinished scarf I had begun somewhere in my early teens and began adding rows to it*.

So here we sit at the start of a new year and I'm racking my brain for some new resolutions and I am coming up with bubkis.

There are plenty of things I want to do** but none that I want to resolve to do.

Nothing seems big enough or focused enough or specific enough.

So I figure... stuff it!

I'll probably set myself little challenges and goals throughout the year but if I can't come up with any big projects, I'm not going to force myself to manufacture some now because that would just feel artificial and would get annoying pretty quickly.

This year I'm just going to do... things.

I'm kinda looking forward to it.

*I also aggravatingly began adding stitches because I was holding the yarn wrong at the end of the needle but I think I've stopped myself from doing that now...

**Draw more often, keep up with the knitting, continue with my Italian, cooks some new things

Knot What You're Used To

2010-12-19T00:50:00.009+11:00

When it was first explained to me that I wasn't going to be growing a big old beard when I grew up I was incredibly put out.

Beards looked cool.

If you got sick of them you could slim them down into all sorts of moustache configurations.

If you stuck with it you could end up with face fuzz long enough to braid.

None of the female landscaping I found out about later seemed anywhere near as versatile or interesting.

And God help you if you suggested to young Ricochet that shoes, clothes or accessories were on the same level as something you could grow yourself for free and use to disguise yourself when you were on the run from the law.

I've never had peener envy or any of the other associated psychological complexes but I did feel ripped off about beards.

Also ties.

I remember being in primary school and having a friend explain to me with all the confidence of an eight year old that girls get to wear ties as part of their uniform until they finish high school but then after that they don't get to wear ties any more.

That also seemed stupid and unfair.

Ties can look business-like and impressive or you can loosen them at the end of the day to indicate 'THAT'S IT! I'M DONE!'

You can knot them around your forehead if you're going into battle, use them to choke people in exciting urban combat situations, use them to tie things when a length of cord-like material is needed for survival, wear them to work I guess...

And I took my friend's word for it.

You didn't see many ladies on TV wearing ties in office dramas or cop shows; it was all open necked shirts and discreet blouses or tough, no-nonsense, ballsy long-sleeve numbers.

After a while I forgot about it.

Then when I was in university and going through my pretentious stage*, I went into a particularly mismatched kitschy looking cafe and the girl who brought me my giant latte was wearing a tie.

She wasn't just wearing the tie, she was rocking the tie.

Short sleeve button up shirt with ragged sleeves, knee length black skirt, distressed stockings, lovely scuffed berry coloured boots and a tie.

A tie!

Just hangin' there, as natural as can be.

I had a jealous.

And then I had a revelation!

If she could do it, then I could damn well do it!

When I went home I dug out my old school tie, stared at it blankly for a bit and tried to remember how it worked**, flopped it over my neck and then after a few false starts made it look not like a turkey barfing up its own head.

And I never looked back.

I may never grow a truly awesome beard but I will enjoy every minute I'm flaunting a tie.

Because some things are just fun for no particular reason and those are the ones you should make a point to enjoy for themselves in all their unexplained glory.

Even if there was an explanation how could it be better than plain old 'I just feel damn fancy'?

*Well, entering my pretentious stage, I've never really left.

**My memory is very efficient at clearing out anything it deems no longer necessary. If I changed my phone number today I can almost guarantee you that it would be gone in less than a month from the meat storage slot it currently occupies in my long-term memory.

The Empty Space

2010-12-12T23:34:00.005+11:00

I can get kind of obsessed by little things.

Something will occur to me once and if the wind is blowing in the right direction, the stars are aligned just right or I've consumed exactly the right amount of sugar it'll stay with me.

Not as a constant presence but as a recurring association.

The most enduring example of which was born when I first watched Inspector Gadget.

Sure I enjoyed the show, but at the back of my mind was one persistent and ever-present question.

WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO PENNY'S PARENTS?

Why was she living with her uncle at all? Were they out of the country? Did they die in a car crash? Were they locked in an insane asylum? Did he find her in a box somewhere and forget to turn her in? Were they mad scientists? Was that where the computer book came from?

Even at a young age I could understand that having a niece meant that Inspector could have a young relative following him around with his best interests at heart without having him look like a bad parent.

Later on I also realised it meant the viewer wasn't confronted with the idea of him having Go-Go-Gadget-Sex.

No matter my age, I couldn't shake the question. Where did these missing relatives go and why weren't we told?

That particular focus then transferred itself to the next obvious target: Disney movies.

What happened to Ariel's mother? Did she get caught in a tuna net? Did she get eaten by a shark? Did she squirt out one cloud of eggs too many and fade away?

Did Belle's mother get caught in an invention explosion? Leave her no good, dreamer husband to strike out on her own? Die in childbirth trying to deliver Belle's somewhat less aesthetically pleasing and ultimately doomed sibling?

How did Snow White's mother die? When did her father cark it? Where was the Grand Vizier when you needed someone to point out to the king that maybe this woman was a bit off in the brain-pan and that the king should instead look at this hypnotically glinting jewel?

The only two Disney films I can think of off the top of my head where the protagonist had both parents are The Lion King* and Mulan.

I know there are others, Sleeping Beauty for instance, where the parents exist but are removed to let the kids run around doing their own thing in a watered down sugar-coated bildungsroman.

Because apparently Disney didn't think that having your parents save you is as awesome as having some random dude do it.

To which I have a one word rebuttal: Taken**.

I know these characters are left out or side-lined to make the story simpler and make it somewhat more believable that the protagonist would end up running around by themselves but unfortunately for me, it hasn't worked.

I will spend my entire life watching the characters who don't appear in movies.

Which is OK.

Some of the missing pieces have an interest all of there own.

*Well, at least for a while. Depressing...

**Oh, also The Mummy Returns***

***Shut up, you loved it****.

****And by you, I mean me******.

******So shut up!

The Body As A Tyrant

2010-12-05T23:27:00.005+11:00

This is ridiculous.

Did you know that if you start feeding your body breakfast first thing after a lifetime of getting around to food in the mid-morning it starts DEMANDING food all the time?

It wants morning tea.

It wants lunch super early.

It wants AFTERNOON tea!

It wants dinner before 8pm.

It wakes you up in the morning demanding MORE breakfast.

And if you start drinking the recommended amount of water and stick it out until it stops feeling like you're trying to drown yourself and then you forget to keep your intake up for just ONE DAY, you wake up the next morning feeling like you're heavily hung over.

I'm talking several litres of beer hung over.

So the lesson here is that you can muddle along for years treating your body kind of decent and it'll accept that but if you start treating it right the dang thing will get used to it and refuse to go back to your previous ways without a fight.

Uppity corporeal form.

Digital Deserter

2010-11-28T18:15:00.006+11:00

Digitus annularis sinistra, we need to talk.

Have I done something to upset you recently?

I know you get left out of making obscene gestures but I include you every single metal concert I attend, my right hand has no monopoly in throwing up the horns.

Sure, you don't get to do any of the handwriting but that's going the way of the dinosaurs and you are a vital and valued member of Team Touch-typing.

I haven't bashed you, beaten you, broken you, crushed you, landed on you or jammed you in anything so why, WHY have you spent most of this month puffed up to twice your normal size, aching and refusing to bend?

Was it something I said?

We don't play sports and I've never played that stab-the-spaces-between-your-fingers-really-fast game, and do you know why?

Because we're buddies.

Because I would never endanger you like that.

Having two working hands is pretty awesome.

Which is why our current situation is so disconcerting.

Driving is difficult, touch-typing impossible, I keep bonking you on things because you're stuck out on a weird angle, and the other night I rolled onto you in my sleep and almost bit my tongue off because it hurt so much.

I've taken you to the doctor which proves not only am I taking you seriously but I'm willing to commit to working things out between us, so won't you meet me halfway?

About halfway between extended flat and fully curled against the palm?

So we do all those things we used to do together like hold stuff and open jars by ourselves.

Please let me know.

I love you.

Sincerely yours,

Ricochet

Reluctant Reunion

2010-11-20T18:14:00.004+11:00

Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh!

Here we go.

After a lot of waiting, rumours, hiccups and hold-ups, our workplace is finally in the process of being amalgamated into one building now that enough office space has opened up in the main building to incorporate the staff from the smaller building.

This is good for communications, cutting down on shilly-shallying with resources and not having to hire a private detective to work out how to work out who has what stationery and why we never have any post-its.

This is bad for the sheer amount of drama it has stirred up.

As citizens of the smaller building, my coworkers and I have enjoyed a series of small separated offices complete with doors that close, a lunch area, better parking and a good half hour's warning before any of the higher ups turn up at our door.

Moving to the larger building we'll be working in an open plan office with our big building cousins, we'll have to share facilities and the battle lines are already being drawn.

Sides have been chosen and whining is in full effect.

How we're* going to arrange our desks.

How much space we get.

What we're going to do to those dirty big building-ers if they try to use our communal fridge.
It isn't our fault that our fridge is bigger than theirs and damned if we'll be giving up our glorious fridge space when we've already had to sacrifice our privacy blah blah blah blah.

Of course, it hasn't all been solidarity and morale-boosting group planning. The existing factions, sub-factions and incestuous semi-factions in our mini-splinter-workplace have continued their scheming against each other even as they've participated in the collective scheming to make sure we aren't done wrong by the outlanders**!

I have decided to take the high road*** and hope that everything eventually settles down.

If this manages to happen before a particular group - who don't seem to have realised that they've left high school way behind them and sound ridiculous bickering like teenagers - kill each other... Well that would be great.

Yes, I'm going to miss being able to close my door, especially when one particularly racist/homophobic/reality TV loving coworker gets going, but I've still got a job I enjoy and will NOT be joining the 'this is an outrage, we're being treated so poorly' self-indulgence of the drama llama crew.

Losing a water cooler isn't a contravention of any human rights treaties, you nitwits!

All that having been said... Please let this be over soon *sigh*.

*They take it as read that I am part of the 'we' collective, I am too apathetic to be an 'us' or a 'them'. I am the Switzerland of not giving a toss about office politics.

**Wait, we're the outlanders! What does that make the other guys? Inlanders just makes them sound like tax officials.

***Translation: wear headphones all the time and ignore everyone

Throwing Out My Alarm Clock

2010-11-14T09:54:00.004+11:00

A while ago *coff three months ago* my alarm clock stopped working.

This caused a minor problem because when I don't need to get out of bed in order to turn my alarm off, I don't tend to get out of bed.

Which means getting out of bed late, skipping breakfast and flinging myself half-dressed out of the door in a panic to get to work on time.

So I pro-actively got right on that.

Last week.

But I really shouldn't have bothered.

Because the cats have come up with a new game.

A game called 'let's knock everything off the bottom shelf of Ricochet's bookcase'.

They like to play it at 5:30am in the morning and then wrestle on the resultant pile of books.

I'm not used to being awake at that hour.

And chasing a pair of furry bastards off a stack of Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and assorted murder mysteries isn't my idea of a gentle awakening.

So I surrendered the bottom shelf, redistributed the books, and settled back to enjoy a restful night's sleep punctuated at a seemly hour by the trilling of my new alarm clock.

Except the early morning wrassling has relocated itself to the foot of my bed.

There are two conclusions to be drawn from this.

One. Cats are the annoying, energetic, morning people of the animal world. You know, joggers.

Two. Procrastination is nature's way of telling you not to bother spending money on things that you'll never get around to using anyway.

So I might as well throw out the alarm clock.

I'll get right on that.

Eventually.

Things I Am Looking Forward To When I Get My Braces Off

2010-11-07T21:18:00.009+11:00

Spending 90% less time wondering if there is something caught in my teeth.
Nougat
Being able to bite directly into things
Nougat
People over 60 not assuming I'm 15*
Nougat
Not getting the odd bit of cheek caught on the odd bit of metal
Nougat
Being able to floss my teeth without needing guiding apparatus
Nougat
Not suddenly realising I've been making weirdo faces at people as I absent-mindedly probe my braces with my tongue
Nougat
...

I am going to eat the hell out of some Europe bars...

*The braids I've been sporting of late may have been contributing to this particular misconception

Puncture Panic Paranoia

2010-10-31T21:18:00.006+11:00

Darn frobishing kerning trammelling heck!*

Luxuriating the in warm weather I decided to go for a lordly stroll about my rented domain.

Clad in the finest of boxers and singlets I meandered through the flat, out onto the sheltered back balcony from where I can survey all that I don't own but could hit with spit balls from behind some handy lattice screening if the mood takes me.

I considered having a bit of a sweep, tidying up the ancient retro bar and evicting the resident spiders to make way for possible frivolities this summer.

I took a step backwards to take in the scope of said task.

I took another step backwards and felt a sharp pinch on my left heel.

I aborted the 'lower foot' process, reversed the motion and looked down.

I'd stepped on a cack-spackling rusty nail!

Some rampaging flag-noggin had - at a point in the past - decided that the best way to secure one of the floor boards was to hammer a back-up series of nails in from the crawl space below.

Having never pranced about on the back balcony shoeless before this was the first time I'd noticed the little death-march of rusty stupid nails and boy did I notice them now.

I knew I'd had a tetanus shot at some point but damned if I could remember when.

All my hazy memories of immunisations and boosters seemed to feature my school uniform which didn't bode well for currency.

So in the grip of a mild bout of panic, wondering how long it took for tetanus and lock-jaw to set in, I began staggering around the house like a pirate with a peg leg, trying to remember where I kept things like disinfectant and bandages and my clothes.

I thought about ringing my GP - I remembered it was 8pm at night.

I decided to look up tetanus online - I wished I hadn't.

I called my aunt who is a nurse - she told me I had a 72 hour window in which to get a tetanus jab and to calm down.

I looked up the address of the local hospital, made a note of their phone number and then curled up on the couch under a blanket to await my impending doom, moving my jaw every now and then to see if my body was an overachiever which was going to seize up days or weeks ahead of schedule.

I considered popping along to the hospital for an injection - I remembered it was a Thursday night and all the just-got-paid-gonna-drink-my-week's-wages brigade would be turning up in the emergency room soon. Or driving the streets under the influence.

I reconsidered.

This kind of malarky is exactly why it's a good thing I'm so easily distracted and so very lazy.

If I were a more focused person I would be a full blown hypochondriac.

At various times in my life I have been briefly convinced - until diverted by something shiny - that I had the various ailments:

sore wrist = early onset arthritis
sleep away the weekend = chronic fatigue syndrome
rash = meningococcal (it wasn't a rash, it was red ink from a pen)
blue-green marks on wrist = varicose veins (it was vertigris from the work key I had clipped to my watch)
forgetfulness = early onset Alzheimer's

It's counterproductive and pointless to get myself all in a tizzy over almost unfounded imaginary ailments - especially since I'm planning to die of twitchy old age atop a pile of money and be ceremonially eaten by my squadron of highly trained attack cats - but every time I fall into the same pattern of runaway speculation.

In this case what I had to fight off the knowledge of my impending grisly doom by applying a healthy dose of the original Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy radio play for long enough to get to sleep so I could make two important stops the next morning.

The hospital for a tetanus jab.

And the hardware store for a hammer.

Those nails are going down.

*Yes, yes, words made up or used out of context but you get the point.

Self-control Stockpile

2010-10-24T22:09:00.009+11:00

I have a tonne of self-control.

Scads of it.

Mostly because I never use it.

I'm saving it up for something important.

Or at least that has been my line for the last 10 odd years.

But what began as a fun, glib throw-away answer to infuriate various relatives or nosy parkers has left me in a somewhat annoying position now.

It used to be something I said to keep myself from saying something far more biting to people who thought that because I was doing something different, I should be called on it; and because I was called on it, I should stop it.

I didn't stop.

I kept reading in trees.

Getting about in comfortable gear.

Finishing my meals at formal school functions* and enjoying good food without saying things like 'oh I shouldn't be eating this!'.

Enjoying competition for itself and winning at things I'm good at and blowing off things I'm not interested in.

And for the most part it has served me well.

Helping me take opportunities and chances that worrying about the opinions of others may have dissuaded me from taking; helping me make the most of things.

Until now.

Recently more often than not I've found myself using the same tactics, techniques and arguments in order to take the path of least resistance.

To put off effort in the short term that would pay off in the long term in order to do things that I don't particularly value.

This makes me cross.

I've never liked being told what to do so when people tried to tell me how to live/act/feel I immediately turned my back and did the opposite.

This doesn't work so well when I'm the person holding both sides of the argument.

Especially when it becomes apparent that something I used to use to assert and protect my independence and personality is now being turned against me - by myself! - to limit myself.

There's refusing to be ordered about and there's sheer bloody-minded petulance.

I'm afraid I've slipped into the second.

Time to become my own drill sergeant.

When I catch myself saying 'I'll do it later' or 'I'll just do this for a little bit...' or even 'Oh it's Monday, I have the rest of the week to do that', it'll be time to draw on my vast reserves of self-control, flick myself behind the ear and get on with what I want to do.

Because I refuse to be told what to do.

By anybody.

Especially myself.

Uppity bastard.

*Apparently NOT acceptable to other teen girls!

Assimilation Complete

2010-10-17T16:45:00.008+11:00

I resisted I really did.

When my landlord's niece left her skitty cat and its kitten with him in March because she couldn't keep them any more I remained calm and dignified.

When they wouldn't let any other humans but me anywhere near them I was only patting them to help them get used to people so they would move into my landlord's flat out of the cold.

When I dosed them with flea gel and worming paste it was only because nobody likes having fleas or worms.

When I started applying white zinc cream to their ears and noses every morning so they wouldn't get white kitty skin cancer it was only because I had this white zinc I wasn't using.

When they started sleeping inside my flat every night since June it was only because they somehow got inside and it seemed cruel to kick them out when they were asleep on my bed.

When I finally asked my landlord if I could keep them this week it was only because I was in denial and have been pretending I haven't technically been owned by them all year.

So, yeah, now I own two cats.

And am either really good at rationalising or really bad at reality.

European Masters Exhibition

2010-10-10T19:18:00.010+11:00

Well, I made it!

I left it until the last week of the exhibition but I made it to the European Masters at the National Gallery of Victoria!

And it was glorious [exclamation mark]

My Dad got a little excited and hired the audio tour for us all so he, Mum and I got to toddle around in a broken out-of-sync flow with all the other audio tourists listening to William McInnes murmuring soothing things about the lives of the artists, various artistic movements and historical events.

William McInnes did a very good job and I hardly spent any of the time thinking about him with his shirt off at all.

I am one of the most annoying people to go to galleries with because I go into little staring coma-like reveries and can stay on my feet long after other people would have opted for amputation or at least sitting down but luckily the trait is inherited and my parents survived intact.

Here's a little sample of my favourites from the exhibition, though of course they don't do the real paintings any justice.

Max Beckmann - The Synagogue in Frankfurt Am Main

Johan Christian Dahl - The Eruption of Mount Vesuvius in December 1820

Alfred Sisley - Banks of the Seine in Autumn

Max Beckmann - Double Portrait

Franz Marc - Dog Lying in the Snow

Edvard Munch - In the Bar

Lovis Corinth - Walchensee in Winter

Henry Rousseau - The Avenue in the Park of Saint-Cloud

Gustave Courbet - Village Road in Winter

Edgar Degas - Orchestra Musicians

Paul Meyerheim - The Jealous Lioness

Two other paintings worth mentioning were Eugenie Bandell's beautiful 'Japanese Dolls with Apples' (I couldn't find a copy but it was a lovely thing, all vibrant but soft colours, lots of angles blended together) and Fernand Khnopff's 'The Gamekeeper' which you can see here.

Farewell, I Guess...

2010-10-03T23:04:00.010+11:00

Well.

This was unexpected.

I've just been told that Diane - the landlady of the sharehouse I lived in during my last year at university - has died from cancer.

And I'm not sure what to feel.

When I first moved into the sharehouse Diane was living in Thailand so it was just me, another Australian girl, a Norwegian girl and a German girl living in the house studying, sharing food and generally having a good time.

I had been a little bit thrown by the 10 page double-sided list of house rules that Diane had left for all new housemates to acquaint themselves with but after having a bit of a snort - and assuming they were for people who had up until now been living in the mouth of a mine - I'd forgotten about them.

Then the university year ended, our international housemates finished their exchange years and went home for Christmas.

And Diane came home.

At first she seemed lovely.

Well-read, well-travelled, easy to talk to, with one of those slightly plummy more-English-than-English accents some Australians over 50 develop.

But gradually things started to go wrong.

If you didn't do the vacuuming at the appointed time (according to the house roster) you were 'reducing your housemates to living in squalor'.

If you left your cooking things in the sink whilst you ate your meal instead of cleaning them first you were being 'terribly inconsiderate'.

She would, with a gentle smile, say things like 'your mother never really taught you how to scrub, did she dear?'

You would slowly realise that she had this weird 'noble savage' view of the Thai people whom she claimed to love so much, whose language she was learning but whom she patronised with every word she spoke about them.

And just when you were ready to throw your hands up, pack your bags and get out of there, she'd crack open a bottle of wine and spend an entire evening talking to you about Australian troops in the Great War or her time travelling in Asia and completely discombobulate you all over again.

The most frustrating thing about her was that she was Never Wrong.

Not literally, she just would never take anyone else's arguments on board.

She wouldn't deviate from her beliefs and if you had given into the urge to start arguing with her about this, swearing or raise your voice this would have just confirmed her view that you hadn't been raised properly.

I spent the last 6 months hiding in my room, not wanting to interact with her and unwilling to bring friends home when they were left with no doubt that they were fundamentally unwelcome.

Finally, she kicked me out of the house.

A week before Christmas.

Literally seconds after I'd just read the most upsetting part of Harry Pottter And The Half-Blood Prince. Which is neither here nor there but was terrible timing as far as I was concerned.

She'd been dropping hints that I'd completely missed for weeks along the lines of 'Gosh that's a lot of groceries, will you need that much?' and 'Well, I'm feeling quite nostalgic, this is the last time you'll pay rent!'.

She had told me that the next year she wanted the house to be 'a student household again' and as I wasn't studying any more I expect this was as good a reason as any to kick me out and get in her preferred boarder - international students, preferably Asian girls who are too nervous about being in another country to speak back.

So I assumed I had until late February or early March to find a new place before the new semester started. I hadn't even started looking yet when she knocked on the door and told me that she'd need me out before Boxing Day so she could paint and redecorate.

No problem, I said numbly, that would be fine.

So I packed up all my things, bunged them into the back of my Dad's car and went home for Christmas.

I then spent all of January living in my Uncle's house - while he and my cousins were out of town - so I'd be close enough to the city for work and to look for a new place to live.

My self-esteem was in the trash.

I spent a whole month getting squiffy every night and as someone who hadn't started drinking until she was 19 and had never got drunk until she met Diane, guess who I blamed?

I moved into a new sharehouse with an easy laid back group and after about 3 months I had managed to relax properly and stopped drinking so damn much.

But I couldn't forget Diane.

It drove me crazy that she got to keep thinking about me.

Being wrong about me.

Being patronising about me.

Then years later when she'd finally drifted from my mind I found out she'd had an operation and chemotherapy but was in remission.

For a second I thought 'serve's her right' and then felt terrible.

I knew from little comments she'd let drop that she'd had a truly awful childhood and it was fairly clear even to someone as self-absorbed as I was at the time that her entire personality had been constructed as a way to distance herself from that and protect herself from the world.

I still didn't think it was fair on me or any of the other people who came into her sphere of influence.

And now I've heard again from the only housemate to stay in contact with her that Diane has died.

And that she was so estranged from her family that she left strict instructions that they weren't to be informed of her death until after her estate had been settled and her ashes scattered.

She was a very lonely but stubborn woman.

And I don't know how to feel that she doesn't get to keep thinking about me anymore.

Calm And Confusion

2010-09-27T23:36:00.006+10:00

Where am I?

Who are you people?

What are you doing in my room?

Good GOD, what happened to my hair!?

Oh, right... right... Yesterday was my sister's wedding...

You'll have to excuse me, what with yesterday's ceremony and my friend Awesome's nuptials I've spent most of this year preparing for and planning weddings and I'm not quite sure what I'm supposed to do now.

I... remember free time but can't quite wrap my head around how it applies to me.

After the months of phone calls, running home mid-week to try on shoes and dresses and pick jewellery and have make-up trials and bombard my sister with reminders of her appointments and to-do items... it's over.

The day itself went flawlessly, almost spookily well.

My mates Awesome and Eep chauffeured us from the hairdresser to the beauty salon to the other bridesmaid's house where we had to get ourselves and my sister dressed without undoing our hair or wiping off our make-up like the klutzes we usually are.

My Dad turned up and managed to restrain himself from making too many jokes as he drove us to the ceremony and then suddenly it was The Wedding.

My baby sister and her fella standing in front of all their friends and family, blue sky, soft breeze, lush garden, vows, readings, no-one faceplanting or stuttering, signings, photos, driving, more photos, reception, someone pushing a welcome glass of wine into my hand, speeches, crying, food, cake, more photos, fetching cars, packing gifts, kisses, collapsing into heaps.

My sister is married to a man who loves her and makes her happy and who we have long since assimilated and added his distinctiveness to our own.

You cannot believe the relief.

Now I think it is time for something a little different.

I might sit in a café and read a book, or take the dogs for a walk, or ignore all those plans and have a snooze, or get all these pins out of my hair and wash out the layers of hairspray.

Yes, that last one.

Then maybe the others, if I can be bothered.

Oh the freedom!

Planning Hermit

2010-09-18T18:55:00.018+10:00

I'm going to blame the fact that my sister and her fiancé are currently building a house.

And that two of my friends and their partners are at different stages of building their own homes.

And the really nice suburbs I drive through with my Dad when we decide the petrol price can go hang and take the scenic route home from Italian.

I can blame whoever I like but the truth is this: I've caught myself planning my perfect house.

I didn't cotton on to it at first that this was what I was doing.

It started with looking at the plans that various people were considering for their future abodes and the ones they'd researched and binned due to how patently crappy and impractical they were.

Then I was paying attention to architectural features of different buildings and houses as I passed.

So when whilst watching Grand Designs I caught myself thinking 'ooh, I'm definitely getting one of those' and realisation dawned.

Of course, when I say planned I'm not talking about a cohesive and structurally sound schematic, just a higgeldy piggeldy collection of 'things wot I like' put together like Door's house in Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere.

For your browsing pleasure and possible bemusement I've gathered a few of them together here.

Now if I can just win the lottery and find a builder willing to tackle a project likely to be rife with such helpful phrases as 'kind of like this but not quite and of course congruent with the rest of the aspects discussed so far...' then I'll be set.

The Truth Of It All

2010-09-11T17:28:00.004+10:00

I think I'm getting a cold.

This is a nuisance and a bother.

So I'm treating this the same way I do most worrying developments in my life.

With sleep.

Great, long, coddling, soothing bouts of surrendering to somnolence.

I feel the same way about sleep as Odin does in Douglas Adams' The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul:

Sleeping was a very important activity for him. He liked to sleep for longish periods, great swathes of time. Merely sleeping overnight was not taking the business seriously. He enjoyed a good night's sleep and wouldn't miss one for the world, but he didn't regard it as anything even half approaching enough.

Of course, seeing as I'm not actually an immortal - unfortunately - I am occasionally rocked by the frantic knowledge that I am frittering chunks of my mortal life away in this fashion.

But usually I'm just rock-a-bye-baby'd.

This is one of the things that has convinced me that I'm not a TRUE ARTIST as a TRUE ARTIST would be gripped by self-loathing and whipped into a frenzy by the need to create and the idea that they are wasting prime creating time.

Mostly I'm gripped by blankets.

When I wake up I will create.

But for now...

...Zzzzzzz...

The Shamening! (Not To Be Confused With The Shamaning)

2010-09-05T14:09:00.004+10:00

Oh dearie dearie me.

I knew I'd been slack of late but it wasn't until the lovely Erin Palette applied a judicious kick to my saddlery regions with a stylish boot that I realised it had been two months* since I posted anything!

SHAME!

So as a form of penance and blog-self-flagellation I am going to look back through my notes for things I intended to post but didn't and my planner to see what I was doing at the time and I am going to fill in the gaps.

This week.

Possibly today.

Because when you are slightly sleep-deprived, a little bit hung-over and having a hair of the dog it is the perfect time to make grand promises and to write.

So that means... 10 posts! Oh for the love of... I mean, excellent, I relish a challenge!

So here we go.

Operation STOP BEING A LAZY ASS has commenced!

*TWO MONTHS!!!

The Chicken Party

2010-09-05T14:04:00.012+10:00

My sister is getting married this year.

This month actually.

This is a thought that I feel should be making my brain boggle but she and brother-in-law-to-be have been together for so long and are so absurdly suited to each other it seems more a formality than anything else.

At this stage all we need to remember to do is turn up in the right dresses and shoes and we will be set.

The one thing we did need to get done and done properly before the big day was her hen's party.

I could give you a run down of what we got up to but a) that'd be a bit anecdotal and 'hey I went to a party that you weren't at' and b) it was a private party for my sister and none of your beeswax so instead I'm going to talk about something else.

There's a lot of build-up around what's supposed to happen at hen's parties since they attracted the hivemind's attention so I've decided to use this post to make one particular point, one that I think isn't made enough.

If it is your hen's party you can do WHATEVER YOU DAMN WELL WANT.

This includes telling people who are trying to tell you what you HAVE to do to take their suggestions and jam them up their jacksies.

If you want to get rowdy and take it to the streets that's fine, if that's how you like to play you'll have a ball.

If you're usually a quiet person, like doing things differently or just don't think it's the business of everyone in the damn town/suburb/city that you're getting married you don't HAVE to go out and do specific things and nobody is allowed to tell you that you should.

If you want to go paintballing - Go!

If you want to go to a day spa - Go!

If you want to have a BBQ, get drunk and play Rock Band - Do!

Karaoke bar!

Burlesque show!

Bowling night!

Movie night!

Costume party!

Bake off!

Beach party!

High tea!

1950s glamour pin-up photoshoot!

There is no limit to what you can do for your party, pick whatever you're happiest with and do that.

It is a party to celebrate your life so far, your friendships with the people you invite and the life you have ahead of you - there is no rule that says it has to be just one thing.

You shouldn't have a particular hen's party because you think it's expected of you any more than you should have a particular wedding because that's what you think is expected of you.

Do what makes you happy.

PS. In case you were wondering, no we didn't get a stripper. Just in case instead of Hugh Jackman...

...we got Har Mar Superstar*....

...who does indeed strip with confidence and alacrity but not to the same reception.

*Or someone I went to school with. I don't know why I'm so convinced lately that someone I went to school with will one day take their clothes off in front of me for money.

Tangled Up In Plaid

2010-08-28T14:03:00.009+10:00

Well, not necessarily plaid but hopefully some sort of patterning. Once I get going.

Remember my wild and cray-zay New Year's Resolutions?

Remember the one about learning to crochet?

Well, I'm edging closer!

After having bought a beginners' guide months ago and then forgetting to go back to the store for the yarn* or hooks I have joined Ravelry to get extra inspired with patterns and the like and will soon begin trawling YouTube for lovely little 'how to' videos so I know what all the short-hand in the patterns means.

I also now need to learn how to knit because the internet has patterns for Jayne Cobb's hat...

... and I want one.

Because it's Jayne Cobb's hat and he's the hero of Canton don't cha know!

I want one so badly I can almost taste it!**

I expect my first project will be an almost unbearably sad-lookin' scarf that I'll not want to wear but we've all got to start somewhere and my fumble-fingers will have to learn discipline in cruddy scarf boot camp before they get a shot at crocheting little squiddies or vampires or knitting bad-ass space cowboy beanies.
You have to earn a hat like that and seeing as I was born too early to join the Browncoats in their struggle or have a hand in the liberation of Canton, I'll have to earn it the other way - through arts and crafts!

*well, cotton yarn substitute... stupid allergy to wool.

**it tastes fluffy

Crawling Out Of The Comfort Zone

2010-08-21T14:03:00.007+10:00

I avoid certain movies like the plague.

War movies because they're always emotionally crushing and visually jarring.

Certain romantic comedies because they always feel so false and oversimplified.

Horror movies of a certain calibre because my brain doesn't need any more help imagining strange things lurking the in shadows thank you so very much.

And that was all well and good and I felt fairly OK with that.

But then I started avoiding a lot of other movies and when I tried to work out why, I was embarrassed to find that the explanation that popped up in my head was that they were 'too much work'.

"How much work can it be to sit on your ass and watch a movie?" a person would be justified in asking.

I didn't mean 'work' work but emotional and mental work.

I'd been rewatching old movies in a half-arsed way that allowed the familiar scenes and dialogue to wash over and past me whilst I tried to do other things (eg. write, draw, email).

The problem was I was doing those things half-arsed as well.

Instead of devoting two hours to really paying attention to a movie or really paying attention to a piece of writing or drawing, I was spending two hours not really paying attention to either and coming away feeling irritated and not at all like I had accomplished anything.

Instead of multi-tasking I was multi-tanking.

So as recorded in my New Year's Resolutions I have banned myself from watching movies I have already seen and am only watching new movies.
This has led to a sharp decrease in amount of movies actually watched but the associated sharp decrease in hours staring goggle-eyed and useless at a square of moving colours has been a welcome side effect.

And the movies I have watched so far have already made the experience worth it.

Not all have them have been quality but they've been fresh, they've got my brain moving again and I'm being less of a movie and cinema wuss about the 'hard work' movies.

My brain needs more hard work, it has been slacking off for years.

Silver Screen Surfer

2010-08-14T12:05:00.011+10:00

I don't often have a lot of luck getting out to see movies when they're playing at the cinema.

Either I'll agree to see them with someone and we can never go on the same day or I lose track of time and by the time I get around to it the local cinema has stopped playing the film in question.

This isn't always exclusively down to my poor organisational skills or vague grip on temporal reality, the local cinema can be a bit of a moody bugger when it comes to screening runs.
The Karate Kid (aka The Kung-Fu Kid) has been screening for over a month but Predators ran for a maximum of two weeks before they gave it the boot.

So when a swag of movies I was interested in all came around at once I decided that I was damned if I was being cheated again and I went - to put it quite bluntly - completely nuts*.

~~~

FRIDAY 9:10pm - SCOTT PILGRIM VS THE WORLD

Synopsis: Scott Pilgrim is a 20-something slacker who finds himself having to battle 7 evil exes in order to be able to date the girl of his dreams. Scott Pilgrim is accompanied in this quest by a selection of amusing and sometimes unsympathetic friends in a world that blends regular reality and computer game tropes in a way that messes your brain up fun times.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I was already going out with friends for a farewell dinner (for one of them) so when they said 'Hey you wanna go see Scott Pilgrim after?' I cursed them out for being the dirty temptresses they are and immediately said yes. This clashed with my Nerdy Senses which were tingling and saying things like 'But you haven't read Volume 6 yet, you fiend!' but I shouted them down, assuming correctly that I would be able to hold the movie separate in my mind from the graphic novels.
I loved the film for it's timing, the use of effects to simulate comic panels and for Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells - the whole thing was very well cast.
Of course there is no way you can make a feature length film from six graphic novels without having to cut out and compress a lot of the story telling, so if you haven't read the graphic novels you might come away a wee bit confused.
I had avoided reading Scott Pilgrim for ages as the whole premise of a man having to fight a girl's ex-boyfriends in order to date her seemed so... misogynist but on the urgings of a Canadian friend I gave them a go and found it hard to see them as such when reading them. I still think Ramona should have just told them all to go to hell and given them a good frying-panning to the face but the exchanges and actions were so entertaining and the 'computer game reality' so removed from regular life you couldn't take it entirely seriously on that level.

~~~

SATURDAY 9:00pm - INCEPTION

Synopsis: In a near future which has developed the technology to access people's dreams as a means of removing information, a skilled practitioner of this art is given a chance of redemption if he can achieve what is thought impossible - to place an idea within the mind of another.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I had decided to see Inception today but hadn't gotten around to it by the time I went out to dinner with my parents, so I decided that not only was I still going to see it, I was going to carjack my parents and take them with me. And I did.
It was astoundingly good.
Astoundingly.
Good.
And honestly if it had just been 2+ hours of Cillian Murphy looking vulnerable and Joseph Gordon-Levitt being tipped off chairs I would have been perfectly happy but it also had a plot!
The depiction of the movement of time and the mouldable reality and how it reacted were very engaging and it didn't hurt that pretty much all the dudes in it were fairly easy on the eyes.
For all the people who were complaining that they found it hard to follow or confusing I'm going to assume you spent the whole movie picking your nose and molding the resultant finds into a miniature statue of the Venus of Willendorf because my mother - who usually has to be reminded who people are part way through murder mysteries - followed it easily**.

~~~

SUNDAY 11:00am - THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO

Synopsis: A disgraced journalist and an antisocial hacker are brought together as the investigation of the 40 year old disappearance of a young girl leads to evidence of crimes more wide-reaching and recent than anyone suspected.

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: The books have divided some people as they couldn't get past the 'Fellowship of the Rings' style character infodump at the start of the first book but I found that those sections helped me get a better idea of the society/culture they take place in and it gave me a context in which to see everything else.
The movie was a fantastic realisation of the book and managed to fit most of the important scenes and themes in without having to alter too much of the story, apart from tweaks to the time-line and some reduction in the roles of some characters.
Having read the books I was able to brace myself for the more confronting scenes but think they would have been equally if not more effective if I hadn't known they were coming.
One of the things I liked best about this screening was that apart from me, the audience was almost exclusively ladies in their 60s (and over) in home-knitted cardies, nodding in appreciation any time Lisbeth smacked anyone or tattooed anything on anyone. As we were walking out I heard one lady remark to her friend "I would have been tattooing it a damn sight lower, I can tell you that!"

~~~

SUNDAY 7:00pm - THE EXPENDABLES

Synopsis: A bunch of mercenaries suddenly get a conscience about one of the messed up countries they're asked to do a job in and go completely banza crazy setting shit right yo!

Ricochet's Bonus Blather: I'm sorry, I couldn't write a 'serious' synopsis for this one. Mostly because it doesn't really have one. It was enjoyable as a collection of quips and cliches from people we're used to seeing quip cliches at us but it was so over the top that it was a send-up of its own genre which I assume was the aim. Well, I hope it was.
The banter between the characters was so exaggeratedly familiar it seemed like a polyamorous commune of old married men.
One thing I did like was the fact that the characters spent a bit of time reflecting on how that sort of lifestyle can really mess you up, that you can't just brush it off and that maybe some of their number should get some counselling.
I took along my friend Awesome with whom I watch all the most explodingest movies and we did enjoy it as a complete break from reality with extra violence sauce but I couldn't help but think that part of the reason for that is we've been conditioned to enjoy these sorts of tales.
Of course it is quite possible I am just feeling super pretentious after having seen three very good movies in quick succession just before this one***.

~~~

And somehow, despite the fact I spent almost the entire weekend sitting on my ass, at the end of it all I came away with a sense of productivity****!

Whee!

* That is 'nuts for a person who usually seems a maximum of 3 movies a year at the cinema'.

** Of course, it probably helps that at the cinemas you can't wonder off to put a load of washing on or make a cup of tea and come back after something very important has happened but really all you had to do was watch the screen.

*** But honestly, it is in no way a clever movie. Amusing but no surprises.

**** I guess it did count towards my New Year's Resolution to watch at least 52 new movies this year...

A Den of Ink and Long Island Ice Tea

2010-08-08T19:37:00.014+10:00

My memory is terrible.

I can't remember how I heard about Molly Crabapple, her art, her wish to make figure drawing more accessible and enjoyable and less intimidating but I certainly won't be forgetting the first session of Dr Sketchy's that I attended.

Dr Sketchy's is an Anti-Art School. Not anti-art but anti-'art school'.
It poo poos the idea that to be good at art you have to have spent years before the easel man-and-boy or that you should feel anything less than joy when creating at whatever level you can.

Dr Sketchy's is a figure drawing session with a significant difference.

All the models are burlesque and/or circus performers.

And they are fabulous.

All you need to attend Dr Sketchy's is enough in your pocket to cover the modest entry fee, something to draw on and something to draw with.
The music is light and quirky, the costumes are divine, the drinks are plentiful and the mood is fantastic.

It's like attending a party where all the other guests are madly trying to capture their fellow revellers' likenesses because they forgot their cameras and nobody minds a jot.
The performers perform as well as pose, the MC has a wicked tongue and the sheer beauty of the tattoos that I've seen would melt your eyeballs out of your head.
Also quite a lot of feathers, satin and shimmering sequined nipple pasties.

I've never had the guts to attend a 'proper' art class, worried that I'd either be completely bewildered if they started too quickly or bored silly if they started too slow* but each session of Dr Sketchy's that I've made it to has been a breeze.
So breezy in fact that the three hours are over before you know it.

You can search for local branches on the website which I would heartily recommend.
They're a warm, welcoming lot, art nerds.

I might have a way to go with my technical skills but I'm certainly going to enjoy the journey!

*Or that I'd laugh if the life model farted. Or that I would have attended school with the life model...

A Glimpse Of Gorgeousness

2010-07-31T22:36:00.010+10:00

I could lie to you and say that I'm going to try and present an accurate and balanced account of the evening.

I could claim that what is to follow will be eloquent and illuminating sharing of my experience but...

I SAW STEPHEN FRY GIVING A TALK AND STEPHEN FRY WAS TALKING AND I WAS THERE AND I HEARD HIM TALKING AND HE WAS SAYING BIG WORDS IN HIS BEAUTIFUL, FLUFFY, PINK AND MOIST AND MELLIFLUOUS BRITISH ACCENTED VOICE, RAKING HIS HAIR OUT OF HIS EYES AND WE WERE IN THE SAME ROOM AND OK IT WAS A BIG ROOM AND HE COULDN'T SEE ME BUT I COULD SEE HIM AND HE WAS STEPHEN FRY AND I WAS ME WATCHING STEPHEN FRY AND...

*GASP*

I saw Stephen Fry.

He told us about his travels and his writing and how he met some of the magnificent people with whom he has collaborated with over the years and he did a Hugh Laurie impression which sent my friends and I (and everybody else in the theatre) into glee raptures and a Patrick Stewart impression that almost killed us and I'm going to be geeking out for the rest of my life that I got to see one of my favourite actors just being charming and random and wandering about a stage going over time and just generally being marvellous.

I now have a list of books and movies to follow up on and want to know much much more about Oscar Wilde.

Because I saw Stephen Fry.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

Baldy And The Beast

2010-07-25T17:31:00.011+10:00

Whilst I may never have the money or inclination to see all the performances I regularly vow that I'm going to attend I have been seeing steadily more of them in the last few years, mainly by distracting certain parts of my brain with bright colours and sparkling lights until I've already made the bookings and it's too late for them to back out.

It isn't that I don't enjoy live performances and live music - I adore them - but for some reason there's always been a little bit of me that seems to spend all its time checking its watch and wondering when it can get back to doing nothing much or being nowhere in particular.
It is a part of myself that usually makes me quite quite cross and which I am determined not to let rule my life.

So in my latest bout of 'Shut The Heck Up Stupid Pedestrian Loser Lobe' I bought tickets to take my parents to see Bill Bailey and to take my sister and her fiance to see a theatre production of The King and I.

Bill Bailey - Monday 19th of July
No matter how many times I see Bill Bailey*, he always manages to surprise me. He always has fresh material, he revels in audience participation (even when it goes terribly, terribly wrong) and he is a genuine genius with music. He performed Gary Numan's cars on a series of bike horns, his spiderweb like cape of hair flying along behind him as he honked energetically in a way that required both my parents to take their glasses off to wipe away tears of laughter.
Some comedians you get the feeling that secretly they'd quite like you get piss off and that if you don't laugh at an adequate volume they're wishing cancer upon you.
Not only does Bill Bailey not exude a cancer cursing aura, he enjoys himself, he's honest without giving too much of himself away and he constantly plays with you, letting you see that he's smarter than you suspected before lulling you easily back into a goofy grinning daze.
One of the wonderful things about people with multiple genuine passions is that it gives them a lot of material to work with and they're eager to share things with you, sometimes things you'd wish they'd kept to themselves but which you just can't stay angry with them about.
If you get the chance go see him, he's a joy**.

The King & I - Saturday 24th of July
My sister and I have always loved this movie - and admittedly get a little bit starry eyed about Yul Brenner and his flashy impressive wardrobe*** - so when we found out that there was going to be a performance in Melbourne the tickets almost bought themselves. Brother-in-law-to-be knows that marrying my sister bring with it certain responsibilities and is also a bit of a musical chap himself so he was happy to come along.
The amount they manage to do in the confined space of a stage and with props and sets that can be easily moved between and sometimes during scenes will always excite me about the theatre. It doesn't take away from the illusion, it reinforces the creativity and fun of the thing.
Strangely enough I think the one thing they did stay absolutely true to were the King's outfits for each scene which was a nice touch. You don't want people trying to rigidly impersonate a movie to perfection, if you wanted to see that you'd just watch the movie again.
As usual with stage performances based on films****, there were a few songs added to give some of the minor characters more time on stage and to give a bit of a different interpretation. This all had a couple of old dears sitting near us muttering - not as quietly as they thought - "I don't remember this from the movie!" and "They're just funning around, you know directors,".
I have of course had the songs stuck in head for days now but it was worth it.

*OK, this is only the second time live but DVDs and televised comedy showcases count too...

**I was going to write 'cracker' here (an English/Australian term that means good'un, in the same vein as some older folk would use the description 'cracking good time' but have been reliably informed that in the US this is a racial slur that means 'white people' and whilst that is perfectly accurate it might have been a bit confusing that I was insisting it was a reason to attend his performance.

***And washboard abs.

****And suddenly Disney films, now I come to think of it... Stop messing with a classic Disney! Nobody wants to hear 'Human Again'! There's a reason it was left out of the original cut!

The Nerdiest Thing

2010-07-18T20:51:00.010+10:00

I've always known I was kind of lazy.

And I've always known I was kind of nerdy.

But it wasn't until I decided to buy a new bed way back when that my laziness met my nerdiness to form a perfect storm.

I was trying to decide whether I should buy the mattress I'd chosen in the double bed size or go all out and get the queen bed size.

I knew I'd have to work out whether I could fit a queen-sized bed into my bedroom and what I would have to do with the rest of my furniture once it was in there.

I couldn't be bothered actually moving my furniture.

So I measured the room and the furniture.

And did this...

And it all made sense at the time...

And it did work...

But...

There's a level of self-knowledge that you don't necessarily need to achieve...

From which there is no going back...

Will it encourage me to be a more efficient nerd?

Or a lazier person?

A Balanced Diet: In Which Ricochet Overworks A Metaphor And Shouts A Bit

2010-07-10T16:48:00.009+10:00

As I was leafing languidly through a recipe book I discovered something startling.
You can put hazelnut oil on salad.
I didn't even know they MADE hazelnut oil.
I wanted to try it.
Right now!
Delicious hazelnut oil infused French salad on my table, on my fork, in my tummy!
So I trotted down to the supermarket and... they didn't have it.
Neither did the other local supermarket.
Apart from being miffed it got me thinking.
If I hadn't read about these recipes and these items I wouldn't have known to look.
Obviously I haven't memorised the contents of the supermarket but gradually there has been a smaller variety of products on offer and then less choice of brands of those products available.
And strange as it may seem all I can think of is the internet and the proposed Australian internet filter.

Yes, I know once again I sound crazy but I'll explain myself. At great length.

If you haven't heard of it you can find an in-depth explanation of the filter here but the basic story is that the Australian government is using 'think of the children!' to propose banning the access to any webpages they find distasteful.
For the whole country.

Considering child pornography is already illegal and not just available to all and sundry who know how to use a search engine, this is a bunch of bull-twang, especially when they start listing other things to ban 'just in case the kiddies see them' including certain types of fetish pornography and pages discussing euthanasia, abortion, rape and video games.
Without context.

A test run of the filter, as it is now, resulted in the blanket banning of all sites that mentioned rape or child molestation including those which offered support and legal advice to victims.
All this is being offered instead of expecting parents to take responsibility for their children and said children's net use.
As the banned sites are to exist on a secret blacklist that isn't to be disclosed to the public it leaves the option open for the government to block pretty much whatever they like, including blogs or sites that post political protest material or criticism just in case this promotes riots, dissent or a change in government which is clearly not good for the kiddies.

So with that brief summary before you, let us return to my crazy-ass theory.

You go to the supermarket, you pick up all your corporation-approved and provided essentials and every now and then you'll spot something you haven't tried before or something you've not heard of, you have a look at the suggestions on the label and you think 'yes, I'll give this a go'.
Now imagine this supermarket is a metaphor for the internet.
They've decided that, oh I don't know, peanut oil should not be offered for sale because some people are allergic to peanuts and might accidentally be offered something cooked in peanut oil by some irresponsible or ignorant member of the public.
So they type 'no nut oil' into their ordering system and in one fell swoop knock half a dozen oils off the selection including macadamia nut oil and other such products.
People who used to buy this oil now can't find it and the supermarket uses the fact that these people are now forced to purchase other alternatives and aren't protesting this lack or requesting it en masse as a rationale to keep the discontinued products off the shelves.
People who have never heard of peanut or macadamia or hazelnut oil never get the chance to try them or even consider trying them.

Now let's imagine the person in charge of fruit and veg ordering is a weirdo prude who decides that any long, cylindrical vegetables may be too phallic to be offered to minors or unsuspecting virgin diners by lecherous chefs or dinner party enthusiasts who might be secretly getting off on it.
So all these fruits and vegetables are knocked off the system in favour of less arousing tubers and so on.

Seeing as many people these days use the supermarket (internet) as their only source of produce (information) and might not have the inclination, opportunity or awareness to visit farmers' markets (read books/newspapers or listen to radio stations) or are worried that produce (inforrrrrrmation!) from specialist stores might be out-of-date or dangerous to their health (if it isn't on the internet it might be behind the times or *gasp* biased!) the consumer is - to summarise - screwed.

I'll drop the metaphor to conclude lest I write any more torturously long sentences but my point is this:

No, of course I'm not advocating the availability of child pornography or pornographic material that is composed of the real-life assault of unwilling participants. That material infringes human rights and is rightly illegal.

But on the other hand, whilst I'm not personally interested in many varieties of legally produced pornography performed by consenting adults that cater to people with specific tastes that doesn't mean that I think it should be made inaccessible to the adults who do find it arousing if it is used in private with other consenting adults.

I do not think the government should be allowed to block access to websites discussing the ethics of euthanasia or even instructions and advice on how to help administer or self-administer euthanasia just because it isn't legal in this country and/or the legislators find the concept personally reprehensible.

I do not think a government should be able to have a secret list of banned material, or that the only criterion offered for a site being added to this list is that the material is 'distasteful'.
Who gets to decide?
What do they think will happen if the general public has access to this material?

The internet is a vast and sprawling cluster-hug* of data, some of which I never EVER want to see, but I do not under any circumstances want the government to tell me that I'm not ALLOWED to see it.
If the material is illegal or criminal then they have ability to prosecute, to contact the ISPs concerned and have the websites shut down.
Anything else is censorship which implies that people aren't intelligent enough to be capable of distinguishing reality from recreational fantasy or to make their own judgements on the validity of information presented to them or their own decisions concerning how to live their lives or whether/when to end them and enforces a narrow band of morality that is decided for the many by a select few.

If you're worried about the children, hold the government accountable to provide a good education system, adequate funding for hospitals and GP training and actually spend some time with the new people you saw fit to bring into the world.
Make some personal effort to make sure the world you're leaving them is a better place than when you entered it.
Don't expect the government to do it for you and for the love of all that is, don't give them an open mandate to do whatever they want under the claim that they're doing just that.

PS. I still want my goddamn hazelnut oil salad, dammit!

*Yeah, I'm still not swearing on my blog for funsies. You can now start replaying Grandpa Simpson's anecdote about tickling fluffy bunnies into their cuddle-bunkers if you so desire.

Evolution Revolution

2010-07-03T12:05:00.010+10:00

I've never quite been able to wrap my head around why some religious folks are so dead-set against the concept of evolution.
Every time it pops up in the news cycle, causes controversy in regards to schooling or is cited as a source of conflict between community members or different communities, I get all scrunchy face-level baffled.
Why can't science and spirituality be considered together?
As if it isn't possible to believe in both the slow unfolding of the cosmos and all that follows AND a supreme being?

The spontaneous creation of a universe and a world with a fully functioning ecosystem would be an impressive display of power and has formed an important part of the Judaeo-Christian story (amongst others) but there are so many ways to look at it.

The religious texts say that God created the world in six days and the orthodox faithful refuse to accept any alternatives but consider this usage of a time-frame.
In the beginning there was no time, no temporal units in the dense new matter, who is to say how long the 'days' mentioned actually lasted? They could have each spanned millennia, hundreds of millennia, after all 'a day' is a human concept based on how long it takes one particular planet to make a full revolution as it makes its slow way around one particular star.

Some argue that insisting that life evolved from the most basic common components into gradually more complex and diverse organisms as a reaction to their environment, food stuffs and predators/competitors disrespects or denies the involvement of a deity but that doesn't have to be the case.
Why wouldn't a being of infinite wisdom and compassion also be a being of infinite curiosity?
If you've got nothing but time and a whole universe to yourself why wouldn't you nudge things and wait to see what happens next?
Why wouldn't the slow playing out of consequences be as fascinating and satisfying to a divine being as to anyone who has ever taken a chance and made something new under their own power, from artisan to scientist to chef?

At its most essential, the idea that God created the universe in order to create the Earth purely to put human beings on it seems very self-centred and egotistical on behalf of humanity, and seems to glorify humans more than their creator.
If you allow yourself to contemplate the possibility that human beings were not the intended end product of creation it doesn't automatically follow that there is no power outside ourselves and that it might not care for us.
Just because a parent doesn't know how their child will turn out, can't anticipate their exact physical characteristics or personality or future actions doesn't mean they can't rejoice at their birth and revel in their accomplishments.
Just because everything might not have sprung fully formed into being doesn't mean that its existence is not a point of wonder - consider the scope of the whole.

I'm not saying that atheists or agnostics have to believe that there is a God or a pantheon of gods.
I'm not saying religiously observant people have to accept everything that science has to offer or believe that we'll ever be able to explain everything that makes up our reality.
Just to all have a think about it and accept that whether you are looking at the universe through an analytical or spiritual lens, it is a miraculous construct.

We've come a long way as a species in the centuries since the current dominant religious dialogues were founded, we're now able to understand much more complex ideas and maybe that includes being able to grasp a more intricate explanation of existence no matter how you're framing it.

To the religious: Give God credit for possibly being a more inquisitive and creative being and for the creation story we began with maybe being the most complicated explanation fallible human beings were capable of dealing with at the time.

To the scientific: Seeing as even our best guesses concerning the beginning of the universe essentially boil down to 'there was nothing and then it blew up' try not to discount or dismiss other people's beliefs out of hand even if you don't share them.

To everyone: The fact that we exist at all is pretty freaking amazing, enjoy it and if you hold your beliefs dear then you shouldn't worry or feel threatened when other people don't share them as long as nobody tries to force you to accept their view against your will. Allow everyone the chance to make up their own minds on the matter.

For myself, well, as Nick Cave says, "I don't believe in an interventionist God, but I know darlin' that [some of] you do..."
Doesn't mean we can't all get along and acknowledge that no matter how it came into being, the universe is a mind-boggling and marvellous thing.

The discovery that the sun revolves around the Earth instead of vice versa didn't cause the Earth to be rent asunder, scientific discovery need not be seen as a reductive or destructive force.
With everything new we learn, it increases not decreases our ability to appreciate and marvel at the intricacy of our wider environment and of our own physical beings.
That has to count for something.

Disclaimer time: I was raised in an Irish-Italian family which, whilst fairly laid back about observing religion and very tolerant of all religious and non-religious views, allowed me a front seat view on Catholic dogma and communities.
I tell you this so that if you read this and feel that my soul might need saving or think that I would benefit from a deeper knowledge of Christianity you can rest easy that I am fairly familiar with the material. Please do not try to convert or convince me as I'll not be changing my views for any reasons that are not my own.
I also tell you this so that if you read this and you are non-religious or follow a religion not encompassed by this post you don't feel that I am trying to convert you, disrespect your beliefs or lecture you. My own beliefs are a composite of many strains of both scientific and spiritual discussion and I won't be turning this blog into any form of evangelical podium.
I am at heart a bit of a hippie who believes that as long as you do no harm to others as far as this is possible and do what you can to lead a fulfilling life and live up to your full potential that whatever you believe is your own business.
Sorry for the big rambling explanation but seeing as I don't usually cover topics quite so contentious here I thought I should make sure I made myself clear.
In the event any insulting or close-minded comments appear rest assured they'll disappear shortly after.

Everybody Should Learn A Second Language

2010-06-26T16:37:00.003+10:00

I don't care if you live in the most land-locked, single-language culture ever evolved by war, politics, economy and commodity, you should learn at least one foreign language.

Here's why.

It helps you with your own language.

It can make you more sympathetic to your fellow human beings.

It opens up experiences and encounters that you may not have had otherwise.

Let me explain further.

I had a decent education but the truth is that schools now spend far less time hammering the building blocks of grammar and language into the impressionable young minds of their students than they did previously*.
When you learn another language you become VERY aware what the different components of language are called, especially verbs, putting names and explanations to things you've only known instinctively before.
You have a better appreciation of how these components work together, especially when you're comparing how they work in your native tongue to how they work in your newly embraced language.
If you're a bit of a word nerd it affects how you see language in general and improves your use of it no matter which language you're speaking.

If you have the opportunity to travel to a country where your new language is spoken exclusively, take it.
You will never understand the immigrant experience better than you will the day you immerse yourself in a community where you can hopefully make yourself understood but cannot understand effortlessly.
It is impossible to overestimate just how alienated and claustrophobic you can feel when you can't understand the chatter of people on the train or when shopkeepers look at you patiently (or impatiently), waiting for you to make sense or to answer simple questions.
If you hear someone speaking in your first language you are overwhelmed with homesickness and you will approach strangers in a way you might never do at home just for the joy of unhindered, eloquent speech, no matter how banal the conversation topics.
But you pick up new words and tenses much more quickly and the simple pleasure of managing an everyday exchange is intoxicating, even if you know you sound like the instructions in a manual that has been translated from one language into another via a third, just making enough sense to get an answer or give one fills you with a sense of accomplishment.

Speaking a second language can allow you to meet people you might never have met, go places you might never have gone, form connections with people who you might not have bonded with without a key event or shared incident, offer help to people who feel as lost as you now know it is possible to feel, ask for help from people who (well-intentioned as they might be would have been unable to understand the tearful pleas).

It will make you re-evaluate the way you see other people and yourself.

It will make you a better person if you take full advantage of it.

Y'know, unless you just use it to pick up people of your preferred gender(s) and swear at people without them knowing it.
It can be used for that too, I guess.

*Also don't ask me about geography, I don't know anything about it worth a damn.

God Helps Those Who Help Themselves Stay Away From Self-Help

2010-06-20T00:29:00.005+10:00

*Click click click*

"Welcome to your first lesson on how to actualise your full youness! By taking this first step you have already put yourself on the road to realising your true destiny!"

"If you say so, buddy."

"Now we're going to start out with some affirmations just to get you in the right headspace to visualise your unique core of personhood."

"I... would rather not visualise that..."

"Repeat after me: I am an important and special person with unfulfilled potential and opportunities!"

"I am sitting alone in a dark room talking to myself!"

"Very good. Now repeat after me: I can achieve anything I want if only I believe in myself!"

"If I really believed in myself I wouldn't be taking advice from a talking disc!"

"Excellent! You're doing so well!"

"Thanks disembodied validation man!"

"Now that you're warmed up and receptive it's time to massage those under-appreciated actualisation muscles-"

"Noooo thank you, I know code for 'But I didn't even order a pizza' when I hear it, see you later,"

*Slam*

"Today we're going to work on subverting the dominant paradigm and recreating the surviving structures and inhabitants in your own image because really, it's no more than you deserve..."

And Nothing Else Matters...

2010-06-13T23:42:00.004+10:00

This weekend I was a bridesmaid.

It's not something I've ever really cared about doing one way or another.

But for my mate Awesome, I was in.

The wedding party all wore black, including the bride.

The groom wore a top hat and a long coat with tails that looked more likely to have a rifle tucked inside it than anything else.

There were Halloween skeleton confetti and black stars scattered on the tables.

They had their bridal waltz to Metallica's 'Nothing Else Matters'.

And it was one of the most genuine weddings I've ever been to.

They didn't write their own vows because they both think that's soppy bullshit but they did have a handfasting ceremony instead of a traditional service.

They made silly noises and funny faces and cried and laughed and told people to shut up and jittered around during the ceremony and when it came time for the kiss all the guests were yelling suggestions and wolf-whistling and stamping their feet.

And that's how it should be.

They love each other and they wanted to show it in a way that was true to who they are and how they want to be.

And it was beautiful and I've never been prouder to be part of something.

Good luck and \m/

The Wheels Start Turning

2010-06-06T21:23:00.007+10:00

It's the little things really.

This video is a memory for a lot of people - either as a part of their own childhood or that of their children - but for me it was the moment when I realised something.

America isn't just a big city.

Yes, I know it sounds stupid now but as a kid watching TV or movies or being read different books you learn to equate America with New York City or various similar scenes.

Until I saw this video on Sesame Street I had no idea that America had farms, forests, suburbs, small towns...

I had just assumed it was high-rise apartment blocks from one end to the other.

No, don't ask me where I thought their food came from. I was 4! I hadn't gotten to consumerism and production cycles yet.

Once I realised that I started finding out all sorts of things.

Egypt isn't just pyramids and camels!

Africa is a continent and not a country!

Likewise Europe and Asia!

And all three are so full of different traditions and languages I'll probably never hear of all of them let alone learn them!

Some things stick in your memory, like the moment it occurs to you that everyone else has a little universe behind their eyes as well, that they aren't just props moving around in yours.

This wasn't my only childhood epiphany but it's one of the ones that has stayed with me.

When I realised the world was out there and that I wanted to see more of it.

Dust On Dirt

2010-05-30T21:03:00.006+10:00

I should be sorry I expect.

I should be gripped with remorse and wishing that things had been other than they are and seeing everything through a rosy glow of nostalgia-tinted grief.

Suffused with compassion, understanding and knowing that whilst things couldn't have been any other way, there were reasons for why they turned out as they did.

But I always knew that you would die this way.

And to be completely honest I'm glad you did.

You had it coming.

I know the odds of your last thought being that I was right are slim but as I look down at your cold body, limbs akimbo, I get to think it.

I don't look for too long of course, that would look unprofessional.

I wish you could see me as I move, smooth, efficient, practiced, as I dust for fingerprints, pluck fibres from fibres and catalogue the tableau of your end.

I'm very good at my job and I always do my best, even for you.

I'd like to think you'd appreciate this but going on previous experiences I won't hold my breath on that count.

They don't know that I knew you.

If they did I would be taken off the case, bundled off to see a city appointed psychologist and treated with care and caution until they were sure I was 'fit for duty'.

But instead here I am, sifting through your worldly belongings for some clue as to who killed you.

I already know why.

And so, I'm sure, did you.

I'm going to find out who did this.

Not for you, you ungrateful shit.

I'm doing it for the science.

I'm very good at my job.

Even when I don't want to be.

A Chronicle Of Chronicles Chronologically... Chronicled...

2010-05-24T01:09:00.018+10:00

Some time ago... oh save me, it was July last year! My life is running through my hands like water and... *coff coff*...

Sorry about that...

Anyway, last year I wrote a post about having re-kickstarted reading properly.

New books!

Books that fired the imagination and stirred the emotions!

Books that scared me or inspired me or made me angry or ecstatic!

Anything except re-reading old favourites for comfort like a self-stunting numpty!

And since then I have read:

65 books
23 296 pages

I have fallen in love with roughly half the authors and am even more convinced than previously that I probably won't survive the apocalypse for long but that if I do I will more than likely end up a tasty snack for someone else rather than a mighty warlord presiding over a Thunderdome type arrangement in an old car-wrecker's yard.

I've been keeping notes on the books and my opinions of them which I've decided to post in a little separate page attached to this blog which you can find here and posted in the sidebar.

I'm afraid I am very bad at identifying genres so it'll be very much 'thing/other thing/adjacent thing'.

The reviews might not be the most edifying ever written - I'm pretty sure the first draft of one review simply read 'Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!' - but hopefully they'll point you in the direction of some new authors and titles if you care to give them a look-see.

Go forth and read!

Cooking With Ricochet: How to Make Peanut Cookies

2010-05-16T18:21:00.005+10:00

Makes about 28, depending on how big you like 'em.

Ingredients
125g (4oz) butter
1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/4 cups plain flour, sifted
1 tsp baking powder
150g (5 oz) raw peanuts

Steps

Look at your beeping phone and wonder why it is beeping.
Read the reminder that has popped up to let you know there is going to be another pointless morning tea at work celebrating the ongoing march towards entropy that only take place because a handful of people would get shitty if nobody sang them Happy Birthday after 'Everybody else got a morning tea!'
Grumbling in a resentful fashion, preheat the oven to 180 °C (350 °F).
Thunk a bowl down on the counter and cream the butter and sugar. If you can be bothered, use the electric beaters and get a bit of a fluffier mix, if you are feeling cranky and don't feel like it the mixture turns out just as well if mixed by hand.
Slap the egg in. Grind it into the dust, I mean batter!
Fold through the flour, baking powder and surprisingly hard to locate in the supermarket raw peanuts. I mean you'd think peanuts in the shell would be an easy bet to be raw but no, they're roasted too! And BBQ flavoured!
Shape tablespoon sized chunks of mixture into balls and press them down a bit onto a baking paper covered baking tray. Imagine they are the faces of the most immature of your mid-50s co-workers.
Bake for 10-13 minutes or until they look particularly golden delicious and then cool on a wire rack.
Eat half the biscuits with coffee because you've earned them dammit and everybody else will stand around talking about how they really shouldn't because they're already so fat and on a diet and blah blah blah blah.
Take a deep breath and get over it. Until the next morning tea.

Iceberg, Dead Ahead!

2010-05-08T22:57:00.002+10:00

When you go out for dinner you don't anticipate your restaurant colliding with a bridge.

It isn't one of the things you mentally prepare yourself for.

Even if you're on a dinner cruise on the river you assume, insofar as you think about it at all, that the person doing the steering has the full use of their eyes and has done this sort of thing a couple of times before don'tcha know.

And yet, tonight... well you can guess.

For an early Mother's Day treat I decided to take Mum on a ladies' dinner cruise down the river.

Just a nice relaxing bobble along the waterway, being fed and having a few glasses of wine before bobbling back.

It started off nicely enough, we were welcomed onto the boat, all the ladies introduced themselves, immediately forgot each others' names and turned to the important business of having a glass of bubbles.

We'd managed to dodge the talking-about-our-children clique, the talking-passionately-about-reality-TV-shows clique and attached ourselves to the talking-about-travel-and-books clique before the entrees came out.

By the time the main course arrived we'd heard about vans tootling their way naively across Eastern Europe in the 1970s, cultural misunderstandings in Japan and accidental border crossings and the fall-outs from all activities mentioned and I'd jotted the names of about a dozen books on the inside of my wrist with a handy pen.

We passed under a bridge, commented on how narrow the clearance was and then went back to chatting about the floodlights on the mirror-like surface of the water, the ghostly shadows along the bank and how they reminded various of us of falling off bridges, getting lost hiking or not noticing warning signs about local wildlife until after a midnight bathing escapade.

Somewhere around this point the boat gently described a circle in the water and began heading back for home.

Conversation had trickled to a halt for dessert which is why, as we passed under the bridge a second time, the lone voice saying "We seem to be a bit close..." drew our attention to the windows.

And then there was a tremendous crash as we bounced off a pillar.

There was a collection of shrieks and with an admirable sense of purpose hands reached to steady wine bottles and catch dessert dishes.

Then there was another smaller crash as we rebounded off the opposite pillar and then wallowed slowly out from underneath the structure.

The crew members rushed around looking purposeful and grim, staring out windows at the hull and very kindly not telling us anything.

After about five minutes we figured out we weren't actually capsizing and could stop thinking about scrambling to the deck and flinging ourselves into the cold water or how annoying it was that we couldn't cry 'women and children first' given we were all women.

THEN the crew saw fit to refer to the incident in a glancing, faux-merry way and point out where the life-vests were, which they had forgotten to do when we boarded.

The only casualty of the night was the coffee pot but all things considered the story we get to tell now is a lot better than the coffee would have been.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I think I need to have a stiff drink.

Staring Into The Void

2010-05-02T00:05:00.005+10:00

I don't know what happened.

I really don't.

I was planning to go out shopping, maybe buy a dang chest of drawers or some new pens or something.

But then I found myself in the laundry.

The laundry at my family home is awe inspiring.
Unlike the laundry at my flat which is just an alcove containing a broken washing machine, the laundry at my parents' house is reasonably large, mostly made up of bench and storage space and looks like it has been hit by a meteor made out of the contents of a dozen kitchens' third drawer down.

We have a bad habit in our family of completely covering the flat surfaces in certain rooms with drifts of things that we either 'plan to put away later' or 'don't know where they go' because we haven't got a place for them.
This gives parts of our home a permanent 'tidy but slightly cluttered' look that magically doesn't vary.
It doesn't get any worse but unless we're having a big party, guests or inexplicably go a bit strange it doesn't get any better either.

This whole situation is partially a result of having shifted house about six times in four years when moving for my Dad's work when we were younger.
Every time we moved we went through a cycle that went something like this:

We should get rid of some of this crud before we move, why waste space and effort taking it with us?
Crap, we've left it too late! I don't want to risk throwing out something important, we'll do it when we're unpacking at the new place.
Jesus on a sailboat, I am waaaaay too tired to look at all that stuff now. We'll just put it all in the shed/cupboard/wherever and work it out later.

Anyhoo the point is that the laundry is usually a big old mess.

And on this day, this would not stand.

I went in there to feed the cats or something and somehow spent the entire day shovelling things off the benches onto a folding card table, wiping down the flat surfaces, scrubbing out the dang sinks, finding places to put the homeless items, throwing out a tonne of things that should have been thrown out in the first place and mopping the floors*.

And even though I didn't do any of the things I planned to do today, didn't even leave the house, I feel it was time well spent.
It won't take long for things to creep back onto the counter-top but at least we've been reminded of what it looks like.

*I found a sock underneath the washing machine that nobody can remember missing which might be an indication of how long it has been there.

I Will Punch You Right In The Motherboard!

2010-04-24T18:37:00.008+10:00

Alright electronic devices, it is on!

You and me! Right now!

I've always known you held me in contempt and now I have the proof and we are going to throw down here and now, last one alive wins!

No, I haven't had a computer disaster.
My refrigerator and microwave continue to function adequately.
Even if any of these devices had experienced a malfunction this would be a mere inconvenience.

It is not an inconvenience which has incurred my wrath.

It was an insult.

A direct and unmistakable insult!

The other day my sister took a break from studying and decided to spend a bit of time on the WiiFit.

She pressed the power button, stepped up onto the device and waited for it to start offering her exciting, brightly covered activities.

It greeted her.

She pressed 'next'.

It mentioned it hadn't seen her for a while, a specific number of days in fact.

She pressed 'next'.

It asked, by the way, had she seen me - Ricochet - lately.

She pressed 'yes'.

It asked how I was looking.

She pressed... 'next'.

It asked if I was looking a) the same, b) toned, c) slimmer or d) fatter. Select one to continue.

... She pressed... 'the same'.

It suggested change was more interesting, didn't she think so? Maybe she just wasn't paying enough attention to me to notice the change.

On an unrelated note, it went on, did she know that studies had shown that dogs whose owners paid more attention to them tended to be more highly motivated?

Excuse me?

EXCUSE ME!?

Have you just compared me to a dog, WiiFit? A lazy, unmotivated dog at that?

Is this, in fact, what you have just done?

I was under the impression that the WiiFit was something people bought so they didn't have to feel judged or pressured in gyms or when exercising in public spaces.
So they could feel comfortable going at their own pace in their own homes.

I didn't know that it gave you guilt trips and asked you to comment on the appearance of your friends and family!

No I don't use WiiFit that often.
For starters I only visit the family home on the weekends and when I'm there I often have more interesting things to do with my time, such as walking our real dogs in the real world in the real fresh air.

In addition I tend to prefer actually piffing a cricket ball at people or going for a swim or attending a yoga class to pretending to be a penguin flipping on an iceberg for fish.

You might be too big to fit in the microwave WiiFit but don't think that will save you.

You and me.

Some time soon.

Possibly with a mallet.

After all, it'll be good for my upper body strength which I'm sure you'll appreciate.

I obviously need the exercise!

Ladies and Gentlemen, Henry Rollins!

2010-04-17T04:06:00.005+10:00

This is Henry Rollins.

He is bad for your bank balance.

Not because he advocates materialism, wants you to invest in his foolproof pyramid scheme or costs much to see but because every time I watch Henry Rollins perform I immediately want to book a ticket to fling myself out into the world with no fixed plans to come back.

I want to read more, listen to more music, talk to more people, take more chances, understand more about politics, shout down ignorance and celebrate the impossible breadth of human culture.

Forget New Year's Resolutions, Henry Rollins is an instant reset button for shelved plans and postponed ambitions.

He's uncomprimising, loud and probably exactly as exhausting to be around as he assures you he is but he has probably crammed more into the last five years of his life than I have into the entirety of mine and if I can approach even a fraction of his passion for life or productivity I'll consider myself lucky.

If you've never read any of his writing or seen any of his spoken word give him a chance.
You may not agree with some or what he says - or even much of what he says, depending on your personal views - but he will get you thinking, he will get you fired up and you will be left wanting to debate and research and experience and that's no small gift.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Henry Rollins!

Deal-breakers

2010-04-10T21:33:00.017+10:00

There are some subjects that create a divide between people that just cannot be breached.

Disagreements that cannot be put aside.

Deal-breakers.

That make strangers out of family members, enemies out of friends, lunatics out of usually rational people.

You know the ones.

Usually the only thing you can do is agree never to broach the subject in company and hope that any committed couples have come to an arrangement on how they're going to raise the children.

Cooking With Ricochet: How to Make ANZAC Biscuits

2010-04-04T11:12:00.007+10:00

Makes... I can't remember, somewhere between 12 and 24... They don't usually last long enough to count them.

Ingredients
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup plain flour
1/2 cup sugar
3/4 cup dessicated coconut
2 tablespoons golden syrup
125g butter
1/2 teaspoon bicarbonate of soda (baking soda)
1 tablespoon hot water

Steps

Remember that it's April.
Realise that means ANZAC Day is coming up. Spend some time thinking about the Australian and Kiwi men and women who have served their countries before guiltily beginning to obsess about ANZAC biscuits.
Preheat the oven to 160 °C (320 °F) and then carefully knock over all of your baking trays. Twice.
Place the oats, flour, sugar and coconut in a bowl. Pick a baking tray that hasn't been on the floor and place some baking paper on it.
Answer a knock at your door, say G'day to your 70 year old landlord, accept some free cucumbers out of his garden and blink politely when he explains he has a shard of glass in his foot and asks you to dig it out.
Dig a shard of glass out of your landlord's foot with a needle, say thanks for the cucumbers and stare in bemusement at your door for a while after he cheerfully bids you good day.
Wash your hands. Twice. Maybe three times. You are cooking after all.
Place the golden syrup and butter in a saucepan over a low heat, allow butter to melt and blend with the golden syrup. Resist the urge to drink what is essentially deliciously scented fat and sugar.
Mix the bicarbonate of soda with the hot water and add to the butter mixture. Giggle in a very grown-up and not at all dorky fashion at the way the butter mixture fizzes up.
Pour the butter mixture into the dry ingredients and mix well. Continue to not eat the mixture. Well, not all of it.
Roll the mixture into balls the size of walnuts and then squish into biscuit shapes and place on a tray covered with baking paper that you have successfully continued to keep off the floor.
Bake for 10 minutes or until golden brown. Cool on racks.
Make a cup of tea and go mad on those biscuits. Eat the heck out of them.

The Call

2010-03-28T16:01:00.006+11:00

I'm getting that urge again.

As reliable and inevitable as the tides and driven by the turn of the seasons.

It is time to read Dracula for the bajillionth time.

I think everyone has a book that makes very specific repeat appearances on their reading schedule and mine is Dracula by Bram Stoker.
Whatever that says about me.

I have several books that I read at least once a year - American Gods by Neil Gaiman, Long Dark Tea Time of the Soul by Douglas Adams and Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman amongst them - but Dracula is the only one prompted by weather rather than mood or memory.
The only one I can't say no to.

When the weather cools and a touch of frost enters the air I start thinking of grand old buildings, abandoned and decaying; formal language and a society built on and constricted by convention; strange happenings and otherworldly creatures driven by dark appetites that are only a magnification of our own; the kind of dread that only comes from the gothic classics, from a time when the world was still mysterious, the old world doubly so, when people believed in souls and that they could be lost; of courage and convictions.

And it's time to read Dracula again.

The Garden of Earthly Delights

2010-03-20T22:21:00.004+11:00

Well mostly it's a garden of dogs trying to head-butt each other out of the way for prime hugging position but I've vowed that it is going to become more than that.

The last time I tried to do anything with gardening I planted some herbs.
Then I killed them.
Not on purpose or anything, I don't have a cursed black thumb, I was just 13 and never actually watered them or put any fertiliser on them and then was quite cross when they failed to flourish.

But this time will be different!

It began this afternoon when I realised that thanks to the valiant fur shedding efforts of The Labrador of Doom and her new sidekick Apocalypse Pup, creeping dirt and some crappy damn grass that is trying to grow in the dirt/hair composite, the drain along the back patio was blocked and was causing flooding on the odd occasion it rained.
So I found a trowel and a broom and spent an hour or so clearing it, hacking back the grass and sending the weirdie beetles scuttling away in panic.

And then whilst I was at it I trimmed some things.
Then I raked some things.
Then I picked up some branches and moved them.
Then I murdered some weeds and threw their corpses in the garbage bin.

And at the end of it my back hurt.
And my legs hurt.
And my arms hurt.
And I was sweaty and dishevelled and Apocalypse Pup had spent a good part of the time trying to trip me up or sticking his head down my shirt every time I bent over to pick something up off the ground.

But it's been ages since I worked that hard in that way.
I liked it.
I think I'd like to grown some things.
Guess I'll see how it goes.

You're Going To Die You Know: A Community Service Announcement

2010-03-13T22:21:00.010+11:00

Imagine you've spent all day at work.

Your boss has been riding your ass all week.

You missed lunch because you were trying to meet a deadline.

You have 10 minutes to yourself before you get the train home and straight into 'parental responsibility zone'.

Waiting at the pedestrian crossing you light a cigarette and let yourself unwind just a little bit.

And then you feel a small hand tugging at your trousers at knee level.

You look down and smile tiredly at the little girl staring up at you.

"Hello love," you say.

"You're going to die you know," she pipes in a cheerful fashion.

You stare at her blankly.

You didn't need that, you think to yourself, as the child's mother apologises and drags her away. You could have done right without that.

"Sweetie, you do NOT say that to people!" the mother says as she herds the kid down the street.

"But he was SMOKING! And you said that smoking kills you and-"

"You do NOT say that to people! It isn't polite!"

"Neither is DEATH!"

"Where do you GET this stuff?"*

What did I do to deserve that? You wonder as the light turns green and you cross towards the train station.

Nothing fella, nothing at all.

~~~

To the man minding his own business at the pedestrian crossing and all the people like him, on behalf of my four year old self - I apologise.

But honestly my intentions were good.

*And no, I don't know where I got it either.

Until Then

2010-03-08T01:47:00.005+11:00

Sam felt guilty.
All the time.
About everything.
He felt guilty about throwing away plastic cutlery that hadn't broken yet.
Even if he'd never use it again.
Because it was still functional.
Whereas once it reached the landfill it would just be pollution.
He felt guilty about people starving.
People hurting.
People homeless.
He wanted to help.
But he had no more money to give.
And he felt guilty about that too.
He felt guilty about people with diseases that had no cure.
He felt guilty that he couldn't cure them himself.
He felt guilty that one day he would die and that his loved ones would mourn his death.
He felt guilty that he couldn't wait for that day to come.
He longed for nothingness.
Blackness.
Oblivion.
The absence of thought that would bring him freedom.
But until then.
Sam felt guilty.

Amanda Fucking Palmer

2010-02-28T19:55:00.007+11:00

I don't often type swears but that is in fact her middle name - ask the internet - and even if it wasn't... Amanda Fucking Palmer!

Friday night I rushed out of work, gathered a friend up in my whirlwind of excitement, stopped only long enough to have dinner and then tumbled headlong into the Forum and an amazing night of music.

It started off great and only got better from there.

Anyone who has gone to a few concerts will know that some performers pick their support acts to make themselves look better by comparison *coff Nine Inch Nails coff* but Amanda Palmer picks amazing artists she admires and wants to share with you.

The Jane Austen Argument played lovely, humorous and deeply Aussie songs. They drew more laughs and applause in a short opening performance than some top billing acts I've seen have warranted. I hope they get great crowds at the Adelaide Fringe Festival because they deserve them.

Mikelangelo and his band for the evening - The One and a Half Night Stand - introduced me to a particular brand of sleazy, Eastern European reminiscent style cabaret that I want to immerse myself in, roll about in and never tell my parents about. The lyrics are shocking, the music divine, Mikelangelo's hair perfect.

St Clare and her Go Go Gadget Girls added some flavour and awesome 60s dance moves to the night.
Lindon Chester led a four piece string quartet* to provide the strings which made songs I already found beautiful almost painfully breathtaking to witness in person.
Then all of a sudden Paul Kelly appeared to duet his song 'Winter Coat' with Amanda closely followed by Mick Harvey from the Bad Seeds joining the growing crowd of musicians to play on a song my brain was too busy geeking out to recall.

This was one of the best night's out I have ever had and I am telling you now, life is too short to say no to live music, some of the best experiences I have ever had have come from taking a chance.
No matter how the night turns out you will always have a story and sometimes those stories are glorious.

Here I leave you with just one example of why I will always adore Amanda Palmer.
Oh beg pardon, Amanda Fucking Palmer.

*I'm sorry ladies, she introduced you all so quickly that I missed your names, you were all superb!

Succeeding To Fail

2010-02-20T19:40:00.005+11:00

Well poot.

Turns out it wasn't just my romantically undernourished student ways that made me all woozy when I last tried to give blood, I just need all of my blood at all times :-/

Even as a responsible grown up person who has three proper meals and about 2 litres of water a day, I got halfway through and all of a sudden my temperature went up, my blood pressure went down and it felt like the space between my eyes was filling up with rushing air.

The nurse taking the donation was on to things like a shot, all I had to say was "Um, I'm feeling a little..." and the needle was out, the bandage was on, I had a damp cloth on my head, a cup of water in my hand and was being fanned with a clipboard whilst she reminded me to take deep breaths and asked how I was feeling.
"Some people just shouldn't give blood, love," she told me sympathetically.

It's really annoying because being a fairly healthy and robust person I always figured I'd be able to spare a bit of my life sauce but take any more than is necessary for a blood test and the system goes into emergency procedures.
The needle doesn't hurt, the process doesn't hurt, if it wasn't for the light-headedness it would be a doddle, a walk in the park.

So it looks like I won't be able to become a regular donor which is a real shame but I'm glad I tried. I'd been avoiding going back in case they told me not to come back* - yes I know that's faulty logic - but now that I know it's just the way I function I know I haven't been wasting years of potential contributions.

The day I went in the clinic received 152 donations** which will potentially save about 456 lives, they also took plasma donations which will help people with serious health issues live normal lives instead of being gravely hampered by their conditions.
This is something I want to be a part of, even if I can't give blood I can still give money and hope that others with more vigorous constitutions than mine will give it a go.

*If you have a poor reaction three times in a row you're told that you should probably cross it off your to do list as it just isn't meant to be.

**And my half a donation which I guess will help 1.5 people as well.

Tais Toi Mon Coeur

2010-02-14T14:46:00.007+11:00

Let's ignore the day - with the cynical commercial trappings that attend it - and just watch this lovely video by Dionysos shall we?

Good.