Tricks of Memory.

2010-12-12T21:12:00.001+07:00

Sometimes a neighbour's look, a post-card, a telephone call] will carry you up the shore of another life] and leave you gaping amazed at sudden jungle] a world away from the dolorous desk.] Castaway by Margaret Scott

I could get used to this.

2010-10-18T12:37:00.001+07:00

Actors!

1. They don't know how to write. (Advantage)
2. They like to perform. (Advantage)
3. They like to look good by reading good work. (Advantage)

TOTEM: Peacock

2010-10-13T18:27:00.000+07:00

Good Quote

2010-08-31T17:12:00.001+07:00

‎"He fumbles at your soul/As players at the keys/before they drop full music on/He stuns you by degrees./Prepares your brittle nature/for the ethereal blow/By fainter hammers further heard, then nearer, then...so slow./Your breath has time to straighten/Your brain to bubble cool/Deals one imperial thunderbolt/That scalps your naked soul./When winds take forests in their paws/The universe is still." ~Emily Dickinson

Book Club.

2010-04-15T06:53:00.003+07:00

Well, how odd. I seem to have joined a book club.

I wasn't thinking clearly, clearly. Heh. I joined in the tumultuous aftermath of Red Letter Day.
That was Tuesday. That's the day when, or the first time in many years, I actually sent some work away.

Writing ...

2010-04-06T10:26:00.001+07:00

is going brilliantly. At last.

Writing Sessions ...

2010-02-18T06:25:00.001+07:00

Unpacking.

2010-01-31T20:52:00.000+07:00

Cowrie shells, Chinese-Tibet art, wooden bowls.

Stone Voices ROCK.

2010-01-17T20:19:00.001+07:00

Doctor Who review is awesome.

What they said!

Balance of probabilities.

2009-12-05T18:16:00.001+07:00

I have decided that on the balance of probabilities, it's likely I do not exist.

Nevertheless I have my foolish thoughts and longings and opinions.

Winton worship wears me down.

2009-11-08T19:45:00.002+07:00

Come on, people, breath just wasn't that good.
And if I read one more party line about the landscape of WA and its influence on WA artists I'm going to pack up and move to Sydney.

Just kidding.
I could never leave this big, fresh, big (did I say big?) state with it's dark and mysterious oceans, windswept whatsis and red dirt and pay dirt and dirt music and big skies (wait, isn't that Montana?) and big (did I say big?) trees and...

Just kidding.

I could never leave this gorgeous place.
As I said once after a year of wandering the united states of america with my mouth open in awe,
this country is too good for them, too good for them. Such a big state, why such small minds?

Just kidding.

All minds are small. All people are like this. There's nothing special about this.

And Winton's not THAT bad, just that I don't think all the people who like him actually really like him the way I might like him if they didn't.

Just kidding.

Even this little fuss is too much, this little fuss to be read by Lowena, if I'm lucky.
Hi, Lowena. I wish you had your own body so I could ravish it.

Thea.

Purple and blue.

2009-10-04T20:46:00.000+07:00

Trouble has been a little champion and we're very proud.

Thanks for the purple and blue top.

Things are taking shape here, we may yet write again.

Walnut.

2009-07-03T19:25:00.002+07:00

Nuts, spicy beans, dips, roast capsicum, artichokes, fritters, fish cakes, dips (babaganoush), salads and bakes, couscous, pilaf, shishkebabs, lentil soup.

I am the walnut.

Burgh.

2009-05-21T16:20:00.000+07:00

What a city. Oh, it's the pretty city, where I would love to live.

Guess who?

2009-01-16T15:42:00.002+07:00

I sent a card to someone.

I'm feeling okay. I think I'm finally over my big love, though I still love her, it's okay.

I think I'm ready for a new girlfriend actually.

Spying on my self.

2008-09-05T16:07:00.001+07:00

i'm not a stalker i'm spying on my self

Privilege. It's easy to ignore when you're riding it.

2008-08-21T06:23:00.000+07:00

Chris Clarke: If no woman in your life have ever talked to you about how she lives her life with an undercurrent of fear of men, consider the possibility that it may be because she sees you as one of those men she cannot really trust.

Writers write.

2008-07-01T12:06:00.002+07:00

I've been reading some good writing lately. Online (link is a wantsacracker - Hell's Sheriff) and Tom Robbins "Jitterbug Perfume". I always feel a bit cheap after reading Tom Robbins and I figured out why at last: he flatters his readers. Flattery is always fabulous until you notice it. Then it makes a spinster like me feel dirty.

Yes, spinster. I think that's what I am. I don't write so much as spin. Stories. Plots. Characters. I want to get back to the desk soon, take that damn novel out and decide one last time whether it's worth working on and if it's not then decide to work on something new.

That's my plan.

Love is not love...

2008-05-23T19:16:00.001+07:00

He who has not been faithful to the end, has never been faithful at all.’
- A saying attributed to the prophet Parvakrath

I think that's a rather tedious way of looking at things.

thea is foil, pia is epee, trouble is sabre

2008-05-16T21:07:00.002+07:00

You are an epee fencer.

Epee is a weapon of deceit and guile. You tend to take your time and counter-attack. You can touch your opponent anywhere at any time.

What Kind of Fencer Are You?

He might have. I would have.

2008-05-09T08:01:00.001+07:00

When Tennyson visited Lyme his friends were anxious to point out to him the reputed landing-place of the Duke of Monmouth, "Tennyson waxed indignant, 'Don't talk to me,' he said, 'of the Duke of Monmouth. Show me the exact spot where Louisa Musgrove fell!'"

Hah.

2008-04-28T07:24:00.001+07:00

I've never had writers tell me, drunkenly, that they wished that they were in marketing, while I've definitely listened to marketing people drunkenly mourn their vanished writing careers.. Neil Gaiman

s'okay

2008-04-15T20:41:00.001+07:00

We're doing what we need to do to be okay.

Bye to the stuff we have to say bye to.

Bye.

Thanks ms sprinkle

2008-04-10T15:28:00.001+07:00

Red Year - 2005 - Security, Survival, Perineum
Orange Year - 2006 - Sexuality, Creativity, Genitals
Yellow Year - 2007 - Courage, Power, Belly
Green Year - 2008 - Love, Compassion, Heart
Blue Year - 2009 - Communication, Throat
Purple Year - 2010 - Intuition, Wisdom, Third Eye
White Year - 2011 - Union, Bliss, Crown

The truth is

2008-02-19T13:51:00.005+07:00

that things have been just miserable here and it's not our circumstances which are very good and steady and stable, it's emotional stuff for me and some old addiction stuff and of course the bone wearying grief I feel hit me several times during the day, evening, night, in my sleep waking me up with a fright or in my dreams.

that's us.

Word from William.

2008-01-29T17:57:00.000+07:00

The world is too much with us; late and soon, getting and spending, we lay waste our powers- William Wordsworth

Gunners' Dream

2008-01-21T20:30:00.002+07:00

floating down through the clouds
memories come rushing up to meet me now
in the space between the heavens
and in the corner of some foreign field
i had a dream
i had a dream
goodbye max
goodbye ma
after the service when you're walking slowly to the car
and the silver in her hair shines in the cold november air
you hear the tolling bell
and touch the silk in your lapel
and as the tear drops rise to meet the comfort of the band
you take her frail hand
and hold on to the dream
a place to stay
enough to eat
somewhere old heroes shuffle safely down the street
where you can speak out loud
about your doubts and fears
and what's more no-one ever disappears
you never hear their standard issue kicking in your door
you can relax on both sides of the tracks
and maniacs don't blow holes in bandsmen by remote control
and everyone has recourse to the law
and no-one kills the children anymore
and no-one kills the children anymore
night after night
going round and round my brain
his dream is driving me insane
in the corner of some foreign field
the gunner sleeps tonight
what's done is done
we cannot just write off his final scene
take heed of the dream
take heed

Sunlit path of racial justice.

2008-01-21T20:30:00.001+07:00

Let freedom reign.
Protestants and Catholics.
Free at last. Free at last.
Thanks god almighty we are free at last.

From every hill, and molehill in Mississippi.

Is this by Sappho Durrell?

2008-01-14T13:46:00.000+07:00

"night-dress- blood batik/batik in blood"
-s.d

I have been gestating the sea all this while

you have been spitting stones into dirt-edged puddles

trying to cast a spell to draw me out with the radiating ripples

you know you can make me come but not cry

out underneath harvest-wet weather

a portion of heaven has been set aside for you

and it goes bad on your plate, surrounded with congealed bone-grease

you would tell the elders that i plucked your tendons for my lyre

and tore away your caul even before birth

but you always confuse me with your mother though i

never let your swollen head pass between my sacred thighs

even knowing stairs and heat as well as i do

how the temperature drops as the banister walks you down into a basement

Boodle.

2008-01-08T07:08:00.000+07:00

"I'm a labourer from Kurramine Beach".

Safe travels.

The Age of Innocence

2007-12-31T09:25:00.000+07:00

Favourite book of 2007 is The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton.

Read it and weep ~~that you'll never be this good~~.

Kurt Vonnegut

2007-11-20T09:44:00.000+07:00

Writing rule number 3.

"Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water."

Thanks Kurt, via 101 Reasons to stop writing.

Heinlein's Three

2007-10-31T15:55:00.001+07:00

Rules of writing

1. Write something every day.
2. Finish everything you write
3. Send out everything you finish.

Latte Soy Dandy

2007-10-29T13:35:00.000+07:00

Those dirty Hinchinbrook girls are right about something - latte soy dandy is delicious.

Thanks for putting me onto them Francesca.

Making do.

2007-09-30T15:35:00.001+07:00

If I had to write a personals ad for myself, I'd find myself pretty hot.
(I have dark hair and read books after all.)

I want a girlfriend.

In the meantime I make do.

I make do with longing sighs at 'babes with books'.
I make do with admiring a blogger with the gorgeous last name of "Pike".
I make do with ever more ridiculous crushes on unattainable Bugsplatians.
Apparently married and heterosexual is no longer enough.
I am now aiming for married, heterosexual and devout.
With a capital D for Don't Think Much of Lesbians.

In so many other ways, life is wonderful.
Thea

Blue bird.

2007-08-08T19:42:00.000+07:00

All is very well. There's no point attempting to protect oneself from hurt. It will come. There's no point thinking there is any escape. There isn't. That's okay.

In brief.

2007-07-23T20:29:00.000+07:00

It's been like the first fall of snowflakes here, quiet, solemn, but wildly exciting.

Between the gasps of memory.

2007-05-22T21:46:00.000+07:00

So much hideous revelation lately, does it ever stop?

I'm tired. I liked it better when we were less self aware.

Things are okay.

Queen's Speech.

2007-04-07T22:16:00.000+07:00

Every year we would watch the queen's speech on ABC TV. The equivalent, I guess, to the State of the Union Address. Now there is no speech on tv, or if there is we don't watch or know when it is or care. There's no sense of collective tv viewing any more. There used to be just two to choose from - and in my house it was always just the ABC.

Thea's Speech then. This is me. I am the Queen of Speech.

Ahem. (Thin on one side, fatter in the middle, then thinner again.. on the other side)

My (sprawling) life spreads as it will and I watch, feeling more like an aunt every day.
I'm okay.
It's okay to be this way.

I have my consolations. I have a calmer heart than I did, back then, when I was more alive, and here and spoke to people in my very own (snooty, or so I am told) voice. Oh, how I do miss you.

This (star point) life.

2007-03-22T21:14:00.000+07:00

* things have been going so fabulously here I think we've all been a bit reluctant to post just in case we jinx it

* not working is really agreeing with us

* battle star galactica is just... brilliant

* belly dance is fantastic

* our writing is going well

* our new song is great

* our room is amazingly tidy and organised

* life is being so very kind right now

*flees*

Babes with books.

2007-03-16T15:52:00.000+07:00

I've been helping Calypso write her play about belly dance.

And doing some *cough* research online, I found this.

Ah, babes with books.
Just what this bluestocking needs.

No shit, Sherlock.

2007-03-06T21:30:00.000+07:00

We've been busy, mostly dancing but there has been some volunteer work for M. Trouble, who has been working hard to avoid offending Calypso's friends. Poor muggins.

Here's some Angelata & Gray news ... *sizzle* .... it's on again. It seems that lust has, if not solved, at least soothed the strife. Or maybe just confused the issues.

We've been continuing work on Project Tidy Our Room. This project never seems to end. In the grip of Belly Dance Fever, we have made an inventory of all belly dance related items in our possession. There are a great many. Exact figures vary depending on how it's counted. A huge suitcase, two large carry bags, a small oddly-shaped piece of hand luggage that matches the suitcase and a basket full. Every item is in a zip lock bag. Labels are involved.

Also, a 14 page all singing, all dancing musical has been written.

We've been busy. We miss many of you very, very much. We need to write letters. Send you things. Be better friends.

Relief.

2007-02-17T20:14:00.001+07:00

I'm happy for Trouble. It went well.
:)

Two weeks.

2007-02-10T13:40:00.000+07:00

It feels to me as if it's been a while since I wrote. I see Mannie has written a thrilling post about how she really likes jars. I see Calypso and Trouble currently in league. It pleases me to see another Castle-Dungeon connection. Maybe later, at Had a Dolly I'll write about Viola, my daughter, who was ambassador turned liberator all those years ago.
(Perhaps that was always the plan? Did she zaphod her brain?)

I'm feeling remarkably calm and content. I'm not really a 'content' person by nature. Last night we had visitors for dinner and good food was made for them. Tomorrow night it's another 'girls night out with Rose, Honey and Megan. Tonight Mannie and Trouble and Gray all watched the Bill together.

Gray asked me something. I just happenned to be there. Really I expect he was asking Trouble. "What's up with you?"

I told him that I didn't feel like I was really here.
I felt about 2 metres above my body, slightly to the right.
I suppose I should write this stuff in Had a Dolly which is where we're supposed to put all the 'sick, sick, sick' stuff. It didn't feel that bad though, just a bit far away.

It's been two weeks.
We've rested, worked on the block, organised stuff and planted a small garden. That's all good, I'm sure.
I just wish I felt a little more ~here~.
thea.

One week.

2007-02-02T06:00:00.000+07:00

Days are numbered in Had a Dolly, but here I see 'one week' has been writ, and it is, almost, being a Friday and the end of a traditional working week. It won't be seven days until Sunday.

Then surely I will stop counting days and begin counting weeks. I suppose it is too much to hope for that I won't count weeks. I have four weeks leave owed to me (which I am taking currently) and I expect I'll count them all and then count the leave a over, and something else (panic?) beginning.

It's a glorious morning. A flock of black cockatoos have been wheeling in the skies. Yesteday we harvested the back alley's crop of apricots and they look beautiful in their green glass bowl on the table. Our house looks like home now with all our books and music and pictures.

Why change things just when they're going so well?

2007-02-01T07:57:00.000+07:00

I really don't like having to learn new usernames and passwords.

:/

An elephant loses a balloon.

2007-01-29T22:10:00.000+07:00

This is a test. I have given in. Grumpily.

Celebrating our last day, last night.

2007-01-28T11:49:00.000+07:00

So. Work finished. Gray took photographs. We said goodbye to Wes (Work Experience Student) also known as "Work Experience Boy", "Evil Minion", "Trusty Slave" and "Sweetheart". Then in the evening we met 'the girls' at Castenada's for dinner, dessert and coffee before heading to the Bugsplat Hotel to see the local band.

"The girls" are;

Rose ~ gorgeous, bodacious, blonde, smart and fabulous.
She's a medical student visiting her family every holiday, oh, and she works in the shop,

Megan ~ elegant, bookish (in the best possible way) and sharp. She writes sonnets. And works in the shop, as you do in Bugsplat there not being much call for sonnet-writing.

Honey - a lovely person cursed with astonishing good looks that tend to distract people from her other qualities. Understandably ... as she is more beautiful that Salman Rushdie's wife and that's saying something because Salman Rushdie's wife's beauty was responsible for turning the great writer's brain to pudding else how can we explain "Fury"? Honey is without question Bugsplat's very own Aishwarya Rai. She used to be the Bugsplat Tourist Bureau Manager same as Trouble and she loves bellydancing same as Calypso.
Oh, yes, she also works in the shop.

Tom The Other Megan is Megan's friend and is a new addtion to our terrifying clique. Doesn't work in the shop.

We had a great time at dinner together - Tom and I just getting to know each other - she's really interesting. I looked at the table and felt so glad to be sitting with these fantastic, intelligent women. It was amazing. I am a bit scared because I know that when groups of women have these kinds of moments together where there's a group energy and it all just sparkles ... then it can end up that someone (often, me, I suggest fearfully) gets hurt. It's worth it though!

After Castenada's we walked to the Bugsplat Hotel to see the local band, and I saw Zil's Other Good Friend Nell, and Nell texted Zil to let her know I could come and pick her up which I did, taking Rose with me for company, and it was just like going out with a group of women should be - there was lots of to-ing and fro-ing and walking each other to the Ladies and rescuing each other from the overly amorous Farmer Gentlemen types and lots of mobile phones and lots and lots and lots of gossip. I found it all really exciting - you know, I was out - out for a night out. Megan was most annoyed that the "late licence" promised did not materialise and thus the evening was pretty much over at midnight, but I thought I saw a glimmer of relief as well in her amusing indignation.

We danced to at least a dozen songs, all covers but the singer is lovely, and her band very sweet and it wasn't cock rock.

All in all, a great night.

Walk and don't look back, Ms Trouble.

2007-01-24T21:13:00.000+07:00

Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god how ghastly that was.

One more day of 'handover', then two more days of work, then I/we have to WALK AWAY. Don't look back!

"Handover" doesn't actually work to well as a description of what happenned today. Trouble attempted to hand something over and the new Manager managed to cleverly avoid taking it. She might not be as silly as she seems... and avoiding all responsibility for understanding how anything works is one strategy we'd never really considered for coping with this job. Hmmmmmm.
It was just awful.
Part of it is just the intense frustration of how it is ALWAYS so much harder than it need be, so much stupider and meaner than it need be. It really hit hard today.
Mrs Manky rang complaining about a guy who emailed Bugsplat Visitor Centre asking for accomodation advice two days ago and hasn't got an answer yet. Well, Mrs Manky, that would be because I haven't been at work for three days. Why's that? That's because I'm only paid for four days a week.
Why don't the volunteers answer the emails?
The volunteers? Mostly because they don't want to.
One of them is scared of computers, the other one is too busy rifling throught the files looking for something to use against me and the other one probably forgot.
I shall halve their salaries immediately.

Except of course, when I did check, there was no email. I expect Mrs Manky gave the wrong address to her mystery shopper. Oh I shall be glad to be gone.

She seems quite sweet. I think she's probably going to be nice to customers. So that's a blessing.

In which Thea is pleased with herself for no good reason whatsoever.

2007-01-23T12:37:00.000+07:00

Yes, if you GOOGLE "Solid Mandala" and "Theft" you will see me in the comments column of RYWHM, and some Proper Literary Reviewers as well.

Not so much a walk as a stomp.

2007-01-22T19:23:00.000+07:00

Our friend Zil was pleased to see Trouble when she clopped her way over there. Good. We like Zil. She's worth the effort. And we must be known as we truly are, by someone, or we'll have no hope at all.

We've been reading Middlesex. It's a fantastic book. Jeffry Eugenides. A heroine turns hero. Intersex. Calliope becomes Cal. Girl becomes boy, then man. It's a topic of some interest to us for many reasons, one being that some of us believe ourselves to be male. If not men, then not women either. Some who live here, like the Herrings, have no ambiguity at all - are men. We tend not to count them. They seem to be ghosts who just moved in and started bossing Mannie around. Or perhaps they came with her, in her magical bag. (It's bigger on the inside, you know.)

Trouble is currently claiming the gender 'tomboy', and admiring Poppy Brite's attitude towards the situation that she finds herself in. Trouble's a non-nonsense kind of girl-boy - likes the way that Poppy handles gender dysphoria. Knowing we could never pass as man. Knowing most of us are women, and glad to be women. And since s/he's not a man in any case, but an eight year old boy, Trouble doesn't want to bother too much with claiming pronouns or taking testosterone. Eight year old boys don't have much of that either. Still, she doesn't walk so much as stomp.

Mama Lion raised her. Well, there's an ambiguity. I never noticed that before. We always come with clues.

I wonder sometimes... maybe they were right after all - with their theories about an uber-person who knows it all, knows all about us, knows everyone of us - IS everyone of us.
All that garbage just because they can't accept a bit of difference. It's things like the clues that make me doubt myself. Who's watching all of us? Who's in charge? Is it The Machine that Viola sees - full of levers and crazy lights? Or some kind of energy field (that's what Calypso sees). Is it a soup of chopped up identities borrowed from relatives, friends, storybooks? Am I a meaningless expression of something that isn't really a person at all, just a delusion who thinks her name is Thea and knows herself to be a dark-haired lesbian? Well maybe... but if I'm a delusion, then so are you, I say, with bravado but I also fear. What if I'm really not a person? What if there's no real person? What if we're so god help me damaged somehow that we're no longer a real person? Like that crazy man in the old people's home who used to say nothing but "Come from Hamburg" and didn't even recognise his wife. Where did he go? The person he was before that's all he was? Did we have a person who has left our body? Are we just a more sophisticated kind of question?
Okay, I'm done here.
If you're still reading, I salute you.

Friends to tea.

2007-01-21T21:46:00.000+07:00

Troy and Nadia came to tea and to watch our advance copy of "Runaway Bride".
(Did you know we are TV and Movie Award judges? *Nods firmly* That is why we watch so many things that haven't been released yet and would never come to Bugsplat anyway.)

What a great night. Great TV. Good company. Nice vegetarian food.

Friends at sea.

2007-01-21T12:30:00.000+07:00

One friend Zil makes too many personal remarks. We hate it. It's one thing to say "that's a nice hat" or something.. it's another thing to be completely over the top in praise of beauty, tea cosy we're accidentally wearing on our head etc. etc. Like Mia, we dislike flattery, but it's not that - it's this awful feeling - Too Much Attention.
Hate it.
She also constantly asks inane questions. Where have you been today? What did you have for dinner? What will you do this afternoon? I know these are all completely socially acceptable behaviours and with The World we just play along. Probably too hard - sorry to all people like me who wonder why we make so many inane remarks - here's your answer - to fit in.

For us, with no continuous episodic memory - ie: Thea doesn't remember what Trouble had for dinner the night before - it's just not there in her head - so to answer these profoundly meaningless questions is such an ordeal - we have to immediately rush to find everyone who's been out since last night's dinner, really ~rushing!~ through our mind and quick! quick! quick! goes the sense of urgency - often completely stop being whoever we are at that point (usually Calypso who really likes our friend Zil) and stampede through a dozen or so people desperately searching for the truthful answer to the 'What did you have for dinner last night?' question, which is passed like a baton of imperative from each to each. It hurts so fucking much. It takes about 2 seconds. Aren't we clever? And then... we have the ANSWER. Hallelujah. We will pass as Normal. We get to say "Soup".

Thank Christ for that.

Trouble with Gray.

2007-01-19T05:16:00.000+07:00

She and he were both very disappointed by the surprising outcome.

In a fair contest, for this job, Gray could only be beaten by an exceptional candidate.
And after the ordeal we went through we're finding it hard to stay open to that possibility.

We did so want all our work (esp. Trouble's) to really ~mean~ something, to hand it over to someone who cares and who won't stuff it up. It's sad.

Gray had imagined a future there too, so he's quite blue.

That's us, this chilly summer morning in Bugsplat.
You?

Attention: Ms Blackmoore.

2007-01-15T19:56:00.000+07:00

Please continue to grace this journal with your (de) lurkiness.
And post, woman, POST.

ps. you're very pretty

The heart makes traitors of us all.

2007-01-15T09:06:00.000+07:00

What marriages survive their nations at war?
Lovers cannot be patriots.

(Trouble)

Or it could be more like...

2007-01-15T09:00:00.000+07:00

Romeo and Juliet.
Privacy, autonomy, secrecy. So precious. And who will be nursie to any love-struck Juliets who make the mistake of falling for someone from the wrong family?
(Shell)

It could be like loving the Magi.

2007-01-14T18:41:00.000+07:00

Calypso fell in love with a whole family once. The sisters were so beautiful and charming. Italian anarchists. Passionate, brilliant, alive.
Maybe it could be like that.

Just Jo

Uncle Vanya.

2007-01-10T14:09:00.000+07:00

Robert Dessaix is too clever by half.

So's Tolstoy. He said they were all alike. Driving back from Lighthouse Town I fished about in that swamp of ours where our episodic memory goes to brood and I could not find another to make a comparison. Until I got here to this chair and this screen and remembered - the Brothers V. They've got one.

A happy family. And maybe an uncle called Vanya for all I know but that's neither here nor there.

I wish I could be candid, like my friend Mia. You probably know her by her other (more real, less made up) name. She's candid. Alternatively I could be obscure in an intruiging way like my friend Stephen is. You probably know him by his other (more real, less made up) name. I'm not happy with my messy compromise. It's just a muddle.

I'm still thea.

Four-fold turn.

2007-01-02T15:36:00.000+07:00

Feeling anxious about the future and pondering such depressing questions as:

~ have I really learnt anything at all about our condition?

~ are we at all closer to God than we were in our twenties?

we went bumbling around online (wiki-ing) and found a lady called "Bryon Katie".

Some self-help guru with an alarming haircut. Usually a dungeon brat would yell "Run, don't walk!" and get us out of there, but they weren't about.

She teaches a method of self-enquiry with four questions. Apparently.

The four questions are:

Is it true?
Can you absolutely know that it's true?
How do you react when you believe that thought?
Who would you be without the thought?

So. I may try this out with some of my more depressing thoughts soon.

thea.
ps. I'm ashamed of myself. This is so pathetic.

Blue, green and red.

2007-01-01T10:16:00.000+07:00

It was a wonderful night!
We had the party light on again.
Leila? Stephen? Mia?
Do you it from remember last year?
Disco crystal; blue, green and red.
(Thank you, Jenscovians!)

Megan and Rose arrived fifteen minutes shy of midnight.

Honey had already piked with an apologetic phonecall after her long day at work. I was very glad the phonecall came late in the afternoon ie: AFTER Mannie's residual middle class houseproud tendancies had already prodded her into cleaning the bathroom before Honey called. Now we have an amazingly clean bathroom. Which might not have happenned on account of Megan or Rose as they are Slobs Like Us.

~tangent~
Does the term 'slob' have its origins in racial abuse?
*googles*
Nope. Something to do with mud.
~end tangent~

~new tangent~
In the interests of rent reduction (well, actually because the landlord told him to on account of our angling for rent reduction) Gray's been moving his studio from next door into this house - so that's two large rooms worth of art and film equipment to squeeze into our (former) front bedroom. We're sleeping in the (former) guest room. I've clung with tenacity to my front room but have had to store ALL our things in there as well as a double bed for guests. So Polly HQ. is a pretty crowded bedroom - guitar, viola, violin, two wardrobes, a vivid green office chair *twirl!*, suitcases, bellydancing stuff, desk and the beautiful bed that Stan made for us twelve years ago. Books are currently kept in the hall.

The fridge is now in the little room between the kitchen and the bathroom and that has made the kitchen such a friendlier place. The telly is out of the lounge room at last! It is in this room, the former guest room. We'll put a couch in there too, and this computer will be moved out to a rather awkward spot by the hot water system and (now) the fridge.

Megan abstains from the demon drink so we had lassies together in the (now, much roomier, see above) kitchen. Cardamon is so uplifting. Megan and Rose looked beautiful.

We didn't stay long at the Bugsplat Worker's Club. Long enough to see the fireworks and to be kissed rather too many times by rather too many elderly gentlemen. Megan, who has lived in Bugsplat all her life, has perfected several amazing manoeuvres to avoid this fate. I shall need to study them carefully. Zil was there with her new man. It was lovely.

Happy New Year to you all.

Coffee for two, three and four.

2006-12-30T15:02:00.000+07:00

Almost time for coffee at Castro's with Megan, Honey and Rose. We have a New Year's Eve to plot. I really like these girls. Rose is a summer addition to our usual three - she studies most of the year.

Path to your door.

2006-12-30T14:44:00.000+07:00

Thank you "Stephen".

:)

We love you so much.

What do you think?

2006-12-19T07:34:00.000+07:00

Quick Poll (also at Wants A Cracker) : Should "Trouble at Work" become "Trouble out of Work"?

Wacky, Multiple News: Cassandra (formerly Scab), Miranda (formerly Snot) and Gruesome (formerly Gruesome... she made me write that, oh dungeon wit) all added their names to the marriage certificate yesterday.

Now that we don't really have a job to protect, we've been thinking about re-uniting all our journals into one rather than having three layers of angst plus a some special-interest ones. All our journals are here, except for Had a Dolly. We had imagined Had a Dolly would be wacky, multiple (like here) and angsty (like here) but also where we might write really dreadful things. It hasn't quite turned out that way.

Any ideas, readers?

Leaps and bounds.

2006-12-14T21:11:00.000+07:00

We drove to SeaSideCity this morning. Driving out of Bugsplat felt different. It wasn't just a drive to Littlesplat or to Bigsplat for a big shop. Everything looked different because it felt like it was part of a longer journey. In time I'm sure the trips to SeaSideCity will become part of our Bugsplat Life but for now they still play tricks on me, summoning up the bigger roadtrip of 2004, the one that landed us here in Bugsplat. Sometimes that roadtrip comes alive to me, claims that it still feels unfinished. Claims that great big desert plain is waiting for us. Streaky Bay over in South Australia - some little faded white weatherboard cottage with an oleander and an olive tree - waiting for us. I've never been there. It's an imagined destination.

It's not like that place up North, the place with the fishing shack we considered trying to buy - our plan of eating fish (catching fish) and sprouts (sprouting seeds and beans in specially made jars) and growing salty, sandy and windswept together by a salty, sandy, windswept cliff. That's an imagined destination too. It can call me. But I won't go back.

Driving home from SeaSideCity to Bigsplat I noticed a stone farmhouse by the side of the road and with sudden curiousity I thought perhaps I'd been there when I was very young, with my parents. I remembered a small table by a window set with a lace tablecloth and a bible. I remembered that out the back there was a big smooth rock and on the rock, on the slope facing north there was a large flat stone resting in such a way as to look placed there for a reason. Under that stone was a tiny natural spring; you could smell the water down the tube. One side of that stone was damp and cool. The stone was a lid. Put there first by aboriginal people to protect the spring. My father showed me and told me.

Though we have driven past it several times, tonight the sun was setting behind it as the sun set behind the stone farmhouse of my childhood. If I peered in the window would I see the bible? The narrow dark wood dinner table and long thin benches?

Driving home to Bugsplat Gray sang lots songs. He even sang the Queensland Drover. And I sang along. I remember when we used to sing those songs, you used to sing them with me, when we drove home to Hearttown from weekends away camping. How far away am I from that moment, when we are all singing that same old song? How far am I away from the you you once were when you were driving us home? In that sly and pretty melodic sidestep in the chorus? When I'm just here. in the passenger seat, just like I always was back then.

And how far away was I from ~you~ when we sang Leaps & Bounds?

Mr and Mrs Manky of Manky Towers.

2006-12-07T06:42:00.000+07:00

What a time we've had lately.

I've been helping Trouble at work. We've resigned. I'm finding it increasingly difficult to remain civil about it. My resignation letter was a masterwork of controlled rage. Gray wrote it - after reading our original and condensing our four pages into one. We don't think we can be sued. That doesn't mean it won't be threatened.

We're all looking forward to the day we can be rude BACK to people like Mr and Mrs Manky of Manky Towers, Bugsplat. I hope we get through this without the whole town thinking we've done something dodgy financially. That's the thing about those kinds of accusations - very difficult not to look guilty as you defend yourself. It's very hurtful. Mud sticks.

Four weeks ago we were strong enough to handle this crap. Now we're just ~not~ up to it. There's lots of reasons for that - our knee injury, no dancing, our crazy life at home (our house has been a recording studio for the last few weeks) and the huge stuff we've been doing at work. We're tired.

I should go - work.

I wonder what the day will throw at me.

Vocabulary meme.

2006-11-13T11:48:00.000+07:00

Don't read this if you want to do the vocabulary meme all on your own, boys and girls.

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

*

well, I said that a talisman is a charm with power and that something ostentatious is overly showy and that to cajole means to coax and that an atheist doesn't believe in god and that to peruse is to read carefully (though I know that there's a case for that meaning to have shifted in recent times) and that an enigma is a mystery and that to be quoxotic is to be fast to act and that it's rude to be impudent (in contrast to imprudent) and that an altruist puts others first and that mastication is chewing and that serendipity is luck and that onmiscient is all powerful and that a woman should be happy to be told she is lithe even though I personally think a woman upon being told she is 'lithe' should be inclined to say "and you're telling me because...." or sneer unpleasantly. Or both. A hedonist seeks pleasure, right?

edit: *flashes her slip & blue stockings*

Lonely Tricks.

2006-11-11T08:49:00.000+07:00

I thought I'd write here for a moment. So Tricks doesn't feel lonely. All the other blogs are getting attention. I wrote at wants a cracker the kind of post I usually write here. I'm flat. Out. Of. Ideas.

Round and round in circles go the words, and nobody gets any wiser.

I'm going to get bitter and nasty if I write about the particular issue.
Not to say I won't write about it.
And get bitter and nasty.

Bananas.

2006-11-06T12:43:00.000+07:00

There were two bananas on our doormat this morning. One (for Gray) said "Thanks for yesterday" and one (for me) said "Sorry about the mishap yesterday".

Coz there was no swim for us yesterday. Life got in the way.

In a couple of hours we'll be at the meeting we've been dreading.
Gah.

Hopeful of ocean.

2006-11-05T12:17:00.000+07:00

We're waiting for our friend to arrive. Afternoon swim is planned.
Oh I hope she does come. I want to get in that ocean.

Ensign Ro

2006-10-19T19:37:00.000+07:00

I just met her!

Gray has been watching Star Trek dvds from the local library. It's a relatively harmless stress release for him, I guess. We (polly) have collectively managed to avoid Star Trek despite our circumstances - surrounded by friends who loved the show. It just happenned that at the precise moments (there were a few of them) that tempted almost everyone in our Hometown circles, we were away.
We never caught the wave.

Anyway, the point of this post is not some kind of Star Trek Avoider's Defence... it's just that - wow, she reminds us of someone we really like!

She's great.
Go, Ro. Especially the correction of the name - that was so stylish.
What a great character.

State of the union.

2006-10-08T09:58:00.000+07:00

Just Jo: oh god.
Shell: butterflies, finches, the sound of leaves
Trouble: What happenned to my holiday? Dammit! I got NOTHING.
Francesca: bee eaters
Angelata: whatever did I see in him?
Mannie: matching purple luggage
notMichelle: I love my mum
Thea: driving my father's car, past the streets of my past, making promises I won't keep to myself, letting myself wish, letting myself wish things were otherwise
Calypso: the cottage
Roz: violins in the hills
Viola: praise is so confusing
Gruesome and Sausage, Miranda and Cassandra: welcome to the family, here is your helmet
Francis: my girl, Friday

Raft.

2006-09-12T08:17:00.000+07:00

I'm on a raft. It's not land, but it's dry. And I don't have to swim so hard.

Am I really here at all?

2006-09-07T15:42:00.000+07:00

...hunched over, eyes glazed, I find "depersonalisation" websites and vaguely (from a long, long way away) agree with some words I read there like how I don't really feel here and real and I wish I knew (wish is probably too strong a word for it) if I was real, in the way I might wish I knew where my phone bill is, oh well, they'll send another one eventually...

Blue-stocking's Guide to the Arts of Life.

2006-09-03T14:26:00.000+07:00

It's been a little while. I've been tongue-tied.
Life has been ....... well it's a good thing we like Bach.

To CitySplat.

2006-08-26T08:45:00.000+07:00

To CitySplat, to meet my Ma, and stay three nights there before coming home. Ma will come home too, see the block, stay for three nights, then she's off home again.

The spare room is tidy and I've nearly finished my work - just a tiny bit of talking-through a report with my boss before I catch the bus this morning.

Thea's new crush.

2006-08-21T10:46:00.000+07:00

I have a new crush.
Dorothy Porter.
She's a poet.
Oh my god, what a poet.
Please, Ms Porter, marry me.

I... um.... make an okay cheesey thing .... and I like too much red wine... and I play really ~great~ scrabble... and ... err.... I'm quite a catch except for the teesy weensy problem of being a re-associating identity centre who believes herself to be a thin, dark-haired lesbian called Thea - though that probably wouldn't be an insurmountable reality gap (there are diets, there is hair dye) if it weren't for all the OTHER re-associating identity centres living here all of whom have their own ideas about who and what they are and what they fancy.
And that's just the obstacles from my side of the church.
*sigh*
It's never gonna happen.

Lucky for me 'hopeless' is one of my favourite kinds of love.
*swoon*

Negotiating with doves.

2006-08-13T11:06:00.000+07:00

Yesterday was the second (and last) Bugsplat Writing Workshop. We gave the teacher our story "Negotiating with doves." She says she'll read the first three chapters of our novel. Scary.

We had lunch with Honey and Megan at Castenada's, and then Megan and I went to the group session in the afternoon. There's another one today - Megan and I will attend together, is the plan. Yesterday was pretty good.

Cross posting porpoises.

2006-08-08T12:04:00.000+07:00

*giggle*
Something about being at cross porpoises and schools of red herring.

There was a post, should have been here, but ended up at Had a Dolly. We're trying to maintain some kind of distinction here. But the angst runneth over. Castle angst HERE. Absolute misery: THERE. Got it? Okay, then.

And what am I doing here?
Guess I'd better get back to work.

A flock of snow geese.

2006-08-07T09:22:00.000+07:00

This quote;
Love is the difficult realization that something other than oneself is real.
Iris Murchoch (via Sassy, thank you)

rang true. Perhaps we've become unreal.

Meanwhile, back in reality, we protect ourselves from intimacy by keeping secret our true nature, and then we protect ourselves from intimacy by revealing our true nature. Stephen sent us a beautiful card once about the snow goose, who does not have to try to be white.
And how terrifying it is to be understood.

Settler's Lane.

2006-07-31T14:16:00.000+07:00

Our land is on Settler's Lane. My god, we could hear the ocean. How wonderful. I know how much that means to some people here, and I never dared to hope for that. It's so goddamn beautiful out there. Things seem to be settling with Gray. I noticed that Angelata was doing okay with him. They made some decisions about the block together. He complimented her on her pruning skills. We were in a little too much pain to go and see but the fruit trees have apparently responded brilliantly. It doesn't surprise me. I'm a terrible gardener myself, really quite dreadful, but all those Hinchinbrook chicks have green thumbs. So maybe this will be a way for them to relate? They shared three beers which they drank in the tin camping mugs. Not much was said, but I think there was some kind of sympathy between them. Maybe.

I wouldn't want to get too hopeful.

In any case, my own relationship with Gray isn't anything other than the usual skittish truce. Mannie and I have colluded to insist on the Own Room Thing Again. There are gorgeous new linens and an antique lampshade waiting for the spare room. It all needs tidying. Sorting. Organising. Oh, how hideous. The new linens are for the single bed we plan to put in there and the lampshade has two err... lampshades.... on so we will have one pointed to give light to our writing and one to give light so we may read in bed. We'll move our wardrobes in there too. We still need a desk - the camping table is useless. We've been needing this for a while. You know, room of one's own and all that.

I had planned (with Angelata) to drive to Bigsplat myself and buy all this stuff, last Thursday, but Just Jo insisted on talking it over with Gray and in the end he came with us, and was Really Quite Helpful. (We wouldn't have bought the lampshade without his encouragement - it was very expensive!) I know Angelata wanted to demonstrate something - her right to travel alone, her right to spend money. She has a tendency to go straight to ultimatum. This life that she and I lead, vicariously married, vicariously heterosexual, vicariously loved for what we most definitely are not, that is, given a kind of accidental love in the flesh, you know, that same old tale of woe we have which is true but not true, well it wears a lesbian down sometimes, even a resilient and brilliant lesbian like me, or Angelata, and we do sometimes grow tired of being so gracious about it all. We sometimes would like to get in the car and drive a long way away and stay overnight in a roadside motel. Just Jo tells us we're Not Going Anywhere but we've already come to that conclusion. We can't run away from each other. So, Angelata and I won't be running away together either, except perhaps across the hall to the spare room.

There's a glimmer of hope here. Truly. Surely.

Why so quiet, Tom?

2006-07-30T13:34:00.000+07:00

imaginary reader: Why so quiet, tricks of memory?
tom: Sod off.
imaginary reader (henceforth known as 'im): well, I never!
'im (which might be short for 'Tim'): now, now
tom: shut up.
tim (apparently a cockney): now just you look 'ere
tom: nope. won't. sod the fuck off.
tim (suddenly channelling my lovely friend Elke) : it's mercury, mercury in RETROGRADE.
tom: I like you better this way.
tim (still channelling Elke): of course you do. Now, sweetie, don't fret. It's ALL OVER.
tom: will if I want to.
tim : suit yourself.

Hungry Heart.

2006-07-26T21:51:00.000+07:00

And now, my darling is playing our make up songs.
He's beautiful, my darling.
And apparently, he's got a hungry heart.

Smashed.

2006-07-26T16:34:00.000+07:00

I feel terrible. I can't depend on anything or anyone. I can't rely on my knee. I can't rely on my husband. I can't rely on my job. I can't rely on my friends. I can't rely on anything.

So, that's where I'm at. Looking down at my feet and feeling scared.

We talked about the whole world.

2006-07-21T23:42:00.000+07:00

Update: You can read one of Ned's poems at wantsacracker, where he is known by his other (more :P real) name.

In the morning Gray met one of the Bugsplat Sculpture Trail poets, Ned, and described him to me as a strange and wonderful man. I didn't recognise him immediately when he came into the Bugsplat Visitor Centre in the afternoon, but he introduced himself and we really connected. He went back to his hotel to fetch a book of his poems for me.
(and they're good!)
I asked if we could meet him for dinner and that's just what we did.
At Castenada's. Gray brought the last bottle of our best 2002 Bugsplat shiraz . We talked about the whole world. Music, poetry, life, sexuality, the wheatbelt, John Kinsella's Vegan Dessert. We all liked each other. It was oddly comforting. The intersections in our lives, the shared understandings. He grew up near to my mother's country. One of his poems describes her landscape perfectly. He had a lot in common with Gray - music and prodigy and similar disillusionments as a youth. I guess this is another little relief of some sort. To be able to be so civilised without losing sincerity. It was memorable. He's special. It was a night you just can't organise.

Breathe in, breathe out.

2006-07-21T16:30:00.000+07:00

The tangles form a knot ~somewhere~ and it doesn't matter where. The precise location or situation is not relevant. It's bound to happen ~somewhere~ with all these frayed and sticky threads pulling against each other. Then, when the knot is untangled or broken, we feel relief. No reason to! Nothing has changed. The whole stupid mess is just as stupid and messy and prone to do it all again tomorrow, or next week, or next time.

Our little reliefs:

no operation on the knee for at least three months while we wait and see whether it will heal ('Be symptom free' is correct rather than 'heal', I am told. This kind of injury doesn't heal.)
weird email we thought got sent (by molly or angelata) to friend does not seem to have been sent
our boss realises (after talking to the actual Bugsplat Wildflower Society rather than just listening to Ms Ant) that we Did The Right Thing by taking the book of the shelf.
Trouble is tentatively enjoying work - solving lots of problems, anyway.

A story returned.

2006-07-16T16:32:00.000+07:00

I'll let Roz and Viola tell you all about how their jam session with Helen Barley at Storm Point went. They'll probably write about it at The Beggar's Opera.

We had a late lunch together. After the jam session, I went to see Naomi & Pete, and discovered to my secret joy that the only copy of "The Doves" other than the one I posted at diary-x was still in Naomi's possession. I'll do a re-write and then submit it for the writing project that the Bugsplat Forest Arts Project is hosting in August.

Storm Point was gorgeous. Francesca can't believe we went all the way there and failed to pay our respects to the sea. I'm sorry! It just slipped my mind entirely. Roz and Viola were humming songs; Thea was excited about our story. The golden light of the sun sinking slowly over the sedge plain was beautiful though.

Next time, dear Hinchinbrook, the ocean, of course. If shell had been just that little closer to me I don't think I would have forgotten that we have agreed that you shall see the sea every time we go there. It's just that, as you know, there's so many of us and we all want this life.

Bugsplat Blue Stockings Club.

2006-07-16T09:56:00.000+07:00

Lanie has organised a fortnightly chess game at the Bugsplat Family Centre.
Roz and Thea are very pleased. There is talk of discussions of Lacanian theory too. Could be sandwiches as well, if we're very lucky.

Little and big sister.

2006-07-12T15:52:00.000+07:00

Our gorgeous sister Fiona sent us "Goddess" lipstick as requested AND a silver ring with an amber stone, and greenish gold glass bead earrings that really suit us. They arrived today; Trouble fetched them when she went to the Post Office to get the mail for work. When she opened the parcel, I (just jo) peeked over her shoulder.

She really loves this sister, though she doesn't know her well. Fiona was just a tiny little baby when they all went down to the dungeon. She didn't even get to meet Megan. Though I wonder if they got peeks. Perhaps. It's hard for us to know with any certainty.

Trouble looks up to Fiona, that I know, and admires her and feels in awe of her. It was a gentle little moment today, this receiving of gifts. Trouble likes the ring. She's wearing it on her middle left finger. It's pretty, but strong.

It makes me happy to think of Trouble as having a big sister, just as I am Fiona's big sister. Fiona knows us well enough to know she is both little and big to us.

How fortunate we are. How precious is our sister.

Mending.

2006-07-08T16:55:00.000+07:00

Zil came 'round & we've sorted it out.

It's mending.
We're really glad about that.

An awful conversation.

2006-07-07T21:44:00.000+07:00

More on the same theme as yesterday.

Some of our friends in Bugsplat don't like each other. It's our birthday soon and we've been planning a celebration (brunch) at Castenada's. Zil and Lilly don't feel able to go to our brunch and Lilly was okay about it - we agreed we'll have fun together some other time but Zil rang us up in distress and angry that we'd invited her. It brought up her past and reminded her of her childhood when she had to pretend all was okay when it wasn't.

It was an awful conversation and we feel covered in slime.

Trouble is very clear, to me and was clear to Zil, that it is not okay for Zil to blame us for ~inviting her~ and that it is Zil's responsibility to take care of her boundaries and not to expect us to anticipate her needs. I really like Trouble. I like Zil too, and I wanted to be kind. It was just horrible. My hands shook and my heart was aching but as well as feeling a great deal of sadness for Zil and Zil's misery I understood Trouble's fierce boundaries about this situation. I agree with Trouble. It really is not okay for Zil to do that. It's a hideous self-sabotage, a pattern she creates with the many friends she has fallen out with - she sets up these situations - creates a trespass, an occasion for outrage and for feeling betrayed. To relive old pain and old betrayals.

Always easy to see in others.

And there you are, reading this, knowing ten things about me that I would never guess; seeing me with ruthless clarity. Be kind, I plead. Is it all we can ask of each other? To be kind with your easy understanding. Let my faults be revealed to me by my own gaze.

just jo, mostly

This isn't finished; I've just run out of time.

2006-07-06T12:11:00.000+07:00

Zil came for a cup of tea this morning and Trouble wouldn't budge. And fair enough too. Zil has been told. Trouble was tired. Pretending to be Calypso or Just Jo is hard work and Trouble shouldn't have to do it. So.

The psychic pressure to please though... to soften the voice, to smile, to behave a particular (soft, feminine) way rather than to be who Trouble really is. And perhaps Zil doesn't realise it but she's very demanding of a certain behaviour from us. She demands reassurance. This demand is made by expression (not always verbal) of her anxiety. Reassurance is something that I am naturally very good at, but it doesn't come easily to Trouble.

I (just jo) get irritated with the people who are drawn to us (presumably, by us) sometimes. I mean, what the fuck is the point of going to all the effort to let someone know, all that trust, all that truth, all that explaining - if they don't actually ~learn~ anything from it. It's annoying too that I must feed these expectations somehow - me, francesca, hannah, shell - people who are softly spoken, gentle, subtle rather than clear, frank and direct.

We've been through this with other people too. And others of us (Angelata, Francis) have also had to endure it. It's so unfair that Trouble's mere presence becomes the cause of such manipulative anxiety and projection. Sometimes I can feel very cynical about some of the people who are drawn to us. So I suppose while unpleasant this experience is useful and I do appreciate more keenly how she is known here, online, by many people - and she has genuine connections with people here - for example she knows that hyjinx really ~likes~ Trouble for who s/he is and that's been good for her.

This isn't finished, I've just run out of time.

Weary and weep.

2006-07-05T16:03:00.000+07:00

There's been a series of scandals in the media that make us weary and weep. We try to avoid news but it leaks in. It's the bare faced misogyny, mostly, that gets us down. Little girl raped and murdered. The insulting way people talk about the woman who died nude and full of date rape drugs on a cruise ship. The way that a sexual assault on a reality TV show is being excused. I'm taking the no comments option on this one.

I feel so vulnerable today. Knees are such tender and emotional places. There's no direct connection between any of these scandals and my own feelings. I feel grief. Like I've lost someone. I feel old. Three hundred years old. I feel lost. I feel empty.

Losing love is like a window in your heart.
Everybody sees you're blown apart.
Everybody sees the wind blow.

A siren agonistes - oh, don't insult me!

2006-07-03T19:50:00.000+07:00

How strange, how wonderful it is.
(We drink of the river.)
It takes the me away and gives me the stuff of this, our earthly life.
How humbling it is.
The whole castle is plumbed with it.
In that special place Viola made we swim in it.
(It's just like a place in the curly-haired Doctor Who's tardis!)
Those girls on the island have to swim across to the marble steps.
Then up to the shore.
Through their house if their business is not fit for Francis.
Then, across the moat.
There's a short cut straight through Francis's picture.
Visitors must sign the open book policy.
Francis becomes less like a person and more like a policy sometimes.
Mirrors show Viola's face, but her lips only smile like Mona Lisa.
There are structures collapsing, reforming, all around me.
I see it from the corners of my eyes.
I see the edges of 'the machine'.
I see stories in my feet.
They assert themselves briefly silver and shimmering green.
Webbing grows between my toes.
As a strand of seagrass is dislodged from another place (my home).
I feel it (my home) between my teeth.
There's a fish scale stuck between a pair of milk-grown.
I feel it. I see it, all around me.

Deep blue memory.

2006-07-03T17:22:00.000+07:00

Yes, I've read how easily our life flows without me, and seen it, and know it's true.

Trouble took us swimming at the Bigsplat Pool today.
It was full of deep blue memories.

I want life too. Just as much as you do.
All the same, I do thank you.
And know that what you say is true.

On the house.

2006-07-01T15:51:00.000+07:00

My sympathetic ear we shall call Earnestina.

My sympathetic ear, Earnestina and I went to The Blue Fish for lunch together today. Trouble & Earnestina talked about work politics - hers and ours. The situations are so similar. Earnestina is philosophical: says there's always someone, if you get rid of your problem person another one walks in the door.

Waitress and part-owner of The Blue Fish, "M." is a student of Calypso's. She brought her mum out from the kitchen, to meet us. Her mum is considering coming to dance as well. They were so cute together, Mum and daughter; both charming, vivacious Italians. Mum did a few of the dance moves that Calypso had taught M. - some very cute waitress-inspired ones. Serving trays, taking money. Cheeky, comic moves.
Mum offered us coffee on the house.

I feel proud of Calypso for attracting such admiration and making people feel so at ease and friendly. Earnestina knows who's who out of Calypso and Trouble. I don't know that she knows me too well. Shell. I guess. Earnestina is okay. I just felt so distant from it all, watching over the shoulder of Trouble and Calypso, listening to them talking, knowing again, just witnessing again, the truth: this is not my body.

Monkey business.

2006-06-28T15:40:00.000+07:00

Once some sociobiologists made magazines of the monkeys for the monkeys to read.
All the monkeys enjoyed the magazines.
They liked most to look at the pictures of the high status monkeys.

Send me to my knees.

2006-06-28T15:19:00.000+07:00

My grief over Zena and all that it overflows to and reminds me of - damaged friendships here, mainly - was still fresh: tears were still falling when I first heard the knocking. It took me a while to get down the hall to find Yama at the door. Our yoga teacher, come to see me and my knee.

How swiftly cheering it was to see her!

We talked for a bit. She declined tea. Plans were made - there's a Japanese dinner tonight with Rashi and Jean at the Bugsplat Family Centre. Yoga next week, despite my knee. Yama has modified versions of all the asanas.

Angelata & Gray.

2006-06-26T08:54:00.000+07:00

The sun is setting and the verandah is squint-eye bright.
Gray says;
You know I don't do that.
Angelata says;
I want you to know who I am. Otherwise I don't believe you.
Gray says;
If you want me to know who I am, tell me who you are.
Angelata says (aloud);
I'll write the first letter on my name on your forehead...
Angelata says (in secret);
...in blood.

Hurting.

2006-06-22T21:16:00.000+07:00

Our knee hurts and it hurts to watch Trouble figure out there's no solution to anything.
:/
There's no way to win, only ways to endure.
She's so brave and we're so proud of her.
Is this what it's like to watch your daughter have to learn stuff the hard way?

I think it might be.
thea