hands up if you have not had sex with someone sitting at this table...

Some years ago I was privileged enough to find myself hosting a radio show on Radio Adelaide under the guise of uncovering interesting things about Adelaide that not many people knew. Our first show was devoted to something that everyone already knows, and at the time seemed to be reverberating through our existence - the two and half degrees of separation between everyone living in Adelaide. We didn't research particularly well - there was no facebook back then to easily get statistics on who knew who - we figured on it being a fairly well established fact and discussed what it meant to us and our lives.

Six or seven years on, Adelaide being highly interconnected had stopped being a revelation and had become the status quo. It wasn't exactly surprising to find people who knew people who knew you, it was more expected than not. Feeling somewhat claustrophobic within the tangle of interconnections, and finding the start of an exciting new world just 8 hours drive away, I realised it was time to move on. Time to break free of the circles I'd grown up in and move to the bigger playground, where hopefully the swings would be more exciting, the monkey bars high enough that my feet didn't scrape the ground and where there'd be a whole bunch of new kids who didn't all know each other already.

The prospect was exciting and a little frightening - I knew a bunch of people , in a whole lot of different circles, but nothing as intertwined as the Venn Diagram I was leaving behind me. The thought of being able to go out and know no one at the party was invigorating. So I came and I met people, I socialised, I had a whole lot of fun. I met people through different avenues, at different parties, under different circumstances.

Slowly though, the circles started to tighten. People I thought were in entirely different circles were suddenly old friends, people who didn't know each other before I arrived became the best of friends, and I found myself struggling to describe who these new people were to the old circles back home. It's not a bad thing at all, just an interesting realisation, the world is a small place, you create your own circles, like attracts like, and you're drawn to the same people who are drawn to each other.

So here I am a year later, and I think I might have been spending too much time on the one piece of play equipment. Sitting around outside with a big group of people at the Black Cat on Brunswick St a friend of mine looked around and said "Hands up if you haven't had sex with someone sitting at this table". One person put their hand up. Welcome back to Adelaide circa 1999.

A little late, a little memory

I don’t want to ever forget this afternoon. I sat on the porch couch in the sun, drinking cider, smoking, reading Kerouac and listening to Bowie. As if that wasn’t fulfilling enough, as I sat out there a beautiful young girl walked past and handed me the most amazing looking pink blossoms. That completely random act made me feel so special, so pleased. I felt rewarded for taking time out to myself, to sit and engross myself in sweetness, all on my own. I know those moments are rare, the rare combination of sunshine and time out, and the will to sit and be peaceful doesn’t come as often as it should. I know that this period of my life is special; there will be times when my life is full of beautiful action, busy and hectic, yet still wonderful I’m sure. For now, I can appreciate the stillness, the languid afternoon, with the sun slowly melting through the trees, time to contemplate and reflect. The simple joy of reading words so beautifully put, images conjured and tales told as if they were playing out before me, in the same delicate slowness that they were witnessed. Oh, the joy of reading, tripping over the words as they saunter past, listening softly to the heartbeats, the moments of the characters, told, not to drive towards some suspenseful ending, but just to be told, and to be relished. Conjuring the memories of childhood and adolescence, feeling their emotions, and remembering my own stories like these. Stories that are by far more important to the participant than the observer, but throwing the reader into the participant’s pulsating memory, allows them re-witness the beauty of life over and over. Life is beautiful, its moments pass by so quickly, it is important to stop and notice them. Hold them briefly and preserve their memories. Please always let me remember the beauty of the sun shining through the plane trees on Rathdowne Street, framing the illuminated clouds in the azure sky, the moments of peace and stillness and the freedom of having time to read in my own company warmed by the sun, with the taste of cider on my lips. I could quite possibly be the luckiest girl in the world. At moments like these I wonder whether I could ask for anything more.

This blog was supposed to be about life...

...but this is too good to leave out.

Found this comic on xkcd.com today, then continued on to find this article.

Hover your mouse over the comic for the full effect.

Did I mention I love the internet?

Woe is Tuesday (aka Pimp my Monday)

My relationship with Tuesday has had its ups and downs. In fact it's possible to say that Tuesday and I have never really seen eye to eye, until just recently that is. In the past Tuesday has been tough, really tough. The excitement of Monday and a new week beginning is over, you've already discussed the follies of the weekend with co-workers, and most weeks, nothing thrilling has happened since yesterday afternoon.* The tedium of the week has set in. Unfortunately, on Tuesday morning, you still have another 4 days of it to go. A whole 4 days - that's practically forever. 4 more days of getting up early, 4 more days of work before the weekend, 4 more days of being sensible. Four. More. Days. Not to mention that sneaky little problem of the fun from the weekend really catching up with you - you can ride into Monday with a little bit of sparkle still left in your step, but it's Tuesday when you really start to suffer.

Recently however, Tuesday and I seem to have sorted out our differences, she has become somewhat the teacher's pet of weekdays. It might partly be because I've shifted my working hours slightly and no longer rise at 6am (I really hate early mornings), but I think our current rapport has grown from new Tuesday night activities, the anticipation of which manages to get me through the tedium of the working day. In fact the anticipation of my weekly rendezvous with Tuesday, boosts me through Monday, leaving me feeling as joyous as if I were coming up to Friday, a long time favourite.

So it got me to thinking - maybe all our troubled weekday relationships can be repaired. While Monday and I have enjoyed a cordial interaction thus far, I'm aware of many who don't feel the same way about her. So in their honour (and having fixed my one broken weekday relationship) I've been trying to come up with other ways to avoid wanting to break-up with Monday every time she comes around. So far I've thought of:** Cheap Monday dinner at the pub; some kind of exciting new activity like rock-climbing, jewelery making, painting, or dancing classes; cheap Monday movies; Monday spa time or even Monday massage. Leave your suggestions in the comments section, perhaps we'll find a way to kick Mondayitis to the curb once and for all.

Oh, and I know I may have picked unfairly on poor old Monday, she does get a rough ride. If your least favourite day of the week is another, feel free to substitute.

* Television does not count as something to talk about. Especially if it was last night's episode of Big Brother/Australian Idol/whatever mindless crap reality program is spewing forth this month. Exceptions might include a really fascinating documentary on string theory, anthropology or the meaning of life.

**Tried really hard to not make this sound like a list that you might find in Cosmo or FHM. Not sure that I've been successful. Actually, I probably didn't try that hard, but I did try at least a little bit.

How old am I really?

Read an article in today's Age by someone claiming to have lived their entire life with the internet. I still remember life without the internet. A lot of it. I even remember life before mobile phones. By my recollection the internet wasn't particularly widespread in Australia before 1995, I even remember the weird squelchy noises of dial-up, internet chat before facebook or msn, and the day that someone told me there was this crazy new search engine called google that was way better than anything else, and I thought "gee that's cool, they've named it the same as the number 10^100". I wonder if anyone still knows what a googol is? I'm still waiting for the new Google product called Googleplex. Even if it would be impossible to ever write the number down.

Anyway I digress. My main point was:

Do they let 14 year olds write in the paper these days?

Caller Blocked

I just got asked on a date by someone calling from a blocked number. Have I become one of those people that you have to trap into answering the phone? Maybe it was an accident, but it got me to thinking about the whole concept.

It's a thoroughly weird situation really. I'm sure I've done it in the past, although not for a while. You know, when you think someone might be avoiding you, so you switch of the number sending on your phone and call them to trick them into answering. The key thing here is - surely their lack of answer is enough of an indication that they might not actually want to talk to you. Do you need a bigger signal? And is someone who needs to be tricked into answering the phone really going to be keen to go out with you?

Someone accused me of performing this trickery last year sometime when I had the number sending turned off for some other reason (think needing to call someone who you don't want to have your number). My first thought was how entirely counter productive it was - I mean unless you had something really really important to tell them, why would you bother? Who wants to talk to someone that doesn't want to talk to them anyway?

The human mind really does work in mysterious ways.

Time is a construct

Small ironies of life:

Being asked out on a date and realising that you only have one night free in the next two weeks. It's suddenly apparent that an extra person will not fit into my life*. A friend once told me that whenever you decide to start something new, you have to think of something else that you're going to give up - after all, technically your day is already full of activities, even if the activity is just sitting on your arse doing nothing. So, right now, nothing to give up, apparently no space for new activities.

Lucky I'm single.

*That is of course, unless they're an heir who might allow me to spend less time on the more tedious parts of life.

housing crisis

Realised today that the amount of money I'm spending repaying debt is the rough equivalent of a mortgage repayment. Only difference being I don't have a house, or any assets.

All I have is the memories. There are some pretty good memories though.

In search of an heir

A downside of enjoying traveling and the finer (read more expensive) things in life is the cost. Since I opened my very first bank account, not counting the dollarmites account that I put $2 per week in, but had no access to, I've been big on spending. You know it's bad when at your 21st instead of starting with stories of stupid drunken antics, or the obligatory "I've known Miss Pomegranate since..." your friends start their speech to the brassy sounds of "Hey Big Spender".

Oscar Wilde once said that anyone who lives within their means suffers from a lack of imagination. From that rationale, anyone could tell from my credit card statement that I'm clearly gifted in the imagination department. Unfortunately all of this living beyond one's means can only end in one of three ways: death, bankruptcy, or living frugally until the debt is repayed and someone is stupid enough to allow you to clock up a new one. With the options of death and bankruptcy not being particularly appealing, I've opted for debt repayment and am now desperately flinging money into the black hole of debt that I've been very steadily digging since the day I got that very first credit card (to pay for accommodation that I conveniently forgot I would have to pay for when I booked the $1 virgin flights to get me there and back). I'm hoping that if I throw it fervourently enough I might actually plug the hole at the bottom, much like the drains in my house when you turn the tap on fast enough and the sink fills up with water.*

In the meantime, I've come up with another potential out. All I need to do is marry an heir and become an heiress. So if anyone knows of an heir looking for his heiress, please pass on my contacts. I'd do a much better job than Paris, I'm far classier, and I have a whole lot more imagination.

*fast enough being slightly faster than a trickle.

On the subject of wank

One of the things I really don't like is wank, and there seems to be a lot of it going around. It's always very thinly disguised as some kind of lifestyle choice, and often espoused by those who think that they are living an Alternative Lifestyle*.

The one that seems to be thrown around by so many of my peers is that of going to another country to Find Yourself. Young wankers, the country over seem to think that through some miraculous transformation, jetting off to the other side of the world is going to help them in their quest towards meaning in their otherwise consumer driven lives. The part of themselves that makes them Unique is out there just waiting to be stumbled over, but not locally, no, it's so Unique that they have to go to another country** to find it. Now I've been to other countries, and one thing I've noticed it that being thrown into an unfamiliar situation often makes it difficult just to find the local supermarket, let alone that very special piece of yourself that makes you Unique. Seriously, if you can't find yourself in a city you know, how on earth are you going to manage in one where you can't speak the language and need a map to navigate?!

The other wank I hate is this whole idea of Who You Are being an excuse for completely crappy behaviour and character flaws. "I'm a Taurus, so I'm supposed to be stubborn", or "I'm an Aires, so I'm selfish" are not excuses for being a dickhead. After all, while you may have been born into a particular star sign, you've had since birth to work on these things. By all means, if you enjoy your character flaws then continue to promote them, but at least take responsibility. Rephrase: "I only think about myself, and I don't really want to think about other people, so that makes me selfish" or "I don't want to think about things from another perspective, and I enjoy ignorantly sticking to my original thought or idea no matter what evidence to the contrary is presented, which is why I'm stubborn".

Of course, if you're a real Wanker, then you can top it off with a combo. The Who You Are wank can also very closely follow the Finding Yourself in another country wank, because of course once you've found what makes you Unique (by working in a bar in London for a year before you go back home to university), then you know very well Who You Are, and of course all of the associated character flaws that go along with it.

* The irony here is that it's not really very alternative when so many people are doing it now is it?

**remarkably this is most likely the same other country that everyone else who is Unique goes to, usually it's in Europe with a high probability of being somewhere in the UK

Did I mention I like to travel?

Walking along Lake Street I thought to myself "I should have worn shoes", then quickly dismissed the thought as frivilous. Thongs (or flip flops) were perfectly acceptable attire, despite it being the middle of winter.

One more thing that I like starting with C; Cairns.

I had my first corndog (and most likely my last) in San Francisco. It was a very perplexing experience, my mouth didn't quite know whether it was supposed to be sweet or savoury. It left me feeling, well, confused.

I find Queensland much the same. The weather is amazing, the environment is stunning, but the people, oh the people. It always feels like I'm stepping into a giant theme park when I go there. Everything man made seems to be tackily oversized, over coloured and generally a bit off.

I think in the end, the weather in Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef on the doorstep won out over the people and it ended up on the positive side of the scale. After all there aren't really that many people living there.

And I thought Melbourne was cold

First thought as I step out of Canberra airport today - "I should have brought gloves". It was a balmy -1 degrees outside. -1?!

On return to Melbourne, with the angst cloud that is Canberra still hanging over my head, I've come to the sad conclusion that I'll probably die of some kind of lifestyle illness. I participate in far too many of the things that are bad for you to actually be able to get away with it. It's either that or I'll die in jail after going on a mad rampage, hunting down and killing people who misuse "your" and "you're", or use apostrophes pluratively, rather than in the contractive or possessive forms.

Actually that's probably not true, I'm not really the violent type, bad grammar just irritates me on a level with those last few grains of sand that seem to find their way in your bed after a day at the beach. You know the ones, the ones that no matter how hard you try to brush them out they always gravitate right back towards the spot you're lying in.*

Oh and I discovered one thing starting with C that I don't like - Canberra.

*that said, I'm fairly certain there will be at least one, if not many, instances of bad grammar in this blog. Feel free to point them out.

Brought to you by the letter 'C'

As I walked across the road in the general direction of Brunswick St the first thought I had was that I should have worn tights. It's Melbourne. It's cold. Fuck, that conclusion shouldn't have been too hard to draw, even with the heater on in my room. Thankfully since I moved here my sensitivity to temperature has reduced remarkably.

First post should be an introduction, right?

Here's some interesting or not interesting things about me:

I like science. I like art. I don't think the two are that different. I appreciate politcs. I have a love-hate relationship with computer code. I work from home a lot because I can't be bothered going to the office. Also they don't let me smoke and drink at my desk. My desk at home currently houses these things:

computer, nail scissors, half a bottle of shiraz, half a glass of shiraz, half a packet of cigarettes, an ash tray, a coffee mug, empty bowl and plate, printer, hand cream, lighter, earrings, rings, tweezers, camera, tin mug from alcatraz, half a glass of water, papers, dvd, lamp, unpaid parking fines, frequent flyer card, credit card, hard drive, bepanthen, blank cds, spray bottle, phone, sunglasses and a lamp. Hell, I could survive for a week with this stuff.

Until a week ago I didn't own a pair of jeans that fit. I wear skirts a lot. I enjoy starting things, I'm not very good at finishing them. 140 characters isn't enough space for me to voice my opinion.

I was once told by an old Jewish fashionista come petroleum broker who I met in an airport that I looked like the kind of girl who wears exactly what she likes all the time. I tend to agree.

I like the rollercoaster, and would always chose it over the ferris wheel, even if it makes you sick sometimes. I belive sleep is for the weak, and sometimes for the week, but never for the weekend. I'm very good at procrastinating.

I like most things starting with the letter 'C', and some things that don't

Oh, and now I have a blog. It's called "I should have worn tights". If it could have a by-line it would be "growing up in Melbourne at 28".