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.