vicarious

I may be pretty fucked up at the moment emotionally and psychologically but I am encouraged by how much better I feel when I witness other people's happiness. I love to see friends happy together, it genuinely makes my heart lift. Seeing strangers exchanging affection brings a smile to my face too. I'm encouraged that I've not become one of the bitter at the world types - those who don't have what they want and hate seeing other people happy. There ought to be more joy in the world, I celebrate anyone who finds it.

That said - yes, the wedding yesterday was not fun for my poor introverted self. I very nearly didn't go due to a mild anxiety attack at having to mingle. But forced myself and even had a good time. Eventually.

But I wasn't the best company. I got into a couple of fights with friends: I hate that when feeling this way I can hold a light conversation with acquaintances/strangers (for a short time..) but those I'm closest to suffer the brunt of my surliness and hypersensitivity. I have some apologies to make tomorrow - and I fear at least one person is sick of them.

I have to learn how to deal with this - the hatred of being in crowds and having to interact with people. Small-talk fills me with a special kind of fear and loathing. The anticipation of the situation is one of the problems - I dwell on it and the anxiety builds and feeds on itself, crippling me even before I get there.

And, yes, the situation with never-to-be didn't go too well. Being that she's in the unenviable position of knowing me best she copped much of the bad. Which she dealt with well: not letting me get away with being a prick at all. I hope one day to be able to be in a social setting with her and conduct myself with equanimity. Yesterday, however, was not it.

Perhaps on Wednesday - when I have to endure a pre-birthday dinner in my honour...

"Hi! Having a good time?"

I'm off to a wedding today and am bunking karate. Although, truth be told, I'd prefer to get kicked around by my sensei than go to the event. Not because of the people involved - they're lovely - but because the guests will include a selection of people I really don't want to be in a group situation with.

Ghosts of girlfriends past, present and.. well, not 'future', more exactly 'never-to-be'. Which implies that I'm Scrooge. Not sure if that's where the analogy falls down or not.

Just the thought of socialising with all of them at once makes me anxious. The prospect of having to be chirpy and bubbly and happy around 'never-to-be' makes my stomach churn. Yeah this is going to be a fun day.

I plan to get hideously pissed and make a fool of myself.

No, damn it - I wish I was able to do that. And just not care about the consequences.

But most probably I'll be reserved and unable to communicate much - just generally make anyone who tries to converse with me uncomfortable. Which should cement my taciturn reputation. Fuck I love being an introvert: it's such an awesome personality trait - people just adore hanging out with me! :-/

Right, I better go buy a belt. Save myself the shame of having my trousers fall down at least. Small mercies.

filler

It's not just that the thought of 'artificial' dating methods depress me, I also think my efforts would go somewhat like this:

But who knows, maybe I'd meet a freak of like mind...

optimism

Saw this play last night - a modern somewhat absurdist take on Voltaire's Candide. I think I've got a lot to learn from it.

I think I've a lot to learn about being optimistic and happy.

Is it possible to change your outlook on life by strength of will? To alter your perception of life just by deciding that this is the way reality will look? I know it happens to people all the time, usually as a religious or 'spiritual' epiphany - which usually takes the form of adopting someone else's codified view of the world (which requires a level of trust in the wisdom of religious leaders that I can't help but find foolish..).

But is it possible to simply decide off the bat that the world is a rosy and happy place without holding fast to a particular philosophy? Or theology? I wonder because I don't have belief. I seem to fundamentally lack the ability to let go of analysis and investigation; to submit to the unknown - the ineffable. I must always eff with it.

Which has failed to make me happy. But is my personality so set, so concrete that I couldn't alter that and become a more.. wide-eyed? Naive even? I'm not sure of the words. Not sure of the mind-set I'd like to achieve. Not sure of what I could become.

Not sure I want to be someone else.

I feel that my personality isn't getting me anywhere near the happiness I desire but then this is me. I can understand why some people cling to their depression or mental illnesses - they may be in pain but to lose that which is an essential part of your being is a more traumatic thought than living with the suffering.

Not that I'm suggesting that my own issues are comparable, I could probably make the minor shift in mindset without losing familiarity with my self. I just need to pull finger and find out how to go about doing that.

I'll get right onto that tomorrow. But now I must go to bed and wrestle with my existential crisis some more.

'night all.

for you

Hi love,

It's been so long and I still haven't managed to write to you. It's not that I haven't tried, there are several meandering beginnings to letters I've still got. And there have been a shredded few that didn't survive the writing process. Lately whenever I hold a pen and put my thoughts on paper they end up a mess of stream-of-consciousness gabble with little resemblance to what I want to say or how I feel about you.

Several times I've picked up the phone and almost called you. But I don't know if you want to hear from me any more. I wouldn't blame you if you didn't, and it makes my stomach churn to think how you might feel. I'm so sorry. But I'm not sorry I met you - or that I fell in love with you. I'm not sorry for all the things we've shared, the intimacy we've had. I wish I could be more for you, I wish I was a better friend to you - and I will be if you ever let me in again.

Most of all I wish I could love you more. Like you deserve to be loved. Like you loved me.

You are one of the most remarkable people I've ever met, I count myself so lucky to have had the time you've given me. You push yourself and grow and change and improve all the time, I wish I had a fraction of your energy or your creativity. You have a strength of spirit and character I aspire to: you've lent me that strength at dark times in my life and I am eternally grateful for that. 

It's selfish of me to say but I've discovered just how much I need you since you've not been around. I don't feel I've ever managed to explain to you how important you are. I've needed your strength and love so much lately while knowing I have no right to it. I've felt like I'm having to learn how to walk on my own. And I'm staggering.

I don't know if you'll read this. I don't know if I want you to. I will write to you soon and hopefully make more sense. But I don't know if I can ever make it right.

I miss you. I'm sorry. And I love you.

empty

This evening I spent in the company of the wonderful girl with whom I'm totally failing to fall out of love with. We have a great connection and rapport, an honesty that's been rare to find in my life. One that hasn't been harmed or diminished by my telling her how I feel about her. It's been lovely.

And incredibly sad.

Devastating, even, when she said I'd never told her she was beautiful. A word I've used in conjunction with her more than any other. She never heard it, never took it in.

I've never felt more invisible in my life.

I can't decide whether her leaving in a few weeks is going to rip my heart out or is the best thing that could happen. Probably both.

leaving

I seem to always be leaving home, no matter where I'm going.

peace

It took nearly seven days but I've finally had a wonderful, relaxing and fun time in Christchurch*. But I now leave in less than 2 days: I suck at holidays.

The people I know here are unlike any I've encountered in Sydney. Which is not surprising really since these people would be very unlikely to live in such a place. I miss New Zealand for the New Zealanders, not the god-awful climate..

I need to be around these kinds of people more.

I'm not sure what to do with this realisation.



* Other than time spent with Eroica (and her family) of course, that's always been good :)

ouroboros

I've started and discarded at least four posts recently on the matter of sleeplessness. Partly because I hate obsessing about this again and partly out of boredom - talking about being unable to sleep bores the fuck out of me. I hate to be this dopey, listless and uncreative, and banging on about it strikes me as the height of tedium.

But, y'know, here I am. Yapping about it.

Because I'm getting a bit desperate now. It's been months without decent unbroken sleep. Sure there have been a few nights here & there, and I can generally get by with about five or six hours as long as it's solid. But the pattern for far too long now has been get to sleep around 12-12:30am, wake up 3-4am, back to sleep (if I'm lucky) about 4:30-5am, awake again 6am.

This doesn't seem to be mitigated by my exercise levels either, at least not consistently. Possibly it's made worse by not eating enough, not sure. My caffeine intake doesn't seem to have an impact either but, in any case, that's a vice I'm not willing to sacrifice. Besides, two cups a day isn't excessive.

Please - anyone - suggest me up with some ideas about how to deal with this. I'm not willing to go the pharmaceutical sleeping-pill route but if anyone has any somewhat more 'holistic' ideas or herbal fixes then go for it. I'm so knackered I'll even try the hippy crap! ;)

All that said: yes, I'm aware that the underlying problems are not going to be solved by taking some kind of remedy. But the insomnia has just about taken on a life of it's own and seems to be self-perpetuating even without my other issues.

snippet

Greetings interwebfriends, I had a big long rambling post half ready to go regaling the events of the big family dinner this evening and some of the explosions and fall-out from there (not as bad as it sounds - well, probably not to anyone but me).

But it's shite.

I'm still drunk, haven't processed the conversations yet and, to be honest, it's probably just not that interesting.

Not that I have anything different to offer: I had a lovely day hanging with Eroica. We drank coffee, ate at cafes and generally mooched about Christchurch. It was brilliant. Bought some juggling balls (which I have actually practised with this evening - it's going to be a long road..), went to multiple second-hand shops and totally failed to buy a suit, thought about gifts for significant persons in Sydney and equally totally failed to get anything.

A wonderful waste of a day.

I wish I could do the same again tomorrow but I'm being sent off to the peninsula to cut down trees. I guess I've had it easy so far - the slave-labouring had to come in sometime.

So, farewell until my return - hopefully tomorrow night but it depends if I get time off for good behaviour...


EDIT: Musta been drunk to manage to post that without a title. Amended. Have been saved from tree-felling by rotten weather. Will now go drink coffee instead - yay!

zero sum

Though I never intended it this seems to have become a daily blog. I never really knew what was going to happen when I finally sat down to unload - I'm a little surprised absolutely stunned at what's come out. And still terrified. But, as I'm beginning to realise, I tend to end up doing the things that scare me most. Eventually.

Anyway. Today has been a... neat graph of a day as far as my mood is concerned. A sine wave perhaps? I don't know - I was always crap at trigonometry (not even sure that's the right discipline).

It started fair to middling (although a largely sleepless night really didn't help) rose substantially when hanging out with Eroica (whose birthday it is today: a ripe old age of 28 :)), dropped throughout the afternoon, before rising again in the evening.

This is despite the fact it's been a gorgeous day and I've spent a lot of it lying in the sun. With my notebooks. And, as they say, there's your problem!

No matter how good the quality of the day - if you're spending it recording your munted attempts at introspection you're not going to have much fun. I cut out earlier in the evening to have a walk in the hills and clear my head, which is where the sine wave of my day started lifting again.

Why is it that we seem to equate walking with uncluttered thinking? Possibly because it seems to work. Also: making friends with alpacas is a lovely mood lifter. This may be difficult if there are none near your home but keep your eye out, you may be surprised (I was). They're just so odd and cuddly, it's hard not to grin.

So, in conclusion I have little to say. And yet manage to use a lot of words saying it. Round up:

Lack of sleep = bad.
Coffee = good.
Best friends = good.
Sunlight = good.
Time alone with messed up head = bad.
Writing letters when sad = bad.
Introspection when down = bad.
Walks = good.
Alpacas = good.
Missing lost friends = bad.

Hope = good.

Now: to bed and sleep. Perchance to drool.

asynchronous

I watched Juno (finally!) last night. It was quite lovely and quirky - and not in an annoying way. This particular quote from one of my favourite character actors (J K Simmons) particularly struck me - partly for how true it is and partly for how much it leaves out:

Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you; the right person will still think the sun shines out your ass.
- Mac MacGuff

This is true and right and the way it should be. The flip side is that you should feel the same way about them. And there's where the whole house of cards comes fluttering down.

It seems, at least in my experience, that when that irrefutable feeling arises in someone it's rare that the other person feels the same. In fact I would say it has happened all of once in my life - and even then the rightness didn't last. Although, to be fair, the odds were pretty firmly stacked against that one ever working out. But that's a story for another evening children...

My most successful relationships have been built on love, yes, but familiarity and respect and trust and all the other far less romantic things that really are much more important. But still - I want to feel that surety again. That unwavering certainty - the knowledge that this person fits - without ignoring the quirks, foibles and faults that obviously do exist. Eyes-open love.

I'm trying to find it encouraging that lately I've felt those things for someone. Even if, inevitably, they don't feel the same. As the Placebo song says (yes, an entire lobe of my brain is devoted to movie & song quotes.. and the complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series) "a heart that hurts is a heart that works". It should be encouraging that I can still encounter that depth of emotion in myself. I tell myself that often. And weep softly into my pillow every night.

I kid.

But, jokes aside, it almost pains me to realise how much of a romantic I really am. All these years of weary cynicism have apparently been an affectation - who knew? Casting that aside is difficult: I wear it like a protective covering. But I need to crack the shell and reveal my soft inner workings for the gulls to feast on.

Ok, that analogy got away from me..

I'm not even sure why I am changing myself. I'm not convinced it'll bring me any more happiness, contentment or even a greater understanding of myself. Possibly this is just a masochistic phase I'm going through - flagellating in the hopes of achieving some kind of catharsis or absolving myself of something.

I really don't know. I'm hoping to discover some answers somewhere along the track but lately all I've been turning up are more questions.

recap

I'm having difficulty blogging today. Most days this catharsis thing has been pretty easy - like the words wanted to come out. Possibly not in the order they arrived but hopefully my prose will improve with practice.

It's not like I don't have anything to say either. Although, while I seldom lack for things to say on pretty much any topic (I prefer 'loquacious' rather than 'mouthy'), the topic of myself is one that is more difficult to expound upon. I've spent so many years keeping personal things inside (deep DEEP inside..), revealing only a little to my closest friends and lovers, and it's a difficult habit to break. My current frame of mind just doesn't want to be exposed.

So I'll backtrack a little to clarify some of the more cryptic of my previous posts:

A couple of weeks ago (was it really that short a time? jeez..) the girl I'm seeing (I hesitate to use the term 'girlfriend' when the relationship is so new and, after the events I'm relating, who knows what will happen?) got pregnant. Hence the 'I am irony personified' quip: one of the reasons I'd split from my long-term partner last year was our irreconcilable differences concerning the having of children. I was (note that word) very much in the negative team.

During our delightfully stress-free breakup (ha!) she semi-joked that if I ended up having children with someone else she'd punch me in the face. I semi-jokingly agreed that it would be ironic - and also incredibly unlikely. Reminder to self: never tempt fate, you pillock.

In any case - it did not come to pass. The pregnancy was a wash-out (god, someone make me stop with the bad jokes, please!) (and the parentheseses) and, after a week or so of believing our lives had just irrevocably changed, things now go back to normal. How that works I've no idea.

The most disturbing thing about the whole mess was how calmly I took it and how relaxed I was. It was as if there was only one path to follow - which, in truth, was pretty accurate.

Choices had been made and I didn't have to figure out what I wanted to do with my life anymore. I found it almost a relief.

Which disturbs me and makes me question a lot of the assumptions about myself that I've made. I'm beginning to wonder if some of my introspection was simply an exercise in making myself believe something I wasn't that sure about. And I'm not sure I'm ready to dig deeper into that at the moment.

So the upshot is that I'm not going to be a father - and the budding relationship I was/am in is now permanently damaged (whether that's a good or bad thing I really don't know).

All this on top of the generally fucked up mental/emotional maelstrom my head contains has taken a bit of the shine off 2010.

I think it's time to get that back. With gin! Wheee!

gaunt

Ok, everyone needs to stop going on about how skinny I am. My mother especially. Although, to be fair, she was going on about how skinny I was when I was 10kgs heavier. Which makes me wonder if she thinks I'm a walrus.

I don't even feel like I'm really eating that much less. But that may be the problem - the dissonance between what I think and reality. Which, it has been pointed out to me before, is a foible of mine. I just reckon reality should just get with the program and do as I say. It'd be better for everyone.

Anyway.

Have gone from a hot muggy Sydney summer to a cool drizzly Christchurch summer. Which reminds me why I don't live here anymore. Must go buy a hat now. Possibly a scarf. And most certainly COFFEE.

exodus

Bollocks to this, I'm off to New Zealand.

Talk to you from the other side (of the ditch).

second wind

So my evening has been, on the whole, good - I think. We had fun, laughed, talked shit, talked seriously, got angry at each other, forgave, then laughed & joked more. It's been lovely and it ended on a rather sad and wistful note but, in the scheme of things, that's about as good as it's going to get.

Now I have to shower & change and head out again. Ahh, the life of a social butterfly.. All I really want is sleep, but since that's been in pretty short supply for the last two or three months I'll settle for a social life.

Must also put some time aside for packing.

Hope you're all deliriously happy wherever you are. Smooch.

fry day

What's the point of Friday? I mean really? Okay, I guess I got some work done this morning - in between the chatting, long coffee breaks and inevitable tomfoolery about the office - but after lunch?

Forgetaboutit.

Especially when lunch involves going to the pub for two and a half hours. Why we came back to the office I don't know. Especially since my boss was the instigator of the pub trip and drank more than anyone. Not like we have to pretend to work now.

Not that I'm even pretending.

Anyway. To more self-indulgent things: I'm catching up with the crushee this evening which will be fun I've decided. I seem to have an even keel about this now, thankfully. She's moving back to Tasmania for good in a few weeks anyway so it seems more important to try and keep the friendship alive than anything - which will be difficult enough over email, need to get things on a firm footing now.

So I'm positive about seeing her if a little fatalistic. Which I think is a good thing too - all I can do is be me and the cards will fall where they will.

On a much more positive note I'm crossing the ditch tomorrow for a week of well earned relaxation. Drinking coffee, hanging out with friends, generally mooching about Christchurch and, most importantly, helping Eroica sort out the house she just bought. Good times :)

star fuck'd

I'm too drunk to blog proply so I give you more horrorscopes:

Aquarius
The moon will be in retrograde for the entire length of 2010 which will lead to its eventual ejection from the Sol system. As a result of losing its main natural satellite the Earth will suffer from weaker tides and a long period of adjustment for nocturnal species who have evolved to measure passages of time and synchronise cycles of activity with the moon's hitherto regular presence. All this is bad news for Aquarians who will be blamed for the general upheaval of life by windsurfers and bats with the two previously disparate groups coming together to slaughter everyone born under this particular star sign in late August.
Lucky Pantone Colour: 4725 U

Man, I should not be this inebriated and in charge of a keyboard...

If you receive an email from me tonight please delete.

PS I love you.

positivity

Ok so my emotions are still all over the place like a mad woman's knitting but I'm determined not to let this shit drag me down.

I've been focused for far too long on the negative aspects of my life, my relationships, and especially my personality. It's time to actually start realising that I'm not all bad, accepting the bits that are (and changing them where possible), and just being happy with being me.

Big words that are going to be excruciatingly difficult to implement but fucking hell, enough is enough. I'm actually pretty awesome.

newhome

I lived in the lovely yet somewhat sedate suburb of Glebe for years so being in Newtown is a definite change of pace:

At 10pm on a Monday the place is still bustling with activity and full of life. Won't sound like much to those of you who live in big cities but I grew up in Christchurch so this is a different world to live in.

This is probably the only place in the city where a Mongolian throat-singer can busk and make a living. A pretty good living from the attention he gets.

Also possibly the only place you would see someone skateboarding down the sidewalk playing a guitar.

Although this is more of Darlinghurst/King's Cross thing: the 2 metre tall black transvestite in stiletto heels sashaying down to the grocer's and making friends with everyone along the way. Marvellous.

Much else in my life is shit at the moment but this sort of thing makes me very happy.

fml

Life is sucking for you? Don't ever think things can't get worse.

Had a big post ready to go about this but have thought better of it. Suffice to say that there are legal troubles afoot at work. They’re of a corporate nature primarily, but the dirt is starting to fly also. I appear to be getting in the crossfire due to my friendship with the girl I was talking to yesterday. Ending up in court testifying against each other should just cap off the relationship nicely.

I better leave it at that. Losing my job would absolutely make the start to the year legendary.

I think I'm going to start having vodka with my cereal in the mornings.

relief

There will be no punching of faces. Whew.

It seems this blog is turning into a bit of a whine-fest, sorry for those of you who came here for fun & frivolity. All none of you.

I need the catharsis at the moment so it'll probably continue in this vein for a while. Which is, as I think I've pointed out before, not to say that my life is an unremitting cycle of malaise and melancholy. I've had a lot of fun over the last couple of months and there have been times of great happiness and, even more important, quiet contentment.

Of course none of that makes it onto my miseryblog - who wants to read about someone having fun? It's all about the schadenfreude, and I am the schadenfreudiest. Come! See my emotional pratfalls! Be amused and feel better about your life!

One of my favourite quotes from I don't know where is "if you are unable to be a good example you have an obligation to be a horrible warning". This is my warning to the world. Not sure what I'm warning against tho.

Perhaps just a general “Don’t Do This”.

And: “Watch out! There’s a BEAR behind you! RUN!”

insert title here

Uncomfortable conversation achieved: it went about as well as expected and the outcome was pretty much exactly as expected. I'm still hollow but feel better, oddly enough.

But other developments have kinda taken precedence. I am irony personified. If things pan out the way they're looking someone is going to punch me in the face - she said as much and, frankly, I wouldn't blame her...

I am knackered now. Must go nap.

dripping

It's around 35 degrees C at the moment - my sympathies for those in the frozen north but could you send a little ice this way? At least for my G&T?

Tied one on a bit last night and am still suffering the effects. Have had a week of emotional rollercoastering (yes, it's a word - now..) and it was decided that alcoholic relief was needed. Which lead to, at some stage (1am? I think?), going for a late night swim. Yesterday, and the evening in particular, was not warm. Only the legendary amounts of booze prevented hypothermia.

I also discovered I've forgotten how to swim. Or perhaps that was just the alcohol.

Gah. I can't string a sentence together today: have also been to karate and several blows to the head aren't helping mental function.

I'm off down to the pool again to attempt to straighten my head. Or at least hydrate it.

spilling

Ok here goes. I wrote this about a week ago and, while some things have radically changed (oh fuck how they have changed - therein lies another tale), I feel it's time to start using this blog as catharsis. This is as good - or bad - a start as any.


So I'm in love right? Which sucks big hairy ones as always, let's be honest here. I'd say it's the best and worst thing about being alive except I haven't tried heroin yet. Love seems to be all about feeling like you've been coshed in the back of the head and had all your internal organs removed.

Especially when the object of one's ardour does not reciprocate.

How is that possible? I hear you cry. How, you continue, flabbergasted, can any woman resist the quirky yet oh-so-manly charms of such as you? For that I can offer no explanation - I can only ruefully shrug, a wry expression almost hiding the torment behind my chiselled features.

Ok, my faux-jocularity and facetiousness is tapped out.

Having clarified the situation, vis-à-vis mutuality of emotion, now comes the hard bit: disengagement for reasons of mental self-preservation.

This is someone I've spent a significant portion of the last year with and who has been a loving, supportive and positive influence on me through the shitstorm of 2009 (and who txted me on New Year's eve saying she couldn't have done Sydney without me, so at least I haven't been a total leech). We've been friends - inappropriately good friends at times. Although, while there's definitely a mutual attraction, we'd never acted on it (I seem to be developing morals in my old age).

So I don't know how to go about severing the connection without appearing a complete dick or a pathetic loser (both of which are facets to my scintillating personality, to be sure). Nor, if I'm honest, do I want to lose her. Well, obviously. Sometimes I think I'd prefer to endure the pain and hold onto the friendship. But I know that, at least for me, that way obsessive behaviour and madness lies.

So I need to somehow move on and move away from her in the hopes that I can stop thinking about her. Like this morning when I woke up and she wasn't on my mind. For five fucking seconds.

This is so exhausting.

Just to complicate matters nicely I'm even kinda seeing someone else (hey, it was all a bit too simple). A fun, lovely & passionate girl who is, in many ways, completely different from me. Someone who otherwise might own me like the dog I am. And maybe I can get there with her, time will tell. Or if not her then the next: I've lost faith in permanency of love or relationships recently - but I do still believe in their recurrence.

I'll leave you with this quote that has resonated with me so damn much since I first read it:

Man, I was thinking about unrequited love. I figure it's best to just walk that shit off. Find someone else to be excited about. It's like if you love ice cream but your ice cream man friend won't give you any. Maybe he's got a good reason. It cuts into profits. Who knows? But he likes you as a friend and wants to hang out anyway. It just drives you crazy to hang out with that dude, even if he's being reasonable from his point of view. So don't hang out with him. What, you ONLY like ice cream? It's ice cream or nothing? Don't be an asshole. Learn to love donuts.
- Joey Comeau

I'm learning.

If this post ever makes it onto eti you'll know that I have completely lost my mind.

root canal

In an effort to make sure this blog continues it's first shambling, uncoordinated steps into the new year here's some filler: a quick collection of songs and bands - both old and new - that have been on my playlist lately.

The Cruel Sea album The Honeymoon Is Over (1993). Especially Let's Lay Down and Make Love, the title track, and the awesome Black Stick.

No Rain by Blind Melon. Nostalgia - and a simply beautiful hook.

The soul-scouring debut album by Mumford & Sons, Sigh No More. I'm seriously upset to have missed out on tickets to their gig in Sydney in a few weeks.

(Nothing But) Flowers by Talking Heads.

The Beat (or The English Beat/The British Beat depending on what country you're in) and their stompingly good album I Just Can't Stop It (1980)

Kalemba (Wegue Wegue) by Buraka Som Sistema. Not much comes out of Portugal music-wise but damn this one is catchy.

Lykke Li's album Youth Novels - another excellent export from Sweden. What is it about that country? Main products: baffling self-assembly furniture and great music.

Maps by Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Kills me. Every. Single. Time.


Would add some links to YouTube or LastFM but I've GOT to escape this office and my head before I implode. Laters.

star-cross'd

So astrology is bollocks, yeh - but this was just a little too apt to pass up:

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I suspect you have to go down into the underworld for a while. But you have a choice about how it will play out. You shouldn't wait for some random goblin to come along and pull you down into the miserable abyss. Instead, be proactive. Shop around for a more useful abyss -- a womb-like pit with half-decent accommodations and a good learning environment -- and go there under your own power. That way you won't have to slog your way through musty fogs and creepy pests and slimy muck. You'll keep your suffering to a minimum and attract adventures that are more intriguing than demoralizing.

Hat tip to Michelle.

PS: See how I managed to resist making any 'mooning' or 'Uranus' references? I may be growing up.

wasting

I feel like I'm going mad. I simply cannot drag my mind away from thoughts that are poisonous to me, things that are gnawing away at my insides. Quite literally it appears: I'm still losing weight, down to about 75kgs now. Fuck it.

No appetite, no focus, no drive.

I made it to karate this evening, by a tremendous effort of will, and got kicked around a bit by Frazer for my troubles. Fun times - and it's worrying for my mental health that I mean that...

Still didn't manage to have dinner when I got home tho. The whole thought of eating fills me with revulsion at times - no, I'm not anorexic, I still feel the hunger, still want the food. Just can't stomach (hah!) the thought of eating.

I can't believe it's only Tuesday. This week seems interminably long already. This weekend cannot come fast enough.. and yet I dread it. There will be even more pain to be endured, I know, but a closure of a kind is coming. I need it, I fear it and I hope with every fibre of my being that it doesn't work out the way I think.

But the realist in me knows what must happen.

Sorry to be cryptic. If I ever grow a pair I may spill all on eti. But don't count on it.

resolute

I'm not much for making new year's resolutions - but these few things have been hanging around in the back (and front, and occasionally to the side) of my mind for a while now. I figure if I publish them I might be more inclined to act on them:

Learn to juggle. Don't know why this has cropped up in my head - I'm definitely no performer. I just like the idea of keeping more objects in the air than I have hands for. And it allows me to make interminable jokes about dropped balls.

Find some volunteer work to engage with. Probably in the environmental/conservation line. Not sure what's available for someone living in the middle of a huge city but I'm sure there's something.

Learn a language. Ok, it's more of a long term thing - and I should learn French so I can converse with my nieces. Or at least know what they're scheming when I babysit.

Join Toastmasters or do some sort of public speaking training. I can jump out of planes or swim with sharks with no problem but the thought of talking in front of a crowd makes my sphincter clench.

Get a tattoo. At least one. I've got a deadline on this - need to have a design chosen as I have an appointment with a needle in a couple of weeks.

Send letters. Randomly.

There will be more as they take shape in my mind.

new beginnings

Blah blah new year blah...

Frankly I feel no better than last year - worse at times. I envy those who seem to be able to squeeze creativity out of pain: for me it's a deadening weight in my mind, crushing all creativity.

Not to say that every moment of my life is filled with ennui, dolour, existential angst and inescapable misery. No, no - sometimes I'm asleep!

I kid.

Actually, I had a pretty fucking legendary New Year's Eve. One, unfortunately, that modesty, libel laws and the desire not to incriminate myself forbids I record here. Suffice to say that I burnt the candle at both ends - then upgraded to a halogen lamp.

I was also, against the odds and most undeserved, blessed with an absence of hangover. A small mercy but a welcome one.

Unfortunately the real world intrudes. Rude fucker that it is.

Blogyear resolution: I'm determined to overcome the self-censorship that has inevitably crept in eti (note cool unconventional othographic use of lowercase acronym - how fucking hip am I?). Unfortunately (or not - depending on your pov) today is not the day for baring my tortured soul. Gotta leave the punters wanting more, right?

Keep coming back for more irregularly updated windbaggery!

Smoochies.