Curiouser and Curiouser

Because things are going from bad to worse, I’m going to leave it there. But you know, next time you look at a loaf of bread, take a moment to pause and reflect on what is better than that in your life. (correct answer = nothing whatsoever.)

*please note, this is an unverified fact based on educated assumption. I don’t even know the average heart rate of a mouse, just that it’s really quite fast.

Yep. I’ve done it now. I have just bought two large rolls of curling ribbon off ebay. Yes, you heard me right. I know I have a wrapping addiction now on account of unless you have an addiction you do not purchase curling ribbon online. I am utterly in love with ribbon! However, I had to get it off ebay because you simply cannot acquire avocado coloured curling ribbon anywhere in Alice Springs. And it was a bargain! It would have been a bargain at twice the price! And combining postage justifies the extra roll of pastel pink. I’ve nearly run out of my last lot of pastel pink.

Okay I will stop trying to justify buying curling ribbon of ebay because I am not sure it can be done.

I have been very busy, haven’t we all been very busy, so? (can I get an ‘Amen’ from the brethren?) and so I have neglected to find the spaces of the few kind people who have commented on mine. Has anybody ELSE noticed the mass exodus to '‘MySpace" or whatever it is? How’s that for loyalty?

MSN, even if you turn us to this windows live business, still my heart belongs to you.

There have been dramas aplenty of late and I must say, I belong to a strange family. Nobody needs to hear about my totally strange family, however, so I offer only this: keep tyre levers locked away. LOCKED AWAY.

Guess what happened this weekend? I will just tell you because you will not ever be able to guess something THIS bizarre. I did, indeed, clean my room. Which really means my darling cousin Sianne came over and said things like; "who keeps this sort of thing? A HOARDER keeps this sort of thing!" and "why do you even OWN this?" and "why is this letter from 2005 on your desk?" and "how could you still have the birthday card from ryan’s eighteenth! You are a card thief!"

Which is true. But he left it in my car!!! Just like he did with the one from his nineteenth! (which I have also recently returned) And when I tried to give it to him the other night he forgot it and left it here AGAIN.

RYAN! I have your card from your 18^th signed by approximately everybody you know (except me, I read it, and I did not sign it. How odd. Maybe I hated you back then.) you have ONE WEEK to remove it from the premises or I will personally give it to Ethan as scrap paper!

ANYWAY so then Sianne found my bunch of cards from my last birthday and insisted on going through to make sure they were all actually for me. Basically she came over and made me throw a bunch of stuff out ("Do you really NEED this?" she kept asking me, for no reason, because she always ignored my anguished ‘YEEEEES.") but then she did the unthinkable… she attacked my snowman.

Now my snowman is unpopular, I acknowledge that. Julia is always telling me that it has a terrible skin disease (sometimes she distastefully specifies the disease she believes it to have) and no matter how much I tell her it is TEXTURE she will not listen to me. My snowman is a large, plastic, light up Christmas one from the good ol’ house of K, and yes, I will admit his plastic is bumpy. Nobody liked him at Christmas last year but I have kept him safely beneath my desk where he is sheltered from hatred but still clearly visible. This weekend, though, he came under fire. Sianne wanted him GONE!

‘NO!’ I said, ‘no no no no NO!’ and she had to give up. Then Nancy came in, "Shouldn’t you have that snowman away by now?’ she asked. Again, I emphasised the answer, NO. She attempted to convince me that I could maybe have a SMALL snowman, and get rid of my big one. I rapidly regressed to a six year old. My no’s became more sulky. Then Adrian came to the door. "What is THAT?" he asked. "What do you need a snowman for?" I mentioned, crossly, that my snowman, "made me who I am."

Adrian insisted that there was a mineral deficiency when I was born, that made me who I am.

He is too cheeky and cute and I forgave him.

So why did my snowman bear the brunt of so much hatred this weekend? Because previously he was obscured by all the junk I had piled up in front of my desk. Now, he is visible to the world. And the world does not love him. But I do! And what does the opinion of the world count for, if our love for one another is true and strong? Nothing, indeed, it counts for nothing.

AND IT HAS COME TO THIS! I am logged on to the Australian Idol website with my cousin’s login name to see the Hot Guy I have heard about from A Foreign Country because Imparja only showed the australian idol things at two thirty the afternoon. Tonight, though, I think we get to see the all-singing, all-dancing semis at 10.45 PM! Yay. I love a good dose of Turkish Delight chocolate and a reality television show.

Well, I must abandon you to go search for more curling ribbon (you think I’m joking, but I’m not, I found this GREAT website and I am going to order some ribbon. Iridescent ribbon, no less.) and then go watch Aussie Idol. How exciting.

And yes, my snowman is still sitting, safe and loved, under my desk, watching benignly as I type this for you!

As an aside, having seen said hot guy, it has come to my attention that S.A. has signed a deal with the devil to make all its residents hot. Almost tooooo hot. MESS YOUR HAIR UP, it will make you hotter, Dean!

Some people really like numbers… they have an affinity with the pattern, with the black and white, with the idea of there being one foundational truth. They like the right or wrong clarity, the comfort of repeated pattern.

I am a word person. I like the way you can write the same thing ten different ways, and can add an implication or innuendo just through the connotation of one word. Words collect baggage... they are weighted with the interpretation of society, words which say seemingly the same thing actually insinuate different things entirely. You can express things through the tone, the pattern, even the grammar… words are wonderfully ambiguous and never clear cut.

I like the shades of grey.

It is this alarming tendency towards inaccuracy and my intense dislike for detail which makes me so wafty, I am sure. But, I am thoroughly convinced that I am brilliant in this said waftiness.

Even if I do occasionally fall down holes I ought to have seen.

Today was my second day at school in quite some time and it seems very little has changed, although now I know about the cash rate which is better than not knowing, I suppose. Despite the fact that my Classical studies teacher is well past menopause and is (hopefully) nearing death, she is currently very obsessed with my individual study on Ancient Athenian attitudes toward sexuality. I was focussing on social context… she keep cackling about the actual practices and printing off pictures of old vases. Old vases with images that would these days attract a rating. Ones with details that couldn’t even be decorously covered with fig leaves. Those kind of vases. Some old male Greek’s private collection, exposed to anybody with internet access now that he is long dead, undoubtedly.

One girl in my Classics class insists on grandstanding her opinion, loudly, over the top of other people. She is a) ignorant and b) won’t listen to anybody else at all. I could take her, easily, in so many ways. It seems unfair, after all I do have an age advantage, so I keep silent. And clearly an intellectual advantage as well, but be that as it may. The time will come, though, when I will not be able to listen to her misguided opinion and will argue back with the full benefit of my debating background. I will do it til she is writhing in shame. Begging me to let up. I will tell her that skim-reading Plato and proclaiming it loudly has nothing to do with understanding the message of it. I will then go on to prove it, by arguing the issues with her.

At the moment she thinks she is the only person in the class, possibly the school, who has read Republic. Poor misguided child. It is also apparent from her comments that she hasn’t read it all.

Strangely this comes after my criticism of young Ryan for not having read it. Finally I have somebody to talk about it with, and she is an absolute idiot. Disappointment after disappointment is all I see. But this girl wants to watch out, misquoting Plato, or I will soon be putting her in place. The other day she told us the Hippocratic Oath was to prevent public servants from going against the law. One does not need to be a medical student to see the error in that.

I think I would kill her with hemlock.

Fortunately my other classes possess more intelligent members, perhaps with the exception of the Freaky Freakin’ Freak in economics, but he keeps his head down because his girlfriend is in that class also. It is no secret that she does his homework.

So at the moment Ethan is loving Bob the Builder, and the CD is going in my car, and all I can think of is the theme song… the chorus is running like a loop of hold music through my head.

I shan’t waste hemlock on Bob the Builder, I will squish him with a rolling pin. Plasticine is wondrous stuff.

I am rather ill again, I am even going to make a doctor’s appointment tomorrow which means I am actually drastically ill, because I am currently avoiding my doctor. They make you read hideous out of date magazines in the waiting room and then charge you through the nose. Where is the Hippocratic Oath when you need it?!?

In light of this, and my current aggravation with my Classics class, I am going to enjoy the new show on ABC, the First Tuesdays Book Club, which starts tonight in an hour.

Included HERE, for your benefit, is a link to the Hippocratic Oath. Enjoy.

Today I had an eyelash in my eye that was really hard to get out…I could see it in the mirror, a black line across my eyeball. I am not good with eyes. They give me the creeps. But my eyes seem rather accident-prone. Vengeful, they are. Just plain vengeful.

INFLATION NOW EXCEEDS THE RBA’S TARGET BAND! It’s not that exciting but now I am feeling all pseudo-intellectual. Like the Glass House.

The award on the Glass House tonight went to a man who BROKE OUT OF PRISON, went to tell his girlfriend happy birthday, and then WENT BACK TO PRISON. I just thought I would put that here as an example of TRUE ROMANCE. Being a murderer doesn’t make you a bad person.

So this Friday my buddy Savannah heads to Sydney, and on Sunday she is off to Canada for two months. What will I do without her? I am not sure. I will be friendless. FRIENDLESS. I am devastated. WAH. She is coming down with a cold but that’s okay, if you’re going to be sick you may as well do it in a foreign country!!! I am a very grounded person. I love my roots. I would not cope well being an army wife and moving everywhere. I just love HOME.

Next weekend is the Old Timer’s Fete. I just love that our local retirement home is called Old Timer’s… call a spade a spade, call an old person old. I don’t like old people. I like my grandparents. I do. But other old people give me the heebidyjeebies. Some people can’t handle disabled people… I’m okay. Some people can’t handle kids… I’m okay (I’d want to be!) what I can’t handle is the elderly. There’s a smell.
So it’s not P.C! It is, however, true. And I love their fete! I volunteer every year in a small attempt to assuage the guilt of not liking old people. I can’t stand cognitive dissonance.

However, P.C. seems to be unnecessarily invading lives. For example, because Brokeback Mountain was about *gasp* homosexual cowboys it is automatically "brave" and "daring" and "artistic." Well, having seen it for the first time last weekend I can tell you that it is "crap" and "boring" and has "characters you just can’t stand." It was awful. I expected much, much more from all the hype. It was inconsistent, unbelievable, and you felt not engagement with the characters. When that one guy died, I was like, meh. and the other one, when he was talking about his parents dying ("one corner in 43 miles and they had to miss it.") I actually laughed.

Come on, you have to admit that’s funny.

I have found a handydandy site here, I think you should appreciate it. It is http://www.christmas.com/pe/56 and it will tell you precisely how long until Christmas, to the second. And in different time zones. YAY! As I write this, there are 153 days to go. Start saving, guys, I expect my gifts to exceed my expectations and DAMN my expectations are high.

This is my exam week. See? I am studying for Classical Studies. (Look at me go!)

I have done my Accounting (dismal) and my Economics (better) so just this one to go. Woot.

I am coming to realise the finite nature of this year…when I have finished in a few months, I have actually finished. And though I know I have to go to uni, I feel like I’ve worked so hard on this goal that I will become disoriented and vague without my purpose.

Not that I’ve worked that hard, but, you know, I’ve been focussed. yep indeedy.

Part of me is doing this purely for external validation: I want that little TER to be dazzlingly high, to tell me that I am still a supersmart cookie, that I could have been, that I will be one day…fancy my self-worth being so dependent on such a fickle indicator. A leading indicator. (look! more study!)

So, in order to achieve a TER to make others weep, I should be off studying for Classics by skimming through the Odyssey. Remember, keep a track of Christmas! It’s coming! It is!

Today I am Abstracted. It's been a long time, but i feel a level of obligation to this site.

1. Balconies:
   why are these so public? From that height you feel above everybody, but in the city all you can see are other balconies. My aunt lived across from a hotel…I would sit on her balcony and just watch the other people on their balconies. One night, at sunset, there were a couple kissing on the balcony, looking out over the sea. This was a strange feeling – to watch their private moment, to realise that any other balcony user could see me just as much. It was a cliché, their kiss, but somehow beautiful despite, maybe even because of this. Life imitating art, art imitating life, who knows. At that moment they believed they were living the romantic dream, kissing on the balcony as the sun set. Yes, but a learned romantic dream, a collective dream most of us have.
   I think clichés connect us. The world is simple to understand in those terms.
   From the balcony, I liked to look down and lean over the rail.
   When I am somewhere high, most of me wants to fall, just to let my body go… it is the strangest urge.
   
2. Holding A Snake:
   the highlight of my trip. Snakes have always been my favourite animals, though they sometimes shared that post with horses. I love the feel of them. I love the look of them. I love the way they move, and when they slide around your arm… it’s an awesome feeling. I would like a pet one.
   
3. The Sea In Darwin:
   somehow this is not the sea. You look at it, and it is like some other body of water. It’s too different, and you don’t do the sea things that you do in other places with ocean.
   And there are things in it that you can’t see. Secrets and hidden depths. It is disconcerting.
   
4. Peacocks:
   I disturbingly realised that these are native to somewhere. (namely India and Sri Lanka) They are so connected with domestication and walled gardens in my mind that I could not accept their exterior, wild existence. I will one day have a large country estate, with sweeping gardens. These gardens will include peacocks.
   
5. Love:
   Some people I know think they are in love. Others think they aren’t. These people are wrong. And their definitions of love differ so widely.
   
6. Not Knowing What to Write:
   I don’t usually have this problem.
   Dot points are always the answer.
   
7. Post Secret:
   last week they had one card that I saved, because it made me smile. I finally acknowledge that I have difficulty letting go, because to me this is a warm, self-satisfied secret. And I have been keeping this secret, too. Now i am admitting to it. But knowing something and doing something with that knowledge are two different things.
   WHY do I love my own pain so much?

The link for this site is on one of my lists. Click this picture to make it bigger.

Well, we all knew it would come to this, and come to this it has. My beautiful, beloved, infinitely sweet mobile phone has, shock horror, died. This happened a couple of weeks ago… I am only now able to speak about the grief which I have endured.

My phone had been in palliative care at any rate… the reception was terrible, the text messaging and other basic functions lessening in reliability. And then, sadly, the real deterioration began. It would not let anybody hear me when they called, nor when I called them. The battery was dying more and more regularly. My phone’s time had come.

So what have I done? Now that my adored mobile phone has abandoned me? I have scrabbled around in the top of dad’s wardrobe, of course. I have emerged with the original Nokia. I have placed my sim card in this brick …phone, I mean to say. I am lugging it around with me. It is very hard for me to go from a phone the size of a tictac container with an aerial to one the size of, well, my cordless phone at home. Which is small for a cordless phone, to be sure, but large for a mobile.

Unfortunately, what I have discovered is this: I am enjoying the large buttons. I am enjoying the rather greatly improved reception. I am enjoying the increased volume. I am enjoying being heard when I ring people.

All I can say is; as much as my greatly missed phone exceeded the current one in basic aesthetics, the useability of this one is massively superior. And this is a really, really old Nokia. As in, it still has that version of snake where you can’t go through the walls. Oh yes. This is ancient. What does this mean? What does this all MEAN?

It means, despite the fact that Panasonic are now making an equally tiny A210 or something, basically a hotted-up version of my weeny A100, which can FLASH in different PATTERNS according to caller ID, I will not be buying that phone. No indeed. I will by buying a different, more practical phone.

Possibly a Nokia, possibly not, but definitely not a Panasonic.

So what does it signify, that I will be buying a practical phone? Rather than one that is literally the size of an eraser? It means, boys and girls, that I am now, officially, OLD. I really am. On Wednesday of next week I shall be twenty.

Before I could at least claim to be young at heart, but now I am buying a practical phone I no longer can. After much internal debate I have decided I will get a practical phone in an outlandish colour, or at least an outlandishly coloured cover, so that I am neither an old fogey nor the owner of a highly useless and impractical phone.

So I do hope you have all purchased me slightly outlandish but not completely impractical gifts for my birthday. *raises eyebrows* Good. That’s what I like to hear.