very neat bookwork

 journal  2 Responses »
Feb 222011
 

Today, since I may or may not be staring down the barrel of moving in the near future1 I was inspired to get around to cleaning out the filing cabinet. Or at least make some significant headway on it. Well, when I say cleaning out I mean to say I stared at it. And sorta dug about in it. A bit. (What? It counts!)

Which is how I stumbled across my school reports. Back to primary school, no less. I didn't know I owned these, let alone kept them.

I can't decide which is my favourite. Could it be Trying hard in the arts? Heh. Trying hard. That's a kind way of telling a parent your kid has all the artistic ability of an elephant with an amputated trunk. On smack.

Or perhaps it's the Not an enthusiastic sports participant. Yeah, I hated sports as a kid. Actually, that's not entirely true: what I hated (and still hate) is to be forced to participate. Mandatory team-building? Can bite me.

In the end, though, I think I have to award the winner's badge to the comment under Personal Development: Doesn't smile a lot.

Aww. So sad.2

  1. Oh hi, rent hike. No, you haven't landed yet, but yes, I sense your presence. [↩]
  2. Don't worry, Mr Kearney. I smile more now. [↩]
 Posted by at 5:37 pm

i for one applaud your effort, sir

 journal  3 Responses »
Feb 192011
 

There is, near my work, an odd little lane affording free parking (and therefore choked with cars by about 7.30 a.m.) and access to the foot-and-rail bridge which is the quickest way across the river from work.

It runs at the foot of the embankment holding up the rail lines, so along with cars it's also choked with weeds, graffiti, and discarded televisions. (This last bemuses me, and I'm at a loss to explain precisely why, but there really is an inordinate amount of abandoned televisions in this lane.)

And I'm guessing it's a relic of Valentine's Day, but yesterday when I wandered up this odd little lane I found notes tacked to the walls. Probably above where she parks.

Clearly he's a man who has his priorities in order.

dear grandchildren: your grandmother has the wrong number

 journal  4 Responses »
Feb 152011
 

There is in Melbourne a little old Eastern European1 lady, who has the wrong number. Namely, my direct line at the dayjob.

She doesn't call often, all told. Somehow, she knows exactly when I'm not at my desk, be it through illness or holiday or simply the fact that it's 9 p.m. on a Sunday night. That's when she calls. And listens to my voicemail announcement stating my name and place of employment. And finally leaves me a long and rambling voice message in her mother tongue. She's not disgruntled, and though to my ear her language sounds a little growly I suspect she's just chatting. Leaving a message for a family member.

Does she not wonder why her family member's home phone number has such a strange, business-centric answering machine? Is her only contact with this family member through my phone — does she never meet her in person, even once a year, and in the inevitable confusion discover that her messages were never received? One message, which I discovered on my return from Mongolia, was at least five minutes long, full of lilting incomprehensibilities.

I wonder what she's telling me in those messages. That I never return her calls? Not to eat the boiled sheep's head? To get back to work already, lazy sod?

  1. I'm guessing [↩]

i asked him for a title and all he said was: i see…

 journal, the wages of honey  Comments Off
Feb 122011
 

What to say about today?

Mostly I worked on the thorn girls story (which is now 2 pages longer, bringing the tally up to 46 pages — I live in a dreamworld in that I still hope, despite all evidence and rationality to the contrary, that it will shrink to a manageable length some time very soon). Today's efforts involved killing a character with sudden violence, a little bit of blood, and a lot of ennui. This, I think, is a worthy enough effort for now. It's an effort that cost me some seven cups of tea, at a conservative estimate. However much Earl Grey a human body can stand before the brain begins to pickle in the tannins, I think I've had one sip less than that.

I also attempted to minimise the STUFF I own. It just accumulates despite my best efforts. I've hatched a daring new tactic: if I sell its breeding grounds, the drawers and empty surfaces and nooks and crannies otherwise known as my desk and filing cabinet, then I might be able to wipe out this infestation right proper. Or at least cut it back to non-plague levels. (Anyone want a desk? Or filing cabinet? C'mon. Save me from ebay.) So far I've managed to throw out a lot of ink-less pens I apparently thought would be worth hoarding in case of apocalypse. (What? They'd make excellent dart-blowers. I could sit on my balcony poison-darting all those zombies jostling three floors below. It would be sport and entertainment at the same time!)

I also realised, for the zillionth time this past four weeks, that despite knowing there are hot cross buns available for delicious purchase right now, I have (STILL) yet to buy any.

This has got to change. And HOW.

by definition: a crush must hurt

 journal  2 Responses »
Feb 082011
 

The mighty Tessa pointed out this snippet of street art to me not long after I moved down here, and I've loved it ever since. I particularly love the gleeful face it's paired with. Cos those crushes, my friend: they're going to hurt you every which way 'til Sunday, but you'll still welcome it. At least in part.

chasing zen. again.

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Feb 042011
 

It's not often that I suffer from writer's block.

For me, it strikes when I have too much to say, and not enough time to say it. My head fills up with fragments of sentences and splinters of stories, none of it tied to any other piece or theme, just a great swirling structure-less tangle. All that mulch in my head is so busy growing such a multitude of different ideas that none of them can get a clear shot at the sunlight.

Blog posts and stories get tangled together, pairing off wrongly and spawning little mutant baby ideas, until my focus disintegrates and I find myself thinking re-tagging my mp3 library is a worthwhile use of my time right now.

I've never been at a loss for something to say, particularly, not when writing. I simply get choked by how much I want to say, or by how best to say it. (That last is easier to attack at least: write something appalling, and edit it mercilessly into something cogent, and call it done. (For some reason that tactic works much better on writing fiction than it does on writing a blog post, though.)) I want to write about silence, and breaking it; about conversations and confrontations; about the mechanics of a story, its structure and its heart; about innovation as opposed to invention; about people who can't give up and people who can. I want to finish that troublesome thorn girls story, and crank out some mileage on the faerie novel. I need to get that international report done for the dayjob, and prune back that tangle of further correspondence breeding in my in-tray faster than I can sterilise them.

Instead, so far, my mp3 library has sprouted a more comprehensive collection of cover art.