Tropical Snowflake

Gasp

2012-01-23T22:50:00.006+11:00

I look for you. Not in a search light kind of way. More in a Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan kind of way. The way that you know only happens in movies. That moment when she's searching a bookshelf and extracts a book to see him on the other side.

It's lame. It's even nuts because you aren't even in the same world as me. That doesn't seem to stop me from looking in to the crowd in an eatery or looking at the opposing escalator for your shoes and your knees and then.. oh no, that's someone else.

Sometimes, I sit on a seat and wait for you to pass by. You are walking another street in another place in another town, somewhere. You may even walk passed me and I don't see you because I'm staring in to the faceless crowd and looking for you in another time. A time when you would have smiled right up to your crows feet to see me.

That's the thing though. Even if it was a scene of only you, I won't ever see you again. You don't exist. Too much has passed. Too much is broken. It is so unfixable that for you to ever live again would involve time travel and amnesia and Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan and fiction.

I think I'll keep looking for you. I hope to never be disappointed and actually see you. That would so ruin the feeling of the quick gasp before it's evident that it's not you.

Choose a Choice

2012-01-21T17:14:00.003+11:00

Take one table and call me in the morning

People keep asking me for advice on choosing between a tablet and a netbook and then which of the array of choices will suit them. It's an interesting question but one that has only a single answer. Uno problem, uno solution.

I have a MacBook Air. I have an original gangster iPad. I have a MacBook Pro. I have an iPhone 4. I have an iPhone 4S. I have every accessory. My first computer was an Apple Mac. My Dad brought home an Apple IIC. When it comes to the PC camp, I love myself a good Tecra. Toshiba makes the best hardware for running Windows. The Tecras are the membes of the Toshiba family that sip French Champagne at family dinners and watch amusedly at the Dells and Compaqs that can't hold their cheap beer and local house red. When it comes to eBook readers, I'm a Kindle girl. Seriously, choose a eBook reader based on what you're willing to drop on your head when you are reading in bed and doze off. The Kindle was gentle tap your skull while and iPad will brutalise it with a jack hammer.

So when I'm asked what tablet someone should buy and if they should wait for the latest release of iWhatever, I die a little bit.

Just choose. It won't be the last choice you make.

I spend ours with my iPad. It's not the latest. It's not the greatest. There are droids and Sam-hungs and lots of other choices. There are netbooks that can be like a tablet with a real life keyboard with slightly more peripherals. There are small full-sized laptops with minimum-expansion but more use. Each step takes you closer to… to what. Ask yourselves that question as you say "if I only spend this much more, I'll get…" because that will stop you.

My recommendation is buy whatever is good at the time. Use it. Don't just buy it if you don't really want it. Use it. Get your money's worth. Accept new stuff will be released within a blink of an eye. Whatever you buy will one day be retro.

Accept that and you'll forget the overload of choice and simply enjoy your next purchase.

Scuze me

2012-01-21T17:02:00.000+11:00

Resolutions and Mixed Tapes

2011-12-30T23:30:00.002+11:00

Let me tell you story. You must of course agree to believe that this happened to a friend of a friend of mine, or I shall refuse to continue. OK? OK.

There was a girl who lived a life blessed with love, beauty, friends, words, brilliance, sunshine, great legs and the prettiest face. She walked a privileged path that consisted of blissful moments and first world problems.

She sat alone on the night of the last day before the last day of the year. It had been an amazing year of lessons learnt, treasures earnt and friendships burnt... down to the ground like a pyre. Adele smashed away in the background saying sometimes it lasts in love but sometimes it hurts instead. She listened and sniggered. She had learnt that the past is the past and if you can take something or anything or a smidge of a story from it then you'd done OK. OK?

We were born and raised in a summer haze, Adele continued. This time she smiled because we were. The sun has always shone on us.

For all the ups and ups and downs and crashes and grey bits, life was pretty damn good.

She is 35 years old. She is smiling. She looks to tomorrow and likes the way the plans are laid. She likes that the grey bits are hazy and unwritten. She is good with life.; good with the people she loves; good with the future; and good with the results of the choices she has made.

Now let it play out.

Nothing compares

No worries or cares

Regrets and mistakes

They are memories made

How I saw Lego

2011-12-30T23:00:00.001+11:00

This is how I saw Lego, as a child and this is part of a brilliant advertising campaign.

Chew on the furniture and start bar fights

2011-12-30T17:06:00.000+11:00

Break it

2011-12-28T23:26:00.006+11:00

You're walking down a leafy sunny street in the middle of the holidays. Most people are eating lunch with their families and aren't out and about. Those you do see nod and smile. They aren't friends but you have seen them around and they do the nodding thing and you do the nodding thing.

There is an actual friend-type person that you are on the path to running in to. It's a planned rendezvous. A tryst of sorts.

You keep asking yourself "What makes a friend?" How does that label get assigned and attached and maintained? Songs tell you a friend is someone who walks in to your house like they live there but the police will do that in cop shows you see on TV so it doesn't quite sit right. Others give analogies of gardens and tending flowers but your vivid imagination extends that to weeds and barren soil and other parts of the analogy where worms turn the soil to better it but are still icky.

This person that has been placed in your line will soon be in your sight. The thing with sight is that you don't always see what is in front of you. There is a plumish hue when he appears. As if the sun is setting in his stead. There is a warmth that you feel when you see photos of people having picnics. Not that cuddly corny warmth but the feeling of the sun on your skin, even when all you are doing is looking.

You call him an actual friend but your actual friends sigh and roll their eyes when he ultimately emerges in the conversation. Those are the deep and meaningful talks resulting from too many ciders and an unyielding urge to tell someone or anyone or maybe an actual friend, about him.

It is nothing new to you that he controls the entirety of who you are when you two are "us". At first it seemed like he was leading you in a tango. Sexy and strong and dominant and all the time caring that you are ok. He will look after you, so you follow.

You aren't sure when but the dance became more like a fight. You both wrestled and he slapped you. He loved it. You broke a little. Then you danced again.

Each time, you saw the glow as he approached and forgot the darkness when he left. Always thinking he brought the sunshine with him when he came and realising he brought nothing but the darkness which he left with you when he'd gone.

This will be another crossing of paths. Maybe a paving of cow paths. It always happens and starts to feel like that is what happens. You cringe. That should paint you a sign. That should bend the neon tubes that illuminate a Vegas like detour but you will tread the road.

He comes and talks and it wouldn't matter if you are there. You are inconsequential. Did you want a coffee? My shout. He talks through you and you feel the sound reverberate over and around and fizzily through your particles. What once felt like a buzz, now feels like a zap.

He leaves and there you are again walking through an empty suburb with trees. Yes, trees. There are people. They are strangers. There is sun in your eyes and you sneeze. Everyone is locked in their house with families that they tolerate. You wonder why it is getting so dark.

Break it. Break it so it is so broken that it can never be fixed again. Break the trees and their damn streaming rays of star light. Break the path you walked over and over again. Break your shoes that you walked it in. Break your rose coloured glasses and throw the jagged lenses in the street so car tyres will be punctured. Break it all.

Then start again.

Who you are

2011-12-28T23:01:00.004+11:00

I write to you but I don't think you read it. It could be because I don't know who you are. Maybe you read it and wonder who it is that I write to but never think it is you because of course, I don't know who you are.

Please Enter

2011-12-28T22:28:00.000+11:00

Someday

2011-12-27T00:51:00.000+11:00

A New Year of Respect

2011-12-26T21:27:00.004+11:00

2011 was an interesting year for me, as they always are. This one highlighted one thing that I knew but had to realise. It goes along the lines of being happy first before you can make anyone else happy. That I realised, goes for most things in life.

Be rich before you give money. Be happy before you give happiness. Be wise before you give advice... or have a blog and too much spare time.

This year, I focused on honouring and humouring myself by finding the things that I liked and wanted to commit my life to. Work has been narrowed down to two areas I like and think make me a better contributor. Now I have to continue on that work path and make it work for me and my job. Friendships have solidified or dissolved to ensure that they are healthy and not damaging. Passions for hobbies and interests lost have been retried and some rekindled.

I am more of who I want to be.

One thing that I found repeatedly was sacrificed was respect. Respect for my guiding principals. Respect for people who deserved it more. Ultimately, a recognition that I sacrificed self-respect to make others happy and to respect them, when I should not have.

There is a fine line between generosity and giving because someone insists on taking from you.

Yesterday was Christmas. A symbolic day for new life. The right time to take back some of what had been taken from me. A time to stand up and silently rescind the hold that others have had over me that came from my giving and giving and their never actually asking but always taking.

Maybe everyone else is just so good at maintaining that balance but I suck at it. That is why I had to bring it back to one concept and one word that I could focus on for 2012.

Respect.

Respect for myself first then I'll deal with the rest of the world.

2011 - Top 10 Photos

2011-12-04T18:33:00.011+11:00

Top 10 sets of my photos on flickr...

Creatures

Shoes

Happy Mana

Outdoorsy

Nails

Bling

2011 - Top 10 Tunes

2011-12-04T18:09:00.004+11:00

My favourite songs of 2011 were...

James Blunt - Stay the night

Bruno Mars - The Lazy Song

Rihanna - S&M

Jessie J - Price Tag

Adele - Rolling in the Deep

RIP Amy Whinehouse - Rehab

Plain White T's - Rhythm of Love

Gym Class Heroes - Stereo Hearts

Gotye - Somebody that I used to know

Crowded

2011-11-27T00:38:00.006+11:00

It is a strange numbing sadness that comes to you when you realise that you belong nowhere and there is no person or people that you are joined to in any way.

That could be why I am a nomad. Why I have so many acquaintances but no best friend. The reason I want to be so far from family and friends, where no one knows me.

I don't mind people. I enjoy their company but what I long for is my own place and my own space. Somewhere that I don't have to be diplomatic or ask if what I am doing suits someone else.

There is little to no doubt that I will be a crazy cat lady and I will prefer that.

A Promise

2011-11-22T01:06:00.006+11:00

I shan't ever look for you again in my dreams.

Friend Portfolio

2011-11-19T17:35:00.003+11:00

My friend Jen Coombes introduced me to the idea of the Friend Portfolio. She is the greatest friend thief I will ever know and the best inspiration. She taught me that if you mesh with someone then just let it happen. Don't fight friendship. Don't try to force it. Let it happen and forget the rules and regulations.

I was at a Halloween party recently for a recently made friend, with my girls Olga and Elmo. I was busy in the kitchen dressed as an iPhone making my famous margaritas when I ranted about how friends betray you. The friends that you surround yourself with and the amazing people around you say more for who you are than any constructed identity or brand. They are the definition of who you are.

The girl with the strong Italian accent asked "where are you friends tonight?" and I pause and then answered "They are the two fully clothed girls who are swimming in the pool and attracting all the male attention".

Self Hurt

2011-11-14T01:43:00.009+11:00

Once there was a song that defined me... at least for a moment in my life. It is a song by Nine Inch Nails that was covered by Johnny Cash. Cash did the more powerful version. Some of you already know that the song is Hurt.

I wasn't an emo in that I cut myself . I wasn't an X-aholic that took substances to numb the pain or raise my mood. I wasn't going out and looking for fights.

No, I went out and looked for the worst people I could find. I wanted them to disappoint me and confirm that the world sucked. To reinforce that all those who breathe were going to let me down, like others had.

Today is different. I don't hurt myself today to see if I still breathe. I am aware that I breathe. Aware that I am alive and wonderful. That is a big thing. I don't want to be disappointed anymore. There is no validation in finding that and absolutely none in seeking it. People are people... flawed and wonderful.

There shall only be hurt when there is hurt. It will not be something I seek. Disappointment will not console me. There will be more. There is. Those people who validated my world view before are not allowed to anymore. They can be who they are but they won't make me believe the world is bad.

My positive self is here. It will not be bad. Life is good. Let it be so. Believe only that.

I won't let you down. I won't let it hurt.

Form me a habit

2011-11-14T01:33:00.002+11:00

It takes six weeks to form a habit. Yes, six weeks. Forty two days. Then you can keep doing it because it is part of your life. To not do it would feel uncomfortable.

If people would accept more that they are not as in control of what they do as they consciously believe they are, then maybe they would honour the instincts and intrinsically driven reactions to stimulus that we have.

It is actually ok not to fully understand what you do. If it causes problems in your life then yes, maybe you should work out what triggers you and drives you. Otherwise, it's ok to do something or like something or be something because it feels ok to do so.

We spend so much time trying to match patterns. It is what humans do. The thing is that we do things that feel good and that positive reinforcement causes us to do it again and again until it is habit. Then there are things we do that don't feel good but are good for us. Do it over and over again and you will start to like it.

Cause and effect are often quite bi-directional. It is like happiness causing a smile and the newly discovered effect of a smile causing happiness. If you have a bad moment and smile then you will feel better. Don't believe me? Try it. You feel stupid at first and then even the feeling silly will make you smile.

If you are going to form a habit then choose something good for you that doesn't feel so great all the time. Commit to six weeks and it will be who you are or at least part of you.

You and me baby ain't nothing but mammals...

What do we want?

2011-11-09T22:10:00.000+11:00

Managed Competition

2011-11-03T20:35:00.006+11:00

Necessity is the mother of all invention and that doesn't just go for inventing things you can touch. It applies to all ideas.

Human beings are resourceful creatures who spawned from primordial ooze and morphed to omnivores with warm blooded adaptable bodies; stood up on only two paws and used an opposable thumb to strike flint to make fire; and then finally built industries and cities that crumble under their own over-consuming cyclical debaucherous weight.

Each time we boom, we bust.

Each time we build, we crumble.

Each time we make, we break.

Each time we prosper, we fail.

What makes us the dominant species for the foreseeable future is that each time we learn. We keep learning. Although our primal drives satisfy our lizard brains, we keep alive the great ape in us. That part that says "make this system better".

The city of Chicago renews it's garbage collection contracts about every decade, along with other city wide contracts that are held jointly by the public and the private sectors.

Each time the contract goes up for grabs and during the lifetime of this committment (which spans multiple mayoral terms) the private sector is judged against and compared to the public sector to see who does the job at a better price and simply who does the job better.

Often once a big contract is won, prices go up or quality goes down. After all, government pockets are bottomless, right?

In this system, the private sector always has competition and not just from the rest of the private sector. The huge in this case is the public sector and that keeps the competition alive. There is a maintained basic level of quality and an understood and accepted cost.

When these contracts have gone up for grabs in the city of Chicago between 1979 and 1994, The Economist states that "the private sector won 34 contracts while the public sector won 22."

What a simple and effective way to privatise yet keep quality and price in check. It even fairly applies those same constraints that private companies must operate under to fat cat public servants.

There is probably a lack of perfection in this way too but I like the transparency and constant reappraisal. The fact that providers of a service can thrive if they should or fail if they should seems right. The fact that privatisation makes sense in some decades and not in others might be reason enough to try this shared responsibility via managed competition.

Darwin

2011-11-02T21:04:00.009+11:00

My recent denouncement and departure from Darwin was preceded 48 hours earlier by the travel book publisher Lonely Planet recommending the city in the top ten cities in the world to see for 2011.

It spoke of a bustling nightlife; access to an ancient culture and pristine wilderness; and of a city with energy and oomph. Maybe not those exact words but that was the gist of it.

I don't want to sound like my hipster friend Cathie but I liked Darwin before it was cool.

It isn't though. With all feedback, you must take it as input in to your system and weight it with what drove the source to say it, or in this case rank it.

Lonely Planet was the travel book of choice when I was a crumpled, life-in-a-backpack traveling twenty something. It was for those moments when I took a break in my life and on a budget travelled the world in search of people to drink with and adventures to have.

There is no shame in that. Lonely Planet was my $50 travel guide as I saw places I had read of in books or googled while cheating at pub quizzes. It took me beyond the Eiffel Tower and to a lovely wine and cheese stall that allowed me to buy a bottle and some milk products and gaze upon that industrial marvel from a nearby park, while others sweated and stood in a line to be sheared at the top of the lift of the tower, all the while being unable to see the forest for the tourists.

Lonely Planet led me down thousand year old streets to restaurants in dark dodgy parts of town where I was welcomed joyfully and replied in broken language, only to discover the waiter was from Melbourne.

Lonely Planet took me to vending machines that sold beer, ice cream and used school girls knickers and on to restaurants that displayed lacquered food while serving fresh minky on dried seaweed.

Lonely Planet took me everywhere, made me feel safe, slept in bed bug ridden sheets, sat next to me while I was kissed in Paris, was a pillow on trains across the worlds greatest mountain ranges and even silenced a very annoying Irish backpacker when I needed to sleep.

So when my home town is named as a top ten city to see, I may still agree with Paul Keating and say "The best view of Darwin is from 40,000 feet in the air on your way to Paris" but that is my 35 year old self speaking.

There is a reason for the youthful traveller with their unkempt hair and non-Veuve budget to come here. It will give them stories, experiences, tales, memories and heartache for places that are so different to what we grew up with that we take a breath as we survey them and hope that our mum will wire us some money when we blow our last money on a cold local beer.

Airports and Roundabouts

2011-10-29T15:18:00.005+11:00

There are a lot of beautiful things in the world and many many mundane ones. Inanimate things. Areas. Spaces. Structures that give you no thought but to negotiate your way past without hitting them.

It's a case of airports and roundabouts.

Thing is that if you stall long enough to have to think about them, they are magic in their own way.

The modern roundabout is simple and highly effective. It is a control structure that regulates traffic with easy rules and without bringing everyone to a stand still. There is immense beauty in its simplicity. Simple rules of uni-directional flow and everyone knowing who gives way to who.

Next time you meet a roundabout, absorb the structure and give way to the right.

Then there are airports. You enter through some sliding doors and check luggage and print tickets and clear security and drink bad coffee. Around you, large canisters full of highly explosive jet fuel hit the ground and leave it at extreme speed. A bunch of people in a tower sew their paths, as thousands of people arrive and depart on their way to another identical depot.

At the most, you walk a hundred meters to a gate and wait in managed silence for your horseless, groundless, floating carriage to arrive. Then you climb aboard a vehicle with a hundred strangers to share air and bad food, while you achieve uplift and cut what was months of travel in to an annoying several hours.

People talk of smart phones, mapping the genome and coloured contact lenses and they are fabulous. There are also things we take for granted that if you stop and think of, you will release that we live in the future.

He doubts my source

2011-10-28T03:15:00.004+11:00

Today he told me on the phone that pain only initiates the art and that my beautiful words then flow afterwards.

He is wrong.

When a passionate emotion owns me (beit pain or lust or love or hate or exhaustion), it drives every word I write. There is no eloquence in starting a sentence with it and ending it with another.

It is his way of living with the bump in joy he causes me. Bump down. Bump up. All cause.

I write it. I feel it as I write. It is good.

If you read this and feel the ride then say. Tell him, he is wrong.

Fatalism and Free Spirits

2011-10-24T02:19:00.005+11:00

Last week left me with many thoughts after a 3 hour conversation with an old acquaintance. It is not a conversation that I see being repeated but it was an awakening moment.

This person kept telling me that he is a free spirit. That he deals with the here and now and does not plan for things to come or worry about things that have passed. I listened carefully and with interest because even though I am quite random at times, my view of life and destiny are quite separate from his.

He spoke of life happening and just taking it as it comes. I cringed.

I have heard this cry from many people. They are usually stuck in a rut of some sort. They are uneducated; unable to turn the tide that carries them in to and out of situations of life; and they are happy in their silent surrender.

There is peace and happiness in accepting your lot in life but I believe there is meaning and adventure in owning each turn you choose to make and driving out a life based on choice and consequence.

Life is not something that happens to a person. Happiness does not choose or unchoose you. It is not written by a deity with all knowledge, all sight and all presence. For me, I am lucid. I am conscious. I am the person who decides what happens to me.

Maybe, I am not a free spirit who can just sail along on the crest of existence, only breathing and sleeping and eating and... well, all those basic things. There has to be more and I make it so.

The second that I lie down and believe that the outcome is determined before I took the steps towards it, is the day that I will give up.

The free spirit thing is fine as long as they are not actually a fatalist that has signed a contract with lazy and opted for letting life happen to them.

Absense

2011-10-20T01:36:00.003+11:00

I stopped writing when I found you.

It took a long time to work out why I stopped writing. It wasn't you. Don't flatter yourself. My drivers are intrinsic.

It was the lack of pain.

The pain gave me a certain kind of agony that no one else can know but someone who knows exactly how to explain their feelings. If you have the words to describe it then you should be able to solve it. Unfortunately, that is not the case. Sometimes seeing something with clarity only means that you can watch in instant replay, the person who stabs your naked body repeatedly while you float above it feeling the knife as it slices your soul. Bleeding nothing but the essence of who you are.

Pain leads to art. Pain leads to music... paintings... drawings... words of whim... words of wisdom. Pain is truth. Truth is pain. There is nothing more honest that the rare raw bruised feeling that life leaves you with after you've stood and fought or loved or represented and then lost.

A friend once told me that there is no losing in life. That life is not a competition. Any true perfectionist will explain to you that losing is a game against yourself. It is the motivation to be more than you are and then the inability to reach an _apparently_ unattainable goal. Try tell the perfectionist that they can not reach that apple and they will make you sit in a comfortable chair as they prove you wrong.

The words come from the tearing of your being. They are the beauty you can only show when the lights are out, the vodka has been poured and the world has forgotten you.

I'm getting harder on the inside

2011-10-18T10:50:00.001+11:00

My smile travels to my eyes but not my heart anymore.

lolhorsie

2011-10-16T17:28:00.000+11:00

My head is stuck in the clouds

2011-10-14T22:12:00.004+11:00

I met him again. He's stuck in my head. My head is stuck in the clouds. It's one of those never-gonna-happen situations. That doesn't seem to kill it. It just is what it is. Over-thinking it will make it more than what it is or ever will be. Breathe. Live it. Let it happen. Then let it die.

Memories in red and green

2011-10-10T01:34:00.000+11:00

I married in dappled sunlight under the trees of a rainforest next to an emerald green river, surrounded by everyone I loved. I wore red.

She rises up like the tide

2011-10-10T01:03:00.005+11:00

This weekend past, was a lot like those weekends I remember when I was a teeny bopper. It started with a fabulous night out with my girlfriends. We drank bubbly, met two new girls to add to our crew and then danced until our feet hurt and our eyes went all blinky. Then we went to a mates where we cooked frozen chips and covered them in MSG loaded chicken salt (with some Seth Arfikan) name.

The rest has been a slow blur of chained naps, necromancy via fiction, teddy bears with 20's headbands and constant grazing.

Tomorrow, it's back to work with early breakfast meetings to head off project dramas and then on to writing code and getting stuff done.

There is only one thing I need to get life to the point where I am 100% satisfied with it - physical health and that starts Tuesday with my new personal trainer. Apparently, his name is Dorian. I can only imagine he is super fit and hides a painting at home of an ugly fat man. Oscar Wilde would be happy with that scenario.

Maybe happiness is just being who you want to be.

Now you're just somebody that I used to know

2011-10-02T17:58:00.005+11:00

There is a song bouncing off the walls at the moment by Gotye called Somebody that I used to know. My need to listen to it over and over again comes late at night at that time when it takes clenching teeth to keep my eyes open.

I was sitting at my work desk on the 22nd of September wondering what I'd forgotten to do. Did I miss someone's birthday? Did I have an appointment for a pedi or a massage? Was there a bill due?

I forgot it again. Even after toughening myself up a couple of weeks in advance for what would have been my fifth wedding anniversary or our 14th year together, I still forgot.

Right now, that seems to be a good thing but I can't lie. When I did remember, it ached. Ached through my entire body. Skin, organs, limbs and the split ends lying on the floor of my hairdresser's floor.

There may always be a pain there... where he used to be. Even now he's just somebody that I used to know.

Style

2011-10-02T15:37:00.000+11:00

Make me your radio and turn me up when you feel low

2011-09-25T19:04:00.001+10:00

Loving this song atm...

Miss this shit

2011-09-13T21:52:00.000+10:00

This is my attention span

2011-09-13T15:58:00.000+10:00

Plain White T's

2011-09-11T15:23:00.002+10:00

My head is stuck in the clouds
She begs me to come down
Says "Boy quit foolin' around"
I told her "I love the view from up here
Warm sun and wind in my ear
We'll watch the world from above
As it turns to the rhythm of love"

We may only have tonight
But till the morning sun you're mine all mine
Play the Music low and swing to the rhythm of love

My heart beats like a drum
A guitar string to the strum
A beautiful song should be sung
She's got blue eyes deep like the sea
That roll back when she's laughing at me
She rises up like the tide
The moment her lips meet mine

We may only have tonight
But till the morning sun you're mine all mine
Play the Music low and swing to the rhythm of love

When the moon is low
We can dance in slow motion
And all your tears will subside
All your tears will dry

Ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba
Da da-da dum Da da-da dum
ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba ba-ba
Da da-da dum Da da-da dum

And long after I've gone
You'll still be humming along
And I will keep you in my mind
The way you make love so fine

We may only have tonight
But till the morning sun you're mine all mine
Play the music low and swing to the rhythm of love
Ohhhhhh
Play the music low and swing to the rhythm of love
Yeah swing to the rhythm of love

This song is totally about me

2011-09-04T02:52:00.002+10:00

I'm disturbed by how much this makes sense to me. Nobody's Perfect.

Understanding of the Speed of Light

2011-09-04T01:34:00.003+10:00

Circles within circles

2011-09-04T00:54:00.005+10:00

The other night, I was talking to a friend who was describing the difference between the way his inner circle looks compared to mine. He said that he has a lot of people in the circle closest to him and then the circle furthest away. There is nothing in the middle.

He says that my circles would look like a liberally applied pepper shaker applied to all circles.

Even if he is right, there is nothing wrong with either model. There seem to be definitions of what this type of person does and what that type of person does but I don't think they mean much. They are indicative but are not definitive.

For everything you do, there are people who will tell you who and how you should be. My favourite thing to remind people who come and ask me what I think of their's or someone else's situation is to let them know that what they are feeling is normal. It's all good.

Unless you are seriously mentally ill or have some type of personality disorder that messes with the way you think then you are probably doing fine. There is actually no right or wrong. There just is.

Walk your own individual path through life. Be free. Be whatever and whoever the hell you are. Let no other person living or dead, tell you who you should be. Try to tread carefully when your path crosses the paths of others.

Everything else is easy then.

100 Years of Fashion

2011-09-02T23:12:00.000+10:00

I do not give it

2011-08-31T23:38:00.001+10:00

Accept it as me

2011-08-28T19:38:00.002+10:00

Tonight, I sit am sitting here writing and writing and tweeting and blogging and just writing. There is so much beauty in it. There is beauty in pain. The agony of the soul is a paintbrush.

There are times when I am happy and slightly lost. I don't quite know what to do with it.

Then there are moments when I reach for happiness and it's just out of reach. It eludes me and then I realise that I'm not really trying. Maybe there has to be a little hurt to make it worth trying. Maybe one day I will find another driver. Until then, I think I'll make the most of the pain and try to let it make the most of me.

Don't be sorry for me. Smile at that fact that I accepted the fragility of me. The beauty that is a broken Damana. A star that burns it's hottest, right before it implodes.

Accept it as me.

Oscar Says

2011-08-27T13:00:00.000+10:00

You exist

2011-08-24T09:30:00.001+10:00

Don't leave me here

2011-08-17T00:49:00.002+10:00

If you find me one night lying still and breathing slowly, don't leave me there.
If my hand twitches and my fingers reach ever so slightly, don't leave me there.
If my eyes are only opened enough to show that I am still there, don't leave me there.
If you see me and you see me, don't leave me there.

Some days

2011-08-15T00:34:00.002+10:00

Some days, so much of me hurts that I don't quite remember how it was to not feel the deep persistent ache.

People ask if it has a cause, a name, a reason. It does but it is not one that they will be happy with. It is not something or someone that they can fix or heal or tell me isn't worth it.

It is that darkness that looms always. The promise of a sinking lead that pulls you under and so far down that even if you free yourself there won't be enough time to get back up for air.

Part of dealing with depression is accepting that when you are well, you may still plummet into that abyss again. Rudely, it is often at short notice and with an assumed RSVP.

Little things can add up and to be honest, it is more likely a culmination of many tiny pushes than one big ka-thump.

Nah, let me explain that better.

An event can't knock me down on it's own. Triggers don't work that way now. People can't push me over the edge even if they explicitly... harshly... deliberately... knowingly try. I'm too strong for that now.

What can bring me to the point of pain is me not looking after myself.

If I get sick and it lingers. If I get tired and don't sleep. If I get mentally exhausted and don't rest. If I let myself go and not reel it in then I'm in danger.

Depression is what happens to you again when the balance is lost. When the pace is no longer sustainable. When you don't have the energy to hold it back.

It is not about weakness or loss of control or neglect but more about forgetting that it is waiting. Thinking that you're fine and always will be is an error on your part.

Once you've truly suffered from depression, you must always watch your back. Although that sounds awful, being aware that you must does empower you. After all, you know your enemy so well and have defeated it before. If you see it coming this time then it has zero chance of getting anywhere near you.

B@man

2011-08-13T22:41:00.000+10:00

7 Stages of Grief

2011-08-11T15:17:00.001+10:00

Goodnight

2011-08-03T21:30:00.002+10:00

It's at night time when I miss him most. Somehow the cool of dark seems cooler without him. The shadows longer. The glow of lights, dim. Calm.

The days are magical. They are filled with people and distractions. Reasons to think of wonderful things. That hope that sunlight brings in its beams. Calm.

Time will pass, as it must. Daylight will stretch out during summer and steal some of the aloneness that dominates the older hours. I shall miss him less. That is the promise. That is the hope that brings the promise. That is the deceleration of the yearning beating heart. The destination that I crave. Calm.

LOL Science

2011-08-02T13:04:00.000+10:00

While counting the stars

2011-08-01T22:46:00.000+10:00

Beauty - You're doing it wrong

2011-08-01T19:08:00.004+10:00

This is for women. You are the ones who need to hear it. I am sick of repeating this so the next time I have to convince a woman of how stunning she is, I shall just give her a link to this post.

Beauty is not only skin deep. It is emergent. What makes you magically beautiful comes from deep inside you.

It's not clothes or shoes or makeup. It's not what a man thinks of you. It isn't based in the opinions of a group of women. Magazines don't know how to really make it or if they did then they'd tell you rather than constantly change the recipe.

It's not less than 60kg. It's not skinny jeans versus maxi dresses. There is no way to find it in the shape of your calf or the line of your neck. There is not a way to dress it, cover it up, hide it, disguise it or have it surgically removed or enhanced.

Beauty is the light that shines from your soul. It is what keeps you smiling when someone stares disapprovingly. It is what keeps you loving even after he doesn't care anymore. It is the secret that only you know. The things you love about yourself when you don't look in a mirror.

If you don't quite know what I mean then look at the opposite... the contradiction. What is ugly? It's not a big nose or a badly cut pair of slacks. It's a person who is nasty and unattractive due to their personality or their actions... and if that is the case then why would you think you aren't beautiful?

Do not go in search of beauty. It is always there.

Back to Black

2011-08-01T18:56:00.001+10:00

I hope there is no more pain now.

Bye bye, Ms Amy.

Sometimes

2011-08-01T18:47:00.003+10:00

There comes a point when you realise that what you are doing is so wrong that the only way to stop is to completely break it. To take it to a point where everyone and everything is forced to cease and desist.

Of course, you look like a complete jerk and no one ever knows that you made yourself the bad guy so that you could do what was right for everyone.

I'm tired now. Tired and hurt. It was for the good of the many. I'm feeling a lot like Spock right now.

Food Statement

2011-07-27T21:32:00.002+10:00

After looking through and reading this photo essay on the fridges of people from different professions in the US, I wondered what my fridge says about me when I'm not listening.

Here is my pantry and two fridges. This is a 3 adult household with a software engineer, a primary school teacher and a university student.

What does your fridge say about you?

Officially Old

2011-07-26T21:12:00.005+10:00

As my 35th birthday approaches, I wonder what age is "officially old".

It keeps moving as I age but I wonder if I should be looking back and remembering when I was young. Instead, I feel at my peak each year. As if there is so much more ahead of me than behind me.

My mother just turned 63 years old. She is sharp, vibrant, beautiful and brilliant. Nothing is out of her reach. She is writing a book, teaches 5th and 6th grade, tweets and facebooks and wants to go to see Janet Jackson with me in November. She isn't old to me.

Maybe it's 80 or 90 years old but then there is my grandfather who was born in 1900. I met him when he was 96 years old. He died at just over 100. He had all his own teeth. He said it was because he always chewed sugarcane. It's fibrous and cleans even with it natural sweetness. He chewed beetle nut and walked over ten kilometers each day. He walked slow but he walked. He laughed at jokes and smiled at our youthful wit. He wasn't old to me.

Maybe it isn't about an actual age. Maybe it's about your attitude to life.

Recently I met an amazing man who inspired me to see life as wonderful. He taught me to not treat anything as a tragedy, no matter how Shakespearean it seemed. He was my muse, yet he condemned himself to the life he entered via an early contract promised to honour. It was sad to watch. He was my friend and taught me so much but partially through knowing that I never wanted to sacrifice my promise and happiness for an earlier agreement. I never want to be like him.

Life is following your passion. Finding it. Naming it. Living it. Holding it. Pushing it.

Promise me something. Promise me that YOU will be everything you can be. That you will follow the amazing that you are. Hold the hand that takes you home. Live your dream.

Putting Up Walls

2011-07-26T21:05:00.001+10:00

Talents

2011-07-26T00:04:00.000+10:00

The world has gone mad

2011-07-25T22:05:00.002+10:00

Gosh, today was a day to not remember. I woke up barely able to breathe. It felt like someone was sticking pins in to my lungs. After seeing the doc, it appears that is all caused by badly inflamed lungs. I now get to use this cool thing called a spacer that delivers ventolin to my lungs to help ease the inflammation faster. The doctor reminded me of my friend Zaynab. She is a stunning and brilliant business analyst at Thoughtworks who is from Zimbabwe and of Indian descent. This doctor had a similar accent but he is a South African Indian. I miss Zaynab. She is far away in another land. Another nomad.

I'm watching friends in turmoil and feeling helpless. All I can do is love them. Be their scaffolding. That's what I always say friends are supposed to be. Friends are scaffolding. They hold you up until you can do it yourself. Will just keep doing that.

I'm listening to people who said they were friends but then show their true colours. In the past, that would shatter me and gain more than a passing paragraph in a post prefaced with a lolcat picture. Now, it just seems to be something I accept and put behind me. Those people don't much matter in the Damana Show.

I'm seeing a beautiful world around me. Being mindful of what is buzzing by. Absorbing the gorgeousness of existing. This and one other thing has made me want to show that more. I've decided to keep writing and describing my life and world. Even if no one reads it, I will again. Each day my view of the world will improve and I will look back and see how I saw it now... then... now.

Even on the days when it is hard to breathe and friends are in pain and people disappoint me, life doesn't seem too bad. There is beauty and kindness in my life. I am a lucky one.

What's for supper?

Me Me Me

2011-07-25T21:00:00.004+10:00

"When it comes down to it, I let them think what they want. If they care enough to bother with what I do, then I'm already better than them" -- Marilyn Monroe

Half Hero - Half Man

2011-07-25T20:48:00.000+10:00

Purpose

2011-07-11T22:30:00.001+10:00

Everyone seems to have a purpose. A reason why they do what they do. Each day. Every week. All year.

I don't have a purpose. A reason for doing it. No driver. I just do it because it's what I do. Go through the motions. Put in the effort. Head home exhausted.

Is this how it is meant to be?

I'm Sorry

2011-07-10T16:47:00.005+10:00

Kate Miller-Heidke says it best when she croons "please, please believe that I'm sorrrrrry".

My friend Angela Ferguson pointed out the other night that I was in a facebook friending frenzy. She does have a way with words. It's what makes her the kind of friend who you stop and listen to.

Ange was right, I was on a friending spree but it wasn't out of boredom or mania. This was purely due to the fact that I want to make contact with new and old friends.

I am back in a good place and people energise me. All those people who have touched my life are welcome back in, if they feel they want to return.

In the past, I shut down anything that harshed my mellow. These days, you'd need to use an accelerant and a match to really upset me. Not that you should try that.

So, friend me already.

Standing Before the Wizard

2011-07-08T21:42:00.003+10:00

How gingerly I walk the tight rope that runs across the gauntlet of my chiseled ethos and the driving need to not harm others.

While Olga and I joke of our constant struggle with buyers remorse, the actual struggle that I have faced this week has been one of cognitive dissonance.

Instead of my strong ideals pushing me to follow a course of action, I have found that two opposing powerful beliefs have clashed so violently, I am left in a state of real and present anxiety. Last night was the first time in my life that I lay in bed and experienced true paralysing anxiety. The kind that leaves you unable to breathe and without a rational exit.

The Internet poses many interesting questions and leaves us open to a myriad of situations that would never have existed in a world of pen pals and rotary dial telephones. There are benefits and losses. As a scientist, there seems to me to be endless positives to this futurist Jetson-style world we live in. I long to look outside and see flying cars but then the reality of 3D conceptualisation crashes head on in to the fact that most people have trouble merging in to one lane, as they drive on a linear surface in their 1 tonne boxes of steel reinforced status anxiety.

Everything is accelerated. Faster. Dizzier. Manic. We love it but oh how we cherish the moment it all stops. The duplicity of our stop-go lives leaves me in a state of confusion, often. Then I sit down and wait, think and process then understand the source and meaning of my life momentum.

Last month, an old colleague touched base with me. We often share facebook comments or take a passing glance as the photos posted on flickr. We worked together a long time ago at Quarantine, in Canberra. That was a place full of old guys who had moulded in to furniture and found young upstarts like me too energetic at times. This guy was part of the furniture.

He was fun to talk to online. We even had a coffee while I was visiting the capital recently but the real meat of the story comes in the dark menacing form of the online shadow. A person who sees you are suffering or in a bad place, from your mood online and decides to exploit that for their own gain. I have seen this multiple times and mainly during my deepest depression when people saw I was at my weakest. Luckily, I had good people around me and although I made errors in judgement, there was nothing that caused too much pain. Ask anyone on the Internet and they will have a story of duplicity and betrayal for you.

At first I wondered about the reasoning behind the behaviour of these people. What makes someone prey on another member of their species? What perks up inside them when they see someone who they perceive as weak? What is the reward they seek at the end of the hunt?

The last question is interesting. The WHY of it all.

From my recent experience with a shadow, it was some kind of moral test. A game of positioning and baiting. Pulling me in to a situation and then abandoning me at the point where I stood alone before the Wizard. I am still not sure if I passed or failed the test. What I do know is that as soon as I made the decision to no longer play, I was answered with boredom and disinterest.

So, this will happen. It will happen with people who you once knew. That's a great way to make contact. The best way to respond is to refuse to play the game. Follow your moral compass. Trust your gut. Make decisions based in thought and not reaction to sensory stimulation.

Honour yourself.

Imaginary Friends

2011-07-06T20:59:00.004+10:00

There are billions of people on the Earth. Thousands share your popular culture. Hundreds live in the same socioeconomic and cultural group. Dozens will call you friend. A fistful will love you, the way you love them.

Where Tuna comes from

2011-07-06T20:23:00.001+10:00

Reach

2011-07-06T20:09:00.003+10:00

There are many moments when I call a friend to tell them I'm having a bad day and then cheer up as soon as I hear their voice. Then I mention nothing of my troubles because those troubles have melted away to nothing.

Sometimes reaching out gives you perspective. To have someone to reach out to is sometimes enough. It's the knowing that you have someone, if you ever need.

All the rest is forgotten in the happiness of having wonderful people you love, who love you back.

Easy

2011-07-06T19:52:00.002+10:00

Nomad

2011-07-05T07:41:00.003+10:00

How Manly You Are

2011-07-05T07:00:00.003+10:00

After a night breaking shoe rules at inner-west parties, this rebel awoke to a medium to rare headache. Maybe it was the projectile expulsion the previous night but I felt slightly seedy and not overly precious on Sunday.

Allison and Kellie had been at an all you can drink foodie and wine birthday dinner the night Bernarda and I rocked Linda's housewarming but that didn't stop Allison from going for her normal swim. Today it was at the heated outdoor salt water pool under the coat hanger in Milson's Point. That is an iconic pool. It's one of the first sites I found when Google Earth Street View came online with Sydney snaps.

That area means a lot to me. Milson's Point. I used to work at a company called BCode with Sydney offices above Luna Park. In summer my days consisted of witty repartee with an Irish hardware engineer I wish I'd married and the day long screams from Luna Park-goers riding the scary rides.

Luna Park rides aren't like new parks where you accelerate towareds the ground at the speed of fright. They are those old rickety rides that make you wonder mid-ride if they have been doing the regular maintenance and what years of wear and tear can do to steel. Thus the screaming soundtrack while we worked. The view rocked, if that helps.

Allison chose a good pool for a cold winter Sydney day of swimming. She did however demonstrate the frustration of commuting to Manly on a weekend. Getting from Milson's Point to Manly requires a ferry ride back to Circular Quay and on tp Manly. Not a shirt ride or the most crow flyey path.

The easy enough journey to Manly was made painful by the hangovers that we all had persist past lunch time. Bernie and I were meant to meet a Circular Quay but after we realized we were about to miss the ferry, I got my kindly taxi driver to swoop by pick he up somewhere between Darling Habour and Circula Quay. Sydney people know that area as a deadspot aimed at tourists and lost folk... often interchangeable.

After rescuing B from no mans land, we sat at the ferry terminal and tried to make conversation. It was a major fail and she declared that Candy would be the only one without a hangover and this our only hope. Candy is intolerant of alcohol and can't drink. She's so much the Enetgiser Bunny that it lessens no outing when she attends. Candy was leaving home after giving a maths tutorial and was running about an hour late. No, half an hour with our detoxicating disadvantage.

That slut of a city (as referred to by Bernie) had a calm harbor this day. Luckily for my rolling tummy and the packed ferry of tourists crossing the ditch with me. The sail boats were out and the sun was shining so after my body turned suitably numb, it was quite a beautiful day.

We ended up at a microbrewery, known mainly to the locals. It's always amusing to listen to Manly locals bitch about the hoards of tourists in their British accents. Hate those invaders.

Within arriving, I finished my smuggled in Red Bull and started on Kellie's hair of the dog cure of bubbly, lemonade and oj. It's a personal mix but works wonders for postponing the hangover until later. During this micro-cure for a macro-hinderance in a microbrewery, I managed to hit an attractive blonde waiter while telling an exaggerated story requiring massive hand movements.

That was nothing on K's rant about "gingers" and why they are devil spawn. A post for another day and another writer probably.

We spent hours there and then by a fire in another pub. Candy arrived with her new haircut that for some reason encourages men to approach her and share their secret fantasies of dressing her up as an anime character. It's amazing what people think it is ok to say to one hairstyle that you simply can not say to another hairstyle. If only men realized that we women don't change our looks or dress each morning with their fantasies in mind. *sigh*

I sat there in the last pub doing my best to imbibe an enthusiastically purchased final bottle of bubbles. We were all forcing it down at that stage. No hair of the dog would help at this stage. The hangovers had caught us while we were at our tired weakness and unable to hold them back with our 30 something denial.

Thinking at that point of how rare an afternoon I was having in spending hours eating, drinking, hitting attractive men and discussing life, the universe and everything with my four best friends, I smiled. It was a smile that warmed me from the curls on my head to the heels on my feet and all the bits in the middle. That or I was too near the fireplace. I'll believe the former.

I'm too lucky with this friends thing. Telling Bernie on the boat ride home that a person's friend portfolio tells you more about them then any brand they outwardly portray, I realized that I'm surrounded by brains, beauty, charisma and kindness in spades.

It didn't matter that the place was Manly, it was a day for the girls.

Soul Mates

2011-07-05T03:08:00.003+10:00

I will quote anyone if they help argue my point. In this case, it is Samantha in Sex and the City 2. Carrie compliments her for not dumping her friends and going off with a handsome man. She laughs a haughty laugh and says something about how they worked out long ago that men and babies don't matter because the four of them are soul mates.

It wasn't until I heard that a second time that I realized that I have soul mates. People who fill in the cracks when we are are together and make everything feel complete and whole again. People who act as scaffolding until we can hold ourselves up.

There is a corny story that talks of people existing as a perfect vase long ago. One day, the vase shattered in to many tiny pieces. In time as we live and are reborn, we will find the pieces that fit in to us and make us whole again. They are our soul mates.

Do I believe it? Yes, to an extent the idea is good. There are people everywhere but only a few that we fit in to and them in to us. We may travel a million paths and never find that one or few people who make us feel complete. Those who we didn't know were missing until they appeared. Not something we lack that is fulfilled but something that compliments and increases who we already are.

So often, life is either a compromise to accept people in to our lives or a series of shut doors to ensure we don't let the wrong people in. It may even become the case that we reject so many people by default that we don't let certain _right_ people in. I don't believe this is the case with so-called soul mates.

If someone is meant to be in your life then it doesn't matter if they come along too late or too under the radar to register at first because they will continue to reappear until one of you realises.

Is this the same as 'true love' and 'forever friends'? No. I'm not sure those exist. They are fluffy concepts wrapped in Hallmark and coated with pink fairy floss.

You laugh and say soul mates are the same thing. Maybe I'm aging and becoming more idealistic but I'm not convinced. There is too much evidence in my life that says that not making early sacrifices will result in true friendship found. It's a combination of waiting, trusting, not trying and always being yourself. Then when you find it, there is no real effort required to allow it to happen. It simply works. It makes sense. It is easy.

My only active advice is to not let it go. Hold on to it as other forces will surely push to re-sever. Not in a way that forces it because that can cause stress to but more in a way that is conscious and mindful of it's value.

Value the valuable. Somethings lost are wounds we my never recover from. At least for a few more lives, when we attempt to find them again.

Perfection and Assured Disappointment

2011-07-04T22:42:00.002+10:00

How on earth can you live with a declaration of perfection thrust upon you when a person first meets you?

It's impossible, right?

I sat across from someone on the weekend who said "So, you're a perfect person?" I'm still not sure it was a question so let's assume it was rhetorical. I did however respond with "hardly". That's because I'm so flawed that I exist in a plain of existence that looks like a whole lot of floors - carpeted; tiled; wooden; floating; and even cave dirt.

There is only one way forward if you do not deal with this unmaintainable perception, in the very early stages.

Like any other belief, it should be based in fact and the one overruling positive and absolute truth is that there is no perfection. In nature... In mathematics... In concept... there exists beauty in flawlessness but that is only relative to the broken and rebuilt. People are failing from the second they are born. Even supermodels abuse airline staff and destroy the facade of perfection with ugly manners. Even rare and exotic triffid-envied tropical orchids wither and die when their time for perfection is passed.

Maybe that is what he meant. Maybe I was perfect for a short passing moment in time. Obviously, I left before I could rot in to the rainforest floor. Obviously, I wasn't snoring at the top of my lungs during his favorite movie. Obviously, I wasn't sulking about the wrongs of me suffering first world problems while other less fortunate people struggle to survive this imperfect world.

Everyone has heard me quote Marilyn Monroe when she said that if you can not take me at my worst then you don't deserve me at my best. This may be a point when the corollary kicks in and spits up on the embryonic idea that you should give me time to fail and see if I still fit in to your view of perfect.

I'm an odd person in many ways. One is that I celebrate the breaks in people. The cracks that make people the glorious random souls they are. The tarnished lives that sprout the best stories from histories lived. All an acknowledgement that there is no actual normal. There is no simply average. There is a bell curve we fit under and round holes we must fit our square peggedness in but that's it.

In our failings, we hold the key to the individuals we are. In accepting those breaks and stains and scars in those and others, we celebrate that although there is no perfection that there sure is a whole lot of really interesting, amazing and magical people.

Pedestals are precarious places. Be awfully careful not to put someone on one unless you are willing to catch them when they surely fall, after a few too many wines.

Airplanes

2011-07-04T21:56:00.005+10:00

Airplanes. A great place to write. I spend so much time on them writing stuff that I wonder if that is why I travel at all. It is the perfect place to write. I can sit in a cluster fuck of people and ignore them completely. Pump the music up and chip away at the thoughts in my head.

This time, it was Sydney and Canberra that borrowed me for a while. It was meant to be more Sydney than The Capital but minds changed and plans went with them. Don't ask me why. I'm not sure I know why yet.

Bernarda was the first to see, squee and hug me on arrival in Sydney. We jumped out of separate taxis outside Allison's place in Surry Hills across the street from each other. Wielding a bottle of bubbly and the sweetest, most loving smile she greeted me. Reminding me why Sydney is another home for me. A place I belong and long for.

On this plane, they are serving food but I only want a red wine. I used to worry about the order of things before. Like dessert after dinner, when I now have it before if my mood guides me there. There is the rule of wine with food. Responsible service of alcohol except when the food is plane food and eating that is not so responsible.

Ahhh.... responsible. I want to only ever write it with a lower case R. It is far too big a word already, without engrossing its importance. Feeding its ego with stress and overvalue.

Bernarda and I got Allison's neighbor Claudette to let us in to her place. Claudette knew to expect a Brazilian called Bernie or a Darwin girl called Damana to turn up and ask to be let in. We took the third compound option and the neighbour smiled as she let us in. We know the people on that street very well. Allison has been there for a long time and I lived four doors up from her for a short time. That was at a time when my life was falling apart and I couldn't keep my ducks in a row.

Oh, do ask me about ducks later. There is a story there.

We let ourselves in to Allison's and as Bernarda grabbed the flutes, I opened my suitcase and made the big decisions. Must I change out of my Black Milk lace bell bottom tights or would they sensibly help me acclimatize?

We got distracted by the glasses of bubbly and discussions of new wave condoms before important lacey-like decisions could be made. The bottle was empty as we swanned out the door and hailed a cab heading for Linda's place in Marrickville.

Marrickville to me will always be a suburb close to the airport that is home to one of Australia's best boxers. It will also now be the suburb Linda lives in, where a week earlier down the street a man shot himself in the head when cornered by police for a recent criminal act. Associations.

Linda is an American friend who was having a housewarming. For some reason I always end up at her parties and leave said parties with trouble trailing loose behind and many incriminating photos imprinted in digital worlds.

This party was no exception. The moment when you hear yourself declare "let's make these photos look hilarious for facebook" is often the end to what could have been a fun and reserved night. I don't know if it was the mulled wine or the shots of grey goose in large plastic party cups but all I remember after that declaration is lying on Allison's couch and requesting a bucket with some water in the bottom.

Seeing Linda later for a girly cheese dinner brought out another Damana Sex And The City moment. Apparently, on arriving at Linda's she asked me to remove my shoes. Everyone else had but I kept ignoring the instructions and giving one reason that I thought would explain everything. "These are Campers heels". This seemed like a free pass to break the no shoes rule. Even lying on Linda's bed in shoes.

Fortunately, Linda is nothing but class. She expressed her discontent and we continued a lively night of wine and cheese and wine. Next time, I'll find an attractive man to help me take me shoes off. That could be the new doorman for Sydney inner-west parties.

Bantang

2011-06-25T04:24:00.003+10:00

Today was a mess. Things happened that brought thought. The world turned upside down and then righted itself so fast that it shook a little. Not so much that it knocks you over but enough that it makes you catch your breath.

It is cold here. It is cold everywhere in Australia at the moment. My cold may not be your cold but everyone is wrapped up and in bed tonight.

There was one thing that stood out tonight and it was the realisation that you can put others first but as long as you don't put yourself first, you are robbing everyone of the best you.

No more accepting only what is given. Life is more and I deserve more.

As for those who find me lacking, they can step up or step out because I'm going on without the nay sayers.

Vodeeee

2011-06-20T18:56:00.000+10:00

Asking

2011-06-18T20:06:00.003+10:00

Over time and through desperate need, I have learnt to ask for help from people. In time, I have had the ability to give that back... in part. It is humbling each time. It is humiliating sometimes. It is more often than not, quite freeing.

Now there is something that I want to ask but I have not learnt how or when to do it. It often results in huge explosions from me and I shut everything down.

More than anything right now, I want people to leave me alone. Not fix things. Not give advice. Not probe me for insights in to life or pain or the pursuit of happiness. Not for help with some technical issue.

Lightness. Humour. Happiness. Superficiality. These are all fine.

Anything beyond that and I simply can't aid with it. Hopefully this will change but right this instant, I will not be around for the whims of others.

I don't believe you

2011-06-18T12:06:00.000+10:00

Insecure Snowballs

2011-06-15T01:53:00.006+10:00

I've seen some crazy stuff in my time but nothing tops the last week. As someone who has learnt how to deal with my stress, I'm always observing those around me and how they cater for a turn in fortune.

The most recent train spotting has resulted in a new form of stress that I call the Insecure Snowball. It happens when someone who isn't very secure in themselves realises that they have been too busy prancing around buying fishing gear and haven't been doing their self-declared-over-inflated-titled job properly.

Their first reaction is to deflect. That's when the first snowflake randomly bounds sideways and knocks in to another one. To explain the initial snowflakes erratic behaviour to the second snowflake, he blames the wind. "What wind?" someone asks. The initial erratic snowflake with delusions of mediocrity screams "the wind that isn't here now because it is easiest to blame". The two scream of their disappointment, when only yesterday the wind was their trusted friend. They float off and deflect sideways suddenly again. Then other snowflakes get bumped in to by the initial snowflake and his friend and they re-tell the tale. Each time the absent wind is to blame.

Reality is inconsequential once the badly done by snowflakes have become a slide down a mountain side. They care not of the consequences of the homes they wreck; the lives they roll and destroy; or the false words they must live with when each individual snowflakes lies in bed at the end of the day and thinks of what kind of snowflake they are. No! It's about riding the wave of insecurity. Deflecting the blame. Running the path of destruction. Never letting on that they did their job wrong in the first place.

The insecure snowflake can cause quite a lot of damage in producing the insecure snowball but shine a little sunshine on them and their insignificance evapourates with the goodness of warmth, blown by an innocent wind.

Antique Bogan Road Show

2011-06-13T23:39:00.001+10:00

Women have no feelings

2011-06-13T22:57:00.000+10:00

The perfect support email from a depressed person

2011-06-12T11:27:00.002+10:00

This email arrived in my inbox on Friday morning. At the point where I wanted to do nothing more than give up, she showed understanding that no one else had shown me. I hope it helps you to either cope or at least understand how to support someone who really needs it.

Hi Mana,
...

I understand how you are feeling at the moment, it's like you have lost an anchor and are at the mercy of the whims of other people's moods, comments, and your own ability to handle those at any given time.

I am definitely not going to tell you to toughen up, in my opinion that is just a bandaid solution wrapped in a blanket of denial. Healing takes time. And time, and more time. And when you think you have done all the healing that you can possibly do, some more time on top of that.

I would say I am at the stage where little comments don't hurt me anymore, but I am still definitely at the mercy of my own fragile brain that decides whether I am "okay" or "happy" or "black".

All I can do for you as well is not offer platitudes such as "don't worry, you'll get through it" or "it will be okay".... because I know how un-okay it is, and how hard it is to deal with the day to day sometimes, let alone worrying that you will ever be "through" it.

I think the key for anyone going through tough times, including myself, is to just hold on, breathe, and dont' be afraid to totally shut down and cocoon and protect yourself when you feel fragile. Be fierce with your self-protection. Don't apologise for it, and feel safe talking to people who understand.

Anyway. I hope today is better for you, and that you are protecting yourself while you feel fragile.

Tash x

Living for the weekdays

2011-06-10T11:46:00.004+10:00

I told a friend this morning about a dream I have. A dream I choose to push up the ladder of importance. A dream that I will honour, despite the fallout from rejected normality.

When I hear people happy that it is Friday, I think of them as having lost the plot. Imagine if you so look forward to Friday because it means you will have two days when you are happy and doing whatever you want. Imagine hanging on for two days a week to release the beast inside and let you canter through what should be the better parts of your life.

I don't want to be a person who looks forward to the weekends. I want to hang out for the weekdays. I want to wake up each morning and be glad that today is today, despite it's closeness to the weekend.

Hump day should only be the days we climb the bell tower and hang off the ropes that ring the dings and dongs across Paris.

This year, I've woken up and gone to work and loved it. I've loved coming home. I've loved weekends. None of it feels forced or endured. Life shouldn't rape you. It should be like making love.

To lose that is unacceptable. I shall chase my weekdays like some of you chase your weekends.

Fashionista Kitty

2011-06-05T20:59:00.002+10:00

Apparently, this is me

2011-06-02T18:28:00.001+10:00

Received an email today saying that this is the Damana LOLcat.

The best quote about depression I have ever read

2011-06-01T12:51:00.001+10:00

“Then there is this: in some way, the quiet terror of severe depression never entirely passes once you’ve experienced it. It hovers behind the scenes, placated temporarily by medication and renewed energy, waiting to slither back in, unnoticed by others. It sits in the space behind your eyes, making its presence felt even in those moments when other, lighter matters are at the forefront of your mind. It tugs at you, keeping you from ever being fully at ease. Worst of all, it honours no season and respects no calendar; it arrives precisely when it feels like it.”

- Daphne Merkin on her forty year battle with depression | Life and style | The Observer

-- via Alice Boxhall

Blow Out

2011-06-01T09:27:00.007+10:00

There are lots of things that you don't know about me. I used to play state level netball and basketball when I was in school. It's something I've been doing since I was 9 years old. You know those kids who have great hand-eye co-ordination and extremely good fitness? Yeah, that was me. My sister and I played team sports like netball, basketball, hockey and volleyball. We did individual sports too. We were sprinters and that logically lead to long, triple and high jump.

There weren't any sports that were too difficult.

Netball is the sport that all Australian girls play. Meeting a woman in my age group who doesn't know how to play netball is rare, in this country.

The thing with netball is that it is high impact. The pounding your body takes over a long period of time is quite harsh. Especially if you have an injury. In fact, it is the most violent non-contact sport I've ever played, so injuries are common. One day, I landed very badly on my right leg and blew out my knee. Instead of resting it, I kept playing... for months.

The knee injury got so bad that I got used to limping everywhere and standing with most of my weight on my left leg. Finally, netball gave may to recovery time. Over the years, I get overly optimistic and return to netball. Usually last most of the first season and then the knee gets so aggrevated that I can't walk.

This time, it took two games. Playing volleyball, basketball, walking and running hasn't caused it to flare up but netball did it straight away.

It is time that I admit to myself that netball is a game I once played and not one that my right knee can tolerate anymore. Regardless of fitness, technique or recovery tricks like ice and anti-inflamatories, netball is too high-impact for my poor abused knee.

That sux. Unfortunately what sux more is not being able to walk up and down stairs without agonising pain; not being able to wear anything but flat shoes; and being unable to sleep due to that deep ache that comes from a serious inner knee injury.

Goodbye netball. Hello to more indoor beach volleyball and low impact sports.

Am I officially old now?

Alanis for you

2011-05-30T15:48:00.002+10:00

Pussyfoot

2011-05-30T13:16:00.002+10:00

Some days, I lack the patience to be diplomatic due to tiredness or stresses. Other times, it is due to the person I am speaking with.

Some people say things that show so little understanding of a topic or situation that it would take a huge amount of effort and time to spell out why and justify every reason at every corner.

That is when I get short-tempered and smack them on the nose and say "bad monkey".

I don't have them killed and this should count for something.

No regrets

2011-05-30T11:16:00.001+10:00

Good Friends

2011-05-25T09:39:00.000+10:00

Worst

2011-05-24T22:41:00.001+10:00

I used to think the worst thing in the world would be to disappear and no one noticed.

Now I know it is to be standing in the middle of the room and nobody notices you are there.

They will look for me

2011-05-24T22:29:00.003+10:00

I have often wondered how I person gets up and walks out of the lives of everyone they know and love.

How do you just leave and never contact them again? How do you leave them wandering where you are and how you are? How do you cut all ties?

Now, I find it hard to see this as just black and white.

Recently, I have wanted to get up one morning and say bye as usual and then leave. Leave, never to be seen again. Go somewhere far far far far away. Somewhere that nobody knows me. No one takes a second look. Start all over again. Be nothing to anyone. Disappear. No longer be me.

Some days, I just wish it was quiet.

My Kindle's Insides

2011-05-24T12:17:00.002+10:00

This is what the inside of my Kindle looks like. I would like to live in there.

The Best Nail Polish Remover

2011-05-22T22:16:00.003+10:00

People keep asking me what nail polish remover I use, so as not to destroy my nails.

It's not about the remover. I use Cutex, which is cheap. You can get it anywhere.

Then I use a good nail moisturiser. Foot and hand creams are fabulous and intense.

You don't have to spend a fortune to look after your nails and keep them divine.

Tale As Old As Time

2011-05-21T23:07:00.001+10:00

Awww... I love this song.

Not sure who I most identify with.

Sense and Sensibility

2011-05-21T22:47:00.001+10:00

"The more I know of the world, the more I am convinced that I shall never see a man whom I can really love. I require so much!" — Jane Austen

you bleed just to know you're alive

2011-05-21T22:17:00.002+10:00

And I'd give up forever to touch you
Cause I know that you feel me somehow
You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be
And I don't want to go home right now

And all I can taste is this moment
And all I can breathe is your life
Cause sooner or later it's over
I just don't want to miss you tonight

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know you're alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am

I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am
I just want you to know who I am

An Angel

2011-05-20T09:49:00.006+10:00

My mother is that best human being I know and ever will know. There are good people on this Earth but I see her first hand and I try to learn from her.

Like the Queen of England, my mum has two birthdays. Growing up, we always thought her birthday was on the 21st of July. That is the date of the first moon walk. She was 21 when she listened to that event on the radio, in Papua New Guinea. She was at teacher's college and her classmates went over to hang with the science students and hear about Armstrong stepping out. She was 21 years old.

Today is my my mother's official birthday. That is the day that she was actually born. She knows it even though she was born in her parent's home, in a village named Tufi in PNG. Her mother wrote the date on the back of a door. This is where she kept the dates of all her children. Mum copied these dates down and carried them with her, long after that door and that house were gone. Long after her wonderful mother Damana had passed away, we now celebrate today for mum.

The moon walk birthday is a date that was given to her by the Kiaps. Kiaps were Australian government officials who journeyed in to the villages and remote areas of Papua New Guinea and in this case issued birth certicifates and guessed children's ages. With those guesses went allocated birthdays.

My mother was told she was a certain age and born in July of 1948.

Don't even get me started on the kiaps and their ways, in PNG. If you ever need to suffer some condescension then find an ex-kiap and listen to them talk of civalising the little black people. What a load of cr@p.

Anyway, my mother is officially 63 years old today. She was born in a village in Papua New Guinea. She was orphaned at a very young age. As the second of seven sisters, she brought up the younger ones. She used to babysit to earn money to pay their school fees. Her whole life has been about looking after other people.

I would like to wish her a very happy official birthday. May the year to come be about you and enjoying the life you have made. There are so many people who love and cherish you. We appreciate all that you are and all that you have done.

Happy Birthday to my beautiful, brilliant and kind mother.

Parts of a shoe

2011-05-19T10:13:00.000+10:00

The always faboo Shoes of Prey tell us the parts of a shoe.

Bored now

2011-05-18T13:21:00.000+10:00

Let me know when we're talking about me again.