Heroes

The news of Michae Jackson's death touched everyone, even those of us who didn't respond to his music. And for those that did, this loss is huge. Unbelievable and huge. And it got me thinking about our heroes, about how I'm glad Fitzgerald didn't die in my lifetime, about how glad I am that Tim Winton is alive. How our lives are touched by people we've never met, and probaby never will (although the thrill of seeing Winton at the theatre will stay with me always).
Our funny human existence, sustained and coloured by strangers, and the gifts of their talents.

The rabbit dinner was good to begin with but then B had a moment like he did at the wedding last year; got up half way through and went to the room, leaving Jeff wondering what the fuck was going on. His petulant childishness pissed me off and residue of that has stayed around today, but I've had a decent day really. I tried to bake baguettes, with a minimum of success- something with the yeast didn't really do what it was supposed to, so instead of bread, I got weapons. But we valiantly ate some with cheese and chilli jam and onion and half a glass of beer, and tomorrow I may attempt it all again.

I also spent a couple of hours with Raine, from work, in her sweet little apartment in Daglish and felt joy at looking at Lempicka paintings together.
so all in all not a bad saturday...I also finished reading Bush Oranges by Kay Donovan, and wept at the portrayal of mother-daughter love.

Perth is raging tonight- wind and rain and dark craziness, it's beautiful

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music and cliche

I know it's a terrible thing to quote a Bon Jovi song - but I will anyway. At the water cooler this morning, it flitted through my mind that this verse sums up how I was feeling yesterday (also feeling like I was under a boulder under a frog's arse down a coalmine)...but here goes:

I've got big plans, so big that any blind man could see

now I'm standing in the river, I'm drowing in the sea...

never mind what he was really singing about, but that was the general beautiful hopelessness I was wallowing in last night. Crying in Woolworths is embarrassing. Believe me.

The deli counter lady didn't know where to look as she handed over the Feta.

I think last night the pressure just got too much. Balint wasn't home, so there was no facade to be upheld that I'm okay and everything else is okay too. I had plans (so big) to go to the gym and then the grocery shopping, and when I got in the car adn realised I didn't have my membership card with me and that it wasn't anywhere to be found, this lardy despair settled on me, and it just got deeper and fatter. Why, oh why do I eat when I'm sad? Why can't I be like Bud and just not eat when stressed?

I had a chat with MM and with Jutka, and as always, talking about it helped. I'm not tired from working too much and exercising too little, although that and how I've been eating, do contribute. But I'm tired from the constant pressure of doing all this on my own, and the constant pressure of how will we have enough to cover everything? And we don't. We don't have anywhere near enough to cover everything, which is why credit cards are bulging they're so full of debt.

But this morning again, brought new hope and new things to be excited about. I drove to Northbridge to Torres- one of the sweetest butcher shops I've ever been to- rival to the Highgate butcher shop!! And I bought rabbit for tonight, Jeff is coming to dinner. Then when I got home from Torres it was still only 7am, so I baked a tray of biscuits to work. The morning streamed in through the kitchen window and again, I gained a little perspective, and i smiled.

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Madness

I know in my sometimes seldom clear head, that the world is beautiful, and I live in the most beautiful part of said beautiful world. And I am happy and there's a lot I am grateful for.
So where do these headaches come from? These rushes of tears and this repeated irritating frightening desire to disappear?
I would grab my own lapels and shake me (I have lapels today)...and ask what the bloody hell is wrong with you...but then my voice breaks in my mind and I discard that idea.
So I make plans in my head instead, hopeful plans for health and fitness and learning, and I try and convince myself that when I get home from work, I'll have at least another 4 hours to 'do stuff' and instead, I wipe the kitchen bench and sprawl before the very bad quality picture on our tv and slump. When there's so much more to be done. Quietly going crazy, and admiring everyone else's grass, over there, on the other side of the fence.
Maybe I still don't have the certainty I have craved for bloody ages. Uncertainty about the job, uncertainty abotu the relationship, no future goals in common. I feel like i've got one foot in one canoe and the other in another (ooh good sentence there BAnana) and it's all I can do to stay upright. (And still the nagging urge - can an urge be nagging?- to go home, get in the car and just keep driving. At least I've moved on to more responsible temptations :)

beautiful days

These days past have been ones of splendour and rejoicing.
Finally a weekend where I didn't have so much work.

On Friday I had lunch with dear old Jeff - who hasn't changed a jot. Not aged, nor changed his outlook, and spending time was refreshing and a comfort.
Saturday morning belonged to me. I drove to karrinyup and bought house-y things. Chopsticks, red and black, and a bright yellow mug for our toothbrushes, as well as a nail buffer and polisher and baking trays and pans of different sizes.

Then I went to Lynwood, where Betty cut my hair (oh yes!!!) and there followed a small party, at which B got drunk, and we came home blissfully early, which meant I could get up just shy of 6am on Sunday and go to Karrinyup again because last time i had forgotten the strawberries. I need strawberries you see because Andreas was arriving and it was his birthday, and I had to make a cake with strawberries.

There was much cooking on Sunday, and cleaning, and taking down garbage, and it was just wonderful seeing Andreas walking down the escalators at Perth airport. It's like having a little piece of Mari here in Perth, and it's a wonderful feeling. It is so good (and important) to be surrounded by people who are positive, calm and make me feel harmonious with the world. Andreas gives me that Jutka feeling.

We all got an early night and I was in the office at 7am today, working like crazy because tomorrow we're going to Margaret River and i took some time off today as well.
We went to Freo, and the weather was a gift, and we strolled under flame trees pregnant with flower. The whole city was buzzing with an early winter zizz and i just couldn't keep the smile off my face.

I've topped the evening off reading some poems from Jeanette Winterson's web site and now we're about to go to dinner at the Irish pub next door...name escapes me...

A rush of thoughts

It is Sunday evening. I am rugged up in a 20 year old blanket in front of the heater, moccasins kicked off, feet toasty, reading Jeff McMullen's memoirs.
And I have been thinking a lot lately, about 60 Minutes - what it was like when I watched it avidly in the early 90's and even wrote up reports about the interesting stories (60 Minutes back then usually came after an hour's worth of drool-time over Alby Mangels and his worldly adventures...oh his nephew Rick..but I digress)...
So, 60 Minutes. I watched it last weekend, because there was a story about our troops in Afghanistant and also the hardships and fears faced by their families back home. The other story was about Brad Pitt in Cannes... and it made me wonder why and how things had changed.
Why is this program, once the epitome of hard journalism, not fluff, now baiting us with hollywood and celebrity? Liz Hayes has her face sewn up, it's all just too pretty and clean, there's no danger anymore.
Reading Jeff's book, I had the thought about war and international 'situations'....yet these still exist today. It's not like interesting news, or important truths finished with the end of the Cold War. Why doesn't 60 Minutes cover what happened to Anna Politkovskaya?
Have we become so de-sensitised to everything, that when we watch commercial TV we just want fluff?
If it's not sensational, is it north worth caring about? I'm not saying Watergate wasn't sensational, or the nuclear effects in Semipalatinsk and other areas of Kazakhstan and the world ... but there has been some kind of shift since I was young - way back in the early 90's.
And maybe it's because I've lost some wonder, though I hardly think so, considering my own wide eyed pleasure at the smallest things (watching the footy on telly while doing ironing in my own lounge room). I don't know. And if this blog had more readers I'd love some feedback on what has changed (if anything, perhaps it is me after all) and why.
I don't think I've expressed myself well at all, but these thoughts just came in a sudden rush, huddled here reading this book.

today's been a joyous day. Some work, some washing, a win by the Cats against the Eagles, and a wonderful chat with grandma, about all the things I can do with cauliflower!

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Homelife

Today is a wonderful day.

I woke up at 8.14!!! Man, the sun was slatting through the blinds and the whole room lit up butter yellow- I feel so rested. This lemon detox malarkey is working a treat.
I went to Spotlight in Innaloo this morning - surely the largest Spotlight in the world. It was fabulous- and I wonder if it's a rule or just my general luck, but every time I've been to Spotlight, and not just this one, any one, they were always playing Glen Madeiros' Nothing's gonna change my love for you. Fabulous.

After Spotlight (I bought needle and thread, three big orange buttons I want to sew on a black t-shirt, and some candles to go on my new dining table) I went to Good Sammys and bought a couple of things for work- all for the vastly good price of five bucks!

Then I tried in vain to find a car wash where they do it for you, so that my little car is shiny and clean in time for its service on Monday and when i failed, I dropped in to Coles, bought a bright shower curtain and some peppermint tea, and now I'm sitting down to work again.

I feel glorious. The sky outside is smiling!

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Neera

Today I started the lemon detox... no solids for seven days, provided i last that long. I have a palmsyrup-lemon-cayenne pepper mix to give me my nutrients, so here's hoping. I long to get back to that healthy place i was when we lived in Lynwood (I know, can you believe it?).
I slept for an amazing 9.5 hours last night, and it has done wonders for everything- for how I feel about the world and myself and the future.
There's work aplenty, but I don't mind- by Monday most of it will be over and hopefully by the end of June we can start living a vaguely normal life.

Johnny and Mary

Barreling down the West Coast highway, flicking through radio stations... and that familiar London-memory-Brixton-Academy-warm-dark-infused voice. Brian bloody Molko.
Johnny's always running around trying to find, certainty...

At that moment, I wanted to somehow be in the bathroom again with Nickiy, preparing for the concert, eating hummous and smoking afterwards...

And I wonder if all this is worth it. You see the reason I was barelling down the West Coast highway was to pick B up from work at the Wearne. And he was exhausted, and hated it and I do wonder if all this is worth it for him. Because I'm still stupidly, ridiculously happy here. Tired, and sometimes scared about the money, but happy. Deep in my core and bubbling through my bone marrow happy.

Work is insane at the moment. But then there are always a few moments every day. Like this morning, when I stepped out of the house under fresh-rained skies and blessed Target for their affordable patent plastic shoes that make me feel girly again.
Like this morning walking across the railway bridge over the Mitchell Freeway and over Perth, the sky was like a painting. An alive painting. Nature is glorious.

Now, I've got just a glass of Skuttlebutt and then Jeff McMullen in bed, because tomorrow's a 5am start again...

Mary says he's lacking a real sense of proportion...