Melancholy moment

Loneliness and unease has been creeping in under the extra winter covers and through the fogged up windows. Perhaps the unease comes from the fact that it is cold and snowing when it should be hot and sunny, and that I feel things are coming to an end. I wonder what it will be like when I get home. Will I have left a space, like an imprint, that I will just fit right back in to? Or will I have to forge a new space?

The loneliness is a strange one. We have met plenty of really friendly people here, and made friends, but those friendships are written into temporary contracts. Meanwhile I feel so removed from my friends back home.

But it is not all melancholy. There are beginnings. I am meeting up with an old friend over Christmas, and we are heading to South America for 7 months next year. I am just always so unprepared for melancholy moments in my usually joyful rush.

This blog has become such a navel gaze.

The air violin and ticking clocks

I have been playing the air violin for myself a lot lately. (shhh... can you hear it?)

Despite all my talk about how age does not matter, how it is just abstract and separate from our identity, I am freaking out about turning 30. (Hear violin)

It's not that I am unhappy with where I am. I have never been happier. Its just more that there is a clock ticking louder with each year, and this year it is more of a throb in my head than a tick. Yep, the biological clock. This hormone powered mechanism that is set to ring alarm bells at the turning of 30. There is only so long I can keep turning up the party tunes to block out the ticking.

Oh, the photo is of me at work with a hot water bottle strapped to myself, after having injured my shoulder at the gym. Something that seems to be happening a lot more lately, as I near 30. (Hear the violin strike another chord.)

Flying

Wow. Has it really been that long since I wrote in here? I don't believe it. I think I could be a terrible mother if I was ever going to be one. I might just put the kid down somewhere and forget to pick him up, only to get carried away with life until someone asks me about little Frankie.

Time is flying again and leaving me with a bit of motion sickness. Homesickness is a little like motion sickness, come to think of it. It is something inside you that wants to be back home while the rest is wanting to be in motion. The pull between the two is what makes you sick. Like when you are driving, your brain can not quite keep up with your eyes and the difference between the two makes you ill.

We bought our tickets to South America last week. Soon we will be flying again. I wonder if that is how you can stop time from flying on you - you fly away from it instead.

What kind of wings would time have?

Swell

These days daze me. My smile, more natural, spreads right through my body. My step is lighter. I think I have become that balloon. My skin has not really changed colour or texture and I am not floating about in a highway. But maybe I am. Maybe the cars are all the other people being stressed and busy all around me scooting by hooting and tooting at anything in their way, playing packman with the dotted line they blindly follow without ever questioning why or where it is leading them.

I am happy to go my way, not the highway. Life is swell, and I am swollen with it.

unburstable bubble

I saw a balloon on a highway yesterday. This little piece of ridiculously bright flimsy latex wrapped around nothing was skipping and dancing around massive chunks of chrome and metal hurtling at it from both directions. Nothing would pop or break its fragile shell as it was too light and would simply float upwards out of harms way. The incredible lightness of being.

I want to be this balloon.

stagnation

Busy busy busy. My poor neglected blog just sits here stagnating, while I wish I could stagnate. Well, maybe not, but I bit of time to just chill and be still would not be too bad. But maybe I am never content. A little while back I was feeling that life over here was too empty, Now it is too full. The grass is always greener, huh?

I will return here soon with more words and thoughts, but I just wanted to dip in and stop the stagnation.

sleeplesness

Sleeplessness

Tossing and turning. Trying to sleep, but the head is stuck on replaying the day in an endless loop and running it by the internal commentators who analyse, reflect, dissect and hypothesise all the drab dreary details, as though my life depends upon it.

“I wonder if when I said this, she thought I was actually meaning that. I wonder if he took this part the wrong way, or if she was offended by the way I phrased that, and did I remember to turn off my laptop and what will I cook for dinner tomorrow and what do I still need to do for the festival and oh shit I forgot to call this person or do that and I think I need to chase up my tax returns from back home and I wonder when the tax year is here, is it the same and did I actually send that important group email, or is it sitting as a draft still in my inbox and did I lock the car, can you zip two mummy sleeping bags together if the zip is on the same side and I really wish I hadn’t said that to so and so….”

Then there will be a loop within the loop and I will replay me slipping up and putting my foot in my mouth over and over again, until I jump to another track. But none of the tracks lead to sleep.

On these nights it is like too many editors are playing with my brain and there is no director or script. The result is a zombie-like me the next day, unable to function properly. Sleep is meant to replenish brain cells, not tear them apart.

drizzly fizzled morning

I woke up this morning with a momentary panic that I had slept through till mid-day. I remember stirring when Jono left for work at about 7:30/8am. That felt like an eternity ago. I jumped out of bed and looked at the clock. 9:00 am. Excellent. I felt well-rested and still had 3 whole hours to fill before work.

I quickly filled them in my head - I'd go for a run, come back and do a hang board session and some yoga, (then clean the house, send that way-belated fathers day present, call my friend who has had a baby and write those letters I have been wanting to write...) As I was making my breakfast, I made the mistake of looking out the window. Rain. I made the even greater mistake of opening the door. Brrrrr. I started formulating plans to go to the gym and have a spa instead (and then do all those other things!) The gym is literally next door to us, so pretty easy.

Cup of coffee and two bits of toast in hand, I make the third mistake of the morning: turning on the laptop. The toast was going down a treat - left over salmon from Jono's handy-work the night before of fresh whole wild baked salmon stuffed with mango salsa and avocado. But anyhoo, toast aside, I check a few emails, read a few blogs, sent a few emails, played around on facebook. Next thing, it was 10:300am. Too late to go to the gym and get back in time to get ready for work. The gym is only worth it, I think, if you are there for 2 hours minimum. How did that happen?!

Now, I am off to work till 9:15pm.

I am finding myself desiring that old 9-5 existence that I used to have. It seemed a lot easier to have a normal life that way. But regardless of work schedules, I think I am just never going to have enough time for all that I want to do. Some people always want more money. I think it will always be time that I am after.

Best be getting ready now to go and inspire others (those with the money) to have a life.

knot tying

I am getting married. It seems so weird and strange, written and spoken. I am trying to say it over and over again, not just because I am excited about it, but so that maybe it will start to sound less weird. It just seems so grown up. But beautiful and perfect. It was not a particularly momentus or romantic proposal, and it happened right in the middle of my 7 day work week from hell (which I shall no doubt discuss as well!) We were just lying on the floor mucking around and then the mood just shifted and I asked Jono what he was thinking. That was it. So, we might have to stage a more romantic evening sometime when we both have a couple of days and evening off together. This is extremely rare these days. But, romance (or lack of) aside, I could not make my feet touch the ground while trying to walk to work the next day, and I just had this ridiculous smile on my face that I could not wipe off, even when dealing with annoying customers. Actually, I think I had only nice customers that day! I don't know if that was directly related to my head space and perception or not.

But, the whole marriage and knot tying thing is interesting. I have never been that sort of person that always wanted to get married, or that saw marriage as an essential step in life. There have been occasions where I have been a little turned off by the institution of marriage or the way it gets made in to something that is incredibly stressful and expensive but cheap and cliche at the same time. But, the fact is, I am absolutely in love and I could not imagine spending my life with anyone else, so why not make a statement and celebrate that?

But it still sounds weird. I am about to turn 30, and that seems weird enough, but I am also now getting MARRIED. Wow. I do struggle with the head trip of it all. I know that it won't change me, but I do think these things change the way other people see you.

I wonder what kind of knot we will tie. Definitely not a stopper knot, as we are only just starting. We have already hitched up, so we won't need a hitcher. Some kind of bend would be appropriate, as it is a turning point in our lives. Maybe the true lovers knot. Wikipedia tells me legend has it that the Dutch sailors tied this knot to remind them of their loved ones during their ocean voyages in the 16th century. The two intertwining overhand knots symbolize two intertwined lovers. The knot is sometimes used by goldsmiths to make a romantic piece of jewelry.

Like true love, the simplicity is deceptive, as this knot is difficult to tie correctly.

last post explained

So that last post did not really make much sense.

I am going to attempt to elaborate on it, but I suspect it was a still-born epiphany. That is, an epiphany that was wanting to happen but I just did not give it the time, the break that it needed to burst out. Again, I digress. But maybe that is ok. I guess that is what I set this blog up for - digressions. So often, we have to communicate within limitations and for very specific purposes. New ideas are not discovered and communicated by simply sticking to a formula and staying with what has been proven and tried and tested. We need to be able to explore beyond the margins and between the lines sometimes.

So yeah, regarding reflections and projections of perfection and perception - WHAT THE HELL WAS I ON ABOUT?! tehehe. I really don't know, the moment has passed. But hows about I create a new one.

I think that generally, as a culture, we put more effort into projecting then we do into reflecting. I think in a perfect world, we are all mirror images of each other (like they say), because if that is so, we would all be reflecting and projecting in equal amounts. If a mirror only projected but did not reflect, we would be left staring into a meaningless empty but endless void. If none of us ever reflected, we would empty, and have nothing to project.

Yeah! That makes sense. To me, atleast. Ok, I am laying this one to rest now!

be strong, be silly

I saw these mirrors in a shopfront in Courteny and couldn't help snapping them up for myself and my neglected of late blog.

It got me thinking about reflections and projections of perception and perfection, (and how they all rhyme!) And how I am out of time, but I want to keep this blog thing rolling, so thought I'd throw in a few quick sentences. I am working like crazy atm, and mid way through a 7-day stint of work. So I will be back to complete this entry soon!

Inner nanna

I just had an inner nanna moment. I baked chocolate chip cookies and took some over to our next door neighbours. It felt good and wholesome and very 1950's. I shoulda put on an apron and some hair curlers for the occasion. Now my belly is full, my sore tooth has become a sated sweet tooth, my kitchen smells yummy and my neighbours are chuffed. The sun is out and I am heading to a black diamond PK, where I hope to acquire a lot of very cheap climbing toys and such. Life is good.

Long in the tooth

My tooth is sore - perhaps I am getting a little long in the tooth. Or perhaps I am chewing too much fat or maybe I bit in to a bad apple while distracted by the apple of my eye - or was it the pie in the sky? They say pigs may fly. I wonder if they do so with flying colours? And, do they go as the crow flies? I guess the sky, after all, is the limit, at the end of the day.

Ideas often start as dreams, but cliches often start as poetry.

I digress. I do have a sore tooth. For want of somewhere to start, I thought I'd start with what was most on my mind. Having a sore tooth while on the other side of the world is a little scary, especially when only earning $11 an hour!

I think it is my past coming back to bite me, quite literally. (There we go - another cliche!) If thirteen years ago, I hadn't been jumping on a tramp-a-line after drinking too much cheap wine, with about five other people, I would not have fallen and knocked out my tooth, so therefore I would not have a dodge capped tooth jammed into a nerve right now. But, if I hadn't been jumping on a tramp-a-line I would have been doing something else. They say everything goes in cycles. I feel I am starting the cycle of re-visiting my youth, or is my youth re-visiting me?

corporate love

I got this message on my (rip off) mobile, oops - I mean "cell" - phone:

"Hey! Remember we are gonna take $20.on May 17. Be sure to add cash! Questions? Dial 611. Lots of love, from 611."

Isn't that sweet?

Not just love, but lots of love.

Cell phones here charge for incoming and outgoing calls. They are such a rip off, but at least they give you lots of love.

I asked this man on the bench what he thought of companies selling their love with their services. He was unmoved.

beautiful sandwiches

Lets make sweet, sweet…

sandwiches together.
You and I
two grains of rye
callously cultivated then
plucked from the field
of homogenised mass production.
Pressed, pounded, moulded, and baked
in life’s fan forced oven
only to find ourselves
facing each other blankly
wondering what is in between.

***

Bad poetry aside, this sign made me smile. Some people really are dreamers ;-)

artichoke no joke

You know how certain foods can play a big part in your life at particular points and then for no particular reason you just stop buying, eating and cooking them? Sometimes you stop because you overdose on them and need a break – a rehab. This was the case for me with tofu, soy milk, felafel's and hummus after my vegan era. Good news is that after going cold (mock) turkey for some time, I have since made space in my kitchen for all of these items again, except soy milk. That stuff is gross. Don’t know how I ever convinced myself otherwise.

This is all a big preamble to introduce the latest food item to make a re-appearance in my life: artichoke hearts.

I think I went off them after working in a café where I would eat foccacia’s every day for lunch. This meant that I over-dosed not only on artichoke hearts but also on sundried tomatoes and all grilled marinated veggies. But, artichoke hearts have made it back, and even better, they have given a favourite staple of mine – chickpeas – a new exciting twist! I am going to share the recipe that I created with you. (If I can remember). It is remarkably simple but mighty yummy. You know what? I wanna create a separate recipe page. Yeah… that’d be cool. Mmm… but while I figure out how to do that, I’m just gunna put it in right here and now before I forget it.

It went something like this:

Foodstuffs:
Chick peas (I like to use dried ones and soak then cook them, cause it is cheaper and yummier, mainly). About, ummm, I dunno, 4 cups or so.
A few carrots chopped into large-ish chunkish type things
Garlic – ‘bout 3 cloves
One Onion (but me thinks a leek would be a yummy substitute)
Fresh sage – about 1 tablespoon or so (dried is ok as a substitute, but fresh is best, to use the supermarket motto)
½ a lemon
Yummy stock (I used an onion stock cube – but mushroom would also be good, or vegie or chicken… homemade… whatever)
A bit of water – I dunno how much… not too much to make it a soup but enough to give a little liquid
2 – 3 tomatoes, chopped roughly
As many yummy tinned artichoke hearts as you desire. I used a can
Pepper
Chili flakes and chili powder (not too much mind!)
Little little bit of paprika
Salt to taste

Basically put it all in a pot, (assuming chickpeas are cooked already – oh, and I used the cooking liquid from my chickpeas as the water… just adds a bit more flavour), bring to boil, turn right down to low and stew for atleast 30 mins or more – till carrots are lushisly soft and the flavours have all melded and done their thing.

EAT!!! With Quinoa (that’s what I used) or cous cous, or spaghetti, or millet… or rice. With some garlic bread and a leafy salad. Yuuuuuuuuuuuumm. Sounds boring, I know, but it is actually damn fine.

OH, PS- Forgot to mention - a good hearty tip of sherry or white wine in the pot

This Blogging thing

I love text chatting and reading and blogging... but, I think I need to draw some lines somewhere.

AS anyone reading will realise, I am new to this whole blogging game. I now have two blogs which I am updating semi regularly – through definitely not daily. I think I have become addicted to them, and I can see that the more time I spend on them, the more I will find to spend my time. I will start meeting friends that have blogs, and so I will start reading all of their blogs and writing comments and finding new cool little tricks and gadgets and bits of code to incorporate… but then, I have this commitment-phobe inside of me that is increasingly concerned about this new found interest of mine. It is whispering stuff in my ears like “But you won’t be able to keep it up!”, “You won’t always be able to think of interesting, insightful or witty things to say” – (actually this is more my writers block demon than my commitment phobic one speaking here)… oh, and mostly, “HOW WILL YOU FIND THE TIME??!! Your life was bursting at the seems before with all the things you wanted to do, how will you be able to fit all these cyber-based activities in as well?”

I guess I can ignore the other whispers, but the last one is a bit of a concern.

I am already finding it hard enough to live with all the me’s I have. I am perpetually split between the athletic, adventurous out-door me and the arty, creative, pondering indoor me. And each of those me’s are split aswell. The outdoor me wants to be a shit hot climber, paddler, mountain bike rider and surfer. The arty indoor me wants to learn Spanish, write poetry, learn guitar, learn how to knit, paint, draw, take photos, read… oh, and that is just a start of both me’s. The extrovert and the introvert.

But, I guess the arty, creative, thinking introvert is the part of me that often gets neglected, so maybe this new-found blogging addiction will feed that part better. Mmm… yeah, that justification works. But that is the other problem, I can justify anything, even when it is the wasting of time. And blogging is definitely a great justification for procrastination. Two things that I am very good at: procrastination and justification. They feed each other really, in a self-perpetuating cycle.

If it were just the blogs, that would be okay, but then there are all the other things. The social networking sites for instance, the live chats that just conspire to eat in to your life too much. I have been asked by a recruiter (that I have met and who has lined me up with a good interview) to join some professional networking site, which I did, I guess because I am unemployed and vulnerable. My boyfriend has just joined Myspace, in order to get in touch with an old friend, and someone else has just asked me to join Facebook, which I have dutifully done this morning, because I am socially isolated and lonely. But then, so what now? I join these sites, and I log in each day to view and read and send comments? As well as logging into my blogs and every other blog I want to read, check me emails, read the news, look for and apply for jobs and then manage to get some fresh air, exercise and a find a social life in there somewhere… Oh, and I haven’t even put in a proper profile to my blog yet let alone to the other social networking sites…

Like right now, it is nearly lunch time, and I have not even started doing anything with my day. Arrrrrrrrrrggghhh.

Will my computer crash (with all the junk I am downloading on to it) or will I crash first? Mmm, somethings gotta give, methinks. Am I just having teething problems?

Do any of my vast readers out there (lol) have any words of wisdom to offer?

paraskavedekatriaphobia

Well, I have successfully avoided applying for any jobs all morning and now it is lunch time already. I really am refining the art of procrastination.

I was about to open up my incomplete application for a nice lil’ multimedia editor job, when the perfect excuse hit me: Friday the 13th. Actually, I hadn’t even consciously absorbed the fact until I read Kass’s blog. Where would I be without your blog in my life, Kass?

I am not at all superstitious, unless it suits me to be. And it suits me just fine today.
I can’t apply for a job today. It might all go hideously wrong. I haven’t quite got the imagination to conjure all the possibilities… but they could include the accidental sending of pornography or viruses and being blacklisted by all potential employers in Vancouver…maybe some ghost code writer (lol) might insert lines of evil code in my emailed cover letter that will make - - I dunno, bad shit happen.

It then occurred to me though that I had absolutely no idea what Friday 13th was actually about or where it originated. Neither it seems, do many people. I went to the good ol’ Wikipedia and found out that it is considered to be a day of bad luck in English, German, Polish and Portuguese-speaking cultures around the globe, but that there are only really stories and theories about why. There is not really any authoritative documentation of it, that I or wikipedia know of.

13 is considered an unlucky number, and Friday is considered an unlucky day, apparently (but what is unlucky about Fridays? I love Fridays! I think Mondays are much more unlucky.) But other than that, there is very little that links them together.

Some stories (taken from Wikipedia) include:
* The Last Supper, with stories that Judas was the thirteenth guest, and that the Crucifixion of Jesus occurred on Friday.
*That the biblical Eve offered the fruit to Adam on a Friday, and that the slaying of Abel happened on a Friday (though the Bible does not identify the days of the week when these events occurred).
*Many modern stories (including The Da Vinci Code) claim that when King Philip IV had many Knights Templar simultaneously arrested on Friday, October 13, 1307, that started the legend of the unlucky Friday the 13th.

None of these nor any other historical date has been verifiably identified as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition though. The first documented mention of a "Friday the 13th" is generally listed as occurring in the early 1900s.

So anyways, I think it is amazing that as a culture we are terrified of this particular day, and none of us know why! How dumb are we???

Interesting facts (also from Wikipedia):
· "It's been estimated that [U.S] $800 or $900 million is lost in business on this day because people will not fly or do business they would normally do."
· Some people are so paralysed by fear that they are simply unable to get out of bed when Friday the 13th rolls around. The Stress Management Center and Phobia Institute estimates that more than 17 million people are affected by a fear of this day.
· A British Medical Journal study has shown that there is a significant increase in traffic related accidents on Friday the 13ths.

homesickness and the art of growing branches

Homesickness

(as taken from my tavelblog)

Symptoms: feeling isolated, dis-connected, alien, unknown, invisible and lonely. Perhaps slight anxiety and just a sense of a general anti-climax. It can make you become strangely and uncharacteristically patriotic and start to think warmly of things that you would formerly have ridiculed, or at least not even given a thought to.

Causes: perpetual itchy feet that lead one to foreign destinations likely to trigger the illness. If the affected person happens to like hot climates, he or she is more likely to suffer the illness if he or she travels to a cold destination, and visa versa.

Treatment: mmm… any suggestions, other than going home?

More seriously though, it is an odd thing, homesickness.

I have succumbed to indulging the sickness today. This is probably helped by the fact that Jono has accidentally taken both our house keys with him to work, so I can not even leave the house.

This homesick illness has been present for quite some time, but I am constantly pushing it to the background. I am here now, and I want to enjoy it and experience it in its full. I don’t want to whinge about a situation that I have chosen to place myself in. I am sure it will pass, or at least get less severe. But, GOD DAMN IT, I AM HOMESICK. Maybe admitting it, and wallowing in it a little bit, will make it recede to the far back regions of my brain. But this is really starting to get serious. I mean, I am looking at dusty water-starved paddocks full of hungry sheep with misty fondness! Wow. What has become of me?

And why have I travelled for long periods of time before and not felt homesick?

I guess the last time I travelled for an extended period (umm… about 9 –11 months, I think) I was moving around all the time. I didn’t really stay in any one place for much more than a few weeks at the most. This time, I am staying in the one flat (quite literally today), in the one city so there is not that same constant stimulation. And I guess it is intensified by the whole looking for work scene, which is never much fun. But it does make me wonder what it was that drove me to come here in the first place.

I guess I was about to turn 30, and I had always had the idea of getting one of those work visa’s available to people under 30 and living and working in a different country for a while. It was one of those manyana concepts. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Lots of tomorrows made lots of years, and suddenly it was deadline time. I always have been a last minute person! Problem is, by deadline time, I guess I was getting pretty comfortable with myself and where I was. There were invisible strange things like roots that I did not realise I had till I came over here and severed them. Now they want to re-attach, but it is too cold and wet here for them. But the point is, they are still there, wanting to get established. Damn it. I don’t want them there right now. I want freedom. Carelessness. Independence.

But, to balance all of this, I am very very scared of monotony and I rebel against comfort zones. So, I guess that is what this trip is about. It is punctuating my life and stopping it from becoming a meaningless ramble. It is taking me out of my comfort zone so that I can grow in new ways, not grow roots so much as branches.

Mmm... even so, today is my indulging in my homesickness day, so I am uploading pictures of things and people back home - things like SUN (oh my god how I miss it), Sandy beaches, beer, sheep... arhhhhhhhhhh.

zzz

I can not believe how exhausting being lazy is, and how quickly a day can go when you are not doing anything! It is surreal. I feel like I have just woken up, had breakfast then all of a sudden it was lunch time and now it is getting dark. A highlight of the day was the box of chocolates, now empty. But I feel absolutely wiped out. Granted - I am sick, but still.

It made me think that one of the reasons I love climbing is that I feel satisfied at the end of my day. It may not matter to any one else and it is not going to change the world, but I dunno, I just feel awesome after I have been outside climbing up rock all day. It is like a meditation - just looking at edges and features and cracks and working out how you can contort yourself to stick to them all and work your way up gracefully and fluidly without falling or cheating (or grunting) - I am trying to to grunt and swear so much! I am working my way up to writing a big long speel about why climbing rocks my world (I know VERY bad pun) so, anyways, be warned. It aint happenin today though, because I am feeling absolutely flaked from all my inactivity.

Bloody rain!

html brain scramble

open tag. Wow - thrust back into working life again. Nothing like work to sap your creative energy. Actually, it depends what kind of work. Checking HTML and links all day just scrambles my brain. Would you like bacon with my scrambled brain? I managed to save some one's bacon the other day, perhaps I should serve that up? Under the counter or laid out on the table? I think you will need to add some spice. I like my coffee black and my toast brown sunny side up, or is that eggs? Salads are best tossed and naked like words. close tag

I am new at this blogging game, but I have become an addict. I confess.

It started with a harmless travelblog, which I set up with my beautiful boyfriend, as a lazy way of keeping family/friends up to speed with my travels. Then I realised how much more fun it is than a diary. Very very quickly my travelblog became too inadequate as a container for all my rambles. There is only so much travel you can do and write about. I needed a place to put all the other rambles, thoughts, reflections, winges and epiphanies-if they ever happen- I live in hope :).

So HERE IT IS. WOOOOOHOOOOO. Mmm... it's is looking a bit lame at the moment, but give it some time.