why I love country music

So back in the old teaching saddle and well let's say I am uninspired. And that's not the fault of country music! What is so wrong with southern white culture, anyways. To be clear, I'm not talking Garth Brooks or old achy breaky or even the dixie chicks. I mean Lucinda or Bonny Prince Billy/Palace Music. Particularly the latter. Gulf shores has got to be the most beautiful song ever written. Besides how could a man who looks like this ...




... not make beautiful music?

Yes, when I am nostalgic I still get out the old Smiths on vinyl and gaze at my shoes, especially now I wear glasses, and quite possibly ready for a hearing aid.

and so it ends,

the holiday, that is. Classes start in a week, and hopefully that will pull the curtain down on the bbq season. Have spent the day moping and listening to country music ... it improves the quality of one's moping so.

Apropos of Monkey's Max post for French cosmetics with the Naked-ish chef guy, I add to that general theme. Taking one's clothes off is becoming part of every one's job description. Calendars of firemen, post office workers, knitters, etc have somehow become a legitimate fundraising/charity jag. And to prove that one must be prepared to calendarise oneself no matter one's vocation I present to you ... men of mortuaries

my life is turning into

Tuesday night TV programming. There's nothing I want to watch and then on Tuesday at 9.30 I have to flick channels to watch my THREE favourite programs. Tomorrow I am double booked ... a potentially hot date and a birthday party and I am not a good enough negotiator to change things.

In other news, at the big red shed today where I bought a very crappy set of kitchen scales ... the container thingy where the stuff you are weighing sits keeps sliding off ... Oh well $9 ... Anyways a middle aged bogan couple there was arguing over the stuffed toys. They were comparing two white tigers. The woman was adamant - we should get this one. You can see the whites of its eyes better.

Makes it so much more authentic.

Spent the rest of the day killing spiders. I have been trying to live with them in a we-are-sharing-the-planet kind of a way, but they were just not keeping up with their side of the bargain. Too many babies and too many cobwebs. So I would have made a braveheart era Mel Gibson proud with my war cry and sword ... well duster ... wielding and the revelling in the spider carnage

another post? I must be

on holiday. Speaking of holidays, Valentines is coming up ... despite the implied tone of the previous post, I am not really a big fan of Valentines. Just recently in the big city I ran into Sam who married Melissa. This was a good idea. Proposing on Valentine's day was not. Now because the day is so meaningful ... yes italics can also mean slightly sarcastic intonation he was having a full on panic about what to get her.

For Sam, and others in the same boat I suggest Meg's anti-Valentines day cards. Hell you can even send me one.

The only real fun I have had on Valentines I have really had was back in 1990. Pathetic sad-do you say? That was my only American Valentine's day. I went to the pet store with K. First off, it was a 24hr pet store! Secondly, there was a special 'tarantulas for the one you love.' (I'm not afraid of spiders, they just annoy me with their goddam webs, and how their shit sticks to the ceiling ... would it be less annoying if it fell on my head? But, hell, don't send me that!). Thirdly there was the fun and shennanigans of hiding the card in the fridge, in the toaster ... yes re-used for more Valentines fun. Oh jolly japes .... Indeed I am a pathetic saddo!

my research is

sexy. Apparently. I have acquired a secret-ish admirer who discovered me through some research I was doing last year. We are to meet at the end of the week. Remember kids, there's a fine line between stalking and romance...

In other news my holiday taking abilities seem to have improved. I ran away to the big city and had big city fun. Saw J and S's completed renovations. The house looks extraordinarily beautiful, and would be way too house and garden for me if they hadn't incorporated S's kooky interest in industrial lighting. Also saw Dot'n'Ben for the first time in five years. She has has stopped dyeing her hair, and is kinda blond! Who knew? Well I guess EMO isn't big in Perth. Had dinner with them and J and J' sister and partner. I have to admit I sometimes feel like my Czech students used to feel. These people are unashamedly materialistic, and oh Bourdieu how right you were about symbolic violence, and the mean-ness and aggression that is bourgeois taste. I also ran into Marty and Matty. I got a big hug and a kiss from both of them, and they both seem more evenly keeled than they have been for a while. Marty especially was back to his charming self. Now this sounds creepy, but what I love about that city is that walking around, I occasionally get the glad eye. That never happens here. I feel invisible, or tolerated at best.

So Dr L's wife has gone south again, and suddenly he wants to socialise. That's okay I guess, but thanks for disappearing on me for a year ... and also please note, not every one loves surprise visits...

And thanks to Bryan's suggestion the panels are hung and are covering up the deep dark red of the lounge walls. I did though have to translate the term 'drywall'. We call it 'gib' though it may be spelled j-i- b. My next project - washing the windows ... Okay so maybe my holiday skills aren't all that great ...

Still no photos ... I keep leaving my camera at work.

I can't sleep without you,

television. So my holiday continues and I am gritting my teeth and bearing it. It seems to be making me grumpy and paranoid. I can't seem to train my friends not to make un-announced visits or be punctual. So I am running away to the big city. My second attempt...

In other news, I watched a charming segment of the news about Nana revivalism. These Art School Welly-ites host Nana Sundays where they sit and knit and eat lammingtons, and make ironic craftpieces. Reminds me of Caroline's punk crochet period. I got a crocheted spiderweb for my birthday once. Its awesome ... but its losing its pompoms.

Who said irony was so nineties!

crap at holidays

unless playing patience counts. I am never going in for home improvement projects again ... So about two years ago I bought some pacificcy flowery fabrics to make panels to hang on the walls to replace the yes-we've-been-to-the-louvre-and loved-Monets-and-only-like-Picasso's-blue-period prints my landlords put up to create bella figura in the Villa Palmangrada. And finally I got round to attaching them to frames. They look great despite the stress that hammering and gluing created, and if you look closely round the back you can see my blood ... That's what happens when you use a shoe for a hammer... But Oh God Oh God Oh God trying to hang them up ... my mouth was afire with obscenities. Getting them even ... getting them straight ... getting the hooks to catch the string ... then the adhesive hooks falling out .... Oh God Oh God ... I guess I will finish the project next year... Perhaps there are professionals who can come and do the hanging. It would be worth it whatever the price.

I had my haircut today which is always an awful experience. But Myra ... Yes, Myra .... was explaining that her previous client was throwing a 50th birthday surprise party for a friend who had already celebrated the anniversary of her birth on the day it fell, back in November last year. I guess she will be very surprised.

I future air hostess getranslated

Okay so I am a lazy language learner ... on occasion ... I added that last bit for professional purposes ... but sometimes I can't be bothered retrieving German verbs from the end of the sentence. I wanted to read a review of Kitty Solaris future air hostess. You know try before you buy, and all that. And I am wanting to recreate some Berlin cafe atmosphere here in the Palmengrad ... But like I said I got bored and so I resorted to Babelfish ... and got this ... which is almost as charming as the original ...

Lo-Fi-icon. Who please invents such words? Power itself surely well on pale t-Shirts, which stretch themselves over the chests of Indiemaedels with asymmetrical crop. Or alternatively also on schmalbruestigen gentleman bodies with Indietopfschnitt. Meant finally the employment is historical, no more with the state of the art of going geraetschaften in the studio. Or at least the creation of a likewise sounding sound. The "citizens of Berlin Lo-Fi-icon" Kitty Solaris and its partner Steffen fitter look for the well-being sound of the Grossstadtfolks on "Future air Hostess" above all. And dearest in strengthened form. Already the Opener and album high point "CHANGE Something" tells of inconspicuous arrangements and beautiful melodies. Usually are sufficient for it guitar, bass and a quiet schlagzeug. A bubbling Melotron possibly still refines by Moog and. Because somewhat too smoothly knitted, too many Songs appear however in all world living and can make so quite no impression. Surprise do rather those to suddenly bratzenden guitars in "You Have to Shave Mister" or thick "thousand tears the Tief" Blumfeld Beat of "Changing Cards". The remainder is all too often maintained boredom for citizen of Berlin scene Cafés, in which humans with Lo-Fi-icon-Shirts drink slat Macchiato. Plus or other beautiful melody.

My special favourites ... a quiet schlagzeug and schmalbruestigen gentleman bodies with Indietopfschnitt. And that is a killer final sentence. Now where can I get a pale Lo-Fi-Icon t-shirt?
Slat Macchiato anyone?

I'm freezing buckets

of water for a friend. She has bought a lifestyle block and some cows and has to fill up a tank for them. It is easier to transport water frozen in the back of her car, so I have taken up ice duty. My freezer has four green buckets. Apparently cows drink up to 40 litres a day. Can that be right?




I made friends again with Almodovar last night. Volver is fantastic, and was great to see Carmen Maura again. While there I got mistaken for a photographer. I had framed the photo of the chairs at the Heruharema convent, and was explaining how I was unhappy with it. This guy then asked me when my exhibition was. This is a much happier event than when a lady sat on top of me at that very cinema. But that is another story.

still sleeping

with the television on. So things picked up and then dropped back to the previous low levels of fun. I have had a falling out slash misunderstanding with a friend which will mean another silent weekend around here. But oh oh oh what news - camera obscura is saving my life. Particularly the track I need all the friends I can't get.

not schmerzig

but damn pissed off. I invited 2 friends who shall go un-named out for dinner. My treat. They both ATE DINNER before hand. How can you not know how to go out to dinner? The restaurant was also a disaster. There were tomato sauce bottles on the table. You ordered at the kitchen. They gave you a number on a stand. THIS IS NOT HOW I WANT TO LIVE!

another year

older, and my last in the thirties as my oldest sister reminded me. No bubbles and badminton this year, just beer and karaoke. Well, Karaoke dancing, if that makes any sense. Talked to the sisters, and friends, and after the b'day excitement, have had, one must admit, an incredibly boring weekend and sense I will have many more to come ... hopefully, or maybe not ...

As you can tell by the silence, not much to report. Just work, and all those organising for the yeare kinda things you have to get done, including appraisals. Ugh. Am going to have a couple of weeks off and have resisted expectations, including my own, that I would return to the islands, but at the moment, I can't face it/am not ready for it and want a holiday, for once.

Might disappear to a city for a while, might just chill at home, though the deafening silence here has been getting to me ... in the house that is, so maybe some traffic noise might do some good.

I have been entertaining myself with microcrushes, though if I am honest, they are purely entertainment, and perhaps somewhat fictive. Mainly about accents and dark hair.

So this blog contains no new fresher, more lively me, sorry about that. Its just as schmerzig as before. I'm not sure why I am not so in love with the world anymore, or is it myself, I no longer care for.

Perhaps my increasingly schizophrenic dad should be my role model. He has gone on a lawn bowls holiday. 2 weeks of the blue rinsed, the grey haired and the no haired slugging it out on the green sward. Except he and his wife are taking a weekend off from the geriatric olympiad to go and see Lou Reed.

so, only

So, only a week old this 2007 thing ... I wonder if it is still in fashion? Anyways, all around the blogs I am reading these new years resolutions, and I can tell you now already I am the same old same old. Perhaps next year I'll give up new years all together.



Been a busy week though. Out every night until tonight. Lethargic and procastinative (a word?) all day. Have plenty to do, but lost my 'thusies as my friend used to say. I admire these people though that can force themselves to change, improve. They say you really have to want to change but for me that doesn't seem to be enough. I think I need a gun to my head or at least some kind of deadline.

Spent most of the day trying to download music, but god the sites are shite unless you live in the America ... I guess it is all licensing laws and shit, but don't we live in a globalised society. So if you are out there and have the new camera obscura album, please hum along to it for me. The other thing about mp3-y sites is that they trade on nostalgia. You want all those songs you thought were important that you listened to on your STEREO on VINYL or WALKMAN on CASSETTE. Those songs that ruled the now faded empire of your bedroom. You want it all back on the modern formats and you want all that they meant back to. But most of the time you can't. UNAVAILABLE! RECENT RELEASES ONLY! TRIBUTE ALBUMS! PARTIAL ALBUMS! or just not there at all. I read site after site's comments about the sugarcubes' mp3 releases - NO DELICIOUS DEMON ....

So I guess I'll have to resort to the actual shops, crap as they are around here. Or wait till I hit the big city ...

sirens

Already I have failed to live up to one of half of my NY motto. I should be tidying but I got waylaid by blogs...
So last night I celebrated as the family friend of a family celebrating with a family they were friends with. There were multiple generations, like all good family gatherings have I suppose, with the host couple each enjoying the company of their siblings and their children. It was bbq which is the food of choice for families from my experience. I made bread and butter pudding and supplied 2 toppings - kid's sauce (cherry and vanilla) and adult sauce (dessert wine syrup). We talked, we dranked, we played 2 particularly fierce games of trivial pursuit (boys against girls). Then at midnight we hugged and shouted and watched the fireworks from the square, though they didn't really make it above the treeline. Not long after we all started to pack up ... needed to get the kids to bed, when R-o's husband turned up. He was on duty at the festivities on the square. He got off early so he drove round to his sister-in-law's and swept in to kiss his wife happy new year. It was just like a movie, him in his fireman uniform, and then the kids got a lift home in the firetruck. You couldn't get a better start to 07 than that ...

my year of hotness begins

So a new year is puking and mewling in its mother's arms as Shakespeare might have it. And some of us intend .... ever intend ... to copy the snake and shed the skin of our old habits and make ourselves anew, aiming to translate ourselves into new lives and new skins which are fitter, stronger, happier .... for a few weeks.

Usually around NY's eve I get a little maudlin ... another year older and what have I done? .... and I have never particularly wanted to party on that night. Somehow round midnight though a new litte hope springs up that this will be my year, that things (i.e. me) will change, and I will be happy and fulfilled and all that ...

So let my year of hotness .... and tidiness begin ...

somewhat early-ish onset dementia

Today I have suffered the following symptoms:

I took the laundy basket out to the washing line before filling it.
I returned to retrieve washing to discover I had washed my deodorant.
I went shopping for the ingredients for bread and butter pudding (I know, old school). I returned with neither bread nor butter.

More exciting blogging news after I have caught up with important chores (reading overheard in new york).

Oh and a slightly pre-emptive happy new year to you all ...

see, it is as before ...

Question: Is it ever possible to know how much other people are holding back? Tonight at a dinner party I did not want to go to I got roundly criticised on two counts by people who quite frankly have been annoying me trouser-less of late. Perhaps, I too, have been annoying them. However, I have been quite happily sitting on my hands, tongue, whatever and not giving free reign to my spleen whose everlasting wish is to be venting. And then I was put upon, by a friend who asked me why I did not want to share a house with him. This was the second time today that I had fielded this question from him today, but his second whammy was at this dinner party just as the room got quiet. So I felt I had to accept this positioning and take the old its not you its me route, saying that I no longer had the social skills to live with people after so many years of living on my own.

now that I'm here ...

Okay, so some serious stuff for a moment.

I was at my friend C's house the other night ... perhaps this blog would benefit from some catchy pseudonyms to protect the innocent-ish. And we played love songs til midnight. This little game is based on the long distance dedication show they used to have on the middle of the road national radio service here. We all had to tell about how we met our first love. We really only played it because B and W have a great routine about how they met which includes competing love interests with interesting names such as Spooky and Gretchen. Anyways I thought we all had to ... and then it turns out it was only me that had to. I must admit I well let's say coloured in, or embroidered the story a little, but they were hard act to follow. But after that we had a preview of each other's new year's resolutions. Usually mine are pathetic - write more letters - be fitter, stronger, happier or based on annoying slogans - 2004 Take more prisoners! But this time we had 3 categories to fulfill - whanau, mahi, and wairua - which loosely translated means family, work and spirit. And I really couldn't think of anything for the last. This category was supposed to encompass your own personal desires and satisfactions. And I really couldn't think of any. Now, that made me sounds lazy and satisfied with life, which I am not. Well not the latter, anyway.

Then, when I thought about it ... later in bed, and the next morning in the shower. It was not that I couldn't think of anything, I just did not want to expose myself as unsatisfied. How stupid is that? How can I go about the task of making myself happier, if I cannot admit to others I am not completely in love with my life? It is not like it is not obvious. (Too many negatives there?). Suzy Orbach, who used to live upstairs from me (what a name dropper) apparently once said, that what is quite often mistaken for laziness or an inability to set goals is something more akin to a feeling that one's own goals are less important than others. I think I might reinterpret that slightly (if I may Suzy) to a feeling that one's own goals are less realistic than others ....

Anyways, to lighten the mood, I have been having serious adventures in the laundry. The washing machine out of spite (and perhaps a little of my own incompetence) has completely ruined an expensive pair of pants and a t-shirt, both of which I have only worn once. Also I managed to break my drier and the table it sits above in one go. This feat found me on the floor covered in citrus blossom scented laundry powder and a table and cursing loudly. I have only just recovered. The neighbours probably haven't.

Enough blathering. No photos either. Aren't you glad I am back.

I'm kinda here now

So I thought I would return to blogging, blowing the secret of my lame life, by starting afresh. I thought I would also attempt to make my own template ... sorta ... Ugly isn't it. Some of you might get the title too.

Anyways ... I am not making any promises about this new blog. I probably won't post all that often. It won't be interesting, and it may have the cadence of whining if you listen attentively ... that's right put your ear to the screen and you can hear me whispering to you ...

I may spell-check ... edit, I mean ... more often and blog about cleaning or lack of it less often ... so I think it is going to be more of the same ...

btw: the spellcheck on this crazy site does not know the words blog or blogging ?!?!