Dead Letter

Dear Indi-of-the-Past,

We have completed (however satisfactorily) our first year of university.

Has the way we percieve ourself changed? Has the way we percieve life changed? I don't know.

But we have gained perspective.

University is not that big a deal. It is not the end of the world, not even the unbreakable walled path to a specific, singular career.

It is frightening. But it means us no harm.

We have met people. Interesting people. We have realised it is not imperative to fit in straight away. That there is a peace and comfort in solitude. And companionship in a crowd.

We have realised there is time. We have learnt that living each moment like your last, that keen awareness of one's mortality, does not mean one must achieve all their goals NOW. To know, to see, to have, NOW. It means appreciating what one DOES have now and all those tiny, fleeting instances only your soul will truly remember. Like the colours in the sky. Like the feeling of running. Like ringing up a friend, or sitting with your dad, or making hot chocolate on the stove with your sister, late late at night, when you can't study any more.

We've learnt InDesign is a LINKING PROGRAM. That Illustrator is a VECTOR BASED PROGRAM. That we must walk before we run and it isn't about manipulating the medium to suit your purpose, but allowing the medium TO manipulate your purpose.

That patience
is
key.

That compassion
is
all.

That we are 18.

That we must be realistic and forgiving of ourselves.

So, we have learnt alot.

Dearest Indi, you were so nervous about the future. But we have come so far. And so much has changed.

Jay is happy in Canberra and we are so happy in turn. I see her becoming a brilliant architect, or at least some sort of creator. Ess-dear will heal the world. She seems to be enjoying her degree and I believe it suits her perfectly. And she recently got a job too! Opposite Tea's apartment, would you believe!
Tea is still searching for her calling. She is confused. She has been through a truly tumultous year, full of shadows, wavering incadescent light and explosions of sunshine. I feel she will be searching for a while. Like us all, I suppose. She'll find a path soon enough. And we intend to be there.

We went opshopping the other day for the first time in months. We salvaged a few cds from the messy rows, all with cloudy, smudged, plastic covers.

Mum was dubious as to their quality, of course. But I've imported them and they're all fine. Something tells me I should return them all again, for someone else to find. Maybe I'll leave a note in their covers, maybe to tell them to come here. A cycle.

But I would like to keep one, I think. It is green - nicely designed. The Rasmus' Dead Letters. I would like to keep it because I opened it up and it spoke to me. A passage of small white writing against stormy green on the jacket says that:

"A DEAD LETTER IS A

LETTER THAT HAS

NEVER BEEN

DELIVERED BECAUSE

THE PERSON TO WHOM

IT WAS WRITTEN

CANNOT BE FOUND,

AND IT ALSO CANNOT BE

RETURNED TO THE

PERSON WHO WROTE IT".

I imagine a world of dead letters, hanging in space. I imagine victims of war or devastastion. A dark limbo of dead letters.

And I suppose I fling this letter out to you, into the void, to hang there too.

All my love,

Indi.

So

I haven't blogged in a very, very long time.

(Luckily, no one really cares 'cos no one really reads this!)

BUT

I am avoiding Uni work. Specifically 9 Learning Journal Chapters, a website to be constructed using only TextEdit (or whatever it's called), technical printmaking research, conceptual printmaking research, research for a quiz, research for another quiz, my writing portfolio, drawing, and probably something else.

Mm.

I am on the third last day of my two week mid-semester break and have nothing done. Sigh.

Also, at the mo, contemplating my spirituality and the mortality of immortality.

Hm.

I can't wait for the summer holidays. I can't wait to lay with Tea, Jay and Ess on the grass and look up into the night sky and contemplate our existence and the possibility of a pineapple empire.

And I can't wait for Tatjana Jones and the Saucer Man to hit cinemas for the Christmas holiday season.

Thoughts, incoherencies

I can't wait for Persephone.

Today I was reminded that the world is not only full of black and white, but blue, green, red, yellow, orange, vermillion, magenta, marigold, silver, turquoise, amber, grey, jade, lilac, lapis luzuli, bronze, cream, brown, pink and every colour in between, and that every one is different and beautiful. How lucky we are. How lucky we are to be in a world so beautiful.

And yes there is bad. There is lots and lots of bad. But bad is only a vaccum. It's just the absence of good.

Or is it?

Another thought- black is created when all the colours are absorbed. And white is when all are reflected. So if you follow the 'white is good and pure and black equates to badness' thing, then in order to be good perhaps the key is to reflect all you love and think is beautiful, rather than absorbing them and hording them away.

But who's to say black is the colour of darkness anyway? And who's to say darkness is bad? Or IS darkness bad, a word formulated to describe those frightened feelings surrounding that shrouded figure in the night. Then we mustn't confuse darkness with black, the night and shadows.



All you need take from this is that we are blessed, and all you need to remind yourself is a look at the sky.

quickie

Only fellow Illustrator novices can understand the gentle satisfaction that comes when the pen tool co-operates for the first time.

Peaceful sigh, and curtains close.

ATTENTION! ATTENZIONE!

MISSES CASHEW, SPARROW, ESS

My fellow creatives,

This is a matter of dire importance!!

Your mission: to see Henry Selick's Coraline.

Pricey but necessary.

Then you must return so we can discuss the formulation of our own independant, minature, stop motion studio.


Warning: it IS very creepy and can be VERY sinister. But it's also beautiful, so so beautiful. The music, the animation....

'At Last' (or, a micro entry for the faint hearted)

A moment for weary celebration -

I FINALLY finished downloading a trial version of Adobe Illustrator CS4 for my Visual Communication Technology assignment. It took 3 days.

And I can also almost play Clocks with my eyes closed. (!!!!!)

dead egg

This morning mum lifted the woolen blanket covering Sir Norbert's cage to find he had laid an egg. We had suspected Sir Norbert was female, but Little Sis and I had maintained she be called 'Sir Norbert' nonetheless. But now our gender-ambiguous cockatiel isn't gender-ambiguous anymore, mum's pressing for 'Norbie', or at least 'Lady Norbert', but I figure - why can't ladies be Sir anyway? And Sir Norbert had a nice ring to it.

The egg is very small and blushed with the faintest pink, and Sir Norbert seems to like playing soccer with it. We're not banking on immaculate conception; we know its a dead egg, and even if there had of been a Mr Sir Norbert, it probably would have died in the cold last night anyway.

Now we don't know what to do with it. I think I read somewhere that dead eggs can have a psychological effect on birds, because they never hatch. I want to remove it from the cage - she seems to have detached herself from it already. But I don't know if I want to touch it. It doesn't seem right.

I don't want to feel the cold alabaster of that tiny egg. It'd feel like death itself, in all its unassuming manner.

Sir Norbert seems rather bemused by this thing, both part of her and not. Thankfully she's young.



I have to work soon, so I'll make this quick:

That grey creature, anxiety, has been gnawing at my stomach ever since we came back to uni. I really must find a better way to deal with stress. I want to do yoga again.

I rescued our dusty old keyboard from the questionable, dark domain beneath Little Sis's bed. I cleaned it up and found a power pack for it, and I can almost play the opening part of Clocks. It's amazing. I haven't the longest attention span, even for things that interest me, even when watching a good film - my mind is forever inclined to wander. But I must have kneeled before that keyboard for at least half an hour, my mind completely engrossed by the keys and the sounds emanating from them, without my mind wandering at all. No matter how often I stuffed up, I just kept going. And going and going. And I didn't get frustrated once. It felt wonderful.

Ummm.....

I want Jet's new album.

I went to a Gallery with Ess.

I wrote a crummy story.

I bought a 2nd hand book called 'The Tao of Physics' which I am very excited about.

Annnndddd....

I have lots of work (uni and otherwise) to sink my reluctant teeth into.

Mucho love!

Fleet, the Fox and a Pear Tattoo

Every day we learn something new.

Today I learnt how to make an ambigram of No Pain No Glory.

Yesterday I learnt that I had hair the colour of Beatrice's.

The day before I learnt how to make pancakes.

The day before that I learnt that I looked like a girl name Emma.

The day before that I learnt that JK Rowling can write.

The day before that I learnt that buying new jeans feels really, really good.

And ever on.

I am listening to Fleet Foxes, and I think I'd like their album.
I recently ate a pear, and learnt I really like them.
And now I'm getting tattoos out of the way.

Haiku poetry
has five syllables and then
seven and then five.

Uni tomorrow. Just thought I'd blog some nonsense, because Ess did, and I feel like this is a reply.

Red Alice

When you are 18 the world is very small and your are very selfish.

You also feel infinitely old.

This I have recently discerned. At least, it's a true summation of me.

I feel like I must know what-who-how-why-where I am, and anxiety grows from the uncertainty. I am absorbed in myself. Who I want to be, what I want to do with my life, the necessity of knowing now against the imagined peril of un-knowing.

I want to write-draw-direct-sleep-illustrate-love-venture-discover-settle-fall. I want this and I want that.

My world, myself, me and I.

30 seems close and ancient and the very last oppurtunity for living and dreaming. Even though, with a little perspective, one can be reassured that it truly isn't.

I am 18 years old, and in another 18 I will be 36. And in another 36, I will be 74. And that's (touch wood) a long way away.

And 74 isn't even that old.

I have started to believe that it is only in thinking-rushing-scrabbling for success and direction that one can truly age the soul, and that this is why, at the moment, I am so topsy-turvy and frazzled around the edges. I am trying to shine like a burning flame, forgetting that in burning the foundations of a fire quickly smoulder and float away on the breeze, lost and fragmented.

We must learn to flow like water. We must learn to breathe and let the current take us, us fervent, frightened, fiery 18 year olds. We are infinitely young. We must make mistakes and learn from them. We must be open to change and possibility.

Graphic Designer, Writer, Director, Nomad, whatever. Let's just see what happens.

Things aren't what they seem through the looking glass.






{{The Author wants to caution the reader that for all her idealism and attempts at philosophy and peace, she is only 18 after all, and a very noob-y 18 year old at that.


She is also a hypocrite, and will continue to moan and fuss and worry about her future and the loss of time for a while yet.... maybe until she turns 19.}}

Tall Jan is Malicious.

My family are a pack of hyenas. (Or, at least, can be.)

And I am a black sheep among them.

Or, at least, can be.

Tango. Oscar. November. India.

Green peas, aquired.


I have to say... it is amusing, watching my licence photos get gradually more horrendous. And it must be terribly boring, being an RTA supervisor. I swear, I must have only briefly sucked my lips in for the barest of seconds in response to the awkwardness of the situation, in between a good minute of fully acceptable teeth-baring. I can imagine E. Merry with her finger on the photo trigger, waiting with weary amusement for that perfect, candid moment - moments we just don't want to see on anything remotely legal.

Conversely, though, my frozen features are perfect for a moustache - is it very illegal to deface driver's licences?

black dog fire child. smile alice smile

people just don't blog anymore. perhaps being shot at by millions of points of light just doesn't compare to breathing one's whispers onto the silent pages of a secret book.

..

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

that is all.

par avion

It came it came it came!!

It came par avion!

Now I just hope it isn't infected by swine flu...

for book moles

bookdespository.com

Current Exchange Rate:

1 English Pound = 2.01850373 Australian Dollars.

Free Shipping.

Moleskine journals.

You do the maths.

God Speed.

time. temps. tempo.

I am perhaps the most disorganised person on the planet.

Words cannot describe just how unorganised I am. But inevitably I will try.

Time, at the moment, probably bored with its conservative existence, has fixed its mischevious attention on me. I am probably only the ten billionth of billions, but it's irritating all the same.

It jumps in bounds. It shifts itself subtly around me so I don't even notice I'm moving till the clock reads five minutes past the deadline. This morning was particularly shocking. I swear it doesn't take me ten minutes to brush my teeth.

Every monday it's the same. Sunday nights I find myself detoriated into a quivering chaos, waking before the dawning of the monday exhausted with my frazzled, unorganised inclinations, throwing myself through a blur of trains or cars, doubling back because I've forgotten that USB, that foam core board, that craft knife, that analysis, trying to breathe deeply through the drive to the station, stubbornly avoiding the digital clock on my dash which I KNOW is accelerating but not even to a pace close to the speed my mind's running..... Hoping I don't miss the train.

I fall into Uni, and a vacant euphoria settles over me. I feel like air, my bones hollow, my blood light as cloud-bound rain. (Is that light? I hope so. Or else I just sounded like a noob.) And with this a clarity - a clarity in which I conceive another set of organisation methods, more procedures to implement, and I feel reborn and capable again.

I come home, I tidy my room, stick notes on the wall, gather myself together, make lists.

And then the rewound ball of twine of my existence slowly unravels again as the days come, one after the other.

And sunday comes again.

I realise books have something to do with this. Books, I think, might ultimately be my downfall. I rally at Dan Brown at the moment, even while I gobble up his pages.

Ess once verbalised to me something which I'd always suspected of myself. My room reflects how I feel inside. At the moment I will paint you a picture, for it might more easily convey the Indi of the moment (one who just missed her train and has decided in resignation to stay home today. PN: I need to find somewhere I can work. Uni doesn't seem to be suitable, neither does home with all its distractions.... or is it more a mind frame I have to find, rather that a real dimension? Or a combination of both? I wish I had a studio. I always tell myself to turn my room into a studio, with a bed adjacent, but that never seems to work either. I feel like I'm too big for it. I need a giant table and Goliath's shelves, scuffed wooden floors, a bay window covered in cushions with a green, leafy expanse beyond.... but now I'm fantasising.)

I have very little floor because a double mattress consumes most of it. A mattress that has no right to be there, no matter how comfortable it is. I have a double bed which I adore beside it, currently a twisted disaster zone of blankets, tissues, jackets and vests, and a hastily thrust-aside copy of Angels and Demons; and a set of drawers next to that laden with relatively few objects - my iPod Sirius, my red headphones, The Da Vinci Code, cds which I never use, a few books; and next to that, a wooden cupboard filled with paper, art pads (sketch, canvas, watercolour, bank) and other arty-things clustered together in what little space there is. I have on the opposite wall a desk covered in paper and assorted mark-makers, the walls covered in notes and pictures of tattoos I'm meant to have done for people, roiling my stomach with each glance, heavy with guilt and procrastination; I have shelves rising above my desk, tottering with cups full of pens, textas, pencils and gathered bits and pieces (buttons, a badge, a tiny teapot, an anklet made of tiny silver cogs) and books (journals never filled, drawings, language books, dictionaries. Propped up by a snowglobe). The carved wooden box at the foot of my bed is piled high with blankets, my own and my sisters, a silver handbag (a foreign article, my sisters, atop a Spiderman blanket), cloth bags full of books, and shoes scatter what little floor space there is around it.

The floor not covered by mattress is occupied by paper and dog toys. Nearly all available door knobs are strung with bags.

It looks like someone has detonated an Indi inside.



But it is Tuesday, not so detached from Monday, so I will breathe and tidy, and I will start again. If Time is testing me, I will pass.

Abigail Weary, privateer

Indi went to a Steam-punk quasi Apocalypse cabaret thing in Newcastle!!

So much to write about, really, most concerning the feelings growing inside me, like birds straining from a cage.

Freedom. Adventure. The unknown. I adore it all.


I need to travel. I need to get out of here and experience the world and all it's wonders.

I want to fly and soar.

The steampunk thing was freakishly, wonderfully bizzare; a troupe of eccentric and unique people just doing what they want to do, and being utterly themselves. There were sober moments, pertaining to the apocalypse, performed by drama-types quite wonderfully (I have decided I love amateur theatre) and a multitude of hilarities I almost cried over.

AND THERE WERE TWO BROTHERS, HILARIOUS JUGGLERS, WHO I QUITE BELIVE STOLE MY HEART. I NEED TO LEARN HOW TO DO WHAT THEY DID.

It was completely casual and unpredictable and deliciously weird, with people all in bizzare costumes and doing bizzare things.

Walking back to the car, with my spring monocled-hat and vest and striped bandido-scarf, back through the rising and falling streets of Newcastle, the old, time worn buildings bathed in golden street lights, with the stars above, sighing down their cool air.... I felt a wonderous sense of happiness, and a yearning for foreign places and fire-dancers.

So glad I did it.

I will pass on the departing message given to us as we left:

Love people, be bizzarre, have fun.

blessed

I feel infinitely blessed to have acquired so early in my life friends with whom my very soul resonates with. I love them as I love my family, and I marvel in the complexity and wonder of our existence, of love, of its many shapes and forms.

For your own complexities, for your spirit and eccentricities; for your openness and opinions, for your giving natures, I love you all. I really don't believe I deserve all you guys, but I feel blessed all the same.

Thankyou. For keeping me grounded especially.

Joyeuses Paques, Buona Paqua

Just a quick question: What is it about easter that makes us think that chocolate will have no adverse effect on us?

Curse you, shiny-foiled Easter Bunny. I thought I'd get my own back by decapitating you, but darn it, you foiled me again! (Excuse the pun, it was completely unintentional)

You wily woodland-creature impersonator! You're always one step ahead!!

I have no self control.

Ahwell. Wallow in the chocolate induced bliss.

In other news: I've had a rather nice day!

it's hip to be a square

I WENT TO A MEDIEVAL GATHERING YESTERDAY.

It was held in the small, green, tree-bordered courtyard of an old highschool. Forty or so people were there, ranging from two to what I imagine was early fifties, in a variety of medieval garb, much of it clumsily made. I walked up with much trepidation to meet a friend there who was a member of the society, and everyone was very approachable. I hadn't any garb myself, but there was a pile of dresses and tunics and things, most very simple, on a picnic table to rummage through and loan for the day. I had much fun trying these on, and women came up to me a few times; plump mothers, girls my own age, etc, clucking and saying: see, this looks lovely, now, that looks nice. I went through a few changes, starting off with a very plain grey-green dress with a quite charming little vest looped protectively over my arm, only to be gently told that it was a bodice and bodices don't go with that style of dress.
I discovered a light purple dress and leapt upon it. Drifitng about the piles was a long, rich purple velvet over dress with {gate?} sleeves and gold and red embroidery, and I slipped this on over the top, feeling very regal indeed. "That's actually out of period," Gee said, coming up to me and straightening it around my shoulders, "But it looks prreeettyy..."
An old woman with fly-away grey hair, in a brown over dress and whitish skirt and brown leather boots, the maker of many of the clothes, came over to me and appraised me, picking out a red dress from the pile: She told me that the red had originally been made to go under the dress, bringing out as it did the red and gold embroidery, and so I changed. The dress combo looked very nice indeed, my red hair complimenting it, but alas it was all too long and rather hot, and I found myself flinging it all off again and slipping back into the green dress.

I met a girl there, Arr. She was a newbie too, and we seemed to become immediate friends through our shared circumstance. We stuck together the entire time, playing with the littlies. Barefoot, with my hair unbound and the dress cinched at my waist, spinning on the grass and chasing the littlies with medieval people around me, I felt very much like I'd fallen into the Inkworld.

If I join this society, I'll need a dress.

There was only one girl in the sword fighting, and while Arr and I's main assailant, a little boy with a gnawed foam sword and a cloak, granted us a brief respite while he looked for food (biscuits, from the grey-haired dressmaker) and we lounged on the grass, watching the tourney, I fantasised about being a mysterious and uber-skilled fighter in mail and armour, half the size of those giant metal men, beating them all with deftness and speed. It's the Fox! they'd all murmur, while off the sparring pitch I'd be Lady Indi, juggler extrodinaire, tamer of little ones.

It was all good fun, and I loved how all these people were gathered here for that purpose only: to have fun, and not take it seriously to the excess.

These people have lives beyond this escape world. That is good.

So, Arr and I are thinking we might actually join! We'll see, shall we?

Autumn makes all possible.

Ess, my dear, a gift to make you happy.

I took a walk around the world to ease my troubled mind,
I left my body lying somewhere in the sands of time,
and I watched the world go through the dark side of the moon..
I feel there's nothing I can do.

These lyrics just came on, and I thought they were appropriate, so I thought I'd slot them in. They're from Kryptonite, by 3 Doors Down.

Now,

Indi hadn't the faintest idea of what to give her dear friend Ess on her 19th birthday, and this dismayed her. Shall she draw? Indi thought, but she didn't feel much like drawing, and had little inspiration. Shall she collect songs for Ess? But Indi hadn't a clue where to begin! Shall she write a ditty to her, like she did many moons ago for Tea? Or shall she ninja over to her house, and litter the space beyond her window with butterflies?

Indi mumbled and grumbled and wracked her brain. She shuffled her feet and walked along the world's streets, searching for inspiration.

Towns asked her, everywhere she went, intrigued by the girl with the autumn-red hair:
"What are you looking for, little foxling?" asked Budgewoi, sunny and blithe and determined to make Indi that way too.
"What ever is wrong, my dear red riding hood?" asked earthy Toukley, its op-shops twittering with concern.
"Why so down and distant, little imp?" asked busy Sydney, rather unaccustomed to little travellers, walking so slow.

"I can't find a gift for my friend Ess." replied Indi, "I can't find anything!"

"Why do you want to find Ess a gift?" asked the towns and cities, confused.

"Because it is Ess's birthday." said Indi.

"Her birthday!" Exclaimed the towns and cities.

They began to whisper to each other, and the trees and stones caught their whispers in passing on the breeze, and passed it on to all the hills and valleys, and soon the whole wide world was buzzing about Ess's Birthday, and Indi was wading through a growing tide of excitement.

Then, from far and wide, the towns and cities and beaches and bushlands began to send Indi little tokens for their beloved Ess, and Indi began to gather them up. From mines and oppurtunity stores, beaches and street corners, from strangers and childhoods long ago, came an array of treasures, each for Ess, because the world loved her very very much.

And Indi gathered them all together and put them in a little box. She wrapped the box in brown paper, and tied it with twine, and sat it on her table. She added a few offerings of her own, and kept them all together.

Every day, Indi looked at her gathered treasures, and every day, the world's minds flickered back to their offerings where they sat on Indi's table, waiting for Ess to discover them.

And one autumn day,

in the future, some time,

Indi will give them to Ess

and hope they make her very happy indeed.




With love.

phase 5

it is dark in the arena, save for the pulsing, grasping, jumping, swaying silhouttes of the figures pressed together on the floor. the walls rear up, shivering and shadowy with the blurred forms of the seated crowd. but we are the thunder shakers. we touch the lightening. we feel the throb through the floor. we move as a mass of bodies, writhing to the music, exhilarated. we ARE the music.

lights blare and fade and stream and rake. lasers scan the faces and send pulses into the shadowy abyss of the high, fathomless domed roof. the music is soaring. we are every note and every key. our hearts beat with the rhythm of the drums. our blood pumps with the guitar. our skin prickles with the piano. our spirit soars with their keening. our voices become the hum, the depths, the crescendo. we are one.

i hug ess. i clutch her. i grin and squeal and scream and cry. i hide my face for a second in my hands, disbelieving in the energy and possibility, and then tear those tingling fingers away lest i miss anything.

for a moment, these men are our gods.

a whirling cascade of tiny coloured fragments stream down from the darkness of the ceiling. we are dancing in a wind of butterflies. lights catch on flouro wings. hands stretch up, grasping, from us, the mass, like hairs bristling on a giant, trembling creature.

just a touch... just a brush...we are almost falling with the butterflies.

hectic

There just doesn't seem to be enough time for everything.

Is this life? Pressing on and on and on, dreaming of the day's end?

So many people come into the shop where I work, and when asked about how they are, they mostly comment that they are happy, because the day is almost over.

I don't get it. How can a person go everyday, wishing the day was almost over? Isn't that sad?

It feels like I'm barrelling down a hill. Day rapidly follows day, rolling into weeks, into months, into years. The problem is you can never go back up that hill and claim those yards left. It's all just going so FAST. And there is so much to do!

What is it we work towards? What are we waiting for? It's like people are rushing towards a climax, expending all their efforts on a goal. But Christmas comes, and people can't wait for it to be over, and the New Year comes, and people work on and on.

On and on and on.


I feel like I haven't enough time. All my hours are devoted to Uni, travelling to Uni, Uni homework, working and sporting commitments. I rush from Uni to work, but then what awaits for me at home? More work. Till I sleep and wake again, greeting more. I literally haven't time to learn Italian, read Harry Potter in French, write to Ess, take my dog for a walk.

When did this happen?

I like to be busy, but for the love of the Universe, this is getting a bit much, isn't it?

It's like I'm working for next week, when next week's just the same. It feels so.... ack.

This is why we must chose careers we love, so it doesn't feel like a chore.

The fact that the world revolves around money. That doesn't help.


Now, I better get back to work.


(To be fair, I have scheduled the latter part of Sunday off. So there's a bit of relief. But Sundays don't really help friends who are far away or who have other unavoidable commitments.)

first day

I started Uni today.

Got up. Had an hour to spare. Somehow managed to be rushing about in the last minute anyway. Went to station, heart thudding, stomach heaving a little for reasons I couldn't quite pinpoint - I WAS late for the train, I suppose.
Missed train due to ammended timetable. Was waiting for another when I realised there wasn't another coming. Had to run down to road to catch connecting bus. Realised the place bus was connecting me to was infact ten minutes drive away.
Drove to next station. Mayhem due to trackwork and work-goers. JUST got a park. Had to run for train. Sat heavily into seat, puffing.
Drew in my small notebook all the way to Hamilton. Got off, got on new train. Walked to Uni. Made first lecture with a minute to spare. Shuffled my way through the seats to reach Bri and Ta.
Compared timetables with Bri while lecturer set up. I'd done mine wrong - had another lecture after this one, and not one tomorrow. Dang. But good, 'cos it didn't mean I'd miss work.
Lecturer 15 minutes in announces he is finished. We have 45 minutes to spare. Takes us on a walk to our Tutorial room.
I LOVE THE DESIGN BUILDING.
Have tutes on every floor, including the loft. Loving the desks.
Met with Gee, walked with her. Has a completely different Tute timetable to me. Dang again.
Have Tutes with Bri and Ee.
An hour to spare. Walk around Campus. Give up (bag heavy) and relocate outside the nursing Theatre lecture hall, where my next lecture is. Draw.
Draw.
Gee comes in, sits in ampitheatre with me.
Rest of class surge through door. Meet up with Ee, Bri and Tara.
Mutter excitedly to Ee and Gee about this elective. We have to complete 65 full A3 size self-portraits in the next 13 weeks.
Yyyuup.
Getting a degree for drawing random things. Am excited.
(Starting to feel a little pressure now. Must get into academic swing.)
Walk to train station. Get on, off, on train. Off again.
Visit Salvo's at Morrisset. It is so different from the ram-shackle, cozy treasure-trove it was when Me, Ess, Inoue, Jay, Tea, Bea, Aim and others visited it a year or so ago for Tea's kayaking get-to-gether. Makes me a little sad.
Found a nice stripy shirt/jacket/cut-off-just-below-chest thingamabob. $4
Came home.
Ate lunch at 2. Unwrapped a darling little brown package with red string I found in my mail from Ess.
Love Ess.
A stone, two small booklets, and a lovely small old Italiano-Inglese dictionary. Green, palm-sized, old perfection.

Big day. Now I have work to do.
Wishing Ess, Tea and Jay were here with me. But am really glad they have found such great places to be anyway.

o-week

Went to O week today. Made some friends, got lost, scored freebies, signed up for a few things, got lost again, etc. All in a day's work.

It was HOT. The sunlight was strong and bleached and clear, and you got an idea where the saturated-style of the Newcastle brochures came from.

The campus is HUGE. And it is exhausting getting lost there, in the heat. It's all very exciting though.

The Design building is so AWESOME. It has two stories, and a loft, and it's all very scaffold-esque, sort of. Maybe not. Like, industrial. That's it. But it's made of corrugated iron, so it's scaldingly hot and stuffy in summer, and freezing in winter.

The lecture halls are GI-NORMOUS. Maybe not, but to me they were. There's quite a few people in my course, and being surrounded by all these design-y people, who are at least a little like-minded, was gently gratifying.

I met a girl name Gee. She wants to do web comics. She was pretty cool. Different. She had short, lightly red hair and long black jeans. She carried a heavy shoulder bag around with her, with a laptop and books and perhaps a sketchpad inside, and she reminded me just the tiniest bit of Tea. Minutely. Microscopically. It was the bag.

What else? They had a huge rusted sculpture of a spider.

Ee and I got lost. My fault this time. We managed to get OFF the map.

I re-met Bri and her friend Ta, but we didn't speak much. Didn't have much oppurtunity, I suppose.

They had jumping castles. {? I know.} And the campus has two bars/pubs.

Live entertainment.

Welcoming speech.

Etc.

I might report more tomorrow.

But yeah - It was HOT. Especially walking around in the sun.

{Ee and I had to ask a Tradie to help us find our way back to the Great Hall. He was nice.}

ouch.

The University of Newcastle has a system called 'myHub' that's a student think that hosts all your tidbits. I'm not a computer person, so I don't know all the technolingo, but yes.

I have been billed.

Look over head. There goes Indi, hurtling into debt for the first time.

You're back

You don't wonder this time. You slip to the other side of the cyber space.

The girl is there. She is moving around above you, so perhaps you are on the floor, or on a chair. She is tidying her desk. As you watch, she moves a Stanley knife, folds up some scraps of brown paper (does she have an environmental concious? Is she recycling?), moves a pair of dressmaking scissors amd shifts about a bottle of PVA glue.

Where is the book? She is packing up. Is she finished?

Looking carefully, you see her fingers are covered in peeling glue, as if she is shedding her skin there. The window is open, you see palm trees outside, and the roof of a house. The sky is very blue behind the clouds. You cannot hear a thing other than the tapping of keys on a keyboard.

She is wearing a purple shirt and her eyes are cast down. You see her eyelashes twitching as she looks from side to side. But you can't see her irises.

For some reason, you really, really want to.

She picks up a ream of brown paper and moves out of sight. You are left with the desk, and a poor view of it. You make out the handle of a paintbrush, chewed-looking, with veins of blue in the cracks. You can see a digital camera, and some newspaper. Does she read the newspaper?

The girl is back. She suddenly glances at you - she is reaching in to press something. She doesn't see you. A button?

A button!

N-

my DOG is more social than I am.

My sister, her boyfriend, and her-friend-that-is-a-boy are playing pool downstairs on our old rickety table. There are six empty beer boxes beneath each hole because the netting has been chewed through, and each time someone gets a point, is an idiot, conquers or loses miserably, there is this THUNK! as faux-ivory ball hits tile.

My dad is down there, playing with them. My mum is just outside, near the screen door, offering loudly any remarks and staying involved as she relaxes back with a beer, her face to our garden, which is very green but also grey due to the cloud cover. My dog tip toes around it all, weaving amongst legs of people and chairs, staying part of the party.

And then, walk upstairs, thunk-creak-thunk-wooden-groan, up into the quiet upper-storey of the house where the incoherent twittering of our lorikeet pair bubbles through the verandah door. Follow the sound of distant music, and turning a corner, past the kitchen where all is still, you will find me. Me. Me, sitting at my desk, quietly, staring into space. Perhaps with a milk-moustache - I haven't looked in the mirror yet. {There is nothing like a glass of cold milk when you feel like it}. But yes. I am here, listening to music that ranges from classical to bizzarre. Soon, I will be hammering, making my own brand of noise - but that. is not. the point.

Am I a recluse? Am I dooming myself by participating in such antisocial behaviour? I can hear the psychotherapists now.

Argh.

When I'm not being a smarty pants, when I'm not being sarcastic or getting worked up; when I'm not feeling a little anxious, when I'm not being loud, when I'm not running fast or dancing with energy - I often feel like I'm the black sheep in this family.


I don't want to be a recluse like my grandfather, merely because I do what I want to do.

And who knows? If I got involved down there, I might really have an awesome time.

But, I don't know. It just - it's like, like what Missy Higgins sings, I'm a triangle trying to squeeze through a circle.

I just don't fit.



(wow. That was really a jump to acknowledge. But, I don't know if I can say it was a lie. Is that bad?)

Good Evening, Traveller

I am stepping through the computer screen, and I am reaching out for you to pull you through. Take my hand?

I am faceless to you. I am almost and imagining. But my hand and yours are linked together, and I am pulling you through to my side of the screen.

Just look there, I say, this faceless stranger who's blog you just happened to stumble across, and who, quite suddenly, has lured you to somewhere else. Vaguely you are thinking how rude this is, so you only half hear what I say, but you are curious too, and when I gesture through the screen, to the figure at a wooden desk, you follow my hand awkwardly.

There at the desk (it is strewn with pieces of paper, you notice; two gluesticks rise from the white foliage like thick shoots, there is a tangle of measuring tape curled to the side, a ruler and a pair of scissors half-submerged and half-visible, alongside small bricks of blue tissue-packets.) sits a girl who isn't looking at you, and for some reason you cannot help but to wonder what colours her eyes are.

She is a mop of red hair to you - a tangled, messy mop - and she is carefully cutting and pasting in a peaceful, distant way.

You realise she is slowly binding herself a book.

You don't know how you reached this conclusion, but you are right. The girl with the red hair is binding herself a book.

She is making, at the moment, envelopes for the book. She cuts out a folded piece of paper, and then glues little accordian-like folded bits to the inside edges, making the envelope bigger. While you watch her, she folds up, carefully so as not to tear the fragile paper (why is she using such fragile paper?), a piece of paper torn from an old copy of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe into another concertina, and glues it to an old envelope.

Why is she binding a book?

She is making a book because she is thoroughly fed up with searching for the perfect notebook elsewhere. And she has decided to make her own.

So she sits there, still not looking at you because she doesn't even know you are there, completely in harmony for the time in her surroundings. Ovals of light, little rainbows, whirl backwards and forth continously as sunlight ( the first for weeks) is scattered by a crystal hanging in her window, which is behind her.

You want to know what colours her eyes are. You want to know if it is silent there where she is, because it looks so, but all you can hear is the whirr of her laptop and the clicking of keyboard keys from somewhere you can't see.

Then, I am leading you away again. I am taking you back to where you were before. I tug at your conciousness and you follow effortlessly, as if you really did want to return, and not keep watching the girl with the red hair, binding a book, with eyes unknown to you.

Noise. What noises surround you?

Listen for a moment, tell me what they are.













And now, you are back.

The girl is gone.

And then there were three

Are you reading this Jay, in some random distant service station? in your new home? or on the road?

Jay left with the dawn today.

It is nine:ten am and Ess, Tea and I have been awake five hours now. It's strange to think of it that way. We've woken, driven, eaten, juiced, said goodbye (perhaps not in that order) and now drift about Ess's house in a state of slightly heavy wakefulness.

I sit on a tartan sofa chair. Tea reads beside me. The sound of the shower has stopped in the background, but Ess has not yet returned.

I have the feeling Tea's eyes are straying to this as I type, for she has a tendency to do that, but I avoid her eyes as if they aren't. It's sort of like a game. An invisible, silent game.

I imagine Jay on the road. I think she would be asleep. I wonder if it's sunnier there, if the morning light peels back around the car, as if summer were still behaving like summer; because it is still wet here, even if the rain has stopped for a while.

Ess has returned. She is tidying up the kitchen. Apart from the clatter of plates and cups, it is comfortably silent.

For breakfast, we had fresh porridge with banana and honey, and fresh tea Ess brewed from the apple-mint leaves in her garden, poured from a small brown teapot.

We also juiced some apples and berries, and the pulp lies piled in a container on the bench, all yellow and purpley-blue and red, like a mess of watercolour, while we muse over what to do with it. I think we're going to make a slice.


As Jay pulled away from her house, Ess and I ran after the car for a few seconds, our shoes slapping against the wet road. Our feet stopped but our arms continued waving, and as the car rounded the corner I said softly to Ess - "And things'll never be the same again."

Our thoughts are still with you Jay, and we hope everything's wonderful, no matter how intimidating it may be. I caution you not to rearrange your room too much - your flat mates might think you have OCD. I hope you have a good window in your room, and that the view is alright. I really can't imagine what it's like.


The last few days have been very...tumultous. Very draining. There has been alot to think about and alot to deal with. It's as if the weather anticipated this, and lowered a blanket of rain around us, confining us inside physcial, mental and emotional walls. It's time to think, Indi, whispers the rain, time to know and time to work things out. Time to grow. It's voice is all a hush, its breath cold in my ear, on my soul. But it is encouraging, and persistent, and it thrums softly: Time to grow. I will cleanse you.

The sun hovers somewhere beyond the clouds, nestled in silver linings, and it comes soon. I hope it shines through Jay's window, and warms her, and lets her know, for the umpteenth time, that it is all okay.

Everything is okay and good.


There is a cardinal sort of magic to all this. If cardinal is the right word. From the East we are splitting: Me North, Jay West, and Ess and Tea to the South. Fire, Air, Water and Earth. We are four distinct entities, but we are irrevocably, intrinsically connected. We inspire, support and nourish each other. It's nice.

And that's all I really have to write for now. So, all our love, Jay, and take lots of pictures so I may live vicariously in Canberra through you!

bruised

that's all.




But never broken.

true. false.

true.

Coldplay's Viva La Vida album is perfect for long, rainy twilit drives.

true.

There is little like listening to Regina Spektor on rainy dim-lit mornings in your bedroom, the air cool and crisp with a premature breath of autumn, an art exhibition awaiting you in the Sydney distance.

true.

Inkdeath is of a special sort of brilliance - the squirming-goodness-excitement-inside-you, smile-bringing-eye-crinkling-intoxicating, dark-late-rainy-night-pages-rustle-smell type. Through all the darkness emerged the light. Emerged the happy, warm ending. Now that's writing - something so strong, subtle and innately beautiful it cannot be lost in translation.

false.

Packing for a single night trip requires only one small bag.

false.

My bottomless bag is bottomless.

false.

How much a person means to you can be summed up in words or pictures, even if a picture tells a thousand words, and there are a thousand pictures. Words, no matter how wonderful, can equate to a touch, or a woven conglomeration of feelings deep, deep inside you.

true.

They can try.

true.

They can simulate. But only if they are perfect. They, like windows, offer possibilities that are always unique in their interpretation.

false.

Time slows or quickens. And I'm not lazy, frazzled or disorganised.

false.

I don't feel comfortable that way.

true.

I have to leave now.

of stars

there are people who are insanely special. You must have encountered at least one of these people in your life's travails; in a glance, in a momentary encounter. In passing. They have that special something, like an aura. You feel refreshed after being with them, for however brief it was. You feel all...golden, sort of. Like their shimmer has left a little residue on you. A feeling of contentment and good fortune bubbles up from somewhere within you, from your centre, past your heart, up through your throat till it swells in your mouth - and suddenly, you just HAVE to smile.

I imagine what it is like to be one of these people. Just - completely and utterly good. Do they ever have negative thoughts? Do they ever argue with themselves, or doubt theirselves or their goodness?

I like to make people laugh, even if it is at me. I often wonder what it would be like to make people's lives better, just by being there. I would love to have such a talent: to calm, reasure, comfort, and make someone happy - all in a glance. In passing.

I am fortunate enough to have contact with people all golden, like stars. They don't make you feel any dimmer - rather, they enliven you, they make you shine.

Heedlessly, we cannot help but to gravitate towards them.


I think I would like to be a star. Perhaps if I work hard for it, I will be as entitled to it as those to whom it is naturally given.




I have it within myself to shine. I must.

spektor spectre

I've quoted her before, but at times it seems necessary to remind ourselves that

Just because everything's changing,
Doesn't mean it's never been this way before.
The best you can do is to know who your friends are
as you head out for the war.

Pick a star on the dark horizon,
and follow the light -

You'll come back, when it's over.
No need to say goodbye.


But, also:

The search ends here
Where the night is totally clear
And your heart is fierce
So you finally know you can control where you go
You can steer.

Hold this feeling like a newborn
Of freedom surging through your veins
You have opened up a new door
So bring on the wind, fire and rain.


And, feel the

RUSH FOR A CHANGE OF ATMOSPHERE.

'cos we're

ON OUR WAY.



The intrepid foursome are going our seperate ways. I suppose four seasons in one day was always destined to be an ephemeral thing.

Man, I've made so many music quotes in this post!!!

Le gasp. Anyway, the new chapters of our lives are starting! We're turning the page, and while we've balanced on the precipitous trembling paper-edge for the last few months, we're finally cresting, now sliding, down the other side.

We've left chapter 18: The Crossroads. We've reached A New Beginning.

Life is certainly amazing.


In a semi-related topic; WHERE THE DANG IS THAT MAILMAN??

forty two degrees

Need I say more? I've worked all day, and it's 6:30pm, but I think I'm going to go to the beach.

4 eighteen year old girls; 3 drivers licences; 2 cars; 1 birthday

Sound wild?


* * *

My birthday, I woke to a present at my door - but don't get too excited. It was one my dog left for me. Heat hung over the morning and thickened like a shroud slowly lowered, while beneath it all I scrubbed and cleaned and peformed other menial, unremarkable chores not usually associated with one's 18th.

My room effectively tidied, my sister Sleeping Beauty roused and perched with me, bleary-eyed, on my bed as I opened my gifts from my parents and her. Amongst the polka-dotted paper lay on my lap for a long moment the book she had lost ten years ago, my favourite book, an exact replica, surmounting another - a Complete Idiot's Guide to Learning Italian. It was a touching experience.

From my parents, an '18' wineglass and collection of underclothes, which I sorely needed. No more dressing like an ill-begotten hobo for me!

Moments after, the girls, my wayward companions and confidantes - Ess, Tea and Jay, - arrived in Jay's family people-mover. Dragging with them two unicycles, two laptops, two pillows, and other large and lumpy things, they came up the deep honey coloured stairs and down the hall to my room. Here, after gift-opening and a bout of movie-watching, we departed for a round of op-shopping through Toukley!

We piled into the people-mover; Jay behind the wheel, me riding shot-gun, Tea and Ess etch-a-sketching in the back. We delved throught the treasure hoards and ventured like explorers through the book shelves and clothes-racks and countless obelisks of pre-loved paraphernalia of these nooks in the Toukley streets.

Finally, our tummies rumbling, our arms laden with swag, we headed home for lunch.

My room was a furnace; we sweleterd in its heat, sprawled upon the floor. We tried on costumes, feeling the need to shoot anything, everything, but were finally detered by the heat.

We drove off to my Grandfather's place to see his latest accquisition; a second-hand boat, which he had already inevitably begun to refurbish and polish. From here, we made our way in a snap-decision to my twice-removed old house in the country, for Ess had never seen it before.

The is a long and elaborate story surrounding the house, and I will not go into it. Needless to say, I looked on it from the road with much nostalgia.

Coming home, we ate dinner and savoured the birthday cake my sister had made for me; a cold banana cake with lemon cream-cheesie icing. We watched the first Star Wars movie; Episode 1, discussing and debating it all the while. {PN: OH ANAKIN, WHY??!} Then we talked into the night, and drifted off 'til morning.

It is still hot in my room and my eyes, though it is mid-morning, feel tired in the heat. For now I will end it as that, and detail our next-day travails when it is cooler, and I am more up to typing.


A bientot.


(IN OTHER NEWS: We recieved out University offers. I got into my course. :) )




The girls came around at about 9:30; Ess, Jay and Tea. We went op shopping, all around Toukley

bed

I got my wooden bed today. Never really thought it would happen. It's dark wood, with a hint of honey and red to it, the dark, rich red of a blood plum's flesh. It's a simple affair with vertical slats and square, flat knobs, with a tulip carved out of the centre slat on the bed head. At the moment it's propped up against the wall downstairs in the hall, all covered in dust, cob webs, and powderings of other loose garage-nook dirt.

I plan to set it up in the morning, for I am too tired now.

There is little else I feel like writing about. I suppose I'll leave it at that, for now.

I found out why Eve smells.

As Gwen Stefani once said,

"This sh** is bananas,

B-A-N-A-N-A-S..."

I never quite understood what she meant by that, until today.

Cleaning my car today I decided to check out the boot. I rarely have to clean in there, 'cos I never put anything in there. Or so I thought.

At first, I thought it was a rotting steak. It was black and slick as tar, and it stuck to its plastic wrapping as if sucking it in. It lay in a dark brown puddle between my earth mattresses and many, many tissue-packets, tiny rice-like maggots sprinkled around, tiny flies swirling lazily about as if they'd never seen the sun. I yelped - a disgusted, drawn out sound, both times confused (as to how a steak could have possibly got in my boot) and relieved (for I had found the source of the smell at last - indeed, a gust of it, grainy with flies, buffered me as I open the boot door).

To be honest, I was in a good mood, and when in a good mood I like to respond to surprising things in a melodramatic way. I ran upstairs and called Mum (as I was at another house) and ranted to her about it for a while, voice loud and half-hysterical, while inwardly I half-seriously toyed with possibility that someone had slipped something vile and weird ( a body part, perhaps) into my car.

I do not buy steak, so we were at a loss as to how the unappreciated thing had turned up in my boot.

Mum (I could feel her eyes rolling at me from across the phoneline) told me to just close the boot and bring it home so we could deal with it. Hanging up the phone, I was over the melodrama. I didn't feel like exaggerating anymore. I closed the boot, giving the ? a distrustful look, and drove home with all the windows down. Now I knew what the smell could be, I could no longer stand it.

Getting home me and mum classfied the disturbance as rotted bananas though I'd already had the epiphany during the drive home. The smell still lingers, but I feel much better now to know it'll soon be disippitating and contentment is only a few hundred vaccuums away.

But yes. I have photos, but I don't want to frighten you. All I'll say is that they were way, WAY beyond any kind of banana cake potential. You think that's black - you should of seen them!

Then, I had to go to work and be surrounded by the things. I don't think I'll be eating bananas for a long, long time.

small hours

le gasp!

I am in my room, wirelessly connected to the internet on my laptop. People who DON'T know how big a deal this is right now really shouldn't be reading this blog.

I also have a few scheduled hours at the fruitshop.

Huzzar!

I am also computer illiterate.

zomg!

I... I have a laptop.



(Take THAT creepy moustache-stroking man!)

Rich Dad, Poor Dad

Imagine the Australian bushland. Grey and blue and green, a coarse-looking sort of place, with the chainsaw-buzz of cicadas characteristically bearing down on you. The air can be tangible and close, but always it is infused with the smell of eucalyptus, bark, dust and leaf-fall. There are scuttlings and rustlings and slitherings around your feet, and whip-lash bird calls swoop up above.

Now imagine someone has suddenly placed buildings and pathways through there, like milk-cartons in an over-run garden. The bush, for lack of anything else to do, absorbs it in its old, ....... way, and this stamp of civilisation becomes part of the landscape.

The buildings turn grey and blue and dusty green, becoming part of the bush itself, and concrete is indistinguishable from the pale ghostly trunks of the gum trees, and pathways half sink beneath the leaves and bark piling up on the floor. Walkways stories high sling themselves amongst the trees like branches and a labrynth forms.


I went to the University of Newcastle yesterday.

It is not your traditional sort of University. There no lush landscaped gardens and neat courtyards, no castle-like towers or buildings reaching up to a blue and empty sky. Rather, it is an expansive place, with each nook and cranny hidden from the rest, with small, sudden courtyards and winding paths. It seems to have grown from the bush itself. There are rustlings in the undergrowth and one half expects a snake to loll itself out along the path as you make your way from one place to the other.

I didn't mind it, I think. It was deserted when I went for an explore. My friend held our place in one of the long queues snaking through the Great Hall (it was Advisory Day) while I nipped out quickly for a look. Time was limited, and what I saw was only a small fraction of the grounds, but it was fascinating all the same.

We waited an hour in the queue, and then we had to rush off because my friend and her mother, with whom I had come up to Newcastle with, had business to attend to in town. I didn't have an oppurtunity to see the rest of the grounds, which I was a little disappointed about. I'd like to go again.




My friend is rich because her mother is business savvy. It was fascinating hearing her talk on the way home in the car, telling me these things about finances and the stock market crash that recently befell us. I had no idea how terrible it was, nor that we were on a great decline. It was frightening.

The title of this entry is the title of a book she recommended I read about business, money and the economy. She's always had great faith in me. I've know her many years, and she is incredibly clever. She's never been to Uni. Rather, she went to TAFE - and now she's a self-made millionaire!

It did my head in, yesterday, looking at courses and thinking of the future. Do I really want to do Graphic Design? The course is very computer-based, and I'm more a traditional artist. I'm torn in a number of directions - should I try something new, perservere, and get that job at the end of the day?; Should I follow this urge inside me and do English, which I love, instead?


Sigh. Pressure.

sweet merciful heaven!

I don't know if the above title is blasphemy, so I apologise exceedingly if it is; this was just the phrase that hit me on the distracted drive home, and it seemed appropriate in some far-stretched way.

I've been saving for a laptop.

I don't get much work, as I'm more of a call-girl; I fill in for anyone who isn't up to working, doing sporadic hours. But every dollar, every cent, (apart from the odd few dates, yogurt or petrol) I am saving in a laptop fund -

Ever since I was little, I've wanted a new bed - a dark wooden one, with carved flowers or stained glass. Ever since I was little - and now, finally, for my 18th birthday, my parents have decided to buy one for me. But my laptop need is so consuming that I've even resorted to asking them to overlook the bed and make a monetary contribution!!



And then, a backdoor opens and light falls through...

My parents seem to be in possession of some magic card/account thing, with which I may purchase my laptop and not pay any interest for three years. I'd have it now, and be paying off my parents.


At first, it seemed... a hollow prospect? For what else had I been devoting all my savings to? To what end had I focused my mind, money and energy? I had suddenly something to work for, really earn - and now I get to venture the high-road? It sat ill with me.

But then I thought to myself:

Indi, you are an idiot.

Take the high road. You'll still be paying for it, still working for it...

But will the motivation be quite so intense?




On this dire laptop-need of mine: I don't know where it's come from, or why it is there. It seems an empty yearning, somehow - I feel, deep down, as though I might really be apathetic towards it. What are material possessions anyway? I feel as though I don't truly, deeply, full-heartedly want anything material anymore. They feel like surface-wants, fleeting.

But a laptop certainly would be handy and very, very nifty. I think about it and I am delighted to say that a spark of excitement bubbles still. I am smiling right now.

I'm a many-sided lass, am I not?





I am taking the highroad, and I am excited about it. And I've thought of something new to save for!

Travel!

novo

I am a little pathetic.

I went to bed last night at a quarter to ten. A quarter to ten! And I felt no guilt - not matter how hard I tried to - about missing the end-of-year-that-only-happens-once-a-year-the-darn-milestone-of-the-year fireworks either. WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME?

In other news:

I still don't feel guilty about it.

But yes. The first of January dawns and ends. It be-eth 2009! I like the sound of 2009. I'm not sure why. I may elaborate further in twelve months or so.

I am so looking forward to Uni. I'm so looking forward to ... life. I've made a number of resolutions I hope to keep - have you?




Washed Eve today. She's developing a mysterious and evasive odour of which I am not particularly fond. I scrubbed and scrubbed every part of her - I even peeled back the seat covers and gave them a thorough going over, scrubbing the naked seat beneath until it stopped oozing brown foam from that suspicious patch {I have a canine companion, you see.}.

And she still smells faintly...unpleasant? I'm not sure - it's an annoying, persistant odour at worst, really. Not terrible. Faintly like feet. But still! I want it out out out!

Poor Eve, sitting on the lawn, gleaming like a splayed white beetle, her unfolded metal carapace.

And yes. At the mo I am thoroughly sticky with sweat and dirt. Sigh.

And that was the beginning of 2009 for me. I hope it isn't reflective of the rest of the year.




Oh, and they shaved my dog.