a quote before bed

Watched The Libertine again this evening. Far more enjoyable from the comfort of my lounge room then en route to Europe in an air bus.

Lots of outstanding dialogue and sickly make-up, Johnny Depp is quite the period pansy.

I wanted to jot down the following piece of advice that I gleaned from this second viewing so I can recall it often:

People who don’t like you are either stupid or envious.

The stupid ones will like you in 5 years, whilst the envious ones never will.

I guess I always kinda knew this, but in lite of the ongoing saga with my unfortunate neighbours, it helps to be reminded.

Thank you Rochester 🙂

wet carpet

I awoke this morning at 6am to the sounds of CJ the flatmate moving big chunks of furniture about in his room. CJ is currently on a detox so this early morning behaviour is not particularly unusual, even for him.

Turns out that the heavy rainfall that hit Sydney overnite was not just contained to the eastern suburbs. Oh no, sunny Stanmore got a big hit too. Water gushed into CJ’s room via the external air con unit saturating his stuff and flooding the room. This corner of the house has been repaired recently with new storm water pipes, but I guess they missed that thirsty big gaping hole above the air con.

Just great for a monday!

I’m still waiting for the real estate to send someone over to steam dry the carpet.

stale mate

There comes a time when you have tried your best to be diplomatic, compassionate and courteous. When you have exhausted all efforts of politeness and communication. When your attempts to take the high road and be a better person despite all odds is ignored.

When your open attitude to making things better is thrown back in your face with a fisftfull of hate. When your counter part prefers to prolong the conflict and sabotage all paths to resolution. They enjoy the static. They enjoy disharmony. They want to see you cry. Sad sods themselves.

I slipped today. I yanked the line when the bait was hurled. I am not proud of my retaliation, even though it felt good in the moment, automatic.

May I be stronger next time, and all the times after that.

Not so Secret Garden

I have discovered the joy of cultivating one’s garden. The last few weekends have seen me down in the dirt weeding, planting and paving. And smiling!

Bunnings is the new Red Eye Records. I can’t help myself – so many plants, so little space!

I have been eyeing off a certain Mexican chiminea. I plan to make this the feature of my newly overhauled garden. The pavers were all part of the grand plan.

I’ve also planted my first bulbs! Bulbs are flowers that bloom in spring. They remain dormant through winter and burst forth when they are ready. I’m excited by the prospect of watching and waiting for my freesias and irises to arrive, heralding the start of spring. Watching the days crawl by on a calendar seems so depressing in comparison.

Playgrounder 07 – inaugural edition

Playground was lots of fun. We camped for 3 days: got there mid afternoon on Friday, left on Monday mid morning.

I thoroughly enjoyed the line-up (esp !!! and Who Made Who),the venue and facilities were pretty well organised,the variety and quality of food was great and the market stalls were kooky enough to keep me amused when the urge took hold. I never had to queue for showers/loo/cocktails and the weather was fab. Did yoga on the sat morning and made instant friends with a bunch of strangers who we kept seeing over next few days which was nice. There were loads of British people too which was rather novel. It felt a bit like Tea in the Park but with less Aussies 🙂

So my weekend was a realistic treat. I was there to celebrate the final chapter in my just-turned-30 party month, relax and try not to think about work related stuff (which can be hard at an event).

On the other hand, my mates complained a bit about cops, dogs, security, fences, ATM that didnt take Commonwealth and the ferry aspect/no cars-if-camping, but they were on a negative trip to start with as a result of the $25 parking fee (which prob should have been included in ticket price if camping)

The fact that there was a smaller group of people helped with the community vibe when things got ugly with the cops/security. For example a group of punters were bouncing one of those big blow-up balls around near the main stage and got heat from security for having too much fun. I think one got ejected. Sheesh!

But despite all that, I had a rockin time and would seriously consider going back if they hold it again.

I hope your friends don’t give up cos there were a lot of magic moments and truly happy people at that party. Playground SHAT all over Good Vibrations in a big way.

The worst word in the english language?

The recent prolific use of the word Faggot has got me interested.

Why is this word so damn offensive?

At a festival earlier this month, Crazy James and I debated this topic at length. We even asked a cross section of other random punters what they thought was the worst word in the english language.

For me, personally, I think the F word is far worse then the C word. When i find myself in need of verbalising extreme dissatisfaction with someone/thing I automatically spew forth the “other” F word. It is usually accompanied by the more common garden variety of F word. The double F word combo packs a lot of punch. I think they call it alliteration. For me, the big bad F word does not refer to a persons sexuality at all, but rather their total ineptness or sheer stupidity. The C word, in my vocab, gets used to describe the someone/thing which has intentionally pissed me off or made life difficult eg “that job was a C to get finished”, “She was being a C to me”, “I hope that C reads this” and so on…

Most of the other women in our study group were of a similar opinion.

On the other hand, some gents we questioned were adamant that the C word is held in higher regard as hard core insult. Others agreed that the F word was probably worse.

I plan to explore the topic further and post findings here. I warmly welcome any theories to this effect.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faggot_%28epithet%29

fckn city faggotz

Smiths Lakes is not just a breezy 2 hour jaunt up the coast. Its about 240 minutes away, give or take. We went up to celebrate Gustin’s 30th and the recent purchase of his first real tinnie. Pretty odd mix of people: with the bday boy, his girl Amy and their 2 pups, another blissed out hippie couple from Lismore called Adam and Gemma, Bruggie, Tommo and Leah from Taree, Grant the sleep walker, Quincy the diplomat and me, booze hound, made 10 of us hangin in a stilt house half an hour from Foster on the last Sat nite in March 2007.

Plunging into a pacy mix of hooch and beer, it didnt take real long before we were in the swing of things. With no food in the house and the beer rapidly disappearing down the gullets of the majority, we headed to the local bowlo for a feed.

Up until this point, there was a general sense of joviality. We even learned about Cavitation as we sat on the grand back deck and experienced the canopy in its golden afternoon glory. Our curiosity was sparked by a couple of minor points of difference between the country and city cousins which started as friendly banter. The Taree gang’s preference to bongs over spliffs was wow worthy and their extensive knowlege of catching fish was pretty impressive. All we could do was just sit there and ask them more questions. Whilst we city cousins were fascinated by the colourful tales of rural living, it became apparent that our sincerity was being misread as smart ass.

At the bistro a lot of us ordered the Flathead and it was delicious. Gus got the steak. I was a bit put out that I only got 3 little bits of fish but the chips were good and the salad had feta and beetroot along with the usual grated carrot and iceberg. Meanwhile the rounds of beer kept coming. Tommo was probably in the worst shape out of all of us as he staggered around sneering “Don’t fear it” at everything. Sensing that we were thoroughly enjoying his perfomance Tommo proudly announced “That calls is the best calls cos I made it – Don’t fear it!”. Quincy’s meal evaporated down Tommo’s throat within a minute of its table debut, and as Quincy and Grant were waiting for round two I watched aghast as Tommo shovelled sloppy handfuls of chips into his coupon. Down the other end of the table Bruggsie was mumbling incoherent somethings about a particular group of “fucken city faggots”. Quincy diffused the situation with the slickness of a professional and I wrangled a lift home for us all on the Bowlo courtesy bus. The Taree melee decided to pack up and drive back to their comfort zone. Leaving us city faggots to enjoy the rest of the evening.

Back at the joint, Gemma and I whipped up a noxious punch that got sloshed about. At some point there was talk of taking the boat out, which got down graded to just sitting in the boat whilst it was still parked on the trailer on the street. This got vetoed too. Then a pasta salad appeared and was demolished in short time. The punch produced rapid results; a short high spike of sugary pep followed by a sharp hard crash sent us all to our respective bedrooms by 1am. There was only one recorded incidence of spew town which was suprisingy considering the volume and velocity at which we had been imbibing.

Breakfast at the Frothy Coffee boatshed cafe. I had the Eggs Benedict with extra Avocado and unrequested extra Rocket. The kitchen was staffed by 3 girls who seemed swamped by our patronage. We killed about an hour and a half toying with the table numbers and discussing the previous nite. The word Faggot got bandied about a bit, again.