The 8 Days of My Birthday

I have never been a thoughtlessly traditional guy (I will embrace a tradition if it's still relevant and involves copious amounts of chocolate ingestion! Say Christmas, or Take Your Parrot to Work Day) so it should come as no surprise that not only do I not restrict my birthday to just one day, but by clever use of time zones and endless social outings, manage to make the day itself stretch to 43 hours, and the celebrations last 8 days. I mean I have to wait all year for it, and it's over in 24 hours? I don't think so!!

DAY 1 - Saturday Nov 22

Having fled the Not Me Anymore confines of Sutherland Shire a year ago, I have periodically returned to see some good friends there, and did just that on Saturday Nov 22 when I drove to sunny (and very windy that day!) Cronulla, picking my good friends Ellen & Tracy on the way, for a fun steak lunch at Hogs Breath cafe.... only again displaying a breathlessly brazen seditious streak, I didn't have steak! Oh OK I did eat steak, but it doesn't sound even remotely rebellious to say that..... fortunately in the midst of such culinary conformity, I had a brilliant catch up with my friends John & Susie, Ellen, and Tracy, and finished it all off with a walk down Cronulla mall.... the plan was a leisurely walk along the Esplanade but with the wind blowing like a madman chopping wood (no, I have no idea how that would look either), and the very real risk we'd be blown to somewhere just offshore Auckland, NZ, we opted for a walk on a tiled mall past shops to a car park..... very picturesque.... well the tiles are blue.... they're pretty... really...

I raced from there back home, changed clothes in a frighteningly fast 7 minutes (trust me that's scary quick!!) and drove like a mad man chopping wood in a car (OK an overused analogy and physically hard to do without risking artery severing or eunuch-dom ..... or both) to Cammeray to watch the delectably handsome Daniel Craig in "Quantum of Solace" (the official birthday movie) which was brainless but emotionally-tinged action fun, and would have been a good movie if all Daniel Craig had done was wear fabulously sexy clothes and stand there (YUM!).... followed that cinematic fun at the Cremorne Orpheum with a delicious dinner at Malabar, after some quick car repair after I detached a mudflap in a bout of reckless curb hugging by my car's left back tyre..... I do love my curbs, it's true..... and mad man analogies.... and parrots.... but I digress..... and Day 1 of Andrew's Birthday Festival 2008 was done and dusted....

Day 2 - Sunday Nov 23

It dawned bright and clear with visions of Yum Cha (Dim Sum) delicacies dancing in my mind.... all very disconcerting especially when they started pole dancing in a very suggestive manner not befitting Chinese food .... I met my dear friend Heather, one of the few Very Good things to emerge from my time at FedEx in the City for more pork buns, dumplings and egg tarts than you could poke a pole at (a well danced with pole if my fervent imagination is any guide) at the Palace restaurant in the Piccadilly Arcade.... followed by lots of fun holiday and birthday shopping... two gifts for me, one for someone else, three for me, one for someone else etc.... we had a lovely catch up away from the same telecommunications company we both now work at, and actually got to talk without the sense we had to run back to our cubicles and apologize to our PCs for neglecting them so......

Day 3 - Monday Nov 24

So it's Birthday Eve (usually celebrated by gaudily decorated camels racing around a dirt track chasing bagels on a stick..... a weird tradition but there you have it) and I did what anyone sensible person facing a fun birthday would do... I went to work! In an attempt to completely drain the day of any fun whatsoever with stress, over work, and sense of relentless foreboding (not to mention a needy PC who demands my everlasting attention), I raced from one email to another task to a meeting so fast that my head spun like a mad man chopping wood while possessed.... projectile vomit does not help with chopping accuracy let me tell you! .... the day was only saved by my dear friend, Sammi, who whisked me off to the trembling social environs of North Strathfield for a fabulously OTT dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, eating an American's idea of traditional Aussie food..... the waiter was wonderfully cute (sadly not our one but the cute guy walked past enough to make it seem like he was our guy.... how did he know it was almost my special day.. what a nice guy!), the food actually yummy and full of all the stuff I normally avoid eating (which is essential in any sort of celebratory eating), and the company a delight, as always..... and I had another steak.... clearly my commitment to vegetarianism was faltering.... mainly because I am not one... hmm, that could be it....

Day 4 - THE DAY ITSELF!! Nov 25 - Ring the bells! Sound the klaxons of joy! Hit a saucepan (till the neighbours come over and throttle you!)

I am an absolute stickler for always taking my birthday off work, mainly because my idea of a fun celebration is not endless piles of work to be done in a crushingly finite time frame with everyone standing around expecting everything to be done instantly, or even soon if the space-time continuum can be bent fast enough).... I know crazy idea but there you have it..... I am a wacky rebel, what can I say? Anyway my time-honoured tradition of telling work emails to go throw themselves off a very large cyber cliff and fall onto the jagged rocks of the Don't Care Inbox of Death went completely off the rails when my birthday (aided and abetted by nemesis Outlook, which controls all calendars) fell on a Tuesday, the busiest, longest, most frantic day of the week.... a usual Tuesday is a blur of Trade Report writing, information collating, agenda setting and a 4 hour management meeting that I sit in on to take notes etc.... more fun than a madman covering himself in fairy floss and running naked down a crowded street.... no, no it isn't.... this Tuesday initially bucked that trend by  showering me with tons of wonderful emails, phone calls and Facebook messages from wonderful friends, and keeping my good mood robust and intact.... my boss, who I really like working for (really!) even bought me a piece of Rocky Road for morning tea.... all seemed well till about 12 noon when the flood gates of overwork opened up, and I was swept downstream in a swirling mass of reports, impossible deadlines, and a meeting that went for 4.5 hours when I was due to head out for dinner.... 

I tried enormously hard to stay upbeat but was eventually defeated by the ennui of endless discussion points and droning agenda items.... thankfully the HR lady who sits in on the meeting offered to type up the notes from the meeting, and I raced to meet my good friend James who picked me up from work and whisked me (there is a lot of use of that fabulous kitchen item in this blog and rightly so..... it sounds like so much fun, and speedy too!) to a yummy dinner with another close friend, Jason at Chinta Ria, one of the best restaurants in Sydney and home to a funky fat Buddha, and a wine called Cockfighter's Ghost, which can be mispronounced in the most embarrassing way which I won't detail here.... James gave me a beautiful Italian pewter bowl, paid for dinner and made me feel very special indeed, and I finally relaxed and enjoyed the Best Day of the Year..... well for me anyway and on November 25, I get the make the decrees..... it's enshrined in law somewhere trust me.... 

Day 5 - Wednesday Nov 26

A day off!! Yes, my boss approved it, and I ran screaming from the building Tuesday night (not far off the truth - see above!) and claimed it as my own.... technically I still had my birthday off since although it was Nov 26 in Australia, it was Nov 25 till 9 p.m. my time in Hawai'i, USA.... so I swam 1.5 km to buy me some calorie space (after all the lunches and dinners the caloric storage areas were starting to bulge a little more than I would have liked) and headed into the City for lunch with my dear close friend, Justin..... and where did we end up? At the saucy end of pole-dancing Chinese cuisine.... Yum Cha! We talked about anything and everything, ate lots and followed it up with a wander through Tiffany's (I did my best Audrey Hepburn languid stroll and looked wistful as hell, trust me), and the cosmetics area of David Jones to hear the paino playing (Justin loves it), a trawl through Borders and JB HiFi and finished it all off with a delightful afternoon tea at the Tea Centre in the Glasshouse.... I even got to try Iced Turkish Apple tea.... served by a waiter with a sexy smile..... naturally we asked which tea was best for a good 5 minutes and flirted and made him laugh.... hey. it's my birthday in Hawai'i damn it! Why not?! LOL .... after all that shopping, eating and perambulating (never easy on a full stomach!), I met up with Warren and we ate up a storm (like a mad mad throwing lightning and hitting garbage cans lids together to simulate thunder!) at Tony Roma's, a bastion of American cooking and a great ribs.... yes oddly enough I again ate way too much, a hallmark of all my birthday outings thus far..... I was not only sentimentally embracing my birthday as special, but also enough calories several small Bolivian villages for a year....

Day 6 - Thursday Nov 27

Another day at the cubicle coal face, working like mad man who is... ah screw it, that analogy must be given at least one day's grace... followed by another a star-studded fabulous birthday gala... well there were no stars and it was reasonably gala-lite, but I did get to have a fabulous Indian meal, complete with great service, with my friend, Kevin, in between his stints flying overseas as a flight attendant at another restaurant called Malabar... yes it is a bizarre and strange thing that I can't escape restaurants with that name... fate? Or just great pappadums? Will I ever know? The only downside was the humongous hill we had to walk up to get to it in Darlinghurst but all the wine, food and great conversation soon made for all that... now as for that abrogated mad man analogy.... oh, OK I will leave it alone....

Day 7 - Friday Nov 28

This was not an official day of manic birthday celebration because (a) it's Friday and my usual state of TGIF-dom is exhaustion and a general overwhelming sense of relief that I have two days ahead of me that don't involve travel on Sydney's trains; and (b) I knew I would extra-exhausted, and like a seer of old predicting the future from a cup of sheep dung, I was indeed exhausted beyond belief.... and yet.... and yet.... I ventured forth into the pounding sock-soaking rain and met my friend Peter at St Leonards, and walked with him to the only marginally drier environs of Cammeray to have a general catch up and dinner at Pappaya, a brilliantly innovative Thai restaurant with some of the best entrees known to man.... and it was not raining inside the restaurant which was a major point in it's favour before we even got in the door..... add to the fact that a very hot guy was sitting at the table next to us, that Peter and I had a great conversation, and that Pappaya managed to do things with lime and tuna that my taste buds adored (in such a way that marriage to the chef was a distinct possibility, regardless of his or her sex!), and it made for a wonderful night out.... from which I was driven home where I could finally take off my drenched socks, which frankly did not fare anywhere near as well as my stomach that night, and the less said about that smelly mess the better ....

Day 8 - Saturday 29 Nov

The Big Night. The night when all is revealed. When worlds collide.... when destinies are revealed.... when all power.... oh OK so not that dramatic but you can't blame a guy for trying... tonight was the supposed Big Night Out.... drinks at The Colombian, a gay bar on Oxford Street, followed by a delicious dinner at Tandoori Palace across the street (and being flirted with by a very cute Indian waiter.... now that was a great present!) and then dancing our socks off (within acceptable hygiene levels of course) at Palms, just up the street.... and you know what? It was fun! I brought together my best friend Warren, close friends Ian, Peter and Fahmi, another good friend James and his friend Alison, while a soaking downpour screamed down outside... very atmospheric.... we even saw an Elvis (the real Elvis is working night shift at a 7-11 just outside of Des Moines, Iowa... trust me, Marilyn Monroe told me) doing cheesy Indian-pun laden versions of his songs and a Neil Diamond song too... what the?! Well the hens party downstairs in the karaoke bar didn't question it..... and neither did we... OK I did.... I'll admit it... but I danced away all those nagging questions at Palms till 3 a.m. with only Warren for company, everyone else having decided to leave by 12.30 a.m. to get, um, sleep..... I would have gone to sleep earlier too but I feared dreaming of a Tandoori coloured Elvis singing songs about Blue Suede Pappadums and who wants those kinds of nightmares on your birthday?

......... and so it ends for another year..... and I walk off into the sunset of my 43rd year on this planet, clutching my J B HiFi vouchers close to me, I think to myself.... only 4 more weeks and I get to eat more crappy food at Christmas!!!! Woohoo.... yes I dream big my friends, I dream BIG...... party on like a mad man.... well you know.....

Gonna Party Like It's My Birthday! OK it is....

Most people fear birthdays, running from them like they're knife-wielding attackers on a bloodthirsty rampage killing off all vestiges of their youth.... but most people aren't extrovertive Sagitarians that are young at heart and realise, without resorting to clumsy cliches, that age is just a paper thin number, and only defines you if you let it. That's not to say I spend my days in my personal sand pit playing with Tonka trunks in a bid to recapture my fleeting childhood (think of how much the Tonka trunks would be on Ebay to start with!!); what it does mean is that I refuse to let myself fossilize in place, preferring to charge ever forward, listen to new music, keep reading, listening, partying, exploring, having fun, and making sure life never enters some bizarre twisted Groundhog Day phase......

As I dash off to work (an act that in itself veers dangerously close to Groundhog Day land), I am thankful that I have a wonderful family, brilliant caring friends, a great place to live with a wonderful house mate, a fun job with an understanding boss and great colleagues.... and a partridge in a pear tree.... sadly no... all that to say that while life may definitely feel like a psychotic roller coaster screaming around one too many hairpin bends, and me without my vomit bag, that I am glad to be here, 43 years old, and still raring to kick the tires of life and see where it will take me.... OMG I just used a manly sporting metaphor.... in my birthday blog.... I am old.....LOL.... kidding...here's to the next 43!! OK how about the next one for now, and we'll see how we go with that.....

Mauled at the mall

I have had a lovely weekend......

Yes a thrilling statement isn't it? It speaks of daring adventure, risk, and a total disregard for my own personal safety.... actually, no.... no it doesn't.... BUT, and it's a capitalized 'BUT' because who doesn't like a melodramatic linguistic segue between sentences.... well calm people in zen-like states, and people on Prozac, but the rest of us love it.... anyway I digress, ramble, and b.s. on steroids.... I did indeed have a lovely weekend... some reading and chilling, dinner with my friend Peter on Friday night at a great Turkish restaurant, a date with a lovely man I am seeing on Saturday night...and then.... and then.... and I can barely type the words so traumatized am I... I went SHOPPING (Cue the overly ominous music that indicates imminent doom, apocalypse, and a bad hair day of epic proportions)..... 

Actually the shopping itself was fine and dandy.... some groceries, toiletries, Christmas ornaments, L'Occitane stuff (yes I pay close attention to my personal care regimen), and lunch with my very good friend, Fahmi..... then on the way out, feeling fit, healthy and good about myself (I had swam 1.2 km that morning so was still coasting on the whispers of endorphins past) when an Israeli brother and sister tried to interest me in their cosmetics range.... they did this by smearing mud supposedly from the floor of the Dead Sea (yes, and my cow Eunice wrote an award winning screenplay in between chewing her cud) on my hand, buttery stuff on my eyes and talking earnestly about how much.... and yes I think there were tears in his eyes.... how very deeply he wanted to see me rid of the blackheads, wrinkles and unsightly blemishes that scarred my.....and wait for this 48 year old face!!!! Fahmi just about doubled over with laughter as my face dropped, and all hopes of a sale faded like John McCain's good humour around Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin.... I don't respond well to high pressure sales techniques at the best of times but any glimmer of me caving to their high pressure mud-caked sales technique vanished so quickly that several people got whiplash watching it depart..... 

Needless to say the good people at Nivea will continue to get my business, and their product will keep being applied to my 42 year old face, which I am often told, and hear this Israeli siblings  peddling cosmetics of dubious origin, looks a decade younger..... and my suggestion to the would-be cosmetics czar at the mall? Always go younger..... always..... now where did I leave my avocado citrus apple guava pith face mask?

Them thar snippets of life

Yes I am invoking pirate-speak for my title today, and while I don't personally know any pirates, nor am I one, it seems quite fitting to use their lingo for the title..... OK it's not fitting at all....lol... I just like the way it sounds....

Melbourne Cup

After months of planning, budgetary issues, and last minute glitches, a group of co-workers and I threw a humdinger of a Melbourne Cup function at work.... we had a BBQ, sweeps (I got the winner, "Viewed" and the third place getter, "C'est la Guerre"... one of the few times I have not been left minding those horses destined for the glue factory!), prizes, funky fascinators, and everyone socializing up a storm...... it's always great when these things work, and everyone jumps in feet first... and gets totally smashed..... I mean participates....LOL (Nov 4)

President Barack... oh yeah!!!

I am rarely thrilled by political anything anymore, even though I am a political junkie (Yeah just one more hit of broken promises, man..c'mon, I am good for it..... you know I am man) but as I spent yesterday absolutely fascinated as I watched the unfolding march of Barack Obama towards the Presidency of the USA, and an historic first... and yes, I was profoundly moved by his speech and the groundswell of hope and joy that greeted his arrival on the stage at Grant Park, Chicago... I know reality can be cruel especially when you have a GFC (Global Financial Crisis), two pointless wars, and a divided national psyche on your hands, but you can only hope that Barack's only legacy won't be that he is the first African-American President of the USA.... that is an amazing, exciting thing in itself, but if it is joined by healing and real change in American society, then that will be something to truly get jazzed about! Go Barack!!! (Nov 5)

Pumping!

I am into the swimming in a big way hitting 1 km most days (except when people join my lane and force me to pick up the pace to the point where I just stop!) and back into the walking, and loving how fit and energized I feel.. not to mention fitting into a small... yes, small! .... shirt at Daly Male, my favourite clothing store in the world, last Saturday.... yes, I celebrate the small things! (Nov 6)

Dates, fruits, and a nice blended smoothie of love

I am back into dating after a hiatus and so far so interesting.... while I won't comment on what's happening with who (I am not a gossip guru! Hmm, maybe I should be....), it never ceases to fascinate me that the road to love is rarely smooth.... sometimes I think 'Damn it! It should be!"

But then life rarely responds well to petulant demands!! Suffice to say, I am meeting some beautiful men and we'll see if Mr Right is somewhere in the mix.... here's hoping.....

Apples..... and Seattle Oranges

Guess what I discovered? Oddly enough, not that I was adopted, or that Pink's hair isn't actually pink - for the record, I am not adopted and yes I know Pink's name is a nom de plume, or whatever the singing version is termed - but that the Australian Tax Office's much vaunted e-tax doesn't work on iMacs!! I know, what kind of wacko oversight is that? Here they are even sending me text messages urging me to get my tax in, and use e-tax to do it, and then this!! Admittedly I have left the joy of doing tax, and let's face it why holiday in the Bahamas when you can stay home and do tax right, to the very last day - I am either doing something the VERY moment you can do it, or leaving it to the last time-crushing minute (where I get to experience it with the rest of humanity - yippee!!) - and so now I am scrambling to get access to my house mate's PC. Thank goodness he hasn't seen the light and switched to an iMac, otherwise I'd be doing my tax at an internet cafe/jewelry store/pet supplies depot, and you just know the kitty litter will just get everywhere don't you? Thank goodness my house mate still worships at Bill Gate's possibly (and don't quote me on this) badly pedicured feet, instead of Steve Job's no doubt immaculate hoofers....

....I do wonder though why I pay my taxes...... well apart from the fact that if I don't I will get fined, thrown into jail, and possibly traded to another country in a carbon emissions trading scheme (and you just know it won't be a cool country like Iceland)..... when my very own tax office can't find someone somewhere who can program for iMacs! I may suggest they take one of those nifty courses at the Apple Temple in George Street, Sydney where you can learn all about using iMacs (as well as no doubt why Apple is quite likely the way to eternal salvation... no really.... that's what I have heard)...I may even use my tax return - and after all this stress there had better be one!! LOL - to purchase a gift certificate for them to attend said course..... ahhh, who am I kidding? LOL I will, as always, spend it on wine, men and singing, which as we all know, is a very sensible investment option in this financially unsettling times.... yes use denial to block out reality... it has always worked for me, and so too the Tax Office who apparently have been too busy carousing with wine, men & song to update e-tax!

POP GOZA!!! "WALL-E"

I am 42 years old. I have witnessed much.... and I have been exposed to much Hollywood-generated hype. It's effect on me is generally not what the rabid marketers intended (salivating as they are at all the expected sales they envisage will flow from their strenuous promotion) - I switch off, automatically assume the product being spruiked is a pop culture mongrel in desperate need of a decent and fast death & burial, and divert my attention elsewhere. It isn't hard to find something else to delight the senses in this pop-culture saturated world. 

But something about Wall-E kept capturing my attention. Yes I am a Pixar tragic from way back (with the odd exception of Cars) and yes, a quality movie, which this one clearly was judging by all the positive reviews it had garnered, will always draw me in, but there was something else that kept nagging at me. An intangible sense that this movie was something really special, and that's an unusual sensation in an era when quality is often swamped by mediocre quantity....

So last Tuesday night I took advantage of Tight Ass Tuesday, and went to see this movie that my inner pop culture bitch had proclaimed would be superlative, and worthy of the hype..... and it was! It was without a doubt one of the most intelligent, intellectually and emotionally, well-rounded, heartfelt movies I have seen in years, and with minimal dialogue too. Everything was handled with just the right amount of attention from the establishing of Wall-E's character at the start of the film to his romance with EVE to the return to Earth by the obese relics of the human race..... and suffused with a slapstick humour that complemented rather than detracted from the touching events that unfolded. This is a movie truly worthy of the word "classic", and I have already proclaimed it "DVD Worthy" (yes I know I should be hip and call it Download Legally Worthy but it just have the same ring!), and I dare say I shall be watching this long after the hype has subsided, and the frenzied marketers are drooling into their bedpans in a nursing home......

I Just Might Be The Lunatic You're Looking For

Dang Those Decibels of Death!

I think my ears have finally stopped ringing.... which is a good thing because Tinitis is not one of those fun things that you'll regale with fondness in your yearly Christmas newsletter to the folks back home, nor recount as an achievement worthy of accolades and a story on A Current Affair..... no, it's just very annoying, and feels much like having a miniature Hunchback of Notre Dame ringing his bells inside your head while your lie with your head under a pillow in 10m of water... so how did I come to have the Bells of St Clements peeling inside my head?

Dancing! Yes dancing! Well more specifically, spending three hours bopping away in a very small club on Oxford St, Sydney, just under a metre away from very large speakers, pumping out very loud remixes... in hindsight not the smartest thing to do, but at the time, eager to dance the early morning away, and hot men all around me, it seemed the very epitome of sense and sensibility..... I was out celebrating a friend's birthday and Palms, my favourite club on the now seedy strip, was jammin' and slammin' and.... nope, that's my dance-themed street language all tapped out!..... and Smirnoff Ice in hand, it was very easy to dirty dance and boogie and not notice the volume was deafening.....

...... until I stepped outside and oddly everyone was whispering, and the cars were gliding by silent as a mechanical lamb belching out noxious emissions (trust me such a thing exists... I am fairly certain the North Koreans have one hidden away somewhere), and my friends were speaking with this weird echoey lilt..... fairly certain that a silence bomb had not gone off, and that my friends were as Caucasian (and non-accented) as they moment we entered the club, I had to conclude that the boomin' beats had temporarily laid waste to my oh-so-tender 42 year old ears..... yes the ears that had once withstood decibels that would shred a monkey (I have never tried this but have it on good authority, such a thing is possible), now caved after a mere 3 hours in a crowded club about the size of a shoebox..... hmm, in retrospect, as I said, probably not the smartest move, but more fun that sticking the aforementioned shredded monkey back together with paper clips and super glue..... and that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile, especially now the Hunchback has stopped his blessed ringing, and my synapses have returned to their silent furiously-whirring selves.....

PARTY ON!!! Very, very quietly please....shhhhhh....

I will have my pigeon to go, please

Ah, life in Sydney.... caught the train home last night squashed like a sardine (actually I secretly envy sardines and their roomy abodes), swam 750m, ate a healthy dinner, downloaded some tunes from iTunes including Snow Patrol's brilliant new song "Take Back the City", went to bed early (OK early-ish...I am addicted to a sci-fi saga at the moment by Kevin J Anderson and I had to keep reading! ), woke up at 4.45 and walked for an hour........... and I saw pigeons feeding on vomit...... yes folks, not only was someone not able to hold their drink, but the by-product of their over-imbibing fed a family of Sydney pigeons, and oh frabjous day, I got to see it.... naturally this being Sydney, the drinker had no doubt just eaten a gourmet meal at a nearby restaurant and so at least the pigeons got to eat well.... they are gourmand rats of the sky here after all..... I can picture them on holidays in Paris eating baguette-infused protein spills (vomit to lay people) and following up with a few sips from a stagnant puddle in the gutter, which this being Paris, was probably spilled from an Evian bottle..... yes Sydney is where I am more than likely to see it all, even if I don't want to.....

"Run!" he said. "OK, well just walk quickly then"

In a clear sign that I have been consumed by a raging madness (as opposed to those calming, zen-like madnesses, I guess), I got up at 4.45 a.m. today to meet my friend, Fahmi, for an hour of full-on, footpath-pounding, other-hyphenated-words power walking.... the air was crisp and clean.... well, crisply cold at least... with all that smog, clean is highly unlikely.... and as always I actually enjoyed it. Of course, I would rather be snuggled in bed with a significant other, a few bars of chocolate, a novel and a rainy day, but given that unique confluence of events and items, I have more chance of marrying a Yeti and traveling with him to Mars on vacation, so walking is probably a more likely use of my time....

It's been weeks since I walked with Fahmi, stopping all exercise as he did for Ramadan, and after getting used to walking my butt off (disembodied body parts are a little talked-about side-effect of power walking, and more than a little unsightly) with just my iPod for company, it was great to get back to the somewhat surreal situation of walking along like a madman at 5 a.m. while having an animated conversation with a good friend..... Fahmi though did not seem to appreciate just how mad we are remarking as we passed some cyclists that "they're keen".... at this point, I pointed out to him that we were also out at the same time, which quieted him fairly quickly....

Alas this morning there was no sign of the regulars we see on our route, all of whom have a quirky nickname, which no doubt if they knew about them, they would embrace as signs of great affection on our part... no, not slight bitchiness.... affection .... there's quite a difference, thank you.... there was no sign of 'Red' (a woman who exercises at a nearby gym with bright red hair), or 'Pecs' ( a cute guy who passes us each day with a chest to die for.... although it's unlikely I would frankly) or even our old favourite, 'Zombie Gay", who is always immaculately attired but walks so ramrod straight and never blinks, that he is the harbinger of a zombie outbreak to come..... trust me, when the streets are overrun with well-dressed undead, remember where you read the prediction of their coming.....

Given that I am back into the swimming too, I am thrilled that I stand a very good chance of developing some sort of Exercise Addiction, which will cause me to exercise morning and night, forgoing all food, in the quest for the 'perfect body', my life consumed with the idea of being thinner and thinner till when I am almost almost skeletal, my friends intervene in a dramatic late night moment replete with stirring words and violin music, and save me from myself, shoving a jam donut and half a tub of Sara Lee French Vanilla ice cream in my mouth while they make me sit down in a comfy chair with my feet up...... phew! Gotta say that while it would make a great bestseller, as I describe my heroic return to sloth and fatty indolence from over-exercise and carrot-eating, it sounds like far too much hard work..... better to just get up at 4.45, walk like crazy for an hour before rushing off to work to almost my train.... hmm, the Exercise Addiction could almost be more relaxing......

When the wild blue waters swallowed me whole

Don't you just love a wildly melodramatic headline? So much better than "I swam 750m in the 25m pool in my apartment complex!".... Yep I am not exactly shaking in my boots either! But that's not really the point. Let's face it - swimming laps is not exactly the most scintillating of exercise forms...it's all up and down a water-filled trough of tile-covered concrete, your only distraction the fantastically blue line that threads down the centre of the tiles to... why the end of the lane of course! The crowd roars with excitement while over-excitable ladies, and men collapse with the heart-stopping thrill of it, only revived by the heady smell of enough chlorine to kill off a colony of seals somewhere in Bass Strait....

As predictable, and thrilling, as paint drying in the non day Summer sun, it is nonetheless one of the most soothing ways to chill out after a long day of sitting at my PC, a slave to Outlook and Bill Gates triumvirate of office horrors, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. There is an almost hypnotic element to pushing your way through the water, your wake lapping behind and around you, sharks nipping at your feet, giant barracudas...... OK getting carried away again! Truthfully, while it can be painful and boring, it is also one of the best way to wash all that corporate BS and reacquaint yourself with basic muscle-worn humanity..... making sure you have a hammer to get rid of those sharks, should they ever appear...and mark my words they will! All right they probably won't, but think of my times if they did..... I see a PB in the offing.....

**************************************************************

So today was not one of the worst in the Cubicle of Horrors it has to be said. My wonderful managed was having a well-deserved day off, and so instead of being manically busy, I was just rushed off my feet busy, a vast improvement, and one worthy of not one but two Chai Lattes! Yes I went overboard, and drank Chai Lattes like it was the 7th October, which amazingly it was.... so that worked out very serendipitously...... then I came home, beat off the sharks as I did my laps (c'mon when they do turn up, your ridicule will seem faintly ridiculous!) and chowed down on some Kanga Bangas (kangaroo sausages....yes I eat Skippy!).... I may even squeeze in some novel reading, shark attacks notwithstanding.......

I am an evil iPod parent and should be sold into slavery with Microsoft!

A dramatic headline it is true but I am prone to dramatic flourishes especially when emotions are running high.... and running high they are ever since I callously discarded my old iPod in the Apple Temple in George Street in Sydney City, all to get 10% discount on the brand new iPod I was buying.... the speed with which I handed over my first bought iPod was frightening and shocking especially since it had saved me from going quietly mad in many bland airport terminals - OK it is doubtful I would ever do anything quietly, including going mad, which let's face it, kind of cried out for a voluble soundtrack! - and came with me on various trips to Malaysia, Canada and to my parents' Ancestral Estate in Alstonville NSW... I loved that inanimate piece of technology with a devotion that my digital camera and PC could never quite muster.... here for the first time was a small tiny piece of metal and circuits that managed to contain all the precious music that has acted as the soundtrack to my lifestyle, and that selflessly (well I don't speak digital so I doubt I'd have understood if it had complained) kept playing year after year for 4.5 years until one day.... yes one day.....sob.... I....I...

.....traded it in for a newer model! I didn't mean to....OK well actually yes I did since my new iMac (fussy but wonderful thing that it is and far better than the PC ever was) refused to work with Ye Olde Original iPod (henceforth YOOI) and it was case of only ever listen to about 100 old tracks (all that was left after my disastrous attempt to reset YOOI to factory standard) or get a brand spanking new iPod (BSNI, which doesn't trip off the tongue like YOOI does it? Hmm let's call him Bruce then) ..... so I went to the Apple Temple, confident I could buy Bruce without YOOI suspecting a thing, but alas the evil tempters at the A.T. were offering 10% off if you surrendered in your old iPod....what a horrible dilemma.... how could I possibly give up YOOI for a measly 10% off..... apparently hideously easily it turns out as I whipped out YOOI so fast that I swear his circuits were thrown every which way inside his aging carapace and threw him onto the counter.... consumed with guilt, I dared to ask what would happen to YOOI and I was told by the devilishly cute guy behind the counter that YOOI would likely be pulled apart in some lab somewhere..... I didn't even dare ask why but I suspect there is an illicit trade in old iPods for use by Microsoft in nefarious experiments.... and just like that YOOI left my life...

Of course I told myself YOOI was just an inanimate object and I had freely surrendered up the digital camera and PC (which you will be relieved to know I never named) without any qualms, but YOOI was different....YOOI was fun, independence, music in 4200 shades of enjoyment tha I could soak up anytime anywhere....and now I had just callously given up my first bought iPod in a Faustian deal to get a cheaper deal on my new iPod....I was bizarrely upset in a way that confounded any logic to counteract it.....

That was until I got home, opened up Bruce and saw his pretty sleek lines, colourful screen, and the face that he synced up all 4200 songs on my iTunes database in 15 minutes flat..... to my increased shame all thoughts of YOOI raced from my mind.... and so while I love Bruce as my Second Bought, I can't help feeling like Mommy Dearest, dropping off my dearly treasured YOOI to be dissected like a piece of pigs bladder for whatever dark purpose Apple deems necessary.... Bruce would do well to be nervous because despite my protestations of devotion to my iPod, they can be dumped at a whim.... I am an evil iPod parent and should be hung, drawn and..... oh look Bruce's screen is lighting up...he's so pretty..... now what was I saying?

Mooses are voting Democrat this year I think!

Death and All His Friends......

Yes I have a new crowd of friends and frankly while they are a little morbid, they do a fine line in black eyeliner and white face paint..... seriously I am immersing myself in Coldplay's new CD, "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends", and I find myself falling in love with it, something I didn't manage with "X & Y". I tried and tried to love "X & Y" as much as "Rush of Blood to the Head" but just like with "The Lion King" (yep didn't like that either despite repeat viewings....yep you may stone me now outside Sleeping Beauty's Castle), I just couldn't do it.....it lacked the sheer inventiveness and zest of "Rush...." and I finally had to admit that "X & Y" and I would never truly bond...... so imagine my trepidation (go on, imagine it!!) when I picked up "Viva La Vida" and discovered an album of exquisite beauty and sensitivity, lyrical vulnerability and gut-wrenching emotions married with heart-tugging melodies....in short, all the things I adored about Coldplay in the first place.....

In the wake of the disappointment that was "X & Y", I had mighty satisfying dalliances with Keane (still brilliantly good at capturing emotions in a song that stay with you long after listening) and Snow Patrol, but I suspect I now have to recommit my true Britpop love to Coldplay, who have returned to the sort of form that makes lesser bands weep.....

All this on a cold Winter's day with intermittent rain....perfect weather to soak in the emotionally-delicate ambience of the new Coldplay CD....

The Curious Beast That is a Weekend

So here's the thing.....

It's Friday night and you've survived another week in the hideous rat race that is corporate life. The cubicle has been left behind in a shower of sparks (this is not generally recommended Monday - Thursday on OH & S grounds but entirely OK on Fridays when frankly - who the hell cares if the carpet catches on fire?) as you accelerate out of the building bound for 48 hours of sheer unadulterated leisure (unless of course you are conducting an affair out of your relationship in which case it will be all adulterated I'm guessing). You decide that tonight, in direct contravention of social conventions worldwide that you will not go out tonight, and stop in at the Indian takeaway, liquor store for some wine, and convenience store for some dessert and go home to watch an episode or two of whatever TV show came out on DVD that week. You stay up late, mostly due to the sugar high from the wine and dessert, and look forward to a sleep in Saturday morning, ignoring the pleas from your exercise junkie friend to exercise on the weekend and run around a 50 hectare park at 4 a.m. Saturday morning ( who incidentally should be locked away for his own mental health)....

Saturday dawns (but naturally you decline to check it our for yourself and just accept that if the sun's come up when you wake up that the dawn did indeed happen) and you bound from bed - OK crawl in slow deliberate movements to the coffee - ready to face a day of running errands...after the sort of brunch that you never eat during the week and that will set off cholesterol alarms at the Heart Institute.... god bless the super grande el gigante breakfast of champions (and possible heart attack victims) that gets you set up for a day of grocery shopping, buying things you don't need (and never will) and driving to far flung parts of the city you live in to see dear and close friends where you will eat that will further trigger those already klaxon-like alarms at the Heart Institute...but you don't care because you have no timetable (other than the social opprobrium of turning up late for Uncle Carls' 80th birthday BBQ at the local RSL).... ah what a glorious thing is a Saturday!!

Then Sunday comes along, and if you are like half of Sydney, you head to Yum Cha in Chinatown..... there, if you are insane enough (and it's entirely possible most of us are stark raving bonkers), you arrive just as the crushing masses surge forward eager for their weekly fix of chicken's feet (I feel sorry for all those poor lame chickens in wheelchairs), eggplant/tofu (yum!), or pork buns (that I maintain look just like the pods in Alien/s....and I once ordered then using that name.....the Chinese waitress clearly was no pop culture addict and looked at me blankly).... or if you are like me, you turn up at 11 and have a brunch-type take on Yum Cha and are done in time to see a movie just after lunch..... of course somewhere in the middle of all the activity, you have to find time for that most sacred of weekend rituals.....The Nanna Nap...combine that with Saturday's Herald and you have the perfect afternoon....OK throw in some LindorBalls and you have the perfect afternoon..... right some Pinot Grigio, Lindor Balls, the Herald and nap and you have...well you get the idea....

Hot Cross Buns, Lindt Bunnies.... Oh My!

So this is Christmas...what have we done?....wait a second....no it's not.... the year has moved so fast, it's already Easter, and what's more it's almost over! I have done my best to use the time well - napping, movie watching, book reading, iPoding music (yes love using brand names as verb...think it should be a national sport!).....and catching up with good friends....I have also, as is clearly obvious, finally found my blog again in the wilds of cyberspace, and I am making an entry...... of course after 3 days of near to no thinking, my brain has the consistency and mental alacrity of tapioca pudding (never considered one of the clever desserts), and so this will be just a general quick entry...

It's been a brilliant Easter break.....I briefly thought of packing the 4 days with endless catch ups, outings, movies etc but decided I couldn't be..you know.... so I just saw a movie on Friday ("The Dinner Guest" - French and wonderfully farcical..they do it so well!) with my friend Tim, spent Saturday morning at Temple (aka IKEA - a holy place with do it yourself religious experiences...and swearing!), and Saturday evening drinks on the roof of the Zanzibar Hotel in Newtown (they have a bar there lest you think I was clinging to guttering with a martini in one hand, and a bowl of peanuts in the other...hmm that could be fun!) with friends Fahmi & Stephen....and Sunday was just lunch out with my friend Peter.... all very chilled and civilised.... and miracle of miracles, and a sure sign of the coming apocalypse, I put up my new IKEA CD unit (striking red to sit among the existing 4 silver ones - tres chic) a day after I bought it!!! I know.... none of that box becoming a part of the furniture routine.... the box is open, and the unit has been assembled with minimal swearing.... it's a sign! Not sure of what exactly but it is a holy weekend so it could be a sign of anything....I'm hoping for a good sign as impending pestilence and war is not my idea of a good time..... funny that....

I leave this entry with the following picture - I am sure the designer had such very good, dare I say, holy intentions, but unfortunately the end result is....well....let's just say Jesus needs a better PR agency.....

When Turnips Ruled the World

To be honest I wasn't around when giant turnips ruled the world - if in fact they ever did; the fossil record is scant in this regard - but was around when the rain poured down on Wednesday night (6 Feb) and still I went to the Open Air Cinema. Going to this most breezy of cinema complexes is a sacred rite of Summer for me, and the more times the better. When it's fine at least. Back when Sydney was mired in drought, worrying about a rainy night would have had you locked up in a mental institute, whereas now it marks you as perfectly sane, and well informed weather-wise. This year has been marked by never-ending deluges and even though I am a supreme optimist, not even that can stop the clouds spilling forth their raindrops. At least on Wednesday night, we made it through dinner with nary a droplet falling from the sky - and thankfully Warren & I had parked ourselves under a giant umbrella on the upper level of the eating concourse - but the fun started when just before the movie, so did the rain in a deluge that would have had Noah a little concerned......and me without my ark! (Hate it when I leave it at home....Mum always said to leave home prepared for any and every apocalypse but sadly I have gotten slack in my middle age.)

Unlike a great many other people, we stuck around for the movie, a delightful (if wafer-thin) romantic comedy called "Definitely Maybe", featuring the delicious Ryan Reynolds, and clad in our clear ponchos, rode out the rain which lasted for only about a third of the way into the movie.....it wasn't exactly sunshine and roses after that, but nor was it the deluge that swamped Sydney, and we walked back to the car nice and toasty dry..... alas my work bag, caught in the flood that washed across the floor of the dining area didn't fare as well but it has lived to commute again you will all be relieved to know...

Long time, no blog...has the world changed?

So it's been a while since the old blog was updated sad to say....actually there's very little emotional swirl attached to saying that but it sounds suitably contrite and a little melodramatic... I am not entirely sure who pressed the Fast Forward button on my life, and pushed me so far into the future, which interestingly has an eerie resemblance to the present, but the blog entry I am absolutely positively intended to do the next day never materialized... until now ...... there may be issues of alien abduction involved here, or a Bermuda Triangle disappearance, and really that would be far more dramatic, but in reality, I just got busy...far too busy...and a little lazy.....

But I am lazy no more! (He says with a flourish of the cape he doesn't have).....and yes the world has changed....well mine has anyway....since that last entry, I have finally left my old job (which was killing me with stress...alas not kindness.... and giving very little back) and got a great new one (which makes sense...getting a crappy new one would have been a village idiot kind of thing to do).... moved from The Shire (way down in Sydney's deep dark southern suburbs) to my natural home in the Inner West (I can hear David Attenborough narrating the doco now)..... and started exploring a whole new neighbourhood, life... and a great pizza place (this ranks very high on great new things in my life!)......

...and today is a blissful glorious day off, which naturally, as an office worker chained to a PC, I am partially spending at my computer.....lol..... good old Australia Day and the magnificent public holiday it brings.... after a week of frantic deadlines, and many social outings, all I plan to do today is read the rest of a novel (yes fast living folks!!) and take a nap..... stellar high-reaching goals I know but I daresay achievable by dint of their ordinariness.....

HAPPY OZ DAY!

JUST ANOTHER MANIC MOVIE REVIEW

"The Three Burials of Malquiades Estrada", which I saw last night, is a profoundly touching movie that examined everything from racism in the USA and how this affects their border policies, the callous disregard for life bred into people who treat the illegal immigrants as less than animals with no understanding that they are people with lives too (something that is beautifully underlined later in the movie when the border patrol guard kidnapped by Tommy Lee Jones's character, Pete Perkins, comes face to face with a Mexican woman he assaulted back in the USA when arresting her, who was deported back to Mexico), and the loneliness and disengagement of people from others, or their homes - whether its the border patrol guard 1000s of miles from home, or the Mexican immigrant who makes a home in the USA but with the constant threat of deportation, which makes true interaction with their adopted land well nigh impossible, or the wife of the cafe owner in the border town who is married but plays around on the side so emotionally estranged from her husband is she. It was a slow moving drama, with a rich tapestry of characters, and in amongst all the grimness, quite a bit of macabre humour which softened the unrelenting harshness of the landscape and the lives of the people in it........all in all, a brilliant, emotionally evocative movie.....

Now I am old? I don't think so! Reflections on turning 40

So the big 4 - 0 hey? I have no idea why certain milestone numbers - yes we are still imperial when it comes to big birthdays it seems! - suddenly have to be spelt out, like you are trying to hide something from someone. Reminds of when my parents would spell something out when I was child so I wouldn't know what they were getting or doing - it may have been true that I couldn't understand that the spelled word was, but I understood the act of spelling all right and the fact that it meant something! Somehow saying the two numbers separately doesn't disguise the fact that I am officially sliding into a gloriously vigorous middle age.....not that I am all that worried really. 40...sorry 4 - 0....is the new 30 I am told, and 50 is the new 35, which places me back at the start of my 30s, which thus far has been my favourite decade. Lots of wisdom about me and how the world operates coupled with youtful zest (no, not lemon zest - too bitter) - lt's see of the 40s can top that! As ever, my cup is half full....full of Vanilla Coke that is!

The birthday was marked by a 12 day visit to Canada on frequent flier miles, where I got to help celebrate (and organise the party of) my wonderful friend, Sandra, who also turned 4 - 0. (See I still know what I mean!) I spent 2 days covering the greater part of Port Coquitlam (in Vancouver) with Ilesa, Sandra's friend and neighbour, for lots of food, red and yellow everything (inspired by the balloons we ordered) and even a birthday tiara (plastic) and a sash saying "Birthday Queen", which also somehow ended up on me at the 40th. Thats right - make fun of the gay man! LOL The party went off a treat....I drank lots of Sangria, Sandra got to see some close friends, and there was cake! Mmmmm....cake....when I wasn't doing the Queer Eye for the Party Guy routine, I was shopping in Kitsilano (funky neighbourhood) and downtown (with Sandra where we stopped in for sushi at good ol' Tsunami Sushi, and lots o' CDs at HMV Megastore), and checking out dead frozne salmon in a stream.....well I was supposed to be checking out live ones rushing to spawn but I was a tad too late....

Flew back into Sydney Town on the day of my birthday, where I was not wished Happy Birthday by the customs officer (so much for my tax dollars at work!) and carrying a very bad cold picked up courtesy of Sandra and her partner Ken's two lovely kids, Katie and Graham. The one thing I didn't have was jetlag but after some shopping and a birthday lunch of Indian with Susie, a very good friend, I had to come home and crash out for 3 hours to sleep off the effects of the cold. Do I know how to party of not?! Got up, felt way better, got an SMS from Warren (this great guy I met via Yahoo Personals, who may yet turn out to be the best birthday present yet) right at 6.18 pm when I was born - very sweet! - talked to various wonderful freinds, and Mum & Dad and headed out for fish and chips from the local in Gymea with John and Susie. Yes another night of wild and frantic partying that may or may not have included drunken sheep and small people with killer abs (long story) but more than likely didn't....

Got home, watched some "Queer As Folks" I'd taped, and then rang Warren at 10.30 pm for what I presumed would be a quick chat prior to our get together on Sunday. We talked for 3 and a half hours with a single stop, awkward silence or anything. Way cool. (Its very hard to make smart remakrs when you're happy isn't it? That could become a problem real soon, methinks). We did try a couple of awkward silences just for effect but they inevitably ended after 5 secnds when one of us lost concentration. Let's face it Waz - we suck at awkward silences! It was a wonderful end to my birthday and was followed by a quick call to my friend Kerry in Briz Vegas, who's a complete night owl.

The next big event on the 4 - 0 calendar was the Big Birthday Dinner That Ate Paris on Saturday night.....OK there were only 7 of us but they were very good friends (Andrew, an old housemate, Ellen & Tracy, John & Susie and Ross, a friend who travelled down from Newcastle, which was wonderful of him) and everything went like clockwork.....had the dinner at a fantastic restaurant called "Sealevel" at Cronulla, and we tucked into gloriously rich food (Szechuan Pork Fillets with mango, and pear dressing and rice rolls for me!) we looked onto the night ocean , lit up by a spectacular storm. Conversation flowed freely, as did the Southern Comforts and Coke (here's to not driving!!), and we followed up dinner, after a frantic dash through the rain (me with a ton of helium balloons including a giant Tigger one!), with Toblerone Cheesecake, silly party hats and presents at Ellen's. If you have to turn 4 - 0, then I figure this is the way to do it - great friends, great food, and cheesecake.....and you can quote me on that....

Right now to my 41 st year....roll on !!!

Dates, Figs and Various Other Types of Fruit

So I know that you have all been waiting with baited breath - I can't use that phrase without picturing a tiny, shocked worm desperately clinging to a teensy weensy hook, hanging from a minute piercing on the upper lip, while suspended over the gaping maw of someone's oesophagus: presumably someone did that once I 'd like to think unless there's a more prosaic reason for the phrase's evolution which would frankly be a bit disappointing - to see how my date went. Well so have I really! I am still waiting for a phonecall or email two weeks after the second date, which I was asked out on about 3/4 of the way through the firs date, which went exceptionally well. We met at a trendy cafe in Newtown, a funky inner city Sydney suburb, inside the Dendy arthouse cinema complex, and to my delight (I delight easily it seems) the man in question, Phillip, turned up in his work suit, looking suitably well dressed and handsome. So far so good. Thankfully there was a minimum of syllable-barren awkwardness, and we soon fell into a wide ranging discussion of our upbringings, backgrounds, families and the deteriorating geo-political situation in the Abkhazia region of the old USSR. Just kidding about the last bit but that would have been an interesting twist in the conversation. So engaging was the conversation, and so well did we get on that he asked me for a second date, even settling on the Thursday two days later.....

So fast forwarding to the Thursday, we agreed to meet at a funky (there's that word again but hey this is Newtown, and besides its a very cool word, right up with there with 'plethora' and 'soporific') Thai restaurant at 7 p.m. Only we didn't quite make it there, or in actual fact to anything resembling a real restaurant. He called me when I was already driving to the funky eatery (see you just can't use that word enough!) and proposed a switch of venue to the Taxi Club, which is just off Taylor Square, right in the heart of the gay heartland. All well and good, but City traffic is a bi-artch, and finding a parking spot recalls the search for the Yeti, Loch Ness Monster and Elvis all rolled into one gloriously frustrating quest, testing even the most half glass full of people (which would be me). As all sorts of funkiness slipped from my mind, replaced instead with 300-400 circuits of the roads around the Taxi Club, a lovely drive if you like construction work and bitumen, I had the vague feeling that this date was slipping into a coma even before it got going. But rallying my optimism (ya gotta love a Sagitarrian's ability to cultivate optimism), I persisted till dizziness (one too many circuits of the same block) and a dying wanderlust for discovering new and unknown neighbourhoods, forced me to call Phillip and propose another change of venue to Fox Studios, near where he lives. He didn't sound too thrilled but agreed and so being the nice guy that I am, proposed parking at Fox, and driving in his car - he has free parking - to the Taxi Club.

Happy to do this, we rocked up to the Taxi Club, and I wandered into something akin to a rundown RSL full of cross dressers (not an issue) and old carpet and ambience from a forgotten decade with bad decor. In its defense, I had one of the best salmon fillets EVER there and the French waiter, camp as an entire tent factory, was a lot of fun, and made ordering a vaudeville experience....and Phillip and I talked non stop....so mostly all good right? Well on paper yes, but something niggled at me as we drove back to Fox. Phillip had lost some sort of spark, and having not admitted to a yearning to marry him immediately (absent I can assure you), sympathies for right wing dictatorships (past or present), or a love of clog dancing to polka music at midnight while nude, I couldn't think of anything I could have said to put him off. There was much talk of keeping in touch via email and SMS over the next week, when he would be busy fixing up his rental house, and couldn't see me, and after a half-hearted hug that put human embraces back a few thousand years in terms of warmth and intimacy, he walked off, and though I tried to stay upbeat and positive, had a funny feeling that was it.....and it seems it has been. I am not entirely sure why gay man cut and run, and never even call you to say 'thanks but no thanks', but I find it faintly amusing that he thinks his rejection of me, when he didn't even know me, would send me into some sort of Cecil B deMille-esque melodramatic rant involving much crying, gnashing teeth and copious amounts of ash flung over hastily stitched together sackcloth. He would have actually got more of a mildy ambivalent shrug but let him run with his ridiculously over-inflated sense of his own magnetic attraction!

At least I found out he had great claim to flake status before he sucked me dry of money, hope or the will to live which some previous boyfriends have done. OK not the will to live, which I am rather fond of, but you get the idea. The upside to all this is that another man who said hello via the online personals at about the same time, had quietly snuck up the inside and he and I are well on the way to becoming brilliantly good friends, with the very real promise of more substantial things to come. Yes, happiness isn't as funny as dating disasters but I am happy to put aside witty barbs if it means I find true love...or as close you get to it in this life.....

And then he ate and a great multitude of calories did enter him

Ya gotta love the weekends! They invariably involve catch-ups with friends, and very rarely does this involve learned discussion of Archimedes principles of buoyancy; usually its food and great amounts of it. I do tend to let myself depart from my usually spartan diet on the weekends, consuming chocolate bars, Indian food, and icecream like its going out of fashion (and the way Sara Lee discontinues product lines, that could well be the case) but this weekend set all new benchmarks. I managed to consume two lots of Indian food - but in the interests of variety I did vary the curries lest you fear I had fallen into a great big culinary rut and couldn't climb out), fish and chips (accompanied by a long walk with a good friend and his hyperactive 2 year old so that must count for a reduction in the calorie count surely), and tons of Yum Cha including the Alien Pods (pork buns), Jellyfish (dumplings) and Glowing Yellow Logs (mango pancakes) - notice my use of the actual Chinese terms (which they would be if the Chinese person was adopted at birth by Caucasians who didn't teach their child of word of their native tongue). And today? Low flat muesli bars and cucumbers with salmon....yep, DE-CA-DENT.....

I have a date tonight! You don't care really but after 9 months of licking my wounds after the last disasterous foray into building long and lasting intimate relations with someone, I am back in the fray and in exactly 1 hour and 20 minutes shall be making really awkward conversation for a good 10 minutes till I either hit a comfortable groove or start counting the time till I can reasonably walk away with dignity intact. Stay tuned.

All Those Little Things That Jam My Brain

Its been awhile snce I visited the ol' blog, and many small, spectacularly important, as you will soon see, questions and observations have rushed into my brain, stuck to my grey matter like super glue and refused to let go. So in an attempt to dislodge them, and free up my brain space for important things like watching "Grey's Anatomy" and ordering lunch, here they are in all their unadorned glory:

(1) Why did my iPod, which if pushed could no doubt rule the world in a benign and caring fashion while simultaneously washing up and watching over a flock of sheep (assuming I had anywhere in my 1 bedroom apartment to keep them) beep at me when it was uploading the latest batch of Songs I Cannot Live Without When Away From Home - yep, it has all the manners of a backwoods peasant as a medieval banquet at times - and say it couldn't find song such-and-such and hence couldn't upload it. Yet it knew that song was there hence the song must have been there to upload. Strangely enough my yelling at it that the song must have been there for it to know it even existed, failed to move it and it remained defiant to the end, hinting that if I pushed it, I would find myself in a chain gang smashing extremely large rocks in Mongolia, come the revolution when it would take over the world (yes, I know, I should never have mentioned to it that I thought it could pull it off).

This naturally forced me to.....meekly tinker with the name of the song so the iPod would deign to recognise it. So I guess that cowardly act rules me out of leading the resistance to my iPod's rule - unless I get another MP3 player, with no charisma or ability to govern anything - then I will be free to resist the benign yet despotic rule of my iPod which...what's that above me? An anvil - but wait where'd it come from? And what's that sliver of white & silve behind it? No it can't be! It is...aaagghh....

(2) Right - false alarm....just my overactive imagination and love of cheesy melodrama getting the better of me.....now where was I? Ah yes trivial thoughts that may yet impact mankind's very future on this planet...actually this one already has...I have become quite the Ebay mogul of late, selling tons 'o' stupidly ill-considered purchases in an attempt to get the baying wolves of VISA from my door.....didn't know they were using baying wolves did you? Yes the wolves, and the odd really ticked off wolverine, and irritated domesticated barnyard fowl, were all congregating at my door far too often, scaring the aforementioned herd of sheep, so something had to be done!

Oh, and I had to somehow get some money for my trip to Canada in November so I immediately drew up a lengthy list of Christmas ornaments I never put on the tree, DVDs I have yet to watch even though when I bought them I Had To Have Them Or Life Itself Would End, singles of an eclectic collection of artists, and in the most amazing part of this, gathering together a pile of plastic creatures that came in Kelloggs cereals back in the early 70s that I had recently found it were worth actual money! Lots of actual money! They have been the cash cow of my whole operation - just a second, I have to calm the sheep; the idea of a large bovine near them scared them silly - in one case bringing in $210 for 6 small plastic pirates. Yes honestly. So while I am not a hoarder - when you move as much as I do, hoarding is a silly idea! - I am heartily glad I am a sentimentalist and kept these tokens of my childhood. So I can sell them off, and make money as an adult! Natch! Not sure if I owe my parents a cut off the proceeds since they did buy the cereal in the first place, but I will try to convince them that my great love for them is more than enough compensation...or give them a few sheep maybe....

(3) As well as selling off treasured mementoes of my childhood to the highest bidder like some callous childhood memento selling-type person - do not let me near your treasure childhood knick knacks or you will find them on Ebay faster than you can blink; I have the fever, I tell you, I have the fever and must sell - it all!! - I have also decided to be austere and only buy things I actually need when I need them. Get out! Too late, I already am! Now this thought initially was as alien as suggesting I miss the latest series of Survivor - Stephenie has been brought back for the latest jaunt...hooray! ....this time to Guatemala - but I have done it over the last 3 months and discovered you don't need Lots of Stuff. Frightening indeed but true. Of Course, VISA and Mastercard are running scared, warning shareholders of profit downgrades this year, and I have had one or two calls from the Treasury begging me to keep spending, lest the economy stall....but I am resolute.....I am going to keep living on less...so I can spend lots in another country instead! Hello Canada!

Right well now that my brain is a little freer now, I think its time to think about what to have for lunch.....sushi perhaps? See, I do focus on the important stuff!

!POP! KORN

MOVIE

"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory"

I was beginning to wonder if I was meant to see this movie as my first attempt coincided with a rainy Father's Day and untold numbers of families deciding that the ultimate bonding experience would be a movie, and specifically the one I wanted to see, and my second, on the following weekend, synching beautifully with a massive street fair in Cronulla which meant that I couldn't find a parking spot to save myself. Success at last, and by this stage I was loudly proclaiming to my film buddy, Ellen, that the film had better be as good as everyone was saying, at Westfield Miranda which not only had it on at a good time, but had parking spaces (mercy me!) and tickets available. All snug in our seats and surrounded by more teens & pre-teens that a single person in their late 30s should ever be exposed to in a concentrated period, we beamed the sweet smile of victory as the pre-show ads and trailers (for a super exciting mix of G rated fare that I won't be seeing, thank you, lovely though the trailers are) started flickering onto the screen.....alas, with NO sound! Yes there was much gnashing of teeth, and a frantic rummaging of my mind as I'd tried to remember if I had ever offended Tim Burton (the director) at any point, and if so ( a little hard since I had never met him but ya never know), was he isn't some occultic religion that cursed me to never see any of his movies? (A very ego centric occultic religion if I may say so.) But then the sweet decibels of overhyped trailers and pointless ads kicked in and stayed on for the entire movie! Success at last!

So was it as good as the critics, all of whom praised it as a witty, colourful and faithful re-imagining of the dark tale by Roald Dahl, said it was? Thankfully, yes. Visually it was stunning, full of more rich colours inside the factory than I could process, and appropriate winter-like bleakness outside it, which made the scenes inside Willy Wonka's chocolate-driven flight from reality all the more richer. Freddy Highmore, who played Charlie, had the right mix of goodness & sweetness (without miraculously becoming nausea inducing), and Johnny Depp as Willy Wonka was a delightful mix of loopy, dark, engaging and sad, and an absolute standout in the movie. Tim Burton was in fine form, staying faithful to the book, which no doubt suited him just fine since he and Roald Dahl share the same delightfully twisted view of the world. Even the brief musical numbers, performed by the mysterious Oompa Loompas to send off the four children who's various human foibles and glaring flaws doom their chance to win the factory as an inheritance, were fun, kitsch, and oh, did I mention, brief. Having disliked people spontaneously breaking into song in any movie since I was a child, this was an EGT (Exceedingly Good Thing)! There is very little to dislike in a movie that manages to wrap surreal characters, unusual circumstances and a happy non-corny ending - the less corn the better I say - into one wonderfully coloured, vibrant fun movie.

Strangely enough, I was left with a strong desire to eat not chocolate, which is what you'd expect after a movie set in a chocolate factory but for a chicken roast dinner, which Charlie's family ate in the last scene of the movie......so of course I went home, and ate a cajun flavoured kangaroo steak.....very, very close to a chicken roast dinner....OK no it isn't.....

Back from the dead (and boy was that coffin cramped)

Well I have recovered from a near fatal attack (OK not really but it sounds suitably dramatic) of the flu which turned the last 2 weeks or so into a (very pleasant at times) haze of Codral cold and flu tablets, enough zinc tablets that I should be able to start mining myself at some stage in the future should I need more money and commodity prices hold firm, and enough Advil to warrant a seat on the board of that company as a major investor. While the dreaded lurgy did earn me a week of work - a good thing at any time - my 'time off' consisted of staring at the TV with my best impersonation of a lobotimised mental patient watching - it pains me to admit this - day time TV! Yes, Yes I know, how could I ? How could I breach that sacred covenant that we all make with ourselves to only watch day time dross....NEVER? It started with the 10.30 a.m. news, which is quite justifiable since knowledge is a good thing, and I should exercise my brain while the rest of my body turns on itself like a few Balkan nations with way too much weaponry and time on their hands, and soon graduated to "Hope and Faith" ( an admittedly B-grade sitcom but I grew to love it - sad I know but it was the Codral I swear!), "Still Standing" (also 2nd tier but really quite anti-establishment and not your typical family sitcom....I like it deliciously subversive style), "Murder She Wrote" (c'mon Angela Lansbury looks like a lovely cuddly grandmother and when you're sick, who doesn't want to soak in such lovely warm maternal-ish images) and bfore I knew it, and impromptu naps permitting, I was watching.....oh God forgive me!!....OPRAH! Who knew so many woman were in need of relationship counselling/makeovers/decent books to read (while sick maybe?)....I , for one, had no idea and I am profoundly changed after watching more episodes than is good for anyone...well, 'profoundly' may be stretching it, but I can now talk about all sorts of Important Issues with suitable Oprah-esque gravitas, and hence, am all the more in demand at dinner parties hosted by those with actual lives and no time to watch day time TV......my dirty little secret is that I am still taping "Still Standing" but not "Oprah".....I do still have some pride, you know.....

Now that I actually feel like myself again - assuming I even know the real me which is debatebale given that Oprah has opened my eyes to how little I know about Important Issues which would have to include me right? - I have decided to start sticking all the photos still in tubs into photo albums as an Urgent Priority, which would be fine if there was only a few rolls but we're talking 3 boxes full, people! 3 BOXES! Yes, I wanted to run of the door screaming but the deadlock was on at the time so that didn't work too well. Must add sanding back the door to my lists of Things To Do.....the wonderful part of the whole exercise, aside from this whacked out idea of mine that organising the photos will be fun, and bring a sense of completeness and joy that hitherto I could only imagine, is that I have photos from the last 3 decades all mixed together! Not the smartest thing to have done but with all the moving I have managed to cram into my 15 years in Sydney, its not surprising....and even though I hardly ever take it, I blame Codral for the mess my photos are in! Yes Codral! Not only does it relieve cold and flu symptoms but it can also be used as a handy scapegoat! I expect to have all my photos in albums shortly before my death in 50 years time, or before the coming of Jesus, which happens to arrive first, assuming of course I never take any more photos, like that'll happen...yep, I'm screwed....

By the way, and with this I conclude I swear, does anyone actually like Tuesdays? It's a nothing day - not quite the start of the week but not even Hump Day.....its suck awkwardly in the middle, kind of like the 2nd year of a uni degree......

Someone stole my life and I want it back!

If only it were that dramatic...in truth, I am living the sort of life that I hope will win me all sorts of "Wow he's so dedicated to his art" bylines when the Novel That Rules My Life is sitting at the top of the New York Times bestseller list for the 20th week in a row, and people are wishing that another book, any other book such as "The History of Concreting in Latvia" (a solid read if ever there was one) or "When Ferrets Ruled the World", would sell more copies......yes, all I have right now are my ever present fantasies as I keep getting up at 3 a.m. to write for an hour and a half before going powerwalking for one hour through very dark streets, all the time hoping that I only suffer for my art, and not my commitment to exercising....so far I have not acquired a stalker and my iPod and I have been left in peace....I can't help thinking though that a stalker could provide untold health benefits, spurring me to walk faster and faster especially past the Police station....naturally we would have an unspoken stalker/stalkee bond where he/she only agreed to view me from afar from behind street lights - they would have to be an anorexic stalker to accomplish that - and did not under any circumstances feel the need to pray with me/marry me/do macrame with me....I am not entirely sure you can trust a stalker to agree to those kind of terms, but I will just remind them that if I am crazy enough to get up at 3 a.m. to type words into my PC, then I am crazy enough to do just about anything.....

One highlight of my thrilling and endlessly exciting life was winning a massive near inter-galactic in proportions trivia contest in Cronulla last Friday night, along with 7 other people including good friends, Andrew, Ellen & Tracy....OK I may have lied a little about the size of said contest - no actual aliens turned up so it was more earthbound in scope, I suppose but, and I cannot say this enough, WE WON! Not only did we win, beating 15 other tables of people, but we had two perfect rounds of 10/10, which I think is pretty much about the only time I have ever got remotely close to perfection in my life (its all downhill from here baby!), despite my attempts to perfect score in gymnastics.....that goal was severely hampered from being realised by my failure to actually take up gymnastics....for my troubles I won 2 free movie passes, along with a share in a massive box of chocolates, partway through the night, which I think may have contributed to our eventual victory, given how hopped up on sugar, caffeine and artificial colours & flavours we ended up......and if it didn't egg on our neurones and synpases to great eternal glory, it meant we did a one hell of a kick ass victory dance.....I mean we were very humble and didn't overdo it all....no, I'm fairly sure we hollered and screamed and made damn sure that everyone knew we were happy to have won......in my defense, to those who think we got carried away, may I just say it was the chocolate talking......really...nah kidding......

So Zen Like I Have Passed Out

I have just heard the most profound, amazing, impactful piece of philosophy from a co-worker that will no doubt lead to the establishment of several new mono & polytheistic religions, a new dawn for man, and possibly, cures for the common cold & a better mousetrap. Here it is...prepare to be awed and change forever:

"I am self sufficient like a vacuum cleaner."

No, I have no idea what it means either...........

Monday on My Mind - Hmmm, Feels like a Headache

To my absolute "delight", the flu that was lurking for several days and never got past a bad chest infection, thanks to an O/D of Zinc Complex tablets (not sure where all the simple, stupid zinc goes - vitamin boot camp perhaps? - but certainly not into the depths of my immune system where it would no doubt have had to ask for directions to my lymph glands while I got sicker) , cleared up last night, thus denying me the chance to legitimately stay at home sick! Not that I like being sick, nor taking days off sick - I have an amazingly resilient immune system which is no doubt thanks to not using the village idiots of vitamins above - but having a Monday off, which is the pond scum of days (no offense to any lovers of pond scum who may be reading the blog) , is an attractive thought. Of course, coming back to a Tuesday with all Monday's workload waiting like a rotting piece of roadkill in Summer heat (evocative enough for ya?!) is not attractive and so here I am, disgustingly healthy, and up to my neck in work, both real and cyber.....

I did get to go on an 'excursion' on Friday - going on an excursion these days is a much easier process now I don't need to get my mother to sign permission forms :) - to visit one of my main high revenue customers, Aussiebum, home to sexy swimwear and jocks for men. They work in this funky cool warehouse office, complete with trendy kitchen, TV etc - kinda like I expect some of those dotcom offices looked back in the days of boom - and while they expect the very best (which is fair enough given the money they spend with us), they are a very easy bunch of people to get along with, including the lovely Amy, who I deal with the most. Bonus was escaping the Beige Tomb (my beloved monochrome cubicle) for a couple of hours.....

Only 2 hours to go and paid work is over....then its home to switch on my home PC, and finally finish Chapter 12 of the novel which is half done and has been for the better part of a week. It required extensive re-writes and that has been time-consuming, but I also kind of 'fell off the novel re-writing wagon' and aim to clamber back on tonight before the horses pulling said wagon - and previously kicking on with steroidal speed - reverse over me (hoof marks do nothing for my complexion I can tell you now). I may even start Chapter 13 assuming my brain doesn't shut down, forget it knows the English language, grammar and syntax (in other words holiday/weekend mode), and demand to watch the latest episode of '24', which of course has nothing at all to do with my novel......I will, of course, find a way to justify viewing it but given that the need to rationalise my behaviour is not yet upon me, my rationale will have to wait for a future post.....for now, its Chapter 12 & 13 away! Ole! (See - my grasp of English is slipping already...now where is the TV remote again?!)

WAITING FOR CREATIVE INSPIRATION & FOR POND SCUM TO FORM HAVE MUCH IN COMMON

Well its been a while since my last post, and that is pretty much solely due to the novel, which is consuming great chunks of my day after work, and a lot of time otherwise, as my brain constantly tries to sort out narrative roadblocks, character dead ends etc. I would love to say I am overflowing with the joy of creative endeavour, but in reality, fun though it is to revisit the characters I now view as real beings and play God with their lives, a lot of my time is being spent getting the novel to a point where a publisher will welcome me with open arms, ply me with champagne and all expense paid trips to Paris in the Springtime, and make me the toast of literary scenes worldwide. Realistically, I will be happy if the publisher simply goes to the trouble to at least read the manuscript, and colour coordinate the rejection slip and envelope....then they can fly me to Paris to read the rejection slip. Yes, I will graciously let them salve their guilt at rejecting my fantasy epic by flying me somewhere to get over it.......now back in the real world - which I try to avoid inhabiting for too long given the poor food, boring job, and right wing politicians - I have just re-dne Chapter 11 and I only have 8 chapters to go and the epilogue so I am within sight of the end.....

Well, at least as it stands at the moment. I have been told that 90% of the work on the novel occurs after you get published, which is mildly frightening considering what it is requiring now. I guess the thing is at this point to concentrate on one step at a time - "baby steps, baby steps" - and hold on to what's left of my sanity as I do it. The big plus in all of this is that I get to use my brain to do things other than apologise to customers who believe God has bequeathed them the honour of occupying the centre of the universe - yep, sorry Galileo but the spot you thought was occupied by the Sun is actually home to Bill Smith of Steamrollovereveryone and Then BBQ Them Inc, and his charming Hitlerite secretary, Barbie Tiffany Biatch - and compose emails that outline the same thing I have just told the last 5000 customers. I am not entirely sure which side of the brain is the creative one, but these rewrites are its moment in the cerebral sun, as it finally elbows out all the useless work junk, and sprints off the bench, hopefully propelling me to the joy of creative fulfillment....oh, and a trip to Paris if it can manage it......

!POP! KORN

Immersing myself once again in the often shallow, and occasionally deep and thought-provoking waters of the prevailing zeitgeist, here are the latest media drugs to shoot up my sensory veins:

MOVIE

'War of the Worlds'

A week before seeing the latest masterpiece from Steven Spielberg, I was expecting another shoot-em-up-grab-a-dog-to-protect-you-from-mortal-danger-alien-invasion movie where the human race triumphs on or near July 4. This is naturally the only date around which you would lay waste to Planet Earth if you were an alien since you know from reading our books, and seeing our movies that your alien race will be defeated by water/computer viruses/budgies on acid quite quickly, and that the human race will emerge victorious, and needs an important symbolic date around which to stage a day of delerious celebration victory that totally ignores the fact that the world's economy/food supply/output of books and DVDs is terminally screwed.

Then the reviews started pouring in and I began to suspect that maybe, just maybe, this epic blockbuster may just have a brain (and a heart and a soul), a rarity indeed in the cinematic monsters that bestride Hollywood in the US Summer. It was said that Spielberg had imbued the classic story by H G Wells, which was initially written as a warning of the dangers of untrammelled imperialism, specifically that of the British Empire, with echoes of the Holocaust. It is only when you see this most atypical of alien invasion blockbusters that you realise that Spielberg has captured all the horrors of genocide in so horrifying a fashion that this movie sends chills down your soul as you witness the almost wholesale destruction of the human race by the imperialiastic Martians, who do not see people but rather inferior nothings standing in the way of commodity acquisition. Previous alien invasion epics like "Independence Day" are almost cartoonish by comparison - yes, cities are destroyed and humanity is in peril, but you do not get a sense of real doom and dread, and the very real flesh-crawling, heart-sickening horror that unfolds in "WOW" (yes they deleted the 'the' to appease the gods of marketing!) is nowhere near as clearly in evidence in "ID4", if it is there at all. I was asked if I had enjoyed the movie and I hesitated to answer, not because I didn't like it; on the contrary I was powerfully drawn into an amazing movie that dares to wear its social critique very much on its sleeve, but because I don't think its the kind of movie you do 'enjoy'. It is hard to enjoy watching a woman being vaporised as she runs for her life, her face frozen in terror; to grab handfuls of popcorn when people are tossed from the tripods onto the ground, only to have their blood sucked from them, and used as macabre fertiliser. BUT what the movie does do is make you think and realise that you can the heartpounding action and thrills of a big epic, and not leave your brain at the door.

So thank you Steven Spielberg for this masterful piece of cinema, that even though it veers into a great big field of corny sentiment at the end (all the world is destroyed but the one nieghbourhood in Boston where Tom's family is), still manages to tell a brilliantly engaging story while making us realise that we can never rest on our humanitarian laurels while even one person is in peril.

MUSIC

'The Alternative to Love' - Brendan Benson



Bright breezy pop with more contagious melodies than you poke a musical prodigy at, and with more than a passing nod to the 70s, this is the sort of CD that makes you glad to be alive (listening to it with chocolate and a glass of Shiraz also helps)! As an added bonus, Brendan's third CD is replete with very cool lyrics that explore the meaning of life, love and relationships in a way that isn't too precious, engages the soul and mind, and allows for the fact that life isn't always a happy skip in the park with sunshine, candy and bright flowers all around. In other words, he writes about life with the frankness of someone who just accepts that this is how it is, and wraps it all up in music so contagious you can help but singalong. Which I do...with the windows shut...and the doors locked.....no sense upsetting the neighbours.....