Vale Moony

On the 13th of February, in the small hours of a Glasgow morning, Moony died.

I never blogged about her in depth. She featured in my tweets and FB status updates, as being a small bird she was the right size to be consumed in small chunks. She was full of entertaining idiosyncrasies, from her frustrating determination to eat nothing but seed (You're a bird! You're supposed to like fruit, dammit!) to her perpetual disapproval of everything we did. Aged only 5 months when we first got her, she was growing her personality for the six months we shared our spaces, and that personality appeared to consist primarily of a grumpy old man. She was cross at everything, all the time. She didn't want to be social or play, and any attempt to do so would be met by her opening her beak aggressively and gawping at us. Very rarely did she actually bite.

When J was at work we'd spend our time quietly. I'd pop her on my laptop screen, and she would sit there preening herself and dozing while I whittled away the time. Watching her preen was my favourite distraction, in fact it still is. For those of you who haven't spent much time around birds, they are the ultimate contortionists. Her white brow was stained from rubbing it on the oil gland on her back. How many animals do you can rub the top of their head on their butt? Not many. She'd get really into nibbling her way through the down on her chest, she'd give her own chin a good dig and eat her feet with relish. The stiff but gentle rustling sound when she ran her pinions through her beak. And oh! When she'd start cleaning her butt, inevitably she find a poop that had dried to her feathers, to which her only response was to yank the offending feather out and toss the whole parcel away. Usually at me. If she wasn't on the monitor, she was on my head. She wasn't much of a shoulder bird. If ever she stood on fabric, her first instinct was to try and eat it. Most of our tops have holes in the shoulders. J had one t-shirt dedicated to her, and she made a fish net out of it. She didn't like shoulders though, too close to the face. We'd put her there and she'd simply climb our hair to our heads. There, she'd nibble away at our hair. Not quite preening, and not quite eating. Despite some good yanks and crunching noises, she never actually broke hair. She'd simply...be unsatisfied with its current arrangement, and so would take it upon herself to rearrange it to her liking. I would end up with literal bird's nest hair.

We'd take her in the shower. She wasn't much interested in getting wet, so we'd just sit her on the shelf and she'd be content with the sound of running water, occasionally making little fart noises to express her satisfaction. When it came time to get her out, she'd kick up a massive ruckus, squawking and shouting as we reached for her even though she couldn't wait to get out.

She was a quiet bird, really didn't talk much of her own accord. Occasionally a fart noise if she was content, often a yell if we were harassing her, but otherwise she was quiet. Except for mambo. Moony loved mambo. We had a little morning routine, to help wake us all up, which was playing Moony's playlist. A few songs she really liked, and mambo was top of the list. She'd perk up instantly, begin stretching and hopping around on her perch. Then she'd begin chirping along, singing, actually singing. Not shouting or yelling or squawking, but happy little trills and whistles. It was nearly the only time she expressed actual pleasure.

She was such a strange little bird, the anti-budgie, if you will. By breed supposed to be highly social, playful, busy, but by nature she was a cross disapproving misanthrope. A bird after my own heart. She wasn't very good at flying. J clipped her wings just a little, to prevent her from getting altitude. She would fly a loop of the room and if she hadn't found somewhere she approved of landing on by the time her stamina ran out she would simply stop and drop, usually landing on the ground with a thud and a squeak. She fell behind the fridge once. And into a (thankfully not hot) pot of water. And into my tea. Then taptaptaptap walk around uncertainly until one of us would fetch her, usually giving us a wee nibble for daring to pick her up even though she expected and wanted it.

Her presence made our horrible little flat that much more of a home. J has a lifetime of experience with birds, but she was my first. I fussed over her and worried about her getting too cold. As an animal she is prey, not predator, so I had to work to gain her trust, and when given it was that much more rewarding. She kept me company when I was alone, kept me laughing.

Glasgow was hard on us. Lack of work, financial stress, a horrid cold damp home, these things were purely circumstantial, but still conspired to resurrect my depression.

This little bird kept that misery at bay. She was a small thing, a fierce, difficult and contrary thing.

Wish we'd had more time, Moony. Love you.

In a Tube

Something I'm sure every traveler loves doing is wandering into a foreign supermarket and boggling at some of the produces that in this foreign land are commonplace. Having visited Malaysia, Japan, China, Tibet, Nepal, Iceland, Chile, Argentina, USA and Scotland (seriously, Scotland has things in jars that are just wrong), I'm pretty sure I found something in Swede that takes the cake, the platter, and the whole table service.

'Ost' is cheese. Generic cheese. Now, I can understand adding skink - ham - to cheese, as that is a well-loved sandwich combination and when toasted they are clearly two items of food that were meant to be. Bacon too makes sense when added to cheese. Bacon makes sense with nearly everything.

But in a tube?

However. 

But. 

You see.

Räk being prawn. Who the hell puts cheese, generic nothing no name cheese, together with prawns? Only people who have a sense of 'taste' that is clearly a blasphemy against nature, that's who. Only people who are attempting to ruin the very fabric of the universe, that's who.

And who then, you must ask yourself, who then would take this monsterous combination AND STICK IT IN A TUBE?

THE SWEDES, THAT'S WHO.

We're outside of Forsa, near Hudiksvall in Sweden. I don't know how to. We're just sitting here in magic. Distilled essence of wonder. To look at this land is absolution for crimes I didn't know I carried. 

12 hours in Sweden

Café Dox is hidden beneath the Old Town in Stockholm. The open space is cluttered with couches and armchairs, and punctuated by the fluted and fat stone pillars supporting the streets and buildings above. A cozy cave with chandeliers and blankets to ward off the creeping cold. Goulash, tea, and a respite from walking on ice.

The snow held the plane an extra ten mounted in the sky. Out the window the propeller broke glittering lines of ice. Snow on the ground, runway, trucks, terminals. We slept on benches we battled for.

A floor to ceiling window four storeys high let us watch the snow fall, silent and slow, all night.

On our last night in London we bought Tsing Tao beer and steamed bao in Chinatown. The streets were dry and a full of a cold wind which couldn't decide on how cruel it wanted to be. We walked down to Trafalgar Square, because there is something so wonderful about that vast open space so full of sky and surrounded by movement.

We climbed Nelson's Column and sat three tiers high on that grand monument to naval victory. The sun was down and London is luxurious with night lights and colour and light and colour and all double decker red buses weave through that round about, all out of town buses are pulled to that round about. We drank our rice beer and Big Ben donged the quarter hour. Other tourists climbed the lions and we pulled faces in their photos.

Overhead planes cross-hatched the sky.

Interestingly: the Victoria Memorial

Buckingham Palace is, well, yes. It is yet another stately building in a city full of stately buildings. Historians and architects alike may despair my plebeian ignorance and lack of appreciation, but apart from watching the guards stomp back and forth in an attempt not to lose their toes to frostbite, there really wasn't much to behold. The Queen wasn't in so it wasn't though we could pop inside for a cuppa either.

Out the front is, however, the Victoria Memorial, which is a very large ornate and ostentatious affair with statues and 'gifts' from various members of the Commonwealth which look surprisingly similar to communist propaganda monuments from the Soviet era. But with lions.

Presiding over all this is an angel of "unclear entitlement" (according to wikipedia) which could be both Peace and Victory. Wiki also claims that the statue is bronze, not the goldiest gold that ever golded, as I assumed.

The Original Bling, a photo by sirtessa on Flickr.

I mean, seriously, look at it. That's bloody gold, that is. No photo manipulation either. The winter sun did its thing.

Anyway, gold or bronze aside, you will agree that it is very, very shiny. And free of bird poop. 

London is obsessed with bird poop. I've never seen so many spikes placed upon surfaces to deter birds from perching. Spikes everywhere. Everywhere! On railings and fences and window sills and ledges and gutters and street lights and statues and signs and EV.ER.EE.WHERE.

This angel of "unclear entitlement" does not possess spikes. Nor does it wear birds or bird poop. 

We can only assume therefore that Her Majesty the Queen has appointed herself a sniper to sit atop the palace roof and take out the little buggers before they even make landing. If you look to the left wing you'll see a set of stairs on the roof, leading to a raised platform. Perfect position to preserve the splendour of Queen Vicky.

This is perhaps not the most illustrious position to hold, but it would be a sure sight better than being one of the guards standing watch by the front doors, with nothing to do but stomp back and forth in an attempt not to have their fleet fall asleep.  I suspect that the Royal Sniper may have had some practice in the gardens, as there are multiple signs about the place requesting that one does not feed the pelicans. One would be quite willing to oblige however one does find that actually, there are are no pelicans. One must make do feeding the swans, geese, ducks and squirrels instead.

Collecting Homes & Between Them

It's been only four days since leaving Glasgow, and yet it already feels like that moist cold flat happened to someone else in some other lifetime. Four days and three cities and three different sets of wonderful warm people. There was no snow in Glasgow, nor in Manchester, but the land all around is six inches deep in white and the powder growing as our double decker bus hurtled south. There's looking like a tourist, and there's gawping at snow hitting the window, stuck to trees and falling from the sky.

(The majestic turn of wind turbines made mysterious and magical in the blur of snow, against a snow-blank sky and anchored to snow-buried hills.)

Returning to places you do not know intimately yet have established a memory landscape upon is a curious deception. While I know the homes my friends have opened to me well, their city streets are hazy recollections. I have no idea of the layout of Manchester and Nottingham but managed to find tea shops I'd enjoyed in both and enjoy them a second time.

The sharing of such discoveries is a new thing for me, still. Perhaps always. J approves of one tea shop and disapproves of another. We both discover a retro game store and the oldest pub in England. He meets friends I have known so long yet have never met, and seeing that my friends also enjoy my friends is a cockle-warming delight.

This tour through England is something of a long goodbye, which is odd because it is Scotland that was our home. Somewhere between Glasgow and Manchester we crossed the border and it was a moment unnoticed and unmarked. I was probably dozing. Possibly snoring.

(J is intent on the 'hams' of England, having hit Birmingham/Burning Ham and Nottingham/Not A Ham and just now noted Grant Ham and Bing Ham on bus billings as they swing past the window.)

So many people- Wait, let me correct that. So many Scots asked me "Why Scotland?" There isn't really a neat answer to that question. It might have been due to Braveheart, or it might have been due to generic fat fantasy worlds harkening back to the shared delusion of what the Highlands are. Perhaps it was simply because it was far away, full of mist and crags and dark grass and all the things that weren't to be found in my backyard.

Now, knowing I won't set foot in that rich soggy land for some years to come, I can say definitively and certainly, it is because Scotland is my home on the other side of the world.

I love the sounds of Moony's preening. The stiff yet soft rustle and shuft of her feathers as she runs her pinions through her beak. It is the sound of safety, it means that she - a creature who is by her very nature born to be prey - is relaxed and comfortable. Sitting on my head offers no threat to her, and so she may primp herself to her little heart's content.

Trust is a truly golden treasure.

Bad Movies and Growing Up

Tonight I had my viewing of Showgirls and... I honestly don't know what to say. I can understand how The Room got made; all it needed was one man with determination and too much money. But how the hell did Showgirls make it all the way to cinema release without someone saying, "WE ARE MAKING A TERRIBLE MISTAKE."



It was featured as part of Bad Movie Night, and was spectacularly entertaining. For all the wrong reasons. Once released from the theatre we, a small posse of non-Glaswegians, roamed the streets quoting lines from the film and eventually settling into a pub for some 'old fashioned' cider. In this case 'old fashioned' means 'gross'.

These are the last days of Glasgow. Each night passing is the dying of an era. When we left Edinburgh for the last time, said goodbye to our friends there, the truth of our departure reached the end of its patience, stopped loitering hoping for attention and upped and tapped me on the shoulder. We are leaving. These beautiful people, they won't be a mere bus ride away. We'll be on the other side of the world, and when we say our goodbyes, these goodbyes will have to stand for ages. We won't see these faces for years.

Conversely, we're going home, where our families are, our animal friends, our human friends, all our loves. I'll return to a job that pays more than what both of us were earning here. There is a lot to look forward to.

And yet.

Part of me can't help seeing this as the last gasp. That going home will mean growing up, being responsible, being settled. That maybe I have developed new eyes, and going back to somewhere familiar and known will mean turning that once beloved place into something boring, uninteresting, dull, that maybe I will resent the place, yearn for elsewhere, and as such lose that precious sense of home I've come to treasure. Part of me worries that because of this I'll start being blind to wonder and forget to seek the delight in ordinary things.

There is no way around such flitty demons other than to build a fortress out of memories and incredulity. There are nights yet to come in which to roam Glasgow, stomp the ice growing in puddles and cry 'ewww!' at the puddles which don't hold enough water to freeze.

Glasgow hasn't always been kind to us, yet has been nothing but forthcoming about giving us stories to tell.

The Irrelevance of History

We're sitting in The Kenilworth in Edinburgh, a traditional pub with a ridiculous variety of whiskeys available. On the skirting around the bar island the fact that the building is dated form 1789 is written in a neat calligraphy in gold paint on dark varnished wood.

The first encampment establishing Australia as a penal colony of the British Empire happened on 26 January 1788. Thousands of years of Aboriginal culture carpeted over just like that. That is the Australia of today. 225 years old.

It is a surreal thing to have a pint and a pie in a place that is older than the nation you grew up in, especially when you have memories of the bi-centennial celebrations of 1988, of a school assembly in primary school, being tasked to make vaguely nationalistic posters and not entirely understanding why this particular date was so important, why you were given a special medal commemorating the anniversary, because at 7 years old you do not yet have a sense of time, of age, as at 7 years old you have not stood on the Great Wall of China, walked the streets of Edo, stood in the Cave of Hands, hid from a squall beneath Stonehenge, or come to understand how much you can learn in 10 years and how stupid you were 10 years ago.

Moments like these happen have happened over and over the past year. London was overwhelming. It seemed every building, every street corner, ever mail box had a little plaque commemorating this or noting that. The history of the place was inescapable, and so deep as to drown us all. How can anyone go about their everyday lives when there are tombs in the footpath? How are you supposed to pop down the store for a pint of milk when the building is advertising the fact that it was rebuilt after a zeppelin raid during the war? How can you do anything when you are surrounded by history which demands your attention and respect?

 I guess you just carry on, as everyone else here appears to be doing.

(Aside: Glasgow has shifted my sliding scale on what I consider eye candy, and whoa, there are so many pretty things walking around Edinburgh I'm getting whiplash. J is giving me a lot of shit for flirting with the bartender.)

Wake

Tokyo. That was an incessant city. London was indefatigable. Sydney is bursting. Sleep is a similar city. To sleep is to try and traverse the main street of all of these cities on a weekend, a holiday weekend before an event that requires all to do extra curricula shopping, also it is a beautiful day, the first after winter, and there is a parade.

Sleep is never a straight and empty road in a featureless land. Sleep is not windless water. Sleep is not rest.

I am not haunted. My dreams are not nightmares, shames, guilts, fears or secrets. They are only dreams of living libraries, water suits, rollerblading on uneven paving and leaping from high platforms because gravity is for other people. They are only dreams.

There are always dreams.

Always running. Always negotiating. Always solving. Always seeking. 

And then I wake.

Such a simple word; wake. A single syllable. Staccato. Wake. To open your eyes is as long as that syllable. As if the crossing from one state to another were such a small, easy thing. 

Is it? Perhaps I am wrong. Perhaps I am doing it wrong. It's likely that for most of you it is.

In the city of Sleep I am so many other people. I live so many lives, with so many other faces and furies. My agendas are diverse and legion. To wake is not to wake. To wake is to stop being these other people, stop pursuing their goals and fighting their circumstances. To wake is to suddenly and abruptly become me.

Bewildered. Confused. Untethered. 

I do not go to sleep; I go away.

I do not wake; I come back.

And between those two points of transformation, I do not exist at all.

While looking at photos of sea pens...

Imagine having a life in which you never once knew what you looked like.
Imagine never knowing that you were beautiful.



Imagine not needing to be beautiful.












Imagine not having the concept of beauty at all.



Imagine how simple life would be.
Imagine how-

How could any of us exist without beauty?

Peace of Mind is a Privilege

Walking home alone from the middle of Glasgow city along the Gallowgate and through the Barras to our dingy flat in Calton is not a tour of the scenic parts of Glasgow. Do a search for 'Calton' and in quite a number of hits the word 'deprivation' will also appear, along with frequent mention of the fact that the life expectancy of a male in Calton is 54 years, which puts it on par with Iraq and Gaza, areas which experience military combat. The Tongs used to call it home, to the point where Calton was once known as Tongland. It is still wearing that reputation of violence, even though the gang has moved on and the violence has mellowed. I have heard it said that Calton has the highest crime rate in Western Europe, but haven't been able to turn up anything to substantiate that.

Suffice it to say, this place isn't pretty. It's tenement blocks and abandoned schools. Three of the latter within a three block radius of our flat, to be honest. There are vacant lots overgrown with grass and nettles and full of trash. The streets are well littered, plastic bags and polystyrene take away containers, drink bottles, buckfast bottles, straws and bottle caps, couches, fridges, miscellaneous pieces of large broken plastic, window frames and chocolate wrappers, you know, rubbish. That which is unwanted and yet does not go away. There's grass growing in all the roof guttering, personalitiless graffiti, and numerous potholes in the streets. I've written previously about that which goes on in our tenement alone. Add to that list now finding a complete and used heroin kit (very budget, I might add) in the hallway, used syringe and dirty spoon and all. Add to that the kids smoking pot who kicked a massive crack in our front door when an upstairs neighbour told them to get out.

Tonight, while walking back from the pub, a sole man of subcontinental lineage attached himself to me. He was well presented and did not ping on my threat radar. Comments back and forth concerning how warm it was (look, 11º in January is warm for Scotland, okay?) were similarly non-threatening, but because I am not only an introvert but a woman walking alone at night who is hyper aware of the risks faced by all women walking alone at night, I attempted to part ways quickly.

This completely failed because, as it turns out, he lives exactly one block down the street.

Normally this would unsettle me, as, well, I don't know him. I don't like random strangers who want to make conversation knowing where I live. I don't think anyone does. However, his cousins were unloading the car as we walked up, and there is an odd feeling of community in our little corner of Calton, and I really did not feel threatened.

What he did do, however, was warn me against walking in these streets, being a sole woman.

This lead to talking about the nice places in Glasgow, the west side where all the rich people are, which led me to:

1. bristle and fume that a man dares attempt to offer advice on how to keep myself safe because holy shit I know already anyway this post is not about that; and
2. reflect that safety, or the idea of safety, is a privilege of the wealthy.

Having lived in Calton for around half a year now, I can state that no, it isn't the nicest of neighbourhoods, and yes, its reputation is greatly exaggerated. While the detritus of junkies is unpleasant to behold, the kick in the door is the worst we've had. In all my solo darkness jaunts I have not once had trouble, I've never even had anyone call out to me. Calton is full of the elderly, who walk slowly to the corner store to buy cigarettes and the paper, and grandparents who own large dogs in small flats and walk them regularly, and young families the kids of which leave their bikes on the grass out the front of their tenements. As a freelancer I'm nocturnal. I walk all hours of the dark, from 4 in the afternoon to 3 in the morning. The Neds are present and visible, and have never once bothered me.

And, if we could afford it, I'd be out of here in a second. 

(Before this goes on, I want to state that living in a lower socioeconomic area does not guarantee crime/danger, nor does living in a higher one guarantee safety. From my experience, living in a well to do area simply means that the ability to hide any problems from attention is present and used.)

I don't want to be hyper alert when walking. I don't like constantly scanning my surroundings and gauging whether to cross a road or keep on this side. That I am uncomfortable sitting in the front room, with our window at street level, is a stressful thing, as this should be my safe place. I hate knowing that my uneventful time here is attributed not only to vigilance but luck as well. 

But we couldn't afford the west side. 

When we get home, back in Melbourne, Australia, we'll face the same decision: at exactly what point to compromise between affordable rent and safe surroundings. 

Safety is something that can be bought. You buy or rent in a safe neighbourhood, in a quiet street. You can pay for taxis to take you home instead of walking. Hell, you could even own your own car.

It must be said that I do tend to walk alone at night not only because it's cheap, but because I refuse to avoid the streets due to fear, a fear that may be unfounded. The distances are small enough here that, should I wish it, I can take a taxi home and it won't kill our bank account. There are buses running most of the night. Walking is a deliberate choice on my part.

But it is worth bearing in mind that on those occasions you feel someone may be putting themselves in unnecessary risk merely by getting from A to B, or by living in C, that they may not have any better option open to them. 

In such instances, telling them that it's not safe is remarkably unhelpful, because believe me, they know it, and they know it a hell of a lot better than you. Don't berate them for what they already know they cannot do anything about. Remember that it is not for you to dictate another person's threat tolerance, nor is the insistance on some alternate means of movement that would require extra finances ever wanted. 

If it is in your means and desire to make a difference, walk or drive that person home, if they wish it. If they need to have a momentary break and rant or whinge about the streets that scare them, support them in that moment. They will get back to being unafraid in a bit.

Most of us don't live in a nice safe world. We can see it, or something closer to it only a few kilometres away, but we can't live there. We compromise. We struggle for better. Sometimes we get better, and sometimes we don't. 

We all decide what we are willing to live with, within the restrictions we live with. Remember that although what each of us decides may be different, it is not for any of us to force our priorities of finances or safety on others.

Punctuation in a Lifetime: 2012

This time last year I was in Berlin, bewildered and bemused by the incessant fireworks lit in the streets, shooting into the side of buildings, falling and firing at pedestrians, people with handguns firing blank bullets at cars driving past. Although I've always travelled alone, at this point I was lonely, I was exhausted, and facing nothing but uncertainty in my future.

2012 played out as I knew it would, in that nothing turned out as I expected. I've lived in amazing places and shit places simultaneously. Ullapool is such a sanctuary and haven of beautiful wilderness, of birds and flowers and the Arctic wind, but the shared housing that came with the job was not...amazing. Glasgow has ridiculous amounts of cheek and character, but this flat in Calton is bloody horrid.

I've met extraordinary people who have surprised me in both their kindness and the fact that I genuinely desire their company. They're in distant places, in distant countries, and I miss them and prize their presence in my life, however fleeting.

I've worked a shit job - if you prize the use of your arms, don't be a cleaner. I've worked brilliant jobs - freelance editing is wonderful and ghastly, contracting for a publishing house is confidence boosting and I just love reading. I've worked no job at all - despite six years as a public servant in a secure environment no one wants to touch me, not even for filing. Sadly, this does not make my resumé any more impressive.

I've not seen nearly as much of Scotland as I would like. Failing to break into temp work means no travel, no weekend flights to Barcelona, no drives along the west coast. I have explored St Kilda, however, and sailed through the Hebrides on a beautiful tall ship. I have roamed the Faroe Islands, and returned to that most breath-taking country Iceland and enjoyed days and days of live music.

I started the 365 project, and have not taken a photo every day. I did not expect to, and am surprised at what I managed to produce. When this entry is finished I will walk into Glasgow with my camera, and the last photos of 2012 will be taken.

I started writing again. This is perhaps the only thing I wanted of this year.

It cannot be denied that the largest, the most meaningful and profound change to have occurred in my life in the past year has been the presence of J. Have I ever told you of my forecasting? When looking into the future, I have always pictured myself alone. Not sad or bitter, simply flying solo, as I have always done. When I was little and assumed that getting married and having children was inevitable, I would try to picture this future, and in all such imaginings the woman with the husband and children was not me (she was white and had a perm for starters). Even when I was engaged this vision did not change, which should have tipped me off sooner. I kidnapped J, and J kidnapped me, and suddenly we have become a two-headed monster. To find that when I look into the future I can see the two of us getting old and remaining young together is a shock, is still a shock, is something worth struggling and fighting to keep.

Right now, I'm full; of love, excitement and hope. The first quarter of 2013 will be full of adventures and explorations with my partner in crime in places neither of us have ever been before. Then we'll be home, and I know now that yes, Melbourne is my home, my family and friends are my home, gumtrees and magpies are my home. There are babies to meet, weddings to attend, people to hug, and oh yes, future travel plans to be made.

There is so much to look forward to, and there is so much to dance about right here and now.

The sun keeps rising, and I keep breathing, and these terrible, wonderful things drag us on.

<3

Goodwill and Effulgence

I'm not quite in my right mind at the moment; a somewhat blinding headache and broken sleep. We're sitting in a cozy lounge room in Bristol. A rare morning of sunshine is making the mouth-breathing condensed on the window a lovely pattern of luminous elm forest, and gilding the Christmas tree (the Christmas tree!) with silver and faux-warmth. The shag carpet is attached to our socks. There was champagne and croissants, now there is tea and chocolate money. Of the rending of wrapping paper only a few festive scraps give evidence. In the oven a piece of pig is turning into something civilised and delicious.

This is the Post-Christian Melbourne Ex-pats' Christmas Thing. We're not religious, yet Christmas nevertheless has meaning for us. Our families are on the other side of the world and so we've come together and yes, it is Christmas here.

I'm feeling particularly full of love for all. Everyone. Everything! But especially the varied and fascinating people in my life. My skype sessions with my family leave me so happy that my tribe is who and what it is. There are email exchanges with friends back home, friends here in Scotland, friends everywhere! Twitter and FB conversations. Drinks in cities that neither of us live in or call home! Friends who have opened their homes to me across the hemispheres! The world at this moment seems to be full of people who are so much more than just people! I want to name you all, but I am always concerned that someone may not wish to be named on a public blog, but, if I've met you on my travels you are on this list, if I yell at you in my life you are on this list, if you've done me any kindness or laughter you are on this list.

As the SBS man says, "The world is an amazing place." You're a part of the world so you must be amazing too. 

First Snow in Glasgow

I have not the vocabulary to talk about ice. 

Snow seems a gift. We seek a 'higher' power, we look up for hope, to the sky, the heavens, which hold that which gives us life, be it deity or the sun. That above gives snow as a gift. It comes quiet and soft, and for a little while brings with it the greater gift of newness. Of cleanliness. For a little while, all the traces of your passing are hidden. You can pretend that you, too, are fresh and original. For the soul that has not lived with snow, snow is the closest we will ever come to magic.

Ice is not magic. Ice is not kind. It hides nothing. The frost grows imperceptibly slow. You cannot watch it advance. Frost defines the liminal, highlighting the borders of all things and in doing so reminding you of the presence of the garbage littering the streets that you had long ago stopped seeing. Gum long bonded with the pavement is made a doily, the eternal pothole puddle a post-modern resin work examining the strata of urban filth. The streets themselves now capture and exhibit all evidence of your wake; the roads hold tyre marks, the footpaths keep your footprints. Still the air is full of water, and what you breathe is razors. All those puddles that never cleared congeal into sharp clots, then films and sheafs crystal papers. You step on each puddle cautiously. Most are solid now, and give you nothing, not even friction. Some yet remain with a belly of water, or air, and those you stomp on with glee. Something about that crackle and crunch of ice underfoot. Something so satisfying in that crisp sound, that crisp give. 

I cannot talk about ice. I cannot talk about myself.

Dignity? OH THE HUGE MANATEEEEEE

I discovered this half-edited and incomplete sitting open in iMovie. That's the hostel room in Nuremberg, which makes this about a year old.

Ahem.

Well past its use by date, I give you my adventures in the Tiergarten in Nuremberg, Germany.

Postcode G40

You open the door and an empty syringe wrapper lies by the frame, half a footstep flattening the end.

You open the door and discarded beer bottle sits neatly on the jamb.

You open the door and a spray of blood still young enough to not yet be brown draws a line across your path, significant enough that you cannot not see it, when ever you open the door.

You open the door and upon the second storey landing stands a young man already an old man smoking a cigarette. The ash is short. The door before him shows no sign of opening, and he is wholly indifferent to it. A gaunt face made harder by dirty light and suspicion. Your own. He stares.  You look away. You fasten both locks. You put distance and doors between you and him..

You open the door and the hallway light globe flickers with a fear that keeps time with your heart.

The Best of Gingers

Glasgow has imported the continental tradition of the Christmas Market. It started in St Enoch Square tonight. Small, but surprising in the quality and diversity of stalls on offer. Our particular discovery of hither unknown treasure is some amazingly incredible delicious non-alcoholic ginger wine, served piping hot and perfect. Two bottles of Papa's Mineral Company also make a variety of cordials, and I'll definitely be going back to pick up a bottle of the Winterberry Cordial, which sounds incredible. Glaswegians can pick up one bottle for £6 or two for £10. Very much recommended.

We also stumbled across "real fake snow!" which "feels cold! TOUCH ME!" which we did touch. And it felt wrong. So wrong. Rubbery and yet slimy without being viscous or sticky. Cold because it had sat on a shelf outside for hours. The sales rep offered to demonstrate the snow - how does one demonstrate snow? it just sits there being snowy, which it was already doing quite well - and pour a little from a vial into J's hand, slightly different consistency. He then added water, at which point the 'snow' IF IT REALLY IS SNOW got its hulk on and promptly tripled in volume, overflowing through J's fingers. The chemical reaction was enough to produce marked heat. "Non-toxic," they assured us. "Perfectly safe. It's some sort of polymer."

Look, to me it looked like exactly the sort of mysterious innocuous substance that turns up in an episode of Doctor Who and is ultimately some sinister mind-control body-morphing world-enslavement goop enabler. That's all I'm saying.

 To cap off a cold and wet stroll through the markets we returned to a small booth selling liquor-enhanced hot chocolates, and did I ever buy a massive thick goopy hot chocolate laced with Baileys, by golly.

 It threw me back to Prague where I spent the beginning of the year walking around without any particular goal other than to turn down as many curious little alleys as possible. There, the selling of hot alcoholic beverages in take-away cups was standard, and I loved it. It's no doubt a mark of my legal imprinting in Australia but walking around with a delicious hot drink that was deliciously spiked with delicious felt deliciously naughty. It also gave a lovely glow to the bitter cold, and kept my hands warm.

ICELAND! Redux

I've loved Iceland from afar my whole, fell in love with Reykjavík and the tiny bit of the wilderness I managed to see last year, and can confirm that the love remains just as strong. This is being typed in Café Babalu, my favourite little nook for a chai latte, amazing carrot cake and stable wifi, and I'm nearly squirming with contentment.

It began before we'd even left Scotland.

Seats 4F and 4D. Are you sure? Are you...wait, let me see the boarding slip. Yeah. Those are our seat numbers...are you sure?

We were bumped up to first class without anyone telling us until we were forced to conclude that there wasn't anywhere else on the plane that we could sit. The headrests had hygiene cloths named after various gods and their titles. J swapped his from Freya to Thor at the suggestion of a fellow passenger. Free food! Massive seats! USB Power! Pillows! Blankets! Leg room! It was weird and bizarre and we never really relaxed as we were waiting for the stewards to tell us they'd found our real seats.

It's a completely different world without the blanket snow. The supermarket was just as perplexing as last time.

PYLSUSINNEP. Sounds like an Egyptian riff on a Lovecraft monster. The Egyptian Sausage Demon. Not sure if it's mayo, mustard or tomato-based. It looks like a bottle of glue, to be honest.

As far as we can tell, this is just chocolate. Not even with a fancy filling. Just chocolate. Except there's a faux Michael Jackson endorsing this chocolate. Draw your own conclusions.

....BUT WHY?!?!??!?!

Arbitrary Periods of Time

Today marks one year exactly since leaving Australia.
Since leaving home.

(Well, it's past midnight in both countries now, so technically yesterday is the anniversary but I haven't slept yet so it's still today, dammit.)

It snuck up on me, amid all the other passages of time that I mark. Two days til Iceland. One month til rent is due. Two months without a job. Two months as a freelance editor. Two months til next year. Minutes until winter arrives. One year and one month until my visa expires. One year since I left.

Birthdays and calendar years are opportunity enough to reflect on the recent past, are they not? Yet I have never had a year like this. I have never been so long without my family and tribe, and that is a strain so deep and subtle our lives are too short a lesson and we will never understand it. At the beginning I was fraught with my own daring, at once empowered and paralysed by the question what have I done? Now I can state exactly what I've done, yet I still don't know the answer.

It is to go a layer deeper. The difference between knowing you are cursed with a ravenous insatiable heart and that the search will dictate your every decision and deny you lasting contentment, and understanding it. I understand now that cities are not enough. That villages are not enough. That perhaps even mountains are not enough.

Somewhen along the way I tangled myself in a fine knot of threads, held by so many kind hands, hands driven by hearts that stay in time with my passing time, despite, perhaps because, of my restlessness. They have forgiven me my constant absence even has I am continually surprised and blessed by their persistent presence.

The world is endless.

The sun keeps rising, and I keep breathing, and these terrible and wonderful things carry me on.

Thank you.

On a double-decker bus between Glasgow and Manchester

A crisp autumnal morning with frost still bright in the early  morning sun, she blinks once, twice, before turning away from the window. It will be their first night apart. She is thinking of warm knot of his limbs and the wool blankets before the sun had risen, and wondering if now that she is used to sleeping in sanctuary she will be afraid of the dark. This seems a legitimate worry, and so she closes her eyes.

When she wakes she is in another country. The paddocks are smaller and the fences meticulously maintained. Turning to look at a sign for the way back as it whizzes past - SCOTLAND - and the signs ahead warning her that the bus is taking her to the SOUTH, the SOUTH shouted as though the traveller did not understand the foolishness of choosing such a destination. Farmland has given way to something that can only be described as 'countryside': a land without urban sprawl but so utterly domesticated there is not even the ghost of rural to be sniffed. The spaniard in the seat in front takes photo after photo of the motorway. Impressions of Preston are endless scenes from The Bill, now years forgotten and the hairdressers and bathroom shops boarded up with greyed wood the sprayed tags of delinquents now long married and mortgaged unseen almost lost in the grain.

She wants to say this is not Scotland, does not feel like Scotland, but she doesn't know Scotland. She wants to say Manchester is the windy-street version of Glasgow but she knows neither city.

Dinner is three boys, the parents, and her. Her second appearance in this household and the boys are no longer locked boxes in her presence. The dialogue that frolics between them is not loud nor boisterous, but full of energy and attention. There is no competition between them, which she marvels at. She thinks of her own brother as distant from her as is physically possible, and the lack of antagonism between them that had been and always would be. She thinks of these three boys who will grow up to be their own people, and thinks of distance, and how irrelevant it can be.

Standing on the floor of the Manchester Arena she puts her hand to her chest where the bass trembles in her lungs and ribs, and beneath her palm she can feel her body shudder as the music moves through it. Here there is no identity. She is no longer an autonomous body but part of the organism that is the audience, the crowd, the consumer of sound. A single cell at the beck and call of invisible energy; she sings, howls, stomps and pumps. Sweat that is not hers. Eyes aching in the strobing lights. Neck craned over shoulders. All these miles and years and this cleanses her still, again, ultimately. It is to cede her boundaries, those intangible ways in which she holds herself apart from how she absorbs the world, and in doing so ceases to be. This happens in Melbourne, Buenos Aires, Berlin, Reykjavík, here. The ideal of her falls back into place with every step from the floor.

Just in time she looks up to see 'Welcome to Scotland' flash by the window. It is a nondescript standard highway sign, more than a little anti-climactic. None around her appear to notice nor care. She strives to identify any difference in the world out the window, but there is none.

It has been 33 hours and when she arrives in Glasgow she is starving, dehydrated and in dire need of a toilet. Priority of wellbeing, her feet take her straight into the pub, to the back, to his arms.

She is thinking of adventures and the exhilaration of solitary jaunts into the world. She is thinking of the home she finds in him. She is thinking of all the things she never expects, including herself.

"-and it will be alright," he said.

The blank page doesn't frighten me, has not done so for some time. It still doesn't. A blank pages is an invitation to make a mistake, a mess, a miracle. The blank page that breathless pause before the Big Bang and the universe begins.

What gives me pause it what comes after, when there are already words on the page and you have found something that may possibly be a flow, or a ghost, but it is enough of something for you to follow, and your thoughts have brought you this far, to a point at which you realise there is no point and you do not know what you are trying to say.

Blogging used to be such an effective weapon against myself, or the world, or myself. The act of structuring a post in my mind imposed a structure upon a struggle that in its very nature is without definition. An artificial and arbitary imprisonment, but one that gave me some measure of peace regardless. The composition of that post was a natural extension, requiring a further narrowing of focus and definition. The precision of a word was like the puncture of a pin through the hull of a moth, the 'preeeee-' that first prick and pressure before the point breaks the surface and the 'cish' the spearing and parting of organs and secrets as the shaft slides down, and finally the 'on' of the point thrust down into the board. That moth will not fly again.

You can only find such precision when you know your own voice. Second person to speak of the first. I. I do not entirely know this I. I, you, she, this entity, stopped blogging, stopped writing. She begin finding stories in photography, although even these she did not share with abandon. I spoke more, out loud I mean. More for me. People who encountered me still found me recalcitrant, but I knew the difference. Maybe I had nothing to say. Perhaps I didn't want to say anything. What I consider my true voice was left unused. It starved, warped, and eventually became nothing.

There have been, are still, so many hurtles between myself and the act of writing. The physical ones are lesser than they were, although this is due to a change of life circumstances and employment, not any radical healing on my part. I must still be careful with the time I spend both typing and writing by hand. This will be lifelong I imagine. It is not a bad thing. The flat tends to get cleaned when I need to stop. Everyone wins?

On only my second day in town I joined the Glasgow Science Fiction Writers Group. It has been good not just to surround myself with writers once again, but to engage actively in writerly activities. I've dipped my toes into the water of freelance editing, but writing up a report differs vastly from engaging in a face to face discussion on the strength, weaknesses and possible progressions of a story. There are so many ways in which a tale can be read, and it is wonderful and refreshing to be reminded of that. The shared excitement. The giddiness that comes from being with people who care about narrative mechanics as much as you do. These are fine things.

And then there is gentle insistance of loved ones who recognise that this small thing is such an important thing, and although I am not afraid they will hold my hand without asking and believe in me when I am indifferent.

Writing is no longer something to be shied away from, neither the thought of it nor the action. Be proud of me? Tessa, these shifts may be slight but they take such time and exertion, like the push of continental plates. There will always be destruction with change. You cannot see the time lost and strings severed without acknowledging the shift. One does not happen without the other.

Start small and long. A flash fiction competition with months in which to contemplate your inability to produce neat short ideas. Which is actually really fucking frustrating.

I've been gnawing tentatively at the idea of doing another 7wishes type project, which would additionally force me to write some joy into Glasgow. The city and I have had a rocky start, not helped by the fact that I think we just have conflicting personalities. I don't know Glasgow as well as Melbourne, not nearly. Nor do I know myself as well as I did.

I was thinking about that, and this voice, and what has changed. For example; my lover. My normal policy regarding blogging about other people is not to make them identifiable or overly specific in interaction unless that other person had an online presence of their own, somewhere they could return fire, so to speak. He does not. I also want to respect the privacy of others. What ever I share here I am okay with sharing, but I would not make that assumption for anyone else.

These are incidental however, solved by merely talking with him, and I do love talking with him. No, what gives me pause is the line between personal and precious. I cannot blog about my life and excise him from it. To do so would be to lie by omission and deny the incredible and integral part of my life he plays. I am no longer an identity in isolation, not to myself. Yet, because he is so precious I do not wish to share him. These times and glances and moments are treasures immeasurable. Perhaps you have been in love and been loved. Perhaps you do understand. But then, you must understand the greediness and selfishness that comes with delight.

These are lines I have not yet encountered in the sand, lines I suspect I will have to learn to walk as I learn what this different voice has to say.

Bread the Third

The overly-talented Neil Williamson has been trying his hand at making bread. Without the aid of a break maker. Proper mixing and kneading with his hands, the mere thought of which makes my knuckles and wrists wail. He was kind enough to allow us to act as guinea pigs for his third attempt. I admit, when I took possession of the foil-wrapped bread it was the perfect size, shape and heft, my first instinct was to drop kick it. Some bread is just right for a good punt, you know? Anyway, I didn't do that. It smelt glorious, as only freshly baked bread can. We decided to get some proper butter for the eating, and some brie, and some good soup. Barely waited to get in the door before rending its attire asunder.

Look at this bread! Look at it!

Fluffy and soft and moist and oooooh smells soooooo goooooooood-

Yeah, to be honest? It didn't last long enough for soup. Props to Neil. If you're giving consideration upon who to include in your party of survivors when the world ends, Neil's post-apocalyptic survival skills in baking are not to be overlooked. All you'll need to do is domesticate some wild yeast and you will be set for baked goods for the duration of your horrible ghastly gruelling survival period, however long that will be.

Without Melody

Sometimes the need to sing rises so strong it is no wonder I did not know it was coming; it is the rise of continents, or the movement of stars.

The Hallmark, overly romantacised philosophies that wend through our daily lives as over-processed stock photos with heartfelt yet simplistic captions to do with life love happiness would chastise me for suppressing this urge.

This is not a Hallmark card, and no idealised quote will protect you from the world. Joy, be it carefully constructed or the beast the blindsides you, is precious, yes, and fragile. Indulge it where you will, but be aware that some environs nurture and others will wither it.

An Irish pub on a Monday night, the footy broadcast by Sky on three screens, low lights and glottal Glaswegian accents to my right. I'll keep the song in my ribs, not even let it near my throat. Hold it gentle but firm, like a bird, and, like a bird, it will calm, quiet, and stay with you.

Circles or Spirals

The last time I was unemployed I had moved back to Melbourne from Canberra after breaking up with my fiancée of five years, I had just finished an arts degree, was living with my parents and had only retail work experience to my name.  It took a year and half of applying for jobs and smiling at interviews before I finally landed a full-time position.

Being unemployed when you don't want to be is awful. Quite a number of the blog posts in the archives are dedicated to the subject of just how awful it is. Very awful. Extremely awful. Awful to the point of staying in that full-time job despite it also being awful because I never wanted to go through that again.

There's been oceans of water under the bridge since then. I've exercised pure financial independence, collected some mean skills to toss on my resumé and climbed the organisational ladder (mostly to find a less crap job). It's one thing to know you're a fantastic worker; quite another to have the track record to prove it.

We've been in Glasgow a month and a half with not so much as a sniff of possibility. I had assumed, not unreasonably I think, that this time around the job hunt would not be as demoralising or as hard. Look! This piece of paper shows how awesome I am! I have references and everything!

Not a bite. Nowhere. On nothing. I've widened my net and started applying for jobs well below my ability and still nothing. No response when applying for a data entry position? I don't even warrant that?

Demoralising. Internal erosion. Cracking security. Despair.

It is different this time though. We've paid several months of rent up front on this place, and have savings to keeps us going those months as well as take us to Iceland. I do have a platform of proven amazingness from which to launch myself from. There are two of us. He's picked up shifts at a pub and I'm doing freelance editing. My worry and despair keeps his optimism grounded, and his optimism keeps my despair in check.

I sleep around 12 hours out of 24, and I feel good. Whole and rested. Even when I have full control over how many hours I spend working on the computer my body gets cranky much swifter than I plan for. It aches and I fight on in frustration, pushing myself into a stupid cycle of forced down time.

These things make me look at my future and wonder how I am ever to fund the dreams I wish to pursue. If I do require that much sleep to be sane, how am I to work a full time job and do any sort of writing or have a social life at the same time? If computers are the devil to my arms, what work can I do? Not housekeeping, that was just as damaging, if not worse. Customer service positions would result in mental stress, and to be honest I'd prefer the physical pain and psychological strain of a desk job than the mental stress of a face-to-face job.

I'm awesome. Really. I'm the most disgustingly great employee ever. And I am a completely spent monkey.

But.
It's different now.
I do not know what dreams I have, let alone which I wish to pursue.
Perhaps here and now is enough.

You open the front door and find an empty syringe wrapper not a foot down the tenement hallway.

You sit on the couch and the rattle and hum of the corner store's metal shutters shuddering down is your soundtrack in this moment.

You pull your blanket around you, kiss feathers and sit a bird on your head, and get back to work.

And then there were 3.

You wake and there is one dead bird.

You wake. Every day. Without fail. The mattress a thin briar of coils and your pillow never quit right for your neck. No alarm wakes you. There is no pressing need for your wakefulness. You wake, and sometimes you stay awake. Sometimes you even get right out of bed, shower, dress, prepare yourself for the day as though the day might contain anything to prepare yourself for. That is not the norm, for more often than not you wake and, finding nothing has miraculously changed in your environment, you force yourself back to sleep.

So much sleep and yet never enough. You could blame the weather - Glasgow is hardly known for its bright and sunny disposition - or you could blame the stress of finding yourself once again unemployed and, despite your excellent track record and qualifications, seemingly unemployable. You could blame the belligerence of a city soundscape on your too sensitive introvert ears. You could blame a change in medication, even though there has been no change except for branding, but maybe, possibly, who knows.

You could blame higher powers, even though you believe in no such thing. That incident and that incident and that incident and that incident; this long run of significantly bad and usually pointless bad luck. You whisper in quiet moments, barely heard over a washing machine that devours the power so fast you can watch the credit on the meter tick down, that you're not supposed to be here, that Glasgow doesn't want you.

You could even blame yourself.

You don't want to be that cliché story of a deluded young couple running off to the big city and that big city being cruel, hard and chewing them up to spit them out broken and grey, but perhaps you no longer require any chewing to be broken.

You go to sleep, eventually.

You wake, inevitably.

Every day. Without fail. Opportunities and chances to change the tuning of your heart strings. Get out of bed even if there is nothing requiring you to. You know you won't get them but apply for those jobs because you would love to be wrong, please, be wrong. Go exploring because you will find the charm in the city even if the city will not charm you. You wake and even though it cost you dear you fight your little war inside and out. Because this too will change.

You wake up and there is still one bird, chirping and relentless.

Scams, Scrams and Heavy Sighs

Having done my time as a house elf, and done it well, I have left the bonny Highlands and now find myself in Glasgow, and the contrast is shocking. The noise, the movement, the intensity of life...

So I begin the great hunt for that rare prey known as 'employment'. A more demoralising quarry there is not, although I have had a little luck with freelance editing, more on that later. Most of my days have been spent trolling various employment sites, including Gumtree, at which I responded to an ad for article writers.

I received the following a few minutes ago:

From: Jack Kenton
Subject: Writing Work Ad
Date: 17 August 2012 1:39:03 PM GMT+01:00
To: -

Hi,

Thanks for replying to my ad for writing work. We provide reviews of film and TV shows to various websites to build up the content available on their sites and we're currently looking for more reviewers to join our team. For this position you will require a broadband Internet connection to watch movies as you will need to stream most of the films you watch over the Internet.

The reviews you will be writing will appear on blogs and websites and you will be credited as author. You should have good written english skills but it doesn't matter whether you use Americanised or British spellings of words (either "color" or "colour" would be fine, "movie" and "film" are both acceptable, etc.).

You will be emailed a list of about 100 potential assignments each week, with each specifying the film and if it is a 250 or 100 word review. You then choose which ones you think you can manage for that week, let us know which you've chosen and then hand them in to the specified deadline. If you find you want to do more than you originally thought you can always request to do more. Pay is £7.50 for a hundred word review and £20 for a 250 word review. You don't have to be exactly dead on the word target but are expected to be under by at most 10 words. You can go over by as many words as you wish. You'll find that the reviews don't take long at all to write and more of your time is generally taken up with actually watching the films themselves.

We will also pay you an allowance for a lovefilm account each month so you do not have to pay for the films you watch. You'll be paid this allowance via bank transfer at the start of each month in advance of having to pay for your month's subscription and your review earnings will be paid the monday after the review is received, if it is received on or before the friday. If you already have a lovefilm account we will not be able to pay an allowance.

Lovefilm give a free trial for your first 30 days so we will only pay your allowance from the 2nd month. You can choose either one of the following subscription options: "Instant" (£4.99 after the trial period ends) or "Have It All" (£9.99 a month after the trial period). We also need to track your signup so you will need to signup through the following tracking link: http://tinyurl.com/-------

We've had quite a few responses and we have quite limited positions so if you'd like to give it a go then please write a 100 word trial review of a film of your choice from the top ten in the "lovefilm favourites" category within your account. You should be able to access this within seconds of creating a trial account. You should save the review in a file and attach it to an email replying to this one. Please note that you won't be paid for this tester review. To simulate a real-life deadline you should email this through to me by 5pm on Sunday. If you can get it to me earlier than that then the earlier the better. Also, include a phone number I will be able to get hold of you on in your email and I will give you a call after Sunday to go through everything with you and to answer any questions you have.

I've attached some example reviews to this email so you can see the type of thing that other people have done and what we're looking for.

Thanks,

Jack

--------------------------------------------------------------------

This e-mail was sent by JC Communications, located at 780 - 790 Finchley Road, London, England NW11 7TJ (United Kingdom). To receive no further e-mails, please click here.

1. Googled "JC Communications" and there are far too many companies using this name.
2. Googled 780-790 Finchley Road, London and there are a surprising number of businesses listed against this address, none of them linked to "JC Communications" or Jack Kenton.
3. Jangomail is a free webmail service.
4. No information on specific sites where these reviews will be posted is given.
5. Tinyurl used for the tracker.
6. The 'samples' provided were...well...Fuck's sake, seriously.

Batman Forever

Wow. Just wow. And I thought Batman Begins was excellent. This... this piece of art... its PHENOMENAL!! From the scale, to the acting, the atmosphere, the music, the action, it's all art. I have not experienced this level of greatness in the cinema for a long time. This film is the darkest Batman, as well as one of the darkest, violent and gripping films, ever made.

In short, it's a masterpiece. One that will knock you out of your seat. It is the best Batman film ever, the best superhero film ever and the best film of 2008. Do yourselves a favour and see this piece of art. Repeated viewings highly recommended.


Frailty

Frailty is the story of a closely knit single-parent family that becomes divided when Dad wakes up his sons to tell them he's had a vision. In it, an angel has explained to him that he is a Demon-slayer; and given him a list of names with which to begin God's Work.

The youngest child is immediately overawed by his dad's new special purpose, and toddles off to help him out; the elder of the children is at first unsure, and then scared when he sees just how literally Dad is taking his vision; and then horrified when he finds himself expected to help.

The main problem for him is what - if anything - can he do about it? Thus begins the desperate test of a young boy in alerting the authorities to Dad's behaviour in the face of the ironic question regarding who might believe his story, over the respected word of his once community-friendly father.

Frailty is an excellent film that boasts an interestingly twisted plot, building up from an average film into a disturbing and interesting film, to one which catches you by completely by surprise at least twice right towards the end.

The acting is also good, notably so from the two boys playing the sons. I was very pleasantly surprised by this film and would recommend it.

Nobody pays for shit like that. Nobody. Especially not £7.50 for 100 words, that's fucking ridiculous. A dream, sure, and not how the world works. Also, those are shit. I mean, I know as a writerly type person I have unforgiving standards when it comes to any sort of written word, but there is no denying the shit and weak bollocks those 'reviews' are.

Initially I thought it was a scam to get people to sign up to lovefilm, but instead of being insidious marketing it's just some lamprey stealing bank account details. He advertises this writing job and bar work as well, confirmed by third party sources here;



-here;



- and here;



So hey, hopers, dreamers and hunters in the UK, don't give Jack Kenton your bank account details, okay?

5 June 2012

1989 - The massacre at Tiananmen Square, in Beijing, China.

1981 - The first reported cases of AIDS.

1973 onward - World Environment Day.

And lo! 2012 marks 31 years of Tessa On Earth. My Dad describes my arrival thusly:

7:40 am on this day you came to us all wrinkly and bossy and having said your piece you nodded off.

This is a pattern that hasn't been deviated from overly. For better or worse. Heh.

Due to inattention I didn't plan anything to mark this occasion, and so last minute ceremonials involved seeking wishes from other people to make on their behalf. These wishes were folded in paper, and two hours of my life spent constructing a pyramid of drift wood, quartz and seashells, along with some pilfered matches, saw these wishes turned to breath and then the wind horses took them and they have disappeared.

There is footage, but who knows when I will get time to tame it.

However, my fellow hospitality monkeys inflicted a wee cake upon me, with candles and fuego and everything!

And a Kinder Surprise! And a Ginger Joe and buuuuurggggeeeer. I am well spoilt by these people I have yet no right to expect such attention from. Dancing dancing dancing!

Looking back on what it was to be 30, I can summarise the year as being 'brilliant', apart from the hand stuff. So many amazing, fascinating and inspiring people have entered my life and chosen to stay in my life, even as I have taken off vagabonding about the other side of the world. If I have learned anything from this self-indulgent voyage, it is that home is not a location, it is scattered in little pieces around the world in the hearts of those I love, and who love me in return. There are a great many ribcages I call home, and all of them are wonderful and dazzling.

Looking at where I was this time last year, and what has changed since then, I can afford myself a pleased little shimmy. So many "one day" desires I have turned into "that was sublime" memories, many of which I was not in the process of actively pursuing. Scotland, it must be said, has been incredibly kind to me.

Hell, I wasn't even unhappy this time last year. Things were going very, very well.

I just learned that, well, even then, things can still get even better.

I'm almost afraid to ask anything more of myself for the coming year, as if I'm being greedy in all this conquering and questing and exploring and what-the-helling, but if I know me, and I'm afraid I do...

There is always more.

<3 you all

Don't make wishes; make memories.

Wylde Swan 7 Day Voyage Three-quarters of last month's pay, seven day working week, two days to prepare, I don't even know how it happened. The stars aligned. The planets aligned. The earthbones groaned and the flowers moaned and all the winds whispered in their sleeping ears and tilted their dreams 2 degrees toward my future, and oh, I don't believe in fate or the kindness of divine deities, but maybe chance and coincidence and the seasons and salted air have conspired a maelstrom of delight focusing here, in this coastal village, sails and snow and singing.

From on high

Some, when cresting a summit, will bellow their triumph to all laid out below them. I am not one of those people. To make noise is for me an act of disrespect, and no word in any human tongue can challenge the wind.

Ullapool, now Tessa Base Camp

If I walk to the end of the verandah, this is what I can see. In the foreground, beyond the frame of this glimpse, a flock of ducks scabbling lazily as they settle on the grass in the dying light.

The shore is stone. The loch is sea. Dried weeds amid the pebbles. On the steps to the footpath a shattering of mussel and scallop shells, derelict barnacles and crushed mother-of-pearl.

A raised voice echoing around a corner. Such fury and vehemence. Don't you dare. Get back here.

To my left, an empty carpark. Two horses in coats, clopping in tandem across that space between buildings. Whingeing whinny and snort.

For a moment, I believe the supermarket not to stock bananas. For a moment.

There is no wind down by the water. The air is cold, too cold busy itself. The silence surrounding me as I stand in the daffodils is dense with space.

I find my thoughts tripping over small occasions upon which people have found fault with me. Slights and rejections that I have perceived. Looking at photos, I remember an impatient sigh that that pricked my quilt. They walked ahead and never looked back. None of these are insults or intended to offend. None of them. I did not need to bruise. But I chose to, and have, and when I run fingertips across these memories, those bruises quiver in their sleep.

There are memories here too, to shore up these failing walls.

But it is cold. There is no conviction.

Attempting to Settle With Fibromyalgia

There is only one bus for Ullapool on Sundays. Tonight I will sleep in a bed that will be my bed for at least a couple of months to come. On Wednesday I will no longer be Master of My Own Fate, I will be employed, with a boss, with tasks and responsibilities and my time will no longer be my own.

This will probably be good for me, but I have to admit the notion leaves me somewhat disgruntled.

Coincidentally, I'm coming up on the last of my medication. I was given a slab of Pristiq before I left, enough to last me through the uncertainties of travel in various countries in the EU, also enough that would see me having been on a stable dosage for in excess of six months. It doesn't pay to tweak dosage and medication too much, and my psychologist was quite adamant that before attempting to lower my dosage I should sit pretty for at least six months.

Pristiq, or Desvenlafaxine, is not available in the UK.

The doctor I saw in the Bank Medi Centre did a fair amount of checking her references, and qave me a prescription for Effexor, or Venlafaxine. She was thorough in calculating comparative doses. The prescription given will be a slight reduction, but less than dropping from 150mq to 100mq of Pristiq.

This will be a direct chop and change. As soon as the Pristiq is done I will commence the Effexor. Much as this sounds dubious, I did the same when switching from Cymbalta to Pristiq, and on the recommendation and assurance of both my GP and psychologist, with no notable side-effects to speak of. Apart from space-cadetness. Vague I can deal with, however. Amplified depression, not so much.

I am still shit fucking scared.

The Fibromyalgia Support Group in Inverness has not responded to my email, and further searching has not indicated any particular doctors with an understanding of fibromyalgia in the area. In this case, I figure I'll save myself the travel and register at the medical clinic in Ullapool. There's only one. There are a few practicing doctors there, so even if none of them have any experience with fibromyalgia there must surely be at least one I feel comfortable talking to.

This lead to me attempting to research how one goes about joining the NHS. Should anyone else happen to follow in my footsteps, I have some very simple advice: don't.

The websites, which I am not goinq to link to because they are all confusing and lacking in anything that looks like administrative process, have nothing, naaaasink, on how to go about joining, or information for expats. A friend who had already navigated this told me to simply make an appointment and register with a doctor, and it will sort itself out there. Cool? Cool.






And while rummaging around online learning all this I read about my medications all over again, and about fibromyalgia all over again, and the words THERE IS NO CURE have lodged in my throat, all the descriptions of pain, fatigue, depression, aches, all the limits and restrictions, the unending unceasing reality of it, I remembered these things all over again.

I start work on Wednesday. There is a frightening amount of hope pinned upon this menial job.

Upside-Down

Upside-Down, a photo by sirtessa on Flickr.

I don't think anyone or anything looks dignified when having a good thorough scratch.

Oh, Internet.

I had to double check that kangaroos weren't poisonous (don't ask) and found the following;

The tiger lily faces me, and I it. Petals arched back, flush and luscious, stamen a demure puckered kiss on a ballgown of violent, furious, unapologetic red. Undefined cloud slides a hand across the sun's face, and the flower glows.

I am reading. I am concentrating. This is a focus so long unworn. Remembrances that are not memories stir somewhere deeper than the heart.

I want to make.

GLEEVOMIT! JOYGASM! YAYSNEEZE!

NO ONE TOLD ME THERE WAS A NEW COMIC SERIES OUT, OR THAT IT HAD BEEN OUT LONG ENOUGH FOR THE FIRST COLLECTED EDITION TO BE RELEASED.

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

It is a reboot of the original series, and I have to say, it is ace. The origins of the turtles and Splinter has knit together several antagonists from various, shall we call them, parallel universes that the many many licensed franchises the turtles have evolved in over the years. A good blend of both the original Mirage comic and the 80s cartoon, even featuring "General Krang". Curious to see if Krang remains a gooby brain (I never did like the story arc given to the gooby brain Krang/Shredder character in the new TMNT cartoon series). Art work by Dan Duncan is gorgeous, once again blending the multitude of styles in which the turtles have been depicted in the past. A good balance for the kids new to turtledom, and the kids grew up but never let it go.

NEED NEXT COLLECTION. NOW.

(Funnily enough, I was only this week missing my TMNT comics and DVDs. We all have our comfort stories. Thank you, universe. Don't think I don't appreciate it.)

Pigtails: +10 Cuteness

This is the longest my hair has been since I chopped it all off.
What the hell do you do with all this stuff? I just gets in the way all the time, and I actually need to use conditioner now. An extra product! That's not low maintenance!





(Actually, I'm just scared of going to an unknown hairdresser. Only used the one back home, she knew what to do. Me, I have no idea what she did, so don't know what to ask for.)

Ed, En, BRAAAAH of Rooftops

Just one of the many closes that form the ribs from the spine of the Royal Mile.

In New York it was water tanks. In the UK, it's chimneys. Seriously. WTF.


And Edinburgh is just such a bloody pretty town, yet so full of winds and trees and twists it is near impossible to photograph.


How is it possible to be both orderly and ramshackle at the same time?


The monument to Sir Walter Scott, for contributions to Scottish literature, a revival of Scottish culture and raising interest and passion in Scotch identity.
A monument to a writer.
A writer.