Snapshot

It's early afternoon on an average Thursday. A gale has come up from seemingly nowhere. The sky is dark, thick with cloud and red dust. I doubt there will be rain today. Palms are bending backwards like you see them do in cyclone footage on the television and I wonder how long before one comes down on a line and puts the power out. There's a buzzing weirdness like electricity in the air. The dog doesn't seem to notice and is happy napping on the couch.

Dismantled Mix Tape - Paper Tiger + Guess I'm Doing Fine

Not So Old School After All

I went to a public library today for the first time in a long time. The four years I lived in Brisbane, I never set foot in such an institution and yet I am drawn to the tiny room that is the Port Hedland library. I was feeling very nostalgic about it. It kind of reminds me of the casino public library where I researched many an assignment back in the golden days before I felt the soul destroying crush that is institutionalised learning (took me 7 years of primary, 6 of secondary and 8 years of tertiary to come to such a conclusion). Back in the day, when I was trying on the teenage rebel outfit for size, I hung out at the library when I wagged school. Totally Bad Ass. This library has the same feel. A dozen or so shelves of reference books, decades old and probably then out of date. Rows and rows of Wilbur Smith, Jeffery Archer, Patricia Cornwall and Agatha Christie, well thumbed, tea coloured pages read by so many a bored miner's wife, possibly twice. And a shiny newfangled wizzbox in the corner offering all of the infinite possibilities that the world wide web has to offer, parcelled out in 30 minute bookings. Ah, small town public libraries. Odd thing is that I found exactly what I was looking for (neither Patricia Cornwall or Wilbur Smith). Odd thing is that I enjoyed the experience so much I was grinning like a mad thing when I got back into the car. Odd thing (no, I'd say more amusing than odd) is the librarian, on seeing I was borrowing a book on tape asked me if I knew how to use a cassette. Never, never ever in my whole life have I been asked such a question. Bless. I've never really thought of the CD generation before, and despite the large carton of cassette tapes in my cupboard, I guess I am firmly one of them. But do I really look so young as someone who doesn't know about tapes? I wonder if there are kids out there who have all of their music digital and know naught of CDs?

Waxing Lyrical.

Saturday morning. and who's gonna play with me. it's six in the morning. I gotta long day ahead of me. Forgive me if I misquote a lyric or two from time to time, but you'll just have to deal with it. But it is saturday morning, oh no wait. it's afternoon. Crap. this is getting less and less legitimate as I go. Though I am alone at the moment, not that it's a problem today. This is Brisbane. These are holidays. And this is someone who finds it much easier to live zen when they are on holidays. Y'know, you should never under estimate the potential of existential insight in the lyrics of pop music. Take massive chances with your life. That's what Madonna said to me. Travelling down this road, watching the signs as I go, I think I'll follow the sun, isn't everyone just travelling down their own road watching the signs as they go, I think I'll follow my heart, it's a very good place to start. It may not be poetry or brilliant, unique insight into the human condition. But it convinced me that moving to the other planet that is western australia is a good idea. Possibly more importantly, it continues to convince me that I can, not should, but can stay there. At least for the times being.

Happy Freakin Birthday Madonna. You've done more for me than any philosopher, poet or self help manual could ever do. Thankyou.

How did you mangage to convince yourself of that?

C'mon, Be Nice To Each Other.

And here, I vent.
I like online communities. I have participated in numerous forums on numerous topics and generally there are no problems. It's fun in a way, to say what you think, to answer questions or to ask questions of your own with the possibility of communicating with people from all walks of life that you might never otherwise have the opportunity to interact with. And yet, there are some people I have encountered over the years of exploring topical message boards, chat rooms and forums who cannot engage with these forms of communication without being complete and utter pricks. And these forum nazis are becoming the norm. Example: without using any names, there is a forum that I have had dealings with on a particular topic of popular culture. There is one individual who makes seemingly a million posts a day on whatever topic, whether his comments are relevant or not to the questions or whatever. And each time, he shoots people down and basically comes across as an arrogant fuck - so so much better than everyone else because he has his own website, because he has published books (apparently). My question is, if he is so amazingly worldly and knowledgeable, why does he spend all day responding to posts on an online forum, pissing people off? If you need more, go and read some of the user comments from urbandictionary.com. People are getting seriously slagged, really really cruel comments are made just because someone makes an addition to what is a ridiculous yet humorous web site meant for nothing more than fun. So why must people get so freakin' nasty? Do they talk like this to all people they encounter, or just those who can't directly slap them in the face for being such total assholes.
I am not a person who can say that you shouldn't say nasty things to or about people. I say nasty, judgemental things all the time, and think them, sometimes dream them. But not everything that comes out of my mouth or keyboard is a slag off. So, here's my gripe, enough is enough people. Before you write something fuckish towards someone (yes, I have just decided that fuckish is a word now. I'd put it on urbandictionary.com but for fear of someone responding fuckishly to my contribution), think, would I say this out loud to a real person.

The Half A Five Year Plan.

I've always thought people who made 5 year plans were those overly ambitious corporate high acheiving types, or Stalin. Same thing really. But here I am, thinking of making my own five year plan. I can't call my self overly ambitious. Oh, I do have ambitions. I'd like a life where I make my living from doing interesting, creative and generally fantastic things. And I'd like to live in a nice place in a nice house, with nice things and I'd like to be surrounded by genuinely cool people that I know and love all of the time. I like to think that I am too ecclectic, too easily distracted and too easily bored to live the corporate life where 5 year plans are generally a given, but I think I'm more lazy than any of those other things. Yet, I digress.
I am about to articulate my first 5 year plan, in a live (semi-live) internet broadcast.... get ready, it's gonna be boring.
July, 2008 - February 2010. Thesis. Retire from academic pursuit. Fuck me. 2010, that sound just far enough away to be forever, but really only 18 months. Breathe. Relax.
February 2010 - January 2011. Occupy my final Pilbara year with developing skills for my ambitions for a creative, fantastic life. Current ideas for that - writing of various types. Independent film if I can somehow access the equpiment here, othewise I'll spend the year drawing really bad story boards. I might get a book, make it official.
And there...... there I am stuck. What is going to happen after that year is a curiously wobbly question. And one that I don't really fancy going into with the world who never reads this anyway..... So, the conclusion is that I am not currently in a position to have a 5 year plan. Can I have a series of 5 year plans and choose appropriately as time progresses? Ah well, Actually, the fact that I can't really devise anything now does fill me with a little bit of excitement. It means i'll still have moments of possibility and chance to look forward to. Why then is that so terrifying?