Stop Being Fat

What was the name of that fat disney princess?

Oh yeah, there was none. Put down the cupcake.

A Few of My Favourite Things

Winter mornings, a busy city, and saying silly things.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwDLpFqyxz8

Clap Twice To Turn the Lights On

This blog had gone dark for a while, as I had intended on transforming some of the content into a more coherent narrative. Time and inclination have worked against that past intention.

I take up where I left off with after a lot of happenings, but surprisingly little change.

Time will tell, but now, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

A Life in the Day

Every morning my alarm rings too loud and I wake up like a drowning man breaking the surface of the water, heart racing and gasping for air. I slam my head back into the pillow and stare at the ceiling for a moment.

I get up, shower and dress. Suit trousers, a shirt, black shoes. Probably a jumper since I've inherited or been given a number of extremely similar looking Abercrombie pullovers. They're all beige. They all have impractically long sleeves.

In the kitchen I marvel at the amount of food in the fridge before making myself a two course breakfast while cooking a packed lunch. Being a coeliac means my food combinations are not always normal, but I've stopped having things like chicken korma for breakfast because it weirds out the family.

Breakfast is usually pancakes with nutella and a bowl of fruit. I drink a berocca and a cup of mocca-made coffee with it. Lunch is usually pasta with tuna; a throwback to my travelling days. I play with the dog before I go.

I cycle to work on my dad's bicycle. It's a European style bike with three gears, and it applies the back break if you pedal backward. I'm convinced it's going to kill me. It has giant panniers on the back and there's no way I would have cycled it when I was 17. I go over a hill on the way that lets me see Dublin bay. I dream of sailing.

At work my room is quiet. We never turn the lights on, even in when it's cloudy, so the room has constantly a faint blueish true-light haze. I program extensions for Excel all day while listening to classical music on my reassuringly expensive Bose headphones. Usually it's Tchaikovski, but sometimes I play Bach or Vivaldi for some variety, even though I'd rather be listening to Tchaikovski. I say I can program but really I just copy code from the internet. It amounts to the same thing.

I work for a sleep monitoring company who developed a product that can tell what state of sleep you're in without touching you. We have Japanese customers who are very precise and our manufacturing is all in China. It sounds professional and exotic but people still argue about soccer results and delete files by mistake.

Sometimes part of my work is lying on the floor and breathing. I lie there and someone tells me to roll over every few minutes. I drift off a bit, but it's like trying to sleep in an airport while paying attention to the announcements.

I take lunch at my desk because it makes the day feel shorter. Usually only a few minutes. I spend the rest programming because I enjoy creating things people find useful.

After work when I go outside I remark on how cold it is. Every day. Still. With the sun on my face I take a long pull on the air and blow it out slowly through pursed lips, as though I were smoking it. I cycle back up over the hill. It's steeper on the way back.

In the evenings I read, jog, or meet with friends. I try to get to bed early on weeknights because I dont function well when I'm tired. I don't drink any more. The hangovers are hell and being drunk is overrated.

The novelty of having my own bed still hasn't worn off. The sheets and duvet are a far better quality than I'm used to.

When I get into bed I flick through a few social media on my phone. I look at a few news sites to feel clever but don't retain any of what I read. Before I go to sleep I turn my phone on airplane mode so no one will wake me. I check my alarms and fall asleep quickly. I always forget to turn the volume down.


Victor's trip to Europe from The Rules of Attraction.

Home

I've touched down in Ireland and begun the reintegration, which considering nothing has changed has been pretty easy.

I'm drafting a list of things that are strange to me here. Expect it.

The Beginning of the End

The flights are booked, the plan is finally made. Eight days of road tripping from Sydney to Melbourne, and then a long journey home.

It's a strange feeling to start something, and know it's the end.

Reception

One of the most important features of a bathroom is cell reception. Politeness and subtlety absolutely depend on it.

City Pets

"Mommy, that dog is laughing!"

No, it's so fat it's struggling to draw breath.

A Life In Shade

I'm impressed that in a country so sunny some people can be so pale.

"I left a part of myself in the outback." The words werent mine; they came from a German guy staying in my hostel. He had just spent a month travelling alone across the wide open land. So many sunrises and sunsets, blistering hot days and dark starry nights etched into him; empty hours, endless weeks, time without reference.

I left a part of myself in the outback. Some buzz. Some restlessness. That fitful compulsion to talk all the time. The constant mental activity. The need for fast, loud music. Its gone.

Instead, there's a peace or calm which is almost unsettling. There's a compulsion to eat alone and enjoy the food. Not to drink. To listen to calm music. To talk to one person at a time so you can focus on them. It's a desire to appreciate and invest in everything, and to gaze at the world through your senses.

I wonder if it will fit in with the rest of the world.

I left a part of myself in the outback and I wonder if I need it back.

Busking

The central station tunnel in Sydney is like my atm. Want to withdraw 20? Pop down to the tunnel, sing for a few minutes, bam.

Excerpt From My Misguided Monologue

"...afterward, I went to McDonalds and laughed at the irony as "savings" flashed up on the card machine. Saving was never something I was good at. Money has no intrinsic value. The only thing you can use it for is to get something. Spend it and suddenly you have tuned coloured paper into something useful..."

My People

Are generally people who circumstance occasionally makes look completely ridiculous. There's a charm to being lost in an awkward situation you were waltzed into by the world.

Friends of the Opposite Sex

It's a pain in the ass trying to work out whether someone is enjoying talking to you, just wants to shag, or is lost in some blur of the two that leads to things like holding hands, comfortable silences, and eventually IKEA.

For now I'd be happy to tell the first two apart. Or more accurately I'd prefer if others could. I'm sick of the blur. I'm sick of some girls looking at me with a smile as if they're waiting for a flurry of adoration, and others shying away as though any moment they'll be set upon.

I might start a yes/no list online so everyone knows where they stand.

Paper Photos

Photos are there to make a moment immortal. Digital photos do that. Drag a second out to an eternity. Turn it into something etheral. Kundera would say meaningless.

Printed pictures are different. They grab the moment, then they age, wither and tear. They get damp. They get lost. You bond with the dream and the paper it's printed on.

Which has more value, I have not yet decided. The impermanence has a certain romanticism to it though.

Music Returns and Fills My Soul

Nothing like that first breath into an SM58 after so long apart. So familiar, like the touch of an old lover.

Songs

Millions of them, being written everywhere. Being sung in back alleys and railway stations, bars and clubs, parks and stadiums. Three people know it, two hundred, half a nation, one kid in his room.
Metephors fly about the air, a broken heart from the window of a passing car, gang wars on a construction site, peace and love in a cafe.

Songs everywhere. Millions of them.

Freedom, Finance and Angels

This post was written about a week ago, and then edited before being posted.

I'm in Sydney and it's beautiful. The people are gorgeous, the weather perfect and the living easy. How I came to be living in the precise hostel I am now in, and have the friends and job I have is probably lost in the mists of time but that's to be expected when the only reason to know the day of the week is that dominos pizza is cheaper on Tuesdays.

Last night as I walked home through Hyde Park in the rain with a charming Italian girl, the skyscrapers were lost in cloud, their upper lights like a celestial aura. Now it's blue with cartoon clouds, crisp and white. The glass faced towers throwing light down onto the streets in patches.

I'm walking to a guitar store to buy a string. It's Monday morning and last night I broke one while busking, which was about the worst thing that could happen to me. I have very little money and playing guitar is how I make it. It's a day to day living. If I need to pay a night in a hostel, 35 mins of singing. Eating? Round it up to an hour. Takeaway food? Make it 2 hours pay tomorrow's rent as well, and take the day off.
The two worst things that can happen then are losing my voice, and breaking a string when I have no money. Fortunately, and by chance, I had 17 dollars in 20 and 50 cents I hadn't managed to spend and should be able to buy cheap strings.

Then I'll be off to work. I picked up a job selling milk and veg door to door. It's commission based, and as an engineer, it's interesting to learn to sell. At the moment I have a satchel around my neck on one side and a guitar slung on my back without a case. I'm not wearing a top because it's already very hot and I don't want to get sweaty before work. Later, when I'm selling, I'll wear shorts, runners, a polo that says "milkman" and an ass licking, shit eating grin to ingratiate myself with whoever owns the door I've just knocked on.

Time moves fast in the lives of the common people.

William Shatner - Common People

Birds

I woke up to the sound of them screaming and screeching. Every fifteen minutes a flutter of wings and hoots rings out across the farm.

The owners installed a "bird scarer " ; an electronic recording of birds freaking out and flying away. It's a  21st century scare crow and it's damn weird.

Evolution

Seriously, what is up with tickling.

Appreciation

After living on rice and tinned tuna for a month, steak tastes amazing. Better than ever before. Smoked salmon is a dream. Brie is a birthday cake.

I don't want to ever forget how good all the usual things are.

(Written mid Christmas break)