Cheap as you are

2012-01-23T18:36:00.001+11:00

Well what am I to do with this old thing?

2011-12-13T19:51:00.004+11:00

Well this is all very lovely. I really am just lolling about in Osaka, back in my 'bicycle, book, DVD, internet and fabulous French pastries' mode.

I feel anxious sometimes, consistent with other periods when I haven't been working. Nothing unmanageable. I'm essentially here on holiday anyway, so it doesn't really matter, but I guess my mind turns to the future and sustaining this existence and as this blog will attest to over the past, what, six years (already?), that sort of thing always has troubled me and very likely always will.

So we're hurtling towards Christmas, which we will be spending in Kyushu (Beppu, Fukuoka and Nagasaki), and 2012 is rearing its head. I read the other day that the Mayan predictions for armageddon were in fact no such thing, and I felt disappointed. Evidently 2012 is just the end of some kind of era.

A few weeks ago, back in South Australia, I saw a kestrel or kite or similarly foul predatory bird carting off a desperate little sparrow, which was flapping its wings hopelessly. I felt like detonating nuclear bombs. My favourite part in Lars Von Trier's Melancholia is when Justine says, "Do not mourn the Earth. The Earth is evil."

This must all sound terribly depressive but really I'm completely fine. I've been re-reading Cloud Atlas and while I am not enjoying it as much as I did the first time (it's still a fine book – I guess I'm in a different era now, or something), it does make me think about power and abuse thereof.

Then the various international news websites just confirm how utterly fucked everything is.

2011-11-26T11:25:00.001+11:00

Right, off to Japan!

2011-11-01T20:20:00.001+11:00

I guess it's slowly crept up on me over the last year or so, but I actually feel like myself again.

2011-10-07T19:20:00.002+11:00

Do you know what? I have travel plans again!

Three months in Osaka from late November, then a side-trip to Malaysia on the way back to Adelaide in late February.

I mean that's fabulous!

2011-09-24T09:25:00.003+10:00

Still here! Neglected to follow up on my last post to say what a great time we had, both in the city and up in the South Australian countryside which, much as I hated growing up there, really is a stunning part of the world. People don't even realise.

The big "introduce your boyfriend to your parents" thing occurred without incident and I'm pretty sure there were ticks of approval.

Since then I've just been ensconced in work, of the full-time variety and also freelance work that I really could have used when I was living in Osaka rather than now, here in Adelaide. I've reconfirmed for the millionth time that I am unhappy when busy, and when I feel that social interactions must be sacrificed in favour of working, and let me tell you there's no doubt in my mind as to which of the two is more pointless.

My full-time job goes on in a weird sort of homeostasis. I finally took charge of a project and got it completed, so I can actually say something was achieved in my time there. Had I not done that I would most likely have finished the contract with nothing to show, as actually concluding anything seems to be among the lowest priorities there.

I've seen it all before so I'm not surprised, but one day I just wish that I could step into some sort of work-related environment that isn't fraught with human hideousness. Basically anything I've ever tried to accomplish in tandem with other people has ended up in disappointment and/or disillusionment, and sure I've played my part, but I still blame others more because fuck it I SEE THINGS THROUGH.

I'm still loving Adelaide. What a misunderstood city. It's fabulous. But if its poor national reputation keeps even one or two fuckheads away then I don't mind one bit.

I'm sick this weekend and pleased that my client hasn't got back to me as it means I can have at least part of the weekend to myself. So, on with it... xx

2011-08-17T21:26:00.000+10:00

OMG T arrives in less than 48 hours!! :D

2011-07-31T10:19:00.006+10:00

T arrives in just over 2 weeks, which is extremely exciting. Being a typical Japanese-style holiday, he's only here for a few days so we'll have to be organised.

We're actually planning to spend a lot of time out of the city, which is both good and bad from a time perspective. I hope that I'll be able to introduce him to key people this trip, as it's a bit ridiculous that some of the most wonderful people I know have not yet met the elusive T, who I have been with for almost 3 years.

Of course that's 3 years in part-time mode, and I DO NOT mean in a commitment sense, just from the point of view of physical proximity. I think I could almost describe my whole life as 'part time', so the entire thing kind of stands to reason and sits quite comfortably actually.

He's been to Adelaide several times already, so I was thinking it would be great to take him up to the Flinders Ranges, which are just stunning at this time of year. Not sure if time will allow quite that sort of distance though.

Of the key people, my parents take #1 priority as they also have not met him outside of Skype (a result of the enormous distances involved in the scenario), so a large part of the itinerary will be padded around that.

So there we go.

2011-07-03T11:24:00.000+10:00

I really am ridiculously happy here in Adelaide.

2011-06-18T16:18:00.003+10:00

I started work yesterday, and I'm excited because this new job is pretty much exactly what I wanted. What's really fab is that it feels like a progression, rather than just another crap job that came my way.

Of course it's early days and most things do end in disappointment, but I'm pleased.

The other incomprehensible thing is that I'm really loving living out here in the suburbs. I think because it's in the foothills and there are great views, and just tonnes of trees and grassy areas (which become creepy at night BTW)... it just feels like a total change of scene. From inner-city Osaka to the Adelaide 'burbs. :)

I am so relieved that my repatriation seems to be going off without incident. Of course the fact that I am assuming it to be only temporary does a whole world of good.

2011-06-05T11:22:00.002+10:00

Well here I am, back in lovely Adelaide and, well, loving it.

The season is splendid, my friends and family are wonderful, the food is delicious and the wine is of course fabulous.

Naturally I miss T very much. And Osaka, and my friends there, and just being overseas. It would be better if we could just have it all.

It's good that I'm feeling good. Transitional times often send me to polar ends of the emotional spectrum, so I'm happy to say this time things seem to be going well.

Just don't ask me what my plans are.

2011-05-24T21:19:00.003+10:00

Taipei has of course been amazing in every way.

"Hello!" said the woman two tables down from me at the vegetarian restaurant. "Why don't you do language exchange with my son? He can teach you Mandarin Chinese!"

I explained that I was only in Taiwan on holidays. She at first misunderstood me ("No, not tomorrow!!") and then appeared indifferent.

Then later, "why don't you use your clips?"

She was not the first to mention these clips. It was the most confusing situation. There were clips that I was supposed to clip somewhere to show that I wanted a dish. Only I couldn't see where to clip them, nor did I especially want to clip them anywhere if it meant ordering anything above and beyond the phenomenal buffet. But people kept coming up to me and saying things about the clips. "Clip!" "Clip!"

It is SO easy to be vegetarian here, and luckily the Chinese characters for the word match up perfectly with Japanese. The choice and quality has been simply astounding, but I have to say there is a sort of bitter/sour flavour, a spice of some kind no doubt, underlying many of the dishes that for me is an acquired taste. It's definitely an incredible city for food though – apparently as the island did not suffer the ravages of the cultural revolution, traditional and unique Chinese cooking styles have been preserved. And there are SO many things to try.

On that note, two of T's Taiwanese friends basically force-fed us all Friday evening, from restaurant to market stall to late-night noodle shop. They were the most weird and wonderful girls, straight out of Chungking Express and it was an incredibly fun night. This episode really warrants MUCH more detail but I haven't the energy now.

T went back to Japan on Sunday. My plane leaves for Sydney in 4.5 hours and although I am excited about heading back to Adelaide, I have this gut feeling that there's a bit of a nasty road ahead. I hope I'm wrong.

2011-05-19T11:56:00.002+10:00

Leaving Osaka today, then 5 days in Taipei – the airline cancelled my flight so I got an extra two days there, which I see as a total blessing and a total sign that I shouldn't be leaving Asia.

Stressing over luggage as usual and wishing I could just stay instead, but of course the most disappointing thing had to come to fruition, that's just WHAT happens, so now it's a matter of regrouping and developing new strategies, I suppose.

2011-05-04T02:08:00.003+10:00

It's my birthday! Hard to believe it's already a year since Seoul, London, Bristol and Berlin. Creepy how quickly time flies.

Shikoku was a lovely treat, and the city of Kochi exceeded expectations. Looks like we're not going to Mie after all, but there are plenty of other things to do so that's fine.

Hooray, 31!

2011-04-26T11:26:00.005+10:00

It's almost Golden Week. We'll be heading off to Fukuyama for one night, before spending several days in Shikoku. Then back to Osaka for a day, before hitting Mie prefecture for another few days. Obviously looking forward to all of this.

My obsession with container-based gardening continues. We've installed a goya vine on the roof which will hopefully clambour along a crude trellis to provide extra shade in the summer. The citrus trees, aloes, chrysanthemums, aeoniums, rosemary and Italian parsley are doing well up there too.

The red maple in the front yard is in full leaf now and is stunning. Still waiting for the lavender to really take off, and one other tree from the maple family is yet to shoot – a construction worker stepped on it a few months ago and I had to tape it back together, so whether or not it actually survived remains to be seen. The olive and the pelagonium are thriving, as are numerous indoor pot plants.

The living room balcony now features basil, mint and shiso, together with ranunculus and some other gorgeous flowers, and I finally made my first terrarium, which T had asked for as a birthday present. I think it turned out about 70% great, with my main criticism being that the glass of the container is too thick to properly exhibit the contents.

2011-04-19T14:58:00.004+10:00

Oh by the way, if you're interested in East Asian design, check out the current issue of six twelve eighteen - things can be shipped worldwide too.
:) x

2011-04-18T19:05:00.003+10:00

I found the most charming street today, only one or two stops away from where I live. Just a small little suburban enclave, extending out from the local train station, with trees everywhere and tiny shops in lovely buildings that had obviously stood for a fair while, by Osaka standards.

Of course this happens, doesn't it? Right when you're getting ready to mobilise for a move, all the best things about where you are just pounce right on you.

I feel like I've done everything I can to stay here. At least everything I'm willing to do. One might call me pigheaded but I don't think so. I can't be endlessly malleable.

This season is glorious. The streets are ablaze with flowers bursting from pots or on the few overhanging trees that are allowed to stand. The parks and riversides are simply stunning.

It will be too hot again soon, so we really have to make the most of it now.

2011-04-12T14:52:00.002+10:00

She wasn't elected. One huge sigh of relief. One huge amount of revulsion that she was a serious contender.

2011-04-11T20:17:00.002+10:00

We are on the cusp of finding out whether Pauline Fucking Hanson has been elected into a seat in New South Wales. I don't know any way to react to this that doesn't involve embarrassment and shame about my nationality. Even if she doesn't get in, the fact that she's this close is enough. It makes me feel sick.

2011-03-18T22:47:00.003+11:00

So the plan is to head back for a stint in Australia at the end of May. It's exactly what I don't want, and I don't yet know what it will mean for T and I, but I feel in many ways it is out of our hands. That's all.

2011-03-12T23:51:00.003+11:00

Spent the last few days up near Lake Biwa. It was incredibly beautiful, although the weather restricted us to just one day of skiing. Stayed at a modest but lovely little cabin by the lake.

We didn't notice those hideous earthquakes at all.

Got back to Osaka this afternoon, having passed streams of emergency vehicles. Western Japan is lucky to have come through unscathed, thus far.

They just announced on the news that there are 10,000 people missing in Miyagi Prefecture. It's all just so horrible.

2011-02-19T16:08:00.003+11:00

Here I am in Fukuyama, which is T's home town, an hour or so east of Hiroshima in western Japan. He and his sister have been busy with family things, so I've been wandering around the castle and a couple of galleries, and it's been surprisingly fun.

Now I'm in Starbucks. People incorrectly accuse me of loving Starbucks. The fact is I like their donuts at the moment, and the fact that I can pay by credit card.

I've had a stressful few weeks involving bizarre interview scenarios in which a company advertised under fake details in order to keep the job secret from their own employee, um alarm bells ringing, and on top of that they seem want the whole world for $1.50, but still I'm strangely curious about the job on offer so am waiting to see what comes of that.

Honestly I don't know how much longer it will be viable to stay in Japan if I can't find some sort of work that doesn't involve enormous amounts of sacrifice with regards to career hopes/general interest/free time/sanity/disposable income. I feel so vulgar framing my choices in such terms (haven't I railed against standard work all these years??), but you know what I'm 30 now and won't just put up with any old thing anymore.

Fussy fussy shut up, I know. I'll wage my own internal battle about whether or not I self-sabotage every positive situation in my life.

They're playing surprisingly good music here.

Love and blessings to you all.

2011-02-03T14:55:00.003+11:00

So it's February. I'm huddling away from the cold and plodding along with some work things that started late last year, learning lots about the realities of freelancing (should I say, being reminded of the realities, 'cos it's almost exactly what I experienced back in 2002/03), drinking too much coffee and yearning for some warmer weather.

Oh I bought BOOTS. Fabulous boots that go halfway up to my knees. I've never had such high boots before so I'm still getting used to them, but I think perhaps I really love them.

What a weird year it is shaping up to be. I wonder if I'll ever learn to be satisfied with anything.

2011-01-21T21:26:00.004+11:00

Now that I am coming to terms with the superficial ugliness of Osaka, I am starting to find the city incredibly interesting. People say the place gets under your skin and I'm glad that this process seems to be starting.

I'm not sure if the comparison is absurd, but every now and then I find parts of the city reminding me of Berlin, in terms of the wonderful things one finds in weird old neighbourhoods and the like. Hard to explain, but it's a feeling I get.

I'm reserving the right to bemoan the fact that I live here, however.

I didn't mention that T and I found a dead body down by the river in mid-December. Pretty horrific and sad, but I guess every now and then that sort of thing just happens.

The rest of my Tokyo trip was great, although I got quite sick, and I think maybe I stayed just a fraction too long. Thank goodness for my generous, beautiful and wonderful friend S, who put me up for all that time.

I met my cousins there and then they came back to Kansai, and it was all just completely fun. I miss them.

I'm still drifting along like a Gulf Stream jellyfish, eating plenty of chocolate cake, and riding my bicycle everywhere. Thus commences the year.

2011-01-04T01:42:00.003+11:00

I decided over drinks with friends the other night in late 2010 that my motto for 2011 would be "prove it".

I'm not yet sure what this means or how exactly it can be used, but I'm happy to go with it.

2011: prove it.

My motto for 2010 was "who even cares?", and that worked out nicely.

Meanwhile I am in Tokyo again and as usual it's fabulous.

Should you happen to stumble over this post, I hope you've had a happy new year etc etc.

2010-12-28T15:32:00.004+11:00

How I NEGLECT this site. We had a lovely Christmas even though most of the expected guests couldn't make it due to illness and cancelled flights. Was fun nevertheless. One of the highlights was drinking hot chocolate while watching snow swirl outside the large windows of a stunning, lamp-lit Kobe cafe with opera blasting through the speakers. I would love, love, LOVE to operate a place like that. It was almost entirely white but for old wooden furniture, weird paintings and lamps. And OPERA! It's the sort of venue that seems only to exist in Japan.

I go to Tokyo the day after tomorrow and honestly I just cannot wait.

Nothing else has really occurred. The job situation is still dire and while there is an abundance of English teaching, I really don't want to do that right now. I know how pigheaded that must sound, but I also know that if I force myself to get such a job I will be resentful and unhappy.

So things continue to balance on a knife's edge. I'm occupying a world that seems incredibly fragile, yet I am mostly happy and glad to be here.

2010-12-05T15:33:00.010+11:00

My 'live in the moment' life, brought about by absolute uncertainty about an ongoing visa status and the economic viability of being here, hasn't quite morphed into 'overthinking everything I am and am not doing', but the danger is there.

.......

I'm going to Tokyo again in early January. Must organise tickets! I'll be meeting up with fab cousins and doing a bit of sightseeing both there and back here in Kansai.

.......

Learning interesting lessons about the mechanics of relationships. Now well past the 2-year mark and actually living together, the startling degree of emotional nuance I have to deal with has taken me unawares.

I believe myself to be completely stable and wonderful, but from an external perspective I'd like to know the part I play in conflict. I guess I tend to be overidealistic and hence very critical.

Let's just say that T certainly knows how to throw a stroppy fit. They tend to be over miniscule things (currently a teapot) that are emblematic of larger issues, and I have to do a fair bit of decoding to work it all out (as yet unsolved in this case).

The good thing is, once sorted out, they've been sorted out.

I wonder what happens in other couples?

.......

Now that it's cold and I have my new +J by Jil Sander coat to enjoy cycling around in, and the leaves are glorious and air clear, and I'm starting to socialise more, and eating tonnes of exquisite cakes from amazing local patisseries, a lot of my doubts about the city itself are gradually dispersing.

It'll never be Tokyo, but it will always be proudly, resolutely, emphatically, brazenly, defiantly, unashamedly, and sometimes depressingly, Osaka. I guess it's nice in a way that it has its own thing going on.

.......

Hoping beyond hope that I find a new teapot today to replace the one I accidentally smashed into the dishwasher, resulting in millions of tiny, sharp splinters of glass scattering all through the appliance.

The fact that it broke is not a problem at all. The issue at hand is mysteriously connected to the manner in which a replacement is being sought.

.......

I still hold a return trip to Australia, and it would be a shame to let it go to waste.

.......

Subsistence-level web work continues to come my way. Not thinking about factors like, um, retirement at this point in time. Much of my life remains screen-mediated – a mode I had hoped to leave behind in Melbourne. Oh well.

.......

My gorgeous plants are growing well. I still hate the dog (after a brief few weeks of half liking him), and I mean HATE. He is evil. He wants bad things to happen. I spend many of my days isolated with him. Yuck.

.......

I do not miss Melbourne at all. Just some of the people there. Oh, and the regular income I had, although that too could be contested, given the way my contracts de- and rematerialised over much of the last year or more.

.......

It's basically been a good year.

2010-11-19T19:34:00.002+11:00

This weekend we are going to Fukuyama in eastern Hiroshima prefecture, where we will spend our time taking a whippersnipper to an overgrown field of fig trees.

I am still buying into the 'how fun' side of this proposal, even though having grown up on a farm I know full well that there is nothing enjoyable about large-scale land clearing.

In any event it's nice to be getting away.

Autumn is well and truly here and the trees are aflame, evidenced most spectacularly in Kyoto yesterday, where the gorgeous parks and streets literally teem with sightseers at this time of year, even on a Thursday.

What else is there? Oh I've been busy but it's just the machines of daily life and really there's nothing to report. I'm still all about my bicycle and have discovered some more great little neighbourhoods hidden away, which make me feel less like I'm at the dying end of the earth.

2010-10-25T13:58:00.007+11:00

Buying a bicycle was one of the best decisions I've made here, as it has allowed me to zoom around the city and quickly work out how everything connects. It's the daggiest bike in Japan, but would have hipster appeal back in Australia, and I love it.

Swedish Cecilia stayed here over the weekend which was just terrific. We seem to have a habit of hanging out in great places, and the list so far includes Tokyo (where we originally met), Paris (where I stayed with her and another friend in the house of the maniacal artist), Berlin (I mean, BERLIN!!) and now Kyoto (and, ahem, Osaka).

Cecilia studies trees. That's why she was here. To visit gardens etc.

Day 1: She chose my new bike so I was stuck with T's mountain bike when we went riding around Osaka. There are next to no trees in Osaka, which did not escape her notice.

Day 2: We got detained by a batty old lady at the Osaka castle, who explained how it had all been razed and rebuilt X number of times over, and how discoveries at the bottom of the drained interior moat had led to historical revisions. Found a plant market in the castle park with the most exquisite trees on sale, several of which (including a divine red maple) I have earmarked for purchase. In the evening we took a train to Kyoto and wandered around having just the most heavenly time, which seems to be the only option in Kyoto anyway. Yes it really is THAT good.

Day 3: We visited an ex-shogunate (or something) garden in my neighbourhood, just down by the river, and tried out a great cafe I'd had my eye on. Then she left. :(

Today I'm getting stuck into some web work I've got, while wondering how humanity went so wrong that we can end up spending days doing things like THIS, on computers. :(

2010-10-07T22:22:00.003+11:00

Today we got all domestic and the results include a gorgeous row of lavender in front of our place, a newly potted olive tree and geranium, some repotted house plants, and a new table with benches on the roof. Now that autumn really is here I'm hoping for some fab evenings up there. Oh what I would give for some of those gorgeous purple succulents I used to grow on my balcony in St Kilda, but I can't find them anywhere here and just couldn't bring myself to pinch them from a garden in my neighbourhood, haha, so the search continues.

I'm also interested in having a potted maple and maybe some bamboo on the balconies to create both privacy and a sort of green outlook. Osaka is, in general, desperately short of street trees (a major difference between here and Tokyo), so you really need to bring the foliage into your own home.

We tried out a really cute cafe today that I found about 10 mins' walk from home. The coffee was average but the atmosphere and the cakes lovely, so I'm quite relieved to have found a place like this, 'cos it really was all starting to feel a bit barren. Fortunately we're only a couple of stops away from really great neighbourhoods.

I love some of the areas right in the centre of Osaka that have scatterings of great bakeries, fab cafes and that sort of thing, and none of those ghastly shotengai (awful, dinghy, covered shopping streets). I don't know why I prioritise this kind of thing, but I'm just happier when nice things are around. T just seems totally immune to urban spaces, which I guess is a real strength as he can live happily anywhere. I am a bit fussy and snooty, and get easily depressed when the visual environment is not up to scratch.

I realised the other day that it's really bizarre to have moved from Melbourne, capital of totally affected, self-conscious cool, to Osaka, capital of totally unconscious uncool. I also realised that I find both of these things equally tiring. Of course the answer to this dilemma is Tokyo or Kyoto, but I said I wasn't going to go on like this!!

So, to end on a positive note, my favourite Osaka neighbourhoods are, to date: Minami/Kita-Horie, Kita-Senba, Utsubo-Koen, Kitahama and that weird little district at the western end of Nakanoshima, whatever it's called. I can easily ride (or even walk) to most of these places so that's great.

2010-10-01T12:23:00.000+10:00

I'm back in Osaka and it's T and my 2-year anniversary. :)

2010-09-26T02:35:00.001+10:00

I'm in Tokyo and it really does seem that no other city suits me better.

2010-09-13T22:53:00.003+10:00

Wonderful, I have organised a trip to Tokyo for next week. I thought about going last weekend, but just couldn't. I am still in a bit of a shellshocked mode since the 'big move' (not to imply that I'm not having a good time here), and it's paralysing me a bit in a way that I am unapologetic for.

Largely due to the heat, I am leading a bit of a housebound existence. It's Japan's hottest spell on record, and in the dumpy concrete mess of Osaka it's all just intensified. But the evenings (and late afternoon for that matter) are actually lovely and I've been doing quite a bit of exploring. I have found some brilliant little cafes and am simply enamoured with a particular variety of macarons from Kobe that are made with incredibly rich and obviously high-quality dark chocolate, laced with liqueur and finished with cacao nibs and black pepper, I mean it's an all-inclusive experience that one emerges from some time later. I buy them in the basement of an absurdly plush department store.

That's sort of it.
x

2010-08-31T18:19:00.005+10:00

And just like that I've plonked back into life in north east Asia. It's pretty bloody great so far. I love being overseas.

It's fun living with T and I like the neighbourhood. I'm enjoying the hot weather – as crippling as it is, it beats the endless Melbourne grey. It'll be nice when the temperature dips down in a few weeks and we can fling open the windows.

On the weekend we went up to a huge lake surrounded by mountains. I've been catching up with friends I have here. Meeting T's friends. Buying loads of plants. Starting to think about work possibilities... etc...

With very little fanfare I have slipped into a completely new existence.

.......

Something I'm not going to dwell on but will say right now:

I'm not thrilled about being in Osaka. I wish we could be in Seoul, or Tokyo or Hong Kong. Or Kyoto, or Kobe even. But instead we're in Osaka. I'm really trying (and succeeding so far) to focus on the good points (of which there are many), and trying not to compare this city to my favourite cities in the world. My main complaint is that at the end of the day it's as rough as guts. I'm trying to view it as refreshingly removed from late-stage capitalist wank, but how far that argument will stand up in this fashion desert remains to be seen.

I AM GOING TO DO MY VERY BEST NOT TO GO ON ABOUT THIS.

.......

'Til next time. x

2010-08-24T09:34:00.003+10:00

I'm in Taipei with melon juice in my shoe after the woman next to me tipped fruit salad on my feet during the flight from Sydney.

Wish I had some time in Taipei, as I still cannot live comfortably with the fact that I didn't visit that museum housing one of the best collections of ancient Chinese artifacts in the world when I was here five years ago.

My Osaka flight leaves shortly.

Had a blast in Sydney, awakening a new love for the place – especially the intimate streets around Erskineville with all that amazing vegetation and insane flowers. Loved my time around the coast too, and all the fab friends I managed to see.

2010-08-16T23:49:00.006+10:00

Right.

I always adore Adelaide and this visit is no exception whatsoever. It's been a total blast, featuring loads of conversation, hilarity, dinner parties, champagne (well ok sparkling), creative endeavours, bits of work, films, catch ups, lounging about, light (oh did I mention light??? SUNSHINE and LIGHT???), music and just generally basking in the lovely, civilised feel of the city.

Having said that, much of last week occurred well outside the realm of mobile phone reception. Mum, Dad and I spent a night up at Wallaroo and then progressed on to the stunning Flinders Ranges. I hadn't been up there for about 24 years, and was totally captivated by the colours and forms of the ancient range.

In a way the whole place feels haunted, peppered as it is with the ruins of failed estates, lonely cemeteries and associated stories of drought, struggle, hardship and loss. Ancient indigenous engravings and a Dreamtime significance drum up an even more mystical atmosphere.

(All the extinct fauna listed on information boards are a sad reminder of which group of people REALLY knew how to manage this land.)

The absolute highlight was the road out from Parachilna, with vast plains stretching out to the giant salt lakes on one side, and jagged mountains on the other. Incredible. It was like we'd fallen into a Wim Wenders movie.

So now I'm into my last week here, before a much anticipated weekend in Sydney (and the depressing, awful reality of an election day with no real choice and no possible good outcome) and then a flight to Osaka, via Taipei.

2010-08-02T22:22:00.004+10:00

It's my last night in Melbourne and I'm sick as a dog (or sick as a dogga) and teetering on the brink of my luggage allowance. Definitely less stressful than previous culls + moves, but still I've had to make some painful choices with regards to clothes and shoes.

Well, nothing lasts forever.

The apartment is devoid of furniture given that two of us are leaving and the remaining housemate is refurnishing. It's kind of nice; some of the lovely characteristics of this wonderful old place have been revealed.

I don't know why, but I was very secretive at work with my plans to move overseas. I think I had kept a lid on things for so long (lest they influence the awarding of new contracts) that it all went too far and it would have been too weird to say "oh by the way I have a fab Japanese boyfriend etc etc." Only one or two people knew about it in the end.

I've definitely become much more private and MUCH more introverted over the last year or two.

So, Adelaide tomorrow. It's over a year since I've been there so it's high time and I honestly cannot wait. I love Adelaide. Also on the cards is a trip to the Flinders Ranges with mum and dad, which will be gorgeous. August is looking like a bit of an adventure with a whole new life on the other side, and this is a nice feeling.

2010-07-24T12:26:00.003+10:00

Well that was all amazing and fun. Now I'm powering towards the end of my work contract, frantically meeting friends for last-minute drinks, and stressing about luggage.

I can't wait to leave Melbourne. I don't know if it's a geographical thing, but I can't help but feel that large parts of me kind of died in the last 3.5 years (or did things just change?), and it will be good to be somewhere new and hopefully reawaken some of the zest that I've let slide.

2010-07-06T16:20:00.003+10:00

T arrives this evening, which I find ineffably exciting. He's spent the last couple of days in Hong Kong and will be here in Melbourne for about 12 days, which is pretty excellent.

How bloody wonderful. What else is there to say?

I myself have less than a month left in this city, and I am getting organised and getting psyched! :)

2010-07-03T11:57:00.003+10:00

A late-twenties retrospective:

- failing to find home in the cities that should suit you.

- finding yourself bored in the spaces you're supposed to be seen in.

- shocked by your irrelevance.

2010-06-23T22:12:00.002+10:00

Oh gosh I've booked my flight out of Melbourne, and I think tomorrow will buy my flight to Japan... bloody hell I really am upheaving my entire life, and I am scared out of my mind, but you only live once...

It will all sort of take place in August.

2010-06-15T21:26:00.004+10:00

I got called a faggot in the street again the other night, for the umpteenth time, and I really did nothing to invite it other than just sort of exist.

This time was all the more surprising because it was a girl who said it. Girls are usually more enlightened. Whether it was just a generic insult because I didn't give her a potato wedge (she'd asked for one from the bunch I was carrying; I was walking down the street with Brooke, heading home, and we were in NO mood for drunken carry-on...), or instead because I am a living, breathing, walking FAGGOT, I don't know.

It triggered the usual sort of 'get me the hell out of here' responses, leaving me yearning for Berlin or Osaka or anyplace other than anywhere in this country, but I have to retain some sense of perspective about this, because it could happen anywhere. Maybe it's just better to be immersed in another language because I can't hear it when somebody calls me a faggot, which is what I am, obviously, like some piece of scum to wash down a drain.

"Hi, I'm a faggot."

Over the course of my adult life, because I'm a fucking faggot, I've been insulted, laughed at, ridiculed, patronised and threatened with violence. All in Australia. Never in Asia. Never in Europe. Never in the UK. (Although I suspect the latter two might just be down to luck and the combined fabulousness of Berlin and Paris moreso than anything else.)

I have never done anything to invite this other than simply be. And I'm sure I've had it easy by comparison to many other fucking faggots or dykes or queers or whatever. Or many other minority groups of various compositions.

But I hate it. Life is fucking hard enough, and this world is vile enough, without the added indignity of being insulted just for walking down the street. I am fucking REELING with anxiety over my forthcoming move to Japan, but if it buys me even one year in a bubble away from the motherfuckers here, it will all be worth it.

2010-06-04T22:03:00.003+10:00

OK so I've given notice on my apartment, my gorgeous apartment. Does this mean I am moving back overseas?

Even I don't know for certain.

Hello next stage of life.

2010-05-22T17:39:00.004+10:00

So I'm in the latter half of my interminable 7-hr-and-55-min wait at Incheon airport. I was allegedly booked into transit accommodation, but all trace of that has vanished, despite many pleas to the airline and email insistence from my travel agent that it was booked and confirmed.

Somebody has screwed up and now that I'm 30 I think I'll be writing one or two complaint emails. Look I'm coping fine, I mean Incheon airport is as good as they get – I've just had a shower and have been getting into the various American chains that define the Asian urban landscape – but STILL.

I LOVED Berlin. As my friend Nadia said, people there just seem normal. I loved how: nobody seemed greedy; there seemed to be so much collaboration and sharing (communes too!); nobody bothered working too much (home is where the heart is!!); there was so little advertising in the streets; people SMILED and made EYE CONTACT and were lovely, and talked passionately about politics or whatever, or just anything; and there was SO much vegetarian food and just an endless supply of gorgeous little places to visit.

I wish I could roll Berlin and Seoul, and bits of Melbourne and Tokyo and New York, oh and Paris and London, just into one fabulous little city and plant it over the top of Osaka (if I could find a tectonically stable position), where it seems my fabulous bf who I am completely smitten with has resolved to live out his days.

Whatever, I never said I didn't like complexity.

2010-05-18T07:33:00.003+10:00

Here in Berlin everything is excellent.

2010-05-11T20:08:00.003+10:00

Didn't mention how I dropped my camera in a club in Seoul, but of course somebody just handed it in to the bar. That's how fabulous Asia works.

AND I found some completely bloody amazing shoes after all.

That's all long in the past now, as I've since spent a ridiculously fun weekend in London and am now hanging out in Bristol, re-experiencing my trip-hop phase and generally having a nice time. I may or may not go to Bath this afternoon; I mean, there's just no pressure to do anything.

What a shame T can't be on this part of the trip.

Oh London was wonderful. I really think that if I'd moved there at this point in my life, rather than at the start of 2006, I'd probably have embraced it in every way. Oh well.

It's good being 30. I use it as an excuse for everything.

2010-05-03T10:55:00.004+10:00

I love Seoul, oh gosh I LOVE Seoul. Every day it just grows on me more and more. WHAT a city!

I am, however, living with the disappointment of having found the world's most amazing shoes, but them being half a size too small.

I also saw a t-shirt I'd seen in my dreams – white with a huge red crystal on the front. It was in the women's section though, so I felt too shy. There's another sorrowful thing.

Really, it's fabulous here. The whole city is just FULL of the things that I love, and in no half measures. Be it secret cafe terraces, jaw-dropping interior design, gorgeous trees, endless castle walls, DELICIOUS food (and super vegetarian friendly), fab fashion (not avant garde so much, but very, very crisp, clean and sleek!), quiet backstreets, racing subways, oh the list just goes on. WHAT a city!!!

AND, T is here with me!!

xxxoxoxox

I'm 30 tomorrow, how fabulous, and we're booked into this exquisite Buddhist vegetarian restaurant that has been on top 10 lists, so that is bound to be GREAT.

2010-04-29T00:13:00.005+10:00

I haven't packed yet and I have to get a taxi at 2:30am. Yes a whole heap of poor planning on my part but I don't care because I'M OFF TO SEOUL and basically it's less than 24 hours until I see T!! Yay.

I'll be 30 in under a week and that's fabulous.

As for anything else, well who CARES?

xxxoxxox

2010-04-22T20:36:00.002+10:00

Well it's only a matter of a week until South Korea and I'm very excited.

Will the volcano allow me to continue on to Europe? This remains to be seen. The chance of being stranded in Seoul doesn't bother me at all.

I've been in a very strange space of late, but not in a bad way. There are some exciting developments, together with many unknowns. The year ahead remains shapeless.

2010-04-03T13:19:00.005+11:00

I attended a Good Friday service yesterday and they asked ME to take the collection, amidst a vast Catholic congregation in a church I'd never set foot in.

Why am I always singled out for things like this?

Of course I agreed, figuring I'd just emulate whoever else was gathering the tithes – a strategy I discussed in whispers with my friends, while cradling the basket the church official had thrust upon me. I mean, I didn't know the system, and being Protestant am unfamiliar with Catholic ceremony in general, and the whole thing was just a bit stressful.

Anyway, seems the other people they chose were complete strangers as well, as the person I had planned to copy ended up sort of dithering around in the middle section of the rows, and I was left to draw on my Lutheran reserves and figure out my own way of getting maximal basket coverage.

Regular attendees seemed to glare at me in horror (I'm sure it was my imagination), and the worst part of it was that nobody would take the basket from me, so I ended up having to sort of reach awkwardly across, while never being sure if the people actually wanted to donate, and feeling like I was applying pressure, jingling the coins in the baskets.

I then had to ask somebody where in the church I was actually supposed to take the offerings, fretting the whole time about whether or not I should genuflect. I didn't, but hopefully my general Lutheran austerity would have shone through and done the job for me.

It was all fine, and I really enjoyed the service, but I still think it's odd that they asked a total stranger to be responsible for something that any one of the hundreds of regular attendees could have taken charge of. It's nice to be included though I guess. Happy Easter. x

2010-03-25T23:25:00.004+11:00

I hate the Grand Prix and how it disrupts everything. Why is it just accepted that some crappy car race is good enough reason to convert regular trams into buses and turn a trip across town into a 90-minute fiasco? That's what happened to me in previous years. I remembered that and am frantically trying to change plans I made for the coming weekend.

Lucky I like being a recluse these days.

I just hate how gross sporting events are given such prominence, and possess the unquestioned right to inconvenience anybody who isn't passionate about watching them. This awful bloody Australian sporting reality (same goes for many other countries I'm sure, but I could handle it better if I had, say, the distractions of Paris as an alternative to a fucking dero car race, AND while I'm on about this, the fact that a bloody cricket field revamp was a key feature of the recent SA election campaign... I mean, for fuck's sake!) is something I've tried hard to get over, but deep down it still makes me seethe if I accidentally think about it.

2010-03-18T09:29:00.000+11:00

OMG I stepped on a mouse in my apartment this morning and it died.

It just ran under my foot.

I thought I'd stepped on a jube.

"Who's been eating jubes??" I thought.

But it was a mouse.

And it died.

:(

2010-03-12T15:02:00.003+11:00

- I am so excited about South Korea that I am almost beside myself. I have always wanted to go there, and to have a week with my bf in Seoul looming is just beyond belief. I just have this feeling that I'm going to love it.

- Although, I do fear Seoul will reconfirm that mythological idea of Asian cuisine being a vegetarian dream, unless you're a 'scrape the beef away and eat the rest' kind of vegetarian maybe.

- And Berlin. Oh, Berlin. Another place I have wanted to visit for years and years and years. I will be there for about a week, maybe longer if it proves possible. I wonder if Berlin will turn out to be some sort of home to end all homes.

- Although, I am concerned about the abundance of weird German meat products.

- I am stressed and worried that I may not be able to make it to important celebrations for important friends.

- So much is dependent on how things pan out on the job front. I still have no idea what will happen at the end of the month. I tried to do a job application today, but my heart just wasn't in it.

- A couple of friends and I are working on some exciting ideas. It's fun to be involved.

- I'm ready for the weekend already. Just another hour or so...

2010-03-07T14:36:00.009+11:00

As if ice smashed through the roof of the train station, creating a waterfall. My housemate saw it. Other pals and I watched yesterday's storm from the balcony of a city hotel as leaves, blasted off by hail, fluttered upwards like terrified butterflies. They made a green carpet in the central business district later, beside the gushing streets.

Arcades became lakes, galleries closed, ceilings caved and shops flooded, sirens sounded. We stepped our way through Chinatown afterwards, and stopped off for iced tea.

I saw a photo of a hailstone as big as an apple.

My other housemate got trapped in her car, on the road, and said she panicked and screamed like in those final scenes of Magnolia, when frogs plummet from the sky.

There's another storm cell skirting the city this afternoon, although I'm not sure whether or not it will hit. It's nice in a way to be dumbstruck by the weather, or maybe humbled. It's often painted as a dull topic, as in the death of conversation, or in those awkward moments with somebody you don't wish to speak with, but these weird events truly have stopped the city and made for an interesting 24 hours.

2010-03-04T22:58:00.003+11:00

We're back in late summer. Even though it's officially autumn, this continent has dispensed with any European notion of four seasons, so late summer it is.

Glorious! Absurdly blue skies and drenching sunshine. Of course it can all change in an instant, being Melbourne, but still, for the most part, it's heavenly. Visitors are passing through town, which has been a total blast, and it just feels like the next couple of months might be fun, as I thunder towards 30.

2010-02-26T23:59:00.003+11:00

For what it's worth, they've invited me back to my old job, yet again. It's absolutely definitely only for a month this time, but that works well in terms of bridging the gap between now and Seoul.

Oh look at me, writing about work!!! This is what I don't want to be! Haha.

What I've learnt from this and last year's experience is that I am slightly more materialistic than I was in the past, and therefore the prospect of unemployment is slightly more scary. Also, given that I've accrued loads of experience in recent years, it is proportionally more demoralising. You know, to feel like nobody wants you.

I've also confirmed that I'm neither entrepreneurial nor go-getting. Contrary to what I tell people, I do have a measure of ambition, it's just that I can't really articulate what it is that I am striving for. Recognition? Not really. Wealth? Well I'm happy just being comfortable. Power? Certainly not. I'd like to work this one out, actually.

So, back in the 'safety net' (one that seems to give out more often than not though) of the old workplace and I'm kind of glad. It will extend the length of this position on my CV, I know what am doing and am happy with the conditions.

And it's one less thing to worry about. I won't have trouble finding a replacement though.

2010-02-21T00:04:00.003+11:00

I stopped keeping a diary this year, and I'm not really missing it in my evening routine. I had found in recent years that it was turning into an opportunity to reflect negatively on both the day and the general passage time. Plus I had started skipping days at a time and hated scrambling madly to recall and document everything. So I chose not to write one this year.

I know I'll regret it because even today I was rummaging through old volumes to determine dates of employment etc. I'd been a rigorous diarist since, actually I can't remember when. I was going to say 1994, but that's when I became vegetarian. I think I might have been keeping a diary since 1992. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, it had been a long time.

One less chore, but I'm letting this year evaporate into pure recollection. It will bug me in the future, just how the absence of April 2008 on this very blog bothers me.

Actually this blog also feels a little different to me. It's now almost five years old and I almost shut it down when I was in Tokyo a couple of weeks ago, as it seemed like a fitting full-circle, but then I didn't have Internet access to do so. I still love having a blog and will definitely continue keeping one – I might just need a different container or a new space for it. After all, my life has changed.

Gauging from my recent levels of motivation (yep, still unemployed and absolutely luxuriating in it!), I doubt I'll make any changes anytime soon, but it's in the back of my mind.

I really am determined to shift my life forward or sideways or somewhere this year, so maybe some of the smaller changes I've made (or had foisted upon me as the case may be) bode well for larger ones? Yep, that's a question.

I've had another Saturday night at home and it's been perfectly lovely.

2010-02-15T23:26:00.003+11:00

Of course everything about Japan was amazing, and I even warmed to both Osaka and my boyfriend's revolting little grey dog.

Of course being back in Australia as of this morning is the most hideous thing in the whole world, and I am thinking thinking thinking what to do and where to steer my life from now. There are no easy answers, are there? Everybody will suggest something different in accordance with their own values and aesthetics. Sometimes people recommend the opposite of what they themselves would do. Instinctively I want to make a judgement on the basis of what my friends think, so maybe I need to listen to what I myself want. How can I actually know that? I always seem to filter everything through others (the hallmark of an extravert)... oh how I envy those people who can find their own self-validation!

Oh yeah, work have totally fucked me over again, and have not renewed my contract despite a previous, verbal mention of a month-long extension. Thanks for that. So I'm back here in Melbourne, 8,084km away from my gorgeous boyfriend, without a job. Luckily I have paid for the bulk of my impending Korea/UK/Germany trip, although I just put the Bristol - Berlin leg on my credit card. I figure everything will work out, but it would have been nice to have had that month-long extension, pricks.

Apparently it's all for the same global financial crisis-related reasons as last time, and they are forbidden from renewing people with my type of contract. It's funny, as it makes me feel so expendable, even though I know that I have made big contributions to that place, have great relationships there and am highly appreciated. Well, philosophically speaking, anybody is expendable, so whatever Trevor, but it is demoralising.

I'm not sure whether I have unconsciously engineered my precarious existence, or if it's just a product of being on the generation Y vanguard. Perhaps both. Almost 30 and as materially unstable as all hell, haha, yeah right as if I didn't see that coming.

Mainly I don't want to be unemployed for the next few months. 2010: listen to myself, get out of limbo, turn 30, have a fabulous time in Seoul, London, Bristol and Berlin and just keep rolling with it, I suppose. I probably sound a bit negative here, but really everything is terrific.

2010-02-10T11:32:00.004+11:00

Yes, Tokyo was like heaven, and was as though I'd never left, although my favourite cafe had been turned into a car park.

Yes, I'm having an amazing time in Osaka and surrounds.

Yes, my bf and I are completely smitten with one another.

Yes, I have no job again.

No, I have no idea how to proceed with any of it.

Off to Kobe today.

2010-01-28T10:45:00.000+11:00

At this point it has to be mentioned that I am going to Tokyo tomorrow and that I am dreadfully overexcited. I may never have loved a city as much as I do Tokyo, I mean that's a big call and it could be exaggerated, but in any case the only bad thing about going to Tokyo is that I have to leave for other parts of Japan at the end of the weekend. It just isn't enough time. I actually can't go to all the wonderful places I need to visit. The quincunx of unearthly delight (Shibuya, Shimokitazawa, Sangenjaya, Nakameguro and Mishuku) most likely will not be completed. Then of course there's Aoyama and Yoyogi and Omotesando and I just don't have time. Anyway, I am going to Tokyo tomorrow, and will be meeting my fabulous boyfriend there, as well as numerous other terrific friends, and I expect it all to be absolutely amazing.

2010-01-21T10:14:00.000+11:00

So Joanna Newsom was completely and utterly wonderful beyond all belief last night. She played the songs I most wanted to hear, amongst a tonne of others (heaps of new material), and just generally made everyone happy. She is brilliant. Fab crowd too.

Next stop: Rainbow Serpent.

And then... Tokyo!!!!

Fun times. :)
xxxxx

2010-01-09T21:38:00.002+11:00

Is cynicism the next-best thing to depression, I wonder? I'm not depressed these days but my cynicism knows no bounds, and in some ways it seems to sap the life out of just about everything.

"Everything is boring all the time!" ... "Nothing is new, let alone avant-garde!" ... So go the emphatic declarations of my housemate and I this summer, especially when annexed in our apartment by the hot weather. I know we're very much feeding our own negativity, but there's something deliciously fun about it. I just wonder if I take things too far.

Being cynical and realistic... is it really the same as being responsible?

To be detached and light-hearted... is that really irresponsible? Or is it somehow wise?

I LOVE complaining about anything, and will weigh in on almost any negative discourse, but is it to my own detriment?

Finding everything tired and worn seems to lead to my own social isolation, so I probably have to seek a middle-ground that is neither naive nor doom-dwelling, especially given that my Gen Y life expectancy means that the worst is certainly yet to come.

2010-01-06T16:21:00.003+11:00

Lest the evening die, should we run to the foreshore, or race to the lake? Last night the light was dazzling, almost red on the date palms, like the earth we'd run about in, several valleys to the east, around an old homestead, where bay windows allowed a cool, refreshing glow into an elegant room where things might fall behind the mantelpiece, into the irretrievable spaces.

I'd always lend you my jacket, if the breeze stirred cold across the parklands.

For now it is the height, the summit, the apex, the solstice, and there is much to be done.

2010-01-03T12:21:00.006+11:00

These holidays proved yet again that I am incapable of just kicking back and relaxing in my own home. On days when I didn't have fabulous visitors from Adelaide or the UK, I was housebound, bored out of my mind and slightly anxious. Awful weather contributed to this of course, but had I been drifting about at my parents' place I wouldn't have felt guilty or wasteful for doing so.

An area for personal growth in 2010? Maybe.

Thankfully my fab housemate James was around to create interesting spaces, involving Alice Coltrane and tonnes of candles, or Venetian Snares and total darkness, as well as mornings of food, coffee and dazzling natural light. We both agree that everything is boring all of the time, and turn that into an art-form.

I am a bit ambivalent about the fact that it's a new decade. I turn 30 in a few months, but I already feel 30 so the birthday itself seems merely a formality. On that front though, OH MY GOSH, I have booked the most fabulous trip in addition to the Japan holiday at the end of this month. So, in late April, I will get on a plane to Seoul, spend a week there (and clock over the actual 30), then zoom off to London for a few days, over to Bristol for a weekend and a bit extra, then zip across to Berlin, OH MY STARS I COULD DIE, spend a week or so there in what I am sure will prove to be an earthly heaven, before flying out of Frankfurt back to Melbourne.

The first five months of this year are definitely taken care of. I'll be working full-time throughout January which is hideous, but a blessing in disguise. Let's not forget Joanna Newsom and Rainbow Serpent either! Then off to Tokyo, or should I say back HOME to Tokyo for a weekend, only a weekend, before Osaka for two weeks with my fabulous boyfriend. Kyoto and Kobe will of course be MUSTS.

Between that trip and the Korea/Europe extravaganza I have no work organised whatsoever, which is a bit frightening, but I don't know, things seem to sort themselves out one way or another. Throwing the future to the wind. That view is part and parcel of being 30, I feel, together with a penchant for fridge magnets. (The last part is a joke.)

2010: who even cares?

2009-12-25T20:15:00.002+11:00

I don't know about you, but I had a fabulous Christmas. Selena was wonderful, well let's face facts she always is, and we were all about tonnes of food, wine and great new clothes. How perfectly lovely.

I'm dying to go to Adelaide again, but what with all these insane (and brilliant!) travel plans hovering over the first half of 2010 I'm just not sure when it's going to be possible.

Anyway, I've agreed to one more glass of champagne so I'd best get on with that.

2009-12-19T11:02:00.005+11:00

And then in a fit of glorious spontaneity I booked a trip to Tokyo and Osaka for late January / early February next year, I mean how could I resist such cheap tickets anyway, but then when I asked T to pay half and he said yes, well, hello Japan. I guess this is the plus side of being in a limbo-coloured relationship with a wonderful person, you know, little jaunts here and there, which almost make up for the fact that we never see one another. Stress 'almost'. ie. 'doesn't even come close.'

How FABULOUS to be back in Tokyo. Honestly, come on, tell me a city that's more suitable for me. Just try. Well whatever, but it's going to be excellent to be there, even if it is just for a weekend.

I also need to go to the travel agent today to start planning my 30th trip for May. I cannot be in Australia when I turn 30, as per point 2 of my 2008 dreams, so am therefore planning a little jaunt to Berlin and the UK via either Seoul or Hong Kong (choosing between those last two is particularly hellish, but as I've never been to Seoul should that be the decision made?), anyway, with luck T will come along on the Asian leg of the journey.

Somebody asked me last night if I was part Asian and I felt so overjoyed, I mean it's not the first time I've been asked that, but it sure beats being mistaken for a girl, which is the usual error people make.

2009-12-15T22:32:00.007+11:00

Small saviours from greater evils:

- Lady Grey tea, loose-leaf, served with soy milk.

- Fresh espresso, generally decaf but full-strength if I can spend the morning at home with no commitments (again, served with soy milk).

- Walks to the end of the pier, with music.

- Rue Bebelons – they are so wonderful and lovely there, and the place just seems to guarantee a super time every time.

- The movies – Kino or Nova or the George, and I really must check out the Sun sometime soon.

- A trip to Chinatown, or other lovely pockets in the CBD.

- House plants. Succulents are the only thing that seem to enjoy our balcony, and as such we have cuttings peppering the sill above the kitchen sink. Also, the ungainly and somewhat monstrous aloe thriving in my room is the perfect specimen from which to wrench leaves and commence moisturising one's face.

- Nice clothes.

- Just THINKING about the plans I have made for Christmas with a wonderful friend.

2009-12-04T21:47:00.002+11:00

Oh my STARS, a mouse just scampered over my bare foot in the kitchen and I now feel all disgusting on the inside. Recalling last year's furry horror, the incident has left me shaken, upset and desperately uncertain of what the future holds.

I've shut the kitchen door and am now eating chocolate (with a pistachio centre), drinking fresh decaf espresso and listening to avant-garde music, in keeping with this avant-garde summer.

Please pray for me.

2009-11-26T20:58:00.002+11:00

Fuck high school – the best days of my life were in Tokyo.

.......

It's funny to think that people are out there having the times of their lives, right now.

.......

All I want is to be on a synchronised disco dance floor. With lights under my feet.

2009-11-22T18:17:00.001+11:00

Prague: Across the old bridge marches a statue for every mood, above a river responsible for all manner of poems and literature and lives and deaths, and from a park on the castle side the bridge becomes one of five, or six, or more, and a tree is completely surrounded by water.

Adelaide: The sun is a violent star, stinging from the sky, but those warm evenings, with breezes from the gullies and heat emanating from every surface, dry and pronounced, alive, and the buildings shimmer, and it is cool above the lawn.

Bangkok: From the boat there are magical places in every direction, temples of suns, moons and all sorts of faiths, food to shake you alive, to remind you of life and make you cry, leaves, spices and scents, the streets seem to pierce skin.

York: The cathedral sits grand but tears at the heavens, ripping into the blue sky, while we stand in the square thinking of chocolate and sandwiches, beside trees that have witnessed much that had best be forgotten, and the colours are from children's storybooks.

Singapore: Lost en route to the theme park, compass palms useless for gaining bearings in that part of the city, in the equatorial evening, apartment blocks and lush green, heat, and the promise of a tall drink in a pristine environment as soon as the station appears.

New York: On the grass in Union Square with blueberries, memories of home and a good hurdle or two to leap, hair curling in the heat of early July, allowed by the city to be there much as we have allowed the city to be in our lives, all our lives, and it all thunders around us.

Hong Kong: On the Star Ferry, unsure if the towers move relative to us, or we to the towers, and vast horses gallop in neon, laser beams sweep and puncture clouds, and corporations announce the skyline they have created, whilst the streets move endless and the subway never lets you down.

2009-11-20T15:48:00.003+11:00

Much improved.

Isn't it invigorating to recognise resilience?

Back when I was a child I was hypersensitive, fretting easily about small things such as asymmetries or nonconformance to aesthetic ideals. So yeah, lifting my game there as the cruel years pass. However, I do not wish to become jaded. I mean, in many ways I already am, but to become utterly, utterly world-weary is not something I aspire to.

In search of small joys, if it isn't too late. Hoping for innocence, for purity.

I love that it's summer here and there are brilliant things like Rainbow Serpent, Joanna Newsom and the myriad festivals in Adelaide to look forward to. I'll be in Melbourne for Christmas, I think.

.......

(At least for today)
(Indeed, at least for today)

2009-11-17T16:24:00.000+11:00

I've been on the verge of tears all day, and I know why. Am I to give myself this sadness in the same way I am giving myself time? What was the plan again?

I am finding that I cannot trust my memories; they alter my history.

Places and spaces emit evolving glows, and recollections of feeling are deadly treacherous. Clouding, clouding, clouding.

In times like this I wish I were less driven by intuition, less commanded by feeling, as a bit of structure and hard-and-fast rationale would be of such use.

I'll be fine, of course I'll be all right. I suppose I just need to cough up this nostalgia and get on with things.

2009-11-13T22:05:00.003+11:00

A few nights ago the shallow water beneath the pier was awash with blue jellyfish, the ones with four rings on their caps. Many of them lay upside down, or pulsing slowly, torn and dying. The more industrious ones hovered further out, luminous in the depth, wavering with the seaweed.

They seem to come every year. A woman once asked me about them.

.......

My fab friend Flotis sent me this tonight:

"I go to the Asian discount stores for Tupperware, or containers, fill them up with hope

and seal them"

.......

I wish heaven would open up, breaking the sky with beams of radiant light, streaming with hosts of angels, and tell me the right thing to do.

2009-11-06T23:52:00.001+11:00

Tax reform on the radio waves, plus talk of 9 billion on the planet. 2050, imagine that. While disapproval weighs heavy in my mother's silences, I wonder where I will be decades from now; where to invest life, love and hope.

That I have almost everything I have ever asked for does not escape me. I am slammed by my own changes. Right in front of my eyes, a freely offered path that I have evolved unsuitably for, perhaps. Yet I can't stop imagining ways to make it.

And so the grass is greener than ever.

I am almost unbearably nostalgic, fragments of last summer slipping into my waking world, worse still my dreams. Along with evil presences lurking in old wells beneath houses.

I am so in love and so unsure of what the right priority is, because all the old books say the former, but the themes running deep on the radio waves, in the papers and on the social networking landscapes, plus a good dose of fear, only seem to make one want to look after oneself.

2009-11-05T11:39:00.004+11:00

I've been given my old job back until the end of the year, and quite honestly, I'm thrilled. Returning to a familiar environment that I have largely enjoyed (despite the stuff-arounds) is just what I need in this intensely difficult period of time.

Now that I don't have to worry about money for the time being, I can concentrate on worrying about the fact that I am in love with a wonderful man who I can't seem feasibly to be with.

2009-11-03T21:00:00.002+11:00

Today is the first occasion since returning from Osaka that I'm feeling genuinely low. Until now I've been strangely upbeat and positive, (and not in a manic way!), but I think today I simply spent too much time alone, and am now suffering the consequences. I'm going to do my best to forge ahead and strive for clarity.

I've picked up a very small amount of freelance work, which is good, but it is already apparent how unbearably isolating such a mode of employment inherently is. I remember this problem from when I freelanced a few years ago, and back then it was enough for me to throw in the towel.

I cannot be bothered going through the recruitment process. I don't want to do applications. I'm even less interested in attending interviews. There's a slight chance my previous job will be extended after all, but I know that place too well to get my hopes up.

Of course I am missing my fabulous and mysterious J-boy. Missing him dreadfully. I long to be with him, but for the moment a feasible means of achieving this is yet to present itself. I am feeling nostalgic for last summer, when our relationship was young and free of the complexities that 8,084km of separating distance tends to bring to things, to say nothing of visas, decent jobs or security in a relationship construct that isn't recognised by most nations.

Over a year. Enough time to know that it's something you don't want merely to toss away. (He bought me cakes on our anniversary.)

My mood has lifted slightly over the writing of this post, so that's a good thing. With luck there will be some positive happenings sooner rather than later.

2009-10-30T16:40:00.002+11:00

It's my last day at work and I don't know what's going to happen next. I'm remarkably calm and at ease; I would almost say happy. How about that?

Even though I am sort of freewheeling (read: plain lost), it doesn't feel like it. I'm just going to let things roll along and see what happens, on just about every front of my whole life.

2009-10-27T21:13:00.003+11:00

I’m the one who always loved the simple things about you

Your quiet gestures and your grace

And I’m the one who cherished every touch from you

And I’m the one who loved the beauty in your changing face

Your changing face

- Nina Simone, 'Forget'

2009-10-23T21:42:00.002+11:00

Two days to go and I ain't going to pretend that it hasn't been stressful, or that I have any idea what to do next. I must also note how wonderfully fun the entire trip has been, and how utterly brilliant my mysterious Japanese bf is.

My face is a horrible constellation of stress-induced spots. I've found myself impulsively buying things I may never be able to use (for example a grey man-dress). Last night and the night before there were meteor showers above the city, but I didn't see them. I've always wanted to see something so celestial.

We're making gyoza tonight. I've just chopped the cabbage, spring onion and something that looks like spring onion into tiny, tiny pieces, exactly how my mysterious Japanese bf instructed. He'll be home any minute, just in time for our last weekend.

And then, what then?

2009-10-16T10:20:00.002+11:00

Heading back to Kyoto today. Spent last weekend in Hiroshima prefecture, including Hiroshima city and Fukuyama city, Miyajima and the place where the film Ponyo was set. Went to Kobe twice this week, which is a lovely city known for cakes and shoes, so I bought both. And of course I've been hanging about in Osaka, making the odd clothing purchase, including a strange, black garment that is more or less a Thneed, straight out of Dr Seuss' The Lorax. I've remembered how much I adore fabulous Japanese cafes, although am sick of being slogged AU$7.50 per coffee, but I'm not really thinking about that. An amazing friend visited from Tokyo and we got drunk. I'm totally smitten by my boyfriend but my heart still strains from the practicalities. The weather is glorious.

So it's basically all quite delightful.

2009-10-07T15:35:00.004+11:00

How does a person with a taste for only the abstract even begin to describe things in times like these?

At school and university I excelled in mathematics, but despised physics. I loved the intangible manipulations of numbers, variables and functions, but had no interest in the realities of collisions or the movements of objects in physical space.

I think my attempts to write follow the same trend. It's probably quite alienating.

Crossing the rainy street with Helen in Osaka yesterday, I said to her that I can't think of a single place in the world that I want to live right now.

Walking with T through Kyoto's oldest and most exquisite neighbourhoods, I wanted grab hold of him and press some sort of pause or slow-motion button.

Perhaps it's still fair to say that I cannot see a feasible outcome yet. But then last night I had dinner with a whole table of people who had 'made it work'.

I should get out of the apartment and back into the city. Helen is going to take me somewhere interesting again, I'm sure of it, where we will laugh and guffaw and analyse to improbable degrees. Meanwhile everything in the universe will continue to be described by a wave function, all slightly out of sync with perfect design. The fringes of a typhoon are brushing Osaka, and I wonder if there are angels somewhere amidst all that fury.

2009-09-30T16:32:00.000+10:00

Oh my gosh, tomorrow I will be back in Japan!

2009-09-28T20:32:00.002+10:00

Another broken umbrella wrapped around my head on the corner of Grey St. I gave it to a girl holding one that had fared even worse ... Modern art in a huge and gorgeous local gallery I'd never been to before ... Our apartment, a fortress against the football, fortified with organic espresso and Spanish cinema ... Weather systems with origins in Antarctica ... And that bracing, bracing cold ... When it rains and the pavement sparkles I am happy under the clouds. It's the dry, grey days that I hate ... Noticing things about the city that I haven't picked up on before; things I'd seen but my brain hadn't let in ... Asparagus soup with lemon zest, cracked pepper and walnut bread; sliced pineapple with a sweet mint paste (though the acid always hurts my stomach); chocolate brownies and various other incarnations of the cocoa bean ... Still trying hard at the office, despite it all ... A big, black wall at the end of October ... Every which way, an ending and a beginning ... Which of the diverging streams will I throw my life into?

2009-09-25T16:23:00.003+10:00

I am anxious again, which is horrible, but to be expected. I was saying to a friend / kindred spirit last night that we're both either creating ridiculous situations for ourselves, or else sitting around bored, restless and dissatisfied.

Therefore I am trying to rein in my thinking, focusing on realities rather than imagined scenarios, and just aiming to stay calm.

I'm also damn excited about my fab trip to Osaka, so that excitement is blending with the anxiety quite seamlessly to produce a frenetic whole.

Breathe, breathe, slow, slow, slow.

2009-09-20T12:31:00.004+10:00

I found out on Friday that my contract won't be renewed after it expires at the end of October. It's no reflection on me or my work; it's just the way things are going these days at my workplace, and I had largely anticipated it. I guess I'd hoped I'd get a little more mileage, even another month or so, but alas it isn't to be.

So, on to the next.

The timing is either bad or providential – I can't say for sure at this point. I'm spending most of October in Osaka, in an effort to make things continue with my fab Japanese boyfriend. So, if I do decide to bite the bullet and move back to Japan, I guess things will wind up neatly, albeit with slightly less disposable cash than anticipated.

I'm still coming to terms with the compromises I would have to make to go there. I love Japan and have absolutely no qualms about living there, and I daresay that mentally I was still residing there long after I left at the end of 2006. But elements of my life have changed in the past few years and I've actually started to feel quite settled here in Melbourne, despite the myriad things I detest about Australian culture (football, anti-intellectualism, violence, larrakinism, etc. etc.). I've also really enjoyed the job that is now ending, and as such am more conscious than ever of the barriers that would obstruct me in Japan, linguistic and otherwise. I like English teaching, but am only willing to do so in certain contexts. By contrast, my work in web content has proven engaging and enjoyable, and I wouldn't mind letting my career grow in that field.

Heavens, I almost sound ambitious. I'm not. I still regard work as ultimately futile – an inconvenient necessity. I feel sick when I observe the stupid interplay of ego and greed that drives people's ascension through organisational hierarchies. That absolute bottom-line attitude that casts aside humanity and kindness in the name of economic development. I see nothing to aspire to there. However much a person advances their organisation; however much they earn; whatever empire they create; they will still die and be forgotten.

I probably am craving a sense of personal security though. I'm very good at imagining worst-case scenarios, which I then allow to paralyse me. I've yet to reconcile my 'live lightly' ethos with the practicalities of being stuck in late-stage capitalism. I'm frustratingly cautious.

I think I still naively want every experience, but am locked somehow inside my immense freedom. I feel poisoned by the 'you can do anything (but really you should do x, y & z)' mentality. What results is a life lived for the purposes of exhibiting to others.

(Much like this very blog, haha.)

Again I have to reel in my thinking and try to orient myself towards the moment, even if that feels irresponsible somehow. It's weird: to me it actually feels irresponsible not to worry. Isn't that ridiculous and nonconstructive? I can't see much beyond the end of October now, so I have to ignore that weird vacuum beyond and just focus on each day.

I wonder what's going to happen...

Precarious again. But that seems to suit.

2009-09-14T13:07:00.001+10:00

Things can't always be interesting.

2009-09-13T22:06:00.006+10:00

I'm intrigued by the way these sort of 'next generation' cosmetic companies (Aveda, Aesop, Jurlique, etc.) market themselves. I mean I totally buy into it, but do puzzle a bit when I read labels proclaiming key ingredients such as tree sap, Icelandic moss, mandarin rind, cardamom and indeed black pepper, as though each has every right to be included. The product summaries broadly extol the natural virtues of the components, and convince the reader/buyer to agree that, well, of course black pepper will be of benefit in a skin cleanser.

I don't even know what Cedarwood Atlas is, but I don't doubt it's a good thing to have in my hand cream.

It's clever marketing that somehow bypasses one's cynical questioning. The prices certainly manage to remain exorbitant. It's good niche positioning, with a view to wider appeal, and I'm sure I'll continue to buy from each of the previously mentioned companies.

Having said that, I've become a huge fan of simply snipping leaves off the aloe vera plant on my bedroom windowsill and just smearing it all over my face. It's surprisingly moisturising, and couldn't really get any more 'natural'.

.......

I've just had the most wonderful weekend with dear friends who were over from Adelaide. We ate and drank not gluttonously, but well, and generally hooted about the place wearing wonderful things.

Two words though: fuck football. By all means enjoy the game, but why must fans take their team colours into the city afterwards? We've all got enough to worry about without maladroit loyalties and dumb aggression. We were driven out of more than one venue by this hideous aftermath, but as Selena said, often awfulness in the city is actually a good way to feel better about oneself.

It's a nice, positive approach I think.

2009-09-07T21:49:00.004+10:00

I guess my grandfather wrote this about grandma, shortly after she died:

She passed peacefully away at her home on Thursday 24th May having fought the good fight, having kept the faith, sure and certain of hearing the words "Well done my good and faithful servant, enter into the rest I have prepared for you."

He died a long time ago as well. Mum just sent me a couple of typed pages; copies of a letter he wrote to his children. When she typed it up, she left her father-in-law's grammatical idiosyncrasies largely intact.

Thinking back now, I find the lives they led to be almost unimaginable.

2009-09-02T12:07:00.002+10:00

Ten houses in ten years, quite common these days, but still food for the spirits of transience that haunt the boundaries of my vision.

I realised I mistakenly thought others had access to more time. They don't.

At the office I have not made my workspace anything like my own. Papers that aren't mine still lie in trays, folders and cabinets, old scrawls blight the whiteboard, and besides an old theatre ticket and a festival flyer, there are no personal effects. After nearly a year.

The city I can see from my desk does not belong to me either.

I live in a grand old building by the seaside, its name, in relief two stories above the street, recalling a long history of languid days and leisure. I feel I will not be part of its history, as I have treated it as a vehicle, furnishing my room with borrowed things, making features of items that will not be retained.

Such that it can be fled from with a moment's notice.

I think I enjoy my plans more than my achievements. I guess this is why I struggle to focus on things that are tangible. The abstract, the potential, the foreseen, the likely – these are what capture my interest. Perhaps I am scared to achieve things because then they become real, and measurable, and I don't know what to do with them.

Within this obvious breeding ground for anxiety, I feel I may be slowly getting better at simply living.

2009-08-29T17:59:00.006+10:00

It's been a funny old week.

- 1 movie (The September Issue – simply wonderful, I would kill to spend a day with gorgeous and apparently lovely Grace Coddington).
- 2 plays (Elle T'Attend (She is Waiting for You), about a woman just waiting for her man to come home from the mountains, French language with English subtitles, a bit average; and My Friend Schadenfreude, about a woman pursued by a monster, or 'monster', to a mysterious hotel where she unravelled a few times and then restored, no particular plot, it was all about character portraiture and emotional responses and was completely and utterly fab, my only criticism related to one minor section of the story where they made a pop culture reference, which jolted me out of the alternate reality).
- 1 Tupperware party (exposure to something very suburban and esoteric – apparently life is difficult for some people if the colours of their plastic containers don't match or 'go out of fashion').
- the evolution to a Skype-mediated relationship (I simultaneously love and hate this, it's great for friends but it makes my boyfriend seem awfully out of reach).
- continued role-spanning at work, and utter resentment of full-time hours. All this work is turning me into a monster. A tired monster. In truth, some parts of the job are quite fulfilling, and seem to be extending my knowledge base.
- too much reading of critiques of current economic theory (which apparently regards, um, global ecology as an 'externality') and subsequent despondence about the world at large, together with more feelings of disempowerment, anxiety and fear.
- research into ethical investing.
- completion of my tax return (I am really proud of myself for this as I usually leave it until the last possible moment).
- confusion, yet again, about personal priorities (yawn, as though that isn't the story of my life, on to the next point please...).
- celebration of my ENFJ personality type, recognition of its weaknesses and awareness of other types (my housemate says this Myers-Briggs phase is ridiculous).
- mixed feelings about the fact that exactly one year ago I was flouncing around the streets of Hong Kong in utter bliss, eating and buying indiscriminately (but not to excess).
- a feeling of being comfortable in Melbourne, most likely connected to the possibility of leaving (what sacrifices would YOU make for someone you really love?).
- processing risk and formulating backup plans (we really are all terribly alone).
- remembering angels and the movement of God.
- I basically want a simple, ascetic life (but am very good at whipping up complications).
- absolute love for our espresso pot (need to find a place to buy the smashing organic, fair trade, decaffeinated coffee James got for free somewhere, or something equivalent).
- annoyed by my creative paralysis (wonderful ideas that I never get around to actually fleshing out).
- enjoying my new computer.
- looking forward to swanning onto my Osaka flight on October 1.
- a 2am phone call from a group of my most amazing friends.
- fresh aloe vera and a host of plants on the window sill.
- the hope of summer (after being imprisoned by winds and nondescript grey for the last however long).

Amongst other things.

2009-08-23T13:54:00.003+10:00

So yes I Myers-Briggsed my own mother on Skype the other night, but I can't help the fact that I find the whole thing desperately interesting. I am ENFJ, for the record, and I've been coercing anyone I can into taking a simplified, online form of the test so I can learn deep truths about them.

Mum, as i turns out, is the rarest of them all: an INFJ.

I have been consistently impressed by the accuracy of the test in terms of describing people's general traits, and I now have to muster the rationality (as a strongly expressed intuitive feeler, this is difficult for me) NOT to apply, through some misguided effort to understand the visible universe, these labels rigidly to everyone I know.

Also, as an ENFJ I must learn to accommodate those who fall outside the spectrum of my personal value system, and recognise the contributions they are able to make to the world at large. Gone are the days of 'so many targets, so little time'.

Evidently I would be absolutely cut out for a career in counselling, which I think I have already tasted through my forays into English teaching. This of course still does not answer the question of whether or not I should sacrifice everything here and move to Osaka.

On that note, after Myers-Briggsing my mother, we started (stress STARTED, as in 'opened the door to') talking about the whole boyfriend-in-Osaka situation, which was nice, if awkward.

2009-08-20T10:17:00.001+10:00

With my new computer I have access to the world again, it seems, as conversations with far-flung friends and a certain far-flung boy late last night will attest to.

I know how I lived without it, so I'm not going to gush like that. I'm more bound to LCD screens than ever and I think for that reason I wasn't even excited about the purchase until I entered the shop. However, it's nice to have the flexibility and a cute piece of technology in my decidedly ascetic life.

I wonder now will the creative projects I've put on hold for so very long finally come to fruition? I'll probably have to sort out my heart and related practicalities first.

Always an excuse!

2009-08-13T09:32:00.003+10:00

...and then all anger and annoyance dissolved in a series of saccharine sweet emails, and, heart aflutter, real damn excitement about the trip has commenced...

...and thoughts have already turned to what clothes must be purchased, I mean come on, it's JAPAN and they only sell wonderful things...

...and God rest Nina Simone's heavenly soul, she is THE great...

2009-08-12T16:48:00.007+10:00

Just booked a flight to Osaka; will be there from October 1 to 25; just to see if this relationship thing is gonna work; I was meant to be able to work externally during this time but then the old-thinking big boss vetoed it ("doesn't feel comfortable," apparently, despite the fact that my job lends itself in every way to external undertaking); I got a good deal on flights, but then, just as I'd booked the whole fucking thing, oh that's when Mr Head-in-the-clouds-or-someplace-else (aka my stupid boyfriend) decides to inform me that he would have almost a week's holiday in late September.

Well we've missed that little opportunity too, haven't we?

How is it that things that sow in joy just reap in headfuck, idiocy and heartache?

2009-08-10T22:21:00.001+10:00

We've Jupiter to thank, I suppose, for keeping the comets and the asteroids at bay. It flings them into deeper space, exerting strains on orbits, paths, trajectories and aphelions.

An object the size of earth smashed into the face of Jupiter not so long ago. Or was it the size of the moon? I forget. I read once that the red dot on the face of the planet is a wild storm that has been raging for centuries.

All this turmoil amidst a bunch of volcanic moons; in such contrast with the stately calm and quiet of Saturn, a planet which in theory would float on water.

Saturn rules the late twenties and Jupiter removes debris and detritus, allowing the years to progress unhindered. I suppose the rules of physics will go on even after the earth breaks into pieces, depending on what is permitted by other forces in existence.

To exist in two places at once! Subatomic particles do it all the time. It hardly seems fair... I am comprised of them, so can't they go the extra mile and spirit a duplicate copy of me across the equator and up to somewhere almost directly north where it is still summer and someone who I care about enormously, and vice versa, is getting on with his life?

No, for that I have to book a plane ticket and assess my willingness to compromise.

Complexity in the universe, and complexity in two out of 6,000,000,000 (or thereabouts) lives.

2009-08-04T11:06:00.000+10:00

- Torn between wanting to make my mark somehow, and wanting to tread so lightly that not a single trace is left on the earth after my ashes scatter / bones rot. I'd prefer cremation I think.

- And then, suddenly, unaware of one's own knowledge. The culmination of learning or another expression of tired indifference?

- Wearing sadness like a cloak, or positivity like a bright, striped umbrella?

- Choice, like a river delta. Fear, like a recursive algorithm traversing every last branch of the search tree.

- Why are facts so easy? And processes, techniques and raw information – these present no problem. Often they are accorded the most value.

- Try as I might, I cannot map the things I see in literature. I cannot apply the truths and the insights, even though I resonate vigorously with the uncertainties.

- The embers of my faith still burn, but even that has been modified. It had to be. It could not remain unchanged.

- What lengths we all go to in order to feel less alone. To what lengths will I go?

- I am yet to understand that which motivates a great many people to do what they do. I understand partially. Possibly everyone feels the same way, rendering the speculation meaningless.

- Self-sabotage.

- Horrified by greed. Sickened. Aghast at how it has the whole world in its hands, including me.

- These terrorists are all so young. What is it that they think they can know?

- Waiting for certain fogs to abate and depart.

2009-08-03T10:01:00.000+10:00

They've gone and made me full-time for at least the next few months, whilst simultaneously cancelling the soy milk and the green tea from the staff kitchen.

The whole thing just irks me. I'm excited about saving money for Japan (still the plan, I think) and for a fab new laptop, but all this while being expected to drink cow's milk and not even having the option of ingesting vital antioxidants.

This place really is so fucked.

Thus far, the equation adulthood = disillusionment seems to hold truer than any of the great predicates given to us by science or mathematics.

2009-08-02T15:41:00.007+10:00

There was a horrifying fight outside my window last night. I was awoken at 5am by guttural screams, followed by a series of (to borrow a literary cliche) sickening thuds and general ongoing commotion. I peered out of my window to see a taxi driver pacing and holding something to the side of his head, his car stopped in the middle of the road, while another person was chased away on foot.

The police arrived and I eventually went back to sleep, reminding myself to get the hell out of this activity centre.

This morning I followed a trail of blood almost the full length of Acland St (I stopped in briefly to a gallery, but then stepped out and rejoined the red path), right up to where the shops begin. It danced along the footpath as though flicked from a paintbrush.

Just yesterday somebody was saying that Melbourne is now being compared to 1980s New York in terms of prevailing violence. I don't know who is making this comparison and I feel it's slightly far-fetched. Still, I guess as the city frantically stampedes towards 5 million, it probably just doesn't know what to do with itself. I find the thought of a major metropolis exhilarating, but can do without the shit that drags along with the idea. I hope we don't lose the things that make this place so fabulous – it's bad enough that we have to put up with horrendous, endless, nondescript winters that sap both life and soul, without also having the worst trappings of humanity rearing up and ruining everything.

2009-07-29T13:41:00.002+10:00

Sydney was incredibly fun.

I turned into a veritable solar panel, absorbing gorgeous sunshine from brilliantly blue skies. I'm going to write with dot points to cover some of the greatest aspects of the trip:

- Jordy and Peter, the two driving forces behind the trip, and all the bottles of wine and memories from having all moved to Tokyo on the same flight almost six years ago. They really are excellent people.

- Flotis Schmotis, whose generosity is matched only by his heart and maybe his ability to upset me with violating comments, convened several meals at splendid little places and invited everyone. He also gifted me with aura cleansing soap, infused with sacred ash from a central Australian indigenous tribe. I almost cried with happiness.

- The batty gallery owner who took us on a tour of her Paddington artspace, lovingly caressing the pieces and making comments like "oh I LOVE fur, I'd skin anything – keep your pets away from me!" while fondling Flotis Schmotis' dead fox/mink/squirrel/whatever scarf, before sailing off and recounting stories of art buying in central Australia, Catholic vs. Welsh Presbyterian ideology and other truly quirky things. "It's just wonderful," she'd continually enthuse, running her finger directly over the surface of $10,000 paintings.

- Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel, Mel and gin and tonics.

- Stunning Janine and that whole crew of warm, fab and hospitable Sydneysiders who inhabit the inner west. Vegan Chinese food in Newtown? Yes, please!

- Even the peace-mission neutrality of lunch with an ex turned into an absolutely enjoyable hour or so of leaving things in the past and ultimately feeling like an actual adult.

So it was a good holiday and I've probably forgotten many key things (I'll expand the list later if so). The tone of the trip was so celebratory yet relaxing, so it really did feel like I 'got away' from everything for a while. I wonder when and where my next flight will be.

2009-07-23T11:29:00.003+10:00

I am embroiled in a packing frenzy, because I want to bring EVERYTHING.

I'm going to Sydney until next Tuesday, which will be wonderful. I'm hoping there'll be enough sunshine there to melt the nondescript grey out of every part of me.

Having just remembered yet another outfit combination that really should go in the bag, I feel it's time to sit back and just take stock – assess what I really need and then add 25% more. It's like a tolerance, or an insurance factor, if you will.

I recall too when I used to caricature myself in much the same way as this when I worked as a receptionist in Sydney. People expected me to be the mincing male office boy, and therefore I obliged, waving my wrists about and making arbitrary yet definitive remarks before returning to my desk (and my true self) and settling back into my study of Japanese kanji.