lemon-scented sunday — well, by sunday afternoon the new flat was much cleaner than it was on sunday morning, thanks to a range of lemon-scented cleaning products & a couple of hours worth of scrubbing… & i’ve only the kitchen in the old flat left to pack… the removalists rang to confirm that it was all still happening, so i’m just about there… then i think i’m gonna go to sleep for a couple of days… <grin>

which i could (in theory) do, on account of having the week off… but that might put the unpacking behind schedule… not to mention the organising of a parking permit, & the notifying 237 different companies & organisations of my change of address, & the attempted selling of unwanted books, & the cleaning of the old flat, etc…

leaving dulwich hill — so this is my last weekend in dulwich hill… i give the keys back next friday… after a couple of false starts this morning, i finally got the keys to the cheddington (although i still don’t have a key for my mailbox)… wasn’t overly impressed to find the repairs i’d asked to be made hadn’t been done, & i discovered the windows in the sunroom are also in need of some work…

dirty thoughts — on top of all that, the place hadn’t been cleaned (as i’d been assured would happen), but after a minor episode of anxiety (this is not my beautiful house!) i went back & talked to the real estate agent & we’re going to get together on monday morning to sort out what’s happening with the repairs… as for the cleaning, keri & i are going to head over on sunday morning to do a bit of scrubbing & vacuuming, so the place will be habitable by the time the removalists do their thing on monday afternoon…

pack rat — packing everything up at the old flat has taken longer than i thought it might, but i’ve taken the opportunity to get rid of a heap of stuff that i’ve been carting about the countryside for several years… really useful things like rent receipts from 1996, & lecture notes from 1990, & old copies of manuscripts… i’ve also sorted out my books, & i think i’ve gotten rid of nearly half of them… it’s been an interesting process to go through, & i’m really looking forward to getting settled into elizabeth bay…

kezcam — keri developed some photos she’d taken over the last few months, some from our trip to the blue mountains after easter & some from a walk around coogee one afternoon… (& i finally found the CD with the scanner drivers while i was packing up…)

bulbous forehead dwarfs rock formations!

coffee makes me happy…

faux-blonde man with squint seeks photo opportunity

let’s try that squint again, shall we?

kez kickin’ back on home soil…

kez on the steps up from gordon’s bay…

me & kez on the gordon’s bay boardwalk…

windy, rainy — in contrast to the implied digital weather, the rain we’ve been having for the last week or so added some moderate gales to its repertoire overnight… i’m hoping it all clears by monday afternoon…

enthusiastic claims

…the personal computer itself constitutes
the ultimate postmodern work of art.
Richard Lanham

ambit, my ambit, the game derives
from a need to spin that falls like desire
from the high point of your lies
to map the heart’s trajectory, its diagram
& vacant coughing that claims the legs need blood
& your arm’s asleep, but ain’t that a way
of waving goodbye on the journey’s threshold?
it’s like, you find a steam train,
i’ll run along the platform,
& no one smells of roses while the camera’s rolling.
a dog goes past on autobiography
as heat falls from the sky.
if you walk to the window i’m there in a heap of theory
with a faded anecdote flung out like a handful
of useless gymnastics, waiting for the network
to come back up, for services to be resumed.
it’s a kind of remote access, it’s your own wishes,
& even if you don’t believe the empty,
whistling subject, there’s room to move
through the intersections, the spaces,
& now that taking a good, hard look at yourself
makes you happily dizzy
why not tilt your head & watch the sensors go crazy?
there’s thirteen fatuous things to say
& everybody’s ready,
so how about those trees? & look at all that skin.
you know, even if we dump the sculpture & buy the painting,
i think i preferred it when you dimmed the lights,
put on some music, & helped me
forget about our names. let’s start a tax.

oh yeah! oh yeah! yeah yeah! yeah!

you’ve no idea how pleased i was to see the exam results page appear with that table on it… missed out on a credit by a handful of marks, but still! i passed! [pauses to do little dance… cha! oh yeah! cha! woah! uh huh! cha! cha!]

fishbots? so i bought a new bulb for my fishtank light yesterday, & bought some new water plants as well… keri brought her spare siamese fighting fish over on sunday & that’s triggered a sudden bout of aquarium
renovations… the siamese fighter was living in a much smaller tank sans heater at keri’s & was starting to feel the winter chill… it’s settled in pretty well, & seems to be getting on with the bristlenose catfish, & the tank’s looking pretty good again… hence the fishbots…

movin’ right along — so rhino removals (no, really) are gonna turn up at my old place on monday afternoon to collect all my stuff & take it to my new place… this is gettin’ exciting now! although the excitement is
tinged with just the slightest touch of no-way-am-i-gonna-get-packed-in-time… but it’s only a slight touch,
because i think i’ve either got the packing totally under control or i’m so far in denial that it doesn’t really matter…

se, i pick up the keys to the new place on saturday, & i don’t hafta give back the keys to the old place until the following friday, so i’ve gotta week’s overlap in which to deal with any unforeseen problems &
with the cleaning & all the related blah…

red robot world domination — via camworld…

question: what’s the only good thing about waking up at some insanely early, still-in-darkness time on either saturday (or was it sunday?) morning? answer: getting to watch the powerpuff girls on tv!

the nukie chef! (now with microwave safety tips) — ‘ello! if you’re lookin’ to make sumfin luvverly & pukka wiff your microwave, ‘ere’s a coupla smashin’ tips:

• when they say, “don’t put metal in your microwave,” you should take that statement to include the metallic-looking foil wrapped around the butter… because where there’s metallic-looking foil, there’s sparks, & where there’s sparks, there’s smoke, & where there’s smoke…

• should your butter happen to catch fire in your microwave, because, let’s say, you didn’t grasp the whole metallic-looking-foil-might-actually-be-made-of-metal concept, you may find you can extinguish the flames by rapidly expelling air from your lungs in an agitated fashion…

• if, after all that, keri happens to notice that the butter is well past its use-by date, is covered in little bits of burnt metallic-looking foil, & smells a little rancid, may we suggest you try the margarine?

at least setting fire to the butter wrapper didn’t stink up the place the way the microwave popcorn debacle did…

movin’ on up — signed my new lease on friday afternoon, & spent most of the weekend sortin’ out boxes of old papers & books & gettin’ ready for the move east…

android attack! well, okay, not an android… andrew! & not much of an attack, either, more of a friendly visit… but he didn’t escape unscathed, uh uh! (& not merely as a result of my talking at him for ages on account of not seeing him for quite some while…) andrew dropped over on saturday morning & grabbed a few of the books i was getting rid of… including (wait for it) the amazin’ fightin’ lizards from beyond space series! you’ve no idea how pleased i was to see them go to a good home… or, at the very least, to someone else’s home… <grin>

staining ’til ya think you’ll burst — yikes. talk about a hard-earned thirst… spent sunday night staining my table & washing my sheets (ummm… don’t touch that…) & spent monday night & part of last night painting on a clear coat of some kinda varnishy thing… been staining & clear coating my giant bookcase as well…

both the bookcase & the table look pretty good, but after spending more than a few hours rubbing in stain & brushing on clear coat i find today i can’t lift my arms above my head… i’m really hoping we don’t get held up by armed robbers… i mean, even more so than usual…

chrisT wants to know:

To: ted@magicdog.com
Subject: Fenggington Shui

Hi Ted,

Cute living space. Please tell me the window in the sun room faces north. And whats outside the entrance?

Sweet dreams.

ChrisT

uh… yeah, sure, chris… the window in the sun room faces north… ish… ummm… next question please. oh, right. well, outside the entrance is the hallway, which leads in part to the steps (both up & down), & in other parts to the other apartments on my floor… & of course, when they say sun room, they actually mean “rather-close-view-of-the-building-next-door room”…

fetish/schmetish — keri & i went to the performance space on saturday night & checked out the museum of fetishised identities, a big performance art piece featuring a cast of dozens (well, about a dozen) performing simultaneously on smaller podiums around the main space…

a bit of nudity & lots & lots of mock (or was that attempted?) significance & some loud music & an ever-present smoke machine… i was having trouble shaking the horrible feeling i’d wandered into one of those awful “future
hipster” scenes in a bad sci-fi movie, where the camera pans across a group of slightly melancholic extras in a “futuristic” nightclub…

but yeah, while less than convinced by some of the individual performances
(obvious/tiresome/repetitive/cyber-gothic-banal), the whole thing was strangely kinda fun… my favourite was the guy who taped carrots to himself before attaching carpenter’s clamps to various parts of his body… i mean, i dunno much about art, but…

of course, i should have taken my mirrordog, which is just the thing to have with you should you suddenly find yourself in a bad sub-apocalyptic sci-fi flick…

bodymovin’, bodymovin’! so keri & i went back on friday afternoon & had a second look at the apartment in the cheddington(!), & it looked even better than we remembered, & the agent said they’d be happy to fix up a couple of little things we pointed out, so we went back to the office & put down a holding deposit & i’m gonna sort out the lease with their property manager on monday & move in a couple of weeks!

& yeah, the apartment is great, the building it’s in is very nice, & elizabeth bay is just amazing, so i think i’ve done pretty well… what does the flat look like? well, it looks in places like it’s had a bit of a hard life, but it’ll scrub up nicely… & according to my memory, it’s set out kinda like this…

so now it’s just a matter of sorting out the remainder of my stuff & heading east! too cool…

flat chat! woah! i found myself a flat! it’s way cool, a one bedroom plus sunroom plus grungey old kitchen plus old style bathroom plus wait’ll-you-see-it green carpet in a way cool building in a way nice part of elizabeth bay!

my application was accepted this afternoon, & i’m going in tomorrow to put a holding deposit on it, & if things go to plan i’ll be moving in about two weeks! plus! the best bit? the building’s called The Cheddington! or possibly The Cheddingham… how cool is that?

kitty! plus, there’s a kitty that lives at a café just across the street! did i mention the building was called The Cheddingsomething? i did? oh.

busy, rainy days — one of the great things about my new office is having a huge window… there’s just a certain something about watching rain falling on the brewery… work’s still keeping me pretty busy, but the stress factor’s continuing to fall, which is a good thing… & given that there’s something of a respite in the stupidly-late-night-sports-programming over the next few days, i might even be able to catch up on my sleep… <grin>

hmmm — dave’s reading some kinda sci-fi future apocalypse thesaurus kinda thing… for my sins i just finished a robert heinlein book… urgh. i feel so… dirty. no, really. but now i don’t hafta read it not never no more. which, now that i think about, was pretty much what i told myself last time i read it… i can’t believe i threw out the lizards from space books but kept the heinlein… lousy brain. hmmm. wait just a minute. [footsteps, etc… sound of book being put in box to be taken away… sound of stake being hammered through book…] right. that’s that sorted out. heinlein-free zone. phew.

brendanology — so i still haven’t seen the mummy returns (which may or may not still be showing), but i have in the last few weeks managed to see both the mummy & gods & monsters on video… if only hollywood would bow to the inevitable & cast brendan in jurassic park iv… gods & monsters was very good… although it’s quite possible i’m the only middle-class person on the planet who hadn’t seen it, so maybe i’m preaching to the choir… & the mummy…? well, it had brendan fraser in it…

how many virgos does it take to form a rock band? at least one, apparently. i found out yesterday that tim rogers from you am i is a virgo… why is that worthy of mention? well, i also discovered that mr rogers shares his birthday with keri… which for some reason my brain has decided is kinda cool… either as (most likely) an improbable coincidence or as (less likely) more evidence of some kinda cosmic machinations…

property-schmoperty — still lookin’ for somewhere to move to… based on what i’ve seen so far, i think i’m gonna hafta raise my self-imposed arbitrary rent-ceiling somewhat… & possibly throw out all my stuff… of course, if you’ve seen my stuff you gotta know that ain’t much of a sacrifice…

glut

out there

where the idea of explaining the poem

is as tenuous
as the poem itself /

long days of bad weather
according to your mood.

do six months of anti-depressants make you
a better person?

will things
ever happen?

embracing the genre
in your new jacket.

winter tangled
around your feet.

(no good for dancing.)

resisting company /
not wanting
to be alone.

anyone home?

the middle-sized questions.

no change for the pay-phone.

geostudiographical survey — so keri & i spent a good part of saturday morning wanderin’ from studio apartment inspection to studio apartment inspection in potts point… didn’t find anywhere into which i absolutely had to move, so i’m still lookin’… (did, however, manage to find a couple of places in which i wouldn’t take shelter even if being pursued by wild dogs…)

&, as may be the nature of these things, when we got back to keri’s place & had a second look at the rental vacancies listed in the herald, there were a heap of possibilities that i hadn’t picked out earlier in the day when i was compiling my list of places to inspect… of course, that mightn’t have anything to do with the nature of things & everything to do with compiling a list before i was properly caffeinated…

anyways, the hunt continues… & it’s no bad thing having a few extra days that i could conceivably use to sort out more of my somewhat-euphemistically-named stuff, thereby cutting down on the need to hafta move a few thousand mystery boxes of well, who knows? i mean, they’re mystery boxes, right? anyway, i don’t really wanna move ‘em to my inexorably approaching new address, so i guess i’d better git ta sortin’…

wassup? hey look, some old links people sent to me over the last month or so… & you thought i wasn’t ever gonna get around to posting them…

• electric pants — via andrew…
• http://www.robotsandmonkeys.com — via andrew…
• stylish & practical — via linda…

new socks! mmmm… is there anything better than pulling on a new pair of warm socks on a winter morning? uh, well, yeah, obviously there is… but still, new socks!

also new — bought myself a logitech optical wheelmouse the other week… my old mouse was dying a horrible, kludgy death, & my new logitech mouse is nice enough… the wheel itself is a little ratchety, but offsetting that is the whole optical-mouse-red-glow-in-the-dark-effect… & to plug it into (along with the scanner, the printer, the zip drive, etc, etc) i bought myself a 6-port USB hub as well… & yeah, so far so good with that, too…

& things might work even better if, during my attempts to clean up the back room, i actually find the CD with the scanner driver on it… (hey, wait-a-minute… need drivers… find website… download from internet… hmmm… nah, that’ll never work… better keep lookin’ for that CD…)