hacked on by dave — “Winter’s coming,” says el davebot, “The signs are all there. It’s getting cold, and everyone is updating their blogs more infrequently, except for ChrisT, who is just plain anti.”

1-2-3 o’clock, 4 o’clock slump — well, it’s been about a week, & i’m just about back on sydney time, but i haven’t quite managed to shake my apparently regular three to four o’clock slump…

poor baby — which is not meant to be an attempt to excuse the scarcity of updates, i’ve just felt a bit out of phase is all… partly tiredness, but partly a feeling of dislocation, & partly kinda feeling like there’s nothing much to say… although i’m starting to reconnect as the days go by… (&, of course, to remember that not having much to say hasn’t been any hindrance before now…)

note to self — do things when they hafta be done… ’cause yeah, here i was thinking i’d organised everything pretty well, paid all the bills that needed to be paid, sorted things out at work, booked tickets, redirected mail, blah blah… then the phone rings this afternoon… nothing too disasterous, more a breach of etiquette than anything, but you know, if i’d taken the five minutes to do what i should’ve done a few weeks ago instead of putting it off a couple of times & then forgetting about it completely, i coulda saved myself some embarrassment…

clarity — i was talking to my friend louise the other day about the incredible feeling of stillness that we’ve both experienced after coming back from our respective trips away… (the flip side of feeling dislocated…) it’s like a total zen thing… just a really nice, relaxed, unfocussed kinda focus, if that makes any sense… it’s like someone switched all my headnoise off or something… & yeah, despite feeling embarrassed about that phone call, it sorta feels like it was some other, earlier me who was responsible, & that i won’t be making that kinda mistake from now on… (although i do realise i’m living at the previous tenant’s address, so, you know, mea culpa… but yeah… uh… blithering? did someone say, blithering?)

walking — spent a lot of time walking while i was visiting keri, & really enjoyed it, so i decided when i got home that i’d try walking to work a few days a week… it takes about an hour, & i’ve done it twice now & yeah, it’s totally great… have found a route that strikes a nice balance between the full on city experience & some of the quieter backstreets, & yeah, sydney is just so beautiful… & i’m incredibly happy to discover that my legs are no longer doing the intensely painful thing they used to do… which could just be that i was too sedentary before & simply needed to do more walking to get them used to the idea, or could be a function of having new shoes that aren’t worn down into some weird, posture-aggravating shape… either way, i’m grateful… & i totally recommend walking through sydney if you have the chance…

things to do — hmmm, lemme see…

• sort out photos from my trip & get them on-line
• reenrol in my yoga class
• finish sorting out my clothes cupboard (i’ve lost fourteen kilos since the start of the year, which leaves me six kilos to go, & there’s a heap of stuff taking up space in my wardrobe that no one in their right mind is ever gonna be likely to wear, so i figure now’s the time… it’s weird, but good… i’m also gonna hafta get the suit i bought last october taken in… that or prepare myself for the day that my pants fall off in the middle of a meeting…)
• finish off a couple of writing projects (& start another)
• catch up with some friends

well, i guess that’s enough to get me started…

episteme

apple blossoms? how i have loved, & so loving,
am loved, as if i am? shadows of boys,
lips on a back step overlooking a pool? & yes,
perhaps these things, these fingers?
now i sleep in a kitchen,
ants crawl on me, & skin. & if
tomorrow comes, is that not yesterday,
as were you?
tracing the contours of complicity,
is my headache how i’m feeling? or these
our syndromes & complexes? will you wait with me
beneath fabulous debris? might we go walking?
for this & all my hopes did someone say?
look for the rain / white noise & phone calls

dance all night (sleep all day?) shake it up! ooh, ooh! shake it up! as if being totally spaced wasn’t enough, my brain has decided to put the cars on high rotation…

more sleep = less spaced — hey, cool… slept from nine last night to about seven this morning & feel vaguely human again… methinks a cup of coffee might contribute to finishing the job… & mebbe a bit of plugging myself back into the web…

awhooga! awhooga! onward christian scientists…

Shows like Pokemon, which features animals “evolving” into new forms, and movies like Jurassic Park provide a continuous cultural fog of Evolutionism that is impossible for innocent children to escape from.

or perhaps a spot of christian game theory?

We can now address the Atheist and say: “The payoff matrix doesn’t lie, dear Atheist. It is in your best interest to believe in the Lord… ”

well, i was never one for always acting in my best interests…

rome fragment — best art in rome? well, i did the vatican museums, & wandered into various churches to see various caravaggios, but the art i liked the best was the basquiat exhibition keri took me to see at the chiostro del bramante…

rome snapshot

ultrabuff marble dog at the vatican museum

sounds like my horoscope has been reading ayn rand

Your sense of self-confidence should be improving and you’re bound to feel much more secure in yourself. You’ll find your insecurities growing weaker while your sense of focus and control grows stronger. Things that you’ve believed in should start proving their worth, and the one remaining thorn in your side will continue to be less significant.

home again, home again, jiggity-zzzz — news, views, & the usual kind of stuff after i catch up on some sleep…

although, before sleep… i just wanna check to see if my new dial-up account is working… my old ISP went legs up while i was away… yep. that appears to be workin’ fine…

yay! i look like gwyneth paltrow! unfortunately, i look like gwyneth paltrow playing margot in the royal tenenbaums… (which i got to watch on my very own private tv screen… yay, JAL!) but yeah, wow, talk about your dark circles around your eyes…

yay! my own tv! also seen on the in-flight “entertainment network”… harry potter & the philosopher’s stone, bits of ocean’s eleven, some of k-pax, & quite a lot of the are we there yet? in-flight status map thingy… we flew past townsville at about five o’clock on tuesday morning… i waved, but i was at 11,900 metres & doing close to 900 kilometres an hour, so if you’re townsville-based it’s possible you didn’t notice…

ratings — on a scale of immensely watchable to avoid like the plague:

• the royal tenenbaums — immensely watchable
• are we there yet?
• harry potter
• ocean’s eleven
• k-pax — avoid like the plague

so, how was italy? if i had a couple of hundred dollars for every time i was asked that question at work today i’d be pretty close to being able to claim that italy broke even… & if i had another couple of hundred dollars for every time someone said, “wow, you look zonked,” then i’d be able to claim a modest profit…

so how was italy? fantastic. fascinating. eye-opening. i loved it. further details will hafta wait until i get some sleep & have sorted the forty-odd megabytes of digital pictures that i brought back with me into the official holiday snaps page & added some accompanying texty bits… but yeah, wow, italy is highly recommended… & not just for the shopping, although, gosh, that wasn’t bad either…

official list of schwag from italy trip

• four pairs of shoes (two pairs of funky leather shoes, one pair of red nike sneakers, one pair of silver mizuno trainers)
• one leather jacket
• one woollen coat
• one woollen scarf
• one lonsdale sweat top
• one pair of jeans
• one leather belt
• one leather coin purse
• assorted guide books to assorted places (orvieto, siena, florence, pompeii, etc)
• assorted maps of assorted places (rome, siena, etc)
• assorted postcards
• coffee table book on venetian art
• motociclismo’s 2002 model guide
• one regular issue of motociclismo
• one issue of dylan dog (bizarre italian comic)
• one issue of nathan never (b.i.c.)
• one issue of tex (see above)
• one issue of nick raider, squadra omicidi (ditto)
• english-italian pocket dictionary
• two banana yoshimoto novels (kitchen & asleep)
• haruki murakami’s sputnik sweetheart
• various assorted notepads
• radiohead live recordings cd
• wind-up non-stop robot
• ultra cute wind-up spaceship
• assorted robot-related keyrings
• little bronze statue of the lion of san marco
• stainless steel stovetop coffee maker
• four very cool enamel espresso cups with saucers
• cave canem ceramic tile from pompeii
• set of furry animal ears to stick on my bike helmet
• small black lucky cat for my lucky cat collection
• japan fridge magnet
• set of five very cool little sake cups
• little wheel along suitcase

you meet the nicest people in narita — sat down at the gate in the departure lounge at narita airport & someone says, “hi ted,” so i look up & discover that i’ve managed to sit down a couple of seats over from danni, who was flying out on the same plane on her way to melbourne after spending three weeks touring around japan… freaky. almost as freaky as keri & i running into two of the people from our italian for travellers class beside a canal in venice… but yeah, it was great to see danni, although i fear i was kind of in sleep-deprived babble mode… & yeah, talking to her about her trip made me even more determined to get to japan… soon…

home — although it’s really nice to be home too… walked to work this morning & was amused to realise when i was halfway along oxford street that i was singing… i heart sydney… <grin>

okay, sleep now — i’m feeling kinda guilty for not emailing/ringing people to say hi, i’m back… but on the other hand, i feel like gwyneth paltrow looks in the royal tenenbaums as well, so mebbe if i take a day or so to try to resync i can make much more sense when i do email/call…

oops — okay, hands up everyone who knows what time their flight is leaving rome… okay. now, leave your hand up if you really know what time your flight is leaving rome… like i said, oops…

tokyo no go — so yeah, in a flash of blinding genius i somehow managed to convince myself that my plane was leaving on wednesday evening, even though the ticket clearly said it was leaving at 10.20 on wednesday morning… JAL were very helpful, & found a seat for me on the next available flight… the bad news is it doesn’t leave rome until 9.10pm sunday… (the reservations clerk laughed when she told me the time… & confirmed that this one really is an evening flight…) so yeah, i’ve blown my tokyo sojourn…

ground control to major tom — the new plan is to leave rome on sunday night for a connection at milan airport, then fourteen or so hours to narita, another four or so hours stooging around at narita airport, then a red-eye that gets into sydney around 8.00am on tuesday morning… so i miss another couple of days of work as well… (i mean hey, it ain’t all bad…)

in fact, it’s (almost) all good — it does, for instance, give me another few days with keri… & really, if i’m gonna miss a plane, there are worse places to miss planes from…

buongiorno! greetings from sunny firenze, where it’s been raining all day, thereby scuttling the let’s hire a scooter & spend the day zapping around the hills of tuscany plan… but yeah, apart from that, the trip’s been going well… italy’s been quite overwhelming, but in an interesting sort of way… don’t have more than tourist impressions that i’m still processing at the moment (&, like, there’s lots to process) but yeah, been having a great time, wish you were here, etc etc…

venezia tomorrow — catching the train to venice tomorrow for a brief stay, then back to roma… got sore feet from doing the museum thing, & been doing a bit of shopping — 2 pairs of shoes, leather jacket, coffee maker, cute enamel espresso cups, motociclismo’s 2002 complete motorcycle guide — & yeah, dunno, just having a heap of fun wandering about & looking at things…

disconnected — been feeling vaguely guilty for not updating/emailing more often, but i figure i’m probably better off spending more time in italy & less time in italian internet service points, so yeah, expect service to continue to be on the sporadic side for a while… ciao!

p.s. research shows that italian mtv sucks…