Waaaaaahhhhh!
I have been without the internet at home for nearly three weeks! There is only so much sneaky work webbing I can get away with, this being one of those moments! But I will be connected again come the weekend, so from Saturday onwards, all going according to plan, I will be posting and blogging up a storm! Of course, it will mostly be tedious couply stuff about Sunday trips to the hardware shop and sewing and baking cakes, but that's been my world for the past month or so and dammit, I'm gonna tell about it!
So for all my imaginary hoards of fans out there, and the couple of bored mates looking for ways to procrastinate, watch this space...

Brand New Day

Done. Dusted.
We have Moved In Together.
I have physically picked up everything I own (and it turned out to be a frightening quantity of shite) and moved it half a dozen blocks away. I got to drive a 2-tonne truck. My hands are a mess of grazes and bruises. My legs even more so. The cat is pacing the polished floors yowling through the night. I fear I will be a very bad parent, because to deal with him I shouted a lot then shut him in the farthest away room I could. I fell asleep sour with guilt and woke up cranky and swore at the shower.
I love pacing the polished floors myself, just looking at how all our stuff fits together, watching his cat and mine as they circle each other warily but curiously. The sound of the key in the door has developed a new significance. My ears prick up and my heart pounds. I want to have lots of exciting show-and-tell for him. We keep catching each other's eye and grinning with delight and excitement.

I feel a bit scatty and overwhelmed. I have new normal to get used to. But I have an equally disoriented buddy to go the distance with. Hold my hand. The ground is shifting.
(I love you.)

The Fad Review:

So how am I doing on my chosen fads? Well, I haven't yet tackled the drying of fruit, but I DID go to a mate's primary school where she teaches Prep/1 and spent the day observing/helping out to get a gist (and D, I still maintain that "gist" looks better spelt with a 'j') of how it all works. Let me just say, hats off to primary teachers! This mate ran her class like a prima conductress before a symphonic orchestra. Reading group to the left, cue the creative writing session over there, Johnny sit down and stop poking Tina, Mark I can see you behind me go back to your seat and finish your adding etc etc. Marvellous! It was exhausting just being an observer though, and I didn't even have to go home and plan another class for the following day, but it was a beautiful thing to watch, and I am still keen to get into it, so I'm off to a couple of Uni Open Days soon to see if I can get into a Graduate Diploma. It's all coming together... I think I have a plan!
I'm also coming back to the idea of yoga teaching. I currently take a weekly class at a gym, which was a hand-me-down from MY teacher, so the group is a bunch of old hands who are very supportive and know where I'm at. I've also been filling in for the same teacher at her other gym while she is OS, and it's going really well. I'm getting really encouraging feedback from the participants, so I think I may be onto something, but I'm going to try and get a Certificate 3 in fitness (or whatever it's called) to enable me to teach group fitness classes in any gym - legally that is! Certainly with greater confidence that I'm covered for all eventualities. There is a performative element to leading a group of people or teaching a class that I kinda get off on. After all these years of putting any kind of teaching on the back-burner as my last-resort job, I'm now seeing it with new eyes and realising how awesome it can be! Everything is coming together at this point for a reason! Yee-hah!

Speaking of yee-hahs, tomorrow is Lease-Signing Day!!! And the beginning of the Big Shift. It is definately a period of Capital Letters. We Are Moving In Together! Fuck! And yay! And fuck! (but mostly yay!)

Fad No#15: STENCIL ART

Well, I finally got my arse into gear to make a piece of stencil art. This is a little house-warming gift for D, though I hope to put it out and about shortly (on the streets that is). We'll see how my nerve (and the flimsy paper stencil) stands up.

In The Wild!

Oh joy! Oh rapture! Oh Maurice! What more can I say?!

Fad N0# 14: THE BLUE MARY!

I'd heard tell of the legend of lighting ones own farts, but really, I never truly believed it was possible. Then it came up in discussion at home the other day, and the boys were comparing notes on the Catholic school experience of the so-called Blue Mary. So last night I witnessed in the flesh (in the gas?) a real Blue Mary. And I laughed so hard I almost ruptured something. I wish I could have taken a photo, but Blue Marys are like marsh flares or min mins... they are so brief and ethereal that you would be very lucky to capture one on camera.

Bic lighter: $1.50
Gas-producing meal: $9.50
Look on his face when he thinks his arse in on fire: priceless.

Fad No#13: LAWN BOWLS and other catastrophes

This is probably a bit passe these days - after all, the cool kids have been lawn bowling and drinking imported beer and listening to doof at the Fitzroy Bowls Club for a fair while now. (And of course, old people have been dropping dead over it for aeons!) But I thought it deserved mention. I have, I sheepishly admit, only been a couple of times myself, at the local joint directly across the street from my place, but it was indeed enormous fun. The VB was cheap, the old codgers were dinky di and we have subsequently gone for the $7 Friday night roast, which was as homely and overcooked as you could hope for! We only discovered the joys last year, just before the close of the season, so we have gotten out of the loop a bit, but I look forward to a few idle summer games coming up. (It'll also be an excellent excuse to get together with the housies, who will be ex-housies within a fortnight. Eep!)
Another stately and dignified grass-game (not) of which I have become equally as fond, is croquet. Cut-throat and viscious... yeah baby, that's the stuff! You can voice a lot of spite and vengeance in the clean 'tok' of mallet on ball. And if skill and deviousness fail, fling yourself on the ground in a tantrum! Worked for me! (Watch out for dog-poo.) I think with the weather lightening and the days lengthening, my thoughts are turning to outdoor activities. Probably the quintessential mates-game in my mind is the frisbee chuckabout. "Going down the park to chuck a frisbee" epitomises all that I love about summer holiday playing, even though I am mostly a bit of a spazz with a frisbee, and the slightest breeze can ruin my game. But it's what it represents, somehow. Copping a frisbee in the face sums up all that is good and sweet in the world. Ask any dog.

Fad No#12: WORD-GAMES

I love a good word-game! I've always loved crosswords, and when my gran (RIP) taught me a few tricks of the trade with cryptics that love amped up a notch or two. I also enjoy that Target puzzle in the paper on a quiet Sunday arvo. But my newest and most fervant word-game fad is Wordsearch. We scored this one from Dan's family stash of decaying miscellany in the bush, and I love it! Way better than Scrabble!
(We also rescued Pictionary, a version of Triv that I don't have, Uno, a word card-game from my childhood - My Word, Cluedo and more. We have a veritable games compendium!)

Let the games begin...

When Pads Attack!

Funny...standing in the stupidmarket queue on the way home from a long and draining day (starting with a bang, smash and tinkle - thanks for rear-ending me luvvie!), I noticed the couple ahead buying only a large block of chocolate and a packet of sanitary pads. I glanced casually to one side as I laid my own large block of chocolate and packet of pads on the conveyor belt. Beware, the full moon heralds the howl of bitches! Stand no-one in the way of their chocolate!

Fad NO# 11: The THIRD DIMENSION...

Op-shop score of the month... 3D Viewmasters a la the early eighties! Good old Savers, usually a bit self-aware and overpriced for my liking these days, but at four bucks a pop and with a wad of transparency cards, who can complain?! And a His and Hers pair, what's more! Had EXTREEEEM pleasure playing with them, and want to try making my own transparency cards to use in them... stay tuned for Stella 3D storywheels!

Fad NO# 10: STALKING

But it's not really stalking per se, scoping I like to think of it as. So I walked up to my new street with my new house and kinda stood outside for a while fantasising that I was coming home to it. Wandered my new neighbourhood, mentally tagging that cafe for Saturday morning breakfasts, that op shop for weekend rummaging, that organic butcher/post office/supermarket. Timed how long it would take me to get to my old haunts (15 minutes at a brisk walk! Very pleased!) as I am a creature of habit who fears and distrusts radical change. Er, yeah, yeah, I'm joking. I looooove change! I love it in small, measured, reasonable doses, with plenty of lead-time and lots of progress reports. Anyway, I just had to go check out the place again, to make it real, and confirm what I know to be a grand decision.
I am tres excited!

Fad No# 9: SHACKING UP!

Well, it seems my little reverse psychology with the universe has paid off! After telling the world (cos everyone on the planet reads my blog!) that we were going to be house-hunting foreverrrrr, we have a place! And, smugness of smugnesses, it's the best place ever! Ahh, I have become the "we" that I used to love to hate!
Now there's just a few weeks of mad packing and handing over great wads of cash to spotty adolescent estate agents and the like ... wheee!

Stella.....Stellaaaaa.....

Yes, Stella is revolting. She has got her own blog . She doesn't talk much, but she likes to post pictures of herself. Saucy. Not. But cute!

Hunter... or hunted?

Today was the beginning of the hunt. The house-hunt. The smarmy, foundation-caked receptionists handing out wrong keys, the clang of the hammer as each enquiry is met with the answer "It's been let, it's been let, it's been let". The "how do I dress up my income and previous employment and mother's maiden name and five year plan and every other skerrit of personal data they want into something different and desirable" brain-drain of the application form. The emotional rollercoaster of loving a house, then letting it free. Love it, let it free. But, it is after all, only the beginning. There may be many weeks of this turbulance... who knows WHERE I'll be living at the end of it! I have to remind myself that despite wanting to be with my partner, I am in no hurry. Some people are never so lucky as to have a share-house like my current home. It's a place where friendships are born. Germinating over bangers'n'mash, The Office, summer barbies, the gathering of one another's laundry as it begins to rain. Where is this lyrical waxing going? I know not! Where am I going? Abed, afore I asay something really astupid!

Fad No# 8: STUFF

Okay, once again I'm stretching the boundaries of my blog concept, trying to cram a square peg into a round hole. So when I say "Fad of stuff", what I REALLY mean is "Western society's obsession with product consumption". And I judge from within - I'm as guilty as the rest of them/us/you. Walking to work this morning I passed one of those billboard bus-shelters (rather, an undercover advert that also happens to be a handy place to hail a bus), advertising the leading MP3 player (no free advertising from ME, Steve Jobs!). I felt the weight of my own (dormant) iPod (Dang! I did it anyway!) swinging in my jacket pocket, and I suddenly thought, my god, so much stuff! Advertisers are constantly trying to tell us that we "need" the next new thing, but we say, "Oh no, you're not catching me out that easily! Ha ha!"
But then moments later, we find ourselves thinking, "You know, entirely unaffected by that big billboard over there, I have just independantly and of my own volition decided I really want and need one of those new Product X's." Like the classic addict, we could give up annnnny time we want to, we just don't want to. I have phases when I want nothing more than to throw all my worldly goods to the wind, and run away to the trees. Well, I still want to run away to the trees, but there're a few things I'd like to take with me... Just because I might aspire to a mud-brick shack with a pit-toilet, doesn't mean I am over the addiction.
I remember a time when the only people to have mobiles were high flying business men on TV, and they were probably called portable phones, and they were the size of a house-brick. I remember when you felt like a pretty bloody lucky spotty teenager if you had a Walkman to listen to your Top 40 radio mix tapes. I remember when we had to walk twenty miles to school in the snow, even in the middle of summer, with no shoes and through pits of snakes... yeees, times were better in the days before stuff.
So what am I saying here? Better to be time-rich and money-poor (easily said by a child of a safe middle-class upbringing!); things can't give you a hug at night; status anxiety is the new cancer (hmmm. A flippant and ill-considered metaphor. I'm a fan of those!)
And yes, it's ironic (I think... I never did quite get a full grasp on the concept of irony) that if it weren't for certain "stuff", this blog would never have happened (thank you, faithful little puter!)
So, yay for stuuuuff!

Health vs fitness - the dilemma!

I hate when you think you might be getting sick. Apart from the whole "this means I am now going to be sick" thing, there is the interruption to the flow of life in that vague am-I-aren't-I? phase, when everyone tells you you shouldn't do exercise because it makes the cold, in this case, worse and take longer to go. I wanted to go to the gym because I'm feeling a bit winter-porky, but now I'm instead sitting with a belly full of soup and a plan to go to bed by 9. Though I AM knackered, and the thought of my bed and book is so very nice! Ah, fuck it! What's a bit of winter chub?! I'll be glad of it if society crumbles into anarchy tomorrow (and it might... the weather forecast DID say light rebellion with a chance of anarchy.)!
On that utterly pointless and self-indulgent note... time for a cup of tea and a biscuit!

(WARNING: Schmaltzy content may offend some readers) Love is a four-letter word.

So is fear. And fall.
I never knew until now what it was to love someone this much, to actually feel for the first time ever that all the potential futures I barely dared to imagine can become reality. I never thought I'd look at someone and think "I don't ever want to be apart from you" or "I don't care what happens as long as we're together" (that is a dangerous sentiment... one should be careful what one wishes for...let it be known, Universe, that I am NOT daring you to present me with horrors on the proviso that I am with my loved one when they happen. I'd like no horrors, thanks!) (It sounds so corny, doesn't it? I'd have made spewing motions and retching noises a year ago!) But what amazes me is that in the midst of feeling happier than I ever have before, I find myself at my less rational times of the month, when reason is nowhere to be seen and raw emotion batters me in spasmodic waves, to be indulging in dystopian fantasies of betrayal, disinterest, heartbreak and loss. The higher you are, the farther you fall. And so, here I am, with my life at its very best, and consequently, so much to fear losing. I think I must be testing myself, saying, "okay, you're afraid of the worst thing happening? Well here it is! How does it feel? What about this version?! And this one?! Wham! Pow! Bam!"
It's a mad world, being a chick sometimes (or being THIS chick, anyways). You can step outside yourself and make an objective assessment, but ultimately you inhabit a place too messy and knotty to allow a clear view the bulk of the time.
I am trying to teach myself a new mantra though, a happier and more hopeful one;
Love is a four-letter word. So is home. And safe.

Fad No #7: TRIVIA NIGHTS (or, I'm not wearing my underpants on the outside tonight)

There was a period last year when I was VERY into the Trivia Night. A small core group of us used to go down to (insert generic local inner Melbourne pub here) for a weekly Triv night. There were a lot of other 20/30-somethings in little knots of light beer drinking Wednesday night cameraderie, whooping, whispering, covertly texting housemates and friends, battling it out for the free jug of beer and the peer kudos of being champions for the night. Our team consistently had (despite its variable team composition of friend of friend ring-ins) the name I'm Not Wearing My Underpants On The Outside Tonight, in response to another team by the name of The Caped Crusaders. We thought we were rather clever, and it pained the poor rent-a-quiz-master lady to announce our name each week, which gave us a flash of collective childish glee! I have mostly lost touch with that group now, but I miss the regular meet-up and the playfulness of the event, and the feeling that despite being a bit of an old lady party-pooper, I was still 'going out'. Oh, and the brain-flexing and thinky stuff. Me like thinky stuff real good.

Fad No# 6: TREE-CHANGE

Noise pollution, air pollution, light pollution, mind pollution. Sometimes I love this city with an aching tenderness, with its throbbing undercurrent of activity and potential, and other times I feel like I'm netted in a tangle of grit, static and hard grey edges. The boy and I are looking to buy land together away from the city. No-one real can afford a sea-change anymore, so the new, groovy weekend-magazine term is the "tree-change". We want to run away, have our own little hideaway, our own little piece of somewhere. It'll just be somewhere to go camping at first, a guaranteed private spot where we can set up mini-projects (I have a lovely pit toilet in mind!) and practise things like mud-bricks and simple building structures. Then who knows... we might run away there for good. Build a house and move t'country!

Wobbly

I am very tired, it is not advisable to blog when you are fatigued. A powernap could save my life. But instead, here I am, whispering into cyberspace, "I feel fragile. I am wobbly. Push me too hard, and like a jellyfish my skin might burst open and shower you with salt-water." Is it because I am a whoah-man, (So I Married An Axe-Murderer), or is it because I am just me, and me has a tendency to wobble, to take things the wrong way? Or am I just a big wanker who thinks she's a bit of a poet but is really just embarrassing herself?
Yeah, I reckon it might be that!