But one tires of it.
Which is partly why I am moving next month, to the house in Fitzroy I was minding for a period last year.
I’m excited!
Monthly Archives: January 2006
Sydney
My trip to Sydney the other weekend went well.
I like Sydney. (There, I said it.)
Saturday
I travelled by bus because it was $70 cheaper than flying. This was a mistake
Sunday
I arrived about 8am on Sunday morning, and wandered around looking dazedly at the pigeons in that park across from the bus depot whose name I can never remember. Someone somehow scabbed a lit cigarette out of my hand whilst I was talking on the phone
Then got a bus to Newtown, where I was staying with baby sis (the trains were broken)
She met me at this cafe across from the station. Several witnesses will confirm my version of events
She is living in a pretty yellow house
We hung out for a bit. I had a nap. Then we went down to her local, which is called ‘Zanzibar’. She seems to like it there. She had a voucher for free tapas, pictured
Then I went out to to dinner at a Lebanese restaurant in Surrey Hills, because it was someone’s birthday
After dinner we went back to my friend whose birthday it was’s house and she showed us some of her birthday presents
Upon returning to the yellow house, sis’s housemates informed me that she was still at Zanzibar so I went up & joined her there
We met an incredibly fucked up chick – we’ll her ‘Rhiannon’ – who, in between frequent trips to what she referred to as the ‘refreshment lounge’, insisted in very forceful terms that I take a picture of her breasts and post it to my blog
After closing sis & I went back to the yellow house and watched Kill Bill vol. 2 on her baby iBook, sat out on her balcony. It was nice
Monday
A forecast trip to the beach in the morning was cancelled due to inclement weather so we just slept and hung around the house.
When it stopped raining in the afternoon we went out for coffee & food on King Street. Then I met my friend of the birthday at a Vietnamese restaurant down the road. She was a bit sad and I did not take a picture.
Once she’d finished her soup we caught a bus to the Hollywood Hotel where further gatherage had been arranged
Even the beautiful old-world porcelain fittings there could not stave off the dreaded urinal performance anxiety
Baby sis (left) eventually joined us, partly I think because I told her there would be karaoke. We didn’t end up doing karaoke. I was kind of disappointed
The gathering dispersed and sis & I returned compasslike to Zanzibar, where I threw up. Unfortunately I forgot to take a picture until after flushing the lounge chair
Tuesday
Bus back to Melbourne. Slept, read, listened to music, and talked for way too long on the phone
That is all.
Happy
Yay!
I’ve finally compiled my “Stuff I Did Last Year” post, which had become the object of increasingly dire procrastinatory enmirement over these past two weeks. It involved conducting a larger review of the year which I’d been dreading.
That was stupid of me. (Hindsight’s a wonderful thing.)
It may seem like I’ve been neglecting this blog – but the truth is I’ve been going half-demented thinking about what to do with it.
*sigh*
The only fly in my ointment today, however, is that I’ve accidentally deleted the audio file – which I really, really wanted to post – of a conversation conducted between myself and my neighbour on Thursday night.
We were discussing the most efficient way of killing everyone in our building. In the end we decided to get two pistols with a silencers and then just knock on each person’s door one by one. I would do upstairs, he would do downstairs. Simple, effective, no muss, no fuss.
The talks broke down, however, when it became apparent that my neighbour thought we should give ourselves up once the job was complete.
That seemed ridiculous to me. What kind of milksop goes on a merciless killing spree and then surrenders? “Gee, sorry about that. Here, let me spend the rest of my life in jail”? Fuck that.
I’m going to Sydney tonight, for the birthday of an old friend and to hang with baby sis, who is going backpacking overseas next month for a long time. I shall return on Tuesday evening. There will be pictures.
But then, once I get home, I’ll be working like a trojan through to Sunday. So don’t be anticipating too much action round these parts over the next week or so.
There are going to be changes. Good changes. Still not sure exactly what form they’ll take yet. But they’ll be good.
Finally, word up as always to all the good people I’ve been woefully neglecting in various ways of late (specifically: Agent Blabber, Alexis, Clover, Desci, Hits, Li, Nada, Reanimator, Simon Blackmoore and the mysterious, oracular Mr Simon Moon.. although somehow I feel sure that he, at least, is not offended).
Please be assured of my regard and that communques are pending as applicable.
Mercy Shown To Plant
Stung by allegations of monstrousness and impressed by its dogged refusal to die, I have decided to try encouraging the plant.
I stripped its dead leaves and I’ve been watering it and giving it a few hours by the window each day.
I’m not sure whether it’s grateful or whether it’s turned hostile. Its bare branches seem a bit menacing at times.
But it surely knows that if I go down, we go together.
I’m not too worried.
DVD Player
I bought a DVD player on Tuesday. I am going to use it to watch movies.
(I also had to get this ridiculous adapter because my TV only takes a coaxial antenna cable.)
It came with a remote control device, which I appreciate as my TV does not have one.
(My old remote caught fire in 2003 from a candle which overflowed onto my rug whilst I lay asleep. I was awoken at 4am by my smoke alarm wailing like a banshee, the most acrid smell imaginable assailing my olfactories, to find said remote illuminated and twitching like Brundle’s final half-machine incarnation in The Fly – a movie, incidentally, which I own on DVD – in the centre of a smouldering black hole in my rug.
But I digress.)
It also came with a voucher for two weeks’ free membership of WebFlicks, another NetFlicks-alike ala Bigpond Movies, which I have been contemplating joining for ages although I’ve resisted for financial reasons. Further investigation is called for on this front.
I was assured that my DVD player was multi-region capable, but neither my region 1 copy of Baise Moi nor – most disappointingly – my region 2 edition of the BFI‘s Early Films of Peter Greenaway Vol. 2 will really play properly. Which is sad.
(Now I need a DVD burner, which will provide a way around that problem.)
I have not yet actually watched a movie as such using the DVD player, but I have played the following movies on the DVD player in a wallpapery sort of a way:
That I Own
- From Dusk Till Dawn (10 years old this year; time flies)
- Josie & The Pussycats (best movie ever)
- A Clockwork Orange (i feel i should say something here, because I did for the other two.. er.. try the waaaine.. real ‘orrorshow etc etc)
That My Neighbour Rented
- Mr & Mrs Smith (the parts I paid attention to were good)
- Eulogy
(in which the presence of the evil Ray “loved by everybody” Romano is compensated for by that of the godlike Zooey Deschanel) - Fight Club (which I actually own, although my copy is held in Canberra by my friend the mysterious E)
Baby Sis Fractured Her Knee
About two months ago.
She fell out of a tree at 5:30 in the morning.
All she needs now is a parrot and a plank.
(I was going to mention this in the wedding post, but I forgot.)
To: j hawthorne
From: Trysting Fields Central Communications
Date: 3 January 2006 4:36:26 PM
On 03/01/2006, at 4:10 PM, j hawthorne wrote:
>how does this whole cumulative fare-evasion fines thing work, anyway?
Mine is only cumulative in the sense that I got fined twice in quick succession in December.
>how do they know you’ve been doing it over and over, and how much to
>charge you?
They don’t. The trams are basically an honor system. The driver is locked in a little box and passengers just hop on and off as they whim. Everyone’s supposed to validate their tickets (purchasable from a machine onboard) but hardly anyone ever does.
Then they have roaming inspectors who periodically lumber onboard like the fucking SS in their jackets, and flash badges (really) and ask to see everyone’s tickets.
There’s also undercover ones, disguised as normal passengers, who suddenly jump up in unison – like ‘this is a fare evasion raid motherfuckers’ – and inspect you when you are least expecting it.
They did a big blitz in December. I’ve been living in fear. I purchased a monthly pass!
>or do they just catch you once and nail you with a hefty fine?
That’s what they do. They’re supposed to escalate, I think, but somehow I’ve been fined $154 twice.
I’ve discovered that it’s an acceptable excuse to say you are running late [nb on trains only] – but this policy seems likely to be phased out.
>is riding the tram for free in melbourne like russian roulette?
Very much so. Financial public transport-based russian roulette.
Why are you so interested in the trams?!
Can I publish this exchange on my blog?
Houseplant Clings Valiantly
I’ve had this plant all year. It’s been doing pretty badly lately, having lost its favoured window position to my new poinsettia.
It almost died in the new year heatwave. I thought that it had died.
But I watered it experimentally yesterday, and it perked right up.
I think I’m deriving sadistic pleasure from sustaining it on the brink of death.
The poinsettia is doing well.
Happy New Year
These fireworks feel like an air raid. Seriously. When will they end? You keep thinking they’re tailing off then they ramp right up again.
It’s kind of cool.
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