Trysting Fields

Hello, Blog (redux)

It's wet today. It's nice. I was woken up by the garbage truck at 9am this morning and realised I'd forgotten to put the bins out. So I did. Then I went back to bed until midday.

I started back at work on Monday. This is A Good Thing. I've become waaay too reclusive over the break.

I think my 'new' housemate - he still seems new even though he's been here three months, partly coz he went away for a month quite soon after moving in, and partly coz time has been frozen on Planet T lately - has decided I'm a freak.

He actually said this, more or less, late one drunken night in January. "It's funny the things you discover about people once you get to know them a bit better. Like you: before I started living with you, I totally thought you were normal."

I LOL'd. I was, actually, much more normal before he moved in. Or at least playing normal much more convincingly.

So it goes. I hope he doesn't feel conned.

We still seem to be getting along fine, even though he's decided I'm not normal.

What else? I got a new camera a few days ago, finally. It's a DSLR; sexy but overwhelming. I'm kind of scared of it. I haven't actually charged the battery and set it up yet.

But I will.

Sunday Afternoon

Birthday

It's certainly been a memorable one. I liked it much better than last year's.

Prize for the best party guest overall goes to Patrick. Prize for the most liable for nothing party guest is a three-way tie between Shane, The Sorcha, and, of course, Coburg.

Prize for the best party guest who wasn't there physically but came in essence goes to Wads. Prize for the most missed party absentee is a tie between Em and this chick. Prize for the best party guest who did attend physically, but who I unfortunately never actually got around to talking to is a three-way tie between Li, Kav, and The Major. Prize for the best (if maybe in hindsight somewhat regrettable) picture of a My Little Cthulhu Bunny goes to Magnus.

Prize for the most devastating headfuckery goes to my housemate & ex-fiancee. Prize for the most comically hypocritical abusive emails goes to Henley. Prize for the most awesome drunken deep & meaningful alleyway convo goes to Liv. I'm not sure what exactly to award the artist formerly known as Semi, but I suspect he deserves a prize of some kind - or that if he doesn't now, he may well before too long.

Prize for the most broken nose goes to Luke. Prize for the most blood cheerfully & unsolicitedly cleaned up as a result of a broken nose goes to Harrie. Prize for the driest one-liners (always) and best wildlife photography goes to Ramm. Prize for the best shisha lesson goes to Nichk. Prize for the heterosexual male with the most sophisticated understanding of little girls' pop music (and also the special award for getting locked in the enclosed garden off my bedroom by a psycho chick person I'm sure is lovely once you get to know her, and then being too wasted to think of calling someone to let him out) goes to Grimsey.

Prize for the best nail-painting (and best former housemate ever) goes to Cel. Prize for the best hungover breakfast-making and tidying up goes to Kat. Prize for the oldest and most enduring friend goes to Tally. Prize for the best anonymous benefactor goes to whoever sent me the copy of M2M's second album I found in my mailbox yesterday.

Prize for the best present (y'know, apart from causing me to be born in the first place and shit) goes to my parents.

Prize for the best sister in the entire fucking world bar none goes to this bitch.

Prize for the best mistress - and inexpressible amounts of gratitude & love - goes to Schnozzie.

Thanks, everyone.

Chez Hagakure G&T Sock Swap

With Liv.

(Previously; previously.)

Chez Hagakure Tea & Pizza Shapes Meet

Starring this chick.

(Previously; previously; previously; previously; previously; elsewhere.)

Reputered.

At long freaking last.

In the meantime, my two primary gmail accounts, my Facebook account and my TypePad (blog) account were hacked & rendered inaccessible. Oy.

I've managed to resecure the blog account, at least, thanks to a friendly cookie which recognised my machine. Bless that cookie. No damage appears to have been inflicted. The only evidence of intrusion is that the answer to my secret security question ("What is your mother's maiden name?") has changed from "Symington" to "whore".

Charmed, I'm sure.

Cunts.

Here - nested all meta-style - is an earlier entry I scrawled freehand on Tuesday, and was planning to post at the 'ternet caff that evening but couldn't, because I'd been hacked:

Munted.

Is the word of the week. As in "Man, I got munted on Saturday night." And I did. I really did.

At 10pm I was summoned by Wouters to a party in the Brunswick area. I was only going to stay out for two hours or so on account of: (a) I was supposed to be working the following day -

(In other news: I started working at the doodle palace again last week; it's been almost as much of a shock to my system as Rainbow. But in a significantly less good way.)

- and (b) I didn't actually know the person who's party it was or anyone else who was going to be there. Or so I thought..

As it turned out.. ah, it's quite a funny story, but it's also a bit complex and at least four of my five remaining readers basically know it already.

Suffice to say a munting good time was had, this being only improved - and further enmunted - by the semi-random appearance of none other than the mysterious and extraordinary Thad at an advanced stage of the evening. (Update 8 Feb: I've encountered him twice more since then. I think he's stalking me. Or someone I know. But I don't mind at all.)

I didn't make it to work. I'm not sure how I made it home. I'm really not.

In other muntedness news, I'm having a party tomorrow night. It's going to be pretty good. If you are reading this and you know my street address, you can come.

Still Puterless!!!

Still.

Avoid these people. They will quote you four days on the repair of your eMac, then keep it for ten with no end in sight. They can't even tell me how much it's going to cost. At this rate I won't be paying them anyway.

Fuck this shit. I'm going to Rainbow Serpent.

Hooray for everything (except puterlessness)!

Puterless!

Totally and utterly 'puterless. Still. I'm posting this from an internet cafe on Brunswick St.

It really does feel like I've entered a strange alternate (originally typed: "alternet") dimension.

It's quite good. It's a PAIN IN THE ASS. But it's certainly novel.

In other news: Happy first birthday, Nada.

Your birthday present is that you are now officially allowed outside to wander wither you will.

We look forward to seeing what you make of the world beyond the fortresslike confines of Chez Hagakure, and what it makes of you.

So, Things That Need Fixing:

• My eMac (can't take audio input, even via an external mic; this is No Good At All)
• My TV (does not really need to be fixed; just needs a new adapter coz the old one got wet and died) (see also: DVD player)
• My camera, apparently

Amount of spare cash I have lying around: none.

Prostitution is looking real good right now. I think it would pay better than conducting legitimate social research, be more fun, and also do more to make the world a better place.

But how do you get into the industry? Is there a TAFE course or something?

There Is A Dead Cat In The Gutter Outside My House

I really wanted to take a picture and post it, but my camera has mysteriously died also.

So it goes.

Update (Tuesday) - Cruddy phone-camera pic:

To Do List

Hooray For Renovated Bathrooms

(Previously and previouslyer.)

She Was Under The House

Yes, she must have gotten down there via the hole in the bathroom floor created by the removal of the former bathtub.

She emerged when I removed the grate from this previously weed-encrusted portal in the back garden yesterday.

She's a bit rattled and she's lost a lot of weight, but apart from that she seems fine.

Phantom Kitty (Mewl Without A Cat)

For the last three days, I've been hearing Nads mewl. In my bedroom, in the dining room, in the hallway, in the living room. She always sounds like she's somewhere nearby.

I'm sure it's her.

Have I seen her? No. Has she eaten any food? No.

This is nuts, man.

Hairy

I haven't shaved in a week.

Four days, they tell me.

Domestica, Discombobulation etc

Nada has run away.

Can't say I blame her. But I hope she comes back.

Update (10:10pm): She's back.

Random Brunswick Street Encounters, Part Deux & Other Assorted

(Previously.)

This afternoon a waifish aboriginal chick came up and asked me if I had any change. I said no, which was a lie but generally my policy in such situations.

She noticed I was wielding an unlit cigarette, and asked if I needed a light. Again, I said no (thanks). Which, conversely, I thought was true.

"You have a good day," she said nicely, and continued on her way.

I fished into my pocket for the lighter I thought I had, and realised I didn't actually have it.

So I chased after her and told her that I did, as it turned out, need a light after all.

"You looked like you didn't have one," she said with a quiet smile.

I gave her a dollar, and went to hand the lighter back.

"Nah, that's okay," she said. "I've got about six of them."

Maybe you had to be there.

My only regret concerning this encounter, which totally rebrightened my day -

(Said day having turned, from promising beginnings, to shitty slit-yer-wrists shit when it became apparent that I'd probably irretrievably lost my bag, containing my camera and my visual diary, in a taxi yesterday.

Which would have been really bad, and totally fucking sucked.

Turns out I'd left it at work the doodle palace. Phew.

But I digress.)

- was that I didn't ask her if she could assist me in my ongoing quest for time machine fuel.

(Note to blog readers: TIME MACHINE FUEL IS SOUGHT.)

In other news: please excuse the rambling, discombobulated nature of this post.

Two and a half hours sleep, see.

I had to be up at six this morning to receive some people who came to strip the asbestos from my bathroom.

(Now the bathroom looks like this:

)

And I didn't get to sleep until 3:30am, because some broad whose name I forget [*] was fucking hardcore with my head.

Although she denies doing it deliberately. And in any case, I'm really just fucking hardcore with my own head, and attributing said headfuckery to an external source.

Which is, ultimately, all that any of us are ever doing.

(It pays to remember this sometimes.)

I fully hardcore fall down go boom now.

[*] I think maybe her name is Audrey.

I remember, very early on in our acquaintance, suspecting that might be her name and addressing her as such.

"Who's Audrey?" she replied, all blinking wide-eyed incomprehension. Although in fact she knew damn well exactly who Audrey was. And she knew damn well that I knew that she knew. And that I knew that she knew that I knew that she knew. And in general, things were Known. You know how it goes, hypothetical blog reader.

In hindsight I might have imagined the blinking wide eyes.

Anyroad, I was well smitten and from that point on there was no turning back.

But that's a whole 'nother story for a whole 'nother time, if ever there was one.

It's Time For Another New Post

That happened fast.

Here is a picture of the ink cart I bought on the way to work this afternoon:

Here are some doodles I did once I got there:

Here is a picture of ~'s stuff in the hall, just before we moved it all out earlier this evening:

Here is the schedule of cleaning I am going to do over the next week or so month:

Here is a picture of the stirfry I made for dinner:

Here is a picture of Nada the no-longer-a-kitten-not-yet-a-cat's dinner:

Here is a picture of some washing I just hung up:

Here is a picture of the bed I am going to now, that perhaps I may dream of posts more interesting than this one:

Good night.

It's Time For A New Post

Today is the first day of spring. Happy spring!

My housemate of the past eleven months is moving out on Monday. Au revior, Jaye. My previous housemate Bentendo moved out around this time last year.

Time, eh.

Now I need a new one. But first the bathroom has to be renovated. The bath is sinking and tiles keep falling out of the wall. It's no good.

What else? Um, I've been selected for jury duty, which is weird. I didn't even realise we had jury duty in this country. I guess they have to get jurors from somewhere.

Possibly The Roast I Cooked On Saturday Night

In between taking pictures of lid arrangements and doodles.

They're nice when it's cold.

I Don't Know

It's late, and I'm really drunk on wine & port & Charles Barkley (nb not that Chales Barklay) whiskey and ~ is cooking meatballs in the kitchen whilst Wortwut sits on the folded-out futon couch.

And I'm Concerned.

I wish you the very best.

Really do.

More Kitty Pics

As requested.

She's four months old now.

She's grown quite a blt - although according to the vet who vaccinated her two weeks ago, she's surprisingly small for her age.

She still likes hiding (if thankfully not quite as much as before). And she's still very lovely.

Possibly better pics TK once I regain my proper camera (currently being fixed).

Yes, She's Lovely

She's not perfect.

But she's lovely.

Kitten

On Saturday 7th - in fulfillment of a long-held ambition - I went out to the Lort Smith Animal Hospital cattery and adopted a beautiful 10-week old black and white medium-haired domestic kitten. I named her Nada Zero.

(Anniversarial moment of silence for Sammy the dog.)

I couldn't take her home straight away, though. She had to be spayed the following morning. She was then slated to star in my Easter Sunday post.

But overnight she came down with flu, and ended up having to spend a further week in the hospital.

I was finally able to bring her home on Monday night.

Then on Tuesday, she vanished. We concluded she must have run away - probably via the back door, which doesn't always close properly in wet weather.

I made up a bunch of posters and stuck them up around the place, and doorknocked our nearest neighbours. No one had seen her.

Later that evening, whilst I was on the phone to Freakley in our living room, she reappeared shyly and miraculously from the kitchen next door.

She'd been hiding the whole time under a fitted kitchen cupboard, accessible via a gap between the oven and said cupboard. We blocked off the gap with a blanket.

She then proceeded to spend most of Wednesday hiding under the futon couch.

But today she seems to be feeling a bit more at home.

We'd made her a bed out of some blankets and a cardboard box, and she's coming round to it.

She's lovely.

Announcement: Tomorrow Is Hard Rubbish Collection Day

I've So Finished

.. the long-overdue task of tabulating the fiddly stats in my stuff i did last year post. I was unable to compile them in Manchester because I had (a) insufficient access to the relevant data and (b) much better things to do.

I so have! They're at the bottom of the page, if you're interested. Alternately, you could just follow the link up there. Or, y'know, you could go and do something else entirely. See if I care, dear reader. See if I give a fuck.

Hey, you could go and visit Nada. She just posted, which is an event these days.

I like Nada. But then I'm a Nadaist; I think it's probably compulsory. Even if I wasn't a Nadaist I would probably still like her, though. Honest.

Speaking of returns from the dead: as some people reading this will know, I was becoming a bit concerned about the status of my housemate ~ who mysteriously completely vanished off the face of the earth on Thursday night; I've seen neither hide nor hair of him since.

But all is well; he turned up at about 9pm this evening, looking very sunburnt. Turns out he'd simply taken an impromptu trip to the coast, where his phone died. There's a lot of it about.

After a touching reunion, we watched Press Gang whilst I designed a new logo for my media company on "the old one was a pile of shit" grounds.

Life is good.

That is all.

Home Again

On the upside (of being delayed by 24 hours) I got to send my postcards personally, and to spend all night loitering in central London. There was no downside really.

In other news: Vale RAW. May the fnord etc.

Party II

It was a much quieter affair than the last one. But it was still good!

~ made sushi

Russian cocaine was served in abundance

First Hamish of the night

The drink's creator attended in A4 poster form

Nada came all the way from New Jersey - what's your excuse? - only to be strangled by ~ in a fit of paranoia. These things happen at Hagakure parties

Former Operative Johana (Hamish)

Former Operatives Reanimator (Scotch & Cola) and Li (rightly hiding in shame behind bottle of Cascade Light)

Semi (herbal tea and sympathy)

T. (fat rocks of crack, not shown)

Some woman dressed as Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz (not sure what she was on)

This crazy Japanese girl gave ~ a terrible time a while back, but he invited her anyway.

Reanimator, Li, ~, a russian mathematician and i ended up watching Fight Club by candlelight at about 3am. I did loads of bulbs.

It was good.

~'s Mother Bought A Cow

So now our freezer is full of frozen cow.

She also gave us some duck eggs.

I boiled one and had it for breakfast.

It was well tasty.

The Cleaning Is So Done

This makes me happy.

Sparkly clean bedroom

Sparkly clean living room

My Mother, Of All People

.. has sent me a dozen bottles of wine.

And a bottle of champagne in a package with two glasses.

It's an air-miles thing. She flies a lot.

Thanks, Mum!

Stuff I Did This Week

               

- Exhaustively cleaned the kitchen, the dining room, the hallway, the laundry, and the bathroom.

- Made sixteen phonecalls, took seven phonecalls, attended interviews with three people, and lodged one detailed & tedious application form in pursuit of new revenue streams. Ate dodgy Japanese food on Chapel Street; gawped at people hanging on Chapel Street.

- Visited Bentendo at his new place.

He has a very nice view of the city, which I was unable to photograph for security reasons

- Reincarnated my old mobile - which I thought I'd lost, eventually replaced, and later found - as a second phone, via the purchase of a $25 prepaid SIM card.

- Updated my address book and phone contacts.

- Succesfully enticed a professional tiler into assessing dire bathroom tile issue situation, pictured. (They refused to replace the tiles, arguing that the only meaningful solution was to retile the whole bathroom.)

- Made an elaborate pictoral blog post about cooking harira.

- Inspired by trawling my own blog archives, figured out how to region-unlock my DVD player.

- Made a disastrous birthday card.

- Stupidly trammed it all the way out to the RSPCA in Burwood East to buy a kitten, only to discover that - it not quite being kitten season yet, see - they didn't have any. (Note to self: next time ring ahead.)

- Got shitfaced at The Mint and elsewhere again with Jo, Xade, Rorschach, Jaye deKoan and sundry others. An unshaven Tript was vaguely encountered somewhere in the vicinity of the Victoria Markets at around 1am. About two people at least one of whom I did not previously know ended up on my foldout couch watching Reservoir Dogs.

- Recorded a cover of Always On My Mind with my associate Mishuki One for H419.

- Made an elaborate pictoral blog post about things I did this week.

- Watched entire series of John Safran vs God (purchased secondhand last Sunday for $5).

- Went to the gym five times.

- Wrote 36 emails to 15 people.

- Et cetera.

First Day Of Spring, Motherfuckers

And you can feel it in the air.

This week has been mostly about the cleaning.

I tried unsuccessfully to buy a cat yesterday. But when I woke up this morning, one was wandering around the house anyway. It must have scaled the garden wall and got in through the back door, which I forgot to secure last night.

It was not particularly inclined to be photographed.

Harira

Another culinary adventure inspired by the house of Rorsch & Semi (see also).

You will need:

• 500g of lamb


• Olive oil


• 2 chopped onions


• 4 cloves of crushed garlic


• 1.5 teaspoons of cumin & 2 teaspoons of paprika


• 1 bay leaf


• 2 tablespoons of tomato puree


• 1 cup of soup stock (Rorsch recommends VeCon if you can't be bothered making your own stock. I recommend Bovril.)


• 500g of washed, soaked and cooked chickpeas


• 2 cans of chopped tomatoes


• 3 tablespoons of fresh, chopped coriander


• 3 6 tablespoons of fresh, chopped flat-leaf parsley


• Turkish bread

1. Saute onion and garlic until soft.
   


2. Add meat, and brown.
   


3. Add cumin, paprika & bayleaf, and cook "until the fragrance makes your eyes start to water".
   
   
   


4. Add tomato paste and cook for a couple more minutes, stirring continuously.
   
   
   


5. Add stock & chopped tomatoes, stir and bring to boil ("by now you should be able to feel the spice on the back of your pharynx").
   
   
   


6. Add chickpeas coriander and parsley.
   
   
   


7. Bring to boil.
   


8. Simmer for 1 1/2-2 hours or until lamb is tender.
   


9. Serve, garnished with extra coriander and parsley, and warm turkish bread.
   

Alone Again

For the moment, anyway.

And you know what? That's the way I like it. Baby.

Don't get me wrong, people. I love yiz. I do. You remind me so much of me, in so many ways.

And some of you are really cool.

But let's face it.

You're way over-rated.

My Housemate's Stuff Is All Packed In Boxes

He, and his little brother, are moving out next Saturday.

Soon all of this:

.. will be just a distant memory.

And they're leaving me the espresso machine! Score.

I think a party may finally be in order.

Toenails.

Continuing the theme.

I've been meaning to do this for ages.

Salmon Semi-Functional (ala Teigan)

You will need:

• Roasting potatoes
• Pumpkin
• Broccoli
• Dill, rosemary & salt
• Ginger & garlic
• Salmon cutlets
• Spinach (or alternately lettuce, if perchance the spinach you thought you had looks like this:
  
  ... and smells even worse)
• Soy sauce
• Honey
• Parsley
• A lemon

1. Preheat oven to 200C whilst parboiling chopped potatoes for 5 minutes.
   


2. Put the potatoes in a pan with olive oil, dill, rosemary and salt. Roast in oven for 30 minutes.
   


3. Remove pan from oven. Turn the potatoes, and add the pumpkin. Return to the oven for a further 30 minutes. Turn once more, then return to oven again until serving time.
   


4. Commence steaming broccoli.
   


5. Meanwhile, melt butter in a frypan and saute garlic & ginger for 1 minute on medium heat.
   


6. Add salmon cutlets.
   


7. Turn heat to high for one minute and sear both sides. Return flame to medium.
   


8. Add a few of drops of soy sauce, a smidgeon of honey, and a handful of chopped coriander and a little parsley. Cook as one would a steak.
    
   


9. Five minutes before serving, remove salmon from pan (keep warm in oven), add spinach lettuce, and stir through the juices in the pan.
   


10. Serve salmon on bed of spinach lettuce, accompanied by boiled roast potatoes in their jackets and some steamed butternut pumpkin and steamed broccoli.
    


11. Lemon juice to taste.
    

It worked for this fish wuss.

(Thanks, SFHB.)

Comme une chocolat dans le soleil

Oh the irony.

Sammy - who is very old and has a chronic illness - has taken awful sick. For the last two weeks or so he's been extremely lethargic and has hardly been able to keep any food down. I took him to the vet last week. She gave him some medication but it hasn't helped.

He hasn't moved from his mat in the corner of the living room for three days, and has basically given up eating & drinking.

I'm taking him to the vet again tomorrow, for the last time.

It's funny. Quite a number of people who he doesn't even know will miss him. I wish I could tell him about his blog-derived fanbase. I'm sure it would make him happy.

He was always very guarded and self-contained, and many mistook this for indifference. But he loved people. Other dogs, he could take or leave; I suspect this made him kind of lonely, but it's one of the qualities I've always admired about him. Dogs are such whores, generally. He was a trouper and always carried himself with quiet dignity. (Except when he was being a goon.)

Bye bye Sammy.

UPDATE (Monday 3rd) - He's rallied! I woke up to find his bed empty, and followed a long, telltale trail of liquid shit through the kitchen to the garden, where he was up and walking around.

Not sure what to do now. I guess we'll give him a day or two, see what happens.

Washing Sammy

My sister left some potplants on the front porch for a few hours whilst in the process of moving out, and they were stolen. She was most aggrieved. Coincidentally, my own potplants (the pointsettia and the torture victim) have vanished in the kerfuffle without a trace

A Solitary Cupboard Is All Very Well

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!

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)

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.