The Waiting Man

So... a couple of weeks ago, we went to watch the first of three annual 'State of Origin' Rugby League games at a relatively local pub with some friends... a sort-of-tradition started by a workmate of my L-SP's about three years ago.

After tolerating the average pub food, the surrounding idiots & yobbos & being too close to the constantly-opening-doors for warmth & comfort, both L-SP & I made the offer of hosting the next game-viewing at our place, promising better food, atmosphere & warmth...& a much bigger TV screen than most pubs could offer (Ours is rather large!!).

Beware the casual offer made in the heat of the moment. About three days ago, it dawned on us that we had a party of five to feed & water. So, off to a bulk-meat supplier, liquor shop, supermarket & a couple of last-minute-panic-purchase purveyors & by kick-off tonight we were able to supply a pretty decent three-course meal for five people at probably less cost than the nearest pub would offer.

The home team won... there was precious little in the way of leftovers & the main excitement was provided after the game by the discovery of a mouse in the kitchen. The slippery little bugger evaded capture & release, but don't worry... I have a very good idea of where its lair is, but have been expressly forbidden to lay down poison baits, so we're relying on a few 'humane' traps to do the job.

Problem is... our kitchen backs onto the back yard via a door which is mostly kept open due to the presumed 'need' of the dog which lives upstairs in our duplex.Frankly, I'm amazed it's taken this long to have any kind of problem & at the same time I'm relieved it's only mice & not something bigger in the rodent family. And they say dogs are great catchers of rodents... Judging by the lack of mouse carcasses around here, I say that's a load of stool-juice!!

Never a dull moment here at WaitingManor...

We had some people around for dinner last night ~ a kind of low-key quasi-housewarming party for our newly, nearly combined residential status. We were expecting to feed five, including us, bought enough food & drink for probably a few more people than that, then ended up with just four of us.

Four people managed to get through:~

A generous helping of tuna, salmon & kingfish sashimi.
A rather nice goat's milk cheese, pesto dip & crackers
Honey & lemon grilled chicken wings.
Two Tandoori ling fillets in slightly-larger-than-bite-size pieces.
A rather large amount of Patatas Bravas
Four scotch fillet steaks & a motherlode of pork chipolatas
Accompanying salads... yes, plural... & four corn cobs.
An exceptional apple crumble baked & brought by our guests, served with ice cream.

With very little in the way of leftovers ~ about one small container's worth, which we made them take home. After which we lay around like walruses for a while, trying not to contemplate the precarious mountain of dishes, glasses & cutlery awaiting washing in the kitchen.

It's now nearly two in the afternoon the following day & I'm still not hungry...

Today feels like the first day since finishing my last job at the end of March that I've been able to 'get on with my life' so to speak...

The 5 day trip through NSW, ACT & Victoria, then the inevitable chaos of the Easter holiday & finally today I can sit & go through neglected e-mails, photos, job applications, crosswords, unfinished books... unfinished easter eggs... that sort of thing. The downside is that the apprehension over unemployment & the dwindling of the bank account has arrived as well.

But there is a light that never goes out...

As so often happens with me, I don't post for days on end, then you get three within hours of each other...

This one's because I've been reading the Sydney Morning Herald online while waiting for various cooking stuff to happen.

An interesting article on rearing the modern male ( I've fixed the link!)

Where do we stand on boys/men who cry... & what's acceptable for us to cry about?

Myself, I only seem to tear up when I'm completely emotionally overwhelmed & I find that words aren't doing their job conveying just how f@cked up I am/the situation is. I suffer from what Van Morrison calls 'Inarticulate Speech Of The Heart' (great phrase, I just can't stand him!!) & my gifts of gab & vocab desert me when discussing or conveying those ineffable feelings which rend from the inside, leaving me not only hurt/confused/lost but also frustrated at my inability to communicate effectively ~ something I normally pride myself on.

By contrast, I haven't cried from physical pain in living memory... & I can remember back to about the age of 4. I remember yelling in pain & surprise when I burnt my hand on a hot iron, but I don't remember crying... nor when I fell off a bike onto the sharp edge of a steel toolbox ~ being about ten or eleven by then, I'm pretty sure all I did was use every schoolboy swearword I knew. But one of the memories which popped up thinking about this is how embarrassed I was when a supposed 'tough guy' friend fell seven feet from a tree whilst trying to reach a roof, paused for a couple of seconds, then burst into tears & wailed incommunicably 'til we reached his home, whereupon his mother told me to go home & he was ushered inside. Funnily enough, the incident was never mentioned again ~ the male code of honour being genetically imprin... oops!!

Back to preparing dinner for me... Over to you... anybody...??

I had a nightmare last night. This is notable for only two things. First: I seldom have them. Second: Some indistinct/unseen entity was trying to choke me... just like the last nightmare I had a few months ago. I hate it when my subconscious gets shirty...

Enough ~ here is the world as it is...


Near Home

( And as I've made it )

A day of highs & lows... interesting bits & dull ones, small achievements & things-to-do left undone.

Low ~ an idiot in an annoying t-shirt ("Well actually, the world does revolve around me"... I wanted to hit him with a chair!), standing at the gapingly open main entrance to Debtor's Prison, in front of the sign proclaiming 'Open 7 Days', looking over at me & yelling "Are you open?!!"... at 11am.

No dickhead, I always leave the doors wide open & the lights on when the joint's closed... & you obviously think I live here...admittedly it feels like it at the moment...

Interesting ~ the way the police put their finger on the one strange aspect of the AoM's crime spree almost immediately... With all the things he's done before this, why haven't we called in the cops before now?. I know I suggested it over a month ago while I was down in Melbourne. There's something fishy going on... in fact I know there's stuff I haven't been privy to.

And they have a knack for making you feel like an idiot for not informing them sooner, which no amount of "I know! I wanted to, but the owners didn't!" can assuage.

Now... home, King Crimson on the sound system, dinner being plotted & prepared, DVDs to watch & more waiting to be done...

But I'm good at that.

Unexpectedly home... I should be grateful, as the expected was to be in Castle Hill being droned on at about slow-combustion fireplaces.

In the absence of anything exciting, I've caved in & submit a meme in lieu of important stuff... or stuff that's important to me at least...

Swiped unashamedly & unapologetically from GinMartini ~ who cheerfully admits she swiped it from someone else.

Wearing
- my 20-something yr old brown boots
- blue jeans
- blue t-shirt
- striped navy L/S shirt
- the ubiquitous red socks

Wishing
- someone would write my gov't job applications for me
- I'd remembered to take something out of the freezer this morning for dinner
- I could see certain people more often

Today...
- I gave an employee a written warning
- I forgot to buy petrol on Cheap Tuesday
- I played King Crimson on the store PA system... I thought it sounded great!!
- is (Not Enough) Pay-Day Eve

Tomorrow...
- I have honourable intentions to walk to & from work (see #2 of 'Today')
- will doubtless be full of few surprises
- is the birthday of someone from my past. I just can't remember who...

Following a viewing of The Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert on DVD, as a recovery session/master-class, I've had a lesson from Brian May on how to remember chords & lead lines for a variety of songs, I am abashed.

For that matter, Tony Iommi of Black Sabbath learned a bunch of Queen & other songs for just the 1 gig. I am shamed.

I need to practise my scales.

However... the DVD misses out on the great sets by Exrtreme, Metallica & various others (including, fortunately, Guns 'n'Roses), that make the video worth keeping. And you'd think they'd be able to spell the lead singer of Metallica's name correctly in the credits... Even I know it's Hetfield!!

Nobody cooks fish on a hotplate like I do...

I agree with this guy. Every year... no matter what the personal take or slogan ~ the message is the same. 'C' is for Capitalism. Doesn't matter what encyclicals the new Pope, or whoever, has released this year, 'X'mas has become the capitalist excuse for 11.85 months of regret, neglect & fatuousness & it has become accepted practice that a box of Guylian chocolates will cover a multitude of sins... 'til February.

However self-obsessed/absorbed I get, I should not forget the rest of the world... Ergo ~

I forgot a friend's birthday from 6 days ago... what kind of fool/friend am I???!!

Thanks to Bruce Springsteen for the title, but only because it's shorter than my preferred "13 channels of shit on the TV to choose from", thanks to Roger Waters...

So, sometimes my Foxtel subscription gives me the... browns. I ask you ~ How is it possible for an entire network of countless channels (only because I haven't counted them... but it's a large amount...), still have nothing worth watching for hours at a time??!!

This is the price you pay for looking for distraction when you should be working. After last night's successful DVD distraction that became inspiration instead, tonight I thought I'd turn to the zeitgeist for... well, anything, really...

Okay, so I watched the supposed season finale of House, channel-surfing through the myriad ad breaks to Spicks'n'Specks & The Chaser Decides on the ABC, which kept me up-to-date for any potential water-cooler conversations that won't ever happen at my place of slavery employment, given that Junior has the brain-power & social awareness of a 26-year coma patient, but a man can live in hope...

But things got worse after prime-time when I relied on my Foxtel to present me with something... anything to enjoy watching instead of heading for the computer room to face recording a vocal track. I know I'll have to do it eventually, but at least I now know it won't be until at least Friday, as I'll be out to dinner with a valued friend tomorrow night... Suffice to say that I have access to more channels than Bruce or Roger dreamt possible, but their observations hold true despite the numerical inaccuracy.

Even the bloody cricket's over & the Sports channels can't be bothered showing a decent highlights package... they're showing bloody poker games instead!! Since when is that a spectator sport!!??

Waah!!!

Where's my Peter Gabriel DVD...

It's nice to find that something you've been putting off for a while, thinking it would be too difficult, turns out to be easier than you thought.

I spent this afternoon avoiding the glorious, brilliant sunshine, bunkered down in the computer room at the 'Manor recording guitar parts for various tunes, realising I hadn't written enough lyrics & trying to get back into last week's headspace to write more ~ a task I didn't enjoy quite so much, but 2 out of 3 ain't bad...

Having mastered the art of recording with both DI & microphone inputs, tomorrow's challenge is to multi-track vocal ideas over the top of today's hard-won guitar lines, then playing with the various on-board effects to make my voice sound interesting or, at the very least, palatable.

Home from an early drinks/dinner engagement, nowhere near as drunk as I'd like to be. Given that I didn't get anywhere near as drunk as I wanted to be last night either (post-nightmare gig), I feel I owe it to myself to open a bottle of red, finish writing some lyrics & watch House 'til I start seeing 2 Hugh Lauries, then go to bed after the novelty & pleasant surprise of 3 Jennifer Morrisons starts to wear off...

As SarinG could tell you, there was a thunderstorm in my neighbourhood on Saturday night. What made this one memorable was the huge FLASH!!! & simultaneous BOOOM!!! at about 10.30pm which tripped the protector switch in the fusebox, triggered my car alarm & scared the crap out of us.

The following morning, we discovered a tree outside had been struck & had left most of its bark & shards of wood over about a 25m radius, including on top of OBluV8, which explained the alarm going off. There's a substantial crack in the main trunk of the tree which makes it appear likely that soon I'll have a better view of the NYE fireworks than previous years.

The downside is that the EMP unleashed by the lightning fried the ethernet port on my modem (as suspected by Reynardo & confirmed by Obtuse) so I've been sans internet & e-mail until today, when I'm taking full advantage of a relatively quiet morning to read & answer mail & see what you lot have been up to.

( What I've Been Up To )

So now, at work, it's the rain, the wind, Fripp & Eno & me...