Brisbane Male ThirtyOne

2008-07-24T20:55:00.002+10:00

Hello, and welcome to Art Club. This concept has been inspired by the timeless genius of Jazz Club.

Great.

Each day, I will be adding a new piece to this blog. Now, whether there are any other fans of the visual arts out in blogger land, we are just going to have to find out.

Crazy!

To kick things off, something from the local collection - Australia even. Sidney Nolan, the first Australian artist to break through the million dollar mark for a piece of his work.

Sidney Nolan, Ned Kelly 1946 - National Gallery of Australia

This is part of probably his most famous series of work, following the last days of Ned Kelly, a Victorian outlaw who has been the centre of a seemingly frenzied myth-making industry ever since his 1880 execution in Melbourne. Nolan's grandfather himself was part of the police gang sent into the countryside to track Kelly down.

The black armour with the bleak sunburnt country behind has almost made this painting an iconic piece of Australiana. So much so, that I was more than pleasantly surprised at the depth and range of the rest of Nolan's retrospective.

Wunderbar.

Welcome To Two Thou Eight

2008-01-12T13:58:00.000+10:00

Yes, it has been a while, hasn't it? 2007 was basically my family's annus horribulus, so by the end of it, raking over the coals of two dead grandparents and all the uncertainty of where will we live next week - well, it did feel a game show at some points, hmm. Just needed to take a bit of a break I guess.

So the big news is that the parents have moved, to Woop Woop 90210 (aka halfway to the Sunshine Coast), and because I wouldn't move with them - eight kays away from public transport, and I don't want to have to rely on the taxi service - I had even less time than them to find a rental place. Nundah to be precise, lots of rental places around here, and I must have looked at at least fifty of them online if not in real lol. By myself, which is a positive, with broadband (so am listening to Vancouver radio station at the moment, mmm the accents). Of course, setting the household up basically took all my savings, and the number of arguments with the close friends, well, let's just accentuate the positive :)

Although the New Year has started off delicately in another direction, had a seizure, the first in fourteen months, last weekend. Was all by myself at home as well, until someone decided to put a phone call in and start a general conversation. I was at that babbling stage, and then my parents were on the case and came and picked me up. Feeling uber crappy at work this week, had one day off sick, two doc appointments, one set of blood tests, which are epilim is low, liver count is high, play with the dosage and have more tests in two weeks. Uber crappy...

One two bedroom flat (one bedroom acting as a study) is four weeks bond, two weeks rent in advance, three ute tray loads of furniture from home, one x LCD TV, one x washing machine, one x fridge, one x microwave, one x computer, and endless trips to the supermarket. LOL I have fallen in love with Woolworths.

Work is same old same old. Staff are good, but work is less than good. Hope to have the next social drinks this coming Friday, fingers crossed more than three people will turn up... off to the parents for dinner tonight.

Later taters
Paul

Placeholder Mid Nov

2007-11-14T20:43:00.000+10:00

Yeah, I know, I am pathetic with attention here. Just so many other entertaining sites around, damn you to heck, Facebook LOL.

First named cyclone of the Queensland season is Goober - oops, I mean Guba, 400 kays east of Cape York at the moment. While the south east of the state is almost into Level Six restrictions, hmmph. They had on the news tonight some random prediction that there would be flooding in January, and they were reporting it as if this would be a good thing. Get your insurance in now, low lying flatlanders :)

And just as useless information number five hundred and twenty three, my top ten fave bands, as registered on the statistics of when I play music randomly are as in descending order - Radiohead, REM, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Crowded House, Green Day, Bee Gees, Billy Joel, Neil Diamond, U2 and Christina Aguilera.

Return Serve

2007-10-18T23:02:00.000+10:00

I'm not sure whether I can actually be coherent in this post or not, but may rather do bullet points or something, was stressed last week and am down, lurking close to depression, this week.

Had my monthly review at work last week - breezed through it, and I got a 'team member of the month' award this week, but one bit of the conversation with the boss stuck with me, and I wanted to remember it to put down on 'paper' here.

I said that I thought I was well enough liked in the team - boss said, don't think it, know it, and it is more than just liking, that my colleagues respect me. As if respect is important I was saying to myself - hell, I don't do it for myself, so why should others?

It is funny, I think I do a good enough job in the workplace because unlike some others around the place I can easily make the hard decisions and take responsibility for my actions, whereas others just wishy wash their way into doing not much of anything. Whereas my private life has very few hard decisions made, responsibility taken and the rest.

Running away from the hard issues and decisions in my personal life works well enough for me - or perhaps not.

Sometimes I wonder if I am manic depressive, sometimes it seems as if my moods can turn on a pin. Example - fab weekend just gone, Monday morning in the office and it all turns to shit.

Or perhaps I sabotage my own happiness - the 'we're not worthy' syndrome. Example, sending my work visa application when in Canada to the wrong consulate - Boston instead of Buffalo, or whatever it was. It just extended the timeframe before I could earn money, be semi independent and the rest by just a few more weeks, but those few weeks were the death knell of the relationship. Whether I was actually happy at the time is another question.

As well as currently, making decisions on the direction in life over the next X number of years, I am sure if I made a decision and stuck with it I would be happy, but no, I have to drag it out over the various coals for as extended a time as possible.

Maybe I have a pathological desire to be liked, and the greatest fear is to be rejected. Especially if that rejection came when showing weakness or vulnerability. Hence the confident, sometimes brash, sometimes obnoxious exterior I show in the wider world.

Does the word depression automatically make one a headcase nutjob?

Am very much in Retreat From The World mode right the last couple of days.

May write despatches, or I might see you on the other side...

Multicultural Festival 07

2007-10-15T19:44:00.000+10:00

I enjoyed myself heaps at last year's one, so decided to go again - even though I had to get up at about 7.30am on a Sunday morning, I was bouncing out the door in excitement about an hour later. Kinda lucky there wasn't any rugby to watch - small mercies, for the next four bloody years.

Got to Roma Street Parklands, quickly grazed past the Citizenship Ceremony - yawn, boring - and found myself listening to the first world music (flute, guitar and mandolin I think) while eating a Bolivian 'papa' - sweet potato and mince in a pastry of some type. I think a smile was already on my face - and unlike last year, I had already plastered sunscreen on myself.

Then up to the Amphitheatre for the Ethiopian dance troupe - kids aged from about seven to seventeen, oh, I wish I could describe the sounds from yesterday. Ethiopia was nice, but it wasn't exactly mindblowingly good, if you know what I mean.

Then over to Act Two, arriving a bit early, so had the Indian sitar gourd thing - a morning raga, I am reading from the programme, though what that is I'm not exactly sure. Had the drum and strings thing going anyways. Round Two of Ethnic Food Of The Day was provided by Vietnam, rice paper rolls, which were very yum.

Aboriginal dancers up next, and they were very good, didgeridoo, clacking sticks, dancing writhing about in front of me - front row seat and the dust was being kicked up good. Got a couple of really good photos from that.

Then, via a Spanish fudge filled churro, it was to Bolivia, and the umm high set costumes on the women and the full wool for the guys. I am sure it was about five degrees warmer last year for the Fest, so it was nice that the Bolivians would have been a bit cooler this year. And it felt like it was a longer set last year, but maybe it was just the feeling of Greatest Multiculture Fest 06 Rewind about seeing Bolivia two years in a row. Or something.

Up the hill again to Mongolia, and OMG wow, horsehead fiddle and harmonic singing, and it was definitely one of the finds of the day. Transported to the icy wastes of a Mongolian winter, hard thing to do in the subtropics, and the instrument itself was beautiful. Hung around for ten minutes afterwards just to get a picture of the square fiddle, with the horse's head. I missed the Sierra Leoneans on another of the stages, but a small price to pay. Good music as well.

After filling my face with Russian potato pie, YUM, sat down and took in five minutes of Irish music. But then got sick of it very quickly and lined up for spicy German sausage, with sauerkraut even - hey, it was around midday and lunchtime, so it was feed your face time. First major queues of the day, and although it was cooler than last year, it was still frustrating waiting behind people - especially the guy that said 'Guten Tag, I'll have one of those - Auf Wiedersehen'. Umm, I think they will understand English, dickhead.

Up again to the Upper Parklands, this time to see Rwandan dance and drums. And boy, did those African drums get going. Not meaning to sound umm un-multicultural, if that is a word, but massively good beat that wouldn't be out of place in a King Kong or Heart of Darkness adaptation. And what was with the drumstick twirling around the neck thing - I have to say that 1994 was a bit on my mind with the Rwandans. But damned good drumming.

Then back down to the main stage, for the Kurds - I had forgotten how bored I was with them last year. Of course, I was red as a beet at that stage of the day last year, and after a second application of sunscreen, I was still good to go - didn't get burnt all day. The Kurdish dancing still wasn't up to much chop though. If you had a better national dance, maybe you would have had your own country by now :)

And then an unscheduled treat - the Congolese boys were running late, and I didn't have them penned into my schedule, but OMG, these kids can't have been much older than eighteen, but for about twenty minutes straight they danced with their 'hips'. Should have had parental advisory labels on their act, cos it was damned HOT. And yes, saying that as a straight guy. Was bloody brilliant, actually.

And then followed up with the Spanish dancers - girl ones, that is, not quite flamenco, or maybe it was. The group had been formed for Expo 88 and had danced for the King of Spain (sorry, but that does sound a bit cliche, you think?) all the way back then. Very good dancing, a little less sexyback than the Congolese boys though.

Then the set piece of the Carnival Procession, this year brought to you by the letters G, Y, P, S and Y. Less a Rio Carnivale as it was last year, more a dirty hippy gypsy big band thing, although with the Bolivians, Colombians and a couple of belly dancers bringing up the rear.

And then as the finale of my day - I well and truly maxed out my camera's memory card, and the battery itself was starting to die - I got about twenty shots in of the Colombian Carnivale thing. Some good shots towards the end of the battery life, and I had it on bloody auto - the rest of the day I was pretending that I knew better than a microchip and was taking some crap shots, I should have left it on auto for the duration. Ah well next year.

Ended the day wandering around the food tents - the Abyssinians had run out of their curry, the Swiss still had copious amounts of their chocolate fondue, with fruit to dip in it (as the guy said, last year they tried the traditional cheese one, but it's a hard sell this time of year in Brisbane, chocolate is easier), and I had a meat and pepper skewer of doubtful provenance from the Rwandans. Hmm, that sounded bad didn't it - I think it was beef...

Left Roma Street at about 3.30 and just made the right train home without waiting another half hour. Had a bit of a tan on my face, but the nose, neck and arms were well looked after - sunscreen, whoda thunk it would be that useful lol?

Fab day, two years out of two, am already counting down to next year. Something truly GOOD the Queensland government sponsors. I don't have that many days where I just live in the here and now, and Multicultural Fest brings that out in me, big time.

Paul

Grief, or lack thereof...

2007-09-26T20:44:00.000+10:00

My poor, neglected blog, under all the virtual tumbleweeds. Resuscitation is required.

My grandmother died on Sunday morning - this one being my dad's mother. Kind of unexpected, heard on Friday that she was too ill and frail for them to even attempt surgery, with a timeframe of up to 72 hours - but she had been sick on and off for the past several months. Into and out of hospital probably half a dozen times recently.

I just feel empty about the whole process. It wasn't that she was a particularly bad grandmother, just one of those type of people that it can be hard to have a conversation with (is that bad of me to say about a dead family member?), and that I wasn't particularly close to.

Not particularly close to all of that side of the family really - Rotorua is the Centre Of The Universe and if you move away well, you are downshifting big time and sometimes it feels a bit unworthy of attention. With Dad moving to be with Mum in Wellington over thirty five years ago, and staying away, well, our spiral of the family has always felt on the outer.

I had only visited or seen her twice in the last eight years - once all the way back in 2000, when I travelled with the parents to visit Rotorua, the other about eighteen months ago (surely not that long, time sure does fly) when she and a couple of Dad's siblings came for a visit here. Not the best of times all around, that trip. And that will be the last time I will have seen her.

Of course, compare that to the closeness I have with Mum's side of the family. Even when I was still at school, we visited Mum's parents almost weekly - Dad and Grandad going off to the pub for a couple of hours, while us kids watched videos - hey, it was the 80s and early 90s - and the women chatting. No, that wasn't meant to sound like it was from the 1960s or anything, but it is a very calming, 'finding my centre' kind of memory in my life - if anyone knows what I mean.

And even when I was living away from home by myself, when in Wellington I used to visit Mum's parents once every two or three weeks, and when we were in different cities and countries, I did my best to see them at least once a year.

And then, when Grandad died in April, the mourning kicked in big time. I am soooo glad I went to see them in February - one of the photos I took then got put on the funeral pamphlet. Hey, it's my job in my family to be the photographer - and I like to think I am quite good at it. So, I went to the funeral in Tauranga, got up and spoke at the service, cried heaps.

But with Nana, that is not happening as much. And it is not just because I am so far away from New Zealand - with Grandad, I was gutted well before reaching Auckland Airport. And it is kind of giving me the guilts as well - that I am not mourning equally, that I am not mourning as I should, that when I think about the whole situation, I just have an empty hole inside, basically devoid of any emotion, positive or negative.

Guilty that I wasn't close to her or Dad's side of the family. Guilty about not going to the funeral, which was today - although it would have been expensive, I would have just gotten underfoot, and it probably wouldn't have been appreciated. The parents have gone, but they were not looking forward to the inevitable family tensions and gossip said behind backs etcetera. Guilty that I forgot to send flowers - although that probably wouldn't have been fully appreciated either - Dad's father died in 1990, so it is only the siblings left.

I thought that when I started writing this, some sort of emotion would flare into life, but it is strange, I am feeling number and number about it all. And no, not in a fainting or seizure way.

In one of those strange, circle of life twists, my second niece got born on Friday night. 9 lb 10 oz, almost two feet long, with a full head of hair already. Apparently that is a big baby, from what I have been told.

My blog is feeling like the cobblestones have been swept at least. Albeit perhaps swept lazily, but it is a start...

On The Move Again

2007-09-17T08:42:00.000+10:00

Hmm, my parents have decided to put in an offer on another house and wanting to sell this one. They decided this on the weekend that I was away in Tasmania, and the first I heard of it was when I rang to check whether my brother's girlfriend had had her baby yet, and was told that there was a real estate agent meeting going on.

And they had moved my queen sized bed out of my room, and replaced it with a single, to make the room look bigger. I haven't slept on a single in at least a decade, grrr - was not impressed. And I think it is finally the push I needed to move out - seriously thinking about it, whether in Brisbane or interstate is the only question at the moment...

And yes, I have been neglecting my blog, so many other distracting websites out there...

Social Life Woohoo

2007-08-25T11:57:00.000+10:00

It is funny with socialising, you can go months and months with minimal interest when there is minimal happening on that side of life, but as soon as you go out two weekends in a row, it is like, wow, where is the next hit going to come from. And no, that phrase doesn't come from my real life, I think I first read it in Trainspotting or something.

So, last weekend, out with some workmates, had about four Becks, which is a big night out for me nowadays, and a nice piece of pork sirloin on sweet potato mash, and a good old gossip session. Which I hardly do anymore, as I have to button up my opinions apart from with the team leader in my new team, but bumped into some 'old team' colleagues last weekend, so I had a good conversation over dinner. Only at the pub, but the restaurant side was half deserted because of Ekka and the league game at that time of the evening.

And I think, after years and years of accepting it, I am pretty well over the evenings where your 'meal' consists of endless bowls of chips or - tres exotique - wedges. And with the restaurant being slightly quieter, didn't have to shout across all of about six inches for the person next to me to hear what I was saying. Damn, pubs on Friday nights get loud.

Last night I also went out - another reorganisation of the business unit, so on Monday people will be heading off to parts anew in various directions, although my current team only has one going out, one coming in. All the freaking new staff though, migod - we must have had about sixty (five groups or so) in the last three months.

So, my new team was having drinks, my old team (whom I had caught up with last weekend) was having a dinner out. Guess which one I went for, although I did have a quick beer with my current team on the way to dinner - haven't been out socialising with them all too much as yet, so there will be other times, other opportunities I am sure where there isn't such a clash.

Dinner, was okay. The menu was pretty light, two pages of starters and mains, double spaced, one small page of desserts - I had the salt and pepper calamari (I have developed quite a taste for that cut of squid) for an entree and the Atlantic salmon for the mains. Calamari was good, the salmon a bit less so - and am I being a bit of a snob to not think that $13 for a entree, $27 for a main is reasonable? Others were saying the place was a bit pricey.

Conversation flowed and that is always good - a bit less bitching about work than last week, and is it just me or am I the only straight guy in the workplace? Sometimes, when going out and socialising, it seems that way. Or the other straight guys are a bit boorish, and yes, that could be me being snobbish again.

Ended up at another bar for a couple of drinks, another set of workmates, had gone through my new team, my old team and the third group of the night were mainly completely new staff (well, the last six months intake or so - is scary when you realise you are one of the experienced staff that when you started you wouldn't say boo to). One of that group's birthday drinks or something - had a couple of delightful strawberry cocktails, and, just as I was getting up the courage to talk to the newbies, almost all of 'my' group bailed.

And hence, about ten minutes later, sitting by myself wondering what to do, so did I - bail that is. Though I don't often get out with the newbies, but I am sure there will be other opportunities.

Generation Gap

2007-08-18T00:34:00.000+10:00

Bought the latest Q Magazine, music from a British angle and all, with Metallica on the front cover. Despite my mild mannered exterior, I have been a Metallica boy from years, though not quite decades - as in plural - back.

Younger guy in the office looks at the front cover, with the band on it, and says 'ooh, there's an interview with the actor who plays Harry Potter'. Go figure LOL.

Had my first good night out with workmates in a couple of months tonight - will write more about that tomorrow, fingers crossed.

Busy Cobra

2007-08-04T12:02:00.000+10:00

Foot and mouth disease has been located on a Surrey farm in the UK. The high level Cobra emergency government group has been convening again, with Prime Minister Gordon Brown cutting short his Dorset holidays (side question: who holidays in Dorset?).

What with the English floods a couple weeks ago and Cobra being convened for that, it's not really as if terrorism seems to be the number one threat to Britain at the moment. Despite the billions of pounds being spent on ramping up the security state.

Or am I just being cynical this morning?

Unexpected Praise

2007-08-01T21:07:00.000+10:00

The boss sent a general 'pull your socks up' email to the team at work today. Was wondering whether I was one of the ones slacking off or something, so sent an email asking if I was - which I hardly ever do, and it wasn't important enough to have a mini-meeting about, what the heck would I ever say in those things, even with my performance appraisals it is just nodding my head and signing on the dotted line, so god help me if conflict ever happened - and the boss replied with the following -

You should not doubt yourself. I was just reviewing the monthly stats. You are "Mega Man". No, it was definitely not directed - in any way - at you.

There are a few in the department that feel its more a social club than work place and their results have been dropping off. This will definitely be addressed in the one on ones this month. But as I said before, definitely not with you. You are one of my best workers and a pleasure to have in the department.

Have been wondering since I got that praise, what type of person I would be if I let go of at least SOME of my doubts. An arrogant prick, most probably LOL.

Thwarted

2007-07-31T23:08:00.000+10:00

Well I have been feeling a bit low and cranky lately, and I was winding up to a huge bitchin post about how crap things are and my weaknesses and blah blah blah. But then I found a Gingerbread Men Haka video - advertising New Zealand's Best Bakery competition or something - and all the negativity just ebbed away.

It helped that it took about twenty minutes for it to send to friends via dial up.

Tour de Farce, lolz Original

2007-07-26T21:53:00.000+10:00

Yes, the Tour de France is on for young and old again - well, young perhaps - and surprise surprise there are doping scandals left right and centre. What surprises me in return however, especially this last decade when the heat has really been on endurance cyclists, is how they are supposed to be ordinary human beings instead of cycling robots, with perhaps a few drugs in the system, when they cycle about 2000 kilometres in three weeks, up huge mountains, and do it all again the next day and the next day, let alone the training.

Lance Armstrong was a freak occurence, being able to hammer the peleton for seven years straight. And woe betide anyone who raises the spectre of drugs with him.

I am just simply amazed that the cyclists can do what they do, whether they are on drugs or not. If that makes any sort of sense

A Rare Haneer Positive

2007-07-19T20:34:00.000+10:00

One of the few positives about the current Haneer case, where an Indian doctor with a possible terrorist for a second cousin in the UK has had the book thrown at him in the courts and by the politicians - well more so the politicians than the courts, since the latter approved bail - one of the few positives is that I have been using my brain to rage against that, than mope around on my own depression.

Which is nice - the distraction, not the depression, that is.

Weirdest Dream In A While

2007-07-05T09:01:00.000+10:00

Okay, I was photocopying the Socceroos' individual contracts to start with, when I was supposed to be doing some work. Secondly, I got my time to get to work mixed up, so I was an hour late - then the lifts weren't working correctly, they kept missing my floor.

I got out, did a bit of work with no computer, told a customer her job was being sorted out even though I didn't have any information in front of me. When I finally somehow got to my real desk, there was a view of Wellington harbour laid out in front of me, so even though I had my current workmates around me, I was back home.

I overheard a conversation about one of my workmates just wanting to do a bit to save the poor, or poverty reduction or something - which was one of my jobs back home, no way no how at the current place, but anyways, when I popped my head up and said 'are you talking about Iraq' all I got were dirty looks.

Very strange.

Random Thoughts

2007-06-30T10:33:00.000+10:00

Last night I wore a bow tie for the first time since my high school formal. It was for our end of (financial) year work function, and the dress was 'After Five'. I could have gotten away with a tie, or a suit, but I wear ties Before Five four days a week anyways. Was a reasonable night out, a lot of the girls got glammed up, but by eleven I was pretty well over it - some were headed to the casino, some were headed to Family, but I just couldn't be bothered kicking on. It would have only tempted me to have more alcomahol, which I'm err not really supposed to have in the first place.

As I write this, London looks to have gotten away with avoiding a double car bombing in the Trafalgar Square Piccadilly Circus area. Huge petrol, gas and nail bombs parked outside a nightclub and just a general street - only avoided because ambulance staff outside the nightclub spotted some vapour, and the parking building staff the second car had been towed to smelt petrol. Welcome to power, Gordon Brown.

My sister has come back to Brisbane, after a four month failed experiment in Melbourne, and she got a kitten while she was down there. Now, managing the kitten and the older cat that was here in the first place is all over the place, in my mind at least - kitten can't go outside, because the neighbour who hates cats tried to catnap her the other week, cat is err whizzing a bit inside, so she can't really stay inside for extended periods of time, can't really leave the back door open. Just a bit frustrating, and to me the rules keep changing every couple of days. Grr.

Here endeth the random thoughts of the day.

More Blogging Evolution?

2007-06-16T10:08:00.000+10:00

Well, my first blog, I just wrote 'what I have done for the day' - this, my second blog, I have tried to write well, less often, and less about me personally. No, I am not ditching this blog, though I am having to resuscitate from the last three weeks of virtual flatlining, but am thinking about working towards less a 'brilliant writing but two entries a week' focus to more of a 'first five random thoughts of the day' angle.

Therefore, my brain will hurt less trying to think up both worthy topics and well written pieces about those worthy topics, I will be able to feel like I can get away with utter garbage some days - look out for the recurring theme Paris Hilton is an overfamed wench - and I won't get the guilts leaving this site to die alone, in the gutter, unloved.

Or something.

Weird dream this morning, felt like it was on a planet fifty light years from anywhere, but then it felt like it was in Iraq or somewhere only fifty miles from Babylon. Finding a ancient Roman temple, or maybe Greek or another civilisation that had just appeared out of the desert sands - felt very Serenity like the movie or Raiders of the Lost Ark or something.

Then found myself in central London, needing to get a tube ticket, zone 1 to 4 daily as ten pound ninety, and I didn't have the proper Brit money, only Oz stuff, and the eftpos machine was very confusing.

Here endeth random thought of today one.

I'm Not Dead

2007-06-14T23:20:00.000+10:00

Had my end of year work assessment thing this past week - end of financial year we are talking, although we aren't even really up to that, to be honest. Anyways, the boss I had for the first nine months of the year said that she wished she had a whole team of me, as there were never any behavioural issues, I always did my best at the actual jobs I have been given, and just general warm fuzzies.

Also had a bit of a shift around of desks and stuff - I was sitting near the boss, but she wanted to keep an eye on someone else, not a trouble maker per se, just has lots of issues may be a polite way of saying it, who I swapped seats with. Plus to settle an excitable part of the team, and the best part was that the person I get on best with in the office shifted to the same area as me.

Which was nice.

Aww, Cute Moment

2007-05-25T23:08:00.000+10:00

Wellington by The Muttonbirds

I wish I was in Wellington - the weather's not so good.
The wind it cuts right through you and it rains more than it should.
But I'd be there tomorrow, if I only could,
Oh, I wish I was in Wellington.

I wish I was in Wellington - the bureaucracy,
The suits and the briefcases along Lampton Quay.
The Harbour City Capital, the lights beside the sea,
Oh, I wish I was in Wellington.

It just isn't practical, with you down in the capital,
And me at the other end of the island.
The problem is the gap between us on the map,
And there's no easy way to reconcile it.

I wish I was in Wellington, the cafes and the bars.
The music and the theatre, and the old Cable Car,
And you can walk everywhere, 'cause nowhere's very far,
Oh I wish I was in Wellington.

Oh I wish...

I wish I was in Wellington, the wind it cuts right through,
I wish I was in Wellington, there's so much more to do,
I wish I was in Wellington, and you wish I was too,
Oh I wish I was in Wellington, 'cause then I'd be with you.
Oh I wish I was in Wellington, 'cause then I'd be with you.

No Shit Sherlock

2007-05-24T10:07:00.000+10:00

News today that Osama bin Laden thought that Iraq was a good spot to build an Al-Qaeda sub-branch. President Bush noted this in a speech he gave to a Coast Guard Academy, and that Al-Qaeda was the number one threat to Iraq and the United States. Of course, bin Laden apparently only started sniffing around the place in 2005, two years after the United States invaded.

And for the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis either being ethnically cleansed, terrorised by bombs and sectarian militias, and generally wishing Saddam was back in charge, I am sure it is a great relief to them to think that the mainland United States is also terrorised by what is going on in their country.

Now, for your listening pleasure, the top five stupidity hits of Operation Iraqi Freedom -

5. With us, or against us. This little ditty can be taken either for Iraq or the wider war on terror, but the basic meaning was that the United States, in the form of the White House Administration, was the sole arbiter of what was fashionable in the world. After their respective non and nein over the Iraq war however, I don't see the Marines ready to invade Paris or Berlin.

4. Stuff happens. Ah, Donald Rumsfeld, how we miss ye. Taken together with his now more senior colleague, Condi Rice at State, Robert Gates almost sounds like a realist. The stuff happens jibe was said the few days after US troops had gotten to Baghdad, the Saddam government was collapsing and/or on the run, and a lot of stuff was being looted. Too bad stuff far worse than 'just' looting has kept on happening ever since.

3. Mission accomplished. Well, major combat operations are over, apparently, in May 2003. At that stage 140 American troops had been killed. Now the total is confirmed at 3425, not counting the coalition, foreign contractor or Iraqi casualties. Less Mission Accomplished than let's play out my Top Gun fantasy of landing on an aircraft carrier - boy it must be cool to be president some days.

2. Freedom on the march. Wasn't one of the various reasons given to the public for this war, that it would get rid of an evil dictator and usher in democracy to the Arab Middle East? Yes, that still has a snowball's chance in hell of happening. The Sunnis don't like not being in power any more, the Shias don't want to give any of their democratic power up, the Kurds just want to break away from the rest of the country, but Turkey will never let them. It is seriously fucked up.

1. Weapons of Mass Destruction. Wow. Like the phrase WorkChoices in Australia, you hardly ever hear this from officials nowadays. Fifteen minutes from deploying missiles that could at least hit Western Europe, was the British claim. I think it was discovered that the Brits 'sexed up' that intelligence dossier, and the weapons expert who leaked that information was hounded over the whole thing and commited suicide.

Even though there was a similar episode in Washington about uranium to Iraq from Africa, and the Vice Presidential Chief of Staff got convicted of perjury, at least no one topped themselves over it - yet. Lucky the White House doesn't play basketball, their interpretation of slam dunk is obviously way off.

And poor Colin Powell - rock star looks, for a military man, successful war in 1991, lends a bit of liberal credibility to the neo-cons in the Bush Administration, both before and after 9/11, and even gives the US military a credible doctrine - massive force for a clear and present danger - and what does Rummy go and do? Downsizes all wars, at least from the American side. And gets Powell to make the, in hindsight, most cringeworthy speech made at the United Nations since the Soviets tried to bluster over missiles in Cuba.

Okay, so I haven't actually seen many UN speeches, but that one out of the movie Thirteen Days looked pretty incompetent from the Russian side LOL. And then it turns out that Saddam was so fearful of being caught out with chemical weapons that he had flushed his last bottle of bleach down the Baghdadi sewers.

Not even going to go into the whole Saddam had a hand in 9/11, diverting resources from a somewhat successful campaign in Afghanistan, Abu Ghraib, Iran and Turkey keeping their eyes on the prize as the West thinks of backing out, the jihadists being given a new cause to hate America and the rest of us in the West. Yep, it's pretty well fucked up.

Would four years of sanctions on Iraq with Saddam still in charge have been worse than this?

Dude, Where's My Game?

2007-05-12T23:48:00.000+10:00

OMG, I was, like, totally taken back to, like, my teenage years last weekend just gone. So, like, you know how I got my totally bitchin XBox 360 for my birthday a month ago - Microsoft totally rock and they are totally not evil anymore, my rad homies - well, I got another game for it last weekend. Totally wow, I got this geek central Dungeons and Dragons role playing game, but it's for the 360 man, it has to be cool.

Anyhows, the guy behind the counter was rapping about what games he had played, asked which games I had played, I was giving him all the down low goss - but then he asked about Gears of War, and I, like, said I hadn't played it yet? He was totally like DUDE you GOTTA play it. I was like pfft yeah whatever man, but really I was thinking OMG, totally pwned.

My first DUDE moment in I don't know how long. Made me feel all geeky fourteen to seventeen years old or something, back when the height of my social circle was the half step in and full step out of Games Workshopping. Freaks and Geeks I think the term was, at least for that TV show.

And hence the attempt in the first two paragraphs to go all teen speak on yo ass. Although I am sure it would be a lot more SMS speak than I attempted above - it has like been over a decade since I myself was at the optimum DUDE age.

I Have Epilepsy

2007-05-07T21:48:00.000+10:00

Fuck. The E word. I have been avoiding it for the better part of my life, but used it when I was talking to the new boss about the thing last Friday afternoon. It has always been a 'thing' I have with seizures, rather than Epilepsy. 'That Seizure Thing', as well as sounding like a possible sitcom or romcom title, also makes it sound much less permanent than it actually is.

I had worked myself up over a couple of days to actually say something to the boss about it, and when I did she said she already knew, and there was even a dedicated pillow in one of the cupboards if/when it ever fucking happens at work again. Not that it will, being 110% committed to medication - this time around, forevermore, as I roll my eyes. God I hate long term medication, but better that than the chance of flipping out again in front of the workmates.

For so long I have downplayed the whole issue. 1986, when I was ten, that once off thing. 2002, at work - mortifying, off to the hospital, but again, just one of those things, and yes, I would love to stay around for more tests, but I have to head to Canada to restart a life. Well, we all know where that led...

2003, three of them in three months - surely that is just down to stress, no, we won't go to hospital because I'm just a visitor and until a work permit comes through I can't claim the fabled generous Canadian health care thing. Of course, I wait until the work permit comes through to find myself in Splitsville, ready to head back to the Antipodes.

By this stage, yes, there is a problem, but no, it can't be fixed. I look back on the past, well, 1999 in Sydney when I thought my drink could be spiked, well, I just flaked then, could have been a seizure instead - fuckit, I was having such a weirdly enjoyable night at the time. 2001, it may not have been an adverse reaction to the ant spray that made me flake out again. Hindsight, always twenty twenty.

2004, I had another one about two months after coming back from the wreckage of Ottawa. Lingering stress, can't get Medicare without evidence of a job and life in Australia, and they aren't that keen on people here less than six months anyways. I get carted off to hospital, see a GP, but meh, the pills are too expensive, I don't have a job, have a thousand other worries at the time - surprise surprise, I again bail on any thought of treatment.

And then the two at work last year - February and November. Especially the latter one put me right on my rump, and finally able to get myself together to attempt to sort myself out. Seeing a real psychologist for the possible anxiety, seeing a real neurologist and getting real meds advice. Even sticking to it, fingers crossed.

But still, even to my friends, I still refer to it as a seizure thing. Saying what I said to my boss may render a big change, or it may just be more cloak and daggers with myself, I may revert back to 'but it's just a thing' Paul again soon.

The 'Epilepsy' word is just so fraught with negativity in my mind, sitting right down there with D for Depression. Whereas the word Seizure can be laughed at or chased off with a couple of beers or something.

Seizure to Epilepsy in my mind is closely related to my coping mechanism for Self Deprecation to Depression. Which as regular readers may know, is a right royal fuck up in my thinking, but it helps me to cope.

I was in with the psychologist last week, the sixth appointment by the way, and probably because of the head cold I was thinking, why the hell am I here. Started off mega slowly but because of my low expectations, I really opened up I think. But how to effect real change in my real circumstances, rather than whinging about stuff, I don't think I have gotten there yet.

Well, this strayed a bit from the core subject, but sometimes things do that to you.

More later.

Exhausting Tired

2007-05-02T22:36:00.000+10:00

Well, I have been meaning to get around to writing something up about the rest of my time the fly hi and bye trip to New Zealand for that funeral, but wouldn't you know it, somewhere during last week my energy levels got so depleted that I allowed a stonking great head cold to walk on in.

Whether it was the flying out Monday for a funeral Tuesday to fly back Wednesday that did it, or the couldn't sleep Wednesday leading to trying to find some energy though dead tired at work Thursday, to finally broken through to sniffles Friday, something did it. And it developed from sniffles to a sore throat to a cough seemingly deep in the lungs. Very yucky. Didn't do much of anything at all on the weekend, apart from Saturday trying to rest it out, and Sunday trying to sweat it out - Brisbane, this time of year, with jeans and sweaters on.

Haven't had a day off sick though, which is a positive. Monday before work, I went to the pharmacists to ask what they would advise, and got some Robitussum or however you spell it. Seems to have worked the trick well enough, the feeling of sickness left my lungs and got to my sinuses again, but is almost all gone now, fingers crossed.

Just rewatched some video from when I visited my grandfather last, and am so glad I had the presence of mind to use my digital camera for the video. Wish I had had more memory cards now - my eldest uncle on that side got about an hour straight of Grandad talking about the old days, and the longer it went on the less self conscious Grandad got, whereas my vids are cutting in and out after two or three minutes apiece for the most part. Was trying to get a variety of situations in my case, and if I had taken any more video than I did, I am sure he, Grandad, would have felt ten different types of awkward - he was like that around cameras.

It was tough watching those videos. Especially when Grandad was speaking directly to me. But am so glad I got them, especially when he looks at the camera with a smile or laughs or something like that. There is one as well where for two minutes both him and my grandmother are quiet, he is sleeping while she is reading the newspaper - the only sound Animal Planet or something on television. For the grandparental home, that was a quiet moment.

I will write about the rest of last week's trip in the next couple of days, I promise.

Planning versus Reality

2007-04-25T21:23:00.000+10:00

What I had planned to say at the funeral -

I would like to take a few moments of your time to say some words about my grandfather, Keith MacArthur.

These will not be words painting an entire verbal picture of his life, but merely a few small moments, my recollection of my best moments with him.

These memories centre around the times my grandfather, father and myself spent at the pub. The Quinns Post Hotel was a mere five minute walk from 639 Fergusson Drive, but the gulf between Saturday afternoons watching kids videos to being invited drinking with my elders was immense. The first time I was asked to go across the road, I felt that I had finally graduated to adulthood.

I believe I watched a lot of rugby the first few Saturdays, but as I grew more comfortable into my role of drinking and listening buddy, I ditched the rugby and listened to the stories.

Thankfully for all of us Keith was too young to serve in the war, but he entertained us with stories of civilian life in the Hutt and Wellington. The fights between GIs and Kiwis, the US MPs throwing everyone in paddy wagons, or the negros walking in the gutters. After the war his hunting - shooting deer, wild pigs and 'tame sheep' - his friends, and occasionally his work.

I feel that is a thing we will all miss - his stories and his perspective on the world. He was 100% certain of his views, until something came along to completely change them. I always felt his stories should be recorded, and I believe this happened a bit towards the end, on video, but only with some of the many many stories he had.

As these things go, routines change and people move, so these Saturday afternoons lasted perhaps eighteen months. But I will always look back on them with fondness and love.

I could give a hundred other examples of these quiet moments with my grandfather, of bonding, of companionship, of love, but everyone here has their own similar moments and memories. I will leave you to think of your own best moments with Keith.

Thank you.

After I let my mother read it, she said it was too formal, to say it as if it was just a general conversation, so after getting up the guts to actually step up to the plate, I went with -

I would like to take a few moments of your time to say some words about my grandfather, Keith MacArthur.

Now, I had written up a few paragraphs last night of what I might say today, but my mother read them and said they were too formal and stilted. But the fact is that I like saying formal and stilted stuff, that's my style, because it is the best way I can get through this without bursting into tears, but we will see how we go.

My best memories of my Grandad are when he, me and my dad went to the pub. Yes, surprisingly alcohol is involved. Quinns Post Hotel was a mere five minute walk from 639 Fergusson Drive, where my Grandma and Grandad lived for so many years, but there was a gulf of difference between Saturday afternoons at the grandparents watching kids cartoons, Mickey Mouse and all, and being invited to go drinking with my elders. It felt like I had graduated to adulthood. Yes, drinking. Not that I hadn't been drinking before, three years or so in fact, but the fact that it was with my family.

Where was I - my notes are scattered everywhere. I went to the pub to watch the rugby. But after the first few weeks, as I grew into my role as drinking and listening buddy, the rugby went and was replaced with the stories.

Stories - my grandfather had a million of them. Thankfully, Grandad was too young to actually serve in the war, to have war stories of his own, but he told us of growing up, of civilian life during the war in the Hutt and Wellington. How old was he then, he would have been a teenager? Of seeing the GIs and Kiwis fighting, of US military police beating everyone up and throwing them in the back of a paddywagon, of the black soldiers walking in the gutters.

After the war, of his hunting, of his friends - not hunting his friends, as I made it sound, but hunting and his friends. And occasionally his work, though this was much less so. As has been mentioned already, he was very much an outdoors person.

I feel that is a thing that we will all miss - his stories and his perspective on the world. He was always 100% certain of his views, until something came along to completely change them. I always felt his stories should be recorded, every couple of years the idea would crop up to do that, and I believe this happened a bit towards the end, but it would not even be one percent of one percent of what he had to say.

When I was over last, I took a few videos with my camera myself, but Grandad was always saying 'what are you bloody taking those for', and he usually stayed quiet when I was videoing him. Maybe he should have had a camera on him all the time for all the stories - something like Big Brother. I'm currently in Australia, by the way.

Back to the topic. As these things go, routines change, people move - Grandma and Grandad moved up here, I moved, well, I have moved all sorts of places - so these Saturday afternoons at the pub lasted perhaps eighteen months. But I will always look back on them with fondness and love.

I could give a hundred other examples of these quiet moments with Grandad, of companionship, of bonding, of love, but everyone here has their own special memories with him. I would just like to leave you to think of your favourite thoughts of my grandad.

Thank you.

I only choked up twice, I was happy with that. And the reaction to the revised, spoken one was good, everyone said I did a good job. There was apparently a lot of laughter at some of the things I said, not that I could really hear it, trying to stay together to give the speech.

Will write more about the last three days tomorrow, just wanted to get the above down on 'paper' as it were asap.

The Second Longest Day

2007-04-22T13:14:00.000+10:00

It happened. My grandfather died yesterday at 3.35am New Zealand time. Peacefully, or so it has been reported to me. Not peaceful for those around him though - my grandmother, mother and eldest uncle on that side of the family had been awake for 48 hours straight, caring for him, comforting him.

Although how much was getting through I don't know. For the last few days, he didn't get out of bed, he didn't speak, he didn't eat and hardly drank any water. From reports, the last time he communicated was a few days ago, when he had apparently gotten agitated, not being able to get rid of phlegm from his throat, and communicated his displeasure somehow.

After that, the pain meds were upped, and the nurses advised the family just to make sure my grandfather was on his side all the time, rather than on his back. To shift him over side to side once every five hours. And that sounds to have been the routine of things the last couple of days of his life, without the eating, drinking or talking.

When I heard the mobile SMS beep from my parents' room at about 2.20am Aussie Eastern Time, I knew that couldn't be good. Was half expecting a knock at the door from my father to tell the news, but it didn't happen, and I drifted back to sleep.

There had actually had a few moments over the past few days where it suddenly felt like I no longer had a grandfather - the wake up in the middle of the night with a cold certainty of fear around your heart thing - but apart from that SMS, my spidey senses were off this time around.

Waking up in the morning, I had my shower and all the freshening up routine before heading downstairs - usually on the weekend, I just scrubber it until at least midday, but I was putting off bad news until the last possible moment. I have previous form for procrastination, though that won't surprise long term readers. As well as, I dunno, look my best or something like that.

After getting the news, the next hour or so was quite unproductive. The whole start something, think of something else, start the new thing, repeat repeat repeat cycle. Ended up finding myself playing shoot em up games on the XBox - yes, Virginia Tech is far enough in the past for me to play first person shooters again.

Then went down to Chermside shopping. Got a dozen prints of the one pic of my grandfather - from when I was on holiday over there in February, my grandmother liked the shot, will be handing copies out to relatives, and it will be the front page of the service leaflet. I feel a bit honoured even, that my picture was good enough to get picked, but am not thinking too deeply about it because that will bring the emotions. Damned emotions.

On getting to and navigating around the shopping centre for the first hour or so, it was as if I couldn't breathe deeply enough, that I felt all wrong just doing the normal weekend window shopping thing when over the ditch my mother would already have been in deep mourning. But after a while, the feeling of breathlessness went - still couldn't concentrate on anything to even think about making a purchase, but the general stress levels abated.

Even got to see a movie. My thinking was that we would get the movie of the week out of the way as quickly as possible, and as long as it isn't one that I was wanting to see, that actual real life emotions could possibly ruin the experience, then if it was bad and/or my brain could function at the same level as popcorn, then things would be generally okay. Thank god I didn't wait until this week to see Reign Over Me. Even Shooter I gave a miss, in case it was too brainy or likeable.

Sunshine was a good choice to see in the circumstances. All those cabin fever isolation nutbag computer sci fi movies you have ever seen, well be glad you saw them instead because this one tried to take them all together and rock the genre, but it didn't. If you have enough time during the actual movie to think about plot holes, well, then the movie was bad in the first place. That suspension of disbelief or throw more action at it and the audience will be confused should last at least an hour after you leave the cinemas.

Got home and made the flight bookings for four different family members, with four different itineraries. 1 x Brisbane to Auckland, return 23 Apr to 25 Apr, 1 x Brisbane to Auckland, return 23 Apr to 1 May, 1 x Brisbane to Auckland, one way 23 Apr, 1 x Auckland to Brisbane, one way 1 May. Having to make four different bookings, being made to feel that booking flights online is a spectator sport, along with all the general stress of the day, I was getting snappy, I'm afraid to say.

Added to which, telling Vicki that she didn't need to come was the hardest thing I have done in a while. Probably since the last time I messed up in that sphere of things, eighteen months ago or so? She has met the grandparents, so there is an actual personal angle in there as well. She wanted to come, but I couldn't make a decision yesterday, added to that I had been putting off decisions on funeral arrangements the last couple of months, until 'stuff happened', and, when it came to the crunch, I said no. I could add any number of self justifications here, but I won't. We will get back to that in future I am sure, but not just right at the minute.

Today is feeling very bland thus far, before the emotional firestorm that will be the next three days. I am thinking of drafting something up to say at the funeral, but whether I get around to saying it or not is the question.

Wish me luck.

What's Important

2007-04-18T21:27:00.000+10:00

With the mass shooting in Virginia earlier in the week, the things that are important come into focus. Family, friends, a sense of belonging, love - as long as it isn't in the too saccharine sense. Although it seems that thousands of people die violent deaths each day, most of those out of sight of the major international media, when something like this is flashed over the wires, you take notice pretty quickly.

I like waking up and hitting the another five minutes button in the morning, but as soon as I heard the Virginia Tech story at 7am yesterday morning, I was up and out of bed and watching TV as soon as. Who were giving all the local, Australian, sports results when I hit the TV on button.

I tell you, when I saw that mobile phone video that one of the students took, the popping of the gun or guns in the background, and the shaky, handheld effects while he - or she? - was running, it so reminded me of the latest first person shooter video game I have gotten, Ghost Recon. Especially the ducking down behind any cover that student could get.

So will be playing that particular game a lot less over the next wee while. But I guess it is a bit like the reaction to 9/11 - at the time, no one could think that Hollywood would ever make disaster movies ever again. Well, hello all the blood and gore that has been splashed across our screens since. Once the initial shock wears off, the whole episode for those outside Virginia will fade back into the usual white noise background. There is far too much information nowadays to even think of processing it all on a daily basis.

And I feel that the 24 hour channels are less news than reality television now. Instead of all news all the time, there seems to be a tendency to focus on just a few stories, and run with them. How many shootings are reported on a year? Send a reporter out, get some experts lined up in the studio, get some viewers to email things in. Same with political stories, or celeb stuff, or natural disasters - wildfires, for instance, interview the fire chief, and one or two of the nearby residents. It can be so formulaic when you really think about it.

In other news, my grandfather continues to worsen - the nurse visited today and doubted whether he would last another week.

The Drip Dripping of Bad News

2007-04-07T20:14:00.000+10:00

No, not Iraq, Iran or any international hot spot, but instead trauma at a more personal level. The news from back home on my grandfather continues to move in a negative direction.

I am sure I have mentioned this before, maybe on my other blog, but my grandfather has had prostate cancer for at least eight years. There was concern he would slip away quickly after diagnosis, but a move from chilly Wellington to balmy Tauranga means he has been generally okay in the time since. Generally being the operative word, there have been a few trips, slips and falls along the way, a few hospital visits and admissions, as well as the slow, steady, awful arrival of what is in all likelihood dementia.

About three or four months ago the docs discovered a mass on his lungs, which has turned out to be a secondary cancer to the prostate thing. Who knows how long it has been growing there, but from my understanding it happened fast - there had been no issues with the lungs until last winter, when my grandfather started complaining about shortness of breath and other flu-like symptoms.

The docs considered operating, but part of the mass has almost completely encircled one of the main blood vessels - either the aorta or pulmonary artery, I'm not a hundred percent sure which. So in the first instance any type of surgery would have been life threatening, and any subsequent survival likely would be uncomfortable. Typical Paul understatement, and I couldn't quite find the phrase I was thinking of.

So it was decided not to operate. I hot-tailed it over to New Zealand in early February, and my grandfather seemed okay for the most part - he was aware of the environment, was a bit unsteady on his legs a few times, but all in all, relatively okay. Because we have to plan our leave months in advance at work, I even pencilled in a week in November to get over to help celebrate his eightieth birthday.

However, about a month ago I got home from work, and my mother was half packed to head to New Zealand the next day. Her father had been coughing up blood most of the afternoon, and his breathing was very shallow. The doctor had even made a house call, so that was how serious it was.

Mum decided to go over, one way ticket, to help out as she could. Whether staying over for 'the duration' until something happens or coming back when - if? - he gets better, that is still uncertain. Any plan is still very much in the air and being made up as it goes along. And the week in November might not have birthday celebrations attached.

One good thing, one of the few is that with my grandfather being so ill the past few years, Mum has had plenty of time to talk to her work about this. Therefore her bosses are aware of the situation and giving her time off for the forseeable future. Carer's leave, I think it would be classed under.

The last week, in the spotty third person way I prefer to get told things, it has sounded pretty horrid. Definition of spotty third person reporting - Mum talks to Dad, Dad talks to me, I don't go searching for detail. A couple of days ago, my grandfather didn't seem to know where he was, had contracted some sort of bladder infection and had a low blood oxygen level, which required a nurse to come around and bring an oxygen bottle with her. My grandfather also required help getting around the house, I guess his legs were too weak to hold his weight?

The kinda sorta report I just got an hour ago tonight also sounds bleak. My grandfather apparently believes he is living at the family bach thirty to forty years ago. Whether that is dementia or illness, who knows. He is walking around the house with more ease today, but that seems purely due to the availability of an oxygen bottle. His youngest son, my uncle, is up for Easter holidays, and let's just say that uncle has never been known for much of a sense of patience. Highly strung, it's all about him.

Yes, it sounds very bleak. And puts my birthday wishes for an XBox 360 well into context. How bourgeois materialistic of me, when one of the smaller tragedies in the world creates such heartache.

Don't Panic Captain Mannering

2007-04-03T22:22:00.000+10:00

Were any other Queenslanders cringing at the Premier's tsunami performance yesterday?

There was a massive, 8.1 Richter earthquake off the Solomon Islands early yesterday. As well as the Solomons themselves, there was a tsunami alert raised for Queensland, specifically the outer Barrier Reef islands and Cooktown.

A bit of confusion reigned, what with some of the far northerners heading for the hills but not sure how far up the mountains to go, Cairns Hospital cancelling all elective surgery and evacuating the ground floor, and schools and a fair few businesses closing. They even closed the beaches on the Gold Coast and as far south as Sydney, where they also cancelled cross harbour ferries.

Overreaction or what, especially the further south it went, it is understandable looking back to the Aceh and Thailand Boxing Day thing sixteen months or so ago. Early reports from the Solomons themselves are that some villages have been swamped by five metre waves, a couple of dozen dead and thousands homeless - again, just early reports at this stage. By the time it got to Oz, the additional water was a mere surge of ten to twenty centimetres.

What is less understandable is how Smart State Premier Peter Beattie did a bit of a rant and rave about it all -

"What we didn't know was what was the extent of the tsunami, was there a tsunami coming, where will it hit, how much damage is it likely to cause, and how far people had to be pulled back from the beach,"

Yes Pete, I am sure those nefarious federal officials and scientists weren't telling us for an actual reason, perhaps because the state government is of an opposing party, rather than the simple fact that they did not know. Earthquakes are random, both in timing, location and effect, and even the computer modelling will not be sufficiently powerful for another two years. But let's put in a complaint about that as well. Queenslanders lives are at risk, do you understand?

If the premier is waiting around for the feds to give him instructions as to how to go about natural disaster planning, we are screwed. What's the money on SES being the next departmental fuck up. Does Beattie go and have a whinge to the Commonwealth if there is a bushfire or cyclone or drought? Well, on the latter one, maybe, but apart from that, I would hope that the state government has some idea of what to do when 'stuff happens'.

I can usually put up with any number of idiotic statements Beattie comes out with, but just the 'Queensland as Hicksville' impression he gave yesterday made me extra special venomously livid about the whole state of affairs. Pete needs his hand held after doing the latest Chicken Little show, awww.

Yes, yes, I know, sarcasm doesn't become me, lowest form of wit, but just shaking my head, rolling my eyes at the whole thing. Needed an outlet to get it out.

Long, But Necessary

2007-04-02T21:02:00.000+10:00

This is what I did for today's therapy session - basically reading out this, which I had written up over five parts in an earlier blog. The mind of a seventeen year old screw up indeed...

I don’t know when I first felt depressed.

I can, however, remember the circumstances where I was picked on as a kid enough for it to sear into my brain, as good a starting point for this essay as any. My family had moved to Australia, and I was short and funny accented. Easy pickings.

I had fought in school once, when I was eight years old, against six year olds, if I can remember correctly. I was defending my friends, or something, but the shame I felt when the teacher gave us a dressing down has stayed with me for the rest of my life.

So when I was teased at high school - I can’t remember being teased as much in the last two years of primary school, even though that was also in Australia – when I was teased at high school, I couldn’t lash out, even if I wasn’t the smallest boy in the year group. Instead, I took it, laughed at myself, made a joke of myself and thus pre-empted any verbal attacks.

Which was fine in high school, kids can be so cruel, but the more time flowed past, the harsher I became on myself, even when I had gotten beyond the pettiness of teenage years. When you are harsh on yourself it so easily leads to self-loathing.

As I said, I can’t remember when I first got depressed, but I can remember when I first thought of suicide. I was fifteen, and I took a knife into my room. For a week I flirted with the thought of using it, late at night, to plunge through my ribcage and pierce my heart. I don’t know what brought that thought process on, I was doing OK enough at school – by this time we had moved back to New Zealand, no more funny accent teasing.

I stopped flirting with the idea after my paternal grandfather died. I thought it would be unfair on my family to give a double blow in so short a time, but don’t ask me why I thought they could handle the possible single blow of me dying. The knife slipped back into the kitchen, unnoticed.

When I was sixteen, I missed a chemistry project at school. Completely. I hadn’t started it two days before it was due, and had a huge crisis of confidence. The day it was due in, I skipped school. The first time that I can remember doing that without being validly sick. I believe it was Melbourne Cup Day 2002, as I watched horse racing that day, and that is the only race that I watch ever.

I didn’t complete the project. I ‘convinced’ the teacher that I had handed it in, but it must have gotten lost. There was a practical part to the project where you gave a three-minute speech, but I refused to do it. I believe the teacher thought it better not to push me on the matter. The whole matter was the first major blow to my long-held belief that school grades were actually important in any sense.

On my seventeenth birthday I got a phone call from out of the clear blue sky. My birth family had found my family’s phone number in the directory.

I had known I was adopted for as long as I can remember, my parents never believed in hiding that away. My first memory is of a wishing well cake, with chocolate frogs and jelly for water, for my adoption party, when I was three and a half – I had been fostered since four or five months by the same couple, which led to my long held belief that all foster children should stay with the same family and is a natural progression to adoption. I am too cynical these days to believe that, and I was and have been very lucky with the family I found myself with.

My parents had kept all the correspondence from my birth family, waiting for me to be old enough to digest the information. I believe I was thirteen when I read it all. I then contacted my birth family, writing letters, sending photos perhaps every four to six months or so.

Being rung by my ‘brothers’ to be wished a happy birthday and to be told that I should visit them by the time I turned twenty one was not part of the overall contact plan. As the conversation progressed on the phone, I turned gray in complexion, and felt sick to the stomach. When I got off the phone I brushed the incident off, though told my parents as much as I could remember.

Less than a week after my seventeenth birthday, my self worth plunged precipitously.

I personally believe it was due to me suffering burn out towards my schoolwork. Ergo, I would not go to university. Ergo, I would not get an interesting and fulfilling job. Ergo, my life would be a waste. Ergo, why bother, and let’s just give up.

I had concentrated for four years on my high school grades, and had been getting more and more frustrated by the combination of my procrastination and the last minute efforts I had to put in to do projects and such like. Combined with a sense that even my best effort would not get me into university, a civil war broke out inside me.

This was fought with the sense of responsibility I have had throughout my life, opposing the desperation of helplessness that even my best would not be good enough to get me through. My helplessness was ably abetted by the chasm of the unknown that would be my life without grades, homework and the like. I just snapped and wanted OUT.

The silly, very silly thing is, I could have left high school the year before my breakdown, gone to a polytechnic institute and learnt a trade that I had a great degree of interest in. But I insisted that I could put it off for a year, join the herd mentality of final year of high school and THEN going separate ways after that. Boy, do I regret that decision every single time I think about it. And yes, my parents were right in that argument.

It was a Tuesday, maybe a week or two after my birthday, when things came to a head. I stayed home, with the intention of killing myself. Somehow, I can’t remember how, I managed to psych myself up to the point of cutting my wrists. The pain, bearable. The blood, beautiful, in its destructive way. But although I felt faint, I didn’t feel particularly close to death.

I cut deeper. The pain got more intense, yet still somehow bearable. This wasn’t going anywhere fast. I had lunch, and then worked at my wounds, almost like a craftsman, whittling a bit here, another bit there, deeper, always deeper. But the blood wasn’t flowing as I felt it should, and it started clotting as well.

Evening came. My family came home. Being winter, I put on a long sleeved woolen jersey, to hide my wounds, flirting desperately close to insanity with that decision. I was quieter than usual in my interactions, but still managed to make the effort to appear normal. My family not having an inkling of what was going on in my head, they took the acting at face value.

The above three paragraphs repeated over the next three days as well, Wednesday to Friday. I felt trapped. I couldn’t tell my family what was going on, I couldn’t just go back to school without a sick note and go cheerily on, all I felt I could do was cut deeper, even though by now I knew I wasn’t going to die because of this, and treat my wounds as if they were works of art, making them as ‘perfect’ as they could be.

Saturday was ordinary enough as well. Sunday, I went to a friend’s place, to play wargames - yes, I was in the geek section of the whole high school experience. Before I left, I penned a quick note about what was going on, and put it on my parents’ bed. And left it to fate, if they read it then it was meant to be, if not then I would battle on myself for a time yet.

I came home, and went to my room. Everything seemed normal. Five or ten minutes later, my mother knocked on the door, red rimmed eyes as she looked in and said we need to talk. We went into the lounge, where my father was also, and showed my wounds, everyone bursting into tears. The conversation after that is a blur.

The next day, Monday, my mother took me to see our GP. Who made an appointment with a psychiatrist at the hospital. After the initial psychiatric scan - no I am not gay is the only answer I can remember giving - I was enrolled into the children and young person’s programme, to see a psychiatrist once a week for the foreseeable future. I believe I was also prescribed anti-depressants at that stage.

The next couple of months are a blur. The first few weeks my mother took time off from work to keep an eye on me – when I had opened up about what was going on, and had seen the GP and psychiatrist initially, there was a week to go before the next round of school holidays. So obviously, I took that week off.

In my appointments with the shrink, I seethed. I can’t remember what I was so angry about now, but all I know is that I was very angry at the world. I had bottled my emotions so long that they all flowed out of me in a torrent. I remember the shrink saying that my note to the parents was almost poetic, but that is about the only positive thing I can remember being said in those sessions.

In the family group appointments - yes, they do happen, and yes, I know they are a cliché – I remember a sense of my parents and siblings recoiling from my flood of emotions, self-hatred, and anger. I can’t remember if they actually did recoil, but I can remember that sense. At home, knowing that I was under an uneasy combination of eagle eyed surveillance and the others walking gingerly, as if on glass, around me.

Of all the things that I regret about this time, one in particular is my sister hearing my parents talking about the note that I had left that Sunday. She was only eleven at the time, and yet to know how devastated and hopeless I was - yes, one of the many regrets.

Slowly, glacially it seemed to me at the time, the appointments got better, I was keeping my emotions better leashed, and school had removed itself from my list of worries. I had dropped out of the end of year exams, and I believe was bragging about it. Very fucked up way of thinking, yes I know.

And the School Ball was coming up. And I had asked a girl to go with, and amazingly she had said yes. Things were as positive as they could be, it seemed. My shrink said I was OK enough to go from weekly appointments to three monthly check ups, and I continued to take the meds.

The school ball was a disaster. Well, it wasn't a disaster, but I had held it aloft for months as an answer to all my issues, that I would suddenly become popular, part of the alpha male group, that I would have the most fun of my life there. I had built up expectations to an unrealistic level.

When, on the night, I danced, I socialised, I wasn't invited to any pre or post ball parties - it just didn't seem enough. Also around this time, my year group deans convinced me to at least register for the end of year tests again, if I didn't feel like doing it I could back out closer to the end of the year - that put extra pressure on me, as if I had to start trying to do something at school again, other than just float.

Although I didn't fall as blackly as before, there was another touch of insanity about the subsequent decision to not take the anti-depressants, to stockpile them, in case of a 'rainy day'. Yes, I did think in terms of that rainy day wording, as if I was not depressed or suicidal yet, but just in case it happened later, I would be able to put the correct plan in action.

Stockpiling the pills was harder than it may sound. I was rationed two pills a day, the actual full bottle was under the watchful eye of my parents, and they watched while I took the pills and water. However, I put the pills in my mouth, under my tongue, drank the water down, went to my room and took the pills out of my mouth. I continued to do this for just under a month.

I was still angry at the world. At the school ball not meeting my expectations. At my psychiatrist, whom I thought obviously could never understand me, signing me off as cured. At my teachers for twisting my arm to enrol back into the end of year tests. At myself even, for only trying to slit my wrists a few months earlier, that if I had really wanted to kill myself I would have done something 'better'.

I convinced myself that taking pills would be a 'real' attempt, worthy of the whole suicide thought. That although scars on my wrist were nice and all, surviving that was easy - if I had a real attempt and I made it through I would have done my 'best' in the whole destructive process way. However, partly to raise my chances of survival, partly to show how much I was hating school, I decided to take the pills just before going to school and still wander in, see what happened.

After about three and a half weeks I think, I finally summoned up the courage to go through with the idea. And yes, even though it is the most destructive act one can do, it is still a matter of courage to go through with it - it is not a coward's way out, in the sense that so many people think. It is not the most courageous decision one can make, but there is at least a sense of courage about it. That thought and belief has stuck with me even when all the other suicidal thoughts have been lost or discredited.

It was a Tuesday I believe. I soaked in the minutae of the morning, was it porridge or weetbix I had for breakfast, or perhaps toast. Drinking in the sights of my family, determined to crash and burn later on that day, saying goodbye to my mother as she headed to work. I went into my room, looked at the pills, got a big glass of water. And proceeded to take about thirty of them. For some reason, that was only about half, the others kept in case of another 'rainy day'. Yes, I was insane at this stage.

Tears streaming down my face, listening to REM's Losing My Religion, again, and again, and again. It was on tape, so play, rewind, play, rewind repeat. My favourite song of all time, and the lyrics meant so much. The mandolin solo at the end.

I put myself together as much as I could, wondering how this would all turn out, and walked to school. First period was Biology, and although I felt faint when I arrived at school, I was still OKish. About ten minutes into the period, which I was not taking any notice of at all, my heart beat quickened, and the teacher came over and asked what is wrong. I said I had overdosed.

Two classmates were quickly assigned to take me to the sick room. My body went limp under me as I was carried into the sunlight, one of the boys asking what I had taken. I remember slurring out the name of the drug, and I passed out – fade to black.

Muddled memories from the rest of that day. Coming in and out of consciousness, but only barely above a dream. Being wheelchaired around the hospital, moving around on the bed - or was it all part of that dream? It is all so fuzzy.

I remember waking up the next morning, in darkness, with my mother reading the paper beside me. I had taken the best attempt doing the worst thing I could do to myself, and seemed to have come through. All the tension of the past few months just drained out of me, no doubt flowing into those around me a hundred fold. But it was out of me - I was in no mood to try again. At least that day.

I was asked by the shrinks whether I wanted to admit myself into the psych ward in the region, for a week or two of observations - one of those moments where your life could go in one of two directions. I thought long and hard about it, consulted with my parents, and decided not to go into institutional care. I would of course see the shrink regularly again, for an unspecified time, but I was discharged that day.

I felt broken, completely torn apart, and needing to rebuild myself completely. And this time I was receptive to help, whereas in the interval between the first and second attempts I continued to be secretive. I still loathed the world and myself, but wanted to improve rather than destroy myself this time around.

I dropped out of trying at school again, which I feel was one of the best things for me. I should never have agreed to sign up for trying there again. Unsurprisingly, I had another two weeks off before the next set of school holidays. For the final term, I just turned up to attempt to start socialising again, although I felt a huge space around me, from staff, classmates and friends - I never wanted to confirm what the gossip was about me though. Our school was on the news while I was away from class as being hit by a suicide epidemic - there had been about four 'successful' suicides in a period of two years, with an unspecified number of attempts. Now I feel sympathy for what the staff were going through, but back then, I couldn't care less.

The next four months are basically a blur. My self confidence and self esteem were in the cellar, I was NOT taking medication - it had done so well for me last time around, obviously - and was attending the psych clinic twice a week those first few months. My social life was going to school. What I had feared was about to come to pass - the end of school, the end of my social life, and feeling broken and useless for the impending workforce.

I got a job the next year through my mother's work - another section, I wasn't working with her thank goodness. My social life improved, and alcohol was finally included at parties I attended - I discovered the wonders of beer and spirits. The teenage stereotype is that this happens during high school, as part of a funny story which would make a brainless but entertaining movie, but as stated before I was so not part of the A-league there.

My self confidence improved, if not my self esteem. Is that understandable? My confidence in myself grew in incremental steps, bunnylike hops in their smallness, yet my confidence in how others saw me remained at rock bottom, and has remained that way most of the rest of my life thus far.

The cutover point where the crisis ended and the rest of my life began happened approximately two years after my two suicide attempts. The trigger point where my 'hamster spinning in the wheel, merely waiting to drink on the weekend' stage ended and where things could move forward again was the travel bug hitting, and starting to organise a European trip twelve months out from the actual trip. My self confidence and esteem were still very low, but for the first time since I had started attacking my wrists, and probably a lot longer before that actually, for the first time in a long time, things were steadily and consistently moving up.

I was not cured, but I was on my way.

A Flick Of Her Eyes

2007-03-31T14:30:00.000+10:00

The strongest memory I have of my time with Heide is of her glancing back at me, in the rear view mirror, when I was sitting in the back seat of her car. Something from Radiohead's Kid A was playing on the stereo, and with a half frown and a pair of the brightest, most blue eyes I have ever encountered, she looked back to see that I was okay. Or, at least, that's what I think was going on.

The day had gone pretty well, apart from the unnecessary trip halfway up Vancouver Island. I had been thinking that the correct turn off was an hour and a half back, but, being the tourist, I did not want to be the know it all with the map. We got to Cathedral Grove eventually, and it was nice enough. Perhaps it would have been nicer earlier in the salmon spawning season, with dead fish lining the streams it was maybe not the best Canadian wilderness it could have been.

On the way back to Victoria, in the car, was the eye flick in the rear view mirror moment. It had been a tiring day, and I was in the back because one of her best friends and ex-boyfriend was in the front. Yes, you did read that right. Looking back, I was so naive in ways of the heart, I hadn't intended to do the truly madly deeply thing, and believed her when she had said the previous relationship was over. Very stupidly naive.

I had only crossed the Pacific Ocean for a ten day holiday to further a friendship, I had thought. There was hopefully going to be a bit of fun as well, but I don't think I had thought it was going to go anywhere in particular. And then, a few days into the trip, she said she wanted to come to New Zealand. In a few months, I was told to understand, not anything immediate. How my life would be different if I hadn't allowed myself to hope for that outcome, or to fall under the spell those few words set in motion.

In my mind, as shorthand for the relationship, Victoria and Vancouver Island equates to good, Belfast and Northern Ireland, the much anticipated second visit, equates to some of the worst time I have had since my suicide attempts in high school. But there were awkward points in Canada as well.

Tipping my glasses off the bathroom sink, causing one of the lenses to smash, was not the most positive of moments. And there I was again, apologising to her for a few moments of my voice being raised. The feeling one night of being left alone in a strange house, a strange country, parked in front of that awful Geena Davis pirate movie while the others got up to goodness knows what. That one I think probably directly attributable to my self worth issues, which can dissolve into petty jealousy. Yes, I can pinpoint the ugly parts of my personality.

Though at the time, and looking back now, the bad and awkward moments in Victoria were overwhelmingly outweighed by the good. If it was to be a bit of fun, and I wasn't going to see her again, I may not have signed up to the loan that my bank was basically giving away at the time, I may not have had my heart shattered into ten thousand pieces a couple of months later, and I may not have been susceptible to a rebound relationship in which to just float in to while really having a million and one doubts about it all.

Though I do try not to blame things on other people, I made the decisions, even if clouded by emotions, and sometimes they are painful to work through. Hmm, I was hoping to say a few more positives about the whole Vancouver Island thing, but my enthusiasm levels are just running a bit low.

When I do talk to Heide now, like, once every six to nine months or so on instant messenger, she says she was afraid to 'let go' with me, as I made her 'too comfortable'. She says she really enjoyed most of our time together, is sorry she made me so unhappy for that extended period of time, and speaks of her life now as having taken the safe, boring options.

Hmm.

I better wrap it up here as I could just go on about this topic. And prefer to think that I am making some sort of sense at the moment and ending it, before descending into full rant mode.

Gitmo Redux

2007-03-25T23:50:00.000+10:00

I try not to do the following anymore, on the whizz bang new blog, but today I am going to link to multiple err links in the one post. Not all in the same paragraph, of course, that would just look messy. Nowadays I try to limit my links per post to one and one only, but I have read three stunningly good opinion pieces this weekend, and I want to mention them all. Stunningly good in my own personal opinion of course.

The first was to do with Khalid Sheik Mohamed, locked away in Guantanamo Bay after a period of time in CIA extra-judicial facilities, god knows where. This week, he gave confessions to planning September 11, the 2002 Bali bombing, beheading Daniel Pearl - I am so glad I resisted watching that on the web myself - and various other atrocities. This was at a unlawful combatant status hearing at Guantanamo Bay itself.

Anne Applebaum in the Washington Post puts it best -

'Who could have imagined, in September of 2001, that one of the deadliest terrorists in history would admit to the destruction of the World Trade Center -- and that the world would shrug its shoulders?'

This shrugging of shoulders of course, is indicative of the general Western reaction to the fact that any confession the guy has given is tainted with the possibility of torture. The ends do not justify the means, and most people seem to have recoiled more from the torture than 9/11. Well, maybe not recoiled, but grown accustomed to the history, and any confession derived from even the possibility of torture is considered by most people to be useless.

As the New York Times followed up in an editorial today, Bush was advised that it would be better to close Guantanamo and relocate the prisoners to the mainland by current Defense Secretary Robert Gates, supported by Secretary of State Condi Rice, but the Prez took the advice of Cheney and Attorney General Gonzalez to keep it open. So it has been kept open, only to witness the debacle of fake confessions we had in the past week. Well, maybe not fake, but -

'When Khalid Shaikh Mohammed — for all appearances a truly evil and dangerous man — confessed to a long list of heinous crimes, including planning the 9/11 attacks, many Americans reacted with skepticism and even derision. The confession became the butt of editorial cartoons, like one that showed the prisoner confessing to betting on the Cincinnati Reds, and fodder for the late-night comedians.'

And to the wider war, the one on terror if not on Iraq, Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of State of President Carter - yes, that is a blast from the past - puts into words what I have been thinking the past few years, that the war on terror is partially a front to create a climate of fear, doubt and panic into the Western world.

'That America has become insecure and more paranoid is hardly debatable. A recent study reported that in 2003, Congress identified 160 sites as potentially important national targets for would-be terrorists. With lobbyists weighing in, by the end of that year the list had grown to 1,849; by the end of 2004, to 28,360; by 2005, to 77,769. The national database of possible targets now has some 300,000 items in it, including the Sears Tower in Chicago and an Illinois Apple and Pork Festival.'

Mr Z also goes onto a pet thought of mine, that for all the security in the world at airports and buildings and the like, no one has set up security screening points for shopping centres, which would be a nice easy big dumb target if anyone wanting harm actually got near one. Or all those extra security guards that have been employed since September 11, or the huge inflation in security budgets for events the world over - you get someone committed enough, and there is no way you can stop them.

Not even to start mentioning the war in Iraq, the US Attorney General under fire for lying about sacking some federal attorneys, the potential death of wild orangutans in five years time. No wonder some people submerge themselves in the minutae of celebrity lives, the real world is a scary scary uncertain place.

Oh to go back to the days of a show about nothing, and some stains on a dress leading to a presidential impeachment. Whither the 90s?

Ding Ding, Round Four

2007-03-20T19:49:00.000+10:00

Soo, yesterday I went and had my fourth therapy session. About half way through the session, with me saying how work was, how I had written down ten things I didn't like about myself, causing me to feeling unworthy of other people's love blah blah blah, the shrink found my glass jaw.

I had been giving another guided tour of the best and most popular destinations in the patented Pauly Depression Tour Thru The Nineties, when the doc came out and said that I did a whole lot of listing and overviews and such, but not so much of the in depth stuff. That stumped me for a bit, and I realised I had been coming across all John Cusack out of High Fidelity, Number Five With A Bullet and all that. Nerdy making lists, in other words.

After I had absorbed that, he asked whether there was deeper stuff to talk about, because to him it just seemed that I skimmed over things all too easily. I had said to him that with the list I wrote up for the session, the ways in which I feel unworthy of love, I had just knocked that together the night beforehand. If I had allowed myself time, no distractions, and a lot of pens, I could have gone far further into depth on those ones and really cut myself to shreds.

Shrink said that with most people, the past is the past, it is left there and has little or no bearing on their present states. He wondered if that was the case with me, or whether I had some facing up to the past to do. I told him that yeah, I could go deeper, but it would mean my answers would be slower - he said that was fine, and he wasn't pushing me, it was just another alternative to what we already discuss, and I didn't have to if I didn't want to. But hell, if I don't sort myself out when I am the most clearheaded I have been about my problems in decades, well, what better time could there be?

I had a think about things, and what is holding me back, and I think the major one affecting me still is my self loathing. I wouldn't go so far as to call it self hatred, have come a lot away from that particular precipice, but self loathing, yeah, that's a reasonable term, considering the circumstances. Also, I know my strengths and limitations within myself, but with the whole relationships question, taking on board the needs, requirements and the rest of a whole different other person, that still freaks me out sometimes. Maybe more than sometimes.

For this week's session 'homework' I was asked to write about my school ball, last year of high school and all that. In between two major major depressive episodes, suicidal even. I did another witty comeback with him, saying I could write about the ball itself, but did he want me to write about what happened before and afterwards as well, because that wouldn't be so easy. He said yes, he would like to see it all down on paper - I said I think I write things better than I speak them.

Then I said, oh, well I blogged about it a couple of years ago, so I can print that off and bring it in. Therapist then got my glass jaw again, saying no, I won't let you get away so easy - and your little dog too, in his most threatening wicked witch impersonation. Okay, so I exaggerate - but what he did say is that sure I can print it off, what I wrote a couple years ago, but he wants me to experience the bitterness, the tang of self defeat, desperation even, by reading it all out in session, and when I hit a particularly emotional bump, to underline it in pen.

For the first time since I started going to therapy this year, I walked away and got on the train to work with a sense of fear, of dread in my stomach. Usually I go away happy that I have unloaded issues and all that, but just the thought of going back to 1993 in my mind, scares the hell out of me. I remember, that when I blogged it, I was trying to be as honest and as forthright as possible, so it will be an interesting journey in session in two weeks time.

The shrink brought out a saying this week, got to feel a bit worse to feel a whole lot better. Something like that anyways. I guess I am partially fearful of meeting 1993 Paul and perhaps liking him again, for whatever fucked up reason this time around.

The Pot and The Kettle

2007-03-15T22:34:00.000+10:00

There has been a lot of talk in national politics the last few weeks about judgement and accountability. The newish Leader of the Opposition, Kevin Rudd, has had an extended honeymoon with the public - and what does that term, honeymoon, mean when it comes to politics, no one has ever explained that to me fully?

Then a couple of weeks ago, the senior leadership on the Government side of things, primarily John Howard and Peter Costello went all attack dog on Rudd. The crime being that he met up with corrupt consultant, and former Western Australian Premier, Brian Burke, three times back in 2005. Burke has been the subject of a corruption enquiry out West that has seen three state Cabinet ministers sacked, and who knows where that will end up, state wise. The strange thing is, that the state government is not in any danger of falling, even if an election was held today. Strange.

Rudd didn't give the best account of himself when the accusations were flying, seeming to ignore the attacks, pointedly, with his back turned in Parliament, while seeming to feed other front benchers to the lions, trying to reply to the questions. Then he scurried out to a press room, and gave a forty minute conference to the media. Congrats, mate, but it still isn't sticking up for yourself in the House of Reps.

But Rudd stuck to his guns, once he had sorted out what those guns were - yes, he did meet Burke, after his state colleagues had pointedly been warned off contact with the guy; no, the leadership of the Labor Party did not come up in discussions; no, he was not asking for any type of favour or sponsorship; yes, if he had known what he knew now, he would not have met him.

The government was up in arms about judgement and accountability, but it turns out they doth protest too much. It turned out that one of their own ministers, Senator Ian Campbell, had talked to Burke for about twenty minutes at a Perth racing industry meeting - bang, less than a day later he was sacked.

Then the person they asked to take Campbell's portfolio, Senator Chris Ellison, seems to have had shares in a company Burke was consulting for, though he hasn't resigned yet. Last Monday, just two days after the Campbell resignation, it was announced that three Liberal MPs in the Brisbane area were being investigated by the Australian Federal Police for discrepancies in their printing costs. Maybe about work being charged for but not completed? Something like that anyway. And the PM had known about the police swoop for several days. Hmm.

Then next, it was the Opposition's turn to guillotine somebody - Kelvin Thompson, who was shadow attorney general, for giving a whiter than white reference to a constituent who has turned into one of Melbourne's drug lords. Smart thinking, 99.

And now the heat has turned back onto the government, with Minister for Ageing Santo Santoro misplacing his share register information when making the obligatory statuatory declaration. He had $6000 worth of shares in some biotech company which researches health stuff for the elderly, which had doubled in price by the time this discrepancy was found. Apparently this is a conflict of interest, find that a bit harsh myself, but then he then sold the shares, and gave the profit to a charity, that on further investigation wasn't actually a charity.

And then you have the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, having a go at Rudd about how his father died when he was eleven, and whether he - Rudd - is telling the whole truth about that. What the fuck?

How all this pickiness is even on the radar - a few dodgy meetings and probably tens of thousands of dollars misappropriated - when there is a huge elephant in the room called the AWB case, I do not know. Bribes totalling $300 million dollars, to Saddam's regime before 2003, to ensure that Aussie wheat got into Iraq around UN sanctions, and all the responsibility is dumped on the private company.

The Prime Minister, the Foreign Minister and the Trade Minister don't actually read the cables warning of the issue from the diplomats on the ground, or the UN, or anywhere else. They would apparently rather be considered incompetent than criminally negligent.

But that was 2006, and the accountability limbo bar has been set a heck of a lot lower this year.

Pop Culture

2007-03-11T11:39:00.000+10:00

I thought it about time I put a list entry in here, at least to give an indication of where my entertainment dollar goes to.

The five movies I am considering to go see this weekend -
Hot Fuzz, The Good German, Letters From Iwo Jima, Music and Lyrics, Rocky Balboa. Rocky is looking the likely winner at this stage.

The last five movies I have been to at the cinema -
Stranger Than Fiction, Pan's Labyrinth, Little Children, The Last King Of Scotland, Marie Antoinette.

The last five DVDs I have bought -
Mulholland Drive, United 93, Syriana, Donnie Brasco, Good Night and Good Luck.

The last five CDs I have bought -
Nirvana by Nirvana, Hit by Peter Gabriel, Greatest Hits by Neil Young, Twenty Five by George Michael, I'm Not Dead by Pink.

The last five TV shows I have watched -
ABC News, 7 News, Rage - or part thereof, ABC News, SBS News - see a pattern there?

The last five magazines I have bought -
The Economist, times five.

The last five news articles I have read -
All on the BBC site, Italy beating Wales and Ireland beating Scotland in the rugby, Courtney Love being sued for non-payment by a detox centre, British military satellite Skynet 5 being delayed in launch, and President Bush vows to sort out the FBI on a Patriot Act issue.

The last five books I have read -
The Bonehunters by Steve Erikson, Armageddon by Max Hastings, Fiasco by Thomas E Ricks, The Economist Pocket Book of World Figures 2007, and Midnight Tides by Steve Erikson.

There, that should sate my 'blog as set of lists' urges for at least another six months.

I Feel A Disturbance In The Force

2007-03-10T23:05:00.000+10:00

Well, it has been exciting times in the Brisbane newspaper market this week. Well, as exciting as Brisbane newspapers ever are, work with me, give me some latitude here.

In the Fairfax corner, there has been the launch of 'the paper you have when you don't have actual paper' - the Brisbane Times. It is good to have another viewpoint of purely Queensland news apart from the incumbent, which is on actual newsprint - though usually when you look for local Brisbane stories in any media, the coverage is pretty light whichever way you go.

First impression of the Times is that it has potential. At the moment it does have a feel of a hobby job for Sydney Morning Herald journos with time on their hands, they need to do a bit of fact checking - it is 20 years since Brisbane won the basketball, not 22 - and what is it with the Blogs? They are my least fave part of the SMH and it looks like Fairfax are importing them north of the border, aargh.

On the News Limited side, not only do they have the major Queensland daily around, this week they launched a free afternoon daily as well. mX, short for metroXpress, which has apparently done quite well in Sydney and Melbourne so far.

I have no idea why. My initial take on it is that it is either a newspaper as imagined by gossip mag editors, or a gossip mag as imagined by the newspaper eds. Oh, there is the free thing about it I guess.

Example, from Wednesday's edition - front page, above the fold, is one of the Pussycat Dolls dancing a bit too energetically and losing her skirt. Below the fold is the Indonesian airliner crashing, the initial reports. Page three filled with 'entertainment' stories, about Kevin Federline shaving his head in sympathy with Brit-Brit, Ralph Fiennes having more sex, and Paris Hilton having drugs as told by Courtney Love. Prince William getting married on page five, and that's even before we get to the designated Entertainment pages of the thing.

And all the cutesy side bars with 'It's true!' or 'No sh*t Sherlock' - apart from the fact that I hate cutesy graphics, it has that Women's Weekly 'Mere Male' or Readers Digest ' Did You Know' feel to it. Which has felt an ancient concept ever since I can remember.

And the worst of it, most of the world news is shunted to one paragraph summaries under the title Doom and Gloom, next to a wonderful weather graphic showing showers. And that photo of the Killing Fields museum in Cambodia, umm, that is so a file pic that could have been taken anytime in the last twenty years. Or, the horoscopes, aka, Should I get out of bed tomorrow? Ack.

We will see how the latest media battles develop. I have little hope of mX getting the imperial thumbs up - from myself that is - based on the evidence so far.

My Life As 24

2007-03-07T21:26:00.000+10:00

Now if only I could get Keifer or, preferably, George Clooney to play the part of me...

Between the hours of 6pm and 7pm, Tuesday -
Come home from work, to find my mother, and father to a lesser extent, in a self-styled 'tizz'. Bad news from across the ditch - my grandfather, after having a pretty positive morning, even going out shopping with my grandmother, had several coughing fits in the afternoon. At least two of which brought up blood. Doctors and nurses called, and came on house calls, and it is not looking positive. My mother books a flight out the following morning to get to Tauranga at 6pm the following evening - one way ticket and will stay there until whenever, or my grandfather gets better.

5am and 6am, Wednesday -
Make a promise to myself to wake up in time to see my mother off. So this is what 5.30 in the morning looks like, it has been years since I have seen it. It is worth it though, as I give Mum a big hug to see her off into an uncertain day, and for the days and weeks ahead. Until my grandfather gets better.

6am to 7am -
I try to get a bit of extra sleep, but find it difficult to. The dog jumps up on the bed next to me, and I let her, at least for this morning, and the cat curls up to the other side. Would make a good photo, if the room wasn't so messy. I give up trying to sleep after half an hour and wake up, shuffle around a bit, the whole sandy-eyed feeling is not nice.

8am to 9am -
I start striding past the bus stop, but I can see the school kids are still there. Good, my bus hasn't been. Another five minutes of clockwatching, and I am sick of waiting, and feel I should catch the train to be on time, or close enough to it, to work. Two minutes slog up the road, the bus sails past me, and the rain goes from a light to a heavy drizzle. By the time I get to the train station, I am very drowned rat.

9am to 10am -
The boss heads over to talk to me. I feel guilty, as I have been fixing up something from yesterday for the last ten minutes, rather than working on any new stuff today. And the fix up thing is my own fault for not fact checking enough. But the boss only gives me an award for excellent customer service and team work - buying all those lollies finally gets me somewhere. I go over the sick grandfather and lack of sleep thing, and get out of taking phone calls for the day - helps I think that I am only there for half a day, before blagging off to a medical appointment.

2pm to 3pm -
After getting to my appointment twenty minutes early, and waiting another ten minutes, neatly finishing off this week's Economist - hey, it had the Wall Street tumble on the cover - I get in to see the neurologist. Recite my history of seizures, yet again, and try my best to describe what happens before I black out. Pins and needles in the back of the head rushing to the front seems to remain the best description. Poked, prodded, tapped as per usual, advised to try out epilim instead of dilantin, the latter apparently makes you drowsier than needs be. Bloods in three weeks, an EEG and follow up appointment in four, and still considering an MRI. Whatever the cost, I want this sorted out as much as I can. I want to know what is going on. Avoid the salesperson in the pharmacy as much as possible for being overly chatty, not so much to me as this divorced woman who the saleswoman baits into telling as much bitter history as she can get. Very uncomfortable.

5pm to 6pm -
The News. Prime Minister says for Australia to prepare for bad news. No, there is no repeat of September 11, nor have we invaded Iran. An Indonesian airliner on an Indonesian internal flight has crashed. Some Australians were on board, along with a lot of Indonesians. The Sumatran earthquake from yesterday is bumped well down the news, if it appears at all. Scooter Libby is convicted of perjury for that Iraq war evidence smear campaign. Reminds me of his former boss, Dick Cheney, on the television the other night, lamenting the state of US military hospitals. The way he glared down the camera, I just knew he wanted to nuke Walter Reed Hospital - freedom will be on the march in the hospital wings, very very soon.

Yes, that a random 24 hours in the life of moi.

The First Hug

2007-03-07T07:51:00.000+10:00

This morning, I gave my mother her first hug of the year. The last one, I think, was on Christmas Eve, as I flew interstate for the holidays - we aren't much of a touchy feely huggy family, much to some people's disgust. I think the last hug Mum got from one of us kids was when my sister was flying out to Melbourne in January.

So, an early morning flight to New Zealand, my grandfather has taken another turn for the worse, but will get more into that in the next entry perhaps, and I got up at 5.20am for the first time in years to see my mother off. And to give her a big hug before she headed to the airport. She hadn't gotten any sleep last night, and I felt as if I was the stronger one in the hug. Strange that, when you tend to think of your parents as infallible, invincible and indefatigable.

I like to think that because I give hugs rarely, that when they do occur, they are all the more special and memorable. I would like to think that, at least.

Hobbies and Interests

2007-03-04T21:50:00.000+10:00

I would say that my two main hobbies would be photography and movie watching. Followed a bit further back by reading, both magazines and actual books.

And no, not the skin magazines nor the celeb ones. Although I am cutting back on the Economist, unless it has a B2 bomber on the cover, for some reason I have transferred my current affairs interest to Insiders, ABC television Sunday mornings. Yes, Video Hits has nothing on the musings of Piers Ackerman and Andrew Bolt. Wow, exciting times in the Paul household, I can assure you.

Though I digress. My photography thing is usually sufficiently sated by the Flickr thing, and the various Brisbane meet-ups that are held. One of the girls said yesterday, at the Gallery of Modern Art, it is good to be with people who don't think you are weird to take photos crouching down, sitting on the floor or at other awkward angles. Had most of the day out at GoMA and the Queensland Art Gallery, along with lunch and a follow up beer.

With all the culture around, felt very Ferris Bueller's Day Off, when they eventually get to Chicago and go to the museums and art galleries. Yes, I know that was probably a full two minutes out of the movie, but has probably stayed with me more than most of the rest of the film. Nothing like culture, the fine arts, even if it takes forever to convince most of my family and friends to come join me on these type of expeditions.

One of the parents said why would they go in to see splotches on the wall - I think I had answered that in my older blog, when I went into GoMA last, that whether it is good or bad, the important thing is your own reaction to it, and you can't do that from the suburbs. Was a very good, very fulfilling day - I enjoyed myself heaps.

Anyways, so that is photography sorted. But on the movie front, the local social scene is a bit more bleak. When I was a teen, I got into the habit of going to the movies by myself and being comfortable with that. Another habit from that time that I have not been able to break. I console myself with the thought that I can go when I want to what I want, but sometimes wonder what it would be like to go to the movies with others.

A couple of years ago I went onto a couple of those meet up sites, completely being up front in only wanting friends and/or activity buddies, specifically thinking movies, but of course, those sites are usually for people who want to hook up for more than just movies, and my profiles hardly ever got activated. And that last sentence was far too long with too many thoughts in it.

What with the photography being so well catered for by an online group, last night I googled Brisbane film club, movie club, movie meet up and a couple of other variations thereof. And what did I get, pretty well nothing and nada combined.

Just checked with craigslist about five minutes ago, but nothing and nada there either - at least talking movies. A possible movies by DVD night at Ric's Cafe that was mentioned in a blog about three years ago, but not sure whether that is still going.

Surely in a city of one and a half million, with a thousand immigrants a week from either out of state or out of the country, surely there would be some other people that don't have partners or friends that they go to the movies with? I have seen other single people in the theatres, I am certain of it.

Surely there should be some movie club in the city that can organise going to see movies - hell, perhaps giving options of several movies to go to per week. Or perhaps role playing the David and Margaret At The Movies thing? Or see movies, then spend a couple of hours deconstructing what has just been seen over a coffee or two in a (nowadays, not so much) smoke filled jazz cafe? As they would say on The Fast Show, Niceee, Grooovy.

I would even venture the idea of organising something myself, but with any idea of any plans beyond my birthday so vague, I won't know if I will be staying in Brisbane until I was actually staying. And the gut feeling tells me I doubt I will be staying here - I feel as if I am at the beginning of a game of pick up sticks, and they have just been thrown into the air, and I can't see where they will fall. The past couple of years, focussing on financial stuff, have felt very very stable in comparison.

But, to get back to the original point, a Brisbane movie group would be nice.

Thirty Seconds Thinking Time

2007-03-02T17:06:00.000+10:00

One of the women at work was trying to nut out wording for an invitation to her twins' first birthdays, and opened the floor to suggestions. My one, thought up within thirty seconds when I should have been taking notes from the order I just took - hey, it was late in the afternoon -

Come join us in celebration of the last year.
Washington and Moscow* have touched everyone since March 2006.
Please help make their first birthday special.

I got an aww of appreciation from the mother, although, because she plays favourites, she would change the order of the names. Due to the wording being my idea, I will likely get a copy of the invitation, but doubt I am actually being invited. The life blood of the work social scene has passed me by sometime during the last few months.

It was nice to be told that I write poetry well, though I wouldn't class it as poetry myself.

* these may or may not be their real names

Burger, Fries, Coke

2007-02-24T20:26:00.000+10:00

Was in Hungry Jack's, aka Burger King, last weekend, setting into a Whopper combo, and I had a pang of Western liberal guilt.

Here I am, eating probably more in a sitting than a couple of billion eat in a day, in the heart of Consumerism Land, malls to the left of me, malls to the right (here I am, stuck in the middle with you), where the advertising is all powerful, that your life is not worth living if you do not have example of brand A in your life. Though yes, it is usually more my cynicism that sticks than any actual distaste for the world we live in.

Let alone thinking of all the carnage in the world - I have never been witness to any actual violence, and the worst I have seen on the roads is a car versus a post, a bit of glass scattered around but no actual injuries that I could see. Versus as say, Baghdad, and its daily death toll in the scores. Or the chaos in Zimbabwe, or the gang warfare in Rio, for two other examples.

Am reading a good book about the defeat of Germany in WW2, Armageddon by Max Hastings, and the battles, especially the Eastern Front, in particular Berlin were just brutal brutal brutal. A passage that has stuck with me the last couple of days, regarding the fall of Berlin -

'Casualties on both sides were dreadful. "The first really wounded man I saw", wrote a German housewife manning a Red Cross shelter, "was a boy who came straight from the street running, running, with the whole lower half of his face blown away, a bloody gap, no organ of speech left to scream, and his eyes still fully aware and sick with horror."'

Yes, that could have happened on the Western Front or any battlefield of modern history, the point being that I am cosseted away in the peaceful part of the world, eating big fatty meals, with not much idea of real pain and hardship.

Despite this easy living - or perhaps because of it - I have tried to top myself twice, have major bouts of depression, and am currently having anxiety issues. Seeing a psychologist even - go figure.

Three Nil, Let's Have It

2007-02-20T20:07:00.000+10:00

Oh mi god, we won the series three nil. How the fuck did we do that?

It's not often New Zealand can celebrate in trans-Tasman cricketing competitions, our last real purple patch being the mid-80s, perhaps 1990 at a pinch. Oh, we have had good teams on paper, and often played well enough and won a few games, less so recently, but to win a one day series or test series against the Aussies, well, it hasn't happened in a while.

Even in the recent tri-series over here in Oz, we played really well, but it was a case of almosts - almost beating Australia in two games, almost getting to the finals only to be pipped by the English. Well, when the Chappell-Hadlee annual one day series came along last week, I think there was a bit of duality in my mind - here we go again with the Australian winning procession, or let's see how they do without the home crowds, even the thought of a bit of revenge if we were lucky enough.

And then the rout at the Cake Tin in Wellington, Oz all out for 148 and the Kiwis romping to a ten wicket victory, the first Australia have ever suffered in all the one day games that they have played. To put in another context, that is like Manchester United fighting for relegation or the Detroit Red Wings not making the playoffs.

But then there was the excuse making - Ponting and Gilchrist, two of their best batsmen, if not the best in the world, out of the side resting, Andrew Symonds, Michael Clarke and Brett Lee injured. There has been a lot of talk about how when Symonds got injured Australia started slumping, losing against the English for example, but surely one man does not make a team.

Was all set in my mind for a loss on Sunday in Auckland, especially after heading out with Australia having scored 330-something. Did shopping, watched a movie, was shocked when I was told that New Zealand had gotten the target.

So that was the trophy won, and less excuse for Australia this time, the batsmen had done their job okay, and the bowling line up is only really missing Lee, perhaps Symonds, as impact players. And from the Kiwi side for the third match, Bond and Vettori, our two best bowlers, were left out to recover from slight injuries.

Again, the Australians batted first - the first time after winning the toss, I thought that perhaps Hussey was seeing whether he could actually defend a total, practise for the World Cup, after failing to do so the previous two games. And again, the Australian batsmen went nuts - Matthew Hayden doing the bully boy thing with 181 not out, highest Australian one day score ever, leading to a total of 347.

New Zealand were 4-41 at one stage, and then 5 in the 110s somewhere, Fulton putting together a nice fifty. The game seemed lost, and we could console ourselves with a series win still, but McMillan went ballistic. A 67 ball century, fastest by a New Zealander ever, beating Jacob Oram's one from about a month back - that being in a losing total of course. Then McMillan and another two wickets out cheaply. All looked lost.

McCullum and Gillespie came through with the goods. A-fucking-mazing. A win with three balls to spare. The Australian bowling attack at the moment is utter cack. The four highest successful run chases have been against Australia in the last fourteen months or so, three from New Zealand, the other from the South Africans, with that near 900 runs in a day game.

You have to grin sometimes - Gilchrist has been in the media today saying that the timing of this one day series was not good for Australia. They would rather rest and prepare for the World Cup than play in New Zealand. I'm sure he wouldn't have been saying that if the team had been winning. And I would have thought playing foreign conditions would have been a positive because isn't the World Cup, like, in the West Indies this year?

Oh, and Gilly apparently saying there was little point to the series over the Tasman as well - umm, a quick three game sprint over five days, versus the annual procession of the tri series over here which seems to take forever, and only one or two prelim games are ever actually crucial? Comparison, much?

For a crucial hour, the last of the game, I didn't have any coverage, because FM radio doesn't do sport - what I was listening to on the bus home. Got home, was told that in the latest bulletin that McMillan and the other two cheap wickets had gone and it was looking bad - went up to my room to turn on the sports radio.

Bliss, sweet bliss with Brian Waddle talking to McMillan about the win. Almost as good as a Rugby World Cup final win.

Fingers crossed for that, the rugby thing, later in the year as well.

Unusual

2007-02-17T23:05:00.000+10:00

I had a Saturday night out, which I haven't done in quite a while, or perhaps not since I came back from Canada. Oh, I have had Saturday nights out since then, watching the rugby comes to mind, but tonight was with other people even. It is Chinese New Year tomorrow, the Year of the Golden Pig apparently, and I went down to the Brissie version of Chinatown to take photos and partake in the celebrations. The Valley is always an interesting place.

Of course, my digital camera is over in New Zealand with my mother currently, awaiting the auspicious day next week when my grandparents meet my niece, all of two years old and cute as a button. Will seem strange to see photos taken with my camera that I wasn't actually there to take. Seeing as I won't likely be there to see both the niece and grandparents in the same room at the same time, thought it was a good idea to lend Mum the camera.

So, while my first choice camera is on the other side of the ditch, I was reduced to using my old skool film camera tonight. Even worse, it is an APS one - no, not Australian Public Service, Advanced Photo System. Was going to be the next big thing in photography, but got side swiped by the digital revolution. That said, it, and the sibling camera I 'kind of somehow' broke in Munich during Oktoberfest 98, served me very well for about nine years there.

Just was strange having to actually put my eye up to the viewfinder and squinting into the shot, as well as the not being able to see what I had taken or editing straight away. Looking into that small window after the vague approximations one can do with the digital, almost felt claustrophobic. And not having fifteen settings as per the digital was really getting to me as well. Back to the days of click and hope, with me wondering how many hands, heads or feet got in the way of the true subject of the shots.

I should make another attempt to break out of this not going out rut. My birthday is coming up soon, so will be an excuse to go out. Although I have noticed I am currently off the invite list for workmate stuff. With all the new twentysomethings around the place, I am feeling a bit out of the loop, and dare I say it, feeling a bit old. Will see how things go.

There was a time, not so long ago, where I wouldn't even go out of the house on a Saturday, to a movie, shopping or anything, so progress is being made.

Priorities

2007-02-14T22:17:00.000+10:00

Typical. Just as the first real debate on Australia's contribution in Iraq for years is taking place, I find The Biggest Loser to be more entertaining in the 7pm timeslot than ABC News - I don't get home in time for the earlier, commercial news bulletins. Not that they ever cover much of anything of importance anyways - oh, two mass shootings in the US, well, we could mention it, but let's run with ten minutes of 'she said she said' about the Corby's instead.

Also, the whole of the US House of Representatives, and probably the Senate as well, are having a debate about the Administration's surge of twenty thousand troops into Baghdad. I think this is the first full debate on Iraq since the 'vote with us or you are supporting the terrorists and will get kicked out of office' rubber stamp before the midterms in 2002.

Just wondering how anyone can suggest that things are going well over there, when on average 100 Iraqi civilians are getting bombed, shot and generally killed a day, and the whole society is being brutalised. And thinking how lucky Australia and the Prime Minister have been that our casualty toll hasn't been in proportion to the American ones - Our Diggers, a hundred times less the size of the US military over there 'should have' given the country thirty body bags, maybe.

And what exactly do the troops do over there anyways? There is minimal to nil coverage of it at all in the media, apart from when Defence Minister of the Month needs to have a photo op. I think in regards to Afghanistan, I saw a report where most of the activity the troops are doing over there comes under the category classified information - I would cynically assume that the same applies to Iraq.

In my slow, very slow detachment from all the bad news of the world, I even managed to take a pass on the Economist last week. Had to buy it this week though, what with the B2 stealth bomber on the cover, on the way to Iran - just imagine me drooling like Homer Simpson over the whole military hardware imagery thing. F-22 Raptor stealth fighters, pfft, not even in the same ball park, people.

Back to local politics quickly, is good to actually see the same issues that I am concerned about, climate change and Iraq are the ones that come quickest to mind, are actually gaining traction with the politicians and the media. Not so sure about the Australian people in general, two million viewers to Mercedes Corby does drugs last night and all. I was pretty well transfixed by tonight's 7.30 Report, debating industrial relations in a mostly calm, collected sense. Long may this continue until the election.

I would add 'and beyond' to that last sentence, but pigs would fly as well.

Homework

2007-02-13T11:24:00.000+10:00

2001

- Talking it up before getting over there;
- Concern about a male friend she stayed with, confrontational email conversation, what if?
- Travelling time thirty hours, via London;
- Dumped within five minutes of arrival;
- Feeling of shock;
- Can we at least sleep together, no;
- Slept in an adjacent room, could not go to sleep, one of the longest nights of my life;
- Took sleeping pills for rest of time there;
- Apologetic, okay, it's over, but let's enjoy this as much as possible;
- Kept myself together while on 'holiday', barely;
- Very twilight zone feeling, grey, drab winter, and feeling of loss, dislocation;
- $200 worth of birthday presents, I still gave them to her, stupid;
- Did some tourism stuff, but all overlayed with sense of shock, loss, dread;
- Utter devastation on trip home, and on return;
- Black period of life ensued.

- Apologetic;
- Compromising;
- Stressed;
- Tried to keep lid on emotions;
- Tried to force degree of comfort back into friendship, relationship, for example, touching, hugging, sharing personal space.

2003

- Her reading my email account and the relationship almost breaking up the day before I had a job interview;
- Pressure of not being able to work while my finances were deteriorating;
- Feeling a lack of emotional support;
- Arguing, patching things up, but never actually resolving anything;
- Moving into a new house, more a sense of 'our' house than hers, although still a feeling of not doing my bit;
- Going out maybe once or twice a week, a lot of time on computer, a lot of time talking to friends;
- Weekends usually good, we went out and did things together;
- Always almost going home, changing times and dates;
- Delay in work permit, argument over phrasing in an email 'self sabotage', sent application to wrong consulate;
- December one argument too many, made plans to leave;
- Will I or won't I leave, still unresolved until I got to airport, got out of car.

- Withdrew into myself;
- Was submissive in most arguments;
- Constantly flip flopped on decisions, frustrating everyone I knew, especially the morning of my flight out of town;
- Sneaky, made plans without telling people;
- Perhaps happy and unhappy 15% of the time each, rest of time mostly a sense of flatness.

2007?

Airports I Have Known

2007-02-10T10:20:00.000+10:00

Spent most of Monday travelling, including a six hour stint transitting Auckland airport. Always lots of fun, sitting around trying to entertain oneself. And once I had flown into the domestic terminal, I had to wait about three hours to even check in to the international flight. So waiting around, and having to keep an eye on my suitcase. At least with it only being a weekend trip, and not 'ohmigod I am leaving this country with my entire life in a bag' - trust me, I have done those before - it wasn't too heavy to lug around.

And the Superbowl was on the television to at least distract me for some part of the time waiting around. Although being by oneself, drinking coffee is probably not the best way to watch sports. Among friends, with lots of alcohol is usually better. Of course, has been a while since I have been with friends in a bar, and overdoing alcohol with dilantin pills is definitely a no-no.

Always interesting listening to conversations start up between strangers at airports or other travel hotspots - the Contiki 'meet up before travel' bar in London comes to mind in that second category. For instance, on Monday I heard the usual -

'who are you going for'
'Indianapolis because Chicago are always beating my team, Detroit'
'wouldn't that category of beating Detroit include most of the league'
'well at least we have the Red Wings'

- morph through the usual stasticial wizardry that American sports fans can come up with from the top of the head onto -

' what do you do'
'environmental scientist at Florida State, Tallahassee, down here after doing a trip to the Antarctic'
'wow, Tallahasse had a crap year in the leagues, didn't they'
'yeah, we even lost against Wake Forest, at home, 30 to nil - I was in London checking the scores online, screamed, and my wife came out and said what's going on'
'it's the coaches to blame - you can have the best players, but if they're not motivated...'

- finally leading into a discussion about how tariffs protecting the American auto industry (which are crap cars anyway as told by the two Americans conversing) are ruining any competitive advantage the US would have in green technology.

Hippy boy from Portlandoregon - said that way every time he said the city name - would have liked to import those Mercedes Smart cars, those ones that aren't much bigger than a postage stamp, but wouldn't be allowed by federal regulations. He rides a bike you see, rather than pollute the atmosphere with another car, and by the time I left, the Superbowl having ended, they were working their way up to a rant about George Dubya Bush and current environmental policies I think.

Earlier in the day, there was another group of Americans watching the game at another bar, towards the end of the second quarter and Peyton Manning was just tearing the Bears defence to shreds, and one of the girls said out loud, 'just stop him!' and then looked sheepishly around, embarrassed to show that much passion for the game, in an airport bar of all places.

On the way over to New Zealand, last Friday, the sunglass shop in Brisbane airport was playing The Prodigy's Smack My Bitch Up, which may or may not have been appropriate for a high visibility retail store with probable high density pedestrian traffic around, especially at 10am in the morning. What on earth would the kiddies think? Though it must be a totally boring job, however many times I have seen sunglass stalls at airports, and maybe once or twice I have seen people looking at the merchandise.

Although the six hours in Auckland awaiting transit pales into insignificance compared to the twelve hour stint I had at LAX one time. Connecting from Auckland to Chicago (or possibly on the way back) and a change to the itinerary basically at the last minute, maybe with about five days warning from my travel agent. Back in the days when you did go to travel agents to figure out your holidays.

The twelve hours was an absolute killer - I wasn't flush with money, so forwent - if that is a word - the option of going into LA or Santa Monica or any of the other destinations in the city, to save money and stick around the airport. Thus started me reading Anthony Beevor's book about Stalingrad, for two hour stints at a time, getting up, finding another seat, and then starting reading all over again. Never again will I spend that long in an airport. Even the six hours in Auckland last weekend was probably a mistake of mine.

Airport time always seems to drag though, even if you are in airport for only two hours it seems like twelve. And it is even worse at night or in the early morning. When I was in Cairo, I had to be out at the airport by 6am I think, and thus I went by taxi from the hostel I was staying at around about 3.30 in the morning. Dark, foreign, couldn't check in, and only hard metal chairs to sit on for about two hours. It felt like forever.

It's funny, I can remember going to the airport, I can remember waiting to check in, but after checking in I can't remember a thing until getting back to London and booking to stay in a pencil box in Kensington for about 70 quid a night, and getting onto the Underground from Heathrow to the airport. Nothing about the flight whatsoever. I guess my memory banks were full to overflowing remembering all the six weeks in the Middle East beforehand.

And here I go again, talking about my travels, when others easily switch off and get bored with other people's experiences. Sorry, will wrap it up here and think of a less boring topic for my next one.

Paul

There And Back Again

2007-02-07T20:21:00.000+10:00

Went across to New Zealand for the weekend. No, not glamorous jetsetting or similar, instead popped in to see the grandparents, for the first time in two years. My grandfather, who is battling two types of cancer at the moment, seemed better than I had been led to believe prior to the visit, and seemed quite happy about things.

They had gone for a medical appointment a few hours before I arrived on the Friday night, with Grandad coming right out and asking how long did he have to go. The doctor said well, if it was a slightly different cancer, well, then it could be six months, but then swerved by saying my grandfather's case was a bit different and there wasn't really a set timeframe. My grandfather was pretty chuffed with that reply, and through the rest of the weekend was focussing on the six months - I got the impression that it was a bit longer than he expected he had.

He didn't seem to be too bad, health wise - apart from his legs. He needs a couple of launch attempts to get out of the chair in the lounge, and at times he was shuffling instead of walking. With a touch of the coughs from time to time. Also, he is very much stay at home now - he didn't leave the house at all while I was there, even when he was left by himself, and it didn't seem that he had the inclination to. He was out tilling a patch of soil in his vege garden for about half an hour on the Saturday, and that seemed to exhaust him for the rest of the day.

He was vague at times, for sure, but from my point of view, it is hard to really notice a difference at this point - being vague can sometimes be very similar to being stubborn, not listening to what others are saying, and being in a sulk, all of which my grandfather has been known to do. And with me sitting back and listening the time I had there, it was interesting to listen to Grandad try to say something a few times and then be talked over by other family members. Although me being a fly by nighter, as opposed to other family members who deal with it seven days a week, it's not really my place to say much on that.

His attention span comes and goes, but then that was always an issue with my grandfather. Watching absolute crap movies and he was able to concentrate for the duration. Get something he didn't want to watch and ten minutes later, well, there would start the channel flicking. Yes, I know I am similar in regards to remote controls, but at least I wouldn't do it in company.

The first night I was there, my grandfather surprised me by being sharp as a tack about the subject of cooked breakfasts. Never had them at home he said, but had them out at the bach when hunting - shot pigs, deer, rabbits, and 'tame sheep' when they could get away with it. But apart from that couple of minutes of sharpness, he didn't really talk about the past, and even though I wanted to hear all the stories, I didn't want to push it in case he couldn't remember, with him then getting frustrated or angry about that fact.

It was just very nice - sitting out in the garage, facing out to the neighbourhood in the sun, while Grandad was reading the paper. Or sitting out with the grandparents at the garden table, Grandma talking about how Wellington was during the war, Grandad sipping on a shandy. Or having breakfast with them, or just sitting, talking in the lounge, all the while trying to hear over the TV or friggin talkback radio.

Grandma and I only left the house twice, to stock up on lollies and have an ice cream at the local shopping mall on the Saturday, and pick up some pies for lunch on the Sunday. Steak and cheese has never really caught on as a pie flavour across this side of the Tasman, has it?

Watching an hour and a half of One Foot in the Grave on UKTV Sunday morning, realising that as I get older, I get that show more than I did when I was young. The perfect company to watch it, with the grandparents. And then getting my moment with the remote, watching MTV for half an hour or so - oh, woe betide Generation X, is Jackass the best we can come up with?

Vicki had made a scrapbook up from last time we had visited the grandparents, two years ago, and was brilliant to see Grandma poring over it in delight. This time around, I took about fifty pics and about twenty minutes of video from my digital camera. Was taking the video so various people could feel as if they had been there, and then as I was taking more and more footage, thought that it was just a good idea in the first place. Showed the videos to my parents when I got back, and they seemed to appreciate it.

Grandma, well she seemed okay for the most part, a tad tired perhaps, but that is understandable - what I got for 60 hours or so, she gets 24/7. Was nice to hear her talk about the old days, one story being how she used to play cards with her father for the housekeeping money. Her father was such a cheat and almost always won. The housekeeping always had to be put back though, so Grandma would be able to do the shopping the following day.

Was nice hearing the grandparents laugh during the weekend, sometimes both at the same time, which was even nicer. Big hugs goodbye, though no pending sense of finality, which some goodbyes have. Of course, I need to be less tardy with the next visit than I was with this one.

We don't remember days, we remember moments.

Paul

Blood And Water

2007-02-01T19:47:00.000+10:00

I am visiting family this weekend, over the water of the Tasman Sea. Seeing my grandparents, as my grandfather has been pretty ill the last six months or so. He has battled prostate cancer for the better part of a decade, and something is up with his lungs the past few months - possibly a secondary cancer, possibly just a cold or flu - but his general level of illness is such that he is healthy enough for the moment, but when things do go wrong, they will go wrong very very quickly. It might be anytime in the next eighteen months when that something happens.

Have felt guilty that it has been two years since I have seen them last - while my mother is going over every two or three months, they are her parents after all, my father gets over every six months, and my siblings have each been over more recently than I, well, yes, feelings of guilt have been affecting me about all this. The sense of avoidance perhaps strongest among those feelings.

Being there will be good, flying over tomorrow, Friday, coming back Monday, but the hard part will be saying goodbye on the way home. Not looking forward to that at all. And my grandfather is a lot frailer than I saw him last apparently, and he is a lot vaguer than he used to be. The onset of dementia or Alzheimer's perhaps.

About eight to ten years ago it would have been now, I was back from Europe, my parents had not yet left for Oz, and we all lived down the road from the grandparents. Or, whenever I was moving around between flats, I used to come back and stay with the parents maybe every second weekend. The point being, that on Saturday afternoons, we went a-visiting to the grandparents, and a very traditional paternalistic setting of roles ensued. The women stayed home to chat and stuff, while the men went over to the pub.

Of course, when I was a kid and we used to live in the same town as the grandparents we went around to visit and all that, but as a kid we had the afternoon filled with Mickey Mouse and Woody Woodpecker video cassettes. Being a man in that eight to ten year ago timeslot meant I went over with my father, grandfather and sometimes an uncle to the pub.

In between me watching the rugby, or each of us shouting a jug, or the obligatory hot chips with extra salt, I just loved listening to my grandfather talk about how things were in his younger days. He was too young to get drafted into WW2, thank goodness, but still he had stories of going into Wellington and seeing fights between the white and black US soldiers, seeing some of them just lying in the streets in pools of blood, possibly beaten up by the MPs to 'restore order'. How he worked in some sort of mechanics yard, where he made things out of junk metal, which was pretty rare anyways back in those days, rationing and all, and a lot of the stuff going off to Mother England - or how they came across stuff and didn't report it, to get around the rationing.

Or the post war period, when the Dutch got kicked out of their East Indies - now Indonesia. One of my grandfather's buddies was known as 'The Dutchman', and apparently he had been part of the army sent out to Indonesia to try and re-pacify it. Instead, on the losing side of another of those south east Asian wars, he came to NZ and settled down.

I always meant to just put a tape recorder down on the table and just record the conversation, where ever it went, but of course best intentions up against my habitual procrastination, well, no guesses as to what side of me won there. And now, if he is really starting to be vague about things, well, it may be too late already to get those old stories out of him again.

It may be a gruelling few days if things have really gone as downhill as I have been hearing. But at least I am not avoiding anything for any longer than I have already - it will be great to see them, but it may be a bit painful to say goodbye.

Just thinking back to that last goodbye of Dad's father, who died in 1991. A week after we had our last visit and he was so ill and everyone kind of sensed that he didn't have much left in him, and trying to think back to what 15 year old Paul was thinking - I think I thought it was very awkward, saying what felt like a final goodbye, and with a lot of the family members around, extended family members, just giving a weakish handshake.

Or thinking back to two years ago even, when last I saw Mum's parents, not knowing when I would see them again, and giving both grandparents a huge hug.

Can't write any more tonight, the screen is fogging up for some reason.

Paul

The Driest Continent

2007-01-30T22:33:00.000+10:00

Queensland is to start putting recycled water in the drinking water supply from late next year - or at least the south east part of the state. There was going to be a plebiscite on the issue in March, but the Premier yesterday announced that the drought was so bad that there was no point in debating the issue, it was going to go ahead.

Now, even though the country is going through a one in a thousand year drought apparently, and the dam levels around Brisbane are almost nudging under the 20% mark, there is the makings of a real debate about this all. The vox pop polls they have been having in the rest of the country makes it seem that Queensland will become less of a tourist destination, that we will be drinking toilet water, that the property prices will fall as less people want to move here, and most tellingly, none of the other states are contemplating following The Smart State's initiative - at least publicly.

Federally, the Prime Minister and Water Minister, are more supportive of the concept.

I have to say, the reaction by the recycled water naysayers surprises me. Driest continent in the world, one in a thousand year drought - whether it is being caused by climate change, El Nino or whatever is beside the point frankly - I am surprised that there is even a debate about the issue.

The filtration process they recycle the water with makes it cleaner than normal tap water, as the referendum organisers in Toowoomba tried to tell everyone there, and really, how clean is normal dam or river water anyways. Think of all that dirt that they have to get out of there anyways - has anyone seen the crystal clear Brisbane River lately? - and remember, all the fish and stuff in the water do their business in it anyways.

It's not as if anyone will be pissing directly into mouths - well, outside a few select clubs in Fortitude Valley, at least.

Getting it clean again, there is talk between Canberra and the state capitals of depoliticising water issues. Of there either being federal responsibility for it, as proposed by the Libs, or a cooperative approach, as put forward by presidential candidate Rudd, aka the Labor Party.

Depoliticising water, as if that will happen. You have the government saying yes we will invest ten billion dollars into water policy restructuring and infrastructure and the like, but unless the states give over responsibility - which doesn't look like it's a goer at this stage - there won't be any money at all. As for the opposition, federal like, well, cooperation would be a good idea, but it is all still nice and fluffy and all, and you aren't in power yet.

This water thing is going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and Brisbane won't be the only city in the country recycling water I would suggest in the next five year timeframe.

Paul

Notes on a Nation

2007-01-27T11:38:00.000+10:00

Went and enjoyed myself for Australia Day yesterday - well, for half the day at least, until I got hot and bothered and sunburnt and decided to retreat home. Also, South Bank was far too packed to get any food, take away or otherwise, and headed over to the city to recharge my batteries.

On the train in, was sitting near three kids and their uncle, of Lebanese or Arab descent. The kids were so excited about being on a train - obviously they don't do it much - and I thought back to my childhood in Upper Hutt, where a trip into the Big Smoke of Wellington was met with much awe and wonder. To go back to those more simple times would sometimes be nice.

It was nice to see excited children - I think they were going into one of the Australia Day things - and they and their uncle had the usual broad Australian accents, but still, one of the kids asked whether they were Australian. The uncle replied, of course, you have Australian citizenship. But they weren't of the stereotypical white northern European mold, but it was nice to see them excited about the national day nonetheless.

Of course, flowed into my thoughts of being an uncle taking the kid or kids out for a nice day out - my brother's current girlfriend is pregnant, due sometime in September apparently. Which will make an addition to his daughter, coming up two years old next month, who is with his ex in Hamilton, back home. Brother and current girlfriend are going over for the kid's birthday, and it would be interesting being a fly on the wall with a couple of the conversations there.

Anyways, back to yesterday. Started off by going to Roma Street Parklands, where the 'official' Australia Day events were staged. The army and air force marching, to an artillery band, the band dressed in white with those peaked colonial hats from the 19th century. Speeches by indigenous leaders, both from the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, more speeches by the Lord Mayor, in full regalia, the Premier, the Governor, who inspected the troops as well.

The heat was intense, it says it was 30 degrees from the weather bureau information, but I am sure it was hotter than that, sweat was streaming off me in short sleeved shirt and shorts, goodness knows what it would have felt like for the troops in full uniform. One of the girls must have collapsed or something, because she was led away by a medic quick smart. They were out in the sun for at least three quarters of an hour, just before midday.

A 21 gun salute, with artillery pieces instead of just rifles, was very impressive, as well as an F-111 flyover. And then it was over, the troops marched off, and were invited back to the VIP tent to sup with the Governor and assorted others - the Premier and Mayor had gone by that stage. Saw on the news last night that in City Hall they did a citizenship ceremony with 650 people. Hmm, with those types of numbers, makes it sound like one of those mass Korean weddings.

Stuck around for a short bit, was thinking of wandering around the gardens, but it was just too damned hot. Saw people, families and friends just relaxing picnicking, and caught a moment where one of the soldiers came over to the rope - which had kept the general public out - beer in hand, and have some time with his family and probable girlfriend. I'm sure they were very proud of how he had marched, and it was a sweet moment to observe basically.

Hadn't managed to convince my family to come out with me, they observing the holiday by going to the local home hardware store instead, but yeah, would have liked to have just had some people to share a picnic with or something, Roma Street was nice and quiet and relaxed.

As opposed to South Bank, which was busy and noisy and packed. By the stage, I had the first inklings that I was sunburnt, so my humour was starting to fade anyways. Tried to get some sunscreen on at one of the info booths, but it wasn't giving me any, and I wasn't about to stand around to ask anyone, as it seemed that if you even looked an assistant's way, you were plastered with fake tattoos of the flag. If you read what I wrote yesterday, you will know how I feel about hyper patriotism.

Wandered around for a bit, there was a good school band at the piazza, from Ferny Grove State High School I think, very nice mood piece of music, wouldn't be out of place on Kid A or Amnesiac, and then they did a piece with boomboom click clack boom on the drums - full of energy, was very enjoyable.

All the cafes and takeaway places were packed to the rafters, and it was hot hot hot, and all the shade was taken, so after observing a few more picnickers and people kicking soccer balls around, playing cricket and using the barbeques - yum, sausages on the barbie, what a divine smell - I hopped on the Citycat that had just pulled up and went over to the city.

Hungry Jack's for lunch, the whole top floor almost entirely taken up with people speaking Chinese, and JB's for a bit of a shop later, I was on the bus home. I had thought of taking in the fireworks at 7.30 but with the heat and sunburn and all, I had left town at 3 instead.

Came home to see Australia batting already in the one dayer against England, a day nighter where they didn't even need to turn the lights on - what a pummelling. Poor England.

Paul

I Love A Sunburnt Country

2007-01-26T08:45:00.000+10:00

As usual in Australia, and especially around Australia Day, there has been much talk about what it means to be Australian, what it means to be un-Australian, and the like. This week, that sort of discussion was sparked mostly by the Sydney Big Day Out organisers suggesting that music fans leave any Australian flags at home.

The Big Day Out, for those of you who may not know, is a series of annual music festival type concerts that tour around Australia and New Zealand (well, Auckland) this time of year. The bands that I can remember off the top of my head this time around are Violent Femmes and Lily Allen. There are others, but I am slipping into the age bracket where I think all music out this decade isn't as good as it used to be.

Anyways, the organisers suggested that Aussie flags be left at home, because last year there was some friction at the Sydney event because it was just a few weeks after the 'bash a Leb' Cronulla riots, with their Aussie Aussie Oy Oy undertone. No suggestions regarding the flags have been sent out to any of the other venues this year, but Sydney, as usual, is in a special category.

Within twenty four hours of the story breaking, it had become a flag ban, the Prime Minister and NSW Premier (who both have elections to face this year by the way) railed against the peculiar political views of the organisers, and the NSW Opposition Leader, who seems a bit of a dill anyway, suggested there be a ban on any bans of the Australian flag in Australia. And that the fines for desecrating the flag were too small, especially compared to indigenous sites, and that RSL clubs - returned servicemen - should be accosted the same protections as war memorials. Much hilarity from that statement and accompanying article.

To be called un-Australian in this country is the worst insult anyone can be given - well, in the media and political circles at least. There has been overtime offered at work today, and one of the girls in there is doing it, but quickly said to me 'please don't call me un-Australian' - not my concern at all, actually, so no need to worry with me. My parents hate the phrase, because it is just so woolly - sure, Australian values are bandied around on the news every couple of weeks or so, but aren't they respect for law, give a fair go, and all the other ones that would usually just be called good human behaviour? Universal values rather than just solely one country's domain?

But let's just ramp up the patriotism - the my country, right or wrong kind of attitude. On the TV this morning, on Sunrise, the question of the day was tell us your barbeque secrets. Not to go into the inanity of the question for starters, but one reply came back to put the sausages, bacon and eggs into a wok. Oh, the howls of protest from Kochie, aka David Koch, former financial reporter and now Channel Seven's biggest rah rah patriotism guy.

A wok is so un-Australian, so that idea would obviously be thrown out, ASIO called to track down the email address and throw the writer out of the country. Exaggeration of course - he would only be sent to a detention centre, and 'accidentally' sent to the Philippines for two years, until an ABC or SBS reporter found him in clear view.

I may go into the federal cabinet reshuffle in a later post, or I may not, but the name change of the Department of Immigration, Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs (DIMIA) to Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIC). Yes, DIC. Because citizenship is obviously what all the immigrants crave as soon as they step off the planes, and if they want to celebrate their multicultural diversity, well, they can just stay in those Kenyan refugee camps rather than insult the eyes of the fine upstanding citizens of, for instance, Tamworth.

I would go into Queensland Premier Beattie's backflip number 5,212,310 - about first taking off Aboriginal/Indigenous Affairs off the departmental lists and then putting it back on - but I feel this post is more than long enough already. It would be a full time job chronicling his decisions and backtracks anyways, and I'm not working in journalism, nor giving up my day job to do it.

Paul

State of the Union

2007-01-24T22:51:00.000+10:00

United States politics. It is a theme that I try to avoid writing about too much, but it just seeps in every so often, then becomes a flood, then seeps away again for a while. I am not a fan of the current White House occupant or administration, and not a fan of the Iraq quagmire - emphatically so in both regards. But, because I can't do much to change things in Washington, or Iraq, I try to keep my frustration to myself. Sometimes it is best to vent though.

Iraq is just a nightmare, for both the locals and the US and allied forces. Car and suicide bombings hitting Baghdad every day, with two or three mass casualty incidents a week it seems. Imagine if in Sydney, a similar sized city, you had various factions killing 100 people a day. And the war has turned into so much background noise for 90% of the population.

Let alone the US casualties there, past three thousand fatalities and rising fast. As if twenty thousand new troops can do much more than the 150,000 that are there already - although if they are going to live native with the Iraqi army as the plan is indicated, they will be just so many more targets for either side, Shia or Sunni to take potshots at.

Can anyone apart from Bush see a free, stable Iraq, capable of defending itself anytime soon? Well, apart from Cheney as well. They have downgraded the expectations of the democratic part of things, and the transformative nature of having Iraq in the middle of the Arab world.

And, even as Afghanistan moves toward the spring campaigning season with NATO fighting hard to even keep things quiet over winter, the US is looking to bully Iran, by moving a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf, and bellicose rhetoric.

Here's a thought, Bush will reintroduce the draft a day before he hands power over in 2009. Because where they hope to get the troops from for a volunteer army in these sorts of war conditions, I don't know. If the US ever gets out of Iraq, the Army and Marines will take a long time to recover. And especially the Army Reserve.

Eh, vent vent vent - I was going to mention a couple of the domestic policies, and the fact that Congress is as unhappy about where things are going as the general US public, and that Bush is the most unpopular Prez since RM Nixon. But I have vented enough already.

Something more close to home tomorrow - perhaps the local flag and citizenship debate?

Paul

Homework

2007-01-24T07:37:00.000+10:00

I have some homework to do over the next couple of weeks. If you didn't know, I am going to a therapist - a psychologist type therapist - because my GP said I likely had an anxiety attack at the start of last month at work. I couldn't speak to the customer, couldn't move my hands or the rest of the body, blacked out and started convulsing. Off to hospital, off the to GP, off to the shrink.

I have a history of seizures, but the one last month was different inasmuch as after I came to, my muscles and head felt normal - with the usual grand mal seizure trick, my body and head feel like they have been through a tight wringer, body aches and headaches all around.

Anyways, I went to the shrink yesterday - I was bumped forward a couple of weeks, and the evening before, at 6pm, I got the call to ask whether I wanted to bring it forward. Confirming that I was on a 'mental health plan' as I was getting on a packed bus was probably not a good look though - although I could have been a doctor discussing a patient. Nah, I don't look like a doctor at all I am pretty sure.

Yesterday in the session, I spoke about my relationships with my family, what feelings I have for my birth family - I am adopted you see, and haven't been in contact with the birth lot since they rang out of the blue on my seventeenth birthday - and how I was at school, a B to B+ student making the effort for A grades I think I was. When I put the effort in that is, when I didn't put effort in, or didn't care, well. Then onto the suicide attempts at age seventeen...

The guy asked a series of questions trying to drill down to why I came up as highly anxious in the GP questionnaire - do I regularly feel suddenly out of breath, heart rate changing suddenly, to the do you get anxious about the possibility of anxiety attacks. I meandered through the questionnaire I think, but when he came right out and asked me what I feel makes me anxious it was straight off the top of my head.

Failure, rejection, relationships. In that exact order.

I don't feel a failure at the moment, but have the feeling if things start going wrong, they could go wrong spectacularly - the shrink put in the right word of what I was grasping around for, vulnerability. Yes, that's how I feel.

A general feeling of flatness has pervaded me for a while - he tried to get me to quantify how long it had been that I had been feeling this way. In a general sense, perhaps since before going to Canada, late 2002/2003? Of course, there have been ups, and there have been downs in that time, but overall, the feeling of flatness. Perhaps buttoning myself down the last two years on the finances thing as well has assisted that feeling.

I 'allot' myself times to be happy and such - trips, holidays and the like - whereas in Brisbane itself, I just make it up as best I can - perhaps.

He brought the whiteboard out to play, and did a graph of my unhappiness, with 1993, 2001 and 2003 the big dips. Homework for next appointment is to write out how 2001 and 2003 went wrong, think of the worst possible moments, write down how I felt, what I did, how I remember it, and rank about twenty emotions out of 1 to 100 as to how I was feeling at the time.

Fingers crossed, I will stick with making progress with this one.

Paul

Traffic Report

2007-01-22T19:43:00.000+10:00

I was having a bit of a brain vague morning today at work, no surprises there, when for some reason I put together the thoughts of the traffic reports I hear in the morning, the road toll, and a person who used to work with my mother.

Hearing about all the three and four car accidents this morning, along with the past week of people being trapped in wreckage for an hour and a half or a truck trying to push itself into a tunnel too short for it - it got me thinking. How many of those accidents we blithely zone out when listening to radio or watching TV occur in deaths or major injuries? Or even minor physical injuries but prolonged mental ones?

I have never been in the situation of seeing or participating in a major traffic accident - it helps when you don't have a license and don't drive a car - and the most I have seen myself is when a car pranged into our front fence when I was a young teenager. The car was dented, there was glass all over the place, but no blood from memory.

While I was still in New Zealand and my family was over here in Oz, my mother, sister and my brother's girlfriend of the time aquaplaned through a standing puddle on the road, flipped two times and the car landed right side up. Was a semi-rural road in Brisbane's northern fringes - well, Caboolture, to be exact - and they didn't even hit a tree. Bruising, shock, some scarring, but no major injuries at all. Physically speaking of course, my mother has hardly ever driven since.

And then you get my mother's former workmate, from a few jobs ago now - he was just minding his own business, jogging next to the motorway, when a car flipped over and fell on him. Medically induced coma for a couple of days, a few broken bones - and some changes in his head. Where he used to be quiet as a mouse, after the accident he was loud and said inappropriate things all the time - such as sexual based stuff, if I remember what I was told correctly. Saying this to workmates who came to visit him in hospital. And he probably hasn't got right in the head since then, well, it must be about twelve years ago now. Or indeed, the rest of his life.

When you read about 300 road deaths in a year, and three times as many injuries, and hear about those constant accidents on the roads every morning, screwing up the traffic you have to get through to get to work, you forget every individual tragedy, it just becomes more statistics to ignore.

Was reading a book the other week, American Gods by Neil Gaiman, in which it is said that the highways and cars have modern gods that are kept happy by far more human sacrifices than the old gods used to get. Which is very true, surely there are hundreds of thousands that die on the roads around the world every year.

I could divert the topic a bit and say all the cars are contributing to global warming, but that could be a topic for another day. And I don't really know where I was leading with this, apart from the fact that listening to the traffic reports this morning, I stopped and actually had a good think about them and their possible consequences.

I have only mentioned injuries on the road in as much as that is more my experience than road deaths. Which are a whole other set of tragedies.

Paul

Tipping Point

2007-01-21T23:26:00.000+10:00

In the New Year's resolution type sense, I have thought the last three weeks or so how to go about improving my life, my mood, fitter healthier like - thankyou for that phrase, Radiohead.

Since I may or may not have an anxiety issue, I have started unloading to a shrink, which is a good first step, but I think a good second step may be to change the radio station I wake up to with the morning alarm. For the last I don't know how long, I have had it at ABC News Radio, but I am thinking I may change to something light and fluffy on commercial radio instead.

I mean, I like being informed and all that, but little old me can't do much to engineer change in this big wide world - I have finally come to realise this - and I am sick to the back teeth of hearing about the latest fighting in Iraq or how one of their hangings caused a decapitation. As the first thing I hear in the morning, I mean - I will still read or listen about things, but not that first thought in the morning please.

Hell, I was even thinking of going completely crazy and ditching my Economist reading ways - they kind of look at me funny at work when I bring out my reading material and the others in the workplace usually go with New Idea, New Weekly and all that bubbly stuff. Maybe I will go back to lad's mag FHM, or perhaps Ralph or something. But not Zoo, never Zoo - give me more credit than that.

And with the debt almost paid off, I am almost back in the world of net creditor in my life. And can make some life decisions that I have been putting off the last two years.

2007, it may be all change all the time around here.

Paul

Welcome

2007-01-21T14:15:00.001+10:00

The first post of a new blog, how exciting. For introductions the title should say it all, apart from the fact that I am a New Zealander living in Australia, so don't bother even asking who I support in the rugby. I have kept a diary on and off since 1994, and a blog on and off since 2001 or so.

I was going to call this site Viva Briz Vegas, but that would probably have promised a bit more excitement than my life actually entails. I was also going to add a nice bright welcoming picture to this post, but the picture was about a meg in size, so will do the bright and cheery thing later I think.

If anyone wants to see what I have been writing about recently, the last blog site is either to the side or at the bottom of the page - I may migrate the posts across, I may not. I tried migrating the entire blog across to the new improved shiny google based blogger rather than the old, but it kept failing to bring it across. Got very annoyed when it said it would work when it wouldn't, but so far on this side of the fence, it is a lot shinier with features and stuff, so I may stay here rather than go back - we will see.

No doubt I will quickly turn the subjects of posts into my normal tortured self absorbed self, but for now, we will try to stay happy and on course and all.

Paul