the oldest fantasy in the world

Tired, achy, worn-down 39 year old seeks to trade one weekend with his 20 year old former self. 20 year old former self will get a gut, thinning hair, bills, a honey-do list a mile long, a soul-killing job, and the realization that it's going to be another 26 years to retirement. Tired, achy, worn down 39 year old will get a flat stomach, chest and arm muscles, a full head of hair, and access to keg parties and tipsy 18 year old college women. More than willing to make this a permanent thing.

From the best of craigs-list

Somewhere out there is this happy day

From the the-glass-guillotine.blogspot.com/

ear, ear

fearless leader mk II, originally uploaded by deepwarren.

Tomorrow my fearless leader interviews me for my job. Again. There is something very wrong with re-applying for the job you are already doing.
One of the things abut new jobs is you don't know that much about it. Excitement, change and challenge loom on the horizon.

If i get my job again, well. There's nothing but the same old weather forecast. Sadly.

And now, *she says reaching for her mat. Yoga! The 40 day challenge continues..

boxheads

FromLeonard Gren
http://viacomit.net/2009/09/14/leonard-gren-photographer/

Someone once asked the interweb what the best joke in the world was. Strangely  enough the answer wasn't the best joke in the world ..

The joke that used to crack me up as an teen  was a version of the 'quit while you're a head' jokes.

A

Everyday art

Miracle, originally uploaded by Nad.

I love the idea that someone just can't help themselves scribbling in the sugar spilt on the table. Please god, I want this level of creativity in my daily life.

40 days of hot yoga

A bit like the 40 days in the wilderness, the concept is to radically change your yoga practice by sheer immersion. I sound very baptist.

You know why Baptist's doin't allow pre-martial sex, right?
It might lead to dancing.

*boom tish.

I'm happing it's going to turn my head around and give me a sense of discipline I haven't had before (heh *insert adolecent giggle).

Painting

, originally uploaded by deepwarren.

I had a dream the other night that my teeth fell out. 2 of them. I haven't dreamed about teeth in years. The funny thing about painting is that it never really seems appropriate. It's not a social activity. People seem to think that painters are performers, and maybe good ones are.

But myself, I hate that slight-craning-of-the neck feeling you get from people when you're drawing or painting. It makes me feel like a trained dog when people approach asking me to 'draw them.. '.

We all bin deer

Today's work day started with the usual squabble about who was going to get out of bed first and use the shower, leaving the other one to anther 10mins of bed warmth. I lost. Again.

Been in a funk for the last few weeks, ever since a friend visited. I've been radiating a distinct odour of wasn't my life meant to be different, interesting, some else? Which I decided yesterday had. to. stop. for my own mental health, if nothing else. So decided to do that bloody 40 day yoaga challenge, and pull the proverbial finger out and get moving.

So this morning I managed to do my electoral roll form, post the previous tenant's mail Back-to-sender, ..and write this blog post. It's movement.

For ultimate melancholy music listening .. i highly recommend Sia, an Australian artist from Adelaide. I got into her after seeing her on Rage one night, babbling about being 13 and deciding what job she wanted. Sia Furler - her website
Wiki

And Fuji have brought out their own Polaroid .. Amazon is cheaper than Photojojo, if you do go down that path ;)

Fuji Instax Instant Camera
http://photojojo.com/content/buy-this/the-fuji-instax-instant-camera/
http://www.amazon.com/Fuji-Instax-200-Instant-Camera/dp/B0000C76XK

Moving and all that

We're moving. It's quite strange. There's a long list ToDo, and things that have been crossed off. We packed about 80% of our belonging on Saturday - that's 5 days in advanced. DrP is cleaning things, and checking which lightbulbs need to replaced. And he's getting a little OCD about the planning.. and I'm just watching, partly in amazement, and partly in disbelief.

Dear God, I am so learning from previous mistakes.

Mother, I just killed a man

My mother is in town. For a funeral. And she wants attention. Loads of it. I'm supposed to be flying north to see her next week, having taken leave, and had organised months ago. I was kinda hoping that I'd do the attention thing then.

Funerals are not the best events. They make cheerful people reflective. They make my mother, downright depressed. My sister has moved back home with a bunch of half-grown children, and has found that our mother's grandmothering is very much like her mothering. With less energy.

She's not happy about this. It's not going to be the easiest trip home.

Sunday afternoon

Blink and you miss it.

It amazes me that weekends vanish, and you turn around and it's over. The mystery of the missing weekend. And all weekends seems to contain at least one 3 hour block of time centered on the lounge where one talks about what one should be doing. I just had one of them.

And then you realise it's too late, and you should go to yoga.
Now I'm off to yoga. Hot. Hot sweaty stinky yoga, a that.
Later dude.

Defend your vice.

i'd rather be home, originally uploaded by deepwarren.

I started scribbling cause i was bored at lunchtime. Previous to 1st year high school, i'd been home schooled, and then sent to a state school about 50m from home. I spent a lot of year 7 not at school. So enforced attendance in a small christian school of about 40 high schoolers (year8-yr10) was pretty dull. Specially that hour at lunch, where if you didn't have anyone in particular to hang out with, then you were screwed.

I took up computing. Which was fun. Unfortunately it was at the boys end of the school, and for one reason or another (boys and girls didn't mix - which meant I had about 7 people to talk to) it was discovered that I had been mixing with boys. Which was not allowed. I do remember being very annoyed at this. It seemed unfair, especially since there wasn't that much interest from the boys (not in the computers, and certainly not in me).

So I started drawing. I found some draw cartoons book, and I was bad. But the art teacher made some encouraging noises, and I found out that scribbling was a vice that whittled away the hours, got you lost in your own little world, and created a nice feedback loop between me and the outer world.

It also tends to show my preoccupations. I quite liked drawing dicks for a while (little harmless ones rather than throbbing raging erections). Boxes, and all there mysteries was another.

I think I vowed that I would stop drawing at 30 if I had achieved nothing. As I've gotten older, I've drawn less. Stopping has proven more difficult than I thought. I'd like to think that when I retire I'll be curled on the couch with the dog, watching the Bill (still!) with a sketchbook on my lap.


Why would you quit?

War injuries

5 things you can't see:

• At 5, i thought i could climb a cupboard: 5 stitches in my forehead just above my hairline.
• At 7, i tripped over the pram my sister was playing with. 12 stitches in my shin. I pulled them out myself after 6 weeks with the help of one of my dad's friends who was a nurse. It was faster than waiting at emergency.
• At 11, a broken wrist from roller-skating that went undiagnosed for about 10 days due to me being able to wriggle my fingers. The doctor offered to rebreak my wrist. I declined.
• At 13, 2 stitches in my toe after tripping over a dead sting-ray.

Many people think that being 'accident-prone' as a child is an attention seeking device.

Don't mention the war

Recently I've had a black eye. This was not the first black eye I've had, but definitely the easiest. I am a little clumsy, and the mixture of girlie shoes, alcohol and me has created a history of silly falls. Black eyes aren't such a good look for a girl, as people tend to assume that

1. you're in an abusive relationship
2. you've been mugged lately
3. you would appreciate some advice about the nature of abusive relationships
4. you're the 'wrong' sort, and they distance/cower a little bit from you *this happens as you get older, and don't look so butter-won't-melt.
   

All in all, it's not the best. Cause strangely, unless people know you, they don't ask. Even when they do know you, unless they know you well, they don't ask. They will stare pointedly at your face. After having told most the office that i faceplanted on a friend's bike tire, the last person to ask got the 'happened during rough sex with the bf' story. I like to think that it's a testimony to the high esteem he holds me in, that it took him 2 days to ask if that was true.

The first major black eye i got after fainting face first in a crowded cafe in the middle of the afternoon. That one resulted in stitches to the chin, split lip and 2 black eyes. Not good. I was about 25, and house sitting in a strange suburb. I have never been so consistently humiliated in my life than that week of complete strangers asking me what happened. Most of the humiliation was at the thought, that THEY could think that I would have let some guy do this to me, and NOT tell. The implication that I was hiding abuse. Now that was humiliating.

To be fair, 10years later I just keep staring straight back at people, whereas then with a bruised face, black eyes, and a chin full of stitches, I'd ducked the gaze. And avoidance suggests guilt, complicity, and fear.

Go Tahs!

Go Tahs!
Originally uploaded by deepwarren

About a month ago, I went and saw my first live rugby union game. I'm not sure what I was expecting, but it wasn't adrenaline-pumping roaring crowds energy that I thought might be there.

Surprisingly enough, I enjoyed it.

Floating downstream

Originally uploaded by deepwarren

The last few weeks have been frantic, between attempting to get a work project finished and trying to get good routines going again after the holiday break. Today I got a film developed, that I'd had taken in Laos while tubing down the river. I'd brought a disposable underwater plastic camera rather than risk my dslr. I am rather clumsy, and a watery death for my camera would have been a likely outcome.

So I got the photo's back and they seemed magical. All blurry and yellow-ed, and taken in eariier era, rather than 4 months ago. And thinking about it, you feel the shoulders relax, and remember the feel at looking at towering mountains with yr bum in a rubber ring.

Travel is a beautiful thing.