living and blogging

being fairly new to blogging, and also going through a health crisis, I'm not sure whether it's possible to do stuff and still have time & energy to blog about it. (half-joking here)
one possible solution would be to not do anything, and simply blog about what's going on in my mind, but that could get a bit stale, so I'll probably just do occasional posts, and in between the more detailed posts, give a summary of the interesting things I could've blogged about, if I hadn't been so busy doing them.

in the last week I've:
* read a fascinating YA novel called Beast, by Ally Kennen
* weeded some of my pot plants on the balcony
* shared thoughts with friends on FB - a great solace, joy and inspiration
* wondered what I'd be doing now if I'd had more self-confidence in my 20s and 30s
* and played I Spy with a couple of preschoolers while we (and many others of various ages and ethnic backgrounds) were all waiting for an hour or so to see a doctor at the medical centre

more about Beast later, and about the tantalising "what if"s that may even now be fulfilled by alternate versions of me in parallel universes...

amusing things to do indoors

pic of paired socks (with colour-coordinated pegs) taken on a sunny day, quite unlike today.








I was disgruntled by how chill, grey and overcast it was this morning, but pottering around at home can be so relaxing. I started out with no particular plans or expectations, and have had a lovely indoor day. have done a small load of washing & hung it on the balcony (the forecast showers haven't eventuated, but may yet), some vacuuming (!!), and some clothes- and paper-sorting.

matching socks is very satisfying - a dozen random single socks, some washed today, some previously, have now found their partners - yay! Not that there's anything wrong with being single, nor do I have anything against wearing odd socks, but it's nice to have the choice to wear matching socks - a choice that becomes difficult to put into action if the only socks available are lacking a partner. I also threw out (or rather, put into a bag) any socks or knickers that were holey or had dead elastic, and put into another bag a few nice, wearable clothes which I'd just washed but don't really fit into any more. the wearable clothes can go to one of the op shops nearby, but for the other bag I'll have to find a charity that accepts torn clothes and sells them for industrial rags.

Quentin Crisp said that after the first three years of letting it accumulate, you no longer notice the dust - it doesn't get any thicker and it drifts into areas that you don't use. I'm not game to leave it long enough to verify that theory, having a fear that I might get lost in the drifts and die of dust inhalation, like a poor little dessicated lizard curled up behind a bookcase. but I do tend to leave it a good while, so it was a thrill to do some vacuuming today. I used the little round brushy attachment to do papers on my desk (prior to uncovering and moving my 'in-tray'), my mediation shawl (sad to let something so precious get so dusty), the armchair that my dolls, bears, etc, sit on, and edges of bookcases. my poor bears and frog were a different colour once they'd been vacuumed. I didn't dare vacuum any of the dolls - they're too vulnerable, and have monetary or sentimental value.




Bambina, pictured here, was my maternal grandmother's doll, and I lovingly wipe her with a soft, dry cloth, never vacuum.












I also sorted through papers in the living room, mostly in hopes of finding an address I'd jotted on something a day or two ago, and also to make sure there weren't any of mum's bills lying around waiting for me to pay them (there was one that needed paying, down the side of the armchair that I use, and one that my sister had paid, in a pile of 'to do' papers). still haven't found the address, but tossed out some bits of newspaper I'd been keeping for the crosswords (now done) or the pretty pictures (which I probably won't use, specially now I'm doing more with digital images than paper), and put all current 'to do' documents for me & mum into the in-tray recovered from my desk.

being on Facebook and photoblog has inspired me to go through lots of old photo albums and scan pictures to post online, and in some cases I want to go through & scan all the photos in an album so I can save them on my desktop's hard drive, on a data stick, and eventually in an online storage service. both seeing other people's beautiful old photos in their blogs, and seeing how many people on FB answered 'photo albums & negatives' to the question 'what would I grab if my house was on fire?', prompted me to scan & save, scan, resize & post.

and in between all this, just mucking around on Facebook - doing quizzes, posting status updates, sending congratulations and commiserations to friends, looking at photos - and playing music and talks through iTunes and YouTube.

hope you're having a good week/end.

an actual entry in my blog

don't remember exactly when I created this blog, or why - did I intend to witter on about nothing? share profound thoughts? just have an ID so I wouldn't be 'anonymous' when commenting on my friends' blogs?

when I created it, I was writing a journal regularly and writing fiction sporadically, and didn't really have any urge to put words into a blog, talking to an unknown (and possibly non-existent) audience, when I had an eager audience for my journal (me, especially when bored or avoiding something - and it was in convenient form to re-read) and a supportive audience for my fiction (my writing group, particularly my buddies with whom I had a mutual pact to be an honest, constructive and committed reader).

but now I rarely get to my writing group, write tiny amounts of fiction once in a blue moon, and think about writing in my (paper) journal occasionally but don't often do it. most of my writing now occurs on Facebook, so I could just as well blether on here as on FB. except that I have a bunch of very interesting FB friends, who start their own discussion threads, contribute to others', and comment on mine - very stimulating.

hmm, maybe I can make some bloggy friends, too.

hello?

so anyway, I was just looking for a video cassette* which has my film school video You Can't Find Me on it (based on a story I wrote, script by Michelle Harrison with input by me, directed by Pauline Chan, 'produced' by me - but it was Pauline's student budget that funded it), mostly to see if there were any other bits of video on it, like my student piece from Theatre/Media at Mitchell C.A.E., that I could upload to YouTube. Not sure if I have the right to upload You Can't Find Me to YouTube, cos it's copyright AFTRS. (must ring and ask)

despite the title, I did find the video cassette, so will shortly check and see what else is on it.

while hunting for said cassette, I sorted through other videos and DVDs that are stored in the unit (which used to be my bedside table/nightstand). My lovely widescreen telly sits on top (usually covered by a nice leaf-green on cream batik cloth, so it doesn't get dusty), the VCR/DVD player is in the top shelf, and the dvds and video cassettes are underneath (they don't get covered with a cloth, and are thus rather dusty). fascinating what I had in there: videos of movies that I now have on dvd (and so will sell or give away); videos of films that I don't have on dvd and wouldn't mind watching some time, but had totally forgotten I had (like Buster Keaton's The General, Gill Armstrong's Last Days of Chez Nous, a doco about 60s Girl Groups and Motown...); and time-shifted tv on tapes so old they're probably disintegrating (but at least time-shifting is legal now. although there may be a limit on how long is considered 'time-shifting'. 15 years sounds okay to me).

now I've rearranged the videos, and resorted the dvds that were in front of them (my dvd bookcase is overfull, so the TV-on-DVD SF or fantasy dvds are on the nightstand instead of alphabetically shelved with the feature films, docos and non-SF/fantasy TV-on-DVD on the bookcase). and I might even watch some of the videos. after I finish this blog entry, and check my AFTRS tape, and see what's happening on Facebook, and maybe go and buy some groceries, cos I'm out of milk and bananas (two of my staple foods).

nice chatting to you folk/s, and I'll let you know what I find on the AFTRS tape (and whether I can upload my student video to YouTube).

cheers

*for the info of anyone born after 1990: you may have seen them, they're like a dvd, only not a flat disk - more like an audio cassette, but with pictures. an encased reel-to-reel magnetic tape, with sound and image track. playable in a VCR. there used to be two formats, but the Beta one died.