Blue Steel

Rivers of steam

Because everything has a shelf life.

In the peak of summer, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible crabbiness.

Flowers in the window

Whangamomona

The ‘Forgotten World Highway’ from Stratford to National Park village takes you to a completely different country within New Zealand. Literally. The Republic of Whangamomona is a microscopic blip even on the highly magnified north island road map, but it’s a proud nation by itself, complete with its own president, a restaurant-cum-hotel, post office, and border control.

I was so tickled, I left my bag, camera, and wallet inside the restaurant and walked out chirpily.

This will be my videotape

A grey day, completely out of the blue. After a week of uncomfortably sudden spring warmth, quite inexplicably, Today plunged headlong into confused autumn. Forced everyone to walk just a little shrunken, with heads bent low, sucking in mouthfuls of frigid air, hugging themselves a little more. People enveloped in themselves, seeking warmth within, bravery without.

I guess it just isn't easy doing everything backwards; I don't suppose anyone could blame poor ol' Mother Nature down here for being confused as hell. As the 'right' side of the world yanks out her winter-wear-- crunchy, red-leaved carpets, blankets of fog and foggy breath, desolate trees, and stunning mornings, people in Perth have started strolling around barefoot. Yes, somehow, belying the blatant "first-worldliness" that this country (where running into someone, heck, anyone, who couldn't afford shoes is rarer than running into a yeti) basks in, more and more blithely vacuous "yoots" (Danny DeVito. Need I say more?) are taking to walking around with naked feet. Apparently, 36 degrees is too warm for footwear.

I do wonder how Aussies would deal with a Rajasthani summer...

Last night, I stayed up for hours scavenging through the myriad bits and pieces that I'd accumulated over the past year, sorting through a mountain of memory to decide what I could discard, and what I needed to hold on to. As it turns out, the more I dove into the pile, the more I discarded, and I discovered within myself a frighteningly honed skill for detachment. A sub-zero skill of unforeseeable magnitude.

Maybe it isn't only a fondness for melancholy that makes me revel in grey days. Perhaps it's the familiarity of coldness, albeit on the outside, that I seek with greed.

Bombay Blue

Ravel

Far from a sunset to die for, but the mere fact that I got to see it today was enough. For now. For what it's worth, it helped. Worth its weight, its wait, in gold. Worth the wait. Just wait. More weight. Wait some more. And... priceless, still, somehow, even now.

This too shall pass

The good thing about working offshore on a seismic vessel is that you never have the time of day to indulge in the shameless luxury that is wallowing in general, unfocussed, directionless misery. Which makes that ability to brood once you're back on land so much more precious! Yum! Absence. Fondness. Etc. That sort of thing.

Post title sound familiar? :)

That Which Shall Not Be Named

It's been four days since I last blogged, and I'm positively bursting into hives. This embarrassing revelation should really be making me blush, but instead I find my mind otherwise occupied. With trying to keep this post from being a... ahem... 'sorryexcuseforapost'. Or a 'terriblybadpost'. But, I'm afraid I'm being overly ambitious. Sigh.

Am now scrounging for a decent pic to put up here, if nothing else. This is ridiculous, clearly. Yet, as always, I persist.

Haven't found one yet. Geez!

Right then. Will instead write about how absolutely gorgeous it is to have a four-day week. Or about how, today, for the first time in ages, I actually felt useful at work. The last time this happened, I was mass-producing Excel sheets about data, that, in retrospect, was utterly useless. Yet, back then, that precious day, I felt terribly productive. Today, I poured over a survey map and divided about four thousand square kilometers into twelve bits. On paper, of course. With lines and everything! (I had to use the edge of my book, for want of a ruler. Such dynamic improvisation! Gasp! I must be promoted to manager this instant! *banging fist on table and looking sharp*) Yes, madly exciting, I know. Still, given the absolute rubbish that I usually do at work, today was enough to keep me on a nervous, jittery, frenzied, yet very functional high the entire day. Or maybe it was a Katatonia song. Hmmm.

Could also talk about Arundhati Roy's 'God of Small Things', except I don't feel qualified to, given that I've only read about fifteen pages so far. Still, fifteen very good pages so far. I nod in approval, yes I do.

Or Basketball Diaries, the movie. Just finished watching it a short while ago, and expectedly, continue to whole-heartedly admire Leo di Caprio's acting abilities. Gangs of New York, Catch Me If You Can, The Aviator, The Departed, What's Eating Gilbert Grape, Blood Diamond, The Man in the Iron Mask, This Boy's Life. Yikes! Realised how many of his movies I've watched! But anyway, brilliantly made as this one is, it didn't punch me in the guts as much as Requiem For A Dream did. Maybe I've just watched too many junkie movies. The first one, Requiem, killed me, but since then, Ray, Walk The Line, Trainspotting, Blow, some of Lord of War... the junk angle somehow just doesn't pierce as much anymore. Maybe I'm getting colder. Things shock me less with each passing day.

Still have not found a post-able picture. This is downright appalling! Meanwhile, entertain yourself with this link, courtesy Skanda. Is very informative and interesting-like.
*nod*

Oh, Facebook is my latest distraction. It's thoroughly... distracting and pointless. I likey! It has also duly informed me that the drink I most resemble is a Cosmopolitan, and that I'm most like Hermione Granger. Go figure.

I often really have nothing better to do (<-- for all those thousands of people who visit my blog daily and haven't figured that out already. Hyuk!)

I also think Thom Yorke should be canonised. All hail St. Thom Yorke! Convent for boys! Heh.

Some days, I can amuse myself endlessly. Stop smugging, Dee. Which, by the way, according to Dictionary.com, means "to make smug or spruce". Er.

Oooooh, finally found one! Taken on my way to work, sometime last week. It's what I live for, these days. Walking to and from work. The best part of my day. The music, the deliciously crisp winter air, the scent of grass, leaves crunching chubbily under my shoes, blue skies, and my red nose. It really is nice to have a reason other than a steaming cup of coffee and a peanut-butter-jam sandwich for waking up in the morning.

Manic Disguise

Post title courtesy Shayon, Varun and Ozzy. Without their permission, of course.

Ohh ohh!

I just had the most astonishingly fabulous idea! A game! Wheeee, etc! I'm VERY excited. Don't even care the slightest bit if you're not, *that* excited!

*bounce*

*bounce bounce*

Right then, this fabulously astonishing game is this -- I give you a bit of information about a song, and you have to figure out which one I'm talking about. There are no prizes, but oh, you'll feel so special if you win! Because! There's all that honour and stuff! And smugness! Wonderful smugness! And... and... if you get it right, I'd promise I'll get terribly fond of you. Absolutely promise! And, um, if I'm already terribly fond of you, then, well, it would vindicate my precious fondness and stuff, no? Hey, that's a good enough cause!

Right then, here goes: The info --

-----
Released: June 1997

This track was recorded in the ballroom of actress Jane Seymour's mansion at 3 A.M. It closes with computerized sounds created by ZX Spectrum computers, which all the members of (Band name) owned in the 1970s. (Band member 1) explains what it's all about: "It's like when Andy Warhol said he enjoyed being bored. It's about that feeling that you get when you're not in control of it - you just go past thousands of places and thousands of people and you're completely removed from it."

(Band member 2): "I was pissed in a club, and I suddenly had the funniest thought I'd had for ages - what if all the people who were drinking were hanging from the bottles... if the bottles were hung from the ceiling with string, and the floor caved in, and the only thing that kept everyone up was the bottles? It's also about an enormous fear of being trapped."

-----

I'm so bored. I'm also at work. Go figure.

Grape of Wrath

*chortle*

Perspective

It's easy to lose sight of the big picture when the little things seem so textured, so detailed, so involving, so encompassing, so intricate, so... convoluted. Hindsight is always annoyingly, smugly 20/20.

Fun Fact of the Day!

*blink*
Here goes...

Fact: Music, ice cream, photographs, and the colour purple make the world a better place.

Really. I really, really mean it. God-promise!