taslandia

So I was down in Tassie recently and here are the photos to prove it.
I had a great time, managing to catch up with friends and family in Launceston and Hobart, taking heaps of photos on my new digital camera and op-shopping with Mum, inbetween buying her a pack of Horizon menthol light 2mg cigarettes, which she proceeded to surreptitiously suck the death out of in various nooks and crannies around Launceston, lest anyone from her church should catch her, smoke in hand.
That was funny.
There's a photo in this posting of her with her new boyfriend - don't tell Dad.
We had lunch at Fitzies' (S)C(hy)i(t)ty Caf, which is a venue that sells English-style food, roasted and mass produced like pig slops, frequented by flannelette-wearing rural folks and the blue rinse set (those in this cohort who still have hair left), whereupon I whinged at her for not talking to Dad about my being queer. There's still a massive not-so-invisible barrier between me and my parents and I'm eager to see it surmounted, despite running off to the big smoke directly after making it apparent. It's funny how my parents demanded honesty and inclusion from their children - but only up to a point! Well, I'm doing what I can, but with Dad's health not what it used to be, it'd be nice if they'd help each other come to some space where they can acknowledge it. Apparently, I'm asking too much from them and I should just be grateful that they haven't disowned me but that would be buying into a minoritarian position that I refuse to accept. I demand a relative equality from my parents! I should settle for no less, damnit! I'm not going to accept their oppressive conservative 'Christian' values. Unfortunately, the reality of the situation is that I will never even gain a passive acceptance from them on this count and so there will always be a tension between us. But I want them to know that that tension is their making. Or a product of their socialisation and in no way my fault.
This is another reason why friendships are so important. Gosh, I've got some great friends too! Dave and Phoebe happened to be in Launceston when I arrived and took me down to Hobart, putting me up for a night and feeding me. Thanks! I've known these guys for so long and have travelled along a sometimes difficult way with them, just a little. What a privilege.
Compare this to the slightly stilted conversations with people at our mutual friend's bucks party where the obligatory, "So, what have you been doing?" conversation yielded less than I'd hoped for. What I'd give to find out what people think of me. There's a culture of decline in much of Tasmania. Very passive.
Saria! Wow, what an amazing friendship we share. I miss her company so much. She, Dave, Phoebe, Chris, Jacob; nothing if not active. Saria and I have travelled a far along similiar trajectories. Ours is a frienship that will never quit. Why won't you guys move to Melbourne?
I took a photo of a Gunns holding lot or something in Launceston. It's disgusting. All that old growth forest coverted into stacks of drying, dead wood. It's worse in Burnie, where they woodchip the wood and ship it out to other countries, whereupon it's converted into something 'useful' (but probably unnecessary) and then sold back to us at a much great price. The woodchip piles are so huge that the massive bulldozers used to regulate them for whatever reasons look like toy tonka trucks. It's fucked. And of course, the Labor Party are in Gunns pockets helping them make profits at the environment (and tax payers' [whatever]) expense. Meanwhile the Upper Florentine is being raped and protesters arrested for trying to protect it. Sigh.
Anyway, it was a really good trip. Not least of all because it affirmed the life I lead in Melbourne. As much as I love Tasmania, I really love living in Melbourne.
I'll move back to Tassie to spend my later years I reckon in contemplative retirement. Either that or I'll be just another environmental refugee when the planet decides it wants to evict humanity for being such bad residents. I'll grow organic vegies on some small patch of turf on the East Coast, living in a solar powered tee-pee, living in harmony with the quolls and paddymelons, communicating via drum circles in a perpetual post-human twilight.

24 hour party peeps

If you click on this link, you'll be taken to Tones' livejournal page in which he published the full account of his hourly comics day exercise (you can also click on the link on the right side of this page to get to Tone's blogspot blog).
Not only is Tones a talented comic illustrator/writer, but in this instance, as he had to draw a comic on the hour of every hour he was awake yesterday, his comic includes me and my boyfriend and our collective shenanigans with Tones and other friends replete with 'political' meets and drunken barroom debates on the virtues and otherwise of Peanuts and Michael Jackson.
Classic! Or maybe you had to be there...
Made me larf at any rate.
Here's a bit of a debaffler: the last few frames read as follows:
L: "Michael Jackson is better than Peanuts"
P: "No way"
-
L: "Smoking is bad"
P: "You're neurotic!"
-
All: "Taxi!"
On a related note, today was full on.
I didn't get to sleep until well after two last night because we went to the Marcromantics gig and kept drinking till late, as you can see from the narrative. Meaning that when I woke up this morning I was still a little drunk and spent the whole day hung over and with a headache. Still, I made it to work only a little late (not that that ever matters) but had to deal with the busiest day at work I've had in ages and not least of all because I really had to concentrate solidly for two hours as I had a challenging case to deal with. So of all the days I really needed all of my faculties to be ready to hand it was today. And unfortunately today was not mental acuity day for me. Still, I came through with the goods as always.
Anyway, thanks to Tones for making half of my day with his comic genius. I love how he's crystallised two lengthy debates into single cells and speech balloons. I also love how his drawing deteriorated into a scruffy kind of Peanuts style in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol consumed.

And thanks to Leigh for making the other half of my day with the following information. If you click on this link, you'll be taken to Mozilla's site. Specifically, you'll be given the opportunity to change the skin of your Firefox browser from the aesthetically pleasing one you currently have to the exciting world of uNintendo's Mario. Wahoo! Make your interwebbing a much more adventurous experience today: download your new Mario skin. Swell!
Now Playing: Deadbeat - Abu Ghraib

ex-mass time

Well, Christmas hasn't arrived yet and I've already been showered with a whole bunch of really good gifts.
And I'm such a greedy fucker to my family I haven't really spent much time or thought on the gifts I've given them. Oh well.
I've received a great set of Sennheiser headphones from me man and he's got another surprise in store for me yet. Nice.
And if you're marveling at the artwork that adorns this post, one of them is a gift from my good mate Dave and you can check out more his stylee at this link.
Thanks Dave.
On a different note, there seems to be an assumption that the festy season is a time of year when everyone's supposed to be doing the family thing. I love my family and all but that doesn't mean I feel an obligation to be with them. I spend a reasonable amount of time with them and go out of my way to be with them often enough so this Christmas is going to be a time for friends.
That's right, this year I'm going to hang out with my fellow expat Tasmanian friends who I don't spend nearly enough quality time with. Nice, nice.
There's a real pleasure in spending time in good company with great friends. I live for that. Friends are affirming in ways that family often struggles to be.
I think families are a given, there's little choice around whether or not you accept your family. I mean, I can try and divorce my family if I wanted (which I don't) but there'd always be a sense of lack or loss, I reckon. Whereas, I've lost friends and it's been fairly easy to move on from that. Likewise, family has a way of dragging a person back into its fold. Friends don't. Friendships have to be maintained a lot more I reckon. Family is always there. And it's possible to love someone because they're family as much as because of who they are. I choose to be a friend with my friends. I can't choose my family. That's special in its own way, too.
As is Squarepusher.
now playing with extreme pleasure: squarepusher - hello meow