Weighing up...
So, I'm in Brisbane!
Its kind of awesome...kind of weird...

I had a really great time being back in NZ over Christmas and New Years and for the first time since I left for Scotland found myself at the airport wondering why I'm going.
Australia and me have yet to fall in love and in so many ways I'm just here so I can get back to Scotland eventually so maybe its time to cut out the middle man?

- I could easily move back to New Zealand to save up.
- Vic has just changed its Info Management structure and I could easily slot into their Archives Cert in term 2 just in time for their conservation of materials paper (yum!)
- It would be nice to be near my family and hang out with my brother more
- It would be nice to see my friends for more than a few days
- It would be nice to see my friends children
- It would be nice to have support and love around me
- Bonus points: Trees and wild life that doesnt want to eat me...

Also, just found out that my transfer with Woolies is just for part time. So, I have enough money to get me back next week if I wanted but not enough to last me out the month on part time wages and I'm so sick of being unstable that I dont know if I can stand waiting to see if they can give me more hours, while I sleep on my friends floor...

I dunno, a big prideful part of me REALLY wants to make it work here and it would be great if it did. But maye it wont and it'd be nice to have a home again...

Decisions...

(6 Comments |Comment on this)

Beltane pre post
Tomorrow is Beltane.
My head is full of beats, checklists, organisational palaver, handfasting squee and boingy coffee stuff.
I'm excited and nervous about the night, ready to lose myself in the beats and being part of the soundtrack that drives the procession around the hill. A piece of The Unstoppable Force of Nature.
Its been a long hard road this year in the drummers, but, we got there. Its going to sound good, we will look great and we will do what it says on the tin.
Here comes summer.....



Current Mood: excited

(4 Comments |Comment on this)

The news at ten
Hello hello,

Given my lack of regular posting, rather than go for an edited highlights of the last few months (In short -drumming, sleeping, busy and busy...) heres my happiness.
I'm getting Handfasted!
At Beltane Jen and I will be tied together by the May Queen and from then joined for a year and a day.
I'm excited, and nervous and very, very pleased. 

The main impetus to do it is of course love - don’t need to explain that :), but there are also very practical considerations that have led to the decision. Jen is leaving in June to travel around the world for 6 months (ticket sorted long before we met dammit) and we've decided we want to stay together but, it’s a hell of a long time to be apart.
So, that in mind Handfasting is a physical tie that begins with an intention and gives us a time line - so, no matter what happens, (good, or bad - god forbid) in a year and a day we will meet up and discuss where we're going.
What that conversation will be we cant know, just hope, but the certainty that it will happen both tempers and sures up my inherent romanticism. Which is all very wise :)

So that’s the goodness. Big fat, grin-mongering yes.

Current Mood: pleased

(10 Comments |Comment on this)

Bank of yep
So, after months of being poor, but OK, I'm now poor and its not ok.
The company that I was getting my student loan has just folded. No student loan for me.
Bugger.
So, I've decided I'm going to get my studies deferred for at least 6 months,  and I'm going to work full time.
That means I can pay off some debts, afford my lovely flat and the rent I still owe from last month, get my glasses fixed, save up some cash for next years study and above all stop bloody stressing! I'm also getting a wee bank loan to pay the fees I owe for this year already, and the lovely people that lent me money to cover it in the mean time (Lady P and Alice - looking at you!)

I've got lots on my plate and to be honest it really starting to get me down. The rest of my life is sweet - busy, but sweet and money really does have an effect on your happiness no matter what the Polyanna in me says. But, this is totally something I can do something about instead of feeling powerless and hoping it will all work out each month as I get more and more in debt.
Then, next year I can go back to my studies hopefully full time instead of half arsed part time. I can keep up to date with my reading group and conferences meantime.

So thats that.

*sigh*

Current Mood: apathetic

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

OLD!
Today I am 30 and so far its ace.
I have taken the day off work and so far I've had tasty breakfast, strong coffee and some of the best chocolate I've ever tasted. Now I'm planning to go for a potter along the canal to the post office where I will pick stuff up.
Then, hopefully a massage by sitting down and reading.
This evening will be teaching capoeira and then wandering home to a tasty feed that my lovely flatmate is making.

I will also see my lovely lady which make me extremely happy. 

Its weird how pleased I am to be at 30. I'm not one of those hold on to your youth type people (mind you I still get mistaken for 24 so maybe that helps lessen the neurosies...) I have earned every one of these years and I see no point in pining for things I've already had.
Viva third decade!

Current Mood: cheerful

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

And the happy
I have met someone.

She's fucking amazing.

And, its sunny outside.

Hell yes...

Current Mood: pleased

(8 Comments |Comment on this)

Thing

However many words you have,

handfulls will come to

yes

and no

and the green,green,green,green,green....

wet and quiet outside my ears

 

 

 

 

Cup of tea anyone?

Current Mood: restless

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Sing loud
So, its 2008....

My New Years wasnt the best. I headed out to a party at beautiful crumbly old manor just outside Linlithgow where some capoeira mates live and that party was ace - outdoor fire in a walled garden, actual decent music around the fire, mulled wine for the bells. Had a bit to drink, all good... took some mushrooms...not good.

Current Mood: calm

(3 Comments |Comment on this)

Nice ice
In line with my efforts to embrace the winter, I've been visiting the canal just down the road from my flat every night. Its frozen over and if you throw stones at it they makes amazing pinging noises when they strike. The sound bounces off the buildings either side of the banks and makes me grin like a toddler.
I've run along that canal almost every sunday this year and its been a great way of measuring the seasons - the wee flowers in spring, signets,  row boats in summer, the frozen mallard this weekend...
Its cold, and icy, but I'm loving it.
When I'm outside I wrap up warm and enjoy the sunshine (while its available), I pretend I still smoke because I can see my breath, and walk to the library with a hot coffee. When it gets dark I have a warm toasty flat, excellent housemate, spangly rubber duck, a gay christmas tree and a slightly butch kitchen.

I also have a giant fruitcake filled with Guinness and brandy.
Hoorah ya buggers!

Current Mood: pleased

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Into my arms

Rob’s cremation was yesterday. Out at Mortonhall Cemetery in howling wind and rain, with occasional sunshine – a good spread of weather to echo the turbulence of the day. I’m always pleased when it rains on a funeral – years of growing up with tangi I guess.

Current Mood: okay

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

How can you say it with your lips so still?
I'm looking back through stuff to find something to read at Robs funeral. I've found a poem of his from 2002 that I think will do. Its about birth, and death. Suits really...
On the way I found things of my own from around that time.
Heres some from a spoken word thing me and Dee did is 2003ish.

Current Mood: sad

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

I have seen the best minds of my generation...
Yesterday, my dear friend Rob took his own life.

Rob had always had trouble with depression, but I knew him as a gentle, sweet guy - a beautiful poet with a dodgy sense of hunour and superior maker of sushi. We had known each other in NZ, flatted together for a while, but really became friends when he moved to Edinburgh three years back - spending our first new years in the UK together, bitching about the snow. He was always heading off on adventures, but we kept in touch - untill this year.
Over the past year he became increasingly ill, something we only really noticed in retrospect and was brought to our attention when he tried to kill himself two months ago. I hadnt seen him for a while, and he was hearing voices telling him it was over - time to leave. 
After he got out of hospital we gave him all the love and support we could -made missing persons reports when he went dissappeared, and welcomed him back unconditionally when he returned. We tried to help him make his soul safe from the fighting in his head.
He was due to fly back to NZ next week - to rest and get well, but in the end it seems the voices won. And I'll never my lovely sweet man again. 
Such a fucking waste...
I hope what part of Rob that still is, is somewhere safe, 
No more fighting.

(12 Comments |Comment on this)

Its been a while! Apologies.

In the interim things which have happened...

 

Current Mood: enthralled

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

Meme stuff
Ok,
heres the deal. You give me a comment, I pick seven interests from your user page and you have to elaborate on them. Cool?
Right, heres my 7 from the lovely Woolly Socks

Anarchist theory:
Anarchism is a pretty privelleged playground really and I'd rather not try and be 'one of the lads' so to speak  - so yeah Anarchist theory, and various derivitives. yay!  I'm a moderate syndicalist at heart and some of my favourites are: Anything by Mikhail Bakunin - (good declamatory troublemaking speeches) The revolution of everyday life by Raoul Vaneigem, and a leetle Gramski.

Big sticks:
Musical type sticks in particular -big drumsticks, Berimbau sticks. Big sticks are good. Do trees count as big sticks?   I quite like trees too...

Capoeira angola
Capoeira because its *almost* the best thing I can ever do -its an amazing synthesis of movement, fight, dance and song. Angola in particular because its ROOTS capoeira, aware of its traditions and history, and relies on fluidity of movement, dialogue between the players, cunning and trickery rather than strength and rules. In Capoeira Angola Everything is flexible - rules, people, context, hierarchy, but in the roda (the game of capoeira) everyone is equal. In short I fucking love it.

Hermeneutics
During my masters thesis I did a whole lot of work with literary theory (reception theory ) and most of my work had a heavy hermeneutic slant - critically evaluating the evolution of literary theories and the idea of a text that includes cultural phenomena rather than just ink on paper . I'm still pretty interested in Biblical hermeneutics in particular - lots of radical stuff happening there.

kefir
Fermented milk! Its actually really nice - I have kefir grains which are a clump of the the wee bacteria, you just leave them in a pint of milk for a few days and they ferment the milk and add lots of good digestive stuff. Its a bit weird warm, but cold its actually really refreshing.

substances
Mostly legal ones these days... I'm quite fond of whiskey, and special brownies : D

stencil gnomisms
I love the cheeky wee stencil aphorisms that some times appear round town. They totally give me the giggles.

"Also, because I am anal: critical theory is spelled wrong in there."
Rrrrrrrrsssssssp! Maybe... *hurries off and changes it*

Current Mood: chipper

(11 Comments |Comment on this)

And in review...
Its been a while since I updated here - but its not wilful neglect, honest. I've been busy as the proverbial and out of town a fair bit in the past month or so doing lots of stuff - stuff like:

At the beginning of the month I headed up to Argyll with Raz to camp for a bit and see Half-Life and it was bloody great.
Camping on the edge of a cliff in Carsaig Harbour has to have been one of the best parts - sure it was midgie infested on the shore below (43 bites!) and sleeping was slightly diagonal and mildly scary, but the view in the morning was worth in. we also had a great day walking the burial cairns along the Kilmarten Glen inbetween picking tonnes of brambles while talking to cows, visiting Arichonan village, and then the next walking along Crinan shore to the grave of a sailor hidden along the way. 
Going back and seeing the completed walks and the show after the initial visit with Phyllis and Al back was really interesting. The show itself was great and the set was amazing - I'd only seen it when the seats were in, not when the timber frame was built, and having the carvings and burials as context made for a lot of brain explody.
And again, I fell in love with Argyll. I have plans for running away there when I'm writing up my thesis. Its so lush and brooding...

Coming back into town after than I washed some clothes then headed to Glasgow to get a ride with my department to a conference in Oxford. It was a post-grad conference run by Regents Hall College, (but the papers and accommodation were at Summerhall College) and the title was Transcendance Incarnate, so it was a good mix of theology, humanities and Critical Theory and strangely enough the first ever Continental Philosophy conference ever to be held at Oxford(!??!).
Anyway, I had a geek-tastic time. I got to meet other Doctoral students, hear sexy papers, have a good chat about plastic bags as Ikons, and frequent an ice cream parlour open till midnight (academics are so rock and roll...). Once again I discovered that I'm academically fringy, but I'm in good company and my classmates(?)are lovely lovely people. I think I'm going to enjoy then next few years of study.

Then, back to Edinburgh for a day or two and off to Knockengorrich. Knock is a music festival down in the Borders that I traditionally avoid like the plague because I have no desire to go camping with all the hippies in Edinburgh, in the mud. But, this year, I was asked to help out with Crew 2000s welfare tent and figured I should probably go have a looksee anyhoo. Crew 200 are a drug and sexual health outreach group that do really stirling work here in Edinburgh, and I think I'm going to be volunteering with them on a regular basis in town, but for Knock we provided a non-judgemental chill out,(non-medical) recovery and information space - big warm dome tent with comfy beds for people having bad trips, or if you've just got too wet and cold. Free tea and coffee and all the flavoured condoms you could ever need (blueberry is ok, but mint is weird. Pays to know your product...)
Anyway, it all went pretty smoothly. Some bad acid, strong weed and an annoying guy on ketamine, but no big disasters - mind you I wasn’t on the shift where lots of people vomited...
Inbetween shifts I had a big dance to The Herbalizer, played a little capoeira, sat and drank wonderful chai in a proper turfed longhouse listening to great folk sessions and stories. Theres something magic about a hot cup of tea on a cold night when youre wrapped in your coziest :)

Inbetween all this I've written papers, brought half a car, started drumming rehersals for Samhuinn, and played lots of capoeira (in the street, demonstrations and a leetle training).

Its autumn and while its sunny, the light is becoming the white light of cold crisp evenings. I'm happy though. I had a busy summer - a good t-shirt tan remains visible (when I'm indoors and the heatings on), I got sunburnt cycling, ate picinics on the meadows, used my pink tent heaps and drink coffee made on my camping stove at least 5 times.
Autumn will be busy, and then it will be winter - which I plan to enjoy winter. I will go walking in it, make Sunday pies, train indoors and when it snows I will wear my fluffy woolley jacket that still smells of woodsmoke from fires we made in summer.


View out the cliff top tent -- Carsaig Harbour


The set for Half-Life


Cows. In Kilmartin.


Me upside down on Fort Dunnad


 

Current Mood: chipper

(10 Comments |Comment on this)

Notice to vacate
I am in the process of sorting my body out.
Various bits seem to be behaving wonderfully. For example, my knees have ceased to be crunchy all the time, and work just fine in all the activities I demand of them.
I also haven't had a bad batch of RSI for at least a year. So far so good.
Now, there's just my neck to deal with.
 
I had my first physio appointment today during which they said useful things like "your neck is very stiff isnt it?" and " yes neck pain is probably causing your headaches"
I love the NHS but sometimes...
In the wake of that and given my current essay typing madness, I gave the lovelyfreemore a call and he did excellent prodding and  pummelling things to me which made me feel much better. He also noted that I am perhaps suffering less from lumpy muscles than from a lack of hugs, which made me think that things like stress related muscle pain is probably better discussed metaphorically.
In this case;
I think, at the beginning of the year sadness got lodged in my body. It climbed up me and held on to the strongest tendons it could find, and it sat on my chest and made my throat tight.
Now the sadness isnt welcome, and has pretty much left as requested, but I need to get rid of those last tenacious passengers. Need to make my body supple and wiggly to shake it off.

Works in my head :)
 

Current Mood: contemplative

(4 Comments |Comment on this)

The weekend that was

Headed down to the borders on saturday to take up our annual invite to play capoeira at Traquair Fair.
It’s the best deal ever really: In return for playing capoeira for an hour we get free entry and camping which of course leads to drinking much Traquair House Ale and dancing  foolishly while slurring in bad portuguese late into the night.


Current Mood: pleased

(2 Comments |Comment on this)

Lughnassadh!
This weekend passed was the Beltane Lughnassadh feast and ritual.
What this meant in real terms was a big fire, lots of food and drumming until the blisters prevented more.
As I was in charge of the kitchen It also meant, with the aid of my fabulous assistants, and a few berimbau and pancake breaks I cooked for around 80+ people and as it went well. I am pleased.


Current Mood: accomplished

(1 Comment |Comment on this)

In answer to your questions...
Righto, via woolly_socks, heres a meme thingy.


Current Mood: busy

(6 Comments |Comment on this)

Then we take Berlin

Both my flatmate and my ex-flatmate work for  NVA   and their next show is set in Argyll at Kilmartin Glen the surrounding area of which has the highest concentration in Scotland of neolithic art and ritual structures. Part of the programme is a selection of walks around various sites so, this week I headed diagonal west to test drive a few of the walks with Lady P and Al.


Current Mood: contemplative

(Comment on this)