One

Quick memoir of the last few:

Today I’m feeling good. Temp’s hovering around 23 or so, sun’s shining and there’s no sign of the oppressive south westerlies. Plus I’m sitting in boardies and a shirt that says “I’m a ninja”. Spring’s nearly here and I’m pretty stoked. More on that in a moment though.

I’m pretty surprised that, despite having some strange form of the flu for nigh on two weeks now, I’m feeling pretty good physically as well. Also I appear to have coughed myself a six-pack. Heh. Oh dear. I think I’ve beaten down its last reserved onslaught now however. Crossed.

Busted out some exercise after I got home from work this morning. Then ran round the property in the sun. Farted around, did washing, all the mortal stuff.

Seems like sleep madness is temporary, and if one hardens the fuck up one can in fact break through into an entirely new stage of immortality. Serious, I’ve slept about twelve hours of the last fifty, but I don’t feel it. Fuck I’m a unit!

Speaking of which, only three nights left. Tonight, Fri and Sat are RDO, then I work Sat and Sun. I’ve been trying to work out what the hell I will do with two nights off. Due to the fact I sleep during the arv and baulk at the prospect of further stuffing up my sleep schedule, theres no real chance of me seeing any actual humans for a gday and maybe a beer. Bummer. I’m thinking in order to occupy myself, maybe I can trek to the other side of the hill and set up a camp during the nights. Keeping a big fire going and drinking might be more fun than sitting here and reading the 48 Laws of Power, brooding over how I can take over the world. Ok I don’t actually do that. But I am reading the laws, by Robert Greene. Intriguing. Amoral. Confronting.

I read the Hobbit last week. I never got around to it when I was a kid, when I should have read it. Curse my misspent youth. It was a great tale. Doesn’t talk down to the reader at all, like I imagined it would, for some erason. Just a beautiful, eloquent and exciting tale.

Anyway, once again, so happy it’s sunny. I can almost smell the sunscreen, the coconut, parafin, and the sea. Cooking tofu burgers on the fire. Mid sized waves rolling in on a dodgy break, and the wind whistling through the sheoaks. Ahh to sit in the sand again.

Looks like I’ll be unable to go camping for my birthday due to the ever-present scourge of full time employment. But October I plan to ask for time off. Keen.

So on the day I do hit the big 22, I might just drink hard and play poker. That was fun last time. Either that or just sit with my couple of mates on a porch that isn’t mine. I will loudly proclaim that it is the equinox, and proceed to jump over a fire. If there is no fire, we will light one. I just realised I’m sleepy so I’m going to go. Going to finish this beer in the shower. Yes!

Apfelkuchen, sehr fein!

Today I baked a motherfucking cake.

Days ago I mostly vanquished the sickness which at one time had a good hold on my body. I get the odd lingering sore throat or dizzy spell, but these afflictions could just as easily be blamed on sleep madness.

Imagine for a moment, if one were to spend every dark hour of the day awake, every day, for a few weeks. And for the last ten days or so, one has averaged around five hours sleep during daylight per day. Sleep rage is reached. One rants a bit, and in extreme cases, an unsuspecting shmoe gets nailed. By and by, through further neglect of natural biological requirements, the entirely different phenomenon of sleep madness rears its head. A state in which the day never really passes. You work all night, go home, stay up till lunch time, go to bed, get up that night and go to work. Repeat. No real distinction between days, and so they bleed into each other. And everything becomes hilarious.

Hello

I haven’t had time on my hands like this since…longer ago than I can remember. I’m still stricken with this vicious malady, although I’m gaining ground on it now. Finally. I haven’t been doing much apart from reading, piking on the carpet/bed/lawn, and thinking.

Thinking. Seems like the most poignant epiphanies arrive just before falling asleep, or any other time my mind just wanders unchecked. I remember having some marvellous realisation just before I fell asleep yesterday arv and wanting to get up and write it down. That’s my last memory. Damn.

I finished another book, and ordered a ton more. I like the way books encourage you to question and think. Often in within the context of a witty and entertaining storyline. I feel a little disconnected from the world as it is currently though. I will have to read the paper today I think. With a slightly different eye due to my week of evaluation and consolidation of my thoughts on.. everything.

I realised this morning that whilst I shun dubious propositions emanating from ACA, and pretty much any other fashionable news source, I lap up the doomsday prophecies rife on the ABC, left wing journals, and the like. Climate change, peak oil, nuclear warfare, government conspiracies, ruination! failure! calamity and mortification! I subscribe to them all. Or I did.

But why do I consider the notions perpetuated by more “respectable” sources like the latter mentioned to be any more reliable than those by the former? It’s not like I’m particularly well travelled [or read for that matter]. And I haven’t actually seen most of this stuff myself. Even though the evidence I’m presented with *seems* to stack up, it’s not offering me any more credible assurances than the other stuff. Bottom line is I don’t have the evidence upon which to accept any of this stuff as fact. Fact. That brings me to another point.

I’m sure all news sources have their agendas, it’s only inherent and natural. Whoever reports on something, whether it be Today Tonight, the BBC or New Internationalist, there’s always going to be some kind of spin. That’s the nature of media and indeed the irony with the mechanics of Information, and we must accept it. Even when we observe something for ourselves, we’re viewing it through the filter of our own eyes, and interpreting it through the lens made up of all our past experiences, the notions we have and our own ability to understand and analyse, which is just based on intelligence. You get ten people, ask each one their view on something, and you’re going to get ten slightly different versions. Sometimes not slightly different, sometimes they vary wildly – take nutritional views for instance.

When it comes to “knowledge” and “fact”, in reality there are no such things. Black and white do not exist. Nothing in the real world is black or white. They’re theoretical extremes which just don’t occur.

Absolutely nothing has the credibility to be accepted as sole authoritative fact. Realising this is liberating.

Having said all this, I’m not exactly saying I want to break off all contact with the world, its inhabitants and its media and live as a hermit. I’m more saying I want to spend some time continuing to expand my mind reading wise, and also travel more widely, to gain some real perspective on the issues in the country and in the world. Not everyone wants to go this far, but we can all improve our level of understanding simply by consulting a wider variety of sources before forming an opinion. And, might I add, continually analysing and reaffirming everything we stand for. Or think we stand for.

Not everyone wants to be well-informed though. Just, the ones that do, should do themselves justice and do it the right way. Yeah.

I’ll continue this later perhaps.

Diggs

I’m still sick. Ok so it’s only been five days or whatever, but I’m not handling this well. I actually caved and went to see a doctor today. Not so much because I required medical expertise to alleviate my symptoms [heaven forbid - none of that within ten k's of the dive I visited], but I needed an MD to sign a medical certificate legitimising two days off work.

Up until last night I was soldiering on through the nights. Through the fever, through coughing, spluttering, morbid hallucinations. But when my eye sockets swelled up and all this fluid started coming out [because the nation needs to know!], I decided I should get some rest.

Partly to blame is this weather. I seriously can’t handle days on end of dry sub twenties, and nights of sub five. I’ve had very real inclinations to dash from the house to the falcon in a singlet and shorts, crank the heater, and point the beast north, and not get out till I’m at Noah Beach.

I wouldn’t need much. Some cd’s, a change of clothes, some oats, fruit, cash. Hammock.
I’d stop at the Krishna place in Cairns for some tucker, then bust it out, into the Daintree.

Tomorrow’s forecast?

CAIRNS
Fine. Moderate to fresh S to SE winds.
MIN 16 MAX 25

A far more acceptable temperature range than

MARYBOROUGH
Dry. Light to moderate SW to S’ly, fresh at times on Tuesday morning.
MIN 5 MAX 21

I feel as though I’m slowly sliding backwards and will eventually succumb in this shit, cold, dry windy shit. But I know I really don’t have reasons to complain. Presently, however, little else fills my days.

Apart from looking at housing in Brissy and realising what a pauper I am. For real, one of the things I love about Maryborough is it makes me feel rich. For one thing the busted arse piece of Australiana in which I make my daily commute is a good ten years younger then the average heap around here. It also has paint. Respectable homes on big blocks, in nice parts of town rarely go for more than 275. It’s a mostly honest town, and the tradespeople generally charge honest rates for their service. And finally, the bowling alley is four bucks a game, and the cinema rarely runs into double figures.

In the city, buying is out of the question for me. Even in dodgy outlying districts, the cheapest townhouses rarely go sub 300’s. Renting would be affordable if I shared with two others. Trouble with that is, I don’t know anyone in Brisbane who’s looking to share.

It’s all starting to seem like a lot of trouble and expense just to try and obtain a degree and a real job within the next five years. But then walking about the Burra today, I realised I’ve just got to do it somehow. Now, more than ever, I’ve just got to get out. Nothing specific against it, but I cannot exist here anymore.

Down with the sickness

Once again it seems, it is time for the nation to spontaneously morph into a caboodle of fist pumping, jingo tryhards. Glued to the plasma screen, spitting pizza, commentary and abuse at the athletes competing 2008 Summer Olympics.

..

Hold up. When did I become this cynical?

So the dirge you read above isn’t really a true reflection of my take on the olympics and the world at large. I’ve just been working a lot of nights, handling a seemingly endless stream of communiqué with inebriated trogldytes, and perhaps reading a bit too much Palahniuk whilest at it.

You know, the only thing less interesting than the olympics, is hearing people talk about how they’re not interested in the olympics. So that’s all I’ll say on the matter.

Anyway, to the real point of this.

I’m actually sick at the moment, which doesn’t happen all that often. I’ve got several excuses this time, including the fact that I worked seven nights in a row, then drove to Ballina that night, attented Splendour for two days, then drove home Monday and worked Monday night till 7am. Unfortunately I could not get time off work to go to the festival, and so had to put in a Herculean rush to beautiful northern NSW and back.

It’s at this time of year I usually feel pretty uncomfortable with everything. That or it could just be my “fuck everything” cycle that comes around every once in awhile. But for real, I thought I was handling the sleep deprivation, fever and cold. Till when driving down a bushy track in the dark, I looked up for some reason and saw a small body hanging limp from a tree branch.

It wasn’t, of course. It was a bunch of leaves. My imagination has been running amok a little. Every now and then I’ll read a sign, and my mind will put totally different words onto it to what it actually says. Strewth.

Splendour in the Grass was amazing. Due to it being my first time, I was a little apprehensive prior to the event. It’s like another world down there. The quality of the music was just surreal. The crowds, expense, and drunk sweaty bogans crashing into fucking everything began to annoy me. But it was a small price to pay for a very awesome weekend. For sure, I’m going next year. I’ll probably be a little bolder now I have a feel for it and to a degree, know what to expect. I kind of have withdrawals from the weekend. Whenever I smell cigarette smoke, or hear loud bass, or people cheering, I get nostalgic.