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[19 Jul 2009|09:23pm] |
My belly is full of roast beef, and my ears are full of Bach. Yuri and I have had a quiet weekend, both suffering from minor colds and recovering somewhat. I was feeling well enough for the gym this morning. We were both well enough for some tidying up of the garden.
Speaking of the garden, our very handy neighbour to the rear of our house came and repaired the fence. He took down the palings, laid them out on the lawn, worked out which ones we could keep, bought replacements for the others then screwed them all in to the beams which were still in good condition. Can't complain about that. I'm pretty useless when it comes to handyman stuff.
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) yuriverse and I are headed up to Turtle Cove for a week in August. Yay. Yes, it will be our third time there, but it's just our speed and so pretty.
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| Synecdoche Etc. |
[09 Jul 2009|07:02pm] |
Phillip Seymour Hoffman is a tubby goner. Wait? Is he a tranny? No? Oh, this is beginning to make a modicum of sense as a statement about minds and memories and personae. Whatever. Who cares? What was the point, even if the movie dares to say "what was the point anyway?"
It's gibberish, to quote Evelyn Waugh. Any sensible person knows how there's all this weird geography inside minds. So what? We interact with people and infer their internal monologue. We know how fragmentary and confusing it is. And we put it aside. It's not useful for understanding each other or getting things done. This movie was a waste of a statement.
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[09 Jul 2009|03:41pm] |
Synecdoche New York had better be worth the $16.50.
This week off has featured many similar events to the last one in January. Minus the sunshine.
I think I need another week.
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| More than your average cat |
[04 Jul 2009|01:04pm] |
We said our final farewell to Weensie this morning. It's a hard decision but the right one. He went without pain. The last days were quiet times. We gave the house to Weensie to keep him comfortable. Yuri stayed home with him yesterday. He slept downstairs so Weensie could come and go without the inconvenience of the stairs. They were getting to be harder and harder work these last months. The last couple of weeks he got thinner and thinner, more and more disoriented. We kept trying to interest him in food and he would eat some to please us. Just as often he would approach a dish and forget why he was there. I don't think he was absorbing much from what he did eat. The time came this morning. I'm proud of Yuri for being brave enough to take the right decision. We said our goodbyes at the Balmain Veterinary Clinic and eased him into his last sleep.
I'm missing you already, Weensie. You were a great friend.
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[30 Jun 2009|09:26pm] |
I'm still here more than two weeks later. I disappeared from livejournal for too long, feeling guilty each time I came back to browse your blogs, contributing nothing - not even a comment. I'm getting too withdrawn right now. Lots of things are on my mind:
Mum is not in the best shape. Her two decades on medication for hyperthyroidism have bloated her face, bugged her eyes, destroyed her patience and clouded her judgment. She's not the mother I remember living with at home, but that's not to be expected. I've been out of her day to day life for eighteen years and while I'm much closer now in distance, our relationship is an adult one now and worlds away from closeness we had before I left home. In fact, the closeness was evaporating before I reached puberty. Coming out to her was a very scary process in the age of AIDS and the new homophobia. Now she's so visibly changed. I don't know how much longer we'll have her in our lives and I'm fretting about that.
I'm getting older. It's obvious at Google that I'm in the old farts brigade. The clock won't be turned back and I don't want it to, but sometimes I long for a peer group. There are in fact a group of engineers there who are in my age group, but I wish they were gay too. That's not the most common trait shared by men in my field.
What is it? What do I want? I have a great husband, a life in Sydney that I pictured for years with great anticipation, a career at a great company (bad press aside), a group of loving friends.
I want the feeling of endless possiblity that I had as a university student. I know the clock won't turn back. I know just about everybody feels like this at my age. We all get over it and get on with the process of living.
The possiblities aren't endless. They never were. The potential for happiness is whatever I can make of it. The life to live is still in front of me. I won't shut the world out.
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[13 Jun 2009|02:53pm] |
After watching Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2, I would have predicted Quentin Tarantino would be the one who wanked himself to death. David Carradine at least didn't die with a plastic bag over his head and his pants down. That was the way the son of family friends went out in the eigthies. In the nineties and aughties it's all belts an ties and closet rails.
I got back from SF and disappeared a little into "in-office sabbatical" mode. The suggestion of travelling to Mountain View just two weeks later I couldn't face, especially after being stopped at Immigration for more questioning last time. The outcome was brief and positive ("Yes, I had to withdraw my application for admission to the US once in 1999 and flew back to Sydney to get my passport stamp fixed. Thank you, Good Day" but you never know if an official having a bad day will just decide to refuse you entry. Also, the jetlag made me think "Fuck no!" when the trip was suggested. Now that I've gotten over that, I'm wondering if I should have made the trip.
Tonight yuriverse and I are going out to see "Vivid Sydney", then to dinner and a drink or two on Oxford St. It's been so long since we participated in the scene we're about to lose our Gay credentials.
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| San Francisco-ing |
[30 May 2009|11:12am] |
This trip has had its moments, but it really isn't the same without yuriverse. When you are staying in a hotel, going to a conference that only occupies a small percentage of your time, and not really in the mood for loads of tourist attractions, homesickness isn't too far away. I have, of course, had some fun and caught up with friends. I've been out in some of the old haunts and woken up with some hangovers. I've noticed some changes in the Castro and in Golden Gate Park near 9th Ave.
Since last trip the Castro has been remodeling - the Cafe is boarded up, Toad Hall has opened on the site of the Pendulum, Trigger has opened on the site of the old Detour - I remember a place called "Jet" that had a short life there in between. A couple of restaurants have changed over too, but the character of the area remains in its gentrified, yuppified state dotted with recalcitrant naughty shops.
Golden Gate Park has a new Academy of Sciences that I chanced on with a work friend on Thursday night. They have an event called "Night Life" where for the last couple of opening hours it's adults only, booze is served, prices are cut, music is thumping and lots of 20-somethings pretend to be interested in the exhibits while guzzling drinks. We were too late to get in line for the rainforest exhibit and the planetarium, but we saw the rest including the super-cool living roof which looks like the coastal scrub around Cambria.
I have hung out with friends, run into acquaintances and popped once or twice into Eros, but thoughts turn to home especially when the inspiration is lacking, I can't think of an activity and just want comfort.
Still, there have been big events in which I have been peripherally involved. The CA Supreme Court decision letting Proposition 8 stand was announced (not unexpectedly) and of course the protests had to be held. I was eating in Ristorante Capri as a march of about 400 went up Market St to Castro, so I paid my bill and followed to the intersection to listen as best I could to the angry speechifying. Bullhorns pointed up in the air are ineffective when there is no roof. We could barely hear a thing, but the slogans were still taken up and chanted. It'll be interesting to see what happens in Fresno when the fight is taken up there (quite the right place to do it). I fear firearms might be used by the wingnuts. Please prove me wrong.
Back to the mundane, I haven't been to the gym whilst here. Maybe today, or maybe I'll just leave it for Sydney. I'll need a couple of weeks to undo the boozing of this week.
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[22 May 2009|05:53pm] |
So here's the launch announcement of the product I've been working on for over a year (off an on). It's finally out there. Called "Maps Ad Unit", but therein lies a minefield of legal and marketing requirements. I would have called it something much snappier like Map Flakes with Honey. Whatever. It's the technical stuff that I do these days. I can get a few giggles from the marketing and sales folks when I suggest names like Grasping Capitalist Pig-dog Exploitation Rectangles for ads. That will do.
Here's the official announcement: http://googlegeodevelopers.blogspot.com/2009/05/earn-revenue-from-your-mashup-with-maps_20.html
Sigh. I'm tired but happy with this one. I'll probably be a zombie in SF next week instead of drumming up developer support, but hopefully it'll sell itself.
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[20 May 2009|08:30am] |
In a few more days I'll be on a plane to San Francisco for Google IO, and hopefully with something to brag about. It's been a very draining year so far. Although I planned to take a decent holiday, it hasn't happened yet. First I hosted an intern who was far more demanding of my time than the last one, then our team got very busy launching a new product, which means lots of yak shaving. (Yak shaving is derived from Ren and Stimpy but to tech geeks it refers to the seemingly unrelated weird little tasks you end up having to do to get your main thing done. We even went further and started referring the the forgotten bits as "tufts".)
So work has chewed up most of my attention, the gym regimen a lot of the rest and events are just passing me by right now. Poor yuriverse starts talking to me and my mind disappears into a fog which is a big indicator of how much I need a break. Turtle Cove for a week!! Recharge and come back to all the real life that's been neglected so badly.
There have, of course, been social events taking place. We went to the Swans game a couple of weeks ago, to Dylan Moran too, we went lawn bowling with Mum, we hung out with friends on Friday nights, had birthday dinners for Robert and Gary. It seems to pass by in a dream. I need to re-engage with my life.
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| Back in SF for a week |
[03 May 2009|12:17am] |
I'm headed back to SF for a Google developer event The dates will be 24th May through 31st May. I'll fly in Sunday a.m and leave Sunday p.m. Hope to catch up with as many of you SF LJers as I can in that time.
It's been a very busy time for Nick and I apologise for the lack of communication with any of you who have wondered what the hell happened to me. It was a combination of 1) office move for work 2) office move at home (shifting a lot or things upstairs) 3) too much to work on during the day 4) exhaustion at night due to 5) being strict about working out with the heart rate monitor etc.
Pleasingly, I reached my goal weight about a fortnight ago for the first time. There have been a couple of bounces since then, but I'm pretty solidly under it now.
My attention to this has been close to obsessive, which hasn't been great for my social life. There have been plenty of days when I didn't feel like I could even look up above the horizon line. Vitamins and so on, I think, although I'm probably long overdue for a Dr appt about depression. Thankfully, yuriverse has been great at keeping us in the loop of dinners with friends, Swans games, DVDs, plays and Dylan Moran's concert next week.
See youse all soon.
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[18 Apr 2009|08:31am] |
Poor LJ must feel neglected. It's been a busy month at work and I've kept busy at the gym too. After working out, work, dinner with the husband and DVD watching, there haven't been too many exciting topics. Last weekend was a far better topic. yuriverse has already mentioned our road trip to Melbourne over Easter weekend, so you'll get a better idea there. Just let it be said that the 900 km journey in a single day on Thursday and the following Monday should be a once in a lifetime thing. Funny thing is I've done it before in a coach. It's far more exhausting behind the wheel, and we did share the driving somewhat. I hogged it, though.
Melbourne and I have a history of quickies. I went three times in high school for a three day "Crawford Shield". In alternating years, Melbourne Boys High would visit North Sydney Boys High and vice versa. We were billeted with students, in my case orchestra/band players because that's why I was chosen. In those visits, I saw Melbourne through the eyes of three families. The first being the immensely fat family of a builder, all fat because they ate similar portions to Dad who was the only one getting real exercise. I remember being served half a chicken, far too many roast potatoes and a mountain of peas. About double what I was used to at home. They were nice to me and took me to Melbourne Luna Park which was an obsession of mine at the time. They lived way out in Dandenong or somewhere near there. It was twenty six years ago, and I don't remember.
Next visit was staying with some arty-farty types much closer to the city. I remember the suburb being like Paddington in Sydney. Maybe it was Carlton? Anyway, that visit was much more fun and the train in to South Yarra was minutes rather than an hour. Third time was out in suburbia again, this time in my final year of high school. I've lost the details of that visit somewhat, although I was the first violin for Bach's Double Violin Concerto.
Then I was a grown up of 25 and visited with a gay friend Jay whose partner had to cancel his weekend trip at the last minute. I went in Keith's place and Jay and I took in some sights based in Drummond St at the recently opened gay bed and breakfast. We did the bars, saunas, shopping, but also ended up with nasty colds. Still, I remembered Drummond St.
Finally, that same year, I went with my new partner Grantley to take leave of his family and friends before our big move to California. It wasn't so much of a Melbourne stay - we stayed in a hotel. We spent far more time out at his family's farm near Benalla.
So that's all I really know about Melbourne historically until last year I had a flying visit for work, and this year Yuri and I finally drove ourselves there. Drummond St was the obvious choice of B&B because of the happy visit fourteen years previous. What to do and see was constrained by the fact that lots of things might not be open on Easter weekend (although this wasn't such a problem after all). We didn't plan to see any plays or musicals. We didn't buy any tickets for the Comedy Festival. We just cruised around cafes and bars, Brunswick St, Smith St, etc. We drove to St Kilda and walked around on the beach, back to see how Luna Park was so small, far smaller than I remember (naturally). We drove out to Healesville Animal Sanctuary for a wildlife fix with Jane and her husband and Mr NaNoWriMo and his mother. We went at night to Sircuit and to Wet (sauna), avoided the Peel, thought about the Laird and couldn't be arsed walking there. We didn't put in the partying hours necessary to meet any new best friends. We're old and tired now.
In summary, I love Melbourne. If I had no roots in Sydney and came to live in Australia from the US, for example, I could easily choose to settle there. I love Sydney too. I'm a city slut.
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[31 Mar 2009|10:12am] |
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Never underestimate pram rage. Coupled with passive aggression it can make you very late for work. Two prams were already on a half empty bus. A livid grandmother was going to get on come Hell or etc. Bus wouldn't move. Mother number two then decides to make a martyrdom play and alights, thereby causing further delay for the (irrelevant) other passengers and a big guilt trip for grandma. I miss my connecting bus Posted via LiveJournal.app.
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[23 Mar 2009|10:25pm] |
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I went to see Nicolas Cage be dark and tormented in Knowing. It was a free preview screening. Well worth the price of admission. ( Spoiler-ish )
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[12 Mar 2009|04:43pm] |
My youngest neice Annabel has taken to teasing her sister Zoe about her coming teenagerdom, running around the house shouting, "Period! Period!"
Bless.
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[11 Mar 2009|05:43pm] |
Being on holiday when nobody else is can get strange. I decided today to see a movie - Ghost Town (Ricky Gervais and Greg Kinnear in a silly bit of fluff). The movie was showing at 11:30 this morning in "Gold Class" whatever that was. It turned out to be a $26 ticket for which I got an entire theatre to myself, a comfy leatherette recliner, a table, and food delivered to me during the movie. (Not free food, I might add.) So I splurged, figuring I was getting the equivalent of a private screening for not too much cash. Blah blah extravagance blah blan recession blah blah depression 1930s. Whatever. I sat in my own theatre and munched on salt and pepper squid while not being bothered by any screaming kids or bratty teenagers. It was a fun thing to do, and I might do it again some day under the same circumstances - unpopular movie, weekday matinee and so on.
I met up with my friend Jeff after the movie for a proper lunch - seafood buffet at the Marriot of all places. It was nice enough - all you can eat oysters, prawns, etc. Strategically un-delicious enough to keep everyone's consumption down. Next we walked the botanical gardens around Mrs Macquarie's Chair and back up to the art gallery, chatting all the while. We continued from there back across the Domain to the city for some bargain hunting at Borders (I love how Borders is a marginal player in Australia), then me back to QVB for the bus home and Jeff back to Town Hall for the train. I caught the same bus home as yuriverse, but we didn't see each other until we approached the house.
It's been just the sort of holiday I've needed so far - lunch with my husband on Monday followed by a visit to Signal where there were still some men unaware of what time or day it was. Mardi Gras time, of course.
Yesterday I had a walk around Berry Island after a lunch with Mum and Len. Berry Island has some bush and walking tracks. I did venture up into the bush, hoping for some hidden carvings on the rocks. Found none, but reached the peak of the island anyway. I felt especially vulnerable - falling and breaking something in that location would be scary. I found my way back to the walking track. I was the only soul there except one lone walker who passed me quickly in the opposite direction. After that, it was my island, and I felt emboldened to walk a track with a "track closed" sign. Take that, the man. It was the right track, too. I reached the carvings, all nicely viewable from a boardwalk with educational signs and stuff. The "track closed" probably was meant to protect the carvings from vandals, which so far seems to have worked.
I walked along a deserted harbour foreshore and up into more bush with a few more lookouts. It's so nice to have this kind of a reserve right near the city and so unspoilt. I must take the husband there soon.
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| Corked! |
[04 Mar 2009|11:32pm] |
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Screw top wine isn't supposed to get corked! Oh well, at least I won't get fat from it when it gushes through me at 76 mph. At least with bad wine, I don't even feel the slightest bit sick or crampy. It just gets purged.
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| Fatty Fats |
[28 Feb 2009|10:31pm] |
Depression that feels like a dull weight preventing my eyes from rising above the horizon. I've felt it before and felt it strongly this week. It's funny, because I felt down but not despondent. Just non-functional. I took Thursday off and had plans for Friday too, but something happened that fixed things up somewhat. I took some vitamins. I know deficiency gets me down, but it's almost impossible to remember how to fix it in that state. I finally remembered. Took some Berocca. My husband brought home some iron supplements. I took those too. My life came back.
This has been the hardest part of the weight loss program. To remember that I might use up more than I replace through my diminished eating. Sweating at the gym certainly takes a lot out. The warning signs were slowly building, but then on Wednesday I just crashed. Couldn't concentrate at work, couldn't answer simple questions, couldn't remember details of work I've been doing recently, sounded like a dithering idiot. My eyes drooped. My head was physically heavy. I felt like happiness was a hoax, something I couldn't remember experiencing. Yes, I took some hard knocks at work these last six months. No, economy or not, environment or not, the world wasn't ending.
So. Vitamins. Amazing.
Anyway, back to life. I'm still reasonably on track to be as fit as I was eight years ago, which was pretty good. I would ideally like to get back to thirteen years ago, but I'm not in my mid twenties any more. I know better facts now.
1. The "fat burning zone" for heart rate is a joke. Don't use that as a guide. It's too leisurely - pretty good for your heart but won't do shit for your waist.
2. It's amazing how the little nibbly things you stuff in your face during the day add up. You can easily add 20% to the food you thought you ate.
3. Get a heart rate monitor. A good one.
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| St Valentine |
[14 Feb 2009|11:10am] |
Wikipedia says nobody knows who he was or what he did, but.. Flowers! Chocolates! Buying cards! Hallmark wins again.
( Pontificating )
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[05 Feb 2009|10:40pm] |
I totally got menaced and chased by a black swan yesterday. It was beside a pond in Centennial Park, and I chased a tennis ball down to the edge - far too close for daddy swan's liking, as mummy swan was swimming nearby with three fluffy grey cygnets. Daddy swan reared up high and spread his wings and advanced. And avoiding a vicious pecking, I turned my tail and fled (briefly pursued by daddy swan) like brave Sir Robin, except that I tripped over and landed on my thigh. Well, on my iPhone too, so there's a nice iPhone shaped bruise forming. Worse thing - all the other picnic goers from work watched and hawed. (After making sure I was OK).
A flock of long billed corellas eating from my hand made up for the indignities later.
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[01 Feb 2009|09:48am] |
Mum phoned yesterday - she and Len (my stepdad) are back from her home away from home in Tuncurry which I think they very much prefer to the big house in Greenwich. Anyway, Mum's phone calls almost always list the various morbidities and mortalities in our neighbourhood and in our family. A couple of weeks ago it was Wal Taylor up the road who finally succumbed to his cancer (and cancers have taken just about everyone who has died in the last decade in their little street - coincidence, Shell Oil, who have their grossly polluting terminal right beside it?) Anyway, this time it was family.
My cousin Michael (one of the many in New Zealand), whom I last saw in 1986 when he was twelve and I sixteen, left this life doing something he loved (at least, I hope he wasn't just doing it to please someone else). He was riding a Vespa late at night, and apparently took a corner too fast and hit the curb, and was flung into a guard rail. His body was smashed, and his neck snapped. It must have been over in an instant.
Michael (when I knew him) was a very enthusiastic and slightly hyperactive twelve year old. Everything was "excellent" and/or "choice" to him. That was how his NZ age group would praise things. He was always asking how much things might cost, especially when he came to visit us in Greenwich for a couple of weeks. The NZ dollar was so far down, his pocket money probably wouldn't have bought a can of Coke in Australia. We played cricket in the back yard, swam in the pool, went out on New Year's Eve to see if there was a party we might be able to join. I forget what else. I was four years older but we could still relate to each other. Oh, and he was obsessed with Vietnam War history - so maybe we didn't relate to each other that well. It's all such a long time ago. One very funny tick was his enthusiastic description of violent movies where he would refer to the people being wasted. Then he told me about his rabbit in a hutch in his back yard in New Zealand, and how a dog had got in and "the dog wasted the rabbit". I still love that.
Michael was the child of his father (David's) second marriage, and his half-brothers and half sister were considerably older. He had another half-sister (Tonya) via his mother (Joy) and was mostly brought up with her. The older half siblings left home fairly young. David was a very difficult, exacting father. Nanna warned me "David comes down pretty hard on poor Michael, but you'll like him." David comes down pretty hard on everyone, though. His life was difficult but it didn't teach him much sympathy or tolerance for weakness. Naturally, he probably amplified the weaknesses in his children's characters. At the time of his death, Mum tells me (via David) that Michael was living in a derilect house that deserved to be condemned, but was trying to "do it up" to some tolerable level. I can imagine the company he probably kept, and his outlook on life - slightly (but not too) "outlaw", with a goodly dose of Catholic guilty conscience preventing him becoming a biker, instead joining a Vespa club.
But what do I know? I haven't been to New Zealand nor seen most of my twenty-odd cousins there since I was a child. I'm sorry I took no active interest.
R.I.P. Michael.
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