wordfalls and scatters

I haven't really been posting here, in large part because I'm not quite sure what it's for. When I first started my Dreamwidth account I was thinking about it as a replacement for livejournal, somewhere to put more personal posts, because of the ability to lock them down to different levels of privacy. However, while the platform still seems well-suited to this use, my network on here doesn't. When I started on livejournal, I was all young and angsty and most of the people on my friends list were people around my age who I knew at least a bit offline.

Now, although a few of my close friends have come over to DW from LJ, most of the people I know here aren't necessarily going to be interested in my more introspective posts. And for things I share publicly, I tend to put them over on my 'grown-up' website or my tumblr, just because they're more visible.

I really like this platform and the possibilities that it affords, though, so I'm going to make an effort to start using it more often, even if it's just to read my friends list (and a big wave to all the Ada campers I've just followed!). Maybe in the process I'll work out what to use this for.

I'm spending at awful lot of time these days battling uphill to Make Stuff. Staring at sentences, writing a few words, deleting them. I get everything that I need to do done, because I always get everything that I need to do done (for a given definition of "need"). But it often feels like such a struggle. And the things at the edge, the things that I would like to do, the things that I want to do for me and not anyone else, they often fall by the wayside.

I have an awful lot to do over the next two weeks. I have this Big Project for work which involves learning a heap of new skills, and the Big Project is meant to be leaving space to publish, somehow. And hopefully I'll be moving house, too. And then once the creation phase of Big Project has mostly been completed, I have to actually implement Big Project, in between doing a heap of other work and preparing for a conference and, again, trying to fit in some publishing.

I need to get better at getting around the blocks I have to Making Stuff. I need to get better at finding my focus, and not just staring and playing type-and-delete-and-type. I have moments of this, sometimes, but it needs to be happening more consistently. I need to work out how to breathe and relax and let out the anxiety that trips me up.

Because I really do love making stuff, and this stuff is potentially good and interesting and useful stuff.

I feel like I'm finding parts of myself I didn't even realise were gone.

Last night people came over and although I felt a little overwhelmed and anxious I was mostly just full of delight at the many lovely people in my life. There was ukulele! and dancing! and a gleeful singalong:



I spent a lot of the time bouncing around being silly (hopefully without offending anyone too much). I saw a few people I haven't seen in ages, and a few people who I never see enough of (including the lovely ones I see often and can't possibly tire of).

And after everyone left or went to sleep I did the dishes and swept the floor and picked up the last of the bottles (our lovely guests had already helped with the tidying).

This morning I pottered around in the kitchen and made everyone breakfast while our houseguest played ukulele, taking little breaks in between cooking to dance with J around the kitchen.

I'm lucky. And proud, a little, because I've helped to make this.

The first leg of our trip is done! We watched terrible movies on the plane (then accidentally talked about politics and disconcerted the people sitting near us) and had a tiny girl stare at our hair a lot. The stopover in Auckland was great - we walked from the city centre out to the Domain park and went to the museum there. (Although it wasn't open yet, so we slept on our faces on the grass for a bit.)

The museum was lovely. We spent a lot of time walking around the "Pacific People's" exhibit. I kind of want to live in the "Weird and Wonderful" bit, which is a really great exploring space for kids - it's full of small, soft, colourful spaces to sit, and a crazy collection of stuffed animals and bones and interesting rocks and dinosaur dioramas and spiders and frogs and (extremely stressed) hamsters. Also, the volcanoes exhibit! It has helpful tips on how to clean volcanic ash off your car, and also instructive lessons from previous disasters (such as: if authorities block of an area because of an immanent explosion, do not evade police roadblocks in order to get closer - it may well end badly for you).

Claire and I got into SF yesterday morning, and have spent the day wandering around with Tim and Star. We had dinner at a Vietnamese restaurant with them and some other lovely people who they all know. And Claire baked bread, because she's a lovely hippy. Shortly Claire and I will leave on the next leg of our trip: off to Reno to pick up Claire's mother, supplies, and the truck we're taking to Burning Man.

I have been finding the space to do things that make me happy again, including:

* I hung around in Northbridge for a while on Wednesday night. I had fifteen minutes to fill before meeting lovely-old-friend and lovely-new-friend for dinner, and I sat down in the Northbridge piazza to watch a documentary, and immediately a stranger sat next to me and started chatting. I like this! I like talking to strangers, and surprises, and the oddness of Northbridge.

* J invited a friend from uni around on Wednesday night, and when I got back from dinner I sat with them and the housemates in the lounge, talking about politics (live animal exports, how people see science) until 1 am. It is so restorative to have clever people in my life who are willing to pull apart ideas and ethics, and ask tough questions in gentle ways.

* I have been starting to do ukulele practice again, after a long absence (mostly to do with strange hangups and associations I have with ukulelestuff). I am finding new songs to play that are tricky, but not impossible, which is just what I need right now.

* Vegan cooking! Some of it works out and some of it doesn't, but I am feeling pretty good about vegan food at the moment. It almost never feels like I'm missing out.

* Getting back to research and writing. I'm having a hard time with it, mostly because after the last year of rushed teaching the slower pace of reading and thinking and plotting and planning feels decadently unproductive. But I'm happy to have ideas in mind and projects ahead of me that I know I'll get into eventually.

* People! J is absolutely and ridiculously lovely, and I am appreciating the heck out of him. Also, ladyfriends! Ladyfriends for crafternoon, and ukuleletimes, and Friday night museum visits (we went to a talk on dangerous marine animals: I am never going in the sea ever again), and dressups, and extravagant overseas trips, and dancing, and Always Having Someone Who Has My Back. Also, a variety of strange but delightful connections I have to people that are hard to describe, but which nevertheless make me feel much better about the world.

* Good spaces. I have always felt just a little odd in our house, because it's the first place I've lived where I haven't had my own room, and I haven't wanted to impose my crazy aesthetic on housemates. But I've rearranged the study/guest bedroom, and now it's colourful and useable and full of silly pictures, and I feel very happy in it. Also, in our room which I tidied up as well.

* Books! I keep forgetting to read, because I feel like I should be doing Productive Things! Always! But I have been making time, and I went and explored the Curtin library and found a book on women of the Beat generation, and it is so nice to be learning and exploring with no particularly aim.

That's probably enough for now, right? I am feeling fairly pleased about it all.

I need a tag for entries that say: "hey, I know That Other Thing that was stopping me from being social is over, but now This New Thing is happening, so I won't see much of you, still."

This is another one of those entries.

I am back in Australia, and am now working full time (officially, rather than merely unofficially) in an actual office with my name on the door. Far more importantly, J's family is going through a very difficult situation, and I want to spend as much time with them as possible.

So I will probably be dividing my time up between work and family and home. I would still like to see people, but I think I will not have a lot of time and will mostly want to be at home, when I'm not doing other things. I want to nest and tidy, and make people tea, and cook for people that I love.

I'm going to try to make sure that work is something I can corral into my actual office time, and spend as much of the rest of my life as I can making small beautiful spaces and small beautiful things for the people around me, and for myself.

So, um, I guess what I'm saying is that once again: it's not that I don't like you. I do like you, very much! But there are some other things I need to do, for a while.

First, the lessons:
* It is probably not a good idea to carry home a roti soaked in ghee and sugar in adequate packaging in your backpack. At least, not if you would not like to find a thousand ants in your backpack in coming days. If you enjoy a thousand ants, feel free to ignore this advice.

* I was pretty sick on Saturday night and Sunday during the day. I mostly spent the day sleeping, and drinking lots of water, and not doing anything absurd like trying to work or sit up. Then slept for 10 hours straight last night. I have still been a bit sick today, but well enough to do some work. Lessons learned: having a day off sometimes is probably a good idea! Also, coconut juice is good for rehydration (I knew this one already)! Also, one day is enough to rest, now back to work! (I think at least two of these lessons are good lessons.)

* I haven't been cooking while I'm here, because I have been daunted by the different kitchen setup and by cooking for people and fretting that I will get it All Wrong. But I couldn't eat much at all yesterday, and definitely not anything spicy, so I made myself a little mashed potato. And today my eating is still a little shaky, although I've been wanting to eat EVERYTHING, so I made some mashed potato-with-green-beans, and some tomatoes-with-onions, and noone said: 'peh! worst ever! stupid Australians!' I went to the supermarket to get ingredients instead of one of the little vegetable sellers (and I felt bad about it, but I wanted tofu - or 'soya paneer', as it was labelled). And it wasn't too scary, although one woman did just walk in front of me because I was queuing insufficiently aggressively. The guy behind me showed me how it was done by standing about five centimetres away from me the whole time I was Buying Things. Lessons learned: cooking is not too scary! I should do it, sometimes! Also, it's okay to not be good at queuing as long as I'm not in a rush.

In other news, I was taking an auto home from an interview a couple of days ago, and another auto pulled up next to us at the lights. And sitting in the auto was a goat. I looked at the goat, which was looking quite unconcerned, and had holes drilled into its horns that had little clusters of bells threaded through them. And the goat didn't look at me, because it had some serious staring off into space to do, but the guy sitting in the auto with it did. I think his curious looks at me were very similar to my curious looks at the goat. And then the lights changed and that was the end of it.

I can't believe how quickly my time here has gone.( Work work work )

I should say exciting things about being in India.

Like, did you know that people mostly do not walk on the pavement here, and walk on the roads instead? It is not because they enjoy seeing me anxious, it is actually because the pavement is mostly not that pleasant - it is often slabs of rock laid over the drains, so it doesn't smell nice, and then there's rubbish and other unsavoury stuff. The roads have more cars, but apparently an Agreement is reached, and noone dies (mostly).

And, the other day I completely shocked my friend by handing him my plate as we were packing up the dinner things. Apparently that is Not Done. He recovered well and we had a nice chat about it, but I had a few moments feeling like an awfully rude foreigner. You know, just for a change.

And, today I was cycling to yoga and I stopped to let an old man on a scooter past, and he smiled at me, and it felt totally awesome. I don't get smiled at all that much here. I used to think it was because I was doing something wrong all the time, but now I think it is mostly because people here are just less smiley. Not that they're necessarily less happy, it's just a body language thing, I think. (Or maybe I am actually doing something so wrong all the time that I make everyone around me very serious, and then they start smiling once I leave?)

It feels odd sometimes to emphasise the foreignness of India, like I'm contributing to making it into a strange exotic other land. Many things are the same! Many of the subcultures (geek, activist, academic) that I move in here are pretty similar to (and overlap with) subcultures in Australialand! But then, perhaps it is more interesting to write about the things that are strange and new, given that most people who read this aren't in India? Or not?

Either way (or any other way) I should probably go sleep on my face now. Sorry for flooding you with words, internets! If you have read this far, I am surprised! Also, grateful! It was very nice of you, when I know you have so many other things to do.

My alarm went off this morning at 5:15, and I managed to drag myself out of bed and wash my face and get ready for yoga, and then begin the long pep-talk that I need whenever I have an early morning ("you're doing this for a good reason! don't go back to sleep!" repeated over and over). Sent some emails, checked out Twitter.

Then I found out Dipti couldn't make it to yoga, meaning I was left to my own pitiful reserves of willpower. I ended up asking Twitter: more sleep? or yoga? Twitter, being a jerk, convinced me to go to yoga. So I got on my bike and went off, thinking, "yoga at 6:30, leaving at 6ish, should get there plenty of time". And then my brain warmed up, and suspicion began to dawn...

So I got to my yoga class late, walked two steps in (just far enough that everyone except the teacher could see me), saw that everyone had started and the room was pretty full, realised I would have to get people to move over to fit in, turned around and left.

I'm trying not to see this as a minor defeat. I'm going to see it as: morning bicycle ride! YAY!

Sometimes, there are a Difficult Few Days.

Sometimes, there are days when I talk to some of my best friends on Skype. (I am so glad we're living in the future.)

Sometimes, I get emails from people that I love.

Sometimes, I meet new people and old friends who look after me and hang out with me and help me think about work and are willing to indulge my sudden urge for sesame toast. (The Indian version of sesame toast is awesome.)

Hi, family! Are you reading this? I hope you're reading this. You know, I make sure that I write here reasonably often while I'm travelling for you. Because even though my friends love me and care about me, they are not usually worried that I've been kidnapped if I'm quiet for a day or two.

Hi, friends! Thank you for being my friends. It matters to me! I am missing lots of you!

Hi, strangers who read this! I don't know why you're reading this, but I guess you find it interesting now and then? Maybe say hello sometime, or something.

And now I will get back to trying to catch up on work, which is a constant and futile pursuit.