falada, falada

Yo, dudes. It has been quite some time. I don't have The Internet at my house any more, so I'm out of the habit of composing long-winded screeds for the pleasure of the masses. Up until now I have pretended that this is in fact an excellent thing, allowing me to put many productive hours into drawing, reading and writing. I have been one of those people you hate who gloat about not having The Internet, oh I am so much better without The Internet, I actually do stuff instead of checking my facebook! Blah blah. But now I am house-sitting and I have The Internet and oh my goodness, I am all addicted again.

This is how I imagine it will feel one day in middle age, after I get out of rehab and go to AA meetings and tell people that quitting drinking was the best decision of my life - and then one day someone (in my head probably Kate-Anna or Kiki, and I can't wait to experience both of those people in middle age) will hand me a G&T, and like Alice in Wonderland I'll innocently chug it down and suddenly remember the amazingly wonderful experience of drinking, or in this case The Internet, and never be able to stop. Ever.

Hrm.

NOW FOR A COMPRESSED COMPLAIN

1. Uni is moderate. I am having to drop a unit to cope with the workload, which is dumb, because the workload is not that dramatic really, but I am not functioning terribly well.

2. I don't get any magical payout from K-Rudd. I am below the Low Income Threshold. Read: I am too poor to receive government assistance.

3. My band broke up under horrid circumstances, ie one of the co-founders is a total jerk and spent basically all the band money, which was nearly $4000, and then dumped everyone in the band including the other founder to make a new lineup. He gave me $150, which is apparently all I deserve from playing 25-30 gigs. When I asked why we weren't splitting all the money evenly, he said that I didn't put as many hours into the band as he did, because he booked the gigs, and from his perspective the band money was his to spend. I hope the new improved version of the Lazy Railway fails dramatically. Fucker.

4. Tried to date a boy. Failed.

5. One of my housemates moved out and took the cat, Harrison Ford, with her. Even though she hadn't really lived with us for like two months and he slept on my bed and I loved him and I am sad that he is gone.

OK COMPRESSED HAPPY!

1. Kiki and I are getting kittens on Saturday!!! Mine will be called Triceratops.

2. Hatched went really well & I was happy with my work.

3. Arrested Development.

4. Dinosaur Comics.

5. Kate Beaton.

6. In the Pines: Too Much Wines!! (But mostly in a good way.)

7. Various Other Social Events: Also Too Much Of Various Alcoholic Drinks. (This should maybe not go in Happy. It is sort of uncertain, depending on the specific circumstances. But mostly happy.)

OK

I feel I have done my blogging duty by filling one and a half seconds of your life with mindless self-indulgent drivel. But I at least acknowledged that it is both mindless and self-indulgent. Good night!

What's this? Another update? SURELY NOT, you cry (all three of you still reading this), in shocked and echoing tones. No, your eyes do not deceive you. Here is why: I finally have a FLICKRRRRRRRRRR account. I sort of had to make one, for an application thing, but it's about time. You can go and look at my ridiculous drawings and stuff. This must be an exciting day for you, right? Yeah, I thought so! Cool. Well, I'll leave you alone to celebrate.

HERE IS SOMETHING I APPARENTLY WROTE A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO THAT I NEVER POSTED

Yesterday I was driving the band to JB O'Reilly's for a gig. Lewis was directing me, and he said "Go left here!" and he meant the next one, but I thought he meant the one I was almost about to pass. So I turned left really fast but unfortunately I was in the right-hand lane at the time and omitted to check my blind spot. And crashed into another car. Which turned out to be a shiny expensive car belonging to a fucking SURGEON. Too bad I didn't crash into a shitty old bomb driven by a pothead who wouldn't care. Anyway, I'm okay, and his car's mostly okay except for big scrapes on the paintwork, and my car's still drivable, just badly dented round the left headlight. Also, my indicator still works as an indicator, but instead of doing a sedate tick-tock-tick-tock it now does a crazy double-time small-bird-heartbeat tickatickatickatickaticka that makes me kind of nervous whenever I'm turning left.

OK HERE IS SOMETHING I AM ABOUT TO WRITE

Kiki and I watched a movie last night called Art School Confidential. It was all about how everyone in the art world is a total wanker and art is ultimately meaningless. It was a very stupid and depressing movie, all the more so because it was a little bit too close to home. After we watched it we sat there and didn't say anything and then asked each other if we were wankers like everyone in that movie. But it's hard to know, if you are a wanker, because obviously you won't think you are. After a while when we were still sitting there I said: "Wine?" And Kiki said: "Yes." We both jumped up and ran to the kitchen, and because we were so upset about art we drank a whole bottle very fast, forgot to eat dinner, and ended up sitting on the floor bawling. THANKS FOR NOTHING, ART SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL.

What else? That is all, I am still kind of upset about that. I was already having trouble convincing myself that art means anything, so that stupid movie didn't help.

In better news, I watched Me and You and Everyone We Know the other day and I greatly enjoyed it. So all is not lost. OK.

Dear The Internet,

Hello! I have been sort of slack with updating this thing, hey. Guess what? I graduated from art school! Hooray for me and all my graduating friends. Thanks to everyone who came to our exhibition opening, and I'm sorry if I was too drunk to communicate properly. But, you know, it was Grad Show. I was always going to be completely drunk. It's allowed.

Now I have nothing to do with my life, except work in a childcare job which I start on Tuesday, and also playing gigs with a band called the Lazy Railway, of which I am now part. We're playing at the Fly By Night on the 25th, supporting Abbe May. In a few weeks I'm going to Southbound and possibly St Jerome's and then in late February I'm going to Curtin. So. I guess I have a lot to do with my life, actually.

It is ridiculously hot today. The worst part is, it probably isn't actually that hot. It's going to get a lot hotter. But I can already feel my interior organs melting. (Or is that all the beer I've consumed recently? Hard to tell.) Stupid global warming.

Anyway, I can't particularly be bothered with this, but whatever, hi, I'm alive, and sometime I'm sure I'll have something interesting to write.

Love from Anna

 I am living in my new house! It is best ever. The cat, Harrison Ford, is slightly deranged as the result of a car accident, and spends a lot of time trying to get into cupboards and drawers and tiny spaces, then banging his head on the doors and miaowing. He is so so cute, however. This morning we tried to put him outside so we could leave and he hid under Jess's bed. We lured him out by dangling a cat toy and gently nudging him with an umbrella. Jess called him a little jerk. He did not appreciate that.

Yesterday I created a sheet-tent on the roof balcony and spent the afternoon reading and napping in the shade, on the warm balcony tiles, looking out over the roofs and grapevines. It was amazing.

Also, did you know it's five weeks until my graduate exhibition? Holy fucking crap, people. These three years are over way too soon.

AN OPEN LETTER TO LIFE

Dear Life,

OK, you are being pretty moderate right now in many ways, but (admittedly) pretty good in others. For example, as previously stated, my friend Tom died by being struck by lightning (I would just like to reiterate this: STRUCK. BY. LIGHTNING.), which is obviously fucked. But on the other hand, I am not curled up in a ball under my desk hyperventilating about the aforesaid fuckedness, which is good. Also, I am awfully poor right now (ie possess like ten dollars in the whole world), which is lame. But I get paid on Wednesday, plus I get ALL my tax back, which is great. I can't think of any other direct dichotomies but you know, stuff. Oh yes, I found out via Stalkbook that a former boyfriend (whom I regrettably dumped months ago - apparently in a cold and heartless manner, but actually in confusing and icky circumstances which I was unable to articulate at the time - and with whom I have not communicated since) is now dating a girl who is so freaking attractive I can't believe she exists, but yeah, whatever. What was the point of this letter again? Was it to be a giant whinge? Possibly. If so I guess it succeeded! (But then what else is livejournal for?) Life! Awesome! OK!

Yours glass-half-emptily,
Anna

Tom died in hospital. I don't exactly know what to feel about this, only that until I saw his photo on an internet news report a couple of minutes ago, I didn't feel anything at all. This whole thing is so fucked. Tom was 19 and he was a great guy. I wish I knew him better but you always think there will be more time and there fucking wasn't any more time. And I'm finding it very hard to believe that God had anything at all to do with this, no matter what people at church might say about everything being part of a plan. Because hello. There clearly is no fucking plan.

This article is about an Australian teacher who died in a freak lightning strike in Thailand yesterday.

The "teaching assistant" in critical condition is a 19-year-old guy called Tom. He's from my church. He's on life support in Bangkok with horrendous burns. The church helped raise money for him to go so he could visit orphanages and see some of Thailand. Everyone gave money. I did. I'm not close friends with Tom, but I know him, and people I'm close friends with are close to him and helped arrange this trip for him and thought it would be an amazing experience for him and God-filled and all that shit. Now look.

This is fucked, you know?

I found my primary school reports last week. The earliest ones - Years 1 to 4 - were handwritten in little blue booklets. It was weird to read them all at once, instead of cushioned by time. They said things like: "Anna needs to pay attention to instructions." And: "Anna frequently does not listen to instructions. This causes her to become quite anxious about set tasks." I'd forgotten about that, but all my teachers mentioned it. It makes sense: I was a daydreamer, and also I'm a very visual learner. I can't retain (or say) a new word or unusual name until I know how it's spelt, so I can visualise it before verbalising. I have trouble following verbal street directions. Once I've looked at it a map I'm fine, but I need to SEE it. All those rights and lefts mean nothing to my stupid brain. Anyway, I guess that's why I'm still kind of bad at taking instructions on board, along with the fact that in primary school all I wanted to do - ever - was read read read. I would read ahead in the history or maths book instead of listening to the teacher. In Year 7 we had an English comprehension textbook that contained short extracts from novels, with a questions after each one. While the teacher was reading that day's piece aloud to the class I'd skip ahead and read all the others. I must have read each one twenty times. It was so frustrating, so tantalising, not being able to keep going and find out what happened. There was one about a car crash, one from The Endless Steppe, one from a book by Isaac Bashevis Singer. (I thought that was a great name.) I remember them so vividly. The only one they had in the library was The Endless Steppe. I can't remember much of it though; only the comprehension-book extract. In it, Esther was lost in a snowstorm on the steppe. I guess all that happened was that she found her way back. I guess that's pretty much the end of every story.