Enlightenment

Sun rises. Beams of golden glow along the branches
Heat of the day begins to take shape as the insect calls her mate
Green leaves, heart shaped, take up the light and give life
A man. Waits patiently?

Time blurs between each breath a meditation, contemplation
Of things surrendered, given up, lost
In the search of a vast eternity of nothingness.
Then rain comes and the sky empties herself of all thought.

Mucalinda opens a lazy eye to see a man, waiting, rain falling
He coils, coils and coils raising his head above the mind, the heart, the soul.
Above all that is to be remembered as forgotten.
Naga, forevermore entwined in a moment of bliss beyond sight.

Sun rises. Beams of golden glow along the branches.

New Topic

Argghh.. I wanted to try to get my Inspirazzi in before posting the next topic, but just can't seem to get it in... so.. the next topic is....

THERE BE DRAGONS

I like to ride my bicycle

She's crafty... (and shiny)

OK, so I've really been getting into this ride-around-all-over-the-place thing. For me, it makes London a much more liveable, and lovely city. It's just the best feeling of having control over my day. The downer is having nothing to wear. Well, there is - lots of sporty, flashy, flourescent, heath and safety road warrior wear. I just don't like it. I just want to be me, going about my day (or night), but with wheels. So I got crafty...

The first experiment came after my mum visited in July. We went for some nice rides and she observed (as any good mum should) that with my black backpack, dark helmet and dark shorts, that cars behind might not see me and I'd inevitably be squished etc. So to keep mum happy I made this

backpack cover (modelled here by a my most classy chair) using hot pink silk and reflective thread. The roses (one reflectly and one from an inner tube) I added a few weeks later.

The next project was to create something that would masquerade as regular accessories and then at night reveal themselves as fab cycle bling. And so some humble pedal reflectors became cutting edge cycle couture. And now that I can be me and be seen I can ride my bicycle happily ever after.

NOTE TO INSPIRAZZI PURISTS: The backpack cover is cheating because I made it months ago and then strategically chose a bike theme to fit around it. But I really truly only made the other stuff last week, so that's OK, right?

only a few clouds on the horizon

I like to ride my bicycle in the sun when i can laugh at anything and when i am completely myself.
When nothing phases me and when all pettiness is below me.

Thats a good time when i ride my bike my bike in the sun
Its just like wow. i love it.

But sometimes when i go for a ride in the rain and i get wet through it is not fun
when i fall off its really disheartening. all i can think about is how my socks are wet and how my mascara is probably running down my face. thats when it feels like everything is coming down on top of me. as hard as the rain.
Luckily i always wear a helmet so even when i fall off its not too difficult for me to get back on.
Usually its sunny with only a slight chance of rain anyways. :)

Next theme...

Cheers luvvie! So a quick recap

Kenji: Weather

Calypso: A diary entry

Jailo: “Everybody dies but only some people truly live” What is truly living for to you?

Ruben: hittin' the dance floor

Emzski: green
me (for Oct 1): I like to ride my bicycle...


and next chooser, Berni

x

Helloo!

Sorry for my slow announcing of next theme chooser - a timely reminder Bron :)
So on that note I choose - Bronsoir of course!
xx
Emski

Next theme chooser?

Green greets Emski, the hungry hoards wanna know who's up next... x bron

New Post and Comment feeds

Hey all,

Country Squire asked me how we can alerted when a new post or comment is added.
We can do this by subscribing to a 'feed'. There is a feed for posts and one for comments. For those in the know, the URLs are;
For Posts
http://inspirazzi.blogspot.com/feeds/posts/default

For Comments
http://inspirazzi.blogspot.com/feeds/comments/default

I only have Thunderbird on my machine, so I'll run through how to subscribe to a feed on that. I think you can subscribe from within Gmail itself, but haven't looked into it. If you use Mail or any other Application to check your mail, there will probably be a way to check from there.

In Thunderbird go to the Tools menu -> Account Settings.
Press the button on the bottom left Account Actions -> Add Other Account
Select Blog & News Feeds -> Next
Rename the account or leave it as Default (Note this name is for ALL feeds, not just Inspirazzi) -> Next -> Finish
Select Blog & News Feeds (or whatever you called it) from the window on the left of the Account settings Window. Click Manage Subscriptions -> Add.
Under Feed URL: put one of the URL's I've suggested above -> Ok
Close the Feed Subscriptions Window and press OK on the Account Settings Window

You should now have that feed show up as an account in Thunderbird and will be alerted when new content is posted. Note you'll have to repeat the Subscription Process for both Posts and Comments if you want them

Green

...in dreams existing
perfect life imagined full
surrounded by green...

Burning green

Emily's green theme was mulling in my head when I came across the work of Yulia Brodskaya (papercrave.com/yulia-brodskaya-paper-illustration). She's taken the formerly daggy craft of paper quilling and made it into something delicious and clean and modern. I wanted a building being enveloped in green tendrils, like licking flames and hungry happy plants, and it turned out pretty much as I'd hoped.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hpiIWMWWVco


boring one this month i know. sorrrry guys. xx

Quiet on the set

Kermit sniffed the pine air rolling in from the verdant hills as he struggled into his Robin Hood outfit, it was an early morning start once again in the forest. The new crew had rocked up early in their Jeeps and were eager to get these last few scenes captured on film before the protesters returned once again.

The canetoad Director flicked a plump olive at some stage hand dropped his martini glass into the bush with a chinkle and called Kermit over for a quick shot of Absinthe pre shoot, Kermit manly ambled over in his bulky outfit, ripping his boots through the Ivy, they took a shot each and then gasped as 'princess' emerged from her caravan nibbling down the last of her Mint Pattie and flicking her lime angel hair before gently tossing the wrapper away behind her, it tumbled like a weak heart, flashing to the forest floor in the early morning light, before being trampled into the moss by an awkward camera operator.

A baffled shout wafted across the minty scene, all eyes flicked keenly to where the protesters were emerging from the thick undergrowth, globby jungle paint smeared across their cheeks, placards waving in anger.
OMG! broiled the Director, its just a movie! Everything is biodegradable, here have an apple you freaks.
The activists surged on like an angry wave of zombies, swatting with their signage until the cries had subsided.

Placeholder

This is not my post. This is a post to say that I'm going to post on Saturday. I have my Inspirazzi ready in my head, but won't get time to implement until Saturday. This is so anyone who does post doesn't feel too lonely.

... Ahh... but I never said Which Saturday did I... Well I did intend it for last Saturday, but ... I didn't do. Then pressed for time, I thought I'd just try something on a weekday. Epic Fail. No matter I'm posting it anyway.

My idea was to try and cook a dish (well the original plan was a whole meal entree, main, dessert.. yeah that didn't happen) that would be entirely green. I was planning on using vegetable juice to colour whatever wasn't green, and to try to co-ordinate other ingredients. Didn't work though.. and not only did it not work, but having used Chinese Mustard Greens, the green Mash tasted weird. But. I did manage to repair the Mash in a later dish by adding some onion, garlic, the chopped roasted green chili and frying it.. I think it just needed some settling time.

So here is a picture of the Green mash with lamb and zuccini.. Yeah not really inspired, but I was trying to get it all done in half an hour to feed the ravenous family..

Of course Bern suggested that I should have done Green Eggs and Ham, which I did think of, but somehow got confused and couldn't work out how to make the Ham green.
Other ideas were;

Green Creme Brulee - Dyed with Pandan leaf
Green Jelly - thought the rules (yeah I made up the rules) stated that there were to be no artificial colours, so I got stumped on this, as the only green fruit I could think of was Kiwi, and him (yeah Kiwi is a him.. do you ladies really want to claim a fruit that look like a ... well you know what he looks like) and Gelatine don't like each other. Of course I could have used Agar.. that's what I should have done.
Green Lip mussels with Coriander white wine sauce.. I debated with the judge about this one, as the Green Lip mussels aren't actually green.
Gai Yang, Thai grilled chicken, with basil and green chili to make it green.
I was also thinking of a Vegetarian dish, like a green Quiche in honor of our topic chooser, but didn't get very far there either..

Well the thought is supposed to count, but doesn't really when it comes to food. Unless I could start the thought diet, were you think about what you'd like to cook, and then you eat a salad.. or cardboard.

A little foil guy hit the dancefloor for me. He's doing an Ian Curtis.

Yay! My choice!

GREEN

I choose Emzski to come up with the next theme.

History so far:

Kenji: Weather

Calypso: A diary entry

Jailo: “Everybody dies but only some people truly live” What is truly living for to you?

Ruben: hittin' the dance floor

Emzski:

The awesome and quirky - Peaches - "Lose You"

Working too much Dance

I had originally planned on doing a fully sik animation, but someone decided to send me to the UK to work instead.

Due Date Dance

hittin's the dance floor. mmm baby

Madi's 16th :)
Groovin the friggin moo!
New years. elands hall. everglades. shit yeah
dammit.
vampire weekend. gtm :)
1920's social
14th birthday.
some elands function..
newcastle :)

No so much hittin' the dance floor...

..as building it.





Here is a tune to get you all in the mood and perhaps give you some inspiration for your next party outfit.

Hey Nah!

Truly living

Camping Balmweid, Meiringen, Switzerland June 26th 2010
A shared camping breakfast, one knife and a big jar of Nutella, smothered messily on dry crackers. A promisingly heavy grapefruit of perfect peachy complexion, slowly and deliberately peeled, then de-pithed, then each segment meticulously unwrapped at a huge stone table that harks of Aslan. All eaten in blinking bright sun surrounded by morning chatter of unfamiliar birds and the unseen splash clap and rush of glacial meltwater. Pop and squirt of sun cream. Turning a page of a long anticipated magazine. Nothing to rush for.


So I wrote this on a lovely day last month, planning to submit that and nothing more but now I want to add some of the wrestlings that I had with the theme of 'truly living'. Mostly I felt guilty and a bit defensive, because how can anyone truly live all the time? I know I don't. For the most part, people give a shit about what you do, and not what you don't do and so I should judge myself on the same basis. Some scritichings on the meaning 'truly living' (some drunken) from my notebook:

• taking chances, going outside comfort zone
• loving fully and freely
• doing it anyway
• is it that feeling of pining for the fjords?
• how much can I miss before I don't exist? (this is about me being here when you are there)
• make decisions in life instead of pottering through it
• yawping (see Dead Poet's Society)
• being active and engaged
• evidence of living isn't living
• more expression? more interaction? more listening? more hearing? more purpose? ......NOT more purpose! .......less purpose? ......more meaning?
• an essence, joi de vivre at every undertaking?
• using five senses at once
• 'if you want to sing out, sing out! If you want to be free, be free...'
• eating alfresco
• seething surging van gogh
• let it rumble let it roll. Let it flow, let it come out let it go. Let's go let's don't go let go let go.
• dancing with complete inhibition

After some contemplation I reached the happy conclusion that my aspirations for truly living are; loving freely, using what I've been given, enjoying simple pleasures, engaging with the world, breaking habits/taking chances and indulging curiosities.

TTFN
xx

Real Living..

Ok so I am sliding in by the skin of my teeth for this post....

The last few weeks have been really really tough. A month after leaving Elands we are still living out of suitcases and out of one bedroom, waiting for our place to be ready to move into. I could write a laundry list of things I am finding really difficult (by far the worst is that the baby doesn't sleep well) - but I think I will give myself a break from freaking out and instead write a list, and count my blessings (you will have to endure the American style cheesiness of such a list).

Really living, in no particular order:

Is a healthy family. Celebrating four years of Eyal is remission from non-Hodgkins Lymphoma, a healthy pregnancy, birth and awesome cute baby, and despite lack of sleep a healthy (able-to-breastfeed-no-worries) mama.

Is having helping hands around (thanks Eyal's mum!) so that I can get a couple of hours sleep here and there knowing the baby is in good hands.

Is watching Shiloh laugh and smile, watching Shiloh learn to shuffle herself around the place, watching Shiloh.

Is Eyal's older sister not only giving her old car car, but making an awesome mp3 mix so that everytime I drive somewhere I get a new theme (David Bowie/Madonna/Hip Hop/folk). And for giving me a little book with a list of cool people she knows (her friends) that live near where we will live and their phone number's.

Is good food, fresh fruit in the roadside stalls, fresh breads and cheeses everywhere in the supermarket and delis on every corner. The awesome Arab restaurant just metres from our house. That pickles come with every meal :).

Is having Calypso and all the awesome mums and friends in Australia that I can talk to.

Is being given a pram (thanks Jon and Jen!) and then on arrival in Israel friends giving us a baby car seat that fits into the pram!

Is Nicholas coming to visit in a matter of weeks, and all yous others might come visit sometime soon.

Is knowing that real soon Ru will be a dad.

Is having enough money, such that when I freak out my sweet heart can go out and buy me the entire series of West Wing to cheer me up.

Is airconditioning, because without it life would suck.


xxx peace out.

everyone is failing at posting stuff

what do you guys have lives or something. sheesh :):)

xx

Truly living... ho humm.

Its difficult because all i do is go to school, play soccer and sleep and that doesn't sound like truly living.

but then again i don't think i am missing out on a lot. Truly living for me is-

getting through double math on a monday morning by sticking text book pages together with vaseline.

Going to sleep at 12 and getting up at 5 in the morning to play soccer in tamworth

knowing that, even though i live in elands, i'll get to see my friends at school

watching hours and hours of friends. yeh it is truly living!

having shiloh's smile to think about when i am sad

still being a child enough for people to understand that I only smile and talk to my mums drunk/baked friends when i have to.

Facebook stalking

Travelling.

Being trusted by my parents way more then any of my friends trust them.

Having the major giggles with Sophie about absolutely nothing

excitment! squealing! jumping up and down. hugging.

Getting dressed up to go out to dinner with the girls, just cos we can

Laughing til my stomach hurts and a little bit of wee comes out.

Finding a new song or band that just makes you want to go wild. e.g killing in the name of

Having moments where i don't get annoyed or frustrated with my mum long enough to tell and ask her about our days.

That feeeling when you find out the person you like likes you back

trying new things.

i wanted to put photos for this post so i didnt think too much about what to write. but then i saw the next topic and i think photos would go down nicely for that:):)

i miss you sophie! and eyal.

xx

The theme for 1 August 2010 is: hittin' the dance floor

And your next theme is coming from Country Squire

Sorry to be late, but i thought that clypo started a great tradition!

country squire let us know what the theme is for this month.

thanks
jailo

The Dream and The Pact

What is the one resource that a General can never get back?

Time. Weapons, men, cities can all be taken back or regained, but time is gone forever. I'd like to say that's a quote from Art of War, but I think it's actually from Narnia or something crap like that.

Then we have "Time is money". I disagree with this one, it implies Money is the important resource, I prefer "Money is time". And this is where we start. Money is important because it buys you time.

So for me, really living is using my time how I want to and in ways that make me feel good, happy, content. This is almost always spending time with friends and family eating and enjoying ourselves. Unforunately we recently received a cease and desist from Greenpeace, ordering us not to have any more friends as the rapid northern migration of said friends is causing a tilt in the earth's axis.

(btw I sneakily backdated this post so it appears before the next topic)

And this is the problem. We are all living such different lives, leading in such different directions. But is there a convergence? Is it possible to have a convergence? Is it possible to have a time down the timeline where we can work out how to live such a similar life that we can cross paths more than twice a year if we're lucky?

From my perspective, and I think I'm lucky, the grass is always greener on My side of the fence. I'm comfortable where I'm at (this is also know as Lazy). When I'm in Elands I think what a great life I could have there, when I'm in Sydney I'm content and happy and can imagine having a great life here too. But I can see that Sydney is not so easy for anyone who doesn't have the great fortune to have a subsidised living arrangment.

I'm going to put my priorities out there in the hope that when you others read it you might see where we can meet on common ground.
1. Family - I think this is pretty obvious. I'm not going anywhere my family isn't.
2. Time - I'm not going to waste my life doing something I hate. I have to enjoy what I'm doing and use all my daily life well. I also want to be able to do what I want with my time, with as little restriction as possible. I suppose this is entirely selfishness.. but surely the point of living, as an individual, is to enjoy yourself?
3. Food - Yeah sure, you're all laughing now. But really ask yourself, could you put this list in any other order? Actually maybe some of you could... but by food I say good, healthy, enjoyable food. Could you take a job that pays stacks of money, but you have to eat McDonalds everyday, and be away from your family.. and you hate it there? Hmmm... Maybe I'm alone here.. but that's how I roll (and I probably will if I keep it this high in my priorities)
4. Money - As much as I hate to put this higher than the next priority, I'm trying to be as honest as possible. It's not about materialism, it's about investing in Future-time, when I'm unable to or not wanting to work. It's also about takes away restriction on time, as above. This does, however, have limits, and has to work in conjuction with all the other points.
5. Friends - It's horrible that this is below point 4 and perhaps this is where the problem is, but I'm trying to be realistic. If it were not below 4 I would have quit my job a long time ago, moved to Elands when everyone else was there, spent our savings on visiting those of you who are trying to topple the planet. Unfortunately we really do need money to enjoy our lives. As romantic as it sounds I don't know if I've got the self sustaining farmer life in me.
6. Travel - I just dig that shit.

Ok. So looking at the above, I look pretty bleak. I'm a family man, that's OK.. but then I'm a selfish, greedy, money hungry person who puts their friends (second) last. If I look at this list though, I think I'm pretty sorted. I don't think my family is going anywhere without me. I'm generally happy with what I'm doing, if I don't like it, I stop. Luckily, in Australia, we can have great food wherever we are, and the same is the case in most countries we're likely to go to. I've got a job that I enjoy and that pays reasonably well. It's the next two point where we start to hit the blockages.

I have to somehow work out how to make money (doesn't have to be a lot, but I have to be able to save, while living comfortably and enjoying what I do, and hopefully pay for overseas adventures) and get you bitches to be in the same fricken postcode, at
least the same first two digits.

This is where the Dream comes in. In and ideal world for ME, we'd all live within walking distance, maybe a pushbike ride or short drive, be earning plenty of money (doing something we enjoy, but with time to do all the other things we want), and be spend the rest of our time eating and preparing to eat, with the occassional (or not so occasional) trip overseas. Preferably with the rest of you.

Is this possible? Unfortunately I don't have zombie friends and I have to ask, persuade, cojole. So I'm going to ask some questions, if you have time, perhaps you could answer and maybe we can seek convergence.

1. Do you share this dream?
2. Do you believe it is possible?
3. Is Australia the place for this to happen? (other suggestions welcome)
4. Is Elands the place for this to happen? (other suggestions welcome)
5. How important is location to you? Do you need aspects of the city/country/ocean/mountain?
6. Would we get shit bored in Elands, if not how many of us would have to go back for us not to get shit bored?
7. WTF can we do for money?

So. If we are even close to any sort of convergence, I'd like to propose a pact, maybe a soft pact, like a goal really. Let's just say Elands is the place. We could propose to try it, all at the same time for 6 months in, say, 2 years, or something similar.

Thoughts? Pipe dreams?

truly living is

Truly living is talking to my dad about Juliet’s SnowMan, telling me how he is thinking about buying a computer, hearing about my sister’s second pregnancy and feeling the cold of the mountain, when it is 34c in Colombo.

Truly living is when a dream that held my head in a soup of expectation is so close I can taste it on the tip of my tongue, as a word that you know but can’t speak. Since before I could know the reality of it, this dream has been with me, some would say a scar of inappropriate parenting.

While, those that are truly live would call it planting seeds. Growing inside me and sometimes filling my throat like watermelon so I cant help but gulp, gulp at smell of mountain air, feel the scrabbly ground under my feet, the feeling of a sore neck from looking up in awe all day.

This dream has ebbed and flooded the mud flats of my life, leaving me wanting and bare, desolate but fragile, usually while living in a city where I tend to forget the nuance of green and learn obscene things like bus timetables. But then when I could sneak away to a glen or get drunk and lay in gutters I would lookup at the skyscrapers and mistaken them for mountain peaks, shrouded in clouds of the monsoon or take the broom of the street sweeper for a Yak. But then snapped back, rather rudely, reality would flood in, and I would be sitting at my computer on Monday morning, yawning and wondering what happened to the 72 hours that were all mine but just got left behind.

Finally I escape from my own self importance and uncertainties and find I’m here sitting at my little portal to the unreal world, plugged in and pounding away at the shining keyboard where my fingers have etched my expression, my education and brought me back to the people that love me for the last 4 years. The beats of the dubbed freak brothers cat got me wiggling in my seat, head boppin and face sopping with tears for the expectation of joy.

For what I’ve been given brought up in the boughs of life’s tree, fed on the love of community and had my heart synced to the musicians beat with a little bit of marvel with the magicians feats. From radio fed stories about the world, to impromptu camping trips and nights where we couldn’t sit down for fear of falling asleep. Here in on this emerald island, abounding in dreams of its own, about to bounce.

Almost 29 years after leaving in my mothers whom I am set to return home to Nepal. Kind of like that song “my island home” but “my mountain home” (yes that cheesy). Stories past from a mother to a son are few and far between, a keen mind will take them and get tangled up in their blanket to keep warm from the cold sparsity of limited common ground. This is how I came to hear that I was found in the mountains, my little soul came along at just the right time (or actually at that time, it was the wrong time for my parents). I often wonder how it happened, or how it happens millions of times a day, and even after evolutionary biology I am nothing but furtherer away from understanding, but maybe its more about accepting.

Did my soul just come wandering along a winding path that night, looking for a tea house with a light on? Had it been following my parents, could it tell that they were ready to bear fruit, did it know, as Dad says, that; it would just take one good root!

Anyways, that’s history now, the hour is nigh, the plane will fly and I will land back in the hands of the mountain gods, and the knowing can’t keep the smile of my weathered face. Ragged and wild with the flood of dream filled nights, rationality is gone as cool mountain air already blown by the fan to quench the heat of the tropics, makes me shiver.

A sliver of light, only two more sleeps, and a few more weeks and I will be there, deep in the valley, standing outside that tea house, hoping to find where that little soul strolled from, and if there isn’t but a cup of tea waiting there for me.
Cause I beguest to believe that truly living is understanding where I come from and being able to able to

Drip like honey from the honey bee
Walk from the river down to the sea
Fly through the face of a thunder cloud
Rain down, down on the people who will allow

The missing is hurting like a broken bone, being so far from home. This is knowing that dreams don’t come without having to put out some lights of opportunity.
Truly living is, choosing. From dad telling me that he knows he is to old and doesn’t have enough time left to build a boat but just thinking about it is enough to keep him afloat.

Truly living is knowing that I can and am going to build my own boat, as the dreams are passed from generation to generation like the stories of old.

Camel Dreaming of Self

Last night I rode the river of a million years back to now.
It was a crashing aquamarine crystal and white water wake up . Before it happened I was drowsing in a warm bed beside my friend who suddenly had woken restlessness and told us all that this was the only way. We had to leave immediately everything behind in the future including our clothes. We had risk it all and jump into the raging current of eternity.
So I woke up back here, a million years ago, naked. I'd landed on a quartz and ochre rock bed with a pleading song pouring down on my head in a future-airfall (like a waterfall but full of only air from the future that is full of future songs).
The song filled my lungs and I was belting it out unselfconciously. I was naked, unawares and singing on the rocks! Then a delicious familiar smell brought to my senses, it was warm, milky camel calf's breath.
"Ahhh, back here again", I thought, as the baby camel nudged at my shoulder, licked my ear and bit my hair to see if it was edible. So I pulled myself together, gathered all my etherial bodies in. Me and the camels made a nice cooking fire for brewing warm beverages for me and the other refugees from the future who'd made a camp together. We cooked some chapatis and ate them with butter and honey to help us cope with the shock.
You'll be seeing more and more of this kind of thing, we could tell you, but that would be getting ahead of ourselves.

Truely living..

Everybody dies but only some people truly live.. What is truly living for you?

Hmmmm. Thats a tough question – and one that is understandably inspired by one living in India at the moment!
It is instantly interesting in considering this question to notice what the answer is for other people. Not just in the neighbourly sense but internationally – culturally (hence the Indian influence). It is possibly one of the most fundamental of human queries – what makes a life 'worth' living – what is truly living? I reckon that your culture certainly has an influence – like if you are a poor African you perhaps consider 'truly' living simply surviving – or if you are in a war zone, or a woman in a fundamental Muslim culture or a gay man in religious family etc etc. Your day to day circumstances certainly influence what you value – like the personal evolutionary version of the dawn of agriculture allowing culture and the arts, philosophy et al to flourish.
I am quick to assume that dissection of the intricacies of being alive are a wealthy privileged indulgence – although a quick thought back to seeing babbas on the shores on the Ganga Ma (Ganges River) in Varansai remind me that its not at all about wealth but a state of mind.
But I ramble.
What is truly living?
I highly highly value freedom. But what/how do I define freedom? I suppose its about being free to do with my life as I choose on a day to day, week to week basis. I react strongly to the fear of being confined – by work, by politics, by fear...
My path for myself – which I am not necessarily successful at – is to follow passion and inspiration regardless of challenge.
If I am faced with choices in the forks in life's path my default is to 'follow the butterflies”
If I am confused (which I find pretty well a given!) I believe in considering the options and trying to take the path that gives me butterflies of excitement in my tummy..
This can be a challenge as the butterflies rarely hang about with the easiest or most sensible option – but we know for sure only of this life and I am keen to try and not waste it in idleness, laziness or fear of the unknown.
Sooo.... ramble ramble.
A life truly lived for me (in today's opinion anyway!) is a life lived with butterflies. :)
Ps. Oh! And I think to plant a lovely heritage of trees in your wake is very cool too.

Truly Living

Kickin it with Maia Mei. 4 weeks and 6 days old. Doyles River.

Sunday was here today

This is my first entry to inspirazzit...oh I means zee.
However given the trends appearant here this slip may be valid yet.
Where did the teen diary craze virus originate...London?
that'd be right.
No wonder you're all locked in doors and can't find a piccalo late anywhere.
Everyone is too freakin out on hormones.

I wouldn't know myself because I've been in meditation retreat.
Feeling wonderfully detached...as a result of some very powerful new methods I'm experimenting with. I'm teaching myself how to upload my mind to computer (by reading the manual). Not sure the reality I've encountered is quite the text book case though.

Sunday was here today, with red hair made of a few hours afternoon sun. She was well washed and full of ground water, our most waterlogged initiation to June...for, oh well, years or something.

While there was a little gap in the rain I purged my cave of rubbish and washed some camels.
It got raining again though so I've now brought them inside to dry. These blue haired camels that have replaced cars lately are great in many respects. They make sophisticated conversation.
Many things I have to admit cannot be distingushed by me as real or not real according to your relative sense of real at this stage.
There are a number of spirit beings that inhabit the same crossing over field as I do now.
In a way it is a bit like a party atmosphere around here.
While I do mention this, it does not extinguish the possibility that I am in a solitary retreat from your viewpoint.

I have been receiving jewels of coloured light beans into my mind and can exchange them for treats. They come to me as feelings and when I offer them to the elves at the market it makes them laugh a lot. The elf markets are full to brim with craziest bargains. Elves are tricky too, the other day I almost got talked into buying a rainbow knitted flute. Usually though I save my beans for travel. A few friendly elves are even teaching me how to travel according to my own will. They come to pick me up now and again, like every 83 or 96.652386 hours.

In between these trips I occupy myself with endless tasks.

These inbetween hours seem as many and long to me as do the lists of tasks.
I will not bore you with all the details, but will reassure you that the results are very worthwhile.
A thing in itself may seem too small to merit mention, but then over the years each effort adds together as it glows and floats and then gradually attains it's own interconnected schematic dimensionality.

This is living. As it goes, sometimes mellow and sometimes too fast. I love when it runs barebummed cheeky blue against the wind.

Perhaps next time I'll account for my sojourn with a bluebummed elf. Don't you hope so?

Theme for June

“Everybody dies but only some people truly live”

What is truly living for to you?

P.s sorry mine was late and i choose jailo for next theme cos he dissed the first theme :)

xx

Dearest Diary.

ready for a typical 14 yr old girls diary entry?

here it goes. nice and dramatic just the way you like it

Stupid boy. what the friggin hell is going on in his head. dead set why does he have to be so so confusing and hot n cold. One second he seems way keen the next he doesn't want a bar of it.

I think i am being stupid. i think i should just get out while my heart is still intact.

i definitely make all the effort. he kind of just goes with the flow. but then when i convince myself that he is a twat he goes and does something completely lovely.

what of it?! today i even gave him a crunchie and he helped me with my math:(

Glee is on tv in the background. everything is nice on glee. Gleeful even. humph!

Then to top everything off i worked out my birthday is not as close as i thought and cass wont be in the same state and Dophus, Eyali and Shiloh wont even be in Australia!

regret.

ex oh ex oh

Dear dear diary

Dear Diary, I’m sorry it’s been so long since I wrote you, but I’m happy at the moment. I only seem to be able to write when I’m sad or angry or if, say, its school holidays and none of my friends are around. Not that I’m at school anymore. Although I do remember thinking, OK waffle time...um, how does the colour purple make me feel? So I think about when it was that I last wrote or what I wrote about, and I can’t remember, without looking into the depths of storage and dragging them out. Although there was that one recent-ish time, when I was unhappy, and I wrote out my life, how I wanted it to be, as if it had happened, writing in the full moonlight, and keeping it under my mattress for a year or two. When I found it again, nothing actually had happened the way I wanted it to. Damn positive affirmations. But I think I’ll do that again soon. You never know. Like a diary, I find it’s nice to be reminded of how we felt at one point in time, how we felt exactly. Because I’m acutely aware of how you think you felt, what you think happened, but how much you blocked out, forgot or just mixed up with other memories or looking at old photographs, and what ACTUALLY happened. That’s why I haven’t thrown out my embarrassingly conflicted, soul searching memoir-diary’s yet. I want to know how I felt at 11 when I first started writing. Why did I hate Mum so much? When was my first truth-dare-double-dare kiss, or pretend pash on the tree branch? I’ve also got that ‘ love letter from first boyfriends box’, I wonder why I can’t bear to throw out? I just love collecting, like one day someone might open a museum about my life...um...(coughs)... OK, I am embarrassingly sentimental, and that’s why I get upset when I realise I haven’t received a love letter (or an email) since I first started dating my current love. I even started writing “Letters to an unborn Child”, but only wrote like one entry. These days we have blogs or personal emails that stay in our sent boxes for years, so maybe I can piece together the later years in my life that way, if I feel the need. Now I’m trying to remember how I signed off in my teenage diaries...Good night dear diary, see you tomorrow! xx

Google Manana

Introducing the latest in mythical software...

This revolutionary Google addon/upgrade/plugin is set to rock the socks of those with a full diary.

The software is fully compatible with all digital diaries including MS outlook, google this & google that. It features the essential 'Auto Manana' function.

About Auto Manana
When users engage auto manana it takes all appointments and automatically reschedules them for tomorrow, thus freeing up the users diary and saving valuable time, no longer do users have to reschedule these entries manually.

Rate this.

Moving country: pros and cons

Dear Diary,

Ok lets nut this one out...

Pros:

Reasons I am excited about moving to Israel in a month (a month!!),

You know that feeling when you are in another country, at a beach somewhere and there is reggae music playing, or a few guitars around a campfire, people are singing and talking, the night air is warm and smell exotic, and maybe there is a joint being passed around? Maybe there is a dog asleep on a lounge chair that has been dragged outside... everyone looks pretty comfortable with themselves and smile at you when you catch their eye?

And you know when you are in another country and it is late at night, and you are hungry, and you drive around a wide awake city to a little sidewalk somewhere near the beach and an old Arab man is rolling dough making sweet and savoury delicacies in his wood fired oven? There are a bunch of teens and others standing around, you can hear the waves crashing and see city lights across the bay as you eat the steaming hot pastries and listen to the Arabic and Hebrew...

And you know that feeling you get, when you are walking somewhere, somewhere really really old. Somewhere where people have been walking, singing, fighting and loving for centuries, the paving is worn smooth with small hollows from people walking along it...the huge blocks of granite and sandstone are worn from fingers touching them and sitting stacked for hundreds of years. Layers upon layers of human civilisation, and you can feel it...

And you know, when you are in another country and you meet with a stranger, and you manage to master a phrase, or a small conversation, enough to make contact entirely in another language? The feeling of connection to the "other", the realisation that others are like you, the good will generated by your trying and their patience...

Cons:

The news today...

And, you know, some nights you can hear helicopters flying low, blacked out (no lights) maybe heading for Lebanon? Gaza? And cold fear awakens ("look mummy there's an airoplane up in the sky..."), the necessity to have a gas mask in the house... a bomb shelter in every building, fragile people hiding in a shell, and the young men and women, with friendly, hard faces carrying their M16s.

Conclusions:

Confused.

(This part to be filled in with more detail on my way home... ).

Diary entry..

Hmm... A diary entry. What a potentially confronting topic!

I have made so very many diary entries over the years and I think that a common theme would have to be the healing power of a journal entry in times of strife. Perhaps its just me but when I am having a great time, I am not generally thinking about writing in a book - I am out enjoying myself! Although the exception to this rule (in true rambling, journal-style tangent) is when in the throes of adventure!

So, perhaps the common theme is the desire to speak coupled with the need to dissect perhaps. I certainly don't much write in a diary in company-its definitely a solitary affair-and for me the liberation comes in being able to write whatever I am feeling without recourse to logic or general accountability-like a good shrink!

Again - that theory holds more true for moments (or weeks or months! Boo hiss) of heartbreak and soul searching.

That other time of diary keeping-when out in the world adventuring and experiencing - when life is far too exciting not to record it, what a journal joy!

Both have their place and their sentimentality. I have diaries from when I was 10 recording how I would remain best friends forever and had already found true love..

Then there are the diaries of following years right up to this day that I still have-the pages filled with my hopes,dreams,fears and triumphs that somehow I can never bring myself to throw away.. Although perhaps the odd unbearably cringe worthy page gets torn out or poem transcribed mostly this random collection of diary entries that become books filled with doodles and colored pages, old romance and old plane tickets simply sit in random cardboard boxes collecting dust.

Every few years I come across one and read back down through time to a younger me and a different life. Yet that is what stops me throwing them away possibly -how it is a record of a different me and a different time and yet inevitably so much that is important remains the same. Also I get a thrill to rediscover the details of some old adventure or love letter. To throw it away, to discount its value is not something I have yet been able to do.

I record moments and days and encounters in pages and papers and computers, there are times -like right now in fact- when the most beautiful way to interpret existence is to try and describe it-and there are so many ways to do it. Art,music,conversation,a long walk in the forest, a swim in the ocean or a simple diary entry (my favorite is in an exotic café over breakfast and coffee with stories of yesterday and dreams of tomorrow and content for today).

I think since time immemorial we as individuals search for meaning to this time alive and want sometimes to leave a mark. Even if that is a modest "this is me, this is what I did and this how I feel, I am alive. I exist". A hand print in a cave.

I think its intriguing to imagine some great grand relation discovering ones diaries and finding a small self created window to your long lost soul – that thought makes me aspire to entries that are fun filled and inspiring. Full of adventure and achievements,sex, drugs and rock 'n roll,love and kindness, humility and grandeur. Contradiction and commitment, the odd cartwheel and back flip and above all stories of freedom.. So many opportunities and possibilities!

Testament to a life well lived. What more could you ask of a diary entry than that?

A day in the life......

7am: They're still asleep... I might as well snooze... ahh bed so smelly and cozy....

7.30am Hmmm still sleeping. Bloody Rat Thing licking my eyes again, gross.

10.00am I can hear them stirring. Yippee! Yahooo! Wiiihaaa! I'll run up the hall and make some noise... that's sure to get them going.

10.30am *Groan* *Sigh* CUUUMMMOOOOON!!! It's time I've been so patient... so calm so reserved!

10.45am They're up! They're up! Pants are on. He's reaching for the lead. We're going, hip hip hooray!

10.50am The car! The car! We're going in the car!!

11.00am Ahhhh fresh air, wet grass, so many bums to sniff and people to freak out..... freeeeeeedom!

11.30am Back in the car. Ready to face the day. I love the car..... *ahhhhh*

11.45am Breakfast time. I wonder what's on the menu? Ahh yes dry biscuits and canned food, beef I believe. Delish.

11.50am. Done. Come on Rat Thing you can't eat all that, get over it. Woohoo he's wandered away... dessert.

12.30pm So sleepy.... time for a snooze in the sun.... *snore*

2.00pm Still sleeping.....

2.14pm Stretch, what are they doing? Ha watching that box thing again... boring. I might have another nap.

3.00pm They're leaving. Wonder where they go out there? Back to the park? Without me? Hmmm guess I'll sleep.

6.00pm I hear keys. They're back! They're back! Open the door.... SOOOOO slow. Hello. Hello. Hello! I'm still here. You're here... oooh the love, you're so smelly, ahhhh hello hello.

6.30pm Hmmm fridge door..... is that meat I smell. Ha yes! Standing around watching... they stir pots and add stuff.... but the smell... so aromatic, so amazing *drool*

7.00pm Watching, waiting, anticipating. Damn the man one... he chews every last skerrick off the bone. Damn I hope I get her one... but look she's making pretty decent work of her bone too. Damn you people... give a dog a bone!

7.50pm They're up.. heading to the kitchen, plates clinking..... ahhh bones..... "Outside, take it outside" Ohhh ok then whatever... just give me that bloody bone already.

8.00pm I don't understand why The Rat Thing gets to eat his in the house.... stoopid Rat Thing, left tasty delight unattended.... it's mine!

9.00pm So sleepy.......

9.15pm *snore*

12.00am Off they go... back to the bedroom... time to sleep.... so sleepy... ahh bed so smelly..... The Rat Thing is in my bed *sigh*

12.01am Rat Thing licking my eyes and ears again.... kinda nice..... into lovely smelly bed. What a day!

7am: They're still asleep... I might as well snooze... ahh bed so smelly and cozy....

Day 12

It's been 12 days since it started. I don't know why I'm writing this, maybe in the hope it's not the end of the world, maybe in the hope it's not the end of my own life, maybe in the hope the cockroaches will read it in a thousand years and know what happened to us. They'll probably already know though.

Nobody know why it started. No terrorist groups have claimed responsibilty, there has been no disease like it in history, man or animal. The most, and it isn't very, logical explanation is that this is the apocalypse and the final horseman has arrived. Some say it's not fair, we didn't have any warning, we didn't have evil, war and famine. Others say we've known them for decades, gazing fondly on them every day, fondly as comforting friend, eating a take away pad thai (that's television cockroaches.. remember them, I know you used to like the warm insides of mine..).

It doesn't really matter any more, we're here now. It's surprisingly real. I always imagined what it would be like, to live a catastrophe. It was always surreal in my mind. But it feels like life now, except the rules have changed. A lot. It's hard to adjust, it's been less than two weeks. I could walk outside, take a car, drive it off the Harbour bridge. Find another one, do it again. I could go down to Rushcutter's bay, find a really expensive car, and do it one more time. Nobody would care. But it's probably too dangerous. Not driving the car.

We haven't left the house for 12 days. Furniture, wood, anything we could use, has been used to board up the windows and doors. I don't think we've needed it yet, but it's only a matter of time. Even the bad people seem to be having trouble adjusting, or maybe they're driving cars off bridges.

Or maybe they're scared too. The disease strikes quickly, maybe they're treasuring they're last minutes of life, maybe they all killed each other, maybe they're praying. Maybe I should be praying instead of writing. I don't feel like it'll do much good. Maybe I should be praying for it to take me quickly.

It started in London. Well that was the first recorded case, it was either the most public first case or it was the first case and was proof it was deliberately started. It was right in the middle of Kings Cross station at 5:47pm on Monday the 17th of November 2013. Right in the middle of rush hour. It didn't matter though, within hours there were cases being reported globally, Japan, Canada, Hawaii, even Alaska. From little information we got before the world shut down, it is airborne, incubation is completely random, anywhere from around 3 hours to 12 days, but it's unknown how much of that time the person is contagious. Some people seem to be immune, nobody know why. A person who has the disease has no warning or indication. The live their life as normal (or as completely abnormal after the first even) then they start to feel hot. Within half an hour almost all the water in their body has evaporated. Like a spontaneous combustion of contagious toxic steam, leaving a brittle dry grinning human jerky shell.

We've been packing. We have to move soon. I think there must have to be a calm in the storm, when only the immune are left, but before they can get organised into gang or packs or tribes or brigands or pirates or whatever they will be called. They'll stake out bridges and roads and prey on all who leave the cities. Other's will prey on those that stay. We have to try to make it home. It's the only place I can think that will be safe. The old hippies who saved seeds for the end of the world will be laughing on their mountain of dry rustling treasure, like Smaug, without the fire breath. If they're not dead. If they didn't tell too many people they have hoards of life keeping seeds. Maybe we should look for seeds before we leave the city. Others will have thought of it, but maybe not. I'll add it to the list. I can't believe I have a shopping list for the end of the world. My shopping list is stupid. I can't leave anything. It's suddenly all valuable. I'm taking DVDs, Laptops, iPhones, clothes, blankets, the garden hose, soap, knives, pots and pans, computer games. All the stupid things I would leave behind on a normal trip. I want to take my books, but they're too heavy. We'll find a way to make electricity again, the hippies have solar and generators. I think I'll be able to trade, I'll probably just leave them on the road though. I'm gambling on the end of the world being boring… maybe I'm stupid, maybe a glimpse of the old world will be valuable to people.

I think tomorrow is the day. We'll leave early in the morning, I feel like bad people don't like waking up early. I don't like waking up early. Maybe I'm bad, maybe all the good people were taken away, leaving the bad people for judgment. We'll drive as far as we can. If the car is still there, if there is petrol in it. I hope we have enough to make it. Maybe we can syphon some on the way.. if we don't get killed.

We should see if our friends and family are alive. I don't know if it will be too dangerous. I can't stand the thought of leaving anyone behind, but I can't stand the thought of dying either, ambushed on the way to picking up our already desiccated friends. I think we'll have to decide tomorrow. I wonder if my brother is alive. There were theories immunity was hereditary. Well that's one advantage of being in the land of short people. In the land of the midgets the long neck man is king. I hope he is.

Will we take the dogs? It seems stupid, they just eat food that we could be eating. They might make noise when we're hiding from an ambush. I can't leave them behind. I'm still a stupid, city slicker. I haven't got post-apocalyptic nerve yet. Mad Max wouldn't take the dogs, unless he was going to eat them. Or did he have a dog? Guess I'll never know. Wikipedia is still out there somewhere.. it's just sitting quietly in some abandoned data centre, probably still whirring away with backup generators, maybe contemplating why it's so quite, wondering why it fell out of fashion. Or plotting the end of the world, Terminator style, not knowing we're already fucked. Maybe the T1000 will go back in time to kill the person who started the virus so they can take over the world properly. Well better plot quickly little computer, those generators will run out soon.

Tomorrow we move. Maybe tomorrow night we'll be home, or dead. I hope you, my friends and family, are reading this as we sit together by the fire, tomorrow night or the next night, or any night. I'll trade anyone 10 things I hate about you, Legally Blonde and 5 others of your choosing for Mad Max. Guess it's an educational video now.

'All I ever wanted was just one piccolo latte'

How I learned to give up on planning. Or how I used to be very organised, much more than I am now.

Dear diary,

its been so long since I wrote in you.

But you’ll never guess what happened.

As you know, I was getting ready for my birfday, to be eight. jus like I said on the last page, I was trying so hard to get all the tings ready for my party, cause I coldnt trust mum or anyone to be able to make my party jus how I needed.

Remmember, how there was we had a big fight and mum said that I could have my party where ever I wanted, only if I let her be the boss. Well I didn’t fall for it, cause I knew dad would be on my side I would get my party where I wanted anyway, and it would be just how I wanted. Just how I had seen in the little princess colouring in book, exsep there would not be stupid yellow lamps like how carline colowed them, they have to be pink, mum promised me pink lamps

Well the lamps was pink, and god how they glowed in the night. Like balls of fairyfloss floting, joe, that’s suzis bruther kept jumping to eat them. But dad told him off and he had to sit inside, like the budgy idiot that he is, looking out at us having so much fun playing pinyata, he didn’t even get to have the choc coated fudge which i hand picked from the chocloteer. You now, I picked all the sweets and treats at my party, I have a list of my favourites, and made a table with my bestest friends favourites as well.

Then I made sure that these were lined up with which games i thinked my friends would win, so they had their favrite sweets when they won. even Sally, I nowed she would win pass the parcel, cause she always wins (she had won at stacy, jeradins and even harlds party, even thow harlds party was so crap, cause his parents are like religees nudists, or that’s what mum said and no one was allowed to have lollies).

So, I had the cake from the Newpapa adds, yes the half cookies and cream half camel crunch from the ice cream shop. It was so good, I had bits from both half and I coulnt even tell which was my favourite.

But you now what, mum wast even gunna let me have any, till I cried. Cause she said that if I was sick the cake would not help it.

See cause I had been originating all week for my party, I was up late and coldnt sleep, I kept dreaming wether I should invite suzi. She wasn’t on my list, her rating was not high enough, plus I hate her bruther. But I nowed it was wrong to not let her, cause dad says we have to be nice to them, since they is from the wrong side of the road, and they are on welfare. Who cares if she has a scolap to go to our school anyways.

But I let her come on the second last sleep. Then when I was arranging the dekorashins the night before I feel off the ladder, mum said I fainted, but I said that she pushed me. See she was jealous, cause my party was better then any she had before.

But it was the flu, I was struck like a stimtarta dad said. It was horrabel, I harley slept for worry, then had to delget from bed, telling where things went and how to put the chips just right.

But just like mum, from the first guesses door bell till last kisses goodby I was a consulet host. Then I collapsed in bed at the end and stayed here for two weeks till I am writing to you.

I have decided that planeing is no fun and like dad sayed I shud jus let my nex party happen, like a hippy get togever.

Misty XOXO


Epilogue
The idea for this story is based on true events, and to the person that gave their diary, thank you and please remember that I would never say you were such a little bitch, but artistic licence may have been needed. It didn’t seem as interesting when you were nice but obsessive about planning.

Much love
jailo

Ok so its late...but i always am...

Ok... I cant rotate the images... maybe its best to turn ones head anyway...

The beginnings of a children book about the seasons...or just for fun...or maybe because i like to play with colors when it's too cold out side to be :)

ok. here it goes....
The next topic is A diary entry. Real or made up.

Choosing the next Topic?

Well that was fun :)

Just to keep things moving. This month we got the previous topic chooser (Berni) to pick the next, at random from everyone who posted.

And the winner is ... Calypso!

Hit us Rypso.

In the mean time, does anyone have a good idea on what system we should use to pick who chooses the next topic?
Suggestions have been;

Alphabetical order
Randomly out of a hat
Some sort of fixed order

The currently accepted method is that the previous topic chooser picks the next at random from the list of everyone who posted that month, excluding themselves and anyone who has chosen recently, with the intent that everyone gets a turn.

Deep Geo

You may need to click on the images to make them big enough to see. On the last panel I had to click on it again to zoom in.
When the image opens I have to hit back to come back the main page. Don't close the image page.