Having a laptop and cable internet makes life easier, because apart from all the obvious stuff like being always on and being able to cart my whole life around with me, I can work from home when I need to write (that is, if I don’t have to teach or go to meetings). One of the many good things about it is that I can work away to whatever music takes my fancy, at the same time as cooking soup because it isn’t summer any more, and on breaks, pat the dogs and wander down to the back fence to see if the jasmine vine has anything left on it (sadly, not really).

Oh, and the answer to question no. 1 is pea & ham (retro!); question no. 2 – Damien Rice (again)

So last night saw me at the opening of Brisbane’s Bollywood Masala film festival at the Dendy, which kicked off with the very well-known Main Hoon Na. I ask you, what more could you want in a Bollywood film – witty, self-referential, and seething with intertextuality, and packed to the rafters with military heroes, action-adventure, romance, magic, teen comedy, tear-jerking melodrama, and of course very big musical numbers with very hot bodies and *very* sexy dancing.

While this was v. fun (how could it not be?), it’s all work and no play for me for the next couple of weeks while I wrestle with linguistic chaos to produce a PhD confirmation document that will do the job. And write a few lectures and so on – you know the drill at this time of year. So on the blog front, expect lame links and strange, slightly insane mutterings for a little while, rather than the fine, measured prose you’ve come to expect.

And by the way, if it weren’t for The Necks, I’d feel even less capable of taming the anxiety attacks that always come with ‘real’ writing.

It’s invisible most of the time (or it just feels like sociality), and you only remember it’s there when you suddenly need it.

This is not me, but some totally random Stranger Jean, who carelessly left this lying around (or, Dan and/or Maryann left it lying around) to be found by an equally random stranger. But I’m glad she had friends who were there for her, cos I’m v grateful for mine.

This kind of reads like one of those spamquotes that the purveyours of levitra were flooding my blog with a while back. But it’s a great quote all the same, and coming from one of my favourite utilitarians, it’s a hint towards proof that pragmatism can coexist with creative dissonance and the will to individuality:

“Eccentricity has always abounded where and when strength of character has abounded: and the amount of eccentricity in a society has generally been proportional to the amount of genius, mental vigor and moral courage it contained. That so few dare to be eccentric marks the chief danger of the time”

–John Stuart Mill

Well the grass is mowed at my place, we’re stocked up on culinary cliches, we have cold beer (good, because it’s HOT) and the right kind of DVDs (i.e. the direct inverse of the scary plastic christmas cheer that Television insists we must want), I’m armed with damien rice and jeanette winterson thanks to a surprise parcel from one of my greatest and oldest friends, and best of all I don’t have to drive anywhere in the scorching heat without airconditioning. So it could be worse. But Christian, you’ve put something in more than a few people’s eggnog, dude.

If your festive season is likely to be non-crap, well, good on you, and I’d advise you to consider cloning your loved ones as soon as possible for the greater good of humanity.

And with my last ounce of conviviality, may I say, if you can, hug everyone you meet until they let go, and drive everyone crazy with your relentlessly positive and imaginative monologues about the beauty of this world and the even greater beauty of the one you’re busy making.

I need to write about the digital storytelling workshop I just finished, working with both young and very much older people on stories about the history of the Kelvin Grove Urban Village (most of which used to be a bloody big army parade ground). I also need to write about the CSAA conference, which has left quite a glow on me, and where I sensed a seismic shift away from distanced, black skivvy critique, and towards a renewal of genuine engagement and non-cynical pragmatism.

But it’s RAINING…after days of heat that feels like a solid, malevolent presence, sitting on your head, making you squint and gasp for air, finally the thunder is rolling, and there are sheets of cool water pouring onto the roof. I feel like running into the street, sinking to my knees and drinking it in…I’ve done that before but become quite rightly scared of the threat of being struck by lightning. How ironic that would be (in an Alanis sense, although slightly more so than a fly in your chardonnay) – an extremely rare moment of prayer cut short by the most cliched death in the Bible.

Apparently I should also have the computer turned off and unplugged.

Now that disbelieving horror has given way to grief, shame, but not quite yet anger…

I had a nice day out on the water, far away from my fellow Australians, over half of whom voted, not only to keep the current government, but also to strengthen their hold over the Senate into a vice-like grip. Never in my own lifetime have I felt such fear that democracy might really, truly be endangered. And despite people telling me to cheer up, telling me that it’s cyclical and to remember the long Menzies years, I just don’t feel well.

I can’t look at my neighbours or my fellow commuters, because I can only talk about The Election in the company of people whose politics I know and trust.

And I have been wandering around today with the unfamiliar feeling that there is a blurred, blank space where the meaning of the phrase “I am an Australian” used to be. Not because I am full of bitter rebellion and refusal about Howard winning the election, but because the election was won on the basis of (lies about) interest rates, and especially because for most of the decade Howard has been precisely like a cultural Dementor, droning on in his grey voice, sucking the life and passion out of us all and replacing the vigour of the dissent that is essential to democracy with nothing but the emptiness of the aspiration to be “relaxed and comfortable”.

And as for the Family First party…

There are more articulate responses at mc gregg, Junk for Code and Barista.

I don’t know what to say about this.

So I’m off to Moreton Island, to get out of the suburbs and wash away the lingering stench of yesterday’s events.

Ha! I knew it…

You are 16% geek

OK, so maybe you ain’t a geek. You do, at least, show a bit of interest in the world around you. Either that, or you have enough of a sense of humor to pick some of the sillier answers on the test. Regardless, you’re probably a pretty nifty, well-rounded person who gets along fine with people and can chat with just about anyone without fear of looking stupid or foolish or overly concerned with minutiae. God, I hate you.

Take the Polygeek Quiz at Thudfactor.com

If David Brake can blatantly post evidence of procrastination on his research blog, then so can I. As if having a research blog in the first place isn’t evidence enough of both procrastination and geekiness, right Mel?

And how happy am I at being quasi-Drew?