in/out 2006

Several people - Cade, Sandie, Matthew - are keen to get a 2006 in/out list going."Yes, indeed!" I said, "I will set something up." So this is the first step in the garnering of opinion of what will be IN and OUT in 2006.

For a bit of background to the whole in/out list thing see this: in/out 2004 and this: in/out 2005.

Here's my list to start off:

IN: humility, good, thoughtful action, complex carbohydrates, leafy greens, olives, meat and fish as a garnish (if you're an omnivore that is), good humour, silliness, doubt

OUT: arrogance, evil, violence, meat as a meal, drinking as entertainment, bad moods, blinkered pragmatism

If you could leave your lists as a comment to this post, I might organise them beautifully in the New Year.

peculiar resolution to internal crisis

Saturday night we went to Maryam's party in Matt's studio. Not surprisingly 'hundreds' of people were there from my past. People from UNSW, people from Adelaide. People I'd been madly in love with, people who'd witnessed me acting the fool. Michael of course.

It was like a strange timeline of decisions and impulses.

Talking with Michael was, oddly, a relief. He seems so much the same - he'd smashed the bones in his ankle somehow and was wearing a plaster cast. He didn't hear his mobile phone ringing despite me asking "what's that noise?". After Friday and getting upset about the past, thinking about the whole Alexandria thing, people moving, people being dissatisfied with the way that their lives had played out, it seemed to make sense that he is moving again, and taking his pregnant wife, and his mother to live in Newcastle-on-Tyne. It's just another step in that whole process of change, and movement and being. And it is what he is doing now. That's him.

I felt able to separate myself and what I am doing from these other people. Interested but not involved. Good.

And Matt's studio is so cool - a house with sheds opening onto a courtyard - in Camperdown. Perfect. It gave me hope that we can find a place to live that will have enough room to make things without having to move to the Blue Mountains, or Liverpool, or some other arse end.

alexandria

Today at work, in written communication, I used the word "formidable" and qualified it with the explanation that it should be said with a french accent. Which lead to a discussion of hearing french spoken around the table, at home, with family. Which lead to the discovery that Dan's father's family had lived in Alexandria, as, of course, had Michael and his family.

All of this made me feel strangely sad, and at lunch I went outside and ate my bread and cried.

I remember . . .

I remember being at Elouera or Wanda with Vicki and Lindy's grandpa, Mr Evans, and him teaching us to swim in the surf. He taught us how to swim out of a rip, sideways, doing breast stroke.

I remember going down in the late afternoon with Dad in the Valiant, parking up on top of the cliffs and going down into the sea. Dad taught me to look out, to the sea, to watch the waves coming, to stand and then start swimming, to be caught up by the pull backwards, the slight pull, then swim forwards, becoming a part of the roll, the onwards force.

I remember as a very small child standing on the rocks beside one of the pools, maybe at Shelley Beach, being offered some sort of sea things, abalone or sea urchins by a man, maybe Greek or Italian. My father disappointed that I didn't take any, he wanted to know what those things were like.

Cronulla - backdated

I wrote this on Monday, when I got into work:

On the train this morning I saw the cover of the paper, the herald, I can't remember the headline, something about riots, and youth out for revenge. The photo took up the whole front page, so all I could see were the white arms and I thought where is that? surely not France again, that didn't make the front page before. Then I came into work and checked out the herald and
it is at Cronulla.

I am astounded, in some ways, and not overly surprised in others, not when I think about it and what life was like when I was young. The different groups of people, older surfers, younger surfers, chicks just lying in the sun, people walking to the beach, or catching the train, or driving down. Being part of things, there was no trouble for me, because I was careful (I suppose). Later when Peter lived there he would complain about the traffic on the weekend.

I don't know about violence.

Maybe underneath it all. The security guards in the plaza, and the closed circuit camera, and Peter getting knocked down in the street. Groups, and aggravation.