Wordle is an online procrastination tool app that generates “word clouds” from text that you provide. Okay, off to do some real work now.

Stress Down Day is Lifeline’s only national fundraising event, held on Friday 23rd July 2010.

Every minute a new call is made to Lifeline’s 24 hour 13 11 14 crisis support service. The money QWC raises from donations will help pay for Lifeline’s $1.4 million annual phone bill and train more telephone crisis support volunteers with the skills to answer calls from Australians in need of support.

To make a donation, please go here.

A couple of months ago, I was having brunch with some writer friends. As is the case with certain types of cafes, there were a whole bunch of unframed paintings on the walls available for purchase. One of them in particular caught my attention and I spent the next couple of hours trying to figure out exactly what it was that made it so remarkable. It wasn’t the kind of art I’d normally find all that interesting or attractive — for one thing, there was a lot of pink. I don’t do pink. It gives me hives. But by the end of brunch, although I still hadn’t pinned down exactly what it was about the painting that I loved so much, I knew that I wanted to buy it. Needed to buy it, even. So I put my name down and the girl in the cafe put a sold sticker next to the canvas and this week I was able to finally go back and bring it home to hang in my office.

I still absolutely adore it, and I still can’t say exactly why this is so. I love the expression on the girl’s face, which seems — to me — to be vulnerable and frightened and brave all at the same time. Like she’s facing up to something she really, really doesn’t want to face up to — especially not in her dressing gown with only a small white fox as an ally — but damn it, she’s not going to back down any time soon. That fox looks pretty determined as well. And clever and wise (which are not the same things). A good ally for a pink-haired girl in a scary situation to have, I’d say.

I also love the brash, freehand style and — though you can’t tell this from the photo — the physicality of the paint and brushmarks on the canvas. Tracks left by the artist; unvarnished, unhidden. And I like the sense of incompleteness about the work — both the painting itself and the story it’s telling. Though there is nothing missing, nothing I would want to change.

But none of what I’ve just said manages to explain precisely why I had to have this painting hanging on my wall. I just did. I needed it. I love it. No further explanation required. And that’s all you can really ask of art, I think. That it should speak it your soul, with absolutely no need for justification.

The painting is called “Girl Holding Fox” and the artist is Ingrid de Ridder, although I have no idea who she is beyond being a woman who hung some canvases in a cafe in Balaclava. She doesn’t come up in google, although she might one day, so I hope she doesn’t mind that I took a photo of her work and put it on my website.  Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to have a talk with a pink-haired girl and her fox about this novel I’m meant to be writing.

Maybe this is why my wordcount isn’t always as high as I would like it to be.

It’s not easy getting those words onto screen when you have a small, furry growth semi-permanently grafted onto your arm. Especially when said small, furry growth chooses to express her displeasure at excessive movement (read: almost any movement) with the sudden and painful application of fangs and/or claw.

Ah, the trials and tribulations of being a writer . . .

I’ll read or see something online and think, “That’s interesting or inspiring or infuriating — I really should write a post about that.” So I leave the tab open in my browser and think about what I want to say and try put aside the time to say it in, and then a few days or a few weeks pass, and the tab starts to look old sitting up there among all the other newer, shiner open tabs, and so I close it. Reluctantly. Anxiously. Feeling as thought I’ve let something slip (again) that I really should have noted at least in passing.

All of which has made me realise that I place way, way too much importance on blogging. I don’t have to write an essay each time I post. I don’t even have to write a complete paragraph. I can just say, “Hey, look at this!” In fact, sometimes that’s all that needs to be said.

Hence, my new half-year resolution. I will post more frequently, if more briefly, about things I find interesting and/or worthy of announcement. I will spend the next week closing my currently open tabs and blogging about any that are still relevant. In future, I will try not to feel that I need to make a song and dance about anything in order to blog it. Maybe this will reduce my blogging anxiety. Maybe not. But at least I won’t have a million damn tabs open across the top of my browser all the time!

The quill is on my right upper arm (click to embiggen):

The raven is on my left arm, sort of curving around. I’ve included a detail of his head, because my tattoo guy did such an awesome job of capturing exactly the expression I wanted … if ravens can be said to have an expression:

Yes, they hurt, but only minimally. As a sensation, I’d consider it closer to irritation than pain … like someone scratching lightly at your arm for almost three hours. By the end, you just wish they’d hurry up and stop.

And I love them. Very, very much.
 

Anyway. For practical purposes, a visit to Newcastle for me means very limited internet access. This is primarily because I’m staying with my mother and she does not have an internet account at home (“I can do anything I need to from work, Kirstyn.”) She also lives in Maitland (about 40 minutes further up the Hunter River from Newcastle) and at last check there is still no local internet cafe. Five billion and one “antique” shops, but no bloody public broadband. So I take my laptop with its cruddy 56K inbuilt modem that only gets used in desperate times such as these, and dial up every couple of days to check my email which is about all my patience can stand.

Usually, I try to view the whole thing as one of those fabled retreats from technology which are meant to be so good for the soul. Usually it sort of works. I realise that I don’t actually *need* to have the internet at my beck and call, and I do feel a little clearer of mind after being unplugged for a week or so.

But right now, for various reasons, I do not want to leave the internet behind. I’m dreading being cut off from certain things, certain people. I’m already having withdrawal symptoms and minor pangs of anxiety. It’s not good. Last week, I seriously considered buying an iPhone. Cause, you know, I need to have 24/7 access. To everything. And everyone. Need it.

*sigh*

Welcome to the 21st Century, McDermott. Now, when do we get those implants?

Just in case, you know, he’s trying to pull a Ted Bundy on your arse.

So you help him with his crutches and fold away his chair and close the back of his station wagon for him, learning all the while how he was down from far north Queensland on holidays, only he had a motorcycle accident, and now there is a bone infection, and so he’s stuck here in Melbourne for at least three more months with the stupid wheelchair that’s too heavy for him to get in and out of his car easily on his own.

And he thanks you and says, "It good to know there are still nice people in the world." And you smile and wish him as speedy a recovery as possible, and walk away feeling good but still mentally tallying up the good samaritan points (which surely must offset some of the wicked things you’ve done, or are planning to do), andrealise that here you are all dressed in black in the height of Melbourne summer, wearing your I Killed Amanda Palmer t-shirt no less, stalking through an underground car park in your sunglasses and boots, and maybe the poor helpless guy in the wheelchair was just a little trepidatious about asking for your help.

Just in case, you know, you mugged him for his groceries or something instead.

But yes, it is good to know there are still nice people in the world. Get well soon, broken leg dude. Hope you make it back home before winter.
 

I went out into my backyard after I got up and stood in the dark beneath the stars and decided it was maybe 3 degrees cooler outside. Contemplated sleeping in the backyard, on the grass. But I’d have to put clothes on for that, which would defeat the benefit of those extra 3 degrees. Fuck it. Hate summer. Hate the heat. The film of near-dry sweat that is always there. Seriously, have a shower, dry off, and bam: sweat. Again. Still. I refuse to waste water by taking another shower now just to cool down It can wait until morning. Yeah, okay, later in the morning. When the dreadful sun comes up again.

I have Important Things to do tomorrow (yeah, okay, today) and I really should try to get some sleep. And I am tired. It’s just that it’s a weary sort of tired, rather than a sleepy tired. I did no real work tonight, even though I planned to start my new story. Just pushed words around on my Asus for a while, read through some old bits and pieces that I thought maybe I’d work on instead, and then gave up in disgust. Wrote a couple of emails. Christ, I think I might move to Tasmania. It’s colder there, right?

Doesn’t matter how much water I drink, I’m still parched. And my fingers taste like salt.

My poor cats are stretched out as much as they could possibly be. I guess I should just be glad I don’t have fur. Maybe I should shave them both, would that help? Scary witching hour thoughts, Kirstyn. Get the fuck back to bed. Anyone know where that switch is? You know, the one that turns off your brain?
 

But this isn’t about that.

After a troublesome, semi-sleepless night, I dreamed of walking through anonymous, unfamiliar, urban parkland, accompanied by a clever boy and surrounded by many other people. It seemed a busy park. At some point I realised, as you only can in dreams, that the ground was covered with lizards, broken and dying. They looked like chameleons, and perhaps they were, because the livings ones were a beautiful, vibrant green, while the dying and the dead ranged through an autumnal spectrum of yellows, oranges and ashen browns. Their sizes also varied, from smaller than a baby’s pinkie finger to as large as your foot, and a lot of them had bits missing. Legs, tails, the little frills on their back. The living ones looked up at me with their bright, black eyes and gasped.

They lay like fallen leaves, carpeting the ground, and everyone was walking on them, nonchanlantly crunching little reptilian bones beneath joggers and sandals and boots.

I couldn’t move. Tried to pick out gaps to tiptoe between them, or at least between the ones still living, but it was impossible. There were so many of them. I stood there, helpless to save them, helpless to stop everyone else from stepping on them.

I called out to the clever boy, who had gone on ahead, and pointed to the ground. "We can’t move," I said to him. "We can’t just walk on them."

He grew irritated at that, and came back to yank at my hand. "Come on," he said. "They’re only lizards."