work soon

I think I need to get back to work. I am starting to enjoy afternoon re-runs of "Murder She Wrote".

Today in the news it said that the average Australian worker works an extra 70 minutes of unpaid overtime each week, and that work is becoming a habit, that people do not know how to "turn-off" anymore, thanks to communication technology in the home, and the shifting of Aussie ways from a leisure to money making culture.

When I am not working I do have a hard time knowing what to do with myself. My thoughts run amok and I feel like I have to keep my skills going, so I often do something work-related, like learn a software or do some little project.

Most people I work with are like me, working as we do we get in the habit of extreme hours, and are so consumed by our work that we cultivate little else. Even people who have outside hobbies are often doing something related: making gadgets, working on a film or screenplay, taking photos.

The people I have worked with who have unrelated hobbies are generally doing something on the opposite end: bungee jumping, plane flying, hang gliding - something adrenaline pumping and fierce, something to prove they are brave and physical.

I could be doing so many things, noble things, creative things. I could learn a language. But in a traveling freelancing world it is hard to commit to anything that will be more than a few weeks. But I am about to have a part-time job here for awhile, so some consistency should arrive soon.

Yesterday was 93˚F, according to the news, but it felt hotter than that. We kept the house dark and closed, with fans running the air around. It was hard to focus, hard to do anything, including watch "Murder She Wrote". I ended up going to the grocery store. The air conditioning felt so good; I felt like myself for a half an hour.

By 6pm the heat was broken by a thunder and lightning storm. It's great when rain breaks the spell.

Just the same, we slept for most of the night with the air conditioning on (we have a unit in our bedroom).

I bet Australians would not work that extra time, and maybe be even less productive, if there was no air conditioning. And maybe then people would remember how to relax.

A hop over the puddle

I returned 3 days ago from being in New Zealand for a month. It was a great trip.

Darcy and I went over for a holiday. I had always wanted to go to New Zealand. In fact, 5 years ago I was deciding between a trip to NZ or a trip to Australia, as air fares were way way cheap and I really wanted to travel. In the end I decided on Australia as i knew a couple of people here, then I met Darcy and now here I am. How different my life would be if I had decided to to go to New Zealand instead. I have no way of knowing. But just the same I am glad I came here instead.

And just the same, New Zealand was fantastic! A very lush and green country, chock full of sheep and cows and pine forests, thanks to a heavy logging industry, feeding China. OK, the logging was disturbing. There is so much reforestation with North American trees that if i wasn't driving on the left side of the road, there would have been nothing to make me feel I wasn't back in new Hampshire. But it wasn't all that way. Once we got to the South Island, plant life seemed to get much more native, and it was really breathtaking.

We started in Auckland. Auckland seemed pretty cool, very spread out so we only sampled a tiny part of it. It is at the top of the North Island, with smaller islands surrounding it and heading further North. It is not very big, even though it is New Zealand's biggest city, about a million people. We were only there a day and a half, so we checked out design galleries, I met with a company there for future freelance work, and we ate some good Japanese food. Then we hit the road.

We drove past many many many many green fields full of grazing sheep and cows. Many. There are more sheep in New Zealand than I could have conceived of. And we only saw a portion of the country.

We drove around Rotorua, where there are many geothermal springs, and we got to see boiling - and I mean boiling - water streams and water holes, and bubbling hot mud pools. We then went on to Wellington where I had another interview and we stayed with friends Kelsi and Malcolm. I met Malcolm while working in Sydney, and discovered that his girlfriend Kelsi is from Weare. Yes! From the town I grew up in! And she went to school with my brother Jack! Very very strange. They are a cool couple. Wellington is the nation's capitol, and as NZ's second largest city has a population of 400,000. Small country.

After a few days we took a ferry from Wellington, which is at the bottom of the North Island, to Picton, the top of the South Island. We spent a couple of days in the Marlborough area, a wine producing region famous for its Sauvignon Blancs, but for my tastes and Darcy's also makes some killer Pinot Noir. The best I have had in the Southern Hemisphere! We then traveled west along the coast, and experienced stunning terrain and trees. We cut through the mountains and reached Middle Earth. Big gorgeous snow capped mountains, with masses of rocky fields, windy fields and electric blue rivers at their feet. We took nice little hikes and enjoyed the fresh chilly winds. We also took a fun boat ride through a gorge, which I think is short for gorgeous! New Zealand is a very young land, they still have earthquakes and their native wildlife is unique and has evolved much less than surrounding islands (according to a tv show I saw once), and you can feel it in the freshness and power of the water, and see it in the bands of color on the side of a rock wall, or in the dramatic crevasses in a mountain created by a massive earth quake. The place is stunning and feels good.

We flew out of Christchurch, a small English looking city, but Darcy headed back to Brisbane and I went back to Wellington. The company I had met there asked if I could return for a 2 week job, so I did. It went well, and I enjoyed spending more time in cooler temps, but by the end I was looking forward to being in my own bed. I hope to return to New Zealand sometime soon. It was beautiful.


a green field and a rainbow, the first but not the last we saw of each;


a field with sheep. they cover the place;


some native trees;


naturally boiling pool;


steam from the hot springs near Rotorua;


leaving North Island;


me on the ferry;


South Island;


West Coast of South Island;


near the Marlborough Region;


Darcy in Arthur's Pass, or what we call "Middle Earth";


Gorgeous Middle Earth.

hellloooo

It has been awhile since I wrote, such a while that I don't know if any one is even going to read this, but I'll write anyway. Things have happened, but I didn't feel like writing about it. I still don't, so I will try to think of something else to tell you.

I have been working these past 2 months, and I have another month of work to go. It is for company down the road, a 30 minute walk, a 10 minute bike ride, or a 5 minute car ride. I have been either walking or driving when I am running late. Currently we are working on a commercial, but that is only a brief stint from the kids' tv show I have been working on the rest of the time. I am glad for the work, and how convenient it is. But I am sick of the behavior I experience in the room I work in. I work with about 10 guys, younger and older than me, and though they are good people, they are disgusting. They have belching contests, say gross things, tell offensive jokes, and use the word "fuck" after every three other words. In this description, I do not exaggerate. I have never worked someplace so unprofessional. I had to complain to the producer about one of the guys referring to the other female artist as "tits".

Negative bits aside, I have had overall a pretty good winter here. Winter is the best time to be in Brisbane, as it is only warm and not hot. That being said, today, in what is supposed to be the coldest month of the year, the temperature reached 31C (87). Tomorrow it is supposed to reach 34C (93)!

But like I said, negative bits aside, I have had a pretty good winter here. Having a long term job in my neighborhood has helped me to feel, for the first time, like I actually live here. I have been able to go to pilates classes in the evening, and am starting to know some names of classmates. Occasionally, I even run into someone on the street. I have become a little chatty with some of the workers of various local cafes, and my husband and I go out and meet people for dinner sometimes. It all feels like a little game almost, like this life is just a temporary situation something will happen and the bubble will burst. But maybe not. Maybe things will only get better from here.

I have noticed that the other blogs I used to read haven't been updated in a long time. I suppose that's all right, maybe these people have moved on to Twitter and Facebook. I haven't had time for Facebook, and when I do have a moment I don't have anything to share. And as for Twitter, you can keep it.

I don't know what else to say, but I hope I do soon.

So I have finally turned 40. I feel bad for the year 39, in that I imagine it does not get the energy and attention it deserves for simply being year 39. It is always that last year. I think people either live it in a desperate clinging fashion, or in an anticipatory fashion. I lived it fine, though for the last 3 months I have been in anticipatory mode, and started telling many people I was 40. I didn't give 39 its due, and for that, 39, I wholly apologize. Sadly, I can't make it up to you, only promise that I will attempt to give 49 the year it deserves.

It has been a strange time, in that 40 also seems silly to even think about. At the moment, I am hardly thinking about it, as my grandmother has about a week to live, and it is making me think about her quite a bit. She is the closest person to me to die in maybe 30 years. It is much more of a blow than when my father died 20 years ago. He was not really in my life. She was, and has been until the end.

She is 95, but I think we all thought she was going to be here for another 10 years. It certainly didn't seem out of the question. Her brain is fine, she was still driving a little bit, she lived alone, and she is just a lovely person to be around. This is the first year I have not received a birthday card from her, that is how thoughtful she is.

She really loves all of her kids and her grandchildren, and I believe it is not just a general love that she gives no thought to. She genuinely cares about us. I have always been surprised at her level of wisdom and insight, whenever discussing family members with her. It is clear that she thinks about us all, and appreciates the good in us.

My grandma is Catholic, but I don't think she is strict about it. She told me once that she thought the church was important for a sense of community. She was always very social through it. She knitted things for fairs and until recently attended a weekly Scripture group. She told me that every Christmas all the different denominations in her town would visit a different church, and have a meal. I think she is very spiritual but it is a personal thing, not a by-the-rules thing. I never felt judged by her, and our family is full of many sins - born out of wedlock, divorce, living in sin, homosexuality, and interfaith marriage. She loves us all, I never heard her say anything against anything. Maybe she did when she was younger - I don't know. But in my time knowing her I never found religion to be an issue. I imagine she had many private conversations with invisible forces. She loved solitude, but I never had the impression she was lonely. My grandfather died 30 years ago, and she has been on her own ever since.

I think it concerned her that my brother and I didn't have a father figure in our lives, and though I never heard her say anything, it was clear after awhile that she didn't view my stepfather as any kind of parent. I appreciated that, as he was actually an extremely dark force in my life that I could not control. She and my grandfather (when he was alive) were very important in providing when my mother could not, and doing things to cultivate our minds, encourage our interests.

For many years, they gave us a subscription to National Geographic "World" magazine, the NG for kids. When we visited my grandparents, I loved looking at all of their old copies of National Geographic, and imagining far away places. That is still my favorite magazine. I have a subscription today!

I remember my grandparents taking me to see "The Fantastiks" at Theatre By-The-Sea in Portsmouth. I was probably only 6. I loved it, even if I couldn't completely follow the story. They also took me to see Godspell, which I always loved. I remember watching it on tv at their house in Queens, before they moved to NH. Later they took me to see some plays at the community theatre in the town they retired to. They were always very encouraging for me to be an actress. (I hope I haven't let them down...)

When I had my violin recital at the age of 9, they came to see it, and bought me an outfit to wear: white collared shirt, blue skirt and clogs.

My grandma drove to my house one evening to let me interview her for a class assignment about growing up during the Great Depression. I was very surprised and fascinated by what she told me. In her lifetime, she saw people change from horse and buggy to automobile, and electricity in every home. People used to run 5 blocks to the local store to receive a phone call, as most people did not have a phone, so a call could be for anyone in the neighborhood when it came in.

When I was a teenager, I wanted to go to another country and be a foreign exchange student. My grandma obviously thought about it, because one day after school she drove down to my house, picked me up, and brought me back to her town for a meeting for students interested in foreign exchange. I heard a girl talk about her summer in Sweden, and heard a boy from Uruguay talk about his time in New Hampshire.

Several times in grade school, I stayed at my grandmother's house with girlfriends for the weekend. She always took us out for breakfast, which was such a treat! We would get pancakes every time.

Later when I was in college, I remember her picking me up from the bus station to attend my older brother's first wedding. None of us were happy. He was very young and the girl he was marrying was trashy and suspect. She drove me to get some breakfast, and it was the first time I ever drank coffee in front of her. She was surprised, and told me if I was going to drink coffee, I'd better drink milk because coffee depletes calcium in your bones. Then she said to me, with a weird twinkle in her eye, "you know, old people don't fall down and break a hip. The break a hip, and that's why they fall down." Happily, I finally gave up coffee a year ago.

I think no matter what I have done or what I have told her, I think my grandma has always made me feel that I could do anything, and that I was pretty special. I suppose that is really what a good grandparent will do, and I think I had the best.

I think the best thing she has ever said to me is, "the only thing you are supposed to do with your life is live it!" That is the greatest, most inspiring, and most comforting thing I have heard anyone say. I remind myself of this quote time and time again, as I surf the ups and downs.

Whenever I have gone back to her house for a visit, I am almost embarrassed by the little gifts she has kept from me over the years. There is an enormous toadstool that I once found in the woods, and with the tip of a knife, I carved a woodland scene into it as a gift for her. She still has it. The last time I was visiting her, she pulled it out, "remember when you made me this?", she asked with a smile. "I can't believe you still have that," I replied incredulously. The toadstool probably weighs 15 pounds - it is about the size of a large medicine ball. "Of course I have it," she laughed, "how often does someone give you one of these?"

She also has a drawing I made for her once. My Aunt Jane once gave me one of those poseable wooden statues that people use for figure drawing. I was very young, maybe 9,10. I made a drawing of the statue, a very dramatic one, with a blue pencil. It is not a great drawing, I was not trained at all and don't have any particular talent, but she framed it, and it is still on her living room wall, like a great piece of art.

As I became older, and trained to believe that drawing and painting and any other form of creativity should only be done if you are "good" at it, the little homemade gifts stopped being given. But one time, after coming home from a semester in Europe, I did make her one last thing. I made her a Christmas ornament based on one of my favorite drawings, Paul Klee's "Forgetful Angel". It was made out of a coarse dough that I formed roughly into the shape of Klee's image, then baked, and then painted in tones of grey. She put it on the shelf of her china cabinet in the kitchen, and it has remained there ever since.

I got to see my grandma one last time, this past winter. Darcy and I got to stay with her for about 4 days. She was limping around, but she made it seem like no big deal, which seemed to be her style. But now I know it was cancer pressing on her spine. While I was there, we chatted together and I ran some errands for her and we watched some DVDs. And I noticed that on her china cabinet, the angel was still there! It has dried out, and is crumbling. But she still has it. Maybe she really liked it, because she's an angel too.

I'm going to miss my grandma. But I am happy that I have had her in my life, and that I can miss so many wonderful things about her.