Where the heart is.

"It don't matter to me
'Cos all I wanted to be
Is a million miles from here
Somewhere more familiar

Oh my god I can't believe it
I've never been this far away from home"

Catchy, non-whiny song. Positively boppy to be honest, always liked it, even now when its taken on an entirely new meaning. Post exam blues settled in after the initial euphoria of being free. People are heading back to where they belong for the summer. Normally home-sickness is a foreign concept, but nearly one and a half years since experiencing that uniquely Sri Lankan cocktail of humidity, sweat, dust, petrol fumes and don't even want to know what else forming a protective shield over my skin, I admit it. There is a painful longing stubbornly refusing to go away.

All depends on what 'home' is, really. For me it is where my friends are. That unbeatable feeling of being able to let it all go - no need to smile if you don't feel like it, no need to be entertaining, or look good or say the right things. To have company without needing to say anything. Hugs. Belonging where I am just because I am me. People for whom love is unconditional, forgiving and log fire warm.   

Tonight, at this specific moment in time, I am emotionally further away from Home than I have ever been in my admittedly short life. I'll get over it, at some point in the next hour quit wallowing and get a life, but right now my mind is overwhelmed by the wish that the next month or so will go by quickly so that I can Just. Go. Home. Please.

Strange fruit - Abel Meeropol

Southern trees bear strange fruit,

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

Pastoral scene of the gallant south,
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh,
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh.

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck,
For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop,
Here is a strange and bitter crop.

------ Nina Simone sings a particularly hard hitting version

Open window

I have an obsession with knowing people's stories. Life stories, love stories, the happenings, the non-happenings, regrets, reflections. All the boys I date go through an ongoing grilling about what they were thinking or wanting at different moments in the initial fireworks stages. What did they think of me during the first conversation, first kiss? What did they want out of the situation? What did they think would happen later? What did they think of my reactions? It's like putting together a puzzle, fitting their reality with mine. Sometimes it doesn't quite fit - 'OMG I can't believe you thought I didn't like you' being one cliche classic - and the final painting ends up, I'd like to think, like a Matisse painting: bright colours, looks kinda like reality with an endearing quirkiness. It's the process that attracts me as well, you learn so much about a person by the hopes they clung to, the assumptions made, signs read or misread. That's why I invariably stay friends with these boys, the debriefing analysing is fascinating. Even when it all goes wrong, several years later you get to sit down and pull the mess apart, untangle, rewind it into a neater ball. Ideally. 

Had the perfect one night stand, by my definition of it at least. He talked to me for hours, was generally very considerate, made me laugh, an impossibly irreverent sense of humour reminding me of of good friends back home. Entirely non-seedy, only slightly alcoholic. It was spontaneous fun. 

But now I have to let it go, every rational part of me knows it. Saw the danger signs, he's likely to get emotional, its just not going to end well from any point further than this. But it's killing me to not know his story. What was he thinking? What had he wanted out of it? At what point did he realise I might be interested? What convinced him to make a move? Why? Is he also going to look back on it and laugh?

The thought of never knowing makes me ache, just a little. Bittersweet, because in a way the uncertain endings are sometimes just how its meant to be, but at the same time it's sad that I'll never get to see the full painting. I'll carry with me half the colours, half the brush strokes, and that will always look lonely.

Short and sweet

There has actually been insane amounts of things happening, mostly good, some goose-bump inducing-ly crazy, some that will take a while to digest. Loving the ride overall. Figuring out what one wants seems to be such a messy, interesting, frustrating and fulfilling process. Two steps forward, one step back. Life is all about experiences, and now, finally, I'm back on track having some crazy fun ones!  Right now, on zero hours of sleep in the last 24, I have two days to write two essays one of which was due a couple of days ago. 

Crap :D 

Also, apple and passionfruit martinis are a.m.a.z.i.n.g. 

Some men just want to watch the world burn.

I love psychological movies. Especially the tearing them apart and have long meaty conversations dissecting them for hours on end. The Dark Knight is also going to feature in my dreams for a possibly traumatic while, I can tell. Fiction is a slanted reflection of the real world after all, even though its not a reality common to all. Thank god, sometimes. Not everyone falls madly in love and insane serial killers are not as widespread as tv shows seem to reflect. 

How many Jokers exist out there? Frustratingly, and possibly deliberately there is no psychological assessment of this maniac - the more or less good guys, in this shades of grey movie are too busy fighting him to figure him out. He has no history and he seems to make stuff up. Abusive father? Lost love? Irrelevant?  

Thinking of burning the world on a large-ish scale, the obvious examples are the LTTE and maybe Al-Qaeda but both those have reasons. What they've done is awful, but waking up at 3am, there are rationalisations which soothe their conscience, even though it may not seem justified to others. Surely everyone has a price in a broader sense of the word: something they want, not necessarily money. So then the Joker wanted chaos? A world tearing itself violently apart satisfied some need for ugliness? For everything around him to be as scarred and freakish as he is? He's just 'a dog chasing a car', no rules, no plans, no 'end' as such just any means necessary. 

Can't think of anyone like him, yet. Can you? 

Relaxin' awhile, livin' in style, talking to a raisin who occasionally plays L.A..

Ooo it's been awhile since the last post, think I heard the blog gasping for breath, poor thing. Have been indulging in my tendency to swing to industrious extremes, mostly chocolate, sleep and cocktail related. Yum. Nothing like a few tasty sips from a beautifully shaped glass of deliciously decadent liquid to get the party started ;) Which is ridiculous really because alcohol is technically a depressant but anyhoo dimly recall being extremely happy and running around chasing people and being chased on the street. Hmm. 

It's so blooming cold! Getting out of bed or shower is just misery, unless a particularly masochistic mood happens to temporarily descend. OMG those horrible, immoral, heinous, obscene people who open windows of the bus during winter SHOULD BE HUNG. Upside down. On an ice-burg and really, I don't care to bother about logistics. Teeth *clatter* at traumatic memory. I'm a tropical animal, I am. 

Self pitying whingeing aside, it's been a great few weeks,  just a-floating in that jolly ol'  cereal bowl :D [Click here if puzzled].  Although mixed berry jam with the pieces is the best I reckon, so much fun. The producers of The Daily Show have improved the quality of my life immeasurably by finally releasing full episodes, yes!! I love love love Jon Stewart and would marry him in one two-hundredth of a love sick heartbeat. Definitely worth checking out: whenever I get depressed, watching clips of him makes me feel better about the world. It can't be too much of a crazy place if such an anti-absurd aspects of establishment show still gets airtime, albeit at 11 pm. 

Optus snapped a cable in Queensland, leaving a few hundred thousand not entirely happy mobile and internet customers Australia wide. Went into the mall to find some of the stores using the old credit card machines, which make an imprint of the lettering on the card, hehe... been a while since I've seen those! Remember being a kid, jumping up and down in excitement when the girls at Food City let me drag the handle thing across. It's interesting how disoriented and agitated people become without phones and internet, even if its just for a few hours. There were apparently people who switched telephone companies immediately and had a massive yell at the poor Optus store people. Really, a little perspective. After all, this is a country where chances are the problem will get fixed within the half day.

There's excitement in the air - uni starts in less than a week! :D Okay, I'm not a nerd, just a new leaf addict, and next Monday heralds the turn of a particularly big, especially minty new one. Doing a Psych course which is potentially ultra interesting, as well as maybe a drastic change of life direction in the offing. Weeee! Exciting but mildly scary at the same time.  

Ramblings

Escaped to warmer climates for a week, benefits of living in a large continent with sub tropical state. It's been good for the soul, hanging out, partying, disregarding space and time. Entirely guiltless lying around on a sunny deck, catching up with friends, reading all night, walking around the city all night, impromptu salsa dancing in the square, eating deliciously unhealthy amounts of ice cream for meals just because. It's important to sit back and see what's being going on. Had a nice night with a very cute boy with dimples and expressive grey green eyes that soften when he laughs. Why is it that wanting someone to notice you invariably ends up in embarrassment? Or at least what you think is embarrassment. Think it went pretty well but there will be more disappearing into the universe happening in a couple of days, which is somehow alright.

Perspective - that's what holidays are all about. Stepping back to figure out how far away you are from who you want to be, because a certain amount of deviation seems to always happen in between waking up every morning and going to sleep every night. Kinda wish there were more markers along the way. There's an episode in the third season of House where the patient develops a rather far out disease where he can read people and then mirror their core personality traits back at them. I'd really like to know what mine are, have a feeling its changed rather drastically from about two years ago.

Subterfuge

Watched Miss Pettigrew lives for a day, because even though I'm supposed to be cramming my ass off for 48 hours a day, the trailers caught my attention. I love movies that pick you up by the scruff of the neck and place you squarely, sometimes not so gently in another time and completely different world. Two hours of being caught up in an alternate reality with certain rules that ensure a basic degree of emotional safety. By this I mean that you know a romantic comedy will have either a blatant, often unrealistic happy ending or at the very least a neat, hopeful ending. In the middle, there will be tears, confusion and personal chaos. The music will tell you what to feel, and also what is about to happen, another method of preparing you. A sad movie is doomed from the start, and there signposts along the way. This doesn't mean that you don't get attached to the characters or that the plot is boring, just that it is clear a prior investment in tissues is necessary. Also, don't wear contact lenses. 

Anyway, trotted along for my happiness fix, brought down the average age in the theatre by about 60 years and became immersed in a crazy upper class 1930s London. It is not meant to be taken too seriously, its light and mostly fun. The one issue it did bring up however is the games people play. Lies, falsely hinting at things, pretending and then people wonder how it all got so complicated. Why they don't get what they want. Gee, I wonder. When did it all get so complicated?

Don't get me wrong, I find the little harmless mind games on the side lots of fun, but nothing significant even if I wanted to because I'm totally crap at hiding how I feel. Happy - smile, Sad -no smiles/quiet/expressionless/go to sleep. Life is too short for bullshit when it comes to the important stuff. Get a life, seriously. 

As a kid I was anti relationships, the whole finding a boy, getting married, damn picket fence in the mind numbing suburbs. Partly from not having particularly endearing examples of a marriage, partly from believing there is something dodgy about so much of your life depending on someone else; surely it's more about building your own life and person. I still think I'm kinda right, marriage isn't really necessary anymore, and townhouses are great, however, the people in your life make it what it is in many many ways. The boy has a large role, that's inescapable which makes it tempting to turn lesbian sometimes, the best friends and the good friends are all important to making it through with that fun, delicate balance of sanity and insanity. 

So what's with the creating murky waters? If you can't tell the people closest to your life the awkward things that even you wish you didn't know, perhaps that tells you something. Chances are, they'll surprise you. Or you get to filter for weeds.

Why seven??

Ok I'm guessing everyone knows about the new tagging thing with rules. Hehe.. there seem to be far, far less than seven degrees of separation in the SL blogosphere, thus the tags from Gutterflower, Meese, and Jane Doe.

- Link your tagger and list these rules on your blog.
- Share 7 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
- Tag 7 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
- Let them know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I twirl my hair when I am tired or concentrating on something, even though my hair is about three inches long right now. 

2. My digestive system has a heart - if I'm happy I get noticeably fatter and curvier without even trying, and without my weight changing at all.

3. Slightly addicted to getting haircuts. 

4. Coffee, chocolate, caffeine pills have no energy effect on me whatsoever. Once I went from reasonably awake to actually nodding off because of a mocha. 

5. Buying stationery gives me a sense of purpose.

6. I've stopped watching Winnie-the-Pooh movies because I start sobbing my eyes out. Every. Single. Time.

7. What I wear generally tends to reflects my mood quite well. Not quite sure which one comes first.

Ok now to make sure nothing nasty happens to me:

Sach, 

Lady Divine,

Java Jones

Angel

Pissu Perera

The Missing Sandwhich

Kaiser

Have fun! I'm off to pretend to study.

Maybe I don't wanna hold your hand...

After a little pondering, I've reached the conclusion that there are two types of trust. 

1 - blind faith in the other person

2 - faith in your judgement, the ability to recognise what the person is and is not capable of doing. 

I can think of only two people I'd trust in the first way, and even that is based on the fact that I believe I know them well enough to know they're solid. Gold. Personally, I think the first type on its own is delusional and asking for trouble. 

Information is power. The more you know of someone, history, the choices they've made - under stress, impulsively, when very drunk, when angry, when they just stubbornly wanted something - it all adds up to give a picture of how strong a character the person has. How far they can keep in focus what they really want, and what they have to do to get that while there are all kinds of delicious distractions along the way.

Ooo.. trust + delicious distractions in one sentence, surely this is about relationships and delectably sordid fooling around right? Partly. It's also about people relying on each other in general. With a close friend, you give your self esteem just a little bit. They are privy to information that carries with it some of your pride, your ego. They are put into situations where conflicts of interest arise and it is a prisoner's dilemma. To tell or not to tell? Whose ass to save? Will they safeguard you over their ego? 

Then there is the even more interesting question, can you trust them to recognise when you/your ego needs protecting? In the rush of wanting something, would they be able to step back and realise the cost to you? Or just rush in to get what they want, satisfy their ego and then think 'oops' a few moments too late?  

To trust someone completely because you know you cannot trust him at all, wouldn't that be ironic.