Melbourne, as seen from the Westgate Bridge on an especially grey day

 
I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know with Sparky and Kylie last night, and “all I could think was wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful and yet again, wonderful” (thank you, L.A. Story).

I made an overseas call to Mr Past (the movie recommender) this morning and left the following message: “macaroni”. Then I hung up. Tee hee.

If you haven’t seen the movie, this will mean nothing to you. If you haven’t seen the movie (yet you like me and/or this blog) you are doing yourself a disservice.

 

another view

 
Sparky and I have taken on a team challenge: this assignment from Learning to Love You More. The idea was to keep the lists secret until completed, then compare. Sparky made it to 100 first, so now we’re waiting on me. But we’ve each trickled out a few in the meantime, to keep things interesting.
Some of mine:
* tornado weather
* people exceeding my expectations
* waiting to turn off the car stereo when you reach your destination, just so you can finish listening to a really great song
* signs with missing or burned-out letters
* reading out loud the new words created because of missing or burned-out letters

I will post the list here when it’s complete, and maybe Sparky’s list if I get permission. Perhaps you should make a list too, no? And post it on your site, so I can link to it. Then we can all compare. Or you can e-mail it to me and we can do a swap. How fun.

Enough about me. How was your weekend?

Burnley Tunnel, CityLink

 
Had a fabulous, relaxing weekend, which involved much sleeping and, when not sleeping, tea and toast and in bed while reading The Age. Luxury.

How handy that Sparky is a fellow member of Sleepaholics Anonymous, or my propensity toward naps would look selfish and be hard to explain. (Fellow S.A. members include Barb, Chrissy, Daryl from Canada, Lola, Miko and most of my family).

 
Four major issues are at the forefront lately: work, immigration, money and health. In many ways they’re all related.

Thanks to individual health and work scares, I’ve recently started having doubts about staying in Melbourne past November, which I don’t like. I hate being unconfident about such a major, complex decision even more, though, and right now my usually amazing gut instinct is not telling me much.

It was extra hard having both Kylie and Kristy gone this past week and a half, but after seeing Kylie last night, I’m starting to feel much more grounded. I can only think of that corny saying, “Friends are the family you choose.” Kristy comes back tomorrow, and I can’t wait.

 
Food for thought: Is it the same as lying if you omit important information to someone else? And how forthcoming and emotionally transparent should you be (and expect your partner to be) if you’re in a committed relationship? What if you think the information might make the other person think less of you?

I felt like I told Mr Honey everything, and when all the shit came out in the open, I learned there was so much he never told me. After seven years, I really didn’t know him at all — I only knew what he chose for me to see.

A friend is going through a similar thing at the moment, and I know how she feels. Once the secret’s out, though, the question then becomes, how do you get past it?

 
I received something at work today about hypomania, which I had never heard about before. The description scared the bejeezus out of me:

“”Hypomania is said to be a genetically based form of mild mania that endows many of us with energy, creativity, enthusiasm, and a propensity for taking risks,” it says.

“America has an extraordinarily high number of hypomanic overachievers according to a recent book devoted to the topic by John Gartner. But is this really symptomatic of a successful society, or just a neurotic one?”

And my favourite, from a book review on amazon: ” The characteristics of hypomania include a restless energy channeled into wildly grand ambitions, a tendency toward euphoria and a feeling of being destined to change the world.”

I remember hearing an old friend from high school had been diagnosed with a serious illness. The major symptoms of her disease were what we’d thought to be just aspects of her personality and physical makeup. It was weird to make the connection and give it all a diagnosis and a name.

There’s a free forum next week to discuss hypomania and “whether high achievers need to be a little loopy”. I am tempted to go and learn more.

St Georges Road, Thornbury

 
Sparky brought over flowers last night, and he even knew to ask the florist for native flowers.

Mr Honey gave me flowers once, last year. The only other time I’ve received them from a guy was high school winter formal, when I went with someone I didn’t like in that way.

There’ve been many occasions when boys I’ve dated have said they thought about getting me flowers, but there always seems to be a reason why they don’t. Score two points for Sparky.

Today I got a text message that addressed me as “sweetie” [le sigh] and included a line about how he enjoyed spending time with both of us last night - me and Miko.

And you know what? I totally deserve this.

—

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about how certain songs carry distinct memories that you just can’t shake. A few of my favourite happy connections:

Idaho: Shame — driving the Altamont Pass (my favourite place on Earth) with Carrie, on our way to one of many shows in San Francisco

James: Laid — driving with Sherry on her birthday, the year I kidnapped her and took her to Santa Cruz. We sang the ee-ee-ee part at the top of our lungs.

Depeche Mode: Personal Jesus — attending a Mormon dance that Jo-Anne DJed - they stopped this song halfway through because they thought it was blasphemous

Slowdive: Celia’s Dream — staying over at Jo-Anne’s and falling asleep to this CD on repeat

Otis Redding: Love Man — Barb singing out her favourite part with emphasis on the stutter: “c-c-c-c-cuz I’m a love man…”

Red House Painters: Katy Song — lying on the floor of my bedroom in high school, listening to this over and over and thinking to myself that I could marry Mark Kozelek because of his voice (ha!)

Prefab Sprout: the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll — living in the dorms with Japhia

Roger Miller: Little Green Apples — listening to music in the dark, happily, for hours and hours with Mr Past

Spain: Ten Nights — First Boyfriend Joe

Built to Spill: Carry the Zero — visiting Mr Honey in Melbourne when we were long-distance — I was so happy to be with him and in Melbourne that hearing this gorgeous song on the radio while driving past Luna Park just tipped me over the edge and made me cry.

the Smiths: Back to the Old House — Sam’s 15th birthday party, when I finally realised the name of the band was the Smiths and not the Danny Hutton Hitters (the Pretty in Pink soundtrack was mislabelled) and that Louder Than Bombs is one of the greatest albums ever

There are others, but I’ll keep them to myself. What/whom do songs remind you of?

—–

Thanks to Carolyn for the recommended link to Learning to Love You More. I happily (and somewhat tearily) wasted hours on this site the other night. So brilliant and inspiring — now I really can’t wait to see Miranda July’s movie.

my boss’s farm (shortly after the kangaroos hopped away in a giant mass)

 
A few interesting developments have occurred around here recently.

I will divulge one of them: a spark has occurred with the previously mentioned breakfast date. After three meetings with no spark, something happened. Something very interesting indeed.

Let’s call him Sparky for the purposes of this site (thanks, Mom, for the idea).

I’ve been thinking since meeting him about how we all have our little checklists of qualities/interests/etc. a potential partner must have. Some can be really important, but others are pretty trivial (but nonetheless just as telling).

For example, after spying my DVD collection for the first time, the movie he chose to single out, with no prompting from me, was Say Anything. Make of that what you will.

Not only are there stupid checklists, but there are stupid tests. He passed the Miko test but awaits the Kristy test until she returns from Hong Kong. Please tell me that those of you reading this have stupid tests, too, so I won’t feel quite so immature.

—

An excerpt from an e-mail I received recently:

Today, I drove across town to see a movie which was playing in only one theater. (limited release) It was amazing! Miranda July is the name of the woman who starred, directed, and wrote the screenplay. The film is called, “Me and You and Everyone We know”. I imagined if you made a film this would more or less be it. I thought of you as I watched the film. I wanted to contact you and tell you when it surfaces in Australia to drop whatever you’re doing, call in sick to work and go see it. You’ll thank me!

Luckily, I don’t have to skip work because it’s playing two Saturdays from now as part of the film festival. If anyone wants to join me, let me know.

—

I wanted to mention but keep forgetting that my mom sent the last of my old cassette tapes in a care package. I have been really, really enjoying listening to the rest of Jo-Anne’s mix tapes again.

Jo-Anne and I were penpals in high school, and she lived only an hour away. The penpal thing soon evolved to friends, and she’s been one of my favourite people ever since. Music was our initial connection, and we used to trade mix tapes regularly, each with laboured-over song selections and expertly crafted and artistic covers. I think we each made 21 tapes for the other.

Now I’ve got them all in one spot, and it’s so much fun to listen to them while driving Bernard.

I’ve never taken to mix CDs like I did with tapes. It’s just not the same.

Rodda Street, Coburg — how ’bout them hedges?

 
four things that made me smile tonight:

knitted bricks

cow math

the polaroidonizer (after I’d just attempted to do the same thing myself in Photoshop, albeit in a much more tedious fashion)

a new yorker’s descriptions of his neighbours, along with gorgeous illustrations by someone who’s never met them

 
Also fun: I googled the phrase “what about honey” to see who’s linked to me, after my stats tracker disappeared. Once you get past the usual bee- and vegan-related results, there are plenty of cryptic gems: