I have been thinking about the phrase "A fate worse then death".

This, by nessecity is life, a fate worse then death. Since no one knows what death holds for us, (and no I don't buy your religious fervour as knowing, that is faith, different thing) and my guess is oblivion, then I could not agree more, life is a fate worse then death in a lot of cases.

When this phrase is used it is totally subjective, who can say what for one is a fate worse then death is for another individual, for some it is just life.

I just poured my heart out in a long and winding entry. It is gone, deleted before it was posted, some slip on the keyboard and all that work vanishes. What a symbol of my life right now. Heartfelt prose that no one will ever read. Oh well I am sure people are sick of reading about my latest foray into misery-ville, the latest laughable let down in my love life (I say laughable because I am astonished that despite being rejected by every single person I thought was interested in me, I still think it is going to be different this time)

I am pretty sure it supposed to be better then this.... What is the point of being white middle class and privileged? It seems that once your material needs are satisfied it just gives you the space to be sad. Or maybe that is just me.

I have had enough. Serioulsy. Over it. People are cunts, the world is falling to pieces. I am bored. no one gives a shit about anything.

FUCK IT.

If I can't start a revolution, I'm going to get a job in advertising, get rich and rape the earth, live in a mansion and produce 10 tonnes of carbon a month and eat children.

No more being treated ilke shit, no more putting emotional energy into situations outisde of my control, no more wondering what people think.

I give up.

Bring on the party at the end of the world, lets go down in a flaming cocktail of sex drugs and rock and roll. I'm going to dance while the world burns around me.

So it has been a while since I wrote anything, a lack of internet access and stories to share have led to a silence from this voice in the ether. But here I am reaching out with ghosts of fingers to touch your cyber life, streaming through cables as numerals and code, to stroke your ees and mind, warm something.

So I had an amazing start to the year, staying with my beautiful friends down at Manyana for the last time, soaking up the sun, surf and sundries. It was amazing and seemed to herald a year of many exciting opportunities ad changes. Of course I was wrong about that, but hey no suprises there! 

I have spent a long time unemployed and worrying about money, which sucks. While I was not working I was still paying the rent for so many  people, cleaning up after everyone and wondering how on earth it is that no one  stepped up??? Lazy selfish people. So my dreams of an escape were dashed in the face of extreme poverty. 

Now I have a year lease and a year contract, and I am hoping I can run away in 12 months, enshallah.

In the space of nine days I have been to a gig, a festival, two Big Day Outs, on a road trip to Melbourne, stayed there for 48 hours, flown back ot Sydney, started a new job, had everyone move out of my house and a whole new set of people move in. I am exhausted. It has been a huge time for me.

There was also the emotional rollercoaster of lying next to someone all night desperately wanting to roll over and touch them reach across the space and take them in my arms, it did not happen, which left me very confused, and sad and full of regret for my own inaction.

It all adds up, all this week everything has happened and I have not slept, I drink coffee all day in an attempt to stay awake, wired, alert, capable, but I am failing fast. I look old and haggard and I am stupid with the lack of sleep. My appetite has gone, my memory failing me, I can't sleep at night and I can barely say awake through the day. I am sad and stressed and sleepless.

I am worried I ahve lost my chance to act on my feelings, that lying immobilised by fear and apprehension has taken away my opportunity to act. It is hard, it is weird, it is amazing to find yourself falling for someone you have known for your whole adult life. I just hope they are still interested when next we see each other....

Having housemates sucks. In the past I have enjoyed, it but in this house it is not fun at all, in fact it is upsetting, depressing, frustrating and making me feel like no one respects me.

I am sick of being the only one who cleans, they don't even say thank you. We had a party and I did all of the cleaning apart from moving the furniture back and mopping the floor.... that was three weeks ago, floors still unwashed. No one takes out the garbage, does their washing up , cleans toilets. People use my sink to clean paint and leave big black stains, for weeks, eventually I crumble and clean up after them.

I have stopped taking in the mail and dealing with the free newspapers, our yard is awash with moulding sodden paper and peoples letters.

Someone in the house uses my toothbrush, too lazy to buy their own? Or is it just that I am so undeserving of respect that it is acceptable to USE my toothbrush, seriously it is revolting.... I cannot begin to describe how it makes me feel that this is acceptable, it is just that girl who does all the cleaning does not matter if I use her toothbrush.

There are three showers, yet people use mine, and my shower products, constantly, I have never decided I should use their stuff, 1/4 of my stupidly expensive lush face wash gone from one housemate's showering session.

My socks are stolen from my drawers, my stocking rifled through. 

I don't know if people don't care that they eat my food and drink my milk, my yoghurt, cheese, peanut butter, butter, everything is up for grabs apparently. Either they think I am too stupid to realise, or they just don't care.

I try to organise a house meeting to try and discuss this, suddenly everyone is to busy to have a meeting or just does not respond to my request.

It is so hard being treated like this. I am just the cleaner, the shopper, the stupid idiot who keeps cleaning up after people, paying the over drawing charge on the rent account because no one pays their rent on time.

And maybe if I was not such a doormat people would respect me enough to not treat me like shit. 

How did I manage to live with so many selfish, lazy, filthy people? 

Do theyn think I deserve to be treated this way? Or do they honestly think what they are doing is an acceptable way to behave. Do they respect me so little that they can steal from me, expect me to clean up after them, use my toothbrush and never even say thank you?

I am never living with housemates again, I think I deserve better, even if they don;t agree.;

It is amazing how much being well rested change your life. I have recently been marveling a lot at the human body and how we manifest emotionally the problems we are having physically. This week has been a classic example of this. I have had gastro, (and my birthday great combination) and an emotional rollercoaster of a week. The sicker I got the more inclined I became to do stupid things and plunge into situations with no fore thought at all.

This line of thought started six months with a realisation that being anaemic was changing my personality, and not for the better. I was irritable, unmotivated, depressed and quiet. When my iron levels started to normalise, I could finally see how much my behaviour had changed.

Earlier this year I had a head injury and for two weeks, I was subdued, vague, nervous and withdrawn, and I had no attention span at all. It was disturbing to be aware of how I was being someone else. That one is probably less of a revelation; I hurt my brain and then was weird, no news there.

The changes wrought by physical exhaustion have become increasingly apparent as my emotional armour falls away like petals drifting off a blossom. My resilience crumbles and I am destroyed by the slightest bump. I find myself falling into a heap at the slightest hurdle.

I am used to being a powerhouse of wellness, of having lots of stupid accidents and breaking, bumping, scratching, bruising my anatomy but not succumbing to germ warfare. This year of ups and downs, multiple countries, tropics and elevation, beaches, dryness, summer, winter, monsoon and everything in between. Of roadside food, and interesting concoctions, of water best left un-drunk and farm animals of every description. It has drained me in whole new ways. As my body has broken down, so too my mind has become more fragile.

All the lessons I learned so long ago, all the resolutions passed and masks created, all forgotten through a misty mind besieged by virus, bacteria, parasite, bruising, and all of the physical ailments. 

I have known for a long time about expectations and wearing my heart on my sleeve, I long ago came to understand how I was to be perceived. I have known my place, my rights, my social standing all to be abandoned thanks to a rash, a runny nose, a slight sniffle.

Betrayed by my own body. I think it may be one of the things that has led to my resolution to enter my next birthday healthier then I ever have been. quite frankly I have no choice. In order to survive the coming years, I need to be a lot stronger then this in every way.

I have quit smoking, I am slowly emerging as someone with a measurable level of fitness, I walk 20 kilometres a week. But I need to do more. I get sick I get sad. I fall ill and I fall into the traps of expecting things, I know I cannot have. Life is hard enough without having some strength to rely on, to not be able to trust myself to hold firm and deal with everything is not an option.

The body is an amazing place to live, it is so strong, yet weak, It is an amazing construction so easily destroyed. And if it is going to make it easier to stay strong and ignore my brain and its ridiculous thoughts, then I will treat it with more care.

I have often said; my body is a temple and I worship at the altar of hedonism. I will stand by that statement, for someone needs to take pleasure from it all. But now to find the balance between hedonism and emotional reserves. Toe the line between consumption and health

It would appear in my dotage and inexorable slide towards middle aged sobriety (forgive me I am about to have a birthday that will place me firmly in the realm of the late twenties and thus have decided I am old) that I have become generally less of a trashbag and more of a go-to-dinner-have-a-few-drinks kinda girl.

This long weekend just passed, is the exception that proves the rule. Here is my weekend in numbers;

1. 47 hours of drinking
2. 6 beer showers
3. 4 meals
4. 100 beers (guesstimate)
5. 18 hours of conference participation
6. 10 hours of sleep
   
7. 4 meals (oops)
8. 2 new and terrible encounters of the male kind
9. 1 bouncer incident
10. 6 pubs
11. 1 soccer game
    

The moral hangover is still torturing me, as is my ability to choose the worst people at the worst moments to start falling for. Sigh

Summer has begun and with it comes the long days, exposed flesh, hot afternoon, refreshing beers, parties and tension of the silly season. I love Sydney summer, and after missing out last year, I am so excited about it finally beginning!

I ma worried that it is going to be a season of poor judgment and trashy behaviour. Of excess booze and lots of questionable ethics, lets just hope we got all of that out of the way nice and early and the rest of the season is all about the normality. Oh wait that is right I am throwing a uniform party for my birthday in 3 weeks.... 

Let the games begin.

The last 2 weeks have been an extremely busy time for this old weary activist.

I have been arrested doing a Greenpeace action. We (allegedly) painted the side of a coal ship in Newcastle harbour with the slogan "Australia Pushing Export Coal". This resulted in eight hours in custody, two spent on a ferry wharf much to the bemusement and confusion of early Sunday morning commuters (imagine leaving a club, wandering down to the ferry and being greeted with the sight of 40 police people milling around, and 11 orange overall clad activists telling jokes).

The police seized our overalls, leaving me with a very fetching pair of forensic services overalls to preserve my modesty (I am sure they will come in handy : ). The APEC taskforce set our bail conditions (some of which were altered by our bail officer) and they were unbelievable (originally including a daily report to our local police station, not being allowed to associate with our co-accused for any reason).

So back to Newcastle to go to Magistrates court and request our bail conditions be dropped.

Meanwhile I received a letter form the Deputy Commissioner of Police informing me I had been made an excluded person... Something I am now intending to challenge in the high court (goodbye next five years of my life). The letter had 12 pages of maps of places I was not allowed to go to, including the Rocks, Bondi Beach, much of the CBD..... Where do I begin??? How can I be excluded from my own city? What happens to the excluded person list? What does it mean for my record? For overseas visas? When did we become a police state controlled by fear?

I traveled eight hours in a car in one day, first to Newcastle 200kms North, then back to Sydney to travel another 300kms down to Manyana.

I spent the APEC weekend down the South coast having a lovely time with 12 friends, a baby and a dog. Always delightful.

When I returned home from work yesterday the police had left me another letter, saying, well nothing.....

Here is a video of which I am very proud;

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7irHsVFA41w

Here is a blog I wrote after the action 

http://www.greenpeace.org.au/blog/energy/?p=46

It has been an emotional rollercoaster of a fortnight. So much has happened, so many terrifying precedents. Asides from the insanity of my activist life, work has been good. Barnaby Joyce has become a champion of the community broadcasting sector, which is an absolute coup! The ALP have announced they will fund Amrap. It is all ticking along very nicely!

And now a weekend of two picnics, Earthdance, 2 parties and a gig to go to! Bring it on, time to let loose and be free, forget for a moment and smile.

I participated in a Greenpeace action yesterday, where a ship was painted with "Australia Pushing Export Coal"

The police took my overalls..... And conducted forensic tests on my hands (8 hours and 5 toilet trips after the fact?).

WTF?

I have never had anything like this happen on an action before, wryly amused and mostly bemused.

This is an experiment. thus I accept no responsibility if it all goes horribly pear shaped!