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....

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.

What I did was to abuse my body so hard I spent Saturday complaining, much to the delight of darling friends who spent the day with me. Hangovers and I are seldom seen out together, it does not work for either of us, especially our image, and frankly we just don't get along. Saturday was the exception that proved the rule. Not only did we hang out ('scuse the pun) we went to the bathroom together, had coffee, searched for the miracle cure and even had dinner together. 

I have some weird hemorrhage thing on my right elbow, which look suspiciously like I have developed an intravenous drug habit, I haven't. I asked my friends just in case I had started on the vein and couldn't remember, there is a 99% certainty that I am still needle free. So the only logical solution is that I was kidnapped by aliens and I was too drunk to remember and/or wake up!

I saw the Simpsons movie (whilst [see dictionary facists it a perfectly valid used and needed word! Give it back!] still hungover). Loved it! It was fantastic! 

I played some cards and some Scrabble and enjoyed the sunshine! Delightful. All in all I got to see some dear and wonderful people!

I found myself thinking about someone in a whole new light that I find kind of disturbing. I think the best way to deal with these new emotions is to ignore them! To indulge in them would lead to unnecessary heartbreak and pain. Some things just aint worth the risk. 

I also probed the spot that had been raw and exposed strip of my soul for a while and it appears to be scabbing over, take that stupid man! You can never break my heart completely, far worthier men then you have failed, you never stood a chance. It still hurts but the wound is healing, more slowly then my head injury, but healing nonetheless.

Desperately seeking the sun to my earth the earth to my moon, the ying to my yang, the ding to my dong. I'd like to meet you soon. Before I do something stupid, but after I've finished learning how to treat my loved ones properly. I'll do you a deal, I'll become a better, nicer person, I'll learn to be good to people and you think about finding me ok? I can travel, am willing to go to the ends of the earth, if that is how it needs to be. Just please don;t leave it too long, I am getting really lonely and  a little bit broken.

Actually maybe it is better if you just stay away, as I would probably just ruin it anyway..... And I don't think I will ever risk my tender little ego again. 

Sorry, let me get back to you on this one, it appears my thoughts on this are some kind of circular paradigm. ALhtough I ma not sure this will ever change? I wonder if I will get the chance to find out?

So I return once more from Hobbit Hole to The Emerald City. Overjoyed as always to come back to warm weather, a bustling metropolis and a soulful city of action. The Emerald City is big and busy and not very friendly compared to its friend in the Territory, but damn does it have heart!

There is a certain physical, mental, emotional wrongness that comes from traveling for work. It is its own special brand of discomfort and insanity associated with working long hard hours, bad sleep, too much coffee, not enough water, dodgy food and constantly watching what you say.

Getting home and falling into my own bed with no fear of strange noises waking me, assured of a hot shower in the morning and no heating system to roast me slowly in the wee hours of the morning was bliss.

I do return to a house situation that is stressful, the wrath of a close relative and the nastiness associated with fighting with your housemates. The wrath is the one that is killing me, not only do I feel I have done nothing to deserve this anger, I feel I am the wronged party, and thus have no desire to be affected by the taunts or bitchiness that are left as bait in my inbox, under my door on my phone. I do not want to have a fight, as I feel I have nothing to say beyond: "Why the fuck are you angry with me, when you are the one who has behaved in a way that makes my life an even less fun place to be?" I have a feeling that will not help and will only give further ammunition to a grievance born of fantasy and guilt.

Anyway enough obtuse hurt mutterings about a situation out of my control and understanding that I refuse to explain in detail.

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<strong>You Are 89% Non Conformist</strong>
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You're incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate!<br />
No one really understands you. And you're cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them!
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