It’s a bit late but…

Happy New Year from the water lilly! And here it is the same time last year…

El Hombre Valeroso: An Interview with Clive Sinclair

Reblogged from Honey For The Bears / a blog by Matthew Asprey:

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My new interview with British author Clive Sinclair, 'El Hombre Valeroso', premieres online at the Los Angeles Review of Books. It first appeared in the print edition of Contrappasso Magazine.

The origins of the shell collection. Or /NaBloPoMo

It’s another hot, humid day in Sydney and it’s the end of NaBloPoMo. This is pleasing (the end of NaBloPoMo, not the heat for there is no end to that yet). This blog was always intended as a public place, a place where I could present my adventures and a more positive, thoughtful version of myself, a counterbalance to the inner party pooper. A more relaxed posting policy allows me time to have adventures to document, to edit and time to rethink. In summary, more tropical islands, more travels, fewer personal anecdotes of crab-icide and irresponsible pet ownership.

What I have enjoyed most about NaBloPoMo has been rediscovering my shell collection. My grandmother used to live by Balmoral Beach and when we were children she would take us to the beach to explore. It was my grandmother who introduced me to the idea of beach-combing. As way of encouragement, my grandmother gave me Alan Hinton’s Shells of Australia. I never used the book (until now!) and my collection never was never as impressive as hers but I would almost always come home from the beach with something interesting. Something interesting to an eight year old me was colourful and plentiful like limpets and pippi.

Before my grandmother passed away, she helpfully tagged all her belongings with the name of its future owner. My father inherited a number of books which I voraciously began to read. I opened up Dicken’s Great Expectations and a card fell out. It read “Dear Clare, no-one can consider themselves well-read until they have read at least one Dickens. Great Expectations is a good one to begin with” At first my grandmother’s shell collection went to another home but then a little white card fell out of the baler shell. “For Clare.”

Now our shell collections are one. The stories of my grandmother’s shells are lost but every now and then I pick up a shell and am reminded of a moment from my childhood.

Pizza Tuesday

It’s storming outside after a hot and humid day. Bottle of wine, pizza, chick flick, Sims 3 Seasons. I’ll see you all tomorrow.

Clare is working!

It’s 10.13pm and still no NaBloPoMo entry for today. Sounds like time for an episode of Clare is Working!

Any good working day begins with the breakfast of champions, also known as the breakfast of future diabetics. In previous episodes of Clare is Working! the breakfast of champions has consisted of pizza, chocolate, fanta, wine. Today’s breakfast rated marginally less unhealthy- a bowl of nutrigrain and a cup of tea. Still, I won’t be competing in the Iron Man competition any time soon.

So what does a day in the office (roughly and without specifics) consist of?

I produced maps in ArcGIS for an excavation report and requested some fancier maps from our GIS specialists. I had a cup of coffee. I got some draft reports ready for internal review. I had a cup of tea. Later I liased with the accounts department regarding invoices for some projects and provided some advice to a client. I had a cup of tea. I also started to scope out works for a project our company is tendering on. It was followed by a glass of chocolate milk. And like a good chiliken I filled out a timesheet, leaving out some bonus overtime, beverage breaks and the consumption of leftover dahl. It was a productive day.

After work, I looked over a map for a friend who is presenting her research at the upcoming Australian Archaeological Association’s conference. I assisted in making it prettier.

Work complete, I exited the office and walked apporximately 10 m to enter the kitchen. I washed up multiple cups and watched Episode 1 of Redfern Now.

Here endeth another episode of Clare is Working!

Contrappasso 2 Launch Events

Reblogged from Contrappasso Magazine:

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We're pleased to announce that the new blockbuster 400-page issue #2 of Contrappasso Magazine will be launching at two events in Australia in December 2012.

On Saturday December 8 we'll be at Manning Clark House in Canberra (4pm start). On Wednesday December 12 we'll be back at Sappho Books in Glebe, Sydney (6pm start).

The new issue contains Anthony May…

Read more… 112 more words

Issue 2 of Contrappasso is on its way!

In which I nearly fail NaBloPoMo

No posts planned. Head aching like a an aching head. Buffy and her gang have saved the day and empowered women but sadly done nothing for my brain which wants to burst out of the ol’ eye sockets. Screen addiction. Computers, televisions, phones.

So here’s a photo from the Spring Walk in the Sydney Botanical Gardens, with bonus thumb, on a day when I sensibly got out of bed and went outside.

Budgie

And here’s one I knocked up earlier. And by earlier, I mean back in the 90s.

 

The Walking Dead

The zombie genre is violent. Eating is violent. Apocalypses are violent. All my favourite television shows are violent: Walking Dead; Breaking Bad; the Wire, the Sopranos. Nice people dying for no good reason, good people becoming bad people. I can watch kids putting bullets in each other and or in zombies.  Shed a few tears, shake my head with incredulity, be thankful it’s television, move on. “The Killer Within,” Episode 4, Season 3 of Walking Dead? I can’t get it out of my head.

<SPOILERS AHEAD>

Vegan pie

Vegan pie – a migraine miracle made from mushroom, refried beans, onion, garlic and a dash of red wine. NaBloPoMo and migraines don’t play well together.