monkeying around

Not at all religious, but this photograph makes me want to pack a toothbrush, a clean pair of knickers, withdraw my life savings (all $13) and run away to become a monk. This is the Meteora Monastry, built in the 11th century in Thessaly, Greece. The best thing about it, is that until 1920, the only access was via winches and ropes!!

I've always inexplicably loved the sound of monks singing. Gregorian chanting does something- that I don't have any words for- to me. It's the sound of one of those golden sunsets, streaming ethereal rays. The feeling that maybe life does care, and my insignificance is incredible, instead of just lonely.

As a child, I romanticized the lives of lighthouse keepers. And oddly, nuns. Stark dedication, isolation, mystery.

Our Dot

Have you got your glasses on? Earth is the teeny white thing in the peachy-coloured stripe. Yep.

Seen from 6.4 billion kilometres away, Earth is just a dot obscured in a beam of scattered sunlight.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there-on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."

-Carl Sagan

The Marble

"There's god, there's the government, and then there's the universe. The universe requires neither blind faith nor my money, therefore I find it to be the most welcoming of the three."
-Lydzilla, mid-fever.

Her blog is truly great. I've just found it myself, and I recommend you all check out her writing.

Something to strive for

Star Magazine put together the perfect face for a man and woman using the results of a survey by Beverly Hills plastic surgeons.

The perfect male is a combo of Daniel Craig's eyes, Leonardo DiCaprio's nose, Matt Damon's lips, Christian Bale's jaw and John Stamos' hair.

The perfect female face consists of Katie Holmes' eyes, Katherine Heigl's nose, Keira Knightleys cheeks, Jessica Simpson's hair and Angelina Jolie's lips.

Our world isn't just sick, it's a festering rotten mess. Ungh, another good reason for anti-depressants.

Late summer

Ready for river swimming, early evening. Swinging round the curves of road, music suffocating my common sense. And then, sudden lights in my mirror. Second speeding ticket in two months, happens also to be the second in 12 years. And in EXACTLY the same part of the road. Sighing, my wheels chewed to a stop on a grassy verge a metre from my destination.
I changed into my bathing suit as he wrote out the ticket.

Stones in my back and sandflies on my legs I watched the river fill with retired couples swimming in each other's circles. The light was fading but the river was still warm, leafy shadows skittered across the surface. I waded in, feeling the water cut through my layer of end-of-summer sweat. With a stick and a leaf I made a sailboat. It sunk immediately.

Me with a wet ponytail, the ticket crumpled in my purse, together we drove home uncomfortably slow.

Um

Okay, okay. So I owe you an update.

Still on the suboxene. Detox didn't proceed as planned. Well, as I planned. The doctor had wanted me to go on "maintenance" from the very beginning. They love that, because it means you're not relapsing over and over and sitting in their office crying your make-up away over and over. To be honest, after so many detoxes and so many relapses in the past six months, I don't know if I can really handle another one. They are fucking depressing. Especially the relapse bit. And the telling your mum you screwed up again bit.

What changed my mind was a phone call. Lots of money, a week of freelance, perhaps leading to more. So I kind of put things (detox-wise) on hold for a bit. It's in my to-do file. It would be drowning in there, if I actually had one.

Money means at last I have a new ibook. I can write properly again. My last one was nicked, I can't remember if I mentioned that. And I swear I won't pawn this one. Ever. Never ever.

Kurt Vonnegut, Iain Banks and Chuck Palahniuck are the main guys keeping me company. Fiction is the closest thing to magic spells I know. I spend most of my time alone, the eye in a storm of colourful daydreams. Yes... yes, I'm hiding.