noun: from 'sesquipedalian' and 'deviant'

Here is a man who has been to the Paul McDermott school of Mad Scary Eye-Bulging Stressed Expressions.

Cheesy, but excellently hyperthyroid!

Attendees: Nine! Eight artists, one canine; max seven people/one puppy at any one time
A good number. A couple more would've been nice, but we'd have run out of couch and teeny-tiny-tapas-tables after passing 10-12.

Apologies: Five -- thanks maties! 1x Exam commitments, 1x work commitments, 3x  other social commitments

AWOL: 15ish  (Invites only sent out half a week prior to event, and not everyone lurks on facebook)

Duration: 7.5 hours total.

Quality Areas met*:
Delicious comestibles, b33r and other fluids, shelter,  friends, sociability,self-actualisation (art, music, budget/altruism), glee (pressing Vikki's Big Red Button)

Health and Safety Hazards/Taxi!** moments: Four noted below

Delicious comestibles:
Choc mud cake with absurd custard puff under its icing, $10 (for coffee/cake combo)
Artichoke and bacon pizza, $10 (Pizzas are a regular Sunday special, apparently! Woot!)
Beer battered chips, donation (Thankyou, Mario Porn 'Tache!)
Nachos, $13ish?  Seemed fresh but had deadly effect.


Fluids:
A few hot chocs, around $4 ea. Reasonable flavour, lovely big mug and generous on the marshmallows.
A couple of pints of Heineken - $6.50, which made me happy enough, and tasty.
A basic but well executed  tall cocktail: 1 shot Chivas Regal/ginger beer/mint - $15ish? Good for lazy sunday afternoon sipping.
Good but deadly Ebony cocktail, $16 (2 sips then the  food poisoning hit; don't know if i can ever touch it again, but it was lovely!) 1 shot absinthe, 1 shot vanillin liqueur, 1 shot espresso, and something else that I didn't hold down long enough to remember.  Probably black sambucca from the taste, yum! Goddamned meaty nachos.


Shelter:
Comfy, warm couches, in the coolth indoors; generally amusing Austin Powers deco (orange walls, mirror balls!)! An area closer to Rowdy B.'s outdoor getaway would have been better, but us ghouls would have been sunburnt/windburnt in no time.

Friends:

Humans: Blonde Peta, Purple Peta, Vikki, Flatmate G.,  Mario Porn 'Tache, Rachael the Unknown Quantity, and Bec!
Far more artists than usual -- only one crafter, Blonde Peta, but she made great headway on her crocheted squares! I got to collaborate with Purple Peta. And she invited criticism. From me.  Who can't draw anywhere near as well. Wow.

Dogs: One clean, cute, silken-furred mutt! Rowdy of the Bumholio clan. Very well behaved outside occasional couch-pawing incident.

Sociability:
I got to talk to 3 or 4 people properly, and play with Rowdy, which was lovely. We succeeded in luring Purple Peta to add her uniqueness to our own, which was very good! Would love to talk to more peeps next time, considering the pleasant ambience and the decent timeslot available.  Pub layout, and noise, prevented more on this occasion.  Others also commented on noise restricting conversational opportunities.  Eager to hear if others had a decent chance to chat and enjoyed themselves. Flatmate G. says yes!
Brought a couple of folks back; even while I was bloaty that was nice too.


Self-actualisation: Artsy-farting:
7 hours spent drawing and talking, 2 noods drawn. Progress made on SHADING, thankyou Purple Peta! I still need to up my nudes per hour ratio though.  Others got quite  a bit of nice stuff done, from the looks of things. Flatmate G. asks me to tell Blonde Peta that there is now an X on his Treasure Map, just for her :}

Self-actualisation: Music appreciation:
Canned music was generally good (Moondance? Tony Bennett? Hilarious and always either singalong- or snark-friendly.)

Serendipity:
The poob's regular event, Singer/Songwriter Sunday, started at 3:30pm! We stayed until 7ish (last performer) when I desperately needed to go (and go and go and go.)

Self-actualisation: budgeting: 
Went about $5 over, but managed to treat a few friends along the way, which was nice.

Glee:
Showed Vikki one of my newly framed prints. While the photo itself is  parallel to the floor, I have framed it on an angle and hung it on a different angle.  Her animation OCD set in. "NO!  NO! NO! WHAT DID YOU DO? I HAVE TO HAVE STRAIGHT LINES! NO!" .  Hee. Could this have contributed to later headache? Who knows. Oops. Vikki, when you visit, you may take it off the wall if needs be :>


Health and Safety Hazards

WTF, food poisoning?
AWFUL reaction  to food around 7pm. Gaseous buildup erupting near-catastrophically both ends. Had to go home, lie on floor and de-corset. Luckily it had all erupted by around 11pm. Could have been from the combination of food and drink (see Delicious Comestibles) or perhaps the meat on the nachos? If not poisoning, there was an amusing  acid/base reaction (I could feel the gas expanding vertically and see my tum getting bloated - hilarious, if uncomfortable!)  Will not combine beer, meaty nachos, and espresso/absinthe next time.  In fact will neglect nachos altogether just in case. Possibly the milky curry I had had for breakfast didn't help either. Who knows. Maybe I'm just a guts.

Noise pollution
Sometimes difficult to hear friends.
Cross-group conversation was limited (not just volume but also couch placement),
Vikki's brain out-throbbbed by Tony Bennett.

Teeny tiny tapas tables
Difficult to move out from behind the low, tiny side tables, which had to be placed close to everyone's knees to enable the food-to-mouth journey.

Explosions
There was a significant absence of explosions at this event.

"Taxi!"**: I did not spill any drinks, including two that were placed on the floor either side of my feet. I didn't drop any food either, win. Only one injury, and it was minor! (I backed into Purple Peta's pointy sketchbook. Small bruise.)  Only one casualty (and I didn't cause it this time).

Again: Hell, yes, if Peta and her crocheted granny blanket approve! Might be a good alternative on days that are too windy for Botanic Gardens. Opinions, Peta?

I need to know:
Poob:
Will they let us book the couches, given that they're placed in prime audience space?
Are they amenable to us fiddling with/extending couches, adding tables,  and requesting volume changes?
Blonde Peta: shall we do it again then?

Next time:
Send invites earlier
Reserve orange couches
Take jacket for evening
Remember to ask politely, after our first few large orders, if they can turn down the music a little

*Maslow's hierarchy used as a template simply for shits and giggles.   As an aside, the placement of "family & sexual intimacy" in that hierarchy is ridiculous.  I had no idea  that I simply couldn't  esteem myself without getting a regular reaming.  Let alone have self esteem if I lost my family. Good gracious, I'd have to buy another one!   Who knew?  I might use the RSPCA Five Freedoms next time I write an evaluation, it's a helluva lot more sensible!

**Maslow's hierarchy does not recognise my "Taxi!" moments.  Oh where oh where does age-appropriate proprioception and gross/fine motor skilling fit in there?

Eating Poetry  (Mark Strand)

      
Ink runs from the corners of my mouth.
     
There is no happiness like mine.
     
I have been eating poetry.

     
The librarian does not believe what she sees.
     
Her eyes are sad
     
and she walks with her hands in her dress.

     
The poems are gone.
     
The light is dim.
     
The dogs are on the basement stairs and coming up.

     
Their eyeballs roll,
     
their blond legs bum like brush.
     
The poor librarian begins to stamp her feet and weep.

     
She does not understand.
     
When I get on my knees and lick her hand,
     
she screams.

     
I am a new man.
     
I snarl at her and bark.
     
I romp with joy in the bookish dark.

Two Poems by Doug Tanoury

© 2004, Doug Tanoury and Journal of Mundane Behavior.

Ode to Feet

I have seen poetic feet so perfect,
The very smallest units
Of patterned stress,
Soft idioms of Iambic
And drum beats of Anapestic,
That march across the carpet
In measured meter toward full-length mirrors.

I am the bard of bare soles
And naked ankles,
Of fallen arches and
Swollen heels,
Of toenails
Pedicured and painted,
That catch the light
Like so many cut sapphires,
All arranged
In descending order of size.

I have crafted couplets in Trochaic,
And started the heartbeat of lines in Spondaic,
For I am the poet of feet,
Perfect and imperfect,
Poetic
And otherwise,
Of bunions, bumps and bent toes,
Carried within or laid upon
A pump, mule, sandal or thong.

Retail Egyptology

 In the supermarket
Where navel oranges are stacked high
With great precision
Like the great pyramid of Giza,
And Santa Rosa plums
Form a lesser monument
For a more mediocre monarch
In The Valley of the Kings.

 I am the jackal -faced god,
A duster of old bones
And petrified flesh,
Who breathes the desert air
At 5:00 a.m. and peers wearily
Over the meat counter,
For a fleeting glimpse
Of the floating head
Of Queen Nefertiti
In hopes her regal gaze
Will fall on my English cut roast.

Awake Osiris to the sound
Of the Nile's water
And sea birds calling from the reeds
To catch the gleam of light
On stainless steel countertops
For it is the deli meats
Hanging in long strands from the ceiling,
Indeed it is the garlic bologna and hard salami
That unites the upper and lower kingdoms.

Winter Morning

Rain sings spirituals across the pane
as Old Man River rises, rouses me
to dip a toe into the semi-dark
where half-read novels and a bowl
of last night's cereal still float.
Birds gang up in dripping trees,
already morning fills my IN tray
and I'm thinking of the journey home.

Winter how I love you for you speed
the darkness back to me, return me to my bed
where my titanic longings are revived
and sail around again colossally in dreams.
My bed, still almost warm, safe
as a lover whom I do not have to please.


Mourning

I am wearing the top
I wore last night,
the one with the orange blossom print
which you admired,
and jogging bottoms I don’t remember
getting into.
On the floor, a pile of bedclothes
on which I vomited
sometime in the early hours,
sitting up in bed
composed as a Buddha
bile splashing darkness,
and that thought again —
how filthy and miraculous this is,
the inside forcing free
as if I might bring up my own heart
or a kidney in its sack
there to be examined
on my lap.
No duvet then
but a towel and blanket.
It is 11.23 and May and raining softly.
My legs have sprouted stubble in the night.
Mascara smuts
the skin beneath my eyes.
I don’t do anything but lie still
listening to the rain.
Last night I was beautiful.

Found via jamesleejobe.

Tony Stark by ~violentsound on deviantART



I AM NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO NOTICED.

DROMAEOSAURID! Troodontidae!

My happy and rhythmical neep of the day!


I shall send a special gold  "LICENSE TO PARSE"  sticker to anyone who can identify the metre in that last line :}

"Assume a simple two dimensional map of SF-space. One axis is the optimism axis (running from the extreme of whoo to the extreme of blah) and the other is the rigor axis (running from D'oh to Aha):

                             Whoo!
                               |
                               |      Clarke
                               |
   D'oh____________________________________________Aha!
                               |
                               |
                               |
                               |
                              Blah




                            Baxter                                   

This immediately tells me that if I want to read about someone dealing with the issues of an advanced civilization on Earth in year one billion, I should pick Clarke but if I want to read about people hitting themselves in the testicles with a hammer while complaining about how terrible kids are these days, I should pick Baxter."

From an entry here

And it's tribal! Worth its weight in Au!
Thanks BME Modblog for pointing me to this one :}

Welcome to my walk to work!

Things i am intensely pleased by:

Terminator Taxidermy

I love you, but you frustrate the fuck out of me

The idea of a Historical Pre-enactment Society

50s style advertisements for  My First Neurosurgery Kit!

An old favourite: CRUSH THE COOK (scroll down).

Make GPS Art with Stavros!

Free, weekly sci-fi from Tor books: This week - Spin by Robert Charles Wilson

Free, one-off sci-fi from Neil Gaiman (online only): American Gods!


Things which utterly disgust me:

Super-heroine costumes that say, "Here is my vulva, let me show you it!"

(No, really, fuck you,  traditional comics.)

in this episode: romance to science fiction to poetry and back. Tell me if you enjoy it, or i'll confine it to facebook.


Houses of Stone: Barbara Michaels

Wonderful strong female protagonist discovers parallels with wonderful strong female poet (sadly dead). Author remembers she writes romances and wrecks story. Three stars (five if you chew off the last few pages in frustration).

More follow:

Where does a social phobic slug go to hide? Fucking lucky those snails are. I'm beginning to think this is why my handbags are getting larger and larger.

Thankyou to the people who have contacted me today! I've had the phone off, as there was a suprise family visit and ANTHONY WARLOW VOCAL NOM-NOM was involved. He's on the list. You know the list? Singers I WANT. I want to COLLECT them. Probably in my handbag.

You are darlings, and yes P., tomorrow is on for some of the time, as long as I can use that easel* :} I've been looking forward to it all week.

*my easel now! weeeeee! i have easel! I am easel-enabled! first ever easel of my own! Get Easel Now, Ask Me How! hem-hem.

A week's worth of favourite links, all probably purloined from one science fiction author or another :}

• "14) The only universal message in science fiction: There exist minds that think as well as you do, but differently.
  Niven's corollary: The gene-tampered turkey you're talking to isn't necessarily one of them." (From Niven's Laws. Slightly more entertaining than Asimov's. Much better than the Sunscreen Song.)
  
  
• How did I miss No Pants Day?
  
  
• Organising your Sex Toy collection: handy hints! (photos.)
  
  
• Kenny G: Death via STEAMPUNK, booyah!
  
  
• Munchausen by Internet.
  
  
• Bildungsroman/story talk: 'Eight reasons why "The Hero's Journey" [storytelling model] sucks!' and...
  
  
• "New proof that every Sci Fi epic is based on Joseph Campbell!" (Chart.)
  
  
• A highly literate Australian YA sci-fi author on being dumped, and the 'romantic love partnership = grown-uppitude" meme (in the original sense of the word).
  
  
• The "Upped your Meds!" letter set. (Believe it, baby.)
  
  
• Ten beautiful sets of geek cufflinks.
  
  
  
• And finally: b3ta challenge: LOLChairs!

Conradin's post just reminded me.

This year I want to go to:

Melbourne
Sydney
Places with decent science fiction conventions (ie conventions where science fiction authors, not Wookies, are guests of honour!)

Swancon's the only one I know of. If there are cons in Melb and Sydney I'll try to tie in; what else, apart from SwanCon, is happening, and where? I'm looking at you Jodes (and hopefully you're looking at this entry!). Apparently NZ sometimes has decent cons? Hulp, yes?

[EDIT: At Easter, Elizabeth Moon is Guest of Honouring in NZ! Woo! AND IN AUGUST Lois McMaster Bujold -- Lois McMaster Bujold!! - Denver, Colorado!!]


*pokes bank account cautiously*

Utterly lovely X Ray from a series of wonderful medical images recently uploaded from the Washington DC Museum. But the heartbreak it implies...! I've never before seen the term "self castigation" used to refer to anything other than a verbal scolding. I wonder if the centuries-old Catholic tradition of self-flagellation was similarly termed? Certainly it's a more evocative term than "self injury".


If you're interested in history, war, medicine, mental illness, radiography et al., and you haven't already seen the Otis Archives series... Get yerself over to flickr.


Note that there are 3 separate Otis Archive accounts and a website for the museum proper.

You may not know -- unless if you follow my fb, where I wallow in my somatic form with true clumsy style-- but I've had a form of gastro that's approached dysenteric proportions for a couple of weeks. (Seeker: it's YOURS! Computer virus! I've caught the bug in your system!)

Originally I offered prayers of thanks to Saint Imodium, bringer of Toilet Paper to the Needy and Continence to the Diseased.

Over the last few days, while pondering my reflection in the bathroom mirror, it came to me that saints are only beatified after three miracles. And that a common miracle is a "weeping statue".

But if Saint Imodium's statue were seeping... I don't think, somehow, that the leakage would come from its EYES...

"You know," says G., "She ended that email she sent to me by saying 'I'm still the same Tania you first met, you've just seen the bad as well as the good.'" He pauses. "In other words, she was always the kind of lying fucktard who would try to sleep with my best friend's partner. I think I'm justified in not caring about her any more."

no sleep para last night, but i broke out in multiple cats. hee! New hypothesis on the soundest quasiscientific reasoning: The amount of wine absorbed before sleeping is inversely proportionate to the number of cats generated by morning.

Since I "came out" about ailurophile trying her damnednest to sleep with K., I've had a few expressions of surprise from mutual friends. They've boiled down to
(a) "I had absolutely no idea!"
(b) "Ummm, I think I need to hear both sides of this."

To confirm
(a) Nor did I, darlings. [Who would've guessed?]
(b) There are at least three sides, don't discount one of them. On one of them is a guy, a nice nerdy guy who's completely clammed up because he's utterly miserable, knows he's contributed to fucking up three friendships, doesn't want to risk saying anything that might hurt anyone, and has overall proved that he feels sorry by sucking up absolutely anything I - or she- has dished out. Please remember this, because I'm sure Tania's posted SobStory Vers 2.1.3 [Filtered Edition, "I Was Used!"]** in her journal by now.

Please also think on this:
When someone writes things like, "[D]on't put too much thought towards whether or not -I'll- be uncomfortable; I made my bed and I'll lie in it," and then immediately deletes the first and only angry comment you make in her territory, this is hypocrisy; it's generally not the action of someone who truly feels remorse.
(Edit: and that's when i broke out in anger, and decided to vent publicly t'other day).

Grow up, Tania, and stop being so self-righteous. You're human, not a martyr OR a disney heroine. No wonder you like two-dimensional animation so much.

**[EDIT: Sighting confirmed. Oh dear. Flatmate stormed out of his room and howled with aggravation at the moon at 5:30am when he heard me writing up today's planning notes.

Flatmate becomes, it turns out, quite resentful when presented with a

"YOU THINK I MAKE BAD DECISION Y/N?
IF Y THEN TELL ME SO I CAN EXCISE YOU FROM MY LIFE LIKE A TUMOUR
IF N THEN FORGIVE ME
ELSE Y" ultimatum.

Both of us, oddly enough, find it possible to be friends with people who tell us when they think we have made really stupid decisions. That is at least partially why we call these people "trustworthy friends". We also occasionally call them "You fucking bastard. Shut the fuck up. Ok fine you're right but you're annoying me. Have a fucking Tim-Tam." And will anyone who is still reading these ranty bits please note now I am not asking you to pick any... fucking... side? Of which there are at least THREE +/- N audience members, friends, family and workmates, and your own? JEEBUS GOD IT IS POSSIBLE AND OK TO BE FRIENDS WITH PEOPLE WHO DON'T LIKE EACH OTHER.]

Any of you lot ever programmed in LOLCAT? Success Y/N/Cheezburgers?
EDIT 3: *stares owlishly at screen, chomps on tim tam. must get up in 4 hours! oops.*

i could drink the wine which is in the fridge. truly, that would be a simple thing.

but i'm looking at the mugful from the freezer.

and i'm looking at the microwave.

and i'm thinking of an incident involving a potato and a banana.



*fiendish glee*

*steeples hands*

They include a cutesy little self-help book called "Don't sweat the small stuff!", a peace-making present gifted to you by the most intimate of best friends; a girl who, you've recently found out, felt up your partner and tried to convince your partner to fuck her - several times! - over the course of the last month or two.*

They do bob around entertainingly in the bubbles, though.


And so I say, "Fuck you, Tania [redacted]**!" in the most amusing of ways.

(I've never really understood why others burn photos.)


*[EDIT: I should mention for the irony value -- simultaneously to her actions, except for two weeks when I was working 60+ hours, I was doing my best to 'be there' for her while she was really depressed after a break-up. She was particularly depressed because her ex had, oh the horror, actually started sleeping with someone else AFTER THE BREAKUP -- and not told her about it! Fun, eh?]
**[EDIT 2: 14/01/08: Realised during the endless looping today that putting up her surname was probably inappropriate netiquette despite non-archive options being enabled. Sorry.]

Context: A night in early December. Post-staff dinner, Garuva's, Fortitude Valley. Another woman and I pay first and slip outside to wait for the others in the cool breeze.
Another lady is waiting there, looking a little unsettled. She's mid-thirties, conservatively dressed. She's looking for friends, it seems, and has been slightly disturbed by the cultural makeup of the Valley. Goodness, she says, there's gay men everywhere now!
"Yes," my friend serenely observes, "both of my husbands are gay."

This message is brought to you by the Engineer Appreciation Society.
EVERY ENGINEER IS PRECIOUS
ADOPT ONE TODAY

( etcetera. )

Go read this blog

...it's cleverlarious.

When brassieres start to fall...
[/sadly punny jazz moment]


Tonight we got to see some marvellous "caburlesquerie", thanks to what I can only describe as turner23's burlesque brokerage service. (Fiend, you seem to be the unofficial social secretary of all the BEST Brisbane performance art events! How many tickets did your recommendation alone sell tonight?)

There's the occasional glorious event that reminds me what I've missed, staying off the stage for almost a decade now. This was one of them. Amateur burlesque is something I would LOVE to do; however, the "model character" expected of one who teaches your infants cannot be sexualised, even out of hours; people have been fired for less (much less!). It's so frustrating that I may not utilise the same rampant exhibitionism that has me shamelessly pretending to be a caterpillar in front of 30 of your kids within an adult performance.

This was brought home forcibly tonight when I realised that the President of our P&C Association was hiding around the other side of the pillar I had leant on.

ha!

In Bujold's Miles Vorkosigan series, it's mentioned a few times that the duties of a prisoner-of-war are "Survival, escape, sabotage... in that order" [IIRC]. Is this exclusively Vor, or does it originate in Earth armed forces training? If it does, do you know which countries/which centuries? I want to get some of the kids at work hooked on making crystal radio sets & simple morse communicators, and I need to make sure my contextual info is accurate. My military knowledge has gaping holes; it is dredged from novels like Starship Troopers, King Rat, and the (occasionally fictionalised) biographies and autobiographies of the military personnel & resistance fighters who fought in WW2.

I know I don't have that wide a readership, or even a quorum of furball-trousered philanthropists. But this is a good story. Well-told, too. Maybe you could pass it on, if you can't afford to donate? I'm sending a few bucks.

From takhisis, the author of Two Lumps:


"One of the things that always weirds me out about taking the boys to the vet is that they're 10 years old and are now dubbed "senior cats", since apparently the average scale says cats live to 10-12 years old. This blows my mind, because the cats I grew up with lived to be a LOT older than that. My childhood cat, Zig, lived to be 21. She was a cranky old wench who lost her teeth at around 16 and then learned to "talk". Not proper words, obviously but she mastered the concept of syllables and inflection. And complaining.

"Mee?" = Yo, wazzup, etc.
"Mee-waiw!" = Bacon! I may be old, but there is nothing wrong with my nose, and that is bacon you are cooking. Gimme, monkey.
"Mow-WOW." = Eggnog! More about this later.
"Moo-wee-waouw!" = Dorito! I may not have teeth, but I will gum that yummy cheesy bastard to death. Share now!
"Mraw-mee-rhoo-grawwr-hmf-nyao-mrr-ftt-etc." = You have done something to severely inconvenience me, and I will now stomp up and down the stairs giving the cat-soliloquy version of "when I was your age."

Eggnog became a running joke/saga in my family. When she was getting older, we doted on her more. As my Mom put it, "She's 115 in human years. If I live that long, I deserve a goddamn treat too." So one holiday season ..." Funnies continue here!

Hamlet: What's this? A rat! Dead, I'll wager, dead!

* HAMLET thrusts his sword through the tapestry
* GERTRUDE gasps - POLONIUS is revealed behind the curtain

Audience: DOIN' IT WRONG



(it just came to mind.)