borders, edges

In regards to transitional seasons and watching it all happen before your eyes: a few weeks ago Uncle Jed and drove Grand Ridge Road in Gippsland from Mirboo North to somewhere along the M1…the map is still in the car.  It’s hard to know whether to migrate it to the great map collection, a file drawer full of all variety of maps, or to start a car collection of possible adventures.  So we drove and covered all manner of territory – there are some abrupt and diverse changes of landscape along the way.

Gippsland is a stormy place and thus everything is emerald and grey and very visually pleasing.  We had a bonnet picnic somewhere up near the Mt Worth State Park, and as we ate sandwiches and talked to the bovines and rotated our orientation to the four unique views we had of that dot on the map, we could hear a thunderstorm rolling over the hills.  Thunderstorms are quick motherfuckers – we could tell that we’d be cutting it close for getting out of there before the storm hit.  We ended up running from it, but not before we stopped to watch it roll over a valley and take some pretty pictures.  It’s a strange concept to see the border of a storm or perhaps of weather in general – to be able to stand for a second with one foot in the rain and one out of it.  Because they’re always in motion that border is hard to comprehend – it’s not static, and we all know that repeated adjustment of borders tends to produce anxiety.  It’s hard to think of storm as having an edge – and I think often we tend to internally measure weather in terms of time – we know how long it was present in our lives and how long it affected the daily Runnings of Things.

So here’s a picture of the edge of a storm.  The weather in Melbourne is:

another post goddamnit

It has been many moons since last I played mix-up with words for the public eye.  I find that my writing writes itself in and out of several formats and lately have been more interested in pen and paper.  I guess the virtual stuff just seems like there are too many people to think about.  Since I stopped writing here I have put some thought to how much of myself I really want to share or make public and had a sudden turn of protectionism of late.  I’ll probably never make a permanent decision about that.

Winters are Long in Melbourne, even if you have a good attitude and think you’re going to match its powers of coldness but just staying out in it anyway.  Spring is finally fucking doing something and I’m very excited about that.  Last time I was writing it was fall – I think there is something about transitional seasons that makes me much better at saying stuff.  In the winter I get really quiet.  I loved watching fall happen and in that enjoyment found that transitions in general are really valued for me.  I want to be able to see the change from this to that and maybe participate in it and remark upon it.  To go too quickly from one thing to another is to lose me completely; I’ve not been very functional in situations where I couldn’t have that.

I haven’t been cooking.  The kitchen was too cold and it won.  Instead I’ve been letting other people do it.  The best Indian takeaway in Melbourne is on Nicholson and Barkly.  Birdman Eating has one of the most creative breakfast menus I’ve seen.  And everyone has interesting ideas about how to do porridge.

I got a camera, and then a month later it got robbed, but it’s coming back.  I helped make a squid movie, but you can’t see it until all of the indecent bits have black bars placed over them.  I have more ideas for what we could do with porno than we could probably ever do.  I think a lot about borders and belonging as immigration continues to freak me the fuck out.  I visited the American Consulate in Melbourne, which, along with Preston, is my own personal hell.  I watched The Big Lebowski 723 times.

I don’t know what will happen next, but I suspect it to be smaller and more random.  Lately I’ve enjoyed the idea of little snippets of people’s lives much more than other quantities.  There will be brevity.  And pictures.  And nice things.

Thanks to Sequoia for her eloquent request for another post, from which its title was derived.

And now: bovines.