NaBloPoMo: day 18

First go...gotta love that

Whoopsie, I've missed a few days. I didn't get home from the hospital on Tuesday after my test until about 9.00 pm and then I was out of action Wednesday as well. So I got two days off work and two sleep ins. I had a lot of reading time and I finished The Good People. I enjoyed it...but I think it was the writing that appealed more than the story. It held my attention, but I wasn't gripped.  

Next up I'm reading Clementine Ford's Fight Like a Girl. I've banned myself from buying more books until I've finished the unread books on my bedside table - maybe about 15 of them - because I got worried I was buying books just because I can't buy shoes.  

Have I mentioned I'm extending my ban on shopping for clothes, shoes and accessories to a full year? I'm 5.5 months in now and it's going remarkably well. It would be great to be able to say I went a whole year without buying that stuff. By the time I get to the end of my initial challenge (on 31 December) I'll be more than half way through the extended challenge. 

NaBloPoMo: day 14

A perfectly rounded tablespoon of cacao

I started reading The Good People by Hannah Kent (author of the highly acclaimed Burial Rites) on Saturday, but I didn't notice until last night that my copy (from Booktopia) was signed by the author. It was a nice little surprise. 

I'm only a few chapters in and I'm enjoying it. Her prose is so poetic, particularly her descriptions of the landscape. Some sentences I have to read twice to wring full pleasure from them.  

I'm also astounded by her ability to write (again) about a different country in a different time, this time rural Ireland...a very long time ago.  I guess that shows my lack of imagination and aptitude for research. If I were to write a book, I'd stick to the maxim "write what you know". 

I get to have a little sleep in tomorrow - yay! - because instead of going to work I'm going to have a test done at the hospital which will take most of the day. Not so yay, but I get to lie down for four hours afterwards. A good reading opportunity. 

I'm still thinking about last night's cheese kransky and the cheese that oozed out of the burger I ate on Saturday. I love cheese. 

Books, bubble wrap, buildings

A rainbow yesterday

Now that I've given up shopping for shoes and clothes - and I haven't been shopping online much at all - I miss the little thrill of parcels showing up on my desk at work every week or two. I did buy some books online recently though, and they showed up yesterday. Yay! 

I bought Oliver Jeffers' A Child of Books (a kids' book) and The Well of Being, a picture book for adults described as "an enchanting illustrated enquiry into the pursuit of happiness, and what it means to be radically alive in our daily moments". I haven't read either yet. 

I have stomped all over the bubble wrap with giant bubbles that the books were wrapped in however.  

I bought two more books today (Hannah Kent's new one, The Good People, and Clementine Ford's Fight Like a Girl) so I have another parcel (and more bubble wrap) to look forward to next week.  

I've often wondered about the history of the magnificently grand but faded building occupied by JB Hi-Fi on Chapel Street and now I know, thanks to someone I follow on Instagram who linked to a blog post about it. It was originally the Prahran Arcade, which housed 30 shops, Turkish baths, billiard rooms and an OYSTER SALOON.  I don't eat oysters (gak!) but if I did I would want to eat them at a saloon. 

After two very cold days (by Melbourne in October standards), we are set for a couple of days of  mid-20s temperatures. Hooray! 

Warmth, seven weeks in, reading again

Only a few days now until I'm off up north for my holiday. The forecast is for unseasonably warm weather while I'm there. It's going to be 27 degrees on the day I arrive - 10 degrees warmer than what I'll be leaving behind (which is itself relatively mild for a mid-winter's day in Melbourne).  I guess I'll have to fell my winter leg hair forest!

It's nearly seven weeks since I stopped shopping for shoes and clothes. Most days I don't even think about it (which I think is because I don't work near any clothes or shoe shops and there's only one on my way home from work - out of sight, out of mind). It feels kind of strange. Strange, but good. 

I'm enjoying Meghan Daum's The Unspeakable: And Other Subjects of Discussion. I'm enjoying being in the habit of bedtime reading again too. I'm looking forward to getting into bed and reading a chapter (if I can stay awake that long). 

Finishing, early, sausageless but scrumptious

Pink sky this morning from Richmond Station

I finished that book I was most of the way through yesterday. It was Marian Keyes' collection of columns and blog posts Making It Up As I Go Along, which gave me a chuckle. I can't remember the last time I read a whole book in a weekend. (I don't read as much as I used to, but I intend to change that.)

I was up early for an appointment this morning. The horizon was starting to turn pink when I was walking to the station. As usual, I liked being up early, but not enough to do it all the time. Or even sometimes. 

We had sausage night tonight (teehee), but without the snags. That is, we had our usual 'sausage sides' (potato salad, cucumber salad, sauerkraut and dill pickles) with corned beef instead. It was scrumptious. 

Delightfully lazy, loud snore, good saves

I've had such a delightfully lazy weekend. My Saturday and Sunday continued in the fashion of Friday—sleep, books, tea—and it was lovely. I finished one book and I'm more than three-quarters of the way through another. I only left the house a few times—to vote, eat a burger and buy groceries. 

I went back to sleep this morning after an hour or so on my phone reading the internet, but I woke myself up around 10.00am with a loud snore, which made me laugh. 

I dropped a carton of eggs and an open container of tomato paste today when I was fussing about in the kitchen, but I caught them both they hit the floor. I'm both clumsy and highly coordinated.

I made my finest batch of spaghetti bolognaise for dinner. I threw in some bits and pieces that were lurking in the fridge—olives, artichokes, baby spinach—that would otherwise have just gone off. Delicious and waste-saving. 

New stuff, compliments, coincidence

My recent online purchase arrived today. No, not shoes or clothes! Books! Books are totally allowed. I got a couple of Meghan Daum essay collections: Unspeakable and Selfish, Shall and Self-Absorbed: Sixteen writers on the decision not to have kids. 

They arrived in a large, square tough bag, making a flat lump in the middle of it. It looked like a giant piece of ravioli.

I wore a new cardigan today...new in that I bought it last year but only wore it for the first time today (certainly not new since my shopping ban started on 1 June). Several people complimented me on it, particularly the colour (royal blue). 

After work I walked for a block or two along Flinders Street behind a woman in a beige coat and cropped pants (I mainly noticed the cropped pants because I thought she must have cold ankles). I went into a supermarket and bought a few things then caught the tram. When I got off the tram at my stop, she got off at the same time! It's not the first time a coincidence like that has happened, sometimes on the way to work, sometimes on the way home. 

I walked again

I didn't want to walk home tonight because I'd been super sleepy and cold all day, and I just wanted to get home to my couch as quickly as possible. But then I just walked anyway. Go, me. 

My week is half over. Hurrah! I don't have a hump day anymore; the hump arrives when I leave the office on Tuesdays.  

Imagine the old book smell in these centuries-old libraries! 

The joy of flowers, a new book

I bought flowers for a friend this morning. I chose the blooms myself  - a combination of orange roses with a deep pink blush that reminded me of peaches, a purple flower whose name I can't recall and white lisianthus. She loved them.  Her mum died two weeks ago (today was her first day back), so it made me happy to put a smile on her face. 

While I was at the florist shop, I spotted two varieties of flower I'd never seen before - swan flowers (more like scrotum flowers, if you ask me) and white bouvardia buds, which were tiny little white boxes on stems. 

I bought a new book today - The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern - and the woman who served me said she loved it, which pleased me. It's quite a departure from my usual reading diet and I confess it was the images associated with it on Pinterest that piqued my interest.  This is probably less tenuous than the time I bought a book solely because it had the word 'fuck' on the back cover. That was Zigzag Street, the first ever Nick Earls' novel I read, which started a love affair with his writing.  

I'm about to head off to bed to start reading The Night Circus now. 

Achievement unlocked

Today, on the first day of my long weekend, my plan was to spend the day in bed and I'm pleased to report I succeeded. I got up and put pants on at about 7.30 pm. I also finished reading my book. What a day! 

I have made no plans for tomorrow, but I probably will go outside. 

Zooterkins! Here's a list of old-fashioned swear words you should read because apparently learning a new word  is as pleasurable as eating chocolate or having sex. Who knows what happens if you learn a new word for sex or chocolate - or learn a new word while eating chocolate and having sex. You'd surely die of happiness. Maybe I should go off the anti-depressants and read the dictionary instead...

Speak of the devil and a new 101 Things list

Luke and I headed to the Booktalk Café in Richmond for a late lunch today. As you can probably tell, it's a cafe and a bookshop.

We browsed the tables of books on display and spotted beloved Melbourne artist Mirka Mora's autobiography My Life: Wicked and Virtuous, and remarked that it would be an interesting read. Then we looked up and who should be sitting at one of the tables? None other than Mirka herself! I was thrilled - I confess I don't know a lot about her art, but I fell in love with her after her appearances on ABC's Agony of Life series. She's not far off 90, but she's so fun and cheeky and seems to have a great zest for life. If I can't adopt her as my Nanna, I want to be like her when I'm old.

We have seen her in Richmond before - she waved to Luke once for stopping to let her cross a road - so I suspect she lives there. I didn't speak to her today - I worry that well known people are tired of being approached in public, but when I was leaving I saw her bid a cheerful 'au revoir' to another cafe patron, so perhaps if I see her again, I'll be braver. 

There were several tables of women near us in the café playing games - cards and mah jong among them. What a fun way to while away a gloomy Sunday afternoon (or even a sunny one). I want to join a games club now. I want to relearn how to play canasta (my family used to play it a lot when I was a teenager) and drag out the Scrabble board. Pity Luke doesn't like Scrabble. No one's perfect, I suppose. 

101 Things in 1001 Days

Some of you might recall a few years ago I had a list of 101 Things to do Before I'm 40. It's only taken me a couple of years to get around to compiling a new list, although this one is 101 Things to do in 1001 Days (partly to avoid this year being 'meh' like last year).  I'm still in the process of compiling the list (I've only got about 70 things so far), but I've decided today is Day One.  

A sample of the list of so far: 

* Visit Iceland

* Get a new job outside law (in another industry, not as an outlaw)

* Go paleo for three months (or longer)

* See an octopus in the wild (and a platypus and a wombat)

* Improve posture

* Learn to use my camera better

* Start ghost signs blog

* Learn to juggle again (I could juggle when I was a teenager)

* Go to the ballet

Much of it is fun stuff because they whole point of it is to make life more fun. Some is scary stuff to push myself outside my comfort zone and some of it is boring, but important, grown-up stuff (like doing a new will and power of attorney). 

I'm excited to start. 

JBPM: day 24

I'm a few chapters into Lost & Found and still enjoying it. I can't remember the last time I read a novel - I've mostly read non-fiction for the past few years -  but it's nice to feel the anticipation that comes with being in the midst of a story and wanting to know what happens next.   

I bumped into my friend Bertie on the way home tonight...almost literally. She saw me first and jumped in front of me. I work across the road from her office now and she was on her way to a work dinner. I walked most of the way there with her.  

I had a toasted ciabatta roll with my dinner tonight. It was chewy on the outside and deliciously soft and squishy on the inside. (No, it wasn't gluten free; sometimes I just suffer the consequences.)

It's Fridayeeee tomorrow! 

JBPM: day 23

I've just seen the promo for the return of Masters of Sex on SBS on 31 July. Hooray! I've missed it. It's the first TV drama in years that I have mad the effort to watch every week.

  

I started reading Brooke Davis' debut novel, Lost and Found, last night after finishing Mark Forsyth's Elements of Eloquence the night before. I only made it through the first chapter of Lost and Found before my eyelids got droopy, but I like it already. I hope I can keep my eyes open long enough tonight to get through another chapter. 

Back to sushi for lunch today, but I have finally found a good sushi place near my new office. It's called Macchiato. Not your usual name for a sushi place.  Yes, they  do coffee. Sushi and coffee.  

JayBloPoMo: Day 6

I have finally started reading The Elements of Eloquence, the third book by Mark Forsyth (aka the Inky Fool). It's been sitting on my bedside table for more than six months, waiting patiently. I've been reading Alexandra Horowitz's On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes for most of this year; even though it's interesting, it was taking me ages to get through it because I wasn't reading it every day - or even every week.  

Then a week or two ago I watched the episode of Australian Story about young Victorian Brooke Davis, whose debut novel has caused a huge stir in the literary world. She wrote Lost and Found seven years after the sudden death of her mother to help her answer the question: How do you live knowing that anyone you love can die at any moment?  Sounds morbid, I know, but it's a question that's exercised my mind over the past few years too. 

The book isn't morbid. It's been described as heartwarming, quirky, and a "fantasy fable that asks big existential questions with a very light touch". 

While I was at it, I also bought Burial Rites by another Australian, Hannah Kent. Like Lost and Found, Burial Rites was Hannah's debut novel, written as part of a university writing course, and threw the literary world into a tizzy. I decided to buy it because it's set in Iceland (a recent fixation of mine) and a friend highly recommended it. 

I'm keen to start reading them, but I made myself finish On Looking first and I knew I couldn't keep neglecting The Elements of Eloquence any longer. I wouldn't have expected to laugh out loud at a book about the figures of rhetoric, but I have several times so far. (The chapters are brief which makes it perfect for bedtime reading when you're tired!)

Nine years ago today...

I've lived in my beloved South Yarra flat for nine years today. Nine years! It's the longest I've lived anywhere in my adult life. In some ways it feels as if the time has passed quickly, but when I think about all that's happened in that time - I've had four jobs and four relationships (counting the current ones); I lost my dad (four years ago next April); plus I finally went overseas and I've been again since then. 

This flat - our fabulous sunny flat, so close to the city and the Botanic gardens, with its lovely views and free heating - has been one of the few constants in my life and one of the key sources of my happiness over the years. I love this flat. I love living here. 

I found this on Pinterest today: 

I've clearly been unconsciously abiding by this rule. For Christmas I bought TJ - the boy who loves The Octopuppy - a book called The Boring Book. It's about something else I love - words.  

Three working days until holidays...

Not destroyed after all!

Happy news! The Bournville Cocoa sign in Armadale hasn't been destroyed! Turns out I was there before High Riser and the bit I thought was the ruined sign is actually part of the wall of the building that's been demolished. Hooray! The partial has knocked down after my visit, revealing the whole sign. I'm SO relieved! I will go back to take a photo of the complete sign soon...hopefully they don't actually destroy it or build the new wall before I get there.

The Octopuppy

I bought my quasi-nephew TJ a book called The Octopuppy for his birthday in September. I spent ages choosing the right one, and it's no surprise that I thought a book about an octopus was the right one. I chose well because his mum told me yesterday he loves it and gets his brother to read it to him "all the time". 

I was so taken with The Octopuppy that I later bought a copy for myself. It's cute and makes me chuckle, plus it has a lovely message. It's about a boy called Edgar who wants a dog, but he gets a very clever octopus called Jarvis instead. He tries to train Jarvis to be a dog, but things don't go to plan. When he commands Jarvis to play dead, this is what happens:

When Edgar tells Jarvis to sit...

...he thinks things are looking up (that's him jumping for joy with his head chopped off), but it's all to no avail... If you have a 3-5 year old (or a 40-something who likes octopuses) in your life, I recommend The Octopuppy. 

Only five working days until holidays. If this week so far is any indication, it's going to be a very busy five days. I smashed my to-do list today and left the office feeling pleased with myself. That doesn't happen as often as I'd like. 

A shop assistant at Dangerfield said my boots (the ones I bought recently on ASOS) were awesome. 

The element of surprise

The other book I was waiting for arrived today. It's Mark Forsyth's new one, The Elements of Eloquence, which is a departure from his previous works because it isn't a collection of odd, interesting or amusing words. This one is about stringing words together well - that is, the figures of rhetoric. 

I was pleased when it arrived, but I was thrilled when I got home and opened it to find that IT'S AUTOGRAPHED!!! I gasped and sat there, mouth agape, for about a minute. Now I don't feel so bad about ordering it online from Book Depository, which I only did because it isn't available here yet and I had to get my mitts on it. 

I can't start reading it until I finish my current book, and The Little Prince, but it's going straight to the top of my still-to-read pile. 

Another NaBloPoMo in the bag

That's my third - or is it fourth? -  NaBloPoMo over and done with. It has had the intended aim of getting me back into the groove of regular blogging, although I would have done a better job of it if I wasn't plagued by fatigue and headaches, and hadn't left it so late in the day to write my posts.  (I will get to that word nerd post.)

I was half-expecting no one would still be reading after my absence, so thank you for not forsaking me, and for taking the time to comment (especially you, Lindy!). I'm still terrible at replying to comments, but I do read them all. 

Day 30: Kensington spider, Little Prince, Proud Mary

Luke and I visited the inner western suburb of Kensington for lunch today just for something different. 

We each bought a book at the bookshop next to the station. I got an old Puffin paperback of The Little Prince, which I've never read before. It has a handwritten message inside the front cover:

For L.P Isaac Ricardo 

With best wishes for this week, and next month, and next year, etc, etc 

Leslie Oct 1969

I've started reading it and I'm quite charmed.

We ate at the White Rabbit Record Bar.  I had a strawberry spider (icecream soda) with my panini. I first ordered a lime spider, but they were out of lime, and they were out of raspberry as well, so I had to settle for strawberry, which tasted like raspberry anyway. 

Then we took our cameras and wandered around a bit looking for ghost signs. This Velvet Soap sign was the best find. 

Can anyone make out what the white lettering - a separate sign - says? Bleached something?  There was an Empire Cocoa sign on the other side of the building.

We saw the 20 Feet from Stardom at the movies. It's a documentary about the back up singers to some of the biggest musical acts of the 21st century, including Bruce Springsteen, the Rolling Stones and Stevie Wonder.  It was a bit too long, but I really enjoyed it. It really iss a story that hasn't been told before. The singing is (not surprisingly) AH-mazing and the women featured are engaging and sassy. 

One of the singers featured is Claudia Lennear, who was part of Ike and Tina Turner's Ikettes. The doco included a bit of this clip of Ike and Tina doing Proud Mary. I've seen this numerous times before. I love it (the Ikettes appear around the three minute mark).

Day 26: a stroll, a delivery, last beef

I walked home through the Botanic Gardens this evening for the first time in months. Despite being on the brink of summer, our weather hasn't been conducive to strolling in the gardens and I've only walked home from the office a few times since I got back from my holiday anyway. But today was a lovely warm day, and I have to start getting back in the habit. 

I ordered Alexandra Horowitz's On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes and it arrived in the mail today. I was expecting another book to be delivered with it, but it was by itself in the box. Something else to look forward to. 

We had enough corned beef leftovers for another meal. Three meals from a $9 piece of meat. Not bad. We ate it cold this time with very bitey dijon mustard. Delish.

Day 13: Observation of trifles

Do you know about the site Brain Pickings? Founder Maria Popover describes it as a "human-powered discovery engine for interestingness, a subjective lens on what matters in the world and why, bringing you things you didn’t know you were interested in — until you are", which sounds rather vague, but it does sum it up.

The topics traversed are broad - science, art, language, music, literature, psychology, philosophy, the meaning of life and pretty much everything in between. There's plenty of stuff on happiness, which appeals to me, and there's even been a story or two on old signs. I favourite more tweets from Maria Popova/Brain Pickings than anyone else I follow on Twitter. 

Today's favourite Brain Pickings tweet is about a book called On Looking by cognitive scientist Alexandra Horowitz, which is about seeing familiar surrounds with fresh eyes. The author walks around her New York City block with 11 different "experts" (including her dog and toddler) to see the different ways they experience the surroundings - what they notice. 

Together, we became investigators of the ordinary, considering the block — the street and everything on it—as a living being that could be observed.

In this way, the familiar becomes unfamiliar, and the old the new.

Essentially it's about learning to see, something I've become better at since starting this and my photo blog.  The blurb on the Amazon site says:

Alexandra Horowitz’s brilliant On Looking: Eleven Walks with Expert Eyes shows us how to see the spectacle of the ordinary—to practice, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle put it, “the observation of trifles.”

Heh. The observation of trifles. That could be the subtitle for this blog.