awh, bye

last post for a while, i guess. i may be able to get on tomorrow or friday. not sure. i'm working 9 to 5 tomorrow. that will be really wierd. i've gotten used to working 12 to 8. i'll have to be up at 7:45am. gosh - that seems so early, but i get up at 8:30 anyway every morning.

i can't wait to go camping. it's going to be fun.

ooh - and there's a big fireworks display for guy falks day. that should be fun. that's on monday - anyone who can should watch v for vendetta. that's what i did last year on the 5th of november. silly, i know, but still fun.

i really don't have much to say. i went to the park today for a while. it's so beautiful. and i saw a swarm of bees hanging out in a tree. it was gross - they were hanging out by a big lump - all crawling all over eachother, like some kind of single item that moved and buzzed and was gross.

also - happy halloween, everyone. it's not even like halloween over here. so terrible. ah well.

garrett and seregil

i'm doing something i've never done before: i finished the "luck in the shadows" series and went back and am re-reading the first book. i totally fell in love with seregil (the main character), and today i just realized that he's awfully like garrett from the thief series of games.

yea - reading these books has made me start thinking about my zarkia story again. i figure that i can't call my main character zarkia anymore, because i've splattered her name all over the net and anyone who reads my books and then googles her name will hit this journal and my email addresses and stuff - that could be a bad thing. but i can't think of a better name for her. i was thinking tarlia, but that's a name of a person on livejournal who i respect, so i wouldn't steal her name.

i've been thinking about "the fall" recently too - fixing azrynn's character and her and zachery's friendship. and i've developed a mad theology too. making up gods is really fun. azrynn's curse of choice is "by the traveller," heh heh! and then there's all kinds of fun like "holey bag end" (notice the pun) and "may dust choke your journey" and a pleasant farewell "may your steps pass lightly" and stuff.

so this post got nicely off the point of garrett and seregil, but if you haven't read the books or played the game you won't really get what i'm saying; and if you have you don't need me to go on. so yea.

Halloween Spooks

I can't believe it's halloween. it's 24degrees here and summery - not at all conducive to scary evenings and frightening yourself in the dark. terrible.

anyway, i got my october genrechallenge finished, and up. you can read it on my website or on deviantArt.

this may be my last post for a while. i'm not sure if i'll get a chance tomorrow - work's been really busy.

in news: we washed our car on saturday. it's a really nice colour when you finally get to see it under all the dust. we went for a walk in the port hills too + saw a mountain bike race. this weekend has been set aside for cleaning the house and getting organized for moving out.

i have a job until friday and then i become unemployed. ah well.

i really don't have much to say. i can't wait to leave christchurch. not 'cause it's a bad city - just 'cause travelling is more fun and there's no responsibilities to rent or work when you're on the move. god - i'm never going to be able to settle down. oh well.

right so - that's all i want to say. bye.

the weekend was so good. on friday we went to gore beach - it wasn't as good as i'd expected... not much walking and it was cold + cloudy. so we left soon and on a whim decided to head down the coast to another beach, called motunau beach. it was amazing. the sun had come back out and it shone down on the smooth sand. tall, layered cliffs bordered the beach, and it was striped with bits of smooth, hard-packed sand and really fun rocks. me and askea had a laugh leaping from rock to rock and i figured out how coordination works - look where you want to go and let your body act, rather than just reacting to where your foot just happens to come down. whey!!
so that was amazing. i really really didn't want to go home. on the way back we stopped at the brew moon cafe - a wonderfully hippish place. i had a ginger beer and askea had a smoothie. it was lovely. we sat on a car-bench. it was a really old 1920s car - well rust bucket, but had been torn apart and the axles formed the support for a table and the bench went along side. it was mad.

then on sunday we returned to mt thomas forest and got to 1023m.

awh - didn't get to finish. bye

i'm wierd

i remember what i wanted to say on wednesday. i'm a coward of the worst sort. every-so-often something happens to illuminate my fault and i get to thinking about my flaws. so the other day in work i sent someone an email, but i wasn't 100% sure that what i had written was correct. but i was too lazy to go check it with anyone and i ended up deliberating for about half an hour before i sent it, because i didn't want my name to be on the email, in case i got in trouble for being wrong. i just hate thinking that i might be held responsible for something.
i'm so wierd. then i was talking to penelope_stone about it and we came to the conclusion that it all comes down to perfectionism and not wanting to ever be wrong.

there's a lovely smell of tomato soup in here. i've not had tomato soup in ages and ages - it reminds me of the kitchen in churchview back when i was 15 or something.

i've not a whole lot else to say. the house was freezing this morning, it was way warmer outside so i went to the park and wrote for a bit. it was good, but my hands got really cold and i can't type so well now.

ok, i'll just go.

blood? who needs it - we've got goodfellas, american style pizzas

i had something to say this morning, but i can't remember it now - damn. it's been really windy here all day - i didn't feel like battling it all the way into work, so i got the bus. and then in work it's been lashing against the windows and howling through the cracks.

i had a silly man on the phone today. he clearly didn't want to speak to me, so he was all like "i can't hear you. hello?" and stuff. so i rang him back and asked "can you hear me" his answer was "no i can't" and he hung up. he could just have said he was busy or something. but i found it really funny.

i havn't really much else to say. i don't think my horror story is turning out as scary as it could be. i remember writing some of the scenes in "the fall" and being totally grossed out at my decriptions of some of the things. i think i've lost my gory touch - noooo!

ah well. i'll go now.

A Festival of Russian Ballet

Saturday night's ballet was a treat. Carmina Burana preformed in full by amazingly talented dancers - and not just ponsy, proper ballet, either - it was so modern. They mixed in bits of break-dancing and acrobatics. It was so cool - and funny too. They did a drinking scene from carmina burana and one guy did this cool drunken style - so fabulous.

Bolero was chilling too. So other-worldly. They wore mostly black - with bits of white / gold rimming their flowing costumes and the music just kept crescendoing, up and up and the dance got more and more elabourate, twirling and leaping and falling. It was very cool.

I'd totally go and see them again if they were playing. Carmina Burana was well worth the wait to see - like 4 years or something... i don't know, ever since i stole the cd of davidnarby. but i do see now why it's never preformed on it's own. it is way too short. it was just one act of three that they did.

yea - it was really brilliant.
the rest of the weekend was ok. we had a lazy day sunday - stayed in bed reading 'til 2ish then went to the park with some stale bread and fed the ducks. they are vicious to each other - nipping and flapping around to get the most bread.

i'm reading really good books too. about a thief - called luck in the shadows, by lynn felwing or something.

dreams are weird

incedentally (i think this is a fake word, ugh - like action. i got this stupid email from an ignorant person the other day and they asked me to action something for them. i was like: you want me to what? action is a noun, not a verb - my heart went out to the poor abused word), i got shot in my dream last night - in the back. it was really sore and i went into shock. it was odd.

i didn't die though - or maybe i did, but these 2 guys (who remind me of the lone gunmen from the x-files, they were young hippie / conspiracy theorists type people) saved me by jumping me into another dimension.

library adventures

i broke yesterday - i was weak and went on to vodafone's moblie shop thing and bought prince of persia: two thrones, the mobile phone edition. it's fun. it lacks the great sound track of the real game, but the characters are still fun and the graphics are good.

today, i went to the library to get out some new books. of the five i got 2 weeks ago, i have one left. so new books are: the next in barbara hamley's dragon series and The Night Watch - the book that inspired the film. It's a translation - i've never read one of them before.

yes - the adventure part of all this. I got up lazily this morning and then remembered that i had planned to go to the library, so i rushed breakfast and ran out to catch the number 60 up to shirley. as i was turning out onto the road i saw the bus coming and sprinted for the bus stop, which was about 50 meters up. the bus passed me, but he stopped and let me on. yeay!

so that was all fine, i got to the library, got my books and headed for the bus stop back home. 10 minutes later the bus arrived and i got on, but to my horror i didn't have my bus card. i didn't have time to go back to the library and search, because i had to get home to make lunch for work. so i payed 2.50, got on the bus and totally searched though all my pockets. but no bus card anywhere. with shaking fingers, i texted penelope_stone my loss and bemoaned my card all the way home. i had just topped up by $20 and it costs $5 to get a new card.

when i got home i rang the library - their preppy french hold music making me feel better, and the girl dealing with me was so nice (and new - she cut me off trying to put me through to shirley library) and eventually i got on to a lady who said my card was safe in lost and found. yeay! so now i'm happy - i get to collect it tomorrow.

so that was my adventure. not all that serious, but still.

russian ballet tomorrow evening. that should be amazing. carmina burana. wooo!

whee

the dude came to inspect our house today. it was fine - he said it was clean, yeay. we got a moving-out check list too. one of the things we have to do is get the carpets professionally cleaned (and we have to have a receipt to prove it). that's annoying, cause it's probably going to cost a fortune.

i'm really glad i write in the morning. i was managing to freak myself out today with my story. because the way i write, is to immerse myself in the feelings i'm trying to write about and then i describe how i feel, so in order to capture even a little of the scariness, i have to make myself scared. and it's amazingly easy, even with the sun streaming through the air outside. but it's stil fun. i just hope i manage to capture even a little of my fear to make my story good.

not a whole tonne else. work's been so busy, calls all day as well as envelope stuffing and labeling to do and emails and trying to procrastinate ringing back a person you know is going to bite your head off. (well - i rang that guy back, he wasn't so bad.)

yea.

a post in 7 minutes

today has been busy in work, so i don't have much time - just the end of my lunch break.

the weekend was good - we sat in hot spa pools in the pouring rain on sunday and cleaned the house on saturday. we also did the gardening - and planted pretend trees in the garden. they were spriggs we cut off another tree, but i think they are dying.

as for sunday - we made it to hamner. it's a cute alpine village. the hot springs were good, though. it was nice to sit in the freezing cold rain protected against the elements by the warm water.

my horror story frightens me... at night when i'm thinking about fun things to add to it, invariably i end up pulling my covers over my head and convincing myself that there are no evil creatures hanging out in my room.

not a whole tonne else. i have a meeting with our property manager tomorrow - a pre-vacate meeting. hopefully they won't say anything wierd like you're trapped with this house for the rest of your life, now give me millions of dollars. hmmm. i'm wierd.

anyway - i have to go now. got lots of works to do. blah

and now i have the police visiting

remember last week i mentioned that there had been a shooting near our house? well today, two police-women called to our door and wanted to get a statement from me. god - police make me so nervous and the police here carry guns. ahh. so they must have thought i was a complete wierdo, because first off our house has very little furniture, there are balloons all over our sitting room floor and i didn't have the heaters on ('cause i'd been in my room) so it was really cold.
then when they actually started asking questions i couldn't remember what age penelope_stone is. then they asked what we were doing from 7 to 10 and i said at home, but the fact is that i was still in work until 8 escaped me and when i corrected myself one of them gave me this look that kind of said "boy, are you ever suspicious". so i felt kind of bad. but well. i can't help that thoughts run and flee when under pressure and my tongue is left to make things up as it feels fit. so yea, i hope i don't get in trouble now. police-people are like the antithesis of me - they stand for everything real and concrete in the world, everything that means nothing to me. but anyway.

in other news, i felt a tremor this morning. it was nothing really - my bed shook gently for about 15 seconds, but my heart did have time to start pounding and my brain got to wondering if it was going to get worse. and it wasn't my imagination because claire said she felt it too.

i have an idea for my october horror story. it should be fun. thanks to davidnarby for the spark of inspiration. it starts with an abandoned coal mine and devolves from there. whey, lots of blood and guts and scary stuff. but not people melting because that's just too scary.

you need lightning before a tornado

that was the thought that went through my head as i got the bus into work today. why couldn't it have hit me last night? the wind lashed around our house, whipping the trees and driving the sleet horizontally across the yard beside our house. bit's of leaves and planks of wood flying across the window. it came up our of nothing; the sky had been clear and calm when i walked home last evening. then lying in bed, reading, the wind just slammed against the window announcing its presence in a freakishly tornado/hurricane-like way.
and just as i considered running into penelope_stone for moral support against the terrifying wind, she came into me and jumped into my bed. for her to be afraid of the wind is a very bad sign. we freaked out a bit and packed emergency bags (with warm clothes and important documents).

thankfully the house didn't blow away and everything was ok this morning. hailstones had turned the ground white as i left for work, so donning hat, scarf, coat and gloves, i braved the elements for the 2 minutes it took me to walk to the bus stop and took the bus into work.

the sun is shining now, but i think it's cold out.

not much else to say - we are having a pig-out day in work. everyone brought in some food and we've been nibbling all day - i made choc-chip cookies. yummy. i'm so full of junk now though. and i ate dinner too - well, half 'cause i wanted to eat something substantial.

yesterday, penelope_stone mentioned el capitan in yeosemite. so today i went looking up youtube vids of it. climbers are scary. scary people. i watched a speed run of "el cap" and then one of some other dude doing some other impossibly tall rock face. it looks so deadly - i really don't get why people enjoy doing this.

not really any other news. 's genre this month is horror. i have some fun gory thoughts running through my head. i want something scary too, though - not just gory. hmmm. i got back to book 3 of my trilogy too, this morning. i'm fleshing out characters at the moment, characters that should have been fleshed out in book 2, but weren't since it was very spur of the moment writing. i find that twilight is a very shallow character - she needs lots more depth + she's going to feature as one of the main characters in this book.

i'm really enjoying anne bishop's black jewels trilogy. she has some annoyances of style, but her characters are so much fun.

yea... i don't really have much else to say. i'll just go now.

of coalmines and capoeira

More countryside travelling this weekend. On saturday we hiked around rakaia gorge - 15kms of a winding trail - up, down and around the gorge. the sights were quite good - all turquoise blue water, green trees and fields and snowcapped mountains rising over everything. the trail dove into small patches of trees - all light green with new growth - small trees, fern, bushes, the odd pine. and the coolest thing? a coalmine. it was just like something from oblivion - all it needed was the goblin decorations surrounding the entrance - skulls and torches and the stink of rotting meat. excellent. it's the coolest thing i had ever seen (as demonstrated by my reaction: penelope_stonewow!. me: what? [a pause as i look up] me: woah - that's the coolest thing i've ever seen!) while it looked something like a cave, it was just so much more - it had a metal gate locking in the darkness and the evil... it reeked of adventure - it was cool. (and slightly scary - i wouldn't want to go exploring in there)

so then on sunday penelope_stone dragged me to a free dance workshop - capoeira, which is a brazillian kind of fighting dancing thing. it was ok - i didn't really enjoy it because i'm just too inflexible. and my muscles are killing me today. i can hardly walk.

today is a bank holiday in australia, so work is really quiet. i've been using the time to research our trip across america. i think we'll go to arizona / sedona / grand canyon, then LA for disneyland and napa valley, then to san fransisco, then yeosemite, then yellowstone, then the western rockies, then miniapolis, chicago, niagra falls, NY, boston. all in one month. it should be fun.