A man selling smoothies on the beach in the Coromandel is one of the top stories on the evening news tonight.
The wind in Wellington makes it too cold to sunbathe.
But these Maori potatoes are cool:
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Saturday, December 26, 2009
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas
Here are some pictures from the Christmas tree in downtown Wellington, which I went to last night with Alex and Keoni. There were bean bags on steps underneath for you to lie on and phone booths for calling Santa, but no bathrooms. Apparently you can request a sequence for the lights to blink somehow in text or online. Christmas these days.
Merry Christmas, everybody. I'm going to go cook a feast.Thursday, December 24, 2009
christmas eve
today i:
woke up late for the first time in ages. today was the first day i've had off in a long time. no babysitting or boatshed!
did some laundry and hung it up outside on our little porch.
went to keoni's and borrowed a pie dish.
made a strawberry rhubarb pie for tomorrow's christmas dinner.
sunbathed on our porch.
woke up late for the first time in ages. today was the first day i've had off in a long time. no babysitting or boatshed!
did some laundry and hung it up outside on our little porch.
went to keoni's and borrowed a pie dish.
made a strawberry rhubarb pie for tomorrow's christmas dinner.
sunbathed on our porch.
Monday, December 14, 2009
roots
Now, Katherine, what do you mean by health? And what do you want it for? Answer: By health I mean the power to live a full, adult, living breathing life in close contact [with] what I love – the earth and the wonders thereof, the sea, the sun. all that we mean when we speak of the external world. I want to enter into it, to be part of it, to live in it, to learn from it, to lose all that is superficial and acquired in me and to become a conscious, direct human being. I want, by understanding myself, to understand others…
Then I want to work. At what? I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this – the expression of this – I want to be writing …
But warm, eager living life – to be rooted in life – to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.
-K.M., a few months before her death in 1923
Then I want to work. At what? I want so to live that I work with my hands and my feeling and my brain. I want a garden, a small house, grass, animals, books, pictures, music. And out of this – the expression of this – I want to be writing …
But warm, eager living life – to be rooted in life – to learn, to desire to know, to feel, to think, to act. That is what I want. And nothing less. That is what I must try for.
-K.M., a few months before her death in 1923
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Wednesday, December 9, 2009
Two Jobs
For now until Christmas I'm working two hours in the morning most days of the week and two hours in the afternoon for four days a week, which isn't a lot of work, but they are different jobs at different ends of town and it leaves little time for much besides lunch and a guilty conscience about my thesis in between.
Did I already write down that I've finished a draft of my entire thesis? People keep asking me in emails and on facebook, and I want to state here that yes, I have finished a draft, and I will hand it in before February so that Alex and I can roadtrip and until then I am working on it and at my two jobs. Well, the one job finishes at Christmas, because it's babysitting and the kids won't be around for the summer, but you get the point.
These are my plans and this is what I do most days, besides saying a lot of good byes to other Fbright alumni and making homemade muesli with stuff Alex and I buy from the Nut Store and cleaning our flat to make it feel really nice for our last two months in it.
I also mean to start a quilt, any day now.
Did I already write down that I've finished a draft of my entire thesis? People keep asking me in emails and on facebook, and I want to state here that yes, I have finished a draft, and I will hand it in before February so that Alex and I can roadtrip and until then I am working on it and at my two jobs. Well, the one job finishes at Christmas, because it's babysitting and the kids won't be around for the summer, but you get the point.
These are my plans and this is what I do most days, besides saying a lot of good byes to other Fbright alumni and making homemade muesli with stuff Alex and I buy from the Nut Store and cleaning our flat to make it feel really nice for our last two months in it.
I also mean to start a quilt, any day now.
Wild Things
It's weird to watch a kid's book turn into a movie about adult issues, but I guess maybe that was the book all along?
Anyway, Wild Things was good, but I couldn't help feeling like instead of capturing how awesome and childlike and spooky the illustrations made you feel they just updated it for twenty-somethings and made you feel like a troubled twenty-something. I guess it's from when we were little-ish and we were the audience, but I dunno. Something about the way the movie was presented just made me feel weird. Probably it's just Alex's cynicism. I still cried like a baby when they self-consciously tugged on my heartstrings.
I do love how beautiful some of the scenes were, especially when the camera wasn't shaking so much it made me dizzy. And some of the monsters had epic boogers.
Anyway, Wild Things was good, but I couldn't help feeling like instead of capturing how awesome and childlike and spooky the illustrations made you feel they just updated it for twenty-somethings and made you feel like a troubled twenty-something. I guess it's from when we were little-ish and we were the audience, but I dunno. Something about the way the movie was presented just made me feel weird. Probably it's just Alex's cynicism. I still cried like a baby when they self-consciously tugged on my heartstrings.
I do love how beautiful some of the scenes were, especially when the camera wasn't shaking so much it made me dizzy. And some of the monsters had epic boogers.
Monday, December 7, 2009
HOLY CRAP I HAVE EXACTLY 8 WEEKS LEFT IN WELLINGTON
I have more time in the country because we will be traveling throughout February and early March but whoa.
I noticed this because I was making a timetable for my thesis instead of working on my thesis.
I noticed this because I was making a timetable for my thesis instead of working on my thesis.
Wowzers.
seamless dreams
i always have weirdo dreams, but recently they're been especially weird.
A week or two ago, I dreamt that my mom had turned our backyard, specifically the part where it drops off to the railroad tracks on the left and we have a tireswing under an oak tree on the embankment of our property, into a women's retreat for her work. So there were all these soccer mom kind of women working out on exercise bikes in my backyard and lots more of them and their daughters running around on the left and jumping into the ocean, which was where the train tracks should be. I got home for a run and decided to jump in, too, with all my running clothes on, and when I did I saw that underneath my backyard was like an underwater cave, and the water was turquoise and there was light shining down from under there. Everyone was swimming and laughing and talking because we could all breathe underwater and earth, for some reason, and then one of the girls pointed behind me and screamed. I swum around and there was a huge viper about to strike me. I turned around and decided to play dead and woke up.
That's probably the weirdest dream I've had in a while.
And then I have really banal dreams about normal stuff, and wake up angry, thinking that somebody put our sugar jar in the wrong place or something.
I've been sleeping pretty heavy recently, too. Today I couldn't even tell Alex where my cell phone was hiding when the alarm went off this morning, I simply pointed.
A week or two ago, I dreamt that my mom had turned our backyard, specifically the part where it drops off to the railroad tracks on the left and we have a tireswing under an oak tree on the embankment of our property, into a women's retreat for her work. So there were all these soccer mom kind of women working out on exercise bikes in my backyard and lots more of them and their daughters running around on the left and jumping into the ocean, which was where the train tracks should be. I got home for a run and decided to jump in, too, with all my running clothes on, and when I did I saw that underneath my backyard was like an underwater cave, and the water was turquoise and there was light shining down from under there. Everyone was swimming and laughing and talking because we could all breathe underwater and earth, for some reason, and then one of the girls pointed behind me and screamed. I swum around and there was a huge viper about to strike me. I turned around and decided to play dead and woke up.
That's probably the weirdest dream I've had in a while.
And then I have really banal dreams about normal stuff, and wake up angry, thinking that somebody put our sugar jar in the wrong place or something.
I've been sleeping pretty heavy recently, too. Today I couldn't even tell Alex where my cell phone was hiding when the alarm went off this morning, I simply pointed.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
bands
I have tickets to see Camera Obscura only a block away from my house on January 19th. Pumped.
Tomorrow tickets go on sale to see Jens Lekman with Joanna Newsom on January 30th in Christchurch. Even more pumped.
Soon I will witness the soundtrack to my early twenties, live, in New Zealand. Go figure.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
flatmates
Gordy and Blair are leaving us. Alex and I are recovering as you do from a really hard break up when they tell you "It's not you, it's me." We're really very sad, but also happy for them, because they're leaving our crappy flat for a nicer one with grass and trees and quiet instead of sirens and concrete and drunk kids outside.All that said, it still blows. We've started a search for people to fill their rooms. Man, do I hate looking for flatmates. We have to clean and pretend the flat usually looks like that, and make small talk with people who may or may not be psychos, and act like we're not as weird as we really are. The last time we looked for flatmates, before Georgie, I swear the whole island of misfit toys marched in. But not in a cute, pink-spotted elephant and elf dentist way. In a creepy, I-love-science-fiction-and-horses way.
When you think about it, meeting potential flatmates is pretty messed up. It's like speed dating, but then you have the other person sign a contract and bind themselves to you financially at the end.
I hope we find someone un-creepy and un-jerky. No matter what, they'll never be as good as our current flatties. But I can't really complain, anyway. We're moving out in two months to embark on a massive roadtrip, possibly with Miss Ruthie in tow for the first half.
(!!!)
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