mind over matters

I think there comes a time when every girl who was fortunate/unfortunate enough (depending on your point of view) to have a mother whose inclination was to watch giddy period films, is reminded of a quote from Jane Austin.

This week I am reminded of a quote from sense and sensibility.

'Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments. Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds or bends with the remover to remove. Oh no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.' - Marianne

Posted in: on Saturday, February 27, 2010 at at 10:08 PM 0 comments  

Home 5.

chilly toes
better tuck them up
sit like a brooding hen
all plumpf, all eyes a
sparkle with pleasure
surveying the scene
a little slovenly
but gratifying yes
even delectably belly warming
or is that the
hot chocolate talking
both have the desired effect
magnifying the calming effect
of my vacant drifting feelings
bloating the brain
stained not blood red
but rose red
a tender shade of pink
to match these tender thoughts


(Sometimes the urge to write something silly and sentimental just can't be sedated)

Posted in: home, poem on Tuesday, February 23, 2010 at at 8:56 AM 0 comments  

When disaster on this scale strikes I'm humbled and shocked and horrified. When disaster on this scale strikes again on the news at 6, then on the news at 8, then on the news at 10, then on the late night news at 12:30 the shock ahh starts to feel a little less shocking. Bless the mainstream media channels and their repeated 30 second disaster clips detailing all we need to know for discussion around the water cooler. Bless them for turning the pain of thousands into a viewer ratings smash. As disenchanted as I am with the media these days there are blissfully some publications out there that try to go beyond the headline grabbing stories to bring us small pictures of the individual lives that have been altered forever in such a tragic and unforeseeable way.

My nearly six foot tall twenty two year old cousin - the beauty queen we nicknamed Naomi Campbell - who says that she is hungry and has been sleeping in bushes with dead bodies nearby, stops me.
'Don't cry,' she says. 'This is life.'
'No it's not life,' I say. 'Or is should not be.'
'It is,' she insists. 'That' what it is. And life, like death, lasts only yon ti moman.' Only a little while.

-Edwidge Danticat
The New Yorker FEB 1, 2010

Posted in: on Wednesday, February 17, 2010 at at 9:18 AM 0 comments  

Home 4.

as it goes then not
so bad then
a chair a
table
put them together
elementary
productivity
as it should be
idleness
shot straight in
the face
a busied frame
is a frame full of
life

work life
public life
love life
family life
all needing oiling
constant monitoring
the pace must be
maintained
only the dead lie still
left to soak up serenity

Posted in: home, poem on Monday, February 15, 2010 at at 11:39 AM 0 comments  

After descending down into 'the pit' today to drum up some help from the IT department it struck me how every organisation I've ever worked for has always deemed it necessary to dump our hard working nerd friends into the dankest, airless sub-basement office space in the building.

I cant imagine how hard it must be to watch the latest sci-fi flicks where the guy manning the computer console is always the center of attention in a sparse room filled with white light, electric colour and panic striken people looking for a hero.

Feeling sorry for my compadrios I'm considering giving this interior design team from Germany a plug at our next meeting. We might have to run a few LAN party fundraisers to bloat our budget a tad though....

N59 arkitekter

Posted in: on Monday, February 8, 2010 at at 12:26 PM 0 comments  

I'm sensing a re-occurring theme as I trundle my way through the impenetrable tomes of the great philosophers... intellectual super stardom equals immense ego, dirty jokes and a strong oral fixation.

'Zizek positively fizzes with enthusiasm for anything that might be hoisted into the world of ideas, so much so that it is sometimes difficult to get him to shut up. When the photographer tells him to keep his mouth closed for the pictures, he dutifully obeys for about two seconds before launching into a half-serious aside in which he compares the camera to a phallus.'

Interview by The Guardian.

Image: Analia Hounie zikeks blushing bride, added for your viewing pleasure.

Posted in: on at at 11:30 AM 0 comments  

During a wet Sunday of endless movie screenings from the comfort of my couch my mind drifted as it has a tendency to do to other things. Comming back to the real world after a jaunt into my own brainspace I realised that I'd completely missed a vital plot point. Alarmed I wracked my brains for what I had missed. My eyes had been observing the screen the whole time. If I could completely block the data entry comming into my head by thoughts of what pizza toppings I felt like eating that evening then how were more complex emotions and desires blocking my vision of other things. Does the 'id' have a naturally stronger persuasion over our bodies physical reactions/receptors than the 'ego' cares to temper?

“The ego is first and foremost a bodily ego”
Freud: The Ego and the Id.

Posted in: on at at 10:21 AM 0 comments