I've decided to stop writing here. And so, with no fanfare but perhaps a little grace, I bow out. Thanks for reading and the occasional comment.

There are other things I need to do. Like, save the world (ha). Do a bit of stencilling (remember She-ra/Princess of Power?). Write a thesis and a paper before that. Get a part-time job to supplement this meagre stipend. Write a real book. Go dancing. Just be.

Current Mood: optimistic
Current Music: 'Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots' The Flaming Lips

She had nine teeth taken out all at once in Sydney when she was quite young. She was under gas at the time. Her cheek was as black as an Aborigine's afterwards (her words).

She didn't mind what people did most of the time but if they ever deprived her children of anything, then there'd be trouble.

Like the time the policeman saw her youngest son, my Dad, fishing golfballs out of the dam near the golfcourse. He confiscated his shoes and called to say that if they want the shoes back, then they could come and pick them up from the police station. Nanna called back and yelled at the policeman saying they're his only pair! How dare you! Come and bring them here yourself!. The policeman brought them back straight away.

One thing I know I gave some folk in KNX was a new use for the term whatever. The first time I used it, they looked at me with surprise at the attitude it represented. Beforehand I had been quieter and they tell me now that in those early days they thought I was just nice. When I laid whatever on the table it was the beginning of thinking otherwise. It is a multi-functional term and, if said with two hands forming a w, can be powerful. Having a go, mate? Whatever. Got a problem with me? Whatever. Don't like this leopard print shirt? Whatever.

Anyway. On a recent Friday evening at the Clare Hotel, a married friend of mine asked so, what's the status, are you single? and I didn't really know at that stage what to say. I didn't yet know what a certain person who had said I wanna see u when u get back had in mind. Now, after a discussion held in the wrong place and at the wrong time, I have a better idea. And with just these few words: I don't think I can have a relationship.

He says he doesn't read this page. Never has. Despite evidence to the contrary. Take, for instance, the numerous quotes from these small entries that he's given back to me, repeatedly. Take also the references to things that he couldn't possibly know about without reading what's here. While I've never given him this address, I linked to his website late last year - something that most people who have half a clue about the net know that it leads back to the linking point - and that's why I think he probably has read it.

He couldn't look me in the eye as he shook his head no to my casually pressing question (have you read yoshimi?) on Saturday night. This was before the night devolved into a melange of drunken misunderstanding + disappointment. This was at the wine tasting party where I wore a red dress. The wine tasting party had itself transformed into a wine drinking celebration at about the same time that the fourth bottle of wine was opened. One of the hosts, in the circulated invitation, had suggested that we would stand around, murmuring comments including this tastes like wee of goat and freshly cut grasses. But because of the change in priorities, these simply weren't made and so it seems, on reflection, that this night was a time for change.

I don't think I can have a relationship. These words have swung my way before and there's little that's original about them. The boy from Melbourne used them and his excuse was that he'd just broken up with his girlfriend of five years. Fair enough. The guy in that band said them and when I saw a photo of his girlfriend in his wallet I believed him. Righto. The Miriwoong man in KNX said them to me with the added reason that his wife and two kids were coming back next week. In that case, absolutely fair enough and if I'd known the context, I wouldn't have gone so far, been that close.

It's quite a useful phrase - the unable-to-have-a-relationship one. It can mean everything and nothing all at once. It has the illusion of emotional honesty without any of the guilt associated with rejecting someone you like. It is a trump card and is not able to be refuted. It's usually swiftly followed with things like but can we still be friends? and/or let's keep it casual. Those things are hard to respond to when you think you might have been nearing love. Or whatever.

Current Music: My youngest brother's mix

1. Never schedule a pap smear on a Monday morning. Especially with a doctor you don’t know and who wears jeans held up around her armpits. B*tch.
2. Emily Dickinson preferred to send poems to her friends rather than publishing them.
3. Always listen to your Mum. They often help things make sense.
4. Take walks along the river in the very early morning sun. There are more birds about then.
5. Mates of State are good. Particularly because of lyrics like these, quoted from the song For the Actor.
You put your life on hold as we interest one another
Two steps closer to the level I imagined
I remember when it poured and you sang to me in summer
It's a fantasy.

Current Mood: happy

You’d better watch out property owning citizens of Australia, those violent Aborigines are coming to a city near you, and this time they’re armed with rights. How so? Well, since yesterday’s Federal Court decision where the city of Perth was allegedly hit by a native title claim, the strong arm of blackfella law may be coming to a city near you.

Under the title in bold above, the Noongah* decision was reported in The Australian as Aborigines have successfully claimed native title over metropolitan Perth in a landmark court decision that could clear the way for similar claims over other capital cities. Many people might stop reading there, perhaps not knowing or caring about what native title is, but if they do persist then after some discussion about what the actual decision is, they might get to this final clear statement from South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council executive director Glen Kelly:

There is nothing to fear - this decision enables Nyoongar people and the state Government to begin talking to each other in a more constructive manner.

Hear that? Don’t worry! There’s no need to go barricading your garden courtyard in Darlinghurst, no need to worry about a corroboree being held under the lemon tree in your backyard, and certainly no need to freak out about Aboriginal people taking over your city. But why, oh why, dear newspaper, did you run with a sensationalist headline that obscures the very facts of the thing? That question doesn’t really bear asking, I know, and after watching Kerry O’Brien interview Graeme Neate last night, my hope for a balanced and even-handed approach to these issues is restored once more. Here’s the last question-answer exchange from that segment, the transcript of which can be found here.

KERRY O’BRIEN: Looking back to the big native title debate of a decade ago and the fears, as I said in the introduction, that people's farms, suburban backyards, mining leases were about to be lost to a bevy of Aboriginal claims, how do you relate the mood then to the reality that has unfolded since?

GRAEME NEATE: The mood then is really quite different from the mood today and in large part that's because of diminished expectations on one side and diminished fears on the other. Aboriginal people, as a result of the Yorta Yorta judgement and some other decisions, have had to lower their expectations and aspirations about what native title might deliver to them. On the other hand, other people, miners, pastoralists and the like, have come to see that it doesn't really pose any threat to their rights and interests which are always protected and always prevail over native title rights and what that has led to is a maturation in the system so that people are now working out that really there isn't a lot to fear, if anything to fear, from native title.

The best way to sort these things out is to try to sit down and negotiate and most of the determinations that have been made to date that Aboriginal people have native title have been struck by agreement. We hear about the odd spectacular court case, but quietly there's a raft of agreements being negotiated where there is real community and nation building going on in the hearts and minds and actions of ordinary Australians getting about their business, sitting down across the table and in good faith and goodwill negotiating agreed outcomes. Now, that's the changed environment. Industries such as the mining industry through the Minerals Council of Australia and so on publicly recognise that they have done a U-turn in their attitude in recent years and it makes good business sense to negotiate agreements. The National Native Title Tribunal can now record hundreds of agreements around the country of various sorts where life has gone on, I believe not only to the satisfaction of the parties, but to the enhancement of many of their relationships.

Yay Noongah people, yay Kerry, yay Graeme and yay native title.

*I don't know what the correct spelling for this group of Indigenous people is. I choose to go with the ABC version rather than the Oz paper offering, purely for political reasons, except when quoting from that newspaper.

Sometimes that’s all there is. They may seem like relative nothingnesses (sic) and trivialities but I don’t think they are. And here I go sounding a bit like Troy from Reality Bites, albeit without the pathetic attempt at nihilism, so apologies for that. There’s the phone call from someone for no specific purpose. Last night, it was my Mum just checking how my evening was. There’s the music I listen to that gets me out of the flat and on my way for the day. Today it was Mates of State with the song Punchlines, and this is the verse still rolling through my head.

I've been thinking, it's an afterthought,
Get into the car and you aim it at the sun, boy.
Can't you hear me in the aftermath
Get into the car and you point it at the west, ahoy.

I added the ahoy 'cos I like it. There’s the coffee I get from Varga Bar on the way to work. Large soy flat white with one sugar, thank you (accusations of inner city wanker entirely proper here). There’s the bangle on my wrist. Lately I’ve been wearing three rings of copper, intertwined, that my sister gave to me last year. There’s the words I will use to write this paper I’ve just begun. Right now I need to find five hundred or so sentences to make that one come to life (it’s gotta be 7000 words long or thereabouts). There’s the instant gratification of a kind text message from a friend. The most distant recent one coming from Z, a KNX mate, saying hope all is well and you are having lots of fun.

Cinderella had it made. Change in her life was not of her volition. It was a temporal reality that was thrust upon her. Her glad rags would be stripped from her body and the coach would become a pumpkin and the horses would be mice again at the right night hour. And then a fairy godmother would come to make it okay once more and give her another chance. She could never be blamed for f*#king things up.

My friend was moving on Sunday morning and I went to help her for a little while. I had to catch up with my brother and sister later in the day so I was aborting the mission at about midday. Her brother and friend were in for the longer haul.

As she was packing things in those blue-white-red stripey bags, her despondence emerged from her movements to be a thing of substance you could only ignore if you wore a balaclava without holes for eyes. What's up?, I asked. I don't want to move.... I told her it would be fine in this new house she is going to, next to the seaside, and that it won't be that hard getting all these things there. But I don't like change.

At the time, I didn't know what to say. Change is, so they say, something that is necessary/vital/constructive/good. Chin up may have been appropriate then and yet I didn't say it. Maybe it was because I was beginning to see how much I dislike some forms of change too. Today, I realise why I've been kicking against things so hard lately. Why my brain feels like it is bashing against my skull from within this head that is trying to make sense of not being there anymore. It's change. Regardless of it is good or bad (the situation you are moving from and to), changing places requires adjustment, flexibility, getting used to insecurity.

I miss KNX and those folk who made it a place worth missing. Patience and understanding, yes, that would help these days. And sometimes I wish for a magic wand too. And then I look around and think again. I just had a coffee with my Mum and after that things are edging towards being better in this time of flux. These spirits will get out of the matte grey rut they've been in.

Poor Cinderella. She never had a Mum around to listen to her angst after she lost her glass slipper. And nor did she have friends who send her brilliant tunes. Or others who introduce new music to her like that which I listen to now.

Current Mood: getting there
Current Music: 'Bring it Back' Mates of State

This quote, taken from an op-ed piece co-authored by my supervisor for the Australian Geography Teachers Association, reminds me of some of the reasons why I love geography.

'The great irony of our times is that the conquest of geography, thus making the world smaller and more accessible, actually makes the study of geography more pressing. In the colonial times of Phinneas Fogg, when it took 80 days to go around the world, knowledge of geography could be a luxury of the rich. Nowadays, when the world rushes in on us, geographical literacy is critical both to aspirations of national and global citizenry, and to the challenge of competing in a global economy.

When we talk of geographical literacy in these terms, we do not mean the recitation of capital city names. Geography is more than just a category in ‘Trivial Pursuit’. What we are referring to is a capacity to understand the workings of the world’s physical and societal systems, and the interactions between them. It is concerned with human – environment interactions in the context of specific places and locations. There is a geographical story behind every telemarketing call from Bangalore; every hike in the petrol price, and the fact that global stock indices moved not a basis point when the Indian Ocean tsunami killed over one quarter-of-a-million people. Geography’s task is to write the Earth.'

You can access the rest of it here if you are overwhelmed with the desire to read more of why geography is cool. Reading this today just made sense to me. I wonder if other people feel that when they read explanations/arguments for/raves about what they do.

This is gonna be fun. I can feel it in my waters. We've discussed the creative spelling found above and G reckons he might make it a can you spot the mistakes competition. Can I get a free drink since I've already found em all?

Oh and there is, of course, a myspace page for this event. I place the link here even though I dislike that realm. The things I do for my fam-ily.

Leah Purcell talked at Manning Bar today at lunchtime. She spoke so eloquently and generously about her life, her work, her passions, what she has done and what she wants to do. Her early days were shaped with caring for her mother and grandmother. She used to finish her mother's drinks at the pub so they could get home earlier. That was when she started to drink monkey blood stuff - port - at the age of nine.

I liked listening to her talk for an hour and a half about her work and what shapes her days now. She spoke about a recent trip to America where she danced in the desert, came back high on the spirit, covered in dirt, dust, hair a mess. She said that she learnt how to tell stories by listening to those around her, when people would get charged up. When she goes home now, she just sits quietly in the corner and makes tea so she can keep on learning. Unless a family gathering is in full swing and then things may be different.