***This post is not intended to cause any offence to anybody, take it as "food for thought" only***

I long for the day that the oppressed masses rise up agains the upper class twits. The only problem is, the oppressed masses don't know that's what they are. They're so oppressed that they believe they're free and happy. That's quite an acheivement. Brainwashing an entire population and making them like it. If the masses were released from oppression, they would be lost.

Imagine a world without television. No advertising, no bad movies, no worse "reality" shows. What would anybody do, without that little box telling them what to like?

Imagine a world without "democracy". No lies, no bad haircuts, no pandering to the voters. What would people do without somebody to tell them what they need?

Imagine a world without religion. Religion is one of the biggest causes of loss of life throughout human history. In the name of religion women are deprived of freedoms concerning their own body. In the name of religion minorities are persecuted and killed. Who would people kill without a religion to guide them?

I feel like John Lennon. Imagine. It's a beautiful song, with beautiful sentiments. It is a song embraced the world over as an anthem of peace and love. But when it comes to the crunch, it's just a song. It has no power to change things.

Imagine what we could do for this world, the people in it, and the environment... if only we all made a little effort.

It's daunting, I know. Where do we start? Each of us feel alone, and that our singular effort will be futile. Rise up, masses, and realise that the collective will of the people can be strong! Just look at the French - I'm fairly sure they've lost count of how many revolutions they've had.

So who's with me? Who wants to obliterate poverty, encourage free-thinking, and save the forests?

Now I just have to figure out how...

I'm back at work, my throat is still a little hoarse... but a customer just told me that I sound "alluring" on the phone like this. That's a nice way to start the day! Some of our customers are such flirts.

One of my least favourite things about having a cold is losing the little ability I have to sing. It may be said, and truthfully, that I'm not a fantastic singer to start with. But I love to sing, I think I'm not abysmal at it, and losing that is not nice. I'm trying, but I'm just croaking!

I've been saying for years that I need to start having singing lessons again, or get involved with a choir... but so many things get in the way! Time, money, energy. Maybe I'm just making excuses for myself. Perhaps I should just bite the bullet and do it. What think thee?

Well, I'm feeling slightly better... I probably could have gone to work today... but I went to the doc yesterday to get a medical certificate for one day, and instead he gave me three days off!!! Was I stoked? You bet I was! No work till Thursday! If I felt up to it, I would dance around in joy and happiness.

So today I've spent a little time sorting through the wedding photos. Again. And I've put together a small but growing collection for an online album which can be found here. It's rather nice looking at the photos for me, because the day itself is such a blur in my mind... it all went so quickly I barely knew what was happening!

I must make some sort of plan for today... I think it needs to involve a small amount of housework, a little bit of medication and nose-blowing, and quite a lot of reading. I've just finished re-reading Sara Douglass' Axis trilogy, and there's another trilogy which follows on from that called The Wayfarer Redemption. I've read that before too, but only once, so I don't remember it very well. I'll start on that today, methinks. After going shopping to get some more grapes, maybe some licorice all-sorts (if you only have one it's called a licorice one-sort), and whatever else takes my fancy.

I feel like I'm unemployed again. It's kind of nice, but I wouldn't want to do it long-term again.

Home alone again! This time it's because I've called in sick. I have caught a nasty little cold and it likes me too much to leave me alone! Not to worry, I'm getting mostly better. It's Aidan I feel sorry for - he got home on Friday night after a week apart, only to find me sniffling on the couch feeling like "trap", as Jewel would say! But it's been wonderful to have him home again.

Now I'm doing what I never thought I would do - working from home! Not really working, just logging on to my email and forwarding things to other people so they can do the work. Fortunately our IT department hasn't found a secure way of letting us access our primary program from outside of work, so nobody can make me work properly from home! Although now I think of it, that would be kind of nice. They would have to pay for a high-speed internet connection for me at home, and then as long as I did all the work and did it properly I could work whenever I wanted to... no more long travel time to and from the office... yeah, sounds pretty good actually!

Something just went BANG in the laundry, I'd better go check it.

Excited!!! I get my husband back tonight! It's actually been quite nice to have some time alone, but I'm still looking forward to him getting home! I missed him! His mother called me last night for a chat - she's in the same situation as me, since Aidan's dad/her husband is also off on the ride. She's such a lovely woman. Very sweet, very caring.

I'm excited!!!

The Royal Exhibition Building in the fog. I hate fog, and smog, and other things ending with "og". Not for itself, but because it always makes me think I need to clean my glasses. Other than that minor inconvenience, things ending with "og" are fine by me. Particularly a blog! I'd like a dog, too. And I'm a hog. I'm going to flog this for all it's worth!

Ok, I'm over it.

I defy anybody to take a better photo of their own head than this. Gosh, it looks pretty bad doesn't it? I wish I had a little hand mirror, so I could see the back of my own head when I'm styling it in the morning!










Also there was a lovely colour in the sky tonight, which I thought I'd share!

I opened up Blogger. I logged in, I clicked on "New Post". And then I realised that my mind was blank.

You'll be pleased to hear that I stopped wallowing in my self-pity on Sunday, and went out for lunch with my dear friend Andrew The Clown instead! Pizza, aimless wanders, putting paper cones on our noses... all the usual stuff we do when unencumbered by common sense! (Such a misnomer, it's not really common at all.)

And now for something completely different: I had a haircut on Saturday. For the past 24 years my hair has more or less "flopped". Now I am styling it and using product in it. Weird. I'm not very good at it yet, but hopefully I'll get used to it! I also dyed it blonde again (it had been purple for a couple of months).

Up until the age of 17 I lived with my parents. I then moved into student accommodation, surrounded by hundreds of hormonal adolescents. Before too long, I moved to a suburb deliberately close to the home of a guy I was dating. Then we moved in together. Then we broke up and I moved back to where I had been... very soon after that, a good friend moved into the same apartment block, just upstairs from me. And then there was Aidan, and we moved in together, went travelling together, found another place to live together...

I guess the point I'm trying to make is that I've never truly been alone. There's always been somebody, either living with me or living very close to me.

Tonight is the first time in a very long time that I've been alone. Looks like fun, doesn't it? It's been alright - it's a great book, I've nearly finished although I only started a few hours ago. The beer's good. It should be, it cost three times as much as dinner. That's not unexpencted when dinner cost $6 because it's only grapes and popcorn. But I'm lonely.

It's a funny thing: When I'm with Aidan, that's just how things are - normal, taken somewhat for granted. We don't necessarily do much, as such, but I feel his absence like losing my wallet or forgetting to wear socks.

So here I sit as it gets later in the evening... it doesn't feel right to go to bed by myself, so I stay up late. I have five more nights of this! I don't know what to do with myself. Scoff, if you like, but I'm not a very sociable person with lots of friends to go out with - the friends I do have I tend to see once every six months or more. Besides, after work I'm too tired to do anything much with anybody anyway.

I will rely more than ever this week on my "online mates" - all of you who comment so nicely on my blog, some people from an online game I play sometimes, and I might even log onto mIRC again after a very long break.

I hope soon to break out of the lonliness and depression currently gripping me - I'm sure it's only the unfamiliarity of the situation taking its toll.

So if anybody has any ideas on how to keep myself amused for a whole week, I'd love to hear them.

Rain! Glorious rain! Our experience of this phenomena has been limited and infrequent, and each occurence is reason for celebration! It's just a shame it hasn't fallen over areas that actually need it - rain doesn't do much good falling on paved streets in cities. It needs to be over farming areas and the water catchments!!! I wonder if the rain gods read this blog?

RAIN SOMEWHERE USEFUL PLEASE!!!

Well, the Great Leg Waxing of 2007 was last night. Yup, Aidan's legs are now as smooth as a.... well, as waxed legs! He flinched a little as I ripped off each strip, and he drank more wine than strictly necessary for a weeknight... but he really handled it rather well!

In a completely unrelated topic... I hate my job. Well, I love my real job, but I hate what I'm actually doing.

I forget if I've detailed my job story here or not... essentially, my New Boss has "taken full responsibility" for the department - in other words, I'm not doing any export-related work as he tries to do it all himself. I am relegated to the position of General Dogsbody with a focus on Internal Sales: back in the call centre, yay! (That was a sarcastic "yay".) I have been told that eventually the Export department will be expanding, with a third staff member to be hired at some unspecified point in time... apparently at that time I will take on a supervisory role, which would be great for the CV. But if that doesn't eventuate soon-ish... I am so over this call centre thing!!!

Anyway, enough griping. It's a lovely day, a colleague is selling fund-raising chocolates, and I'll be going home to a wonderful husband tonight. That's enough to make me happy for now!

A satelite image of where I grew up!!!

That's my old house up in the top left. I realise you can't really see much, but how cool is it that I can do that?!

See previous post on my childhood home.

Ho hom, here I is again. Working on a public holiday, why oh why do I do this to myself? Oh yeah, the money. It's so quiet in here, nothing really happening... I should have stayed home! Aidan and I departed for work this morning leaving a friend snoozing on our couch, I was very jealous. We had a couple of very good friends over yesterday for my non-birthday. Trivial Pursuit and our own version of Monopoly. Always fun!

I followed Aidan blindly through the city. "We'll use the toilets at Town Hall," says he - thus leading me to the conclusion that Town Hall is in fact our final destination.

He has been teasing me with cryptic hints for weeks now. "Keep the 7th free," he said. "I don't know if you'll like it, the concept is good but the host is bad." I was clueless!

We stood in a long queue outside Town Hall, which had no advertising outside... and then he showed me the ticket: The Choir of Hard Knocks!!! The Choir is a group of homeless and disadvantaged people brought together by conductor Jonathon Welch. Their months of working together culminated in their gala launch last night at Town Hall in Melbourne.

I had my reservations, but I kept an open mind and agreed with Aidan that the concept was indeed good.

It wasn't long before we realised that the singing was also very good! There are some extremely talented indivduals among the choir, including the vendor I often buy The Big Issue from. I saw him this morning, and told him what a wonderful night it was!

The Choir of Hard Knocks was joined by the Melbourne Gay & Lesbian Chorus, Jimmy Barnes's daughter Mahalia, and Timothy McCallum. All the performers were outstanding, and it was a really fun event!

A wonderful birthday present for this little socialist! Yup, I'm 24 today. Yay me! I hope everybody has a happy my-birthday!

Michael Leunig, The Age cartoonist

I dreamed on Friday night. I dreamed of a place I miss.

From my birth until I was 17, I lived with my parents on a 40 acre property in the middle of nowhere. The house was built by my parents - they began prior to my older brother's birth, and continued with extensions and adjustments until after I moved away. It was truly a labour of love. The garden was even more so, getting most of my mother's attention. In the Spring her gardens were utterly breathtaking, filled with colour. It was easy to play my games of pretend in those gardens: I was Mary from The Secret Garden, I was a princess lost in a forest, I was anybody I wanted to be except myself!

A far cry from the well-tended gardens, further down the hill was The Bush. This is Australia, after all. In my youth nobody in the area put fences in the bush - they would only hinder the kangaroos. So I would wander freely on everybody's property and nobody minded. There was the creek I used to sit by, the rock my brother fell from and sprained his ankle, the crooked tree a childhood friend once got stuck in.

So many memories, so much love. My parents sold the property a year or two after I left. I can never go back there.

I just wrote a lovely long blog about my cactii. And then I deleted it. I'm bored. I have a short attention span. I don't know what to write. I wish I could paint. Hello! I love blogs: so many people from so many places, virtually congregating and exchaging ideas. It makes me feel like part of the world. But it makes me jealous - you might think your own hometown is pretty boring, fairly normal... but to me it's an exotic holiday destination! Almost every person reading this is living somewhere I'd love to visit, and taking it for granted as just being "home"! How lucky you all are. I want you all to tell me about your hometown - all the tourist stuff, the things you've never seen and done because you just live there! Tell me what to do when I get there! (For the sake of anonymity, you don't have to put your street number!!!)

Bratz dolls. They're like Barbies only trashier. Dressed like whores, with attitude appropriate to the most stereotypical African-American woman you can think of, these dolls are insidiously infiltrating our youth. They teach the important moral lesson that displaying flesh will ensure your every desire is granted by some mere male. They demonstrate effectively an aggressive attitude and a stance calculated to offend. They encourage conformity to a particularly desirable image, and a lack of thought and common sense.

In short, Bratz dolls represent everything I loathe. They say to me that the women's liberation movement was for nothing - the women of the 1960's burnt their bras to get themselves out of the kitchen, but 40 years on they've only got as far as the bedroom. Bratz dolls indicate that the use of sexual wiles is an acceptable way to obtain anything or have any request granted. They employ a kind of reverse-sexism in the implication that women are actually superior to men, thus encouraging the treatment of men like objects. Analysing Bratz dolls is an excercise in double-think: they objectify women, but seem almost proud to do so. They objectify men by the implication that a woman is nothing unless she can make a man do something for sexual favours.

My idea of an acceptable roll model for young girls would be a doll with realistic proportions dressed in jeans and a t-shirt. The face of the doll should have pimples and be imperfectly formed. The doll's fingernails should appear chewed. The attitude shown through advertising should be independant without being aggressive. It should carry a book, and use phrases like "fluctuations in the space-time continuum" instead of "bling bling".

I'm all in favour of women being however they want to be. But if a woman dresses like a whore and acts like a whore, she should expect to be taken for a whore.

Birthdays are difficult. What do you get for a 10 year old girl and a 15 (possibly 16?) year old boy? Particularly when you don't see them often enough to know everything they already own, or their most recent obsession. I refuse to buy the one thing I know will be appreciated - anything with the word "Bratz" on it. Philosophical and moral objections.

I could do an entire blog post on Bratz dolls. But I really can't be bothered.

Can anybody help me with birthday present suggestions?