Am I still ill?

4th week of fighting off a flu which, whilst I no longer am completely bedridden, still renders me incapapble of late nights and smoky rooms. In some way it seems to be - to bastardise a liberal govt catchphrase - "the flu I had to have". I've felt a bit run down all year and actually since that strange highly toxic spider bite in March haven't felt anything like decent health I could bore even myself with a symptomatic littany of which the highlights are insomnia, neuralgia, panic attacks and nausea. However it seems that since this flu I've felt incapable literally of driving myself as hard as usual, just the 2 jobs has been enough, the extra curricular has seemed almost impossible.

And possibly a good thing I guess, for my ongoing health. I find myself bemused by the physical experience of enjoying rest on a friday night, a saturday night and an entire sunday! It seems more rest than I've enjoyed in at least a year.


So in a documentary sense I've little to say except commenting on a lack of things to document! In a domestic sense ben and I are again within the realm of the dying wallet. 2 of us on a single part time income. A very interesting experiment which, given 4 credit cards between us to pay off, 2 mobile phones, winter utility bills, rent and food - is verging on failure. But not for wont of trying . I've got everything but the utilities and huge phone bills covered. the rest I've managed, and on a part time income that isn't bad going. Ben has wisely decided, though, that it may be time to seek assistance both of a governmental kind and also as jobseeker. esq. We've also purged the unnecessaries like basically everything but food and public transport (the foxtel has gone, no dinner engagements, no purchases of basically any kind). So that has helped immeasurably with the resting also. I've found I have little resentment towards it, though. I am enjoying some enforced simplicity of activity. I can't attempt to squeeze 50 hours of activity into a day when I can't afford to do anything. So I'm looking inquisitively at a bookshelf replete with unread titles, dusting off the chessboard and boardgame box.

It also gives me yearnings to tinker with food growing and all sorts of twee crafty things. Yes I am facing my inner domestic goddess ;) I want to take up calligraphy and plant potatoes....

And of course to write more music but there are cash-barriers in place to that. The computer, no studio mixer and a broken drum machine. sigh.

Slap seems to be going quite well at the moment. I'm very happy with my 2 latest staff acquisitions: Grania Buckley (Arianwen) and Jan (Not Happy). Both of them seem to be really into music and have great ideas for developing cerain sounds and stock which leaves me free to just love what I love (dark electro, new beat, ebm, xpera. Old skool jungle. AFX. Synth pop. Oh and of course the 'Mode )

Speaking of which: the whole Precious leak... I really like the song, my 'Mode pal Brad supplied me with a burn bless his sherlocky heart. However it is very very slick and "produced". I'm hoping that in final version rather than dodgy fileshare mp3 it has a little more acoustic dynamism. Also it's very 'mature'. Yes I know they're in their 40s but this LP has been talked up as 'the new black celebration' and for me it lacks a little rawness so far... I'm happy to wait because despite my opinons above it's certainly a truckload better than anything off exciter (and I do like some tracks from exciter). Precious is being hailed as the new 'enjoy the silence'. We'll see....

I've been reading through some of my purchases in my "wanna blessed be" period of inital paganism... when you don't have a great deal of discretion or understanding. Just to get beyond my later onset of snobbish intellectual conceit, y'know... And I've been tearing my hair out. One supposedly "historical reconstructionist" Celtic (Irish) text gave, in the instructive section the following ritual suggestions for contacting elemental forces...

earth: to contact the elemental of earth throw glitter around and twirl.
water: to contact the elemental of water sit in a stream or wade into the sea with a bubble blower. Blow bubbles and then put your constructed spirit boat filled with shells and moonstones in the water.

Not only are these embarassingly inane, but I can't imagine a "nature elemental" from one of the 4 elements being overjoyed and communicative if your "gift" to them is to create pollution and litter.

I have once again temporarily concented to have my intelligence insulted but I remember now why I stopped reading anything pretty much aside from chaoist texts. In fact I blame Phil Hine for this distasteful experience... I was contemplating his suggestion that you should explore alternative spiritual paradigms before rejecting them... understand from an internal perspective and let go of personl resistances or ego stratifications... but there are very good reasons in the end for avoiding some attempts at spiritual enlightenment. Its because their authorship is puerile and insulting. Aaaah... that's a rant, isn't it. Nice. It happens to be my topic of choice... lame spirtual power thingy woman shrine stuff... uuuugh.


And finally a confession. Despite my self imposed frugality I did lash out on payday and purchase the new Harry Potter novel 'the Half Blood Prince'. The first read was more like a devouring, done in a single sitting late into the night. I'm hoping the 2nd sitting bears out as a critical analysis. No spoilers but I was surprised by her choice of plot sacrifice... And of course being a child's book I didn't expect miraculous word play and complex construction. I expected merely entertainment with a well contained worldview and developed plot consistency. Did I get it? I'll find out in the second reading, I believe.

And now, to work on accounting for slap and squeeze some oranges to make a beverage I shall henceforth call "juice" ....