ISLANDBABY

THE OLD PROFILE

2010-08-03T17:24:00.001+10:00

We join our heroine (that would be me) in Sydney, Australia, having just left her island nation and the capital city where she lived on the largest island a la Sud Pacifica ... Papua New Guinea ... Never fear. Knowing Ricebag, her ability to draw hectic all over the straight lines means it's never going to be a flat or an easy ride. But it does belong to her - all the fuck-ups; all the heartbreaks; all the beauty; all the kindnesses; all the things shared; all the bits of her given away in gladness; all the things meant that can't be unspelt ... all that stuff, all the stuff done and kicked into motion and ground into being and dreamt into film or flushed into smoke ... ricebag is doing it all because she is the engineer of her year.

bobbing for james

2008-07-21T17:29:00.041+10:00

you know who you are. and if you have come to my blog, then please don't think me depressive. i am not. but i can be deep. sometimes i fall into my own well and forget about sunlight. and then thank god for family and friends. because they remind me that i am fun!! and funny and lovely and loving and shirty and skirty and sometimes i pinch but i always always kiss.

i'm no blank slate. i walked across the roof of the world alone illegal. i slept one amongst 40 million in open air prayer. i died on the river. i lived on a mountain. i've worked in some of the world's schmickest office's in some of the world's schmickest cities. i was born of a village without running water or electricity from a province without roads and from a country without women in parliament.

and i am a big girl now. which means sometimes i say big girls things. like i expect a man to be the man he says he is. and i know when he isn't. then i do all kinds of little girl things. like wash his dishes. and fall in love.

october??

our beloved : a quiet revolution

2008-06-18T18:03:00.031+10:00

The thing is this - I never told you. I never showed you. All of you Out There. I couldn't actually say out loud WHY that for the past 10 months there has been a river of fear flowing through me ... heart palpitations ... midnight tears ... 4am sweats ... shortness of breath ... sleeplessness ... lack of desire ... lack of energy ... hair falling out ... stress lump the size of my fist at the top of my spine ... for the past 10 months my heart has been in my neck. And I have been Dealing, I have. And for the MostPart dealing well but for all the RestPart, barely. Barely functioning and sometimes poorly. Always covering it all up in slathers of Face.

And WHY? For the last 10 months I have been unable to say the words "I lost my only sister" ... because I did. Because BabySister did disappear. Because almost a year ago she went away from us and for 4 months we did not know how to find her and when we did find her it took another 4 months to TakeHerFromTokyo and bring her to our home in PNG to our family in PNG.

And it has not been easy ...

And just when my neck is about to snap from craning it permanently in BabySister's direction, a small miracle happens. A few days ago, inside of a heartbeat I learnt that I needed to stop playing sentry over BabySister's EveryMinute. Someone Above showed me GraceInAnother and I have been witness to something very very sweet. A quiet revolution. Of a beautiful soul.

While I was holding my breath, my BabySister settled back into her skin. On her own. With a little help from me, MyMama and OurFamily.

And so, her CircleOfSadness is coming full and she is getting ready to tie up the ends on that story which saw her handicapped-in-so-many-ways in Tokyo after 8 years licking kawai & kirei stamps in Someone Elses Land. So we brought her home to PNG in February and BabySister has had to learn how to LookAtTheWomanInTheMirror again and we have been praying and I have been holding my breath ...

And last week I turned around and There She Was. I heard her heart smiling on the phone. I only rang to say I would call again later and all she said was 4 words which sound like 'ok' and 'I love you' ... but inside the walls of those everyday words I heard all kinds of purposeful and wonderful things echoing, like Hope and Future and Certainty. She sounded exactly like ... HerSelf. For the first time in such a long time. And I am so grateful. So very very grateful.

For the first time in maybe years my BabySister is looking forward to every new day.

It is now clear to me that Her Spirit Has Come Home To Her and in doing that is has called to me and it is saying "I know You Know Me. It has been your job to watch over me and protect me and I will always Need You but you can Release Me from your care now. I need to pick myself up. By myself. Just for now."

And all week I have been close to tears. On the busstop curb as the sun rises. At my desk while the computer whirrs on. Peeling back the yoghurt top at the work fridge. As I settle the telephone back in its cradle. After I hit send on an email. As I hand over change from my yellow purse for The Big Issue. As the elevator rises to the 38th floor. Scrolling through my blackberry. Furling my umbrella in the cab. Stirring cream into my just-got-home-tea. In the 5-minute-quiet before I rise in the morning. At a hundred pauses in a day, these past few days, I am close to tears, my heart feels so full ... I am so full of joy now. Joy!! And great great Thankfulness. And calm circumspect.

Because the one person in the world who has Every Claim on me has just asked to exercise her rights to Do Just That. To Claim. And that feels so Good. And yet somehow, DeepDown, I am melancholic - because how is it that she could ever forget that I would do everything in my power to protect her - that that is My BirthSong. How did she ever forget that my story cannot function without her presence in it. How did she ever forget that she always had somewhere to turn. How did she ever forget our family does not know how to exist without her? How did she ever forget that we none of us are ever ever ever alone? Especially her. Our Beloved.

How could she forget? Because I stopped listening properly. Because I started looking too deep into my own well. Because I wanted to believe her when she said SheIsAnIsland. Because ricebag let her guard down. BabySister was so good at marching to the beat of her own drum and letting everyone know she needed her Awayness that even I started thinking that that was true.

And all I can do now is make a promise to you, BabySister. I will do all I can to never let you forget again how to hear your TrueSelf amongst all the white noise.

You should also know that I am so incredibly proud. So so so so proud. So proud to belong to you. Because you Never Gave Up. Not for one minute. Even when you wavered on The Edge something deep within kept holding on. I hope you know that you have been resilient in the face of overwhelming fear. That somehow you kept faith in a time of lostness. And that even when you could not see through the fog, you felt your way forward. And now that you are coming out on the other side, you are taking responsibility. And you Smile. And you hold your head high. And you have Hope.

And for the first time in a long time I too am Looking Forward without a clouded heart.

And so here we are. It is Spring again.

holding my breath

2008-06-18T17:40:00.005+10:00

lovers

sorry for being away so long. been sort of holding my breath for the last 6 weeks. just kind of all legs in motion and nothing new, not much new but lots of the good same stuff. some of the things that have happened include:

ricebags new flattie, GoodCam, who has slotted into our house and our lives so smoothly in the always-up-to-drink-vodka-until-dawn-if-a-sad-flattie-needs-me-to kind of way
woo has gone to nyc to live and breathe and bake over a central park summer
ricebag is working daily out of one her client's offices and this means she is away from the mothership most days
various dinner parties and drinking parties and movie parties and afternoon and drinks and weekend drinks and night drinks
a weekend of dvds and duvets at The Lake with kbbaway and ren
movie premieres and art exhibitions and wine tastings and salsa classes
fundraising for the relief effort in Burma
etc etc
and and and ... ricebag. stopped. smoking. cigarettes. (yes woo - i stopped with you ... have you stopped proper?)

blahdy blah blah

the truth is ricebag is hanging in until until until ... very soon her life, her geography, her hemishpere is going to change ... and then this EveryDayNess of Sydney will be past tense.

a long little drive

2008-05-01T07:46:00.016+10:00

woo and i took off for 2 weeks in early january and went driving driving down the east coast of australia in woo's trusty steed of a car, ANF, all along the victorian coast in the south, along the great ocean road, until we reached port fairy with its gorgeous 200 year old huts and churches from a time when irish people were very short and they came to australia to kill some whales ... and then we turned inland. ned kelly country. gold rush country now turned grazing land. a whole driving circuit. a. road. trip.

we drove. a lot. and tented it. and caravan parked it. and beached it. and melbourned it. and just watched it all go by really. and it was beautiful.

nothing feeling better than leaving sydney. leaving sydney. leaving. sydney.
crashing in bermagui where the lighthouses start and little kids with ipods for ears sing unaccompanied for their indian supper at the cafe on the corner
driving out of jindabyne and down and through the snowy mountains national park. woo driving hours along tedious sloooow pulverous unpaved ... red and dusty ... national park driving track ... eventually emerging from the nsw bush & into victoria and the idyllic town of suggan buggan where everywhere you look is postcard heaven
tentless and grumpy and sleeping in front of ANF and under stars at lakes entrance
hitting 90 mile beach ... one of the longest stretches of white white beach in the world ... and being bitten bitten bit by flying biting sand
crashing in fitzroy with pinky u and y, gorging on home-made humous, lovely laundry and lovelier sleep in a bed
watching the surfers go out at bells beach
odd ball karaoke, fun fairs and $6 pasta in warrnambool
koalas and ancient lighthouses in otway bay ... tales of shipping lanes and straits and shipwrecks and schoolhouses and just australia being so far away from anywhere
no place for our tent at the inn in lorne
fresh prawns and chips on the beach in apollo bay
circling tower hill crater ... having been sent there by eugene von geurard
a helicopter ride over the 20 million year old 12 apostles ...
baking our bodies on a victorian beach
sitting at the top of the rugged mountain ranges of grampians national park with its rolling rocks and purple trees and surveying the wide flat world below
gold rush diaries and pottery in bendigo
in the stoop of the tent as night falls, drinking beers cooling in a bag of ice
a bermuda triangle wander along along along a solitary flat road in search of mysterious aboriginal hand paintings
an edward hopper-esque backpackers/motel in canberra ... a hard bed in a capital of wide flat streets and wide flat faces.
all the while looking looking. looking at this beautiful country really

so what can i say? every road looked different. driving through ski parks in a wildflower summer. driving along absolutely spectatcular world-class coastlines - from the start of 90 mile beach to the end of the great ocean road. watching geese fly over salt lakes and the grazing land shimmer in the distance. smashing light and tangy chips and mini flake chocolate bars all over ANF. driving through south gippsland farming country and listening to a 3 hour discussion of women living in the penal colony of australia on am radio. taking the scenic road over the main every time and watching it all fly by.

i think pictures speak better so i shall share some ...

topsy turvy

2008-04-30T18:05:00.006+10:00

lovers

wow. this week has brought some shake-ups in the professional life of moi ... things that involve a change in geography and more.

this Monday = i made a big big decision which means by the end of The Year of Alex, maybe even by her next bondei, ricebag might be living in another country ... will be living somewhere she has lived before ... having returned to another ples ...

then today my boss came in with an amazing opportunity ... too good to pass up that will see my current role drastically change by ... Monday next

everything a bit topsy turvy right now ... oooh.

so the next few posts are going to be about my life. here. in sidonee. where stuff matters. sometimes. and for now, anyway.

it is what it is

2008-04-28T14:25:00.002+10:00

today winter came to sydney. the flush of chilled air that swooshes in as the balcony doors unclick, as the kitchen window is pushed up, when the outside comes inside. this week shall be the putting away of open-toed shoes and saturday sandals, the folding of summer dresses and floral coats. winter is trundling in and the winter coat and the hot soup boy make their return. sniffle sniffle.

at least MyMama is back in town. on holiday. of sorts. with her cohorts ... her old old friends and their hagen woollies. at least. at least. at least.

so now even more i am dying dying to go home. back to png-way. but whilst the desire is deep, it hasn't crystallised as yet and baby has to book some tickets so people who haven't seen her in longa time can see her still. on their home turf. i can't wait to meet a newborn baby yavita and all my oldest and loveliest ... and most especially BabySister ...

BabySister. be strong baby. please be strong. always always always always always. always. me.

quentin

2008-04-16T10:01:00.004+10:00

Big up to my old college principal Quentin Bryce who Kevin Rudd has just appointed the next and first woman governor-general of Australia.

Quentin Bryce has spent the past five years as the Governor of Qeensland. But her much-lauded career has taken her from being one of the state's first female barristers, into academia and the public service as federal sex discrimination commissioner. And a mother of 5!! I can attest to her elegance and fortitude and influence and am very proud to have her as a personal referee - let alone the next GG.

long sight

2008-04-10T09:35:00.008+10:00

my eye balls have been hurting. for months. so i finally got to the eye doctor yesterday and ricebag needs glasses. yes i am verry long sighted and my eyes are constantly correcting themselves to do the one thing i do about 12 hours a day - read. read. read. read. read. :(

and for the past few weeks my watch has been slowing down. so off i went to the watch doctor. and my 14 year old watch needs a $350 "overhaul" - not cheaply done. :(

and last sunday night i had an incredible screaming match with a housemate that we are evicting. and all week dealing with him has been terrible. terrible. terrible. his extreme passive aggressive behaviour scares me. yesterday he left a huge (unflushed) shit in the toilet in my bathroom. :(

today. the sun is shining in sydney. :)

last saturday i had the sweet pleasure of meeting bear's baby - isabella patricia lee - what a beautiful baby baby baby. :)

i wanted to walk the pilgrims walk of the Camino of Santiago de Compostela in northern Spain this coming august but last night lucylu told me i should stay home that month and write. write. write something. and i am so glad that she reminded me to write. :)

lucylu is moving into my house on saturday. :)

le grande

2008-04-09T14:41:00.007+10:00

cannot believe i was taking these pictures less than 10 days ago at cape le grande national park just off esperance in western australia ... miles of white sand for a black baby

sad

2008-04-06T12:40:00.004+10:00

i know i said i have been feeling better. and i have. but yesterday i walked into a dusty little shop down newtown and and the african mother behind the counter with red eyes says to me "why so sad honey. dont be sad honey."

how is it that a perfect stranger on a perfect day at the corner of king and enmore saw through my glassy front to the splinters inside and could articulate that sunshine is not coming through the cracks.

most of the time i feel like crawling up into my own universe and hiding there for a long time but i every day i put my face on and that gets me through. and most of the time the cover works ... but it seems that its the people who are truly suffering that can see straight through me anyway.

and i tried to smile my way out of her shop but it turned into a grimace and she wouldn't let me pay. she wanted me to stay. inside her shop. like the act of letting me leave would mean i might disappear.

and i am just praying she read too much. in me.

being here and not being here

2008-03-31T16:45:00.010+10:00

hola readers, listeners, perusers, friends, foreigners ...

baby had her march in sydney but was very sick for 3 weeks, caught an awful virus that wiped her out. her spirit leaked from her sides and her desire went with it. yes, i was ill. ill. ill. awful. my energy and enthusiasm just fell out the window and took my like and my play with it. that was my yucky awful month of march. a grey march which followed a blue february ... 2008 not starting off so wonderful.

but baby is finding her way back now. just as i started recovering, at easter i took off to western australia with some old gal pals and we just lunched it right up in margaret river and then i took off on my own and spent a week On The Road jack. baby hit the turf and kind of didn't stop. until yesterday, when she came back to sydney ... and felt good about it.

so if i have been absent from this page ... it's because i really have been away. in sydney with illness and in south western australia with play.

___________________________________

and just so you know, for the last week, this is what I have been looking at.

just me, myself and i. driving. music blaring. singing at the top of my lungs. sleeping in the desert. watching a blue blue sky never unravel.

i got away away and i have just started smiling again.

now that kevin is here

2008-03-31T16:34:00.004+10:00

When the Australian elections took place late last year, I was celebrating. Celebrating!! Wow. Never thought I'd feel so much joy at the change of government other than my own ... but there you have it. A women deputy PM and just not having John Howard anymore - what a breath of fresh air. For so so many reasons ... not the least of which is a renewed hope in reestablishing the somewhat tattered relationship between PNG and it's most important neighbour - Australia.

And what does Kevin do? He comes to PNG. He comes and is welcomed like royalty. He brings with him hope and a clear sense of direction in what are definitely muddy muddled times. And the plan of his new government has its babis in the Port Moresby Declaration - a list of 20 objectives and plans signalling Australia's greater commitment to the region.

And so I cheer once again and keep my fingers crossed that our own politicians will meet him half way and start acting in a way that truly represents a desire to act in the best interests of their constituents and not their clans. We need to grow up and learn to eat at the big people's table rather than squabbling over left overs. People are suffering all over our great land and now we have a very real opportunity (for the first time in over a decade), through Kevin Rudd, to be as constructive as we can be.

______________________________

Greg Sheridan, Foreign editor of the Australian newspaper published this article on March 15, 2008

KEVIN Rudd wants a new beginning with the South Pacific, especially with Melanesia.Last week in Papua New Guinea, Rudd issued his Port Moresby Declaration, which promised more aid and a new era. And yesterday the Australian Strategic Policy Institute issued two new papers on our policy in the region.

The focus, both in government and think tanks, is Melanesia rather than Polynesia. There are three reasons for this. Melanesia is closer to Australia than Polynesia. Melanesia is in much worse crisis than Polynesia. And New Zealand tends to take the lead in Polynesia.

The four big nations of Melanesia - PNG, Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Fiji - are each in a version of their own long-running crisis.

Rudd and his team believe they have a chance just now to make a difference in Melanesia. This is partly simply because they are a new Government. A harsh hostility had arisen between PNG Prime Minister Michael Somare and John Howard.

This was not a result of any particular mismanagement by Howard but because Somare was opposed to the Enhanced Co-operation Program through which Australia inserted personnel into PNG to try to improve the delivery of basic services and to bring some control to the endemic corruption in PNG.

As was evident in his effusive welcome, Somare doesn't have the same hostility towards Rudd. But whether the new goodwill amounts to anything, with Canberra's efforts to make aid to PNG accountable and to limit corruption, remains to be seen.

As with Australia, there is a new Government in Solomon Islands. The old government of Mannasah Sogavare was opposed to the Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands and gave shelter to the fugitive Julian Moti. The new Government reversed both those positions. Both Canberra and Honiara now want the emphasis of RAMSI to shift from security to nation-building.

The Government is also alive to any possibility of a little movement with Fiji, an indication that the elections will be held on time, a chance perhaps to resume some greater level of contact. This would be very well advised. Fiji's economy is suffering. Everyone, certainly Australia, has made their opposition to the coup in Fiji clear. Now is the time to draw Fiji back into dialogue and co-operation, not to impose any additional pressure that could exacerbate internal tensions. Rudd's speeches and press conferences in PNG and the Solomons were important and under-reported. They followed his policy in Opposition and begin the process of giving greater flesh to the Pacific Partnerships for Development that his Government will construct with the South Pacific nations.

These are ambitious and promise more aid and improvement across all sectors of Pacific society. Rudd was naturally up-beat in his speeches, but he did acknowledge the scale of the problems. For example, he spoke of the HIV-AIDS problem in PNG, noting that there are 40,000 to 60,000 sufferers in the country. With a business-as-usual approach, Rudd said, this number would swell to half a million by 2025. This would be a truly catastrophic outcome for PNG, and for Australia.

Rudd deserves praise for recognising the urgency of the problem and giving it priority when no other part of Australian civil society is really doing likewise. However, there is scant prospect of Australian success in Melanesia.

This is not because of any particular weakness in the Rudd Government but because of the sheer, bloody intractability of the problems.

Australian policy towards the South Pacific is like an old-fashioned upright clock. The hands are ever in motion, yet they pass through familiar positions in an endless cycle. First we emphasise our small neighbours' sovereignty and give them some aid; that's no good, so then we intervene a little in an emergency; then we intervene a lot; then that causes resentment and we retrench, and on and on it goes. Meanwhile the overall social and political indicators just get worse and worse.

The two new ASPI documents on the South Pacific are both very good: thoughtful, practical, modest, sensible.

Two big ideas animate them. The first is that we need to integrate South Pacific, especially Melanesian, economies into our own. And secondly that to do this we must open our labour market to Melanesian guest workers.

The first idea is plainly right. The second is less clear.

There are more than seven million people in Melanesia and only 21million Australians. It is hard to see labour mobility operating on a big enough scale to make a fundamental difference. Nonetheless it is true that Polynesians, many of whom live in New Zealand, have more opportunity to work abroad, and this benefits their homelands in many ways. First, they can send back remittances, which are a vital, non-bureaucratic and precisely targeted de facto aid flow. But also, their exposure to foreign ways and foreign standards gradually helps them have higher expectations of their own societies.

The Government is continuing to give this matter serious thought. I am constantly undecided about Melanesian guest worker schemes, in part because I have always believed that anyone who comes to Australia to work ought to have a pathway to citizenship. I certainly think it would be a great mistake for the Australian Defence Force to recruit Melanesians as soldiers without citizenship.

More basically, we need to understand our commitment to Melanesia is long term and therefore to train a permanent cadre of language and regional culture specialists throughout our military, diplomatic service, aid agencies and the bureaucracy generally.

Australia is poor at language training (something Rudd knows all too well) and our bureaucracies have a bias against regional specialists, and no one these days wants to specialise in Melanesia. But if we're actually going to make a difference there we need a core of long-term Australian Melanesianists. Training such people is a long-term investment but an essential prerequisite for all our ambitions.

for instance?

2008-02-22T08:26:00.007+10:00

For instance? Well, for instance, what it means to be a man. In a city. In a century. In transition. In a mass. Transformed by science. Under organised power. Subject to tremendous controls. In a condition caused by mechanization. After the late failure of radical hopes. In a society that was no community and devalued the person. Owing to the multiplied power of numbers which made the self negligible. Which spent military billions against foreign enemies but would not pay for order at home. Which permitted savagery and barbarism in its own great cities. At the same time, the pressure of human millions who have discovered what concerted efforts and thoughts can do. As megatons of water shape organisms on the ocean floor. As tides polish stones. As winds hollow cliffs. The beautiful supermachinery opening a new life for innumerable mankind. Would you deny them the right to exist? Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed the old-fashioned Values? You - you yourself are a child of this mass and a brother to all the rest. Or else an ingrate, dilettante, idiot. There, Herzog, thought Herzog, since you ask for the instance, is the way it runs.

Saul Bellow, Herzog, 1964

______________________________

Some of you may wonder why I, as a strong woman and as a black person, I might choose to quote this racially unsophisticated neo-conservatist, but the truth is, that Bellow as a novelist was a stylistic tour de force of brilliant intensity ... before he deteriorated into his deep paranoia later in his life.

Bellows' novels investigate the disorienting nature of modern civilization, the "many flaws in modern civilization, and its ability to foster madness, materialism and misleading knowledge" and the subsequent isolation and spiritual dissociation that envelops its citizens. I think anyone living in our modern world of studios and sublets and apartment complexes and middling malls, of franchise love and solo 1am sushi bars ... of bio electro magnetico metallico gadgets that get slimmer and thinner and skinnier and whiter all the time and hold more and cost less all the time all the time ... my sleeker, my bleaker, my my my ... so that anyone today can hear and see that he writes some kind of truth. And that is powerful. Perhaps because our alienation and otherness is what gives us our commonness. And I quote Bellows because he believed that despite (or because of) our human frailty, we have the power to overcome that very weakness (that lets in all the ugliness) by increasing our awareness of it.

And I'll be damned if I am not sitting here or wandering there or thinking inside or reading along, or writing about ... if not but for the sole purpose of increasing my awareness of the world in which I happen.

2008: THE YEAR OF ALEX

2008-01-15T09:52:00.001+10:00

Yesterday, walking through the 6pm rush-home crowd with their cloudy faces and downcast eyes, sidling along in their grey suits, scuffing along the grey pavements, all under grey skies ... I looked ahead and there was someone someone someone from the past. Alex. He looked tall and bigger and really more like the Man that his body always promised he would be. And what did I do? I turned around and ran into a convenience store until I was sure he had passed and then I came back out again.

One word: Chickenshit.

Or just: Shit.

And it just amazed me that when I saw him I felt so shit inside, so crap about myself, so ugly, so mean, that I couldn't bear to face him, that if he saw me he would know how awful I am and feel nothing at all.

And I know that sounds extreme, but there is some truth there and so ... I have decided, this year, 2008, is THE YEAR OF ALEX. By the end of 2008, if I am walking down some street some afternoon some day and should someone like Alex pass me again, I want to be so emotionally and physically and spiritually well (ie not perfect, not ultimate ricebag, but just well ricebag), that some kind of radiance is just is flowing from my eyes and my neck and my breast bone and my calves and my hips and my hands and just from right inside of me and reflecting off of every dull surface. And the only thing that that radiance says is that I know who I am and I love that person.

So that a Man like Alex would look at this ricebag marching to her own beat and have only one word: Damn!!

________________________________________________________

Felis Navidad. Hepi Niu Yia. Etc Etc.

Wish I could say it has been a ball of laughs since everything started spiralling and unravelling since I got to Sydney, but it hasn't it. And, to a great degree, it's been my fault that I let my work take advantage of me and consume me and my family hijack my emotions and my time and my frenetic life exhaust me and spin me. The result is that in the new year, upon some reflection and introspection, I have realised that I have been running around in circles in order to avoid some of the big questions ...

Like Who Am I? Who Do I Want To Become? How Do I Get Better?

How Do I Not Become A Bitch.

How Do I Not Become A Lonely Old Bitch.

Aaaaaaah.

So I need to sit down and clear through the white noise and simplify simplify.

And I am starting to do that by focusing. Focusing. Making a simple plan for the year, the year 2008 and focusing on a few simple goals. Mind. Body. Spirit.

And while I am sorting through some of it at the moment, I am going to start doing a few simple things as I tread water:

smile more and talk less
listen more and talk less
sleep more and sleepless less
read more and think less
rest more and worry less
walk more and bus less
like myself more and hate myself less
write more and publish less

THE YEAR OF ALEX isn't about bagging Alex.

THE YEAR OF ALEX is about my self-esteem and my phyiscal presence and my emotional strength and my spiritual power. It's about never running into a convenience store again to avoid the past and strangle the future.

so so proud : usa humiliated by papua new guinea

2007-12-17T08:42:00.000+10:00

Kevin Conrad, a young Harvard business school graduate and currently executive director of the Coalition for Rainforest Nations (which BTW, was formed earlier this year at the suggestion of Papua New Guinea, the coalition now includes 33 nations representing Africa, Latin America and the Pacific), born and raised in Papua New Guinea, made headlines on the last day of the United Nations Bali Climate Change Conference when, as the representative of Papua New Guinea at the conference, he spoke truth to power.

At the United Nations Bali Climate Change Conference last week, the US representative first said that the US would not support the proposed agreement to hash out a new treaty to supersede Kyoto and actually be meaningful, then was sternly rebuked by the PNG representative, at which point, the US did a complete 180.

BALI, Indonesia (CNN Article) -- In a dramatic reversal Saturday, the United States rejected and then accepted a compromise to set the stage for intense negotiations in the next two years aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions worldwide.

The White House, however, said in a statement that it still has "serious concerns" about the agreement ... The head of the U.S. delegation, Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state for democracy and global affairs, announced the United States was rejecting the plan. Her comments were met by booing from other delegations. Under the global warming pact, negotiating rounds would end in 2009.

...The Saturday session, unpredictable and charged with emotion, was a roller coaster ride for delegates and the media.

After Dobriansky's announcement, the delegate from Papua New Guinea, Kevin Conrad challenged the United States:

“We seek your leadership. But if for some reason you are not willing to lead, leave it to the rest of us. Please get out of the way.”

Five minutes later, when it appeared the conference was on the brink of collapse, Dobriansky took the floor again to say the United States was willing to accept the arrangement. Applause erupted in the hall and a relative level of success for the conference appeared certain.

_____________________________

To put into context what PNG did, I am also copying parts of an article from a British newspaper, The Independent entitled "The World Gets the Better of Bush":

The mood had been building all week at the negotiations in Bali on a replacement to the present arrangements under the Kyoto Protocol which run out in 2012. For months the United States, and President Bush himself, had been insisting that it would not block progress. Spin-doctors were dispatched to assert, ludicrously, not only that the President was as committed as anyone to avoiding catastrophic global warming, but that the man who had spent years trying to destroy any attempt to tackle it had always really been on the side of the environmental angels. But once his hard-faced negotiators took their seats in the steamy conference centre at the Nusa Dua resort the pretence slipped away. They blocked virtually every constructive proposal put on the table, refusing any suggestion of concrete action by the US, while insisting that other countries do more and more. Ever since Bush first rejected — and set out to kill — the Kyoto Protocol, he had cited as his main objection its exclusion of big developing nations such as China and India. More recently he has indicated that the US would move if they took the first step. Sure enough, they came to Bali ready to take action on their own emissions — and still the US refused to budge.

It is simply not done in international negotiations for one country to single out another for criticism; it’s the equivalent of calling someone a liar in the House of Commons. But from early last week other delegations were publicly, unprecedentedly and explicitly blaming the US for the lack of progress. Worse, they were beginning to point the finger at President Bush himself, suggesting that things would improve once he was gone. That is the kind of humiliation reserved for such international pariahs as Robert Mugabe and Saddam Hussein. But even they were never subjected to the treatment that America received yesterday morning. When it tried, yet again, to sabotage agreement the representatives of the other 187 governments broke into boos and hisses. When Papua New Guinea told the US to “get out of the way”, they cheered.

The US buckled, as it has always done in international negotiations when it has been isolated. The same thing happened at the G8 summit in Heiligendamm, Germany, last summer, and two years ago in Montreal, when holding the Bali negotiations was unexpectedly agreed. That is why Tony Blair’s fatal flaw of constantly trying to let President Bush off the hook — while doing so much to raise the profile of climate change internationally — was so destructive. That is also why it is so deeply disturbing that an EU source told The Independent on Sunday that Britain had helped the US water down the Bali agreement after a phone call from the White House to Downing Street. We must hope, as Hilary Benn insists, that this is wrong. The last thing the country wants, or the world needs, is for us to have replaced the poodle with a Pekinese….

Global warming is now the defining issue of our times, and it will determinie almost exclusively how future generations judge us.

november rain

2007-12-09T19:17:00.000+10:00

its been raining. pouring. buckets and sheets and floods and down and sideways and even back up. the rain has been relentless. and my heart is being blown in. deluge. of water water.

i am in a deep funk.

mymama is way way low and things are happening to her i cant control and noone can and somehow i have become the parent and not the child but she dont listen anyway and i dont know how to fix this broken thing.
babysister is MIA. in physic and spirit. and i miss her deeply but i also have to stop. stop saving her. and nothing makes me feel more disloyal than waiting for her to swim out of the deep end while my back is turned.
last week i had the worst week at work i ever had in my life. my little boss made me cry. not easy cry. but hard cry. in the ladies toilet. on the 38th floor. heaving cry. alone crying. and it didnt matter that he was wrong and off his nut - it mattered that i didnt walk out of there before he completed his rampage through my self-esteem.

and so on and so on.

i feel like things are very slippery right now and i dont think anyone can stop it. i certainly dont know how. i think i've learnt to read the current, but not to rule it and now i am close to my last ... and the problem is i am shit. i am shit at handling my life, is what all of this feels like.

november was full-on. and fast. and fucked.

and thats ok. is ok. is ok. it is ok. i guess down is part of up. but i just am tired. thassal. am just tired. and scared. quite scared.

we need ...

2007-11-23T12:33:00.000+10:00

haifa or redfern : its all soul

2007-11-21T13:02:00.000+10:00

if you live in haifa, israel, then i urge you to attend this exhibition (flier above) - my friend, Naama Son of Josef, is an artist. and more than that, a beautiful soul. when i was lost and wandering literal in the biblical desert, naama took me home and said "rest" and when i was ready she turned me around and said "this is the way home. go."

___________________________

if you live in sydney, australia, i urge you to attend this gallery opening (flier below) - my friend KZ, Man of Woo, is an artist. and more than that, a beautiful soul. he seems to love, very well, someone that i love, very much.

billy

2007-11-21T12:22:00.001+10:00

on saturday i had the greatest pleasure to meet gutter's new baby baby boy. billy.

beautiful beautiful boy.

billy is the first baby to come from our troop of boarders. long time coming baby. so glad you're here.

so sydney

2007-11-21T12:10:00.000+10:00

ooh. on a sunday evening. after yum cha with mymama and then basking in bondi, ricebag walked home through the park.

so beautiful. so sydney.

off of wall street

2007-11-15T21:53:00.000+10:00

this morning, around the corner from my house, in the very street i described 3 days ago, there was a fire. in the building of my dry-cleaners.

and 4 people got saved.

champion idealist

2007-11-14T15:44:00.000+10:00

today at work baby was mildly psychometric tested. and told i am a champion idealist (also known as ENFP - Extraverted iNtuitive Feeling Perceiving using the Jungian Typology test).

it's not rocket science i spose. and i do think a lot of what is said below is true. for ricebag.

The Champion Idealists are abstract in thought and speech, cooperative in accomplishing their aims, and informative and expressive when relating with others. For Champions, nothing occurs which does not have some deep ethical significance, and this, coupled with their uncanny sense of the motivations of others, gives them a talent for seeing life as an exciting drama, pregnant with possibilities for both good and evil. This type is found in only about 3 percent of the general population, but they have great influence because of their extraordinary impact on others. Champions are inclined to go everywhere and look into everything that has to do with the advance of good and the retreat of evil in the world. They can't bear to miss out on what is going on around them; they must experience, first hand, all the significant social events that affect our lives. And then they are eager to relate the stories they've uncovered, hoping to disclose the "truth" of people and issues, and to advocate causes. This strong drive to unveil current events can make them tireless in conversing with others, like fountains that bubble and splash, spilling over their own words to get it all out.

Champions consider intense emotional experiences as being vital to a full life, although they can never quite shake the feeling that a part of themselves is split off, uninvolved in the experience. Thus, while they strive for emotional congruency, they often see themselves in some danger of losing touch with their real feelings, which Champions possess in a wide range and variety. In the same vein, Champions strive toward a kind of spontaneous personal authenticity, and this intention always to "be themselves" is usually communicated nonverbally to others, who find it quite attractive. All too often, however, Champions fall short in their efforts to be authentic, and they tend to heap coals of fire on themselves, berating themselves for the slightest self-conscious role-playing.

i've been called worse.

way to work

2007-11-12T16:32:00.000+10:00

hola peeps

those in sydney know it has been raining. RAINING!! last week it was raining like it hadn't rained in lifetimes.

healthy, clean, washing-away kind of rain.

and heavy. heavy rain.

and when ricebag walked around the corner of her house last weeks view was like this:

and this weeks view is like this:

oooh. pacifica.

2007-11-09T15:15:00.000+10:00

oooh. pacifica. pacific memories really. having a few echoes this week.

a lover to take back?

yeserday an old colleague, the cool cool JB rang to say "don't stay away so long you forget what it's like here [in png]". and i hear you lady. i mean, i know how close to the line all of this is and i promise i will do my best - i think that's all a baby can do (although i'm not sure just doing my best means i live up to My Promise (??)(and does that really matter??)).

ultimately (the way i feel right now) i want to be in png and thrive there and make babies there and create futures and ignite fires ... but right now i just can't envisage myself doing that without a Partner For Life and ... and ... and it seems to me i am just going to have to find a boy to take back there because when i was living there none of the men i met seemed to think i was the kind of woman they could throw their arms around and hold tight and say all of that feels like they were born to it. and i am not going to apologise for not being with someone unless they think i am magic.

so while i am away i shall play and pash a little too and get some funny and some hurt and maybe give some away ... but when i meet the man who says I Dig You, I Can Do This, Lets Play Forever ... Together. then i'll be ready to come home. i think. coz i dont want to go home trying to find a man to give me babies. if i did i dont think i'd have much luck. and if i am going to png. to live. and make babies. i definitely need a Forever Man to facilitate.

a lover to go back for?

a certain MissingB in Melbourne writes to say leaving PNG 4 months ago is also leaving ripples in her life and moving closer to Melbourne than Madang doesnt mean that one door closes - especially when you leave a part of your future behind and he calls you back there

and soon she goes back. not forever. but still returning.

lovers can wait

then of course i have pinkyu - who writes me well and hears i miss melbourne and understands me when i say i miss moresby too. pinky says baby should play and play in sydney. keep playing. soon a man is going to Stand Up and say You Totally Rock My World and Let Me Be The First Person You Call ... Ever Again.

and baby will say mwah!! and kiss off all the frogs.

until then pinky u says come come, she says to ricebag:

Hello darling,

It's time for you to take a break and come down to Melbourne.

You're coming to stay with us, and we will:

wander around;
sit in the backyard drinking wine and smelling the jasmine;
eat the best food ever;
drink tea in the middle of the night;
eat goats cheese rolled in ash;
giggle lots;
paint the town red, yellow and black;
wear sparkly things;
watch the sun rise;
eat copious amounts of vietnamese food;
bemoan the demise of the op shop, but still shop in them;
play;
hug;
etc.
I miss you!

Love and hugs and kisses,

Pinking

yesterday

2007-11-07T19:30:00.000+10:00

yesterday i did not get out of bed. until 8am. pure. indulgence.

yesterday i was jewellery naked. i did not wear any jewellery. no bitty earrings. no silver fish bracelet. no london whitby. no glittering headband. nada.

yesterday was melbourne cup and. my horse. didn't. come in.

yesterday i wanted to. be. in melbourne.

yesterday i left work when it was still daylight outside - i havent done that on a weekday since august

yesterday i cooked dinner while it was still daylight outside - i havent done that on a weekday since i got here. not. in daylight.

yesterday i hugged a verrry good looking boy. goodbye. in my kitchen.

i offered him tan, turqoise or black. and he said. black. is. best.

yesterday i took my colleagues to the best yum cha in the city. yum. yum. cha.

yesretday i had. one tsingtao. too many. at lunch. and should have gone another.

yesterday a taxi cab driver took me the looong way around the city, across darling harbour and down the rocks. cost me $10 more. than it should. but i didnt complain. in the 4 months since i got here, that's the first time i have been down to either. darling harbour. or the rocks.

yesterday. it. rained.

just october

2007-11-02T17:37:00.000+10:00

oooooh.

all my personal correspondences (read: email & textmail & voicemail) start with the word "ooooooh" these days.

wow. october was a hectic month. HECTIC. my Beautiful Girls from PNG came down and we stirred some shit and struck up a few fires and fell in Friend all over again and it was just a beaut 2 weeks. I felt SAFE.

i dont know how else to say it. but i knew i would didn't i tell you?

so yeah. we played and ate and played some more and ate even more. we sunned it up and legged it around and danced a bit and prayed a bit and it was all promises and futures and the kind of giving that families do, not friends and so they re-ju-ven-at-ed me.

and then they left me. back. they left me back. while they flew back home. to pom.

so here i sat. and played 22 for a while. and its been fun.

riecebag has been one Serious Social Butterfly. baby. from sunday fishing on the harbour with little brothers of old friends and baby showers with beautiful mommies, from long leisurely 5 hour wednesday lunches at Watsons Bay to poetry readings in little dark theaters filled with affection; engagement parties on fairy-lit lawns in well-heeled burbs to naughty cones in the park; champagne breakfasts with ancient friends and beery afternoons with newer ones; old faces and older faces; festivals in the park with jazz on the corner and capoeria in the shade; a bottle of rose and balcony over the edge of history; boys met 7 years ago and boys met in the lift; juggling work and wise and the commute and the walk and the stalk and the drive and the thrive; dinner parties in bellevue hill with publishers and dancers and bowling in blacktown with MyMama and her crew; tuvalu on my corner and coconut bread in my local caf; twinkling lights above my head and a book a boy wrote for me to read; pubs called the rose and beers called yum with fried whiting and sunny hi; and all the time the same backdrop ... sydney.

ricebag has been a Whirlwind Of Play. just october.

22

2007-10-24T11:10:00.000+10:00

i am living with a 22 year old. and he is turning back my clock. i kid you not.

i arrived in sydney feeling kind of 35 and 22 now has me feeling 25 when the truth is i am somewhere in the middle.

so whats he doing? i dunno. its a pisces/libra thing. we talk and talk and talk and because 22 is ... 22 ... most of this conversing takes place in the Contemplation Of, during the Consummation Of and the through the Morning After The Night Of copious amounts of alcohol.

so i have become this walking wreck. if i drove, i wouldnt be fit to drive - at any time of the day - really its been happening over the last few weeks with things being amazingly hectic. very (very) much so at work and now, very much so out of work. normally on a school night baby gets out of the office around midnight and goes home too tired to raise her head let alone raise a bottle to it. but noooooooo. since october began, baby gets home and 22 is there. waiting. with beers. and funnies.

so baby drinks with 22 and makes funny with 22 for like ... hours ... and somehow grabs a couple of hours of sleep before beginning the whole day again.

and then of course there are the weekends ... one loooooong drink basically. ouch.

but baby knows the secret ... its called "drip-drinking" ... basically drinking without a break but slowly. none of this binge-drinking rubbish. its called Getting Sloshed Politely. you'd be surprised how effective this method is. although its not cheap. drinking more only enables one to drink ... even more than before.

ai yi yi yi yi

22 is leaving australia in a month or so and we are feeling an escalation in beerage and funny-making.

yikes. i cant remember a day in 2 weeks i havent drank and heavily. heavyweight baby has hit town.

i could tell you lots of things about 22 but - he's 22. so you can probably guess some of them. like the time i came home at midnight to find 22 and his right-hand-man snorting cayenne pepper and skulling vinegar ... just for funny. and then of course there are the litany of pretty-pretty 20year old girls that 22 used to bring home ... for another kind of funny. and then 22 making his first roast ever and roasting the chicken on handtowel paper instead of a metal tray (i kid you not). and then other things 22 year olds do like drink and ... drink ... and develop scurvy from never eating a green or a fresh thing ... you geddit.

yeah yeah. but when all is said and done. 22 is just fun. funny fun. 22 kind of fun.

so i am going to be sad when he goes. 22 thinks he is lucky to meet me but the truth is baby is glad - i dont mind entering this alchoholic-funny-making phase. and i have been giving it a pretty fair whack. and while its making me suffer and making me exhausted (and draws long looks from my beautiful secretary who has recently had to bring me nurofen and berrocca in the morning - sometimes together) - its been bloody fun.

cheekiness

2007-10-19T10:23:00.000+10:00

ooooooh. i miss my little sister, i miss her. Babysister. miss her cheeky cheekiness and lovely loving. miss her huggy buggy and her smile. man, that smile can blow you away.

yes she can be a pain in the ass. but there are some stories only sisters know how to hear and only sisters can understand to tell. so there you have it.

missing cheeky.

LiftMan

2007-10-16T13:35:00.000+10:00

There are some excellent reasons why I won't haven't and shall die trying NOT to join facebook. Some of them are illuminated here: http://blogs.smh.com.au/mashup/archives/your_say/016052.html

BTW for all ricebags friends on facebook - email me, talk to me, drink with me, dine with me, walk with me. Don't facebook me. I don't live there. Baby lives in real time.

Having said all of that tho - I have a widdle confession to make ... yesterday I joined up for 5 minutes - long enough to try to find a man that I met in a lift last Friday night. Yes yes yes. I am that desperate. But it wasn't just any man. It was an eco-warrior man, my LiftMan.

Sufficed to say my tiny babysteps into facebook did not turn up LiftMan but I don't think the answer was ever there. As I have no name, just a face - but it seems that may be just enough to go on. JayBird is helping me here - help me ladddddddeeeeeeeeeee. With her fellow eco-warrior contacts and together we just might find him.

Unless he finds me first.

PS I have now deactivated my facebook account so pleeeeeease don't look for me there.

all the trees are green

2007-10-05T08:53:00.000+10:00

Mattie

Just wanted you to know all the trees are green. Woke up one day and Sydney went from dry cinnamon bister-brick leaflessness to a bosky verdurous fringed botanic mass of foliage. Over one night.

And it is so beautiful it hurts.

That you just left us, and aren't here to know this, makes everything suddenly seem sharper. Its become so clear just how ballsy and ungoverned Spring is - everything stemmed and trunked and tendrilled, everything blossoming so rudely, everything flowerets and buds, this week, this sad week. The week you died.

And here I sit in a towered edifice amongst it. All this city wild. All this natural coarse. All this perfect birth. It might be the closest thing we have to God. So today at lunchtime while you are being put to rest in Lae I am going to lie under cover of a big fat awful tree in Circular Quay and try not to cry.

goodnight mattie

2007-10-05T08:31:00.000+10:00

In the Post Courier on Tuesday last:

Poor road condition claims another life

A LAE businessman died in hospital yesterday after being shot in the head by criminals along the Boundary Road on Saturday night as he slowed down his car to negotiate potholes. The businessman who has been identified as Matthew Sigiruboi, was shot at close range at the entrance of the notorious Kapiak street, where there is a huge pothole. He was admitted to the Intensive Care Unit at Angau Memorial Hospital but died yesterday morning. The killing has left Mamose police chief Giossi Labi seething and the city residents in shock.

______________________________________

Xmas before last ricebag was a wandering baby, catching pmv's and cargo ships and roaming the Momase Coast for months. Little-lost wandering baby. Always always returning intermittently to Lae and Family and Hot Showers and Cooked Breakfasts and Swimming Pools and Lawns and ... a little pub called Clashes. Clashes on 4th Street above ChemCare and acorss the street from SVS. Clashes where the lime green walls are covered in village-chic thatch and the bar is loooong and the hours ricebag spent at the bar were loooong too. Clashes with the wonky pool tables and the 2 o'clock sundowners.

Clashes with Matt. Mattie. MattMatt.

Thankyou Matt. For always playing Grayson Hughes "Lets Talk It Over". Every single time I asked. Even for the 5th time in a row.

Thankyou Matt. For opening the bar for me even though it was 5 hours before official opening hours.

Thankyou Matt. For keeping the bar open for me long after official closing hours.

Thankyou Matt. For driving me home and never saying maybe I should party less and breathe more.

Thankyou Matt. For always listening to my boring old little-lost-is-me mumblings into the wee hours.

Thankyou Matt. For being the bartender without the bullshit but plenty of the blah.

Thankyou Matt. For not saying and not saying and then saying the One Time When I Was Ready To Listen.

Thanks Mattie.

And Goodbye.

I'm so sorry this is the way you had to leave us. Not good enough was it mate. Nowhere near fair. Nowhere near. And I'm sorry you had to go before you saw your first child.

Will miss you mate.

told you so

2007-10-02T09:55:00.000+10:00

told you i was bringing summer back. and it all started in bondi. with tope and a bottle of cook islands coconut oil, an old pair of bathers and a new book. yeah yeah. bondi was all skimpy summer dresses and sandleless feet. just a public holiday monday yesterday and a thousand people diving into bucket-ice water and preparing themselves for the start of a long long golden summer. oh yeah - and lots of pale skin. including mine. all with the intention of changing that status asap.

bringing summer back

2007-09-28T11:03:00.001+10:00

yeah yeah. woke up today and the sun was streaming in and the air was warm and people everwhere were struttin like summer is coming and today i officially declare that today is the first day of an australian summer and my australian summer and for that i am so excited. ricebag is going to burn some serious rubber.

today. today. today.

today is ricebag's bondei.

v nice. v v v v nice.

and usually i am not interested in having b-days but today i am a little bit interested. i am interested in the balloons miss can-do plastered all over my office and the lindt chocolates left on my seat and the gucci sunglasses delivered to my house in blue wrapping sent express post and the pink cupcake cake and the phone calls from lovers all over and i am also looking very forwardly to this afternoon when ricebag's work-friends and friend-friends converge on the steps of the opera haus for vino and a view of the best harbour in the world.

and all on today. when an australian summer is starting.

sometimes life can be very sweet. v v v v v.

so if you are in sydney right now, right this minute, come down to the opera haus and look for an islandbaby surrounded by some smashing people with beautiful smiles, with jazz in the background, summer drinks at hand amongst a mass of post-work TGIF city-types drumming it up against the backdrop of a glittering harbour. could it get better than that??

______________________________

12 months ago Ricebag was sitting in Port Moresby in a cool air-conditioned shh shh office. Lots and lots of air-conditioning. Lots of shhhhhhhh, noise that is not actually noise, humming that lies just under the radar - not sure exactly what it is - leather-backed swivel seats rolling across marbled carpet; computer hard-drives whirring some electronic pah; the slick sleeves of flipping folders and files; ink-jet printers emitting paper emissaries signalling the work due now, due tomorrow, due yesterday.
24 months ago to the day Ricebag was resigning from her job in another shh-shh office and about to embark on 4 months on boats and buses across the islands and highlands of this mad and awful, intense and beautiful country.
36 months ago to the day Ricebag was walking down off Mt Sinai in the Sinai Desert, Egypt.
48 months ago to the day Ricebag can't remember what exactly she was doing but she was with Finah in Amsterdam, camping by a river with a bunch load of bikers.
60 months ago to the day Ricebag was losing her impossible love in the blue blue mountains of Enga.
72 months ago to the day Ricebag was solo trekking and rescued by a missionary plane somewhere on the wrong side of the border of her home home province.

Today is only the 3rd time in the last 12 years that ricebag will be celebrating with MyMama the birth of her first born child.

I want my cake.

confirmation

2007-09-24T18:31:00.000+10:00

yeah yeah. summer is on her way. she is seriously about to roar into sydney.

and i am ready. i am.

today, this mild monday morning, people everywhere were wearing sunglasses. sunglasses, an ode to the lighter mornings and the stripping lunch-hour where people up and down george and across the rocks were peeling cardigans and lingering on sunned-up curbs

summer is coming. and i am ready.

weekend before last keffer took me to see tori amos. tori amos at the opera house. that chick is a musical genius with a radical sense. she kicks some serious ass and as a performer is totally mesmirising. i could only be in awe of her resoluteness.

and outside and inside the opera house people were dressed like summer is coming. and i was too. i didnt even take a coat. and i should have. coz it was chilly in the aftergloow of tori and sundown. but i felt ok coz i know i know.

i know. that i am ready.

and earlier that day lulu and woo and i drank champagne on a chilling lawn under blankets in bondi and it was all story-telling into dusk. then later that night lulu slept over and we languished and slept in and strode out to yum cha and took a looong leisurely walk up my old haunts across chinatown and down on broadway and it felt good it felt good. mostly because it was a culinary exercise spread over 6 hours. mostly because i was with lu. and also because it was png independence day (!!) and that day last year i was with another dear heart in goroka, watching history and the future collide ...

but also because. i am ready. i am.

and then last week ricebag kicked some serious shit into motion at work and it paid off and for the first time since she got here, well it just feels like ...

i am ready.

i am.

not playing confidently

2007-09-11T18:14:00.000+10:00

lovers

lover

love

whe she bin? i bin around. i bin workin' man. w-o-r-k-i-n-g. working until 2am or 3am only to shuffle off home in a blue-rent cab, praying the pakistani tailor/chinese linguist/eqyptian doctor behind the wheel doesn't want to make small talk. but of course ... he always do. and somehow i participate through bleary eyes and on-coming head-ache - and all i can think about is how in 15 minutes i shall be starting a too too short 4 hour sleep before this same day, this very to-day, begins 'proper'. begins again.

wow. i lived this life before. i lived it london. the life where i said bye-bye birdie to my flatmates on sunday night knowing that during the week i would return home sometime after they'd gone to bed, arriving home for a solo cup of pinking tea and that perfect-just-me-fag and then in the mornings i'd be out the door before they'd hit their snooze buttons.

so yeah yeah. i know what an office is like. i know what it sounds like. i know what it feels like. i know it at 3am and 3pm and i know intimately the minutes in between. i don't haaaaate offices ... but i am kind of keeeeening knowing that my very (very) good years are being spent in one tiny egg-shell office in one swish smish building in one downtown city in one beaut country in one southern hemisphere and i am just not trailing breadcrumbs all over this scraggly planet anymore, and instead, all my breadcrumbs are forming a little heap at my feet which speak forensic volumes - that ricebag bin standing in one place, for, like, a little-long time.

so ricebag doesn't really care about the hours. its more the actual work thats the scary part ... the random terrifying terrifyingness of not knowing anything in her workity workity and starting from square one (AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN) and falling into a group of professionals filled with brilliance and trying not to wonder if they wonder just how i got here ...

so that's where i bin haden.

and i bin playing too. sydney playing. not playing overly. not playing confidently. not striding about and around, but i am trying to stir it up and its really just bit hard for a baby who sundays is just trying to remember who she is again ...

ricebag has bin up and down and down and down and up and down and down. its all a bit of a slippery sliding slope, this sydney thing, and she is so glad that her birthday is coming so soon because 2 beautiful hearts are coming to play in sydney from png-lala and its just going to be absolutely smiling baby for 2 weeks because there will be laughter and there will be dancing and there will be stories and there just will. yeah yeah.

when girls who all belong to the same order-of-the-cross-your-heart-and-hope-to-die they dont need shrugs to explain or hugs to maintain, because all the promise that says i back you up bitch is hard-wired and there isnt anything like a person who says we believe in the same things and better than that, we agree on how to get there and that journey unites us. ... man, that is some deep and crazy shit - that is how movements are made and courage is born and passion is ignited and most of all - that is how things CHANGE, how people change. and these girls are powerful powerful women who change the world they occupy and the space they vibrate in and more than that, they change the conscience and the gutting bellies of other people and the entire terrene those people inhabit.

so as i sit and wonder how how how ... i wait for october when some girls, just some everyday gals get here and help me to remember how to be me again. and they do that by making me forget about me altogether. through them i remember that i really dont matter. none of me does. its what i do that matters. who i touch. the change i effect. the love i give away and the pain i can't. the shit i shuffle and the grovel i hide. the meanness in me that cant be restrained and the desire which goes unnamed. all of it. the effect of it. the butterfly effect innit. aren't we all just butterflies. flapping our fear and our favour forward. flapping hard and hard and harder sometimes in motion with millions and sometimes flapping less hard at 3.12am in a bluecab on george street. on the way home. alone.

always, always, beating our wings against our breasts.

until a baby starts playing different ... until then ... i go on trying not to look like my head is just above water, trying not to panic that my feet can't touch the bottom.

world's shortest fairytale

2007-08-30T17:30:00.000+10:00

ladyfox sent this little fwd to me - and don't be telling me it's not funny because somewhere inside you know it feels true.

World Shortest Fairytale

Once upon a time, a guy asked a girl, "Will you marry me?" The girl said "No" and she lived happily ever after and went shopping, drank Martinis with friends, always had a clean house, never had to cook, had a closet full of shoes and handbags, stayed skinny, and was never farted on.

The End

As a single baby it brings some assurance that the good days go on ...

sydney sundays

2007-08-22T14:56:00.000+10:00

wow. the last 2 sundays have been absolutely beaut. what can i say. i just want you to know how sweet sydney can be, if you let her in.

sunday before last

it was the city to surf run in sydney. 64000 people ran 14 kilometers (and then spent the rest of the week talking about it) and took part in the world's largest fun-run on one of the most beautiful days of the year. the sun was out. out and loud and everyone was smiling and everyone was at the pub or at a 4 hour lunch afterwards - it was just one of those days.

i ended up at woo's flat in bondi, sitting under the awning in the back yard with bbq'd sup and remains and a footy being kicked around and people just sitting and talking or lying and talking and just hanging really. there isn't any magic to having a really really good time. when its easy, maybe it's just chemistry.

i don't know what it is. but it felt like coming home. and that's got to be a good thing.

sunday last

then the rain came. down. hard. and lots of it. that was a day to 'get sorted'. fee-bones told me she pulled every single thing out of her closet and packed it all up again. and i did that too. sort of. smelly cat helped me pick up a new double-futon for my future guests and then i hauled ass and cleaned up my huge and beautiful abode and got sorted with starting to live in sydney rather than just waiting to leave sydney.

beautiful wet raining sunday. the perfect day to "not" do anything. put the gas heater on and read a very very badly written book. had some hot chocolate, did the laundry (2 loads) and that was about it.

blisss

absenteeism

2007-08-22T14:51:00.000+10:00

ello ello.

where she been? i been right here people.

sorry for not writing for ages. and sorry for taking the last couple of posts off - i started reading what i was writing and it just sounded so negative and i really don't want to be negative. i really don't.

i keep telling other people, we all have stuff to feel crap about and only we, ourselves, have the power to control how we react to and deal with those situations. and here i sit, not dealing so great.

so that's my plan. to deal better. with schtuff. and with how i let it out there.

thassal.

over n out.

spend all you can

2007-08-22T14:45:00.000+10:00

I just read this scrawled on PNGScape today:

"Learn all you can, earn all you can, and spend all you can."

I like it. Likey like. I think it means don't be a miser - with life or with money. Give away what you don't need.

Anyway, that's just how I read it.

a wedding

2007-07-31T15:07:00.000+10:00

i went to a wedding. to a wedding. to a wedding. in melbourne.

for 2 love-birds.

2 birds in love. and in friendship. and in respect. and in trust. and in honour. and in for ever really.

i love you both. thankyou for having me and for your families letting me share your weekend. i was honoured.

cg and y - you both deserve every happiness and i cant imagine you wont have a future together full of blessings.

truly truly truly i think you were meant to be and thank gods you found each other.

Sometimes you have not even begun to speak - and I am at the end of what you are saying. (Kahlil Gibran from Mary Haskell’s Journal. July 28, 1917.)

just so you know

2007-07-25T16:46:00.000+10:00

i miss home.

i miss.

home.

i miss it a little bad.

just liklik bad. but still. i miss it.

how can i tell you all the things i miss. its like missing something you didnt know you ever actually had until you miss it.

i havent been homesick since i was at boarding school. and its not so bad as back then but its still there. the missing, i mean.

in a fish shop

2007-07-24T14:31:00.000+10:00

last night i slept like a lamb. i slept like a baby. like a ... you geddit. i slept so good the muscling cells in my body know it and are pleading for more. i slept in MyMama's brand new-new bed and i slept goooooood. the first good sleep in a loong time. (it is seriously making me consider trading in the futon for a double-rated posturpedic - thought i'd have to be 40+ before i came to that crossroad!!)

and because i am resting (finally), i feel like i can communicate with you again from the madness that has been my first month out of png and in australia.

________________________

hello lovers

hey

where she been you asking me?

i been busy. busy!!

landing in sydney wasn't like landing on my feet at all but more like heli-jumping. so yeah. about 50% been about getting MyMama better and finding her somewhere to live and helping her furnish her new place + 50% getting ricebag better and finding her somewhere to live and helping her furnish her new place + 50% getting reacquainted with Sydney and friends-in-Sydney and ricebag-in-Sydney + about 75% has been about work. work. work. and winter. dealing with work and winter.

so this has meant a LOT of travelling in between the place where MyMama lives and the place where ricebag is sleeping (ie where ricebag is still living out of her suitcase and where ricebag has food going bad in the fridge coz she is never home at that place to eat it).

so where has ricebag landed you ask? In the inner-shitty baby. i am living in redfern on the city-side of the train-tracks in a massive renovated terrace with 3 actors - all of them ridiculously good-looking, incredibly articulate, stead-fast for the cause ... and very much in the process of "starting out" (read: poor).

ahhhhh ... the joys of house-sharing. cannot believe I am back to co-habitating with a bunch of randoms after a year blissfully (!!) living alone. it feels so ... university.

last w/end saw ricebag in the blue mountains, enjoying lots of champers and lindt by a crackling fire with her erstwhile boarding school friends on a gals weekend making christmas in july. so much fun!! i didn't know we still had it in us - the Right To Be Silly - and i am so grateful that we do.

this w/end ricebag is flying down to melbourne for a wedding - not just any wedding but one for the pinkest ukulele!! it is going to be absolutely brilliant and ... freeeeeeeeeeezing in melbourne and i am looking so so forward.

in between all the flying around and dining around ricebag is working working working. starting work in a new place makes all the funny feeling rise up but its good here and all i really want to do is put my head down and bum up and just get on with working hard and learning loads.

how boring & serious did that sound??!!

not to worry. am also squeezing in a date with figaro at the opera this week and a scheduled run-in a surrey hills fish shop.

love you lovers

ricebag

new shoes

2007-07-24T10:34:00.000+10:00

it's official. i hate shoes. not any shoes - New Shoes. hate them. i love them. but i hate them more.

my wide flat highlander walking feet have been flipping and flopping around in flippable floppable sandals and thongs and trippy dippy summer heels for so long they forgot what it meant to be forced into hard, leathery, hard leather.

coming to sydney has meant New Shoes. almost all my shoes are new. and almost all my new shoes are for work. normally this would be cause for great excitement for ricebag but instead her days have been filled with trepidation as she has been spending the last 3 weeks at work in winter in sydney in ... New Shoes. breaking in New Shoes has been the absolute bane of my existence and my feet hate it more.

not just New Shoes but Heels and Stockings and running around everywhere in all 3. (ok ok i admit, i dont mind the stockings and how legs just feel sexier in stockings but that is the ONLY consolation - that and the fact New Shoes with Heels and Stockings make a lady look like a lady - but again again its the pain over pleasure principle ...)

hurtling

2007-07-05T10:31:00.000+10:00

hello people

i am a hurtler. baby is a hurtler.

and i have been hurtling through and time and space and all the shifts in between. nobody does it to baby. only i do it to me. making me hurtle.

so i hurtled my way out of pom and png through a packing and partying frenzy and now landed in sydney where i have been hurtling all around, mostly taking care of mymama who lives on the other side of the civilized universe and is recovering from pneumonia (doesnt help that she is a cranky invalid) and hurtling into house-hunting for both her and me (absolutely crazy) and hurtling into this job in the new place.

hurtling.

been hurtling through my entire adult life. and. am. learning its not so fun after all, not so necessary, not so rewarding. not all the time, not always, maybe not even most of the time. i know why it was - all part of ricebags need to be and do A Million Plus Amazing so that her life meant something in the way noone else believes but only she does because her silly Center says her body dont have worth unless its some kind of Super.

but i am starting to see that some (maybe most) of that hurtling is just Exotic Filler (not an oxymoron) - something to fill up all the wide open spaces in between the love, which is why i always say i need that gap-time so badly but paradoxically the truth is i never allow it to myself.

so i am slowing down now. concentrating on the things that matter. one. at. a. time.

and sydney lovers - i havent been ignoring you. i been focusing on mymama. and i can make a promise that my time is your time once the dust has settled.

of lasts and sleeplessness

2007-06-22T13:39:00.000+10:00

today is my last day. at work. in pom.

we're about to have a little office party and some large drinks to say goodbye to ricebag.

am absolutely 100% flat out. on my life.

hence the brevity.

have been counting down this week of lasts and sleeplessness. interspersed with some serious de ja vous.

bye lovers.

bye bye.

on sunday ricebag gets on a jetplane. out of png.

let me put something in your head

2007-06-19T16:15:00.000+10:00

Hum the following words to Auld Lang Syne:

one year

I have been driving for one year. Today.

sweating it out

2007-06-18T08:41:00.000+10:00

Ok. So there is This Guy. Pretty cute. Pretty straight. Pretty smart. Pretty sharp. Pretty self-assured. Pretty smart. Pretty smart. Pretty good-looking (hey - it's early days - all we know is the superficial stuff).

And I think This Guy thinks I am Pretty too.

But every single time I see him it seems like it is after 10pm and always feels like the most humid night ever in the history of the whole entire world and I end up sweating buckets and doing the old feeling-extremely-self-conscious-as-I-constantly-wipe-the-sweaty-rivulets-from-my-forehead. Ick. I mean, I know everyone else is sweating because it is really humid, but that does not make me feel any sexier. Or any less sweatier.

And so how does Ricebag compensate for this?

She drinks more. More alcoholic imbibing takes place. In a hurry. Maybe being sloshed will detract from being sweaty she thinks??

Um, no. Ok, so time for Plan B. So then Ricebag thinks maybe she should be encouraging This Guy to drink more and then maybe (hopefully) he will take advantage of her. Plan B kicked into motion and the result? No result. Except for Hangovers All Around.

Learning my lesson ... slowly. And lesson number 1? Never to go out in Port Moresby again on really humid evenings. Best to avoid sweaty evenings followed by tropical strength hang-overs with little to show except for protestations from This Guy that Ricebag's leaving for Sydney completely sucks.

This Guy should have jumped me.

And that's all I have to say about that.

Dear LastKissBeforeSydneyBoy - FYI this is not about me trying to make you SecondLastKissBeforeSydneyBoy. Although it would be a bonus.

the dry weave

2007-06-13T15:50:00.000+10:00

Having lunch with JayBird today harbourside and overlooking the reclaimed land this side of the bay and just knowing when I am closer to Melbourne than Madang that I am going to miss palm fronds, frangis and women who look me in the eye and say "I Know Who You Are because I Am PNG Too ... now put that flower in my hair please."

Everwhere I have ever lived and ever been and ever seen and ever fallen in love with and ever fallen apart in and ever picked up my stardust in, in every single one of those places I was aware that I was deeply different. In physicality. In all the physical features that make me Melanesian. A Highlander Islander.

And that was ok. It was fine. It was perfect. Just another of my "uniqueness" of what makes ricebag so different so special so chocolate. It was a badge I wore for a war I had never fought. The Right to be Universal. And I wore it with pride. I Can Be Me Anywhere. It's the dry weave, the flack and the flow, the midnight certainty when your bones tell you you are you and all the flesh doesn't matter when your soul is still yours.

But it does matter. It does matter. It matters. I wish it didn't and I never thought it did or it should. But it was when I came "home" that I began to understand, that it does.

It matters when the people around you don't look like you and you don't know what it feels like to experience the converse. The truth is - maybe everybody needs to understand that their phsyical body comes from somewhere, a physical place, where other people are from too. It's that belonging thing.

I wish that wasn't true. I do thrive and grow and love and need to live in all kinds of environments where there are all kinds of people who look different from me and look different from each other ... and often ricebag becomes more and better in all of them. But I never feel RECOGNISED ... I am never recognised, as another-of-all-the-others rather than an other-to-the-others ... not until I come to Papua New Guinea. Until I come home. home. home.

And it has taken a life-time of wandering to understand that I do need that Physical Recognition. I need someone to look at me and see their own skin, their own scars, their own face. And now I understand why.

A persons "identity" isn't purely something which develops in isolation of their heritage just because their geography says it should. Even never having lived in PNG for 25 years, something in my neurons starts firing when I hit the soil of this floss-bitten land and they send messages from my senses to my gut which proclaim the one thing in this whole world that I truly understand to be mine - my identity. My own self-identity is not just a product of the experiences I have craved and bled and embedded ... it almost doesn't even belong to just me, it's part of a greater whole, of a greater human understanding - it is flushed with the reasons and the songs that can only come from a physical land with a physical peopling.

As the product of the age of the Self, 'finding ME' has been the one constant in this enduring journey of a life for ricebag. I now understand that I am not a baby from the same place of where-ever-she-lays-her-head-can-be-her-home. I am a baby from this island. My physical body tells me that every day that I hug my knee or comb my hair or rub my neck or wash my hands or look in the mirror - my body tells me that. And now my heart knows it too.

These last 2 years in PNG have brought me that. Of being able to walk and drive and peak and plough and laugh and breathe and weep and wander in this place where when someone else looks at me ... I Look Like Them. And I love that. I love that I have a place in this world where I am me, and at the same time, I am also them.

his holiness

2007-06-12T16:52:00.000+10:00

The very first day I ever spent in India, I spent with the Dalai Lama. He truly is as awe-inspiring as they say - and all from incredible humility.

A colleague of mine attended a Perth business lunch last week at which the Dalai Lama was speaking and the lunch discussion topic was titled: "The Heart of Leadership and Corporate Well-being". All those who attended were fascinated to hear the Dalai Lama speak about imbedding the concepts of warm-heartedness, human values and religious harmony in everything we do. He also spoke about world environment issues and more broadly about ethics in another session later in the day that was titled: "Ethics of the New Millennium". The following is an extract that summarises part of the Dalai Lama's address:

"In essence, we are all the same. We are all human beings. We all have the capacity for compassion and happiness in life. Unfortunately, modernity has made life stressful due to the emphasis on the 'material'. No supermarket sells happiness; no machine can make it; and no 'happy' injection can be given. We have to find happiness from within us. To eliminate poverty, the poor must 'do more' and take action to help their own situation. The rich must invest their wealth in education, resources and equipment for the less fortunate. Together, the two extremes of the economic scale must give and receive compassion. From this, happiness and peace can be found".

Amen.

8 things

2007-06-07T10:09:00.000+10:00

heya peeps

my lovely pinky u and miss priscilla have both sent on that 'write 8 things' about yourself fwd that's doing the rounds.

in return I must reveal 8 things about myself :

Up until (and maybe a weeeeee bit after) I was "old enough to know better" I thought dogs were boys and girls were cats and when they had a baby girl it was a cat and when they had a boy … you geddit.
I just started to wear a dental plate.
I am little-bit-fast driver.
If I could only take one thing in the whole entire world to a deserted island it would be Babysister (sorry honey!! but that’s coz I can't live without you - not because if I be stranded you should be stranded too).
I used to read SUPER-FAST. But I missed things. Like the meanings that live in the spaces in between the words. So now I read slower and spend far too long staring into the drops which are the spaces in between the words.
Before I was 25 I had a great fear of failing the ultimate task of not being All I Am Meant To Be. Now I don't have that fear. At all.
I love being alone. I love. Hammocks and gin. Books and bed. Salt on my skin.
I am dreaming of motorbikes, butterflies and Crossing Africa next.

pretend you're in italy

2007-06-07T07:43:00.000+10:00

Also , looking ahead, do you have any tips on Italy?

Pretend you are not very worldly or intrepid,

that you are easily impressed by little things

and quickly bored by big things

and you’re in Italy.

Miranda July

lux

2007-06-07T06:39:00.000+10:00

my good friend, my all-time gal, my bum-chum and weekend hang .. lux o, got engaged. yes you did lux. that's what that diamond ring means and everything. and to celebrate we piled the various trucks full of lux's people and me last weekend and drove up to crystal rapids in sogeri. and there we did the things people do at crystal - bbq cray and burger and swim and paddle and make like shandy at the tip of the beginning of the kokoda track where the roads out of port moresby end and the rest of png begins.

what can i tell you about lux? lux loves me. i love you too lux!! you're my big sister and i am so happy that you are happy and i am so glad when you are glad. thankyou for taking me into your life and throwing the doors wide open. your friendship means so much and our shared history saw me literally survive my first year in port moresby. what can i say gal? i will always be there if you need me. i so am proud to be your friend.

on the freeway out of port moresby

on the road into moutnains out past sogeri hydro just another vista

a creek : sogeri national park

people live along the way

driving the slope into crystal rapids

beautiful canoe boy by the river

the smooth top of crystal rapids before the downhill flush

i really can not wait

2007-06-07T05:52:00.000+10:00

Some things have happened in the past 2 weeks that make me feel I can't get to Sydney fast enough (sorry!!) ... I've been let down, I've been pushed around. I am still me but knowing I am leaving soon has made me just about ready to hang my shoes.

I know I am going to miss this place like hell. I just am. It's in my blood now. But I am so ready to go ... for a little while anyway. I suspect the missing in my gut will be worth it.

So Sydney ...

I look forward to seeing you next week.

It will be terrific,

I will bow when I see you,

you will bow when you see me,

we will bump heads and knock each other unconscious

and when we come to we won’t remember anything,

we will mumble pardon me and shuffle off in to brand new lives.

I really can not wait.

Miranda July

wahu fili & wahine : a weekend in tufi

2007-05-28T19:01:00.000+10:00

Hey lovers

Don't hate me coz I went to Tufi last weekend.

Please don't hate me for playing with the 3 loveliest lasses, Lux, Son and Tope at Cape Nelson, in a corner of Oro Province on the lip of a majestic fjord, fringed by reef and rainforest ... for sipping marguerita mixers and Rob's red wine on our little hut's balcony overlooking the Tufi station wharf and falling into the entrance to the Interior due west straight to the Kokoda Track ... for striking out with Son in the canoe and following the mangrove estuary from the edge of the rippling reef ... for feeding the cuscus black tea and for not getting past page 3 of the latest Patricia Cornwell ... for fishing for Sea Bass and catching Pacific Blue Fin Tuna and Wahu ... for diving into the ocean off Cyclone Reef in the middle of the Solomon Sea without land insight ... for sleeping like a baby under the netted cosy of Room 4 with the the morning sun from the mountains peering through my thatched walls ... for staring at the flanking slopes of Mount Trafalgar overlooking sheer rock faces that plunge into the fjord ... for picking lobster from my teeth and eating coconut orange biscuits on a windswept inlet this side of absolutely remote ... for rubbing cocoa butter into my skin to relieve the sunburn from an afternoon spent passed out on the bow of the good ship Raka, making its way back to the coast after fishing the open sea ... for stepping out on my balcony every other second and being completely awed by the vista of mountains and rainforest rushing inland from the smattering reef ... for trading stories for futures at the long bar and swatting mozzies with tapa ... for reacquainting with Tracy Chapman and falling into slumber to the night-sounds of night-birds and night-frogs and nightly-geckos and all the worlds of night-butterflies they inhabit ... for sitting in the rumble of the Twin Otter and watching the ancient mountains and the hornet vallies and tropical jungles from a thousand miles in the air ... for doing all of this and knowing - only in PNG.

the edge of the world from the flank of the twin otter

steps to a hut don't even begin to tell me I am not wild a boy on the side of a village of 12 the dive instructor and the army man survey cape vogel lighthouse from the bow of raka the view from my balcony ... utterly mesmirising oro's edge fringed by reef a balcony with a view for margueritas and mornings coral coral and fish fish fish ... cyclone reef a thousand miles out to sea

catching sashimi for dinner

how can I describe asbsolute bliss

just a little beachwith a straw daybed and mama opeing her arms to the girls

a bed fit for an islandbaby spot the village

tufi on the side

moving closer to melbourne than madang

2007-05-24T16:40:00.000+10:00

hola lovers

methinks some of you might have been getting that ricebag is moving soon ... yes she is ... she is moving closer to melbourne than madang - in fact, to sydney, to be precise. in one month. for work. for work. for work. and for sydney.

those of you who have been following me these past 2 years in papua new guinea might have heard me miss sydney a little and come to understand that i think what i really missed was the me that was in sydney rather than the city itself ... and then when all my life down there finally got shipped back to png, to have that love affair go through another metamorph ... until on my last trip i realised, i had let her go, that while i found her beautiful, i had let sydney go.

as i said, there's nuthin like crisp sheets and brittle wind, like sun on your face and 5 dollars in your hand as you skip to the beat of the banana-bread clan. that's why i was a Sucker for Sydney, it was all the little, really simple, things that bit me. and I felt clean and good. sometimes. like fresh grass.

and i can't forget the beauty. the old-man pubs. the energy. the shade. the heels and champers on a sun-dial lawn with croquet at 12 and debauchery soon therafter. hallowed and hailed. loads of pretty girls and even some pretty boys too. sand in the sheets and night drives to the shore. i'd like to think i gave as good as i got. but i'm not sure that's entirely true.

in any event, we're on for round 2.

and with woo and bare-bum and MyMama and all my boarders and all my collegiates and all my 4am down-time gals and my semi-precious lovers ... with my ex-pnger's from miss bomana to pinky u ... sydney is going to be one very pretty year. i can just tell.

6 : 6am

2007-05-24T07:29:00.000+10:00

today i saw the 6am colour purple fade from the front balcony of my house - and now you can see it too

what oprah said

2007-05-23T12:51:00.000+10:00

hmmm ... what is it she said?

If a man wants you, nothing can keep him away.
If he doesn't want you, nothing can make him stay.

Thanks O. Me and my beautiful FeeMcc are finding this out - the hard way. FeeMcc is losing a love to America and he isn't taking her away. Ricebag is being told by LastKissBeforeSydneyBoy that when I am closer to Melbourne than Madang, it isn't going to work.

If he doesn't want you, nothing can make him stay.

ouch

what did you see today : 5 : split

2007-05-22T17:19:00.000+10:00

today i saw a round lady with a headband charging at me with her newspaper as i straddled the left corner of the packed morning elevator, she squeezed/dived through the shutting doors and then pinched me and said "your skirt has split and i can see your pink underpants"

pick up 52

2007-05-17T19:14:00.000+10:00

today was one of those CRASH BOOM BAH CRAP CRAP CRAP days at work where ricebag dun't do nuthin right and her boss knows it and lets her know that he knows it. and that its not good enough. (ouch)

the lesson being, just when you think you're lining up all your aces, someone teaches you how to play pick up 52 instead.

i mean, somewhere important inside, ricebag knows i need to do this steep-curve-learning thing but i gotta tell you - sometimes a not less important part of me is asking WHY do i put myself through this? is this what i am going to do? maybe i am just meant to make a beautiful home and produce a string of barefoot mini-me's swimming in the river, playing in the forest, sleeping in my blium ... babies eating kaukau blackened in the ash and upside-down pineapple cake cooked on a pile of sticks ... the children of my lover ... my own tribe who know what their language means and understand that they have identity and they are rooted in ples and no other geography can defeat that. maybe i am meant to skite off and live a life predicated on the few small truths i have saved after sifting through the debris of the mass of things that pass through a life - rather than living like my real life is going to start "when ...".

so - what is THIS ... this "work" that i do. i respect this profession, i honour its elite and i acknowledge my own accomplishments and my possibility ... but but but ... while i know that what i am doing now is supposed to leading me somewhere, i feel like all i can do is hope like hell that that place is a place that lives close to where i want to be as a person. or is that asking too muchie?? i fear i am leaving too much up to providence.

whatever happens, i just don't want to pass by myself, without wondering. that would truly be an awful waste.

"People travel to wonder at the heights of mountains

at the huge waves of the sea

of the long courses of rivers

at the vast compass of the ocean

at the circular motion of the stars

and they pass by themselves without wondering"

~Thomas Aquinas

what did you see today : 4 : no p

2007-05-17T19:09:00.001+10:00

today i saw a scruffy traffic cop in faded blue pantaloons peering over my half-unwound window as i sat in the battleaxe, looking down my zara peach v-neck and telling me "you have no P on your back"

what did you see today : 3 : moses

2007-05-15T13:23:00.000+10:00

today as i was driving down hohola-way i saw through the heat-haze a solitary man wavering on the sandy side of the bitumen shore and i felt suddenly terribly sad - today i saw my uncle moses, my mothers brother, a head of his family, the leader of a tribe and today i saw him wavering on the side of a road, like he was lost

what did you see today : 2 : gorgeous

2007-05-14T18:33:00.000+10:00

today i saw my curly haired dentist peering at me over his rimless spectacles and he called me gorgeous

happy mothers day

2007-05-13T19:21:00.000+10:00

to the person i admire above all others - thankyou. for bearing with.

it is truly an honour to know you and a privilege to be from you. i would have never changed a single thing.

little poem

2007-05-13T19:03:00.000+10:00

I Pick up a Hitchhiker

After a few miles he tells me
that my car has no engine.
I pull over and we both get out
and look under the hood.
He’s right.
We don’t say anymore about it

all the way to California.

Jay Leeming

what did you see today : 1 : shane

2007-05-13T18:54:00.000+10:00

today i saw shane's beautiful face leaning across the front seat of his dad's battered blue mondeo, smiling and calling up to me from the bottom of my garden

6 years ago, one sydney summer night (read: perfection) squatting in the sunken middle of the faded second-hand fold-out 3-seater, set out in my superb enmore flat with woo and the scots and irish traipsing through our 3rd bedroom, i watched a movie. a rented video. i watched a movie where a blonde girl from the henderson kids (beaut after-school aussie tv in the 80s) living in marrickville (in the movie) asked her own flatmate (in the movie) this question every day : WHAT DID YOU SEE TODAY

and the flatmate was required to give a one sentence answer. just one sentence. to describe one thing. one thing they saw. that day.

that day, the answer to her question was : "i saw a goth eating an icecream".

after seeing that scene, i started writing down one line sentences of "what i saw today" in a small cheap black notebook with The Cross imprinted on the inside plastic sleeve. that notebook is the most precious thing i have from my last year at university - not as useful as my degrees - but of all the tens of thousands of words i wrote, it was probably the most beautiful thing i created that last semester.

and it made me see. every day. one thing.

so i am starting again. to keep a record of "what i saw today".

bear with ...

when wishing hurts

2007-05-11T19:02:00.000+10:00

something is happening. something is happening.something is happening.

something small but important is happening.

last year i let go of one of the most important relationships of my life - after being shut out for 5 years. i let my cousin FJ go.

and the irony is that the person at the center of our problems is also the one bringing us back together. he is the one who is sick. and getting better. getting better well and well.

because of this family trauma, we spoke for the first time in over 5 years. on the phone. wow. and she sounds like ... like FJ. and i could hear that she was smiling while she was talking and we only talked about our loved one who is sick. but talking to her was strange. i felt like we had never stopped talking. if i'd had to have spoken to her a year ago i would probably have wept. but this week, i understood something in me has changed. i listened and then i heard and then got on with the business of getting on.

i still don't know how i feel. i love her. i love you FJ. dearly. i think that will always be true. theres something about blood and history together which means that even in the shadow of damage, the essence of the relationship is still there. but its hard now.

even though something is happening (and i am grateful for that), i am also coming to understand that i will always love you because thats the truth of us, but. but. but. we will never be the same again, you and i. you hurt me. you hurt me. you hurt me. your rejection of me is a wound that took me years just to acknowledge you inflicted, and now that my tears have stung it clean, i know that i just dont have the energy to reinvest in hoping that we can resurrect soemthing.

just the idea of hope. its exhausting.

you put a gun to my head and made me walk off the cliff. and i free-fell for 5 years. i fell. and it was only 3 months ago that i realized i never hit the bottom of the canyon, but in fact, i had learnt to fly.

so the irony is what you did made me stronger. cleaner. firmer. so then i could let you go.

i. let. you. go. fj.

it was the most difficult thing and it was the most essential thing. something i never ever wanted to do, i never thought i could know how to do. and now that i have i just cant go back. it would take too much. and i just want to put what positive energy that i have somewhere else for a while.

i'm not sure i care that what is broken between us can be fixed. what i am trying to say is that i have picked up my shattered bits and have been making my own mosaic out of them, so please dont ask me to unpick that now. maybe our stories will intertwine in a way that is honest and beautiful and necessary - maybe - one day. but i am happy for that to be organic and fortuitous and for that to be years from now ... if ever - as long as its not wished for. i dont wish for it. wishing hurts. and i'm pretty sure it isn't very useful. it helped me to disbelieve your lack of loyalty. it made me feel worth more to you than i now know you feel i am.

i know. i know that people make up after they break up. but its never the same again. because the trust has to be rebuilt. our shared past has been dishonoured. and while i am not cut up about it anymore, i just cannot forget that. that you did that. and that you have never properly explained why. i still dont truly know why. i need facts FJ.

in truth i dont want the current gaping hole between us to be the end of our story ... equally though i dont want a shared future where we can only be civil to each other. polite family. to me, that's a sham and an insult. i'd rather take nothing at all. give me the blood and guts but dont give me less. and dont imagine that just because time passes that one day i might be able to act like none of this ever happened. you changed me. i am more like you now. and i now know how to walk away too.

my perfect ring of scars

2007-05-09T18:02:00.000+10:00

someone else's postcard : http://postsecret.blogspot.com/

what you gave to me

my perfect ring of scars

you know i can see what you really are

you didn't hurt me nothing can hurt me

you didn't hurt me nothing can stop me now

ruiner lyrics by nine inch nails

7 years ago. somebody hurt me. he hurt me in the way only a lover hurts a lover. and i don't know if i hurt him back. i didn't think i did.

it took me a long time to forgive myself for letting him hurt me.

and now he wants me. back.

and i don't know if it feels like the beginning of the year 2000 was just so 2000 years ago (god, was it that long?? so many days and dreams have passed since then, i can't even imagine - and yet i am still the same core of me) ... and maybe that time that has passed means we're better people or just stronger people and he deserves a second chance and i do too. i just dont know. maybe it means nothing at all except to let the past lay whereever it does and to say That Was Then.

i dont know. i think maybe if i see him i will know. but should i see him?

i don't know.

some people you just can't rub out of your skin and you rub and you rub until all that is left is a perfect ring of scars. the pain has gone and just the memory remains. but even the memory of the pain is strangely beautiful. edifying.

but the scarring process just wasn't graceful and it wasn't elegant. the heartache was very real and it was pretty messy.

i. just. don't. know.

but having said that, somewhere on the surface of things there is a cord that runs through my body and tells me some of the few seminal things that i know to be true. and one of those things that my body tells me is true is that i can't go back to this man.

but when did that ever stop anyone.

i don't know

what i do know is that when sydney comes, that question will have to be answered.

Thankyou Lord.

2007-05-04T07:13:00.000+10:00

i just wanted to say a big big thankyou to the Big Man upstairs. Thankyou Lord.

someone very very very important to ricebag and ricebag's family underwent a huge operation in brisbane on wednesday where they opened his chest and fixed his heart and now he is already sitting up and talking and just like himself.

this week ricebag has been stressed (at work) and scared (at home) and silent (not sharing) and sleepless with worry (WORRY!!) and now she can get back to being sharp and less scared.

Lord, if anything happened to you-know-who, i cant even think what we would have done.

to you, the invalid, just know you are one of the most important people in my life and possibly very responsible for the way i am turning out so you have a big duty to stay here with us and make sure i live up to your expectations. and other than my own selfish needs, your job isnt done. all the worlds you came to conquer need you still.

Thankyou Lord. thankyou because no hearts are getting broken this week. only stronger.

not quite alone

2007-05-03T10:59:00.000+10:00

you know how i live alone? well i am not so sure that is true to say. i have a silent, invisible "friend". at least i hope they are a friend. in any event they sometimes leave little reminders that they are there. little things all the time but more activity of late - like so:

when ricebag literally throws her towels haphazardly on the washing line, she never pegs them. when ricebag came home to take towels off the line, they were all pegged and hung squarly.
ricebag hung several floor mats out to air on the balcony. in the morning every other mat out of 6 was on the ground - if the wind blew them off then it should have blown all of them off, not every. other. one. (not that it was windy - it wasn't).
the bedrooms of the house are separated from the living areas of the house by a corridor. this corridor is locked religiously by ricebag who takes the key out of the door when she leaves the house. ricebag came home to find the key in the door and the door open.
at least once a day the light in that corridor will turn itself on.

i suppose all these things and the rest could be "explained away". but i prefer to go with what my gut tells me.

national elections 2007 : one vote, one chance

2007-05-01T10:30:00.000+10:00

Every 5 years the people of Papua New Guinea get ONE CHANCE to vote right and they seem to have fu*ked it up. A lot.

Sadly, it's not the voters that are necessarily to blame. It's the "leaders" that need a massive boot as far as I can see.

To be fair, I was living in Enga during the 2002 elections and what I saw was the development of complex relationships and expectations based on tribal histories but in a very modern economic (the economics of "I" i.e. who is going to get off best) terrain. The result was the development of a hybrid of promises and stories and alliances and double-dealing which, in any given framework, in any given country, would at the very least, muddy the waters of the most clear-minded individuals.

So the result is that people, as extensions of familial and tribal groups, vote in context rather than on perspective and what comes out are unrealistic expectations which appear to have very little to do with the job of political governance (the World Bank defines governance as the exercise of political authority and the use of institutional resources to manage society's problems and affairs), let alone good governance, let alone democratic governance. Vote in Big Man and the Press On Neck.

It's not that there is no hope. There most definitely definitely is!! And I am so excited by that because the next generation of voters have just turned of age and in a country where more than 50% of the population are under the age of 22, you just have to believe that they are the key to a future in which leaders are chosen based on merit and policy and character rather than the opposites of those criterion. Added to that, I suspect there is a general shift happening in the wider population. Technology and communications have shifted tremednously in the last 5 years - we saw the introduction of mobile phones and public internet access - although not widespread, it's created a swell and hopefully the storm will follow. People are becoming armed, every day, with information and this changes their expectations now that they understand their rights - basically that government is here to manage rather than abuse THEIR resources.

I won't rant today. It's obviously a complicated and fascinating and incredibly frustrating subject which goes far beyond these general expressions of discontent. Before I blog off, I just wanted to present 2 other views and I cite this passage from our national daily, the Post Courier which was published almost a year ago on 17 July 2007 and reproduced in this blog by an expat volunteer in Lae, PNG - Outback To Jungle:

"PNG has avoided the man-made catastrophes prevalent in many developing countries. Yet the state seriously underperforms, with reforms usually too little and late. It’s not a poor country in terms of human and natural resources, but is in terms of household income, employment, social indicators and services. Many public servants are striving with great dedication though few resources. These are the ones who merit society’s recognition, including honours and awards, rather than those in plush offices, earning lucrative incomes or providing party favours! Regardless of the effort of many dedicated individuals, the reality is that PNG’s Public Sector as a whole is failing to deliver. While NCD has fine roads and offices, services and public infrastructure, especially in rural areas, have gone backwards over the years and in many areas are non-existent. Whole villages, which hitherto had access to health services and markets, are now isolated, without road, airstrip or shipping service. They’ve effectively been forgotten by the State, (except at election time). In some cases outside contact may continue through missions or NGOs, generally more attuned to community concerns than government.
– PAUL BARKER is the director of the Institute of National Affairs"
"WHAT is happening to this country? Men, women and children may be thinking that everything is okay, but I know it is not. Our political leaders are supposed to be managing the country’s affairs. They do not own the country, they are just supposed to be managing your money, your forests, your gold, your oil and your fisheries industries and not putting the money in their pockets. The country belongs to the people of Papua New Guinea who own PNG. Our current leaders are pathetic, and I am disgusted at some of these Members of Parliament. There are countless issues that have to be investigated and explanations made. The owners of Papua New Guinea are the five million people who deserve to know the truth and we demand to know the truth. People of PNG wake up to this, the Prime Minister does not own this country, You and I do. There has to be a revolution to totally eradicate the current political foundation of greed and corruption and build a righteous, honest leadership. Our political management has to change and the coming 2007 general elections is the perfect time to do this.

Richard POM"

only boring people get bored

2007-04-30T14:59:00.000+10:00

following the north coast road : madang : last saturday

hola peeps.

where i been? madang-tang-lang. lovely lovely. so so good to get out of moresby and into the place of my childhood memories. most new years eves of my childhood were spent here with family and various welcome-welcome blow-ins.

so i blew in for the weekend and was taken in by the lovely miss diver. such a goodie good host. what ensued were coastwatchers and plantations and catholic mass by a dripping statute of the virgin mary. 3 days of bilbil chicken, american beans and the most amazing chocolate cake ever(!!), pot-luck pizza, home-made yoghurt a la casa divine word, barramundi by an estuary and drinking kulau on the lip of a black sand coast. best of all was the relax. relax.

softest black sand beach : malolo plantation : yesterday

as soon as i got down from the balus my nagging doubts ran away and i sunk back into myself. with miss diver behind the wheel we managed to travel from one feeding/snorkelling/swimming place to the next. and in between i met the people that fill the life of miss diver in madang ... old people never left; new people never going to leave; some people leaving soon; some people kicking in for another holler. you get all kinds in the tropics. and by providence or fate people kind of make their families where they lay.

and we talked long and long. mostly about mutual friends and experiences. mostly about us. you know - girl talk.

so all the people who know both miss diver and i - your time is running. you best pack your bags and come quick!!

sundowner : jais aben : last saturday

other heroes

2007-04-25T16:51:00.000+10:00

It's ANZAC Day again. Always is always a strange day for me. I feel moved. Every year. And it is strange to me because I have never professed to care to anyone else as much as I really feel in private.

It's all that LOSS.

I made it out to Bomana War Cemetary for the dawn service and I am so glad I did. Where have all the flowers gone.

And this year I Remember. I remember those who fought with the ANZACs and remain unacknowledged by many. Specifically the Australian Aboriginal veterans and from my corner of the world, the 55,000 fuzzy wuzzy angels and the 4000 Papuans and New Guinean soliders who fought in all but one of the allied campaigns in this, my country.

Lest we forget.

schwing batta batta

2007-04-18T10:17:00.000+10:00

hey lovers

some of you think i am dropping off the email cliff but i am not. been busy. as in BUSY!! mostly workity work work but also family famfam stuff.

i am trying not to get freaked out by the work stuff on my plate because what is the scariest thing is that my mind seems to be in Slow Motion ever since india. but i can feel the starter motor kicking over and so just know i will back to the grind any minute now.

so how was india? india was FullOn. she was fierce and unabiding and she was Take Me or Leave Me. india was a kind of serious and exhausting experience and completely inspiring. I met some lovely lovely and some funny funny and some smarti smart and some sad and some different and some ignorant and some fearless and some doers and some sayers and some lovers and some fighters kind of people over there.

and I even kissed a boy - shhhhhhhhhhhh. don't tell anyone. only he is an industry which i would find hard to live with because success for him means there must be War In The World. also has way too much money and just too much everything really. funny. but likes Nice Things. and Nice Girls. who are a bit dirrrty too. you know the type.

returned to png and news of a tsunami that struck the solomon islands hard and also touched our shores in bouganville and milne bay and this gave me HUGE impetus to get off my toosh and begin the Campaign Of Giving Away Half of Everything Ricebag Owns to the tsunami relief effort. which i did. wow. my house is a LOT emptier and so is my wardrobe. it took me 3 days to sort and sort so i sorted and then i gave it away now.

i feel good because i made a serious attempt to remove EXCESS - of just Too Much Having-Of-Things For One Baby. i feel good because shedding and sloughing all that Unnescessary was therapeutic. i feel good because i let go of sentimental schtuff which would be more use to someone else than to continue its life as a memento for me. i feel good because some things which had a life with me will continue their story in someone elses home. i feel good because being weighed down by less Belongings, means i am freer, i am easier, i am calmer.

and i felt so good that on the weekend i conned my cousins into coming over and scrubbing my house from top to bottom. and scrub we did. and then we bbq'd and drove around and around and around and hung with mamas and pappas and did the things that cousins do in this town - talk. and play k5 basketball mini-comps on the sandy courts of the ela beach flats. and then talk some more. and then played pool on the faded lean-to billyards table under the fluro lights stationed beneath my aunty dee's house. and then we ate. and talked. after we had cooked and talked.

so i had a cruisy w/end. especially when jaybird came to play with me on sunday. we shared church and then raisin buns on the verandah. miss 21soon came over and the afternoon was spent not doing very much at all except shandies.

so thats my run-down fellas.

loving and leaving.

as ever - ricebag

stardust memory

2007-04-13T08:42:00.000+10:00

I love you sons of bitches. You’re all I read any more. You're the only ones who’ll talk all about the really terrific changes going on, the only ones crazy enough to know that life is a space voyage, and not a short one, either, but one that’ll last for billions of years. You’re the only ones with guts enough to really care about the future, who really notice what machines do to us, what wars do to us, what cities do to us, what big, simple ideas do to us, what tremendous misunderstanding, mistakes, accidents, catastrophes do to us. You're the only ones zany enough to agonize over time and distance without limit, over mysteries that will never die, over the fact that we are right now determining whether the space voyage for the next billion years or so is going to be Heaven or Hell.

Eliot Rosewater to a group of science fiction writers(!!) in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "God Bless You, Mr Rosewater" (1965)

Kurt Vonnegut is dead. His dark comic talent and urgent moral vision caught our imaginations, made our conscience listen. As someone who has had the privilege to read Vonnegut, I tip my hat to the voice of America's counter-culture, a literary idol, and say adieu and of course, thankyou. Thankyou for your writing and your words and thankyou for the dog-eared copies of your novels tucked in the back pockets of my faded jeans at university.

RIP mr. vonnegut, you will be greatly missed.

Be careful what you pretend to be because you are what you pretend to be. "Mother Night" (1961)

a poem by Kurt Vonnegut

"Requiem"

When the last living thing

has died on account of us,

how poetical it would be

if Earth could say,

in a voice floating up

perhaps

from the floor

vof the Grand Canyon,

“It is done.”

People did not like it here.

stop look listen

2007-04-12T10:58:00.000+10:00

I wish I could say that the above isn't true right now for ricebag but I really can't. Coming back from India I have felt raw and sensitive and ... just crap really. Bit tired of ME. Of being me. Not in a my-life-is-crap kind of way because my life is definitely not crap. But in a kind of sick-of-the-sound-of-my-own-voice kind of way. Bit over myself. Over me. Wouldn't mind entering some cone of silence for like a month and just not do or say a thing. What I am learning again (because the first 15 times obviously isn't enough for this turtle) is that everyone needs quiet time. To quiet their heads and their mouths and their ears and just be still. And it's my time for that quiet time again - but because I am now on the worker bee treadmill, I am going to have to figure out another way to do that because repeating the historical ricebag litany of literally dropping life and running solo to the blanketed hills of some no-name 'other' country, just isn't going to cut it this time.

On Saturday as I was driving home from my cousin's wedding the loveliest Jaybird rang me and we discussed a separate and quiet melancholy both of us seem are experiencing right now and I said something which I know to be true - we, all of us, need these pensive, somber and dispirited funks - they are the stones at the other end of the fulcrum and their weight helps to balance us so that we can understand and appreciate joy, hope and cheer. But much more than that, feeling low (NOT depressed or despondent but just out-of-your-own-skin) acts like a lever for triggering remorse - for a particular thing or no particular thing at all. And that can mean, at the very least, an examination of your own conscience. It's that old Newtonian thing - every action has an equal and opposite reaction.

So I accept my funk. I don't relish it because examining my weaknesses is an uncomfortable exercise - but I am grateful for it. It's my own body's way of telling me to stop, look and listen. And learn. So I am. And I am shutting up. And I am closing up shop. For a while. In a way.

bye woo : in india

2007-03-21T04:26:00.000+10:00

Heya lovers.

The past few days have been an absolute whirlwind and I will summarise soon.

Just letting you know I had the most fortunate opportunity to cross paths with my Woo here in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India these past 2 days. Woo and her Kzee boy and we could have been in Paddington for what the world means. Slightly bizarre even though I hadn't seen her in (exactly!!) one year - and here we meet in India.

Love you baby and Berlin is going to love you too.

about a boy

2007-03-21T04:21:00.000+10:00

Babysister is going to meet A Boy. I know this much is true. I just know it. And the country of her birth comes close to mind.

Love you baby. Here's to falling hard and fast and worrying about the fall-out later. Later. Later. Later. Here's to taking a risk and accepting all the guts with the glory. I got your back baby so run with it and I will follow from the sidelines - just in case.

back to basics : ricebag in india

2007-03-17T20:45:00.000+10:00

wow.

hello lovers.

been busy busy since my rant against racism ... which i wrote at changi airport on my way out of singapore, leaving bear and brad and sun and shops and even zara - all for an indian odyssey

and now i write to you from delhi. from a conference. with 185 young leaders from 33 of the 50 something commonwealth countires. wow. you never saw so much potential and passion and smarts and desire and ambition in one room. and then there is me.

so made fast friends with my pacific crew and the carribean mobs and alla that and having beers on a sunken rooftop in little kabul with a blasted swimming pool and kingfisher beers ... cool delhi nights and warm delhi days ... its been a time of contrasts and the real part of the trip hasn't even begun yet - tomorrow we all leave each other for other indian rural and urban an distant places and am looking so very forward

for me, it was a bit of a funny feeling. returning. i got back and paharganj found me and how did i feel? i think i was wrong when i said "i am indian" - and please understand this is a tough admission for me to make.

i am not indian. i am ricebag. i am ricebag. i am ricebag. i am ME. i am not the romanticised perfect past of me. i am ME. over here. over there. over everywhere.

so i think i must be maturing. coz i just don't know how i got to be not indian anymore. and to be me instead. when in india. just like when without.

so i am sad. because the indian in me died in its sleep. but i am glad because out of the shadows is coming the person i am when noone else is looking.

love from delhi

bare-bum

2007-03-17T20:42:00.000+10:00

hey lady

happy bloody birthday bare-bum - turning 30!! thankyou Lord.

biggest kisses.

you know i love you over there in cyclone-land

as ever

ricebag

why the money in png stinks : please don't shit on my country or talk shit about it while you are feeding off it

2007-03-14T19:10:00.000+10:00

last saturday night pinky u went to dinner with a whole bunch of people ricebag knows. something happened. a conversation ensued which is still slightly surreal to me, although its not unexpected given some of the racist attitudes of some people, who are not papua new guinea citizens, that ricebag knows. definitely NOT all - just a few. mostly the ones who have been here the longest and somehow think it is ok to talk like this - how could ANYONE ever think it was appropriate to say that the money in papua new guinea literally stinks and that is because the papua new guinean citizens on their payday put the money up their bums/assholes/anus/backsides. HELLO?? how direspectful is that? how crude. how ignorant. how rude.

racism is not ok in varying degrees. ie saying 'oh - thats not really racist' or it's not 'extremely racist' doesn't cut it. a "small" racist slur or a "simple" racist joke or a truly horrifying racist crime - it's all symptoms of the same disease - IGNORANCE at best and ultimately, hatred. and i, for one, can no longer tolerate it.

papua new guinean citizens in this country WORK HARD and with DIGNITY and with HONOUR. papua new guinean citizens in this country are DISADVANTAGED every single day because of those (both citizens and non-citizens) who take advantage and screw both the people and their environment and resources over through corruption and because of greed. papua new guinean citizens in this country are expected to SURVIVE despite the completely UNREALISTIC COST OF LIVING imposed on us by a cash economy and import regime and shitty trade deals ... all things imposed outside the average papua new guinean citizens' control. despite all of this, papua new guinean citizens are NOT beggars in their own country. we are one of the few nations on the planet in which the people still 'own' the tribal lands from which they came and therefore, always have the option of returning home and living off the land. in fact, in this country, 85% of people subsist in the rural economy.

and just in case you didn't realize, papua new guinean citizens, on their payday, do not put money up their bums.

what papua new guinean citizens don't need is for people who are not papua new guinean citizens to come here and INSULT and DENIGRATE and RIDICULE us whilst they are happy to make their own profit in this land.

i am not railing just against the conversation - i am also really trying to get papua new guinean citizens to understand - MORE NOW THAN EVER BEFORE that we, papua new guinean citizens, need to say that that kind of talking, those kind of views are COMPLETELY UNACCEPTABLE!!!

it is NEVER worth keeping the peace if you LOSE your respect for your self and your heritage. if we dont RESPECT ourselves NOONE else EVER will. and sitting there and letting this slide is akin to saying its ok. and it is NEVER OK. ALWAYS ALWAYS STICK UP FOR YOURSELF - especially when noone else can or will or knows how or is afraid to.

i propose a system of ZERO TOLERANCE.

as a papua new guinea citizen with expatriate education i come across these people daily. up until recently i thought you had to compromise your ethics to survive in this place and definitely to thrive. but that is not true.

i, myself have been the subject of racism - all over the world. it always comes as more of a shock in my own country ... it seems some people who are not papua new guinean citizens think i am black on the outside and white on the inside and therefore must be 'open' to the uneducated and racist conversations that describe other papua new guinean citizens as being like and living like and acting like and thinking like ANIMALS.

other than being incredibly coarse and racist, its incredibly HYPOCRITICAL. many of these people get completely DEFENSIVE if i make a negative comment about their country of origin (not a racist comment but political/social/hostorical commentary) and yet they never think twice of IMPUGNING my people, our cities, our culture, our hopes, our land. and all at the time that they are happy to make money out of it. don't forget - thats papua new guinean money which stinks because papua new guinean citizens stick it up their bums on payday.

so why did i associate with them here? even though i suspected ramblings of racism masked as humour, i ignored it. png is a small country and port moresby a small city, you 'make do' with what is available. and that means the people too.

well, that's all over. my zero tolerance regime kicked in a little while back and whilst my social circle is smaller. i feel a LOT healthier. and un-fucking-compromised.

it pains me because the people who said those things are NOT EVIL - they are ignorant - and it's hard because the ricebag knows some of those people probably have other good, even great, qualities - however, thinking the way they do and then saying it out loud and thinking its ok to be vocalise racist thoughts as fact is not ok - and in the 'game of life', for ricebag, it completely OVERRULES all other personal positive qualities people might possess. there should NEVER be a time when sitting in a public restaurant in papua new guinea at a table with papua new guinea citizens makes it ok to suggest that other papua new guinea citizens are so DESPERATE and FOUL and FILTHY that they put papua new guinea currency into their butt-cracks/assholes/anuses etc etc and that THAT is why the money here stinks.

Jesus.

help me.

now - on pinku u's blog, some people said papua new guinean citizens are ALSO racist. and that is 100% for sure! no doubt about it. racism is a crappy and a universal human condition. but this rant and that conversation on saturday night is not about the racist attitudes of papua new guinean citizens. its about people who are not papua new guinean citizens and who come to this country; bitch about it the entire time they are here; and act like they are doing us a favour while they are "surviving" the incredible shitty experience of living here. guess what? we do NOT need your commerce or your sacrifice. so please fuck off. we have enough of our own shitty, racist, greedy papua new guinean citizens in this country and we certainly do NOT need to import any more people like that. so go back wherever it is you came from. and NEVER say you 'survived' papua new guinea. WE ARE SURVIVING YOU!!

and if you think our money stinks. you MUST love the smell and the taste and the feel of stinking money coz you are still here. making more. so you can go home and buy stuff with it while you tell people who are the citizens of your own country about how crap it was in papua new guinea, but even though the money stank from being put up papua new guinean citizens arses, you still wanted it so much you shovelled and shoved into your ravenous wallets. you know what stinks. you stink. you REEK. you make me sick. you act WITHOUT HONOUR and WITHOUT RESPONSIBILITY. YOU ARE GUESTS IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA and NEVER BLOODY FORGET THAT.

without you, we will be fine. without papua new guinea - who are you?

THINK BEFORE YOU SPEAK.

the last weekend

2007-03-14T18:58:00.000+10:00

lovers

been a whirlwind since i blogged last. friday night was spentat client drinks - helps that th client is the only brewery in png. followed by fajitas and champagne at my house with pinky u and jaybird and beau. wow. candles on the balcony, breeze and mixers. finally we lollopped out at 2.30am to the intrepid tribal den where much fun was had in the pool room. it was a random night made by random friends ... that saw ricebag imbibing from 5pm to 5am. nice.

saturday was spent running around and getting ma hair braided. pinky u and i sat on the balcony of a house of twins where girls of 2 and 3 and sometimes 4 stood around ricebag and plaited like the fire was coming. ... 5 hours later and ricebag has a medusa head. nice.

ricebag then went outie out out. out to a farewell party for the british high commissioner. and there she had very VERy much fun and someone she met even asked for her number. very nice.

then of course lamana called. oh dear. and she spent midnight to 4am screaming ... during very animated arguments. which she won. of course. all of them. nice.

she then took her old pal The Chef home and CRASHED. only to get up on sunday for a funeral. and then spend the day with Shell. and the evening on her balcony with Shell and pinky u and some very spicy fish. sitting quietly and staring at the most amazing night sky, morphing and changing colours with the winds and the threat of rain. you never saw such puce!! nice

needless to say my body was wracked ... prodigou amount of alcohol consumption and lack of sleep ... not so nice. what was nice though was packing on sunday for my overseas trip the next day. very nice.

the office

2007-03-09T14:04:00.000+10:00

Hola peeps.

So some of you been wondering what ricebag does all day. Other than staring out my window at the glittering harbour ...

Ok. Been back BACK in this country almost 2 years and in an actual real office for the last 12 months ... an office where I turn up and work and where I like turning up and I like working (yikes). Lots and lots of air-conditioning. Lots of shhhhhhhh, noise that is not actually noise, humming that lies just under the radar - not sure exactly what it is - leather-backed swivel seats rolling across marbled carpet; computer hard-drives whirring some electronic pah; the slick sleeves of flipping folders and files; ink-jet printers emitting paper emissaries signalling the work due now, due tomorrow, due yesterday .

Haven't been in a proper shh shh office as a permanent worker bee for like ... ever ... and am just now getting that the shh shh isn't just inside my head.

This week through my shh shh office ricebag:

tuesday: perved on the waterboys replacing the weekly glugglug machine right outside my door
thursday: was mesmirized by the intense black clouds converging from the sea and bringing in horizontal rain that came crashing against my window-wall. beautiful.
tuesday: drove straight to OurHero's house after work for a feed with the family and LAX and to be reminded without words how loved I am whilst being given the spanish inquisition on all current affairs in the life of ricebag
friday: was harassed by a pmv full of pmv-people who pounded on the top of my ancient nissan sunny battleaxe as the old bat stalled in the middle of morning traffic ... all a ricebag could do was holler
monday: speaking of which, the battleaxe has decided to stop co-operating and now the engine cuts out every time I am driving in 1st or 2nd gear - I cannot tell you how dangerous this is, except to say I really did have a near-death experience about 20 minutes ago on my way back to work from lunchie (don't worry, the car is going into shop on Monday) and am still be shakey
tuesday: cleaned my office from top corner to bottom corner in my high heels (the first time in 6 months - spring-cleaning I mean, not the in-heels bit)
yesterday: went down to the ground floor to visit my dentist of 18 years so he could drill another hole in my skull
thursday: had a press conference with the British High Commissioner for a wee thing for ricebag
thursday: thanked the French High Commissioner for the vintage champagne and gazpacho at his house the night before
wednesday: snuck out to buy a watermelon (FRESH!! yumyum) for friendly bbq
mon, tues, wed: ate oreo biscuits at my desk for morning tea until wednesday when they ran out
today: had lunch in the cafeteria across the road and yelled at the VERY VERY ruuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude Chinese lady who was SO RUUUUUUUUUUDE.
monday: the cramel strap on my caramel slides broke so hopped one-legged to the boy on the buai corner outside my building who stitches shoes for less than a dollar
yesterday: sent an email to all the ravos confirming xmas in july

And in between I managed to do some stuff that I actually get paid to do.

bird and frog refuse to lose

2007-03-07T12:37:00.000+10:00

Pinky U showed ricebag this site which is a webcounter to this webpage and it's free - so I signed up 2 days ago and it's been quite interesting, seeing who is peeking in and how they got here.

I thought I'd let you in on just a few of the more interesting Google searches which brought people from around the world to this blog in the last 48 hours alone:

Quebec, Canada searched "feels like something rolling up and down my oesophagus" and came here
California, USA searched "how to make a baby roller coaster" and came here
Pennsylvania, USA searched "island boys bums" and came here
Dakar, Singapore searched the words "advice for never giving up" and came here - hang in there Singapore!!
Washington, USA searched "what to do when limerance is gone" and they came here
Bronx, USA searched "wung it" and also "i wung it" and came here
Kent, UK searched "rules for the happy secreataries" and came here
Auckland, New Zealand searched "how do you make tapa cloth ink" and came here
Auckland, New Zealand searched "shazza zulu" and came here - hello?? I made that up!
Kent, UK searched "preteen heaven" and came here - hmmmmmm wonder what they were looking for
Xiamen, China searched "fuck babysister" and came here - know what they were looking for! that's just rude!
Missouri, USA searched "island dresses and mumus" and came here
California, USA searched "bird and frog refuse to lose" and came here

Hello? What are these some of these people searching for? I am slightly worried. People looking for happy babies and happy secretaries, for never giving up and keeping limerance, for island boys bums and birds and frogs that refuse to lose. Oi vei.

Everyone else who visited this blog in the last 48 hours already knew how to get here or linked to this site via Masalai and PNG Life.

missing mymama

2007-03-06T11:18:00.000+10:00

I miss MyMama. Missing!!

She rang me at 4am today (hello people - 4am!!) ... and we talked for ... ages.

MyMama has been gone long way south now for just over 2 months. And I miss her. And it doesn't matter that we've been consistently apart since she left me at the boarding house that very long long January day when I was only 10 - I miss her as much now as I did throughout my boardng school years, throughout my burgeoning years, my blossoming ones and the bitchy ones. Before, I missed her because she didn't get to witness some of the most meaningful events of my life ... now I miss her because I don't get to witness hers and really, because I need her. I need her to remind me who I am when I forget and to tell me my baby stories and to hold my cheeks in her hands and I need her support and her love her love her love.

What has changed is that I am much better now at coping without her - but I still miss her. Muchly. Like every day in some little way that reminds me that there are some things that only mums know how to make better.

missing pinky u

2007-03-05T12:52:00.000+10:00

alas alack miss pinky u is leaving our shores. well, i am leaving before her, but when i get back she will be shopping for thermal underwear somewhere closer to antarctica than here. and it just hit me.

we love pinky u. not likey like but love.

pinky u was born with the loving gene - generous of spirit and soul and just a big bloody heart really. best thing about pinky u is she always makes you feel at home - and this, trust me, is a very rare thing indeed. everyone pulled into her circle feels cared for. i think that is simply the most amazing personal quality to have.

so i think something she taught me that i really needed to learn was to make my home where-ever i am rather than the ricebag tendency to "survive" a situation until one ends and another begins. and i am. trying anyway.

and the thing she taught me that was the most important was to live live live. not to save living like money in the bank to be used at a later date or for another occasion. but spend it, live it, breathe it, share it, give it away and don't expect anything back. all the time. all the time. and i learnt that from her by observation.

pinky started the next quarter century of her life last week and that entry was celebrated in some style with pinky u making from-scratch vegie pizzas with perfect dough (yes!) with lovely vegies from goroka brought down by miss low and an unstoppable punch(!!) which was quite effective (am sure i had an anaesthetized tongue there at one stage) and best of all left us without overhang the next morn - purely magic.

and it will be sad not to have the best SH-bumming curry-cooking vodka-slushy-making galpal around but i am so so happy for her as this chapter closes and the next begins. pinky is getting married and to someone who is so lovely its not truly believable ... so of all the y chromosome carrying humans in the world she someohow found The One that fits and ricebag knows that its going to be a very special life that they make together.

so png was blessed to have had pinkness in its life. and me too.

me toooooooooooooooooooooooo.

pinky u and i have been through some changes together this past 9 months since we met. like learning driving. like learning to leave excess behind at SH. like learning goroka show. like learning cairns. like learning when youre in a small place you can sometimes be compromised by people around you but that geography makes it hard to escape so you deal and then move on - quietly if you can - and leave the rest behind. like learning that a sunday afternoon in the rain at the coolest (and remotest) pub in moresby can be quite nice indeed ... and of course, for popping our tattoo virginity together.

and so, as i take your leave pinky u, i say thankyou. for giving me more than i gave you but thinking that we're even stevens anyway.

what the

2007-03-02T08:18:00.000+10:00

Mr Howard - what the fuck is wrong with you??!!

eeeeeeeeeek

2007-03-01T16:24:00.000+10:00

EEEEEEEEEEK. It's the first day of the 3rd month of what I still feel is like the Brand New year. Only it's not still brand new and I am turning into an Old Lady.

EEEEEEEEEEK.

Around 2am last Sunday morning (or late late Saturday night, if you like), I was sitting on the pink balcony of lovely FijiBoy's apartment in his brother-ful highrise in town and having milo sans sucrose and laughing, laughing my guts up. Surrounded by people who belong to FijiBoy who know who they are even if they don't know where they're going. And all of them are young. And sweet. And just good people really.

And I was thinking why is ricebag this churning yearning mess inside? Why cannot she see the beauty of of a live experience whilst it's happening instead of sometime after it occurred. And how can she not know that her worth is NOT made up singularly of the negative sum calculation based on the gaps created from missed opportunities, lost loving and unfollowed promise.

Why cannot I remember that people and lovers are the sum of the whole score with all our fractions lumped together - those fractions, pitchers of hope and fear, markets of understanding and committments, novels of solitude and plenty, but mostly the fractions of action - actions we engaged in, initiated, effected ... the things we brought and stuff we shed and the way we made other people feel ... the words we wrote and the coffee we drank and the lies we told and the pleases we said and the smiles we made on the faces of others ... we are the memory someone else has of us and the prayer someone else prays for us and the tears someone else sheds for us and the desire someone else feels for us ... we are the doors slammed and the toast burnt and the watermark and the unravelling thread and the trailing perfume ... we are the daydream and the champagne and the loose change and the stolen kiss ... we are the working hands, the sweat, the pride, the rash, the dirt ... we are the breast, the bone, the nose, the hip ... all those things, all those moments, all the parts, all the divisions, all the touch, all the lack of touch, all the lonely and some of the rich ... and mostly we are the love that we didn't always deserve. That's the stuff that fills the gaps left by other-things-that-did-not-happen-instead. And (maybe) that's the stuff we're made of.

90% of ricebag is still feeling like the rest of her life is about to start (!!!!!!) ... I know I know ... Crazy Old Lady. That 90% says resign everything to Passion and Art and A Very Real Dream. But it's that little 10% left over that holds a lotta lotta sway and It says that the times, they are a changing. Ricebag's daydreams now consist partly of vague ideas of getting a dog and buying a house and upgrading the car ... wow!! How incredibly pedestrian I would have said just less than a year ago ... and I still feel that. Not as a judgement on others, more a sign of ricebag putting up the boots on my "true promise" in some small way.

My old Dreaming Self still wants me to do something Reckless that everyone else can say "I'm glad you can do that but it's not for me" as they go back to their goodgood income-tax-paying lives while ricebag jumps in the deepend without lifejacket ... that Dreaming Self wants to make her Big Dream come real ... the problem is, that bloody big dream is fucking changing itself and that's why ricebag is squealing ....... EEEEEEEEEEEK.

because one can

2007-03-01T14:06:00.000+10:00

I had dinner with someone relatively new to ricebag the other night - JayBird. She is pretty goddam stunning PNG lass-of-the-vega but better than all of that she has a real true burning fire and passion inside her for PNG, for the environment of PNG - and it's pretty contagious, her fever, and I hope all those people sitting out there cracking a buai and sitting on the curb waiting for someone else to clean up this eco-mess, that they catch a whiff of what's going around and get off their bums and do something about it rather than resign themselves to the untruth that one person cannot make a difference.

Because one can.

And I tell you what - here's a big-up to you JayBird and having Dreams and having Passion and living life like no-one else is going to live it for you. It's a pretty scary path this one, with no room for tunring back so I am so grateful it feels like we understand that we are on the same kind of journey - the one without roadmaps or signposts or sometimes, even without roads. And it seems the only consolation in all of the "unknown" is the knowledge that nothing that is being created or made or dreamt or belived - none of that belongs to anyone else - it's yours. And THAT is why doing anything else feels like suffocating.

So breathe.

And one of the coolest parts of our entire conversation was when she told me about the leatherback turtles - the ancient mariners which come to Madang in PNG to nest and then travel all the way back across the length and breadth of la mer South Pacifica to the west coast of the USA ... only to return. To nest. And then she said Ricebag is a Turtle. And I am. I have been. Travelling along, away, far away across and abroad and along and about and I keep returning. To nest. And so is JayBird.

And maybe we all are. In a way. Maybe we are all 65 million years old and we take 50 years to reach maturity and procreate and maybe for all of us our habitat spans the globe, we all are only 1 to surivive out of 1000. And maybe we are all, maybe we are also, all, becoming extinct.

chocolate

2007-03-01T10:14:00.000+10:00

I neeeeeeeeed CHOCOLATE!!

I need gooooooood chocolate. Badly.

And sadly.

Only women all around the world will understand.

next quarter

2007-03-01T10:12:00.000+10:00

hepi hepi bondei pinky u!!

you have been a glittering life-line in the dimming times and a wonderful anchor through the rest.

here's to you and the next quarter century

love ya guts and looking forward to lots of future playing!

ricebag

dudley

2007-02-27T09:02:00.000+10:00

It's official. The Oscars suck. Last night was interminable and ... boring. I hadn't watched them since Gwynnie in her merangue blubbed all over the planet her slightly over-rehearsed blah-blech speech 8 years ago. And now I know why I waited so long.

Also, can I say I ALWAYS thought Helen Mirren was hot! Hey - you got to watch Prime Suspect to get it. That lady has class I tell you. Though not so sure about her salute to The Queen last night, I do think she beats a lot of those LA wannabes hands down.

So, I always love a perve on the red carpet ... and hey Dawso - when is my turn? You promised me 6 years ago that you would take me first over everyone else down the Oscars red carpet. Still working on that dress my love. Just promise me you won't be tempted by that pale blue safari suit you just can't give up. I have every faith we'll make it.

lax past action

2007-02-26T16:00:00.001+10:00

sosie so so.

not much to report in the life of. except i found out today that my life is going to change sooner than i expected.

other than that, life has been good and interesting although not really spectacular. the best thing is that my cousin LAX is in town again and 2 w/ends in a row of partying together is wearing me out.

love love love my little brother. love you LAX!! you make me feel like a strong big sister and i am hoping you know i will do anything for you, i will throw down for you man. my message to you is never forget to keep your integrity above all else. and remember pride is a dangerous thing.

and the thing i am most grateful for is that one of my cousins from my other side was trying to split up LAX and i and she has failed failed failed. you hurt me deeply LAX, with what i saw as a betrayal and i felt confused and let down, mate. you made me doubt your loyalty. but our healthy and long conversation 10 days ago reminds me that blood is thicker than anything and i will always be grateful for that chance for us to clear the air.

but what i am learning is that i am black & white. what i see is what i see is what i see. and i will walk away if someone runs foul and can't clean up the shit they leave behind, let alone acknowledge it. but you are grey and even your grey is blurred and you try to compartmentalize your relationships. i guess you find cohesion and maintenance in that, whereas i can only see hypocrisy. i might hold onto emotional rubbish long past the rotting stage but sure enough i will throw it out when confrontation fails. you won't see me saving face when keeping face means losing decency. shelving your honour makes you corruptible.

but because i love you as much as i do, and because you are your own man, i am doing my best to understand and accept your choices. as long as you remember that love & loyalty should never ever be expected but always demonstrated. you're young so you think words mean something. gotta say LAX, but they really don't. past action is the best predicter of future action - not words.

you and babysister are my twin pains-in-the-asses and it would take a lot to extricate you! plus you make me proud. in the very best way. in the way that says loving hurts and and coming out the other side takes humility and patience. so never doubt that i will show up when you need me. that's my job.

and i want to thank you. for trusting me. and letting me in. and not growing out of your need to ask my opinion on matters of love and losing. and knowing me sometimes better than i do - mostly because your memory is very good but also because you've been around forever, the witness to ricebag's journey. it's been a privilege LAX and here's to the next hundred years.

fagless

2007-02-22T09:27:00.000+10:00

Just saying so yesterday I had dinner out and with friends and would have been so ricebag to strike up my skinny fags upon completion of meal and downment of gin. But there were no cigarettes/cigarillos/tobacco or rolling papers to be seen.

First day of Lent and I had my first test. And I passed. Very nice to go home without nicotine hands and ciggy-breath.

Although I did miss that satisfactory first puff and deep inhale and slow exhale, not much else I miss ... but it was a pain in the ass to be constantly thinking about it. That's for sure. The only good thing about constantly thinking about it, was thinking about WHY I am not smoking - Lent. This abstinence thing makes a body mindful. Amen to that.

The good thing is my smoking has been waxing and waning over the past 8 years and has travelled in degrees from periods of fagging pretty much whenever I felt like it (rare and short periods) to only social occasions (most of the time) to hardly ever (long periods) to never (short periods).

In truth, ricebag is a social smoker, and that has made me a highly conditioned creature so all I need is a drink in one hand and, as I don't generally drink when I am alone, a social environment and puff goes the ricebag. So it's psychological conditioning and that has GOT to be easier to break than nicotine. It's just a little difficult coz ricebag is very social.

But I do thank God that I am not addicted to nicotine in the way I have seen some of my friends ... the shakes and the headaches and the very real and sheer physical impossibility of 'giving up'. And I really want to not be either a social smoker for life or one that becomes a real-live need nicotine on-a-regular-basis-smoker.

So maybe will revert back to a "hardly ever" smoker. Just occasionally. At the end of an excellent meal. With a great glass of wine. And after sex. Just a little luxury. Once in a while.

So will keep on keeping on with the abstinence on that one.

Peace out.

my car roars

2007-02-21T17:19:00.000+10:00

Battleaxe the old grinder is my lovely pooh-brown ole faithful who has done 15 years and is about due for some long service leave. And we love her. We love Battleaxe even though we don't always respect her body. And she's got the scars to prove it. Sorry for that baby.

But today we got one step closer to repaying the love and am re-installing air-conditioning. After Muzz borrowed and broke it. Sorry for that baby.

And reinstalling air-con is not cheap. Not even for an old battleaxe. And Battleaxe needs other things like a new rear indicator and a new pilot mirror and to get the hella mirror rescrewed and a bigger battery and more importantly, new tyres altogether, including the spare. She needs some (minor!) panel beating and a new fender and a whole new coat of paint. Sorry for those baby.

So Battleaxe doesn't look a million dollars, she has the heart of a lion and suits me just fine. Ain't noone gonna steal my baby (touch wood!!) - she's a bit of a Cinderella you see, only everone thinks she's the ugly sister. And she loves me back. I can tell. Because she doesn't let me down. Only when I forget to turn off my lights and things like that. Sorry for that baby.

So maybe we're not going to go for the new coat of paint and maybe we're not going to beat out all the dents. But we will run with the best oil and battery water and we will clean you inside and out and will give you some aircon so you can spend the rest of your twilight days in relative comfort. How about that baby?

The thing I love best about Battleaxe is that she ROARS. She's got soul. And she leaves laggers behind to eat her dust. She doesn't much care about appearances. It's what is underneath the hood that counts. And that's why she's ricebag's.

giving it up

2007-02-21T13:18:00.000+10:00

Almost every year at this time, I decide to sacrifice some part of my daily routine in observance of Lent. I am not Catholic and it isn’t strictly religious for me. It is, however, about getting my appetites under control and focusing on the Christian in me. Every year I discover activities that have become so ingrained in my daily behavior I don’t even think about them before I do them. It is only with careful introspection that I realize how firm their grip has become. Then, I rebel.

Lent - it's supposed to be good for the body AND the soul. It's supposed to simplify your life for a while, free you from self-obsession, giving you time and money to re-focus. It's not supposed to feed your vanity, but to give you the space to rediscover the true value of life, framed by a fresh vision of God. What part of your consumer lifestyle will you give up, for a while, to get your life into a new gear?

I found this document to be a useful guide.

What is ricebag practicing for lent?

abstinence from cigarettes; and
abstinence from meat; and to
practice prayer

I think that about does it for moi.

Love you lovers.

today today today

2007-02-20T16:56:00.001+10:00

And I didn't expect to feel this way on day when the thunder is crowding out the sun and words are making my eyes hurt.

Today today today. Today I bought a washing machine. Today I ate half my lunch alone. Today I procrastinated. Today I woke up early birdie. Today I wore a skirt with teardrops on it. Today I am having sausages and eggs for dinner. Today I had a chocolate biscuit and a green apple for breakfast. Today I am going to be sitting by myself with a beer and the dying sun and the deep rain on my verandah where the fairy lights are still up.

Today I was paid the biggest compliment of my professional career.

Today.

more wahroonga than wapenamanda

2007-02-19T11:44:00.000+10:00

last friday someone at work told me ricebag was "more wahroonga than wapenamanda"

all that know ricebag know all the places she is from and I pray that you know there isn't one way in hell that I am or that I'd ever want to be more wahroonga than anywhere else, least of wapenamanda, the wide flushing valley of my mother's father and all in his purview which he called his

roller coaster

2007-02-16T13:30:00.000+10:00

All I know as of right now inside this minute is that something has shifted in my entire sphere of reference and it feels like a growing-up thing although it's too dark to tell right now.

My world is getting smaller, I can hear the hinges creaking ... although I'm not scared coz ricebag knows it's old bones and not old ghosts.

Wow. This week has been such a roller coaster. Where to begin? It's been sleepless and emotionally draining and interesting and sad and strange.

Very sad news for my little cousin Israel whose mummy died on Monday after suffering a long illness. Sorry baby. So sorry. Ricebag spent the week in and out of the cry-haus and am also feeling sad for MyMama who can't be here to cry and to tell her cousin Leo that she knows what widow means and life isn't fair but you hold on because that's your job when you're the only parent left.
Had a deep long look at London on Tuesday (shall say no more there).
Had dinner last night with my star Finah and have to say there isn't a girl my age that I respect more. We been through a lot doll and I can't wait to go through the next 50 years with you. Thankyou for getting me ... and loving me anyway.
I made a HUUUUUUUUUUGE decision today that might affect the rest of my life. And truth be known, I don't feel so good right now - I feel a little sick actually but really hope I dont regret that decision.
On Tuesday I realized it was the the 1 year anniversay since I started this job - which is also the 1st year I have ever worked ANYWHERE permanently.
And I lost 2 kilograms. Must be from sleeplessness and stress.

Although, there was a highlight of the week - Valentines Day of course ... Managed a random evening out with NoNo and Pinky U at none other than Red Hot Chilli Peppers Night Club here in Industrial Gordons for Girly Girly night AKA PNG's very own 'Miss Universe Competition' ... and if you didn't know (as I didn't), the term "girly girly" refers to he-She's or men-who-probably-like-men who like to dress as women so then, in PC terms we should refer to them as She's. And miss C-lander invited us out to watch her friend Chukachukamomo perform. Alas Chuky was absent but that certainly didn't dampen the efforts of the other 8 She's who paraded and flounced and perted and pouted etc etc Lovely to know that even in our own little way Port Moresby's community of She-she's has a venue to shine and compete and shake their thang! The clientelle was varied and the variation ran from slimy-o yuck-yuck ancient white dude grabbing baby-o 14-yr old brown-breasts to some pretty classy off duty air host darlings to none other than a highly placed public servant who probably knew better than to be mucking it up in a dive with a bunch of misfits such as ourselves. But the decor was a bonus - can't say I've seen a golden dancing pole anywhere else in PNG, combined with tinsel, strobe lighting, pool tables and the lack of ANY windows or fresh air. Best thing was the total randomivity of it all. Loving random.

So ... what is the sum of all these things? Proof that life goes on and on and you have to experience the relationships You Claim and choose the life You Have and know that ultimately there will come a time when you look back and know why you made that big decision that you made back when you made it even though you didn't know at that time exactly why you were making it.

At least I have my little cherry cigars to keep me going. Thankyou BabySister. See how your love leaves traces behind. (Although, I will admit, smoking those is making me want to quit ... although I enjoy smoking them whilst I am smoking them, I think I feel sick soon afterwards. And for me, it's the regular post-smoking sensation of smoking regular cigarettes, but in steep acceleration. I feel the end of my puffing career is near. And me no sad at all. Looking forwardly. Got to get through your baby choc fags first though.)

baby got ink

2007-02-11T12:08:00.000+10:00

I got a tat, a tat, a tat, a rattatatat, a tattoo toot.

Yes. Very scary. It's only my first and I say that with a capital "F".

Miss Pinky U and I bounded into the blue room at the back of a hair salon in downtown Boroko and sat down with the laid-back tatto artist AKA Willy - Mullet Willy with the short front and sides and the blonde dreads at his back. Willy from Solomons who has tapa cloth for decoration in his little inking kingdom and cuts a smooth relaxed persona and who tattoed himself when he was 12. And we flipped through 4 or 5 plastic sheafed folders of tat designs for half and hour and Pinky U picked one and I made one up and it took just as long to get ourselves permanently marked. For like ever and ever.

And to me it is strange to think that a major reason many people will never get a tattoo is because they're permanent. It's strange to me because all the other perduring marks on my body were not made by intention, they are scars, the physical memory of things that happened To my physical person as a result of events that were sometimes excursive, often painful, most often accidental and out of my control - and so then, why would I not prefer to have a body marking that had its providence, birth and reason from within me than without. After all, the primary characteristic all my scars share other than their permanency and lack of design is that they were involuntary:

the massive scar tissue acrss my right calf from a car accident 19 years ago : sogeri mountain road 1988
the scar above my right eye when the boy I did dawn-dashes with in first year uni accidentally dropped me on my head after twirling me around one sunny sunday afternoon : tennis lawn 1996
the circular circle of scar tissue on my right arm when the school nurse broke a needle giving me a shot in primary school : sick bay 1988
the scar on my left sole from when a spike went through my foot : bedroom 1981
the black mole on my neck where babysister threw a bunch of keys at me and gauged me : dining room 1985
the scar across my left index finger when I was spinning the spokes on my bike and I almost severed my digit : garage 1986
the scar on my pelvis from a tissue biopsy : doctor's surgery 1999 & london hospital repeat 2003
the anonymous scar from a long ago surgical procedure leaving a set of stitches to the right of my belly button : baby-time 1979
the silky dark brown splodge above my right ankle from a tropical sore : christmas 2005
and 5 marks across my lower back that mysteriously turned up one day ... the same day my uncle Mak was shot 5 times in his back : awaking 1997
and so on and so forth ... just some of the visible traces of arbitrary events long gone which have left me with an enduring reminder.

And yesterday for the first time I marked myself. I mean, I got Willy to mark me. Permanently. Voluntarily. With Design. Out of a conscious decision rather than the result of some adventitious unintended chance of nature or unpreventable design of fate. And that felt good. So I am my own canvas. And the event of getting tattood can still be random, unpremeditated and spontaneous but it's the decision of the scaree and the design imprinted which makes my newest body scarring mine.

Miss Bomana - please forgive - I know we had a date to do this together and never did - but don't worry, when I come down to Sydney in oh-so-soon we will have a chance to rectify and I am getting another - a large and looong tat done blade to blade across the span of my upper back baby. Uh Oh!! Please come with. And JCD maybe you'd be up for a threesome?

It IS ever so slightly addictive.