I know what you're thinking!

I do! I do!

You're thinking, hoooo, boy, is this blog about to become que ironico, as Jane Lane would say.

Well, it's not. I do have things to share. I just also am taking three classes in my graduate school program and I have a toddler who doesn't go to day care or have babysitters and my mum is visiting from Australia for a month and I am sooooo fucking drowning in busyness.

You know what I'd like to point you to in the meantime, gentle reader (singular)? Go poke around Shapely Prose for a bit. The writers of that site have opened my eyes this year like nothing I've ever read before. Obvi, I don't agree with everything they say, but I do have damn close to a 100% head-nod rate. Kate Harding alone is just about the best writer haunting the interwebs these days.

PS- You know who's fucking busy? I just heard on the radio that Renee Montagne gets to work at 12AM (she's GETTING UP then, not staying up). She and Steve Inskeep are at least 50% of the reason I get up in the morning. The other 50% is croissants from Bonaparte Breads.

Dude, you're giving brand new bloggers a bad name

So just for funsises I looked around to see who has all the the blogs with a variation on the name An Open Letter, and who have snatched up all the good URLs, leaving me with this one (which is meant to be like "hey, an open letter!"). Anyway, I came across Open Letter Blog, a blog the authors intend to be a forum for readers to submit their open letters to the world: Dear Mr President, Dear Producers of Lost, Dear Guy at My Deli etc. This sad little flameout took place entirely between the dates 22-23 February, 2009. Two days. Three entries. That's it.

Please world, don't let that ever be me.

Nice site design though.

Yep. Jealous.

Went to see Julie & Julia tonight at the movies. A movie about a lady blogging! And now a lady's blogging about it!

I was totally jealous of her apartment. It's what I imagine my dream home to look like (world, I dream small). The apartment set design was my favourite mix of clutter; witty French prints on the wall, interesting ceramic jugs with flowers in them, exposed brick walls, cozy, patterned rugs on the floor, a comfy fabric couch with colorful pillows and a big(ish) heavy wood dining table. Of course, I can't cook worth a damn, so perhaps all that domestic friendliness would be wasted on me. My intimate gatherings of like-minded souls would have to be catered. You know, that home sounds a lot like the one of a certain friend I am missing right now. Who could that be?...

The photo I really should attach to this post is not the dark, bad angle of Julie's apartment, but the one I had to take of the GIANT bucket of popcorn and ENORMOUS sodas we bought as we went into the film. I'm going to say, picture your average waste-paper basket filled with popcorn and I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING ABOUT THIS 1.5 LITRES OF COKE. No exaggeration whatsoever. Seriously, I've lived in the US for nearly six years now, and this was the first time that a foodstuff has forced me to record its image based on sheer size alone. Photographic evidence forthcoming.

In praise of Facebook

Is it embarrassing to admit to being an unironic fan of Facebook? I have some concerns about the amount of screen time I log each day (maybe 4-5 hours each day- but no TV!), but none of that concern is related to the 'book. Since I live on the oooooooother side of of the world from my family and most of my friends, FB really does help me feel caught up with them. In the pre-2007ish world, before everyone hopped aboard the bandwagon, it would sometimes be weeks and weeks between phone calls and I would lie in bed every night consumed with guilt and sadness about being a bad daughter/sister/granddaughter/friend and not communicating more. Although I still feel like I should call home more often, and it saddens me, on the other hand, that having the easy access of FB has cheapened some of the contacts I have with friends (is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! post on your wall worth anything if you would post the same message to a friend from two jobs ago? I loathe the happy birthday wall post *removes secret curmudgeon hat*).

So I am in the middle of thinking seriously about where I should live and why, and it's a little weird to think that if, in the end, I stay away for more time that I had ever intended, it will be partially due to Facebook. It might be the truth, though.

Through this blog I want to explore some of the reasons why I will or won't move back to Australia, and when, and what it will be like when I get there, so more on life far away to come.

Just checking...

While you give me a sec to pretty up the joint layout-wise, why don't you riddle me this, world: did everyone except me know that Helen Razer is a now a married, lesbian fitness-freak? Because I'm reasonably certain I remember her spending most of the 90s extolling the pleasures of cock and/or great big steaks and beer. And Kurt. My, how the world moves on.

Well hello there!

World, for my 29th birthday I have given myself a blog. At the moment you can consider it an open letter to my dear friend Jess. Even if we are each the other's only reader, the endeavor will be worth it. And that reminds me of this.

Which reminds me of two more thoughts. Firstly, I really hate it when websites provide a link and not an embed of a REALLY FUNNY AND CUTE AND ALSO SHORT video. Secondly, first world problems; I haz them. Aside from that little sook, I have been occupied for days with the irritation that the new $70 headphones for my iPod keep falling out of my ears. Also, my Grandpa thinks the word 'Hi' is an "Americanism" and was palpably disappointed when it was my daughter's first intelligible utterance.

OK, that was three thoughts and the last didn't make any sense, disconnected to anything except that I am saying hi, right here.