Sock Slip

Did you have a pair of socks when you were a teenager that used to disappear into your school shoes? When you head out for the day in a pair of socks like that it doesn't matter what else happens, you are going to be tetchy. Because, you see, even though it's such a small thing it's persistent. You can feel it all day - there go your socks again, now you're standing on them, and no matter what you're doing, you can feel them all the damn time. And you can't go home and change them.

I had a bit of a sock slip day today. Now that I'm a fully-fledged adult, of course, I get sockette slip. The sodding things disappear off my toes and into the front of my shoes and I poke at them with my (ever greasier) feet. At least by this stage, at 7pm, I'm at work and so I've taken my shoes off entirely (sorry, Jenny) but the motion has been set in place. I'm still cranky.

My question is: do we suffer from sock-slip because we're destined to be irritated and we need something, however small, to blame it on; or is the sock itself cosmically annoying in a way we can't appreciate? Think about it.

Popstrology

Have you investigated your popstrological profile? Have you delved into the divine insights of your Birthsong? Check out this silly website and feel sorry for my workmate who has a Double Star in Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder : ) I don't know quite what 'Pop Muzik' says about me, but it's gotta be better than 'Ebony and Ivory'!

Anzac Day

Dug ourselves out of our respective beds at (arggh!) 3 o'clock this morning to attend the dawn service in Anzac Square. And what a wonderful turnout! Ginette, Lily Prune and I arrived smack on time to find the place overflowing with people and ended up right down the back on Adelaide Street where we couldn't see a thing; but it didn't matter, because even the labrador next to us was utterly still for the half-hour and we heard every word. It was beautiful to stand there united in the bitter cold and watch the sky lighten around us as the bugle calls rang around the skyscrapers. And I held it together (usually find these things very emotional) ... until, filing past the flame, I bent down to read a card attached to one wreath - "For Poppy, with love from Jack" - with dates of birth and death. What kind of world is it when someone's Poppy can be taken away so I can go home and sleep in peace until midday?

Calling All Buffs

Anybody out there want to come and see the Hitchhikers movie with me when it opens next week? I'm well-behaved and I don't hog the popcorn.

Nobody Makes Coffee in America

I've never seen so much as a plunger in a US film of late, it's all styrofoam cups : (

Had dinner out with the girls last night - congratulations, Julie! - and then went to see 'The Interpreter', which I was a bit disappointed with. Exciting as it was to hear the word linguistics in a film : ) I didn't feel the story settled long enough on any one idea or any one character, to the point where it was just one new event after another and I didn't care what happened to anyone involved and I wanted to take to Nicole Kidman's fringe with a hacksaw. I thought too that having gone to so much trouble to secure the UN as a setting they could have expanded a little on her character's work - I know I'm biased but they flew past some interesting aspects of interpreting and its relationshiup with diplomacy that I thought really could have contributed something special. As it was I felt they just whacked the interpreting in there as an excuse to have NK's character privy to the information that was critical to the plot.

Cooked a big (late) breakfast for Miss Pope and Miss Jones this morning and ended up shopping in town this afternoon - got a CD for you to listen to, Neek - then came home to iron in front of 'Life As a House', which I thought was fantastic. I love Kevin Kline and thought this was a really beautiful story - full of tiny episodes of the importance of touch. (Touch each other, people!) And I managed to sneak 'Notting Hill' through the VCR again before Ginette got home - realised with a sinking heart that Hugh Grant and I had exactly the same hair there for a while, only I didn't get kissed half as much in mine as he did in his!

Sexy Specs

Today, God bless me, I am downright gorgeous!

It's been a good day. (Can you tell?) It's raining, for a start, which means winter is on the way and my favourite boots can be dusted off for another time around.

This afternoon I got paid to read Chekhov and eat Fruit Tingles - Vince had a written Italian exam and only needed me really for the first 10 minutes as the instructions were being read out, but I had to be there just in case anything needed interpreting. After his stellar performance last year I'm not sure how he's going to fare this semester. First year is quite straightforward, textbook stuff, but, to the credit of the teachers, as you progress in the course more elements of analysis are criticism are introduced, and they rely quite heavily on an understanding of texts and grammar that we take for granted in English but which are developed very differently in Sign. The poor lad was feeling very frustrated during our exam cram on the weekend, and I had to remind him that, in effect, he's learning his third language THROUGH his second language - no mean feat, and his success so far is something to be very proud of. Then I had to give him a crash course in fascism : )

This morning I went to be measured for my new glasses. I saw the optometrist on Monday after I realised I was squinting at the television again and she's confirmed that my prescription needs updating. The fabulous news is that, thanks to leaps and bounds in lens technology (!) I can now have nice, small, funky glasses like everybody else. Up until now, the whole blended multifocal thing has meant I've had to have quite deep lenses to accomodate the field - isn't this riveting? - and also prevents me from wearing contacts. ANYHOW, I've picked out some very sexy new frames and, joy of joys, I'll have sunglasses again. And they've got a new digital camera...I've seen the inside of my eyes...oooh!

At last!

A name for my condition. Glen, NZ captioner extraordinaire, is calling it 'Karenoia' : )

Night Walker

Tonight I have a head full of shadows from the weekend - too many cocktails and too little courage, vanishing cats and odd reunions - so tonight I walk. I feel far more comfortable walking at night than I ever could during the day - I am anonymous, cushioned and protected by the dark, and the cold air washes over me like a bath. I am close to the city but still I can see the stars. It's dinnertime, and there's a gentle waft of grilling sausages. I follow an episode of 'Frasier' from house to house. I climb a hill that will seem impossibly steep from the bus tomorrow morning, but now, when I can see only from streetlight to streetlight, I slap one sneaker in front of the other until I reach the top. A boy gets off a bus and we walk awkwardly in step for a minute, speeding up and slowing down together until I give up and let him go ahead. A couple standing by a parked car wait until I have passed to kiss. In the end, all I hear is my heartbeat and the thump of my feet on the bitumen. I come back through my gate still confused, still restless, but I love the evening, and for tonight that's enough.

Miss Jones, this is just for you and me...

ARRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!

Richard Woldendorp

I've just come across this wonderful Dutchman who takes aerial photographs of Australian landscapes - they're quite stunningly beautiful, and you can see some samples here. He's a very charming man and had a lot to say about the mindset behind photography that I found very interesting too.

Miscaption of the Week

You know a steno is getting tired when the first caption of your file reads:
"Hi, Roger, and welcome to the problem."

*Sigh*

I don't know what's most disturbing about the CBS Real Crime documentary I've just finished captioning. Could it be that during the murder trial in question...

1. Television cameras were allowed inside the courtroom?
2. The defence beseeched the jury not to accept the testimony of 'a crazy woman'?
3. The prosecution's tack seemed to be to make the jury LAUGH?
4. CBS interviewed the defendants/solicitors WHILE THE TRIAL WAS GOING ON?
5. The smarmy interviewer seemed to believe he was invested with the supreme talent to make people confess to things they'd already sworn not to having done in a court of law?
6. The daughters of the woman convicted were, after sentence had been passed, allowed in court to read a scathing letter of retribution directed at their mother?

Or perhaps it was the heartwarming reminder that the death penalty is still applicable in Texan courts of law. God bless America. Honestly, I don't see WHAT community service it does to allow this sort of shash to be broadcast - and I'm sure CBS weren't so advanced as to have been taking the piss out of themselves.

Congratulate Me

I just finished eating my last Easter egg : )
Bleugh...definitely opting for a cocoa-free April next year.

Houdini

Awoken this morning by a cat standing on my head. Theo was balanced between my forehead and the windowsill, head through the bars over the glass, earnestly thumping the flyscreen with his front paws. He'd managed to dislodge one corner and was just about to disappear out the window when I grabbed his hindquarters and hauled him back through the grill. RAOW!

Cat Burgers

Is what we're going to be eating if Theodore/Theo/Teddy/Teddy Bear doesn't shut his yap!

Allow me to explain. Miss P and I found out on Friday that our estate agent will let us keep a cat. Goody! (They can't organise a key to our garage or issue me with rent receipts, but they can approve a cat.) On Saturday morning we went cat shopping and were instantly smitten with the small, mocha-coloured Burmese we found asleep on an office chair of the vet at Paddington. He looked up at us with round, soulful eyes and promptly flopped himself on his back so we could tickle his tummy. Aww. So we took him home. This is, however, perhaps the loudest cat ever conceived. He only has one miaow - RAOW! - and he uses it A LOT. Constantly, in fact.

So far, we have discovered that RAOW! means:
- Pick me up!
- Put me down!
- Where are you going?
- Where have you been?
- I'm hungry.
- No, not those biscuits.
- Tickle me.
- I want that chair.
- Where is everybody?
And, most of all...
- I WANT OUT!

He sounds like a small, persistent fire engine. He sounds like he's having his leg hacked off with a rusty saw. He sounds like a baby howling. He sounds like a baby who's been run over by a fire engine having its leg hacked off with a rusty saw. We keep waiting for our neighbours to ring the Child Protection Agency. At 2am on Sunday, bleary-eyed and cranky, we shut him in the laundry.

Now, this is one affectionate cat - he knocks Pixel (the Thatcher of all catkind) for six in demands for cuddles. (Hence 'Teddy Bear'.) And, really, he just wants to go outside and play - but he can't until his microchip is registered (techno-mog!) and his name-tag arrives, and until then he's going to throw wobblies. I've just got home from work at nearly midnight and tiptoed through the house, foresaking even my bedtime cup of tea lest I rouse the klaxon downstairs. I could almost kiss my goldfish - lovely, QUIET creatures : )

Welcome to Woop Woop

I wish I'd never come across the term 'Spam castanets', but then it's a dangerous line of work I'm in!

This quirky, interesting and often thoroughly disturbing film has unbelievably incredible subtitles : ) I was in K-mart the other day and saw the DVD for $9 and couldn't help myself - I did about three-quarters of the captioning on it and in this industry it's not often that you get to see your own work, let alone buy it. Cool! It's the story of a community in, I think, the Northern Territory who have taken themselves off the map in favour of a little self-rule, complete with resident dictator (Daddy-O), batman (Reggie - easily my favourite character) and forced resident (Teddy - who gets drugged and taken there to widen the gene pool a tad). There are, I think, some pretty impressive performances, and it was directed by Stephan Elliott (who did 'Priscilla') so the cinematography is rather fantastic too.

There's a nice bit towards the start - a hitchhiker has been dropped off and is walking off into the proverbial sunset. He's only wearing one thong.
"Hey, mate! You lose your shoe?"
"Nah, mate. Found one."

Just don't see it with anyone you don't know terribly well!

Robots

My sister insisted I come and see this, and I wasn't sure I was going to like it. I've been pretty disappointed in the big-studio animated flicks I've seen of late and thought perhaps this would be another one. But, actually, it was pretty good. A nice balance of stuff to keep the kids going (including a really well-executed fart joke which had me crying with laughter) and some neat intertextual bits and pieces to entertain their parents, like a rundown robot singing "Daisy, daisy..." like HAL out of '2001', or a Kenny G track playing in the background while a robot gets a massage, and toilet door signs that had iconic 'plugs' for the men and 'sockets' for the ladies! (Hope the kids didn't understand THAT one ; ) But unlike a lot of other films it didn't rely too heavily on that kind of stuff and had enough funny moments of its own to keep you going until the end. Not a bad one for a wet weekend, I say.

Getting a Life

I have made a momentous decision. I am admitting that I have taken on way too much, and it stops now. For almost a year I've been busting my butt with study and extra-curricular sucking-up-type stuff in the hopes of scoring a government graduate position with one of about three different departments I've had my eye on, which means that, especially with moving house and everything else that's been going on, I've had very little time for me.

In the shower this morning - where all my momentous decisions are made, it seems - I realised I was utterly exhausted and I'd only just got up. You remember that Hoodoo Gurus song - "So Tired of Waking up Tired"? That's me. I'm stuffed.

So the government can go jump. I'm not going to try to go to Canberra. I'm a captioner, and I'm going to make the most of it. I fought hard to get this job and I'm going to keep it. I'm going to stick with a workplace for more than a year and see what opportunities there are. I'm not going to lose my Italian. I'm going to be able to say yes the next time the Dante asks me if I can teach a class. I'm going to get my translation certificate and do some _real_ subtitling. I'm going to finish my editor's training (which I started yesterday) and be taught to be a news captioner. All this I can do in the organisation I currently work for. Down the track, when I have a few years experience, I can work as a subtitler in any English-speaking nation I choose. I'm going to appreciate the fact that I have a well-paid, different, not particularly strenuous job which I'm good at and which gives me the mornings off. Most of all, I'm going to be true to myself - I'm not in it for the money or the prestige, I'm not a natural bureaucrat - I'm a dag who loves language, and I'm going to hang around with other people who feel the same way. So there : )

Popeular (Sorry)

Has anyone else found it particularly disturbing - firstly, that people are carrying camcorders with them as they file past John Paul II while he's lying in state, and, secondly, that a very large collection of presidents (American and otherwise) have turned up to pray before him?

The Picture of Dorian Gray

I've had Mr Wilde's novel in my collection for ages and have only just got around to reading it - I wish it hadn't taken me so long. Here's the dust jacket synopsis (because it's late and I'm lazy):

When the exquisitely handsome Dorian Gray sees his portrait he dreams of remaining young forever while his painted image grows old, and, in a sudden moment, he offers his soul for perpetual youth. While his beauty remains unblemished, the portrait begins to reflect the wildness and degradation of his soul as he surrenders to a worship of pleasure and infinite passion.

Of course, there's the moral of physical beauty being no compensation for an ugly soul and the emptiness of 'pleasure' for pleasure's sake, but the book also contains, in my opinion, some rather interesting discussions of art as well. Right at the start the painter, Basil Hallward, is explaining to Dorian that he will never allow his beautiful portrait to be exhibited because it gives away too much of his idolatry for his muse:

"My heart shall never be put under their microscope. There is too much of myself in the thing, Harry - too much of myself! ... An artist should create beautiful things but should put nothing of his own life into them."

There I have to disagree. I don't think you can create anything beautiful unless something of yourself goes with it. That doesn't mean that you'll eventually exhaust yourself, but there is nothing so beautiful as the surrender of a human soul to public exposure, whether it's through the love of another person or the creation of a work of art. There's something lovely in the humbleness of that step.

I like the idea in the book that every age has its own place. The beauty of youth is only beautiful in the young, if that makes sense. As Dorian grows older but doesn't appear to age his companions grow suspicious and distrustful of him, and by virtue of his appearance he seems to be trapped in the wayward behaviour of a young man. It's a really interesting read. I recommend it.

BONG, BONG -nothing- BONG

They must be repairing one of the bells in the City Hall clock tower. It was trying to strike the quarter hour as I came past it on the way to volunteer at Amnesty this morning. BONG, BONG -nothing- BONG. BONG -nothing - BONG, BONG.

I'm enjoying my volunteer work. It's not brain surgery, just reception and admin work, but it's a nice change from my day job and it helps the few people who actually get paid in the office to advance a worthy cause - plus I get to be quite a bit more informed about the state of the universe than I might otherwise. The staff and the other volunteers are great folks too. Well, except the one who loves to come and talk to me about his job in 'financial planning'. (He's a telemarketer.) When he arrived at my desk this morning he was already halfway through his standard monologue - he'd probably started it with another victim - and the fact that I was on the phone at the time didn't seem to deter him much. When I first started there I thought he fancied me, but now I realise it's much more serious than that - he thinks I'm actually interested in what he's saying. I'm a polite person, but I can only grunt noncommittally for so long!

And I'm loving my Korean classes. (Had another one tonight.) It's brilliant to be back in language lessons as a learner, and I'm relishing the challenge of a new and quite intriguing script. (I can write my name : ) It's surprisingly easy to pick up, and after only a little practise we can all read aloud (not that we know what we're reading yet). It's only a small class, which is nice, because we're getting to know each other quite well. Half of the class is there to learn Korean for business, the other half because they're in love with someone who's Korean*. I think that's wonderfully romantic - can you imagine someone learning an entire language just for you?

*And one of us just likes learning languages : )

Thank F--- For That!

I can't tell you how good it is to be captioning a movie after weeks and weeks of children's programming. Not that I have a problem with children's programming... actually, no, I DO have a problem with a lot of it, but - at last! - there's not a pipe-cleaner or a beat-boxer or an overacting teenager in sight. True, it's not a very GOOD movie, and true, I can't tell what Charlie Sheen is saying most of the time, and true, I'm back on the Net looking up yet another slang term for willy, but after all this time of not even a humble 'goddammit', 'f---' and 'f------' and 'm-----f-----' are almost more joy than my little heart can hold. Real dialogue! Tension! Drama! Oh, it's WONDERFUL.

Strange Goings On

Two-thirds of the way through Circus Oz last night, my sister collapsed.
(Don't worry, she's absolutely fine - it was what happened afterwards that concerns me here.)

CUT TO: Hospital Emergency Waiting Room, 10pm

Once Lauren got some colour back in her cheeks and was talking again we all relaxed a bit, and I started to take some interest in my surroundings. What an odd place - not least because no-one in it looks sick. This appears to be because no matter what's wrong with you when you walk in, by the time someone can see you, you feel fine. Looking around the room it was almost impossible to tell the patients from the family and friends.

The young man sitting next to me was already waiting when we arrived. Just before midnight his mobile rings. "No, still waiting...I'm fine. There's nothing wrong with me. Yeah, you might as well." And then he leaves. Every so often a nurse comes to the door and reads out a long list of patients, none of whom are still there. In the three and a half hours we wait, not a single ambulance comes through to reception.

A middle-aged couple at the other end of the room systematically empty the vending machine, buying one of each product in order along the rows, sitting down together to eat through each packet. Across from us a lone man sorts through his pockets and cleans old receipts and bus tickets from his wallet. I watch the water from a melting ice pack on a girl's ankle pool and spread slowly across the tiles under her chair.

My mother - in khaki socks and dirty sneakers - turns into a fashion critic. "A red bra under that top?" We look around and remind ourselves that emergency is no respecter of decency - the girl next to me is wearing a tailored jacket over candy-striped pyjama pants, another sports novelty Sylvester slippers, a lady comes in barefoot in a beautiful purple ballgown, the woman cradling her bleeding hand (she isn't kept waiting) is in a chef's jacket and chequered trousers, and there are large egg yolk stains on the jumper I've snatched from the back of the car.

Mum visits the bathroom and discovers the cubicles are all painted bright orange. If you weren't feeling sick when you came in you are now. Dad announces it's the same in the men's. I go for the hat-trick and find that the wheelchair-friendly loo is a perfectly tranquil duck-egg blue. There's a news clipping on the noticeboard whose headline screams "Nursing staff slashed."

Lauren seems fully recovered and is reading a copy of 'Who' when she's finally admitted at 1am. Dad and I sit through a Steve Seagal movie (with songs written and performed by the man himself). 20 minutes later she's back. She's fine. Her blood pressure's fine. It was, it seems, a combination of the lights, the music, the smoke, and a contortionist swinging his dislocated right arm around his head. As we leave, the middle-aged couple are opening a packet of Starburst.

Dirty World

By the Travelling Wilburys.
If you need cheering up I recommend you get caught singing it in traffic like I do : )

He loves your sexy body
He loves your dirty mind
He loves when you hold him, grab him from behind
Oh, baby, you're such a pretty thing
I can't wait to introduce you to the other members of my gang

You don't need no wax job, you're smooth enough for me
If you need your oil changed I'll do it for you...free
Oh, baby, the pleasure'd be all mine
If you'd let me drive your pickup truck and park it where the sun don't shine

Every time he touches you his hair stands up on end
His legs begin to quiver and his mind begins to bend
Oh, baby, you're such a tasty treat
But I'm under doctor's orders, I'm afraid to overeat

He loves your sense of humor, disposition too
There's absolutely nothing that he don't love about you
Oh, baby, I'm on my hands and knees
Life would be so simple if I only had you to please
Oh baby, turn around and say goodbye
You go to the airport now and I'll go home and cry

He loves your...
Electric dumplings
Red bell peppers
Fuel injection
Service charge
Five-speed gearbox
Long endurance
Quest for junk food
Big refrigerator
Trembling Wilbury
Marble earrings
Porky curtains
Power steering
Bottled water
Parts and service

Dirty world, a dirty world, it's a ...ing dirty world