half of the time we're gone

but we don't know where

I've been listening to the Garden Stae soundtrack a lot. I have way too much time on my hands...i need a job, or at least something obligatory that's going to both keep me busy and cash me up. which i suppose is all a job is. i have a month before i start uni and it's worse that if i had nothing, because then i would have possibilities, choices. now i just have this blank month of nothing before my existence sputters to life again. it's all thrown into even starker contrast because i've got friends who have started uni already, who start next week or the week after, who are in england or romania or vietnam working and living and enjoying themselves. and i'm stuck here in my sleepylittledeathtolltown (ta to the panda band for describing this hole so perfectly).

On the bright side, i enrolled at sydney uni last monday and came away with my brand new student ID and unuon member cards and my brand new union diary/planner, which i took home and promptly covered in pictures and headlines featuring the shins, death cab, elliott smith, the frames, the fab fab four, the bravery, the killers, garden state and my alltime fave, mr jeffrey scott buckley - all clipped from Roling stone, NME, melody maker (i love the british music weeklies) and the like. that was fun. i also made a friend in the many, many queues in which i spent my day - a fellow buckley tragic like myself by the name of rose. went to james ruse (infamous selective high school for the psychotically intelligent) and got 99.65 for her UAI but very nice nonetheless. we talked the whole time and i even busted out my beloved iPod to listen to one of my jeff bootlegs. i saw absolutely nobody that i knew in the hundreds of people there on the day, so it was nice to have someone to talk to. found out later that reece is doing arts/sci so i'll have him at least - it'll be good to have a male friend around who i can drag to college formals et if i suddenly find myself in need of a date.

so, to sum up - uni = v. exciting. also v exciting - i'm going to see the shins in ONE WEEK!!! i'm going to help pops move into her uni-provided matchbox in broadway then crash there after the show, and hopefully catch up with frankie and mads who will be starting tafe that day. am playing my hard-won copy of Chutes Too Narrow over and over again (in between GS, which admittedly has two songs from Oh Inverted World [2001 shins album] on it) in preparation so i know the words. must burn copy for pops too...oooh i'm feeling better now. who was it who said "anticipation is the purest joy?" my mind is saying voltaire and then telling itself it's wrong, which it usually is.


the shins - new slang

STELLAAAAAAAAAA!!!

what? it's a great name.

the interests index: a great way to discover the existence of like-minded people on blogger. by browsing the index for Garden State (the movie, not jersey) i discovered a young man from connecticut going by the name of christian stella. through his blog, i then discovered his writing, at www.ribcage.org. my favourite story so far is the january 5th one, ten things that happened all at once. he's damn good, people, and what's more is that he's not smug about it. some writers' work is like expensive wine - you would enjoy it immensely if you couldn't taste its own knowledge of how fantastic it is in every sip. anyway, i commented on it, and voila, there a few days ago (i haven't checked in for a while) is a thankyou-entry in his blog. clearly he has quite a few fans. by far the best bit has to be: Cait, I printed out the first paragraph of your comment and taped it in my journal. That was beautiful. in his journal!!! even if he doesn't take his real-world journal quite as seriously as i do mine, that's pretty nice to hear. i can't remember what i said or where i posted it, although i do remember considering my words "mindnumbingly wankerous". but it's nice that he appreciated it.

dear god, it's hot. i mean really, really hot. i'm on the north coast with my family (stuck up here for another week yet, too) and i'm sitting here in a singlet and loose miniskirt sweating. gross? yes. enjoyable? damn straight. i love the heat. cold is so isolating. heat is sex and stillness, atmospheric and oppressively poetic. i do my best writing in the heat.

right now, though, my dad wants his laptop back, so i'm going to go and let my mind languish while i go swim some laps in the pool.

i keep having dreams about uni. not always nice ones, either. (although one was cool, i was moving into college and we all had magical powers.) i can't work out if i'm looking forward to it or absolutely terrified. and i can't work out why i feel i have to make up my mind one way or the other.

who are they?

those people who are not you?

thought i'd post my Major Work from last year...it's called People Who Are Not You, and it's supposed to be postmodern. I'm still not sure if I like it or not.

People Who Are Not You

Just for the record, the writer is me. At the same time, however, she is not. *oooh...the plot thickens...wait on - THERE IS NO PLOT.*



the thrills - whatever happened to corey haim?

a series of unexpected events

i'm very concerned.

when i read books or watch movies, i find i'm a way attuned to how the creator foreshadows what's coming up later in the plot. i can predict who the headless horseman is coming after next; in a platform full of departing soldiers and their sweethearts i can tell who's coming back and who's not. in real life, as well, my natural mix of hopeful optimism and pragmatic pessimism serves my powers of divination well - i can hope for the best while still being unsurprised when the worst occurs. (cf the recent australian and US elections.) i see it all coming.

or at least i used to. recently i have found so many things happening around me, on both a personal and global scale, that i never would have seen coming. stuff to do with boys, girls, fire, water, power, weakness, knowledge, pure and unadulterated stupidity. even with my overused, vivid, drama-queen's imagination, i never imagined half this shit.

current music: the world at large - modest mouse

Ice-age heat wave, can't complain.
If the world's at large, why should I remain?
Walked away to another plan.
Gonna find another place, maybe one I can stand.
I move on to another day, to a whole new town with a whole new way.
Went to the porch to have a thought.
Got to the door and again, I couldn't stop.
You don't know where and you don't know when.
But you still got your words and you got your friends.
Walk along to another day.
Work a little harder, work another way.
Well uh-uh baby I ain't got no plan.
We'll float on maybe would you understand?
Gonna float on baby maybe would you understand?
Well float on maybe would you understand?
The days get shorter and the nights get cold.
I like the autumn but this place is getting old.
I pack up my belongings and I head for the coast.
It might not be a lot but I feel like I'm making the most.
The days get longer and the nights smell green.
I guess it's not surprising but it's spring and I should leave.
I like songs about drifters-books about the same.
They both seem to make me feel a little less insane.
Walked on off to another spot.
I still haven't got anywhere that I want.
Did I want love? Did I need to know?
Why does it always feel like I'm caught in an undertow?
The moths beat themselves to death against the lights.
Adding their breeze to the summer nights.
Outside, water like air was great.
I didn't know what I had that day.
Walk a little farther to another plan.
You said that you did, but you didn't understand.
I know that starting over is not what life's about.
But my thoughts were so loud I couldn't hear my mouth.
My thoughts were so loud.