Searching for my muse, day 1

Greetings from Ubud Monkey Forest. For some reason I have decided to stay on the street of the primates. It's rather like a whole lot of small, grey hairy people walking round a dirt track. I have so far failed to find enlightenment. In fact, I've failed to even find a yoga class. Which, if you know this part of the world, is like saying I have not yet found my backside with both hands. This town is renowned for its veritable king's banquet of every kind of spiritual, yogic, karmic service you can imagine. In fact after a rather hot and sweaty trek up the main street it is clearly full to overflowing with the fulfillment to be found in material possessions. Yes, Bali-files, I did find "Yoga Barn" on the main street but for some perverse reason decided to stay in a little satellite town-ette which is a taxi ride away from the all day-drop in centres. I actually intended to stay at "Swasti Eco-retreat" a bamboo-dominated, green and luscious, be-pooled and somewhat self-righteous compound with its own massage centre, only to find 'no room at the inn' - so am next door at the less glamorous pad which appears to have some kind of building work going on. Ah the serenity.

After this truly most western of disappointments, I was then chuffed to be directed immediately over the road and down an enchanting little footpath to the ashtanga yoga teachers. Bingo, I thought. Om shanti. I was serenely greeted by a lithe blond American clad only in cotton hotpants and a bandeau who asked how long I was staying. Turns out a few nights isn't enough to learn anything at this particular spot - minimum two weeks for this particular discipline. (Ashtangaworld dot com I am informed if I wish to look at the website). Yes, "we require somewhat of a commitment here, you can go to drop in classes all day at Yoga Barn in town", she kindly explains. Since I had just caught a glimpse of hubby's retreating figure wearing little but a white loincloth and a long grey beard, I wasn't too fussed to be honest.

So judging from the dearth of blogging, I lost track of my muse somewhere between the Zeedyke and Tamarama Surf Club. I'm not sure what she'd be doing here in Bali, but if I can find some asanas then she may be tempted into returning to me. I fear however she may be distracted by the shiny things and be trapped in some endless gauntlet run beset on both sides by people calling out for transport/ taksi/ sunglasses/ and offering random wood carvings of harley davidsons and interlocked elephants.

Speaking of which, the run from this internet cafe back to the pad will be a monkey-laden night time stroll. I hope they all remain calm and don't turn into some b-grade swarm that has decided it likes the taste of human flesh.

Namaste from cyberspace.

I think I kinda hate bars

Well, no doubt I'll be in one again inside of 72 hours. But I just had a realisation that even while fetishising the best kind of bar, my long love affair might be souring. Sydney is supposed to be undergoing a much-vaunted 'renaissance' of its drinking culture. Clover Moore has made it easier to get a licence, and entrepreneurial groovers have responded by setting up these Melbourne style "small bars" - complete with hard-to-find unmarked entrances. Apparently, the grown up approach to sharing a bevvy with friends is supposed to make us more responsible drinkers too. That, or the prices. So I've been to Pocket Bar, Shady Pines Saloon, the recently re-furbed Flinders Hotel, LL bar in the Cross, Libertines, Grasshopper Bar where they serve cocktails in jars which is frankly GROSS and reminds me of a disfunctional student sharehouse, The Falconer, Madame Fling Flongs and probably some others.

I thought I really liked them at the time. I did. The warm glow of the candles/bordello lamps/ironic chandelier, the retro-funky stuffed animals, the background chatter, paying the best part of $20 for a martini and sucking up the meaninglessness of existence while talking about how great it is that they have all these small bars in Sydney. It just hit me like a brick, that they are all just rooms with tables, stools, glasses, some form of paint on the walls (or wallpaper if you are in the so-groovy-it-hurts ones), women with their best makeup and shiny frocks, and guys who are spending more on drinks that than they can afford. A limited number of permutations to the above. But I guess we keep going because these dens are usually central, the ritual of getting a bottle and some glasses is known, and you can generally catch your friends for a couple of hours and get back on a major public transport route.

Maybe I'm inspired to write this post by seeing a minor trend amongst women with small children, who may feel a bit like they are missing frocking up and going out. I think perhaps I have been racking up the hours in these places on your behalf. I've hit the limit. I'm experiencing low-level rage at the people in these bars. I can't really hear the person I'm talking to so I tend to tell stories and monologue too much. I spend money I'd rather go on holiday with. Mums: you can have some hours back - I'll take a couple of shifts with the ankle-biters. (Especially if we can go see Despicable Me, or the Dinosaur Gallery. Yeh).

As the well known poets regurgitator put it - right now, I'd rather dance in daggy pants to the funky music playing on your stereo. Oh. Oh. oh-oh.

In the meantime, see you at the next awesome new place. You know, the one with the wood panelling taken from a vintage Holden Station Wagon. The one with the stencils and the egg cartons on the walls, the one with the rooftop sculpture. The cactuses. Yeah, that one.

Sometimes my work is dissonant

So I've been exchanging emails with a marketing coordinator for the United Nations High Comission for Refugees (UNHCR). Looks like I got the gig of doing some newsletter writing for them.

When you work for yourself, project to project, this kind of news is very good news indeed. Something that comes in once a month, reliably, and with a client that seems very systematic and clear about what she wants. Based in Europe, too, so she just sends a package of material, I work with it and send it back. Excellent regular incomce, and for a highly reputable and worthy organisation.

It's like "yay, I got the job". Then, the realisation, oh I'm writing about really terrible stuff. The first line of their last newsletter reads:

Thousands of people have fled across the Oubangui River to escape intertribal violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Equateur province.

Nasty, meaningless violence is the reason this organisation exists. Well that and floods, earthquake, poltical turmoil, etc. But mostly the kind of crap I've never even seen, let alone had any experience of. And because I can (mostly) string a sentence together, I can do something for them for some of the folding stuff. Sigh.

Oh well, the rest of my clients are trying to stop the world turning into Mars in about the same time as since the Doomsday book was written. I can suck it up and deal with the reports coming in from Sudan.

I often wish Lord Monckton and Ayn Rand were right you know. Charity is evil, no global warming. Then I could just work in advertising. I'd enjoy doing ads.

I wish I'd..

... strutted on the Central Park Runway at 1 am
... gone to Oslo that time
... worried less about getting travel sick on those trips
... asked that guy in that cab out for a drink
... been less apologetic in that meeting
... done more Karaoke before everyone had kids
... been a bit more demanding sometimes

Was reminded of a film quote the other day "When opportunity knocks - you don't wanna say Who is it?"

Shouldn't we talk about the weather?

Amsterdam: 9.53 am, nearly Summer (official start: June 21)
Sydney: 5.53 pm, approaching Winter solstice.

What I've been doing

• Scrabble.
• Watching "Che Part 1" in the original Spanish with only Dutch subtitles. Hard core, huh? Picked up less than 50% of the dialogue but it makes you pay attention to body language and cinematography.
• Growing seedlings on the window sill. Watch those little babies go, now that day time temp has rocketed from 6 degrees to 16 in the space of 3 weeks.
• Taking a new resident to Amsterdam bike riding around town
• Seeing Kirsta and 3-month-old Max.
• Talking to old mates on skype.
• Case study and report writing and other arcane measures to create new work.
• Avoiding red wine because apparently it makes tinnitus worse.
• Worrying about climate change.
• Worrying about the economic down turn and thinking it might be time to get a real job.

spammity spam-a-lama-ling-long

explanation of above: I have had a g*mail address ever since they were created, a somewhat catchy moniker, and I get a mother-load of spam. Approx 500 each week. Minimum.

Aside from the random viagra and russian babes stuff, I get things like Fox and Hound Monthly, Huggies Baby Network, Audi car lovers, Solar Winds, Borders Rewards, Classmates.com, the fucking St Elmo Stakehouse which look like regular e-newsletters.* At frist I thought is was my emails on a massive global database that has been sold to every cheap-ass retailer in the States. And of coures, if I try to click their (legitimate-looking) "unsubscribe" link, I seem to just get another slew of new, odd newsletters. Now I reckon it'actually the sky-net machines trying to locate every real email address on the planet, so they can more effectively track us down when they wage war on the humans.

Also I also get a steady stream of what looks like genuine people just stuffing up. There's definitely a Reverend somewhere in the States with a matching last name to my email, who really needs to update his parishoners, because he's going to be showing up to prayer meetings and they won't be there, after they emailed me to say couldn't make it.

Advantages to living in a cold, calvinist country

1. When you go to the shops at 5 pm, and make the 10 minute cycle home, your white wine is nicely chilled.
   
2. It gets dark before five and people in canal houses tend to leave their curtains open until about nine. If you rug up and walk around in the early evening you have a very good chance of seeing someone naked.
   
3. When it is snowing, and you absolutely have to go out to the bank, there are plently of other locals getting around who don't see anything strange in cycling when it is one degree and ice is gathering on your beanie.
   
4. If you ride in this weather for more than 10 minutes your face goes kind of numb so you can't feel the little icy needles hitting anymore.
5. Getting back inside makes you feel reborn.
6. You get to see ducks walking around on icy ponds in the park . Haha, skating ducks.
7. The exchange rate is very good to the dollar.
   

Disadvantages to living in Netherlands in the winter:

1. It's cold
2. It's calvinist