WOUNDEDKITE // still. still. still.

still here. just nothing interesting to say lately.

back when i’m doing more than working all night and sleeping all day

woundedkite.com, i need to share with you something i wrote in 2003. this was the height of my caws infatuation, in fact the year i met him, and is written with him in mind. it pains me, it breaks my heart that i haven’t been able to write anything near as beautiful since. i don’t know why i keep banging on about writing. i guess i’m just in this magical, beautiful and historical place which i thought would inspire me, but apart from a few hours in bath, i don’t feel any different than i have over the last five years. anyway, here it is…

we never had that exclusivity talk that couples who read cosmo together in bed seem to have. it was all just assumed for us. assumed that he would stay the night. assumed that he would stay the next night. assumed that he would keep on staying the night. and assumed that when the lease ran out at his tiny apartment he was never much seen at, that he would move into my house.

when i was younger, i had come into a substantial amount of money. with it i decided to invest in a house in one of the more trendy suburbs of our city. the plan was to live there until i was established, and while it’s charm and location suited me, and then buy a house somewhere by a beach and use the first house as a rental property. i didn’t care where this beach was, i just wanted to be able to see the ocean from my bedroom window. but we still live in the only house i ever bought. and we used to spend our days on its front porch, sipping coffee and watching the hipsters, and the generations around us get younger and younger.

before i met him, before he moved in, my house was big and empty. much in the same way my life was. we both sat there waiting for someone to paint the walls bright colours and to fill the empty rooms with life and song.

he bought a huge second hand book case and filled it with our combined library. except for the bottom shelf which was dedicated to his neatly organised and meticulously cared for vinyl lp’s. although they were jumbled together, one only needed a quick glance to tell which books were mine and which were his. mine were often the “prescribed text,” the army from my long fought battle with education. my fiction collection featured all the safe options, king, grisham, etc, etc, etc. where as he read poetry from dog-eared paper backs and autobiographies written by people who spend their whole lives dropping acid.

i’m not sure why i spend my time talking of our differences. i think it is because i still have a hard time believing that someone so, i’m trying hard not to use the word “cool.” that someone who was so free would choose to settle down with someone so structured as i was. and still am.

my boy was weird about technology, and the wrath of his scorn usually fell on television. while he hated network tv, and harboured many grudges about reality television, he put up with our set because of the nights we would spend, curled up together, watching old black and white movies.

he loved his computer, but wasn’t too pleased with the monopolistic ideals of bill gates and the microsoft corporation, so he worked at a ruby red apple imac. he was quick to connect to the internet, and he relished the idea that it made our lonely little planet a little smaller with boyish glee. soon he had given up on our biased print media entirely and got his news fix from sources all around the world.

and it took me years to convince him to get a mobile phone so i could always be in contact with him. but when he finally got that nokia in his hands, he was in love with being able to call his oceans of friends whenever and wherever he wanted. but his favourite thing to do was to send me text messages while i was at work, cute little love letters in digital format.

i just stumbled upon the australian war memorial’s flickr photostream. it’s images like this that make me proud to be australian. that make me proud of the anzac spirit and all our diggers did. in 90 percent of the photos the men are smiling, even though most of them have not doubt been witness to unspeakable horror. things like anzac day aren’t about glorifying war. war is a terrible thing that no person should have to go through. but the fact is that so many of our boys did, and without question they stood up, and a lot of them died during the process. but still they did it with a smile on their faces. this is what being an australian is all about. the strength, dignity, humility and courage of the diggers. and all the while with gentle humour and grace. lest we forget.

although i am having the time of my life here, not a day goes by when i don’t think about coming back to australia, and how great it will be to see everyone again, and having my mum meet me at the airport, and going for a drive with sooky.

my birthday was good. well except for my body shutting down for the weekend. i had an awful cold and then on top of that i got conjunctivitis. but i still managed to go out and drink and dance and have lots of laughs. to continue with my dramas, yesterday i managed to get a piece of glass stuck in my foot. good times. i don’t really want to pay to go to the doctor, so on the advice of my mum i’ve had it wrapped in some magnaplasm, and soon my housemate charlotte is going to try and dig it out.

speaking of housemates, my wonderful housemate gloria has gone travelling through europe, and then back to the states. we had a tearful goodbye in the rain, and now i miss her heaps. i knew i would make friends here, but i didn’t expect to make such good friends, and so quickly. and at least when i left, it wasn’t that bad saying goodbye because i knew that i’d see everyone again in a years time, and i’d go back to work with vaness, jimmy james and dave like old times. but once i leave wales, i don’t know if i’ll ever be back, and it’s already making me sad that i’m going to have to leave all these rad people.

oh wow. this is all much more emo than i had anticipated. sorry.

ps: vanessa, i promise i am going to send you a huge email shortly.

on tuesday i went to bath, which is about an hour and a half’s train ride south of east of here. what a beautiful city. the most beautiful i have been to since landing in the mother country. you can see the photos i took here. i had loads of fun exploring bath abbey and the roman baths, and then wandering around the city, the buildings and the shops.

it’s a very arty city, and it’s beauty has obviously inspired many people, judging by the galleries and shop after shop filled with gorgeous wares and clothes. and for the first time since 2006 i was inspired to write. my lack of inspiration to write the stories i use to be able to come up with has tormented me for years. but something stirred within me in bath, so i bought a notebook and spent a good couple of hours writing a story that’s been floating around in my head for a few months now. it wasn’t something original, in terms of it having played out a million times in my head, and i guess counts as fan fiction, which is why no-one will ever see it but me. but it gives me hope that i’ll be able to continue, and hopefully when i get back to sydney i’ll have the time to take a creative writing course and work on my skills.

i also bought a new watch. it’s cheap, plastic and shaped like a bracelet. not really worth taking a picture of. but what i wanted to mention is that it’s digital. no-one really knows this besides my mum, but i, the girl who will turn 26 in just over a week, have issues telling time. i have the minute part down, i can tell you whether it’s 10 past or 10 to etc, but when you throw in having to work out what hour it is too, i get completely lost. i blame being left handed and right brained. i’m just not a visual person, and it takes me ages to see an image and have it sink in. if it’s words, or numbers i’m fine, but if i’m looking at an image, i take a while to see the whole picture. i think it’s the same gene that stops me from being able to see magic eye puzzles and find wally.

so i am officially abandoning analog time. i left my beautiful jag watch at home because i didn’t want it to get lost, so this is the perfect time to leave the big hand and the little hand alone forever. or until i get back and go somewhere fancy where a plastic watch won’t be socially acceptable.

i’m currently listening to a mix cd i made for a friend to introduce him to the bands i listen to. it’s currently playing carry the zero by built to spill. what a song. and i believe after that we’ll be going to brisbane to hear piece of shit by custaro. i’ve always said that glenn sang the best custard songs, and it’s true.

i can’t sleep, so i am posting my to do list for tomorrow [or later this morning i guess] on the intorwebs, in hopes that it will actually get done. instead of the sleeping all day and lazing about watching gilmore girls that i’ve done on my last two days off.

-buy new sunglasses.

-go to marks and spencer, see if cute scarf with buttons on it is still there. purchase it.

-look for cheap accessories to liven up work outfits. broches etc. this can be my self birthday present.

-clean room, dust and vacuum.

-if there’s time, dye hair.

-give housemate 1 money for tv license and internetz.

-see jersey budd at cardiff barfly. he opened for eskimo joe when i saw them in birmingham and was pretty decent, so i’d like to check him out solo.

whew, busy day ahead. better get back to bed

work’s going ok i guess. some days i really hate it and dread going and wish that i’d gotten a job at primark or something instead. but most of the time once i’m actually there it’s ok. i think it’s just that it’s always so busy, and i’m just not used to it. the only time there has ever been more than 10 seconds of downtime between calls was at 8am on saturday morning. i’m just too used to being lazy i guess that i can’t handle it. at ups we were taking 100 calls a day between the four of us, i reckon i’m doing more than that in a shift by myself. oh and someone called me inept on saturday, which i tried really hard not to take personally and failed.

and then right when i was in the middle of a “i hate my job and why did i even come to this stupid country for?” crisis, i got an sms from my dear friend hope saying that she’s been stalking me on the internet, and it made me feel so much better. combine that with some lovely twitters from my favourite internet peeps, and a long email from vanessa, i’m back in the swing of things. i am going to kick this call centre’s ass, and i’ll be running the show in no time.

i have three days off next week. that gives me one day to be hungover and do nothing, one day to do housework and go and finally buy the awesome scarf i saw at marks and spencer the other day, then on the third day i really want to go to bath and look around there. it’s only about an hour and a half away on the train, and will hopefully be quite beautiful and scenic.

it always manages to creep up on me, but it’s my birthday in a few weeks, which means we’re also half way through the year. i won’t be doing much, just dinner and drinks with my housemates, their boyfriends and some people from work. we might even go down to cardiff bay which is a bit trendy and modern. my mum said that her and nan are going to send me some money so i can buy my own present, so i think i might organise a day trip to london to go shopping on oxford high street. i have also added my address to facebook so you can send me a card or a letter. HINT HINT.

and that’s about all i have to say at the moment. good night cardiff, good night internets.