#todayithought...

#thesoundtrackofnam...

#abouttoday...
"Reflecting on today i should have eaten more than bubble tea, pineapple and an airplane "meal" [its not really that bad, i don't know why airplane food gets so much hate...] it had been 12 days and the police still hadn't finished or rather- hadn't started the insurance report for my stolen iphone. Anh said its because it got taken from your hand, in daylight, at the same intersection that the police station is on- so it makes them look bad and lazy... which is what they are! he said.
i sat in the police station for too long again, one of the girls who run the hostel translated for me; a whole lot more aggressively than how i put it and it worked. she added things like " she'll call the australian embassy and report you... if she misses her flight tonight you'll be paying for it etc etc" i was very thankful that she was there with me.

before this experience began, i wondered what the soundtrack would be and since my chosen music was removed from me on the first day here; the soundtrack naturally became the experience itself...
the lyrics are foreign, the melody- both haunting and playful. sounds cut in and out of each other but with a sense of belonging; traffic- motorbike horn, a stream of flowing water, the sound of children playing, bricks falling down, someone coughing up, an old woman weeping and begging, weeping and begging, a dog and a chicken, a man laughing and still laughing, layers of silence and if every shade of green had one sound- that... and a woodwind instrument and my beating heart...

The album art would be something like a collage of motorbikes colliding around a monument of earthly significance made of buffalo-head triangle cheese and everything would be drowning, sinking into the ocean but in a hopeful way... with yellow flowers in there somewhere. 

and that is the soundtrack of my #namtownadventure"

#abouttoday post nam...

#abouttoday...

"I feel so much older #thatsalie or though my body aches at times and then I tell myself "you've got the heart of a youth and the bones of an ancient egyptian mummy #dealwithit" and then I remembered those lyrics by The Cure, "yesterday I got so old I felt like I could die, yesterday I got so old it made me want to cry..."
Sometimes their lyrics are so serious and honest but its hard to take it seriously because the melody is so playful. Their music has this ironic way of making me feel good about things. 'The Cure' are great.

Today, walking by the maribyrnong river, to the shopping centre to keep my "genius" appointment at apple and I thought of all the things inside me that I want to get out. All the things I want to say, want to communicate to the world before this ends for me. And I can't work out how, in any kind of way. My eyes glazed over.
Isn't that all we're all trying to do; isn't that what we're doing here? Trying to express this experience of being human and what that means and how it feels. And maybe that's one reason im studying sign language, find as many ways as I can to communicate; just to get it out right... 

im always asking why, too curious and for my birthday, my sister gave me a book called 'Why? Answers to Everyday Scientific Questions' 
"because you're a scientist now" she said.
I am always amazed by her insight of me. She said "I worried about you almost every day but I knew being in Vietnam was good for because of what you were going through. You never talk about how you feel to get approval or reassurance or some sense of direction; you've never needed that from people. You just need to get it out".
I was silent for a moment and then said 
"I feel good when say things like that" she laughed
"why? Because it shows you that I know you?" she asked
"yeah...and you know me and you still like me" I said
"I like you even more because of it" she added

My old iphone4 [replacement of my stolen iphone5] has issues- no safari [internet], no wifi and no app store and the off button doesn't work... They asked me if it's ok to reset the phone, which I agreed to, though it was not backed up- I figured i've been getting good at letting things go. Well they couldn't reset it anyway because you need the 'off' button to go off for that...they apologised and in the end i don't think the ''genius'' felt so genius. I said
"don't worry about it, genius is a pretty lose term these days"

sometimes I wonder, how I got to be so deeply effected by things. Maybe going through my whole life sober is part of it; I have never known what it's like to numb whatever it is I feel. When I cut my leg shaving I thought maybe I should allow myself to be upset [about other things that aren't shaving cuts] and not constantly analyse myself as to why... And just be ok with that.

I keep thinking about that missing airplane; I was flying with that same airline, in that same area last week. And I don't think, "what if that was me?" I just think about the purple blanket that's waiting at your seat, when you board and the endless cups of bad coffee with the weird powdered milk and the eye contact I made with the air hostess and the rows of seats in front of me, filled with strangers, all going the same direction and wondering- only for a moment "who are you all? Where are you actually going?". And the friendly voice that began with "this is your captain speaking..." First in a foreign language, then in English. It all seemed so ordinary then one moment changes the 'ordinary' forever."

'the cure'- in between days:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=scif2vfg1ug&feature=kp

one day we will fly

i've consumed more tea in the last two weeks than i have in my life time...

i was trying to think of a time from my childhood where i really believed that i could fly. it seems like something a child could believe but i struggle to find memories from that time. Where do they go? The memories, i mean...

maybe there's something deeply sad about that. 

none of my childhood memories are solid, i could try but i'd always be questioning- did that really happen or was it a dream i had? i remember hiding from my dad under the bed until my mum got home and not in fun way...it's never actually the way we remember it, is it...? 

Sure i could start to tell you how i was playing in the sand box when i was five and he throw sand in my eyes and instead of crying about it, i pick up one of his tonka trucks and used my best aim and strongest arm and that's why he's still got that scar on his forehead today. But that never happened; it's just one of those things i tell my friend's in social situations when they ask "wait, how do you two actually know each other?" when really they're referring to a stranger, i've just met. i love strangers. infinite potential. and i talk to them like i know them because i want to- know them. sometimes i want to know who everyone is...

anyway i drew this #paperairplane because i could not remember a time when i believed i could fly...