Abroad

So one moment Summer is approaching the stuck phase, the dog days, and then suddenly there are wild and serious blazes in places I remembered as exquisite glistening rainforest; sometimes even at the same time as sweet steady rain fell here in Sydney. Saying thus I'm still not caught up with all the weeds that the rain has nourished.

All computing in that time was checking for updates about the weather and the fires, contacting friends, donating, discussing donations, checking the stories in the newspapers.

A few days previous to those mighty flare ups, I'd dreamed of a huge living burning Kali figure who wasn't near me but who was big enough for all to see. She seemed unable to be stopped and everyone who saw her began to throw water at her in containers made from newspaper.

It wasn't that effectual but we had to try something.

Not long before that and then again for a few too many days afterwards, Sydney had binding unshifting heat with those essential doldrums which meant that coolest times were at The Pub.

News of friends and fire stories are slowly filtering through the last couple of storm cooled days.

I was ill from an inner ear infection during the duresses, then the computer required attention.

I thought of blogging continually, took to scrawling ideas in my notebook, the one which was supposed to be about the band. There are some good pieces I think but how to think up a link after a break?

With vertigo from the ear infection and a haze of confusion, it seemed necessary a few weeks ago to begin to sort books.

Three shelves only have I now sorted. Towers are emerging up and down the hall. There are new books and new categories. During the homeless time I wrote more than I read. In reading more than writing these days, I find I'm dreaming short stories and wake up from a different movie each morning with transforming screen plays busily humming away in the background just out of hearing.

The young Neil Simon, after being taken to his first movie in the Thirties, awoke the next morning to tell his mother he could also watch movies in his sleep. I like his book Re-Writes very much in the same kind of way as I like to read about New York and Broadway.

Several years and a few other lifetimes ago, before domestic hurricanes blew things about, my books  where basically usually where I knew they'd be. Admittedly,  locations travelled through varying fans and small towers as the processes of research and study progressed. I was very distressed when this and all the basic literary memories were hurled about.

It led to just about everything I could think of breaking down.

I'm renting a nice place here and I can't help noticing that it's sometimes looked at with jealous eyes by some of those who are suffering from Sydney's Rental Crisis.

Angelic protection would be appreciated in present times because I sure don't want to move until I've got some work and mobility issues sorted (and some of those old time messes). I don't want to move until one or more of my own already written books have been picked up.

The best thing about this place, apart from a certain gracious beauty, is reuniting with my things out of storage.

I'd been worried during the homeless years because there was evidence the storage places were being pilfered.  In the small and dreary cheap cells I inhabited in those times I basically managed to keep close to me several favourite research texts, tomes I hoped would balance inspiration and dread in the writer in me as well as a selection of cook,  herb, gardening books and so on. I also had a pile of old journals and notebooks including dream books.

I didn't much appreciate the strange file dropped on me at great cost by Federal Education and the sharks who moved among the remains of the old CES!

Even during the homeless era, my library was enlarged by friend Mike Noonan who lent and gave and borrowed, my daughter of course, some fabulous library sales, the occasional cheap book shop and the Please Help Yourself boxes which appear on the street when folks change their abodes.

Today, resting after overdoing things yesterday and lately, I read Karen Stolz's book, The World Of Pies. Most satisfying though purists would be surprised by the Texan dietary input. Recipes are included.

I've read a fair bit during the time offline (not much else to do in the doldrums of interrupted dentals and even less on TV mostly!)

 I was loaned the latest Terry Pratchett, more memoirs and some great music books.

Music wise, it seems as if we can now put together many more details of the never ending saga of Rock Icon back-stage gossip thanks to writers such as Tony Bramwell and Ian McLagan. Some of these people, Marianne Faithful and dear old Mac, you are surprised they remember anything at all!

Books take me to places I'm interested in. Isobelle Allende recently took me through San Francisco and a lot of Chile. These's also a lot of LA in the music books, which was also an interesting place in the first chunk of the Twentieth Century (as recalled by David Niven).

Elizabeth Taylor's biography was surprising. Broad Aboard.

It's an escapist world maybe, but it's work, it's history it feeds the writing and if one can't get about, at least there are other ways of travelling.

After launching this post with atmospheres, updates and various writerly subjects, I must include the News To Hand, which is that there's been an atmosphere of some Disquiet at Number Twenty as Flat Two lies vacant before the ravening hordes!

My three sorted shelves which I just photographed, I hope will initiate some functionalism but I still feel a bit inadequate.

Jeremy and Brendan, happily bookish, moved yesterday to a place where they can fit more books and music.

Neighbour Ron moved a coupla weeks ago and two girls have moved in to his place.

I shall ring the agent. I need someone quiet and considerate. I have to do my work here, see my clients, get the tutoring happening again and a few more publications etc, some entertainment...

( I just scored a client interested in publicity ideas recently!!)

There's a part time job I'm after, a bridge I hope. There's more serious dentals down the track and my appointments are already stretched, I believe because I'm a Medicare type.

Ah, Phooey about some of it.

I have to sort photographs and get my new scanner working. Both and All.