dee - viscerate.com

GIRL
Diana Evans
called Dee
since May 25th, 1980
terrorising inner-city Melbourne
consuming flat whites
producing words, hers and other people's
contact dee [at] viscerate [dot] com

SITE
viscerate.com
consisting of personal reflections
photography by Amy Q
archives here

Thursday, September 21, 2000

Feline tragedy averted: the ƒtunning ƒaga continues… My father’s duel with the postie, Part II. (If you weren’t aware that this had a Part I, you’d better read it below first so you don’t spoil the ending for yourself.)

Where was I? Oh yes. It all started when I was very young. Or, at least, younger than I am now. One weekend, with much smug muttering, my father sallied forth to move the mailbox. All the way across the driveway, he moved it. That should fix it, surely.

It didn’t. The postie still blithely proceeded to do much as she always had, to the detriment of our nature strip.

Obviously not an adversary to be underestimated. My father took a good think (a few years of it, in fact) before he sallied forth once again.

A stone barrier of some half a metre already guarded one side of the driveway, he reasoned, and the postie didn’t drive all over that, now did she? So out he went, laden with stones, cement and fiendish glee.

Unfortunately he didn’t have enough of all three, and the wall failed to be high enough to present an impediment to the postie’s progress. Anguished wails were heard throughout the land, and my father subsided to gnaw his own liver, waiting for his chance.

And lo, this week it came. Possessing the stones, cement, time and raging need for revenge, my father once again sallied forth, this time to lay a truly prodigious wall. Well, at least it’s a step now. The works came complete with blockading wheelbarrow and sign imprecating all and sundry to beware of the step.

Now we await Monday, to see if finally, after many years of battle, my father will emerge victorious.

8:50 PM - link to this - (0) comments

My father has an ongoing feud with the mailman.

I don't know how mail delivery works in other countries. I have vague notions about slits in doors, and sedate postmen with satchels being chased by dogs. That's not how it works in my town. In my town, the postie has a motorbike on which she (usually, for some odd reason) zips from driveway to driveway, poking the letters into the letterbox. That's what it's there for, after all. Although it also comes in handy when you're looking for a house you've never been to before.

In any case, I digress. We live half way up a hill, like just about everyone else in Gladstone. (We don't all live up the same hill, of course, otherwise it would be fearfully crowded, but you get my meaning.) The postie comes down the hill on our side when she's delivering the letters. Our neighbours have their mailbox on the side of their driveway nearest us, so you see it's far simpler for the postie to just keep going down the footpath. Unfortunately, this gouges a small ditch in the grass near our driveway, and this makes my father see red.

It all started when I was fairly young.

... and now the cat is... well, caterwauling underneath my chair. I'll be back to finish this story later...

8:21 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Wednesday, September 20, 2000

Bah. Yea verily, and humbug also.

11:03 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Well.... no, I'm afraid not. (Just like most other little bloggy cliques, right Lizz?)

11:01 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Aaaawww... /me blushes. Shaggable? Little ole me? Meep!

PS: Have I mentioned how much I dig the syndicate? They are some sexy wenches. And that has nothing to do with the fact that most of them are old friends (or at least acquaintances to whom I'm prepared to give the benefit of the doubt) of mine. If I had enough online access at the moment to actually keep up with my regular reads, they'd be one of them. Mwah!

10:45 PM - link to this - (0) comments

#@$&!!! Look, internet, all I want is one piddling little font called "Ottowa". That's not too much to ask, surely? (Apparently so, because I've been meandering through font sites for the past twenty minutes and none of them have it. I'm about to go spare. If any of you have this font called Ottowa, I'd be more than incredibly happy if you'd email it to me. Danke very much!)

3:58 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Excuse me if I'm not blogging quite as much as I sometimes do, but you see, I've got a novel to write, a book to read, a computer game to master, my mother to help, the Olympics to laze in front of, the piano to play and my cat to lavish love over (plus my wife to murder and New Zealand to frame for it, of course... oh wait, I don't have a wife... oops). I never knew lazing around could be such hard work.

3:45 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Tuesday, September 19, 2000

I hate this separation. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. I hate hanging on for every word that slips from his fingers through the wires to my screen. I hate analysing every nuance or imagined nuance of his speech. I hate it when he uses some words, and leaves others out, conspicuous by their absence, and I wonder if it's all over. I hate being this fragile. I hate wondering. I hate the fact that he'll think this is a problem and maybe it is and I just can't see it. I hate the urge to cry. And yes, ever so briefly, I hate him for his part in this. And then I hate myself for that thought.

Then I get over it.

6:18 PM - link to this - (0) comments

I am almost appalled by how little grace the female artistic gymnasts actually have. Sure, they're nowhere near as bad as the men, but it still seems to be all about power. Faster, stronger, higher, but never mind prettier, more flowing, more graceful. I'm dying to see some rhythmic gynastics, because at least there I can be guaranteed grace and style, but the bastards at channel seven aren't showing us any.

6:08 PM - link to this - (0) comments

Monday, September 18, 2000

It amuses me how, whenever I look at the word webloggers, it always looks like "we bloggers" to me. And I suppose that isn't too far off the mark, really.

7:13 PM - link to this - (0) comments

I have a typewriter of my very own! I'm so thrilled. It's a little Olivetti Lettera 32 (old), a portable in a case with a new ribbon. They still take precisely the same size. It's amazing. I love it. I love typing on it. My darling little typewriter is just wonderful. I think I'll go and gurgle quietly in the corner for a while.

Now that I have returned to a relative, if somewhat spittle-stained, sanity, I shall explain why I like typewriters so much. It's the process of writing, you see. The act of creation needs to be physical. The flow of ideas needs to be solid. It's far too easy to erase the words from the screen, to pretend they were never there. That is anathema to me. It makes me shiver. To destroy an idea in cold blood is a crime.

But I think far too fast to write it all out longhand. Typewriters are, of course, the answer. The solidity of reality combined with a certain speed of delivery. Magnificent implements. I do hope the fellow who invented them was properly rewarded.

7:05 PM - link to this - (0) comments

It's amazing how askance your family looks at you when you ask your father the best way to render a hard-drive unusable.

10:13 AM - link to this - (0) comments

Sunday, September 17, 2000

Interesting sentiment. Not likely to be very effective, all things considered, but it's nice to feel like you're doing something, I guess.

11:36 AM - link to this - (0) comments

I came to a potentially very valuable realisation last night: I am surrounded by morons.

Now, I know that my regular readers (do you have any idea how conceited I feel using that phrase?) will be surprised that this is a realisation, considering how frequently I use that phrase, but the full truth of it hadn't yet hit me until last night. I mean, there aren't just a few scattered morons out there. They're everywhere.

We went out to a fairly typical Gladstone pub last night. There was a somewhat entertaining band. The place was full of drunken twits. To crown the twitdom of the evening, some bright spark (pun intended) set off a few bunches of fireworks. Under tables.

It was then that I fully realised it. The idiots are everywhere. Not just on the internet. Not just in college. They are everywhere, clogging up the world. And unless I want to become a hermit (not an entirely uninviting idea) I'd better get used to dealing with them. Or at least more adept at ignoring them.

11:28 AM - link to this - (0) comments

I adore climbing. Why don't I do it more often? I don't know. N and I took some menfolk and went indoor climbing yesterday. It's a great place, with six metre and 11 metre walls. And at the top of one of the 11 metre walls is a bell. And I rang it. Oh, aren't I proud of myself?

There's nothing quite like climbing for a full body workout and real satisfaction. Damn, I sound like an ad. But have a go, if you can. It's fun.

11:13 AM - link to this - (0) comments