Van Badham on the 2013 elections: There's little doubt that Rupert Murdoch's newspapers deliver prime ministerial victories in Australia... But that these backings at their most fervent can now only deliver a 1.2% is yet another suggestion in a broader dialogue that the days of the political influence of old media may be numbered.

1) Fifteen minute walk

2) A cafe

3) At least one hour's procrastination

3) 2 cups of coffee. (2. not 1. Not 3. 2 shall be the number of cups to be consumed, no more and no less.

4) 1 tiny little baby cake

5) No sensible food for four hours.

The downside of this is feeling immensely ill once you *do* finally eat something sensible. But I have five rewritten pages of a chapter 4!

Because I promised I would blog about black swans once we were settled:
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There's an immense flock of them, about a hundred swans feeding everyday in the bay area. On a grey day, they look like capail uisce, something fey and very wild and not serene at all.

Briony and I spent a quiet morning in our new flat, after a weekend of entertaining family. My Mom had flown over for the weekend and we finally got to have her stay over and cook for her: roast chicken and vegetables, drunken pears with chocolate sauce. All of it Briony's doing (thank you dear heart). I think Mom adored it---adored the beach, adored the quiet, and the blue water just a five minute's walk away from our house. The neighborhood Briony and I live in is very different to the places we've chosen to stay it for most our adult lives.There are so many wild things outside: ibis and pelicans, egrets and seagulls diving for fish.

It's been a mad beginning to the year with the move. It feels good to have this.

So as of this afternoon, 84,500 words later, I've finished the 2012 edits of The Disappearance of Rafael Panaligan. *collapses in exhaustion* I...I hope this this will be the start of me learning to be human again, and not a hermit.

And this is the last novel I'm getting into without a thorough strategy, or outline from the start. Holy hell, what took my X-men/Transformer YA spacepunk novel so long? ;___;

Mom and Dad flew in after there Continuum weekend to celebrate my 28th birthday with me. These visits are often a cause of stress and anxiety, because there is a prerequisite that daughter spends time away from Briony, and in this particular visit, Mum and Dad insisted on visiting house, meeting Carlos and Esther for the first time and could not give a specific time for when up until the day. And Briony and me with a messy, messy room because we are terrible at keeping things neat and because the girls don't help much either. Stress, stress all around.

There's also an extent to which I feel...so many things I wanted to do by age 28 that have been left undone. Have The Disappearance finished, published, with more brain children on the way. Finished, or at least, be en route to a PHD, even though I'm not sure I want academia to be my life anymore. Have learned to be braver, not to worry so much whether people liked her or not, to not worry to be the brightest, wittiest and prettiest in the room. To be someone worthwhile instead, a better wordsmith, a better theorist. Something concrete for them to be proud of and I never feel that I've measured up to the things I should or want to be and somehow all of that is magnified whenever I see my family.

So means a great deal, when Mom squeezes my shoulder to say how happy she is with what I've made for myself, that I am happy. That I have Briony, that I have my friends, the girls, though she and Dad are still }: about rats. That she and DDad want to see my next short story. And I look at the things I want to do and the things I could be and think yeah, I can still do that.

Tying my hair back in writer's bun.

It was apparently supposed to be the apocalypse this weekend so of course, Briony and I went out to see Thor. :p The trailers I saw had made it out to be Yet Another Superhero Movie, but several folks, namely newredshoes and ephemere made interesting noises about ( the movie's villainCollapse )

So...uhm, after five wonderful days of public holidays (six for me \o/), I, and many of our colleagues walked into work and...found ourselves swimming in books. Oceans of books. Mountains of books. Infinite galaxies and constellations of books. Our only consolation was that out there, somewhere, all of our fellow librarians in public libraries were going through the exact same thing. I think we were all a little starry eyed when we finally walked out of work.

And then I got home and found that my author interview was up on Rocket Kapre.
Eeeeeeiiiii.

Because I am an idiot and forgot to tell everyone: guys, I lost my phone over the weekend and am currently uncontactable by mobile. ;__; Briony and I hope to resolve that this weekend, but until then, email, lj and dreamwidth are the ways to go. I think friends have B's mobile, so if you need to ping us, ping Briony.

Fare thee well fantasywithbite. Once upon a time, I friended the comm out of a desire to check up on awesome books that I might otherwise be missing out on.

But of late, you've become fonder and fonder of vitirolic reviews. You seem to believe the amount of venom you spew is equivalent to the amount of smart and awesome that is you. It's...not, really. It makes it very difficult for me to engage with any valid argument you might be trying to make. People who have tried to explain this to you, or disagree with you suddenly find themselves within spitting range.

I don't know why it's taken me so long to defriend the comm (actually I do. What with househunting and keeping me and my darling fed and presentable for work, there has been precious little lj time to read my f'list), but for the sake of my blood pressure, I'm glad I have the time to do it now.

Bye!

When I came home, Briony insisted I had to sit down and watch this with her. I was hesitant, because I remember watching Cardcaptors, the English dubbed version when I was a kid, and not being very impressed. It was Pokemon for girls --- which just goes to show, you can never, ever judge an anime from its English dub. Both Pokemon and Cardcaptor Sakura were horribly mangled in their English translations: scenes and entire episodes cut and spliced so they could be marketed to the translators' ideal Western audience --- Pokemon for younger children, Cardcaptor Sakura for the boys. Of course, as we all know, boys can't deal with girls in the spotlight, or the idea of other boys who like each other. So! Snip snip.

( Which is a shame, because guys, guys, the original? Is Made of AwesomeCollapse )