wonderful week-end

• Saturday morning market shop
• Saturday still morning two and a half hours of dance class
• Saturday evening alone with costume making, dancing, wine, dance DVDs, costume making, dress ups, dancing, DVD watching, dancing, etc.
• Sunday morning sleep-in
• Sunday afternoon drive to Sandringham, romantic strolls along the beach, bread, dips, chips and beer at the pub and cosy dinner at home
• Early to bed, not so early to sleep
• Life has been so good to me lately.

good value Wednesday

At lunch yesterday, I went to the library to find my book and read the last few gripping pages. Of course I went to the shelf only to find that the last copy had been borrowed. So I crossed the road to Dymocks where I located my book and sat down and read my way through the final chapters ("I'm fine thanks, just browsing"). I finished and replaced the book with a sense of accomplishment akin to what I would have felt had I written The Blind Assasin myself.

I then went and used a voucher to aquire myself a gratis latte. I went back to work feeling positively affluent.

a full weekend

• The Simpson's Movie. Best bits: pizza and beer before, sickly doughnuts during, a walk through Southgate after, finally warmth and scotch at home.
• An afternoon with surrogate niece and nephew. Family time. Well fed.
• A constructive and enjoyable 'buisness' meeting, with food, wine and belly dance porn.
• Home-made jam on home-made scones. A new baby passed around. Cups of tea.
• Being an audience member for a change. Being entertained. Brimming with pride to watch a beautiful girl shine.

thursday

• 6:00pm The Simpsons
• 7:00pm Futurama
• 7:30pm The Simpsons
• 8:00pm The Simpsons
• 8:30pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• 9:00pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• 9:30pm Arrested Development (on DVD)
• Etc.
• I'll never get anything done after work at this rate
• But it's so good
• Tommorrow: The Simpsons Movie.

a lunchtime epiphany

At lunchtime I often take my book down to the City Library to read. During winter it's the only warm and comfortable place where I can read in peace without having to buy something. I love it there - sitting amongst shelves of books, people around me reading, studying or quietly conversing; it's a good place to escape to.

I went down yesterday and found a little spot in the library's gallery on the mezzanine level. As I was reading, a small old lady shuffled past me. With her bent body, white seaweed hair and intensly black eyebrows, she looked like an eccentric bag lady and perhaps she was. She reminded me of my grandmother actually, who, I suppose, for all intents and purposes, was a bit of a crazy old bag lady. I loved her for it.

I peered over the top of my book to see her park her trolly and remove several layers of tattered woolen clothing, before seating herself before the library's shiny black piano. I watched her knarled hands, contricted with arthritis and age, touch the keys. And then she began to play. I know very little about music, and less about piano, but the music that she drew out of that instrument was the kind that you felt in your insides - the kind that feels like a flock of birds in your chest that are trying to fly out.

I watched her crooked body rock back and forth with the music, watched that mane of hair falling across her face, watched her creased hands move across the keys and watched the subtle expressions of disbelief in people's faces as they paired the sound with the image of this woman.

I walked back to work with a smile on my face and a little less fear of growing old.