The Mezzanine

Haven't really posted much lately. Life has kinda been getting in the way.

So. General update*:

- I am looking for work, and also freelancing.
- Freelancing costs a LOT. All my clients keep saying "We want to pay you $500! But first you need to spend $300 on an essential piece of software, okay?"
- I have been watching much tv, including Leverage, My Little Pony, Once Upon A Time, Lizzie Bennet Diaries, and Zombieland. They all rock.
- The boyfriend is back in Australia, which is extremely awesome.
- Although I am terribly religious, and not at all concerned with such trivialities as shiny and delicious presents, I must report a total of 14 Easter eggs, 1 Ferrero Rocher, and 5 bunnies. SO MUCH CHOCOLATE. AND ALL FOR ME.
- Autumn has finally started taking over from our ridiculously long summer. About time! Unfortunately, it's been so long that I've completely forgotten how to dress for cold weather. I keep on putting on pretty outfits and then going "But I can't wear a jumper! It won't match!" and nearly freezing to death.
- I was sick for a couple of weeks, and so have spent the last 10 days off dairy. I miss my cereal - with an intense, burning passion that I'd never realised flattened bits of corn could inspire in me.
- Life is busy. But good.


* HIMYM fans will understand why I felt it necessary to smartly salute and murmur "General Update!" in the middle of writing this blog post.

The boyfriend is back!!!! YAY!!!!

(He's also horribly jetlagged, but I'm focusing on the good bit.)

I am currently waiting for Nathan to wake up from a very long nap, and slightly bored. So I thought I'd take a moment to tell you all my theory of women's clothing. (And possibly men's clothing, but I'm less sure about that.)

Briefly, most clothing will emphasise three different parts of the body:
- the bust or shoulders
- the waist or hips
- the bottom or legs
It's very rare to find clothing that, for instance, emphasises both the waist and the hips. You have to pick which one you want to go with.

So, you figure out which of each pair you should emphasise, and then always pick clothes accordingly. For me, it's:
- shoulders; generally v-necks, halter tops, or other things which create diagonal lines
- waist; stuff which comes in very sharply at my waistline
- bottom; flared jeans, bustle skirts, or fishtails

And that's how it works.



Questions? Comments?

Here's a few images from the last few months.

A fountain, in Mildura:


There was no actual edge; you could walk straight through the thing if you didn't mind getting wet. Unfortunately, I hadn't brought a towel, so I abstained.


( 11 more under the cut )

It's been a busy few months...

There is something very fun about watching people dressing up and feeling pretty.

They look pretty, too - but to a certain extent, the looking isn't the point. The point is that they feel so pretty that they glow with pretty feelings, and end up with "I AM PRETTY!" radiating out of every pore. Which just makes them look even prettier.

And really, while there's something nice about dressing up, watching other people dress up and feel incredibly pretty is just fun.

Read a murder mystery today, in which the killer got away with it.

As a veteran of whodunits, I'm quite used to stories from the perspective of the killer, or where the killer gets away. They can work well - but, the thing is, they kinda depend on you sympathising with the killer.

If the book's from the killer's perspective, they can still be a horrible person, but you need at least some kind of reason to see things from their point of view. And, if the killer gets away with the murder, you really really need to understand where the killer's coming from, and to mostly agree with their point of view.

If Ms Jones is taking out Evil McNastison, vile wretch, kidnapper of cute little girls, and puppy killer, then the fact that she gets away with stabbing him might just be something we're okay with. If, on the other hand, Ms Jones gets away with stabbing Cheapskate McDouche, who didn't pay his parking tickets, we might think she's overreacting. And we'll probably get a bit more disapproving about the whole got-away-with-murder thing.


...all of which is a long, round-about way of saying:

If your murder mystery, from 1930, has someone getting away with murdering a Foul Fiend who
a) has an affair with a married woman
b) dumps said married woman because he's out of cash
c) proposes to a rich chick because he needs more cash
...and that's it...
then your 21st century murder mystery fan, reading your fabulous novel, will not necessarily approve of you letting the murderer off the hook.

No matter how much you have the other characters gasp and say things like "what a cad!", I'm still not going to be happy about them killing him. He's just not evil enough.



(Agatha Christie was so much better at this. I've seen other authors go with Mr Marries-For-Money and Mr Complains-About-The-Church-In-His-Newspaper being killed with the approval of the other characters - and apparently the author - but the Values Dissonance stopped those being okay pretty quickly. Whereas Christie, when she wanted to let the killer go free, made her victim kidnap and murder a three-year-old. That's still pretty effective.)

Read a book today. A whole book - in one day. Not unprecedented, but it only happens with books I'm utterly fascinated by. And this book was, indeed, fascinating.

The book in question was Torn by Justin Lee, who runs the Gay Christian Network. I've read a number of posts, interviews, and articles by Justin over the last few years, and have always been very impressed with him. He is committed to following Jesus no matter what trouble it gets him into - and it shows.

If you're a Christian, I recommend you get a copy of Torn, and read it. If you're not a Christian... get a copy of Torn, and read it. Cause seriously, guys, it's awesome.

The loveliest man in the world just had flowers delivered to me. Because he's just that great.

Quiet evening at home. Hurrah! Haven't had one of those in quite a while.


TV I am watching
Recently, I have been re-watching episodes of:
- Sarah Connor Chronicles
- the Lizzie Bennet Diaries
- Once Upon A Time
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic
- Leverage
- Yes Minister

All of them are very awesome, but in very different ways.


Lent...
...will start in about a week. In previous years, I have done many different things, including giving up chocolate, television, and unnecessary spending. The unnecessary spending worked well; the chocolate less so. It's not that I can't give up chocolate - but instead of making me focus on God, or on how little I need possessions, or on more spiritual things, it just makes me focus on how much I love chocolate. Which kind of defeats the purpose of the whole thing.

This year, I'm being a bit restrictive: I'm sticking to only fair trade tea and chocolate. Inconvenient? Focusing on other people in financial difficulty? A good discipline? Yep, yep, and yep. We'll see how it goes.

(One year, I'm so going to give up electric lighting. But that will not be this year.)


My washing
I just did it. For the first time in a month.

I can tell this, because my clothes-horse is now holding 25 pairs of undies. I didn't even realise I had 25 pairs of undies...


iPad Apps
There are so many.

Just about anything you could ever think of trying to plan - seriously, anything - will have an app already waiting, with in-built checklists ready to go. Very helpful. (Except that the app will be totally convinced that no-one could ever colonise Mars without inventing faster-than-light travel first, and will keep putting little "remember to install your FTL drives!" reminders in your to-do list, even though you have no intention of doing anything of the sort. Kind of irritating - and makes me feel like I'm terribly untrendy because I'm not fixated on conquering hyperspace and just want to get to the fun part of the Mars colonisation project*.)

* This, for the record, is the bit where we discover the ruins of the ancient Martian civilisation underground, and decipher the codes for creating wormholes using Martian technology...

The more I see of the Terminator sequels, the more I appreciate the original.

Not in the way that I'd say "Ugh. The more I see of the Jurassic Park sequels, the more I appreciate the original. After all, that one didn't suck." No - the reason I love Terminator is because of Sarah Connor.

Sarah Connor. Unrepentant badass. Most hardcore chick ever. Whose current reaction to scary situations is... to sit there and cry.

She's Sarah Connor. SARAH CONNOR. Seriously. And yet, this is Sarah Connor in her pre–Sarah Connor state, where she drops things, freaks out at danger, shrieks, cries, screams, wails, and generally has no idea what to do.

And we get to see the exact moment when she goes from cute little civilian girl to Sarah Connor, bitches. It's AWESOME.


An added bonus is seeing her interacting with Kyle Reese, who is encountering a clueless civilian for the very first time in his life. A clueless civilian who happens to be the most kickass woman in the universe - or at least, she will be, if he can get it through her thick skull...


Yep. Liked this movie the first time I saw it, but having now seen two (*coughs*) sequels and a tv series, I like it so much more.