sometimes i can't find my good habits

six months

Tue, 19 Aug 2008 10:00:39 GMT

it's amazing the difference a couple of months of rainfall make in australia. here are two photos taken from within a few meters of each other, with the same camera, no color correction whatsoever, six months apart. the tree on the right in the first photo is the tree in the center of the second photo.

february 9, 2008:

august 19, 2008:

and by the way: soon i will live in a house.

YAYAYAY

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 11:53:35 GMT

jackson and anna got engaged!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

parents

Tue, 15 Jul 2008 14:33:41 GMT

so, my parents' visit is drawing to a close. they've been here for just over two weeks. i'm quite torn -- i'm very ready for them to go home, and have been for over a week, but i'm also not eager for them to go back to being so very far away. parents are best, i think, when they are situated just offscreen.

the highlight of their visit, by a long shot, was sitting down tonight, on the eve of their departure, and watching the first episode of Generation Kill (deftly pir8d by stuart), with live annotations by my stepdad. god, it's going to be good.

it's weird. i live in a foreign country. my parents, having visited me here in that foreign country, are going home, back to their -- my -- country. but i'm home already. right? i think i feel that adelaide is my home, but really, still and always, when i say the word "home," the first image that comes to mind is that of baltimore. will that ever change? and do i want it to? even though when i reach way down deep and ask myself, "would i rather live in baltimore," the answer is actually a resounding no, i still consciously hang onto, and cherish, the thought of it being my home. not just my childhood home, but my true home. what does that mean?

just bad luck

Tue, 10 Jun 2008 14:30:06 GMT

my hairdryer broke this morning. and my sister's getting a divorce.

arse.

kidblogging

Thu, 08 May 2008 12:52:10 GMT

today, for no reason i can surmise, "Highway to the Danger Zone" came into my head and i started singing it theatrically (as you do) while i was going about my business around the classroom.

caelan started singing along, real seriously and studiously. "hiiiiiii... waaaaaay... dooooooo... juhhh... jayyyja day"

kids are fucking excellent

so nonchalant about poop

Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:12:40 GMT

today madeleine, age 3.25, shat herself violently. all down her pink-and-darker-pink striped stockings, all through her "ballerina shoes." she's one of those very princely children. she's got that type of utterly symmetrical, miraculously perfect attractiveness that you generally only see on television or in comic books: creamy, naturally-tanned skin, pink lips, rosy cheeks, bright blue eyes, and the frosty-flaxen-accents-over-honey-blonde hair that people pay so much for. all of this comes together in a totally organic way, such that rather than looking cheap, common, or banal, she looks quite angelic. perhaps in part because of that fact, she's treated like a tiny but powerful monarch by her family.

limping inside to the bathroom from the playground, dripping with her own shit, i felt SO sorry for her, because even at such a young age, she was clearly uncomfortable with admitting to another human, face to face, that poop comes out of her in the first place, much less such disastrously messy poop. princesses just do not poop. i can tell that that's the type of message she gets.

i got some poop on my shoulder. meh.

on rickrollery

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 09:33:31 GMT

look, let's face it, as totally over as rickrolling should be by now, it's not yet, and the fact of the matter is, we have all been rickrolled. maybe only once, maybe only twice, but nobody is immune. i am willing to bet, however, that i might be one of an incredibly tiny number of people who actually sits and watches the entire "never gonna give you up" video every time i am rickrolled. don't get me wrong -- it's lame as fuck. i hate falling for a rickroll.

i just really love rick astley.

food eet

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 08:28:33 GMT

oy. okay

friday

homemade iced tea, sugar, milk
hazelnut brunch bar
kidfood: 1 egg salad kidwrap plus two more bites of another egg salad kidwrap
special imported jam biscuit from some special place in melbourne that imports italian things
ham and cheese danish square
can of coke
150 g peanut m&ms
vegetarian sandwich with bocconcini
some of adrian's chips, that fucker

saturday

one bowl of honey nut cheerios with milk
one cup drip coffee, milk, sugar
ham cheese & tomato croissant, toasted, at millie's
can coke zero
does sheep shit dust have calories? if yes, lots of sheep shit dust as i cleaned dried sheep shit out of the shed. do your lungs process calories? i bet not so maybe this doesn't count
reward-for-hard-labour dinner: 400g rump steak, of which i ate less than half (new steak rule: when i have my once-monthly red meat, always, always, always order filet mignon. australia has a thing where every steak meal costs $28 unless it's like 600g. for that amount, i could get a 400g rump steak and eat half, and have it be only sort of delicious, or i could get a 250g filet mignon and eat it all, and have it be delicious). also a few steamed veggies, a few scalloped potatoes, and shared a bowl of pumpkin soup
a sip of adrian's beer
a mug of hot chocolate
two mugs of rooibos tea with honey
hell of vitamins

sunday

1 berocca
lemon croissant
raspberry muffin
2 cups drip coffee
sudafed and vitamins
1 cup rooibos tea with milk and honey
water crackers, tzatziki, basil cashew pesto, and sliced kabana (about a dozen crackers with various combinations of the above)
a glass of too-diluted ribena
vitamins
peanut butter and jam sandwich on wholemeal
mug of milk

february 7th

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 11:47:49 GMT

does rooibos tea have something in it that causes slight euphoria? i feel wicked laid back and awesome right now after two mugs of it.

i had a really bad couple of days at work and just couldn't be fucked even looking at the internet long enough to post about what i ate, even if i had been paying attention. sorry, PEYEIYBM. i guess i'll stop calculating the cost of things, since it's a failed experiment by virtue of my lack of energy. i really do want to do PEYEIYBM, though. i will do better.

today's food eet:

11.5am: Brezel's Bakery just reopened after over a month of holiday closure, and in honour of this glorious occasion i bought one of their baguettes, which rivals any i've had in france or anywhere else. so: half a baguette with 1/4 small wheel tasmanian double brie, light spreading of margarine, and a big old blob of raspberry jam. if you, like me, are me, this is one of the best things to eat in the whole world. there are two things you should know about this video. the first is that i'm sick, puffy, and a mess. the second is that at 0:06, adrian farts from all the way across the room and is still able to be heard quite clearly. he's a legend.

also consumed in that sitting, one mug of drip coffee with milk and sugar, and two glasses of apple strawberry juice.

6pm:
regular size takeaway penne with chicken and spinach in a tomato-with-splash-of-cream sauce from Pasta Go-Go, which sounds (and looks) like a chain but is actually an italian-immigrant-family owned and operated hole in the wall which only does take-away pastas, that's their only fare. it comes in chinese-takeout-style containers and is fucking delicious.
3/4 of a can of coca cola.

8pm:
four tootsie rolls.
two mugs of rooibos tea with milk and honey.

11pm:
shared a "margarita" (in fact just a glass of tequila cut with a modest amount of the sickly cuervo mix) with adrian to help me get sleepy

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 13:34:42 GMT

why does youtube refuse to assign a still shot to my PEYEIYBM videos

february 4th

Mon, 04 Feb 2008 12:13:00 GMT

8am:
brunch bar ($0.54)
homemade iced tea, no milk ($0.03 for sugar and teabag)

11.5am:
kid food: six jatz biscuits (similar to ritz crackers), six jatz-sized slices of cheese, four cucumber spears, three green olives ($0)

1pm:
scroll from bakers delight ($2.20)
one can of red bull ($2.45)

6.5pm: low blood sugar problem
330ml apple pear juice ($3)
125g of 250g bag peanut M$Ms ($1.50)

7.5pm:
a couple handfuls of adrian's maltesers ($0, heh)

8.5pm:
glass of apple strawberry juice ($0.40?)

9pm: VLOGGED
5 homemade cold rolls (the cost would be extremely mathy to calculate, given how many ingredients i used, the fact that not all of what i bought got used in the preparation, and the fact that i used some on-hand ingredients whose prices i don't even vaguely remember. and man, i always run out of noodles. you'd think i'd learn. factoring in everything, i am wild-guesstimating $3 for 5 cold rolls.)
and a glass of weak ribena ($fuckit)

"eight," for all you san franciscans out there

and two sips of adrian's wine

today's unscientifically estimated expenditure: AUD $13.09

february 3rd

Sun, 03 Feb 2008 10:37:02 GMT

10am:
STARVING. fully two bowls of cheerios with milk (let's say a whole dollar's worth of milk, it was a lot)
one can of red bull ($2.35)

2pm:
salad sandwich from St. Peter's Bakery, with beetroot, carrot, cucumber, mixed lettuce, butter, salt, and pepper. ($3.50)

maybe 15 rice crisps, sour cream and onion flavour (shit.. $0.20?)
a can of coke ($0.63)

5pm:
1/4 of a pint of fancy chocolate ice cream ($6/4=$1.50)

8pm:
6-inch tuna on wheat from Subway. Subway is startlingly good in Australia. ($3.95)
a "handful" of chips turned into rather a considerable number of chips. ($not mine)

today's total expenditure: AUD $13.22

february 2nd

Sat, 02 Feb 2008 13:28:49 GMT

well, dammit, i was going to do a POST-IRONIC VLOG of my eating today, but the rechargeable batteries in my camera are out of juice and it'll take them hours to charge. tomorrow! tomorrow is the day that i will talk to a camera about what i put in my face.

TODAY'S EET:

around 11am:
1 2/3 bowls of honey nut cheerios (sent by mom from america!) (cost to me: $0)
with milk (maybe $0.50 for the amount i used)
10 oz. mug of coffee with about 2 sugars and a little milk. (maybe $0.25, taking ground coffee, milk, and sugar into account)
1 piece of Coles brand chocolate with mint pieces ($0.27)

around 3pm:
at the Hahndorf Inn, one weisswurst, most of a serve of rhein potatoes, and half of a soft pretzel ($10.90)
a couple bites of adrian's hamburger, several of his chips, a bite of kirstie's soup ($0; i paid for all of our meals, but i'm calculating the monthly expenditure of my own eating. i bought some shoes today, too, but i'm not counting those -- i guess it's no different.)
a glass of Peter Lehmann riesling ($5)

6.5pm:
330ml can coca cola ($0.63)

latenight:
a vili dog, most of a beef satay pie, a handful of adrian's chips (a huge staple of his diet), 600ml strawberry milk ($9.40)
a glass of green tea cordial (probably $0.10)

today's total expenditure: AUD $27.05

my boss's bird was mauled to death

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:19:28 GMT

requiescat in pace, PC the bird.

nobody deserves to be mauled to death by dogs, and i am very sad for you, today and always, little guy.

february 1st

Fri, 01 Feb 2008 08:56:46 GMT

for PEYEIYBM, i'm going to record everything with caloric value that crosses my lips, but i'm also going to go a step further and list the cost to me of each item. i'm not trying to be more frugal, i'm just very interested. everything that i eat at work is free -- i don't often think about how much of what i eat in a day is free. it's good.

morning:

330 ml homemade iced black tea (in a reused-daily glass bottle), 2 sugars, 1% milk. (cost of tea bag, milk, and sugar almost negligible due to bulk purchasing, let's say $0.05 among all three)
coconut flavoured cadbury brunch bar. (cost: box of 6 bars on sale for $3.25; 1 bar = $0.54)
approx 100 ml whole milk, to swallow some pills with (cost to me: $0)

noon:
kid food*: 2 kidbowls of curried couscous salad with tuna, shredded cucumbers and carrots. (cost to me: $0)
2 small lollycoffees (this is a preparation of coffee that involves copious instant coffee powder, copious sugar, copious milk, and a small amount of boiling water) (cost to me: $0)
1 milk arrowroot biscuit (cost to me: $0)

afternoon:
kid food: 1/2 kidbowl chicken, bacon & mushroom pie (cost to me: $0)
1 chewable Quick-Eze antacid tablet (8 tablets for $2.71; 1 tablet = $0.34)

evening:
peanut butter and jelly sandwich on multigrain bread (cost: let's say $0.40, based on my estimates of each element's total price and the portion of the total used in creating the sandwich)
375 ml can coca cola classic (cost: 30 cans** for $18.99; 1 can = $0.63)
muffin from the grocery store (cost: $1.98)

today's total food expenditure: AUD $3.94

*kid food: at work, all room staff must sit and eat with children at each meal, to role model good eating behaviour as well as to maintain a particular tone in the social environment of the classroom. snacktime participation is optional. the unit of measure is a kidbowl, which is a small, colourful, plastic bowl that is used by the 2-and-unders at work. most days, kid food is all i eat during work hours. it's usually pretty decent, sometimes even quite delicious, but the canola oil the cook uses (olive oil is too costly, i guess?) gives myself and my co-workers ridiculous acid reflux. you'll be seeing a lot of Quick-Eze on this livejournal in the coming weeks.

**we do not usually have cans of soda in the house. it's a rare impulse purchase, but one which we never regret.

Mon, 21 Jan 2008 09:19:41 GMT

RESOLVED: YOU CANNOT BE UNHAPPY WHILE LISTENING TO THE KINGSMEN'S "LOUIE LOUIE"; IT'S NOT POSSIBLE

THAT'S ALL, CARRY ON

with a basil infusion

Thu, 17 Jan 2008 08:51:37 GMT

my fridge always, always smells like rotting basil. i'm really not sure why this is. yes, i go through a lot of basil, but it could be a week or more since i've had any in the fridge, and the fridge will still reek of it. i just took out a block of expensive cheese i'd splurged on and had really been looking forward to enjoying, and even though it was well-wrapped, it tastes like goddamn rotting basil.

fuck you, fridge.

greatness

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 13:12:23 GMT

say, do you read Anders Loves Maria? if not, why not? it's getting so god damn delicious.

i don't want [me] to be alone down [here]

Sun, 30 Dec 2007 00:42:34 GMT

i really, really miss walking into a record store and finding what i'm looking for. i think i need to sign up for emusic. ecchhhhh. fucking australia, man.

Will's Understanding of the Symmetric Property

Fri, 21 Dec 2007 11:32:55 GMT

Something new that Will has been doing in the month of December is playing a game called "What's Will Doing." The game goes like this: Will is doing something perfectly clear and straightforward, like eating lunch, digging in the sand, or kicking a piece of wood. Will locates me and, sometimes too quietly for me to hear at first, and then with increasing volume until I've acknowledged him, asks me: "what's Will doing?" and I have to tell Will what Will is doing. It's a dumb game, because not only does Will know perfectly well what Will is doing, but Will definitely, certainly possesses the vocabulary to describe what he is doing in simple, accurate terms, no matter what he's doing at the time he asks. Because, see, Will only ever asks "what's Will doing" when Will is doing something that Will commands the appropriate language to describe.

I try to turn it around on him, and say "Why don't YOU tell ME what Will is doing," because this would sneakily transform his annoying game into a language exercise, forcing him to learn by practicing his speaking. Except it doesn't work. When I do this, Will smiles a uniquely Will smile, a smile that says "I've got you, you fucker, I'm really good at this game and you're shit at it and we both know it," and simply asks again, "what's Will doing?" He does not relent until I tell Will what he's doing. And once I've told him, he only ever says one thing in reply: "Yeeahhh." Which is to say, "yes, Alex, you have answered my question correctly, and also you have yet again fallen prey to my foolproof method of getting you to say some shit that I already know."

Anyway, all that said, Will kind of warmed my cockles the other day with an unexpectedly cute episode of "What's Will Doing." He came up to me while we were playing outside, and just folded himself into my chest/torso region and rested there for a moment, leaning into me. Then he righted himself, standing on his own but still maintaining our body contact, and stared off into space for a couple of beats before asking, "what's Alex doing?" I replied, gently and earnestly, "standing with Will." Then, feeling the moment, not really thinking at all, I asked, "what's Will doing?" and he replied, "standing with Alex."

all the things that make you

Thu, 22 Nov 2007 08:10:00 GMT

well, in true Precious Cargo (my place of employment) fashion, a vague job offer turned into very immediate employment. adrian's now helping ben renovate the new building they've acquired, about thirty minutes south of the city. they're making it into a small preschool. there's tons to be done, and adrian's doing it full-time; i bring him to work with me, ben picks him up from there and they drive together to the new place. today was my day off, so i went with them for fun (i like them). i'm not that strong or tool-smart, so i couldn't help terrifically much, but i ripped a bunch of astroturf off the ground with a crowbar (i am good with crowbars), and i dismantled a fence (i'm pretty good with electric drills). it was hard work! astroturf is REALLY HEAVY when it's pretty well covered with wet sand, which this was.

today is thanksgiving, and i don't feel even slightly nostalgic or wistful at its passing without incident. i am glad to be rid of some lesser-favorite holidays of mine (e.g. July 4th and, apparently, thanksgiving). i did mourn halloween, though.

he just hasn't earned it yet, baby.

Sun, 18 Nov 2007 12:11:13 GMT

adrian got offered a job making furniture with my boss's husband. Ben's starting up a business, and i think it's going to be very successful, because the market here is parched for what Ben's planning to make. it's the perfect job for adrian, completely perfect. at first he'd work off Ben's designs and then be able to implement his own, once he proved his chops, which, knowing him, will happen with a quickness.

problem is, he needs a driver's license to make this feasible, because Ben's workshop is half an hour in the opposite direction of my half-hour commute to work. two weeks ago, before we even knew about the job offer, he got his "L Plates" (australia!! culturally-specific terminology!), and as of this writing, i've given him 45 minutes' worth of driving lessons. only 2955 minutes to go until he can test for his license and make furniture with Ben, who's becoming one of my favorite people on this whole damn island.

a 2-year-old's first foray into absurdist humor

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:10:46 GMT

Will, today, explored non sequitur as a humoristic form, while we were playing outside:

Will: [pointing] "in sandpit."
Alex: "yep, there are some kids in the sandpit!"
Will: "chicken."
Alex: "what??"
Will: "SUPERMARKET!!"

Will turned two yesterday. happy birthday Will!

anec dope

Sat, 06 Oct 2007 13:06:59 GMT

well, internet persons, you may or may not know that since June i've been working in a pre-school, as the lead teacher for the 1.5-to-2.5 age group. there's a lot i don't like about my job, but very little of it is directly related to my interaction with the kids -- it's mostly bureaucratic stuff. the kids are, by and large, a great pleasure to be around. i've been writing anecdotes from my experiences for my friend (and probably yours) jon, and just now i decided that i'd actually just slap the anecdotes up here after i write them for jon.

reason being, i find my little guys and gals pretty astonishing, since i have absolutely never worked with kids younger than age eight before. watching two-year-olds think and learn has been a profoundly life-changing experience for me, in that i've observed that two-year-olds are shockingly close to being "whole people." one of the few fundamental cognitive differences (besides processing speed and complexity of reason, etc) that i can identify between a two-year-old and an older child, say a five-year-old, is that the two-year-old lacks the vocabulary to accurately or completely express their thoughts and feelings. i think that for the most part, they experience life much in the same way that older kids do, as long as they're alert and intelligent (normal) kids. they seem to comprehend almost everything they see, hear and feel -- they just can't verbalize complex responses to stimuli. for that reason, their reactions to the world around them are often hilarious and occasionally very poignant and sad. it's no tardblog, but i still think my kids are way funny.

ANYWAY: the first livejournal toddler anecdote! quoted from email!

_______________________________________________________

what else. i'm sick again! it is rad to be sick this often. you should completely try it. nothing real interesting has been happening at work, other than the kids are pretty cute most every day. i keep trying to remember stories to tell you. as they happen in the classroom, i'm like, "oo, one for jon!" but then not thirty minutes pass before the memory has oozed from my mind like an egg from a cracked shell. it's fairly pathetic.

one ongoing anecdote is that i've been doing a thing during "circle time" (that's when we read stories and sing songs) where the kids get to request what songs they want. this promotes cognition and memory, as well as, uh, they just like to make me do stuff. the most-requested song is "the wheels on the bus (go round and round)," and i'd say that "baa baa black sheep" and "old macdonald had a farm" are tied for second-most-requested. this anecdote concerns "old macdonald" -- there's a kid, Harry, who really shouldn't be in my class, he's too old. but he has, uh, shall we say, "behavioral difficulties," in that he's a smart-assed little fuckstick, so the older classroom sent him down to mine, when mine opened. anyway, "old macdonald" gives the kids another opportunity to make suggestions: when i sing "and on this farm, he had a..." i pause dramatically and gesticulate and the kids are supposed to name a farm animal (or, really, any animal they want... we've had entries as diverse as snake, worm, fish, and teddy bear). Harry pipes up pretty much every time, only he always says "chicken." i try to patiently explain each time, "Harry, we've already done chicken; what's another farm animal?" but that little dude is just really, really interested in hearing me sing about a chicken.

another kid, a girl called Lily, is actually pretty damn good at this 'game' -- she and i can go for like five whole minutes singing old macdonald. she pretty much remembers every animal we've ever done. and it's really cute: when i say "he had a...," she screws up her face in concentration and bends her knees a little (Lily never, ever sits down), and when she thinks of an animal, she squeaks her answer like "OH! COW!" and jumps up and bounces a little. Lily also wears a scarf on her head, as a security thing. she drapes it over her head, with the hem smoothed across her forehead just above the eyebrows, and then tucks it behind her ears, making the scarf appear in the precise manner of the headdress of a Pharaoh of Egypt. this is a delightful thing to behold. Lily is a pretty cool kid.

no one wants to hear

Thu, 06 Sep 2007 08:19:06 GMT

two of my cousins, who are brother and sister, have recently had babies -- one by adoption, and one by natural birth. my dream last night merged these two situations into one. in my dream, the male cousin and his still-pregnant wife had four multiracial adopted young children (the oldest was five), brangelina-style. while i was visiting them, they were acting really shady, and i discovered that the reason for their shady-acting was because they were afraid i was going to discover their secret project: making remakes of classic hollywood films, starring their adopted young children. it sounds cute at first mention, but the remakes were 100% true to the originals, which means that when there was cigarette-smoking in the originals, the kids smoked real cigarettes; when there was nudity in the originals, the kids were nude; when there was sex in the originals, however softcore, the kids played out the sex. this project was catering to an extremely specific and fairly unusual fetish market, but was clearly very profitable, because their sets and filming equipment were quite high-end.

i pointed out to my cousin and his wife that they were breaking tons of laws (kids smoking, kids nude on film, etc), and they started trying to kill me. mainly his wife was coming after me. i hit her in the head three times with a cast-iron frying pan, knocking her unconscious and maybe killing her, and started running. then the dream changed into a different dream.

ANYWAY the POINT of all this is that i think i might start making remakes of classic hollywood films starring adopted young multiracial children