Maymay and I are safe in Sydney. We have almost no Internet opportunities, we're running around like crazy trying to find a place to live, it's sweaty and hot and stressful and wonderful. Yesterday I was 25. I have yet to celebrate properly. Soon.

Much love to you all.

This year started wonderfully and then fell flat on its clumsy-ass face.

I still find it a little mystifying that we celebrate something as inevitable and commonplace as the passage of time. We get dressed up and go out to kick our heels about because the calendar that we invented slips silently from from 12 to 1. We celebrate the motion of the tiny units that we've parsed Time into because the liquid nature of the passage of time is so shockingly beyond our comprehension.

We celebrate the human instinct for dissection and classification: time as years, months, seconds.

We celebrate the fleeting nature of happiness.

We celebrate the possibility of moving past pain.

We celebrate our own impermanence. We spend a few rare minutes, champagne and bubble-drunk, to kiss a stranger and erase the inevitability of death in a haze of spontaneity. If we could live in such bubble-moments we'd never feel fear or pain, moving through space like absentminded goldfish.

We celebrate the moments by seizing them. Curiously, the only thing that makes them worth a damn is our ability to string them together.

I like Christmas. I usually keep this quiet; it keeps my jolly friends from singing at me and my bitter friends from eviscerating me with spoons. I like the tradition, cinnamon buns and catnip. I like the quieter music. I love the lights. It took me a few years to grow past Christmas depression; I used to cry. Now I'm content.

I was asked by my Mum what I wanted a few months ago, and at the time I didn't have an answer. I'm moving across the world, after all. More stuff's not going to help me.

At the same time, I love gifts. I love getting them, I love giving them. I spend a lot of time on thoughtful gifts. May keeps telling me not to buy him things; if I had my way and the money I'd heap him with presents every day, every time I pass something in a window that I think he'd like.

Armed with negligible bits of information, my family pulled together some beautifully perfect gifts for me. New brushes, apple perfume. Two tempting, exciting packages of Precious Metal Clay, a jewelry medium I adore dearly.

Perhaps the most exciting gift, for me, is one I asked for only this morning. My brother's just finished a photography class, and he came home with a pile of prints. I picked the four best ones, lay them out on the living room floor and asked him for them. He said yes. I could not be happier.

It's taken me a long time to start collecting other people's artwork. I've decided to start asking for such things more often; I know so many talented people producing good content and good work, everything from websites to poetry to sculptures in steel. I always make the majority of my gifts, saving the financial drain and allowing me to put more than a few minutes of thought into my relationship with the receiver of the gift.

I get attached to physical objects by connecting them with events and people. My mother's an amateur potter. I asked this morning if she'd make me a few small bowls to keep with me. Her work is all grays, greens, blues, thick glazes and balanced forms. I love it. My father makes brass and glass sculptures. I want to ask him if he'll give me one of his glass clams, cast from shells picked up on a local beach, a perfect little thing that I can put on my bookshelf and smile at.

Sorry, did I not make it clear that I am eventually coming *back* from Australia?

Soon I will be this sunburned again. I cannot wait.

It seems that my response to stress is still blogging. I wonder if there's ever been any work done on the idea of blogging as therapy.

I will be happy in the upcoming weeks if I can: 1. Provide all the documentation for my visa by tomorrow, 2. Manage my job on a day-to-day basis without wanting to put a fork through my screen more than once a morning, 3. Work several simultaneous successful relationship miracles, 4. Find a way to expand my new and old friendships at exponential rates, 5. Get past this f'ing writer's block, and 6. Eat, sleep, and have sex like a healthy human being.

Oh. And 7. Find Christmas presents for my friends and loved ones that do not necessarily come from my pile of culled possessions.

This time last year I was obsessed with Flash Gordon.

Tune in next time for the exciting conclusion.

Musings on the nature of blogging have brought me back here.

I realize I have not written in forever and a day. Or, in five months. That's about forever, in Internet time.

I have a vague idea in my head about establishing a personal website that can host my writing, my art, and a blog. I'd like to have a journal that can document my adventures down under. I realize I could do that here, but I feel an instinctual push to create a new space, swept clean. It's the same instinct that's been pushing me to sell off or throw away the bulk of my worldly possessions.

By the way, I'm moving to Australia in February, in case that hasn't crossed your radar yet.

I have actually said this before, but it bears repeating. One of the reasons I maintain this journal is because I find the archives valuable. But I have to admit, I go back and read old entries sometimes, and end up thinking, "What kind of crack was I on five years ago?"

Was I ever that happy? And silly? I make my future self laugh.

At least my poetry's better now.

Although most of my close friends will probably not believe my willingness to do this, one of the reasons I want a new web space is because I need to get in the habit of making my work public. I went from wide-glaring-enthusiastic open to tight as a clam, and I need to get back to some middle ground.

Should I create a new blog, I will either set up cross-posting or post a notification here.

Wiggle.

I have had the Ramones song "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker" stuck in my head for three days.

Possibly that is because three days ago May mixed me up a slew of delicious whiskey sours, we put Cruel Intentions on play, and I fulfilled a lifelong goal to someday cut all of my own hair off. This is something I have felt needed doing, but took a very long time to do. Afterwards I was anxious, May was ambivalent, but three days later he's converted and I have afterglow.

( The haircut. )

I saw the fireworks this year, with a raucous crew of folks. Thankfully raucous enough to stick out the rain that off and on drenched us for the four hours of waiting time, because I'll admit it, I was a wimp and I probably would have cut and run if it had been up to me. But of course, it was worth it. We ate cake and played cards. There were silly amusing name games. I particularly liked Mr. The Pooh meets Mr. Le Pew, and the fresh bagels. Night fell unexpectedly along with a brief torrential downpour that reminded me of the sky sneezing, but it cleared. May kept me warm. I nodded off on his shoulder, huddled against the rain. It cleared at 9:20, and when the show started everyone was a massive knot, hands misplaced, curled around each other. We were 200 yards off the fireworks barge at the end of the South Street seaport, and I sometimes forget that men can make things so beautiful.

Help!
Someone on my friends list must speak whatever language this is. I'm trying to translate this text:

"Weverson Santos dos Reis Para sempre"

I'm thinking this is either Spanish or Italian. I suspect it contains two people's names, hence why the online translators think it is some kind of hilarious, untranslatable joke. "Sempre" is always in Italian, "dos" is two in Spanish. I've got nothing. I speak French. Any ideas?

She never gives out, and she never gives in, she just changes her mind. She is frequently kind and she's suddenly cruel. She can do as she pleases, she's nobody's fool. And she can't be convicted, she's earned her degree, and the most she will do is throw shadows at you, but she's always a woman to me.

Again Billy fills up a crack in my life that only lacked a musical definition.
Happy Pride.

Today:

1. I worked at the ABC Advertising Awards conference. I spent the entire day talking sewing, sex, art, aesthetics and personal history with two hilariously endearing older gents, one of whom was a half-Japanese fine art photographer who walked me through the current political situation in Afghanistan as well as spent a half hour comparing the cultural aesthetics of Japan and America. The other was a 50-something, mild-mannered, wickedly funny gay man who has spent the last 10 years making couture clothes for dolls.

2. I, along with the rest of the gaggle of temps, snuck off in groups to watch portions of the keynote address. The keynote address was given by Bill Clinton. Yes folks, today I saw Bill Clinton speak. He was brilliant. I am now excited about his abilities, intelligence, humor and charisma in ways I was far too young to appreciate when he was in office.

3. I had a simply divine dinner from the 23rd Street location of Burgers & Cupcakes, which is superior to the 9th Avenue location in many ways, and has strawberry shortcake cupcakes that short circuit my brain.

4. I received my federal tax refund in the mail, to the tune of several hundred dollars.

And Bear comes tomorrow!

My cell phone is alive again. I suspect I have 50 messages or so, which I'll be getting to as best I can over the next few days.

Occasionally, not all the time, but occasionally, I have the best freaking job in the world.

For those of you in reader-land and not connected to any sort of personal Sara-info IV, I currently work at CTI Staffing, which means that every week I show up to a new conference center or hotel around the city and learn what is it I'm doing for the next four-odd days. I fly around by the seat of my pants a lot. I meet a lot of tech and finance companies. Occasionally I am accosted by strange persons. Occasionally I am bored out of my mind. Usually my feet hurt a lot and I smile like a cheery lobotomy patient.
Don't let the snarky fool you. I do genuinely enjoy this job. The last two days are a perfect example of why.

I have been working the Book Fair at the Javits Center, representing Titan Books. For those of you unfamiliar with that name, Titan Books is a UK-based published of TV and film companions and graphic novels. Like, oh, Modesty Blaise, James Bond, Star Trek, Firefly. I found out the name of the company thirty seconds before I got to the booth, and just had time to say "I swear I know that name" before I saw the stacks of Firefly companions and the bottom dropped out of my head.

In addition to working such a kick-ass booth, this is the Book Fair. People at CTI angle for this gig, and there's a good reason why. Free books. Every major publisher and hundreds of minor ones, and books everywhere for the taking. They pile in teetering stacks, they spill over the sides of baskets, they practically flow like water. This show takes over the entire enormous Javits Center, and every booth has books for the taking. Last night I almost broke my shoulder from the weight of the bag I was carrying.

So although I almost cried in pain when I sat down for the first time today at 5:30 pm, and though I've eaten nothing better than a slice of chocolate cake and a fruit smoothie, I have massive piles of new books and I spent the last two days in something akin to reader's paradise.

I'm going back tomorrow, I'm bringing a backpack, and there will be looting. Who wants free books? What a silly question. Everyone wants free books.

All Persons Bulletin:

My cell phone is out of commission. It has been so for the last three days, which, if you've been calling, is why I haven't returned your calls.
If you need to reach me, please use email. Be patient with my response time, since I don't spend my days in front of computers any longer. And if it's vital that you talk to me in person, try the landline in the late evening.

Sara

"At the end of knowledge, wisdom begins, and at the end of wisdom, there is not grief . . . but hope."
- Lloyd Alexander, deceased yesterday at the age of 83.

He wrote the Prydain Chronicles. I remember finding The Black Cauldron in beat up, torn paperback stuck behind a bookshelf when I was ten, and starting to read it out of boredom, not interest. That lasted three pages or so. The boredom, I mean. The interest stuck. And Taren sitting on the very stone Elionwy was trying to move, and her silly golden ball, and Hen Wen the all wise white pig, and how hilarious and smelly Gurgi always was, and the shadow of the Horned King.

A vignette, as it were.
I worked the last three days at a streaming media conference in the Hilton Hotel. Interesting, yes, relevant to this anecdote, no. On break yesterday I took a stroll through the hotel gift shop to provide my eye with an appropriate distraction and separation from my mental processes. Or such. In any case, I poked about.
One might recall that in my last post I commented on working at the fashion accessories show last week. One might also recall me lamenting how very, very ugly the jewelry I was selling was. I made a mental note to myself at the fashion show to keep a lookout for the things I was selling in retail shops, just out of curiosity.
Behold, smack dab in the center case of the gift shop were two of the necklaces I had been selling at wholesale prices not a week earlier. One was a large, faceted glass chunk wrapped in rhodium-plated brass wire, on a chain of the same material. (Rhodium plating, by the way, is used to add a silver-colored reflective surface to base metals in costume jewelry. Even sterling silver, platinum, and white gold are sometimes treated this way, cause it makes them shinier.) The other was two strands of silver-colored glass seed beads with interspersed chunks of clear glass. They both had crappy closures. They wholesaled for $9 and $12, respectively.
I asked how much they cost in the gift shop. I was prepped for a lot of markup, really I was. I still almost gagged on my own tongue, and almost laughed in the saleswoman's face. (I restrained myself from actually doing so.) Retail prices: $119 for the drop (formerly $9.) $139 for the two-strand (formerly $12.) What is that, a thousand percent?
The moral of the anecdote involves swear words and merry laughter, and a possible resolution against wanton consumerism.


It smells like water and the storm clouds make the sky prematurely age into evening. I interrupted this post so that Emily and I could dance in the rain. I love summer.

Today I itched all over, and the air was warm. I walked this evening from 183rd street, along Fort Washington, then green Riverside, and finally down 9th to finally come to rest at the Skylight Diner on 34th street. About 150 blocks in three-odd hours, during which I thought and floated and made resolutions and listened to old favorite songs that have long since ceased to be relevant to my life. I thought about privacy, and music and place and titles of respect, and warrior poets.

It's curious that I, as I think many people do, occasionally listen to music when my mood has turned south with the idle purpose of extracting meaning or advice from the words and tone of the songs. As Meitar said sagely over his extra-crispy fries at dinner, the human nature creates meaning from everything and nothing. It was Billy I was listening to when I started my walk, and I marveled almost derisively at the idea of drawing comfort from the words of someone so utterly unrelated with myself and my situation.

I worked at the Accessories trade show for the earlier part of this week, which was something of an experience. I sold ugly costume jewelry from a booth all done up in white, and watched the styles and the season fly by me, adding another piece to the enjoyable puzzle of fashion. The trade show is one step behind what I was formerly familiar with, putting me face to face with the people who decide what we all see in stores. That was a curious and sometimes disheartening experience, considering how soundly my taste was tromped by some of the buyers at the booth. But also, it was exhilarating, and kicked my brain into the visual analytics which I always relish when fashion is concerned. These very thought processes are the reason people watching is a personally addictive behavior, and if there's a good place to people watch, it's a fashion trade show.

I also picked up a miniature mountain of free samples and wholesale price goods, spending very little of my hard earned cash with a considerable return on investment. It was cash very hard earned indeed, from such an exhausting position, and I was glad to find a large amount of mental and consumerist pleasure in exchange.

In the booth next to mine was a short Indian man, a philosopher if ever there was one. We talked, especially on the third day, about language and poetry and the ideas of words. He told me stories of his life, teaching in India, opening a new museum in the basement of his shop in Massachusetts, because as he said, "it was remarkable to step outside and see the thousands of acorns on the oak tree in my front yard, and think that good things have to start so small." He talked about being a feminine personality on a masculine form, and I talked about being the opposite. He talked about his goal of rewriting to dictionary before he dies, so that it will not contain words of extreme duality like "love" and "hate." He wishes to replace these ideas, which are fundamentally impossible to separate, with milder forms and milder words. He likes to say that things, people, and actions are "proper" or "improper." To say, "He did a very proper thing." I argued with him about that for a little while, in a friendly way. I talked about the advantages and potential glory of violent expressions of emotion. This led us on to gender, and from there to poetry, stories, family, books. He was entirely unexpected.
He wrote on a bit on a bit of paper, which I lost in the shuffle to clear the booth at the end of the day, the first poem he'd written, at the age of fourteen. "Lake of Tears, Ocean of Sadness, Valley of Despair, Edge of Death." I asked him if he had his heart broken by the time he was fourteen. He laughed at me, but didn't answer the question. Later in the day I riffed of what he'd given me (Lake of Lust, Ocean of Youth, Valley of Pain, Edge of Mind), but didn't have time to give it back before we left. I didn't get to say goodbye to him, so eventually I'm thinking I'll show up at that museum of his and say it. I get the feeling that would be pleasurable.

I am selling a shiny new hairdryer. I'm selling it because I bought it thinking my old one was broken. Behold, I was wrong, and now have an extra. It was $18, and I'll give it to anyone interested for $15. (If details are your thing, it's a medium-sized Conair Ionshine. I didn't know this. I just took it off the shelf at Walgreens at random.)

Last Sunday saw Mei and I at the Cherry Blossom Festival for the third time in as many years. We walked, wandered, talked, slept on the grass, smelled the flowers and took romantical pictures. This week I have worked all about the city at my temp job, which becomes increasingly less temporary with every day that Scholastic delays my start day, in their infinite frustration. I am still occasionally turning to loved ones and chirping about the University of Sydney, a bright series of effusions which will probably fade soon enough once the idea settles in. I'm moving to Australia. Not so crazed, in the end. This evening I see Spiderman 3, which will be a welcome diversion from the afternoon's sleepy lolling-abouts. I napped after work, and am impossible to get out of bed once I get in without some noisy distraction. This weekend Mei and I will see the new Greco-Roman wing of the Met, and I will begin work on the Accessories show at the Javitz Center, which promises to be sparkly and fantastical.

University of Sydney MFA Class of 2008.

I cried when I read the email. No more waiting game.

I blatantly stole this suggestion from Bear after following it myself to hilarious results. But he is fuzzy and will therefore forgive me. Try this.

Go to "Get Directions" in Google Maps.
In the starting point field, write "New York, New York."
In the destination field, write "Paris, France," and get the directions.
Read number 23.

Have a lovely evening.