gates of paradise

autumn in Tasmania has left us finally | our arcadian paradise reached new heights of serenity and beauty after 8 years of waiting for this achievement | enjoy

“when you’re fighting off the alligators, it’s hard to remember you were trying to drain the swamp”

a fascinating week in Australian history in a macro sense [1st female prime minister] and some micro ‘rent asunder’ moments at the micro level for oneself

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having just returned last Tuesday morning on the Spirit of Tasmania from Melbourne | that ship can only be described as a floating RSL | I was required to front up to a conciliation session with the Australian Human Rights Commission in the afternoon | needless to say the content of the session must forever remain confidential | however the process, the experience and the outcome of that journey has acted as a shocking and immediate catalyst for re-evaluating one’s professional life and the phenomenal level of commitment I have made to my existing leadership role within the organisation I work for

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that evening my oldest sister contacted me, in some panic, indicating that our mother has been starving herself to facilitate her own death | now I am good in a crisis and went immediately into task focus mode | putting all emotions into an intellectual glove compartment until I could determine the seriousness of the situation and what I was going to do

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in a strange but epiphany-like way the personally and professionally unsatisfying experience of the Australian Human Rights Commission earlier | provided a turning point in the priority I needed to give family, friends, Douglas and myself | consequently I had no hesitation in deciding to make plans to go to South Australia and if necessary be with my mother and siblings in her final days or weeks

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Douglas has been a model partner throughout the week and what can I say | he is the best!

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My work life now takes about 4^th place in my life and being away ffrom Tasmania for sometime will provide an opportunity to re-evaluate what I want to do in this area for the next year or so | having invested a phenomenal amount of time, intellectual endeavour and intellectual warfare and sheer hard work into my role for the last year | I feel it has been like pushing shit up a hill all the way | is it worth it in the long term? | it is particularly sobering to remind oneself that when you leave an organisation you only have about a 3 to 4 month history after you leave | then you effectively disappear and really didn’t matter …

max raabe is gemutlichkeit ... ya

having recently come across lots of marilyn manson music clips on youtube | and watching interviews by appallingly lame and tedious USA journalists ... marilyn intelligently rebuffing their journalist buffoonery | i discovered that a person called max raabe performed at marilyn manson and ditta von teese's wedding



wow!


check out max raabe on youtube | in particular his cover of tainted love | an absolutely brilliant weimar republic style rendition of this classic | makes me want to bring double brested suits and a swing band for our wedding

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZZ6zkW1khfw


am officially obsessed

douglas turns 50

my beautiful, handsome, creative and sexy man ... douglas turned 50 and we had a fantastic party in melbourne with about 30 of his friends at the end of february

what a night!

people who had not seen each other for years experienced another of our legendary 'meet' fests that we put on about once every four years | some flying in from tasmania, south australia, new south wales | can you believe the alcohol didn't run out and not through lack of trying and the birthday cake completely eliminated any impure thoughts about food catering ... it was the chocolate equivalent of a bear orgy, a good one that is ...

douglas in his unique way had everyone hanging off his words of thanks and drew a great path through the decades and how so many of his friends entered various periods of his life and remain friends to this day

a few tears of joy were shed and even more when, although nauseaous with nerves ... I proposed marriage to douglas in front of all of his friends as part of a thank you speech ... wow! it took me about 3 months to work up the courage and to find the appropriate and relevant quotes from that popular culture whore, britney spears ... lol

after about 15 seconds ... he accepted | what the fuck would i do if he didn't? that contingency wasn't necessary as i knew it wouldn't be

the amusing and slightly scary thing is ... people love weddings and all crap that goes around them ... everyone wants to get involved and people go all goey over the idea, and ask lots of questions about an unplanned for event ... i never really thought about the aftermarth in any specific kinda way ...

elopement is definitely an option ... stay tuned

happy birthday to my mother

my mother is 62 | my mother is an institution | she is a cross between kath day-night, nana mouskouri & queen mary [the person, not the ship ...]

after a year of having not spoken to each other I finally relented, mobile in hand and dialled ... curious how we remember our mothers telephone number ... including area code! well, we picked up from the moment we last spoke to each other and both had lots of news to share about families, sibling [mine cover every possible 'demon'graphic in known to the australian bureau of statistics and more | you know the usual stuff ... who's rooting whom, when & where, nieces and nephews and associated good and bad behaviour, boyfriends, girlfriends, the weather, the bushfires [we lived through one once ... 'lived' being the key word here], marriage, birthdays, the price of vegetables and gin, and so on and so on ...

the sweetest thing about my mother, is that she never holds a grudge against me for my appalling lack of consistency in attention to her .. perhaps that is the only benefit of being the oldest child ... it must be the only one ...

we do love one another unconditionally even though we operate at opposite ends of the spectrum in our approach to life ... happy birthday to you

honi soi que maly pense

yes ... i'm a blogger truant and a number of friends have expressed that they are suffering from blogger deprivation disorder so after almost six month of absenteeism | i have returned

get your face out of my coconut ruff . . .

. . . how exquisite it is when the unwritten intellectual & experiential intimacies between two people can reduce them to hopeless uncontrollable laughter & mirth with statements such as the above | we spent many a moment in mirth ... | a partner & mate who can still break me up into side splitting laughter is a treasure beyond definition

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it is said that context is everything | & this weekend through to today was a period of fast paced socialising & longer periods of serene quiet with episodes of unbridled lust & desire | languid in each others arms & wallowing in a certain kind of masculine sharing | yes, my douglas graced the shores of elba & the lips of the islands prisoner

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always when driving from the airport after our goodbyes | a piece of music will play that cajoles those bittersweet feelings | farewell, distance, intensity of emotional connection, temporary loss | love ... for all it's inadequacy as a word | tears will well up, the taste of salt & I relish in that bittersweet stuff | the melancholia of absence & the joy of return ...

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contributing to the sense of romance & serenity is that spring in tasmania is upon us | that first sense of warm on your back from the sun | the inky blue sky as the sun is setting, promising still summer nights to come ... of sensuous times ahead ... | of eating amongst the beauty & linearity of our somewhat overly designed garden paradise for months on end ... check out da garden at drum house