Am finding it hard to get going today, on anything in particular. I’d like to be working on the re-jig of the DaisyDonnie book 1, to make it a bit more coherent. I’d like to be scouring the interwebs for potential publishers. I’d also like to convert it to eBook format so I can distribute in other mediums (iphone app store?). But I’m not.

My problem is this: I have grown to loathe computers. The use, the aesthetic, the whole typing onto a screen.

And this problem is being fixed in-part by my decision to hand-over all my web development and copywriting work to J & J (among others). But this can’t happen overnight (although it’d be really nice if it could).

The issue spills over into my writing. As I write the books on my mac, and also work on my mac, I’m having trouble distinguishing between the two. One supposedly is a good way to make money (as long as clients pay me of course), the other is a good way to maintain my creativity and my sanity. So I’m looking forward to being able to just step away very, very soon.

Of course, what comes next is anyone’s guess. I’m going to do a course in June (as long as they run it of course) in transpersonal counselling, held at the Phoenix institute in Prahran. This will be totally different from what I’ve done for the last 12 years and thus restore my balance. It’ll also give me the chance to be a uni student for the first time and do the learning thing again, only this time in something I’ve actually chosen rather than being compelled by others (long story, don’t even ask).

But for now, there perhaps needs to be a plan drawn up to extricate myself from my current clientele, and for the passing of work to others. I also need to just relax and go with this: every time I’ve stood my ground and done something I know is right for me, I’ve landed on my feet (rather than my arse).

So, here goes…

A report in todays newspapers:

South African minister threatens ‘world war’ if Caster Semenya is banned

I agree that great injustice is being created with this mess.

I agree with the statement:

“…It is very, very clear to us that Caster’s human rights are not being respected…’

What I’m sick to death of is seeing a war paradigm used to back-up a statement or an approach to something. War is the ultimate abuse of human rights.

It is a grand generalisation to say that men are obsessed with war, that they’re obsessed with combat and violence. Why is it though that we have wars on things?

And why is there not a “war on war”?

Often when I’m awake late at night, I reach for the pen and paper and write a stream of consciousness that usually – if not always – resolves the issue very neatly. I work-out what’s wrong just by getting it out of my head.

I’m awake, but it’s only 7.45pm. I’m writing because I’m very sad that my lovely housemate has gone off to a fabulous new place of her own.

I’m not sad because she’s found a fab new place. I’m sad because I won’t see her anymore, and I’d gotten used to her being around.

Does this make me co-dependent? Does it make me someone who lives vicariously through others.

Does it explain why I’ve been alone for so long – housemates, friends, whathaveyou become — what’s that word that means stand-in? Dunno, and I’m not in the mood to go looking — the proxy (?) for that close relationship.

I get a relationship, but no sex and no touching.

(I’m down, so anything I say may not be taken in evidence and used later. Please.)

So what does that say about me? That I don’t want someone close? I never seem to be interested in anything personal or intimate (but consistently say I won’t object if someone else takes the first step, makes the first move).

I consistently say that I’m fine on my own. It doesn’t even occur to me to “be” with anyone, to “seek” that special someone who we’re all meant to meet, the perfect match (that faux-robot was called dexter wasn’t it? Imagine if it were a secret serial killer, meting out justice according to the “code-of-harry”?); In fact I think (or say I think) that seeking deliberately will gain only pain.

Or am I avoiding pain?

If I’m this upset about a housemate leaving — someone who I shared a house with to be sure, but not anything intimate (does washing liquid and the occasional meal count as “intimate”? No.) — then how would I be about a partner who I was intimate with, who I did say I love, and they reciprocated?

These are the rambling musings of an upset person, so do go and get a coffee if it’s getting too much.

Is that passive-aggression? Or merely “poor me” (which is likely the same). I’m actually trying to inject a little humor.

Moving on.

The last relationship I had was about 5 years ago. M was good, but the touchy-feely was so very disappointing. Then there was the fact he was running a business with other people’s money and running someone elses business (long, complicated story which can be summed-up by saying “loyalty is good thing. And helping a friend is a good thing. But if you’re dealing with lots of other peoples money and have so little time to run your own business, don’t take on the running of your friends business at the same time. That didn’t end up being short at all did it?) and as a result he was very very stressed all the time.

On top of that he had family issues much like my old ones – dominationg, controlling father, etc. It ended pretty quickly, despite (or perhaps because — who knows) me doing a lot of hard work to try to help, to try to be there for him to relax away from work, to be an easy-going gf.

His parting words: “You don’t hate me do you?”
My response: “No” (thinking I was really disappointed). The evening concluded with a lot of chocolate and a movie. I think it was Breakfast at Tiffany’s (and perhaps that’s what I should do tonight)

What was I going on about?

*sigh*

Do I “need” someone? Or do I “need” to be around someone? God knows I do nothing but hibernate. I work on my own, I write on my own (is there any other way?) I live with one other person (new one tomorrow).

Do I just attach myself to the nearest person?

It’s looking increasingly like I do. It’s something I’ve been aware of, but… god does that make me one of those people who suck the energy out of others like a frigging vampire?

Holy crap, I hope not.

…

No, that’s taking an idea and looking to that extreme end of the bell curve for the worst possible thing. Slow down Lisa, calm… it’s okay…

So. where to from here?

I have identified that I become attached to nice people. Who doesn’t? And when they leave, I get upset. Natural? Possibly. I don’t like goodbyes. So do lots of other people.

Maybe there’s nothing wrong and I’m just allowed to be upset?

Melbourne’s public transport, under a Labour government, has been on the slide for a great many years. Odd, really, as you’d expect them to embrace and enhance it.

The previous government — under Jeff Kennett — sold the running of the system off to private companies. Years earlier, the tram conductors had been removed also, in favour of nazi-like ticket inspectors, the kind of situation that can only breed contempt.

The paper ticket system, while somewhat wasteful of paper resources (why I wonder didn’t they put boxes on stations or stops to collect people’s used tickets?) has seemed to work for a good 20 years. But with the steady jack-booted march of technology, this is now being supplanted by electronic smart cards, like in London.

But not like in London…

The Oyster card system, while a little invasive as far as personal details are concerned, was easy to use and cheap. You got a card straight from the rail station you happened to be at, and off you went. Open the barriers at a station, you put your card on the oyster-shaped (all-right, round) lumps of plastic on the barriers, the barrier went up and your account was debited by a small amount of money. The only query I have is why it wasn’t rolled-out across the country. But c’est la vie.

Transport Minister Lynne Kosky (and presumably her predecessor) has ordered a now astonishingly costly reinvention of the wheel with the Myki system, originally intended to cost 300 million dollars, but which ended up at 1.4 billion (that’s an excess of $1,100,000,000, which as many have put, could have been spent better on adding new rolling stock — trams and trains — to the overstretched system).

And to add insult to injury, not only was the company that developed the system given additional cash rather than being fined,  and people using the card overcharged, AND the system is designed so you are forced to touch the reader when you go on BUT ALSO AS YOU GET OFF (which is, frankly, proof-positive that the people who developed it, and those overseeing have never been on a crowded tram, train or bus — and why didn’t they set this up like the barriers that have been sitting on the exits of shops for absolutely years now — you walk through with a tagged item and it goes nuts. Similarly, if they did this on Public Transport, there wouldn’t be the need to physically touch the reader on the way out; Morons), but now, surprise, surprise, we’re going to have to pay $10 to get one of the stupid things!

This is roughly equivalent to being mugged, beaten up, and then left an invoice for the service performed.

Can anyone explain to me how these kinds of — I’ll be blunt — fuck-ups can be allowed to occur? We’re not a third-world country that we hear so much about in newspapers, where idiotic decision after idiotic decision is made by government ministers with more interest in lining their own pockets than doing their jobs.

Are we??

But to the issue of public transport, I say this: The debacle with this ticketing system, the excessive cost placed in an electronic monstrosity (which I expect will be hacked relatively quickly) versus almost zero investment in infrastructure and trains, trams and buses that actually carry people will only force people back into cars. And in the world in which we live, this is as counterproductive as cutting down all the forests to chuck into powerstations.

Rupert Murdoch wants us to pay for content…

The interwebs are all about free content. It’s what the whole ecosystem is based on.

And Murdoch papers aren’t exactly devoid of advertising are they?

Same as everyone else (banks anyone?), Rupert Murdoch wants a second bite of the cake. But all that will occur is people will go elsewhere for their news.

Which is what many do anyway — I look at the Melbourne Age, The Guardian and The Times. And I research things through google. It’s a good way to confirm if something that’s reported is real, rather than concocted.

The same as the recording industry, the old-school of business doesn’t get the web, and the concept of free content, which encourages the purchase of their products.

And their attempts to enforce their outdated selling models is just the thrashing of dinosaurs slipping slowly into the tarpits.

Addendum:

Seems I’m not alone in thinking Rupe has slipped into early mental retirement. This comment is one of the funniest

Further news on this…

Murdoch to charge for online news

Rupert the internet rube

July 20 was the best day for this blog. Ever. 920 visits:

I thought to myself: “cool.”

Then I thought “Why?”

Based on the fact I haven’t written a proper post on this blog in over a year (or thereabouts), it seemed odd that I should get so many visits that day.

Here’s why:

1-14:Porn Again (part1): http://ping.fm/hn1Le

Note the first word.

In actual fact, it’s the title of one of the daisy donnie stories. I wasn’t deliberately trying to fool the visitors; it just happened. The title is a play on “born again” (followed by Porn Free = Born Free) The last title was more of a biography story, as it addressed Daisy and Donnie’s past, hence Pornography = Biography (note the ‘graphy’). Yes, I know that it doesn’t really mean that. I was working with the other two story titles. And the reason I chose these is that Donnie jumps into a reality in which he’s taking part in a blue movie shoot.

What this goes to prove, moving on, is that a lot of people are happy to click links relating to porn. It’s a quick way, I expect, to get visitors to your site.

Not that I had that in mind when I wrote the stories… really…