Look

Thought experiment: You go for a walk down the street, just for a wander. You look around as you walk, and get to the end of the street. You've seen everything, right? No. Turn around and walk back. See the other side of buildings, the reverse view. And why not now walk back up the street, looking down at the flowers, into the gutter, that cat on the fence and your own shadow in front of you. There.  Hey, but turn around and look up as you walk back home. Check out the tops of the buildings, the trees swaying in the wind, the hot air balloon floating through the sky, the clouds drifting, and the very colour of the sky. 
Bingo. You know this street. You've seen it all. Nope, you'll never see it all. But there is so much to keep you going

Hangovers

I think yesterday was a strong contender for the title 'Worst Ever Hangover'. It was a complete write-off of a day, and I really felt like death/dying. I know that it's my own fault, blah blah, boo hoo. But really. It was awful. And I think after two whole days, I now feel alright.
When I drink too much, I get memory loss. More than a couple of beers makes the night hazy; six plus will probably cause some kind of blackout. And Saturday was a few bottles of wine. Maybe more? Who knows. Waking up and not knowing what you did for several hours is surreal and frightening.
My new year's resolution this year was 'not to drink to the point of not remembering', and it's happened twice so far. The worst hangovers I've had have all been in the last year. I feel like my body isn't really suited to handling alcohol, so I'm going to be more aware of that, and try and foresee and prevent bad drinking experiences.

(On the plus side, I just passed 20,000 blog views, which seems like a lot. Thanks for reading! More frequent blogging coming up)

Swinging

One thing I really love is swinging on a swing. Like, at a playground. It's so endearing and frivolous, and also a great time to reflect on things. I enjoy watching the scene around me change as I sweep a parabola through the air.
As a kid, I wasn't a very good swinger. It took me ages to get the hang of it, and I was always pretty wussy about going too high. Even now, after years of experience, it takes a while for my insides to feel okay about flying up and down. And at 27, I wonder if there's an age when it's no longer acceptable to swing. While playgrounds are the domain of children, swinging is enjoyable (and light exercise!), and it feels too arbitrary to simply stop. You needn't let things slide into an unrecoverable childhood nostalgia. Stay young at heart, you're never too old to have fun!

Minutiae

At my work I find there are a number of things which seem trifling, and these are the things that really delight me. As Hank Scorpio said, 'it's the little things that make up life'
-Wineglasses are suspended in groups of three, upside down on rails. When you replace a row, they swing and hit each other, producing chimes. The beautiful thing is that they continue swinging for many minutes, and faint 'clinks' can be heard long after you've walked away. I love the harmonic, periodic nature of the swings, and the sounds they produce seem like the music of the spheres.
-Rainbows! The wineglasses, glass shelves and mirrors by the benches produce rainbows. So simple, so stunning.
-At the end of the night, the coffee machine is cleaned. Part of this involves emptying the grinder, and grinding a handful of beans to 'season the machine' the next morning. You hear the blades grind and whir, and as the last of the beans go through, the blades spin unimpeded. It sounds like a perfect moment.
-Coffeemaking, it's fun to try and make pictures in the foam. I'm still learning, but it's often best to simply interpret the shapes that arise. I've 'made' pictures of a moustache, question marks, and a hyperbola.
-Customers. People are beautiful and strange. It feels like every interaction has the potential to revolutionise how you relate to others.

Blog connections

Inspired by the phenomenal Information is Beautiful, and shaped by the fairly cozy bunch of 'New Zealand indie bloggers', I made this diagram. It shows which blogs links to which others. I think it looks nice. It's accurate to March 30, and uses the current title of each blog. Some blogs don't have 'blogrolls'. All the blogs are good.

Earthquake

So, there was a big earthquake in Christchurch last week. I'm okay, and everyone I know is fine. Our flat's still standing, but the wooden frames are getting tired of twisting around. Unlike last time, I was in town, and by all accounts this time around things were much stronger, damaging, and sadly, fatal. The city seems to have been really badly hit - lots of collapsed buildings, cracked roads all over, broken water mains. It's a real catastrophe, about as bad as I could really imagine things getting in New Zealand. It felt like things were getting back on track after the September quake, and now everything's changed, again. The last quake now seems trivial in so many ways, but also like things were better prepared for a response.
I'd thought about what to write for a while, and am still at a loss for words. I really love Christchurch, and intend to stick it out here. I really want things to get better, and know they will - there's been a huge community spirit, and the whole country has been very supportive. If you want to help, the Red Cross is a great place to start.
And another thing - no matter where you are, please make an emergency kit. When this quake hit, I couldn't believe our flat had not stockpiled any water or canned food, especially after we'd lived through the last one.

Flying/falling

Have you ever seen a horse running? At a gallop, for the tiniest moment of time, it is airborne - flying with nothing touching the ground.
Have you ever seen a bird flying? In the air, some passerines flap a few times, before retracting their wings. For the tiniest moment of time, it is coasting - ready to fall through the air like a rock
Horses flying; birds falling. Sometimes I feel stuck in the middle. Stuck between flying and falling.

Seen

This evening I went for a walk to buy some razors. I was in a pretty weird mood, feeling a bit confused about a few things. I walked the long way home from the supermarket, and it felt like I was going through a series of rapidly changing micro-emotions; different feelings scintillating, up and down.
Across the road I noticed a brightly coloured house with its lights on. Each room was a different colour, and someone was vacuuming. There were some small flowers beside me. At the stop sign behind me, two large trucks were carrying parts of a house. A plane flew overhead.
Further down the road, a road sign caught my eye. It said 'Albert St', had arrows pointing both ways, and faded numbers. Beneath it, there were two spiders with large webs which overlapped.
It felt like these observations popped up when I was on a definite high. It seemed to enforce the good feelings. The more you look, the more you see