Sailing Backwards To Christmas

Guess who has the dreaded lurgy?

Urgh...

Just for future reference, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon is the TRIPPIEST MOVIE EVER if you walk in on it and start watching halfway through.

I didn't fall off the edge of the internet.

No, really. I just...went quiet for a bit. It was one of those big long stretches where you - or at least I - keep having things happen, think I should probably write that down and then other things happen that get in the way.

Of course, now I'm back here I can't actually remember any of the things I've spent most of the last month reminding myself to write down.

I spent the day wandering up and down the length of a room in my underwear, being manhandled into all sorts of intriguing positions by an absurdly hot young bloke named Joel, getting impressively rumpled and bench-pressing quite a lot more than I thought I could.

H - who will know who they are when they see this, though it's not my place to drop names - would be impressed, and might possibly try to pounce on me (lovingly) through the internet!

Okay, so it's not quite what it sounds like.

I was back at the Gait Lab, being tested. I've been a medical guinea pig all my life - first kid to have Botox injections in my hamstrings and calves, first kid to have some of my surgeries and very early on the list to have most of the rest, they used me and my wonky walking to calibrate all the machines in this particular Gait Lab when it was built - so honestly, if I'm going to be paid and get some decent strength training out of it, one more round of guinea-piggery won't do me any harm.

The thing is, though...I really don't like going to the Gait Lab. I know it's necessary. I know why it's necessary. It doesn't hurt until I have to rip the tape off, nothing bad happens to me while I'm there, the people are nice to me 95% of the time. I've done it heaps of times.

I just don't like it all that much. There's something about all those numbers that strips me down. Reduced to a string of stats about degrees of flexion, surrounded by a whole pile of medical mumbo-jumbo I don't have a hope of being able to understand...I stop being me and start being that.

I'm suddenly very aware of the hundred and one little things I've always known don't work for me the way they do for everyone else, and I hate that. I can't really explain why.

I console myself with thoughts of my new Robot Leg. There's a little machine taped to the top of my thigh, and it goes VRRT VRRT VRRT as I walk.

Nothing to see here. Just pimping a movie.

If you haven't already seen it, go forth and watch.

Just got back from having a good long chat with Dane. He taught me back when I was in first year, indulged all my fangirling about poets and authors - did a bit of his own, too! - encouraged my writing (especially the poetry) and showed me cool new things to try.

Man, I missed him when he was gone.

So yeah.

I can has Dreamwidth account.

I'm fizzylizard at LJ still, but I've decided to be a bit daring and call myself vasco_pyjama for Dreamwidth purposes.

Anyone who wants to, start inspecting.

Went to the Dawn Service this morning, as always. I'll do it properly one of these days, make the trip to Turkey or France and say hello. Might put some gum leaves on the headstones if I can get them in through customs. The poor sods are a hell of a long way from home. They might like that.

I'm going to see Cirque de Soleil tonight.

There are NO WORDS to fully express my glee.

I could be writing about any number of serious things.

The sheer amount of fail that is Amazon would be a good place to start...but there are already umpteen thousand other people busily blogging and tweeting about that, and most of them have been a good deal more eloquent than I am. I can spare a bit of sympathy for the poor sales reps manning the phones, though - they're apparently being swamped by THE ENTIRE INTERNET making furious calls, and the dumber bits of company policy really aren't their fault.

Or I could get a bit deeper have a go at talking about all the bad shit that's going on around the world. Brand new military dictatorship on the rise in Fiji, and they've just kicked out every foreign journalist they can find. Riots in Thailand. War everywhere you look. People hit by floods in southern Africa, right across Angola, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia, plus that earthquake in Italy. Pretty much all of them could use a bit of generosity, so I suggest looking up your local Red Cross on Google and seeing if they've got a donations page running.

I could be saying any of that...but I won't, because I've found a new song that makes my wee little niece laugh her head off. Having sung The Wheels On The Bus roughly 688796453386797 times between Friday afternoon and now - and made up enough new lyrics for the bus in question to come with seventeen vandals and a pony - I'm thrilled.

( The Gasman Cometh )

Picture this, boys and girls.

I'm listening to the 10th Anniversary Concert cast recording of Les Miserables, because I am an enormous dork. There's a thing at the very end of the TAC where they get seventeen different Jean Valjeans - all of them pulled from different professional productions, in about thirteen different languages - all belting out Do You Hear The People Sing? at the same time.

It's very cool, in an utterly geeky way.

First thing I notice, Australian Valjean is Rob Guest. Very, very sad, since he's now dead and he had an almighty voice. Second thing I notice - because I am an enormous dork who has the casting notes stashed somewhere in the depths of my iPod - is that Japanese Valjean is down as Takeshi Kaga.

Head to Youtube just to be sure...

OH MY LORD. JEAN VALJEAN IS CHAIRMAN KAGA FROM IRON CHEF.




SEE?!

OH CHAIRMAN KAGA, WHY ARE YOU SO AWESOME?

On a less capslock note, happy Easter to those who celebrate it. I know there are a handful of people reading this who would rather mark Passover, so chag pesach to them. Those of you who want nothing to do with any of it, peace out.

I already knew that little_details is a spectacularly useful comm to be a part of, but since they started posting questions as cat macros...they might have gotten just that little bit more entertaining as well.

Just another one of my results posts. I try every year to keep track of what's going down in the football world, but every year I get sidetracked into doing something else.

( The Scores )

( The Ladder )

...and then it was footy season.

The AFL actually seems to have their shit together as far as ads go this year. I've just seen their 2009 promo, and - surprisingly enough - I think I like it!

I spotted an interesting article when I was checking the BBC website a minute ago.

Anyone got any thinky thoughts?

I heard a story on Sunday afternoon. It's about the fires we had back in February.

There's a town called Vanimo. If you look at a map of Papua New Guinea, it's right up there on the northwest coast, next to that little dip at the top of Sandaun province.

( PNG )

Found it?

Vanimo has a hospital. A few years back, this hospital was a total shambles. You'd be kind if you even went that far. We're talking dirt floors, minimal supplies, no re-ordering system to get new stock in once those supplies ran out, no serious attempt at infection control or sterilised equipment, no linen on any of the beds, uneven power and water supplies that could cut out unexpectedly in the middle of a procedure...it was basically just a bunch of rooms with some sleeping mats in them where people brought their relatives when they got sick.

After the 1998 tsunami - which basically turned the whole town to matchwood - one of the things the Australian military did to help with the relief was rebuild the hospital and get all those wonky systems running properly. They fixed the power and the water. They put clean tiles on the floors and the walls. They helped to kickstart an admin system that actually worked, got in new equipment to help with general cleanliness, made sure all the doctors and nurses knew how to use and look after it, set up a rehab clinic specifically to deal with all the people who'd had a limb mangled by the big wave...

My stepmother was on one of those medical teams. This is how I know.

These days, the hospital in Vanimo is the best one in all of New Guinea. It's been rated by independent observers, and it's comparable to the hospitals I get treated in. The Senta - that's the rehab clinic - is still running, and has expanded now to deal with all sorts of disabilities. Chris gets letters and cards every year telling her how well the programs are working.

When the fires happened, the government of New Guinea sent money. They sent a lot of money by PNG standards, most of which - since New Guinea has an...interesting approach to official corruption - is probably going to be siphoned off into bribes or side projects before it ever gets here. That doesn't matter. The important bit is that they sent it.

Vanimo Mission Hospital sent money too, separately to the government effort. The staff put ten thousand kina - about five thousand dollars, if I'm converting it right - in an envelope, took it to the embassy in Port Moresby and put it in the ambassador's hand.

Ten thousand kina is enough to pay the wages of every single person working in that hospital - every doctor, every nurse, even the cleaners - for a full month.

I can't believe they did that.

The Sprog is two months old. She's just figured out how to hit things.

The highlight of my day today was watching my baby niece beat the crap out of a stuffed Elmo...and I am okay with that.

I had to ask what the date was today.

It's my 21st birthday, and I had to ask someone else what day it was.

Self, you fail.

I'm sorry. I can't help it. For once, someone lurking in metaquotes has delivered the goods and I can't stop giggling.




skellerbvvt: All I'm saying is that it involved hot water and dead plants, occasionally with the introduction of cooled bovine lactate and granulated sucrose, or bee vomit.

If that doesn't sound like a night of kinky fun to you then I don't know you.

I'll be over here with my mug and bullwhip.


rohaa: Sounds downright steamy to me.


skellerbvvt: I'm just getting warmed up. You'll have to wait for me to whistle to know that I'm done.


rohaa: Shouldn't you spend some time pulling and infusing before you're done?


skellerbvvt: Hold on honey, I need to steep in my own juices for a while before you stir me and add milk.


rohaa: Oh, alright. Once you're sufficiently stirred, should I sip you or just gobble you down.


skellerbvvt: I'm a bit too hot to gulp right down.


rohaa: But I like it hot and burning.


skellerbvvt: You should get that looked at

I'm liquid in your hands.


rohaa: In my hands? I much prefer this liquid scalding down my throat and making me feel all warm inside.


skellerbvvt: Then why don't you wrap your lips around my rim and take a...sip?


cpip: If it's too hot to put your hands on, it's too hot to put your mouth on...


skellerbvvt: Dang. Cunnilingus Consumption fail because of temperature difficulties. We could wait for me to cool off, but then again, there's a narrow line between "too hot to touch" and "accidental ice tea".

Ice tea is not sexy.

I was trying to think of something lecherous to say about oven mitts, but I couldn't think of anything besides "soft" and "gripping".

Leave a comment here
The only restriction is
It must be haiku

(Renga is also okay
I will manage if I must!)