Sweet autumn

It's a glorious day here today.  A balmy 22 or 23 deg c.  The last of autumn, much welcome after the grey and rainy days last week.

Well, as usual at the moment, I'm exhausted.  Dragged myself in to work, though I'd much rather have spent the day napping, sleeping and napping some more.

The weekend, though tiring, was lovely.  Friday night - karaoke, where I had an absolute ball.  The repertoire was varied - Def Leppard, Neil Young, some dance stuff I don't know but enjoyed, Celine Dion (the Titanic theme - done with aplomb by V's friend S), Linda Ronstadt.  It was great, a real laugh, and everything got better (and funnier) the more we drank.  The Japanese know how to have a good time.  Much funnier than my experience of karaoke in Japan, strangely. It's all about the company you keep.

Saturday was a day for much sleeping, interspersed with a great afternoon with some neighbours at a BBQ.   I was the youngest there (apart from the dogs, if counted in human and not dog years...).  My neighbours have all lived interesting lives, and have great senses of humour.  I hope I'm as healthy and happy as them when I get to their age.  I had to sleep when I got home!

Sunday was another lovely day - spent at Healesville Sanctuary with my Uncle, Aunt and beautiful young Cousin K, visiting from England. I haven't seen them for 13 years, and the rest of my family haven't seen them for 31 years. Unfortunately, because of various health issues, my parents aren't able to spend much time with our visitors, and this is sad for everyone. I'm trying to step into the breach, and I must say, after some trepidation (based on shyness, I think!), I'm really enjoying their company.  They have great senses of humour, a very gentle and decent approach to life, and are just pleased that we can spend some time together.  I feel bad that I haven't arranged a heap of things for them to do, but hope to redeem the last week or so (when they get back from a side trip interstate that I managed to persuade them to take - you can't come to Australia and not see Sydney!) if I can.  That might be a feat, as lots of things close over Easter. But I'll start searching for things that are open.

So, I'll leave you with some pictures of beautiful creatures at the Sanctuary. I have mixed feelings about zoos which I won't go into here.  But I can say the Sanctuary is lovely and peaceful, the enclosures seem to be as close to the natural habitat of the animals as possible.  It's changed a lot since I visited as a new arrival here 30 years ago.  I'd recommend a trip, especially with children old enough to enjoy it.  I was feeling anxious when I started writing, but thinking through the weekend to write this post has been calming.

Shalom.

Napping on rainy days

Not what you'd call a day of achievement here at RTW.  Most of the day spent napping in bed, dipping into the Saturday paper, and catching up with the kittens.  I needed rest and quiet after a difficult couple of weeks, including being sick, but I think staying in bed 'til 5pm is taking it a bit far.  Ended up feeling anxious and fending off negative thoughts - you know, just the usual, 'why aren't I..', 'why did they...', 'when will I...', 'I should...', covering a whole range of topics.  Not useful.  But I grasped anew what psychologists say about thinking and feeling: thoughts create feelings, feelings lead to behaviour.  The negative thoughts began swirling, and I started to feel unhappy.  Rationally, nothing about my siutation had changed, other than how I thought (and so felt) about it.  In trying to find a link to this (though I know it's pretty basic), I came across a link to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.  It's very good.  Something I should put into practice, as I've read quite a bit about it, including The Happiness Trap, by Dr Russ Harris.  Russ has a website, http://www.actmindfully.com/.  I recommend his work.  Time I put some effort into practising!

So, takeaway for dinner, and a night of TV.  I'm watching Durham County at the moment, series one.  It's a creepy show, very well done.  Have you seen it?  The casting is excellent, the performances bring characters to life.  The lead is a very flawed good guy.  His nemesis, a very nasty piece of work.  The cinematography and locations are just right - an unfinished house, beside ominous power lines, betrayal, deceit, manipulation.  It's all there.  A Canadian production - I had thought it was set in Los Angeles.  Spooky and superb.

I have two kittens beside me on the couch - the two boys seem to like curling up together.  Now they do napping during the day very well!

I'm still working my way through A Life At Work. In the meantime, I'm finding interesting things to read around the place, such as this blog, and in particular, a post on 'reframing your lawyer life' and gratitude.  How about that?  Lisa from Of all the liars regularly posts her Daily 5, a list of things for which she's grateful.  It's a good practice and it works.  I first did it on the suggestion of a counsellor, when I was in the depths of depression, and I can still remember the day when I was walking down the street, the sun was shining, and for the first time in months, I felt a moment of joy.  A list of three things, every day, was one of the things that lifted me out of the grey depths.  The first paragraph of that post spoke to me straight away:

One of the keys to happiness, in life and career, is valuing what you have. Everyone in our society forgets this from time to time, but lawyers do seem to have a special knack for it. That’s because we lawyers are trained to deconstruct, to find the flaw, to figure out what is wrong.

'Trained to deconstruct, to find the flaw, to figure out what's wrong.'  Yes, and it's a habit that can spread, until the whole of life is viewed through that prism. 

Tacking

I've been slack with the camera. Again.  How easy it is to get out of the habit of seeing.  The interesting things are still there, but I don't notice them. 

In any event, I've been thinking that this blog doesn't have to be just in pictures - it can be words, too.  Maybe a place to record the tangents I follow each day. 

As it happens, this post was started one Thursday afternoon. In between little grizzly work tasks, I started to write about how I want to use the blog differently.  Two days later... here I am, late on a Saturday, pondering the state of things.  And wondering, why did I pick that title for this post?  Oh, I remember - I was thinking about how yachts tack - I think this describes their change in direction.  Better check that... in my new two volume Shorter Oxford English Dictionary.  That's got to be worth a picture, right? Maybe when there's some sunshine I'll get around to it.

Hopefully, this won't be the last reference to the lovely, lovely dictionary that's come to take up residence here.   How I've longed for one of these. Nearly bought one full price a few years ago. Imagine my delight when I saw it on special (nearly half price) at one of my favourite bookshops, Readings.  Oh yes, my lovely, you shall be mine!  And with CD-ROM.  I can take the CD to work - the OED is the best reference for definitions in legal matters.  Though I think Australian courts also allow reference to the Macquarie, our homegrown dictionary.

Anyway, to tack, intransitive verb, the 7th definition of 9, means "Alter a sailing ship's course by turning the head to the wind and across it, so as to bring the wind on the opposite side of the vessel".  Ideal.  That's what I meant.  One of the other meanings would have been just as useful - attaching a thing to another. Attaching words to pictures.  Or words to a blog that had been, albeit in its infancy, mainly pictures.  Should have known it wouldn't take me long to start talking.

One reason I want to write on the blog, is to link to things I find interesting - not just cute, amusing things, but things that stand out, or fit in, as I womble along.  It's hard to keep a good record of these, without adding to my hopelessly overgrown favourites lists on my work and home PCs, or printing out articles I may never read again.  And Facebook just doesn't cut it as an archive of personal wanderings and wonderings.

I'm thinking at the moment about what I do, what I might want to do differently, how on earth I might get there, if I can sort out what it is that I want to do...  I've pondered this on and off for a long time.  But obviously more off than on, coz I'm more or less still there, thinking, but not changing.  Sure, I've moved around a bit, got a postgraduate qualification, kept the home fires burning.  And yet, still this dissatisfaction.  For some reason, perhaps just the passage of time, age, accumulated disappointments, it feels more serious this time.  It's harder to propel myself out of bed every day.  What's missing seems to have expanded - there's a bigger hole than ever.  Who knows what comes next?   It's time to think about 'it' again. 

In the same way that it's said, if you buy or want to buy a particular make or model of car, you'll see cars of that kind everywhere.  Well, I'm seeing stuff about change, transition, movement, discovery, and doing what you love.  Maybe it's part of the human condition, this feeling of restlessness, that there must be something more.  There may be other strands of this in my case - being a Christian, for starters. 

So, here's two to read and think about.  Unlike more organised, experienced bloggers, I think I'll post before I've really thought about things.  We'll see how that goes!

• Steve Jobs' speech at  Stanford University graduation ceremony.  I like it.  Simple, but effective.  Perhaps some would want a more intellectual speech.  Me, I prefer simple and inspiring.
• The book I bought at Readings, when I had to take dictionary no.1 back (it was only the 5th edition - in a 6th edition box - couldn't bear the idea of losing a few years' worth of words!). Thomas Moore's A Life at Work.  I've linked to the transcript of an interview with Moore.  I'll report back when I've finished the book - my criteria for material on this topic is whether it moves me on.

Finally.  A question, or two.  Mick Jagger.  I know I wasn't born when he was big with the Stones. But really. what  were women thinking?  What is attractive about this man?  Then again, I never did like seedy types.  Here's Mick and the lads, with You Can't Always Get What You Want.  Preach it, brother.

Is that a good place to finish?  That's a rhetorical question