In diving to the bottom of pleasure we bring up more gravel than pearls.

Everywhere I look, seagulls! Geilston Bay, October 2011.

Another day, another Q and A! Today this is the Questions Galore Meme, Part 2...

21. What was the last song you listened to that wasn’t sung in English?
If Laura Branigan's Ti Amo doesn't count, probably the '80s Soviet beat combo Кино ('Kino') doing Группа крови (Blood Type).

22. Do you let meme authors know when you hate their memes?
No. Why? I just wouldn't do it.

23. What TV show would you like to be on?
Something that pays well for very little.

24. What was the last video game you played?
Madden NFL 2011 on the PSP.

25. Have you ever been in a musical? If yes, do tell.
Alas, I have nothing to tell.

26. Do you follow your own style or everyone else’s?
I have my own indomitable style.

27. What’s the last store you bought from?
Coles.

28. In retrospect, have you ever let a person use you a lot?
That has never been a trait of mine. Unless you count children. If you do, all the time.

29. What are you doing two days from now?
I am attending the AGM of the organisation I work for.

30. Did you ever believe there were monsters in your closet?
Gay monsters are people too.

31. When you graduated high school, did you let random people sign your yearbook or just close friends?
I don't even recall taking a year book home. I'm not very sentimental about my school years. By and large, I hated 'em!

32. Would you consider adopting a child that had a mental illness?
No, but in all fairness to the mentally ill, I wouldn't consider adopting a child full stop.

33. Does thinking about death scare you?
No. It depresses me occasionally, but there is no point being scared about something unavoidable.

34. If you died, do you believe that you go to Heaven or Hell and where would your spirit go?
I assume that when I am dead I am dead. That's it. Game over.

35. Who did you last write a snail mail letter to and why?
A resignation letter from the CPSU. I left it because they do not have coverage of my new workplace (and anyway, I had remained my membership of the Australian Services Union).

36. Do you care what people say or think about you?
Rarely. If it is somebody I respect or admire I do.

37. Have you ever been threatened?
All the time. Have you ever worked in the alcohol and other drug space?

38. Which side of your family do you get most of your qualities from?
I like to think that I came up with them myself.

39. What was the last thing with alcohol that you drank?
I had a sip of Jen's beer the other night (a James Squire Porter).

40. Have you ever kept a relationship a secret?
Not intentionally.

Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it...

I still have the robot on the job. Here you can see the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery . And here is a poem: Soliloquy for One Dead Bruce Dawe Ah, no, Joe, you never knew the whole of it, the whistling which is only the wind in the chimney's smoking belly, the footsteps on the muddy path that are always somebody else's. I think of your limbs down there, softly becoming mineral, the life of grasses, and the old love of you thrusts the tears up into my eyes, with the family aware and looking everywhere else. Sometimes when summer is over the land, when the heat quickens the deaf timbers, and birds are thick in the plumbs again, my heart sickens, Joe, calling for the water of your voice and the gone agony of your nearness. I try hard to forget, saying: If God wills, it must be so, because of His goodness, because- but the grasshopper memory leaps in the long thicket, knowing no ease. Ah, Joe, you never knew the whole of it... I like Bruce Dawe. He just my be my favourite Austral...

There was nothing left. No reason, no conscience, no understanding; even the most rudimentary sense of life or death, good or evil, right or wrong.

Here is a self portrait. I’m calling it Portrait of a lady in a dirty window . Shocking, isn’t it? However, it is apt! Samhain , Nos Galan Gaeaf , Hop-tu-Naa , All Saints , All Hallows , Hallowmas , Hallowe'en or HALLOWEEN . It’s Theme Thursday and we’re talking about the festivals traditionally held at the end of the harvest season. Huh? No wonder Australians have trouble with the concept of HALLOWEEN. For the record, in my thirty-two L O N G years on the planet, I can’t say I’ve ever seen ghosts ‘n goblins, trick ‘n treaters or Michael Myers stalking Tasmania’s streets at the end of October. [That said, I did once see a woman as pale as a ghost turning tricks that looked like Michael Myers in late November one time.] Despite the best efforts of Hollywood, sitcoms, and innumerable companies; it seems Australians are impervious to the [ahem] charms of a corporatized variant of a celebration of the end of the "lighter half" of the year and beginning of the "darke...

In dreams begin responsibilities.

A life at sea, that's for me, only I just don't have the BREAD. That's right, Theme Thursday yet again and I post a photo of a yacht dicking about in Bass Strait just off Wynyard. The problem is, I am yet again stuck at work, slogging away, because I knead need the dough . My understanding is that it is the dough that makes the BREAD. And it is the BREAD that buys the yacht. On my salary though, I will be lucky to have enough dough or BREAD for a half dozen dinner rolls. Happy Theme Thursday people, sorry for the rush.

This will hurt me...

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