Some people are always grumbling because roses have thorns; I am thankful that thorns have roses.

Ramus. St David's Park, Hobart. July 2012.

A belated Q and A, again stolen from Sunday Stealing: The 88 Meme: The Last Part!

69. Song you're thinking of right now?

Even the Bad Times Are Good by The Tremeloes.

70. Want someone back in your life?

Not particularly…

71. Will tomorrow be better than today?

It is extremely unlikely.

72. What's the colour of the underwear you are wearing?

Black, with a white waistband.

73. Who was the first best friend that you ever had?

I’ve never really been a ‘best friend’ type of fellow. If I am honest, it would probably be my wife.

74. How do you react when someone disappoints you?

Usually with disappointment. There’s a resignation to the fact that people generally let you down.

75. Is there anyone who understands your sexuality?

I’m not even certain that I understand it!

76. Are you a naturally happy person? Or is your happiness forced?

I don’t ‘force’ those moments that I am happy (or appear to be), but I would say that my true nature is not a particularly ‘happy’ one. I suspect that there is an innate pessimism there.

77. Is there anyone you wish would fall in love with you?

No.

78. What do you wear when you sleep?

Most of the year I sleep as naked as the day as I was born. However, in winter, I’ll often wear a t-shirt or singlet.

79. Are you obsessed with something right now?

I have developed reasonably complex plans for some experimental long exposure night photography that just lack a subject!

80. The first person you loved is?

Jennifer.

81. Something terrible happened with you?

Did it? When?

82. You are locked up with your celebrity crush for days, what happens?

I really do detest the fixation with celebrity that people have. For the record, ‘celebrities’ hold no interest – sexual or otherwise – for me.

83. If you could wish something, what would it be?

A little more peace and quiet. And somehow, somewhere, that I come into enough money to do something that I’d really rather be doing.

84. Ever try to force someone to do something?

Adults? Not really. I do try and convince people to reflect a little more critically on their own assumptions. Sometimes that might border on force. That said, if we’re talking about small children, then yes, all the time.

85. When you are alone, what do you think about?

Lots of things.

86. How was your first sex?

Uninspired and second-rate.

87. What's your favourite music genre?

My tastes are too diverse to pick one type. I’m going to have to squib this one. I don’t like jazz though.

88. Are you happy I only wrote 88 questions?

I’m not too fussed.

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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