Half our mistakes in life arise from feeling where we ought to think, and thinking where we ought to feel.

Sunshine came softly though my window today... Magnet Court, as seen from Mayfair Plaza car park. September 2012.

Sunday Stealing is closing down, it seems, which means that I'll need to find a new source for these questions! Until then, here is The End is Near Meme, Part 1

1. Ever been given or received an engagement ring?

Despite the fact that I am married, I have not experienced either honour.

2. Longest relationship?

It’s going strong at eleven (11!) years now.

3. Last gift you received?

I got a comfortable jacket for Father’s Day. As well as an Essendon FC bookmark.

4. Ever dropped a mobile phone?

LOADS of times.

5. When's the last time you worked out?

I’ve cut back on my non-habitual exercise of late. I walk everywhere, we do a bit of swimming and a lot of my ‘relaxation’ involves trekking somewhere or other and often involves carrying a reasonable heavy child, so the excess workouts aren’t really necessary.

6. Thing(s) you spend a lot of money on?

Kids. Hydroelectric power. That kind of thing.

7. Last food you ate?

A Granny Smith apple. Very tasty it was, too.

8. First thing you notice about the opposite sex?

It very much depends on their own characteristics. Could be anything. Face. Voice. Laugh. Boobs. Hair. Clothes. Smell. It’s not always good and it’s not always bad.

9. One favourite song?

Off the top of my head, why not try No Children by The Mountain Goats. Suitably bleak.

10. Where do you live?

In Geilston Bay. In Hobart (on the eastern shore of the Derwent Estuary). Which is in Tasmania (in the south east of the island). Which is in Australia (the little island south east of the really big island). Which positions us at the arse end of the arse end of the world!

11. High school attended?

Parklands High School, which is in Burnie. Which is at the other end of Tasmania from Hobart.

12. Cell phone provider?

Someone or other. What are you, a cyber stalker?

13. Favourite shop?

I subscribe to a form of neo-Kantian concept of Deontological (or duty-based) ethics. It’s easier for me to not think about shops. I do like the Tasmanian public library system.

14. Longest job?

I worked at the University of Tasmania for seven or eight year stretch for a while there, but it was flitting from casual work to contract work to casual work to contract work that really you couldn’t call it a single ‘job’. Rule that out and you’re looking at a three year stretch at an alcohol, tobacco and other drug peak body, although even that constituted three or four ‘jobs’. The world has changed!

15. Do you own a smart phone? Why?

What constitutes a ‘smart’ phone. It can’t explain J.S. Mill’s ‘Harm Principle’ and is useless at relationships so it doesn’t seem all that bright to me. Hang on a tic [looks up ‘smart phone’]. Yes. It appears that I own a ‘smart phone’. I can’t say that I do anymore than text or make the odd phone call with it, however.

16. Do you prank call people?

What are you, twelve?

17. Last wedding you attended?

Cripes. I’ve not been to many weddings. If you count my own, I have attended six. Two remain married. Two didn’t even crack a year married, so I might be a bad omen for people.

18. First friend you'd call if you won the lottery?

My wife. First I’d need to work out how I got a lottery ticket!

19. Last time you saw your best friend(s)?

This morning.

20. Favourite fast food Restaurant?

Hmmmmm. A toss-up between your fancy-pants Nandos or Legs ‘n Breasts.

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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