Another angle of this utility pole, and perhaps a more dramatic one. Same pole, same sunset, different colouring, similar feel.
I hope you enjoy.
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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1525: Close to Eight Months Left
It’s a wet day. It’s a rainy day. It’s a bad day. It’s a good day. I’m realising that, perhaps, I’m not fully recovered from illness. Or maybe I am but am getting sick again. I don’t know. I do know I’m tired, however.
But it’s a rainy day and I’m sitting here, relaxing. I’m waiting for food and I am looking forward to it. I’m looking forward to relaxing by the end of the day, and the start of the day is here. The start of the day is now. Or it was somewhere between seven and eight hours ago, but the day, for me, is starting now.
I’m thinking about the weather. I’m thinking about my shoulder, which hurts but not as bad as it did yesterday, and that’s a good thing, of course. I’m thinking about what I can be thankful for in life, and there are a lot of things. There are plenty of things I can be thankful for, but I’m restless and I need to get back onto getting on with things. Of course, I have been doing plenty but there are other things I want to be doing. There are other things I want to be getting on with.
I’m thinking a out all the drafts I have that I need to edit into some sort of readable form. Or rather, I need to make them less messy and more what is normally considered as presentable. But this is old stuff to talk about.
As the world turns, so do I, and I’m sitting here doing very little, but I’m writing. I’m working toward at least one goal, and I’m working toward the last day of this blog, and it’s coming. Close to eight months left. Time for things to start getting really heavy, I guess. Or not have them heavy.
There are so many choices and sometimes you don’t have much say in which way you go, but I don’t necessarily want to be heavy. I don’t necessarily want to be angry. Sometimes an ending can be a joyous celebration, but I’m not sure if this one can be. There’s so much blandness spread throughout; so much worthlessness, and anger and sadness. A lot of stretches of nothing punctuated by something, and I don’t know if I can effectively pull this up. I don’t know if I want to try and make everything a jubilant celebration of ending.
But I don’t want to be morose about the whole thing, either.
The sun is coming out and the rain is disappearing. This is a moment in time that’s holding on, and the sun will soon disappear again. It will, once more, be obscured by clouds. That is the way these cycles go. Well, when there’s rain coming, anyway… unless the rain has stopped… for now.
So maybe the last bits of writing here will also be in cycles. It is yet to be seen. It is yet to be determined. Guess we’ll see.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 07:49:73
Written earlier today.
Time to kick things into high gear.
Written at Dirty Red.
Arch from Under
A photo of one of the arches of ANZAC Bridge from under it. Probably could’ve gone for something a but more even in frame, but this particular angle appealed to me at the time.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-fifty-ninth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Tools of Photo Composition: Lines, Colors and Patterns“.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by John. The next one will be hosted by Leya.
I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.
I hope you enjoy.
Posted in Photography
Tagged Anzac, arch, architecture, bridge, cables, design, lens-artists, lines, monochrome, Sydney, urban
6 Comments
Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1524: A Good Saturday
Got some sleep last night. Got some more sleep than the recent usual. This is good. Do I feel alive? No. Do I have exceptional shoulder pain? Yes. Do I feel less tired than I have for a good few weeks? Also yes.
I consider this an improvement, and so should you.
Yesterday was a big day, and mainly because I walked nearly ten kilometres. Why did I walk nearly ten kilometres? I misjudged. But it was a rainy day and I wanted to go into the city before seeing Ewe, who was in Sydney after dropping Anna off at the airport. I wanted to walk around and capture a city empty due to the rain. It had been a long time since I’d done such a thing and figured that it’d be a good opportunity. But there were people around. Still took photos.
Anyway, I walked around and appreciated a rain-swept city, or at least a small part of it, and I kept walking and headed back to Glebe and met up with Ewe, then took him to Duoly Rob. And it was a good time, and he liked the food, and we went to a rather diminished Glebe Markets before wandering about a bit and then went our separate ways.
Met up with another friend visiting Sydney after, did some more wandering about with him, went for food elsewhere, took him to where he’s staying, then headed home.
It was a good day. It was nice. It was easy. And these are small moments in time. These are small pockets that might not be remembered, but will have their feelings carried on into the future. It was a day enjoyed and everyone had a good time.
Not that I needed it, but it was nice to hear Ewe tell me about how he and Anna had noticed how much happier I seemed because I am happier. I am having a better time in my life than I was at the start of this year, and even last year and the year before then… It might be the happiest I’ve been in years. I don’t seek validation, or at the very least I try not to seek validation, but hearing from my friends – from the people who have seen me grow and change and stuck by my being me and being intense and all those things; from people who have had my back throughout my life – that they’ve noticed the change in me does make me feel a little better. It’s just a nice thing.
And hanging with my other friend was great, too. Hearing how he’s starting to reach goals in life and get into a better position was great, and I’m so happy for him, because he’s getting back to a position where he can start building his life back up again, and be better equipped to look after himself. These are small things, but they’re big things too, and they create moments we carry with us.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:59:13
Bit dull, bit slow, but I’m fine with it. Just a light, honest rambling about a good day.
Written at home.
Cross at Sunset
This is a utility pole near where I live, and it works well for intense photos with intense sunsets. Not sure if this image is intense, but it turned out the way I hoped it did.
This is my submission into the three hundred-and-fifty-eighth Lens-Artists Photo Challenge. The theme for this one is “Live and Learn“. I feel this image fits as it’s a photo I took by applying a few things I like; the utility pole shot in silhouette against an intense sunset, and little relational context; a certain heaviness that can come off as grim. I don’t think I would have taken this photo had I not spent a lot of time learning. It combines things I like in a way that I feel enhances the image overall, and it’s another photo to learn from for me.
The host of the Lens-Artists challenges cycles weekly between the following people:
This one is curated by Tina. The next one will be hosted by John.
I recommend joining the community and participating in the challenges. They’re pretty straightforward, allow room for interpretation, and provide a good way to think about photography in general. If not, however, then at the very least you should check out what others submit to the challenges.
I hope you enjoy.
Posted in Photography
Tagged clouds, cross, lens-artists, light, silhouette, sky, sunset, urban, utility
2 Comments
Head Holding
Recently I took a bunch of practise photos. This is one of them.
This is my submission into Leanne Cole‘s “Monochrome Madness” for this week. The next one is hosted by Brian of Bushboy’s World, and he has chosen “Any Subject Backlit” as the theme.
This challenge is open to all, and I recommend joining in. If want to, check out more information about it here, and include the tag “monochrome-madness” when you share your photo. If you’d prefer not to join in, then at the least check out Leanne’s photography, and what other people submit.
I hope you enjoy.
Posted in Photography
Tagged expression, head, monochrome, monochrome-madness, person, portrait, self-portrait
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Underworld: 11 Hundred Hz
One listen.
Felt I had to rush and try to stay where the song was up to. Not a good way to be about this, I think. The writing suffered a bit for it.
Underworld’s “11 Hundred Hz” is from I’m a Big Sister, and I’m a Girl, and I’m a Princess, and This Is My Horse, a release that is part of their Riverrun project.
I hope you enjoy.
—
Keys play a collection of notes as they descend. They carry something in them that seems to look to touch on something deep. They reach a surface and move along it, low, seemingly adding in some unpleasantness.
Maybe it’s not unpleasant, but rather an offness. Something to challenge the notion of a peace.
Other sound comes in and follows the keys, and when the keys reach the surface once more a low sound throbs. The keys play their pattern once more, in the distance, and something seems ominous, foreboding. This seems to look further at challenging the notion of peace, and it feels unsettling in a way. But it’s all just there and part of a space as the more familiar sounds are heard before everything fades and the song ends.
Posted in Music
Tagged 11, carry, collection, familiar, hundred, low, notion, surface, underworld, unpleasant
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Underworld: Peach Tree
One listen.
I didn’t go in with any particular aims, but I feel I should have. May not have been within the spirit of what I try to do with this series of writing, but I feel it may have helped. Still, I covered the song quite well, I think.
Underworld’s “Peach Tree” is from I’m a Big Sister, and I’m a Girl, and I’m a Princess, and This Is My Horse. The release is part of their Riverrun project which, as far as my understanding goes, was an experiment in releasing music in non-traditional ways that ran from 2005 to 2006. “Peach Tree” was also included in the single releases for their songs “Crocodile” and “Boy, Boy, Boy”.
I hope you enjoy.–
Calm, peaceful. Inner, wide, and electronic vocals crackle like static. They hum and say something distorted, something present and beyond. Murmur in the cracks, and the sound they run alongside remains calm.
More voice comes in, and it remains indistinct. These are words, and these words are said carefully. They are said with precision, and they can almost be made out. Their meaning can almost be found. Through them comes an idea of motion; an idea of moving forward, toward somewhere, toward something.
The sound that started it all finds itself joined by others more prominently as it itself comes into more prominence. Shifts in the melody, shifts in the spread as it comes more and more forward, and some voice becomes clearer, yet still seems indistinct. There’s that clarity; there’s that vagueness. They disappear. They return.
Sound pulses and pulses in patterns and carry all that peace, and there seems to be something complete and broken coming forward. An intensity is rising, but it is not pressure, and the vocals continue as though a rhythmic pattern at this stage, and percussion appears and rises and reaffirms shape strongly suggested.
There’s a driving energy here, but there’s still that calm, and it seems looking out and over a landscape as moving through it, moving past everything, and one thing anchors it all. One thing remains constant, and voices make comments, disconnected, fragmentary. Everything shifts and pushes out with more force, and more detail comes to view. More grounding, more in the moment.
More voice harmonising with the main melody, more mutterings. More murmurings. More moving forward, taking everything in, rushing past it all, rushing calmly. More in the moment and letting it guide and lead to wherever everything goes. And it goes.
The sound of everything remains something washing over, covering, not smothering. It holds and lets release, but it keeps control. It lets it all flow out, but it lets it all flow out as realisation, or perhaps it doesn’t at all. And it lowers the moment as percussion fades away, and voices calmly lapping at the moment, echoing, rising off of the peace. Rising and disappearing, and the song suddenly ends.
Posted in Music
Tagged anchors, crackle, looking, peaceful, peach tree, pushes, reiverrun, rising, underworld, voices, washing
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Five-Hundred Word Challenge 1523: Café Writer
There’s an audible stillness in the air, or at least there was. Music has just started. But what do I mean by audible stillness?
Other than there being no music playing, the sound of rain falling, the hum of kitchen machinery, the occasional car. I’m in Duoly Rob so I’m only getting a small slice, but it seems as though there’s a stillness today. A stillness in the rain. And until the music started, it was audibly still in here.
It almost seemed gloomy, and then it seemed peaceful. It was time held within a moment, but everything progressed as is. Everything actually seemed to resume. It was a moment. It was a time.
There’s now music playing and I’m sitting here, writing. I’m becoming a café writer, it seems. Didn’t think I’d ever go this way, but if it works it works and if it works it fits… and yeah. You get the idea.
So what now? The ambience has changed. The atmosphere is different. I can sit here, crap on about this, or I can get on with my life. I can find where everything leads. I can find the spaces and the gaps. I can dig into the holes. I can do what must be done and I can get on with life.
Glebe outside looks so miserable right now. It looks old. It looks as in a state of decay. It is falling apart, but it maintains structure. It pretend to hold an air of integrity, but it’s just another location bulldozed and rebuilt and torn apart and rebuilt, forcing people out and away in order to replace them with other people who are eventually forced out and away. It continues on, and the city spreads outward into something else entirely. It becomes all-encompassing and there is no escape, and Glebe is here, falling apart.
Falling apart and being rebuilt, continuing on forever until forever ends.
Perhaps that’s a little too dramatic right now, but this weather is pulling something out of me. The weather and the lack of sleep, and I’m still going, pushing on to tomorrow, but needing to get through today, and all I am saying is vague gesturing at nothing. I am creating nothing and it’s that nothing which I spin and use, and do my best to make my own, here in this café. Here in this space, where I am writing about nothing and everything whilst enjoying a coffee. It’s a brief moment where, in all the banal chaos of the city, I have a bit of peace. I have a lot less pressure on my shoulders and so I can just relax. It’s nice. It’s easy. It’s a good time.
So perhaps I should do more to embrace what I’m doing right now, and I guess I am. I am compelled to embrace it, and perhaps that’s a good thing. So long as I don’t bring harm to others, I’m ding fine. I’m good. I am a café writer.
The time it took to write five-hundred words: 08:18:59
Written this morning, uploaded now. A long day between.
Probably too heavy, or not heavy enough. Don’t know.
Written at Dirty Red.
Stupidity Hole 