Run, Karen, run!
Wednesday, 17 October, 2007
Days go by without me blogging, and I find myself turning into an ‘alternative’ blogger like Ben. My memory of the last week or so is fading somewhat but I think it went something like this:
Monday 8/10/07
I spent the day tackling the So Many Questions revised edition and got most of it done. It was a long day—7:15 am to 6:15 pm with a one-hour break in the middle. Ben made spaghetti bolognaise for dinner and I pretty much crashed when I got home.
Tuesday 9/10/07
I finished off So Many Questions. Then Ben and I tackled the dreaded chore of the grocery shopping. It didn't help that we were both feeling a bit dizzy and sick, so when we got everything inside, I rang Judith to let her know we weren't coming for dinner and Bible study. She was very nice and sent Carol over with some dinner for us, so we ate burritos and watched TV.
Wednesday 10/10/07
It was my day off but I wanted to go to Newtown with Ben. So I got up when he got up, Josh K met us at the car and we all went together. I went to the Café Formerly Known as the Green Iguana for breakfast (I have now decided to call it that because ever time I go there, it's called something different so I can never remember what it's called). Unfortunately the ownership and the menu had changed since I last ate there and there wasn't as much choice. But I did have a very nice chai latte and they let me sit there and read for about an hour and half which was lovely and peaceful. (I was reading James Dobson's Man to Man about Women which was written for men but Dobson acknowledges that only 20% of his audience was likely to be male. I found it much more useful than his book on emotions which was really a patchwork job of stuff he'd written in other books. He talks about the top five things that depress women, then talks about what husbands can do to help their wives in these areas. I found his reflections on self-esteem and busyness particularly helpful. It was also nice to hear him say that everyone needs to waste time every once in a while. I should dredge up that quote ...)
I had errands to run, but Newtown runs on Uni student time and most places didn't open until about 10 or 11. Still, places like Mitre 10, the post office and the bank were open, so I decided to get some exercise and visit them. In Mitre 10, I got a new Philips head screwdriver, a flashlight, a chopping knife and some wood glue so Ben can put together that drawer that is currently falling apart. I posted Bookmooch parcels at the post office and I deposited a cheque at the bank. I also walked a little further down the other end of King St and discovered a beading/jewellery shop called Etelage which is run by a lady we used to go to church with. They even have classes! (Ooh, one day I shall learn properly ...)
I also bought some very cheap clothes from Tree of Life (I got this medieval-looking black dress for about $11!), a $10 copy of No. 12 of Lemony Snickett's A Series of Unfortunate Events (which means I am now only missing 9, 10, 11 and 13), and some rather expensive but very beautiful yarn to make another urchin hat.
Then I walked home with my black parasol keeping off the sun, and had spaghetti for lunch, then started the laundry. I was supposed to be working on text for the church mission brochure but I was having trouble concentrating. Fortunately Fish was also online and we were able to collaborate and re-edit each other all afternoon so that we had some pretty decent text by the end of the day. Ben came home and I made him fish for dinner, then continued to work on the brochure text until bedtime.
Thursday 11/10/07
Back at work, I did all the changes to the manuscript for the Guidebook for Life on Faith as well as a number of other bits and pieces. I was feeling rather tired so I made sure I left right on four instead of putting in another long day. I stopped at the Mansours factory outlet to get more sheets. I think this is the first time in my life I've ever had to buy sheets; in the past, they've either been given to me or someone else has bought them for me. But our old sheets—the ones we were given for our wedding—are wearing out. Given I've got dust allergies (and I suspect Ben does too), I want to trial changing the sheets every single week to see if that makes a difference. But at the moment we don't really have enough sheets to do that. So I bought a plain navy blue sheet set which includes two pillowcases, a fitted sheet and a flat sheet for $45 and then a cream flat sheet. (There wasn't much else there I liked which didn't cost a lot, and when there's two of you, that sort of limits your choices because he probably wouldn't want to sleep on butterflies or flowers or something pink or purple—not that I was going for any of those things but I would have seriously considered Hello Kitty if there had been Hello Kitty sheets ...)
At home, I didn't have long before I had to rush out the door to catch the train to the city. Unfortunately I missed it because I lingered a little long, trying to pack things I thought we might need (bug spray, picnic blanket, etc.) But oddly enough there was another train along 10 minutes later so I turned up to Hyde Park not as late as I thought I'd be.
Duncan and Christie were waiting near the fountain with Ben when I arrived. There were lots of people everywhere, and we joined them for the Night Noodle Markets which are part of Good Food Month. There was so many yummy things on offer (lots of Thai!) and many of them were packaged in those little cardboard noodle boxes which I thought only existed in America. In the end, I got a coconut chicken breast salad from Banana Blossom (and it was delicious!) and I was pleased to find my favourite green tea at one of the drink stalls. It was also handy I had brought the picnic blanket because we ended up sitting on the grass (this was before the downpour!) We also got some Dutch pancakes and they were also quite delicious.
Afterwards we walked down the avenue of trees where photographs from the Art and About Sydney Life exhibition were on display (including Simon M's). I wish I could take better photographs. Maybe I need a better camera ...
Then we walked in the direction of Town Hall to go get a coffee. We were going to sit outside one at the QVB but then the downpour happened, so we moved further inside to another café that was closing up and serving drinks only. That was okay, but they kicked us out at about 9 pm (which is fair enough; people need to go home to sleep!) so we called it a night and caught the train home.
Friday 12/10/07
Back at work, I thought I was all right (yes, even after a week of not very much sleep!) but then I started sneezing non-stop and concluded I was probably getting a cold. So I had a lie down for about an hour, then felt a bit better. I met Elsie at the Tea Inn for a drink and ordered myself some beef hokkien noodles for dinner, then came back to have a meeting with Ben and Tony about all the stuff that needs to be done. The upshot is I am going to be working five days a week for a little while because there's a lot on my place and I don't see how I'm going to get through it otherwise.
Then I left to go to counselling and realised during my session that life has improved quite a lot to how it used to be, say, three months ago. After counselling, I drove back to Kingsford to get Ben and ate my dinner. Fish rang to ask when I'd be at Sydney Olympic Park. I estimated 7:30 and I wasn't far off, because we had pretty good traffic by the time Ben and I left. Unfortunately I forgot to factor in that Ben wouldn't be able to eat until 8 pm so I kept apologising to him about that. (He didn't mind.)
Ben dropped me off at The Dome in Sydney Olympic Park and I met Fish just outside the doors. We picked up our wristbands (I forgot that Supanova use wristbands instead of tickets). Once inside, we ran into a guy I knew from my old old old church (Brett). He was there with his brother. The panel on Gabriel was about to start so we decided to head upstairs and sit on it. The panel consisted of the director and the lead actor, and they showed us the trailer and some scenes from the film (which, once you learned that it was shot on practically nothing, made you appreciate how good it looked in terms of visual style, props and special effects). However, the DVD kept stuffing up. It impressed me how dedicated these people were to putting in their money, time and energy just to tell a story. The director was saying that his director of photography even sold his house and sent his pregnant wife to go stay with a friend while he was shooting Sydney just so they could get the film made. If it's successful, they might do more. But from the look of it, I was thinking I'd wait for it on DVD rather than see it at the movies.
Fish went off to hear Brandon Peterson (comic artist) but the rest of us stayed. Richard Epcar, who does the voice of Batou in Ghost in the Shell (the English dub) did a short introduction (and he's as big as his character), and then they screened Solid State Society (with the English dub). It was classic Ghost in the Shell: near-incomprehensible plot involving terrorism and lots of sleuthing over a wonderful Yoko Kanno soundtrack, and then it all came together about halfway through the movie and I found myself going, “Ah! I see!” because it was saying something really interesting about Japanese society—particularly the ageing population.
Fish dropped me home, and when I got there, I found Josh B and Ben watching Batman Begins. I was pretty tired, so went to bed soon after Ben left to take Josh B to the station.
Saturday 13/10/07
Fish said that he and Judith weren't probably going to head over to Supanova until 11 and there wasn't anything I particularly wanted to see until then, so I slept in and then walked over to his place in my black medieval dress from Tree of Life, my black leather boots and my black lace parasol, my dusky rose dress coat over my arm. (I put it on later. I think Supanova is one of the few places where you can dress up and look a little out-of-place, and people look at you appreciatively, instead of staring at you as if you're a freak!) Fish and Judith had a very nice croissant waiting for me which I ate in the car.
We drove out to Sydney Olympic Park and parked somewhere where the ticket machines only accept gold coins (very annoying), then walked over to The Dome. The floor was open today so we spent a bit of time wandering around looking at everything. I got my picture taken with Sonic the Hedgehog and Mario from Super Mario Bros, and someone even asked to take my photograph (parasol and all). I also found a birthday present for Little Rachel and I'm glad I bought it because it was the last one (hope she doesn't already have it!)
The guys I met at the comic workshop last year where there again and this time, instead of just a table in Artists' Alley, they got to have a proper booth to exhibit and distribute their stuff. I went over to say hi and to buy some comics from them. It was nice to see Angus, Dean and Matt again, all looking a bit weary because they had just come off a three-day animation conference.
Judith wanted to go have a sit down so Fish and I kept wandering and looking at other things more closely. Then we realised that we had just missed Nicholas Brendon's panel (it was a 1 pm, not 1:45!) so that was rather sad, especially as Judith was only coming for the one day she would have liked to see him.
I went off to a panel on anime voice acting with Richard Epcar and his wife Ellyn Stern while Fish and Judith went to get lunch. I went and found them afterwards and we did a little bit more wandering, then went to watch the cosplay for a while. All the seats were taken so we tried sitting on the floor but visibility wasn't that great. Around 4 pm we were all feeling rather tired, so we decided to leave, but before we left, I played a game of Singstar with Brett who just happened to be there when we were in the Singstar booth (I couldn't get Fish or Judith to sing with me). We sang “Wake me up before you go go” which isn't pitched right for my voice, and the score was very close! I think in the end he won.
Ben made dinner that night and we had enough time to eat leisurely and wash up. Then we hopped in the car and went off to the Seymour Centre. I thought I knew the area, but after we parked and got out, I realised I wasn't quite sure where we were. So we got back in the car and then found out that it was actually fine where we parked; it was just the lay of the land looked a bit different. I was tired and rather frustrated, so this only made me cranky—especially when, parking the second time around, we went into a parking station with one of those machines that only accepts gold coins (grrr!!!)
But we arrived in time for the performance of Fiddler on the Roof starring Lizz as the grandma (she did very well in her scene!) I've seen a lot of musicals but never that one (I only know two songs from it). But I enjoyed it all the same, and, given it was largely an amateur production, I quite enjoyed it. Afterwards, we hung around with the rest of the family and invited friends to wait for Lizz to come out, then congratulated her and went home.
Sunday 14/10/07
There wasn't much on in the morning I wanted to see at Supanova so I slept in a little and then caught the train to Sydney Olympic Park (dressed in a knee-length black dress I had bought once at Paddington Markets for about $30, I think, which has an interesting hem and looks a bit like lace except it's not, and my red silk velvet coat from Tree of Life, along with my black leather boots and black lace parasol). I went to sit on an anime panel but wasn't finding it very interesting, plus Bec said she was close by so I went out to meet her. She had never been to a con like this before and thought she'd give it a try. I think Supanova is a good one to star with. It's $33 for a weekend pass which is pretty good when you think about all the things they have on: film screenings, panel sessions, stalls, cosplaying, special guests and so on. I regretted not being able to see Eminence the night before as I've always wanted to see them but anyway ...
Bec and I wandered around for a little while but it was a different sort of wandering to the day before, as we would stop at every table and look at stuff—especially in Artists' Alley where most of the work was unknown to us. We didn't have long, however, because the two sessions I most wanted to go to were starting.
The first was the spirituality in comics seminar and, predictably, numbers were rather thin. I thought this was a shame because it's fantastic that such a panel even was being run at a place like Supanova. (I hope they do more in the future.) The panel consisted of two Christians (Dean and Nate Butler who heads up Comix35), one Jewish person (Marv Wolfman, who, among other things, has worked at Marvel and DC Comics) and a Muslim (Soner Coruhlu from Prophecy Comics). One of the Supanova team was chairing the panel so he got everyone to introduce themselves and then opened it up to questions from the floor. There was this air of nervousness about the whole thing, and I wonder perhaps if the entire discussions could have been framed a little better; I felt like we spent a lot of time talking about religions vs. beliefs without getting very far into genuine dialogue about how what you believe affects what you write/draw. I ended up asking a question about it—I asked if any of the panellists would write/draw something where the central message was about they didn't believe. Marv Wolfman said he would but qualified his answer in such a way that made me think he wouldn't. The other panellists all said they wouldn't. At the end, Soner gave me a free copy of the first issue of his comic “for asking such a good question”.
Bec and I dashed off at the end of that panel because we were keen not to miss Nicholas Brendon. (For non-nerds, he played Xander Harris in Buffy the Vampire Slayer.) The room was packed and we were one of the last one allowed in. We squeezed along the side near the front so we got a pretty good view of him. The MC asked him some questions and he answered totally in character—as if he was one of those slightly dotty theatre thespians who do nothing but Shakespeare. Then he snapped out of it and started taking questions from the floor. Of course, most of them had to do with Buffy—the episodes and what it was like working with the cast and crew, and had he read the comic yet? We all found him totally charming—very Xander-like but slightly less geeky. (You can watch him and Nicki Clyne playing Singstar.)
Afterwards we filed out with everyone else and had some lunch in the café. It was nice to chat with Bec for an extended length of time; usually we just pop into each other's offices or see each other over Friday Thai Day, but I don't think we've ever talked one-to-one for longer than 10 minutes.
Post-lunch, we continued wandering. At the Borders stall we ran into Richard Epcar and I got an autograph. He was talking to Jennifer Fallon. When he moved away, remembering what Robin Hobb said about writing and parenting at Continuum 3 in 2005, I asked Jennifer how she managed the whole writing/parenting thing. I can't remmeber how many children she said she had (three? four?) but I was amazed at the number of foster children that have been through her home (50!) She said that you train your kids when they're young so they know that when Mummy's writing not to disturb her. She said that it's good not to do everything for them, so every once in a while, they're perfectly capable of getting their own breakfast. She also said that she used to bring her laptop into the same room as them, so they'd be watching The Wiggles and she'd be typing away. She said that that really makes you disciplined in your focus. (She also said that she wrote some of her sex scenes in that sort of setting, so now if the The Wiggles are on, it brings up disturbing images for her!) We thanked her for talking to us and bought a book of hers each which she then signed and stamped with her seal (hugely cool).
And then we kept wandering. At the Oz Christian comics stand, I got to catch up with Phil Watson (who was also exhausted due to the animation conference) and Dean for a bit longer (I complimented him on how he handled some of the questions during the comics and spirituality panel) and Nate Butler as well. Nate was also nice enough to let me chat to him about my graphic novel (which is going nowhere at present) and what the next steps should be once I have a script. It clarified a lot of things for me—the biggest one being to take things in stages. I think what I really need to do is get a complete script done of the first story, then hire an artist to work on rough layouts/storyboards for me, then show it to some people to get feedback, then rework it, and then, if it's worth pursuing, hire an artist to do the first story properly and self-publish it at one of those print-on-demand places (look! Lulu does comics!), then send it to lots and lots of people to see if they're interested in going further with it. But that all seems like a long way off in the future ...
Bec was pretty tired by then and in need of sugar, so we left The Dome and went to the ice cream place next door. Bec got a milkshake and I got a soft serve (runniest soft serve ever!) and we sat under a tree to eat and continue our conversation. Then we walked back to her car and she dropped me home.
I was pretty much in and out the door as it was almost time for church and Ben was on band. I decided to go with him, intending to knit through practice, but I ended up helping set up which was what I probably should have been doing anyway. Malcolm preached evangelistically but I was so tired, I ended up falling asleep (sorry Malcolm!) We stayed for supper after that, but then I was keen to go so we went home.
Monday 15/10/07
Ben's birthday. I left him sleeping early in the morning (after singing him “Happy Birthday” in a whisper) and went to work where I did all sorts of miscellany, including Briefing thinking day stuff and reinstalling Dreamweaver MX which has always given me grief (it works much better now but I wish you could customize your own keyboard shortcuts like you can with HTML-Kit which is what I use to write this blog. I wish there was HTML-Kit for Mac ...)
I left around 4 and came home intending to work on my talk for Jesus in Cyberspace at Christians in the Media (hmm, they seem to have removed that link ...) But I wasn't getting much done. I had intended to meet Ben in Newtown at around 7:30 but he SMS-ed to say the college library was closing and did I want to come earlier? Since I wasn't getting much done, I agreed, and drove to Newtown. He came aned put his bag in the car and then we walked down to Hikaru, this Japanese restaurant just off King St near the intersection Missenden Road. Ben had been there before and he said it was good. We were their first customers so we got the pick of the tables, and we ordered finely sliced beef, miso soup, California rolls, sashimi and green tea ice cream. It was all delicious and the fish was very fresh. (I suspect the owners are Christian because they were playing worship music over the PA.) I gave Ben three Afghan Whigs CDs (Greg Dulli's old band) which I got off Amazon because, as far we know, you can't get them in Australia. (Ben says he's never seen them and he's been to a lot of secondhand CD stores.) They were: 1965, Black Love and Congregation. I also got him Kath & Kim Seasons 1 and 2 on DVD and the soundtrack to Backbeat (which features Dulli on vocals and David Grohl from The Foo Fighters on drums).
We came home and I got stuck into my talk but didn't finish until 2 in the morning. At least it got finished.
Tuesday 16/10/07
Because I went to bed so late, I decided not to get up until 9. Unfortunately when you live next to a school, it's rather difficult to sleep through the morning bells. I finally got up, showered and went to work where I spent the day doing various web things (like this CHN and these two articles) and editing The Daily Reading Bible (Volume 13). I left at 6 and drove straight to church where we pretty much ate and ran.
We got to Christians in the Media at around 7 and everyone was eating pizza and chatting. It was nice meeting Sam in real life as I'd only read his and Soph's blog every now and then when Craig linked to them. It was also nice to catch up with Dominic. Apart from them, I didn't know anyone.
I was up first and I think I spoke for too long. I also spoke too fast. (I'm a writer, not a speaker!) But I received a lot of positive feedback and people semed to like what I said. (It's going to be podcasted some time ... how scary! Now everyone will be able to hear my gaffes!) John Sandeman got up and spoke after me and he said lots of interesting things. I wanted him to keep going but he kept it short. Then there was question time and we got some very good questions about online conduct and the future of the internet (which no one knows).
Afterwards we hung around to chat for a bit but I was very tired so we soon went home and I crawled into bed.
Wednesday 17/10/07
That pretty much brings us up-to-date. Work today was more Daily Reading Bible (Volume 13) as well as putting some Interchange online. I also tried to figure out where was the best place to get Ben a cake for his party on Saturday and discovered this food blog by a Sydneysider named JenJen who takes the most beautiful photos of food: Milk and Cookies (and she recommends the Victoire Bakery in Balmain, which Emma T also pointed me to) and I also discovered that there's a pretty good cake shop near us called Sweet Belem (which I should have known about from Dave's blog) so one day Ben and I must go.
I worked a 7:30 to 5:30 day and then Ben came to pick me up. I made chicken and vegetable stir fry for dinner and then we watched The Simpsons from last night as well as half of last week's episode of House before I went off to have a shower and write this blog.
(Supanova photos forthcoming.)
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Thanks for the Sweet Belem reference; best portugese tarts in Sydney. In fact, one day, we were trying to park there so we could go, but couldn’t find a spot, so we gave up, and drove all the way to Cronulla (for good coffee), and the portugese tarts they sold there were from Sweet Belem. That’s how good they are.
In terms of HTML-Kit for mac, i have a few ideas. Sadly, most are not free.
have you tried coda:
http://www.panic.com/coda/
or textmate:
http://macromates.com/
or cssedit (just does css, but it’s phenomenal at it)
http://www.macrabbit.com/cssedit/
or, if you’re looking for free stuff
textwrangler (though it lacks a web preview)
http://www.barebones.com/products/textwrangler/
Ah, little do you realise - you ate from Sweet Belem on the weekend. That’s where I got your croissant. =)
Hey Karen,
Now I got car, I can do grocery shopping for you every now and then if you like? I’m sure I can work out how to get to your place from mine.
Go Hello Kitty sheets!! Or maybe you should get them for your spare room
I get my sheets from KMart/Target when they have 20% off manchester sales. Don’t know about the quality or anything. IKEA also has interesting sheets.