Addiction Comes in Many Shapes

Everyone's been so kind, offering words of encouragement and advice regarding my love life.  And I'm learning something from it all.  The biggest thing is another date with Serendipity.  More on that later.

Another bragging point though thanks to everyone's support is that my new work is freaking sweet, providing a continuous score of adrenaline, stress and subsequent release.  I will beat my goal of doing mediations by the end of the year.  In fact I'll beat it by a long shot - next week in fact.  And not only will I have one mediation to do all by myself, I'll have two in the space of a week.

But wait there's more.  I'll have four in the space of the week, with three on consecutive days.  That's what I'm talking about, that's why I moved firms, that's why I'm into this line of work, and damnit, that's what I'm getting.  My adrenal glands have never been so excited.

But wait, there's still more.  I'm the go-to-man with difficult files and difficult appearances.  Less than 4 months into the job and I'm doling out advice to others, doing people's difficult files and gaining a name for myself in getting something out of them.

And there's bookclub - a group of four or five of us get together once a month and discuss some contempary fiction we've decided to read.  The discussions are stimulating, engrossing and seamless, bounding from one topic to the next.  Tonight was Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the Shore.  Read it.

Life is f%^*ing sweet right about now.  I still miss my routine card games with friends from Wellington.  Nothing beats a good hand of 500.

The Curtain Lifted

What has brought about this flood of posts you may ask.  In that case, I may answer "fine weather, sunshine, and adventures that need to be shared."

I've spent the greater part of the weekend walking.  Ambling from Parnell to town, to Newmarket, and back to Ellerslie on Saturday. Then meandering through Devonport today.  Devonport was brilliant, from the moment I hopped off the ferry I couldn't stop grinning.

You see, I had followed some advice, well more sort of reacted to astonishment.  Astonishment that despite growing up on the North Shore I hadn't really returned to see it all.  That's not entirely true, for I've been back to Takapuna and wasn't horribly impressed.  However, that changed the instant I disembarked the ferry to Devonport from the city.

I saw so many things that were eerily familiar, peeling back the curtain from my memory until a torrent of nostalgia overcame me.  I remembered the beach, the shops, noted that the little museum was no longer there, nor was the cinema from what I could tell.  But the supermarket was there, as was the amazing vistas from the top of various hills.  I followed my feet to the top of Mt Victoria, and the memories tugged my over to Narrow Neck beach where I learnt to sail and somehow remember the time where I discovered Sue had to have different strength lenses in her glasses (which I found most peculiar at the time).  The shop is still there selling icecream too.

There was so much.  I remembered so much more of my little primary school (the lack being of admonished previously).  The bell in its frame near the office, sitting outside leaning up against class room walls eating sausages from the monthly sausage sizzle, the pokey little library, little details that somehow remained.

The point being, I was in a state of euphoria from remembering this all.  Partly because now I can recount it all and not seem like a total fool, but partly because I'd simply forgotten how much I loved Devonport, or more importantly, how much I thrive on being near the water in sunshine.

The only downside is that I did get a little sunburnt, and now have blisters on the soles and top of each foot.  But it was well worth it.

Quickfire

Totally hilarious post from a couple of Wellington blokes about romance and the finance market; the comments are priceless too.

And here's what was referred to in a previous post - Ladyhawke's My Delirium.  Noice.

La Cigale

Serendipity called back.  Patience seems to have more payoffs than I initially realised; still not 100% sold on the idea though.  Patience that is.  Tangents aside, it was lovely and another date is lined up for mid next week.  I have an idea of where to go, it'll just be about sorting out.  I don't like being carless, it makes me feel a little inadequate at these times.

Now onto something completely different.  I highly recommend that if you're ever in Auckland on a Saturday morning, you make the trip down to the French markets in Parnell.  The food there is divine: whitebait fritters, bundles of asparagus, fresh peppers, crisp apples, crepes, beautiful meat, and that's just some of the stuff I purchased.  There's also some amazing looking bread, herbs, flowers (yes, I've noted those for future reference), coffee, spices, and more.

Oh, and there's little mini tarts of the lemon, passionfruit, and strawberry with chocolate.  They are meltingly sumptuous.

I'll gladly take any visitors there.

My Delerium

It's not often of late that there's been more on here other than random musings and comments in the general.  Let alone any real reflection on me.  But like any good thing, here's the exception.

I don't think I'm cut out for the dating game.  I'm rather impatient, like answers then and there, attempt to organise things well in advance, take things personally, and generally jump to conclusions.  I don't know why.  I'd like to think that it's because of the nature of my current employment - a never ending torrent of cases, increasing in intensity and complexity, has infused me a higher sense of organisation and directness.  Brevity, however, is yet to become a custom.  Anyways, we're off topic. 

The point being that perhaps these traits are my downfall.  Time to break with tradition and get into detail.  I met Serendipity, I met a girl.  It was unexpected, and circumstances somehow aligned to meet and have a great time.  The lawyer gods conspired to not only have me appear at a pre-ball, appear fully suited despite not having a ticket to the main event, and meet new people, but meet someone who made me smile with ease.  I hadn't felt that good in some time.  There's actually a bloody great photo (some have seen it), but I won't be posting it here just in case I've said too much already.

Which brings me round to why the dating game may not be for me.  All this leaving fate in someone else's hands isn't something I'm used to doing; wresting control is not a trait that comes easily.  Neither is patience for that matter.  But I do have what she described as ample, and agreeable, disregard for the precepts of man law.  You know, the 3 day rule and so forth.

Well, after my somewhat unsuccessful initial efforts to arrange a catch up despite my rather heavy timetable, I managed to take a deep breath and hand control over it; realising there's not much more can be done by me is hard.

I'm really leaving it all up to Serendipity I guess.

Once in a Blue Moon

I talked to a couple of people recently how my hair hasn't been cut in awhile. It's been around about 6 weeks or less, so that's normal.

What's not though is the curl and the general size of it if I play round a little. Please note that it doesn't look like that with work, nor at any other time, though I am contemplating it. Generally, the curls stay tight unless I tease them out.

These Are Some of My Favourite Things

Music helped me find myself. Again.

Short and simple really.  I had forgotten the pleasure music brings me.  Simply having a soundtrack made me feel a little more complete.  It doesn't stack up to actually playing the piano or guitar, but listening to music while I type is close enough.

Anyways, back to the music.  Music has been pumped out of pretty much every single music device I own, the CD player, the computer, the turntable, and the portables.  Here's a random sampling of what has been heard over the last couple of days.

Kings of Leon - Sex On Fire

Raw.  Plain and simple.  But there's a feeling of restraint underneath it all, an eery feeling of being on the edge of control.  I know the song is on high rotate on the radio, or so I'm told, but damn it, it's worth it.

UNKLE - Broken (featuring Gavin Clarke)

Infectious movement.  I happened upon this at work, and dancing in my office was liberating to say the least.

Lykke Li - I'm Good I'm Gone

There's just something about this Swedish songtress that keeps bringing me back to her.  Admittedly her video clips are somewhat on the eccletic side.  There's also some pretty sweet remixes out there if you're into that.

Well, 3 (almost 4) songs is pretty good.  More so considering I gave you Passenger's brilliant Night Vision Binoculars.  That should keep you sated until next time.

Slap and Dash

Quick treat, a neat little British band called Passenger with their single Night Vision Binoculars.

It's not what it appears, just listen to it.

Perspective

You can probably guess that the lack of posting is due to work. There's been alot of it this week, more so than play, but I'm not complaining too much.

I do know I need to get out and take more photos. It's something I missed, and only realised it until showing some of my photos to friends. It was difficult to explain my efforts to try and convey the reason for taking that photograph, the angle of the light, the shadows creating something mystical, powerful, compelling. Sometimes I worry that the photo doesn't capture it, that its my eyes looking back on the moment that filling in those details.

Do I see something different in these?

In truth, it doesn't really bother me that much. It's mine, I treasure it. And perhaps explaining all this is kind of fun. Geeky almost. And we all know geek is now chic.