I'm reading Ignorance, by Milan Kundera and listening to Jurassic 5

Last night was a rather low key birthday party. I was drinking Bloody Hamenga which is a vodka based family recipe. This means that birthday week is over, and I finally feel 27.

So far birthday present vodka count is 4 bottles. That's pretty excellent.

I also finally got a pony.

I just realised I haven't been very good about updating with my current reading situation, so here we go.

Recently finished:

After the Quake, Haruki Murakami, Birthday Stories, various, selected by Haruki Murakami, and The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera

Just started:

Kafka on the Shore, Haruki Murakami, re-reading.

I absolutely love all of it. My favourite story in Birthday Stories is Andrea Lee's "The Birthday Present". I didn't have any preconceptions about Kundera, which is strange probably. I enjoyed it so much though.

I'm interested that there's a character called Sabina both in The Unbearable Lightness of Being and also in Anaïs Nin's A Spy in the House of Love, which I read recently for the second time.

I blame my current complete lack of morality (in theory at least) on Anaïs Nin and characters called Sabina in general.

Since Gala mentioned what I was doing in her Dressing Up article, it seems only fair that I update during the week.

So, today is red and grey stripey pirate dress. Yarrr! And jandals. I bought this dress in Sydney and haven't worn it until today. So extra bonus points for me.

Yesterday I dropped the ball a little bit, mostly because I was reading in the sun all day and trying to avoid tan lines.

Yesterday I finished reading two books I had started: A Spy in the House of Love, Anaïs Nin, Neuromancer, William Gibson. Read all the way through: A book of Common Prayer, Joan Didion, and started reading A Room of One's Own, Virginia Woolf.

I read The Passion by Jeanette Winterson about 4 years ago, and I loved it. I went straight out and bought more of her books, yet couldn't manage to really enjoy any of them.

After I went to Venice last year, I decided to re-read it, and I've just managed it.

And holy shit it was just as good the second time round. I don't know why, but I just absolutely love this book.

If you're not reading this from an rss feed or syndication somewhere, you can probably see that I am woefully behind in word count.

This is mostly due to not writing anything since last Wednesday, having had weekend visitors, hangovers, dinner parties to attend, visitors for dinner, ballets, quiz nights and The Contortionist's Handbook.

Happily, I have finished The Contortionist's Handbook, and I am about to go fix someone's network and after that I am free to write for the next two evenings.

So hopefully that means I will be able to close the gap some.

Such a good weekend. Friday night was drinking with various people and then Phoenix Foundation, which was, as usual, amazing. If 40 years doesn't appear on the next album I am going to be terribly upset. Saturday was birthday present shopping and then birthday dinner at Uncle Chang's and then Reverse Bungee oh my god I just want to go again and again, and then cocktails at Motel. Sunday was breakfast on the deck in the sun and then a visitor and Bloody Hamenga (a family recipe for combating hot climates involving, amongst other things, Vodka) with mint in it all day and more sun and then early sleep.

And over the last week - ish I have read three books, Cannery Row, John Steinbeck, A Spy in the House of Love, Anaïs Nin and Last Exit to Brooklyn, Hubert Selby Jnr. And now I just read, while searching for a url for the last, that he also wrote Requiem for a Dream.

So I finally have internet on at home, I'm reading at a reasonable pace (which is a pleasant break from not at all), it looks as though summer is on the way, and today is pay day. This seems like a reasonable start to the week....

It seems now that the silence is over, I can't stop. So here are some more things:

• Murakami! I just finished reading Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World. Jesus. Amazing. Coupled with the fact that I am still wow-ing over Norwegian Wood, I have nothing to say about Haruki Murakami except WOW
• "Beauty is in the eye of the Beer Holder", says Martyn
• "It's better to always be bending over backwards, than always bending over forwards". This is a dodgy quote found on irc
• Much amusement about The Hoff not being allowed to fly because he was too drunk, especially given that one of our work people is in another part of the world and has a similar name
• The drunk people find it very amusing that the Tui bottle top asks, "How many calories are there in a teaspoon of semen?" and they add on, "and I don't mean the 'la la sea shanty type'" ... and then they sing....
• I am going to stop playing with these drunk work people and go and meet my mother for the Ballet and pretend to be a grownup.

ps: they're still singing!

Who the hell did I lend this book to?

Please - if it was you, email me! I would like it back. I miss Tom Robbins.

Well, I fell in love with Murakami after reading Kafka on the Shore, but I just finished Norwegian Wood and I think I might have to say that it has propelled Murakami firmly into top place. Just amazing.

I have two more of his on my shelf to read, 'The Wind-up Bird Chronicle' and 'Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World' and then after that, I have two more to buy, I think. The woman in Unity Books told me yesterday that there will be a new one out soon too.

This has completely displaced all of my ability to read anything else, I have a huge pile of books by my bed that aren't Murakami and they have lain there unread since I discovered him when someone gave me Kafka on the Shore for my birthday.

One of my all time favourite phrases from a book is

fatuous didactic vampire

I think it's from 'Memoirs of a Dutiful Daughter' by Simone de Beauvoir

Jo recommended Popco, by Scarlett Thomas to me, and I read it mostly on the ferry on Sunday, and it was pretty good. Comes with the Penny thumbs up.

Now I'm about to embark on Quicksilver, by Neal Stephenson, which is rather large and unweildy.

Tonight, or rather tomorrow morning, I have a moodle developers meeting from 2 - 4am. Makes me tired just thinking about it.

But - on the upside, today I have an appointment to make up a drawing of my poirieria zelandica, and I will book an appointment for the tattoo sometime after payday. So hopefully in a few weeks!

Scrubs is making me so happy. Oh my god how I love scrubs. So so so so much. Sometimes, I'm watching it in the house by myself and I crack up laughing and then I feel silly because there's nobody around but I can't help it because I have some serious scrubs love. Chocolate bear. Oh my!

And having moodle display activity from elgg in a block with magical secret squirrel token authentication makes me happy.

And catharsis is pretty damn good as well.

My plans for my next tattoo were almost foiled by the shell man from Te Papa telling me my murex was not a native, which would ruin everything, but I realised that somehow my mother and I had swapped our murexes and I had the tropical one. Which means that she has now found my poirieria zelandica and I can fetch it this weekend and tattoo glee can go ahead as planned sometime in the near future.

I am utterly gutted that I am not at linuxconfau, since I was supposed to be, but one has to make these sacrifices for the sake of one's own sanity.

And Jo is here, which helps make everything better because there is much Jo love and snuggles and squishing and all things Jo-like and good. Like, chow. Chow has become Jo-like, and chow is damn good.

And I love the Minnie Cooper bag. And I get my hair done tomorrow. And I have three more books sitting waiting for me to read them.

Which reminds me, I read Other People by Martin Amis which was thought provoking and I found it quite fascinating.

I am so happy that I'm reading again. I didn't realise it at the time, but most of the last year I have hardly read anything. Except crappy pulp. I didn't have the energy really, to read anything that would require effort or thought, but already this year I have read quite a few really good interesting books. It's good, and pleases me immensely.

This amuses me:

James Culleton wrote:
You could make it if you caught the bus home, shopped, and drove back to
work after dropping shopping off. My calculations estimate that would take
179 minutes.

----

The rest of the weekend was fantastic. I got sun, read two and a half books, went to a party, swam at Balaena Bay again, read my book in the botanical gardens while listening to Module (and then shook my booty for the last 45 minutes), slept well, slept in, drank lots of coffee, had good conversation, some long emails from friends overseas.

Tonight I have to have a phone conference starting at 9pm but am free other than that, and then tomorrow it all starts again, with concerts at the gardens, Hope Bros, catching up with people, and then this weekend I'm doing wardrobe for a short film which is being filmed on a beach about 1.5 hours North of Welli.

Busy girl. Tis good.

I want to start a book blog sort of thing. Where I review books that I read all year and then can brag about how literate I am come the end of 2006. I'll have to do some catchup work though since I've read so many books already this year.

Last night I saw The All-new old-time Radio Show at Bats. It was damn funny, I love WIT.

I have just finished reading Cuba and the Night, by Pico Iyer, which was fantastic and sad and raw.

I was given a number of books on new years eve by some friends who just moved back to New Zealand and seem to be having problems with posessions. Not that I'm complaining. I have still a few to get through. It's a beautiful day, perhaps I shall select the next book and find a patch of sun to sit in to read it.

Doing lots of merging at the moment before the moodle 1.6 release. Finally moodle will have the ability for users to back up selected activity modules within a course. This paves the way for the oslor project, and hopefully will also make moodlers happy.

I am very displeased with paradise.net at the now. They told me that to upgrade to a 4gb cap I would have to change my ip address (why?), and then when it didn't work I spent an hour on the phone with them until they realised it was because they hadn't set up the cable modem settings at their end to have the new ip address properly. Gr.

Is positive.

The christmas/new year period has been absolute hell, but I am on the way to recovery. My sisters know how to say the best things and I am surrounded with friends who are there for me. Yay them.

The races on the 2nd was a really strange thing. I've never been before, and the highlights were the "Double Sulkies" (which we decided could also be used to describe goth sex) and the loudspeaker announcement: "Would [little girl's name] please report to her nana immediately". That's some funny shit.

I just read The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood. Not sure how I could have gone so far without reading this book, especially since I believe I studied it for 6th form english, but I read it in one day and it was amazing. I have lots of new books to read, I was given them on New Years Eve. It's good, I need distractions.

It's all ok. Life goes on.