Nothing like a bulleted post to help a girl out when she’s all over the place, amiright? This is where you say “Oh, yes, of course.”

• I was so looking forward to my lunch today: leftover noodle stir-fry I made last night. Only when I went to get said leftovers I discovered they were not there, that they’d been given to my dad to take to work. Ok, whatever, fine; but I really do find it annoying when people don’t ask me before taking my stuff. I probably would have said yes, or said leave a bit for me, you know. But, shit, I really felt like that damn stir-fry. It was totally my best yet.
• A consequence of the above situation was me making some macaroni and nooch sauce, which is a bit of a treat and usually something I love. Today, however, it’s making me feel queasy. We’re having people over for a BBQ so it really blows.
• I had a dream this morning that I was back in highschool, but at the age I am now, and one of the classes was sex-ed and we had to put condoms on…wait for it…not bananas….nope….it was….our hands. And people were using them like sock puppets and talking in silly voices. WTF? I also remember being terribly irritable over the misplacing of my flash drive because it had some “compromising” material on it, if you get my drift, wink-wink-nudge-nudge.
• I suppose I should go and take a shower and make an effort? Or I could silently slip away to a cosy room with a decent telly, big squishy bed and a pile of DVDs… If only I had such a room.

Today I went over to the Shore again, and this time I took my camera. I promise nothing spectacular, but if you want to see some beachy and city skyline photos then go and have a nosy at my Flickr.

On Sunday I did something I had not done in well over a year: I bought an actual CD for myself. I have definitely been in the boat where you get all your music via download, or through sharing with friends, etc. instead of buying a CD or other physical music media. Not only are CDs often overpriced, but even the cheaper ones are still something I can’t really afford to buy when there are other things I need, so I would rather get it for free or pay less to get the files and miss out on the extra cost that packaging creates.

If I had money to dispose of on buying albums physically (CD, vinyl) then I would; I so would. I used to spend almost all of the pocket money I got when I was younger on CDs. It was one of my favourite things to do, because I loved the whole process of going to the store, taking my time to look through all the albums, find one or two I wanted, pay, go home, open it up, put the disc into my stereo and lie on my bed to listen to the whole thing from start to finish. I spent a lot of time from the age of 10 doing that (granted, my earlier musical taste was definitely on the dodgy side, but I saw the light eventually).

The last time I bought a CD for myself was in 2007 — I don’t remember what it was though. On Sunday I went for a browse through The Warehouse’s music department and found Nine Inch Nails’ Ghosts I-IV album, which is a 36 song instrumental extravaganza. Obviously an instrumental NIN record is something that would interest me and my revived love for anything Trent Reznor touches.

So, I bought it and did what I did when I fifteen. I put it in my stereo and listened while lying on my bed doing nothing else. Nearly two hours of beautiful, gorgeous sounds that really blew me away. After days of listening (including while studying as it’s good for that I’m finding) I can go from start to finish without skipping any tracks because they all flow so well together and none are mediocre or boring to me. I would love to see Trent do a piano album, with or without lyrics, or something just very, very stripped back and raw, because I think it would be wonderful.

P.S., I will try not to post too much after this about my revived Nine Inch Nails/Trent Reznor obsession. I really will. I’m just so excited by going back over all these songs that I loved so much when I was younger, this music that saw me through some pretty rough experiences, and then there is discovering what has been done in the last four years, of which there is a lot. So, you know, I’m excited!

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

• Grab your current read.
• Let the book fall open to a random page.
• Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
• You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
• 5. Please avoid spoilers!

She isn’t trying to make an appeal to our sympathies — she’s just shifting this big weight inside her from one place to another. I rather like her. I hope to Christ she hasn’t got a disease…
Tropic of Cancer by Henry Miller

Yes I know that’s four sentences, but tough. I like Miller’s blunt descriptions of women all through this book. Crass, yes, but utterly necessary.

Today has been quite good. My mum’s cousin has come up from Christchurch to stay for about a week, so we went and got her from the airport, with my grandma in tow. Then we drove over to North Shore Hospital to visit Mum’s cousin’s mother/grandma’s sister, who is very sick. Mum and I just sat in the car and read magazines. It’s What We Do.

I haven’t been over to the shore for ages, so it was nice seeing an unfamiliar part of Auckland. The view of the city coming back over the Harbor Bridge is one that always makes me smile — so gorgeous. I hate living so out of the way, so far from everything.

Anyway, now that we’re home I’m going to go and make some stir-fry for dinner (stir-frys are my new thing) and then start some of my course work. Well, see what it is I’m doing, really, organize materials, etc.

I feel much lighter in spirit today than I have felt lately, so it’s a nice break from my usual internal dialogue and struggles.

Music Monday is a new thing I’m hoping to participate in weekly, whereby I post a video of a song I like or that fits into a theme/something I might be blogging about. Music Monday was invented by the lovely Holly, who’s blog I’ve been reading for quite a long time. Seeing as how I do love music I thought this would be a fun way of sharing that with you all.

Warning: video contains mild nudity and sexual content, so view at your discretion, obviously.

This is my favourite song at the moment, so of course I must share it with you! I wish I had a video of the live version from the Auckland show last week, but I’m not sure if one exists/don’t have time to look for one this morning. It was really very good and I get a bit hyper when I think of it.

1. How would you define beauty?
The sort of beauty I am most fond of is the sort that comes very much from within a person; their way of being, attitude, what they put into the world, etc.

2. What is the best quality a person can have?
The ability to see past ones own misfortunes, honesty and also kindness.

Yeah I know that was more than one, but I can’t pick just one.

3. What is the worse quality a person can have?
The inability to see past ones own misfortunes, dishonesty and being a big ol’ meany.

4. What makes up your perfect match?
Perfect doesn’t exist and I’m not sure what would make up my perfectly imperfect match. He’d probably have to be able to clean up after himself and at the very least be vegetarian.

5. Have you met this person yet?
Ha. No.

I am a very stressed woman. Something has gone wrong with my laptop and it wont start properly. It keeps wanting me to do a system recovery, but it doesn’t actually work. Despite my efforts at trying to research this problem, I still haven’t found a way of fixing this. The problem occurred when I restarted the computer after having to restart Windows Explorer because it stopped responding, something that has happened several time before on this computer but that I had never experienced on any other.

My main concern is that, if this problem is an epic, destroying sort, I may have lost some important files since my last backup. Mainly it’s photos and school files, plus any website files I have created that are not backed up or uploaded online. So, I’m freaking out a bit and I don’t have time to sit on the phone talking to some guy in India for three hours because I have errands and Holy God Crap Ass Bitch Fuck.

You know, I can live without technology when I choose to, but when it’s taken away from me — specifically when something containing so much of everything I do is lost — I feel like a stranded person on some desolate island in the middle fuck-knows-where. Maybe this is a sign to stop relying so much on technology.

But, frankly, I think that sign can go stick it…

I jumped on the bangwagon at the beginning of the year to accomplish 101 goals in 1001 days. I actually haven’t listed 101 things yet because I can’t think of any more, but as they come to me I will add them.

This is a general update of goals I am in the process of completing, some of which will never technically be complete because they are the sort that are never ending, e.g. believing in myself and what I can do — I imagine I will still be reminding myself at 70 that, yes, I can make awesome pastry and…I dunno, knitted scarves. Actually, at around 70-75, I plan on taking up drugs.

But, I digress, so here is my actual update!

Get my learner driver license.
I was supposed to have gone for my test at the beginning of this month, but I had a depressive moment in January and haven’t studied much since then. Bad Sam, I know. It’s not that hard to study for, really, I just have to memorise the answers and Bob’s your uncle, but I’ve been lazy. However, I will make the effort from now on to study and thus take the test at the beginning of March. Either way, I want to have done it before my 21^st birthday because I don’t want to be the dork who can’t legally drive on the road at 21 for shit’s sake. Not that other people who don’t drive at that age are dorks. Just I would consider myself one.
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One can “waste” a lot of time editing, uploading, describing, dating and noting photos, can’t one? Mm, yes.

Well, anyway, here are a couple of photos of my bedroom, though you can view the rest of the set here (with detailed notes and all).