Journal

Where I post about the things that happened in my life. Sometimes they’re diary entries, sometimes works of non-fiction, sometime just random photographs.

If you need me today, I’ll be (quietly) freaking the fuck out

PETERMBALL Journal

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7:20 on a Thursday morning and I’m set up in the cafe at the State Library, killing time before I head upstairs to go and kick the dayjob into gear. It’s a dreary kind of morning with drizzling rain and grey skies and people clutching at umbrellas, although some people choose to job bare-chested through it all and some people forgot their umbrellas. I know you can’t actually see the rain in the photograph, but trust me, it’s there.

A gentlemen who just walked past who is the very definition of dapper. I have no idea who he is, but he’s easily on the far side of fifty and he’s totally rocking his chosen look.

I haven’t had much sleep.

There’s nothing particular unusual about this. Not having much sleep is something of my natural state, although this time around the sleep debt is entirely intentional. I went to bed after midnight last night, I woke up around 5:00, which is part of my cunning ploy to ensure I get to bed at an early hour tonight (hah) in order to rack up some Zzzs prior to flying down to Melbourne at 5 o’clock tomorrow morning.

Today is going to be crazy.

Oh god, today is going to be crazy.

There were a half-dozen deadlines that absolutely, positively needed to be done for the dayjob this week and none of them were easy. Worse, none of them were really all that well-ranked in terms of this is the one you can let slide if things get crazy. Then Brisbane went and flooded, which meant we were all out of the office for a day on account of our office being down by the Brisbane river, and even though that was a blessing for one of the projects, it put me behind on a bunch of others.

Today is my last day at work for the week. Therefore: crazy. Once nine o’clock hits I’m required to be a productivity ninja for the next eight hours.

Then I can go home and pack.

Before that, there will be writing though. And before that, there will be coffee.

Time to go kick out the jams, wot?

Rain

PETERMBALL Journal

It’s a bit wet in Brisbane right now.

There are parts of the city where that’s proving to be a problem, prompting flood warnings and a twitter feed full of alerts notifying folks of their local sandbag locations. We’re still a bit twitchy about rain around these parts, given the big floods of a few years back, and I’ve had a couple of conversations with people from other states who were understandably concerned by the news.

Fortunately, all is well. I’ve spent the better part of the weekend away from the computer, so I wasn’t really aware there was flooding going on until the text messages started coming through and I started logging onto twitter.

In contrast to some other parts of the city, my weekend has been very idle. I’ve watched a bunch of movies and read a bunch of books and occasionally sat down at the computer and written things, be they fiction or non-fiction or the occasional rant. It’s cooled down enough that I finally dragged a blanket over my bed, which also means I’ve decamped from the study and dragged the Shifty Silas the Laptop into bed with me.

I’d forgotten how much I liked writing in bed. I gave it up last year, since I couldn’t really afford the time it took as a habit; these days I’ve got a lot more time on my hands, so I’m embracing the act of typing while horizontal again.

It’s kinda pleasant, lying under a blanket, getting some words down while the rain pelts down.

Sucks for the rest of the city, though.

Sunday in Brisbane

PETERMBALL Journal

My weekend, lo, it’s been a lazy one. Today I try and redeem that a little, through the virtue of writing lots of things prior to 7:00 PM, when I shall gather with The Flatmate and the Downstairs Neighbor and we shall watch John Carter (which, it must be said, I didn’t see at the cinemas purely because I always want to add “Of Mars” to the end of the title).

The Flatmate claims John Carter is a good, watchable movie. On one hand, he was entirely correct when he used that claim to lure me into watching Battleship last weekend, which is a perfectly watchable big dumb movie. On the other hand, he’s also the man who talked me into watching Starcrash, Zardoz, and Ice Planet, all of which are not perfectly watchable big, dumb movies. Either way, I’ll report back on the morrow.

Before that happens, though, I’ve got an article to write and some page-proofs to finish and at some point I’m going to write some new words on the novel and the short story I’m working on. Forward progress and all that. I’ve got some Rage Against the Machine playing (who knew they did a covers album?); I’ve got Shift Silas the Laptop set up and ready. I’ve got my coffee at my side.

Lets go.