"And in this moment I am happy"

Good song lyrics can sum up so many things, thank you Incubus...

It's Boxing Day. I'm home alone, having just passed an opportunity to walk around the lake with family. My best friend is back in town but has gone to someone else's house for the afternoon and I don't have the phone number. There's nothing much happening.

And I am completely fine with that. No, scratch that, I'm enjoying it.

I seem to be learning to be happy in all sorts of different circumstances, and to appreciate that life has a variety of moments. This is, in my humble opinion, a very good thing. Especially as I'm probably going to be alone a lot more often in the near future (see the "Sold" post a couple before this one).

Alone and lonely are two completely different things and they don't actually seem to happen at the same time very often at all. I would argue that an attack of loneliness is usually more acute when you're in the midst of a large number of people. Right now I'm alone but not lonely.

I shall enjoy the moment.

To the record company executive holding on to Fiona Apple's "Extraordinary Machine"

Look, it's not always about safe money, is it?

What you don't seem to comprehend is that it's not actually healthy for everyone to produce exactly the same kind of music, because then we've heard it all before. We get bored. And we don't really have a reason to buy the latest thing, because it sounds exactly the same as what we already have.

Whereas if someone does something that doesn't sound the same, at least some of those bored listeners might sit up and take notice and think there's something worth buying, because it will actually enhance their collection rather than merely expand it.

The lack of an obvious single should be celebrated, not feared. Pick a non-obvious single and emphasise its originality. My suggestion would be to find a slightly quirky film and get the title track inserted into it. Quite possibly over the opening credits, it's that kind of song.

Then release the darn album in time to catch the resulting wave of interest, dammit!!!

Sold

As of yesterday, I am committed to buying a house.

There are still parts of my brain that cannot wrap around this fact, even though it's over three weeks since I initially made an offer on the place that was accepted. Everything since then has been paperwork, double checking and mental probing. I didn't find any reason to not go through with it, other than a basic desire to regress as far back into childhood as possible and not deal with the prospect of being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt like the rest of the adult world.

Adult western world anyway. I'm thinking there are people in some so called 'third world' countries that don't have a lot, but no-one expects them to pay huge amounts of money to have a roof over their head.

Of course, their houses probably don't include DVD players or grand pianos either.

I don't fully own the house until early February '05. So now I have plenty of time to ponder over what I'm going to DO with the place once its mine. Host dinner parties? Plaster the walls with photos I took on my overseas holiday four years ago? Garden??!

Sit there all alone and post to my blog...?

Stay tuned for more lifestyle developments as they come to me.

Split second timing

Sometimes the most beautiful moments can come from a couple of things happening apparently by chance. Like listening to Radiohead's "OK Computer" album, vaguely aware that the weather is changing outside the controlled environment of one's office, and then the first great big roll of thunder happens at the EXACT moment you reach the climax of the song "Lucky".

For those who don't know the song, it's in a very grand dramatic style and has lyrics about an aircrash. You just couldn't script it better.

Things heard while standing in line to use an automatic teller machine

It's over a week ago now, but seeing as how I can't get it out of my head it's obviously meant to be expressed somewhere.

There was a queue because only one of the two ATMs was operational. Not a large queue, only about three customers. A couple join the back of the line. A boy, quite obviously their son, around five years old, doesn't stand in the queue but plays with the bars at the top of the stairwell between floors in the shopping mall, about two metres away. He's not in any danger and he's not in anyone's way either. His father turns around, looks at him and says, "what are you doing over there s**thead?"

It wasn't said in an angry tone, if anything it was slightly on the affectionate side. But I couldn't believe what I was hearing. It set off all kinds of thoughts about what this boy's life is like. How he's learning to relate to people. If his own father curses him casually for no reason, how is he going to show affection as he gets older? Will he even be capable of lifting someone up in love instead of pulling them down?

I refuse to believe this is a normal way to bring up the next generation.