7 more days.....

As a member of the free world I am hoping that in 7 days time we will have this dude as our new leader. It is serious time for a change and after 8 years, two wars, one financial meltdown, one fraudulent election, millions discriminated against/marginalised and thousands killed me and 5+ billion other people on this planet have officially put the US on notice.

As an American friend of mine commented, "The US have a serious PR problem now and if they get this right all is forgiven. if we get is wrong and its the fall of Rome all over again."

I have faith, not just because of the polls , but in the ability of smart people to say enough is enough.

Duty Bound Part 3

Now for the thrilling conclusion to "Dynasty - the return of the husband stealing whore". Oh wait that was on TV...silly brain.

The deliberation period ended up being one of the most stressful things I have ever been a part of. As the Australian legal system decrees the jury’s decision has to be unanimous there were no majority rules votes, we had to all utterly agree on each point of the law to come to a guilty verdict. We had two counts to rule on and, much to my surprise, the first one was simple. After forty mins we all voted and found him guilty. Imagining myself running from the jury room a free man that day I was wholly unprepared for the fuss the second count would create.

Due to the second count hinging on what the accused’s intent was, we had issues proving what was in his mind at the time of the crime. Some of the jury (me included) saw intent could be inferred from what he did and said. But some of the jury could not infer guilt without solid statement of intent or action. Thus started a three day argument which saw the group fracture, reassemble and then fracture in a final implosion of jury frustration. The entire trial’s evidence was trucked up and down the stairs everyday by our poor old sheriff, someone needs to get him a mule or at least a forklift. We requested the court transcripts and much debate was based around the judge’s last instructions, and what she deemed as being the laws we had to work from. We role played phone calls, drew Venn diagrams, siphoned through tons of paper and talked until we were blue in the face, still we were getting nowhere.

So we decided to send the judge a love note saying we had reached a verdict on count one but were unable to reach a verdict on the second count. We were then ushered into the court room faster than a speeding bullet, the old court Sherriff practically popping a ventricle. Immediately the foreman was asked to stand and deliver the verdict, and no sooner than the word guilty slipped from his lips a mysterious set of stairs behind the accused opened up and out spilled a subterranean army of bailiffs who took him away down into the holding cells. It was the most bizarre and serious sign of the entire trial, and compounded the overall seriousness of this all, that we were not just locked away for the hell of it. We had to make a decision on this man’s actions, and now it was so real, he was guilty and I had been one of twelve people who have indelibly altered his life and his family’s. It was hard not to feel a twinge in my heart, even in the face of all the evidence, it being the first time I had realised he was simply a man who had made a big mistake and not just as a faceless person called ‘The accused’.

But, for us, it was not over, the judge instructed us to return and continue deliberating on the second count. If we could not come to a decision by tomorrow, then we were to let her know. We all left and were so emotionally drained we slumped in our tiny chairs like ragdolls. The next day, we fought and argued, people were starting to crack, shouting, crying etcetera, including myself. I was becoming very angry and about to lose it with the corroded hinge. So by 3pm we decided finally we were never going to agree, and a letter was drafted for the judge and dispatched via huffing Sherriff mail, and ten seconds later we were whooshed into the courtroom as if by waterslide. The accused stood in the dock, surrounded by bailiffs and looking very tired. The judge asked the foreman to stand and asked if we were able to come to a decision based on all the evidence, he said we could not and immediately she thanked us and we were dismissed. It was a blur, five mins later I was collecting my belongings and happily shaking the hands of people who thirty mins ago I wished to slap.

And that was it. I wandered out of Kings Street Court Complex and off into the light, blinking while my phone erupted into a dozen messages, and wondered why I felt a tiny bit sad it was all over. Thinking I was about to suffer the juror’s version of Stockholm Syndrome and marry the judge, the reality of over five weeks of work to catch up on and various relationships to resuscitate snapped me back into this world, soon forgetting about my former institution. It still affects me every now and then though. A dramatic month of amplified emotion and vigorous debate, cathartic and disturbing, I consider it one of the most illuminatingly visceral but valuable experiences of my life.

Duty Bound - Part 2

So on my second trip back to judicial land, we were again unceremoniously shuffled into another cold room where we were told in no uncertain terms that, unless you had a limb falling off or a UN meeting to chair, there was no way you were being excused from Jury duty a second time. The trial slated was also a ‘short’ trial, expected to run for only four weeks so, with that, all excuses were sent spiralling to earth in Hindenburg fashion. Hearing this I crumpled my eloquently pre-crafted employer signed essay into a ball and imagined all the types of office materials I would have to remove from my skull after dropping this bombshell at work. At this point we were stripped of our names, and assigned numbers. While I was trying to remember my new catchy seven digit number, we were informed that the numbers protected our identity and if anyone asked us our real name we were to scream ‘Stranger Danger!’ and run and find the nearest adult. With our new identities in hand, we were moved off to empanelling.

This was not as I expected. It was swift, our numbers were dropped into a large oak box (maybe related to the first judge), and like a Bingo game from hell once our name was called out we walked into the jury box and sat. Once the twelve seats were full, we each stood up one at a time and the barristers had an opportunity to challenge us. I knew about this final chance for dismissal and had decided that day to look particularly redneck. So when my number was inevitably called I, wearing a biker jacket, freshly cropped hair and black jeans, I stomped across the court room with a prize winning scowl. Half expecting the bar table to erupt when it was my turn to stand in the box, all that greeted me was a silence so piercing I could hear the blood throbbing in my ears and the crickets outside. After what seemed liked an eternity I was asked to sit, and that was it. I was there. Being one of the last to come onto the jury box, I looked about at the rest of jurors who all wore the same stunned mullet expression as I. These were faces I was going to get to know very well and yet I had no idea who they were.

After some initial instructions from the judge that I can’t remember due to my mind shrieking with horror, we were asked to leave and go to the jury quarters through a separate door to the left of the box. To say the room was small is an understatement. The pokey staircase twisted up and revealed a claustrophobic room with a large wooden table, twelve rather tightly packed chairs, a tiny kitchenette and a plasma TV - which we later discovered was broken. To make matters worse, there was no natural light only four arch shaped windows made from frosted bullet proof Lucite. The light that was strangled through these windows was powdery and diffused, and to this day I have no idea if it was natural light or from phosphorescent tube lighting sandwiched between the gaps. The feeling it created was like being in a large panted greenhouse, being aware of the world outside but never able to confirm it. When in this room we could only talk about the case once all 12 were present (toilet breaks included) and once we all arrived in the morning, the doors were locked and we were trapped in this unnatural room with 12 strangers, trying to make a decision that would seriously alter another stranger’s life.

We all sat down at the long table and eyeballed each other for a time, then introduced ourselves. Surprisingly we were all quite cavalier about telling each other details about ourselves. The judge had told us that we could ask to be referred to by our numbers if we wished, even though the idea of being called Juror 84-59-006 SCR H was quite charming, I bit the bullet (hopefully not taking one as a result) and joined the party. The jury was a perfect cross section of people including the friendly older Aussie bloke, the chatterbox, the engaged girl, the stoner, the young buck and the know it all. So our life as an empanelled jury began.

We were required to be at the court room my 9.15am sharp, where we were locked into our Lucite box at 10am. After an hour or so a kind hearted semi retired court Sherriff lumbered up the stairs, and spluttered that the court required our presence. Every day our Sherriff ran up the stairs and every day I thought he would drop dead once reaching the top. Walking into the court room as “the Jury” was an awkward feeling, as all eyes are literally on you. You are being eyeballed by the judge, the predatory defence team, the smiling prosecution, court reporters, family and finally the accused. Each group had their own reasons for staring you down, the defence and prosecution tried to read you, whispering and pointing or furiously making notes. But the accused just stared at us, slowly and purposely, looking at everyone as if making a memory facsimile of our entire DNA structure. It was unnerving.

The trial itself went from brain meltingly dull to incredibly absorbing, but mostly we felt as if we were gormless drones due to the detail that was laid out for us. I understood that the case has to be created in detail and in a chronologic order but for some things it was just mind numbing. One ‘expert’ witness was brought in to explain to us about the mysterious world of the home computer. We were presented with a folder of graphical diagrams and pictures, on what a computer was, how one would turn it on, what it looked like and what was this crazy “Internet”. I felt as though my eyeballs were going melt and run down my face from boredom, the ‘expert’ took great care and fifteen mins to let us know a mouse on a computer was not as a result of a rodent problem (no one laughed) but in fact a tool for inputting information. This was not helped by the fact that the ‘experts’ acted out each operation of working a computer. Typing was represented by his fingers wiggling furiously in the air, the computer monitor was represented by a theatrically drawn mid air square, the internet was some kind of floaty cloud thing with a huge open mouth, and inserting a DVD was done in violent jabbing motion with bulging eyes as if he was describing a murder. Initially funny, but after two days this was just plain irritating.

Over the four weeks, we took our pleasures where we could find them. Talking about the teams and discussing possible love affairs within the court “is the judge actually married to the defence?”, we took bets on how long the court would be in session each day for an entire week, we also nicknamed some members of the court. There was ‘Doily’, a court reporter who loved to wear her grandmother’s tablecloths, a junior barrister who was named ‘Green Girl’ due to her rather off putting skin colour, “Madge” the judge’s assistant who was as gruff as a Victorian statue with surprisingly super feminine embellishments like plastic flowers and pink ribbons in her hair and the ‘Court goblins’ who were the defence team assistants that sniggered and smirked at us on a daily basis.

We also talked about run ins with the legal teams outside the court. One girl kept on running into the judge who literally hitched her robes and ran away from her, one guy saw a witness at the pub and I saw the accused in the park, who I ran away hysterically from smashing through the bushes, spilling my latte all down my white tee.

The weeks passed and I became accustomed to my double life as a crime fighter, days locked in a court, evenings spend furiously catching up on work via wireless laptop, nights spent working out and falling asleep before the 9.30 news. I drifted into work when I had ‘days off’ looking like a ghost and feeling rather redundant in the efficacy of my impact on my team’s deadlines. But due to a highly supportive boss and co workers I was able to balance my demands and commitments, without going crazy and slamming my head in the fridge door. I felt strangely disembodied from the world, busier than I have ever been in years, but unable to talk to anyone about my stresses or even about my day. I became the bore at drinks, with friends prodding me for details but with the threat of jail or a pants-peeingly large fine I had to remain tight lipped. So feeling like the most boring interesting person in the world I awaited the end of a trial that was not only wearing down my patience but becoming more a strain at work.

The trial passed the four week point and was still trucking, personalities on the jury became oddly distorted due to the stresses of a daily onslaught of graphical detail and the strain of our lives slowly slipping out of our hands. The friendlies became grumpies, the perky became sobers, the quiet became mutes and the opinionated became utterly dominating and plainly self serving. I, as were others I am sure, was becoming more irritated with one member of the jury who felt everyone wished to hear his forensic detailing and opinions of the court system, or which of his many cars was the most ego-nomical. His voice, like a corroded iron hinge, was quickly making me unhinged, so much so that I had to escape to the toilet three times a day with my powdered coffee for some peace and quiet. In this pressure cooker environment, someone was likely to blow and I starting to understand why one of the Gordon Wood Jurors called the Radio station, they wanted out! Finally after a mumbling and patchy three day closing argument from the prosecution and an angry emotionally charged six hour closing argument from the defence, we were instructed on the law we were to base a decision on and then were sent off up to our shoebox to carry out the most important part of the trial - the deliberation period.

Part 3 coming soon, so is Christmas. No really it actually is. yay!

Duty Bound - Part 1

Hey,
I was asked to write something for the Sydney Morning Herald opinion section on my jury duty expereince. I wrote this, which was 6000 words too long but here it is for you:

When I got called for jury selection, like many people I racked my brain for possible excuses from the experience. Annoyingly I was not pregnant, travelling overseas or in need of an operation. Kicking myself for not going to Bolivia, severing a finger or being a woman, I glumly accepted my fate and found out via a rather Orwellian phone message service the date and time of my required service.

Presenting myself to three gruff sheriffs outside the Dickensian Darlinghurst courts, I was unceremoniously shoved two slips of paper. One form was how you wished to be paid, the other one to fill out if you wanted an “application”. Thinking I was about to go in for a job interview, I was later told by a booming court sheriff that it was an application for my appeal to be excused. With words like ‘application’, ‘appeal’ and ‘excused’, already felt like I was the one on trial, but after entering the cavernous court room one, I realised I was one of 70 citizens, about to serve their community.

After a rather epic speech about how you could be excused if you were a policeman, dentist, miner, mother, butcher, baker, candlestick maker, we were asked to fill in our forms to make an ‘application, explaining our reasons why the judicial machine should let us free. I looked about and pretty much most of the 70 people in the room were hunched over, tongues protruding working on what seemed to be their magnum opus. But what surprised me were the amount of people availing themselves to be on a jury, and they were not the student, old lady, unemployed brigade but a pretty average and cultural biopsy of the community. Anyway, I was wasting precious excuse-making time, so I looked at my form and was horrified that the space available to create the masterpiece was not generous, more space is given to fill out your address on a drivers licence form. So in this 2 cm cube I wrote a poetic description of my job and how great tragedy would befall myself and the company if I was gobbled up in the court system X amount of time. This effort was not helped by the fact it was one of the coldest July mornings of the year and the archaic old court room had no heating expect from an old spluttering fan heater over 20 meters away. My fingers were solid granite and being someone whose writing has been likened to a doctors script the end result was a page of smudged scribblings.

This was not going to go well, I thought as I slid down my oak pew. The sign “jurors in waiting”, officiously branded in the wall behind me, permanent and unmovable, summed up my chances quite aptly I thought.

This case was the Oscar of 2008 trials, the Gordon Wood case, expected to mammoth 16 weeks minimum. As I explain to a sheriff who was as festive as a pit-bull in a party hat, my boss would rather run through Circular Quay in a flaming grass skirt than let my clients go to seed over 4 months. The sheriff growled that my excuse was not good enough and that “anyone could use that excuse”. I was quite taken aback as I thought career requirements would be as serious as studies and well timed breeding. Lady pit-bull then told me that I would have to talk with the judge to be let free. This to my horror would happen two hours later in open court. We were frog marched into the court room and the entire court was set up and chomping at the bit to get moving - barristers, reporters, court assistants and a rather stoic and grand looking judge who looked like he had been whittled from a thousand year old piece of oak.

Lining up for our private audience with the judge, perky words like ‘empanelled’, ‘sequester’, ‘unemployment’ and ‘destitute’ whirled in my head with cyclonic fervour. I snapped to attention when I saw the Judge beckoning me over with a finger so long and bony that it must have creaked like a wooden box lid when moved. Up close he took on an even more Tolkien like severity, this was not helped by the fact he was a little over 3 feet higher than my head (I am 6’3) in his seat. The similarities between this and Oliver and the slop server were not lost on me. The judge then spoke in an alarmingly soft and kind voice “what is your application” he asked. I managed to ramble coherently about work, 16 weeks, elves and a grand quest to not be on the bread line by December. He smiled kindly, half expecting him to flick a large lever and I would tumble into a pit lined with spikes. But he whispered ‘you are excused’.

But that, however, was not it. I was promptly told by Ms Pit-bull that I was required back in two weeks for another trial.

Oooh gripping, stay turned for next week's part 2, where I lose my marbles.

Grottiest Flat Ever!

Jeez words can't describe, the state this flat is in. Apparently two cats are lost, feared dead (or buried) under all this crap. Just wait till you see the toilet! PUKE www.buymydump.com

Music to say "F%$K You" to

Aaah were would we be without that angry break up song to get you going in the morn. Probably still crying in the shower rubbing soap into your eyes. But we are not, any way here are my recommendations for some "get bent you fool" songs. They work and make you run like a mutha on the treadmill:

Tears dry on their own – Amy Winehouse
Hung Up / Sorry / Nobody Knows Me - Madonna
I Don’t Give A Fuck - Peaches
What goes around comes around – Justin Timberlake
Wheel – John Mayer
I Don’t Think So - Kelis
Say it right – Nelly Furtado
Handle Me - Robyn
Kiss You off – Sister Sisters
Don’t Get You – Sneaky Sound System
No Regrets – Robbie Williams
Far From Home - Tiga

WORK!

Working Working, is a good trick to get over a rubbish man. You may feel like laying down on train tracks and chewing live electrical wires, but NO i would rather put on my new $2000 hot suit and go out and work, while looking hot. Did I mention i looked hot? So I say "go on and stuff yourself you silly man, i am amazing with church bells on, and hot". Anyhoo, back on track... Last night was a proper good example of beavering away. We successfully pulled of a launch last night for our client Jurlique and their amazing Bondi Beach Concept Store. The event went really well, considering it was a Monday, in Bondi and horror weather was threatening. It was a quite long day and I was relieved though to crawl home into my trackies and eat pizza watching a disaster movie. PS: starting looking at flats, have a viewing tomorrow. Let you know how that goes.

Pics care of our mate: Kris Baum www.krisbaum.com

BAAAAAHHAHAAAAHAAAAAAA!

LEGO MADONNA!!

Work it or loose it

I think its universally agreed that when your personal life suddenly turns to compost, you turn to distractions. Rather hookers or drugs. I am throwing myself into work.

Here is some images from a recent client summer shoot I produced, hope you like.

The Idea

10 years ago this week, I left New Zealand to embark on my life overseas. It seems so very far away when I look back over that time, being a rather green Kiwi kid hoping off the jet in Amsterdam, journal and a rather anorexic wallet in hand. It’s crazy to think about all the concepts and values I held dear when I left and what has shifted and what has become a priority or a moot point. Early on in my trip I came out, which provided to be the biggest single hurdle I have faced in the way I considered myself and my place in the world. Everything that occurred after was effected to some degree, it was like having a thick heavy carpet being pulled off your head and taking a long time to get use to the light in the swirl of dust. I went from being very happy to being very low, a seesaw of emotions and introspection that must have made me seem insular and goofy.

My hunt for a career path and a goal for the future saw me focus on setting myself on a path to greater possibilities, this occur with its own battles. Interning in magazines where they would rather step on your foot rather than acknowledge your existence by stopping, late nights of the service industry, which lead to temptations that come with a somewhat inverted lifestyle going to bed at 5am and waking at 3pm. I kind of look back on those days with a lonely kind of nostalgia, the hard work and the mini dramas that seemed so serious and all consuming.
I have succeed in some ways, and failed in others. I am still single and never had a thought I would be at 31. I assumed I would have someone special when I went through life’s biggest ups and downs, but does that make me a weaker or stronger person for doing it alone?

One thing I do miss, is the fearless way I went about approaching love and relationships. I use to throw myself into these situations, strike up conversations with anyone, fly to other countries all in the name of finding someone special. How can confidence grow with certain things but reduce with others. You would think time would make you more savvy with partners. Skipping forward and now I have met someone who considers some attention, and I am doubting myself and every hiccup is inspected with CSI detail. Because of this I am now concerned that I have damaged things with the first person in 4 years I have had an interest in, but if you ask me what I think I did. I am not so sure, I just feel I have ruined it.

What is that?? A friend told me you have to watch what you play out in your head as they could end up happening. But could it be I am looking for problems where there are none? Can I create my own hell when I should be happy?

I am not sure what I am scared of, being dumped for someone buffer, smarter, dumber, younger, older, richer or hotter? These things have already happened in the past, why am I still scared.

How funny it is that just a few weeks ago I was so sure of myself and happy that I was a person I could like and now I doubt every thought and move.
The guy travels a fair bit, has a place in the country and is there a fair bit doing renovations, so it has proved a bit hard to stay in contact when I he is away. This I sometimes construe as a lack of interest and work myself up into a tornado-like whizz of hysteria.

I am still trying to iron myself out, as I am in serious potential of losing my shit and ruining something new. I need to figure how to sort myself. Keep busy though, keep my fingers busy and away from the phone. Maybe a dried pasta hobby or miniature basket weaving. It’s so hard, as I though these things were supposed to be easy, but it’s seems the greatest struggle you have in life is not with anyone else but with yourself and your own cruel confidence killers.

That aside I still hold true to the I guess I have always had an idea about love. Maybe idea is not right, an imagined analogy seems more apt.
I see myself walking through life, like walking down a path, and every now and then I pass someone who has meant something to me, and as I walk I half expect them to stop. Take a moment. So far most of them have kept on walking. So I kept going, sure in the fact I would meet someone, that one day someone would make me want to stand still for a while. I feel that way now, I have stopped, now all my nail biting is waiting for them to stop walking too.

I am still hopeful this will happen, sometime.

Relationship - 101

I recently met someone who is quite different from anyone I have met before. Among being a kind, nice guy with a decent head on his shoulders. He seems to carry himself with a type of humanity and soul that makes me think he is something quite special. We have gone out a few times and each date has just been easy. By easy I mean, just relaxed and fun. No games, no ego. Just getting to know someone who is interesting, amazingly refreshing. It's hard, like i am starting from step one again. I have become so use to the games, that it takes me back when someone is game free. This has made me truly stop and pay attention. He is a Kiwi so that also explains his honest and laid back attitude. But the thing i am worried about is my own neurotic brain farts.

It is common for most people doubt themselves when they meet someone who turns their head, and after a couple years of career shifts, health scares, indifferent men and all the subsequent stresses and changes in focus as a result. His arrival comes at a time i feel the most together and certain of myself. But all that becomes shaken slightly when you doubt yourself especially in the presence of a new paramour, more so when he seems genuinely seems to be quite a find. To exercise these goblins I have to remind myself to believe in myself, and in what he sees in me. I also remind myself that relationships take time, and if he is worth as much I suspect he is, time is the best thing to iron out the creases from emotional upsets. So is love.

Regardless of the outcome of the present situation, it seems it is time for me to settle these old hurts to focus on a future where i can be happy, settled and have a person to share this with. The change begins with me.

My double life as a crime fighter

Jury duty has been quite a trial (ha get it?!), i have been serving the community, as a crime-fighter as my friend likes to call it, pretty much 5 days a week for 2 weeks now. Its hard going, we have to be at the court at 9am to be locked (yes locked) into a small room with one large table, no natural light and dehydrated coffee in polystyrene cups. We are  kept in this room for about 1.5 hours until we are called to the court by a kindhearted old sheriff who i think will have a heart attack each time he climbs the stairs. We stay in court for an hour and a half, listening to the meandering prosecution and the strutting and pompous defense lawyer, then its back to our den for morning tea. After 20 mins we are back in court till 1pm, where we break for lunch again in our rabbit hutch. Then comes 2pm we are back in court till 4pm. All this time we shuffle back and forth like drones, when ever the lawyers want to squabble about evidence and what not. Its all done at quite an irritatingly slow speed.

Not to say its not interesting, in the past week its really become quite absorbing, but to race home afterwards and try to do a full days work before i fall asleep is taking its toll. Luckily my boss is being super cool about this and had set me up with wireless remote desktop thingie for my laptop.

It seems this jury duty has come at a time when there is a natural lull in things before the spring summer crazy time. So that's a good thing, and once this is over (which is next week) i will be free for 5 years if not forever.

My follow jurors are quite a sight, most of them are quite lovely and very nice. But one has an opinion on everything from where the bullet proofed windows are made to the utterly interesting 100 differences between his Prius and his MX5. The term "going on" is sent to a strange new place orbiting the world Fat Mouth with this guy. You see peoples eyes glaze when he whines "well that's interesting you say that because..." Or "I grew up with his mother's dog's hair brush's toilet seat and they use to.." The other is Bobblehead, she is quite harmless and very sweet but you mention the Olympics and her head shakes like San Francisco in 1902. It does not help she has a voice like a corroded iron hinge. I am thinking peoples nuances become magnified by a trillion in such a pressure cooker environment, i have become positively mute most of the time, till i think Yappy has had too much airtime.

It is genuinely fun when the lawyers go for each other throats and the judge has to prize them apart like a primary school teacher in the school yard. It is also amazing when they get a principle witness, the last of which made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. 

I do look forward to having regular hours  again and not needing to go hide in the toilet for some quiet time.

Law and Disorder

Just when I thought I was back, Jury Duty has crept up on me like Gary Glitter in a Thai playground. I have been select for 3-4 weeks on a trial in the supreme court. Dang! Luckily I will be paid and my boss will top up my earnings so I am not out of pocket. Just a bit of a bugger as I have to work from home in the evenings, doing what i can.

But this case is a very short one in law-land and it may wrap before 4 weeks. Fingers crossed. I may not be able to talk about the case, but i can talk about my fellow jurors, one I have already nicknamed 'Bobblehead' because of the way her head moves when she talks.

Hopefully i can make some entries in this time, would not want for you (one person and a dog with wheels for legs) to miss out.

Springs Coming

I can smell it, I can see it in the eyes of small fluffy creatures, the fruit store owner and even in the eyes my boring flatmate (Who I only thought only looked forward to brushing her imaginary cat and the biweekly bible and bumper sticker mail-order catalogue).

Spring is a mere hop, skip and Brazilian wax away. Yes, we may still be shivering in our leathers and gazing enviously at the sizzling roast we just pulled from the oven, wishing our head be so golden brown, crispy and covered in rosemary and oil.

But in three weeks time I can consider wearing shorts and thinking about how translucent white skin will look when skipping to the shops for Beef Stock during the first spring day. Kind of like snow blindness in khaki. I have the new flip flops that I got as a gift at fashion week, staring up at me optimistically from under my bed, much alike a virgin at a strip bar.

I have already formed a mental list rivalling the dead sea scrolls of what I need to get my hairy little hands on for Summer. New bathers, check. New sunnies, check. Interesting but fun love affair, dream on. Funny thing about summer love, they are a lot like sunglasses. Very hard to find the right one, but so easily lost.

ok ok ok!

Let it be said, yes i have been AWOL for a good part of July. So sorry, but hey, no news is good news. No i have not been sequestered away in some jury room (i got excused BTW) or hit by some runaway trolley full of drag kings in Newtown. I have just been working hard and laying low. But i promise i am back and with that here is something utterly filthy and completely funny. I am gonna write up a storm for you my pretties, now where is my flying monkey quill and ink....

Its COLD!!!!!

My fingers are frozen to the clackboard its so cold. Took this pic of frigid Sydney on my iPhone. BRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I am off to stick my fingers up the dogs bum to get them warm.

Jury Duty

Dum DUM! I knew something was fishy when I was asked to confirm my address by the justice department. Either I was being subpoenaed or jury duty was looming. Soon hence forth after skipping to the post box to mail my form, I received a rather stern email demanding my presence fresh and early at Darlinghurst courts on Monday 21st. Boo!

The form which says that I am just in the selection process also says, if selected, I could be up for 16 weeks of full time jury duty. Not cool. My bosses face drained of colour as soon as I told him, but then I tried to smooth it over by saying most people sit in a room for an entire day before being told to go home. Service served.

Please please please let this be me!

If I do go through to being interviewed by lawyers another tip, from a Lawyer no less, is to look very YUPPIE as they do not want too successful people on a jury as they seem to want Mr and Mrs Average.

But worse case is that you have to serve almost three months, paid by work, to do 12 hours of a day of Jury Duty. People have been know to lose homes, fail courses and, gulp, lose their jobs due to these things. Though being fired for jury duty is highly illegal. Also if movies serve me well I will be kiddnapped by the mafia and blackmailed to vote non guity or they will kill my 10 year old son.

Still not fun. I need to charge my iPhone and take a book I think for Monday. Just think of this as a down day, hopefully with no return visits.

UPDATE: It got delayed till next week.

I Goty Goty Goty!

This morning this baby arrived for me. I have been fingering it all day long. Its brilliant, i love it. i need to take a moment and put my head between my knees.

Beached in New Zeelund

Love this, makes me homesick a tad. Very funny

Almost here.

oooo. oooo. Can't talk. Me needy to see. Batman. NOW! *deep breath, foot stamp and bottom lip sticking out* Apparently it is amazing and Ledger is utterly mind blowing as The Joker in The Dark Knight. It will be very strange to watch him and think he is dead. I hear that posthumous Oscar talk is starting to mount for him. Sad but a fitting tribute.