Hello!

I'm back to blogging!  That was a short retirement.

I'm joking.

I'm not really back to blogging.  But I decided I'll do updates every so often.

I guess instead of saying I'm a "retired blogger"; I could say I'm an occasional blogger (rather than a full-time blogger).

First off....

I'm still American.

 I'm still weird.

And I'm still very obsessed with Australia.

I think I might be more obsessed now than I was before.  Or at least the love is more strong.   I worried that blogging was what kept my Australia-love alive, but now I'm thinking it actually might have been diminishing it.

The first several hours after quitting were very difficult.  My feelings were a lot like SOME of the lyrics in this song.



I felt incredibly lost.  I wanted to keep doing Australia thing but I wasn't sure what to do.  And I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy doing whatever I did if I wasn't going to blog about it.

I went to the Australian Dictionary of Biography figuring maybe I'd read those. I read a few paragraphs and then gave up on that idea. I've come to realize that the ADB is great when you're interested in a particular Australian and want a lot of details about their life. It's not that fun for browsing.  At least not for me.  Other people might enjoy it.

I did a lot of Funtrivia  for the first few days. That was fun, but it got old after awhile.

Another thing I did from the beginning of my quitting stage(and that I'm still doing) is major Flickr stalking.

I do it differently now, though.

What happened is this. During those difficult first hours I realized my computer calendar's days were filled with our pretend Australia trip. I figured I'd have to erase it and that made me quite depressed.   I didn't want to do it, so I came up with an idea. I would continue the pretend trip, but in a different way.

Each day I look at photos from the place we were supposed to be pretending to be.   It's a really great way of learning about a place.  I look at the photos. Then if something interests me or keeps popping up in multiple photos, I google it.

Right now I'm on Bruny Island.  It has lots of birds, including penguins.  There are sea lions or seals.  I love this one rock structure. It's called The Monument. There's also this cool thing where these small roundish rocks are stacked up as a tower. It's really odd. I haven't been able to figure out what it is. I'm not sure if it occurred naturally or if someone stacked them that way.

I've spent a lot of time looking at Melbourne photos. The thing that sticks out to me the most there is the street art.

Nagambie has some nice wineries.

I like the boats and the harbour in Hobart.

I enjoyed looking at too many photos of the Twelve Apostles and Cradle Mountain.

My favorite place so far is Halls Gap.  That town might be my ideal vacation place. It seems like there are parrots and kangaroo everywhere. Plus there's a cool rock structure that looks like a mouth. It used to be called The Jaws of Death, but now people are calling it The Balcony.  

I have a whole system of looking at photos.  It's complicated, so I won't try to explain it. I will say, though, that while I look at the photos I listen to Australian music.I started with continuing my exploration of the Triple J countdown. Then I moved onto the ARIA winners and nominations.   Lord Wiki assists me with that.  Right now I'm on 1996.

Yesterday (while still on 1995) I listened to this somewhat annoying and somewhat delightful song.  You know what I mean?   It's one of those things that make me cringe, yet I kind of want to start singing along.



One day we were in the car and Gotye's song came on the radio.



I was overly excited about that and shouted out.That's Australian!

Jack's been really into Spotify and the song is very high up on the charts on that. I guess it's pretty popular in America.


Recently Suburgatory played an Angus and Julia Stone song.



It worked well in the scene.

Tim and I watched The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1.   It was one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Yet I enjoyed it immensely.  I loved the scenery and the music.

I later went to look up the soundtrack and learned one of the songs was from Angus and Julia Stone.



It's probably my favorite song right now. And prior to that song I wasn't that much of an Angus and Julia Stone fan.  I did like their songs, but I had never loved one.  Plus, after awhile, their voices would grate on my nerves.  Now I'm feeling somewhat differently.

I've been reading Australian books. My favorites lately have been Forty-Seventeen by Frank Moorhouse and Portia De Rossi's Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain  I could relate to SO much of Portia De Rossi's book. It was scary, but also probably therapeutic.

I've been keeping up Australian news much more. Well, I have so much more time on my hands.

I got into the whole Julia Gillard and Kevin Rudd drama.

I realized that Bob Carr kind of looks like an elderly version of Tom Hanks.

I felt sad for Rudd and for Kim Carr.   

I now know understand about who Gina Rinehart is. 

My thoughts and prayers are with the people who lived in the very flooded towns of Victoria and New South Wales.   Because of that whole story I now know how to properly pronounce Wagga Wagga.

I've started my own little collection of Australia quotes.  I'm getting them from books, songs, and stuff like that. I'm slowly reading through (and re-proofreading) my old posts.  I know I have some quotes in there.  I might copy and paste some of those to the collection as well.   

Last night I had a Prime Minister dream.   I'm in a waiting room with toys.  Kevin Rudd is there playing with animal toys.  He's making the animals kiss other animals.  He has his animals kiss the animals I'm holding. I'm all excited that he's interacting with me.  But then...the game gets old after awhile.

I'm brought a tea set with the name Sonia on it.  I'm told it's related to a Prime Minister's family; and  I'm supposed to guess what family it belonged to.  I know the answer pretty much right away; but Kevin Rudd doesn't know that.  He gives me a hint. I give him the answer (The McMahon family).   Kevin Rudd acts very impressed with my knowledge of Australia.  

Anyway....that's about it.

How are you doing?   What's going on in your life? 

How would our world change if we knew for sure there was life after death, and it was easy for our dearly-departed to talk to us via the Internet?   

The Dead are Online, a novel by Dina Roberts