Confessions of a reformed zombie:

Bear with me for a moment; I’m going to get religious and I’m going to talk about bad, creepy TV. The former will bother some people, and the latter will bother others. You have been warned.

Last night, I had the TV on for ‘noise company’ and with half of my mind watched a pretty stupid show while the other half of my brain engaged in a book. I’m not going to tell you what the show was because it was that stupid – cheesy acting, poor scriptwriting, a dumb storyline, and in spite of all that, still too scary!

(Did I cancel out the negative points of watching a stupid show by the fact that I was reading Henri Nouwen? Unfortunately, I doubt it.)

Here’s a basic outline of the program: an evil virus began to overtake the entire world. One by one, ordinary people were being transformed into hideous, zombie-like monsters. These zombies then turned on the rest of the population. Their only goal was to stay alive (stay undead?), and to do this, they fed on others (I told you this was creepy). They were terrifying, and really, really, really ugly. What was worse is that there seemed to be no antidote to the virus.

Then, some science-y guy made a discovery: the blood of one man, half-alien, was the only thing that would stop the spread of the virus. What’s more, the hero’s blood could actually reverse the effects of the virus. The only problem was that for the scientists to be able to extract this man’s blood, he had to die.

‘Lightbulb!’

The parallels to the gospel story were at once incredibly obvious. I guess the writers were scratching around for new story ideas and decided to re-hash one that is very old. No surprises there. But what stood out to me was how amazingly apt the zombie virus is as a picture of sin’s work in our lives. Sin is infectious. It has spread to the whole world. And it turns its victims into flesh-devouring monsters, doing whatever it will take to keep itself alive. Its whole point is itself, and it doesn’t care about how ugly it becomes, if only it can stay alive. Oddly enough, though, that’s not really living.

In the TV show, the antidote didn’t miraculously turn the victims into super-people; they were still going to make mistakes and they’d still succumb to the occasional cold or flu. Rather, the miracle was that the hero’s blood saved the people from a life of living death.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that without the sacrifice of Jesus, I’m just a crazed zombie feeding on the flesh – basically, a dead girl walking.

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Conversations:

Jessica -- :D House Jr. is pretty cute, too!

Cara -- thank you, lovely friend! Naming inanimate objects is one of my weird quirks :).

Samantha R -- solidarity! It's fun to name things :).

Elisabeth -- thank you, lovely lady!

Rebecca Simon -- yes, pictures shall be forthcoming!

Mitanika -- ooh, I confess I quite love 'houseling'. Good call!

Asea -- oh voice of the masses, your wish is my command! Photos soon :).

happy little home

I’m moved in! Well, I’m mostly moved in – by which I mean that the living area and wee kitchen look like a normal person’s house with some boxes and random things here and there, but my bedroom still has some of that I’m-inhabited-by-a-fourteen-year-old-male look clinging to it. I’m working on that.*

I’ve been living here for about a week now and I love it. It’s so fresh, so neat (apart from all my stuff, I mean), so adorable, so cute. Next on the agenda is to come up with a name for this little spot. I’ve been calling it the Housie, secretly, to myself, because everybody else thinks that’s just foolish. To me it makes perfect sense. Baby versions of lots of things end with ‘ie’ sounds: puppy, kitty, bunny, you know how it works. This is a baby version of a house, so why not housie? Or houseling? Houselet? I know; I’m ridiculous.

Since I'm still unpacking and tidying, no pictures of the Housie yet (I'm going to use the word in writing as often as possible, because I can't see you all rolling your eyes) -- but I'll leave you with some shots from the garden, the beautiful, beautiful garden. I eat my breakfast out on the little deck and get to look at this stuff all the time. There are so many butterflies! And so much birdsong! Plus, actual bees actually buzz. Thank you, God. Thank you, excellent parents who actually want to move into a house with a little attached flat and all this prettiness!

*Correct when I wrote this earlier today, now officially wrong. My room has morphed into something resembling a normal adult woman's bedroom with occasional juvenile touches and uncomfortable Spartan wall decor. I'll keep working.

lately (four):

I have to tell you: moving house is srs bsns. Not that I didn't know this already; if I hadn't moved about fourteen times and experienced it previously myself, my Mum's experience -- something like twenty-four moves, give or take -- would have enlightened me anyway. Nevertheless, I still forgot to prepare myself for broken fingernails, bumps and bruises, sore ankles, confusion brought on by multiple box-packing, brain-deadness, cleaning, mouldy curtains, and the inevitable tears that seem to accompany any transition stage in my life. So there's that.

However, I also forgot to prepare myself for happy discoveries, the slow falling in love with a new place, the sense of overwhelming generosity of my parents, the struggle to articulate anything remotely approaching the right level of thankfulness, the kindness of a treasured friend (--bearing lasagna, no less!), the happy feeling of melting into bed each night, and the chance to actually pull forgotten treasures from my glory box and set them out in the new wee kitchen.

^ Also, there are red and white tiles.

lately (three):

'The most important things are the hardest things to say. They are the things you get ashamed of, because words diminish them -- words shrink things that seemed limitless when they were in your head to no more than living size when they’re brought out. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? The most important things lie too close to wherever your secret heart is buried, like landmarks to a treasure your enemies would love to steal away. And you may make revelations that cost you dearly only to have people look at you in a funny way, not understanding what you’ve said at all, or why you thought it was so important that you almost cried while you were saying it. That’s the worst, I think. When the secret stays locked within not for want of a teller, but for want of an understanding ear.'

Stephen King [via]

lately (two):

blueberry pancakes for lauren's birthday breakfast;
when even your littlest sister is twenty-six years old
(not to mention "great with child"),
it is impossible to continue to deny your status as a grown up.
happy birthday laurenbidgee!

lately (one):

in a trippy world of floating spheres at the gallery of modern art;

beautiful animation;

we can't walk on water but we walked under it;

postcards to uknown friends;

bright splashes of colour;

seriously not rubbish;

everybody loves lego;

happy happy happy!

wheeeee!
(have i mentioned my favourite art is
the stuff you can actually interact with?)

i spy the socially awkward penguin!

memes: recognised by twenty-first century art!

is it ironic that i took pictures of the technology exhibit
and twenty-first century art on my ipod, leroy?

ps. thanks for your lovely comments and your warmth! i treasure all of it. conversations will be on hiatus for a little while until i get back to my regular posting schedule but i still welcome your comments. if you have any questions -- or really just want to say anything -- feel free to email @ daniellecentral at gmail dot com. love!

positively not drowning;

I'm glad none of the blog posts that I've composed in my head over the last few days actually made it to the internets. Cos folks, they weren't pretty. All laments in various minor keys about busy, busy, rush, rush, insanity, no time to make posts (which did actually prove to be true, I guess) -- and all of that. Also, I just felt grumpy and sad and I had headaches, all for reasons that still remain a mystery to me.

(I'm pretty sure my family started looking at ways they could adopt me out, maybe foist me off on some unsuspecting family before said family could find a chance to meet me.)

Besides the grumpiness, nothing's actually changed since then; it still seems to be that when I cross something off my to-do list, I add two more things on the bottom of it. Also, my sister and I are actually making appointments to call each other for chats. And there are some rather major time-sensitive projects (like, things to do with packing and moving house and also with babies getting born -- and the one thing we know about babies is that they will out) that I haven't even started on. Nevertheless, now that I'm engaged in actively working towards those things, or even simply working on other things so that then I can work on the next thing, they seem a whole lot more manageable. It feels like I might actually be doing something and getting somewhere.

All of which sounds very self-important and very busy and we all know that we hate to hear people talk about how busy they are. So I will say no more except -- I hope to be here as much as possible but you'll forgive me, won't you, if occasionally I just post little pictures of my days with a word or two here and there? Just till things settle down in a few weeks? Thanks. You're all awesome.

Actually, you're all so awesome that you've visited my blog twenty thousand times. Yes, I know; that's just a monkey's sneeze in the big top of this circus known as internetland, but it means something to me. Cheers to you! *clink*

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Conversations:

Anonymous -- hehe yourself!

Mitanika -- yes please do do a daybook! (I'm sorry; that "do do" looks grammatically painful, but I'm leaving it there). Yum. Now I really want a cheeseburger.

Ruth -- ^ see above re. cheeseburger.

Rebecca Simon -- ah, I miss New South Wales and its very obvious, storybook celebration of Autumn. WANT.

Staish -- hi :).