14th Oct - Still detoxing after the houseboat trip. Put on 4 kilos in just 3 days. Could be muscle. Muscle weighs more than fat. But it's unlikely that I built up any muscle doing NO exercise for the whole trip. Thanks to friends doing all the cooking and making of cocktails (Jam Doughnuts with Cowboy chasers, uuuuuurrgghhh!) the only work left for me was washing.
The forced inactivity on the houseboat was good for me. Made me slow down and collect my thoughts. My crewmates thought I looked a bit down sometimes, but that's 'cos of the wanky disco-funk-latin-jazz playing 24/7. The only time the houseboat gets really busy is near dusk, when we're searching for a landing (you can't drive at night.) Then its a mad scramble to find a vacant moor, ram the sucker through the willows, tie the boat down, and light a fire. It's hard enough to do sober. Imagine a boatload of hung-over Asians doing it.
Totally unrelated to my detoxing, I ate half a kilo of prunes while watching 'The 4400.' I did it to 'balance' the box of Sweet Chilli Shapes I was also munching at the time. Bad idea. The result is like projectile vomiting out of your ass, except that your mouth is able to scream at the same time. I'm saying this so that none of y'all ever try it.
Wholly different experience to another recent event, the mid-autumn lantern festival. The kitchen became a mooncake factory for a few weeks, but the little mounds of dough everywhere was worth the awesome, free mooncake. I also attended a Buddhist Society recruitment drive thinly disguised as a theatrical adaptation of the 'Chang-Erh' legend. Did it as a sort of favour for one of Mum's friends, who's scarily religious now. I mean Branch Davidian, Family-First-but-in-a-Buddhist-context kind of scary. Brr. I endured the Powerpoint props, the chanting, and between-act banter with the smug young slick who wears the confident smirk of someone who knows he's fucking the girl of my dreams. However, I scrammed before the donation box started its circuit. Yeah, I got my mind on my money and my money on my mind.
I don't know what to call the random assortment of pictures above. Some guy I knew from primary school - he's our union contact now and just as depressed as I am about the Federal Election - said he remembered me being a good artist. So I fired up the GIMP and present to you:
Stuff it. You rate it. And if it it flies, you name it.