The end

You may have noticed a silence from this part of the blogosphere lately. It’s a combination of reasons, not least that it started being a chore. I’ve realised after two and a half years and a lot of words, it’s time to say goodbye.

To an extent, this blog has served its purpose. Brisvegas feels like home now. I’ve put my fingerprints around here and there, I have friends and family and a little nest to call my own, a job that sustains my brain and my desire for pretty shoes, and in the most hackneyed and cliched way possible, the love of the most awesome man in the world (and lots of sex – that part’s good too).

So, farewell, all you lovely people who have read my words and commented and made me feel part of a big, clever and wonderful community. I’ll still be around – I have no intention of giving up my addiction to rss – but no more sherdieinbrisvegas. I’ve loved this blogging life; I wouldn’t have kept going otherwise. I have no doubt that I’ll miss it, sooner or later, and come back seeking forgiveness and readmittance to the fold.

But in the meantime, I didn’t want to leave things hanging. So.

The end.

La dolce vita

Sorry it’s been a bit quiet around here lately. I’m in Rome, just about to start heading south towards Amalfi. GigPig and I are having quite the nice time, thanks for asking.

Regular programming to resume after mid-May. In the meantime, go and enjoy a walk in the sunshine. It’s what I’ve been doing.

In other news

That other thing?

I really don’t want to say too much. But it’s good. Better than good. The world has changed colour.

Connections

I’ve been thinking a lot about the nature of friendship. What does history add to the tensile strength of the connection between two people, and is the weight of years enough to hold it together when everything else has eroded? Love, respect, guilt and obligation and their effect on the breaking strain.

Alby’s in town and has been my partner in these rambling chats. She makes it clear for me, ‘It’s the past. The past is important. But it’s the past.’

Coming to terms with changing connections as you move through life: learning to enjoy it for what it is, or was; understand it forms a part of who you are; and let it go when it has come to its end, without regret or sadness.

The sadness is unavoidable though, isn’t it?

Shake it, shake it, shake it like a polar bear bit ya

I forgot to mention Miff and I went to karaoke the other night, and it was gold, and we sang often and loudly, and I had bruises on my hand from the tambourine the next day. I *think* we sang Hey Ya, but I’m not sure, but in any case I’ve been humming our version of the lyrics for the last couple of days.

Which is good, because I haven’t been doing much else. Did you know you can buy an enormous tub of powerade powder and it’s a lot cheaper than buying the same thing diluted in water? Apparently it’s good for active people and sporting teams. Also good for sick people who think gastrolyte tastes like arse. Blackcurrant-flavoured arse is still arse. Although, after your fourth blue-flavoured powerade, you start thinking that a different flavour might be alright. And then you remember that the different flavour is ARSE, and you change your mind.

So, what else happened? Well, I became one of those people who needs to sit on a random bench on the side of the road and take a break on the ten minute walk back from the shop. Then again, I was carrying an enormous tub of powerade powder. Up a very steep hill oh, ok, slight gradient.

I have the attention span of a gnat. The intertubes tell me this is because my brain is lacking nutrients. Today I’ve consumed some rice and about twice my own body weight in, you guessed it, blue powerade. I keep finding myself with a pounding heart and shaking hands. Leading to the singing. Hilarious.

It’s not all illness and blue food colouring though. I’m feeling a lot better than yesterday, and let’s not even think about the day before. I’m about to eat some chicken and vegies for dinner, which is pretty exciting. The passing resemblance I’ve been cultivating to Skeletor won’t take long to get rid of, and fingers crossed, I’ll be hale and hearty by tomorrow night. Which is important. Because I’ll be seeing someone who makes my heart pound and my hands shake. But in a good way.

Lay me low

There’s a lurgy going around the ‘vegas and it’s come to visit at my place. It’s all grated apples, plain rice and weak black tea around here at the moment. The lurgy is mostly under control and limited to making my stomach feel like I slipped some razorblades into my plain rice (mmm, steely). I haven’t eaten anything much since Saturday, which doesn’t sound like so long ago to you, but that’s most likely because you’ve eaten since then. I’m so hungry I could eat my entire fridge, but then I’d get the razorblade thing again. Vicious cycle.

But that’s ok, because in general, kids, life is sweet.

My gorgeous Miff came for a visit on the weekend and took me out for cosmopolitans and Turkish food. The drinks cost more than dinner because neither of us was very hungry – even though I hadn’t really eaten all day (looking back it’s because I was starting to get sick) (although that’s probably also me trying to excuse my fairly spectacular drunkenness later in the evening and corresponding extreme hangover the next day).

I’ve been thinking about activation energy. It’s one of my favourite concepts. In a chemical reaction, there’s a little energy speed bump to be overcome before the reaction can go ahead. I like it because I like the idea of catalysts, which basically make the speed bump lower, and there are parallels outside of chemistry in all sorts of things. Like relationships between people.

Before you write that off as a product of my glucose-starved brain, let me give you an example. Meeting a stranger, and meeting the friend of a friend. The difference is that your mutual friend is a catalyst, lowering the activation energy for friendship. It’s not a very radical idea, but I was reminded of it when I introduced Miff and MsG over drinks.

That’s all I got. I’m going to go and concentrate on not throwing up now. Thanks for your time.

Lazy Sunday baking: Lan’s white chocolate, coconut and macadamia biscuits

Last Christmas, the four QKC girls decided on a handmade-only deal for presents.

Lan, being a dab hand at all things bakery, made us these biscuits. Mine were the victim of an unfortunate post office incident in which they sat, uncollected, until after the new year had come and gone… and they were still the best damn biscuits I’ve ever tasted. I’ve since made them a few times to rave reviews. I believe the secret is the love I put into them… or maybe the four different types of fat in the oil, chocolate, macadamia nuts and coconut.

Ingredients
1 1/3 cups macadamia nuts, roasted, chopped or smashed into chunks
1 egg
3/4 cup soft brown sugar
2 tbsp white sugar
1 tsp vanilla essence
1/2 cup oil
1/2 cup plain flour
1/4 cup self-raising flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup shredded coconut
3/4 cup white chocolate bits

Method
1) Beat the egg and sugars in a bowl until light and fluffy.

Lan uses an electric beater. Me, I just have the old hand powered one. Still works good, but. This is using my hott salad bowl/small mixing bowl (I’m all about multi-use utensils… or perhaps I don’t own a “mixing bowl” as such).

Note this is a doubled batch.

2) Add vanilla and oil, mix well.

3) Stir in the sifted flours, cinnamon, coconut, macadamias and chocolate, and mix well.

Mmmm, chunky. Tastes pretty good at this stage as well.

This is after I’d realised that a double batch meant twice the volume and transferred the mixture to my rice cooker/medium mixing bowl.

4) Put in fridge for 30 mins.

5) Preheat oven to 180C.

6) Put spoonfuls on biscuit tray or similar.

The debut of my $2 shop silicone biscuit sheet. I was a little bit worried but as you can see, it worked just like a bought one.

That’s not chocolate on the right there, but a slightly over-roasted macadamia nut chunk. I got distracted while I was roasting them. I like to call it ‘caramelised’.

7) Bake for 12-15 mins, depending on how chewy/crispy you like your biscuits.

8) Allow to cool on trays (stops them cracking).

9) Eat.

I’m off to dinner at a friend’s house. I’m taking these and the smugness that comes with a good biscuit recipe.

Pause

One of the tricky things with personal blogs is the gap between the moment as lived and the moment as written.

Meaning, I live it as a single point in time surrounded by many other points. For whatever reason, I decide to write about that point, or that thought, which elevates it to a declaration of my general state of mind. When really, it’s just a moment, written down.

This boils down to: don’t worry about me based on a single sooky/ emo/ angsty post. If I’m actually sad, I shut down and go away from people. So if I’m writing here, I’m fine. Sometimes things snag in my mind and the way to get rid of them is to take a good look at them by capturing them in words on a page. Then they’re sorted, largely forgotten even – it’s the end of the process for me. But I forget those things are still here, and you, reading them, are seeing them as fresh and new.

If you (lovely, caring people around me) remember that, I’ll try not to use this space quite so much as cheap therapy and cause you unnecessary concern. Deal?

Not that some individual moments aren’t important too. Like the moment when you pause and think, “wow, that’s the most beautiful smile. I could spend a lot of time looking at that smile.”

Don’t even ask me yet. I’ll tell you when there’s something to tell.

Umiyuki

Here’s the filmclip for American-born singer Jero‘s song Umiyuki.

He promised his Japanese grandmother he’d become a famous enka singer.

He’s just broken some chart records in Japan with his debut single. (via tokyomango)

I promised my Japanese grandmother I’d call her on Sunday.

I forgot.

He wins.

sans grenadine

The talented trio Damo, Fflur and Simone, masquerading as sans grenadine, have launched their myspace page: check it.

Sweet acoustic pop indeed. Cure for your angsty soul (is that a ukelele?).