sardonicsmile

My favourite telephone exchange at work of late:

Caller – I’m looking for a book. The author’s name is C.W. and his surname is spelt J-U-N-G. The book is called “The Interpretation of Dreams”.

Me – Hang on a sec, just looking it up. Sorry we don’t have the book in stock here… let me look it up in the State Library catalogue…

Oh, there’s an “Interpretation of Dreams”, but its by Sigmund Freud…

Caller – I think I must hang up the phone and check my information, I think I’ve got the wrong psychoanalyst here, and I’ll have to keep on dreaming…

Maybe that’s what I”m doing too, just dreaming along. I certainly feel this way, as if I have no bearing on where I am at the moment.

I’ve been trying to organise my thoughts more with the help of Evernote, which Intrepid Girl Reporter gave such a rap in her blog that I thought I’d give it another go. And its been what I needed, so I can detail everything with images and links and words. Things I’m thinking of buying, ideas I have, scraps of words.

I’ve been considering possible travel next year too, so I’m clipping pages online.

I never really tire of Hong Kong – I’m thinking about going for my fourth time. I’m fascinated by the way it mixes insipid popular culture with societal concerns, so you end up having some pretty pop star presiding over an unrelated event about site safety. On the other hand, people feel strongly about voicing their opinion in a state essentially governed by China. Protesting grandmas are a common sight. Hong Kong has its high art aspirations, which are really commercialisations, and its lowbrow obsession with the trendy sneaker. Watching Cantonese cable tv every night when I come home doesn’t hurt my image of the place either.

Speaking of which, I am currently engrossed in the series Beyond the Realm of Conscience. The serial is covered in angry, scheming women, who exercise their power behind the scenes. And the costuming really brings out the characters, an exaggerated olden day Chinese style with elaborate updos and multicoloured clothing. Makeup on men sneaks in occasionally, which I haven’t seen since the early 80s. So I guess there isn’t anything ordinary about their lives in general, no hiding behind plainness or anything.

Another thing I have to recommend is what I’m typing this on right now, aka WriteRoom. Silly concept really, make somebody type on a black screen with green writing like in the days of MS DOS, remove all Twitter, browser, video, Photobooth, webpage distractions and hope that they’ll actually write more productively. As a destructively distracted multitasker, I have to say this is the only way this blog entry could be produced at the moment.

Other things I’m looking forward to: bagels from Lawleys, eating a filet-o-fish, the next episode of Vampire Diaries.