It's not a cry you can hear at night, it's not somebody who's seen the light...

Still no running water, though people on this side of town are starting to get it back so this gives me hope we'll have it soon. Our stores are still going strong though. We even have five bottles of our original stash left, and we've been boiling up the stuff we got from across the road. I am so glad it's there so we can replace what we've been using. If this goes on much longer we would have run out and we stockpiled water like mad. It just goes to show that even when you do prepare, sometimes it's not enough.

So. Guys. If you can? Have emergency kits. Even if you live in a place where you think they won't be necessary. We used to think they weren't absolutely necessary here even though we had one, because the dangerous fault lines were in Wellington and on the West Coast, not in Christchurch. And then a previously unknown fault ruptured. You just never know. If you're someone who can afford an emergency kit (and please know I completely understand that not everyone can), it's responsible to have one. It means emergency rations of food provided by whatever disaster relief happens to be around can go to the people who can't afford to have an emergency kit in a disaster and who need it far more, instead of getting used up on people who should and could have been more careful. It's just goddamn socially responsible, okay? It's caring about your fellow human beings while taking care of yourself too.

Put some tinned food and toilet paper and no-wash anti-bacterial hand cleaner and batteries and flashlights/torches and candles and matches and blankets and anything else you think you might need (including pet food) in your kit. And keep clean water around and replace it often (use the old stuff to water the garden or wash the car or...something). Hell, in Melbourne a couple of years ago, some kind of plant exploded and it left part of the city without electricity and running water for days and that was just a random malfunction without any natural disaster cause. So be prepared. Please. Be as prepared as you can be. The ability to have extra food lying around in case of an emergency is a luxury and if you can, please just do it.

Sorry. Preachy. But I can tell you first-hand how important this is. Never assume this doesn't apply to you. Be safe, lovelies. Gosh, this isn't even what I came here to do. I was going to talk about how I can't write fiction because it feels so utterly useless at the moment. And I got on my soapbox instead. Oh well.

I used to spend my life in my high school theatre. There were days I could be at school from 8 in the morning until 9-10 at night. I didn't drive until I was 21 because instead of taking driver's ed, I was doing everything I possibly could in that theatre. I ate, slept and breathed that place.

When I was in my final year of high school and I was on my way to rehearsal when I saw a little girl in the hallway behind the theatre, crying. She was about eight and I went over to her to ask what was wrong. She said her mother was supposed to pick her up a half an hour before that (why she was being picked up at a high school when she was 8, I still do not know) and she was scared that her mother had been in a car accident. I asked if her mother had a cell phone and she nodded, so I led the poor girl through to the speech office so she could try calling her mother.

When there was no answer, and the girl started crying again, I told her we should go out to where she was supposed to be picked up and I would wait with her.

I ended up waiting with her for nearly 45 minutes. I kept her calmer than she probably would have been by talking about stupid things and telling her ridiculous stories about myself and my very strange friends. Her mother eventually came by and the girl hugged me and they went on their way. I have no idea why the mother was late, or what happened, but I never saw the girl again and I don't remember her name.

What I do remember, was that I was late to my rehearsal. I knew I would be, and since one of the advantages of my crazy brain is that it traps things inside its cage of memory, I had the entire play memorized already so I figured it would be okay. The director wasn't pleased however, and he informed me of this. I told him I had been waiting with a scared, little girl, and he asked me why that was my responsibility.

You know...if that's how you think, then I guess it wasn't. My responsibility was to my cast mates and my director and despite the fact that I was never late before and always went above and beyond to help and be do whatever I could to move the production forward, I was still late this time and that had inconvenienced people. I still feel like the right thing to do was to stay with the poor girl. What about my responsibility to help out another human being; to care for someone who was scared and alone? If I had been that scared little girl, I would hope someone would have extended the same kindness to me. I just apologized and we got on with it, but I never really forgot that.

I'm not someone who can pass people by. Which is why I am the one who ends up sitting with the homeless person on the street who passed out and hit their head on the pavement so hard they are bleeding into their eyes, while they wait (for over an hour) for the ambulance to come. The amount of people who walked by that day, averting their eyes so they didn't have to see, makes me feel ashamed. I don't ever want to be that kind of person. It's why I'm doing what I'm doing, despite the fact that I am not okay. The helping people is as natural as breathing. It's not going out of my way, because helping people is my way. It's everything else that's the problem. Forcing myself to leave my home, when it's the only place that I feel safe. Forcing myself to talk to people, even though I'm terrified of it. All that functioning as if I don't panic about every little thing, that's the hard part. It makes me feel like I have no right to act like I could actually help. I feel barely human. Sometimes I feel like giving up. But I won't. I can't. I'm taking responsibility. I just wish it wasn't so hard.

Alison was supposed to go to bed but she just came out here to get a drink and there is no way that we could possibly ever explain the conversation that just occurred between us, but it was epic hilarity though it was the kind where you had to be there and now my stomach hurts from laughing. It was pure ridiculousness and we both laughed so hard, and I feel like I might vomit.

And then I thought, "you know what? I think I feel like this at least once a day." I think living in a house where you laugh so hard you think you might vomit at least once a day is pretty damn awesome, no matter what else is going on in my messed up little world.

Long live the LFoD and all it's denizens, past and present!

EDIT: For more examples of why the LFoD is the greatest place on Earth, I present Alison's Overheard in the LFoD tag in her journal which is chock full of hilarity and quotes.

My head hurts from laughing.

I was looking up Tim Minchin photos on Google because, you know, I do that all the time now. And I found one of him in the RMIT theatre I believe he booked for the 2005 Melbourne Comedy Festival gig where the lady from Edinburgh saw him which jumpstarted his career. And I was looking at the photo and there's a sign in it that says 'Swanston Street' and it made me so homesick for Melbourne.

Damn you, Tim Minchin! ...I take it back, I love you forever.

That theatre was where we went to go see Chris' movie premiere and that is the street the beautiful bathhouses are on and Melbourne Central where the movies live. And that stupid fountain right in front of this theatre that looks like a post box and with the water shortages it can't run anyway most of the time. Which is fine. It's ass ugly. (EDIT: AHAHHA I found a photo which makes it look all fancy. It's nice. And even in the photo it's still just a square with water coming out. Usually there's garbage floating in it. Lovely.)

It's such a weird feeling being homesick for a place. I have never really been homesick for the US, despite missing the people. This time, it's kind of the other way around (PLEASE DO NOT TAKE OFFENCE TO THIS, seriously, I miss the people, but you are not my family) and I miss the place a lot. I do not miss water restrictions and overcrowded trains and rampant dinnertime racism and I am like...200% happier here. I love Christchurch. I love New Zealand. I still miss Melbourne.

( So here. Have a little bit of Lara's Melbourne! )

I love this house.

♥

That is all.

The other night was one of the loveliest nights of my life. And even in my eventful and sometimes messed-up life there have been many fantastic ones, so this is saying something.

Woot texted asking if we watched to watch the sunset on the beach. The LFoD was watching Queer as Folk and eating, so we had to finish that of course (Brian Kinney says so) and so we ended up leaving just at sunset. The sky was brilliantly orangey-red and incredible and by the time we got to Sumner beach, it was darkish. Sumner Beach looks like THIS except the tide was out so you could walk all the way out past that nearly submerged rock out there.

For those of you who have not seen me on a beach, I regress to a ball of child-like joy. I grew up, at least in part, on the ocean. Wellllll on the Puget Sound, and we spent a lot of summers in Oregon and California. The ocean owns my soul. I ran into the water, not too deep because it's freezing, and played in the surf. And you see that big rock with the mast thingy on top of it? That has a cave under it, so we went into the cave and them climbed up to the top of the rock, meaning I faced two fears. The dark, and heights. And while we were up there, people were playing with sparklers and I didn't panic. HAH!

But...it was so beautiful, you guys. It was misty and the lights on the hill were SO pretty and it was warm and wonderful and just... kind of like this but darker and mistier and AWESOMER.

And since I had faced three fears, we figured why not another one. Woot drove us out to Lyttleton via the tunnel (AUGH) and we looked around there. It was lovely and peaceful and full of joy and RENT songs and laughter. Sometimes the simplest things are the best things.

Today I visited a Dylan Moran forum I hadn't been to since commenting in early October. Too many assignments. ANYWAY I found the most lovely comment ever. So I took a screencap.

( It made me all warm on the inside )

This is the same thread someone else was fangirling over Darker London and Peter on a while back. I made a post, but I have no idea where it is now. I love this group of people. They are so wonderful and supportive and awesome and that comment just made my freaking week.

So I dedicated a Dylan Moran bases post to them over on burlesque_show :D

EDIT: OMG MY GOD I didn't even think to check my inbox there! This has been there since MARCH or something... I feel so bad for not noticing but it seriously made me SOB with happiness.

( ILY )

There is a lot to be said when someone actually listens to you. It's nice to be heard.

What is also nice is Alina in a dress.

...that sounded creepy. But we were trying on clothes and... Anyway, she looked lovely! I tried on some of Leah's old clothes. A shirt with a sequiny EAGLETHING on it and a beanie. I looked SO hardcore, man. The beanie was TEAL. Because I be FO' REAL!

...that was hideous and I belong in a corner under a dunce cap.

Today we learned about the Humanist approach to therapy and person-centered focus, and despite the fact that Carl Rogers just looks like Junior Soprano which was REALLY distracting, I found the entire thing fascinating.



I really like this comic from the Australian illustrator Leunig. Because really, this is what I do. My experiences and traumas and feelings and issues and whatever else is what made me go to Vienna. It's what made me leave behind a country I didn't fit in to. It sent me to Australia and then, when I felt I had to get out, it sent me on a worldwide trip which saw me make another move less than six months later. Acknowledging these experiences and feelings and whatever else has always, I think, been something I've been good at. It's always been something I have used. So even with as many anxiety issues as I have, I can still do the things I do.

Feel the fear. Do it anyway.

That is not to say I am better than anyone else, nor is it to say that everyone should or could do this; not at all. Some people can't feel the fear and do it anyway, and that is not their fault. Everyone is different. Still, it's a strength I am suddenly seeing in myself, and eventually I hope to help other people acknowledge their own strengths and help them to walk their own paths.

Sure, it sounds wanky and cliche, but I really can't wait.

♥

I was feeling down today (LONG story) so I decided to do something constructive to take the feeling away (social work training, oy) so I wanted to make a post of all the photos of people and places and things that mean something to me. And when I started to plan it, I realised just how long it would be if I put everyone into it. And that made me feel so amazing, you have no idea...

I did it anyway deciding I would only use photos I have taken myself (or by my family since I wasn't at the reunion to take those and I didn't take the ones of me as a kid, but you get the point!) to cut down on spamming random Hugh Jackman pictures ;). Not everyone that should be here is including my friends in Australia. Woot, Peter, Laura and Ness, I have no (not blurry) photos of you!! And there are other friends who aren't on here, but be that as it may, here it is. Some of my happy things.

( To me you are perfect )