de ja what?

So here we are in the middle of packing up all our stuff again, for the seventh time in ten years. I have come to the unsurprising realisation that I hate all my stuff, and never wish to see it again. My husband keeps telling me not to throw things away. He caught me trying to toss my favourite pasta plates into the rubbish, so things are clearly not going to the usual plan.

I have, in the past, refused to let go of even my Fashion Plates, from when I was a wee kiddie of limited artistic ability but great ambition, so this is quite the turnaround.

The only thing that keeps me going (slowly) at stuffing things in boxes is the fun it might be opening them up in February when we find a place to live in Canberra. Although right now I am convinced that the gods of dramatic life-changes are frowning upon me and will return me to my rut with a kick in the rump for good measure.

I hope not.

Last time I moved interstate I packed up some stuff in some plastic bags, boarded the bus to Brisbane at Spencer Street Station in Melbourne, and found myself the cheapest, dumpiest house still standing to live in. That version left the Fashion Plates in storage for a long, long time, though. This time I'm hoping to be drawing up an 80s inspired fashion storm within months, at least.


Reading

Me: China Mieville short stories. They remind me of the husband's writing, although I am fairly sure they have not been holding an unofficial writers group from opposite sides of the planet. The one about the ball room at the thinly disguised IKEA store left me feeling badly spooked. That's what you get for hiding in the toilet to read when you should be packing boxes of crockery. Homewares will have their revenge, it seems.

Noodle: Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume. He was oddly unmoved by Fudge eating the turtle, although he is usually greatly distressed by this kind of thing (death, rather than ingestion of turtles. I'm not sure that he's experienced the ingestion of turtles before, either in reality or in fiction). I don't think I'm ever going to get to read him a whole book ever again. He sneakily wakes up early in the morning and finishes the whole novel after I've read one or two chapters out loud. It makes for peaceful mornings, but I was looking forward to serial reading for years to come. I borrowed Beezus and Ramona for him from the library. I suspect he's wishing he had a little brother or sister.