The Maroon Diaries

This year, for the first time since primary school when such lists were pretty much compulsory, I've kept a list of all the books I've read. I was inspired by the various blogs I was reading. Many bloggers were publishing their reading lists, and I really loved seeing everyone's lists. In fact, I have found several amazing, gorgeous books that I would not have ever heard of but for a mention on a blog I was reading. I thought it was such a good idea that I tried it too, and I must say, it has been very enjoyable to keep this list throughout the year. I like that I can now place exactly when I read a book, and compare it to other events happening in my life at the time. When I started by typing in the first title here, Love Times Three by the Darger Family , I immediately remembered laying on my bed, reading this book and listening to the sounds of the New Year's Eve revellers lurching around the streets outside. I remember that New Year's Day was hot, so I sta

It was a late night for the Maroon Household last night. Yesterday afternoon, Mr. CJ managed to bang his head hard enough to be concerned about a concussion. The thing to do in these situations, of course, is to keep the person awake for a decent amount of time, twelve hours being a pretty good rule of thumb. So we prepared our favourite caffeinated beverages and settled in for a late night. We watched Pirates of the Caribbean , and some Stargate SG-1 . I read my current library book, Hallucinations by Oliver Sacks , which caused me to occasionally open the computer to google things like interictal personality syndrome ,  palinopsia and  the relationship between spirituality and temporal lobe epilepsy . I kept an eye on Mr. CJ to make sure he wasn't falling asleep. He's fine, by the way, and didn't fare any worse than a nasty headache. Amongst all these noctural activities, I somehow had a thought, a memory, come to me quite strongly. I was thinking about a series of

I've travelled, and been to galleries, and studied the Masters and perused expensive art books, but after all my adventures, I must say that the most amazing art is often not found within these traditional boundaries. I love to notice and discover art in the wild, scrawled on city walls and stuck up with blu-tack in the most unexpected places. I discovered this piece of writing on such a scrap of paper, on the wall of the toilet in a share house in Scotts Head, New South Wales, and recorded it in my journal on August 17, 2000. The celebrity references clearly indicate its vintage. I have no idea who the author might be - if you think you might know who she is, or maybe who melina & giselle might be, I would love to hear from you. Alternative spellings are rendered true to the original. ***** REEL WIMMIN (inspired by melina & giselle, & Arnie movie bimbos) And I say 'fuck you, fuck you' to the smarmy smooth images of long-legged blonde bimbos, tottering m

Long, long, ago, when the world was young and humans were just getting themselves together as a species, people paid a lot of attention to changes in the natural world. It was necessary for survival. So they noticed that the days grew shorter each day. They watched the point at which the sun rose on the horizon, and noticed that it was a little further along each day. Then came a time when the night was terribly long and cold, and when the sun rose in the morning, it did so at the same point on the horizon as yesterday. Some people probably even worried that it was never going to come back. Maybe this was the end of the sun's life? There was no way of knowing back then. So they watched, and maybe they prayed and chanted, and on the third day, the point of sunrise was a little further out again, and the day was a little longer. The sun was on its way back, and the people rejoiced. There was no way of reckoning such back then, but by today's calendar, that day would have been Dec

I was lucky enough to get the chance to spend a week with one of my most favourite people, Littletree , and collect these sage and wonderful gems. ***** Littletree was a little overwhelmed by how big the airport was. Littletree: It's such a long way to walk from the building to the car. Me: Yeah, it is. Sorry about that. Littletree: Oh, don't apologise. It's not your fault. You didn't build this stupid place. ***** I had just told Littletree a cute, funny kid story about myself when I was five years old. The climax of the story involved me presenting my Nana and Pa each with a piece of fruit cake. Littletree loved the story, and laughed and smiled, and then became quite serious and thoughtful. Littletree: One day, if I become a grandmother... I had the feeling that she was about to make one of her profound pronouncements, and listened carefully. Littletree: ...I'm going to have to warn my grandchildren that I don't like fruit cake. *****

I'm the luckiest girl. My baby sister came to visit me! Well, she's not a baby any more of course. She's all grown up, with qualifications and a passport that has seen more stamps than the lady at the post office. She's so busy flitting around the world that this is her first visit in eight years! Yes, we are aware that we don't look much like sisters. We don't sound like sisters either. Aya has a posh London boarding school accent and I have an ocker drawl that grates even on my own ears. The short story is, we have different mothers, so technically we're half-sisters. For most of our lives we've lived in different countries, and if I added up all the hours we've actually spent physically together, it wouldn't come to much. But there's more than that with us. We've always had a connection, regardless of time and space. We are spirit sisters, perhaps more than kin. We are both always a part of each other, even when we don't c