Temples of Love

companion to this post, mostly written on the plane on 25th December 2024; posted online 14th May 2025

13:19 - somewhere above the grain belt; the flight boarded on time, and it was about 13:09 when we actually took off. I've very clearly seen Mundaring Dam, which is not something I've previously managed. And we've just had a notification that the flight is already running 20 minutes ahead of schedule, which, what??? we are literally 20 minutes past the 'departure time'.

Looking out the window, there is a lot of brown of cleared paddocks, and the odd bit of very dark green of uncleared eucalypts. I'm sharing the row (3 seats) with one person, who has moved on to the end (I have the window) and is planning to sleep. This is their second of three flights, having got off shift at 6am this morning in Karratha, and heading for Aotearoa - apparently there wasn't a direct option, and this managed to be cheaper anyway.

I've a book in Libby that I started in the aeroport (Thyla by Kate Gordon) and one I started yesterday (Murder in the Groove by Dave Warner) which I might swap to if this one becomes a little stressful - it is a YA about a teen who is amnesiac, found in the bush, and has now been put into a boarding school where she can pick that there are undercurrents of Something Going On, but not what. The alternative is a 'low stakes' murder mystery, by which I mean that there have been a couple of deaths, I now expect some faffing around plot, and nothing that requires me to spend a lotof time focusing.

(And, because I need to at least do some writing on the 'how I'm thinking' - what I have at this point is that I'm going to arrive at Brisbane about 7pm local (so just over 4 hours, which what?). I'm using the cane, so I'm going to sit quietly while everyone else rushes out, then toddle off slowly. I've a checked bag (and went for 'absolutely everything I can in the checked bag') so I'll have to wait for that. Lots of people are going to be more in a rush than I. And I'm using the cane (and really needing it). This is a 737, and we didn't have an air bridge - I didn't realise that they use the smaller craft for this particular route. I'm in 15A, which is one row behind the middle exit rows, which does make for harder to see, but as I don't have a route map screen, eh, not such a problem. I should try and remember that for future when I'm flying during the day, because I do like looking.

And then I have details of trains from Youngest, and I have to message repeatedly. Meh. I could do without W being a fuss-budget, but I'm also okay with just doing as requested. And now I'm off to read more of my book.)

13:58 - lunch was reasonable, although I'm still hungry. Slightly flavoured / yellow rice with ?sultanas in it, some rather under AND overcooked green beans, and then what I think was beef in a nicely flavoured gravy, which appeared to have capsicum in it. I've taken a red wine, and drunk a couple of mouthfuls - I might have another bit later, or save it for a bit. I've also ended up with two water bottles, which I probably won't drink both of - not particularly thirsty at this point. And now, back to the book (which is okay, in a limited way, for a YA boarding school story with fantastical elements)

14:13 - still over land; but not tilled land any more. Quite sparse vegetation most of where I can see; I think we are roughly over the divide between that and the more dense vegetation closer to the coast, because if I peer oddly out the window I can see the shading from one to the other.

14:33 - mostly all I can see out the window is cloud, which makes me think we are over water. Fortunately, there is free wifi, and i can use it to load google maps. We are over the Bight, maybe half way between Eucla and Yalata.

(I might be the only person on the flight wearing a mask. That is disappointing. Especially as I wouldn't count myself as being truly cautious, given that I've taken it off for food, then coffee, and then a bit of water. sigh. Had my half a cup of dodgy airline coffee with the sugar that came with my cutlery, and it was horrendously too sweet; I figured I needed the energy / calories)

14:55 and we are back over crop land - google maps says due east of Ceduna, north of the highway. So just out of crop land - and actually, now I look out again, no cropping. Maps says we are over Pureba Conservation Park. There is an enormous salt pan visible, not sure if it has a name on the map, but this is labelled Pinjarra Station. Not convinced that we are showing up as at quite the right place on the map, which I guess makes sense, because we are a long way up; the salt pan that I can see to the north/left of us is showing up as south of us on the map.

18:08 - we've changed time zones (I connected the phone to the wifi, which means it is updating time as we go; just about at the NSW border, checking settings it is Adelaide time; which I think makes it 30 minutes ahead of Brisbane, because on the half hour, plus daylight savings? You'd think I'd know these kinds of things)

Adding on the next day - after landing, it was a bit of a slog (collect luggage, train, rail replacement bus, train, collected by youngest, car) but it all came together nicely so there wasn't time to sit and write, even if I'd felt like getting the ipad out.

The accommodation is nice, much more swish than I'd allowed for, and full kitchen plus washing facilities.

I've been procrastinating a lot on making this update. Tuesdays aren't the best of days for it, but I like the idea of sticking with actual full weeks. Letting it slide to Wednesday kind of works, but then it slides another day, and suddenly 'next Tuesday' sounds like a better idea. Which is why I'm cramming three weeks into one post

work - declaring this category done. It isn't a job I've got, but more study, just as soon as I get the paperwork done. And, more importantly, a scholarship.

craft - the 100 days 'finish WIPs' is in progress, and going well. I've finished another item that counts towards the 12 in 12 months, bringing me to 5/12 (I'm being somewhat picky about which projects count here).

reading - I'm not looking at the storygraph; I'm thinking that those goals will be met, and I can care about it later in the year. I've now read 2/20 books acquired so far this year, although I suspect that the list is incomplete.

house - I've been making large strides on 'make the library useable', mostly by trashing other sections of the house. I'm going to be moving stuff that is to be rehomed in there, because it has to be easier than what I have going on. The towel rail for the bathroom has moved from 'aspirational' to 'in progress'; it is getting double counted because it is listed in the 100 days of craft. The verandah isn't uncluttered enough for the swing lounge to be used on the verandah, but it has been cleared. As has the swing lounge, which as long as it isn't going to rain, I have set up out in the sun, and sat on to read a book today. I have removed the note that says 'make this a better list' because I don't have any other ideas to add at this point. If I finish the existing list, I can revisit.

music - because my right shoulder is giving me a lot of grief, I've only been playing recorder. I have, however, got through Malle Symon once without faltering (not without wrong notes though), but probably too slow. I'm struggling to maintain the starting speed, and am going to have to drag out the metronome. The Bach solo treble sonata isn't a disaster all the way through any more, although I still hate the third movement with the power of the sun.

learning - the 'do something from the drawing book' is working; the original goal was once a week, I've been aiming for every day at the moment, but that isn't doable. I haven't worked out how to balance that out.

family and friends - these are still aspirational and I haven't set any goals other than spend time with people.

physical / exercise - I've stalled out on Parkrun, because I hate dealing with mornings, and they wipe me out for much of the rest of the day, and I keep having other things on Saturdays. I'm also thinking that going back to skating class would be good, and if I do that Saturday it clashes with Parkrun. So ????. The 'going to bed before 11pm' is failing, but I've got a number of experiments going about how to improve that. Also, not in the goals list, but I'm also working on getting up earlier. The somewhat better pain management that has come about from saying to the doctor that one of the issues was sometimes having issues sleeping because of pain is (I think) causing better sleep, and I wake up more rested, and thus getting up somewhat earlier. Not the 7am I want to be, but I have hopes.

organisation - yeah, some of this is progressing, in tiny increments, and I don't want to think about it.

writing - journalling going well, blogging a bit erratic but I'm okay with that. I've given up on the 'write it in Shiny' goal, and appreciate the people who gave suggestions on other code bases to try. I haven't done that, but it might happen. I keep forgetting about neocities.

garden - other than plans for seedlings (I bought trays) and a tiny bit of sweeping, this is in stasis. The perpetual pruning calendar is about to be urgent, so I've moved it to the active to do list.

money - I've finally started tracking money in gnucash. I gave up reading the information, and I'm learning by stuffing up. Fortunately, I have a live in accountant (in training) who I've bounced several ideas off. Such as 'I have no idea what that payment was, how do I track it' and 'argh, that statement is missing, how do I implement a temporary fix that will need dealing with later?'. There is a lot of data entry in my future, and I've been slacking (I have all the mortgage data from 2019 to end 2024, which is the last 6 monthly statement; I learned that we all-but-paid it off earlier than I've been claiming).

It is the tenth, and thus 10% of the way through the current project. I have finished two projects, and progressed several.

Finished

1. Tie dye pillow case for Youngest
2. Lap quilt (assembled from pieces their mother embroidered) for chaosmanor

Good progress

1. bathroom towel rail - bought stain (not the right one, too late now), three coats of stain, found the fittings.
2. door mats - tie dyed the previously torn strips; have sewn many together; started ironing. There are still as many to sew together, and I regret deciding to iron them. The ironed sections are wound into a ball that is about 15cm in diameter.
3. teach myself to draw - after the first two books were a bust, Drawing for the Absolute Beginner by Carole Massey is going okay. I hate this stage of the process, and each bit of sitting and drawing is a fight with myself to just sit and enjoy, and not try and rush through it to be done, but I think it is getting easier. I don't like the drawings I'm producing, and I still haven't any clue how to take the skills and use them elsewhere, but I have hopes that that will come with time. And there are more drawing books out there, I can just keep going (or go through this one multiple times until some of it starts to feel natural).

There are some other projects that are quite close to done, and if I could just sit and watch a movie, I might get the pink/white/brown blanket done (needs the ends sewn in), and the basket of hand sewing tasks dealt with, which would be another two done.

I'm being tempted to abandon task 'get CV up to date' now that I don't need it (assuming the next bit of hoop jumping works) but ah, that would be bad. It needs to have regular attention, and I know that, I just ... hate doing it.

I'm still wombling through The Artist's Way, but rather slowly and with complete lack of care. I'm doing the daily reflection / morning pages / 750 words in the mornings (for a value of mornings that sometimes includes 1pm) and finding it really useful. Having said that, my current process is that I do the stream of consciousness writing (which doesn't feel that different from anything else I write, because I hear everything I write as spoken) in the 750words.com window, but flip to a separate document every time it triggers a to-do list item. This means that I can keep to the spirit of not going back and reading through, while not losing all those stray tasks that will otherwise be forgotten.

In terms of the activities at the end of each chapter, eh, I'm not doing a fabulous job on those. But the goal is to get through slowly, allowing time for each section to settle, rather than push myself, so I'm okay with that.

But. Artist Dates. A 'big thing' that Julia Cameron goes on about at length early on, and which I've really not got a hang of before this week. I haven't really been able to work out how to implement them. They are supposed to be an on-your-own, go somewhere and do something enjoyable and possibly relaxing. I haven't been able to work out where in my life that fits.

This week, I've achieved two attempts, and so I think I have an idea of what it is that I want to be doing. In the first, Youngest needed a lift to uni for a one hour session in the late afternoon. I dropped them off, drove to a nearby bit of remnant bush, and walked the 700m loop. I then sat down near the entrance, on a bench in the sun and the still, and read some of a book. It was quiet, it was peaceful, there was no reason to do anything else. I had a couple of dogs come and say hello as they and their people came past, but otherwise was uninterrupted. I felt relaxed and like I'd done something good for myself.

Today, I tried going for lunch and then to do some of the wandering around in shops that I used to like doing. I still like the wandering around, and I came home with a set of useful things (seedling trays. floor mats. the wood stain I needed. a throwaway paint brush. the bucket I promised to look for). But the place I went for lunch wasn't peaceful, and getting service took effort (I stood at the doorway next to the 'please wait to be seated' sign for nearly five minutes). I had my laptop with me, so was reading on that rather than a book. And thus when I got to the wandering I wasn't settled.

Hypotheses: I need to be somewhere with few people. I need to read a book, not a device. Outdoor walking is better than indoor walking. It doesn't have to be a long walk, but some amount of exercise is a necessary part, and it needs to happen before the sitting. Specifying a sitting time and making myself stay there is going to be necessary (say, an hour). No value adding.

I have two test ideas to try. The first is that there is a garden setting cafe near Bibra Lake - if I go there and sit and drink coffee / eat cake / read a book, will that work (I can walk a bit at the lake? I'm not sure on that one). The second is to go to the beach and walk along a bit, then sit and exist.

Overall: yes, this is finding me time that isn't at home, because when that happens I'm working on tasks, even if they are fun tasks. Walking a short distance is not a task. Reading a book in the sun is not a task.

In theory, Tuesday is housework day. In practice, while I was up at 8am (yay) because Youngest called to get me to turn the parking app on on my phone (kind of yay; so very glad that I randomly mentioned to Youngest yesterday the co-worker who used to get a call from their partner to turn the app on, so that when Youngest's phone flaked out this morning they thought to call me from the laptop once they were in wifi range...before paid parking starts for the day), I've not done that much. Because about half eight the wifi went out and then there were Shenanigans attempting to get access to the account. Oddly enough, I can't get the account number from the online toolbox when we don't have wifi, and it *isn't on the email receipts*.

And then I was grumpy.

So, I'm giving myself a sequence of itty bitty tasks. Following yesterday's lose all the tabs / grab back what I can, I'm going to try and close a stack of tabs. At the moment, I have five windows with a total of 393 tabs open. Some of these are duplicates because they are the ones I succeeded in recovering (roughly 160). Some are from a 'temporary' group that I'd forgotten existed (the oldest tab was from two years ago) (roughly 80). I want to have closed the vast majority of those by lunch time. Chances: two. (Buckleys, none). But at the very least I can put some of those into Things for 'later'.

I'm having a day of attempting to resolve some tech things, some of which should be trivial, and some of which aren't / weren't.

• success: both ipad and laptop now get the new email address
• success: I have now correctly saved the email address for webmail, so I can check that again
• success: updated the laptop OS
• current: updating ipad OS
• fail: lost all windows in Safari except for three; one of which opened up duplicates of a tab group. Some of those tabs needed to be open. Most of the tabs I need were in tab groups, and can be recovered that way. But dammit, I don't want to do that

And on not tech

• went on a womble in a bit of remnant bit of bushland over near where I used to work
• because I drove Youngest to uni so that they could have their last face to face meeting as part of a program to upskill academics about remote students.
• success: the kitchen table is clear except for table cloth and placemats. This was the last of the bits and bobs from family dinner on Saturday cleared up and then the table returned to small mode.
• dead-headed the lavender bush so I now have a small pile of very dry lavender (plus some green leaves) and a much tidier looking bush.

not done include the music practice I had planned, the sensible things that needed doing before 10am but I didn't get my shit together for

So, those following the Seattle WorldCon news will presumably have seen that they used a LLM* to 'vet' panelist applicants. This goes so far into WTAF NO! category that I'm a) very glad I hadn't paid for a supporting membership and b) unlikely to get one now.

The main reason I get a supporting membership is Hugos - I like to read (or listen to) as much as possible (and the voters packet is a wonderful wonderful feature of the modern world), and I like to be involved in voting.

I'm going to regret the lack of being involved. But not getting involved / giving the con my money is the right thing for me to do. I can see no use case where a LLM is the right choice for this. Not least because of the known issues with bias and hallucinations. I've seen a fauxpology, but nothing that makes me think that the concom have a clue about why this was an issue. I do not think that there is an outcome that will cause me to change my mind, but maybe when I'm not blindingly angry about the general stupidity of humanity on the topic of AI (here meaning artificial ignorance)

* it may have been specified which one; the report I read might have said but I'm not going back to check