finding a healthy level of homeostasis is part of the journey of self knowledge

I wonder how often people feel like they are on an optimum level of homoeostasis? I feel like I am unbalanced 85% of the time. I feel like I often can't respond adequately to what people are staying because my I am not absorbing what they are saying properly because I might be mentally blocked or tired. Or else, if I am supposed to do a task, like writing an article, my concentration is really limited and I end up doing really gross things like checking my email 15 times in 5 minutes. Or else, I will experience some random health issue (like I've had stomach cramps for the last few days and thus haven't eaten much and so was vaguing out all day) Maybe part of the solution is increasing iron intake. I could just eat a can of dog food since that would have high levels of offal and offal has lots of iron in it.

Today, I drove out of town with some people who are organising the festival that's happening this weekend. This was an episode of total reticence on my part, which I have to admit is becoming repetitive and tiresome. I am wondering whether the grounding and stilling of internal energies every morning is making me too stony. Maybe I am misunderstanding the practise of energy grounding. I am going to swing my arms around 100 times in the outdoor shower tomorrow morning to see if I can be more animated around others during the day.

I have to share with you all, my love of the bucket shower and thank Phoebe for this grand idea. I have now perfected the outdoor bucket shower scenario. It's getting cold in this town so cold water bucket showers are no longer viable. I have no hot water in the bus paradise, so I've been boiling a big pot of water and throwing a few sprigs of rosemary in and using this with some sandalwood soap to bucket shower outside and fuck man, yeah, that's actually a guaranteed way of returning toward healthy homeostasis

This is partly how I have been entertaining myself, by observing invertebrates. My arachnid visitors have slowed down a bit with this onset of 'cool' weather (like, 30 degrees or less). This one suddenly appeared on the bus window, right in front of where I was sitting and would not move even when I tapped the glass firmly. I watched the way it put its little feelers into its little red maw to clean them. I thought its self maintainance routine was truly grotesque.

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And I made these (they are hand-stitched) and they are not for sale because I look at them everyday and they remind me of dementedness and I think that is very important. They are pinned to my handmade curtains.

I went to hang out with the choral choir in a church today. I want to hang out with more old people because they are way cooler than young people. Like, they have manners and morals and all that sort of good shit. I want to find a new scene, that's all.

(I discovered this expanse at the end of street I live on yesterday afternoon)

*I've been making yoghurt every couple of days. This process is a good one to be in. Making yoghurt regularly is one way of establishing a routine and routine is important for autistic people. I think I am a little bit autistic. I decided that it's time to extend my fermentation repertoire. So tonight, there is a bowl of oats blended with yoghurt, a pinch of salt and rainwater under my bed. The bowl is wrapped up in wool. The oats will ferment as I dream and we will see what becomes of us in the morning. www.wildfermentation.com is where I found a recipe for oatcakes made with fermented oats. I will let you all know what the result of my experimentation yields.

* So, I've been cooking heaps and pottering around my space really liking m
y own company. It's been a while since I have had my own space and as this one is particularly special, who could blame me for my inclination toward hermititude (especially given my autistic leanings).

* I combined almond meal, chopped dates, tahini, sunflower, seseme and pumpkin seeds, orange juice, orange zest and honey and rolled the resullting mixture into little balls. They are delicious and energy and nutrient filled, I am sure.

* I bought an old bike today. Its wheels are flat and its handlebars swing about but I hope to fix it before that Stu face comes around. This white racer reminds me of my trusty, old Matsushita bicycle from which I learnt a few things about bicycle anatomy, since she often had illnesses. Getting this white racer on the road will be a good project to improve my motor and cognitive skills. It's somewhat helpful for me to treat myself like if I am my own patient. The bus provides a good place for rehabilitation

Some images are happening now

A drive by photo













I am at 'Stanley Chasm'













This tree lives at the end of my street
















the inside of the bus

some things about today

* I found many exciting items at the op-shop today including an old chequered blanket, many pairs of underwear and daggy shorts.

* I've been eating really well since I arrived here. Living in a small town means I am close to home all the time so I never need to get eat-out, not that I am compelled to eat out here anyway. The range of eateries here is pretty uninspiring (though the Tea Shrine definitely makes Alice Springs a lot more liveable) and somehow, the whole structure of my life here thus far, really does not promote a need for eating out and take away food somehow. Somehow life is cleaner and simpler.

* My living space is really fuck ace. How right it feels to walk down the bus steps and into my outdoor living area every morning. I can also pretty much see the sunrise through one of the bus windows as I lie in bed. One day I will get pictures onto this blog thing. (Bec, the memory card reader turned out to be a fuck around. My computer refused to read it and so I took it back to Jaycar and had to be very assertive about getting a refund).

* The woman who served me at the Post Office showed me about 10 different kinds of stamps even though there was a really long line. I was very impressed by her. She responded very fully to my question 'what kinds of stamps do you have available at the moment?' If you are lucky, you will receive evidence of my stamp choice and purchase in your letterbox soon.

* I began the day by starting off some yoghurt cultures and by the end of the day, they were finished and now there are two jars of yoghurt. Breeding bacteria is really fun and I think I am heaps better at breeding bacteria than I am at breeding plants.

* I thought about Stu's beard this evening as I was watching The Bill. The show was entertaining although I think too much happened in it--a hit and run, attempted suicide, a drug bust, car theft. I never get to bed before midnight...

Attention!

After spending most of the day in the hot ,hot bus, sluggishly completing homework tasks (with the exception of using a phone to talk with sir Stu and having a bath outside) I felt mentally constipated and was on the verge of experiencing a headache. A ride to the local shops can be an invaluable way of readjusting back to a healthy state of homeostasis, so off I went.

I live near a hill that's popularly known as 'Spencer Hill' and I had not yet visited it. To tell you the truth, I had become rather paranoid of wondering around on my own after encountering a menacing, pasty-faced, grease-freak who tried to lure me into his car at 7.45am a few days after I arrived here.

Alas, it felt like it was the right time to wonder to 'Spencer Hill' so I rode there after the visit to the shops. I felt some relief after finally going there. I realised how strange it felt to live in an area but to not know anything about it except for the things I use, like the place I live in, the road that I take to and from town and the shops.

In fact, I don't even pay much attention to the places I frequent. I just sort of use everything that I am in and around and that I pass and have so far failed to slow down and pay attention and consider things, but I think it is really important for me to do so, just judging by how much more wholesome and multi dimensional I feel when I do. Like, on the walking track around 'Spencer Hill', I felt my frequency slowing down a whole lot and I realised that I was actually effectively living in 'the bush'. I was wheeling my bike along a sandy track and there was just this old red hill, some eucalypts and kites (the bird, not the colourful object that flies in the sky ). When I was littler, (like probably since I was a kid right up until I was 20) I'd always wish that I was living somewhere that was close to 'wilderness'. I think my wish was quite informed by my envy of the children in 'The Enchanted Wood'. The only 'wild place' I had access to at the time was a creek that was quickly being encroached upon by suburban sprawl.

So realising that I was really somewhere other than where I had been was somewhat astounding and I thought, wow, I am actually here, living in this strange town, which is surrounded by this strange, ancient landscape and I made it here. I paid more attention to the ants and stopped to commune with a tree that looked young and virile and the breath in my body seemed to reach further within me.

So paying attention to one's surroundings is one way of getting the mind to slow the the fuck down and to get more real. It's nice to realise this for the thousandth time and it's strange that it is something to learn and unlearn again, maybe ad infinitum. I accept that life's simplest lessons are the hardest to learn.

domestic delights

• I made an almond milk iced chai today-- cardamon, roobis, ginger, cinammon, cloves, raw sugar, vanilla bean, sugar, water and almond milk
• A basil plant I met today was flowering. It was preparing to go to seed, so I picked off as many of its flowering stems as I could--there were many as it was a very healthy plant. I put some of them into little spice jars filled with water when I got home. I hope they will deter insects but I also should not underestimate the replenishing effect that fresh herbs or flowers in a little jar or vase will have on a space.

a spider romance

When I moved into the bus, a week ago, I swept away as many cobwebs as I could, but there was one above my desk, where a Dandy Long Legs was living, and it seemed apt to keep him there as a kind of pet. I saw him catching baby cicadas in his web over the next couple of days. He would wrap them up in some web and soon he had many little food packages ready for feasting whenever he pleased.

After a couple of days of catching cicadas, he caught a grey bee kind of creature and sucked the insides out of it immediately, before tossing it onto my desk.

The next day, I noticed a new addition to the web-- a big, fat lady Dandy Long Legs. She was obviously pregnant. I am not sure how Mr Dandy Long Legs got her there. Had he gone out and fucked her and then seduced him into her home with its impressive food supply? She got fatter and fatter over the next couple of days.

Last night, I watched them both feasting on baby cicadas--he would wait until they were caught in the web and then wrap them up and then she would grab a package and she'd suck it dry. They seemed so content. I think I was kind of jealous of their partnership. He was good at taking care of her.

This morning, I checked the web as soon as I woke up and it was empty.