The return of Selby

Well, I barely believe it even though I've seen it with my own eyes.

Selby is back.

I was rather surprised to receive an apartment buzz about 15 minutes ago, as it is late and we weren't expecting anyone. It was my neighbour from downstairs, telling me to come and see, a bike was there. This came in the wake of me putting up a sign in the foyer last night - with none of the messages contained in my previous post, i hasten to add. My neighbour's english is not the best, so there was some nuance missing in our conversation, but there is something very fishy going on here, and my poor wife is now wracking her brains trying to figure out whodunit. The most plausible scenario we've come up with is just bizarre but sometimes, the truth hurts. Wait, I mean sometimes, truth is stranger than fiction.

Selby!

Farewell Selby, I hardly knew you

I can't believe it, but I have to. Some time between Friday night and today (Sunday morning) someone stole my bicycle - Selby, I called her - from our foyer. I stupidly hadn't chained her - pretty much the first time - but she still should have been protected by a locked front door. I am working through the seven stages of grief and right now I'm going through sadness. Poor Selby. There's also a little rage left over, though that's mostly subsided. It got me thinking, if there was some way I could leave a message to the thief - putting a note up on our building, or on our street, or on every telegraph pole in enmore - what could I say to make them feel bad? Or uncomfortable? Or to turn them off ever touching Selby again? Or to make me feel better? Or should I come to terms with it and stop the wheel of karma? When I suggested this to my wife she thoughtfully noted that I don't believe in karma. Sigh.

Possible messages
- i hate you i hate you i hate you
- i often rode Selby bareback and i have a bum disease
- i love you and last night i fantasised about you
- a witch doctor has cursed the bike and whoever rides it now
- i got so angry when i found the bike was stolen that i beat up some innocent people, including my loved ones
- if you plan on selling Selby, you're getting ripped off if you get any less than $400
- i forgive you
- you, your children and your children's children are banned from enmore! for three months.
- i'll see you next week eating the pudding
- you have 48 hours to return Selby before bombing commences
- if you wanna get involved, next week we gon' help the unemployed
- i know who you are, where you live, and what your insecurities are
- Selby likes to be taken out just before dusk, she needs attention several times a week, and go easy on her gears, they've had a tough life.
- the combination to the lock you also stole is 6362
- do you know who i am?
- smile - you're on candid camera
- your a looser
- you'll regret the day you ever messed with me. raaarrgh!
- i never got a bell for Selby but it was my dream to get her one of those honking clowny type ones. it would mean a lot to me if you helped me realise this dream.
- enjoy her, you lucky s.o.b.

Fridge Feelings

This evening I felt the satisfaction and pride of having an empty fridge. Vegetables eaten, leftovers finished off. I am a fortunate son of Goddess, and so do not need to worry about where my next meal is coming from.

There is also the satisfaction of a full fridge - a week of meals and snacks laid out before one's eyes, packed snugly and with tetris-like efficiency. For me this satisfaction is occasionally tinted - albeit to a minor degree - by the time old fear of wastage, spoilage and of you will, shop soiling.

Freezer feelings are separate to fridge feelings. Pantry feelings are too, but are closer kin to fridge feelings.

Right and wrong

Alright, I'll say it. The Tao is Silent is a delightful book. There. I said it.

That's not exactly the preface that this deserves but I'm not of a mind to worry about matters such as that at the moment.

The this is this:

If you want to get at the plain truth,
Forget about right and wrong.
For the conflict between right and wrong,
Is the sickness of the human mind.

I'm not sure if this is Lao Tse quoted in an Alan Watts book, or Watts himself. Must be the former.
~~~

Incidentally, the neighbour(s) across the way have had a penchant of late to repeat certain songs repeatedly. Sex on Fire by Kings Of leon and I'm Alone With You (Tonight) by.. who's that by again? Perhaps strangely, this repetition doesn't bother me (yet).

Having a baby and tiredness

I know I should be going to bed earlier. After all, little one could wake up at any moment. The earlier you're in bed, the more sleep you get, and the healthier and happier you are. But I *can't* go to bed earlier. I'm too weak. I want to stay up and drink tea and surf the innernet. I need to decompress after an easy day at the office.

What does it matter, what does it all mean?

A few thoughts on this. I've just started reading The Tao Is Silent, by Smullyan. In it, he talks about the difference between allowing oneself to sleep when one is sleepy, and forcing oneself to sleep because it's sleepytime. So i'm sadly in the latter category at the moment. I don't know what kind of life I'd have if I allowed myself to sleep when sleepy - if I could even do it. I'd probably get fired for starters, plus go to sleep around 7pm. Can you believe my eyelids start getting heavy around 7 or 8? I have well and truly bade farewell to my old late night self. And yet - an even later self has emerged, nappy in hand, somewhere between 12:30 and 1:30 recently.

But let me now backtrack and say that I feel lucky. Little Miss Hammertime has caused us very few problems. My health is fine, despite occasionally interrupted sleep. From my straw poll of other parents, I think we're pretty darn lucky. The devil of sleeplessness and concomitant insanity and rage and desperate resignation has not bedevilled us, nope, not at all.

My new goal, as of this sentence, is to get in a nap - hang on, not to nap, but to allow myself to sleep when sleepy at some point this weekend. I am going to Canberra for the wedding of a close friend - maybe too close. No, not too close after all.

Canberra, where I'll allow myself to sleep when sleepy. I'm excited!