The house is dark, and quiet.
It’s peaceful here at the moment — almost half-past midnight, so not entirely unexpected. I’ve googled for a reason to drink an admittedly small single-malt (antioxidants! protection from dementia!) and snuck into the bedroom to retrieve the bottle. “Cinematic Chillout” plays quietly in the background, my screen is suitably dimmed and I’m about as relaxed as I’m going to get.
It’s the day after (what I insist on calling) ‘Straya Day, perhaps better known (and certainly better loved) as “The Hottest 100 countdown”. We had a pretty low-key one — apart from the music, we ate barbequed sausages and took turns napping and “swimming” in the tiny inflatable pool. Interestingly (well, if you’re into biohacking anyway), I found that if I have too much Coke Zero® (more than about 600mL?) it crashes my mood — Dee and I had a little nano-fight when she thought I was blaming her for my terrible grouchiness.
(I’m conflicted about ‘Straya Day to be honest: I don’t feel particularly bound to the idea, but think that celebrating unity and diversity could be a good thing. Ambivalent at best. If I’m honest, I didn’t actually realise that the day itself was the anniversary of James Cook’s landing (I tell myself that the Australian History I’ve forgotten was an “oppressors lie” anyway), but once I realised I could of course understand why certain people might have different, and vehemently stronger, feelings about it — history has seen some very bad shit done to people, including the native and original people of this country, and if the 26th January symbolises the terrible, terrible things done by our ancestors and government both then I say screw it, it’s not worth it. We could pick any day, make it about “unity and diversity” rather than some kind of imagined monoculture … and still use it as an excuse to drink beers and hang out at the beach. I digress?)
More important: last weekend we hit Bunnings for some good old-fashioned shed reorganisation materiel. I came away with a couple of shelving units, some gardening supplies and a venus fly-trap, and promptly began organising our double garage into a workable motorcycle and electronics workshop. I’ve spent so much more time there this last week, and it is really coming together — the shelves (and standing desk) are awesome, and I’ve started opening the boxes of books we stashed in there when we arrived, with a view to getting rid of most of them (we don’t need them!!).
Because, of course, I have a lot of projects to do, and need the space clear and organised to do it. I’m still very unsure how to start on the motorcycle restoration, let alone the various Arduino projects I want to do, but I do know the first step is to get organised.
Did I mention it’s peaceful here tonight?