h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

We're a bit thick MoGie (Hoo and I) and we're not quite sure what you mean about the piano, could you explain? The duet thing sounds good though. Cheers.

Oh and we're both as devilish as each other, it's great!!!

Nice to get to know you by the way.

Hi Alex!
I knew you and Hoo were thick when I first saw you on h2g2. Poor Hoo. For *some* reason he sticks out to me, so even when I run across him In Disquise I recognise him, and it wasn't too hard to connect the dots.

About the piano reference. Some while ago I suggested to Ben that she send Hoo a copy of Paulo Coelho's Veronika Decides to Die, and as far as I know she did. In the book Veronika played piano for the guy who later became her lover, and it kinda began a process which set both of them free to abandon themselves of their self-made prisons, take risks and ultimately live fully in the moment. In that photo you and Hoo both look fully present, and it made me think of that. Not too sure that'll make sense to you, but my mind tends to work in squircles that way. Don't worry, I'm mostly harmless.

Ah I see (penny drops)
I should have known. As soon as your book arrived I picked it up and thought, hey, this sounds good and read it from cover to cover. So now I know exactly what you mean. And.. you are exactly right. We both had a hell of a year in 2005 and then found each other. And...we both do the piano playing. It is fantastic.

May I thank you for sending the book also, it changed the way I think a little. Any other titles you could recommend?

I just realized that I made a colossal oops yesterday. My apologies! When you said you and Hoo were 'thick' I thought you meant it as in 'thick as theives', spending a lot of time together, not what I call 'dense'. How rude of me! Can we blame it on translation difficulty rather than on me being a savage?

Other books I've loved that opened my mind at one point or another in my life are (again, P. Coelho) The Alchemist, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, anything Tom Robbins has written (I have a special fondness for Jitterbug Perfume, though it's kinda neat to read them chronogically and watch how he's evolved throughout his career. I'm in love with that man's mind and his rowdy use of language.) Erica Jong's Fanny, Robert Heinlein: Time Enough for Love and Stranger in a Strange Land, Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, Mark Twain's A Conneticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, Dalton Trumbo's Johnny Got His Gun and Richard Bach's Jonathan Livingston Seagull. For starters.

Which books would you recommend that changed the way you approach life? In theory I'll have some chunks of time off this month, might even go hide in the Everglades for a few days with a stack of new books, my camera and some bottles of wine and fluff my aura. It would be kinda neat to do a gonzo immersion in the literature that molded one, specific person rather than my typical random sampling.

I didn't even click about the 'thick' thing. Hoo just emailed me and said was he *that* transparent on h2. I think it was probably me who gave it away initially (too close observers or those very perceptive people).

I'm afraid I'm a bit of a self help freak. Have been reading physics books recently though and some stuff Hoo has recommended. Started to read "The minds I" Douglas Hoffstadter (not sure of spelling) which he has leant me. Fascinating stuff. It's about self and consciousness I think. Only read one chapter so far.

Books which have changed the way I think have included: 'Emotional Awareness' by Gary Zukav. Have read 'Seat of the Soul' and 'Soul stories' too. Also 'How to change your life in 7 days' by Paul McKenna.
And 'Life Strategies' by Dr Phil McGraw. I *do* you're not rolling your eyes at this point. I like to read about and experiment with different ways of experiencing things and living one's life.


I.

Wow, you are an inspiration! (Experience thread)

I haven't suffered clinical depression nor any *really* bad traumas in my life but I have been unhappy at times.

I have been overweight and miserable about it but felt unable to do anything about it, although of course I could. If it was a symptom for something else I don't know.

I am a great believer in, 'if you're not happy with it, change it' but it's not always that easy.

Hoo says that I live in the future and my husband and my mum have been saying that for years. So now things are going well, I need to find a way of being happy with what I've got and not looking for the next thing, the next way to improve. I am a control freak too and am learning to let go a bit now and enjoy life. I am learning a great deal about myself from my relationship with Hoo. It is quite unexpected.

You mentioned the 'NOW' thing in the thread. How do you *do* the being happy now?

Sorry to ramble, but you sparked something

Ice

Quickly on the NOW thing, and then I must go out into the world and promote Youth, Beauty, and The American Dream.

I started it a while ago when I used to ride my bike to work and my mind kept churning up all these argumentative scenarios with my boss, or I'd dredge up past hurts, or project worrysome futures. So I started dragging myself back into NOW by looking around me, *seeing* the colors of the flowers, smelling the air in great deep breaths, and generally paying attention to all the lovely stuff that is everywhere. Then I got a digital camera and took it with me everywhere, and I started *looking* for the lovely stuff so I could capture those moments and bring 'em home and have a warehouse of sorts. I suck at multi-tracking, so it was either lovely stuff or mental projections. It just became a habit, I guess. Now I make it a point to pay attention to the sky every time I'm outside. If it's all blue and clear I say "what a wonderful day this is!" If it's got little, puffy white clouds I look at their shapes and enjoy the contrast to the blue. If a storm is brewing I Look at all the colors in the sky and think about how cool it is to have so much diversity in one place. If it's grey and close and rainy I look at the red tail-lights of cars and how they shine, or I spot some brightly colored flowers and think about how vivid they look in the gloom, and how it gives them a hyper-presence that they don't normally have when everything is colorful.

Try it for a while. You'll not lose anything, and it's very cool when it hits you that you're really *in* everything, and that it'll all look different in another 10 minutes, or another mile, but that there's a whole world of gorgeous just waiting for you to appreciate it.

I shall.

Backtracking:

I haven't read any of the books you mentioned, though perhaps I shall. The last self-help book I read was The Road Less Traveled, and I found it a bit disappointing because I didn't find anything really 'new' in there. Might just be because it's been around for a while, and plenty of other people have already hijacked the ideas. I guess I generally tend to avoid those types of books because they're set up in a structured fashion, and I like bouncier-feeling methods of presentation. I *did* read Conversations With God and was blown away.

You can put Hoos mind at rest. I don't think he's *that* transparent, exactly. He just has a distinctive approach to things as well as a very clear thought process combined with great command of logic and the language. That's not so common. If he made a disguise that used txtmsg about stupid stuff I'd never feel him in there. On the other hand, if he were really interested in communicating his thoughts about something of substance to someone, he'd probably have to make a good bit of effort to hide from me if I came across it. Or.... you could just tell him that I am Mother of God, and omniscience is part of my job description. *I* prefer that explanation.

>I am a great believer in, 'if you're not happy with it, change it' but it's not always that easy.< Agreed! I'm *still* smoking sometimes, though I know how insane that is. *sigh* And I'm *still* trying to lose a bunch of weight, with intermittent results. Seems like the whoppers are easier to change than it is to make obvious behavior adjustments. I find that very frustrating. I wonder if Buddha worried about being fat? Must put a card on my altar that says:

Set free my inner Buddha.
Become enlightened.

Might just work. I think I will.

What's your favorite color?

It seems to be pink , green or black clothes wise. Used to love pink when I was a little girl and then went right off it. Come back to it again now, I wonder why?

What's yours? And what's your favourite piece of classical music?

My favorite color was always that intense neonblue/agua/turquoise that the ocean turns when the sun is still breaking through spaces between big storm clouds. I went through a phase of purple, and the last couple of years I'm partial to glowy orangey-yellows. I like all of them except Barbie pink, and I notice that in my paintings I'm using a lot more of the muted earth tones lately. I wear a lot of black, even outside work, but I like to accent with red or other vibrant colors.

Over here it seems that pink has been the predominant color in women's fashion for several years now. Is that the case there too? Perhaps that has something to do with your rediscovery of pink?

Classical music. Hmmmmm. Toccata and Fugue in Dm is probably my favorite, closely followed by the 1812 Overture because I can always 'see' fireworks going off when I hear that. And I love Carnival of the Animals because it takes me back to being about 3 years old.

What's yours?

Hi MoG

By green I meant khaki type green, pink - dusky or pale pink. Cranberry and brown too.

Favourite classical music:
Rossini's 'Thieving Magpie' Overture
Rachmaninov's 2nd piano concerto and 3rd symphony
The Pearl fishers duet, Bizet.
Mozart's requiem. I could go on.

Had a row with my husband today about money (as usual) and I'm trying to get back to a positive frame of mind. Did some ballet (got a new workout video) and chatted to my mum for about 2hrs and feel a bit better. Hoo is snowboarding this week. I'm happy for him, it's his first holiday since his break up with girlf.

What's your job by the way?

See ya later

Alex

Sometimes I'm soooo glad I've always stayed legally single. I can't *imagine* having to work out compromises with someone about *my* money. Hope you don't have to argue about child custody arangements as well.

Today was good, I worked, went for a swim and jacuzzi (ahhhhh) at the gym afterwards, then stopped for dinner at a sports bar that calls itself an Irish pub. There were so many tvs in there it had my head reeling, and all of them were tuned into football. Aaaaaack! I never watch tv or sports, so it was kinda an overload. I asked the bartendress to chose a team for me to be a fan of, and to let me know if I needed to react. I was kinda looking forward to a great wailing and gnashing of teeth, but I guess no scores were made while I was there. The fish and chips were excellent, so it wasn't a waste of time.

I support myself by being a makeup artist, and I really enjoy it. I work free-lance, have an agent who gets me bookings and takes care of all the tedious stuff like making sure I stay as busy as I want to, get paid on time and travel arrangements. I just go and color people, help them figure out what they need to get the results they want, and teach them how to use it. Mostly I work for CHANEL, Bobbi Brown, and Armani, though I sometimes do other lines as well. I like the variety as well as owning my own life. It makes a good balance, because otherwise I'd probably become a total hermit and mess with painting and photography full time, and I need some structured human interaction occasionally.

Now I have the next 3 days off before I travel to the west coast (of Florida) and I think I'll *keep* those days for myself. Haven't had much time for painting lately and I got a new camera that I'm looking forward to trying some things with. I want to spend a day in the Everglades and see what catches my attention.

It must be so nice to be able to do ballet! I envy you. I'm waaaay too klutzy to attempt something like that. Are you graceful?

Am I graceful? No, that's why I'm doing the ballet.

Seriously, I used to do ballet up to the age of 11 and liked it alot. I love dancing. Because I have the kids alot in the evenings, I can't go out to a class or the gym so I use videos. I've been doing yoga for a while and was on the lookout for a new video and spotted a ballet one, 'The New York City Ballet' in fact.

Can I see your photos/painting on a website somewhere>

Ice.

It's ok, found the link on Alfredos thread.

Wow, what colourful paintings. I paricularly like the way you paint the female form. My favourite is Chemistry vs. Fabulous.

Thank you, Alex Funny that you like that particular one best. It seems that *everyone* who's going through relationship breakups is drawn to that one. My brother liked it best too. I made it during a brief and tumultuous involvement with a guy who was about my polar opposite. If he'd only been able to keep his mouth shut, always, it would have been great fun.

Just loaded my latest painting onto the yahoo site, as well as what it was before yesterday's debauch. I like it much better now I've painted in the mystery. When it was 'Motherhood' I think it was too raw.

How is the experiment with Now coming along?

Hi MoG
I'll have a look at your new painting in a mo.

If he couldn't keep his mouth shut, you could have put a gag on him and stuck a bag over his head for good measure and then make the most of the useful bits

I thought about you this morning, driving to work. I looked at the shop signs on the way, they were colourful but very urban. I then looked at the sky and the clouds were small, puffy and close together, making patterns, very beautiful.

I must make an effort this weekend to get out of the city and take the kids off to the countryside. (I am a farmer's daughter and love being in the country) Thank you for you insights.



Ice.

Fabulous! I like that one the best too. How big is it? I'd love to have that in my house. I might see what it's like blown up.

In like both, with or without the veil. The idea of the veil does add mystery though, doesn't it? What do the wisps coming from her mouth/head represent?

Bernardo was lovely to look at, so I didn't want to bag him. He's here. http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/britta_mog/detail?.dir=6ef6&.dnm=d84e.jpg&.src=ph I used to thrreaten him when he babbled bullshit too much with "Superglue is cheap, ya know."

I'm glad you had lovely clouds this morning. Keep watching them. It takes a while before the 'seeing' kicks in. Are you far from the country? It must be hard, sometimes, to be surrounded with city if you were a child amongst growing things.

My paintings are pretty big. I try to keep them down to 2x3 feet, just so I can find affordable frames for them. Sometimes they creep, though, and then I have to decide what parts to chop off if I want them framed. If you'd like to leave an email addy I can send you the file to mess with. Very honored that you'd want one of *my* things in your house!

The spirals and swirls are about the connectedness of everything, kinda what I imagine all the energy flow of Life and the Universe looks like. The wisps are coming out of (or into) her highest chakra (didn't get it in quite the right spot, but what the hell) and to me it represents the interchange between 'us' and the rest of Everything. I also had the kundalini energy going in/out of the belly spiral. That stuff is more tangible, so I painted it denser.

Thank you *so* much.
Ben has my email add. I'll ask her to send it to you.
xx