it got me thinking

Since I started this thing, I've started reading a fair few blogs of other people. Almost all of these I came across reading other people's blogs or comments to their blogs. All but one have no idea who I am. Weird, huh?

So anyway, they're all listed in my favourites at work, but I can never remember which ones they are when I'm at home, so I've now linked them in the sidebar here... after all, I can always remember the address for my own blog. If any of you are linked and don't wish to be, let me know and I'll take you down (it's pretty easy, I just put a couple of -- and a ! in there and it's in there as a comment in my template HTML rather than actually linked so I can still find it, but it's not on my page).

Dinner

Just as I'm about to head home yesterday I got a call from the Nymph asking if I wanted to come round to her place for dinner that night. I had no plans, and lunch had consisted of a salad and a packet of lollies, so it sounded like a bloody good idea to me.

So she picked me up from work, and we go shopping for food. We end up with up with vegtable pasta and a tomatoey sauce for dinner, with cheese and crackers for starters. And red wine throughout. It was good.

And it got me thinking - we should do this more often.

Dream

Perhaps it was the red wine, but I had another strange dream last night. I had been to a car dealer to test drive a porsche and was driving it too fast down a semi-industrial yet suburban street when I side-swiped another car which was parked on the street. Anyway, I saw some people go over to the car I'd hit and turn to watch me, so I approached them and asked if they had pen and paper so I could leave the car's owner a note. They didn't with them, but they lived nearby and we went to their place for me to get pen and paper. They kept on chatting to me and sort of keeping me in their house although I was desperate to get back to the street and return the porsche to the dealership before 5pm (which was rapidly approaching). I eventually returned to the street just after 5pm and the porsche was gone. I freaked. I thought maybe the Ex (who was still my boyfriend in the dream) had somehow returned it and hadn't told me and I tried ringing his mobile but it was turned off. I tried ringing the dealership but they were closed. I woke up from my dream as I was walking down the street wondering how everything had gone so wrong.

So it got me thinking - why am I dreaming about people damaging beautiful and high-performance cars by doing something stupid with them? Maybe I need to find a dream interpreter.

Oooh! I found one here. Apparently, to dream about cars in the context of my dream could mean:

To dream that you are driving a car, denotes your ambition, your drive and your ability to navigate from one stage of your life to another. Consider how smooth or rough the car ride is. Whether you are driving the car or a passenger, is indicative of of your active role or passive role in your life. Overall, this dream symbol is an indication of your dependence and degree of control you have on your life.

To dream that your car is overheating, suggests that you are expending too much energy and need to slow down or run the risk of becoming burnt out. You may be taking on more than you can handle. It is time to take a breather.

To see a parked car in your dream, suggests that you need to turn your efforts and energies elsewhere. You may be needlessly spending your energy in a fruitless endeavor. Alternatively, a parked car my symbolize your need to stop and enjoy life.

To dream that you are almost hit by a car, suggests that your lifestyle, beliefs or goals may be in conflict with another's. It may also be symbolic of a jolting experience or injured pride.

So does that mean that this dream shows I'm independant but losing control of my life (hence the crash)? Does the crash mean that conflict is burning me out and injuring my pride? Does hitting a parked car mean that I need to let go of the conflict?

But then what does it all mean in context with the other one?

Another site says that "The condition of the vehicle might give you an idea of your health" - so beautiful cars that get damaged might mean that my health is good now, but I worried that it will be damaged by myself or someone I'm close to?

Hmmm... curiouser and curiouser.

Categories of Australians

This entry on the Uncivil Litigator's blog got me thinking about Aussies and broad generalisations that can be made on the basis of location, like:

Melbourne - pretentious, arty
Sydney - self-important, flashy
Gold Coast - pretentious, self-important and flashy
Adelaide - conservative, over-educated
Darwin - rough, down to earth
Hobart - friendly, small town hospitality

Of course, my friends from these places don't fit in with that, but that's the impression I get of these places from either visiting there, reading about the place or meeting people from there.

The only problem is that I can't generalise Brisbane like that - I've lived here too long. And I can't think of a way to describe Perth, despite the fact that I've read up a lot about the place and met heaps of Westies when I was travelling. But I've been told that Perth is very like Brisbane, so maybe that's why I'm having trouble.

I've always said that Brisbane is a great place to live, but I wouldn't want to visit here. In many ways, Brisbane is like an overgrown country town - we have a slower pace of life than most cities of this size, we have an overzealous pride in our natives who achieve, we are not particularly split by suburb in terms of city-wide character. And we don't really have any tourist attractions. The tourists tend to go to the Gold Coast.

But I think that's why I like the place.

Listening to: Augie March - Strange Bird