Paul's Corner

Yep, it is finally upon me - another day where I turn (apparently) a year older.

Question: do I turn a year older on the day - that sounds like a lot to carry - a whole year in a day?!?!?

Yes tomorrow I turn 41. However if you happen to be a casting director thinking of casting me in something and reading here I am in fact 29 ish (or maybe 32ish) good looking smart intelligent and tall.

I went back over the last few years of posts for around this time of year and found that I was always out of work, generally pensive but positive, angry but free and concerned in an excited kind of way. Shit nothing has changed and yet here I am several years older and still treading the well worn path of yesteryear!

Granted I am wiser, perhaps calmer, certainly thinner (in girth not in the hair dept!!) my outlook on life has developed nicely - even if I do say so myself. Struth - I think I like myself better now than I may have in the past. I have climbed some mountains and gotten to the top, I have stepped up in ways I never imagined I might and yet I find myself different but the same - different because I have grown, same because I am still standing. Standing in a place I have stood before.

Very curious. I am not the same person that stood here, I think I am the improved version but stand here I do and I have to say that both intrigues and frustrates me somewhat.

I know I am moving forward but it is hard to tell from where I have stood for so many years (somehow I think Peter (of the purle suit) you would understand this. Perhaps I am just getting older and not actually getting anywhere - but I dont believe it.

Change is the constant and yet I hear a whisper that says what you are changing from also is a constant. Ying Yang? You can only measure how far you have come from whence you started?

I look forward to the path ahead as a 41 year old (casting directors read as 32 1/2)

As a travelling soul the path ahead brings a smile to my eyes and a spring to my step. See ya out there!

Oh and happy birth day to me!

Yep, the shit is going to hit the fan real soon. I dont really understand it. How you can fly high one minute and then be down in the dumps the next. I dont feel depressed nor overly panicked but that will come soon. I feel like I am sitting an exam and I do not know the answers, I dont know where to find the answers, I dont even know where to begin, or middle or end.

I am just blindly moving forward with know where to go. (by the that is not a spelling mistake) The fact is I dont know - but as I said a post or two ago I am now trusting the universe - that may not help me or save me but it aint going to hurt much more than it will any way.

I realize now I have great faith in this journey called life. I think that is a marked difference in me now - I have had the good, the bad and the ugly, And I will again I guess - I dont want two of those bits but I am prepared to accept them. I have faith because each day I am still able to love, and to laugh and to experience life vibrantly. I am lucky. I was working for my friend - helping out - at a major hospital here in Melbourne - (I was doing plumbing type work) the sickness I saw there, the struggle I saw people making to live, to breathe - hey I may be struggling to work but I sure am living, I sure am healthy, I have healthy kids - I have lots to be thankfull for and lots to be grateful for. Thereby I embrace this struggle for life - for isnt that how we came into the world?

The journey. I welcome and accept the path I make, I follow, I am on.

I read this in a magazine and thought it summed it up pretty well....

"fame is a parasite which lives happily in any carcass. It has no regard for talent, gender, age colour or creed. It will take all you have to offer - and more - and then move on without hesitation, leaving bewildered and devastated carcasses in it's ugly wake."

I seem to have dissapeared for a while. Just laying low, relaxing a bit, staying remarkably calm. No work but I am trying to find/create some. I am going to start one day a week working in a liquor store. Good experience for my Beer Cafe. Planting seeds and tending to the garden of the future unfortunately todays garden is pretty bloody bare! Been there done that!!

Kelly, although I have been absent from here in terms of comments I have been reading and almost every day I have sent my healing thoughts your way. I trust that as Dhi said it is goiter and easily removed and harmless. Andrea sends her best wishes also!! Stay positive and keep a healthy attitude and I will keep sedning thoughts your way.

Grand Ma Millie - another anniversary??? Didnt you guys just have one? Is that how fast the year has gone?? Shoot! To you and Ellie Andrea and I also send our thoughts, love and congrats on 51 years!!!

Now to the topic....briskett. I have been cooking this lovey bit of meat on the BBQ nice and slow (10 -11 hours) and with a bit of smoke. I am looking for any ones experience with this cut of meat and what marinades and cooking/smoking adventures you may have had. Vegetarians need not post to this topic. We dont have briskett here in Oz like you do in America or Canada so I am thinking of introducing it. I will certainly have it on the menu at Paul's Place. So send in your recipes!!