Comfort Vest: February 20th to 21st.

I spoke to someone from Savers during work (can't say any more; matter of State security, or confidentiality at least). Apparently Savers isn't an op-shop. Devastating: I have been doing all my op-shopping there. It's one-stop, colour co-ordinated, size-sorted—effectively it is all-the-hard-work-already-done with a splash of don't-need-to-go-anywhere-else thrown in for good measure. They buy boxes of donations from 'non-profit alliance partners' and donate money to the same when you and I drop our stuff into their stores. Then, I suppose, they add a profit onto the whatever is in the boxes and we buy it. Allegedly, and I am not really sure where I heard this, they also offer employment opportunities to people who may not be given such opportunities by other employers. So it's not opping maybe but it's still really good, and feel-good, shopping and we decided to go to one we hadn't been to before. It's in a place that ends with the word 'Park'. (I am not wanting to give it away to my audience of seven because I am really scared that an increase in demand may lead to increases in prices—see the listing of stores on the link above and I am sure you will be able, with some fine detective work, to work out which one it was.)

When you mention you are going somewhere like Eden Park, Chirnside Park, Roxborourgh Park, Albert Park, Calder Park, Mill, Bell, Gladstone, Oak, Brandon, Deer—you get my drift—Lollii just hears the park bit and so all trips to said Park suffixed places are either delayed by having to go to Gasworks Park, or dampened by the memory of a disappointed doggie face. We went for the former.

There are big differences between op-shopping with your boy and your BFF. A boy's mission is not your mission: and therein lies a complete blog all to itself, it will have been done, just google. With a boy there is a certain amount of pace-pressure. Also, the habit of finding a mirror in the furniture department—to change in front of rather than trying to negotiate the five-items-at-a-time queue at the changing rooms—becomes strange when you are on your own. (He's gone off to look at 'something', don't worry, he says, take your time; hurry up, please god, hurry up is what you hear). Alone the mirror is suspicious behaviour, with your BFF it is just subversive. These obstacles notwithstanding, I did manage to get great buys, including items to decorate knitted projects and woolen jumpers to de-knit for wool—far cheaper than at Wick or Scray suffixed locations. Whoo hoo!

This weeks project is a de-knit. B—— bought the wool for this project in the form of a jumper, she undid it (the hard part), and now it is being re-knitted into this project for her mum. It feels like wool through and through and came in a mottled grey blue for the body and navy for the trim. De-knitted wool brings it's former life to the piece. It retains, at least for now, the kink of its last knit. A new wool would not give the same effect. It's kind of nice—like seeing someone else's life or feeling someone else's heart in your new organ transplant. What, you don't think that is a nice thought? Have you properly considered organ donation then?

Question mark Park also has a potential top-ten vanilla slicery. The boy and I had a piece on this day, B—— and I had one when we made a follow up visit recently (and tried on clothes in the furniture section). Everyone wore a little; everyone ate a lot. Highly recommended.

Are you a heart person or a head person? It is probable that we mostly think we are heart. It feels nicer. But, as Osho says, if all of us who thought we were heart really were, the world would be a better place. I don't really heart the world. Maybe it is because I see my part of it from the wrong perspective; maybe it is just not heartable. We cannot be too hard on ourselves though. We are not taught to be heartie. We are taught to be reasonable and analytical and sensible. If you are more absurd than that, then maybe you are heartish. Osho asks you to reach out from your heart, with your senses, and absorb. Listen, see, feel, smell and taste with your heart, one hundred percent. Feel your lover or child, feel the earth or something growing, smell the ocean or the farm, listen to music—but don't allow your head in. He suggests getting a picture of yourself and taking away the head. Meditate on this and then feel with your heart whatever it is you would like to sense. Ultimately, don't think. If you think, this won't work for you. If you can imagine yourself without a head, or maybe even with someone elses heart or corneas, it just may. Be absurd—I think absurdity is greatly under-valued.

Isabella Hat Teacosy: January 18th to 22nd.

What is a teacosy but a very small hat with slits for spout and handle. My work colleague (the same one who has dubious Scrabble adding skills—its happened twice, this is probably libelous (sorry)) wondered if the hat on the recipe could perhaps be adapted to a tea pot. I thought, why not? The tea pot is 'so' big [hand gesture of guestimated proportions]. Turned out it fitted not too badly. I used an angora acrylic blend that I unraveled from a jumper I had. It's beautifully soft. I have great plans of how to 'personalise' it but just have to find the where-with-all to do it. It's that old chestnut of shopping for an idea rather than shopping to find an idea—I'm chasing a cloud. I'll catch it, but in the meantime there is a naked teapot in the suburbs. I won't keep you long teapot!

Discovered over the duration of this project what a good place to knit the long-distance drive is. We went down to Point Roadknight for a boogie-board. The waves were about as big as the amount of knitting I was able to do on the trip: in knitting speak it was lots, in wave speak it was not even enough to get you to shore if you couldn't just stand up and walk out. But so beautiful. The little-over-an-hour drive is worth it for the sparkling blue clearness of the waves and the amazing light effect of the sunshine of the grains of sand caught in the (tiny) surf. The more I venture there, the harder it is to walk into the oily, murky, bits-of-icky waters of Port Melbourne (ah, the lamentations of the privileged).

If I am a capitalist swine with access to a vehicle (even if I don't, in any way, own the mean of production), it is because that is a role I play given the live I life and the place and time I live it in. But it isn't me. I am playing out a script I have been given in this drama of 'life' Osho says. Remember a couple of techniques back how there was the gap between the two breaths and it touched down to your very center, the center that is the true you? This is effectively the same technique, but done in activity. If you can be aware of the gap and the center through every waking minute, while you go about the minutiae of daily living, you feel what is center and what is periphery; you feel the difference between doing and being, between center and script.

Osho says that the reason to do this is that by practicing this technique you are able to see your life as if it is happening not to you, but to someone else. I'm not sure I like that idea: it displaces. Why 'do' the life of someone else? Why do anything? It's not practical for everyone to be a guru—live in cave, meditate all day. What is probably more take-away from this idea is that if the doing part is all an act, then your center is not affected by what happens in the act (and to not take anything away from Osho, he does touch on this). If something bad happens to you, if you make a mistake, it is just a part of the drama, not a part of you. You can't feel guilt or anger or hate in your very essence if it is caused by an actor in a play. Conversely, and maybe I'll understand this more later, how do we then feel love?

This item has been bartered in exchange for the year long use of a large box of knitting needles. Thank you to its recipient (when they eventually get it that is)—saved me a pile in needle purchasing!