Psychaesthetic

So here's the situation: The last 15 years have landed me sharing houses with a mix of people, from junkies and cochroaches, to my present place in an upper-middle class neighbourhood with a woman who now drives me insane, and the feeling is mutual. I've been given my marching orders as usual which is fine (though I'll desperately miss the dog, having been with her every minute for the past several years now). My options - as I see them - are either (i) move to some other house or shared accomodation and deal with adjusting (or not adjusting) to whoever happens to hold the lease, (ii) move to a caravan park or similarly low budget place on my own, either of which will cost me at least half my weekly income in rent alone, or the third option: get a tent, pack a pack and fly or greyhound my way to a nice spot on a river, near enough to a town that I can walk to a bus-stop or similar and travel into town each week for food. I've only just decided upon option (iii) being the best course of action, but am already slurping-in as much information as possible on every possible known & unknown that could arise. I have about two months before I have to be out, thus two months before departure. The location - must - be close enough to a freshwater stretch of river that I can access it on foot for water and fishing, and close enough to some kind of civilization that I can walk there too. Mobile reception must also be within walking distance, but ideally I wouldn't have to walk to get a signal. Outside of those requisites I haven't picked a river yet, let alone a section that looks suitable, but having grown up in NSW (been in Adelaide for over a decade now) I'm thinking anywhere from Forster -> Byron would be where I'd most want to live, especially after all these years of horrid Adelaide dry-heat summers. There are many pros and a few cons that I've listed while contemplating such a radical life-change, but this post has gone on about long enough really. What I'd like from you, is any tips and pointers, good locales .. Anything that might minimise the number of "f$&%# why didn't I think of that!!" moments I'll encounter once I'm half way up a riverbank in the middle of nowhere. The main reason I want to do this, is I have no ties to anyone or anything and - being almost 40 now - I might simply not have the chance to give it a bash in another ten years.

As adorable as Ants get they are. They're all over the inside of my tent all day, stopping very much regularly to pull and pen and reshape their feelers. They appear to be quite OCD about their feelers being right and look like they're doing their hair all day long. They walk all over me, and each time I feel one on my arm I'll pass my hand against the wall or floor and they just walk right off and carry-on farming their food. Not one has any one of these Ants bitten me at all, even though their mandibles look.. Perfectly formidable. They also seem compelling disinterested in any of my food; even the sugar doesn't interest them in fact I very rarely see them carrying anything at all. Anyway, see attached photo.

Here we go. I'll just paste random entries in here, starting with yesterday: The day the largest Monitor returned after a three-month walkabout. https://psychaesthetic.com/05-01-2015/the-rainforest-journal-outing-17-day-10/

Introducing, Guido the Possum: https://psychaesthetic.com/27-12-2014/the-rainforest-journals-outing-17-day-1/

This very outgoing young male has had this shorter section of fur around his rear, well since I've known him. I wondered whether it's a negative (dermatitis, some kind of mange or fleas, etc) or is its simply him either shedding for summer (seems unlikely for him to shed only around the rear-end though) or perhaps even simply "rub-off" caused by moving inside his tree hollow. Anyone wanna hazard a guess? Edit: he looks perfectly healthy, doesn't scratch much at all and his coat is as soft as cotton wool.

Here's a short 20 second video of one of them eating some left-over pasta. I have clips of them snatching chicken-necks out my hand and various other reptilian things but they're on the old phone's memory card. I uploaded this one while in town over wifi just to see that the embedded video player was functioning fine. It is. https://psychaesthetic.com/26-12-2014/lace-monitor-eating/

When I was a kid I was obsessed with Dinosaurs, so imagine my delight - even at 40 - to have these beautiful reptiles start hanging at my camp. The Lace Monitor is the closest relative to the Komodo Dragon (who is if course also a Monitor, and isn't in the dragon family) and have recently been found to have a mildly venomous bite (a mild rattlesnake-like venom). Monitors are the only species of lizard that come equipped with a forked tongue and Jacobsons organ giving them the ability to "taste" the air with the same sensitivity as a snake; they are both capable of stereo smell. They will eat anything they can overpower and - armed with a dentition similar to crocodiles - use razor-sharp, pointy teeth to slice chunks off whatever smells good then simply toss it down their inflatable throats; like one of those kitchen garbage bins with the flip-top lids. They never chew because they have no molars. If you already know all that, then my apologies I just figured I should add some manner of info preceding the photos.

Fair 'nuff Broski, fair ee-nuff.

I wondered if it might just be the senility that's often apparent that causes the Possum to react so badly. Most the human backpackers react in a similar manner of course; they'll stop to talk to him once, and thirty minutes layer you'll go back down and walk past and their faces look drained of color, as they don't get a chance to do anything but nod since the old man Never. Stops. Talking. They usually avoid him after this first introduction, but I learnt a while ago to just tell him to shuddup once he starts going into overtime. My tolerance is up to about a solid 20mins now though, and I figure I'll be that old one day, if I live that long; babbling to anyone about shit from the 1970s nobody gives two shits about, so I give him the courtesy of a daily chat most days I'm there.

One of the things about spending a few days each fortnight in a backpackers, is you inadvertently end-up interacting with a rotating "populus". Every fortnight when I come up from the valley the faces have changed: like spamming the refresh button on people-you-live-with.com. This obviously has its pros and cons. An example of a 'pro' being that you always have fresh faces around, a 'con' would be the crazy woman in the room above yours that forgets she has meat cooking in a pan thus setting the smoke alarms off at midnight, causing an evacuation of the building, then returns to her room, where she spends the rest of the night giggling to herself like a psychiatric failure who won't take her meds. Yes indeed it takes all sorts, and they all pass through here. Most of the guests change from week-to-week because they're tourists who've come to the Blue Mountains to do touristy shit and go, but there are usually a small handful of residents who stay here for several weeks - sometimes months even - at a time. One such resident, a 75 year old Finnish man, has been here for around two months straight. He doesn't so much converse, as ramble. I'm sure we've all meet the kind: You'll start by asking them how their day went and within a few minutes they've got you wishing you had've just grunted at them and kept walking. Yes, listening to this old man dribble on aimlessly has taught me tolerance. Asking him a simple question will get you an hour of your time vampired away and a monolog about some mind-numbingly dull restaurant he visited in the seventies, how beer was 10c a glass in 1965, and once he starts talking about Gogh Whitlam you might as well just take a seat and let your mind drift off some place else for a while. Anyway, tonights story. There's this Possum I've been feeding the few days I'm here each time. I've spend a while blabbing with the old guy and am at the back door, about to step outside for a smoke when I see the aforementioned Marsupial perched on the railing just a few meters away. So I quietly take a step outside the door and this Possum runs over and sits at my feet like a cat who knows it's dinner-time, then grabs onto the bottom of my pants, sniffing around with his nose pointed up to see what I got for him. I turn to the old guy and press my finger to my lips, then ask him if there's any bread or crackers in on the fridge close by. He steps out to look at the Possum and the animal bolts: practically trips over itself to get away from him. I sigh. The same thing happened after he'd gone and brought back a slice of bread, which is the same thing that happened two weeks ago when I was here last: The Possum fucking hates him. A few weeks ago I took two German girls out to see said Possum and he was perfectly fine; they hand-fed him and he reached out to claw at their shirts - lucky Possum. Anyway this old man struck me as having a creepy "vibe" about him from the get-go - the first time I spoke to him. This passive-aggressive-angsty-albert-fish vibe, and although I don't mind killing time shooting the shit with anyone, the reaction he illicits from the Possum is very.. apparent. It's like the dog that gets along with everyone, who suddenly goes all-out ape-shit at one particular person when they enter room. So the question I suppose is, if you get a weird vibe from someone and an animal subsequently confirms it with such a bad reaction, is there any reason to further doubt that there's something suspicious about that persons character?

Look at that you just had to get the last word. Git. I never "bragged" about feeding the animals, you can say that as many times as you want and it's still just you talking shit to fill out your posts. I mentioned somewhere how soul enriching it is to spend time with the wildlife - at such close range - using food as such a simple interface. If you'd read the thread you would know it started with my asking about the shorter fur around around one of the Possums rumps, but as usual you were busy tripping over yourself; in such a rush to try and prove your imagined superiority, and take yet another thread from it's original context to "Paradox proves he knows better". I understand though, we all get a bit like that. The truth is, neither you or I are any more than specs of irrelevancy; two more creatures who are born, live a tiny amount of time, then die. The world will go on without so much as a blink when you and I are gone. As for the 'your dumb you'll learn" dribble, I've been out here most of the time for 9 months straight, and seen three out of four seasons along with the animals that've come and gone throughout that time, yet only twice has any animal done any damage to the tent and both times they were small holes chewed by Rats; patched within ten minutes of my arrival. So, all-knowing Lord of Wildlife, what's this great lesson about the nuisance of animals I'm supposed to learn? You suppose 2 holes in almost a year are some kind of vermin invasion? Animals gone bad? *Monsterrrs* made of Food? I'd think if these animals - you say are going to make nuisances of themselves - had the inclination they would already have done it; nine months is plenty of time what do you suppose they're doing, biding their time? Maybe they're getting their numbers together for some all-out Animal Apocalypse? Any day now they'll rip my tent to shreds and easy all my food! Gosh, Ì best sleep with one eye open - so I can be ready when they come! /gasp! And the nonsense about me being out here in the tent with 'everything I own' is just that. The tent is a disposable outer skin to me, if it happens to become so badly damaged is irreparable (maybe by the impending animal assault you keep warning me about), I will buy a new tent. My things are slightly scattered, sure, but the tent is just a tent, and all I leave in it is the increasingly redundant winter sleeping bag. I know you're miserable and sad, and while I do feel sorry for you - well, as sorry as I can feel for someone I only know online - the raw, basic truth is that I am having a better time in life than you are. Period. You make a lot of noise trying to appear superior, because you know you are not. You try to assert yourself as the most intelligent, misunderstood creature on two legs, but you know you are neither of these. You try, most obviously, to convince people they're depressed, isolated and a malcontent; when in reality, you are the only one here who's wallowing in your silly, angst-driven cesspool of negativity. Doesn't take a great mind to point any of those things or if course, it's perfectly obvious in every reply you've posted. Me? I'm the happiest I've been in years. I spend a few days in town with 'the humans' before returning here, then just when I'm starting to miss civilization a little, I go back up, eat, drink and mingle for a few more days. I can go up anytime I want, and stay out here any time I want. I got the best of both worlds. You would've known that had you been capable of seeing past your own beady little eyes and past your own self-imposed, self-absorbed unhappiness but oh well: Horses for courses I guess. So while I'm happy to give you the benefit here and there - owing to whatever mental issues are currently dragging you down - and have no objection at all to you truthfully admitting your own feelings of being pointless, angry and depressed I can't sit back and watch you try to project your noxiousness onto me: to make out like that's my attitude too; it's not, I'm not feeling 'yuk' like you are. There ya have it. All the dirty laundry out and sorted.

;)

...

*deletable*

Leaving the woman you've been with for five years would mess with most people's "place". Not only am I in a much cruisier frame of mind now, I have legs like a tiger, eat much better food and am more spacially aware of my surroundings. I can tell which animals are walking around out here at night based on their noises, I know all the calls of the Currawong, Cockatoo and Lyrebirds well enough to instantly identify which one I'm hearing the moment they open their mouths and I can differentiate flying bugs by the frequency of their wings. I can hear a mouse fart on the other side of the mountain. Town is just town of course; same familiar, overcrowded human populus all stuffing their guts with whatever, obsessing over their pointless purchases and blind to anything outside their own existence, but as towns go the ones around here are pretty relaxed I must say. The *hordes* of tourists get a bit annoying from time to time, but I'm really not in town long enough each stay to be really bothered by any of the convoluted shit associated with the rest of the human race. I go in, clean-up, restock on food and then spend the remaining time socializing with whichever crowd is at the backpackers that week. I get bored easily, but as it so happens by the time I'm growing tired of human interaction each week, it's time to head back down here; with the simple, honest animals again. ;)

Maybe Paradox is bored. Watching plants grow is hardly a thrill-ride, leaves to much time to sit around working yourself into a state of heightened delusion. Maybe he should go find some animals to feed?

Fresh banana tonight ;)

You keep on with your verbal masturbatory "oh humans are so shit compared to me" dribble, I got me a possum outside to hand-feed.

Twice out of ten times is hardly regular enough to be a 'no shit Sherlock' deal, Bro.

The one species that has the situation completely figured out, is the Rats. I leave my tent setup when I'm in town - since it's only a few days and I just can't be fucked packing it all up every time I leave - and left alone for almost a week at a time, no other animal has so much as even scratched or gouged the tent. A few weeks ago: Enter the Rats. Since they showed up, twice they've chewed holes in the tent floor when I'm not there, corresponding with the only two occasions when I've *not* tossed food around before leaving. Like little shit-bag blackmailing Mafia motherfuckers they are; "Leave some food when you go, or we'll mess your shit up." Cute little shit-bags though.

Time for some creepypastas before bed I think.

I'm not used to these.. *open* European tourists though bro! ; ( For clarity too, when she touched herself, it wasn't some Sharon Stone Hollywood thing; more an unconscious, momentary thing I couldn't *not* notice. She didn't rub herself for a full minute while staring seductively at me. Anyway, there are ladies in the room Incognito, we should at least appear to be gentlemen ;) Edit: wait a second, are you really male Micro? Your writing style had a distinctly feminine calmness about it.

Possums are extremely territorial, especially with other Possums. Judging by the numbers I get Is day there are at least a half dozen with 50 meters of my tent, and Lace Monitors - also territorial - have 'zones' or little blocks of land they walk to and from in s kind of 'shifting territory' patrol. Both animals are territorial, but the Monitors haven't been around for a few weeks now. I think their nesting and/our mating but even when they dropped by regularly it wouldn't necessarily be every day, they're sporadic. The Possums and birds are more predictable but still visit sporadically; different time of day or night, visiting on alienate days, sometimes the *fledglings* are with them - for the birds - sometimes not, Even though the Possums are the more routine-based off the animals that stop by, some nights I'll get just the one, sometimes two and recently I've had up to four at a time. Spreading multiple portions of food around the tent several meters (5-7 approx.) stops fighting, which was starting to happen with just the single 'serve' I started putting out. When I say fighting though, I mean one Possum chasing the others away and "TUH-TUH-TUH-TUH-TUH.." grunting and other verbalizing that goes on. With multiple 'places' set at the proverbial table, I never hear and fighting or carry-on, and the most aggressive Possum (dubbed Young Bobby McGee, just for id purposes) doesn't leave his plate to chase-off other Possums.

She's already got her boyfriend in her room, they checked-in together. I should've leapt on her while she was walking past.