Hello all,
My name is Peter and like Chris I am also from Melbourne, Australia. I live with my boyfriend and our cat Stripey.
Hey Peter... more Aussies! I think outside of the US, we have more Australian users than anywhere else, including Canada. I actually find myself thinking about that when I write messages on here, with usual apologies going out to you guys when I mention seasons because while spring is here, fall is there.
John wants a kitty (we are pet-less at the moment). He is a cat person, I grew up with a dog, but get along fine with all animals, including skunks(!) and squirrels that used to follow me around at the townhouse we used to live in. Unfortunately, he's also allergic to most critters, so this has delayed our cat quest. Additionally, I am always wary of way-too-independent pets sneaking around the house.
I am 34 years old and I really enjoy writing. I have been inspired by Annie Proulx to write more imaginary characters - however it is really hard for me to write as Ennis and Jack are on my mind.
I wish you success in your creative writing endeavors. I am personally terrible at creative writing. It's like Cliche Corner with me - "it was a dark and stormy night" is the usual kind of stuff I end up turning out. I can write more effectively in news pyramid and magazine style than creatively. But keep it up.
I am curious to see how this goes as I am a very shy person. Like Philip I have lived in my home town pretty much all my life - although I have lived in different suburbs and lived in the country from ages 7 till I was 14. I have never travelled overseas and rarely interstate. However I would love to travel to Alberta, Texas and of course Wyoming! I have always wanted to travel to America, UK and Canada.
Being in Australia really does seem more isolating than say the US or Europe, if only because you are essentially on an island nation. Yes there is New Zealand, but that's probably not going to be a culture shock. Back in 1986 when I went to California for a week, I recall sitting in the hotel restaurant overhearing Australian businessmen the next table over talking about their Los Angeles experiences. It was a culture shock to be in Los Angeles, but several had also been in Utah and Illinois and evidently the cultural values of the more rural or heartland portions of America and Australia weren't tremendously different. One had said he had more trouble dealing with England than America.
I should start taking pictures and things myself and create some sort of cultural scrapbook of life in my part of the country - western New York state. To those in New York City, upstate New York is often dismissed as being part of Canada, and those of us in the western half of the state have almost nothing in common with people downstate in the Big Apple. In fact, culturally we are closer to the midwest or Ontario, Canada.
I sense a new project coming to fruition - stories about our communities with pictures and such.
So one Saturday night on impulse we went to see it at midnight at Chadstone Shopping Centre (Chris would know where that is). Well I didn't say much but my heart got ripped out and stomped on and like Strazeme I almost wished that I hadn't seen it. My reality dimmed in comparison to Brokeback. In the morning I woke in a cloud and the next week at work I was just too sad. All I could think was man - how life can sure give people a major blow.
Brokeback Mountain is the best movie I have ever seen. I am very grateful for it. However I dare not ever see it again - I am afraid that it would just cut open the wounds again as the pain was agonising. Love too can be agonisingly painful sometimes - I think that is why Brokeback affected me as I think a part of me fell in love with the characters.
It got easier for me on subsequent viewings because everything ripped open the first time around didn't get any worse for me. However, seeing it again re-inspires and re-focuses me on my life plan to make some changes and stop missing opportunities. It's like how the soundtrack kept Ang Lee focused - he said he listened to it often while filming to stay in the spirit of the story.
I get a bit confused sometimes between my love for the story and my love for the actors. Am I inspired to be more like Heath or Jake - and so feel like nothing compared to their great talent or am I inspired to be more like the characters and so feel like nothing compared to the beauty of Ennis and Jack? I am not sure. 
I think this is a great question. Someone posed the theory that BBM was not real because it cast two pretty people in the roles of downtrodden, dirt poor ranch hands. They felt it would have been more authentic with a Steve Buscemi and some other plain looking, weather-beaten actors in the Jack and Ennis roles. They do have a point. Few of us can rival the looks of the average Hollywood movie star, and seeing two attractive people on screen may actually make it easier to connect to them than if they were ordinary looking people. My shallow side tells me this is probably partially true with me - after
Donnie Darko I was definitely interested in Jake's films because of his looks and performance in that film. But I am convinced pretty people alone wouldn't have done it. I saw
Torch Song Trilogy and people on my generation would drool for Matthew Broderick, yet Torch Song really didn't do much for me.
