In an alternate lifetime, I wouldn’t have had a banana and some wasabi peas for breakfast. I would spend this sunny day painting the balcony railing, oiling the deck, weeding and pruning the front garden, sweeping the steps, and then having wine and cheese on the balcony while the sun sets. After having removed the flapping white linen from the clothesline. Of course. If this is the best daydream I can come up with while my kids are sleeping in and all’s quiet, then it’s a bit tragic. I hope they sleep til a hundred o’clock. I haven’t painted since Monday, it being way busy with people round here. And having spent a lot of time writing, refusing to accept that I couldn’t make an ugly thing beautiful by adding the right kind of human element. (Did I succeed? I don’t know.) And yesterday I went to an exhibition in a gallery far far away with my mother, who happens to be a great person to do galleries with on accounta she looks at works and says things like “you could do that, V-M” and “yours are much better than that, V-M”. On the people front it doesn’t look like my social life is going to abate until the next few days have passed. The good side of that is that I went out with my bitches – FINALLY – and had the funnest time. Ohmigawd, I love ‘em. After dinner we saw a drag show, and I have to say I love poofs more than I love lesbians, on accounta have you not noticed that drag queens are so much more fun than drag kings? And apparently their crotches smell like roses. (Luckily, I wasn’t sitting in that seat.) I don’t know what it is – maybe women take themselves too seriously, maybe the performative side of their sexuality can get too aggressive. Or maybe I should go out more (yes please) and remember how it is to be this entertained (hell yes) and discover that I’m making judgements based on very little experience (oops, sorry). Because, if you’ve ever been to karaoke at the glasshouse on a Sunday night, the host(ess) there is a total scream, or at least she was, I wouldn’t know on accounta I haven’t been since forever and for all I know she could have moved on. But she’s female and she’s funny as, so maybe I should shut my ignorant mouth. Okay. Really, I need to go out more. I don’t because I’m more café than pub, and pubs are where everyone goes, but in the end once you’re a little pissed who cares where you are? I just love my people. And I do kinda love dancing. And talking to strangers. And watching my friends have their heads shoved into tranny crotches. And I could probably learn to get over the feel of other people’s cigarette smoke rasping its way out of my lungs the day after. And I could learn to live with the distance between home and city. (Like, have you met my new best friend Eastlink? Not that I approve of tolls, but it’s the absolute best thing.) Wow – I think I was in danger of being too old then. I could have forgotten to go out forever and just slipped into nursing-home mode prematurely and I wouldn’t have known what I was missing. That was a close call.
Part Two of Today
Plus anyway, I don’t think I want to be so stuck at home. Having watched Daughter spiral back from perfect to what she was before. You know, watching the signs or her disgruntlement increase. Starting off with attacking Son where she would normally attack me. Then eventually swearing again. Then gradually calling me names. Starting to slip the word “pathetic” into her descriptive references to yours truly. Sticks and friggin stones, yah. So I have to keep track. I knew it was going from something to be concerned about to something to fear when, a few weeks ago, I asked her to hop out of the car to move the fallen-down bin out of the way while I was reversing the car down the driveway (having gone out of my way to pick her up from somewhere), and she said “you always make me do your dirty work, you mole”. Insert your own venom into the inflections there – it weren’t nice. And from this mild beginning it escalated, until last night she finally cracked, threatening to cut my voicebox out of my throat, to bash my head in, etc etc. Self generating an argument while I lay on my bed half asleep, not letting me speak and then telling me she wouldn’t listen to somebody with my “pathetic nature” (the ‘pathetic’ word is the danger sign for me – to her, my patheticness is justification for any harm she wants to commit), and repeatedly calling me “cunt”. Let’s not even mention the gutteral scream of every frustrated emotion she couldn’t find insulting-enough words to express. Man, I’m tired. Am writing last night’s stuff down on accounta as I lay there without moving or speaking and she got worse and worse, I was a sitting duck, and I opened my eyes for a minute to look at the graffitied wall above my bed, and wondered if I was about to die, knowing that it’s quite possible that during one of these outburst she could get angry enough to do what she threatens. I don’t think she will, but I’m sure nobody thinks anybody ever will, and then they do. In the end she said she wouldn’t assault me because there’d be long term consequences I wasn’t worth going to jail for. Never have I felt so happy to be considered pathetic. (It’s more complicated than it seems – linked to her low self-esteem and frustration, as it always is.) So I sit here on this sunny morning, in this lovely silence, and feel quite calm, albeit temporarily. I have beautiful friends, and going out more often will do me good. I can’t believe I forget these things. I mean, how do you forget how to have fun? That’s just dumb.
It’s not that I’m shallow, but I keep a couple of friends updated on the state of celebrity old faces (our age) to make sure that they’re aging the same way we are. Because it’d suck if money could buy youth. I demand a very important role from these women, and that is that they have to be ambassadors of decrepitude. If they don’t age, then they’re not doing their job as Representative Human Beings properly at all. I know my friends shake their heads at me when I do this, but secretly they’re pleased to be kept informed. I don’t mind getting old – in fact I quite like it – just as long as everybody else gets old alongside me. You know, if I go down I take the whole world with me kinda thing. Call this celebrity-observation a hobby. Well it’s certainly not a job, on accounta I don’t really follow celebrities (eww) – I kinda have to stumble across them accidentally. Like the other night, when I finished watching a recording of Arts Sunday and turned the machine off and there was Kylie Minogue on Doctor Who. So of course I had to watch it, as was my duty. Kylie’s half a year older than me, so she made a good specimen. And you’ll be pleased to know, she’s aging. Not many wrinkles, but then she’s probably had the bejeezus botoxed out of her face (apologies to her if she hasn’t, sorry sorry). But the skin – perfect. It’s been stripped of its elastin, kinda about to hang from her skull like an old ladies nightie. Sagging in a few places already. Her mouth at resting state very downturned. You can give a little victory punch to the air, if you like. (Kylie’s old!) In fact, she and Nicole Kidman are about the same. They probably see the same botox specialist for the wrinkles, but if it’s not gonna get you around the eyes, it’ll get you in the skin. Whoo! Well, that’s about as much as I can stand of celebrities. I can’t watch Kylie for long on accounta her neck’s so sinewy. But good on ‘er, it’s about time she was human. Old age rules.
Thirteen hours is too long to spend painting in one day. Somebody needs to remind me: I enjoy this, why…? I mean ya wouldn’t, in ya right mind. It’s friggin difficult, is what. And I didn’t even finish what I wanted to finish, which means I won’t know if it’s worked until I’ve gone over it some in a few days’ time. Sometimes I look at my work and feel self conscious because I think anybody could do this and aren’t I a tosser, but during days like today I’m reminded that no, not many people can. And if I’m not careful I’ll fall into the not-many-people category, because being tired could have made me sloppy. Plus days like today stop me mid-smooth-sailing to remind me that there are some things I’m still awkward with and it’s way humbling. Being humble sucks. I liked it better when it was just plain difficult instead of monumentally difficult. But being a not-many people would be great, on accounta if I was other people I wouldn’t spend thirteen hours a day slaving away over a canvas. I'd probably even have a life. Oh well. A girl can dream.
Young people have gotta shit ya. They’re so, you know…young. And you can’t even hate them for being young and stupid because it’s in the job description. If they were smart they’d be old. But faaar out. My Dad turns eighty next week, so we had a big get together for him tonight, and I was sitting at a fairly large table with half the family, Dad included, and his sister and a cousin I haven’t seen for about a million years. And gosh it was fun n’ all, and I managed to keep my chin up and it didn’t make me quiet or anything, on accounta I have to be pretty devastated to be quiet, but early on my niece (Daughter’s age) called a question to me across this heavily populated table, and this particular question revealed possibly the most personal and most secret thing to me (and about me) in the whole wide world. Fuck. So I was pretty much stunned into a this-cannot-be-happening state, gave her a desperate please-don’t look and damned if she didn’t say it again, just in case THE WHOLE WORLD didn’t hear it the first time. Daughter’s eyes met mine and sent me a shitload of helpless empathy, because she knew as well as I did that that moment and those words were irreversible. I sat there and saw my life change before my very eyes with this enormous violation of my privacy, wondering if there was a possibility that people didn’t understand what she was saying, and then discreetly (not much) crossed the room to lean across and whisper into her ear “don’t you ever say that in public again”. Not even a please, just plain old firm. Get that message, yo. So a good time was had by all, but jeepers, am I regretting that her mother (Friend W-L) tells her daughter (my niece) everything, on accounta as I warned her so many moons ago, there’s no way kids don’t have stupid big blabbermouths and it’s gonna come back to haunt me. Prediction successful. You see how it happens? Young people are so flippant that they can devastate you with a careless flick of the wrist. Oh well, no changing it now. At least her voice didn’t carry across both of the tables. But wouldn’t it be nice to be protected from this kinda thing. Maybe if they passed a law insisting that all teenagers be de-barked. I’d vote for that government. Anyways, I let my personality run on auto-pilot but the quiet is catching up with me now, so I’m glad I didn’t go to the after party at Baby Brother’s house. Even though being asked to the after party is like being invited to sit at the back of the bus with the cool kids. Really, though, that only ever reminds me that I’m not actually cool, so I came home to get an old-woman early night so that I can paint for as long as possible tomorrow. I didn’t have time to paint today and it kills me not being able to just keep going. What I did do with my very small amount of free time today was swim. Swimming is like good medicine and I think it’s going to save me, on accounta a kilometre in soft water relaxes me like nothing else and I kinda have to approach relaxation as a therapeutic thing now. Violation of privacy notwithstanding, tonight is nice. My body feels both alive and peaceful, grandkitten is nuzzling very beautifully into my neck, and there’s nothing to stop me from working away quietly tomorrow. I love my family. Life is good.
Kinda when I was supposed to be doing something else, I spent a few days working on a drawing a few weeks ago and very quietly didn’t even show it to anybody, on accounta I felt all of this stuff but it all seemed very private even though it’s not really. You know, that private kinda feeling that you get when you’re doing things you’re not sure about, but you love doing it so much, I mean really love it, and it’s such a nice way to be, all playful like, just caught up in the making of, so with this nice but very unsure feeling I kinda followed my resolve to enter it into a competition. Then cringed with self-consciousness and thought, what am I, crazy? But I was informed that I’m a finalist and am going into the exhibition and that’s a good thing. Validation, hey wot. And I needed it, on accounta I’ve been working away without feedback from the outside world for so long that I’ve started to feel guilty for being so caught up in these obsessive thought patterns that make me produce work that I was beginning to think had no value to anybody but myself. Oh lawdy halleluja, the world wants me afterall, and that makes my garret a less lonely place in which to work. And also gives me even more permission to neglect people. That’s all you need, permission. I am allowed.
Life’s not slow yet, no way (bugger), but at least I’m making time to read the way I want to, and this gives life the illusion of slowness. Such thoughtfulness. Such contemplation. That’s because I’m currently addicted to poetry, having fortified my stomach against the garbagey stuff you have to read through to get to the good stuff. The good stuff at the moment being Craig Sherbourne. I came across one of his pieces in an anthology I was reading and it’s so, so stunning I had to order more. So far so good. The odd awkward line in some of his other poetry, just a little here and there, but otherwise so rich with imagery and spunk. (Not sperm spunk – good spunk.) Actually, he’s brilliant. I’m at the moment reading Hoi Polloi and am so excited by it I can hardly sleep. He plays with language the way a singer plays with voice, kinda controlled but effortless, a natural way with rhythm. I can feel the way he thinks as I read. I can feel him write. There are very few writers who can manage that verbal sensuality so well. I think I’m in book love. See? Slowness. Also I’ve been writing. Also painting. Also doing research. And drawing. And not-neglecting my people. Hence the slowing life down thing isn’t really working, but that’s okay. As Friend Boy A pointed out to me yesterday (having taken on the role of Destroyer of All Self-Delusion and Wielder of Brutal Honesty, complete with evil chuckle and evident delight in his naysaying), when I slow things down I look around me and see a gap in time that I immediately fill with something else. Or as he expressed it, my life will never slow down because the minute it gets even a little close to calm I say something like “ooh, look at all that free time, here’s my opportunity to learn quantum-physics”. (That’s a joke by the way. As if I’d take on quantum-physics.) Then I turn around and wonder where all of the lovely slowness went. Like, derr. So I need to drop at least one of my newly taken-on pseudo-slow things. What really isn’t working is this whole not-neglecting-my-people business, so the people have to go. Just selectively. Because man, do people take up too much time, or what? And it’s all lovely seeing them more often etc, but they kinda take time out of your control without meaning to. (Eg. Drive Lovely Mother to visit Uncle at hospital, I say let’s go later so that I can paint for a while first, she says “oh, we can’t go late because I have to get back” [to what? Blimey], she barters my proposed time backwards until my painting time is eaten away, I get belatedly offended because if it was paid work she wouldn’t have expected me to give the time up = even the people ya love spending time with – and it’s been great lately – suck sometimes.) And I figure that most of my people love me even when I’m neglecting them, so technically I get away with it, and should go back to the way I was before I became such a social saint. Or at least break it down a bit. Put my foot down. Insist that they work around me. (Except, I really do love my mother and I want to make her happy. Dammit.) Never mind. My body’s shot with stress, muscles not giving me much respite. Motor tic being my barometer, I have to find a new way. To relax. But this painting I’m working on – ohmigawd. With less time to work, I painted the eyes about three stages earlier than usual. Usually I leave them until almost-last. But there they are, and they’re so strong they’re spooky. I practically can’t breathe I’m so excited by this – the eyes are the trigger for my mind to think “almost done”, and I’m savouring every second of it coming together (please don't stuff it up please don't stuff it up please don't stuff it up). Gosh, how do people paint portraits without hyperventilating? Every forced minute away from it is going to be excruciating.
Ohmigawd, I swore in public. Does that mean I’m turning into a bogan? Eww. But it was terrible, and I was about to cry. Because not only have they installed the self-service checkouts at our local Safeway, but tonight they made me use them. I didn’t even want to go to their stinking Safeway, on accounta I’m knackered from working hard and working late for days on end, but the kids wanted me to get milk. And chocolate. So there we were, Son and I, about to go through the checkout, when I realised there were no checkout staff. I was utterly confronted by the changing world and I felt so damn distressed. I cannot stand machines talking to me. Of course I know how to use the stupid things, but I looked at it dumbly, then I looked at the overseeing Safeway woman less than dumbly, and in my best this-world-sucks voice (which doubles as a cracking about to cry voice) I said “I hate this – I fucking hate it”, and then I did the stubborn child thing by banging things around more than was necessary. I also said the very childish “I’m never shopping here again”. And I meant it. Really, I should have poked out my tongue. The thing is, they make mega profits and are trying to take over absolutely everything. Blah blah blah, if you don’t know what I’m talking about then do the damn research. Or take my word for it – they’re corporate motherfuckers. Grandmotherfuckers – they’ll screw anything. To be like that and then to be like this – shit. Taking away the human element is the sacrilegious last straw. And if they won’t stop logging in Tasmania because it would cost people their jobs, then why are Safeway allowed to give human jobs to machines? Thank you for shopping Safeway my arse. I kinda told the machine to fuck off. If sentient machines ever do take over the world, I’m so gonna be on their hit list. Especially if the self-service check-out machine talks to the automated telephone services, which probably have me on record as a serial swearer. I don’t like it I don’t like it I don’t like it. And now I have a new problem. Because you used to be a greenie hippy if you wanted to hug trees and fight the way the world is. Save the planet stuff. But now you’re an idiot if you don’t see what’s happening and want to hug trees and fight, but you’ll still be called a greenie if you try to do something about it. Which is unfair – they should up the benchmark for hippy-greenie-ness to allow for concerned citizenship, on accounta I don’t like the label. I can’t be a hippy greenie. I like meat, dammit. So what do I do. If the only reason I know the things I know is because I’ve spent the last few years reading certain books, then how is it possible to convey the amount of information that needs to be conveyed to individuals to show them why so many things are fucked? I can’t stop panicking about this. It’s doin’ my head in. And I don’t know if the bad things are accelerating at break-neck speed, or if they’ve always been this fast but I’m noticing them now because I’m aware of them. It’s the corporation thing – it’s so friggin hard to fight. And not enough people are trying. And everything I’m working on is so slow (and, um, useless), so I’ll have to also do other things. Blimey. I’ll probably have to mingle with ferals. I have to tell my friends, don’t let me turn into a hippie. Watch for the danger signs. And if I start eating lentils, throw me into rehab. Please.
That’s two leaves short of good luck. And sort of always being left behind. Like, if certain friends throughout my life had to evacuate a burning house, I wouldn’t be in the must-grab pile with the photographs. (Be warned – today I’m wearing my victim coat.) I heard from Evil Ex-Friend again yesterday, and it’s completely undone my carefully cultured toughness. I didn’t mention that I’d heard from her a while ago, even though it was a bit of a spin-out. I was walking one morning and started thinking about her. Not nice things – something more like being not surprised that she’d sent me a lovely apology and a plea that we catch up and then disappeared again. In fact, I was pretty much swearing at her in my head. But that’s okay, because I hadn’t expected much from her. And I wasn’t going to chase her. Being tough n’ all. When I got home I found a new text msg on my phone, and it was from her. Very twilight zone timing. Of course, being tough doesn’t mean I’m not a desperate idiot – I jumped on the phone immediately and we had a long catch up, she told me where I could apply for teaching work and that she was moving to northern news south wales. Sad thing being, we slipped straight back into friendship mode. And I was stupidly happy for five whole seconds. The background is:
I applied for the job, got it, remembered how tough I was, didn’t trust her much (tough!), didn’t even tell her about it, not even to say thank you, not wanting to ever put myself in a submissive position with her again. Plus I thought what’s the point? She was moving states and I expected never to hear from her again. (That was me being very “you can’t hurt me – ner ner ner ner ner”.) One thing I had told her was that the other one of us (three of us had been sessional teaching at a university together) was also living in northern nsw, not far from where she was going, and that I’d only just found that friend accidentally and there’s the luck of it, to be able to move to the middle of nowhere and there’s already a friend waiting there for you. Bully for her.
So yesterday I received an excited text from Evil Ex-Friend saying that I hadn’t told her that Other Teaching Friend was “pregnant as well”. Well, I didn’t know at the time. I was replying as much just before class, and one of my students who used to be her student asked me “when’s J due?”. Like, fuck. That’s when I found out that she’s pregnant, too, and hadn’t told me. So I sent another text, and she replied that she’d wanted to see me and surprise me with it, and say goodbye before she left. Shit. I would have loved that. And it was really nice of her. (Tough my arse – just look at how I go crawling back.) So now I’m profoundly sad. My students didn’t quite get my full attention during that class. I’m really happy for her, that’s the problem. Because what’s the point of making me feel all warm and remembery if I have no way of spending those emotions? And it’s happiness that comes with such a sense of loss and a memory of a helluva lotta pain. Raw wound kinda stuff. It’s taken me a long time to feel lonely, but now that I’m changing the way I live I’ve got plenty of time to notice that I don’t got nobody to share anything with. Loads of friends, but they’re all over the place, and the project work I’m doing for the rest of the year is going to leave me very isolated if I’m not careful. And the lesson her friendship left me with is that I’m not allowed to need anybody. I take it seriously. What a fucked legacy. But I know what it is, what with the irony of spending more time with more and more people making me lonelier and lonelier. The more you step into the outside world, the more you need your people from the inside world. (The inside world being art and books and art and books and art and books.) Which breaks the not-needing rule. Which is a recipe for disaster. Which means that workaholism is better and I should return to that (did I ever leave?). Gosh, being human is very hard work, innit?
Up yours, Kevin Rudd. And I mean seriously, up yours with a razor blade. A bit of a poke and a very severe twist. Early last week I started reading Ocean Warrior by Paul Watson, kinda expecting it to be a little bit on the charismatic but eventually annoying i-am-hero side. Well – not. It’s well written, informative, and not nearly as up-himselfish as I expected. Read it – it’ll both inspire you and make you angry. Especially if you’re halfway through it when you just happen to be sitting in a waiting room with your mother on accounta you’re being the post-operative looker-afterer for the day, and you see a harpooned whale on the front page of somebody’s Age newspaper, with the announcement that Kevin Rudd has backed down on his promise to fight the Japanese whaling operations. Friggin prime ministers. Prime arseholes, is what. This, I have to tell you, is the kind of front page that’ll make you cry. So I’d like to get on a soap box and say that it’s a bit devastating that we – being our country – could do something, are one of the few countries who can do something, but we – being our motherfucking prime minister – won’t do anything at all. What, did the Japanese say please and he was too polite to say no? Grow some balls, you money grubber. Forget the soap box – the more I read, the more I realise there is I need to learn, and I’m not ready to summarise and preach. Yet. Lucky you. Hold that thought. I also read Breath, by Tim Winton, and was in awe of the dynamic he created between his characters and the sea. Pity he FUCKED UP the ending. Like, how do you be so, so brilliant and then so clumsy? All of this immediate action and then suddenly this flat, inactive prose that goes something like “and then this happened and then that happened the end”. Was it a bit of a literary god thing, where the editor was so arse-kissy that he/she didn’t dare smack him on the wrist and send him home to finish his story properly? No offence to said editor, but sheesh. The novel’s still brilliant. I magnanimously forgive him for his crappy ending, on accounta he took me somewhere I hadn’t been. It’s beautiful. Enough, let’s get back to being angry at Kevin Rudd. Bastard. I don’t know why but the sea is starting to get me. I read these books and it goes in through my mind and it’s like I’ve got gills. Suddenly realising what the ocean means to the world, and how it’s everybody’s business. I then read Whale Warriors, by Peter Heller, and ohmigawd, I couldn’t put it down. It’s not just ethically sound and inspiring – it’s full-on high adventure. It’s an account of his (I am so not using the word ‘journey’) experience on the Sea Shepherd ship (Farley Mowat) during an anti-japanese-whaling expedition to antarctica, and reading it is like being there. Except that if you’re reading it not-on-the-ship you’re probably not about to die every few pages. Read it read it read it. Especially good because he doesn’t fawn or hero-worship, doesn’t have mother-earth tattoos, worship gaia or change his name to Riversong – he’s rational and observant. Down to earth. And not a vegan. Gosh, I’ve been to sea three times in two weeks. I more than admire these people. The world would be awful without them. Look at me in my safe little house on my safe little hillside, knowing what’s going on out in the world and doing so little to help. So far. But my mentality is shifting in every which way possible. I was raised to be this, and I’m training myself to be that. As soon as I figure out how to get beyond thinking so that I can start doing (without turning into a die-hard lentil-loving greenie slash feral that nobody will talk to at parties), I’ll be onto it. Because all I can see now is how useless I am. I give myself three weeks to make myself useful. Preferably without risking my life in the process. Wow, that’s a deadline.
I swear, effing xtians crack me up. I was driving along Doncaster Road today when I noticed a church with one of those message boards that offer regularly updated pearls of wisdom out the front. This one said “Persevere – even snails made it onto the ark”. Two possible interpretations for that – one that made me really angry, and the other applying the first in such a way that I get to point my finger and laugh at the morons who put it there. First interpretation: the statement works only if you don’t expect a snail to be worthy of being ‘saved’. As in, you read this, you ponder and yea you are surprised at the generosity of the good lawd in rescuing such a revolting creature. And if the good lawd saves a snail, then of course he’ll save you on accounta humans are so much better. Thus reinforcing the revolting and ultimately detrimental belief perpetuated by (most) religions, that humans are superior to all in life’s hierarchy, bugger ecology etc. Motherfuckers. You’re the reason the planet’s going to shit. Second possible interpreation: by accepting the first message, you can be comforted by the statement most if you yourself are as revolting as said revolting creature, on accounta it’s telling you that gawd loves you even if you’re a scumbag slug of a human being, so hang in there. Kinda makes me wanna spread snail pellets around the entrance way to churches. Joy and salvation to all.
Our cats are starting to resemble rodents. Glorified food grubbers. Aggressive, bitchy, sneaking in and attacking each other, running around the house hissing and spewing on MY BEDROOM FLOOR. Like, get the fuck out of my house, already. They’re so horrible to each other they’re no longer nice to me. Have they forgotten that their world revolves around me? They’re breaking the rules. I feed them. I am gawd. Yield, bitches. As I speak I can hear grandkitten unrolling the toiletpaper from the roll. Shredding it. Friggin cute. (#@%*!!) Anyways, grandkitten and I had our first argument today. This is devastating, on accounta we’re way in love. It never ceases to amaze me that a human can bond so thoroughly with a creature from another species, but there ya go. So when she peed in the corner of my bedroom I was ‘orrified, on accounta she was crossing over to the other side, becoming just another cat. How dare she stop being the light of my life. Being way fed up with feline rodents the world over, I lost it. I picked her up and rubbed her face in it, and then I grabbed some paper towel and soaked it up and rubbed it into her fur, and I yelled at her hoping that the punishment you’re supposed to meet out for dogs is the same for cats, and that it’s possible to scare the potential habit out of her. Then I promptly felt terrible for the rest of the day. My poor baby. Punishment is so not my forte (camera pans sideways to reveal that the toilet floor is now so covered in shredded paper it looks like it’s been snowed upon). Le sigh. Parenting is so not easy.
Sort of. The supermarket has become a battle zone. Nah derr, like we didn’t know that already. But now I have a weapon, what with the pen being mightier than the sword n’ all, meaning somebody else’s pen, on accounta I bought The Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping at Readings a couple of weeks ago and now I’m a consumer warrior. So anyway Safeway and Coles are my enemy and when I go in there I skulk around all ninja-like, eyes darting sideways (seriously – trust no one), on accounta I hate them so much. All of that consumer trickery. But let me tell you that saving the world is not easy. I thought this would be a nice little starting point, changing my consumer habits bit by bit, but it’s hard to find substitutes for some of the products I kinda need. Want. Need. For example, I didn’t realise that the Nestle boycott is still on – that means NO MILO!! That leads me to wonder how to stop people from buying big badass nestle crap. I’m trying a bit of coz-i-said-so, which works with some people and not with others. Son, for instance, doesn’t care. Daughter does, and now our shopping experience isn’t just about making a list, it’s considering what we’re allowed to buy and not. No questions asked, she just accepts that ethics overrule everything else. Mars products = bad = no more Maltesers. Way cool. I feel guilty for not having known this stuff earlier. This little book has just about every possible category of grocery covered. I’m already a good little vegemite because I buy all of my fruit and vegetables from small f&v stores. Okay not bananas – I buy them too often so I go for easy there. OH THE GUILT. But now – ohmigawd. It’s not enough to do small things and I know it. But how do you encourage everybody to make the effort to change? Well for starters I’m telling everybody by-the-way to not buy Vegemite anymore because it’s made by Kraft and KRAFT IS BAD. That’s a big fuck-you to the old Australia, innit. And OMO – I don’t like change but after a hundred million years I now discover I have to change my washing powder, OHMIGAWD! That means changing the smell of everything, you know? Don’t panic – I’ve made a guinea pig of myself for the public good. After an intrepid new purchase I’ve discovered that Planet Ark’s Aware Eco Choice is way good, though I don’t recommend sniffing it when you open the box because it’ll make your head spin. Trust me, it smells okay. I’m so doing you a favour here. If you have cats and you’re too scummy to buy fresh meat, only Snappy Tom is okay. It costs more but that’s the point, isn’t it? If something’s cheap, somebody else is being ripped off. You should feel bad about that. If you want things cheap you’re probably a complete motherfucker. Speaking of motherfuckers, I’m so buying this little book for all of my friends’ birthdays. And when I visit their houses they’re gonna want to hide all of their unethical corporate products just to avoid my impending lecturing. I can feel myself morphing into one of those annoying people that tell everybody how to live. Heh. They’ll thank me one day. When the world doesn’t spontaneously combust. And their consciences don’t shrivel because of all that exploitation they inadvertently perpetuate. Yey.
The moon is always blue, pigs have flown backwards, the sea’s frozen over and the grass is definitely greener on this side. How many weeks now? So many I’ve lost count. But however many, Daughter has stopped attacking. It’s like we’re living on a different planet now, and this time I’m not even being naïve or inappropriately optimistic. Like, no dupes where I’m standing, we’re all rational beings here. On top of all this goodness, we went to a mediation meeting yesterday and I was way impressed by how it went. The mediators were witnessing Happily-Ever-After in the flesh. We practically did their job for them. This is so cool I don’t even have words for it. In the end what came out of the discussion was that this time we both let our guard down at the same time, and it can’t be reversed. Happy. Happy happy. I’ve got our ‘us’ back, one little happy family. A bit of stabilising and relationship building to do, but it’s all sweet. Le sigh.
Because let’s not get too carried away with the up-myself business. There’s plenty wrong with me, and I’m up for a bit of psychoanalysis of my ticking technique. Which is funny if you’re into puns (I’m so not), on accounta my ticking technique is totally influenced by my motor tic. Oh ha. Ha ha. The hardest thing about teaching, for me, is marking the attendance role. Here’s where I get all freak-show. I can draw you the most delicate and complex image if you ask me to, but ask me to make a single stroke on the page, in a specified column, and I can’t do it. Or I can, but only with a lot of effort. I look at it and I consult with my hand, and my hand has this malicious motherfucking grin, and I try to wrestle with it to make the stroke quickly, but I go over it compulsively, probably three times. Four. Ask me if it’s stressful: YES IT IS. Stupid big fat overworked dark line. Doesn’t matter. Shits me up the wall, but at least I’ve improved. When I was a teenager I did this every time I wrote and would nearly rip through the page. My full stops could have poked your eyes out. One particular teacher was always giving me lines (on accounta I am my daughter's mother and i was kinda in trouble a lot), and he thought i was making them messy on purpose. Actually writing lines for me was utter torture, and his accusations really compromised the placement of my halo. The good thing is that as a grown-up I can almost train myself out of it. My daytime class role has the big fat ticks for three weeks, but I noticed this week that the most recent weeks have been easy, single strokes. Not only did I win the battle, but I did it without noticing. That’s mind over matter, that is. Although, I guess that’s kinda the point – to make it not-happen it has to not matter to me. Anyway, so tidy, such freedom. So normal. Administration will check the roles and say to themselves gosh, look at those neat ticks – that’s one very relaxed and totally un-fucked-in-the-head teacher. I tried to replicate this freedom of penmanship during my evening class, but the evening class role is doomed and I couldn’t do it. I think because at night my body is more tired. Being an old woman an’ all. That’s a great analysis, very deep. Keeping tabs on the stress levels. Obviously they’re abating, and I have the daytime role to prove it. Wow, I’m like my own lab rat. Freak.
I dunno. What’s the etiquette on this one? Like, are you allowed to laugh at your own jokes in polite society, or do you kinda gotta be modest? Yawn, maybe; oh that old thing? For weeks my students were asking me to show them some of my work, and I carried the most tame story in for them but somehow never managed to pull it out, on accounta apart from bald self-aggrandisement I couldn’t see the point of showing it to them. Until this week, when I was teaching them the hows and whys of using dialogue in their stories, and even though it’s not entirely full of the stuff the plot of this particular tame story was driven by dialogue. So I dusted it off, and we made it our read-aloud-in-class story for the week. I was, for another twenty minutes of my life, dead famous. You know how it goes, they each read a page etc, and it was going around the room and we couldn’t stop laughing, on accounta is was freaken funny. I’d remembered it being devastatingly clever (!!!!!), but I’d forgotten it was funny, and buggered if I could stop myself. It’s the weirdest thing, laughing at your own work, but how do you not? Especially if you wrote it a hundred million years ago and it’s like it belongs to somebody else. And if you don’t laugh you’re just gonna look wooden. So I’m being well and truly grounded in this up-myselfness training thing, which is bound to happen anyway on accounta having students is like having your own personal fan club sometimes. What with somebody telling you you’re wonderful every second week. Which is good on accounta I think they’re wonderful and it’s all one big love-making-the-world-go-round riot, and if they weren’t telling me I’m wonderful I’d probably be really self-conscious and worry that I wasn’t entertaining them enough. Yes, I really am that immature and insecure. I think I have to change the tattoo on my forehead to LOVE ME, OR ELSE. Anyway I know this makes me a dickhead, on accounta my teachers at art school aren’t like that. They’re cool, calm and collected. I can’t be mature like them because I get too excited by stuff. Like, you know. Everything. And that’s why I love teaching, especially writing, because we’re constantly discussing the world and it’s like hanging out with friends so you inevitably fall in love with your class. Mutually. It’s very personal. If you happen to immature, that is. Also, though, it’s so nice to be working with words again. Back in the saddle and all that. Feels like home, and I’m so, so close to having the best of both worlds. Yey.
If you’re not lucky love can knock so many years off your life. You know the scenario: wife dies, husband dies two months later. Or Husband dies, wife dies two months later. Fretting etc. Or something more like devastation. (Insert wife/wife and husband/husband variations as appropriate.) Well my uncle is a trooper, because it’s been four months and he hasn’t snuffed it yet. In fact, he’s way behind schedule because round about now is only the start of his snuffing it. Which is sad in one way, but so damn amusing in another, on accounta he’s in hospital and clearly losing it (sad) and having the funniest delusions (not sad) (ok, sort of sad). The main funny delusion is that Aunty E has come “back from heaven”. He’s sustained this delusion for quite a while, and when we were visiting him in hospital yesterday (sad) he was telling us how she’s come back shorter (not sad). Also she’s come back in a really bad mood, and won’t talk to him. And she took off with his car. So anyway you try answering a million questions about why somebody would come back from heaven (eww) with a different personality. He thinks that because my mum has worked with the elderly for years she should know the answer to this, as though it was covered in some part of her training. I’m personally more curious about why she’s shorter. I wonder if that happened to jesus. The thing to learn here is that when you start to get dementia the guts of your personality starts getting out of control. Both Uncle and Aunty were grumpy old conspiracy theorists who were estranged from the bulk of their relatives (sad) and cried poor a lot more than they needed to (irritating). So it makes sense that she’s come back in a foul mood, and that in his dotage he’s worried about money money money and having his car stolen. It’s all very true to character. (I think in my dotage I’m gonna be running around making wild exclamations about how I’ve overdone the highlights and can’t see well enough to blend the friggin paint.) Back to the point, my poor uncle. Losing his faculties and losing his freedom and lost his wife, which is the saddest thing. When he was hugging me goodbye he said “your hair smells really lovely” and at first I thought great! on accounta he can’t be too far gone if he has such excellent taste in hair conditioner fragrances (damn right it’s really lovely – I practically snort the stuff when I wash my hair), but then it struck me that he’s all alone and doesn’t get to hug anybody. The smell of people is a thing of closeness and not nice to be without. (Probably in my dotage I’m gonna also run around sniffing people.) So dammit, I’m all worried about him and need to make sure that however long he has left is as un-lonely as we can make it. Which is hard because he’s far away. And it’s pretty hard to break somebody’s innate conspiracy-theorist habits, goodness knows I’ve tried. I’ve thrown so many look-on-the-bright-sides at him I make Polyanna look depressing, but so far to no avail. That's the worst thing - being an unhappy demented instead of a happy demented. It's like being an angry drunk instead of a happy drunk - a waste of good alcohol, a waste of good deteriorating brain cells. I hope I'm a happy demented when I grow up. Gosh. Oldness sucks. There’s the graceful, wise and fluffy-white-haired side of it, but the rest just leaves a big sad lump in your throat.
I’m getting so damn good at the error part of that process. In fact, nobody can out-error me. But tonight I get a bit of reprieve, because I won’t be able to see the full extant of today’s error until I have daylight, on accounta I finished my painting during early afternoon, hated it by late afternoon, attacked it again in the evening when it was way too dark to see, and now it looks temporarily kinda ace. Meh. It’s a love-hate relationship, this one. I think my painting and I need a few days apart. You know, a bit of breathing space. See other people, that kinda thing. It needs to set me free, is what.
If the light of autumn is this bad, then winter’s gonna be a complete motherfucker. I’ve gone over the dark side of the face I’m painting at least four times now, and it’s still wrong, on accounta the light changes every five friggin seconds and then your vision goes to shit. Yesterday I thought I’d solved the problem by taking over Son’s old bedroom, but I was going hell for leather thinking “this is great!” and being generally amazed at how easily I paint when the light is good, and then in the afternoon I discovered that the glossy bits were so obviously not blended well with the matt-ish bits that I had to suppress a scream. Like, with swear words, which it turns out are a great scream-suppressant. I’ve had no end of trouble with the light since I started this painting. I kinda have to solve this problem NOW, seeing as I’m not likely to ever be able to rent a studio on accounta I’m a dirt poor single mother scumbag, and as a good friend pointed out recently I aint ever likely to end up in a relationship where I can start afresh in a better-lit place on accounta I’m just not marry-able material (thanks love, for that little crushing of all romantic aspirations). This house is it, and it’s big enough so I have to make it work. I know this is very modern of me, but I’m thinking electricity might have to be the go for winter. And damned if I didn’t discover that my lamp had a mere 40 watt globe in it. That makes me an official dumb-arse, except that I learn from my mistakes and have bought 100 watt globes and buggered if I can’t see with them. (I can!!) Although, they might be tricking me as much as the window light has tricked me, seeing as all light is out to get me. Anyway I’m sure the Dutch masters used 100 watt candles, so fingers crossed. You know how you fall in love with your paintings while your doing them, but then when the labour becomes stressful as opposed to plain old challenging you start to hate them? I’m hating this painting. I can’t imagine ever looking at it and not-seeing all of the stressful work. Maybe I should just paint over the whole thing from scratch as a better, smarter person. So tempted.
This week I care about two things – painting, and feeding my offspring. But I’m getting it pretty easy with this renewed fit of maternal piety, on accounta when I did a spontaneous defrosting of the freezer the other night (so that I could make a snow man in the sink with the ice), I found two tubs of three hundred year old soup buried at the back. Like, if this soup wasn’t frozen it would have fossilised by now. I know I didn’t make it last year, and I know I didn’t make it the year before. And I’m thinking that maybe it’s a bit sad that I can remember not-making vegetable soup for whole years in a row, but this does prove that I was, once, a pretty good soup-making mum. It’s damn good soup, by the way, and you’d call it a bisque if you were into using stupid words to describe something that already has a perfectly good name. So when I was opening the container ready to tip it onto the garden, you know, to nourish the earth and stuff, I thought it looked kinda good and decided I’d do a bit of a scientific experiment. We didn’t die. Or even get stomach aches. And it was so freaken nice we’re going to have the other tub tonight. So all of those stupid rumours they spread about frozen stuff having a time limit must be wrong. Like, I bet if you thawed Walt Disney out and ate him you’d be okay afterwards. Except for your obvious psychological problem. Being a mum is way cool, especially if you can pull a motherhood you prepared earlier out of the freezer every now and then. Piss easy. Now, I wonder what old food I have hiding at the back of the cupboards…
P.S. Snow man lasted a day and a half. In case you were wondering.
