Ten days off is a luxury I don't get that often. Ten days to do as I please, relax, read, exercise, play, sleep - okay and feed cats and finish Greek writing job that is sending me loopy and see the odd movie.. but yeah, I have ten, possibly seventeen days off which to do as I want. ( It might be 17 days depends on the next job's paperwork - might be starting the week after if the paperwork is on the go slow - not to worry - the job is mine).
One of the things I really want to get cracking on, especially after the Greek job is finished, is this blasted novel I've been threatening for the last two decades.
See, I know I can write. I know I don't write too badly. And I know that I can do this, but I just have to focus this so called 'flaky' mind of mine, sit on my arse and do it.
Like any sort of writing, you have to ask the questions before you start. The whats, the wheres, the whos, the whys and the hows. This is what I'm tinkering with at the moment.
There is also the matter of style. The matter of voice. The matter of audience. The type of novel I want to write. This is where I come a bit unstuck - and I can't shut my bloody brain off, so I procrastinate, stagnate and put my notebook away.
What I do have, so far, is the what, where, when and how.
The what is the easy bit. The novel is based on my time being an illegal alien in London. I managed this for six years (was in the UK for a total of eight). I'm told that there is a worthy story here. So for the last few months I've been pondering my rather chequered history from 1991 to 1999. Not that it's that nefarious. Okay, I didn't have a visa - but I payed my taxes and national insurance. I didn't steal, kill or maim. I worked a professional job in an international company. I have an English name, a sort of English accent (call it a very tempered Australian accent - I'm often confused for a Pom - and think of myself as a confused Brit most of the time). This time period comes with a killer sound track too - which is helping. Some songs just take me back to weird and wondeful places. Robbie Williams, 4 Non Blondes, some of the better concerts I've seen. There's also a lot of stuff there which made life simpler. No mobile phones, no emails. There were letters and telephones - other ways of communicating information.
The where is easy too. Most of the time, action takes place in London. There will have to be some bits about how I got in and out of the country - so a jaunt or two to Ireland and a bit about Paris and beyond. Sorted. I used to know the area around NW6 and NW3 like the back of my hand - West Hampstead, Camden, Swiss Cottage, Hampstead - know it well - can conjure it up without too much problem. Easy.
When is also easy. 1991-1999. There might need to be a bit of back story - and this is being a bit problematic. But we'll get to that.
How is also covered. I know how I got to stay in a country I loved for so long under not quite kosher circumstances. No problems there.
It's the who and the why I'm trying to grips with.
Do I write this as an autobiography, or write a novel with using history as a loose base? The latter is the way to go - reckon. Writing about real people is hard - especially if I don't want to get myself sued. Writing about people as amalgams is easier - and less hassle. Looking back, I've got a string of people I can use as a basis for a fictional work. They will have to be changed completely. Other's not so much. I'm sure there's some value to be found in the old flat mates, the share houses, the trips around the country.
Looking at the anecdotes from eight years in England, there's a heap to choose from. In some ways, there's too much to look at - so I'm getting stuff into the notebook. Snippets of songs, photos from distance years, forgotten friends, blurry photos of mispent times.
The things that are troubling me the most. First up, the whys. Can I give you a straight up answer as to why I spent six years living as an illegal alien? Yes, and no. Until I can come to grips with this completely, I'm not sure how far I can go in writing this. I need a solid foundation as to why the main character did what she did - I need to give her motivation. I'm getting there, but it's not an easy question to answer. Until I fix this conundrum I don't think I'll be able to vouch for the authenticity of the novel.
Then there is the question of voice. Third person or first person. I'm naturally write better in the first person, though the third person gives and omniscient narrative which has it's value. Or maybe use a mix of the two.
So there's my dilemma. I want to write a novel. I know there's a novel in me (well more than the Mills and Boon novel I wrote in my lunchtimes at work fifteen years ago.) I know I can stretch myself to a more literary bent. I know I can be a little funny if I have to.
I also know I don't want to write something that's either too light, nor too "chick litty". I don't read chit lit. Why should I write it? I write well in fragments (probably something to do with the fact I have the attention span of a labrador puppy)
Anyhoos, this is what I think about when I'm running. And sitting on the tram. And allegedly working.
I should get on with this bloody Greek travel Google optimisation stuff so I can start devoting myself to this.
Comments and thoughts welcome.
Px
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Writing. Show all posts
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 5, 2011
The Land of Redundant Laws
I have a kid's book that I want to write.
Pitched at the 8-11 year old market, it's sort of a Harry Potter meets Terry Pratchett. It relates the story of Rainbow Robertson (That's Rob-ERT-son, not Rob-IN-son), a precocious eleven-year-old who is the daughter of Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist with the mega-rock band, Medulla Oblongata, and Jenni Robertson, an accountant. Rainbow is sent to her grandmother's at Hippy Corner, South Australia, when the band goes on tour. Rainbow's Grandma, Nanna Kate, is a big hippy.
One day, Rainbow is out on the swamp collecting mint for the mint sauce for the roast lamb dinner (this was one of my favorite jobs as a child - go get wild mint from the swamp) when she gets a bit adventurous and goes jumping on the loamy ground, bouncing on it like a trampoline (I used to love doing that too). As it happens, the ground gives way after a while and Rainbow falls through the swamp, but instead of drowning or suffocating, she lands on a large, soft, feather bed in a round room with eleven doors. Here the dark wizard Parenthesis and his henchmen pixies, Trochee, Spondee and Caesura take Rainbow under their wing and send her on her journey, to liberate the lands found behind these subterranean doors.
Rainbow Robertson is the quintessential hero - all scabby, knock knees, lanky pigtails and freckled nose.
Behind these doors there are eleven lands. I have some of them down - like the Land of King Bruce of the Sharpei people, where nobody's skin fits quite right. And there is the land of the Wah-Wah-Wah - where everybody speaks but nobody listens. Then there's the Land of Violet Haze, where everybody lives in their own dream - little do they know, they're all dreaming for each other.
But my favorite land that I've dreamed up to date is the Land of Redundant Rules. A land by which it is decreed that you must wear pink socks on Tuesday or be punished by exhaustive tickling by a feather duster. There are other stupid rules that need to be followed in this land - such as people on roller skates get right of way over lorries - except on the second Wednesday of each month where people on skateboards get a look in and rule the roads. There is the law that you have to give your mother a block of white chocolate for her birthday, unless she is allergic to cherries then you are to give her a sponge cake instead. These really crazy rules are something that Rainbow has to navigate, come to terms with, and lead the world in which she is in to a new way of thinking.
I think Rainbow could teach us something.
There are so many useless and overblown laws and rules about the place. For example, it's still in Queensland's constitution that all pubs must have a hitching rain outside so people can tie up their horses. These rails are now probably used for supporting drunk people as they wait for taxis - but the law stands. America is full of redundant laws. For example, in Kentucky, it is law that all citizens have a bath at least once a year - this is one of those "only in America" laws - then again, there are people who wish that biblical law was in place. Leviticus has some wonderful things to say about cursing your mother and father under pain of death and stoning witches. Deuteronomy espouses that those of other faiths be killed - now that would go down well in multi-cultural Australia? I don't think I'd make it past my eighteenth year going by some of these laws.
In Victoria, Legislation: Section 13 of the Vagrancy Act, 1958 ('Fortune Telling and Pretending to Exercise Witchcraft, etc'). "Any person who pretends or professes to tell fortunes or uses any subtle craft means or device by palmistry or otherwise to defraud or impose on any other person or pretends to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft sorcery enchantment or conjuration or pretends from his skill or knowledge in any occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner any goods or chattels stolen or lost may be found shall be guilty of an offence." This was only repealed in 2005. Lucky for me.
There are some laws that you know to which there are a point, but then again, you can't quite see why they go so overboard. A pet peeve of mine is bike helmets. I really can see the point of them. I know that they help to save lives. I think it should be mandatory for children under the age of 18 to wear them - but once you're an adult - why not do as you please? Sodding nanny state!You go to the Netherlands, where everybody rides a bike - not a helmet in sight. Granted, they have a much better infrastructure for bikes, yet still, nine million Dutchmen can't be wrong (and mind you, if you ask them, they never will be wrong, ever) What makes the bike helmet laws a little more ridiculous is when you find out that Melbourne City Council has set up a cheap bike hire service around town - spent a couple of million on it - but nobody can use the bikes without a helmet... Wonderful for tourists and locals alike. The current fine for not wearing a bike helmet in Melbourne is around $150...
Revenue raising, or what?
To me, the rules which are often the ones that need breaking the most are the social rules and mores - the rules which we live our life by.
Little rules like no elbows on the dinner table - now is this one ever enforced any more?
What about the rule about making your bed before leaving the house? Or was this one my mother made up when I was a child? (I think the dishes had to be done too)
Of course there are rules around saying what you think - where I was brought up this was one of the worst things you could ever do. Speaking out of turn was punishable by a slap around the legs with a wooden spoon or hairbrush. Though I'm normally as tactful as a Tasmanian Devil in a crystal shop, I often feel a pit of fear when I speak my truth. I was home in Adelaide a few weeks ago and was berated for speaking out by a couple of family members. Thankfully I had the good grace to tell them exactly what I thought of that idea by telling them that I thought that sitting on my middle finger would be a great idea.
But the biggest unwritten, redundant law that I wish I never had instilled into me.
Never tell somebody that you love them first.
Don't tell them that you love them at all appears to be the rule where I come from.
I really have no idea where this one came from, but it's so deeply ingrained. Telling people you love them only drives them away - well that was the thought many years ago.
Of course, there are ways and means as to when you tell somebody that you love them. It appears it works best when you're doing the dishes, or out getting takeaway. I can't be the only one who's baulked when told of being loved for the first time whilst having sex. For some reason, it loses all meaning. (Only happened once and I wanted to climb out of bed, shove on my clothes an walk out the door)
Telling my boyfriend I had when I was seventeen that I loved him a week before he dumped me might have something to do with this belief. I think I saw in telling him that it drove him away - and I clammed up after that. (Call it Cordelia's Law, "What should Cordelia speak? Love and be silent." King Lear, Act 1 Scene 1).
Coming from a family in which there was very little affection probably didn't help either. I have no recollection of being told I was loved as a child - let alone kissed and cuddled. You didn't tell people you loved them. It was soppy and stupid to tell somebody you love them. I remember pouring affection onto the dog - she was my best mate at the time - she didn't shy away from any affection at all.
Looking back, I can only remember saying the words only a handful of times - it was an alien concept to me up until a few years ago.
I've been reflecting on this redundant belief for a while now - fully aware of the consequences of this stupid, useless nature of it. There is no point in pondering how things could be different - the past can't be changed - though how you look it can be.
I'm lucky that I've finally learned the true stupidity of the belief , although the thought of telling somebody that I love them strikes me with fear, it doesn't stop me any more. I'm just very, very particular about when I use those words.
Still, I sort of wish I had a hero like Rainbow come and sort this out twenty years ago and put this one to right. It could have lead to a truly different world.
Pitched at the 8-11 year old market, it's sort of a Harry Potter meets Terry Pratchett. It relates the story of Rainbow Robertson (That's Rob-ERT-son, not Rob-IN-son), a precocious eleven-year-old who is the daughter of Robbie Robertson, lead guitarist with the mega-rock band, Medulla Oblongata, and Jenni Robertson, an accountant. Rainbow is sent to her grandmother's at Hippy Corner, South Australia, when the band goes on tour. Rainbow's Grandma, Nanna Kate, is a big hippy.
One day, Rainbow is out on the swamp collecting mint for the mint sauce for the roast lamb dinner (this was one of my favorite jobs as a child - go get wild mint from the swamp) when she gets a bit adventurous and goes jumping on the loamy ground, bouncing on it like a trampoline (I used to love doing that too). As it happens, the ground gives way after a while and Rainbow falls through the swamp, but instead of drowning or suffocating, she lands on a large, soft, feather bed in a round room with eleven doors. Here the dark wizard Parenthesis and his henchmen pixies, Trochee, Spondee and Caesura take Rainbow under their wing and send her on her journey, to liberate the lands found behind these subterranean doors.
Rainbow Robertson is the quintessential hero - all scabby, knock knees, lanky pigtails and freckled nose.
Behind these doors there are eleven lands. I have some of them down - like the Land of King Bruce of the Sharpei people, where nobody's skin fits quite right. And there is the land of the Wah-Wah-Wah - where everybody speaks but nobody listens. Then there's the Land of Violet Haze, where everybody lives in their own dream - little do they know, they're all dreaming for each other.
But my favorite land that I've dreamed up to date is the Land of Redundant Rules. A land by which it is decreed that you must wear pink socks on Tuesday or be punished by exhaustive tickling by a feather duster. There are other stupid rules that need to be followed in this land - such as people on roller skates get right of way over lorries - except on the second Wednesday of each month where people on skateboards get a look in and rule the roads. There is the law that you have to give your mother a block of white chocolate for her birthday, unless she is allergic to cherries then you are to give her a sponge cake instead. These really crazy rules are something that Rainbow has to navigate, come to terms with, and lead the world in which she is in to a new way of thinking.
I think Rainbow could teach us something.
There are so many useless and overblown laws and rules about the place. For example, it's still in Queensland's constitution that all pubs must have a hitching rain outside so people can tie up their horses. These rails are now probably used for supporting drunk people as they wait for taxis - but the law stands. America is full of redundant laws. For example, in Kentucky, it is law that all citizens have a bath at least once a year - this is one of those "only in America" laws - then again, there are people who wish that biblical law was in place. Leviticus has some wonderful things to say about cursing your mother and father under pain of death and stoning witches. Deuteronomy espouses that those of other faiths be killed - now that would go down well in multi-cultural Australia? I don't think I'd make it past my eighteenth year going by some of these laws.
In Victoria, Legislation: Section 13 of the Vagrancy Act, 1958 ('Fortune Telling and Pretending to Exercise Witchcraft, etc'). "Any person who pretends or professes to tell fortunes or uses any subtle craft means or device by palmistry or otherwise to defraud or impose on any other person or pretends to exercise or use any kind of witchcraft sorcery enchantment or conjuration or pretends from his skill or knowledge in any occult or crafty science to discover where or in what manner any goods or chattels stolen or lost may be found shall be guilty of an offence." This was only repealed in 2005. Lucky for me.
There are some laws that you know to which there are a point, but then again, you can't quite see why they go so overboard. A pet peeve of mine is bike helmets. I really can see the point of them. I know that they help to save lives. I think it should be mandatory for children under the age of 18 to wear them - but once you're an adult - why not do as you please? Sodding nanny state!You go to the Netherlands, where everybody rides a bike - not a helmet in sight. Granted, they have a much better infrastructure for bikes, yet still, nine million Dutchmen can't be wrong (and mind you, if you ask them, they never will be wrong, ever) What makes the bike helmet laws a little more ridiculous is when you find out that Melbourne City Council has set up a cheap bike hire service around town - spent a couple of million on it - but nobody can use the bikes without a helmet... Wonderful for tourists and locals alike. The current fine for not wearing a bike helmet in Melbourne is around $150...
Revenue raising, or what?
To me, the rules which are often the ones that need breaking the most are the social rules and mores - the rules which we live our life by.
Little rules like no elbows on the dinner table - now is this one ever enforced any more?
What about the rule about making your bed before leaving the house? Or was this one my mother made up when I was a child? (I think the dishes had to be done too)
Of course there are rules around saying what you think - where I was brought up this was one of the worst things you could ever do. Speaking out of turn was punishable by a slap around the legs with a wooden spoon or hairbrush. Though I'm normally as tactful as a Tasmanian Devil in a crystal shop, I often feel a pit of fear when I speak my truth. I was home in Adelaide a few weeks ago and was berated for speaking out by a couple of family members. Thankfully I had the good grace to tell them exactly what I thought of that idea by telling them that I thought that sitting on my middle finger would be a great idea.
But the biggest unwritten, redundant law that I wish I never had instilled into me.
Never tell somebody that you love them first.
Don't tell them that you love them at all appears to be the rule where I come from.
I really have no idea where this one came from, but it's so deeply ingrained. Telling people you love them only drives them away - well that was the thought many years ago.
Of course, there are ways and means as to when you tell somebody that you love them. It appears it works best when you're doing the dishes, or out getting takeaway. I can't be the only one who's baulked when told of being loved for the first time whilst having sex. For some reason, it loses all meaning. (Only happened once and I wanted to climb out of bed, shove on my clothes an walk out the door)
Telling my boyfriend I had when I was seventeen that I loved him a week before he dumped me might have something to do with this belief. I think I saw in telling him that it drove him away - and I clammed up after that. (Call it Cordelia's Law, "What should Cordelia speak? Love and be silent." King Lear, Act 1 Scene 1).
Coming from a family in which there was very little affection probably didn't help either. I have no recollection of being told I was loved as a child - let alone kissed and cuddled. You didn't tell people you loved them. It was soppy and stupid to tell somebody you love them. I remember pouring affection onto the dog - she was my best mate at the time - she didn't shy away from any affection at all.
Looking back, I can only remember saying the words only a handful of times - it was an alien concept to me up until a few years ago.
I've been reflecting on this redundant belief for a while now - fully aware of the consequences of this stupid, useless nature of it. There is no point in pondering how things could be different - the past can't be changed - though how you look it can be.
I'm lucky that I've finally learned the true stupidity of the belief , although the thought of telling somebody that I love them strikes me with fear, it doesn't stop me any more. I'm just very, very particular about when I use those words.
Still, I sort of wish I had a hero like Rainbow come and sort this out twenty years ago and put this one to right. It could have lead to a truly different world.
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
What I want to do when I grow up
The thought of this sabbatical has set my brain racing. The papers are in, they're signed by Popeye and me and waiting on the signature of a big wig in Sydney, but there's a very real possibility that as of 8 October, I'll be walking out of Tin Can, String and Whistle for nearly seven months.
The next question is what am I going to do once 8 October rolls around? Thankfully the first five weeks of this sabbatical are taken. I'll be in Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Holland, Spain and England. Technically the sabbatical wont kick in until the first of November, the time before that will be paid holiday. On that date I should be swanning around Madrid.
That's the holiday I'm taking with the free airline tickets I won back in January. I'm fully accepting of the fact that the whole marathon is not going to happen now. The pain in my side is still there, greatly diminished, but it flares when I run. I've lost two months of real training. There is no way I can let myself cover 42.2 kilometres at a jog pace. 20-30 kilometre at a walk/run maybe. We have to be realistic. Though I'm annoyed at being a bit broken in body, I'm being philosphical about it. The universe doesn't want me to run - I have to deal with it. However, it has fired me up to run a full marathon sometime in the next two years, with adequate training. A marathon is still on my bucket list.
Anyway, that leaves me returning to Australia in mid-November, without a job, with some money in the bank and the opportunity to do something else. Part of the terms of my sabbatical is that I don't do anything that may constitute a conflict of interest, so that means no working for competitors - but other than that. I'm free to do as I please, work where I want, go where I want to go.
Realistically, I'll get out there as soon as the jetlag subsides, find some short term contract work in IT, testing systems, writing doco, maybe even training, of which there is always stuff out there.I'll end up working the bulk of the sabbatical. The change will be good for me as things are rather stale and unsettled around here at the moment.
In the ideal world I would spend these six months writing, start that novel, get some articles published, set myself up as a proper writer. However, I need to pay the rent. And rent where I live aint cheap.
But I will let myself dream big for a bit.
There is also a part of me that says that if I won the lottery I'd pack everything in, sit the GAMSATs and try and get into Medical School. Yep, Doctor Panda. I'm quite happy being a holistic healer peddling reflexology, massage, reiki, aromatherapy, Reference Point Therapy and tarot - but there is this little voice that's always wanted to be a doctor. Pity I'd never be able to cope with the general public.
If not medicine, then architecture - but as I'm a failure at physics, that's probably not a good idea.
Training as a Personal Trainer has crossed my mind more than once over the last few years - I could spend some time doing that. Or go back to uni early next year and get my French back to scratch - or pick up another language - I love learning languages.
If I dreamed big or took a few risks I could go training. I could ping my friend Jonathan in London to take me on as a Shakespeare tutor for a few months, working with young actors to get soliloquies up to scratch.
If there was more of a market for it I could read tarot, heal, rub, chant and do everything else I do on weekends for a living - but the work, though lucrative as beer money, won't pay the rent. Also, if I do more than two clients a day over an extended period I get burnt out.
If I had half an ounce of courage I'd go for some outrageous job, just for the experience. Grave digger (squeamish around death) , pole dancer (chubby pole dancer with no grace - roight), trainee proctologist, bike courier (don't have enought tattoos or piercings for that)... just try something completely out of the ball park. They reckon these jobs are great fodder for writing.
All I know is that this change will be wonderful - I just have to make it that way.
Pand
The next question is what am I going to do once 8 October rolls around? Thankfully the first five weeks of this sabbatical are taken. I'll be in Singapore, Malaysia, the United States, Holland, Spain and England. Technically the sabbatical wont kick in until the first of November, the time before that will be paid holiday. On that date I should be swanning around Madrid.
That's the holiday I'm taking with the free airline tickets I won back in January. I'm fully accepting of the fact that the whole marathon is not going to happen now. The pain in my side is still there, greatly diminished, but it flares when I run. I've lost two months of real training. There is no way I can let myself cover 42.2 kilometres at a jog pace. 20-30 kilometre at a walk/run maybe. We have to be realistic. Though I'm annoyed at being a bit broken in body, I'm being philosphical about it. The universe doesn't want me to run - I have to deal with it. However, it has fired me up to run a full marathon sometime in the next two years, with adequate training. A marathon is still on my bucket list.
Anyway, that leaves me returning to Australia in mid-November, without a job, with some money in the bank and the opportunity to do something else. Part of the terms of my sabbatical is that I don't do anything that may constitute a conflict of interest, so that means no working for competitors - but other than that. I'm free to do as I please, work where I want, go where I want to go.
Realistically, I'll get out there as soon as the jetlag subsides, find some short term contract work in IT, testing systems, writing doco, maybe even training, of which there is always stuff out there.I'll end up working the bulk of the sabbatical. The change will be good for me as things are rather stale and unsettled around here at the moment.
In the ideal world I would spend these six months writing, start that novel, get some articles published, set myself up as a proper writer. However, I need to pay the rent. And rent where I live aint cheap.
But I will let myself dream big for a bit.
There is also a part of me that says that if I won the lottery I'd pack everything in, sit the GAMSATs and try and get into Medical School. Yep, Doctor Panda. I'm quite happy being a holistic healer peddling reflexology, massage, reiki, aromatherapy, Reference Point Therapy and tarot - but there is this little voice that's always wanted to be a doctor. Pity I'd never be able to cope with the general public.
If not medicine, then architecture - but as I'm a failure at physics, that's probably not a good idea.
Training as a Personal Trainer has crossed my mind more than once over the last few years - I could spend some time doing that. Or go back to uni early next year and get my French back to scratch - or pick up another language - I love learning languages.
If I dreamed big or took a few risks I could go training. I could ping my friend Jonathan in London to take me on as a Shakespeare tutor for a few months, working with young actors to get soliloquies up to scratch.
If there was more of a market for it I could read tarot, heal, rub, chant and do everything else I do on weekends for a living - but the work, though lucrative as beer money, won't pay the rent. Also, if I do more than two clients a day over an extended period I get burnt out.
If I had half an ounce of courage I'd go for some outrageous job, just for the experience. Grave digger (squeamish around death) , pole dancer (chubby pole dancer with no grace - roight), trainee proctologist, bike courier (don't have enought tattoos or piercings for that)... just try something completely out of the ball park. They reckon these jobs are great fodder for writing.
All I know is that this change will be wonderful - I just have to make it that way.
Pand
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Happy Stolen Pagan Fertility Festival
I'm not great with Christian holidays. There. I've said it. Bah humbug. Easter Schmeaster. Oh will the shops get over it and let us get on with a real holiday - like Labour Day or ANZAC Day. No, we have to tolerate tonnes of chocolate, bunnies roaming around the place and people moaning about putting on weight. It's silly.
I'm over it.
Maybe I'd feel more comfortable if I had something more than my favorite season and the clocks going back to celebrate. If I was Jewish, I'd have Pasach, if I was an Orthodox Christian I'd be living it up. But I'm in one of those funny groups - an amalgam of humanism, spirituality, wicca and paganism - I think I put Spiritual Agnostic on the census form. We don't have enforced holidays. Happy Oestara/Mabon doesn't have the same ring to it.
I'm regularly heard saying - why should I celebrate the cruxifiction of a Jewish reprobate on a Roman instrument of torture? I'm responsible for my wrong doings. Me and the big fella upstairs, we deal with each other. We don't need the middle man of the Church/Temple/Prophet. And yes, I get in trouble for my views sometimes. We're all entitled to what we believe. I don't slam or deride anybody for their beliefs - I just would like the same courtesy extended to me.
Thing is, I'm looking at this Easter and once again doing a blessing count. I've had some pretty crap Easters - last year's took the biscuit, but most of them have a theme of being alone, or being with my family waiting to come back to Melbourne. Last year, on Good Friday Eve, we found out about Grounded Dutchman's paragliding accident. I spent the four days fretting, coordinating and generally freaking over the fact that my best friend was unconscious, his pelvis in pieces, on a respirator, 1500 kilometres away. That was fun. The phone rang constantly - "How's the Grounded Dutchman? "How are you?", "What's going on?". It was pretty full on - but nice to know that people were checking up on me, not leaving me hanging.
So this Easter - with nothing to moan about, I sit here having a pleasant time. Grounded Dutchman is safely ensconsed at his mother's place in Holland - don't have to worry about him. I had a final breakfast with Reindert at the Mess Hall in Bourke Street - the best corn fritters ever - before he caught his flight back to Boston. He'll be back at some stage - or I'll see him in October on my trip. Not worried about that one. I haven't gone back to Adelaide this year and I'm getting a lot done. Yay.
I've set myself a new goal or two - I managed the 300 km in two month challenge - it was great - really proud of myself. So I've set a 220 km challenge for April - both walking and running. It's a bit of an ask, but as I'm in training, it has to be done. It's a worthy total. I also managed to only slip on a few occasions when it came to chocolate, chips and ice cream.
Also, after going for a run today in the gym, I want to see if I can get my five km time under 30 minutes. Today I did the distance in 34.45 - it's something to work towards along with the other distance stuff. The trick with this marathon thing is consistancy and a slow build up. I can do this. I'm sure of it. I owe Reindert a training plan by the end of the weekend.
Running might be a bit easier now too. Pinochet has made it known he's leaving the gym for definite - and it's final. He's taken down his photo and number and told all his clients that he's going. The other girls I train with are all a bit sceptical, but there are a few of us wondering what we're going to do - like I've been with him for three years now. He's helped to keep me on the straight and norrow. Okay, he's a bit of a musclebound, soccer playing meat head - but he's my musclebound, soccer playing meat head. It feels a bit like I've been served with divorce papers. He really has been the most constant of male relationships I've had over the last ten years.
I'm not sure if I wan't to train another trainer up, though I've had a preliminary talk with one of the other trainers at the gym - Erdin. Erdin's been watching us train for months - he works at the same time as Pinochet and he works his clients hard. Will talk to the rest of the girls and see if he might be interested in taking us on. Poor guy - Pinochet's old training team come as a job lot. A bevvy of attractive, very intelligent, hard working women who will give him hell. He's got to want to take us on?!
So it's now Easter Sunday Eve. Five years ago I was on Santorini, in a hotel room, alone, thinking World War Three had broken out at midnight. All it was was the Greeks letting off a king's ransom on fireworks at midnight. A bit of a tradition there. Although stationed on one of the most beautiful places on the planet, it was lonely. Walking along Perivolas Beach the next morning, at regular intervals along the beach men tended fire pits with whole lambs on spits. People were celebrating everywhere. All the shops were closed. I made a feta and tomato salad and read my book, wishing I was with people, celebrating something.
It's a pity you remember the bad ones.
This Easter is looking far more productive. I've nearly finished a writing job, friends are coming over to dinner tomorrow night and Monday I'm taking the leftovers over to Blarney's place, knowing that she's being a football widow for the afternoon and she's housebound, such is the size of her twinned up belly.
I think I like this Easter more than the others. No stress. No dramas - just have to run, cook and write.
That suits me fine.
Card of the Blog: Ten of Cups - Happiness.
Kilometres walked since 29 January: 192 km
Kilometres run since 29 January: 119 km
Currently reading: Ice by Louis Nowra, Marathon Running for Mortals
Weight lost since 29 Jan: 1.7 kg
April Kms: 11/220
I'm over it.
Maybe I'd feel more comfortable if I had something more than my favorite season and the clocks going back to celebrate. If I was Jewish, I'd have Pasach, if I was an Orthodox Christian I'd be living it up. But I'm in one of those funny groups - an amalgam of humanism, spirituality, wicca and paganism - I think I put Spiritual Agnostic on the census form. We don't have enforced holidays. Happy Oestara/Mabon doesn't have the same ring to it.
I'm regularly heard saying - why should I celebrate the cruxifiction of a Jewish reprobate on a Roman instrument of torture? I'm responsible for my wrong doings. Me and the big fella upstairs, we deal with each other. We don't need the middle man of the Church/Temple/Prophet. And yes, I get in trouble for my views sometimes. We're all entitled to what we believe. I don't slam or deride anybody for their beliefs - I just would like the same courtesy extended to me.
Thing is, I'm looking at this Easter and once again doing a blessing count. I've had some pretty crap Easters - last year's took the biscuit, but most of them have a theme of being alone, or being with my family waiting to come back to Melbourne. Last year, on Good Friday Eve, we found out about Grounded Dutchman's paragliding accident. I spent the four days fretting, coordinating and generally freaking over the fact that my best friend was unconscious, his pelvis in pieces, on a respirator, 1500 kilometres away. That was fun. The phone rang constantly - "How's the Grounded Dutchman? "How are you?", "What's going on?". It was pretty full on - but nice to know that people were checking up on me, not leaving me hanging.
So this Easter - with nothing to moan about, I sit here having a pleasant time. Grounded Dutchman is safely ensconsed at his mother's place in Holland - don't have to worry about him. I had a final breakfast with Reindert at the Mess Hall in Bourke Street - the best corn fritters ever - before he caught his flight back to Boston. He'll be back at some stage - or I'll see him in October on my trip. Not worried about that one. I haven't gone back to Adelaide this year and I'm getting a lot done. Yay.
I've set myself a new goal or two - I managed the 300 km in two month challenge - it was great - really proud of myself. So I've set a 220 km challenge for April - both walking and running. It's a bit of an ask, but as I'm in training, it has to be done. It's a worthy total. I also managed to only slip on a few occasions when it came to chocolate, chips and ice cream.
Also, after going for a run today in the gym, I want to see if I can get my five km time under 30 minutes. Today I did the distance in 34.45 - it's something to work towards along with the other distance stuff. The trick with this marathon thing is consistancy and a slow build up. I can do this. I'm sure of it. I owe Reindert a training plan by the end of the weekend.
Running might be a bit easier now too. Pinochet has made it known he's leaving the gym for definite - and it's final. He's taken down his photo and number and told all his clients that he's going. The other girls I train with are all a bit sceptical, but there are a few of us wondering what we're going to do - like I've been with him for three years now. He's helped to keep me on the straight and norrow. Okay, he's a bit of a musclebound, soccer playing meat head - but he's my musclebound, soccer playing meat head. It feels a bit like I've been served with divorce papers. He really has been the most constant of male relationships I've had over the last ten years.
I'm not sure if I wan't to train another trainer up, though I've had a preliminary talk with one of the other trainers at the gym - Erdin. Erdin's been watching us train for months - he works at the same time as Pinochet and he works his clients hard. Will talk to the rest of the girls and see if he might be interested in taking us on. Poor guy - Pinochet's old training team come as a job lot. A bevvy of attractive, very intelligent, hard working women who will give him hell. He's got to want to take us on?!
So it's now Easter Sunday Eve. Five years ago I was on Santorini, in a hotel room, alone, thinking World War Three had broken out at midnight. All it was was the Greeks letting off a king's ransom on fireworks at midnight. A bit of a tradition there. Although stationed on one of the most beautiful places on the planet, it was lonely. Walking along Perivolas Beach the next morning, at regular intervals along the beach men tended fire pits with whole lambs on spits. People were celebrating everywhere. All the shops were closed. I made a feta and tomato salad and read my book, wishing I was with people, celebrating something.
It's a pity you remember the bad ones.
This Easter is looking far more productive. I've nearly finished a writing job, friends are coming over to dinner tomorrow night and Monday I'm taking the leftovers over to Blarney's place, knowing that she's being a football widow for the afternoon and she's housebound, such is the size of her twinned up belly.
I think I like this Easter more than the others. No stress. No dramas - just have to run, cook and write.
That suits me fine.
Card of the Blog: Ten of Cups - Happiness.
Kilometres walked since 29 January: 192 km
Kilometres run since 29 January: 119 km
Currently reading: Ice by Louis Nowra, Marathon Running for Mortals
Weight lost since 29 Jan: 1.7 kg
April Kms: 11/220
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Me/Not Me
The weekend has been more productive than I first thought. I have done some study. I have done a little bit of writing for the writing job. The house is a bit cleaner. I found a new running track, with hills, on the way to the Abbotsford Convent for the Writer's Festival.
One huge triumph - I killed my first huntsman spider today. Aged 41, I found the inner strength to slay my first big, hairy beast.
I don't like killing things, but huntsman spiders strike me immobile with fear - we can't exist in the same room. Until today, when a huntsman graced my dwelling I called a big, strong, hairy man to come and do my bidding. I have a posse of big, strong, hairy men who enact my will when necessary. They are generally friends, or friend's husbands who get borrowed for the very occasional household job - the ones I don't dare tackle, like putting up blinds or fixing big electrical things. I'm pretty self sufficient, but sometimes it's good to ask for help.
I also work with engineers, and as they like fixing things, if you throw in a meal or a batch of biscuits, they think it's great and happily do your minor jobs for you without complaint.
But as the Grounded Dutchman is back in Holland, Freaky Running ex boss is in Boston MA, Work Husband is more scared of huntsmen spiders than me and Silly Dutchman wouldn't pick up his phone, still deafened from the AC/DC concert the night before, I decided to manage the situation myself. For once I would be brave. I also had to get my sorry bum back to Abbotsford Convent by 9.30 am as I was playing roadie for the morning.
Half a can of Pea Beu and two repeats of the Hewbrew Kaddish for the Dead later, I was pretty sure I'd killed it. The carcass had to wait until I got back from the festival.
Volunteering at the Writers Festival at the Convent is something I've done for years. I'll do anything for a book voucher, which is the normal payment for spending a few hours helping out about the place - whether that be acting as an usher, manning the information desk, running the car park or playing sound technician.
I've worked my way up to the technician or roadie job over the years - the most coveted volunteer job. It's cool. You listen into these fascinating sessions with writers you may or may not know about and all you have to do is make sure they can be heard at the back of the room. They think you're great. You direct the sessions, keep time and cut people off when asked to. Good fun.
I listened to the wonderful Alex Miller yesterday, a wry man in his sixties whose intellect astounded me. There was a session on Australian Bushfires, a session on eating in Paris and I sat in on a very interesting fellow talking about Jewish Emanciption. Alex Miller brought up the concept of the writer imposing themselves in a book - the me/not me principle. Stamping a bit of yourself in your writing when you are not there. All writers of fiction get this principle.
It was a case if me/not me in the first session today. A panel talking about the narrative voice. On the podium, my own me/not me scenario played out.
I was transported back twenty three years to a Politics tutorial. Sitting in front of me with this book of travel tales was a fellow tutorial mate, still a long streak of piss, better dressed, no earrings. Gone was the threadbare, standard issue army disposal canvas sack, the stovepipe jeans, the mass of black, curly hair and the post adolescent hunch. In front of me, talking eloquently of his travels and his psychoses was a forty-year-old man, not looking a day over thirty, rather sexy in an academic way, but still the quintessential Joel I used to hide behind in Politics tutes.
He looked at me. I looked at him.
You don't forget a bloke like Joel easily - his intelligence, his intensity, his large smelly feet, the fact that he'd go off on tangents every second sentence. You knew he was going to be a star.
You'd have forgotten my seventeen-year-old self in a heartbeat.
There was a glance of recognition in his gaze as he watched me slide the knobs on the sound board.
And I was sitting there, transported back to my days at University. Being honest, I have blocked a lot of my first three years at uni, bunching it in with most of my childhood. I was still a child when I got to uni, a child who'd suffered from years of emotional neglect and a lack of general nurturing. A child who had no idea who she was or what she was capable of. A child who had many lessons to learn but had no idea who to learn from. No idea how to make friends, how to grow, how to learn, how to survive, I floundered.
Next to a guy like Joel I felt like a speck of dust.
And there, behind the sound desk was my current self. Moderately successful, solvent, confident, stable. The lessons I had no idea about a quarter of a century ago have been digested. There was no intimidation. No fear. No hiding.
Joel and I chatted briefly, remembering me and our shared tutor, who features in his book under an assumed name. He asked what I did. I write for a living - okay, I write documents for a telco - but I write.
I bought two copies of his book. I'll send the other copy to the Grounded Dutchman to try encourage him to write down his wonderful stories.
Somewhere in the ether, seventeen year old me is lurking, waiting to come out, waiting for life to happen to her, waiting for her to stop hiding, waiting for her to stand her ground and take the time to learn.
It's why I dread meeting people who knew me at school and university. There are only a handful of people I've kept in contact with. Eight years in England knocks you out of most people's social circles - a blessing in itself as it lets you have a fresh start. Moving to another city when I returned to Australia sealed the deal.
She of twenty odd years ago was a half person. You don't remember diminished people. They fade into the wallpaper. I like to think that people who meet me now remember who I am.
Card for the blog: Two of Cups. Healing. A contract. Bringing emotions into balance. A relationship. Duality. Two becoming one.
Pand
Kilometres walked since 29 January: 43 km
Kilometres run since 29 January: 23 km
Currently reading: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes
Weight lost since 29 Jan: 0.7 kg
One huge triumph - I killed my first huntsman spider today. Aged 41, I found the inner strength to slay my first big, hairy beast.
I don't like killing things, but huntsman spiders strike me immobile with fear - we can't exist in the same room. Until today, when a huntsman graced my dwelling I called a big, strong, hairy man to come and do my bidding. I have a posse of big, strong, hairy men who enact my will when necessary. They are generally friends, or friend's husbands who get borrowed for the very occasional household job - the ones I don't dare tackle, like putting up blinds or fixing big electrical things. I'm pretty self sufficient, but sometimes it's good to ask for help.
I also work with engineers, and as they like fixing things, if you throw in a meal or a batch of biscuits, they think it's great and happily do your minor jobs for you without complaint.
But as the Grounded Dutchman is back in Holland, Freaky Running ex boss is in Boston MA, Work Husband is more scared of huntsmen spiders than me and Silly Dutchman wouldn't pick up his phone, still deafened from the AC/DC concert the night before, I decided to manage the situation myself. For once I would be brave. I also had to get my sorry bum back to Abbotsford Convent by 9.30 am as I was playing roadie for the morning.
Half a can of Pea Beu and two repeats of the Hewbrew Kaddish for the Dead later, I was pretty sure I'd killed it. The carcass had to wait until I got back from the festival.
Volunteering at the Writers Festival at the Convent is something I've done for years. I'll do anything for a book voucher, which is the normal payment for spending a few hours helping out about the place - whether that be acting as an usher, manning the information desk, running the car park or playing sound technician.
I've worked my way up to the technician or roadie job over the years - the most coveted volunteer job. It's cool. You listen into these fascinating sessions with writers you may or may not know about and all you have to do is make sure they can be heard at the back of the room. They think you're great. You direct the sessions, keep time and cut people off when asked to. Good fun.
I listened to the wonderful Alex Miller yesterday, a wry man in his sixties whose intellect astounded me. There was a session on Australian Bushfires, a session on eating in Paris and I sat in on a very interesting fellow talking about Jewish Emanciption. Alex Miller brought up the concept of the writer imposing themselves in a book - the me/not me principle. Stamping a bit of yourself in your writing when you are not there. All writers of fiction get this principle.
It was a case if me/not me in the first session today. A panel talking about the narrative voice. On the podium, my own me/not me scenario played out.
I was transported back twenty three years to a Politics tutorial. Sitting in front of me with this book of travel tales was a fellow tutorial mate, still a long streak of piss, better dressed, no earrings. Gone was the threadbare, standard issue army disposal canvas sack, the stovepipe jeans, the mass of black, curly hair and the post adolescent hunch. In front of me, talking eloquently of his travels and his psychoses was a forty-year-old man, not looking a day over thirty, rather sexy in an academic way, but still the quintessential Joel I used to hide behind in Politics tutes.
He looked at me. I looked at him.
You don't forget a bloke like Joel easily - his intelligence, his intensity, his large smelly feet, the fact that he'd go off on tangents every second sentence. You knew he was going to be a star.
You'd have forgotten my seventeen-year-old self in a heartbeat.
There was a glance of recognition in his gaze as he watched me slide the knobs on the sound board.
And I was sitting there, transported back to my days at University. Being honest, I have blocked a lot of my first three years at uni, bunching it in with most of my childhood. I was still a child when I got to uni, a child who'd suffered from years of emotional neglect and a lack of general nurturing. A child who had no idea who she was or what she was capable of. A child who had many lessons to learn but had no idea who to learn from. No idea how to make friends, how to grow, how to learn, how to survive, I floundered.
Next to a guy like Joel I felt like a speck of dust.
And there, behind the sound desk was my current self. Moderately successful, solvent, confident, stable. The lessons I had no idea about a quarter of a century ago have been digested. There was no intimidation. No fear. No hiding.
Joel and I chatted briefly, remembering me and our shared tutor, who features in his book under an assumed name. He asked what I did. I write for a living - okay, I write documents for a telco - but I write.
I bought two copies of his book. I'll send the other copy to the Grounded Dutchman to try encourage him to write down his wonderful stories.
Somewhere in the ether, seventeen year old me is lurking, waiting to come out, waiting for life to happen to her, waiting for her to stop hiding, waiting for her to stand her ground and take the time to learn.
It's why I dread meeting people who knew me at school and university. There are only a handful of people I've kept in contact with. Eight years in England knocks you out of most people's social circles - a blessing in itself as it lets you have a fresh start. Moving to another city when I returned to Australia sealed the deal.
She of twenty odd years ago was a half person. You don't remember diminished people. They fade into the wallpaper. I like to think that people who meet me now remember who I am.
Card for the blog: Two of Cups. Healing. A contract. Bringing emotions into balance. A relationship. Duality. Two becoming one.
Pand
Kilometres walked since 29 January: 43 km
Kilometres run since 29 January: 23 km
Currently reading: The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery, Ultramarathon Man by Dean Karnazes
Weight lost since 29 Jan: 0.7 kg
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