Shoes and coffee ... bellissimo!

Greetings from Lucca!

It's a very cold, very small and very beautiful city - my favourite kind! - And every afternoon after school, my little sister has to walk me home so I don't get lost. I now have a vast collection of maps in different sizes and fonts, and each one is as useless as the next.


Yep. It's the maps. Shut up and deal with it :)


Lucca is, as I said, quite the stunning citta. Each morning I brave the sub zero temperatures for a stroll around the perimiter of the city atop the ancient wall - a very Lucchese thing to do, I might add, though I don't wear lycra. And never, ever will!! I've had a brilliant few days of dinner parties, gelati-runs, coffee overdoses and speck; a food and wine related adventure this has been! I'm finding this trip a lot more relaxed than the last one, for various reasons, and even my experience of learning Italian is more enjoyable this time around - I've now got the accent and I'm not afriad to use it! And I no longer feel like someone's throwing bricks at my head in the guise of la lingua di Italiano.

Ok. I do. But they are softer bricks!

Four days into my Italian term, I am still pretty much crap but so far have managed to fool everybody from the shopkeeper at Desigual to the mechanic at the servo; first conversation about putting chains on tyres and conducting an auto service may not have been a complete success but at least no one got hurt.

Yet.

I also got to talk shop with a Jehovah's witness - this was pretty funny actually. I don't think either of us actually took the other seriously, and I nearly peed my own pants when I professed to being a committed Catholic.


The real tragedy of this trip is that I've already run out of my allotted spending money for clothes - in spite of my generousness towards self!!! I guess my pocket wasn't generous enough :( So, now I have just one question:


Santa Claus is real, right?


It is a serious question. I have only purchased one pair of boots when I wanted two; Motivi could deck out my winter wardrobe for the next two years if I let them, and I bought two gorgeous jumpers from Desigual and they were't even brand Desigual!! FAIL! I know I don't need any new clothes, but that's just in Australia,; in Italia, I am a massive bag lady! True story.
Besides, need has never been an argument, but I do need to shop as much as I can before December 31st for my beautiful, shapely, well made in Italia gorgeous costumes. This is when my new year's resolution to be moderate kicks in.


I haven't yet set my parameters for moderate. The dictionary on my phone - which is moderate - says less extreme. If you're a moderate centre-right, however, you are still a fuckwit. I need hard and fast rules. For example, does it just mean one less pair of shoes?

(And a little elf in the cobbler's workshop just died; another elf put a nail through his head) Mia culpa.


so, one less caffe latte?


Being moderate is going to suck!

Pizza, Gelato and Roma Gypsies!

I am not generally a huge fan of Rome, but my two days wondering the streets were actually quite pleasant. Having seen everything before, I had little wish to spend my time in queues, so I spent my time on foot - only queuing to stick my hand in the della bocca della verita (that creepy lions mouth from only You with Robert Downey Junior. And Roman Holiday. With Gregory Peck.)

Should have wished for something else in the Trevi Fountain!!!

But there was more magic afoot.

Yesterday I made my way back to Florence - so excited as I saw the Duomo looming over me around the first bend, I am surprised I didnt pee my pants with pure and unadulterated glee! And I thought Florence was a postcard before - at Christmas, it is amazing! The lights, the Christmas trees, the carols. My snowglobe metaphor is more apt than ever. And though there is no snow, it is bloody FREEZING!!!

I was greeted almost immediately by old friends; I was almost excited that the scary gypsy in the purple coat was the first to hit me up for money - I am not pretending; it was her! She now has a purple skirt too, so I am proud of her for matching. Not so impressed that she swore at me when I wouldnt give her money, but the gypsies sure were out in force in Piazza Giovanni and I am a firm believer in fairness for all - and I cannot give money to all! There really do seem to be an explosion in the population in Firenze, and I wonder if it will soon be like it was ten years ago when tourists were literally set upon. My sister and I had to run down an alley this morning when we were ambushed by 5 of them. I know the language I am using is not very nice, but that is what it felt like. But if they are the only distasteful aspects of my wonderful days in my snowglobe city, then I can handle it!

Now, off to spend some euro at my favouite stores, eat pizza in my favourite restaurant - and a quick trip to Vivoli for the worlds best gelati! Tomorrow I start school! It has already been a fun day of practicing with my sister - we have fairly fluent conversations, I think - there is hope for me yet!

A domani!

Roma via China = starbucks and catfood.

This first part was written about thirty hours ago, as I waited in China.

Arrived in Beijing. 9 hour overlay and facebook appears to be blocked. And blogger. I would swear at them now, but maybe there is a tracking device in this computer and I will be killed. The security staff at Beijing ariport do NOT look happy to be alive.


Joking.

Sort of. Scariest moment ever when they scanned my hand luggage - then ran it through again. And then again. Thought I might lose my maltesers, and that would have been truly sad. China Air made an announcment just before breakfast that, due to freight restrictions, they didn't have enough meals. I kid you not. They kindly requested that people who didn't intend to eat it resist taking one. As breakfast was fish curry, I found it quite easy to resist, actually.

I'm putting it out there - China Air sucks. And I'm not just being a negative nancy; it was freezing and they wouldn't give me blanket because they didn't have any of those spare either. I felt like I was flying in the cold war. Maybe a big fuck you to captialism? I can't work out how else they'd survive being so tight. But I'm having fun laughing at all the contradictions.

For example, we arrived at five am. Before we got off the plane we were adivsed to put our coats on as it's minus 6 degrees. I disobeyed; I'm not going outside am I?

OH MY GOD! THEY MEANT INSIDE!

I really love the juxtoposition existing between walking around freezing my arse off because they won't turn the heaters on, and this is also literally the biggest duty free shopping precinct outside of Dubai I have ever seen. (So yes, am having fun!!!) This is not the China we learned about at school!!! ha ha. I was also quite looking forward to getting a Chinese meal, but all they have open so far (it is early) is a Starbucks and a Pizza Hut!!! American!!!!! I had a starbucks. Sad face.

It only got worse when I got on the plane again. For the first leg, I was greeted to empty coke can and rubbish on my seat - there is something disconcerting about a dirty plane. I will admit, when it comes to my desk I am a filthy pig, but I am not looking after a one hundred million dollar aircraft, either. I do not know why, but when you see rubbish in the aisle, it does cross your mind that this plane is more likely to crash. It really does.
 
Sadly, my first thought upon arriving in Rome was not YAY i AM IN ROME it was, dear God I have to fly Air China again on the way home.
 
I just hope they dont serve cat food again. That was a really low moment in my life actually!
 
However, when in Rome! I am in Rome!!! I realised fairly early that I had left my memory stick at home, and even after traversing the streets for over three hours I am yet to find one - but it has been a great morning just walking. And eating gelati. And pretending I am Italian. Have realised once again the pitfalls of speaking it and the consequences of not understanding what people say back. Nodding my head and smilng thoughfully, throwing in afew bene and then just running seem to be working well. I have just about perfected the accent on my grazie and have eaten so much nutella gelati I may well be sick today. Totes!
 
My first port of call was the Trevi Fountain - just to throw in ten cents to ensure I am here next Christmas too! Since then, I have found the shopping district and I have admired the shopping district but I have so far restrained myself. I know, right! Another miracle on 34th street has occurred. (Most amazing Dolce and Gabbana shoes EVER however, and I will rue the day I did not at least ask if they would remortgage my house in exchange.)
 
Now. I am three and a half hours walk from my hotel ... I wonder where that means I actually am. And also, where is the question mark on this computer ...

Midnight in Cordoba

Thought it was time to write a serious story ...



New years eve in Cordoba is freezing. Quiet. Grey.

It’s festive – the Spaniards dress the holiday season better than anyone – but there’s a drabness. As though a spell has been cast to make this last siesta of the year persist, forever. Oranges nestle together in the trees lining every street, still vibrantly orange, and facades of pale pink, stucco and yellow stand majestically on the empty streets. But dreary permeates through the forlorn solitude. It is going to rain, and not so much as a coffee shop seems to be open.

“You can eat a donut,” the terse senora in the process of cleaning out the bins of an Americanized franchise gesticulates wildly at the closed sign on the door. “If you eat quickly. We are closing.”

Christine doesn’t want to eat quickly. Christine doesn’t really want a fucking donut, actually, thanks very much. She wants for it to not be New Years Eve again, and definitely to not be in Cordoba. She gives a special gesticulation of her own and walks back out into the eerie yellow dusk. The narrow labyrinth of alleyways back to her hotel are oppressive, without people to guide her – that crazy fucking gypsy in the purple coat on one corner, an illegal immigrant selling stolen lottery tickets at the next, and the familiar thrum of buoyancy and appetite to a quiet harmony of chinking cutlery and glassware. Without all this to guide her, Christine is lost.

Ending up in the main square for the third time, she decides just to stay there. What is the point in going back anyway, she surmises? What can she possibly find to amuse her there, but the thoughts inside her own head?

Last new years had gone something like this:

Step one: Take a giant bottle of bourbon.

Step two: swindle 2 tabs of rather powerful anti-psychotic medication from a clearly psychotic homeless person – in exchange for said bourbon.

Step three: Down the hatch – in the safety of her own place, obviously – before remorse could set in. And pleasant dreams. No dreams, actually. A rather dangerous way to ensure sleep before midnight – or at all, which was actually the point – but a year ago Christine hadn’t much cared for waking up any way. The awful irony of wanting to sleep for the rest of her life, and not being able to sleep for an hour.

Her predilection towards scamming homeless people, taking dangerous un-prescribed narcotics and insomnia has long passed, but it is probably best to avoid a cramped hotel room so tiny she’d nearly broken her toe swinging out of bed this morning. With a big toe now a psychedelic hue of mottled purples after its encounter with the wall three millimeters from her bed, going back does seem a little pointless. In truth, it feels like the room is crushing her, consuming her; in the new year, all that would be left would be an oversized white pullover and the discarded remains of an unpalatable bruised toe.

Best to stay out in the open.

Best to stay sober.

Best not to contemplate being alone on New Years Eve. In Cordoba.

Best to drink.

One or two bars are open. There’s no-one in them, but bored and fat baristas-cum- wine-waiters stand under the eves of verandahs hoping for customers at the end of siesta. Christine chooses a seat outside, in the cold, but where she can watch for people and not feel quite so isolated. It’s funny how Madrid had more people than she could bear: the hordes of tourists that swamped the old city. There, it was the people who consumed her; they were like oblivious gangs, an anarchic mass marching wall to wall in the cobbled and festive streets. Feeling like prey, she often ran rather than face them. Now there is no one to face and she feels lonely.

Christine orders a sangria and doesn’t touch it beyond the first sip. The red syrup is almost gelatinous and the peaches floating in its depths look putrefied. She knows it’s not the Spanish way, it’s just her morbid brain; but once she’s had the thought she can’t get it out of her head. Like a lot of thoughts that hack their way through her psyche.

He’s cheating on me. He hates me. He’s going to leave me.

The fact that these actually turned out to be true didn’t seem to lessen his rage when they spilled out. He accused her of conjuring the situation into being, like an evil incantation. When, in actual fact, he was fucking his hairdresser. And the mail-person. His therapist called it a sex addiction - he was probably fucking her too; his primary impulse was convenience. A dig at her, she’d wondered as she was hauling boxes of her broken life into her station wagon, or was that just her brain in overdrive too?

Christine ponders the absurdity that she still cares that he was angry. Still cares at all. And yet, here she is pretending to be happy. Watching - right in front of her - the decomposition of her drink, the decomposition of her year, the world going by without her in it. Not to mention the screen of her mobile phone, which could light up her new years with apologies and promises that will actually be kept.

Anything is possible. And yet nothing is possible. Not if that’s what she’s waiting for.

People are starting to turn out now. The fat barista-cum-barman glances at her malevolently, daring her to keep sitting there in the midst of waiting customers who might actually drink something. It’s time to be turned out into the synthetic glow of a siesta woken by fairy lights. The twilight of another year.

To be continued … (ha ha. Just to lazy to finish it, actually – I always sucked at the short stuff)

And a shot note - I have never been to Cordoba, so I apologise for any denigration of what I am sure is a beautiful city. And many thanks to the scary lady in the purple coat who is real - she just lives in Florence!

Things I love about summer

#1: I haven’t had one in a while. And by that, I do mean longer than you guys; I wasn't here for the last one. To have sun on my shoulders feels like a novelty that I acknowledge will wear off. When I’m sweating like a crack-whore in a few weeks time (post freezing my arse off in Italy) due to a 48 degree heatwave, I might come back and change this.

By the by, I do like being able to say crack-whore again! It may be crude, some may find it distasteful, but sometimes the exactness of the simile outweighs the crudeness!

#2: How wonderful it is when you only have black underwear clean and you desperately need skin-colour. Which you left wet in the washing machine - in the summer you can always hang them on the indicator stick of your car to dry in the morning sun.

Disclaimer: I am NOT saying I have actually done this.

I’m not saying I haven’t, either!

#3: Summer means I feel less guilty about not taking my vitamin D supplements. I’m supposed to take two every night, because Italy stole my D-factor, but I’ll be honest with you (be flattered; I lied to my GP) it was six months before I even opened the bottle.

Suddenly the strange ease with which my toe fractured itself – because I hardly did anything to fracture it – is starting to become clearer.

Also, handy tip: don’t lie to your GP. The blood tests will come back to bite you.

#4: Summer dresses! Enough said. So pretty!!!

#5: Summer holidays. Oh dear goodness, I have 2 days left. 2 days! To be honest, I can’t believe the end of the year got here so quickly. I think – not too much, actually – about what I was doing a year ago and it seems like ten years has past. But three terms since my holiday have sped along with tremendous speed; I'm surprised I've kept up!. And now here we are again! Too excited for words!

I’m really looking forward to this Christmas, regardless of its setting in the Left Bank of Paris.. Can’t stop singing; can’t stop smiling. Life is much better. Amen.

#5: Having purple fingers because you’re eating so many blackberries for dinner.

Actually, this is irritating. I don't like dirty hands. Does anyone; is it normal, or is my situation particularly pedantic? Let me lay it all out for you:  I don’t like makeup underneath my fingernails, red dust in the grooves of my fingerprints (to the extent that I'm never going back to Central Australia again - the two week holiday that was still embedded in my skin two weeks after), pen ink on my fingers - occupational hazard when you're both a writer, a shopper, and have more receipts in your handbag than anything else (WHERE IS THE F*** PEN?!!!) and, it turns out, blackberry stained fingers. Dirt is so grotty. I mean, apart from by its very definition. And purple grotty is even worse.

I’m surprised I’m not addicted to those little bottles of hand sanitiser!

And before you ask, no - I do not wish to use a spoon. That is not the way one eats summer berries – which is straight out of the carton. I mean, even the carton is superfluous and shameful - if this were Wordsworthian England I would be eating them straight off the vine! But I’m not that lucky to be the romantic child-figure romping through meadows of honey suckle and vine.And there are no blackberry bushes in my area.

Or black faced sheet. Sad face.

Flashback to second year Lit. Good times, Wordsworth!

So, what do you like about summer?

Weekend madness

I'm supposed to be a serious writer now, but I had a jam packed weekend so I thought I would blog it. In pictures. Because I am a serious artist too! Pfft.

(But at the same time, Clemency Jones and her fairy floss are going very well, thank you. It's a rhyming picture story - without the pictures. For now. And in honour of old professors I plan to do some actual travel writing next week, not just whinging about my continuing inept-ness at Italian.)

But you can bet there will be that too!!

Oh my GOD!!! I'm going to be in Italy NEXT. WEEK!

This weekend was a festive scrum from start to finish! (And some of the things on the dinner menu were pretty scrum too!) It started Friday night with coffee and ended at dawn, only to start up again for a St Kilda slogging that – in theory – ended in a run along the beach another few hours later. (The theory part is important!)

I’m still very tired.

But this post isn’t particularly about writing what I did - that would be mundane (though my activities and festivities were in no way mundane).

Here is my weekend in pictures. Some of it :-)

A night on the town!

Tumbleweeds preempt the eerie lack of people in St. Kilda ...

Attempting the 5k fun run at St Kilda

 After the attempt - relief on the grassy knoll.

Good times! I was going to draw myself in a coffin next, but I managed to pull myself through it.

Actually, I'm full of shit - I barely exerted myself at all because my PANTS STARTED FALLING DOWN IN THE FUN RUN!!!!

Happy weekend snap shots!

Who's your hero?

Today contained a bit of a shock, actually.


I decided to email one of my old university lecturers – my creative and intellectual hero, actually – because I need an academic reference. It has been a long time since I’ve studied, but I felt confident that he’d remember me because that’s just how he made his students feel – as though the hard work they did was memorable. He terrified me in my first year; tore me to pieces and then taught me how to write all over again, without all the arrogant pretence and b.s. that came from excelling at English in high school. I still remember the heartache of being told that my gingerbread house analogy in a story about suburban wicca was a contrived waste of words, a disappointment I wasn’t sure I could recover from. And yet I did, and in the process of growing as an artist he made me feel amazing about my ability to write. Perhaps more memorably, for me, he inspired a confidence that allowed me feel as though my opinions were as valid as anybody else’s – a position this timid girl struggled with amongst the highly critical, assured students of the university Arts world. And I looked forward to hopefully meeting up for a coffee to discuss my latest writing proposal.

So it was a great shock, when I googled for his alumna email address, to stumble across his obituary instead.

You actually died some time ago, Peter, and somehow in not noticing I feel as though I’ve not paid you the respect that you deserve. Even worse, though I teach to inspire students just as you did, I write drivel – and this is not your legacy at all, but my laziness.

I will do better.

R.I.P. Dr Peter Davis.

Una bella bambina

This week saw the most amazing event, the birth of little baby Isla. And I admit, I got too far ahead of myself with this one. I looked over my blog and thought, well if I can illustrate a blog, I can certainly do my own gift card for a new born baby and two of my dearest - and apparently accommodating - friends.

So I did.

The problem is, as I handed the card over, after basking all day in the warmth of how special I thought my effort was, I suddenly realised that I"M the one who's slightly special. And not in a good way. Unfortunately, my proxy niece found out after only a day and a half of being alive that her Aunty Katmol is slightly twisted. This was not my intention. Sad face. But I'll show you the card, and you can judge for yourselves:

But it gets worse.

On Wednesday, I decided the whole faculty at school should see my brilliance. (Actually, that's not true - I was feeling like an idiot and decided to INFLICT my idiocy on the whole faculty at school.) And so I sent them all a Christmas picture over the email.

It looked like this:

The only saving grace is that another teacher was so impressed, they wanted to borrow it to send out to their faculty. Yep - that is a true story. Not lying. Can only imagine she was being nice and perhaps wanted to spare me the humiliation I had caused myself. Or they are laughing. their. head. off.

Yeah, that must be it.

But what a nice lady to pretend!

Anyway, now that I am actually taking comissions for free Christmas cards, I am sure Penguin are going to ring me any day now, and ask me to illustrate my own picture book. And then Tamsin the turtle and I can retire to a beach house somewhere and drink Moet out of Magnums. And eat Magnums out of crystal champagne glasses!

And I can finish my story about Clemency Jones who eats fairy floss on the moon.

Why i should totes teach Italian. Part one.

Perche io dovrei insenare in Italiano. Prima parte. Ho fatto questo senza google traduttore. Questa e’ merda.

I don’t think “totes” is a word in Italian. When I move to Italy, I will make it one.

Today I supervised the year 10 Italian exam. It was very exciting because the Italian teacher actually believed I’d be able to answer any questions that might come up. I thought so too, until I opened the paper to see my arch nemesis right there at questions one thru five. I started sweating as pronomi leered at me from the pages, daring me to guess, goading me to pack my pistols for a dawn showdown with li, lo la and all the rest of the family.

Pronomi are the mafia of the Italian language, and I’m on the run.

I couldn’t read the rest of the paper after that. I’m still traumatised by being hit for getting the answers wrong. I’m sure that’s actually it; no one can be that mentally incapacitated as to not understand pronouns. But now you just have to mention the very word in Italian and I have flashbacks to the rage: the bulging neck, red cheeks, other students ducking for cover as the hand swings around to cuff my skull. The filthy toilet that didn’t flush, but was the only place to run and hide from the shame. Well, I didn’t run. Stiff upper lip and all that.

Yeah. Screw you pronomi.

Corporal punishment when you’re in your 30s. Must be a Catholic thing. Or a Sicilian thing. But I’m going with Catholic thing.

The Catholic Church has long given me grief. (And yes, I realise that I wasn’t going to Italian language lessons in an Italian church, but I’ve hit a tangent, so please let me go on.) I have strange problems with my wrists, for those of you don’t know. It’s not a big deal; I was born with it so I’ve very well learnt to deal with it. Basically, the joints are fused rather impractically, so that I can’t turn my hand out flat. It’s a bit of a pain, but the only people who’ve ever had an issue with it are also the ones who teach that God loves me the way I am.

Something preached but not practiced, me thinks.

When I was in prep, I wasn’t allowed to do PE. Why, you might ask? Well, I couldn’t do the sign of the cross because I can’t touch my shoulders properly. So I guess the crusty old nuns thought my immortal soul was in danger. It might seem like nothing to you, but I really did not like being taken into the basement and yelled at for not being able to touch my shoulders. I was timid enough as it was, thank you.

But it gets better! This year, at our extra special celebratory mass at work, the crusty old Bishop (they’re all crusty) wouldn’t give me communion until I held out my hand “properly.” He didn’t care that I couldn’t – he tried to FORCE my palm flat. Part of me wishes he’d broken my wrist, because I’d be a very rich woman now. Smiley face. But I was very upset. I don’t really know why. This wrist thing is actually a small part of a much bigger issue, and it’s the very people who you’re supposed to be able to lean on for support – the church elders – who make you feel the most like shit. And no, I would never lean on the church elders for ANY kind of support. But that's not the point.

Needless to say, no more Eucharist for me.

Anyway, somehow this blog just went from fun times about Italian, to me re-living images of nuns with a big wooden stick, in the wee hours of the morning. Good times!!
Here’s a picture to bring this back to a more upbeat place!

This is my dream vacation. And before you ask, I am not swimming in a muddy dam, or a bucket of excrement. Nor is it Oompa Loompa land - those things give me the willies. This is pure, unrefined melted chocolate and, unlike big, fat Augustus Gloop, I can swim in it.

I also have a money tree. If you'll pardon the pun, life is sweet!

Amen!!! (With no hands on shoulders. Crazy Mo-Fos.)

The Silly Season!

A rather inane post, but that’s the kind of mood I’m in – prone to ridiculous bouts of silliness. I think it’s the Christmas season. I’m assuming it’s this for a couple of reasons:

a)      I am obsessed by the idea of eating plum pudding, and just spent about an hour looking at ALL the food and nutrition statistics on ALL the different puddings, only to have my worst fears confirmed:  no, I cannot have plum pudding as I wait to win the Skinny Santa Challenge. I’m being such a hard arse that even though I went for an hour walk, uphill, followed by a forty minute bike ride, I am not allowed to have pudding. The end.

Merry Fucking Christmas to me!!!

b)      On my hour long walk, I sang Christmas carols the whole way. Loudly. And I didn’t care who heard me. And I daydreamed about meeting Santa and what I would ask for.

This is a picture of me and Santa. I know I’m sucking up, but I’m hoping that he’ll see this, and get me what I’ve always wanted.

Or I’ll break his legs off.

c)      Christmas is known as the silly season, and I am being very, very silly. For example, today I cleaned my entire desk. Totally wiped it down and everything. There is even a vase of flowers on there, because I felt in the mood for some extra ambience! (Note: I bought them, I did not steal them from the nun’s rose garden).

Why is this silly, you ask, and not a perfect example of cleanliness and hygiene? Well, if you know me at all you will realise that my brain is scrambled eggs on toast when it comes to normal things like filing and order and neatness. So, I’ve filed everything away today, tomorrow I won’t know where ANYTHING IS. And I knew this before I did it. Pure idiocy.

But it sure is pretty to have flowers at work. Even if you buy them yourself. Here is a picture of my flowers. 

It’s a splendid vase, too. The coloured bits flying off it are refractions of light because it’s made of crystal. Expensive crystal. I just happened to have it lying around. Smiley face.

Tonight I am going to win a Jellybean bike. That won’t be silly – that will be AWESOME! My current bike is like riding an exercise bike: you pedal and pedal and just never go any where. It weights about forty kilos, so I guess that’s why.I've had it for about four years now, which doesn't really make me silly - it makes me a moron.

(Note: I have never, ever put bike on the scales but it’s heavy. If you dropped it on the coyote’s head in a Warner Brother’s cartoon it would do the trick way better than an ACME anvil. No coming back from that one, coyote. You'd be dead for sure.)

I’d like to watch some Warner Brother’s Cartoons. In Italian. Now THAT’S silliness!

I want a jellybean bike!

I Have a Dream ...

I have some new goals that I would like to share with you. They are totes important, and have been the work of at least twelve hours of careful consideration. So they are not to be mocked. I will list them in order of them being achieved:


1. On Monday, I am going to win a Jellybean bike worth five hundred dollars. I have next to no idea how good a Jellybean bike is, but it will be free, so I will still be able to buy my Trek bike if a Jellybean bike is just a prettier more expensive version of the shithouse bike I have now. I am going to get a green one with blue wheels as I don’t believe “blue and green should not be seen unless there’s something in between” is still in vogue any more.

Besides, there will be something in between: the tyres are white. Awesome! I was going to get yellow and green, but then I realised I’m not sixteen any more.

2. I am going to finish the application for my PhD. I’ve kinda-sorta gone off the idea a little bit, because I think it will be a lot of work and I may end up hating the very sight of Jane Austen – which would fracture my very identity! – but I need to have my PhD to complete a dot point further on down the track. (It can’t be the next one as I have to do this in order of accomplishment and I will not be Dr K. Molony for a Very. Long. Time.)

3. I plan to try and scam Deakin University by also studying a degree in International Development at the same time – at the same uni - with a second major in Italian.

4. My reasons for this are simple: I have decided I want to work for the UN. Yes, you saw correctly. I want to go and help in refugee camps. True Story. The language part is not only because I foresee a few more Italians in refugee camps in the future, but a lot of these jobs (yes. I have already looked. I would have left yesterday) require a second language. Actually, they ALL require French, but I don’t want to learn French, and I don’t really want to go to Haiti either which is where a lot of these jobs are.

An interesting factoid that I only recently found out: Somalia was colonised by the Italians a long time ago. Maybe I could speak Italian there.

I doubt there are any refugee camps in Somalia though. I think that’s the point.

5. Oops. So, apparently I’m continuing my PhD from Somalia. I hope I have internet access.

6. I plan to stop making stupid deprecating jibes about things that are actually important to me. A lot earlier than dot point six, actually. My cynicism isn’t actually very funny. Well ...

7. I’ve graduated! Hooray!! I’m now about fifty-five years old! And I get to wear a ridiculous floppy hat - with Gold tassles!!!

You are right. I need to work on my tassle-drawing skills. But otherwise, this is what I will look like at 55. Not bad. Probably need to use the Clairol more often.

8. I am going to publish a memoir that will be completely self-illustrated. In Microsoft Paint.

9. I’ll be sitting on a plane on my way to a United Nations Conference in New York, which is where I now live, and someone will call out “Is anyone a Doctor?!” And I will pretend I am, because – well, I am. But only if I know it’s not serious. Which may be difficult because, unless they’re also teaching physiology in Doctorates of Philosophy these days, I will not have the training to tell. And then I will look stupid because I already lied.

I would like to scratch dot-point nine from the records.

10. I will look back on my life and sigh. Because none of this is what I really wanted. And I'm still being glib when I shouldn't be.

Bless You!

Sneezing is bullshit.


No, seriously.

Some people think it must be a joy to sneeze all the time, and I am here to tell those people: you are wrong. And for all those juvenile anthropologists-come scientist-come-gullible suckers who are about to jump in and give some smart arse, ill-researched quip about sneezing eight times in a row and its equivalency to, well ... my parents read this blog ... again, you are wrong. WRONG!

Go on! Actually sneeze eight times in a row and you’ll see what I mean. It is actually equivalent to being hit in the nose with a brick! A brick which then splinters into fragments that lodge themselves in your sinuses. Before they explode , like cluster bombs, right at that point where your nose reaches your forehead. ish.

And this is so NOT like the other thing. (And if it is for you, then my condolences. You fucking sadist.)

This week, as Melbourne’s weather decides whether or not to be manic or depressive, I haven’t stopped sneezing. At first, hayfever kicked my arse as spring finally sprung. Sprung like a ninja! I hate Spring. I swear to god, I cannot go outside without sneezing right now. There’s even an area of the yard at work, between the rose bushes and the daisies, where I will sneeze EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. Today I walked past there five times in the space of about twenty minutes. That equals roughly 60 sneezes. And one mighty big headache. I once researched it – google doctor – and apparently I have something called ACHOO syndrome. It’s where the sun makes you sneeze. No, I’m deadly serious. I’ve had this belief since I was eight years old - the fact that a doctor who hadn’t even been born when I was eight is now confirming my diagnosis makes it true. It also makes me at LEAST as smart as google doctor. I'm not sure if I should be crowing about that.

It’s confirmation of what I’ve always suspected: I am allergic to being outside. I hate outside! (The symptoms miraculously go away when I am lying down at the beach, lying down in the park ... and that is all. Yard duty outside causes anaphylaxis. And so does exercise!)

And now, as the weather turns nasty, and then humid, and then nasty again, my sinuses have decided they enjoy being clogged up with the green-mucous equivalent of a tampon, and they’re completely blocked. Bring on the spring-time cold – one of the most joyous experiences known to man. And my second of the spring! I’ve obviously been a VERY good girl this year!

Why is it so much worse to have a cold outside of winter? Or is it just me? Doped up on kick arse pseudoephedrine and codeine, am I going to far – like comparing snot to tampons just maybe went too far?

It’s my nose, though. My green snot.

This is my depiction of the monster currently invading my olfactory system. Don't be fooled; he may look harmless, perhaps even slightly like a rather insane pear, but he's not. He's a virus, and you don't want to fuck with a virus - even one that's only been painted.

Apart from that, I don’t even know where the inspiration for this blog post came from – maybe the fact that I sneezed eleven times in a row just before I started. And I’m not exaggerating. There are droplets of sputum everywhere. I think.

What’s sputum?

There's a graveyard of tissues, anyway.
My record for sneezing is thirty six times in a row. That’s more than four bricks. Somehow, Bless You just doesn't cut it when you've just been cluster-bombed by four bricks!
What's your magic number?

Good times! (Or, I'll be a painter yet!)

I just had one of the best weekends - mostly because of the awesome people I spent it with, and a very haemorraghic monkey. And though there’s probably nothing I can write that will do justice to the usual biting cynicism that quite naturally goes along with this blog, I have the most amazing picture to share with you all! It took me FOREVER to do Sunday night in the ads of Underbelly, so I hope you will appreciate my growing prowess with the paintbrush/temperamental touch pad thingy on my computer, and not be mean.

If you are mean I will simply hope you get an airborn strain of Ebola that has not yet been identified yet, will bleed out of your every orifice until not even Dustin Hoffman will be able to save you. (Yes. Part of my glorious weekend involved Outbreak, a packet of chips and some mighty fine Cadbury Dairy Milk. I will draw you the monkey later, and maybe even my representation of someone with haemorraghic fever - though you won't like it; it will be grim.)

But these are my girls.

My first group sitting. Lol.

Those in it will recognise themselves in the incredible likeness! I have included the little babies in their mummy’s tummy’s – it was a baby shower, after all, so their presence must be noted. And it’s a pretty kick-arse couch, even if I do say so myself.

And obviously, I do!

I would have drawn genitalia, except that one might be a secret and the other one is a surprise. I think it’s a girl, though. I have an almost 100% track record of being wrong, however, so that might mean it’s a boy – not hedging my bets, just saying that I have no claims to being a psychic. I am extremely modest in my abilities and therefore do not profess to have attributes which clearly I do not. I can humbly attest to being good at nothing much in particular.

But if you say I’m crap at Microsoft Paint, I will kick your arse because CLEARLY I am monumentally awesome.

After the delights of my afternoon with my oldest, best-est friends, on Sunday I had an equally entertaining time at the Tutankhamen Exhibition.

You know what’s coming now, right?

This is Tutankhamen. I know! It’s just so realistic looking, I could seriously have pillaged it from the original tomb which was found by British plunderer – I mean archaeologist – Something Carter on the 4th of November 1922! I’d draw him, but I can’t even remember his name let alone what he looked like. I may also have the date wrong.

Good times, weekend, good times. Now, bring on the next one!!

(Also - ready to take commissions upon request! Ha ha ha ha ha).

Time to Pretend!!!

Another year, another million dollars.

Ok, neither of those statements are quite correct - but one is more correct than the other. (And yes, I would quite happily work the year all over again to have the OTHER one be correct; Dear Gypsies: please give me a million dollars or I will rip your face off.)

The year is not over, but it's time to pretend a little. I have finished teaching the poppets their normal, mainstream, pre-examination curriculum. And - no matter what - I have finished teaching year 10. There are no more year ten classes in 2011, and it is a most auspicious day!!!

Don't get me wrong; I actually loved my year tens, but they seem to have developed an irrationally early hankering to be done with school and not give two figs about anything to do with exams, which made revision reeaaallly hard work. But I still bought them chocolates, and even though they continued with their relentless apathy until the very end, I reasoned that if I punished them by NOT handing out the chocolates, I would end up eating 24 fun sized mars bars. So I caved on the promises that they would indeed send me their revision work over the email. That they would indeed study persuasive techniques and their purpose and effect on the reader.

Yes. Yes I am a huge sucker. Obsessively checking my email and getting more and more disappointed by the hour. Sad face. I also I ate a chocolate. Ok, two chocolates.

Four.

But even if I'm not really finished yet, or a million dollars richer, in six weeks time I will be standing on the dome of the Duomo. Here: I drew you a visual so you can picture me with my massive gelati and cafe!

Please note - neither me, nor the chiesa are to scale.
Neither is the gelati. Or the coffee.
I'm not very good at scales. Especially if I stand on them. I break them.
i leoni e le tigri e ... crap! What's bears?!! Oh My!

Four mars bars. Not even snickers. Such a waste.


On a brighter note, now that I have stunned you with yet another successful portrayal of both myself AND one of Italy's greatest landmarks (Suck on that Michaelangelo!), I am going to treat you to some real brilliance: one of my beautiful year 12 students sent me a drawing!! Knowing how much I wish to wake up in 1820 and marry Mr Knightley and wear bonnets, she showed me what I would look like - what I have looked like, in fact!

I've saved the best for last: here it is!

Time to pretend: I am Emma, and these fabulous girls are still in my class. Either that, or I am in Italy with Mr Knightley right now :-)

Coonundrums

There are lots of coonundrums in life. For example, how do you even spell the word coonundrum?


And, how do you address the issue of how awesome the current Desiguel Espana collection is, balanced against the odds that it will look much less awesome stretched over my post-Italy body?


Or that I’ve forgotten how the fuck to use Italian verbs conditionally?


How do you decide you’ve had enough of making the first, second and eleventy-billionth moves and if he doesn’t pick up the god damn phone soon, you’re going to emasculate somebody? Probably him. Definitely him! EMASCULATE!!!


Calming down again.


Coonundrums.


In the years since I’ve lived in my flat, I’ve had a few spider problems. There was the great spider crisis of 2009, when I couldn’t exit the flat because I giant huntsman lived over the communal exit. This was solved by a very nice Japanese exchange teacher who caught the huntsman and killed it. By literally catching and squashing it with. Her. Bare. Hands.


Oh I’m sorry, did I say nice Japanese lady? I meant nice crazy person, obviously.


Then there was the time I narrowly avoided death in 2010. I had to park my car across the road for two days because a giant, man-eating orb spider had built a web of apocalyptic proportions in the garden by my parking bay. It sat right in my usual train of trajectory, waiting to gnaw off my face. What’s worse is that my sister actually tried to trick me into its lair but I saw the spider looming in front of me, venom dripping from its giant, orby pincers. I suffered a mild stroke, but otherwise lived to tell the tale.


Spiders have been trying to give me heart attacks, so they can use my body as an incubus, for years. Barbie and I will never forget the gargantuan tarantula like creature that fell on my head when I was seven. It may well have been the same spider that came back to greet my waking self on my pillow when I was 18. Barbie had left me by then; she couldn’t take the pressure. (It was either that or somebody cutting off all her beautiful golden hair.) Spiders have followed me, stalked me, hunted me, every where I’ve ever lived. A wiccan witch once told me that this means I’m a kindred spirit to the arachnid kind.


Witches are stupid. Houses fall on them. The end.

And as for you, arachnids, if this theory is correct then you have not been paying attention to how much mortein I am packing! A whole can is necessary to eradicated the evil predators that lurk the closets, cars, toilets and bedrooms just as I’m beginning to relax.


And let’s not forget Biowatha. I can’t even talk about Biowatha.


Spiders must think I have more life insurance than I do.


Yesterday, it was the spider assault of 2011. After flitting about in my spring jacket all day, I took it off only to find a spider’s egg sac attached to the fabric. If I hadn’t caught on, I have no doubt I would not be here now to tell this story of my miraculous escape; millions of tiny spiders would eventually have emerged from that sac and feasted on me for their first meal.


Like that urban legend where they spill out of a pimple on some cousin of a friend of a perfect stranger’s face!


Except that my jacket is not a pus-filled pimple. It’s from Italy.


And now I will have to burn it. Sad face.


Spiders want to kill me, and now I have proof – look at this!

Well not if I kill you first, buddy!

Question: How do I kill all the spiders in the whole universe???

Coonundrums.

Tamsin the Terrifying Turtle

I am too tired to write today. That said, I will probably come back and edit this later, and it will become some epic tale about cupcakes and caterpillars on bicycles, and you will know my fatigue was just a temporary road block to successfully blogging.

The fact that I just rambled all that shit, however, probably proves how tired I still am!

I am intrigued by the idea of caterpillars on bicycles, however, and sense a new childrens' book is now on the cards. As has been discussed previously, I am now fully into writing stories for children. They have not yet been published either, but I find the heartache of spending eleventy-billion years on a full manuscript that will never get published FAR more gut-wrenching than 1,000 words. I am sure Tamsin the Terrifying Turtle will be the first picture story book to win the Nobel Prize for Literature.
Yep. Damn straight. Especially when it has illustrations like this:

This is Tamsin the terrifying turtle; she is a prima ballerina!

Isn't she terrifying?!!

No! Not in that way. Don't be rude!
I have the great idea that I could illustrate my entire text about Tamsin and her grasshopper friend, using Microsoft paint. You may laugh, but I will have the very LAST laugh, I am sure!

I am that good :-)


Shut up. You are not having any of my millions now.

This weekend I will draw Phoebe Grasshopper at the the Duomo. It will be molto meraviglioso! No, seriously.

P.S. This is Katie Katerpillar, who can't afford a good bike because she keeps spending all her hard earned caterpillar dosh going to Italy. Based on a true story, although some events are fictional - the real Katie would seize the opportunity to wear a lot more shoes :-)

Life in costume!

Today the students came, for their last day, in costume. There was a little more to it than that, but this blog is about me, not them. It is possibly my favourite day of the year, and today I felt myself getting a little bit teary and I couldn't quite figure out why.

Then it hit me: how badly I would like to be in costume myself! Though some have suggested, harshly, that I should never wear hats (a point I believe I successfully myth-busted in Italy with my stunning array of beanies, berets and stunning stunning cappello!) I know I can pull off a bonnet like nobody's business!

I never did get to wear a dress with puffy sleeves – not that I’m dead yet, but the usual events where such a dress might be acceptable have either happened and not produced said sleeves, or have not happened. And may not.

(And let’s be honest. I have too many copies of vogue under my bed to actually wear them at my wedding. Hello!!!! I don’t pretend to be a fashionista, but I’m also not completely insane. Amen.)

However, this is me in my bonnet and period dress.

Note the puffy sleeves. They don’t really go with the pink bonnet, I admit, but the shoes and hat match and that’s what’s important.

I told you; I read Vogue.

As I was drawing this, I really got into the spirit of what my life would be like if I could indeed wear puffy sleeves every day, without being punched in the face for my impertinence. (I’ve already put my shoulder out this week; don’t want to do it again attempting to punch my own head in).

1. I would marry someone really rich, with a top hat and a pair of hunting dogs. I’m generally against hunting, but in my puffy-sleeved dress my opinions don’t matter as I am only a woman.

2. I would eventually become a suffragette and kill said hunting dogs. I don’t really like dogs either, to be honest. I might kill my husband too.

3. With my new found wealth (massive, massive life insurance plan) I would move out of the archaic, drafty family home of a thousand generations into something much more modern. I really like those colourbond roofs. And yes, I know it is Regency England, but I’ve just become a suffragette, killed my husband and his dogs and become an overnight bazillionaire; I think colourbond will happen, alright?

4. I want a house with a tower.

This is my house. If I can’t move to Italy or have puffy sleeves, can I pretty please have one of these? It also has window boxes with tulips in them!

Now, what would my theme music be? No Spice Girls please!!!

Cheers, m'dears!

Today is my last day with my year 12s.

Sad face.

Disclaimer: this is just a random sad face and not a self portrait.

As a teacher, most years I gladly wish my life away – in the sense that I can’t wait for holidays (not literally wishing my life away!!) – and am constantly looking out for the end of term.  Especially in those winter terms that never end and just go on and on my friend (sometimes you started singing it not knowing what it was ...)

Got it in your head now?

SUCKED IN!

This time last year I could have chucked in teaching and become a secretary.
Or a secret agent.
Well, ok, maybe not a secretary because I possibly don’t have enough working knowledge of anything technological beyond Microsoft word and Facebook (also tenuous at best). And I hate talking on the phone.
But as for being a secret agent, I've always thought that would be the way to go except for the following issues:

•  The application forms for ASIO are like, eleventy-billion pages long and the questions they ask are stupid and do not at all pertain to my vision of being Jayne Bond 007 with a super hot Astin Martin.
•  I'm not yet fluent in any other language than English and, let's be honest, sometimes even that's just gibberish!
•  You are required to pledge allegiance to living in Canberra, something I find so abominable it should be classified as in violation of my human rights. Seriously! 
•  Canberra is possibly the most boring city in eleven solar systems. Maybe even twelve. And they make lumpy gravy on their chicken schnitzels, so it deserves it's own bullet point. Amen.

But I definitely could have chucked it in.

We were told at uni that teachers can actually become anything in “life after teaching;” they have such diverse skills. And whilst I think our skills are indeed undeniable (also unrecognised and underpaid) what the hell else DO they actually qualify me for?? It is a something I’m yet to discover.

Luckily, this year, my quest to discover the answer to this question became moot: in 2011 I have really, really, REALLY loved teaching. It is the most exciting part of my working day.
(Obviously getting coffee rates pretty highly, too.)
This is not to suggest that I only like teaching in comparison to everything else I do, either; I genuinely get so much energy from going to class and sharing my enthusiasm for how spot on Hannie Rayson's views on asylum seekers are, and waxing lyrical about how marriageable Mr Knightley is. ("Marriageable," though not exactly relating my true feelings, is my attempt at embodying Austen's diplomacy. I want to marry him a lot.)

Yeah. I know he's not real. Shut up.

Let it be known to all and sundry that I have only taken one day off this year, because I want to go to class!

Also because I haven’t been sick. Lol.

So, on the day “my girls” finish, I want to say a silent thank you. You’ve been a real treat, and I feel that someone must be looking out for me in the karmic universe for things to have turned out the way they did! We worked, we laughed, and you’ve never once made me raise my voice, so I can still sing in the shower as well as ever!!!!

This is what you’ve made me do on a daily basis:

(This is my real self-portrait. You will note the likeness. Or I will punch you.)

(And I do love my year 10s too – naughty little munchkins!)

Random Ramblings

A task (used with students):

Go to the following website, and gather a random list of words from common to uncommon nouns to prepositions.

http://watchout4snakes.com/creativitytools/RandomWord/RandomWordPlus.aspx


Here is my list:

Chuck Identical Gulf Load Under Help Less Amidst Bravo Livid Cunningly ploy Cinch Implicated Skinned Trillion Mask Unscrupulous Sounded Compromise Pop Hence Until Thwart Breakfast

Now, write a story using ALL of these words, to form a fluent and sophisticated (I like to think!) piece of prose. That will one day become a best selling novel. Or at least a short story I can make a few hundred dollars off. Or just praise and acclaim from nearest and dearest :-)

Here we go:

Chuck was helpless. He stood, petrified marble, amidst the haughty conceit of the less-than-average street thugs, so used to being implicated their demeanour was identical - an orchestrated nonchalance that had seen them get off a trillion times before. Bravo! Chuck half whispered under the terrifying spotlights. This should be a cinch for you! Such a gulf between the brute with Diesel threads, faded in a way only three hundred dollar jeans could be, and the fraying ends of pants that had seen a decade since they were rescued from a load of cast offs in a community seconds shop – before being passed from his father to Chuck.


Wrong place, wrong time? Like all the other times and places?


Sticks and Stones will break your bones, kiddo.

No. This was just the wrong school.

The principal’s face was smooth under a mask of congeniality, a ploy cunningly contrived to thwart their rational insecurity. He would lull them, until, with a pop the terrifying head of the raging beast would emerge. It was Chuck’s derelict word against the full-fee paying toffs of the inner east. Innocence buffeted within his skull, protests which sounded but could not be realised. There would be no compromise: Chuck would either admit, or condemn; lie, or be killed. He’d never even taken so much as an overdose in Panadol, and yet now his locker was full of drugs. About to be given marching orders from the only school in Melbourne that would take him.

Hence, Chuck was well and truly skinned.

*

The gavel swung down with a momentous thud. Self Defence. The judge ruled. The alleged victim was truly the perpetrator of this malicious act; the alleged accused actually a hapless casualty of his environment.

A long sigh of relief was omitted from the gallery as judgement day was realised to be not so bad, after all. Justice was served! Pizza for the jury! And ten million dollars in compensation for every year of time already served.

In reality, what was got was a new blazer a livid shade of red and a train ride to school that seemed to take barely half as long as the school day itself. Kicked out of one school only to be fed to another and with little time for breakfast. Waiting outside the gates like a Roman ruffian knowing he would be fed to the lions just inside the colosseum. Life is unscrupulous, Chuck thought as reality hit him with the full force of a tonne of brick shithouses. If life handed you lemons you couldn’t always make lemonade.


Sometimes, you were just fucked.

Why I am not a textiles manufacturer: the ugly truth.

This weekend I had a most splendidly relaxing weekend hanging out with some of the people I love the best (Mia Sorella, you didn’t show up in time, so you missed out!). However, whilst said weekend was wonderful, there was also some sadness:

R.I.P. to my favourite t-shirt.

You have to understand that I bought this shirt in America. It’s the softest, most flattering, perfectly fitting t-shirt I’ve ever owned, and only its colour stopped me wearing it every day of the last two years! It was bright pink, so I don’t really know what I was thinking when I bought it, but I was high on life when I was travelling in America two years ago.

And eating lots of hamburgers releases endorphins!

However, when I went to put on said shirt last week, I noticed I had spilt bleach on it. Either that or my sister’s cat, who likes to get into my drawers, had pissed on it. (Can cat pee bleach clothes?) However, I do have a love affair with bleach that has seen me ruin other items of clothing in the past. Not wanting to simply throw away my prized possession, I decided to dye it. I also happen to have a love affair with black, it’s a pink shirt; how hard could it be? My biggest concern was getting dye on my hands - I was sure the colour transfer of black to pink would be a cinch!

It would seem that in primary school I must have failed primary and secondary colours 101. In fact, I can’t even remember if secondary colours are what they are called! I know that red and yellow makes orange, and blue and yellow makes green. But equally, I assumed that black with anything just makes black. It does with hair dye. Back in the day – and by the day, I’m only talking a couple of years ago – I used to dye my hair black all the time, and the beauty was that it didn’t matter what colour you started with, black trumped all. If your hair was light brown, it went black; if red, it went black; if brown – I assume you are getting my point! At one time, I had to get my hair stripped, because it was so black it looked blue. That, and I hadn’t realised there was such a thing as blue-black, and had mistakenly bought that shade. So, the only colour that trumps black is maybe blue and I looked like an emo! Epic fail.

This is a picture of me with blue-black hair. Unfortunately, Clairol has a better colour palette than the Microsoft paint application. I like to think my drawing is an attempt at Manga. I also know that it is yet another epic fail – but I do like the dog collar!
(N.B. I have never, and never will in the future, worn a dog collar. Or been emo. Note the matching shoes to dog collar – this is in no way an emo trait.)

After soaking the t-shirt in the dye for about three times as long as I needed to to ensure the colour stuck, I washed it and dried it and was horrified to realise that pink and black, in fact, makes purple. PURPLE! It’s quite a nice purple; I’d be more than happy to wear it. If it wasn’t for the small issue of black and bleach stain equalling BLUE. My best-favourite t-shirt is now purple and BLUE! It looks like a giant bruise. It's a giant assault on my eyes, and I'm devastated!

How could this happen?!! My hands are still completely flesh coloured, and yet I must now consider whether or not to dye the entire shirt purple, or blue. I wonder if that will make it turquoise? This would be a real issue as I'm not wearing turqoise until I'm at LEAST fifty five.
Methinks I should just dye it in Clairol!

I love weekends

Today is really just writing for art's sake - and I mean, quite literally, art. My monkey:

This weekend, I did not do much writing, it is true, but I did go and see The Phantom of the Opera. This has long been my favourite musical. When the chandelier goes up over the crowd, my spine tingles. Though some have commented (so meanly!) that it's three and a half hours of my life that I'm never going to get back again, I would quite happily go and see it ten more times - if it didn't cost $25 a ticket!! Still, a cheap way to see Phantom. This illustration is the little masquerade playing monkey - otherwise known as lot 665. I was going to draw the chandelier, but I'm just not that good yet!

Imagine all the things I will be able to practice drawing as I practice speaking Italian in Italy!!! My turtle story is set in Florence - sort of. This time I will not only come back fluent, but a grand Italian master as well - and then I really will illustrate my children's picture book!!! Plan for this week: to write ten thousand words of my novel. Easier to re-write hastily written crap, than re-write thin air, me thinks. I will see if that theory works out for me! My first competition deadline is 30th Novemebr - 30,000 words! 30,000 words that have to be 1. written. 2 Thrown away and rewritten, and 3. Rewritten all over again. Already, my nymphomaniac antogonist has become not a nymphomaniac and merely misunderstood, and is now back to being a nympho. Maybe with a drug addiction. She is the antagonist, after all! Time to stop drawing monkeys and get cracking!

Freakish Fun!

Ok! Google-image the word “disgusting” and see what comes up.
Choose the first pic not involving people, post the image to your blog and then describe it. Yes, it is very late and I cannot sleep. Might as well write!

Um. Yuk.

The dead man’s head protruded from its porcelain grave. It wasn’t immediately clear how it had come to be there, or even its gender for, in the weeks since death the tissues had liquefied and a thick film of gelatinous goo pervaded the entire structure; it looked like an alien egg sac threatening to hatch. It appeared momentarily possible that the owner of this severed head might simply have drowned in his own bowel movements, but the stench of fetid cabbages begat a far more sinister ending. The wall and bowl were graffitied with the spray of excrement; a once slushy concoction that had been sharted in fear all over the bathroom walls, and then left to drip down in quiet terror until it hardened like putrid clay.


I was never going to be able to sell this house.

A Grand Kardashian Krock!

But how could I not watch one of the biggest events to hit magazines since Katie became a princess?

Yesterday, I did not manage to do any writing. Sad face.

But it was not all grim news. After the chest pains subsided from being at work, and I managed to avoid having an apoplectic seizure on Hoddle Street, I was treated to the emotional joys of grand, especially heartfelt, genuinely legitimate wedding celebration.

What. A bunch. Of fucktards.

Look, I'm sure they are all possibly the world's nicest people, but if they are they should try to look less like emotional fuckwits on their "reality tv" show.

If one thing was clear after watching 4 hours of the Kardashian wedding, it was that having that much money and breast implants seriously inhibits your mental and emotional capacity. But it was like a train wreck – I couldn’t look away!! It got to a point where we were rating how much they loved each other based on every time they kissed; it was usually a number in the minus. When Kim Kardashian kissed her mother with more passion than she ever kissed the aptly named “Kris” I knew that this was:

a) Either a very disturbing relationship that she has with her mother, or
b) Not real

I’m going for not real. And here are my reasons:

1. Early on, Kim makes the comment that she bets Kris didn’t know she wore a retainer. Only several weeks before their wedding. The only reason for this can be that they have never spent much time together, specifically at night.

2. There was a very weak-willed, strangely defensive claim from Kris that they’ve had sex. I would hope so. And yet, combined with the aforementioned number one, this all becomes highly suspect.

3. Everyone in the whole show, regardless of who they are, has a key to Kim’s house. Except Kris. And they’re getting married. And he claims to live there when he's not living in Minnesota. Which actually seems to be most of the time. Weird.

4. His name, and his sister’s name, both conveniently start with a K.

This last fact is almost too convenient, and here is my theory:

I think that Kris, who, by the looks of it no longer has any other career to speak of, was hired by the show, and the Kardashians, to carry on the plotline of their highly organised, pedantically scripted life/lack-of-reality show. The fact that his name started with a K and was now poor sealed the deal, and this is also why they’re all so worried he’s going to steal all of her money.

OF COURSE HE IS!!

Aside from which, I’ve never seen a couple who seem to hate each other so much. SHE EVEN SAID SHE HATES HIM!!

Absolutely killer dresses though!

This is my impression of how the Kardashian-Hump marriage will turn out:



This is supposed to be a broken heart, not a conjoined foetus. Though if this thing really was for money, the broken heart thing is probably completely bogus in theory as well as illustration!

I do enjoy a trashy slice of Kardashian reality!!

Time to Compete!

Now that I’ve got my writing mojo back, I have decided it’s time to embrace the world of writing competitions. Apparently, should I ever actually finish what I start (ie. one of the two novels I currently have on the go), it looks much better to have actually shown some writing success in the past.


The fact that I wrote an award winning story about two hats who were separated from their milliner’s shop and had to face a life of heartache without each other – they were deeply in love, you see – in the Mitchell shire writing competition probably doesn’t count.


I was nine.


Besides which, hats who are in love is just stupid. But it’s interesting to see how cynical I was about relationships even then!! (Note – I wasn’t really. They eventually found each other on the heads of two geriatrics in a nursing home, and were able to live side by side until their owner’s deaths. Which I’m pretty sure I didn’t actually write, but I’m far more morbid now and have read a lot of Shakespeare in the two decades since my triumph. In the unwritten sequel, they definitely ended up in two separate op-shops far, far away from each other. Or incinerated in separate cremations, a-la Romeo and Juliet!)


Anyhow, writing success is important on a cover letter. Because when you send in a manuscript, you have to have a cover-letter that sells your previous achievements. And my previous achievements are that I have completed a couple of degrees, made money from selling stories to magazines – admittedly, quite a lot of money, but I don’t think quantity of crap cancels out the fact that it is, indeed, crap, and not quite managed to finish anything that I’ve started. I'm sure it doesn't actually look awesome that I wrote 50,000 words of crap that I never did anything with. I never do anything with anything!


(Here is my updated picture of a grasshopper, just so you get my point: yesterday’s triumph is also yesterday’s news!)

Oh Dear Lord!

(However, I am having a lot of fun with the pain application on my computer, and think this could be a super-fun addition to my semi-regular blogging!)

Now, competitions ... what on earth can I write about? MOJO? Where are you???

A terrifying idea, and a turtle ...

Last night I wrote a children's story.

Don't get me wrong - there are NO pictures involved, except for the ones in my head, because I am honest enough to accept my failings as an Archibald prize winning artist:

This is my portrait!




So you can imagine, I don't really want to sully the reputation of my writing skills with any attempts to draw turtles throwing tantrums, and grasshoppers who like spaghetti. But it's a children's story nonetheless. The first I've ever written.

And, like Phoebe Grasshopper found about things she'd never tried before: it was so much fun!!

I spent 5 hours drafting and re-drafting a story that's not even one thousand words long. I'm obsessed with my little tale about about an ignorant and prejudical turtle who won't accept others the way they are.

Remind you of anything? The last entry into my blog might give you a clue! But I don't want to spoil my story with politics - children should not be spoiled by politics! It's at the heart a really special story that's actually helped me look at some things from a new perspective. Temperamental turtles need not ruin my life!!

Now, how to market a picture story book to a publisher when my best efforts at drawing a turtle look like this:

Another rant ...

Damn you Labor party for taking my time away from other writing tasks!!

Julia Gillard says Abbott is "afraid the Malaysai solution will work." Could she clarify, please, how the working order of this horrendous policy is going to be evaluated? Will she use the same gauge employed to decree that Labor is not contravening international treaties on human rights? Or by the same standards applied to test her allegiance to labor party platforms, not liberal ones?

I think her measuring stick is broken.

Rudd can come back now, right?

To kill, or NOT to kill ...

Or maim. Or scar. Or annihilate?!

Settle down – this is just the writing game after all! I’m merely asking a purely hypothetical question as I reach the 50,000 word mark of my book and realise a few things:

1. One year on, I really, really love character number one, still. She is funny and quirky and completely insane. I really can’t wait for her to fall in love with one of the many leading men I have lining up outside her hospital ward, replete with surgical masks and automatic spray cans of Glen 20 to save her from an ebola outbreak. It’ll be like Pride and Prejudice on crystal meth!

2. I also still really, really love character number two, also. She’s still funny and fragile and completely insecure. But if I’m honest, at the same time I really hate her. As the words spill onto the page, it turns out she’s nowhere as amiable as she seems. She’s got massive issues of her own that I’m kind of tired of thinking about because how much crazy can there be in one chick-lit novel?! Character two blames character one too much. She’s completely and utterly selfish and wears too much mauve. Her drug habit is getting ridiculous and her hair is just too blonde!! If someone’s gotta go, I say it’s her! The other one might be two steps from needing electroshock and a padded cell, but at least she’s got heart, God love her!

Not to mention a completely awesome collection of Choos!

However, they say that conflict is the basis of all great writing – and I have a Masters degree that equates to the sum of this theory. As well as life experiences that are by no means a part of this book, but we all live and learn. And it would seem that I have spent many months writing conflict aplenty, but with no resolution. Folks, it’s time for resolution!

Because I need for this story to be over (I have a PhD appointment at nine o’clock!)

For a year now, my story has been humorous and hostile. It’s been chick lit with a cynical edginess that pushes it out of the chick-lit genre and into somewhere else – hopefully, somewhere else that will make it also marketable. It’s been so much fun to write, but a little unrealistic somehow – and not in the sense that I’m writing about a character who only goes on dates with men wearing surgical masks has a deeply irrational fear of catching ebola on a daily basis!! But in the sense that I’m ignoring a lot of the serious issues that I’ve actually created in my text. It’s not all fun and germs – somebody has to get hurt. A lot. And now that I’ve unfortunately caught onto this, maybe I need to lessen the edgy and amplify the gravity of some of the issues.

At the very least, I think my story could do with more grit. I think my story could do with more vengeful acts. I think my story could do with some veiled candour. Ha ha. 50,000 words in and character two’s time just might be up. Life’s a bitch, but it’s ok – she was never real!