I’m a bit out of sorts today.  It could be the cooler weather (and we all know how that messes with my mental health), but I think today I reached my tolerance for internet bullshit.  Intershit.  I know, I know, I’m a massive contributor of intershit, in fact this entire blog, all two hundred and nine posts worth, is basically bullshit.   At least it would be revealed to be such if anyone cared to dissect each post, pull apart the words and reveal me for the self-absorbed, egocentric, contradictory, whinger that I guess I am.  But this is my blog, isn’t it?  I’m a forty-three year old, post menopausal, mother of two who has some shit to bull on about.  I pay for this hosting, so I can bang on about whatever crap I like.  Nobody forces you to read it.  Every time I press publish, and clog up your feeds with my oh-so-fascinating links, you can choose to click or flick.  Easy, right?

Well today I had one such link pop up in my feed.  It’s an old article, from 2011 by Tim Napper featured on The Drum called “Snobs and Whingers: the new Australia”.  Now before I go all ranty about Tim, I freely disclose two things: I have no idea of who Tim is, or what his M.O. is- for all I know, he might be a hilarious comedian, and his article was written to poke fun at the media and his own role in the development of the culture of entitlement in Australia.  Or not.  Apparently his piece was written in response to an article published in Crikey by a SEVENTEEN year old girl, bemoaning the lack of suitable macchiato vendors in Canberra.  Yes, that’s right, seventeen.  At seventeen I didn’t even know how to spell Macchiato (and I only know for sure now due to the wisdom of spell-check), let alone write things interesting enough to be published by some online mob.  Because of course online didn’t even exist.  Which is something I am forever grateful.  As I’m sure most people my age are.

In an effort to appear thoroughly well researched (which clearly I’m not- I can’t even be bothered finding out the background), I have found you some of the writings from my Year 12 ‘Writer’s Workshop’ Assignment.  I would love to say that the the pieces are clever, funny, insightful, or, at the very least, well written.  Alas, I cannot.  I got an A for the assignment, so I guess they were considered okay for the time, but oh.my.goodness.  There is even a poetry collection entitled ‘A Solitary Cloud’, and yes, it is exactly what you are thinking.   Of course you don’t want to read the whole thing, but I’d love to share with you a little snippet.  Beware, it might take your breath away.

It is part of a poem called: I Like

I like to hear waves pounding/ Upon the naked sand,/ I like the smell of coffee/ And walking hand in hand./ I like the sound of silence/ And the feel of polished wood./ I like eating chocolates/ A lot more than I should./ I like to laugh until it hurts/ And songs by Jackson Browne,/ I like oil slicks and the colours they make/ Upon the wet, black ground./  I like freshly buttered popcorn/ And sleeping late in bed,/ I like the ticking of my Swatch,/ And books I haven’t read/ I like to plan the future/ To hope and pray to be,/ Happy until the end/ With someone who loves me.

Hmmm.  I can neither confirm nor deny that it was inspired by a poem in a Dolly Magazine.  Nor can I confirm nor deny that I had actually walked hand in hand much at all, lest my parents bust me.  I had had pash-rash by then though, so I guess that’s something.  The best things about my writing as a seventeen year old are: the dot matrix printing, on computer paper with the little holes at the side, the fact that I saw fit to reference my beloved Swatch and, the fact that no-one other than my teacher read it.  Oh, and I’m proud of my spelling, from back in the day when there was contention over the use of colour/color.

My English teacher at the time suggested I should try and publish a few of my bits (not the poetry- strangely we never spoke of that again), just as I imagine the English teacher of the girl in Crikey did.  Except the world is much smaller now, and publication is  more widespread.  And when you are in Year 12 and have a mind-numbing excursion to Canberra and you write something amusing and write it well, with proper sentences and all that stuff, you can get it published, and someone on the internet will go berserk, in fact be “filled with rage” about “just how pathetic we are”.

Really?

Even if Madison meant every word she said, and she is truly aghast at the lack of a long Mac in our Nation’s Capital, do we really care what kids are saying on Crikey?  In fact, do we even listen to seventeen year olds (other than when they brush past me at the Surf  Club at 11.58pm and say “Steady on old girl”) and what concerns them?  Leave ’em alone to sort out their hormones and their music taste and of course their favourite coffee.  There is plenty of time for them to get all indignant and petulant and socially responsible.  And perhaps they’ll even cringe over something they wrote one day.  The crazy part is, their writing won’t be stuffed in some bottom drawer somewhere, feeding the silverfish, if we keep this kind of superior youth-shaming up, and kids like Madison will be too scared to ever voice an opinion or write something that amuses them, purely for the joy of writing.

And that would be a shame.

Did you write any teenage poetry?  Send me your worst. (I’ve got plenty more)

…From The Ashers xx

I got a sweet message from a friend today, saying that he likes my blog, it makes him laugh and that I have ‘missed my calling’.  He’s not the only one to say such flattering and lovely things.  Sometimes there’s comments, FB and Twitter shares and words of affection, text messages.  They all fan the flames of my heart.    Mainly because it is all so unexpected.  I spend most of my time in my head, making up stories, weaving quotes that I read into narrative, laughing to myself about all of the funny people who live up there in my grey matter (it’s pretty crowded).  I guess that’s why I’m so good at mundane tasks (if I do say so myself), as I’m rarely bored, I just make some shit up to keep myself amused.

I have another great friend who told me in the early blog days that writing is ‘what you were born to do’.  I almost cried.  Partly because I respect his opinion, but mostly from the sheer relief that this secret thing that I love, might be something that others could also love.  Sure, I’ve had some lovely feedback from peeps close to me- Nath and Peter have always been my biggest supporters, but one is my Dad and the other one is probably just trying to get laid.  So they might not be completely impartial.  So coming from someone without any ulterior motives is gratifying.

So I was amused to hear that the big fella thinks I’ve missed my calling, because you see, this blog doesn’t support me in the lifestyle in which I am accustomed to.  SHOCK.  Imagine, who would’ve guessed that I’m not making millions of dollars pumping out this amazing content drivel every day?  I actually have a day job.  I know, I know, how do I have time to deliver you such crafted and wondrous blog posts, sort of look after two kids, and have a career?

These two things: coffee and view. Making ALL things possible…

The interest was mainly because it made me think.  Have I missed my calling?  For this typing-thing that I do really does call me, in fact, if other things didn’t demand my attention with such urgency, then I would probably do it at the exclusion of all else.  And I am able do it without thinking too much.  I can be chatting, watching the telly, or even just taking a couple of seconds between patients to smash out a few paragraphs.  I won’t say it is effortless, but it isn’t too difficult, at least in this fairly raw state.  More polish would demand more attention, but, if you can tell anything about me, polish and poise are not really my area.

I read a thingy a few weeks ago that said something like, “What is the thing you do when you are procrastinating?  That is the thing you should be doing for the rest of your life.”  Unfortunately I also procrastinate by cleaning the toilet and going shopping for shoes, but still, sitting up here in my eyrie is one of the things that I would choose to do.  If there is BAS to be done, there’s a fair chance I won’t be in my office sorting through the Gratuitous Squandering of Time receipts, but rather, you’ll find me up here.  Or in the dunny.

So there you have it: some thoughts that are rattling around my head today.  How about you, have you missed your calling?  Is there something that whispers quietly in your ear in the stillness of the night, begging you to play?  Can you go and grab it, or does it scurry away in the light of dawn and bills and school lunches and urgent things?  And if you are 43, have you really missed it?   Or can you listen to the gentle beckoning at any age, and maybe, just maybe, follow it, even hold hands with it, and find out where it wants you to go?

…From The Ashers xx

Here’s a little vignette I mucked around with today.  Longer than my usual blog posts I guess, but I think she wanted me to tell a story about her, this Lady in the Cheetah Print, in my mind:

I’ve found myself a comfy spot right next to the window in my favourite cafe.  It’s my Number One Spot in the rankings of places to sit, made even better today because I’m by myself so I get to have the banquette without doing the passive-agressive “you have it, no you have it” thing you are obliged to do if you want to be considered nice, in polite company.  Which I do want, mostly.  Unless I’m with people who know me properly, then I don’t give a shit, but most of them are far far away right now.   I flirted with the Number Two Spot out the front for a moment, Noosa flicked the light on the sunshine for a moment, but the grey-white dimmer clouds have come back in, and anyway, if I sat outside I would have to deal with the retching smell of Subway (The take-away atrocity, not the public transport link.  Similar smell.  Probably how they named it.  I wonder if they have a stale-urine foot long.)

I made myself at home on the Number One seat, and even sneakily put my bag a little outside my area on the bench, so as to softly discourage anyone else taking up Number Three Spot.  So by default I’m getting a massive bargain- Number One and Number Three for the price of one Benny and a Capp.  I gently press my index fingers together under the table- my personal version of a solo high-five.  Sometimes I give myself mental high-fives, but solo high-fives are a step up.  Reserved for successes such as getting car-parks out the front of the shop you are going to at Christmas, or finding a pair of half-price shoes in size 8 (if you are indeed a size 8).

The waiter is on his first day back after a trip up North and so isn’t sick of the sight of all us yet.  He’s calling everyone Sweetie and Darl and bouncing on the balls of his feet as he takes the order of yet another decaf skinny latte with a raspberry and white chocolate muffin.  The ridiculousness of his job and the orders haven’t permeated his epidermis yet.  But they will.  How can they not?  I asked for the wifi password and he said they have taken it away, too many backpackers freeloading downloads I guess, and when I said, no worries, I’ll use the one from the cafe across the road, he laughed and laughed like I was Billy Connolly.  I wish I’d said it with an accent now.  He might have peed his fookin’ pants.

A Lady in Cheetah Prints just walked in and sat down in Number Three Spot.  I say prints because she has a top, pants and shoes, all cheetah.  Or some of them may be leopard.  I’m not really au fait with the identifying patterns of the animal kingdom, but I do know none of them are tiger.  The Lady in the Cheetah Prints didn’t care about my seat saving efforts.  She just whooshed my bag over without blinking.  I heard her tell the waiter it’s her birthday today, and she is of an age where he said “Congratulations” rather than “Happy Birthday”.  She smiled sweetly at him and he bounced off to make some patterns in froth, and I heard her say “wanker” under her breath.

I’m trying not to look at her too much, not because of the Cheetah Prints, even though they are scalding my retinae, but because she has something medical-ey attached to her nose. I don’t know what it is, but it helps her to breathe.  She is so close to me that I can tell that it isn’t in control of her breathing, but rather, she makes it work by doing a little clicky swallow.  From the very tip of the corner of my eye it seems like she pushes her tongue to the roof of her mouth, and then pfftsh, a puff of oxygen swirls into her nostrils.  I can’t see where the oxygen is coming from but it must be in her supermodel sized handbag, and I wonder how such a tiny little bird can carry around a tank of air all day.  Does it ever run out?  And then what?  I wonder if carrying the tank makes her use more of the oxygen.  I reckon it would.  I reckon she needs a little buggy thing instead.  But I can’t say that, I can’t even look, in case she either: a) thinks I’m rude for looking at her medical-ey things, or b) wants to talk to me.  I don’t like talking to strangers, and especially when they sit so close.

Through the very very pointed corner of my lateral canthus I can that see some of her bone-thin thigh has strayed into my area.  She is flaunting the invisible borders.  If I was Tony Abbot I’d send her scuttling back.  Cheetah print, birth day and medicalness aside, she shouldn’t be in my area.  I wish I had more gumption, as my Nan would say, to tell her to move back, but I just can’t.

I’m trying to ignore the click-pffish and eat my Eggs Benedict, but the noise is really off-putting.  The click makes me think of the shells of my eggs being cracked and that makes me think of raw eggs and that makes me think of chickens birthing those huge ovals and how humans shouldn’t complain about period pain because imagine if you were a chicken and you had to push out a period egg every day instead of a gentle trickle of blood once a month and

Now I can’t eat my eggs.

So I sip my cappuccino instead, but the pffish of the rush of air reminds me of the steam being let off by the barista, and that makes me think of milk and cows lined up having their udders pulled by bits of cold steel and the greenish tinge of the mastitis-ridden milk, and the slops of cow shit being sprayed around and

Now I can’t drink my coffee.

I have to get out of here.  I can’t turn my head to the left, because The Lady in the Cheetah Print is there, but there is no other way to get out- I’m sitting in the window.  The pane that represented my freedom and my eye to the world is now a glazed gaol.  I feel myself going over all hot and clammy, my breathing quickens and even as I try to slow it down, calm it back a notch, my lungs are grabbing for more air more air more air.  Sweat is popping out of my skin- behind my knees, in the folds of my elbows, the pits of my arms.  I am trying to stop it all, bring my processes back to normal, but everything is going out of control and it’s like I’m a train and I’m racing through a long long red tunnel and instead of a prick of light at the end there’s just brown

I open my eyes and The Lady in the Cheetah Print is leaning over me, her eyes, rheumy blue and wet are staring into mine and she has somehow disattached the medical-ey thing and is waving it in front of my nostrils.  It smells like talcum powder and Tabu with a tinge of mothballs, and I smile at her and she smiles back as the waiter comes flouncing over with some “water for the fainter”.  We look at each other, The Lady in the Cheetah Print and I, our mouths engraving the same shape into the air, “wanker”.

…From The Ashers

PS  Tell me what you reckon about this kind of post… I often have these little people jostling about in my grey matter- do you like ’em?  Or should they just stay up there and rattle around?

I’m too busy swanning about, drinking Prosecco and sweltering in my Mother’s Day ugg boots to write a blog today, but I won’t leave you with empty hands and hearts.  Here is something from Clem Ford that I think you’ll like.

Clementine has strong and passionate opinions on many things, and this is no exception.  I couldn’t have said it better myself.  (Plus, my Mum is still alive, and kicking otherwise, well, it doesn’t bear thinking).

I hope your Mother’s Day was full of froth and bubble.

Enjoy.

A Mother’s Love by Clementine Ford.

You know those days when you have so much going on that everything is all organised and planned down to the moment? You have not a list, but a run sheet of how the day will go.  Replete with times.  And items to tick off as you go.  So it’s satisfying as well as frenetic.

I have that day today.

Take the kids to school, chat with other Mums in case there’s stuff you’ve missed (there always is), go to post Office to post the Mother’s Day things, get some staples from Coles, go to BigW to get stockings for the kid because Queensland Winter has arrived, take the cat to the vet to have her frigging eye checked AGAIN, pay the bills, get the swimming stuff ready for after school, do two loads of washing, do a basic tidy of the house in case aliens arrive and assume all humans live in squalor, go to the solicitor to chat about the contract for the book deal you may have coming up, book the car in for a service, see if you can fix the moody printer that is stuffed (again), make some patient phone calls…

Hang on.  Wait.  What?

A book deal?

Yes, that’s right, maybe, just maybe, that might soon be a thing.

So I’m stopping EVERYTHING.

I have found a cosy cafe, with a spare spot in the window, where us writerly types can sit and watch the world go it’s way… I can look, wistfully out, whilst I muse about.. my musings.  The sun has come out.  It’s Queensland Winter and I am sitting here in a t-shirt, about to slam a capp and a benny, the warm of the sun touching my arms and making my skin tingle as I feel the Vitamin D metabolising, the warm of my very insides bursting out to a smile that I can hardly contain.   I am cradling a contract in my arms as if is my firstborn.  I have a book contract.  Unsigned and incomplete at this stage, but still, a starting point.  So I am hitting the stop button on this day of lists, and for a short while I am going to smell these roses coffees, and imagine that a secret secret that I’ve always held quietly in the deep convolutions of my intestines, mightcouldmaybe happen.

It might never amount to anything, but for today I am gonna play the imagination game that I’m so good at, and pretend that it will.

‘Cos Mark Twain reckons sometimes ‘Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.’  And that sounds all right to me.

What is your secret secret? (You don’t have to show, but I did show you mine…)

How good is a good list?

…From The Ashers xx

As some of you know, I sometimes play a bit of Flash Fiction over on Anna Spargo Ryan’s blog.

Here is my offering for this week’s prompt:

All of you were watching her as she stood at the bar with her friend, her back bare, save for a whisper of fabric. Her hair was slashed so short you could see the delicate indentation where her spine met her skull.  You could imagine cradling that, allowing your fingertips to meet at that fragile secret.

You gulped down some fortitude and elbowed your way free of your pack to breathe into her ear, “Your back looks amazing in that top, your skin is like caramel.”  The words sounded wrong even as they left your mouth but you meant it.  You wanted to run your hands all over her skin, feel it ripple beneath your fingerprints.

She giggled a little and turned her back to you, half smiling now,  a come-on.

You ran your knuckles along the bumps of her spine, tracing the S-shape, flitting so lightly she wasn’t sure if it was a touch or a puff of a breeze.  She arched slightly, feline for a beat, and you knew that this night you would make your love.  This nighttime would never be over, yet over all at once, such was the fallacy and the trickery of the satin blackness that now cloaked you both in a private world.

The bar-crowd became hazy and their sounds were muted, as only the two of you existed, under your cape.  You became invisible, and indivisible in a way that you would never quite do, in the slap of daylight.

…From The Ashers