Adieu

How little we know of the people we know: a friend said this to me recently after reading this blog for the first time.

This blog came into being almost a year to this day, so I guess it should be a fledgling blog, a yearling, young and sprite. My first post declared that this blog will be a 'frighteningly' public journal of thoughts and opinions otherwise lost in the mundane routines of everyday life: blog as product disclosure statement. Hmmm. So, not unlike the vast majority of blogs out there, then. Blogging requires commitment, consistency and a belief that your writing is worthwhile sharing with others in the blogging community, as well as a reciprocal interest in others' lives and interests. I've enjoyed every online minute.

This is my 60th post, and the final one for a while. I'm tired and cranky from chronic insomnia - the last couple of years have worn me down to a nub - and I've finally realised that I'm not superhuman and my energy is finite. I need to be practical with where I direct that energy. Blogging has never been work for me; but it is not a hobby either. It has helped me develop a writing routine and restored my love of the written word after the banalities involved in the completion of my degree, and for that I am truly thankful.

I have met clever and lovely people online and offline whom I never would have met if not for this blog. Friends I've known for years have said they now know more about me than they ever could have in real life (obviously my reserved nature can be a little too reserved). I will still be visiting regular cyber-haunts and perhaps leaving the occasional comment here and there.

Adieu. And now you know a little more.

Ramblings about ghosts, and other stuff that keeps me awake.

Oh, hai. Insomnia, again. Four in the morning and I'm wide awake, listening to someone wheeling their rubbish bin up and down their driveway. This happens every night without fail between 4 and 4.30am, and because I'm usually always awake at this time, and because I'm an adult who still believes that scary beings could potentially hide in wardrobes I am convinced that it is a neighbourhood ghost, condemned to an eternity of rolling around a wheelie bin. Either that, or a neighbour who suffers from severe OCD. Much like their neighbour who suffers with severe insomnia, and who doesn't really want to know if you're a ghost, or not.

So I was lying in bed thinking about the bin and the ghost, and because my mind wanders into strange territory during the silence of night, thinking of ghosts reminded me of my year in a primary school in western Sydney - bordering Blacktown - and the teacher who was allegedly sacked because he was allegedly carrying out seances with the older kids at the school, allegedly using a ouija board. I remember this because of the rumours and gossip spreading the school, all in hushed but serious tones. And I remember feeling terrified because I had seen The Omen (what possessed our parents - that's a collective 'parents' - to allow us to see that movie?) and being a good Catholic girl I knew the Devil could possess me if I was bad and turn me into a violent psychopath child who could make people float under ice and die simply by looking at them. But this would happen only if I used that ouija board, which I actually saw in a classroom one day. Or perhaps I imagined it because my head at the time was stuck in Lion, Witch and Wardrobe territory, and I was prone to writing fantasy about horses, ghosts, and John Travolta and ONJ.

My irrational fear of the occult and the devil still exists to this day. I have attempted to watch The Exorcist about three times, but I have never seen it. Rather, I have watched it behind my hands, only listening to Linda Blair spewing her guttural bile. I am too terrified of what I might see. And that damned ouija board and these types of movies have scarred me for life.

And because I was thinking of that primary school near Blacktown, I began thinking about this: apart from the potential for being kidnapped by an occult and sacrificed, the other event that has left me with psychic scars was the abduction of a young woman from Blacktown railway station. We were living in Wollongong then, and I spent every morning for a year waking to the sight of the beach on one side and a vast landscape of chimneys spewing out god knows what on the other. Not pleasant. Because the woman had been abducted from Blacktown and I knew the area and the station, the story was of personal interest to me. This young woman's face was plastered all over the daily newspapers; it became an iconic image. When she was found murdered, the reporters described her death in specific gruesome detail, resulting in me throwing up in the bathroom; nobody needs to read that, especially not an impressionable and, er, imaginative teenager. Details about murder cases don't seem to be reported this way anymore - general words such are 'horrific' and 'horrendous' are used to describe murders, and I often wonder if Anita Cobby's murder led to a change in the way this kind of violent death was reported. Or maybe I automatically bypass such accounts now. Anyway, if you're into wanting to know the details, you can now watch all those things happening to women on TV - CSI, or SVU or some other detestable show with an acronym in its title.

Anyway, I do recall crying myself to sleep over what happened to Anita, and for her family left behind who will live with her image, and those awful, awful details, until they die. And I was angry, so, so angry at the men who did, and still do, this to women. But fearful too.

And then bloody David Wenham happened in The Boys, and reminded me of that time and that atmosphere of shared terror (albeit the movie showed the fear manifest on a personal and domestic level), and all I could think of was Anita's parents watching that movie (I hope they didn't) and reliving their daughter's death. Brilliant movie. Horrific movie. And Diver Dan was never the same after that movie.

Reality can be far, far worse than imagination, or a representation. But sometimes a representation or memory is the only thing that remains with you.

It's about time to go back to bed; it's raining. No, it's pouring. And the sound of rain often lulls me into sleepy time.

These bloggy ramblings are blamed on the wheelie bin ghost. And no, it's not all in my head. But the insomnia is.

Art. And Sport

The profile picture on this blog is an apt description of me at the moment; my head is in the clouds. I'd like to think this means my head is clouded with important and/or productive thoughts but alas, no such luck. Days pass me by, and by 9pm I'm either exhausted and slouched over the couch watching telly, or dragging myself towards the laptop in the hope of getting the work done that I forgot to do during the day because my brain was peasoup. Today I realised why I'm suffering from brain fog - it's winter. And for me, winter means hibernation. Yes, I know that we're almost halfway through the season because my bulbs are now more than peeking through the soil (that's neither a euphemism nor an analogy, they really are), but every part of me is retreating inwards. Any time there's a little bit of sun I'm out on the porch sunning myself like a cat. Actually, I'm often sunning myself with the cat and the dog - we fight over the sun rays, pushing each other out of the way when the shadows move in. At night we argue over the heater, like three squabbling elderly ladies. But in the end I win, cause I've got dibs on the hottie.

Subsequently, my trips online have been few and far between, and I actually feel a little guilty for not keeping up with fellow bloggers' lives, let alone tending to my little patch of weeds.

I have been outside once or twice though. Ro and I went to the Art Fair to catch up with a friend from Canberra who was promoting her wares to passers-by. There was so much wonderful art to see, and Ro loved Gregor Kregar's silver gnomes and the drawing machine and the dolls driving the red cars and all of the indigenous art and Petrina Hicks' chimpanzee pic. I loved Fiona Hall's Mourning Chorus (i'm a Hall fangirl), the Mangano sister's video (gorgeous), and especially Louise Weaver's hand crocheted 'clothes' over taxidermied birds (bizarre and beautiful).

There was one stand filled with fabulous paintings (can't remember any of the artist's names: brain=mush, remember?) and it looked like the artists and gallery owners and potential buyers were standing around having a chat - everyone was dressed in lovely Melberlin black (no judgement, I was too), and a couple were talking about the paintings using the pronoun 'I', so they surely had to be the artists. Anyway, Ro spied a large abstract painting, covered with impasto circles, and said, out loud - I can't stress to you how LOUD it was: "Why did the artist paint this one so BADLY, mummy?" And then, in order to add emphasis to his comment, he made a face, a squished-up little face that so obviously said "YUCK", and shook his head violently. In disgust. Ouch. Bummer. My son really doesn't like your painting. Every person in the room turned to look at me. Why me? I hate being the centre of attention. Why not look at the little rotter who said it? I didn't even think of it as bad. But, alas, the inclusion of 'mummy' at the end of the sentence meant I couldn't abrogate parental responsibility by pretending to be the nanny or auntie or someone else removed from immediate family. So, I talked to my son in front of these people about artists' intentions and how the medium allows painters to express certain feelings and ideas, and how you don't have to like an artwork but it doesn't mean it's bad, blah, blah, blah, etc. And then, my darling boy looked at me and said, in his best five-year-old LOUD dude voice, "Whatever".

Oh, well, I survived. At the end of the third hour, Ro, who had been patient and curious and fascinated for most of that time, erupted into his version of a tantrum. His tantrums are of the 'go slow and whine' variety, but attempting to carry and then drag a 23kg+ child around with one arm is too much for one parent, so we gave in, bought some rubber Hummer key rings and a t-shirt for B, and took off home.

Here's a Petrina Hicks photo for you. This pic was taken from the invitation of her recent show in Sydney. Hicks had a couple of gorgeous works at the Art Fair, including this one: beautiful and creepy.

I don't know who wrote the blurb on her press release though. He/she called the animal a 'wolfhound'. Tee, hee. My sister breeds these 'wolfhounds', which are actually Siberian Huskies, and they are the friendliest dogs on the planet. And cuddly. But even this knowledge didn't diminish the power of the image for me. And I guess people do look at Huskies and think 'wolf'. Hicks also has a pic of a woman with a budgie head in her mouth, which sounds even creepier, and it is.

With my hard-earned cash, I've been buying art. Here is my latest acquisition, by Canberra artist Stephanie Jones, from a recent exhibition called Cast at the Helen Maxwell Gallery:


The medium is coloured pencil and it is a very beautiful drawing. And now it hangs on my wall so I can see it everyday. Lucky me.

I will try to tend to this blog a little more regularly, however I will be around only occasionally to blog and comment during the Olympic period, because I'm doing some work on the Games/politics/online media rights, and other fun stuff. Also, I'll be spending some time showing Ro alternatives to football and cricket (ugh), sports such as archery, badminton and fencing, as well as talking to him about China, Darfur, Tibet, Australia, and human rights.

'Happy Birthday to you'...ad infinitum

Days and now weeks have passed me by - all I have to remind me of what happened during this time are a few photographs.

The photos are all centred around Ro's 5th birthday because the celebrations seemed to stretch on for weeks. Various family members came and went, and we had many small celebrations on either side of the big one - there were at least three birthday cakes, lots of snacks and plenty of champagne for the adults. In fact, I haven't had an alcohol-free evening for quite some time, since I discovered that wine is good for my insomnia. Probably not a long-term solution but it's better than throwing down some valium and snoozing through the following morning.

So here are my lost weeks in five pictures, and a few more words:

Pic #1. As an early birthday present, Ro was given a trampoline by his grandparents. Here we are setting it up. Well, I'm not. Instead I'm standing by the side thinking, "Oh fuck, this is going to play havoc on my post-childbirth pelvic floor." And it does. Spectacularly. Ro loves to jump HIGH, so after some spirited parent-only child negotiations we compromised (because I have to jump with him. Apparently it's no fun otherwise, which would be flattering under any other circumstances), and together we jump for five minutes (aaargh!), then lie on the trampoline mat to look at the clouds, allowing me recovery time. Then jump again. Or better still, I invite some of his friends over, ziplock them into the trampoline and leave them be.

Pic #2: Batman likes to eat dinner at our house. He also jumps off tall sofas, screams at people who walk past him, throws toys around, and attempts to bath in his suit. I would prefer the man behind the suit to be Christian Bale (sans toy throwing and screaming). Or George Clooney, if I had to choose one. But not Val Kilmer. And definitely not Michael Keaton. He's kind of creepy.

Pic #3: Party! They came and had fun! They painted and decorated money boxes! They ate too much sugar! We had invited fourteen children to Ro's birthday party but lost four to chicken pox. Ten is a good number for a supervised party - they were a civilised rabble.

Pic #4: Then they ate a tonne of party food (though please note the presence of carrot sticks and dip on the table. One child ate a piece of carrot. I was extremely happy).

Pic #5: Here is the birthday cake that I finished icing at midnight. The ears are a bit ragged but they were iced during a post-banana sugar frenzy (someone had to eat the leftover 'nanas).

And that is all. Because I am exhausted, and it takes me a while to get back into the 'work-school-miscellaneous domestic' stuff routine when I've been in no routine at all for a while. This weekend I'm off to the MIFF to see the Tim Minchin doco and possibly the Kathy Acker doco, and a friend is coming down from Canberra for the Art Fair so we'll get together and drink some champagne, and then I'm off to Heide some time soon with Genevieve because I've never been there before. And I'll have to check out some blogs and see what everyone has been doing.

Who knows where the time goes?

All about me. As if there isn't enough about me on this blog.

But first, thanks for the supportive comments and emails - you are a lovely bunch of people, and receiving such warm thoughts from friends, as well as folk I've only met online, makes me feel all gooey and mellow.

We survived our hellish last weekend. Just. And arrived in a far more pleasant place. Ro is feeling better and has returned to his usual self - sweet, loving, with no tantrums or irritability. That is, apart from the usual 4 year old stuff, which I can handle. And no more hospital visits, for another six weeks anyhow. His grandparents arrive from Perth tomorrow for a two week visit, just in time for school holidays. Relief. Joy. Um, yeah, sometimes I enjoy this motherhood caper - just not all the time during school holidays. But I have planned the first week which will include bowling, zoo and aquarium visits, and a couple of playdates. Overscheduling? Perhaps. I prefer to see it as a way to maintain my sanity.

***

Kris tagged me for this meme. This one has been doing the rounds for a while so I think most of my fellow bloggers have done it. But if you stumble across this post and like the look of the meme, please take it and share it around.


What was I doing 10 years ago?

B was offered a PhD scholarship and we moved, in the middle of summer, from Canberra to Brisbane. There were tropical storms every afternoon, and it was so humid that I couldn’t breathe. But the climate in Brissy thawed me out, and I relaxed for the first time, ever. I felt like my body had been released from years of accumulated tension; the outdoor lifestyle suited me well. Especially the drinking in the heat part, because there was a lot of hot weather. And yes, all that wine is probably why I became so laid-back.

We lived in a house in Toowong, one of the few remaining old Queenslanders in a street filled with two or three storey apartments. Behind and adjacent to our house, within spitting distance, were large apartment blocks, and we used to wave at our many neighbours and watch them having dinner, doing the dishes, watching TV, and occasionally having sex; in return they watched us, because our windows were always left open. It was the Queensland surburbia version of Rear Window, although nothing illegal took place. As far as I know. A couple of ex-public service lefties lived in the house next door, and we enjoyed many balmy evenings on their back deck, drinking wine and discussing politics.

I was still making art at this stage (pre-child and pre- my PhD), and was invited to participate in two group art exhibitions at the Smith+Stoneley gallery in Newstead, although one of those may have been the following year. I was also doing some volunteer work at the IMA, archiving slides and helping to set up shows. Fiona Hall’s show with carved soap and painted banknotes was brilliant, and I was able to watch her work. Heaven.

The necessity for cash meant that I temped around the place, usually working at universities doing admin or PA roles. I also finished writing my first journal article, which was accepted for publication later in the year.

Basically, that year was spent settling into our new home, making new friends, and enjoying the lifestyle – lots of rock-climbing, weekend trips away to the Coasts, and partying when we weren’t working, i.e. child-free things.


Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world (and in this world as well):

A platter with five different types of chocolate. Any chocolate, as long as it’s not cheap, although if desperate I will scoff Club dark peppermint cream chocolate.

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

Avocado on rye, Hommous and rice crackers, Kettle chilli chips, nuts, and organic dark peppermint chocolate (not necessarily in that order. In fact, reverse it and that would be my order of preference).

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

• Look after my family and friends.
• Travel – live in NYC or London, or both, doing the weekly trans-Atlantic route.
• Buy a lot more art.
• Set up scholarships and grant schemes for emerging artists and writers.
• Have my own version of the 2020 summit to discuss where my money could best be spent.

Five jobs that I have had:

• Artist’s model
• Mailroom person
• Function waitress. One of my jobs was to serve drinks to 400 men at the opening of the largest crane in the Southern Hemisphere. I was groped by 350 of them, because of course waitress means hooker.
• Media monitor
• University tutor and lecturer

Three of my habits:

• Picking lint off family and friends, like an obsessed monkey picking nits off other monkeys.
• Trying to resist the urge to clean lint off strangers, especially those in close proximity to me on public transport.
• Chewing my cuticles.

Five places I have lived:

I’ve moved around a lot so here are five of the most memorable places I’ve lived in:

• St German’s, Cornwall. The village school consisted of two composite classes - junior and senior - and we were allowed to read comics all day, every day because the teacher was simply babysitting us. I spent the time drawing and writing stories. We lived in a renovated and haunted Tudor pub, and had a back garden filled with daffodils, miniature ponies, and fairies.
• Plymouth, Devon. I had my first crush on a boy here. Neil, Neil, wagon wheel, I loved you, and your big boy bike, which I fell off numerous times.
• HMAS Creswell, Jervis Bay, NSW. Beaches, bush, and utter freedom.
• Brisbane. Friends and the warmth.
• Melbourne. I am loving it more and more.


Five things to do today:

Finish a draft of a story, read Anne Enright’s book of short stories, buy some potatoes, make a card for a friend’s birthday, hang out the washing.

***

I've wanted to see The Wire for ages, and today B scored a copy. We also have season four of BSG to watch, and FoTC is still on Sunday nights. And Richard Sennett's book The Craftsman is now on my pile of books to be read. So I'm happy.

Hospitals, monkeys and Mini Coopers.

Ro spent most of this morning at the Children's Hospital, having his tummy checked (not good news) and a blood test (potentially bad news, but we have to wait a week or so for the results). The past weeks have been a trial; B and I thought that Ro was either in the midst of a particularly tough behavioural stage, or reacting to inconsistent parenting brought on by our never-ending exhaustion. But it was neither: his medication is no longer working. So this weekend he will be overloaded with more medication in the hope that his little body will again function, with little (or hopefully, no) pain. This outcome is pleasing only because we don't have to spend any more time in hospital.

Although we have spent a good part of the past five years in and out of various hospitals, we have memorised the rabbit warren of corridors, rooms, toilets, cafés, and chemists at the RCH. But the thought of entering that foyer still makes me shiver. The lights, the sounds, and the smell (ugh, the smell - antiseptic mixed with pungent aromas of body odour and fearful sweat. Or maybe that's just my scent) now occupy a permanent space in my memories.

We react in different ways to every hospital visit. Ro usually looks forward to the gift shop and the possibility of purchasing a train to add to his Thomas collection. But today he wandered around for 50 minutes with Angel cream on his arms, waiting for the anaesthetic to take effect so he could be stuck with a needle. He wasn't impressed by this, and just in case it might hurt he decided not to move his arms while he walked, and ended up looking like the character in Seinfeld who is teased for not moving her arms - heehee! they hang like salamis! B becomes silent and wanders around trying not to look too long at the kids who have bottles of oxygen strapped onto their wheelchairs or drips stuck into their arms, or their parents who look harried, anxious and/or terrified. But he's also really attentive and watches out for any parent or child who needs help, even in little ways like opening a door or fixing an errant computer in the Starlight room. I walk around in a semi-dazed state, forcing myself to be practical and organising the family so we arrive at appointments on time. Okay, so I'm not very good at it, but I must get some points for my consistent attempts to be on time. But I also shut off the part of my brain that wants to scream and run; it's fight or flight time. Luckily I stay to battle it out, and then spend the next two days running away. Or my version of absconding, which is to mentally retreat.

The couple of days after every visit are always difficult. Ro has nightmares, and asks when he's going to die, and acts out in other significant ways, such as using baby talk and clinging to me like a limpet. B and I rely on our self-protective mechanism, which is to remove ourselves from the world for a while, and just be. We are so well versed in the process that it is now automatic.

However, just before my retreat I pulled my procrastinating arse into gear and organised Ro's fifth birthday party. He and his school friends will be having a craft party, painting pictures and pasting objects onto wooden thingies (maybe money boxes or pencil boxes, we haven't decided yet), followed by a load of food and a monkey face cake. A monkey cake will be far easier than the cake I made for Ro's 4th birthday - a light blue Mini Cooper convertible chocolate cake, with smarties for headlights and freckles for seats. Not a hard ask, was it?

What I did on my lunch break

This meme is working its way around the cyber-place at the moment. I found it on these pages and as I'm a little bored at work, and on lunch break, I thought I'd give it a go. It is a little strange letting others' personal images define my social and cultural capital, but here goes. Here's what I did:

a.Type your answer to each of the questions below in Flickr Search.

b. Using only the first page, pick an image.

c. Copy and paste each of the URLs for the images into fd's mosaic maker.

1. What is your first name?
2. What is your favourite food?
3. What high school did you go to?
4. What is your favourite colour?
5. Who is your celebrity crush?
6. Favourite drink?
7. Dream vacation?
8. Favourite dessert?
9. What do you want to be when you grow up?
10. What do you love most in life?
11. One word to describe you.
12. Your flickr name.



Gawd! Look at that chocolate! Yum! And look at that puppy! It's beyond adorable - it's squishable cute!

That's enough exclamation points for the day.

Photo credits here.

OH, AND HAPPY 40TH BIRTHDAY, SJ! HOPE YOU DRANK YOUR BODY WEIGHT IN CHAMPAGNE AT THE HYATT!