Anybody know where I could find a cross stich pattern for Luke Skywalker?
**spoiler alert**
I know there is milk, because I bought it yesterday, but it’s not in the fridge and after a quick look around, it can’t be seen and here’s the worrying thing: no-one’s seen it in the last four hours.
Harden up
So that was a bit whingey, wasn’t it? I do apologise. Tho I did forget to tell you that a few weeks ago, a man ran into the back of my car and so now I have to get my car fixed as well. And because the boot got crinkled up, the battery went flat, and because the battery went flat, the security system on the ‘stereo’ has kicked in and we need to enter a PIN number and of course we don’t know it. For goodness sake. It’s a TAPE DECK and a radio which is dodgey because the aerial is bust. And plus, anyone opening the door of my car will be knocked flat by the decaying apple fumes. We don’t need such technology as PINs.
But, really. Life’s not that bad and yesterday was good. My youngest child (let’s call him ‘geehetalksalot,doesn’the,oh,didyounoticewell,youshouldtrylivingwithhim) and I went to town for lunch with my father. We went to City Cross which was bustling and as I tried to weave the pusher (yes, yes, he’s far too old to be in a pusher, but he won’t walk from the tram to the office, to the lunch and back again) across to the table my father had secured, a woman whose shoulders were hunched and who was seated with two other people, looked at me as she refused to move her chair and said wouldn’t it be easier to lift it over and just at the moment, two men at the table next to hers said sit here, we’re leaving and screwed the tops on their drinks and gave us their table instead. But we didn’t let the hunched woman spoil our lunch. We just wallowed in self-righteousness and reminded ourselves that we would never be so rude – it was a familial inter-generational moment. You would have enjoyed it too.
Last night, I went to the Bakehouse Theatre to see Sue Ingleton in The First Step on the Tram is Hell. I highly recommend it. I had a two for one ticket, but went alone, because no one loves me. THAT’S A JOKE. I went alone, because in the end that’s the way it worked out, and because I really wanted to see it.
It provided just the right inspiration I needed and I came home and knocked a few more pages off. PC and SQ youse give good advice.
A few things I learnt yesterday (strictly speaking they were things I already knew, but I was reminded of them yesterday in the form of lessons – or revisions if you like). Revision lesson 1: this here is Adelaide – no matter how low-key you think your life YOU ARE NOT ANONYMOUS. Revision lesson 2: if you choose to exaggerate a situation in order to get someone’s attention, it might work, you might get their attention, and then YOU WILL NEED TO FOLLOW THROUGH and meet those exaggerated expectations.
And now I’ve got the washing on. It’s a good drying day.
Love youse all.
Meltdown
Flicking through one of my many lists of things To Do – this one divided into Big, Medium, Little, then further into Long (term), Medium, Short – I realise that the deadline for the ABC Fiction Awards is looming. June 29.
I have something I was vaguely intending to enter. It needs a lot more work. Like a lot. But in some ways, I was thinking of giving this particular work this One Last Chance. You know, One Final Push, before I think to myself ‘well, it’s had a good life…it didn’t get published, but that’s life in the big city…NEXT’. And I feel like if I don’t give it One Last Chance then I’ll never be able to move on to the next thing. Which I have to do, because I told someone I would, and they gave me something in exchange. Do you see what I mean?
But June 29. That’s not far away. Is it?
So I have written a plan of what I would need to do. I have used a clean printout and my lamy lead pencil (it’s red). It Can’t Be Done. Not with Everything Else. There’re the obvious things – an important gig next week that I want to write some new material for (I think that is how you use the word gig, though to be honest, it does not come easily off my tongue); a small number of book reviews; an article which is already overdue; an article whose deadline looms; the Big Comedy Piece I am determined to write; the application for something I really want to do; the new novel which I am Determined I Will Begin. And then, there’re other things – the replacement computer I must buy before this one just refuses to start even after I plug and unplug it six times; the move of rooms so that I am no longer trying to work in the middle of the boys’ racing circuit; my determination that my contact with my friends Will Be Maintained. There’s cooking of course, and getting the boys safely home after school. And there are Other Things. Enormous wake-me-up-in-the-middle-of-the-night but not mine to blog about things. You know. You’ve got them, I’m sure.
And then, there’s the vegetable drawer which, no matter how many times I clean it, still has liquid in the bottom. Only last week, I cleaned it out, used the edgey veges for stock, converted the stock into soup, which was spooned into containers which were transferred to the freezer. How awesome is that? But wait, there’s more – we went away for the weekend, and because the freezer was so full it seems not to have closed properly and so we returned to a half-thawed freezer and potentially-botulistic soup – oh, it broke my heart, no matter that the ice had formed a beautiful winter wonderland.
Is it any wonder the mister returned home one evening to find me on the recognisable edge of a torrent of tears?
How I said, waving somewhat melodramatically at the vegetable drawer which seems to be filled with liquid mould again am I supposed to create? There was only a slight pause before I began – somewhat melodramatically again – I’m a failure at my job…all I have to do is keep the mould out and LOOK just LOOK.
I’m sure that you can see there was no room for rational discussion here. No amount of no one’s worth should be judged by the state of their vegetable drawer was going to work.
So, he did the only thing he could do. He scraped the cucumber – or was it zucchini – off the bottom of the drawer and then, when I sat down to work on the manuscript, he went into the bathroom and scrubbed the grout with an old toothbrush he had saved for just such a time.
And how do I repay this kindness? A few days later – when PlaySchool is on and I could be addressing the puzzle of the chapter which I know will work, I just have to work out how – I blog.
It’s never my fault
On Saturday night, I tanked. I was on stage under a spotlight, with a microphone in my hand AND I FORGOT WHAT I WAS GOING TO SAY. Which would have been fine, except that one minute later I DID IT AGAIN. Total, complete blank.
It worked out fine in the end. Because I made a different joke about how things weren’t going so well and that went okay.
And in the greater scheme of things it was the lesson I had to have, and once I’d had it, I realised it really wasn’t that bad. Everyone at some point is going to draw a blank. It was a friendly crowd, and they could see the funny side. And I’ve got enough confidence now that I’m not petrified of the audience. And I’ve also got a bit (a tiny, tiny bit) of backup material, so I could have gone to that if all else failed. Plus, now it’s happened, I’ve got a context for writing my ‘this has gone to shit, hasn’t it’ lines. So I was all around much less devastated than I could otherwise have been. And I got back to the funny part of my routine and ended on a high note. And I have, since, listened to my tape of the night. Yes, it was cringeworthy, but you know. Life goes on.
Nonetheless, I stopped at the bottle shop on the way home. I can’t tell you how badly that just went I said to the mister when I walked in the door, my arms loaded with a selection of beer and wine because I wasn’t sure exactly what I wanted to drink. Oh, he said I think I can guess. And then I drank more than I should have when you consider that we had to get up at 6 am to be on the road by 7 in order to be at Loxton by 11. And don’t you wish you knew more about that little adventure? And don’t I wish I knew less. Suffice to say, I am an excellent wife.
Anyhoo, after I had drunk too much and was in the bathroom cleaning my teeth, I happened to see this box. The one holding the soap which I had hastily pulled from the supermarket shelves that very afternoon. This is not the soap I normally use. I normally use this body wash thing which, for reasons too boring but numerous to mention here, had run out but not been replaced on Saturday morning.
Do you see what it says? Down there on the bottom? Non-Comedogenic. Have you ever heard of that? No, neither had I.
No wonder I tanked. All my jokes had been washed down the drain.
PS I tried taking a photo of my box, but my camera has been dropped one too many times and the focus button really doesn’t work well enough. So I got this one from here.
House arrest
Aung San Suu Kyi’s period of house arrest has just been extended.
“Aung San Suu Kyi will have spent more than eleven and a half of the last eighteen years arbitrarily detained under house arrest. For much of the remaining time her movement has been heavily restricted by the authorities. She has never been charged or tried with any offence” (from the AIA website).
On June 19, she will be 62. Over here they are suggesting that you send her a birthday card, and they’ve included her address.
Sometimes, letter writing does feel like an aneamic effort. You know, in comparison. And I imagine her mail is intercepted. But then I remember all the people who say they’ve drawn a lot of support from receiving letters and messages of support.
I don’t think I’m being cyber-hoaxed or cyber-hoaxing you when I write this. I’ve had a few emails about it as well as seeing it all over the web. But do let me know if you think I’m being naive.
it’s too wet to wash
There are less plastic bags than there used to be, but still there is a lot.
There are some plastic bags which are too good to use as bin liners. They are too sturdy, perhaps, or badged with a place you want to remember. Shakespeare’s Globe might be an example of that, tho that is something I just pulled out of the air to make myself seem more worldly than I feel sitting in this suburban room of this suburban house of this suburban life. I don’t have any plastic bags that I’m keeping because they’re badged ‘Shakespeare’s Globe’.
Some – the very sturdy ones – I fold. Look closely and you can see them here. To maintain such a stack requires a household commitment and it would be, I think, unusual to find two people who both believe that it is something worth spending their time on.
One day I will knit one of those of coathanger covers like the one a library volunteer once knitted me. ‘It gives you something to do,’ she said, ‘while you wait for the carrots to boil’. At the time, I had no idea what she meant.
But there are many bags which fit between those to be used as bin liners and those to be preserved. And they sit, scrunched in one large plastic bag in the cupboard where the vacuum cleaner lives. Never quite used and never quite not.
Something I want, something I really, really want is one of those calico things. You know a sausage kind of thing with elastic at both ends. You push the bags in the top and pull them out of the bottom. But if I were to hang one of those, I wonder how many times would I need to mutter ‘Shakespeare’s Globe’.
I think a little more product may be in order. Now.
Like I said, I don’t mind that the hairdresser fails to transform me into Winona Ryder, but I would prefer not to look quite so much like Rod Stewart.
Cross? Stitch!
So I’m sure you’re all just refreshing bloglines waiting to hear more about my cross stitch.
Here it is. I haven’t framed it yet. But I will.
I’m off to bed now, because I stayed up too late last night watching Miss Universe. And on that particular incident, I have only this to say…having slipped on the stage she should not have gone through to the next round. I admire her poise in recovering, and on a human level I felt for her, I truly did. But surely all the ballgown section asks is that you stay on your feet.
May 28
Today, had she lived, my mother would have been – I’m pretty sure, based on the little sums I’ve been doing all day – sixty years old. And because of this, and other things which aren’t really mine to share, it has been…oh, it has been a sad day. Depths-of-the-soul and face-your-demons sad. I’m sure you know what I mean. You’ve had such days. The kind of days when you don’t dare speak to anyone, not even the kindy mums, because their simple how are yous will make you cry and you’ve already cried all night.
This morning, I said to my boy you know, I really can’t say ‘please get dressed’ again…I’m tired and sad and he said sadder than 100 lions and I said yes and he said sadder than ten thousand lions and I said sadder than I can describe. And so, he dressed himself, including his socks and a quiet hunt for his shoes and he made sure his brother had socks and then he said please can I help you make the lunch. He can’t possibly have known the significance of making the lunch.
And the day made me think, my mother – whose own mother died when all of us were young – never said to me I’m feeling sad, because today is my mother’s birthday. But it must have happened. That she felt sad. And it made me think of the lessons we learn from our mothers. They teach us how to be daughters and mothers ourselves. And goodness me, doesn’t grief go on and on and on.
I thought to myself, as I marveered the dressing table – marveer belongs to my memories of her – she would have had a party and it’s true. She would. And then, I realised, that I can’t really guess at how things might have been. Because where do you start? Do you assume the accident didn’t happen? Or did it happen, but…Where do you start with how things might have been?
And then, this afternoon, I cleared the mailbox and there was a card from one of her best friends and she said caught your gig on Raw. And that reminded me of how it was that night in Melbourne. Amazing. Truly amazing. But gee. There’s a lot of spaces you can anticipate. Having children. Your brother’s wedding. They are the spaces you know. But then, just every now and then, a really big thing comes along and out of nowhere you realise. She isn’t here.
We have shared in the last hour or so, the mister and I, a bottle of Lake Breeze Bernoota Shiraz. 1995. It’s very, very good. There’re only two bottles left. I say I notice that you’ve had your fair share because that is something he doesn’t always do, and he says well, it’s bloody good plonk I’m not going to let you scoff the lot and I say I believe the word is quaff, but he pretends to have his head stuck in the dishwasher. He misses her too.
Tomorrow will be okay.