Going a bit mad here

So no news on publishing front. It seems that my work is defo 'under consideration' but there are unforseen delays. My agent can't tell me more, and I can't tell you more either.

People, it's been 11 weeks since my thing was first sent out and while people are saying I have a bright future ahead of me and that I have an amazingly strong voice, fluid writing style, am a 'great writer' that I'm a real find etc - there are elements in play, obviously that I don't know about. Probably stuff like: yeah, but we can't sell a book like that OR oh another family saga? yawn OR Hmmm. This doesn't work so I can't sell it. Oh well.)

I am being calm and still and centred, as much as I can. But I've had a few dreams. In one, there was an email from my agent telling me this particular publisher who loves it had passed on it with regret. Another one where they made an offer and I couldn't get to a computer to read the email. Then other types of dreams, non booky ones but clearly anxiety dreams. In one, someone was wearing the exact same jacket I got in LA - a Calvin Klein orange puffy jacket, but so light, as light as air. I couldn't believe this person had my jacket. Otherwise I'm sleeping so well.

 

I'm also going a bit mad in other ways too. These flight benefits I've got at the moment are temporary and so 'to feel like I'm making the most of it' I've booked a trip to Hong Kong for me and Clokes next month for our anniversary and also a day trip for me to Brisbane to attend a writing workshop at the end of this month.

I'm walking every day and we have a new lead for the Gigi. I swear, she's 8 years old and has never walked well on a lead. I know now, because we got last pick of the litter, that she is the bad egg. She's a beautiful girl and lovely-natured and sociable; never shown any aggression BUT she is pig-headed and dominant and wants to walk out in front, thinking she is in charge. So I have one of those extendable/rectractable jobs which makes me feel like she's a fish on the end of my line and sometimes I have to reel her in, and sometimes I give her her head. It's working well. So P and me are walking every day and it's making me fitter and this, along with my stopping milk in coffee and 'avoiding wheat especially pasta' I am feeling really good and energetic.

Shit is happening overseas and at the moment, it's hard to filter it out, or filter it at all. Shit is happening here too. Tony Abbott is getting positive headlines to do with same-sex marriage? WTF is Gillard doing? Why oh why won't she go there? I don't get it. I bet personally she's okay with it. Good on NZ for doing it. I've said it before but really: NZ is the place to move to if things get too bad here.

And then the ANZAC thing is coming up again as it always does every year but this year it's making me sweaty in the armpits because I have a work in progress (my Turkish novel) that is concerned with Gallipoli and I'm thinking there'll be so many people trying to capitalise on next year being the 100 anniversary of the Gallipoli Campaign. I was there at ANZAC Cove for the 75th anniversary. I shook Bob and Hazel's hands (his: limp; hers: firm and friendly.) I feel I have so much material in my head, so many things I could write/can write but MAN it's hard to settle.

I need a list, and a plan. I have a new fascination with all things airline too. Did you know that on some of the Gulf State airlines you can take a falcon on board with you? As long as it's hooded, and tethered and only in Economy, you can travel with it on your arm. Limit of 6 per cabin though, on Qatar. This stuff is real in the world and it blows my mind.

 

old soldiers make me cry. everytime.

we weren't planning to go yesterday, to the anzac march. when i was a kid, me and my friends used to mock the old soldiers, pretending to be them, limping along with spastic hands to the beat of a drum. we thought we were really funny.

somehow, princess and i found ourselves there, right up the front, watching the old soldiers, and the young, marching past. there were oldies in classic jags and rollers, even one in a khaki nissan pintara. i think the tears come from the misguided belief that these old men fought for a people, a country. when in fact they were young and strong, and as much a hot-headed bastard as any.

the best moment for me was when the wrans passed [army nurses], elderly and soft-looking plump ladies with white gloves and faded hair. as they marched by, there were several wolf-whistles from the crowd, which made everyone smile.

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on monday, princess said to me:

we learnt about gallipoli at school today. we won! we won! aha! aha! [and she made the movement, you know the 'we rock' type movement that kids do, with the arms in circles in front of their body, like a victory dance]

it took me a second to realise she was talking about the turks, and that she was one of them.

then yesterday she said, we were fighting on the british side. and i realised she was talking about we as australians.

what an interesting perspective for her.

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of course, i met her father in 1990 when i travelled to turkey to go to the 75th anniversary commemoration at gallipoli. i met her dad on the very day we travelled down to the peninsula, the 24th of april. i arrived at the site with my friends at around 4am and found good spots right at the front of the fenced off entrance, where the diggers would walk to their seats for the service. as they started coming, just before dawn, each one accompanied by a young australian or new zealand soldier, the crowd clapped and cheered. old men were brandishing their walking sticks, and grinning at the crowd. i couldn't do anything other than clap, and cry. and take lots of photos. i had tears flowing down my face. i shook bob hawke's hand, and hazel's. i was surprised by his soft grip. we listened to the last post bugle, we listened to the speeches, which i couldn't hear very well. the sound system was crap. but it didn't matter. i'd seen the old boys, and then later as we trundled around various cemeteries and monuments we saw a bus of the old soldiers leaving the area. there they were, small and still excited, waving out of the bus windows at us as they passed.

gallipoli is close to my heart for various reasons*. but i'll never forget the first time i read the words of ataturk, on one of the memorials. it still tugs at the heart-strings:


Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... you are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us, where they lie, side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears. Your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land, they have become our sons as well.


* not least the fact i got touched up by a turk in one of the trenches.