Childhood Icons - tribute to Farrah.

Farrah Fawcett is dying, and I feel sad. It's a sadness mixed with nostalgia and I was thinking that for me, she was one of the real icons of my youth. I remember we went on a trip to Sydney as a family in about 1977 or '78 and I had a haircut. I asked the hairdresser to give me hair like Farrah's and it came out beautifully with the wings and all. Until I washed it, then it went back to its normal, anti-glam bouff. That trip, even the hotel was iconic - in the middle of King's Cross, it was the funky Gazebo Hotel next to the el Alamein Fountain. There was plush carpet throughout and an under-pool bar with a window showing the water and people's legs and bottom halves.

I remember also a conversation with my cousin about Farrah's nipples. You have to understand, these days, the sex symbols tend to have big boobs - think Jordan, Pamela Anderson, etc. But back in the '70s, erect nipples were what separated the nice from the naughty. My cousin made some comment about how her nipples always seemed to be stiff. I said something like "oh that's easy, you just use frozen peas." He then made me demonstrate what I meant. His eyes almost popped out of his head.

We loved Charlie's Angels. You had Kelly, the beautiful one, Kate the smart one and Jill Munroe, the sexy one. She could ride a skateboard and put a man into a full Nelson like that. Her teeth were white and many, she didn't have a standard nose-job nose, and she had big hair. For other big-haired people, she was a Goddess. These days, all the girls want flat, straight, boring hair. Farrah ushered in a new era in hair, again a backlash against that flat, straight Marcia Brady hippie hair. For us girls who were never going to be able to have Marcia hair, not for another 30 years when straightening irons came in, Farrah was our Hero. My daughter cannot believe that the only things we could do with our hair at home were: blow-dry to a huge frizzy mass, or curl to a crisp with a curling iron. You could get your hair crimped at a salon, and of course you could get a blow dry but we just didn't really bother with that shit in the late '70s. We didn't have products until hair gel arrived in the '80s. I don't remember Edward Beal salons using anything other than hair spray and that was just for the oldies. No pomades. No gloss. No anti-frizz sprays. No sculpting mousses. We had a pair of thinning scissors in our bathroom cupboard and I did a little damage with those on myself. It was like the Wild West of Hair Care in those days.

Of course, Farrah fell from grace, like all icons do if they live long enough. That's the problem. Women get old, and then they are undesirable. Redundant. There's always a new chicky-babe coming along. No body gives them work, no body wants to make pin-up posters of them any more. It'd be a bit the same for men, sure, but different as well. And she never got her John Travolta come-back. Tarantino obviously didn't think it would work with her. She became a joke, she was mocked for slurring as if drunk or drugged during interviews, for being daffy, for staying with abusive Ryan O'Neal. Their son Redmond is a drug-fuck-up and Ryan's daughter Tatum is as well. Farrah and Ryan broke up but in the last few years I think have come together again. He is loving her and looking after her and she had one of Rod Stewart's ex-wives video her final decline. She has cancer of the anus, particularly indelicate, and she is being open and wanting to live her final days in the public eye. No hiding away for her. People will have mixed ideas about this. Is it showy? Who knows. Probably. For a person who's lived their adult lives in the spotlight, I guess it might be hard to let go for some. I feel sorry for her, I do admire her willingness to be shown projectile vomiting in a documentary, and she'll always have a place in my heart. I loved her in a real girl-crush way. I can't really think of another woman from that era that I thought was so wonderful. So pretty. So sporty. So sexy. Such good hair.

The house hunt continues

But now we are wondering whether we are able to buy.
Something like this, perhaps?

I've always wanted a castle.

And then you get inside...

See, it comes with fake children. Not creepy at all.

Making an appointment with the bank right now.

we may have a "situation"

"patrick", from the diaries, has just started following me on twitter. i don't use my twitter much but it's under my real name. of course, clokes and i are following each other. i don't have my melba blog linked to my twitter, but clokes does.

he doesn't blog anymore, i might ask him if he can pull it.

what do you think, oh small amount of readers who give a shit about this?

some might say there's a part of me that would like him to read it all, he used to read my diaries sometimes i think anyway. not sure. i remember coming home once, he'd moved to sydney, and he'd climbed in the window, was in my bed, reading my diary and asking casual questions about flirting i'd been doing with someone he knew.

argh.

that is all.

how fucking teenage.

i should know better

(let's label him tool #2 for this week, shall we?)

sorry to start with a pic of him, i know that some people might be picking up a fork to stab into their eyes right now, such is his power. but i thought we'd just get it out of the way, you can scroll soon, and get rid of him.

let's do it now.

okay.

when i am trying to focus on something important, ie writing, i should know better than to read the newspaper in the morning. it would be better to leave it until later in the day, when all my words are out. it's like avoiding people with colds, not sitting near coughing and spluttering people at the doctor's surgery, or on trams. likewise, i try to avoid the viral rage that peter costello seems to make me feel by just not reading him.

i'd finished my eggs (scrambled on toast, with diced tomato, fetta cheese - danish, smooth, yum - and olives.) i'd had one coffee (steel plunger, freshly ground, milk in a little green earthenware jug with no handle.)

i read a bit about the budget, about the controversy to do with miriam margoyles and that play, about horses dying in jumps races, skipped all black sat. stuff, was doing well until i got to p17 and this. i got about half way through and then reached for the laptop. he just pisses me off so much, and here i was getting steamed, and i wasn't even up to catherine deveny yet. (i don't read her, i just don't, but sometimes the words jump out and assail my eyes and brain. she's a virus to avoid as well.)

the headline is the only good thing about this article. it's quite clever, but HE DIDN'T WRITE IT. that's usually the sub-editor's job. i may be wrong though. peter might have been working on that headline for a week before? who knows.

what really bugs me about this man is he has to make everything about himself. you know those people, sometimes they are friends, and when you are talking, everything, EVERYTHING that you talk about, they relate to themselves. peter costello is one of those people. this is what some of our conversations might go like.

pete: so, what'cha been doing?

me: oh, running around, took princess to the dentist. to get her braces.

pete: hey, i went to the dentist last week. had to get a filling. it hurt!

me: really?

*

pete: do you wanna come out for a drink?

me: no, thanks. i don't think so. i'm working on something, i gotta keep the momentum. you know how it is.

pete: yeah! i'm working on something too. it's taking alot of my time, i'm working on an ace headline. wait 'til you see it!

me: er.

*

this is what they're like. when i used to teach in japan, i would get up in front of the class and map out on the board what a conversation looks like in english. i would talk about the "answer+" and the "follow-up question." follow-up question in the above two exchanges would look like this:

me: took princess to the dentist. to get her braces.

pete: yow! how's she going? are her teeth tender? i guess you're having to mash all her food. that must be tough for her. give her a hug from me.

*

me: i gotta keep the momentum. you know how it is.

pete: hey, watcha working on? sounds interesting, tell me about it.

*

answer+ doesn't really apply. he's doing ok with his own guff. answer+ is for inhibited and painfully polite japanese students who give one word answers. you know, "how are you? good" type speakers, instead of "how are you? good, great in fact. last night i did a bunch of homework and now i really get it about past participles as well as present and past perfect usage!"

but back to pete.

in a nutshell, he's managed to place himself at the centre of the monthly/sally warhaft controversy. he's tried to be contemporary and used eddie mc dick's term "boned" in relation to warhaft, then goes on to express his personal opinion about morry schwartz as a person and a publisher in a most undignified manner. everything about peter costello is undignified. why doesn't he just get it? is no one telling him, or he's just not listening? this is a man who just doesn't know when enough is enough. he's like the person at teh dinner party who when it's 1am wants to have another coffee, or glass of wine, and tell another "funny" story, and everyone else has gone, his wife is nodding off, you are so fucking tired and sick of him, you know there's the dishes to do, and there he is, opening another bottle of wine!

the point at which i stopped reading the article and grabbed the computer to write this was when he said:

"i have plenty of other opportunities to publish, so it's no skin off my nose to be blackballed by schwartz and editorial board chairman robert manne."

again, it's all about him.

so it's a whingy piece, about feeling sorry for warhaft, about how manne has flip-flopped to right, left and right and left and who really cares? i don't. i don't care if the monthly is left-leaning. don't the conservatives have their own publications? the monthly is not a newspaper, from what i gather isn't supposed to pretend to be unbiased. i don't know what the monthly's editorial policy is; if it's meant to present more than one side, then costello's comments are fair enough. but it's just the way he makes those comments that makes me wish the age would stop publishing his articles. i'm sure he's submitting them, i'm sure the age isn't chasing them, but maybe i'm wrong.

now i've gotten that off my chest, i can settle down and do some work.

tool of the week

or how to avoid doing what you should be doing, by blogging. also, secondary purpose = push diary entry down the page so the word SPECULUM doesn't jump out and hurt readers' eyes.

so, tool of the week.

the award goes to: damir dokic.

enough said.

back to work now.

poets and thieves

yeah it's a good name for a book shop. but why wasn't it open on a tuesday around lunchtime?

tim winton's breath.

it's funny. in the writing course thingo on saturday, the woman sitting next to me had a physical reaction when it was suggested we read this book in the next 2 months. she kind of sat back in her chair and sighed quite loudly. the only novel i've finished of tim winton's was dirt music. from memory i didn't mind it. and i remember being inordinately pleased that i'd managed to finish it. the only other book i've finished of his was a collection of short stories, published reasonably recently, called the turning. i didn't mind that either, but i think it got distracting because i was trying to work out how each story connected to the other. it's a nice idea, having a series of short stories that are connected in some way, but again, it distracted me. actually, i've just remembered i also read the riders, and while that was unsatisfying, i finished it and didn't mind it either.

but i want more from my reading than not minding it.

cloudstreet i started reading, and while i quite liked the beginning bits, i let it go because it was hard work beyond a certain point*. i think around the same time i read murray bail's eucalyptus and adored it. bail is on my list, he's been short-listed for the miles franklin, and once i've read him and winton's breath, then i'll have read 3 of them.

one last thing, before my current reading list. i'm not disposed to envy of other people. i don't covet other people's houses, cars, husbands, looks, clothes or shoes. not much. of course i notice, i see my friend with the luscious lips and the way her lip gloss is just so attractive. i see the expensive clothes, and think how nice to be able to buy them. but it doesn't make me, ME, unhappy. it never has. but recently, i had a sharp stab of envy. let me tell you what it was about.

in our course there's a writer who has published a book. it came out last year, and was launched by helen garner. it was a sharp pang, and it hurt. i raced out, got the book and am now nearly finished. by about page 4 i was reassured that while this is a finely-written book, it's not a threat to me. it's not the sort of book i want to write. WOW. i could relax, and all was ok with the world again.

do other people feel this sort of thing?

to my list:

breath - tim winton.

the fable of arachne - sallie muirden. (poetry, even though i don't do poetry.)

landscape with animals - anonymous. (anyone read it? apparently it's very sexay.)

surrender - sonya hartnett.

the photograph - penelope lively.

the white tiger - aravind adiga.

what i loved - siri hustveldt (spelling!?)

the kindly ones - jonathan littell. (recommended by bookmoth, i bought it already and it sits, like a brick, on the floor beside my bed. a besa brick.)

the pages - murray bail.
ordinary people - judith guest.

sybil - flora rheta schreiber.

* * *

the last two are for research purposes for my story. what i have bought so far from this list: dissection, the kindly ones, the white tiger (2nd hand, yay), the photograph** (ditto, yay) and breath.

i'm still reading the time traveler's wife, about half-way through, it's good. but am sidestepping with another book, just a brief affair. a fling, if you will. then back to my main novel.

happy reading everyone. for is it not the most blissful of activities?

* 2012 note - I have read Cloudstreet now and adored it. Strange - and wonderful - how we can change either in our responses or some books just need to be read at the right time?

** 2012 note - I didn't read this. Couldn't get past the first few pages I think. Didn't want to spend the time.

day trip last week

last tuesday a friend and i went to check out werribee south, and campbell's cove bathing boxes, which i'd read about once a few years ago, and then again recently.

it was a sunny day, loverly, and we drove across the bridge and saw the new suicide barriers, and both felt yuck thinking about the little girl, and how people can do that, and how people can kill themselves etc and so by the time we had crested and gone over the top we were a bit quiet, and my friend paul had to concentrate because we were boxed in by mammoth trucks and i got a little scared.

first, we went to point cook. clokes and i have been trying to think "outside the box" about our accommodation iss-ews. but frankly, point cook is too far outside the box. i'd rather live in geelong, some beautiful places there.

first we found ourselves at sanctuary lakes resort if you don't mind. it was fucking horrible, and the lake was like a burley griffin wannabe. we drove around for a little while, and we each found maybe one house that we would pick were we forced to live at sanctuary lakes resort. my friend's an architect and he talks about 'good bones.' but not that day. apparently also the place is built on landfill which is dirty: i quote from a message thread "the ground is full of broken concrete and asbestos wall insulation steel rebar bricks chipboard topped with 12-18 inches of the original topsoil scraped of and dumped back on top of the fill."

then we went across to the other side of point cook road to some new estates. two literary pieces came to mind. one was ts eliot's the wasteland, and the other, for some reason, was dickens' bleak house. one of the streets was called home street; it was hopeful and pathetic in equal measures.

it was so depressing. i just don't like new houses and housing estates. if i had to live in a new house, i would choose something that was mock victorian or georgian or something. i can't stand the lack of character, and the formulaic designs, the mix and matchness. i like old houses. i don't care if the paint is peeling (like on our bedroom ceiling) or there are other signs of shabby - i have high ceilings and good light and well-proportioned rooms. i've lived in some shitboxes, really i have. in japan we didn't even have a bathroom in our first apartment and we washed on the roof and at the sento or the gym. it's not that i'm a princess, i can do rough. i just need to be in a suburb or area with soul. as far as i could see, all those new housing estates and satellite towns have no soul. not yet. they might. later.

so we hightailed it out of there. i hadn't seen anything that was remotely pretty; paul quite liked one of the display home offices.



just like the bellarine peninsula, no?


next stop was werribee south. well, there's a beach there did you know it? it looks not unlike queenscliffe and them there parts on approach (see photo above). we got out of the car at the spot where the river joins the ocean, and there were people, and the beach wasn't as bad as you would think. it is indeed a secret little gem. we had lunch at this fab milk bar, and chatted with the people running it. paul had a burger, i had a cheese and salad sandwich and we shared a bowl of chips. we had a coffee each and then shared a vanilla slice. the floor was amazing terrazzo with about 4 different colours and borders edged in gold. it was in amazing condition and at the doorway there was a built-in plaque with the date - 1959 from memory. we both agreed we'd thought it would be earlier, but the building itself was a big, blonde-brick number; very boxy and with a residence upstairs probably.




good-lunch milk bar.


next stop was campbell's cove.

when you get to the road the beach shacks are on, it looks like this:





cool, right? so we drove along behind the shacks, to see how long the stretch was. at the end of it, there was a car park. so we parked there. there were a few cars, and we thought we'd walk back along the front of the beach huts, along the sand.


it was a good idea, right?

so we parked the car, walked down onto the beach, looked around, and up the beach i saw two nude men. that's when i remembered that the article i read had said this was a nude beach.

oh, ok. no problem with that.

we went back to the car to get my bag etc, and then something like this walked out at us, from the scrub:

> sorry to disappoint, folks. i just spent about half an hour offending mine eyes by trying to find a picture of a fat, nude man. i can't find one that's right, so i'll just have to use my words.

so, through the bushes, towards our car walked a nude man, with a really big penis. he was old, and fattish, and headed our way. looking right at us, it was most disconcerting.

so we walked away heading up the beach, away from the nude action. i started to realise why there were so many cars, it's a beat, it's a gay beat!! i said to paul. we clung to each other in excitement, giggling like school girls, and went to look at the huts. as we walked, paul was saying he hoped his car would be alright and i teased him about men having sex on his bonnet, or ejaculating all over it.

and here are the beach huts, they are so cool:





campbell's cove beach huts.



as we walked along we met a couple who were outside one of the huts. he was getting on his waders to do some fishing and had a couple of rods down on the beach. she was sitting at a card table in the sun. they were friendly, and we chatted for a while, asking questions about the huts. they said it was wild down there in winter, a great time to go, or at the end of summer season, through autumn, and also in spring, before it gets too warm. they said sometimes the seaweed is so bad and it really stinks. they said also sometimes vandalism can be a problem. you're not meant to "stay there" but they said the local council turns a blind eye, and really it's better having some people around, otherwise there'd be nudists completely out of control.




some of the shacks are quite derelicte-my-balls, but others are even flasher than this one.




i liked this fence.







i'm guessing there's no "town water" so it's rain tanks.



we walked back to the carpark a bit scared of what we might see. there'd been heaps of traffic on the road as we'd walked along the beach and then back behind the shacks on the road. all men, and most of them old. saw one couple. maybe it's a dogging place? i don't know.

we got back to the car and there was actually a guy launching his boat near-by off a trailer. paul went down to the beach again, and there was a young dude (non-nude) there that i could see from inside the car where i was sitting. he was looking shifty, standing on the beach and looking at something in the shrubs? paul cam e back to the car, then as we were driving away another old nude guy walked through the bushes away from the clothed young guy.

it was seriously hideous but a bit exciting as well.


we drove back along the road, and the along the extension past the turn-off where we'd come in. there were a couple more cars down there, i think with masturbators. it seemed to be a younger man patch.

so that was it. we drove back across the bridge. i loved it down that way. i saw some seriously funky farm houses and there's a heap of horticulture going on, the air was scented with cabbages and other cruciferous vegetables.

happy weekend to you all. i am off being writerly tomorrow. there's a guy in the class that is kind of like the person who gets on the tram, and comes and sits next to you, and is weird and you don't want them to sit next to you because they might start shouting or talk to you in gibberish. last time, when we had to share bits of our work in small groups, his piece immediately reminded me of a confederacy of dunces. it was like it was lifted straight from it. he said he hadn't read it, didn't seem to have heard of it. i'm not sure i believe him. i told him i thought he'd like it, considering his own story. what i didn't say was that the character in his story, and the opening scene is very similar to stuff from that book.

however, an admission from me. once on this blog i said i was tired of the same-old, same-old fiction*, and sick of synopses on the back of books that go something like and so she returned to the family property, to rebuild her life and also rebuild the chook pen. well, tomorrow we have to take a synopsis, and mine reads like shit. exactly like the chook pen one. what to do? down the bottom, i have written "sounds like a crap marketing line" and put pertinent bits in bullet points. i don't know how to write a fucking synopsis; i guess i'll find out tomorrow. it's pretty confronting having to give people copies of your work, that's not finished, that still feels drafty. now i have to settle down and do some polishing.

*recent readings - the secret life of bees, ok for about 1/3 of the book, then got predictable and ordinaire; the reader, only ok but ultimately forgettable, didn't make much of an impression at all, maybe i shouldn't have seen the movie first; the dressmaker, wasn't sure about the style and had to stop, go back to the beginning and re-read when almost 1/3 way through because i was confused with all the characters, nobody seemed real or believable. i know it was gothic and hence meant to be strange, just didn't work properly for me; the gathering, fantastic. simply superb; the time traveler's wife, reading it now. love love loving it. the slap, not so much.

so out of 6 novels in the last 2 months i've liked precisely 2. maybe that's not too bad. i'm also reading the joan and bette gossip-bitch-fest. dipping into it when i want to get away from fiction.

also, don't know if my dad's read any of this yet. i was a little unsettled by the idea of him doing so, but then thought, fuck it. he was pestering me about it on and off over the years, perhaps it would make us closer? he's always busy doing his tax though. does anybody else's father always seem to be "doing his tax." is it a fatherly euphemism for something else? maybe he's a secret blogger?

and so it is with a heavy heart

i head out to southland to pick up princess' pre-ordered, special-edition DVD of twilight plus bonus signed poster.

i don't think i'll see any of you out there.

otherwise we could have had a pretzel and a chat.

oh well.

listen you stupid blonde bitch

1. Rego WQA 056, some black kind of 4wd, speeding through St Kilda at 9.20am today.

Do you have any idea the number of cars/people on bikes you almost hit as you swerved and sped while you were obviously rushing to somewhere and putting on your blusher?

What??

Oh, they call it bronzer these days?

You were at the two sets of lights with your makeup brush sweeping whatever the fuck it was across your pointy little face. Then you'd speed off, no indication, swerved dangerously close to a cyclist, dragging people off at the lights, changing lanes without warning.

You are one dangerous person, lady.

I swear, if someone like you killed someone I loved I would fucking hunt you down like a pig and hurt you so badly.

Young women are the most dangerous of all drivers. They're worse than male hoons.

2. Saw 17 Again yesterday with my two daughters. I asked them if they'd go with me, so that I didn't look too pathetic. They were my beards. Luckily they were happy to go, even though they both despise the High School Musical trilogy as something so beneath them and their early-teen sensibilities.

As it was I still looked pathetic, being the only adult in the mostly-empty cinema. It was good, we loved it. We laughed, we cried and it just fed my wrong crush on Zac Ephron in a pretty sad way. And when we were driving home and I used the word "awesome" to describe the cafeteria scene (I swear, it was an ironic usage), Princess dissed me. She thinks it so wrong I use the word 'awesome' (she doesn't get irony yet, which I'm surprised at because she's so sophisticated in other ways.) Imagine, though, if she knew about the Ephrong crush? I HAVE MY NEEDS!

3. Was it stupid for me to give my dad the url to this blog? It probably was. However, he'd been asking on and off over the years, and wasn't letting go. So I promised I'd give it to him and I did last night. I think he'll like everyone on here, especially you INC. He used to teach Sunday school when he was young. I think I'm the one he'll hate mostly because my nineteen-year-old self whinges about him in my diaries and I admit I have called him a cunt on here on occasion. Anyway, if someone starts commenting anonymously and sounds a bit "daddish" it'll be the Dodge. No, not the Doge, the Dodge. You'll see.

4. Off to a secret location today. Did you know there are beach huts to the west of Melbourne? A friend and I are going to explore. He has a new car so we are taking a quick day trip squeezed into an otherwise pretty busy day.

Happy Sunday

things that are not helpful when i'm trying to do work:

1. reading the Sartorialist's archive Sept 05 to June 06.

2. finding the definitive list of the 99 things you must see online.

3. watching Breakfast at Tiffany's for the first time.

4. wasting time thinking about how Breakfast at Tiffany's has gone straight into my top-10 movie list, and then pondering what that list would actually consist of, and if indeed it would be only 10. perhaps it would be a top-10 list of 15 or 20 movies?

5. reading bette and joan: the divine feud, by shaun considine. and knowing it doesn't count as "research."

favourite quotes so far:

bette davis on joan crawford - what in the hell did she ever contribute to fashion - except those goddamned shoulder pads and those tacky fuck-me shoes.

joan crawford on the casting couch - it sure beats the cold, hard floor.

things that are helpful while i'm trying to do work:

1. reading the Dressmaker by Rosalie Ham. Good distraction.

2. reading the Gathering by Anne Enright and seeing the craftsmanship and how to do it.

3. reading Carl Jung's theories. finally something I can hang my life on. a belief system that's not religion. and it all makes sense and is tangible and believable and awesomely intellectual. carl, baby, where have you been all my life?

things that could be in either of the above groups and i'll never know:

1. going out last night eating cous cous royale with lots of succulent lamb.

2. waking at 4am, lying there for an hour. getting up and reading for the next 3 hours, then sleeping until noon.

judging books

well i just saw this in the herald sun and immediately looked it up.
watch it for a feel-good moment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnmbJzH93NU
can't embed, youtube won't allow.
isn't she great? but you know what, having watched idol in the past, just wondering about the format of this show. don't the judges hear them audition? would they not have had any idea of her voice? surely they did. watching it i had the feeling of being manipulated, all in the service of good television.
it's good though.

oh happy, happy day. karma is for real.

i am working on a large diarama post, which will hopefully tide the more desperate of you over the next week, while i toil away, childless, on writerly things.

HOWEVER something just happened, which absolutely made my day, or year really.

first, a little background.

years ago, f i worked at a company. for a few years it was great, the best job evah, we all loved each other, we had such fun. we played cards at lunch time, and i had laughing fits the like i'd not had since secondary school. that's how good the job was, and the people were.

then, the worm turned. the boss, younger than me and very driven and ambitious and with an inner core of long-held rage, started to treat me in an increasingly bad manner. at first, it was really snide remarks, and comments. the cold shoulder. then not giving me much work, making things slowly intolerable for me. the atmosphere was horrible.

one thing i remember her saying to me:

"if i put you on a pedestal, if you fall off, there's no getting back on."

and then stating that i was her hero, that i was on the pedestal.

this should have made me scared, but at the time, it was earliesh days, and the affection was mutual.

then people started falling off their pedestals. her business partner. a supplier. another supplier. book-keeper. one of the designers.

then me.

at the end, i was doing things like cleaning the kitchen venetian blinds, just to keep busy.

i waited while i re-organised finance to buy my ex-husband out of our property, then i quit. i stayed in a horrible situation for months. just sucking it up, biding my time until it suited me to leave.

we had a farewell lunch, around the board table at the office. nothing special, i think we all just had our regular lunches. maybe someone else had bought some biscuits from the bakery, embarrassed that nothing had been planned. i guess she was trying to hurt me, insult me, humiliate me. i kept a brave face on, smiling. i don't even think there was a card, there was certainly no gift, which was so hurtful after the 3.5 years of dedicated service to her and her company, and the people i'd seen gifts given to. i asked for a reference, she said that she didn't give references.

now, i'm sure she had her side of the story. i'm not such a fool to think that it was all her fault, that i was faultless. i'd made a few mistakes. i also engaged in some kind of inappropriate emails with another supplier, where we were sort of laughing at her expense. and i did spend a lot of time at one stage on the internet looking up eminem lyrics. but that was during the months when i had so little to do. she must have read emails, and checked the logs or something. i'd ask politely for work, she would fob me off, saying there was nothing at the moment. how could that be? i could see everyone else was frantic, i'd always had plenty to do, so she was witholding and it was obviously her strategy to push me out, to make me leave, like some fucked-up boyfriend who doesn't know how to tell you it's over.

so imagine my surprise, delight, JOY to find out today that it wasn't just me who got burned. i just ran into a supplier who was really in the inner sanctum with her (this is what she did, had inner sanctums/sanctii, with exclusive members and it was all terribly terrific for her and her acolytes, but bad for anyone else.) when i was there i thought he would be with her until the end. he told me today he has fallen off the pedestal and that he's not talking to them anymore.

i can't tell you how much this pleases me and makes me feel better.

that last day of work, i walked out with a smile on my face, keeping it cheery. then i collapsed into the car and burst into tears and cried all the way home. that night, i'd calmed down, and had a secret dinner with the other 3 employees and we debriefed a bit, and i told them how hard it had been the last few months.

i often had wondered over the last 5 years or so whether i had been in the wrong more that i was willing to admit. i was thinking about it as recently as a couple of days ago. did she think i stole some blank cds? i'd bought them when i'd done the office shopping, and it was completely above board. did she think i broke her car? i admit, a sound appeared while i was driving it, but it was second-hand and just a coincidence. i never did anything bad to her car. what else? oh, there was the time i asked the book-keeper about my end of year bonus which had always appeared on my pay slip automatically. the boss flipped out about that, and i think even gave me a warning about it. like formally. yes, i admit i had consciously been provocative asking about it, and i should have asked the boss (but was too scared to) but really, was that so insubordinate?

i can't think of anything else, and none of us would bitch about her, even when things got really bad between her and me i never talked about it with anyone at work.

there had been no closure for me, nowhere i could put these feelings, and bad memories, of regret and loss. it was like i'd lost the idea of how i saw myself. as a basically good person. and i always try and do the right thing, i pride myself on it. so "how could she do that to me? couldn't she see me for the goody i am?"

now i have my answer. she did that to me, because of who and how she is, not me, and now i have to feel sorry for her because she is so toxic to those around her, and clearly miserable. but oh, the sweet, sweet glee to hear how there are now a whole list of people she has fucked over since i left. the person who replaced me. the person who replaced the other book-keeper.

i want to sing it to the world. i want to tell everybody. i want to contact the other people who got fucked over. i want to link arms with them and sway side to side and perhaps clink steins of beer together.

seriously. i can't tell you how good this makes me feel. that it wasn't just me. it wasn't personal.

i am a good person and a good worker, and i do the right thing.

this will sustain me for the rest of my life i think. and i have closure now, in a way that i never would have had on my own, without having this quick conversation with this other person.

i feel like dancing, singing, jumping for joy.

bliss tuesday

CORRECTION: bliss tuesday is to be postponed. they called me last night. i have to teach a bunch of primary schoolers pe today. that's not how to pee, it's Phys.Ed. stop laughing now.
hopefully bliss tuesday will become bliss wednesday. i'll let you know.
* * *
tomorrow this is what i'm going to do:
1. for breakfast, i shall have poached eggs and coffee.
2. i will take the gigi for a 1-hour walk. i might try and run a bit. might.
3. i will start reading the jungian books mum lent me, for research for my writing.
4. i will wash and pin my hair. i have a new "hair system." more details later. this is just a quick update.
5. i will write those two letters to the bookshops. or maybe just one, to the sybers books in chapel street. the other day penny wasn't there, it was another woman. which means they have staff.
6. i will take down the recycling if clokes doesn't do it tonight.
7. i will vaccuum.
8. i will re-do my nails.
9. i will write at least 1,000 words.
10. i will not blog.
11. I WILL NOT BLOG. and this means checking blogs, or writing on my blog.
12. you have been warned. then on wednesday i will report back. you have to be the person that i'm accountable to. you have to be tough, you have to be exacting, you have to be harsh. don't take any of my shit.
13. time for dinner now. tuna mornay, vegies and rice. mmm
14. iyi akşamlar.

so maybe i've got myself a stalker?

i know i shouldn't joke, but today the doorbell rang and there on the doorstep was joe.

he had some literature for me to read. it contains information which is basically conspiracy theory stuff, and incoherently written holocaust denial-type stuff.

okay.

so, i'm an idiot for telling my neighbour exactly where i live. if i disappear, you'll know what happened. but seriously, i think he likes me.

okay. so, maybe i shouldn't have indulged him and been so friendly on the street, and i have to work out what will be the point where i let him know i don't share his ideas? i was joking with clokes that i would sleep with him for a million bucks. clokes thought that was too low, but i said no way, i would, i wouldn't even stop to think. it's funny, we might joke about it, but i see a little spark of worry in clokes' eye.

also, something weird and a bit spooky. whenever someone comes to the door, and it can be anyone, gigi is always there trying to push past me to say hello. she is so annoying like that. well, today, she didn't want a bar of joe. i felt her come and take a look from behind me, and then she went back to lie down or whatever.

she knows. she knows who he is and what his anti-semitic inclinations are.

so he told me to read the stuff, a couple of very thin news-sheets and a newsletter, it's for my "personal protection" (all sorts of stuff about banking, and political manipulations etc, particularly hard on dick cheney, and alot of stuff about gaza) and when i offered to return it when i finished - hoping to get the number of where he lives - he said to give it to a friend.

sure, spread the goodness.

when i asked him how he was coping with the grand prix planes overhead, he said "it's not loud enough!" [funny] and "it's like they want us to get used to them, for when there's the next war..." [not so funny].

i swear, this guy is pretty full on, but he's softly spoken and genteel and likeable; he has a sneaky charisma that i find myself responding to. i like his jaunty cap, it's like a baker boy, and you know what, he has the bluest eyes, and they're not old-man eyes. there's not a blood vessel, no filminess, no rheumy milkiness. very, very weird.

so that's my wrap up for sunday night. i was going to post about the things i cooked today (awesome lunchtime pasta with slut sauce (puttanesca) including truffle oil that we got in florence and which has a use-by date of tuesday; also a chicken and leek pie for dinner - also awesome; about princess returning from her weekend in sydney (she ate at icebergs, it wasn't so great she said but her dad managed to bluff his way into the private area) but i can't be bothered. i'm tired, my grammar is shite, i want to go to bed now and either read the january '09 marie clair i found in one of the rubbish bins downstairs this morning or the gathering by anne enright, which i'm really enjoying. i'm hoping it doesn't disappoint plot-wise, but gee she does write quite beautifully.

happy sunday night, dear reader.

x

still talking to the universe

so while i wait for someone to tell me "yes, you can start working in our large, interesting, funky second-hand book shop next week" i thought i'd share with you an exchange i had not half an hour ago.

quick update on bookshop: i popped into syber's books, windsor, earlier today and while i didn't get anything on my list:

(the fall, camus; maru, bessie head; secret life of bees, sue monk kidd; the gathering, anne enright; the reader, schlink and the time traveller's wife by dunno)*,

i did get two books by the teacher in a course i'm doing. (no, it's not a creative writing course, it's more a write-that-fucking-novel-you've-been-bleating-about-for-years-now-go-on-i-fucking-dare-you-to-finish-it course.) i know i've been blathering about feeling over-filled with fiction and lately really digging non-fiction (eg en ce moment, a biography of virginia woolf, did you know she was sexually abused as a child? i had no idea) but some of these books were suggested as helpful for my story. anyway. back to the teacher books. i figure what better way to see if a teacher in a writing course has got the goods than read her stuff? so that will be interesting, i'll let you know.

but today's story.

up the hill a bit from me lives an old man, joe, with a european accent and tatty clothes, who is nevertheless very debonair and spry and quite the flirt. once before, he bailed me up while i was taking the gigi for a wee walk and he was heading to the sea baths. we chatted, he told me how he'd bought his apartment in the early '70s and we laughed about how cheap it was then, and how expensive now. well today, i had taken gigi around the block and as we were walking homeward, we were overtaken by a heavy-set man who was running, puffing hard, who then ran ahead and stopped to talk to an old man who was pushing a lawn-mower along the footpath, who i soon saw was joe. i could tell there was a situation and decided i would keep an eye on it, but by the time i got to the end of that road, they had crossed to the other side of the intersecting road. as i walked passed them, they'd stopped on the footpath, chubby man was beseeching joe, asking him for money ("i'm working tomorrow, i'll pay you back then") and joe was saying "no way, you're in big trouble." as gigi stopped to smell some other dog's wee a bit further down the path, joe came trundling down the hill and the other guy had walked off.

i asked joe if he was ok. he seems quite elderly, but his english is good and really, he's quite feisty. he didn't want to let me go, said a couple of times we could stand there all day chatting, and you know what, i'm not one of those people who hates getting stuck with an old person. i love them. i love listening to their stories, especially when they're like joe. these are some of the gems he imparted. i'm not sure how much truth there is, but i think i want to believe they are true.

1. he bought three properties in one of the very expensive streets running off ours (where all the houses are terrace/mansions) for 10,000 pounds 40 years ago, then sold them a couple of years ago for 2.5 mill.

2. at one stage he owned the pavillion on the foreshore, which then became the stokehouse. he said he got ripped off in that deal; never trust lawyers. or doctors - they'll try to sell you tablets even if you are well.

3. the jews run america.

4. hitler was the biggest sucker in the history of the world (repeated three times.)

5. joe tells people he's from israel, when they ask:

me: so where are you from, joe?

joe: i tell people i come from israel (laughing.)

me: (laughing) you tell people?

6. joe laughed and said he'd be in big trouble if he told the truth about where he came from, he can't tell people he's a nazi.

7. hitler got all his money from america.

8. joe came to australia in 1951 on a german boat, then ran away from it once it had docked.

now some truths about myself in this conversation:

1. as he was talking about all these properties i was thinking how much money he has and wondering if he'd help me open a bookshop. it would be small change for him.

2. he asked "can you keep a secret?" before he told me about the three houses around the corner and laughed when i laughed saying "who am i going to tell?"

3. i quite like joe, even if he is a nazi. maybe i could become his mistress. how exciting. an old, wealthy, nazi lover. i don't think i'd have to sleep with him; i could just listen to him.

4. when joe asked me to "tell him something about jews" all of a sudden it felt very dangerous, and i said "i'm careful about what i say." he said, "what for? tell me something, eva**." i said "well, you have to be careful if you criticise israel."

i swear his face lit up and he said "now you're talking!" in a very gleeful way. so i'm in. with the nazi. i won't tell him i just got an invitation to my friend's son's bar mitzvah next month, nor that my cousin is jewish, nor that i have lots of jewish friends. it might be a deal-breaker, you know, with the shop.

5. i said i had to go, and that i thought he needed to go and have a nice cup of tea after the incident with the other man. he told me he thought i was trying to get rid of him. i just laughed politely. again.

it was all terribly strange and unusual and different and should i have told him my apartment number? he said he would put something in it (some literature about government. probably conspiracy theories about the jews and america or some nonsense.)

should i be scared? i hope i don't have any nazi hunters as readers - i wouldn't want to be the one responsible for joe getting caught. he's managed so well, on the run. and he's sweet and kindly.

* i ended up going to borders and sold my soul for most of the books on the list plus two twilight books for princess. she's off to sydney tomorrow night for the weekend, so it'll be nice for her to take them with her. hopefully no bikies are on her flight/killing each other at sydney airport.

** i made this bit up.

putting it out to the universe

this is an absolutely serious post.

i want to work in a second-hand bookshop. this is something i have wanted all my adult life. what started as one of those oh yes, that would be nice fantasies has now solidified into a bloody-minded determination to achieve my goal.

i am a teacher, and have been doing some relief work around the traps. while i've enjoyed this, what i really want to do is spend my days working with books. they must be second hand though. no borders, no readings, no dymocks. you get my drift.

this is my strategy.
1. ask here if there's anyone who can help me realise my dream.
2. find all the second-hand bookshops in my area and send them a letter, probably including the above phrase putting it out to the universe. that would help, wouldn't it? we all know second-hand bookshop owners are a quirky bunch; modern-day hermits, often cranky-panted eccentrics, who nevertheless love books.
3. look for ads, but i really don't think that will work. seriously, has anyone EVER seen an ad for a sales position in a second-hand bookshop? i didn't think so.
4. ask you lovely people for help. any leads, suggestions, contacts. if you're a reader and your surname is SYBER then PLEASE CONTACT ME AND OFFER ME A JOB.
i don't want lots of money, just enough to pay for some bits and pieces. what i really want to do is buy myself some time; what this means is being able to earn a bit of money so i can do my own writing thang. which i don't know how that will turn out considering i'm not ambitious, but i am driven. another good thing about me not being ambitious is that i wont try and take the shop over, with innovations and new ways. i'm a really good shelf organiser, i like fiction and non-fiction, i'm a huge reader and i have lots of energy for books. there are other things i don't have a lot of energy for. like exercise. and smiling when i don't feel like it.

see? i'd fit right in. i've got a master degree, so i can effect that kind of superior, bookish quality that you need to have. i wear glasses too, so that helps, doesn't it? i have a big car which i don't even need to pay petrol for, and so can trawl the country-side for fabulous books to sell in the shop.

I AM THE PERFECT PERSON FOR YOU TO HIRE.

i've already got my three kids, so i won't get pregnant on you. they are all old enough to get themselves to and from school. if your shop is in st. kilda, or albert park or middle park or the cbd or windsor, the kids would be ok at home on their own if they're sick.

SEE, I AM THE PERFECT PERSON.

please meet me for an interview.

ok, now this is all wrapped up in a leaf, tied with gossamer, and decorated with a yellow (yet thistly) flower. i am releasing it onto the breeze, actually a stiffish on-shore sea wind, closing my eyes, and wish wish wishing.

friday wrap-up

it was pretty embarrassing to be on a crowded tram yesterday morning, to feed all the squandered silver coins from the money box on top of the bookcase into the ticket machine, to try to buy a daily ticket, to have all of it stuffed into the slot bar one coin, and then to get the message "machine returning money" and have it all dumped back out at me, like some fricking one-armed bandit.

but i wasn't in vegas, or even in crown. it was a tram, and it made such a noise and i could feel all the people nearby staring at me.

then i had to reach in, and grab it all back out. that seemed to take ages. those little openings are pretty small, and i haven't even got man-hands.

i decided to get a two-hour ticket then. less coins, less chance of it rejecting my money a second time. and as it turned out, a blessing because i was in and out of town within an hour.

and it was ok, it worked, phew. got my ticket.

later in the day saw me meeting my dad to see gran torino at the george. despite flinching any time he said gook or slope head, which i'm thinking was pretty much the point of him talking like that, i enjoyed it immensely, and cried in the end. it was interesting; the religious themes, the redemption themes, families, bigotry, changes in america, war. all of that really good, meaty stuff. life and death, and what do we know of them? it was also funny in a wry way. and that's the good way.

then i went and had lunch with dad, who is very eastwood'esque himself, with the way he doesn't really ever say much, and he also can make the same kind of growling/sighing sound that clint makes several times in the movie (exaggerated in this case, but think dirty harry and the way he clenches the jaw. that's my dad.)

as an aside, in the same cafe was col'n carpenter, whatever his name is, kym gyngell, and he and his ladee ordered the same focaccia me and dad did - chicken with avocado, cheese, lettuce, tomato. it was very nice, but col'n and dad both had trouble cutting through the bread with their knives, while me and col'n's ladee picked ours up and just ate like pigs. she was very young, much younger than him and i wondered if she were not preggers?

heh. no one is safe when i'm in the hood.

what else. oh, guitar hero. we are enjoying it. i reckon that the kids' brain synapses are being strengthened and stimulated really nicely, it will help with their school work and sport. as for mine, they're in pretty bad shape anyway i reckon, i don't think anything can help mine. but i'm sleeping like a log - fall into bed exhausted after a little guitar hero action. last night we busted clokes using his "character" on our family games, so the money we earn as a group he can then take and buy his dude jaunty fedoras and trilbies with. i said fuck that, make a family character who can earn some $'s and then we can buy her a fedora!

clokes is working on getting another guitar so we can do battles side by side.

bit of a convo on the radio this morning about jen aniston getting dumped again by john mayer. everyone seems to think he's an arsehole, and she's the good one, but srsly, look at her record, and someone has said they dated her, some dude from a band, and that she was high-maintenance, hard work.

what do you think? are you high maintenance in a relationship? i know i am. and clokes knew as well. because i told him over and over. and then i showed him just for good measure.

as for john mayer, read him on twitter. i don't think he's an arsehole necessarily. he doesn't come across as a twat, just an ordinary guy who likes his music. it's quite refreshing the personalities you can follow on twitter. there aren't heaps. the best ones are john cleese, demi moore and ashton kutcher, john mayer is ok, i'm hooked into soleil moonfrye, who is frank zappa's daughter? (pretty sure; i seem to remember her sibs have got some interesting names too - wasn't there moon unit and dweezil?) jamie oliver also tweets, and you can see he gets a bit pissed off with people asking for recipe tips - he's forever saying politely "my website has alot of recipes..."

but twitter generally doesn't have a patch on blogs. 140 characters only? ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING? and anyone who's not a celebrity are so boring. sorry clokes. even some of the celebs are boring. the rapper dudes i can't read; and stephen fry gets the gold star for most tweets - it's tedious. at least john cleese is funny, if irregular.

how about the earthquake, ay? i felt it this time, it rocked a bit. and the blackhawk helicopters that everyone is freaking out about. there might be more, there might not. i don't think it's a problem, but who knows.

so, TGIF is all i can say. with ali in the country (princess' dad) my life always gets a little jumpy. been ok this year so far. he's brought a girlfriend with him - she's turkish as well and so heart-stoppingly beautiful, she is gorgeous, like some flashing-eyed gypsy girl. princess is off to sydney twice in a little while, once for a weekend and once for a week. long-time readers will remember the last vigil when princess went to america - oh my god was she really only 8??? - so this time i'm so relaxed and "sure, why not" about sydney. she'll have a fab time. we've delayed her getting her braces on, because i don't want her to be away from home with a sore mouth and unable to eat and miserable on her holiday. the way ali likes to holiday, food is a huge part of it, loads of fresh fruit and seafood; she doesn't want to miss all that. so i've persuaded her to put them off.

so that's about it. i plan to do some writing for the rest of the day. stay away from the blogs. take the gigi for a walk. pop into my mum's.

happy friday to everyone, and enjoy the weekend.

x

housekeeping

a couple of days ago i said i'd bring you some more undies, and the thing that i liked best from the golden age of couture exhibition in bendigo.

shall we do a list? i always like a good list.

1. as i mentioned, i really liked the photography, even more than the clothes if that's possible. on balance, the above was my favourite picture. it's of a model in helena rubenstein's new york apartment.

do you see what i love so much about this?

it's the sink, or the basin or the vanity unit whatever you want to call it. it's marble, it's so wide it can accommodate huge bottles of expensive scent, and it's got a steel interior.

i want that sink more than i want the dress.

the other thing that was a stand-out for me at the exhibition was a dress by a designer i'd never heard of, digby morton. unfortunately i haven't got a picture of it. the exhibition catalogue has a section of the dress (top half) but the book was sold out so i haven't got one yet, and can't even scan that much in. so my description will have to suffice. it was in the evening dress group. it was long, black, made in circa 1954. silk jersey with silk taffeta flounce and underskirt of crepe de chine. it had the most amazing draping, where a section of the dress down the side was draped and gathered across the hip so that the lines ran almost horizontally in parts, fanning out across the curve. the neck was square, with a wide strip of fabric across the bust that presented almost as a pinafore sort of style. little cap sleeves that fell so liquidly. the mannequin was wearing black gloves and it was so stunning i lost interest in the rest of the frocks, and wanted to just stand there looking at this one piece.

long-time readers of this blog will know that i'm not one of those clothes freaks, always going on about shopping, i bought this, i wear that.

this dress was the most beautiful thing i have seen possibly ever.

2. the strumpet and pink lingerie. oh my god. i checked online and the prices are a couple of hundred pounds sterling per piece. so, it's like what, 400 - 600 dollars depending on the item? who can buy this for themselves (apart from high-class hookers) or for someone else (rich, rich men with mistresses, aka high-class hookers). i don't know, but i want them, as well as the sink. here are a couple more...

hunting through the ruffles.

garden of delights

maiden's belt

lingerie with charming names. wonderful.

3. tomorrow ali arrives. life always gets a little complicated when princess' dad arrives from overseas. as the years have passed, things have gotten easier, but there is always still the potential for a rollercoaster ride. i've got my tickets and i'm waiting in the queue. i will only get on if i'm forced to.

4. yesterday i almost died. i mean literally. i was crossing back to our place, we live on a busy road. i was distracted, and was trying to get into town for this vcat thing (next discussion point on the list.) princess had texted me saying she'd forgotten her school shoes (she'd gone in sports uniform) but needed to then change into her school uniform later, including black school shoes. i half thought to let her get in trouble, that way she would learn. but she has been unwell, is already struggling with carrying all the shit she needs to take to school, and with ali looming on the horizon, i guess i wanted to help her out. i'd called her on her phone to ask what she wanted me to do (we only live 5 mins from the school). i was talking on the phone, and stepped onto our street not looking. instinctively i looked, stepped back, and suddenly there was a 4WD going past fast where i had been stepping out to. if i'd taken another step you would never have heard from me again.

it's moments like this that make me reflect. it can be a lost wallet, or a broken glass. all these things tell me to slow down. be careful. take it easy. often we can have so much on our minds, and be rushing around looking after everyone else's needs. we need a reminder to look after ourselves. i couldn't believe how close it had been; i was scared and felt very grateful to still be here.

5. the last 2 days have been in a vcat tribunal. i'm objecting to a proposed development in my street. i am really tired from playing lawyer. i got told off by the madame chair today for asking the same question four different ways, hoping for a better answer. i went red.

6. guitar hero. i got clokes guitar hero world tour for his birthday last week. it would be fair to say that i went from being disparaging and superior - what a lot of rubbish, oh well, if that's what you really want, i'll get it for you, to make you happy - to completely obsessed - oh my god, this is interesting, how good is that, how good am i, look star power, hands of FIYER, I AM A NATURAL, I'M BETTER THAN YOU, LOOK HOW I ROCK in the space of about 10 minutes.

i am a better guitarist than i am a drummer. it makes me really tired, the way the notes spin at you. is there anyone else who's played this terrific game? and perseus and inc and any other real musicians, no scoffing please. to me, this is the chance to be in a band. the only chance that most of us get. so what if it's fake, not real, plastic, fantasy. we are enjoying it.

7. another thing we are enjoying is aussie ladette to lady. i cringe at the opening credits though. those girls are so bad. SO BAD. so much so that each opening at the beginning of the show they show different and new badnesses. there's obviously such a wealth of material for them to choose from. the extent of the drinking, the bad behaviour, wild dry humping scenes in the kitchen, the dummy spits, the running away, the swearing, the parading of australian flag at the end of the hunt. final episode is next week. will it be the stripper? the out of control blonde party girl #1? the out of control formally-blonde-now-brunette party girl #2?

the mind boggles as much as mrs schrager's and mrs harwood's eyes when the girls go mad. actually mrs schrager's teeth come to the fore when she is disgusted, and mrs schrager's voice starts shrieking and HER eyes boggle. love it.

happy thursday everyone. don't get hit by a car and live each moment.

diarama coming next post. will jay ring the young melba? will she lose her virginity soon? who to? how many movies can she watch over and over on vhs on the one borrowing? what happens to sid the cat? does melba go back to study or get a proper job instead of typing an invoice now and then and doing data entry at bizarre times of the day and night? which bands will she see live? what drugs will she graduate to? what happens to her father? does he get hauled in for questioning over a murder? does she set up a darkroom? does she find love? does she move out?

oh my goodness you must go

please note, male readers. you might think you're not interested in this post, as it's about clothes, fashion etc. but please do persist. read it. or if you really can't be bothered, just scroll down for some treats at the bottom. hurrrr. you won't be disappointed. double hurrrr.

yesterday we drove up to bendigo to see the golden age of couture exhibition, which has been brought out to australia from the victoria and albert museum in london.

may i say what a spiffing idea to host this show in bendigo? it's the only place in the country it will be seen, the place was heaving with fashion freaks, and lucky us got to skip the lengthy queue because my mum walks with a stick.

hooray for the disabled!

it was just us three. mum, me and princess.

let me tell you about princess and fashion. while her mama is not too sartorially challenged (i have been called the glamorous one in our family) (don't laugh those of you who have actually met me) (stop it now) (i mean it), princess has both beautiful taste and a stunning little frame, gorgeous features and inherent style. and she's only 12.

she also has a fierce intellect and terrifically generous, kind nature, but we're not talking about that.

this is something of the history of princess and clothes:

- up until about the age of 4 or 5, her hair was wild, curly and lush. i would primp it up with all manner of clips: strawberry clips, tweetie-pie clips, purple-sequinned clips. i have a photo of her at age 3 on the st kilda boardwalk with wild yellow sunglasses, green fake-fur coat, purple leggings, and major attitude. think photos of matilda ledger out and about in soho atop heath's shoulders.

- also up until the age of about 4 or 5 she would wear what i dressed her in. then it changed.

- she has been a very girly, pink-addicted person, until a few years ago, so when she was about 8 or 9, she started liking black, and green. black, of course, is an imperative in this fair city, green as anyone knows goes gorgeously with dark, mahogany hair and olive skin. she has instinctively steered clear of fluros (dead-set proof of her innate style) and ugly patterns, and colour clashes.

- she has always been a very dressy girl. even now when she is more into jeans and tops, she accessorises very seriously. she has a serious silver jewellry collection, with a few yellow gold pieces. she doesn't over accessorise although there was a time when she did.

- when she was about 7 she decided she wanted to sew a dress for her little cousin, who was then about 3. we bought some fabric at spotlight, and she hand cut and sewed a kind of pinafore. at that stage, ex-husband ali was out visiting and i'll never forget coming home one afternoon and finding the two of them, hard at work on the dress. he was sitting on the couch cross-legged, sewing in hand. our little girl had asked him to help her and there he was sewing, like a turkish tailor. this dress was worn precisely once, a photo taken, and then put up as a wall hanging in my niece's room.

- more recently, princess has been sketching beautiful designs of frocks. she really does do a good job of it. she has the mannequin shape down pat, the curve of hip, the tight-little waist. she has been asking myriad questions about fashion, and more specifically, the history of fashion. what did people wear in the 1800s? when did women wear those hoops under their dresses? when did they have their bosoms spilling out? when did they have high necks? how much money do fashion designers make? how do you become a fashion designer? how do you become a famous fashion designer? she's quite impressed by alannah hill because we see her around occasionally in her black merc. princess calls her 'esme', after a character in twilight; she does look a bit vampira with her hair and red lips. once she was behind me at the lights, eating something as she was driving. she was wearing dark gloves.

Now, as of yesterday afternoon, the questions have all been about couture. I have been struggling to answer them, but I did my best.

The reason for this going to the show and talking about clothes. And these:

this was a wedding dress princess particularly liked.

these were miniature items to show what kind of couture the average client would have.

so then all the way home in the car it was i want couture, i don't want target or jay-jays. i want to have nice clothes.

what have i started?

tomorrow i'll talk about what it was that i liked at the collection. i have a new-found love of richard avedon photography, and the confirmed belief that no-one does fashion like the designers and models of the '40s and '50s. no one. not kate moss, not sarah-jessica parker, not posh spice.

no one.

now for the reward patient male humans.

is this not the most beautiful lingerie you have ever seen? i found it while researching the other stuff. it's from strumpet and pink and i am now going to check prices.

melting and throbbing right now.

more of this tomorrow as well.

shame about the parquetry floor. do hate a parquetry floor. it offends my aesthetic for some reason. not symmetrical enough? all the lines going different ways? disturbs my brain. but the knickers, oh the knickers.

happy tuesday to you.

going to hell? already there.

so, today sees us sitting in a catholica church, surrounded by people, the god-a-fearing, the sucked in, the scared, the sheep, the asleep, the innocent, the guilty, the mewling hoards.

and out the front, the priest, the father, the leader of the flock, the tormentor, the boogey-man, the conveyor of threats, promises, the keeper of the riches.

he who must be obeyed.

he who hands around the basket for the coin. TWICE cause once aint enough you tight-arsed congregationalists.

he who reads the book, wipes the germs from the cup, breaks the bread. in a purple robe with snappy elocution and a kind of arrogant bearing, to my atheistic mind, that is.

i sit there dressed nicely with a calm, respectful face, not grimacing externally, resisting the guffaws when i feel them surge. i stand when required, i pass the basket, i turn and shake my neighbour's hands and say "peace be with you." that much i can say with utmost sincerity.

but i don't do the amens. i don't pray. i don't bow my head and i don't cross myself. of course i don't cross myself. i'm not catholic. practising religion is an exclusive kind of activity. guaranteed there will be some non-religionist in the audience on any given weekend; do they watch with envy the lining up for the wafer and wine?

occasionally i will sing a hymn, if it's one i like.

who can deny the power of blake's fantastic jerusalem.

one

of

my

favourite

songs

in

all

the

world

and

of

all

space

and

all

time.



And did those feet in ancient time
Walk upon England's mountains green
And was the holy lamb of God
On England's pleasant pastures seen
And did the countenance divine
Shine forth upon our clouded hills
And was Jerusalem builded here
Among those dark Satanic mills
Bring me my bow of burning gold
Bring me my arrows of desire
Bring me my spears o'clouds unfold
Bring me my chariot of fire
I will not cease from mental fight
Nor shall my sword sleep in my hand
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land
'Til we have built Jerusalem
In England's green and pleasant land.

how do i reconcile my love for this poem, nay my adoration of it? it includes god, it includes religious concepts.

it's easy, dear reader. god is just that, a concept. it is something i can sing of, just words, i don't have to believe. for me the beauty, the awe and the power is in the words of this glorious hymn and the music. we sang this at my secondary school, an anglican school, where religion was part of every monday morning assembly. we had the hymn books, and we sang all sort of horrible hymns. this was the one everyone loved. it was so uplifting, you could feel that sword in your hand and see the chariot of fire, and i swear recently when i bellowed it out to the bush, singing with my sister and brother-in-law on our camping trip, i had tears in my eyes. the others, clokes and the kids, i think thought it was weird. they weren't moved, they didn't get it, they didn't know it. so how could i, a non-believer be the only one in the church (quite possibly) to be moved by that hymn? oh sweet irony.

today in the church, as i had princess leaning on me, rolling her eyes and sighing about all the god stuff, i watched the people going through the motions. of course not all are. some would be genuine in their faith and for them it be a goodly thing.

i thought of perseus as i sat in the church, watching the purple-robed one. i wondered when the last time was that he was in a church, and what his approach is. i figure i am a guest there, and as always when i'm a guest in anyone's house, i try to be respectful and polite. i could imagine perseus and me ganging up on the whole congregation - grabbing the mike and trying to tell them how wrong and blind they are. the priest was talking about abraham preparing to sacrifice his son. he spelled it out, sacrifice means kill, he thought god wanted him to kill his son.

there were kids in the congregation; what did they make of this? we've just had a man throw his daughter off a bridge, and then here's this man talking about fathers killing their children? where's the sense in that? where's the sensitivity?

sitting there it seemed more than the con that i generally see it as. to see all the families and the people going through the motions, and really, a lot were, they were there out of guilt, out of family obligation, out of habit.

is that how you want to live your life?

not me.

the irony is princess has been asked to read a prayer at a year 7 school service at church next week. i think she's chuffed to have been asked, but i said to her if it's very goddy, she would be able to tell them if she felt uncomfortable reading it. that she could offer to read something else, something more about humans than make-believe. she loves the idea of vampires and witches and wizards, but she is as scornful of an omnipresent god as i am. she knows vampires and the like aren't real, so she applies the same logic to the idea of god. but she said she's ok to do the reading, and i am so proud of her; for being chosen and for doing it. she can read it and not believe it. they are just words. the school she's at would respect her wish not to read for her own reasons if she explained them. they are tolerant of diversity in religious faith and belief and active dis-belief, which i was pleased to see specifically listed in some literature they put out.

i am exhausted. by the church. by the lunch, and chatting to people and smiling and ignoring my period stomach-ache and tiredness. i did my duty and that's good. but as soon as we could, we came home to play guitar hero.

serious addiction developing.

off to the golden age of couture in bendigo tomorrow, and very excited about it too. my type of religion: art.

happy sunday to you.

advertisement from you tube, it made me cry not quite sure why. it's beautiful.

someone in the comments said that imagine if whatever this video represents (apart from mobile phones, obvs) was able to be harnessed in some way, to stop wars. imagine soldiers putting down their guns and dancing?

yeah i know, it's a bit lennon and ono, but still, it's a nice thought on this grey day, considering recent events in pakistan.