On Show

In my last post, I mentioned in 'M*A*S*H' there is close competition for the most nauseating episode premise between Hawkeye's 'Dear Dad' letters and B J Hunnicutt's 'Dear Peg' letters.  Yesterday when I was getting ready to go out to trivia I noticed a close contender - it's Radar O'Reilly's 'Dear Mum' (or should that be 'Dear Mom' because he's American) letters.  Those letters home really make me want to puke til my head spins around.  Maybe it's because I'm such a fan of the 1970 movie - and I have a rather odd confession to make here: I have a crush on Donald Sutherland in his role as Hawkeye Pierce in this movie.  I don't know why, I just do.  I also loved Robert Duvall as the bible-thumping portrayal of Frank Burns in the movie, and Larry Linville's snivelling weasel in the television show annoys me.   I know he's meant to be annoying, but I really preferred the movie's interpretation of the character.  I tend to leave the room during the exchanges between Pierce and Burns because I invariably yell at the television, 'Shit, Burns!  Jump all over Pierce's arse; you outrank him, fer Chrissakes!'  This annoys Mr Bingells immensely, and I am aware that I am yelling at something rather nebulous.

Took my 12yo and 9yo to their school for a sex education talk on Monday evening.  It was very age-appropriate and informative.  Not sure I am looking forward to having a moody teenager next year (he's already getting moody).  I'm missing my little boy who used to say in public, 'Mummy, I love you.'  We didn't have a real sex ed talk when I was in Year 6.  I remember a nun taking all the Years 5 and 6 girls into the library and lecturing us on the importance of wearing deodorant and changing our underwear daily.  Sister Mad-Bitch called them 'bloomers'.  There were some 'Where Did I Come From?' style books in the library, and a very good one with diagrams.  There were artist's depictions of the average female body at 9-12 years, 12-14 years, and 14-adulthood.  My friend pointed to the first figure and said I should look like that.  I had news for her; I was an early developer!  But anyway, there will be no ignorance about the onset of puberty for my boys, and they will understand the machinations of the female body, too.  They were shown sanitary products and how they work at this lecture (the lecturer did not include a moon cup, which is the product favoured by your blogger, so I spoke to her afterwards - she hadn't heard of it, so I told her to look it up because for environmental sustainability, it's a fantastic product).  Taking away the mystery and mystique will also take away some of the horrid practical jokes.  Maybe.  I remember a rather backward boy walking up to the teacher on playground duty and asking, 'Sir, what's this?'  He was swinging a tampon by the string.  The teacher went bright magenta.  I also have memories of girls unwrapping a tampon and throwing it into a group of boys nearby, and watching them all leap and squeal like scalded cats.  When I was in Year 10, I kept my spares in my pencil case, and I still laugh a little when I remember one of the boys in my class saying, 'Hey, Simone, can I borrow a pen?' and before I could reply, he unzipped my pencil case on the assumption that such loan would be forthcoming, and he went a rather unbecoming shade of pink.  The nearby girls who knew where I kept my stash all laughed like lobotomised trolls.  Anyway, I wonder do the high schoolers still carry on stupid with tampons, and is this something my son has to look forward to over the next few years?

On Saturday will be travelling en famille to my home town to attend the show.  My father is the official opener of the show, and as such will be giving a speech.  I am proud of course, but don't want to go to the show.  It's going to be stinking hot, and there will be an overpowering stench of horse shit and greasy Dagwood Dogs, and my kids will be whining like a Boeing's engines as they plead to go on this ride or that ride.  There was actually an article about my father in the local rag yesterday, and I showed it to my son.  He read about how his Pop had won ten shillings in his first ever event.  'Shillings?' he cried, 'Pop's been competing for a long time!  How long ago did we have shillings?'  I smiled like the Mona Lisa, and told him decimal currency was introduced to Australia two days after his mother was born!

Oh well, I should shortly receive the cover art for my next novel, and upon my approval, it will go to print, and then hopefully 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth' will be atop the best seller lists!  But for now, it's back to my work in progress, which funnily enough given the abovementioned paragraph, almost starts with people at the town show, when the kids run off into the surrounding scrub and spring the son of the shire president doing a shit in the bush.