A Flood Of Emotions

I always worry when I'm launching a new book that something will go wrong, but when something does go wrong, I do not buy into preposterous esoteric theories that I have wished it upon myself.  If I could wish things upon myself, don't you think I'd be sipping margaritas on a yacht in the Bahamas, waiting for my next good banging from Hugh Jackman, instead of sitting in a self-contained unit of a motel because my house has been rendered untenable after a flood?  Yes, you read that right.  I am typing this on my husband's laptop, which was salvaged, instead of my computer, which was drowned.  However, the insurance cleaner has set the hard drive aside and advised me to see an IT expert who might be able to rescue some of the material.  In any event, I saved the USB with my novel-in-progress, and the stock for my upcoming launch on 16 May 2014 was up on a table, so it's safe, too.  If this is my pre-destined, pre-launch disaster, then I'll get through this.  I'm not sure if I will get through being in a cramped dwelling with my two children, whilst my husband is at our house with our pets, and listening to the uncomforting roar of the industrial fans set to dry the house, and the dehumidifer set up to suck all the moisture out of the air. 

Let me tell you what happened on the morning of Anzac Day, 2014.  It was about 5.30am, and I was lying on a matress in my son's room.  My oldest son's room, and the lounge room, were just last week given a zooosh with sanding and polishing of the floorboards.  My littlest one slept on a mattressin the lounge room, as his bed was covered in books.  The oldest slept with his dad.  I heard the heavy rain and thought I wouldn't get to the Dawn Service after all. The rain increased in volume, and the lightning and thunder sounded like they were outside my window.  Then I heard my oldest call out, 'Mum, there's a flood!'  I scrambled up from the mattress, and went to the lounge room to see water coming in through the front door, and down the hallway, and into the lounge room when my youngest slept on in blissful oblivion.  My husband shouted for us to wake the little boy, who stirred blinking like a disturbed koala.  The water rose in its depth, and like a mini-tsunami, coursed through the kitchen and into the laundry and dining rooms (I'm not going to provide architectural plans of my house, but that's how it happened).  My children stood on the sofa, the oldest crying and saying he was scared.  My husband roared out, 'Where's Fergus?'  Fergus is our mini foxie pup, and thank God he was safe in the laundry, on top of a piece of the multitude of junk I keep in the house.  Or up to that point, kept in the house.  That junk is no more.  I scooped up the pup, and shoved him into my son's arms, and upon finding the phone dead, grabbed my mobile and rang the SES.  Know what I really fucking hate?  Recorded voices asking for the suburb.  I live in Muswellbrook, and most of you probably know the 's' is silent.  I got some blarney that the town was not recognised, and could I please key in my post code.  So I did.  Got more blarney about the suburbs being Merriwa, Denman, and Muzzwellbrook.  Yeah, Muswellbrook with a 'Z'.  Great.  Anyway, I eventually got a dispatch operator and I was babbling that my house was in the process of flooding, and he was asking were we safe, and I felt like crying out, 'Not if the water keeps rising and we drown!'  But he said he would get the local guys onto it.  I just hate being put through to an operator who is well away from your local area and has no idea what you're talking about.  So for a few minutes I  just stood there terrified, wondering when it was going to stop.  And it seemed that almost as soon as the heavy storm started, it did stop.  I have since found out there was about three inches in half an hour.  That is seriously freaky stuff, but at that moment I was standing there in six inches of cold water, staring at the shallow lagoon that had once been my floor, with this 'WTF?' loop going in my head.  And my almost-10yo looked at me and said, 'Mum, you're gonna need a bigger boat.'  I laughed.  I laughed and laughed.  Then I laughed some more.  I had tears in my eyes from laughing.  I was laughing to the point where you're one guffaw from a shot of Thorazine from a nice person in a white coat.  I clasped my beautiful son and held him close, and said, 'Michael, I love you!'

So, the putrid water drained, and with some towels and quick action, I think I saved my new floorboards.  But we were left with some devilish mixture of mud and silt and debris some three inches deep through most of the house.  My husband got on to the insurance company, and we have been given this accommodation from where I type this post.  Today, a representative attended and photographs have been taken, and the cleaning commenced.  Thank God for professionals.  Not quite finished, but it's just looking so much better.  Today, I dragged out some stuff for the man to assess tomorrow.  Beautiful leather boots are ruined.  A hand-made leather overnight bag I won on 'Sale of the Century' in 2001 is probably beyond repair (I won it in the Fame Game.  The answer was Ron Clark, and the prize was behind Jean Kittson's head).  My 'MAD' magazines - fucked.  One of the cleaners told me he is also a collector, and to check under 'collectables' in the policy. 

I am handling it okay, I guess.  I know losing my shit will assist nobody.  Yesterday morning, I got up after a night of really no sleep, and drove to my house to check on my dogs.  Then I drove back, with McDonalds breakfasts for everybody.  I sat on the lounge here, and started to cry.  Last night, I picked up my kids from a friend's house.  I drove home and listened to their requests for KFC.  I told them it would be pizza.  'Yesterday you said KFC!' was the resentful, reproachful wail from my youngest.  'Yesterday the fucking house flooded!' was my angry response, followed by apologies and a reminder that things just aren't quite normal at the moment.  I hate junk food.  I'm sick of it.  But I haven't got time to cook anything in this place at the moment.

So, I'm in a motel room with my kids.  One's asleep.  The other's watching 'Spiderman'.  I have no interest in seeing Tobey Maguire shooting snot from his wrists, so I'm tapping away here.

It might seem shallow, but the 'important' things like my book launch stock and USB are safe.  For that I'm glad.  I'm even more glad that we're all safe.  We've had our local mayor over, at my request, to look at the damage and to complain to him about the storm water drain in our street, which I don't think is equipped to cope even with the urine from a fairy, let alone the deluge on Anzac Day.  And we going to get some new things, like a lounge suite (I'm only sad because the one ruined was one I inherited from my late aunt, and I loved her very much, but she'd probably say, 'Get rid of bit, Bing, and pour a champers!').  I am kind of wishing if it had to happen, it didn't happen just before I'm about to launch a book, and organise publicity and other such things that accompany these momentous occasions.

Had to laugh.  I sat down on the grass today to check my phone.  Hubby said I'd get a wet bum.  I just stared.  I think a wet bum is insignificant to a saturated house.  I said in a cawing voice, 'Well, the old grapes will flare up, won't they!'  Perhaps I am starting to lose my shiz after all.

Nudie Photo Shoots & Common Sense

What I love about my paid work is the cross-section of society I get to meet.  Today, whilst carrying out a service with an octogenarian woman, the breakfast television show had three women chattering like silly parrots (it seems to be a given that in these segments when the male host runs a topic across three guest female panellists, they will chatter like silly parrots.  That's not to say the women are necessarily silly - but they always sound like silly parrots).  They were chattering and squawking about the current celebrity trend of nuding up whenever one is at least six months pregnant, or has dropped the sprog about six weeks ago and is now ready to show off that buff, ripped, solarium-ed bikini body, and often in a nauseating magazine with a gushing headline that goes: How I Got My Pre-Pregnancy Body Back, and it's usually with a healthy diet and exercise, and breast-feeding.  That's the spin, anyway.  I reckon it's usually with a chef, a nanny, a personal trainer, and a diet of walnuts, lettuce leaves, and Winfield Reds.  The current issue of Marie Claire has a picture of Megan Gale, and it's received a shitload of publicity, and probably more re-tweeting and following than the Dalai Lama.  The picture shows her pregnant and naked.  Personally, I don't give a rat's ring.  I love the pregnant form, and love beautiful nude shots of pregnant women.  The Demi Moore one from 1991-2 or so, that caused all the original stink, I actually thought was a gorgeous shot with its use of lighting, as well as the pose and stance of its subject (by that I mean Ms Moore).  I don't like this one of Megan.  She looks incredibly uncomfortable, unlike Demi who had an expression of insouciance and nonchalance.  Megan just looks a bit startled, or maybe constipated.


But back to the point: the woman I was serving breakfast to pointed to the television and said, 'I don't like this.  There are some things a woman should just keep private!  Oh, I don't know, dear, I guess I'm just old-fashioned and a different generation.'  I told her she was entitled to her views.  I personally don't see why women should hide a pregnant belly, and it's ludicrous to try because the thing grows and takes up physical space.  Some kind of mass distribution I guess, but physics was never my long suit.


But I am totally over nude photo shoots to celebrate whatever's going on.  They seem to be a desperate attempt to stay relevant.  'Oh, I've got a book to promote.  I must have my people organise a nude shoot!'.  'Oh, my new album's due.  I must have my people organise a nude shoot!'  'Oh, my world tour starts in a while.  Must have my people organise a nude shoot!'  'Oh, it's Wednesday.  Must have my people organise a nude shoot!'   Not actually considering one for the upcoming launch of my own book. 


Moment That Made Me Punch The Air The Other Day: hearing on the local news the Land & Environment Court has upheld an appeal by a developer to open a brothel in my local town.  There has been the pearls-twisting and naysaying as people carry on with, 'Our children walk along this street!'  Trust me, there are worse streets in this town for children to be walking along.  'It's not a good spot, put it elsewhere!'  Where?  Somewhere there is no access for the disabled, or those without vehicles (taxi service in this town sucks balls), and what about the safety of the ladies?  I have no vested nor personal interest in this upcoming business, but the lack of logic and spurious rhetoric that comprised the objections, and YES, I went onto Council's website and read them, rolling my eyes and saying 'pffffft!' as I did, as well as Council's fatuous lame-arse reasons for rejecting the DA, made me wonder what was wrong with people, and why people have issues with consenting adults having sex, when there is a financial transaction involved.  I have read comments about how it's against people's religion. Oh, puh-leeeeze.  If it's against your religion, don't fucking go there.  And don't go there fucking (sorry, but that one was begging!)  I got challenged to read the objections before I 'passed judgement' (Hello?  I'M passing judgement?), which I did, then went straight back to the social media thread and emphatically stood by my original comments.  But the LEC made the right choice, I feel, and as I said before, whilst I have no reason to be interested in this business, it is good to see a victory for common sense.


It is also good to see the RSVPs coming in for my upcoming book launch, particularly when the invitees say they will attend.  I have been nervously wondering will anybody come to it!


Ciao for now!

The Smell Of The Sawdust

I love the smell of sawdust in the morning!  This, for the uninitiated, is me paraphrasing from 'Apocalypse Now', a movie based loosely on Conrad's 'Heart of Darkness'.  I studied this novel when at university for a while all dem years ago when I was having my mid-twenties crisis.  Liked the story and the themes, but the writing didn't grab me and I suspect it was because English was actually Conrad's third language.  Might try reading it again.  I was the same when attempting to read 'The Three Musketeers' by Dumas, given English was not this author's first language, either.  Something seemed to fall down in the translation. Oh, I thought I'd be carried away on wings of poesy (now I'm borrowing from one of my favourite poets, John Keats) with the romance of swashbuckling adventures, and a corrupt churchman, and a disparate bunch of men comprising a pirate, a churchman, a nobleman, and a Johnny-Come-Lately country boy.  But reading text like: 'D'Artagnan got out his sword and fought the man, killed him, and was on his way' (well, words to that effect), has not grabbed me in the slightest.  It's annoyed me.  It's TOLD me, not SHOWN me the story.  Also, it got me thinking, 'Strewth, this D'Artagnan bloke's dangerous.  He should have some anger management sessions.' 


But back to the sawdust.  My house smells like sawdust and is awash with jumble everywhere, as the flooring man runs his electric sander and polivac over the floorboards of my lounge room and my oldest son's room, those floorboards undergoing a sanding and polishing.  As I type this, I am surrounded by assorted upturned lounge suite pieces, and furniture from my son's room.  I am surrounded by this cluttered barricade, and am tempted to don a bandolier and wave a musket in some half-arsed game of 'Les Miserables'.  The fact that I have a singing voice direct from Satan stops me, as I don't want my flooring man to run off screaming before the job is done.


So will be taking the boys to my mother-in-law's house to get them out of the way, and taking the younger of my two to a birthday party tomorrow.  I also have to make calls to publicise the upcoming launch of 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth'.  I've typed this in the 'notes' section of my new iPod, which I am just ADORING.  My youngest got me to download 'Do You Believe In Magic?' by The Lovin' Spoonful the other day.  He has his mother's impeccable taste in music, I do believe.  I will tell him the name of this band if he asks, and I daresay explain the meaning behind that name, if he should also ask that.


I am awaiting some RSVPs on the launch.  I am awaiting lots of RSVPs on the launch, and am as paranoid as a freshly-loaded-up stoner at the Policemen's Ball that nobody will come to the thing.  Hubby assures me they will.  I must be patient, it is after all the Easter long weekend.  Folks are busy, and the RSVP date is still five days away.


But I actually don't like the smell of sawdust in the morning, not really.

It Takes Bottle To Be Premier

Oh what a gift this government - at levels both State and Federal - is to writers, notwithstanding the miserable curse it is to everybody else.  I have been watching the events of the past thirty-six or so hours unfolding with the bug-eyed, drooling avidity of an eighteen-year-old geek at his first strip show.  Barry has resigned.  According to many, he did 'the honourable thing'.  Methinks 'the honourable thing' is a coy euphemism for jumping before one is pushed.  And it started with a $3,000 bottle of Grange Hermitage.  And ended when O'Farrell told some untruths to ICAC.  I don't care if a pollie gets gifts and incentives, just declare it.  A $3,000 bottle of plonk is a pretty considerable gift to 'forget'.  The concept of a bottle of plonk costing that much just leaves me scratching my head, like some of the lice-infested bare-foot ferals I occasionally see around town.  What on earth makes it worth that much, when it is, after all, merely liquefied, fermented, rotten fruit?  But people do get precious about their wines.  I remember a barrister I knew practically breaking down in tears as he retold the events of the previous weekend when he had gone away and his 17yo stepson had had an illicit party and turned a $2,000 bottle of Grange Hermitage into sangria. Big  Bazza got caught out when a piece of evidence was produced, of the HAND-WRITTEN NOTE he had forwarded to the lobbyist Nick Di Giralamo, thanking him for this exorbitantly priced bottle of booze.  But his mother would have been proud of him for remembering to write a thank you note.  These guys try to look noble in the vein of 'The Truth Will Set You Free', but their personal dictum seems to be, 'The truth will set you free, but if it looks like it won't, then lie like fuck!'  I'm not sure if I'm after any favours from our government representatives around here, but they will not be getting a bottle of Grange Hermitage from me.  I might go and buy a cask of Fruity Lexia, and see how that goes down.  Regardless of how it goes down, it will undoubtedly come right back up via a violent spasm of the alimentary canal.


And now that you've resigned, Barry, can you convince Campbell Newman in Queensland and that dunderhead in Western Australia to go out in sympathy with you?


And God forbid anybody ask ol' Big Ears about it.  Should have seen him speaking to the press yesterday, with his entourage all nodding around him.  Seriously, these goons must think they're looking sage and supportive of their leader, but all I can think of is those nodding dogs people used to put in the back of their cars that looked out the back window, and just, well, nodded.  A female journalist asked him about O'Farrell, and challenged O'Farrell's integrity, and didn't his face just go from patented smirk to 'Oh, God, there's aluminium foil on my fillings!' in nano-seconds!  He just stood there snapping 'Madam!' this and 'Madam!' that, trying hard to keep that lid on the anger that threatened to boil over.


Incoming Premier Mike Baird, kindly don't fuck up the gig, okay?


Well, I'm off to play with my new iPod.  I used it today whilst vacuuming a pensioner's house.  I thought I wasn't going to get a chance to because she kept showing my old photos.  I like old photos, and it would have been rude to shove the buds into my ears in front  of her.  But eventually I got to have a listen to the songs I've downloaded, and as I pushed the cleaner around listening to Ian Hunter, and the Angels, and AC/DC, all I could think was, 'Fuck, I've got great taste in music!'

'Plane' Sailing

Did anyone else catch the story of the complaint made via Twitter by some young adult about her US Airlines flight being delayed, but more the point, the response by a representative of the airline?  Recap: the original Tweeter posted about their delayed flight words to the effect, 'I want free stuff.  I h8 you'.  I read this and thought, 'What are you, four?'  Besides, what's wrong with actually writing to the complaints department and airing your grievance with maturity?  But the total response-to-end-all-responses was the response of a representative of the airline, and I will hazard a guess that this representative is no longer on the company payroll.  This person tweeted a picture for a response.  The picture is of a woman spread-eagled with a model plane flying into her vagina.  No, I didn't actually type that wrong.  I have read remarks on social media about where on earth would the airline employee source such a picture, and why on earth would somebody pose for such a picture, and why on earth would anybody find such a picture even remotely sexually stimulating.  Now, I have a theory.  And I think my theory holds water.  Maybe it was the actual person who had to deal with the childishly worded complaint.  Maybe this person had to deal with a whole truckload of fatuous and meaningless gripes, and bitches, and moans, and beefs, and bleatings, and whines and when this one reached her in-tray she finally blew her inner cogs and wheels, screamed, 'FUCK THIS SHIT!' and did, um, that thing with the model aeroplane. 


I know what it's like to be driven mad in the work environment.  Although not in customer service per se, I have had the girlfriend of a client ring me, the friend of this client ring me, the bloke who cuts the hair and trims the sideburns of this client ring, well, you get the drift.  The phone rang constantly and it was always something not at all urgent, it was always something that stopped me getting on with other work, it was always some new about the guy's upcoming day in court, it was always something else they wanted done, it was always something that was near-impossible to facilitate because the only day he could be psychiatrically assessed was the weekend because the shrink wasn't available during the week, and you try and get a psych's appointment in a government department on a weekend.  It ain't easy.  As you can see, with all these calls, the client himself couldn't ring me because he was in gaol.  And although he was someone euphemistically referred to in the press as 'colourful Kings Cross identity', I did not get swept up in the 'Underbelly' dark glamour of it all.  I couldn't.  I was driven too mad.  Finally, one day I slammed down the receiver after what was probably the fourth call for the day (and it was not yet 10.00am), and shouted, 'I AM SO FUCKING SICK OF [COLOURFUL KINGS CROSS IDENTITY]!!!'  A newly minted solicitor who had just joined our firm walked in, the poor lass had not even been sworn in at the Supreme Court yet, and I do believe the force of the blast from my yelling flattened her against the wall.


So yeah, if the person in the tweeted pic was a disgruntled (never mind disgruntled, completely driving psycho employee), I can almost understand where she's coming from.

'Hey, Creep!' and 'Ack-Ack-Ack-Ack-Ack-Aarrrrggghhh!'

Okay, I am comfortable about making comment now that the trial of Robert Hughes has been and gone, and he awaits sentencing.  I truly detested the show 'Hey, Dad!'  It was one of the bad by-products of the Eighties, like the radiation and fallout following the detonation of a nuclear bomb.  The scripts were lousy.  The so-called acting even lousier.  The characters made me want to stab kittens.  Particularly that secretary, Betty.  I worked for about twenty years as a secretary, and if I was that incompetent and stupid I would have been out on my business-suit skirted arse within days, if not hours.  Then along came that fat kid from the dunny paper commercials.  These were the main reasons I didn't bother with the scrofulous shit packaged and sold as 'Hey, Dad!'.  Of particular annoyance was the character of the father, played by Robert Hughes.  He was the most untalented Aussie actor of his contemporaries.  He is also a sleazy piece of filth, as it turns out.  I am in admiration of the three actors who played his onscreen children in speaking out against his abuse of 'the youngest daughter', and also at the way the 'oldest two children' tried to protect the youngest one on-set.  I do not admire in any way the lack of action of the adults to whom the older 'children' reported this sexual abuse.  I cannot fathom how anyone could do nothing and thus enable the predator to continue with his sickening activities.  Sarah Moynihan's mother, who was happy to live high on the hog of her daughter's earnings (which I heard she frittered away), has not spoken to her since Sarah reported the abuse she suffered at the hands of Robert Hughes.  I guess just because you squeeze someone's head through your loins, it doesn't necessarily make you much of a mother, does it?  Thinking about how unsafe the children must have felt on the set of that putrescent, infantile show make me want to weep.


Overblown Wank Of A Song For The Day: 'Movin' Out (Anthony's Song)' by Billy Joel.  Look, it just is, okay?  I like a bit of Billy usually.  I vacillate between labelling 'Say Goodbye To Hollywood' as wonderful poignancy or grating bloat.  I usually go with the former.  I really like 'You May Be Right'.  But so many of his songs do have the propensity to be grating bloat.  Take 'Piano Man' for instance: 'There's an old man sitting next to me/Making love to his tonic and gin'.  Seriously, Billy?  You didn't call the bouncer to have him removed?  In 'Captain Jack' the third person narrative says 'you' sit at home and pick your nose and masturbate.  Great, so I'm a booger-mining wanker.  Makes me feel warm and fuzzy inside.  But getting back to 'Movin' Out'.  I heard it whilst I was driving yesterday.  I often hear cruddy songs when driving, but it's my own fault because I listen to AM.  Anyway, Billy delivers this song with the earnestness of Jeanne d'Arc obeying the voices, and facing the pyre afterwards.  But it really loses me when he sings, 'Working to hard can give you a heart attack-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack!'   And again, 'Trading in his Chevy for a Cadillac-ack-ack-ack-ack-ack!'  Again: seriously, Billy?  'Ack-ack-ack-ack-ack' as a lyric?  It always makes me think of a typewriter, the daisy wheel clacking away on this old printer at an office where I worked years ago.  It's also eerily similar to the sounds my youngest son started to make when his epilepsy first started to manifest itself.  Maybe Billy has epilepsy, too.


Good Rock News Of The Day: Kiss have been inducted into the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame!  And About. Fucking. Time.  I mean, truly, Powers That Be Who Decide Who Inductees Are, what took you so long?  When did you have the Damascene experience?  It is beyond absurd that Madonna was inducted before Kiss and Alice Cooper, given they experienced that twenty year criteria whatever thing before she did.  The fact that Madonna is in an inductee makes me blink like a freshly woken koala, anyway.  I don't get it with her.  Her singing voice hurts my ears and she only pulls ludicrous stunts to cover up a dearth of natural charisma.


This morning, I stuffed envelopes for my book launch.  I am about to stuff more envelopes.

My Dog's Evil Bestowing

Can't (*wheeze*) breathe .... must (*gasp*) ... have .... aaaiiiir (*struggling to remain conscious*). 


Oh, don't worry.  I'm not having an attack, nor have I been set upon by that pantihose strangler from 'Number 96' all those years ago.  Didn't watch that show because I was too young to care.  I was old enough to care when 'Alvin Purple' was screened, but still too young to watch it, according to my parents.  I did watch it from the safety of the hallway, as I peeped around the corner and caught the odd glimpse of Graeme Blundell's buttocks, which given I was viewing as a 10yo from a clandestine position and therefore caught those glimpses between the backs of my parents' heads, seemed a tad off.  But you might be wondering what's got me clawing at the throat and on the verge of lapsing into a comatose state.  It's simple, but awful.  My dog has passed wind and left the room, and I am seriously going to have to review that mutt's diet.  The stench is hanging around like an evil entity in a horror flick, and the house might need some kind of exorcism or blessing performed by my local parish priest.  I swear the stink is going to embed itself in the clothes I am wearing, and it's just as well I've planned to wash my hair.




Just made a little list of Lost Treasures from 1979, and if you're interested, here 'tis:


1.  'Shine A Little Love' by ELO.  Yes, I'm a dag.  I love just about anything by ELO, but they do have some great production values and always manage to make the music build to an exciting climax.  Kind of like a lover in romantic fiction (don't look at me, I write satire).


2.  'Gold' by John Stewart.  You know the one, '...Singin' to my soul/there's people out there turning music into gold...'  The kids at my school used to sing, 'There's people out there turning virgins into molls.'  This was particularly popular to do when the K-Tel conglomeration was being played during needlework class (I didn't do needlework, I did commerce and had a friend inform me of this).  The girls would be at sewing machines, at their desks darning, and singing their own version until the teacher (a hobbit with old maid virtues) lost her shit.


3.  'New York Groove' by Ace Frehley.  Bit of a guilty pleasure here.  I don't think Ace is necessarily that good a singer, but he did really do something with this old Hello number. 


Anyway, kids are home, and I have to do a few chores. 

Today's Little List

I'm doing my Grand High Executioner bit, and making my little list.  There are things on my mind today, along with the usual plethora of crap that goes hand-in-paw with being a parent who has a book to launch soon (must compile the official guest list tonight).  Anyway, three things are at the foremost of my mind at the moment.  They are duly set out hereunder:


1.  Creepiest Thing I've Seen In Ages: saw it on breakfast television this morning, and it was an article on what's known as the Purity Ball.  It's something in the US, and young (13 or so) girls take part in it, pledging to their fathers they will remain pure until such time as the ring's on the finger and the wedding cake has been sliced.  It looked a little like a deb ball, which is something I'm not a huge fan of in principle, although if someone wants to make her deb, then that's her choice.  I've really only been to one deb ball in my life.  I didn't make my debut when I was of appropriate age because (1) I had my HSC to concentrate on; (2) the other debs were this skank-fest from Year 11; (3) I was too shy to ask a boy to partner me, and most importantly; (4) the idea just shat me to tears.  The one deb ball I attended was when I was 18, and I was a guest of my cousin who made her debut.  She and I are quite close, and I wanted to give her support.  I did have fun, and do recall the after party with other young adults, sitting in a room swilling Dr Jurd's Jungle Juice, and being told I have hair like Boy George.  This was not flattering.  I hated Boy George, and still do.  But getting back to this hideous concept of the Purity Ball.  I know the principle that if the girl wants to partake, then it is her choice, should apply as it does with the Deb Ball.  But I cannot help but think the poor girl has been controlled by a manipulative, hypocritical fuck-up of a father who has this creepy Madonna/Whore complex.   First kiss on your wedding day and until this valid marriage you are considered married to the Lord?  Pfffffft!  If any of you young lasses happen to be reading this, take it from Auntie Bingells: you shouldn't buy the first pair of shoes you try on.  And you dads, this daughter you have created is another person in her own right, not some pristine objet d'art to be kept in the display cabinet.  Protect her as a father would, but don't 'reverse pimp' her, either.  Truly, I was fighting nausea when I watched that article.  I was shuddering, and could not think of anything more truly ickifying, except maybe discovering a pair of bats having sex in your hair.


2.  What's Seriously Pissing Me Off: The Abbott government.  Oh, this is a given, I know.  I'm always pissed off at this government, and it's only the level of piss-off that changes.  And Immigration Minister Scott Morrison in particular is just grinding my gears.  Denying asylum seekers legal representation?  WTF, man?  Likening it to 'removing the sugar bowl from the table'?  Yes, I don't give my children dessert every night, either.  But hey, the right to legal counsel is not a treat or luxury, it is an inalienable human right!!!  According to the UN, children should not be kept in detention for longer than is absolutely necessary (such as health checks being conducted), and yet we have children stuck in there, being given medication to assist them to sleep.  Wrong, wrong, wrong, and shame on all of you.


3.  What's Saddened Me A Bit Today: I often listen to music, and today I played 'No Matter What' by Badfinger.  I love this song, with it's poignant and wistful lyrics and delivery.  The guys performing were very talented musicians, and I love the harmonies in this song.  You will note I used the word 'were'.  This is past tense.  Yeah, they were dragged over the coals, totally innocent of any wrongdoing, owing to an accounting error regarding sales.  Their assets were frozen.  They were bankrupted.  The singer, Pete Ham, took his own life and in a sick coincidence paid his own membership to the notorious Club 27 that many rock singers have joined.  A few years later, fellow band member Tom Evans also hanged himself.  I doubted the record company big-wigs really gave a rat's ring, and it's heartbreaking to see talented and sensitive men chewed up and spat out by an industry that gives not one iota of crap.  It's a bad cliché.


Oh well, things to do, so ciao for now.

Clueless Commentators, Looking Launches, and Tragic Terrapins

I hate sport.  I hate playing it.  I hate the memories it evokes of being the last kid picked for the team because I probably couldn't catch the flu in a viral centre, let alone a ball lightly tossed from close range.  I didn't even like playing tunnel ball, and still remember to this day throwing the medicine ball too hard onto the ground and watching it bounce up and almost neuter the girl behind me.  I find watching the games excruciatingly dull, and cannot understand why commentators work themselves up to a state where they're either about to drop a load of crap or send a wad of jizz into their underpants.  And today, I was reminded of another reason commentators aggravate me somewhat.  I saw on breakfast television today some bloke in the US, a former NFL player, has joined in criticism of a baseball player who took a few days' paternity leave to attend the birth of his child.  The Neanderthal is known as Boomer, probably after the echo when a thought actually appears in his head, and he actually suggested the woman should have had a C-section scheduled prior to the game.  What the total fuck?  Subject a woman to major abdominal surgery for the sake of a game?  I hope this guy is comfortable living in the tree and throwing his own excrement.


Other things have been going on.  Good things.  I have liaised with the manager of the local art gallery, and not only is it available for the night I wish to launch my book, he will let me use it gratis!  Yaaaaaay!  And as an interesting aside, the manager told me he is an old T-Rex and Marc Bolan tragic.  He asked would there be some T-Rex playing in the background at the launch, and I replied it's definitely on the cards.  And yesterday I was at the library, and saw the man I wish to do the official 'launch', and he accepted.  Another yaaaaay!  One of the library staff told me she was at a meeting for the inaugural Scone Fringe Festival, a proposed cultural event in October, and my name was mentioned a possible speaker/guest.  Yaaaaaaaays are popping up everywhere, it seems.  I attended a meeting for another committee last night, and showed off a freshly minted copy of 'Silver Studs and Sabre Teeth'.  "Ooooh," sent one of the committee members, "so you're the new Matthew Reilly?"  "Um, no," I replied, "I'm the first Simone Bailey."  Another committee member wanted to know could the book be read from at the recital section of the Eisteddfod.  I said this could happen, but not in the junior section.  "Simone's a bit out there," explained the prez of the committee.


But it's not all great.  I had a 'Fish Called Wanda' moment a couple of days ago.  A very upsetting one.  No, not a rather starchy barrister performing a striptease (I have seen this happen, but that's another story).  Who remembers this incredibly funny movie?  If you do, you will remember Michael Palin played an animal loving, stuttering hit man named Ken.  You will recall he had to do away with a witness who could identify a fellow gang member, and instead accidentally killed her dogs.  Now, I am not a hit man/woman/person.  I do not stutter (I have a very slight lisp, which is more pronounced when I'm soaking my prosthetic tooth in denture cleaner and the air whistles through the gap in my front teeth).  But I do love animals.  Anyway, the other day I had to take a work vehicle and travel to one of the nearby towns to give some people their medications, which, until such time as my writing REALLY takes off, is what I'm paid to do.  I was driving back to town, and when I came over a rise, saw an unidentified object on the road.  'Oh, a rock,' I thought.  And as my vehicle got too close, the 'rock' moved.  'Oh crap!  A tortoise!' is what went through my mind, and I have never heard such a sickening crunch-splat!!! as the tyre crushed the poor thing.  And like Ken in 'A Fish Called Wanda', I was devastated.  I pulled over to collect myself, because like the fictional Ken, I was trying not to cry at having facilitated an animal's death.  I thought that maybe it was still alive, and maybe I could do something.  When practicable, I executed a U-turn ('executed' might not be a good word to use, under these circumstances) and drove back to the scene.  There was no way that unfortunate terrapin survived the tyre's impact, and I comforted myself with the thought that at least death had been quick for the poor thing. 


So, there's good things and bad things happening.  I'm trying to focus on the good.