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.
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