me and babies..

I reckon I have done it. I have decided. No babies for me. None. No thankyou. Keep yours to yourself, I don’t want any.

I love my friends babies.. love them.. gorgeous little things. BUT. The stress.. golly the stress.. the smells [temporary contact with nasty nappy] and the timetable [who can freaking eat that often?!].. the centre of the universeness [he can't contribute to the conversation, yet we agree that he is the most important person in the room].. I can’t cope.

No babies thanks. I love that you have yours.. but I don’t want my own..

Funnily, Taz is a better baby person than I am. He gave little Baby A a sneaky lick on the foot from time to time.. and would run to the baby’s side if he let out a whimper. Even though in the housecleaning I had put all of Taz’s toys away so that Baby A wouldn’t want to play with them.. Taz brought them all one by one to Baby A.. and looked at him with a little worried dog face.. wanting to share.

I got a lot of joy out of seeing Taz’s behaviour this weekend.
I loved seeing my lovely mate L.. and her gorgeous good boy Baby A.. but.. I am happy with my dog, thanks.

who’s it all about..

The reason I write here so often is.. because.. It’s all about ME! And it continues to be about me until I choose for it to not be about me.

People read here, and for the thirty seconds or two minutes it takes to get to the end of a post.. it really is all about ME!

The reason I don’t speak to my family so much is that it is never about me.. it is often about them even when it is supposed to be about me. If it is not about them it is very often times all about their friends, neighbours, work colleagues or someone from the local newspaper.. it is very rarely.. if ever.. about me.

I spoke with my sister last night. I listened to her story about buying the shorts one size smaller because although she hasn’t lost weight, her frequent excercising has meant that her weight has been re-distributed.. necessitating a smaller pair of shorts. I listened to her story about how her hangover of Sunday bled into Monday.. Tuesday and manifested in something nasty on Wednesday.. I listened to her tell me about the process of mosaicing a mermaid with the kids from school.. I listened to her travel plans for today, and what she needed to pack even though she knew mum would be packing MORE and there would be no room for her stuff.

I told her my weekend performance was a success, we had 500ish there and I had some great pictures because I have a new camera.

She told me about her FRIEND who has a GREAT camera.. She told me about the course her friend did.. and that I really should do a course.. and she told me about her friend being really really a great photographer and is semi pro.. and does weddings.. and how I really should do a course at TAFE like her friend did.

I tell her there are no courses here, that I have enquired about joining a camera club.

She tells me I really really should do a course like her friend did because that has meant she is now semi pro and does weddings..

I tell her there are no courses here.. but I am looking forward to joining a camera club soon.

She tells me courses are the best to learn from.. and that I should see some of the pictures her friend has taken. And then she tells me she’ll bring some photos of the mermaid.

I feign a need to go and fix something and say that I will see her tomorrow.

I just want someone in my family to say.. ‘And how was that?’ ‘Tell me a bit more about!’ ‘That sounds really interesting.. good on you.’

My other sister is always talking with me around the conversations she has with her daughters.. you know the conversations where someone says.. ‘ Can you just hold on a second?’ 6, 7, 9 times in a conversation. The kinds of conversations you just want to hang up on.. but don’t because even though they are hurting your feelings.. you don’t want them to feel abandoned.

My brother doesn’t talk. He’s like the mute in the corner. When he does talk I love him.. He’s great. He actually has the communication thing down to an art.
I wish I was more like him. He has less of the need for it to be all about him.. he’s a bit more zen..

I want to tell you a story about a conversation I had with him which changed my heart..

mean..

Guilty pleasure..

ah-haaa moment..

It’s good, isn’t it, when you reach into your bedside drawer for your phone charger.. and spontaneously remember why you bought that vibrator in the first place..

pursuit..

I am being pursued.. by a much older woman.. and it is creeping me out.
There. I’ve said it.
It’s not cool to say it in the real to my colleagues.. it is not cool.
She has called me and called me and called me and left a drunken couple of messages after 10pm.
She’s called me drunk and when I have answered asked whether I’d like her to come over [to the gig I did on Saturday].. Sure! The more the better I think.. and then she tells me she can’t drive cos she is drunk.. and then she turns up anyway and sticks around for hours longer than she should while we pack up in the dark.. suggesting.. begging.. for me to go and stay at her house a few minutes away instead of the 40 minute drive I have to get to my place.

I am being pursued by a 16 year old gay boy.. and it is creeping me out.
It’s crossing a few of my boundaries.
He calls and says nothing.. then sends texts that say simply.. luv u x
He’s in trouble for sending pictures of his naked self to straight boys he likes. He’s a troubled kid, there is no doubt. He’s figured out by 16 where he lays in the sexual landscape.. but his sexuality [like us all I guess] is a weapon.. His ability to relate to others is limited. His childhood has been full of fear where there should have been nurturing and love.
Nonetheless. I am not a social worker. I am not his peer. I would like to be a positive influence in his life.. but I can’t commit to being that every day and after business hours.. [how crap am I? writing that down makes me feel heartless]

I call the Piano man.. call in to see him.. once a week. The friendship isn’t developing. I blame that on two things – he has no mobile phone and he has no couch.
The third is probably more the situation.. I bring him nothing. He has all he wants already and I add nothing.

Taz’s walking buddy Shelby is five times bigger than him.. There is a ritual now. Each night post walk she comes into our yard and drinks from Taz’s water bowl. Then she goes home.. as she walks out of the yard she looks over her shoulder at him a dozen times like a teenager..
This week there is a new addition to the ritual. When she is told to leave the yard she sits and leans back.. so it is impossible for her owner to move her. Shelby wants to stay with Taz. She is dragged with bent haunches to the gate. Where she sits again. She sits again on the nature strip.. and again while crossing the road.. and again on the other side of the road.
Her love for Taz and her desire not to leave him makes me near wet my pants. She is a monster beside him. She could eat him for a meal. Yet he is her one and only.
And Taz? He doesn’t care.

It’s impossible when one doesn’t match the other.

procrastination is my first name..

None of this procrastination is my middle name crap.. I have it now on my drivers license.. it’s official.. Procrastination Girl.

I have been a wee bit busy.. tired.. still walking the dog most days but not much else.
Consequently I have three weeks of housework to complete before Saturday when the scrutinous eyes of my mother descend on my little cottage.. the garden is crap [ooh - brief hiatus while I go and move the hose - last minute attempt at neat and green garden-ness] although the lawn is now mowed.
I have taken a half day to get my shit in the one sock.. but.. it’s unlikely that unless I get off the couch that anything will get done, really, is it?

For the last six months I have lived here temporarily.. my house has generally looked like someone else might walk in and take it over at any time.. but as soon as I hit six months.. I stopped feeling temporary.. and consequently the place is a pigsty. I have really burrowed in. Or maybe it has something to do with working most weekends in the lead up to the festival.. yes.. maybe that is it.

Let’s hope I get it together post festival..

Now.. last night’s poet. I have taken photos of the event.. and let’s just say he is the kind of hippy bloke I might well have avoided in the city.. but now here, I desperately crave a bit of a deviation from the mainstream. Does that make sense? Can too much mainstream kill a person?

Something I need to confess.. I particularly hate mindless, non-creative stripey hairstyles. Always have. And here I am surrounded by middle aged women with hair stripes. Navy skirt suits and hairstripes.
I am digging the fact that my gorgeous ex workmate KT will be here in less than two weeks to stay for a month. She of the dreadlocks down to her waist..

Hmm.. must move. I started this post an hour ago..

poetry..

Tonight at the poetry gig I kicked myself a hundred times..
Poet number one. He is why. [I mistakenly said here before that it was poet number two.. but.. poet number two told a story about sausages.. poet number one was the love poem] and told the tale of sharing his life with chickens and dogs..

Tonight I was wearing conservative red flat shoes, brown 3/4 skirt pants.. and baggy cardigan.. What happened to my boho chic?

He [and the chickens and dogs] lives only five minutes from me, there will be other opportunities I am sure.. *sigh*

I somehow think he would be a match for my Sparsely mate with his livestock and bucolic lifestyle..
But.
She lives far from here! If I have to fill the breach I will..
*smile*

saturday..

Saturday was great. My gig was great [I said that already].. the only thing that pissed me off was one of the caterers told me on Friday he couldn’t do the job.. changed his mind on Saturday and asked if he could come and see me down at the site.. We had been chatty, and quite truthfully I am always uber nice when I am wanting to get something out of someone..
But.. he had backed out on Friday, put me in a bad position and I wasn’t feeling so charitable when he rocked around on the day of the gig to assess whether he would set up his food stand or not.
Right.
So. He was there in front of me, two hours before the gig started.. trying to sound like he was seriously deliberating over whether it would be good business for him to set up at my gig. In my head I knew that if he didn’t have the food sorted by now there was no way he was able to set up. He made his mind up the day before.. the reason why he was in my face the day of the gig is because he wanted to check me out.
True.
Middle-aged European man. Of course that was what it was all about. And yes he had told me over the phone weeks before when I booked him that I would always get a free hot-dog at his van.. good god.. what a fuckwit.
I was quite angry.. and said.. ‘Don’t piss me off, don’t waste my time I work for Council.’ He gets a lot of his gigs through the local Council.
Anyway – he quite lazily decided that he wasn’t going to set up.. and I fed him a sinful look as I slipped into the car to go and buy provisions down the street.. and then I swore like badness for half an hour..

Yaya.. that is my story.

Ooh there is a poetry competition this evening as part of our festival. It’s a nationwide gig, and tonight it is in my town. I have written a stack of things I would dig sharing with the masses.. but.. all about rape.. teenage sex.. wearing no clothes.. nah.. mebbe not.

Festival is going like a rocket here.. we have festival junkies and all.

full of awesomeness..

Today.
Quite fucking brilliant actually.
At least 500 attended.. and around 250 made it to stumps.

Here is an image of some very unassuming [and beautiful] women who were singing gorgeous fijian gospel songs.. and then were joined onstage by a warrior!
[A mechanic at the local Toyota dealership, actually..]

Here is an image from the last event of the evening.. a beautiful play performed by the local Indigenous young people about the creation of the river [the very river you can see in the background..]

Now.. this image was taken about ten minutes before the show started.. and more and more people crammed in.. But.. you get the idea.

I couldn’t imagine a better way to end the gig..
It was pretty fucking perfect..
Even down to the look on Beryl’s [first aider] face as she told me this gig was going to be lovely and easy, someone walked up to tell us a snake had only just been killed 10 metres away.

and so it begins..

Several months ago I sat at the first meeting and suggested we create an opening.. ‘ceremony’.. Today is the day of the opening ceremony. There have been a mass of exciting moments and too many disappointments.. Which has kind of dulled my feelings to the event that will take place today. Today. It’s today. It will be what it will be.

As soon as today is over I will sleep.