Third star to the right...

http://gypsysrest.blogspot.com/ check out my new site, and my new life to be...

A NEW New Chapter

You realise (pending finance) I'm going to have to create a whole NEW blog for my whole NEW life.

I have a 'family & friends' blog but it's not polite to slag your children's father endlessly on a site he reads, or to talk about sex to your oh-so-Catholic-we-do-it-we-just-don't-talk-about-it Aunty.
I like blogger for that reason.

So what will I name my new blog?
I think I will call it 'Gypsy's Rest'...unless some other bastard already has the frigging name. LOL

See you in the future!

Done Deal!

That's it - it's a done deal, contracts signed and I'm packing boxes now!
Here comes another one, just like the other one...just point me in the new direction, wind me up and watch me go.

The crazy newspaper lady has refused to work with me - after organising for them to hire me, for me to help her, and begging for time off, she has refused to take holidays, hand over layout to me...oh, and generally slandered me shamelessly.
Now she's guaranteed that she'll get the paper done in time (on a long weekend, silly girl) or her neck's on the block.
Three members of her managing committee quit during the two and half hour 'intervention' they had today but, the important part is...
I WILL HAVE MY FIRST LONG WEEKEND OFF IN MORE THAN 10 YEARS!

Of course, I will be using that time to catch up on housework, box up as much as I can fit in my car, help my parents finish their business plan, drive my children all over the country...before travelling to the Outback to 'consult' on the newspaper without, in any way, upsetting the incumbent or implying that she can't do her bloody job...and then hiring a trailer to get the last of my stuff back from where my ex dumped it all at his mate's house.

If I'm feeling really shitty, I might even just leave his stuff there (considering he's too busy with his NEW life to ever get there himself - deja vu for the man who moved in with me with a single bag of belongings) and just take mine and the kids' straight to the 'new home'.

Sadly, while that would be fair (considering he took the dog and his clothes and left everything else he was supposed to be bringing down to me without even warning me he was moving and the kids would be visiting him at a new house on weekends) I'm not really interested in furthering the war we're only just recovering from.
Of course, in my deepest, darkest heart I can chortle about having the OPTION to do those nasty, vengeful things.

Insert small, wicked chortle here.

Count Down

So we're counting down...
The offer's been made, looks like it'll be accepted even, and then I'll be hanging up my mightier-than-the-sword pen and picking up a hairnet and plastic gloves...and not even the interesting kind of plastic gloves. LOL

So I'm going to say goodbye to my almond trees and my fallen-down house on the hill and my old dreams (as well as a few disappointments and broken promises, just a little reality check for this little nostalgia trip) and start fresh.
Ocean fresh...like the CleanSeas tuna I'll be living a few waves away from eh?

I'll be able to grow frangipani, but probably not tulips.
The kids will see their Dad, but I won't have to.
I'll meet lots of new people - although they'll only talk to me long enough to get their hot chips or ice creams or road maps.

You know what I worry about - it's silly I know - but the things that make me amazing - my writing, my ability to talk about anything (even if it's all crap), my art, my music, my ideas - they're not actually going to be showcased in a shop are they?
So what kind of new friends am I going to make?
Who is going to find me interesting when I'm just a face above an apron?

But then, maybe it's the opportunity to stop writing news, and start writing novels?
Do it for love and fun, not for a wage.

I pulled the Death Card today.
And the nine of pentacles.
The conclusion of one stage of life, and a new security gained for myself.

It's nice to have a new direction, it's just a bit sad to let go of the old one.
My kids will love their new school and I will love being near beaches again and my family.
And, let's face it, I'm ready to throw away the teaching plans and look at something that suits me better (and is tax deductible) like tourism.

I love the idea of being with kids, but, after reading my course outline, I struggle with all the steps to getting there.
All the 'stages of development' and 'mandatory reporting' - I just like to read to kids, and talk about bilbies, and play playdoh, and teach them to cook, and glue sparkly things on paper - and those things don't come in a recognised course, sadly (The Six Essential Stages of Foil & Glitter Collage).

My friend Vanity is reading this right now and feeling very smug...I'll let that go this time. LOL My answer is, I tried to find a 'sensible' solution for my future, but 'sensible' doesn't always cut it with me.

I have a friend who finished her teaching degree, walked into her new classroom on the first day, left at lunchtime and never came back.
That image sticks in my mind some days when I'm waiting for my course books to arrive.
On the other hand, I have a wonderful teacher brother - who just happens to be teaching the 'it's not like that' witch's kids at the moment.
So I know it can be great too.

If we get the business, the house isn't anything special, but it's tidy and just the right size and there's a garden I can make my own and an outdoor area I can personalise.
The Kids will have their own rooms (and half a chance to keep them clean) and I'll have the chance to get rid of everything in my life that I don't specifically love or need.
I'll be settled so I can go back to growing my own herbs and vegies and have an oven to cook real meals in again.

Mum and Dad and I are halfway through a business plan already - despite all three of us coming from such different directions and making each other crazy with all the double-talk - and that part's exciting because I love the mechanics of business, and I've learned so much from the newspaper that I want to put into practice.

The Kids and I are still on hold here.
"Don't put in any plants, don't start any projects, don't unpack too much"...it'll be nice to be settled again for a while.

The Kids can join sport and music and dancing, I can study and occasionally have a child-free weekend or afternoon (love them as I do, that would be nice too) although it's not being child-free but being adult-with that's the issue.
I miss my friends. I miss being important to someone else's fun.

There might even be dancing down there for me, I know there's a singing group, or maybe I'll pull out my paints and pastels again - that's what people do at the beach (at least when it's too cold to swim) eh?
Maybe I'll sell the finished products to gullible tourists in the shop - LOL.

So many good things - I've always been lucky that way.
I've always had so many good things in my life.
I guess, when I finally have my big yard sale before I move - hopefully I'll get rid of a whole lot of baggage with the boxes.
Fingers crossed.

Funny how I smile most of the time now, how I don't dread real life any more, don't flinch if someone flirts with me...but when I get in a car to drive somewhere, or my fingers get typing, other stuff comes out of me.
The subconscious is a strange country - I'm looking forward to the day when my temporary visa expires and I go back to being shallow and uncomplicated all over again.

A summary...

Labor - Liberal
Tomatoe - Tomato
Let's call the whole thing off...

The Nature of Newspapers and Nutters

Journalism, the media, print in particular...is there any other industry in the world that attracts so many just, plain crazy people?

Does the job do it to you?
Is it the stress of deadlines and public scrutiny and constantly juggling ethics and sales targets at the same time?

Or do we take these jobs because it's already in us - that little twist?
Face it, you have to be an idealist or an opportunist to survive for any time in the field.
But you don't have to be qualified, or even good at your job, you just have to insanely obsessed with other people's lives...as stories mind you, not real people.
If you think about your 'sources' as people for too long it's hard to keep your objectivity.

This is the second or third time I've met a would-be journalist, well entrenched in a position, with a news sense but no sense of propriety.
I've met a couple of talented, educated journos as well who were all the more frightening simply because the idea that they got that far up the media ladder with so many 'kinks' is plain frightening.

The woman I'm supposed to be bossing around right now is the most frightening because she just glazes over when she's confronted with her own faults or mistakes.
I estimated she's spent eight hours of the past 48 on the phone to three different people, myself included, whinging about how she doesn't have time to do the work in front of her.

Now, considering my own long-running history strapped to a keyboard on a community newspaper, I'd be a lot more sympathetic, EXCEPT THAT I'M DOING HER JOB FOR HER!

What's really terrifying is, I can see myself in this woman.
I can see the terror of looming deadlines, procrastination, self-loathing and inability to fulfill a goal that should be achieveable...which, of course, you just don't want to admit.
Been there, done that, bought the T-shirt.
But in her, it's MAGNIFIED...

So, here I am, with my kids home from school, squished up on my Mum's computer because, quite simply, if I take the five hours to drive home the paper won't get out, sending completed pages to a madwoman who refuses to open her email because her arm hurts and emails take up too much of her time.

I'm starting to feel a little glazed myself.
I've finished two cartons of CocaCola in three days, written half a business plan, done an inspection of a business that I'm not sure I'm capable of driving, not to mention the 15 hours I have spent with my parents going over and over and OVER every detail of the POSSIBLE purchase of said business.
In between I've still managed to do a big part of the Mummy duties, but not all...Mum and The Man have both had the kids for a big part of the past four days or so.
I've called in a friend to feed my animals back home, I've talked to a MILLION people in a tiny town 600km away that I've only been to twice and now...I am going to bed.

I'm sure I wrote a blog a little while back about how I love newspapers.
I take it back.
I take it ALL back!

Technologically Challenged

I should only ever be allowed to type on computers - never anything else.
All my files should be locked and all my cords duct-taped in place.

In an effort to clear some space on my hard drive (is my lingo wrong, probably) I started killing temporary files, moved up to program files and somehow found myself in the cyber-land of no return where, in a frenzy of deleting I somehow made it impossible for my computer to EVEN RECOGNISE THE EXISTENCE OF A HARD DRIVE.

Yes, problem, especially with a new contract to save a certain Outback community newspaper.
To make it worse, I've discovered that job's not going to be easy while I have to rely on the newspaper's local incumbent...she's not happy about me taking the job and telling her what to do.
She's not happy if I don't do the layout, she's not happy if I do do the layout, she doesn't have story lists or ad lists and she doesn't have time to send me the classifieds because then she'll be up all night...of course, if I don't do the damn page she'll be up all night anyway.
Stupid COW!
How do these women (and I include myself in this one) find their way into newspapers?

So, today, after I got my computer back and actually started yelling at her, sending her story lists and demands and calling in all the local committee members to go around and bang on her door...she went to bed 'sick'.
Now - I know that kind of 'sick', it's deadline sickness, I've had it many a time and sat at a computer board crying that I would NEVER EVER FINISH THIS PAPER!
It's also a self-fulfilling prophecy, because if you don't actually get your arse out of bed you really never do finish the paper.

I'm actually dealing quite well with the 'Dark Side' - SA's country media moguls who print this particular publication and would be relieved to just take the whole thing over.
They've been very helpful and supportive, although we did have a tense moment today when I had to explain that no, my last newspaper project was not a Council-funded organisation and I was never paid a wage by my local Council in my role as Editor and could they please stop spreading that slander around because, after three and a half years (six months of which I worked for free) I still take it quite personally.

So, basically, I had to dob on her to her bosses.
And I was already two computer-less days behind.
I now realise that my main role will be to ride her arse like an three-corner-jack on a whaler...every day.

And what she doesn't realise is I'm copying every email over to her bosses.
They're copying every one to me, as well as all the comments from the 'Dark Side'.
And, no matter how much and who she slags (and that's ALL of us so far, just depending on the audience) we're still going to do it MY WAY!

It's nice to be doing something I'm good at again.
It's nice to be God again.
...and I'm ready to do some SMITING!

What is the World Coming To?

Well, back to politics.
(And personally, I see this as a positive sign, my renewed interest in the world outside my own head).

So, an Indonesian newspaper has published a satirical cartoon depicting John Howard and Alexander Downer as slavering dingoes 'mounting each other'.
Now, to be fair, Mr Howard has basically replied to the media's hysteria with the very Aussie 'get over it'.
Up my way, however, local news stations were appalled at the evil Indonesian media's bad taste and political shortsightedness in depicting our national treasures in such an unflattering light.
Ignoring the entire issue surrounding the cartoon - the Papua New Guineans and their refugee visas, the withdrawal of ambassadors, even the long-running historical issues of 'oh sorry we couldn't help you with that little Indonesian invasion last Century, Mr Hawke was busy, and if you find our missing journalist please send him home'.

According to the ABC online...
"In relation to the cartoons, well I've been in this game a long time, if I got offended about cartoons golly, heavens above, give us a break,"Mr Howard said.
Mr Downer says the cartoon is tasteless.
He says people can choose to publish tasteless and grotesque cartoons in a free society

Now, don't quote me on this, but isn't one of the Western world's biggest complaints about Indonesia the continued evidence of empire building, a trend towards dictatorships and...ohmiGod...even CENSORSHIP!
And here we are condemning a newspaper for printing (gasp gasp) distasteful political commentary in the form of a CARTOON!
What would Larry Flynt say, really.

And let's remember, there are no actual laws to protect free speech in Australia - just conventions, which many heretofore unnamed media barons have done their best to circumvent.
(Long live the Goanna?)

My least-favourite lecturer at Uni taught me, what I now believe is, the most valuable lesson I ever learned.
Free speech means even the wankers get a say...and let's face it, they're always the first ones to pull up the soapbox.
(And yes, I am not unaware of the irony of me writing this - but, please, let's move on)

So, what's the world coming to if Aussies are upset at someone taking a poke at the pollies?
The Indonesians aren't saying anything we haven't said a million times, about our own politicians - not to mention theirs, and the rulers of every other nation on Earth - so, this is really a wonderful step towards multicultural understanding.
(Ask ME about Indonesia's role as the world's last empire-builders and you'll hear much worse language than dingo-rooter).

The upside of this whole issue is that Australia and Indonesia now, agree on something.
The avenues of communication are now, finally, open...
Let's reopen trade, we can bitch about the Yanks together, it's all good.

And what I REALLY want is to find a site with this damn cartoon on it.
Someone send me a link!
And where are the Chinese cartoons, the Bosnian commentaries, the Haiti satires?
What's the big fucking deal?
In what may be, to date, Mr Howard's most profound public statement to date - golly, heavens above, give us a break!

Winged Ones

Some days I look at my children and I feel all heavenly and divine, like the Madonna (the Christian maternal icon, not the pointy-boobed popster).
On those days my children are angels.

Today, in the car to my parent's home I felt like the Wicked Witch of the West (Coast) and they were my little flying monkeys.
And now, I have unleashed them on Nanna and Grumpy - "fly my pretties, fly!"

Recounting this observation to my friend Vanity, she decided that she was WitchiePoo...I'm still not sure whether that makes her husband Puff 'n' Stuff or the Magic Flute...and I'm not asking.

Fishing Expedition

So, tomorrow I'm off on another 'fishing expedition' for my NEW new future.
I am going to the West Coast to look at the business my parents want to buy.
It comes with a house, a beach, and built-in babysitters at the end of the road.
The wage is still being negotiated...LOL.
So, I'm going to go with my notepad and my business ideas and my keen and enquiring mind and basically scare the shit out of these people so they drop the price by $40,000.
Cross your fingers & wish me luck...

The Lure of News

God I still love newspapers.
Part of my masochistic 'love what you shouldn't have' personality I think.

I'm consulting for a tiny little community newspaper up further in SA's desert than my own paper, and it's in DEEP SHIT!
And I just LOVE the idea of making it work.
I've got two months to do a comprehensive breakdown and offer them some solutions or it's going to be sold, basically, or more like absorbed into a big corporation.
Which would be a shame because it's the ONLY committee-owned newspaper in SA and only one of three that isn't owned by Rural Press or the Murray Press group.

Well - better find myself a SWOT model because my report is all to men and we know how they love those pretty charts and pie-graphs.
Time to get started while the kids are having afternoon iceblocks and cartoon wind-downs with their 'babies'.

LiarsCheats&Bastards.com

When my husband cheated on me with one of our oldest friends, I wallowed in a little fantasy of setting up a website where you could post people who had shitted you off.
It would be set up like a geneaology site, so you'd post a photo, a full name and an 'anecdote'.
Then, when people googled that person's name for things like, oh, I don't know, reference checks - they'd discover that that person on LiarsCheats&Bastards.com.
I'm thinking, that kind of thing would speed up regulation of the internet pretty damn quickly, but in the meantime you could post your bastard boss, your lying husband or your nagging neighbour.
There'd be so many less porsches trashed, speedboats spraypainted, left shoes destroyed...just harmless words on a page.

The advertising potential is incredible too.
All those 'is your partner cheating on you' sperm detection kits, DNA determination companies, private investigators, 'decoy' girls...
If I get real low on cash, I think I'll have to keep this one in mind.

Privacy

I have recently been discovering just how easy it is to find someone in this age of technology.
Working at my local Federal Electorate Office I recently found out that one of the biggest issues to come through the office is unsolicited phone calls.
There is currently a bill being drafted whereby people will be able to be on a 'don't contact' register.

At the same time, we were writing an article about NetAlert and I was saying how you can find anyone on the net eventually - with all the school newsletters and business websites floating around cyberspace.
I got on a bit of a roll and started looking up old friends, people I'd known at uni, ex-boyfriends, and even some people that I'd secretly been hoping had died and I'd see their name next to an obituary - no such luck, sadly.
Now, when I see a name that looks familiar, I tend to look for more info on them.
I even emailed one person who emailed me back from Canada - which was pretty cool.

A friend of mine - someone I rediscovered by searching ICQ and cross-referencing it with the White Pages, in fact (see, I told you only people with no life and no real live friends live this much on the net) - got an eyeopener when he dropped into an electoral office in Canberra for me.
He discovered just how easy it is to find someone.
He also discovered a man sitting on the computer next to him with a big list and a laptop, ticking off names and typing in addresses.
I suggested debt collector - we're also working on the theory that the bloke was a fanatic terrorist making his own 'black list' of dissenting political figures.

The only person I'm having trouble finding is in her 80s and, last thing I heard from her, bed-ridden - she doesn't seem to be surfing the net at all, partly a generational thing (which, to be honest, wouldn't really apply to Dixie as she's the most amazing person in the world and a total information junkie) and, I'm thinking, probably a capability thing.
I hate to think that when I find her finally it'll be next to an obituary notice.
But, ironically, she's been a journo for so many years that she was the one person who had her details supressed on the electoral roll.
(Kisses to D for making the effort to go into the office and look up her name for me!)

And yet, last night I had a phone call from someone who told me they'd got my phone number from a 'public database' and wanted to know if there was anyone living at the next house over?
They did not tell me where they were from, but I thought I recognised the name from a conversation I'd had with my electricity provider earlier in the day, and then asked me if I knew any members of my neighbour's family.
That kind of thing shits me!

Of course, that's exactly how I tracked down my own half-sister, and I've been known to ring local pubs to get in contact with someone for a news story - so I'm not exactly talking from any high moral ground here.
But nonetheless...privacy is an illusion.
You don't even have to buy into the big conspiracy Big Brother eye-in-the-sky theories, you just have to drop into your local electoral office with a laptop and a list.

When my family started tracing their geneaology we even found an Uncle from a second family my Grandfather had on the go in Germany, in addition to his 11 kids in Wales.
There are no skeletons in closests any more - they're all flying around in cyberspace.

So...unless you ARE hoping someone from your past will find you.
You CAN get your name & number left out of the White Pages without being unlisted.
You CAN suppress your electoral roll details.
Soon, you CAN stop service providers calling you at home (keep an eye on that bill).
And you should definitely Google your own name - it's very revealing.
One day, there will be NO secrets...keep that in mind if you have children of your own.

Talent? Or Good Old Depression?

A friend just commented to me that some of my best writing happens when I'm 'down'.
It's the 'tortured artist' complex I guess. Think Sylvia Plath and Toulouse Lautrec.
And it must have some validity because those mates I have that I correspond mostly with by email or on-line tend to disappear when their lives are going well.
Better things to do, I guess.
Good on 'em too.

What a Woman Wants

I am supposed to be catching up on the latest household disaster that built around me during my most recent 'down' phase so that the real estate agents can come around and tell me that I'll never cover my loan the way this place is now

I so don't want to give up on this place, I don't want to lose on it, I'm crying all the damn time, I don't want to move again, I am SO TIRED! So broke and so DAMN OLD!

I wish I could just sleep the next 12 months away and wake up to a Prince Charming who knows how to pack a fucking box.

Of course...then I'd just be older.

And another one...

Racism...forgot that one.
It's been a long time since I pulled out my soapbox.

The BHV sister-in-law is my favourite target. The woman who wanted to know how a bunch of 'slopes' could run a French Bread Shop. Totally ignoring the fact that the incredibly lovely and hard-working family were Vietnamese and their anscestors had lived under French colonialism for centuries.
In fact, totally ignoring the fact that her own, very white brother cooked in a Chinese Restaurant for two years.
The woman who referred to her own Aunty as a 'coon' and resented her cousins receiving Austudy, but is now collecting a pension, working under the counter and collecting maintenance from three guys.
This is the woman whose daughter I bought a black babydoll for.
She's got another daughter these days, and another child on the way - time to buy a 'Hambel' doll I think. Then the girls can learn ALL the good words, really early on.
Hopefully the next baby's a boy - I'll send him a tutu and a fairywings and we can get started on gay rights really early.

Why bother with racism?
There's enough wankers in the world to denigrate - who needs to categorise them by colour-of-skin or place-of-birth?
Again, it's probably just like sport - it's easier to pick 'the enemy' if you give them their own uniform.

Subjects to avoid...

You know, I've discussed politics. Mine & other people's...and of course, The Lorax's.
We've looked at Infidelity.
Sexuality.
Divorce and Single Motherdom.
We've slagged off public figures, slagged off not-so-public-until-now figures.
About time we got around to religion don't you think?

I'll work on that one...I'm surprised I haven't got there yet.
Oh yes, there was the time I made my school pastor cry.
I have that effect on lots of people though, so we'll skip over that one.
Poor man has more souls than just mine to despair over these days - I went to my 10-year-school reunion, I know.

And the time we made The Girl cry because we wouldn't let her do her 'homework' provided by a visiting Bishop who wanted her to do a fun word puzzle that required her to change 'sad' to 'fun' in five easy steps, by changing a letter each time.
You should have heard the volcano in the kitchen when The Man realised the middle word was 'sin' - "my five-year-old does not need to know the word SIN!"
More interesting was the lecture he gave the local chaplain when she introduced herself at Sports Day - and then the two other mums on either side who piped up when they heard the conversation to discuss how insistent their own kids had been about the 'homework'.

Then there was the little talk I had with the Reception teacher about, yes, of course we should learn the historical origin of Easter and Christmas.
But when was someone going to teach my kids about the Festival of Lights or Chinese New Year?
And if I really wanted a Christian education for my children, wouldn't I have sent them across the road to the Catholic School?

I have terrible trouble answering my children's questions.
The Man had some pretty extreme beliefs about cloning and ancient Sumerian legends (pretty big leap for a guy who studied for the Seminary) and while I believe in moral action and the laws of social cohesion, I don't really need a religious structure or deity to legitimise those convictions for myself.
I believe that life goes on, no matter what, and that people seek order and build structures, because that's in their nature, and we all want to believe we're important.
I believe Jesus of Nazareth and Mohammed and Buddha and even Confucious were charismatic leaders with many worthy beliefs that I also, collectively, endorse.
But Hitler and Stalin and Martin Luther King and Malcolm X and Ghandi and even Dubya are 'charismatic' leaders - we, living in their times, still mostly undiluted by human censorship, would we call them divine?
Will someone else, one day, do exactly that?

I think of it as 'the Good Old Days' complex.
Everything was better in 'the Good Old Days'.
No, probably not, but if it was a long time ago then it's a lot fuzzier and that's always more attractive - ask Diana Ross and her policy on stockings and vaseline on camera lenses. FUZZY, not fantastic!

I write for a living.
I watch stories I've collected, change and twist and come out of someone else's mouth four people down the line - and that's in a matter of days.
Don't ever hand me a book and tell me it's The Truth.
It's only words - good words, bad words, meaninful words - that bit's up to you decide.

Although, you know, when I meet someone who truly has faith, who has somewhere in side to go to find peace when the world doesn't make sense...it makes me a little jealous.
There's got to be a certain freedom in handing over responsiblity to some greater, grander I AM to sort things out.
Imshallah!

My Dad gave me my understanding of Imshallah when he told about being with the British Army selling planes with new, fantastic weapons systems to Saudis.
After watching the Saudi pilot fly over the target twice without testing the weapon, he quizzed him on the ground why he hadn't fired.
The pilot hadn't known he had to press the little red button.
Imshallah - he proclaimed.
They obviously weren't meant to purchase these weapons.
That moment stuck in my Dad's head, and always stuck in mine - I guess we're too much alike that way.
Too big a bunch of fighters, pushers, questioners...maybe it comes of growing up in a town where recycling isn't throwing your Coke cans in the yellow bin, it's building homes out of mud and straw, where conservation isn't planting trees, it's riding out on surfboards to spraypaint slogans on the side of nuke ships.

If there is a God? And we're created in his image? Doesn't that mean he's a fighter too?

I just think religion is a little too much like Rugby League teams.
Whichever colour your wearing, it's your job to beat the crap out of the other team in other colours, but, let's face it, when they get back to the hotel rooms and the locker rooms they don't act all that different.

What the Hell are you Doing?

Who are you people?
How did you find this site?
What the hell are you doing in front of a computer screen instead of out having an exciting life?
Worse - what are you doing reading my sad, self-obsessive crap for?
You're all masochists!
PUT...THE MOUSE...DOWN!

I know what I'm doing here, it's bloody scary though to find out so many people are out there watching me do it. (There's so many innuendos that could fit, right here, but apparently my Mum reads this blog too - and my Aunties, and a couple of their neighbours, and someone's sister in Manchester, and some cousins in Wales I never met and who probably think my hair is really that colour and I look that good from any other angle - in fact, it's getting quite bloody busy in my little corner of cyberspace)

I thought I was anonymous, then I saw the temporary counter tick over, and started getting messages from other (perfectly nice, I must say) blog-addicted people.
I didn't blog for a month after that.

You know, one day someone will document these blogs - like they do in Anne McCaffrey's short stories, and psychoanalyse the whole 21st century through our little narcissistic ravings.
I pity the poor bastard who gets my site to sort out - how's about a game of emotional ping pong then?

But, it's a good hobby for me.
I'm too busy obsessing about myself to go around judging anyone else right at this moment.
Of course, that's cut off a lot of the gossip supply to some good friends but, hey, we all make sacrifices eh?

This is my attempt to beat kharma - harmless self-obsession is better than gratuitous obsession with everyone else's life...at least, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

...so what's your excuse?

Dear Kids

I'm writing my kids a letter.
It has all the wonderful memories of their Dad and me, so they don't ever think it was worth nothing.
So that they'll know we were special once.

It's a nice place to put the good memories when they come.
Leaves me some empty spaces for new good memories.

New Directions...AGAIN

Well, that's it, I'm pointing myself in a new direction again...and God I'm not looking forward to moving all over again, by myself, again.
I'm moving, throwing in the hilltop home dream for a beachside business possibility.
Closer to family, a chance to make new friends, maybe even get a tan and show off this new slightly more svelte figure - but it's so hard to start over AGAIN, even if this time it will be a fresh start with fewer old ties, both financial and emotional.

I'm tired. If only I was rich (or even just not in debt) and could afford a removalist this time around.
The Real Estate agent is going to come tomorrow and tell me I'll be lucky to cover my loan, let alone the money we've put in getting this place back down to bare bones.
And that's the problem, that's all it is now, bare bones and holes - you could call it a blank canvas but they don't usually have so many rocks and old pieces of plumbing to move.

I love this place, I love the trees and the view and the fireplaces and all the dreams and the almond trees which are pink and white like all those Japanese cherry tree paintings I loved to look at, growing up.
I loved the idea of finally, having a home, where I picked paint colours and planted gardens and had daffodils and tulips under my almond trees in spring.

But I can't do it alone, and I want some help - I want to be near my family and know that when I'm feeling like an old harpy the kids have Nanna or Grumpy or their Uncle and Aunty down the road to make them smile.
I don't want them to ever be lonely, and I think if we stay here - too close to The Man's family who, for so many reasons, aren't going to spend time with The Kids, too far from The Man who has a new life to go to where he can forget about me, and too wrapped up around me and my uncertainties - then they will be.
And I won't be enough, because one person just cant' be - not all the time.

I always wanted them to grow up with boats and dolphins and fishing trips and crabbing and digging with their toes for pipis - like I did.
This will be their chance.
I'd go back to NSW or somewhere totally new but I can't afford it and as much as I'd like to ditch any memory of him right now and run I can't take The Kids away from their Dad...and I'd still not have family to support me over there.
Maybe later, when the kids are older I can go back to papers in some pretty little town on the East coast somewhere.
Or WA - I'd love to see Margaret River or Monkey Mia.

Right now, I just want to know there's a job and a house waiting for me where I can buy curtains to make it pretty - I don't first have to replace the windows and plaster the walls.
That would have been wonderful, to build something with someone working beside me, but we just weren't capable of it.

It's not the easy way out - it's going to be a right pain in the arse.
But it's probably the cleanest way out.
The school we're looking at is bigger with all sorts of music and gifted programs for The Kids, who look like they need it just to not be bored - and it's a huge sporting community.
I won't be surrounded ONLY by retirees (don't get me wrong, there'll be a hell of a lot of them but I'll be close to Port Lincoln and that seems like a cool place) and I might make some new friends - ones I don't have to TYPE TO...

How did I become so plebian?
Since I was seven years old and I read my first National Geographic (which I have an identical copy of, hidden in a box under my bed) about two journalists and their experiences in the Amazon, I have wanted to travel. There was a photo of them sheltering under a giant fern leaf in the rain and their story was more interesting than all the articles put together.

Until The Kids came along, I have moved every time I felt like it, always had a job and a new adventure to go to, never thought twice about starting over again (to be fair, sometimes to the detriment of The Man whose been looking to put down roots all his life)...it's amazing how, as soon as the kids were born I just clicked into being someone else, and I wasn't very good at it.
I always feel like I'm compromising myself by staying put - but this is what I want for my kids, and it's only a little part of my life isn't it? It's not a big part of my life, but it is a hugely important one.
I love them so much it vibrates in my skin and it doesn't matter that I haven't written my books yet, or studied for a long time, or volunteered overseas to get that experience I need to set up third-world communication networks (big plans? oh no, not me).

But I've been asking myself for a while..."When did I ever want just security and sameness?"
And why, when it was on offer, did I not know how to just grab hold of it and build on it?

These are things I will take with me and know better next time...hopefully.
I'm not much of a 'dater' though, and I can't see myself ever being swept off my feet again.
You only get one 'thunderbolt' in your lifetime I think - the danger is there's a lot of lightning when there's thunderbolts.

The odds aren't good you know, they reckon more second marriages fail than first, and more third marriages than seconds.
God knows I'd never get married again. I wasn't that sure the first time although I loved feeling married - and I still think if I'd saved the money on the wedding I was so keen on and got on that plane the week BEFORE Ansett crashed we would have had a great time.

I'm damn sure I don't want someone else in my kids' lives that I don't know - and where's the time to get to know someone when you're raising kids?

Christ - right now I don't even like the idea of getting naked in front of someone who didn't contribute to these stretch marks.
What's the use of being with someone who doesn't at least REMEMBER that your boobs used to point north before they headed south?

It's all crap you know...all this ranting and moaning.
The world's still turning and I go on...I just barrel ahead like I always do, but this time I'll be dragging the cherubs along with me.
Hobby Farm Hopefuls is about to be over.
Time for a sea change.
A fresh start...Again.
How many do you think someone gets in one lifetime?

Green Thumbs

I'm too organised for my own good these days.
I've got the kids so wrapped up in my routines, that when they go away my plants wilt and the chooks and cats get their breakfast late.
I don't know whether I'm teaching them to contribute to their home and household, or just using them as child slave labour.
But then...whatever works eh?

I've lost my green thumb though.
Can't even grow alfalfa sprouts at the moment.
I'm sure Kay Cottee could never have fended off scurvy with this green, algae-looking scum in a jar.

Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson Knew What he Was Talking About

Ever hear that song by Kevin 'Bloody' Wilson - 'stick that fucking phone, up your fucking arse'?
I emphathise so much after this weekend.

Imagine this, how about paying a fortune to log onto ISDN (the only broadband-style service available up here in the hills) and finding out that Telstra will only come one day in 14 to this area, turning down work to be at home, having to talk to 14 (I kid you not) operators to set the system up yourself while the technician stands behind you watching...and then, discover at midnight when you're downloading the 24 newspaper pages you've just been contracted to rescue, that Telstra has a new policy of putting everyone's account on a 12-hour-hold while they check your credit details to avoid fraudulent accounts being set up.

Of course, one of my IT-savvy friends suggested that maybe they were just sick of me and thought if they could put me off until after the weekend I'd go away and stop harassing their staff.
Quite possible - after all, all those diversions to India must cost them a lot of money!

Melodians - Musical Spit Catchers

I was watching a man on TV playing the melodian the other night, behind a 90s-style folk song.

We had melodians in fourth grade (hello Mrs Jobson, I still remember you if you're out there) - a little keyboard with a squishy pipe tube which you blew into like a bagpipe to power the keys.
I guess it was an attempt to save on batteries and still teach 24 little pre-teens a keyboard.
But tell me, of all the instruments int the world, why would you give primary school students something that is intrinsically designed to collect spit and then shared around to other kids...FOR GENERATIONS.
I bet you they still have those bastard things at Mullumbimby Primary School.

These days, if the asthmatics didn't get them banned then they'd be thrown out as a Hep C risk.
Oh, how the world has changed.

Oedipal Complex

It seems that the 'boob magnet' gene runs in families - families where the girls have boobs, the boys gro up wanting them. Or at least, to touch them...on other people's sisters and daughters of course...let me just make that very clear, it's not THAT kind of blog site thankyou very much.

How many nights did I wake up with The Man's hand on one breast and The Boy's on the other?
Can you get more Oedipal than that...especially now that The Man is actually gone.

Well, it's all Greek to me sometimes.

Sold My Soul

Hello, we're back again!
I'm officially at home on line now.
I wasn't able to access Yahoo while working at the Last Great Bastian of Liberal Policy-Making...for some reason the Australian Government's SOE blocks yahoo sites of all kinds - go figure.

So, you want to hear how desperate I am for work - this weekend I volunteered (yes, you read right) to hand out 'how to vote Liberal' cards at my local polling booth. (If volunteering means glancing around with shifty eyes and sheepishly answering 'sure' when the State campaign manager catches you working in the Federal Liberal Electorate office and asks you in front of your staunchly Liberal co-workers whether you'd mind showing your support for the party at your tiny hamlet's polling booth).

The Kids came down with me.
Of course, the funniest bit is that the whole time I was there The Kids were brawling and covering themselves in Commonwealth Games mascot iceblocks, and I didn't realise but the pair of them were sitting in front of the 'Family First' propaganda - they even left green and gold fingerprints on the signs.
A little bit of hands-on family life might actually make a few naifs think twice about voting for THAT party.

But on the way home, The Kids asked me who I voted for and I told them the Greens, because, like The Lorax, they "speak for the trees".
I don't think I'll have a job at the Bastian next week...LOL.

Of course, if the Greens get in in a landslide, I apologise right now to all my lovely Roxby Downs friends who will be suddenly out of work when the no uranium mining policy comes into place.
Sorry - can't win 'em all!

And in the Upper House - I numbered every one of those 54 boxes and felt so sorry for whichever poor bastard has to check that you've numbered them all correctly.
Wouldn't you feel inclined to just go 'dud vote' every time you saw one of those conscientiously-ticked ballots? "Oops, there's another loser who can't count - file that in the round file'.

And if all my independents get in - No Pokies, No Guns, No Nukes, No Drugs, No Live Exports, No Battery Hens, No Abortion, No Fun at All For Anyone...oh, except for the sheep and hens of course.

Bathroom Basketball

I hung a toy basketball ring in my shower last week.
This is my attempt at improving the kids' coordination.
Of course, I'm not sure how encouraging them to run around chasing a slippery ball in a soapy, tiled room will help them.
After all, repeated concussion - and the resulting brain damage - doesn't necessarily perpetuate good motor skills.

Spideropolis

The Boy was scavenging under his bed to pick up his giant toy tarantula (which I stole for him one halloween from a pub party)...and it moved!

We are living in Spideropolis.

Getting Better

After the kids, after I went back to work with both of them, I think I got really sick.
My shrink keeps talking about Post-Natal Depression and I get my back up because he doesn't seem to understand that the kids were the one thing that shone a little light in my life.
They were the thing that kept me going, and gave me smiles, and provided me with the affection I needed.
Although, yes, occasionally I wanted to run screaming a million miles away from them just to be able to breathe without little hands on me.

I remember trying to explain to The Man that I'd lost all ability to prioritise.
Everything had become a job, just one more voice demanding something from me, one more job I might fail at because there wasn't enough time in the day.
So while he was falling apart because the woman he loved didn't spend any time with him, didn't want to be with him- the truth is I couldn't manage anything.
Every person, every friend, every event, every job, was just one more loud buzz in my head screaming 'hurry up, look at me, do this NOW'.
I isolated myself, I gave up all sport and the gym, eventually the singing collapsed and the work kept getting bigger and I never went away for a weekend in case the world collapsed while I was sitting on a beach somewhere.

So it's not just The Man's fault that my life fell apart.
And it's hard to say, but I was sick, really sick, and no one could fix it for me - and that killed him too. And me.
So now I'm getting better, and I don't want to work that hard again, ever, I don't want things to get on top of me, I don't want to cry about going to work and stay up nights because I took three hours out of my day to be with my kids before bedtime and now I have to catch up on something else.
I don't want to be looking at a computer screen, crying, because I'm so tired I can't spell and there's no one else to do that job for me.
I want to take my kids to ballet or cricket and just sit, and enjoy them, not try and squeeze two jobs in while they're running around.

In the rest of my life, for the rest of my life, there will be holidays and swimming, dancing and sport, weekends for 'catching up', time to do dishes and go to the movies - not one or the other.
I never want to feel that sick again.
And it's always going to be there, isn't it? It's always going to be in me. So I'm going to have to draw my boundaries every day of my life, for the rest of my life - my new, happier life.

Shake Your Jiggly Bits

Bellydancing was a BALL!
Well not literally - it was a 'Belladee' - which is the same thing but for bellydancers.
Actually a 'Belladee' is a lot like an 80s disco where you all stand in a circle clapping while the popular kids take turns in the middle busting their moves.

Apparently, I am a 'natural'.
I'd be more impressed by that comment if my instructor wasn't a 60-year-old Irish woman who learnt to bellydance in a 40-minute workshop at the same community hall I'm learning in.

Anyway - does a 'natural' just mean I've got a belly? LOL
My Dad could be a 'natural' then.
'Norm' could be a 'natural'.

But it was exercise and music and giggly, girly fun - all of which I needed.
Same time, same place, next Tuesday.

Sick to the Guts

It makes me sick to the guts that I can't offer these kids the family they deserve.
Not that we were a healthy family before, with all our craziness and unhappiness, but that was between me and The Man and we shared our joy in the kids for a long time.
To know they're not going to see their Dad every day, and that I'm not going to grow old with their Dad and watch them be happy, one day, together, with families of their own.
It's just wrong.

We so wanted to give them that family, a real family that got through fights and hard times and still loved each other at the end.

I don't want other people in their lives, although I know The Man and I both deserve someone to love us, for ourselves...and The Kids deserve to see their parents happy.
But it's not right, and it's not enough, and it makes me ill.

I'd be happy to just be content in my own relationship - and maybe just not crazy - if I knew my kids were getting up to cuddles and kisses from both of us every day.
I know it doesn't work that way, I know it's not enough and everyone deserves their own happiness but I'm not happy about this.

No one else will ever love them the way he and I do, and it's just not right.

As I get further away from my own feelings of sadness I discover new sadness for my family.
And I'm lost - I just can't fix this.
No one can.
And it makes me despair.

Open Mouth, Engage Foot

You know how some people have an automatic filter between their mouth and their brain.
I don't have that. I have to concentrate to flick that switch.

I read on a school wall once, sayings by children, 'how can I know what I want to say until I've said it?'.
That's what I'm like.

I missed out on the job I wanted.
Great references, great skills, only criticism (besides we don't want you) was too full-on in the interview.
Fuck, fuck fuckity fuck!

A Tsunami of Flesh

Beware - nature on the loose is an awe-inspiring sight.
Imagine this tornado of emotions and tsunami of flesh let loose tonight on my first bellydancing class.
No...wait a minute...don't imagine it. You'll go blind.
I'll tell you all about it tomorrow.
LOL

And that's that...

You know what, I still love The Man.
And that's ok.
(Dr Stuart Mills agrees with me...look, another NEW man in my life! LOL)
My feelings are my feelings and I have lots of great memories and shared moments to base that on.
And I don't want to be angry.
I don't want to keep making new things to hate each other over.
He's not Satan, the bad things he did were bad enough, I don't need any other reasons to dislike him.
I don't have that much hate in me - and that's a good thing about ME!
That's something I should be proud of, in ME!
So, maybe I can't forgive and forget, and he can't either, and maybe he'll never be my friend again because we hurt each other.
I'll live with that - I've lived through much worse.

But I don' t have to be ashamed of still loving him.
And that realisation makes me breathe better and I don't shake as much when I think about teh future.

I am going to enjoy my peace, consolidate my strength, learn about myself and all the new skills I need and have neglected...and I am going to love instead of hate.
Forgiveness? Maybe not as easy, but love I'm ok with.
That I'm good at. And I'll get better.

Hard to be Hated

It is so hard to be hated by someone you thought once loved you so much.
We're all so trained to want people to like us.
I still find myself wanting to make this all ok...but it's just never going to be.

Pitter Patter of Little Feet

A little while ago I blogged about whether I’d be happy about the prospect of hearing the pitter patter of little feet again in my home.
Little did I realize that the little feet would belong to a bloody great big possum.

The first time I woke up in the night to the sound of running feet I thought the kids were up in the night.
The next time I thought maybe someone was in the house – or there was a bloody ghost.
Which might have been preferable – poltergeists are easier to get rid of than possums.
And where do you think the little buggers get their hobnailed boots from?

Observations

I laughed at something my daughter said to me the other day and she looked me in the eye and said “you don’t laugh much any more Mum – neither does Dad”.
How sad – this from the same child who, two years ago, told my mother “at least Mummy doesn’t cry so much anymore”.
How much damage we do to our kids, trying not to do them any damage at all.

Good News. Bad News.

Good News – I’m working this week. Bad News – it’s only two to four weeks worth of work.
Good News – I don’t need to pay someone to smash up my old septic system because it’s not a tank, it’s just a great big hole in the ground. Bad News – I found out because the health inspector paid a visit to the property and can’t believe the previous owner got away with this kind of crap (no pun intended) for more than 30 years.
Good News – the health inspector paid a visit to the property to sort out disposal of the asbestos in the cottage on the second block. Bad News – while he was here he discovered that someone’s been using the empty block to grow a sizeable crop of marijuana.
Good News – I found a use for all the canned Tuna from my food parcel…here pussy, pussy, pussy. Bad News – everything in the fridge, including the orange cake I am now eating, smells like Tuna. Bleurgh!
Good News – none of the Bad News matters. I’m really doing great and feeling good. Even got dishes done and some more boxes unpacked. The back yard is almost level and things are happening.

This is a funny town though.
It’s 10pm at night and someone on my street is playing the bagpipes.
Someone will grow a crop of pot in my backyard, but no one will steal from a people-less, appliance-full home for a year.
A pension-collecting handyman will brave snakes, spiders and electrocution to clear up my 2.5 acres of land of 60 dog kennels, three sheds, fill in a dozen dodgy waste holes, build me a chook shed for just the price of salvage, drop off firewood to little old ladies up and down my street for nothing – but the local IGA will wait for you to go home and bring back the 30c you don’t quite have for your weekly groceries.

It’s so different here – I’ve been living in the world of the young and obsessive for so long, I forgot there were farmers’ wives and senior citizens and dole-bludgers and people who fart in front of you in a queue and then look you in the eye and smile afterwards.

My 60-year-old handyman is on a disability pension, has almost single-handedly cleared my block over two months and refuses to discuss prices with me.
He is my liaison with council, health inspectors and sewerage pumpers.
He has been electrocuted removing a nail from dodgy wiring, menaced by six-foot snakes, bitten by redbacks and almost died of heatstroke in the couple of 45+ days we had here – but still he shows up every morning, calls me ‘love’ and is slowly making my world a better place to live in.
He is the Ghandi of garbage disposal and he is the new love of my life.

I think I have developed a ‘damsel in distress’ complex.
I’m just looking for a man to save me.
But whoever thought it would be a 60-year-old man with 14 children and testicular cancer?

My next project is to get my chook shed finished – I’m handy at pulling down wire (the kids conscientiously picking up the flung, rusty nails behind me) but I just don’t cut it when it comes to knocking down walls – another job for The Handyman tomorrow!
I’m turning the old stables-cum-dog hospital into a chook run, complete with little beds full of straw for laying boxes and an old sink for a water trough.
I can’t stand the idea of all the food we throw away – not only am I battling bloody ants all over the garbage bin every night, but it’s such a waste.
We really don’t need the eggs, but I can’t stand throwing away celery ends and half-eaten Weetbix when I could have some lovely Faverolles and Australorps to gobble them down.
And without the Dog here, I can truly have free range chooks (that’ll teach you bastard spiders and earwigs).

After that is cleaning out the shed, setting up the kids’ playroom in the front lean-to, painting up some furniture and the back room, and then…my most treasured plan of all…the new gardens.

Those things I can probably afford a little bit by bit.
In between, I have to get professionals to hook up my greywater system and unhook the powerlines to the second block.
Dad and his mate are going to, slowly, concrete under the old floors and set down new supports and later floorboards, as well as update my outside plumbing.
I need my trees chopped back and my septic pit filled – preferably with the 12 foot high pile of rocks in my driveway that were cleared out of the new septic hole. Thankfully, there will be some huge Stonehenge-sized sandstone boulders for me to use in a garden as a result – and I’m going to grow some you-beaut fruit trees over that shit pit.
Later on, after the floorboards, there’s the plastering of walls and updating of electrics, not to mention a general rebuild of all wet areas.
Outside I need to flatten and topdress the whole 1.8 acres on this block for lawns and gardens, as well as marking out garden beds and poisoning and laying out crusher dust anywhere I’m going to eventually put paving.

It’s HUGE!
But, as impossible as it seems, I can see little improvements every day and it’s lightening the weight on my chest bit by bit.

The world is just so different without the stress of a failing marriage and a booming business – it’s surreal.
I spent five hours in an office today where they had morning tea, a lunch break and a coffee break. I answered three phone calls, talked to three people at reception, had to read four newspapers and basically write a big list of stories that someone else would write…and they shooed me out the door at EXACTLY the time I said I had to leave with the parting words “such a busy day today”.
ARE YOU KIDDING?

The kids are being heralded as geniuses at school and the kittens are a regular furred-ring circus keeping the kids amused every hour they’re home and not sleeping.
And suddenly, they go to bed straight away.
They’ve got swimming lessons in the mornings and friends begging to come play, and they’re SO HAPPY!
Would I have had this if I’d come here with The Man the first time around?
Is this why he’s so angry, because I’m finally living the life he wanted me to choose and he’s not here?

Well, as I keep saying…just because I don’t have a husband, doesn’t mean I have to ignore all the lessons this last couple of years has been trying to teach me.
Surely, the only reason to go through that kind of emotional roller coaster ride is to come out in a better place, eventually, at the end.
The greatest tragedy would be if I didn’t learn from our mistakes, and grab hold NOW of the life I want for me and these gorgeous kids that I love…and that I now have the time to know better.

Birthday Blues

I will be 31 on Valentines Day.
Happy bloody birthday – Bah Humbug!

Hi Ho, Hi Ho! Work’s where I need to go!

I need a job!

Apparently I’m overqualified to be a school office lady (a woman who couldn’t use Windows got that job), a bartender (why would you want a job here?) or a checkout chick (we need people who aren’t going to leave when they get a GOOD job).

Despite starting my Child Care course this month, I need to do 40 volunteer hours to even be eligible for an SSO number.

I don’t want to be running my own business again – and right now I can’t as I can’t afford internet or a home phone, and I’d need a digital SLR to get back into portraiture or weddings.

For the next two to four weeks I’ve poached one of my old clients from The Monitor, and I’ll be working in an electorate office doing newsletters at government rates – which will be a lifesaver, but it’s not enough if I don’t start getting some interviews soon.

I’m even dropping off a CV to my old nemesis – the Competition and my Former Employers at the local newspaper – in the hopes that they’re so desperate they’ll offer me part-time journo work in school hours.
Doubtful though, I think, those guys hold as many grudges as I do.

I need a job!
Just a little reminder if there is any agency of Fate out there listening.

You Call this Food?

I have sunk as low as I can get.
Well, as low as I intend to get. Famous last words eh?

I have drained my parents of money and time and physical effort – just to make my house liveable.
I have spent every cent I made in the last 11 weeks of work on any bill that had mine and The Man’s name.
I begged, borrowed and camped on a friend’s lounge room floor in order to get my son to hospital in Adelaide for his tonsillectomy, and then overdrew my bank account to get us both home.
I have frozen my mortgage payments, my rates and am ignoring my final power bill from my previous home.

The employment agency I have been going to, every day since I got here, doesn’t feel that I qualify for assistance for at least 13 weeks – because by then, we actually will be starving and considering bankruptcy.

I have cried at CentreLink more often, now, than I ever have at weddings. (Although, looking back, I should have shed a few more tears at my own.)
In fact, apparently I was too convincing when I first showed up at CentreLink and they didn’t put me down as eligible for any of their programs as I appear to be a very capable young woman who doesn’t need too much help.
Apparently they can get the employment agency moving to help me find work, they can get my TafeSA fees supplemented and my medical bills reimbursed, they can get me counseling for me and the kids and free fucking petrol back and forwards from any work I do get!
Why is it, that you have to be loser to get help?

But, despite that little insight into the potential help I’m entitled to – it wasn’t cash.
As my overdraw fees had cancelled out my parenting payments, I found myself with $25 to my name this week – just enough for petrol to get me to the closest bank (38km away) to find out I had nothing left - so I went to Uniting Care and asked for a food parcel.

Firstly, I asked them for a job (they’ve got a couple going which I am applying for), and then I asked for a food parcel.

Do you know what a food parcel consists of?
Weetbix, frozen bread loaves, spaghetti sauce, powdered milk, Tom Yum soup, baked beans and two-minute noodles.
No fresh meat, no apples for my kids’ lunches, nothing greener than the shopping bags it all came in.
The only protein in the two shopping bags-full was a dozen farm eggs, obviously donated by local producers (thankyou, thankyou).
There are people who LIVE on these parcels, three times a month!
It’s a wonder they don’t all have scurvy!
If I get this bloody ‘food development’ job I want, I’m going to set up a network with the local primary producers (and this is SA’s centre for stone-fruits, apples, seafood, grain, cucumbers, capsicums and zucchinis) to supplement that program.
Not to mention providing people with some kind of ‘staying healthy on a budget’ cookbook.

Ironically, within half an hour of taking receipt of my high-carb low-protein rickets-inducing food parcel I was offered a couple of weeks work and my Mum rang me to say she’d just won $400 at the pokies – which, she insists, she never really plays.

I don’t believe in God, but I think I definitely have to believe in kharma this year.
For every lesson I learn in this whole nasty mess, there’s a little reward to keep me positive as well.

Now, please, what every great wheel of fate is turning over the top of me, right at this minute, I just want you to know that I have learned my lesson.
I see my faults, I swear I’m not going to make the same mistakes again, so please – can you swing me back around to the top now so I can get a little sunshine back, instead of having my nose rubbed in the mud again.

Furred Saviours

I think these little Slinky Malinky look-alikes have saved my children’s souls.
No more tears after teatime, no more wailing for Daddy when they curl in against me at night – no more demanding I come to bed with them at bedtime.
I still have pictures of ‘Dad’ bluetacked all through my house and the occasional ‘when’s Dad going to call – I miss him’, but, for the most times, between school and their furry little charges, they’re happily distracted.

Finding these little buggers wasn’t easy.
Which is ironic when there’s obviously hundreds of people not neutering their cats – but I refused to have a Tabby.
To me, a Tabby spells ‘feral’ – I just can’t escape that old prejudice.

After a tearful phone call with The Girl, my mother spent a whole day ringing every petshop and RSPCA between the Eyre Peninsula and the Flinders Ranges.
The RSPCA provided animals with all the appropriate shots and neutering, but their cats were mostly three-month-olds, and my babies needed babies of their own.
The local petshop was happy to sell me sad, scrawny, much-too-young-to-be-weaned little felines for $15 – but the poor things looked so sad and neglected I couldn’t do it.
It can only be serendipity that one of the local farmer mums brought in a basketload of kittens for show and tell at The Kids’ school, the same day I was bewailing the state of the petshop kittens to the school secretary.
Turns out, she’d had the all-black mum Licorice show up on her doorstep one night, and soon after came a whole litter of All-Sorts.
She leapt at the chance of knowing where her new babies were going to end up, a chance to soothe her own kitten-obsessed children, and I leapt at the chance of free, healthy, seven-week old kittens.

With the chookshed not finished yet, no fence (or inclination) to keep a dog in, guinea pigs just too damned fragile and rabbits one step too far for my moral sense – kittens seemed the obvious sollution!

Of course, the kids and I had been talking about kittens and chooks for a while now.
I’d made the mistake, last week, of chivvying them home from school with the promise of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it Daddy? Is it our cats? Are our chooks here?”
The answer – iced donuts – just didn’t seem so special afterwards.

Two days later I was doing the same thing, rushing them home with talk of a ‘surprise’.
“Is it donuts? Is it in the kitchen?”
In the car I’d teased them that it was ‘stinkin’ Tuna’ – to help them grow big and strong.
The look on The Girl’s face when I opened the fridge and brought out…Tuna!
The pair continued to look at me with verging-on-tears disbelief as I shoveled out Tuna chunks into a bowl, telling them how good it was for brains and bones.
“But we don’t LIKE stinkin’ Tuna,” The Girl wailed through wavering lips.
“Well I’ll give it to someone who does…” I declared.
It was worth it, to see their faces when the smell of the Tuna coaxed the little fluffballs out from under the TV cabinet.

Now they have spent two days creating little cat runs and cat palaces and cat toy piles and cat toys out of lolly wrappers and feathers and wool, and they have gone to bed looking at pictures of cats in the ‘Big Book of Egypt’.

I can tell you, with a clear conscience, that the sense of peace these little animals have brought my family is worth every butchered gecko or mauled parrot I ever have to claim responsibility for.

Feline Fellows

We have welcomed two murderers into the family.
No, I won’t sugarcoat it – that’s what they are and that’s why they are here.

Two twinned black cats with dark eyes and white blazes on their chest – the kids have named them Pharoah and Mako.
Pharoah was, actually, The Girl’s idea after reading up on Egypt. Mako was my attempt at talking The Boy out of calling his cat Nemo or Bruce, both of Pixar fame.

And yes, I know they will eat my little kitchen skinks, and they will, eventually turn into marauding Toms who will butcher the galahs and rosellas in my almond trees if they get the chance.
And, I know, that after working with environmental scientists in one of Australia’s most ecologically-sensitive regions that I should be appalled at the idea of raising my own feline marauders.

But, you know what, if they keep the mice away and scare a few snakes while they’re at it – they can eat all the galahs and geckos they want.

I don’t know at what time I became phobic about mice.
I remember being pregnant in what was, once, my family home, and watching the same mouse, night after night, skitter across the lounge room floor and hide behind the TV cabinet with any morsels it had picked up on its way through the kitchen.
How many nights I sat there, listening to the skritch-skratch of it eating toast in the safety of MY night-time retreat – how many nights I narrowly missed it with thrown paperback – I don’t know.
But by the end of our time in that house I know I was HYSTERICAL at the idea of that mouse sharing residency.

Looking back, considering my growing distaste for the little buggers, it wasn’t smart to move into a falling-down house surrounded by old dog kennels and wheatfields – and then leave it full of cardboard boxes full of books and clothes.

When The Man and I were both here, I’d lie away at night listening to the traps snap and then beg him to reset them.
We had a deal – I’d kill the spiders, he’d dispose of the mice.
But he’s gone now and, ironically, like so many women of this day and age, now that my Man has let me down – I’ve turned to Pussy.

Eight-legged Wonders

I have always been fascinated by spiders.
When other girls wanted ponies, I wanted a tarantula.
Of course, I would have settled for a pony…don’t get me wrong. I am still a girl.

When we were children my brother and I were given a pet mouse each, in a little plastic tank.
My mother was assured by the pet owner that they were both male.
Let’s just say, she got a very quick lesson in ‘buyer beware’ and we were delighted to end up with a dozen little pink mouslings each.

I find that ironic today, when I live in a house populated by mouse-sized spiders and spider-quick mice.
I obviously got over my affection for mice (as did my mother, who, until I was in my 20s, insisted that our cat Fluffy had, one day, unlatched both mouse tanks without eating any of our little babies and they had all escaped into the back paddock – perhaps to join the Rats of NIMH).
But when the mice were gone, I remember trapping a huge huntsman – a regular visitor in our rainforest home – and insisting that he was a Tarantula and keeping him in the mouse tank.

This is what happens when you encourage your children to watch National Geographic specials instead of Saturday morning cartoons.

Apparently Fluffy set my Tarantula free as well…she must have been a wily old Puss, that’s all I have to say.

The week we were all here cleaning up I was bitten by a Redback – we saw several huge ones, as big as grapes.
Mum smashed half of my crockery because she pulled out a pile of dishes and a Huntsman catapaulted out of the cupboard at her.
Even the handyman commented on the size of the spiders – but then he was impressed by our six-foot-snake and the nest of UberRats it was lunching on underneath one of the old greyhound kennels.
Even after all the spider bombs, the kids found a really huge Huntsman in one of the toyboxes which even frosted with Mortein, refused to die. So, in true Steve Irwin fashion I took my longest barbecue tongs and lifted it out from its camouflage of Barbies and Batmans – the bastard thing was so strong I could feel it pushing the tongs apart.

Now, once again, I have a pet ‘Tarantula’.
With the Kids insisting on sleeping in my bed nowadays, I often sit up reading in the lounge until they’re settled.
After weeks of spider bombs, surface spray, DIY spider spray and plain old Pea-Beau spiders were obviously the last of my concerns.
So when I heard the pile of drawings the kids had left on the floor, next to my couch, rustle – I assumed it was a damn mouse (and oh how I wished Fluffy was still alive, right at that moment).
Imagine my shock when I flipped up the crayoned self-portraits to discover a matchbox-sized huntsman with huge spindly legs.
Leaping for the non-organic, highly-toxic and completely unethical anti-spider spraypack that now lives in my lounge room, I chased the monster under the couch which I picked up one-handed to spray underneath.

I missed.
In fact, four nights in a row – I’ve missed.

We might just have to name him and welcome him into the family.
Until then, at least he’s keeping the bastard earwigs out of the house.

My High Horse

I'm really getting the hang of this Anger thing.
Everytime I start feeling a little sorry for myself I remind myself that The Man hasn't rung the kids, or paid his half of the bills...and then I whip of another job application and plan how I'm going to paint my kitchen and plant my garden.
My friend 'Seamus' is going to bring me home some rich, huge, lives-along-way-away Rig Pig to sleep with and then I'll be SET!
Tell you all about it then - LOL.

Crossing the Border of Craziness

Today, I crossed the line and...picking up my things from The Man's house, found a box that wasn't mine and snooped through it.
And I found just what I deserved - a letter to his married lover, a bottle of 'Eternity' perfume. The box says 'my Angel'.

I WENT OFF MY NUT! And he called me a fat psycho and told me I was paranoid.
It's not paranoid if it's real.
I said 'tell me or I take the letters to her her husband' and he said 'you're selfish, you're willing to ruin someone else's life'.

And I breathed and thought, 'it's ok, the man I loved no longer exists, it's ok to leave now and forget about him'.
I can mourn him because he is dead. The man I loved is gone.
The man I loved would never destroy someone else's family, over and over again, different families.
He no longer exists.
He told me 'we're strangers, you don't know me anymore' and that's true.
Because I thought it would get better, I thought he would choose good things for his future and mine and that of our children.

I was told today that 'idiocy is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result'.
I'm not going to be an idiot anymore.
I am going to cry for this broken love that never quite grew up into something real and go and be happy somewhere else, someway else.
And hope my kids don't inherit the 'fuck the world' gene that their Dad runs on...or the 'love is blind' streak that kept me stuck in crazyland for so long.

Tired, tired, tired.

How tiring it is, to find yourself in old grooves without trying.
How tiring to find that I'm back in this town talking about the same things, being the same person.
It's true, you can reinvent yourself sometimes if you break out of an old rut.
I am trying to - but I'm still coming up against people expecting me to be one way or the other.
I'm finally talking to people again and they're telling me what to do, again...like I don't know.
I'm not lost, I'm sad. Why is it so hard for other people to watch that?
Isn't that why I made such an effort not to show anyone for so long?

I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired...isn't that how the saying goes?
I want new things in my life to talk about, new challenges, less of the old hurts.
I wish I knew how to be better at that...I get so jealous that other people have that skill and I have to work so hard at it.
Jealousy...things I can do without in my life.
I'll have to remember that another time. Another place.

Letting Go

My daughter told me this week that she'd rather have The Man and I together, and fighting, than apart.
Her sister suggested The Boy could go live with Dad and The Girl could go live with me, which resulted in The Boy crying in the night that he didn't want to choose when The Girl wanted to come home and he was asked if he wanted to go home as well.
I keep finding drawings of me and The Man and The Girl between us, with lovehearts bluetacked on doors and walls and the fridge.
Now The Man has told the kids that he can't take them away from me, because I need them.

Oh my God!
How much damage are we doing to these kids.
If there is a God, which I doubt, I hope s/he forgives me because I don't think my children ever will.

Anti-Stupidity Forcefield

I'd like to be idiot-proof.
Would it be like the cone of silence?

Would a forcefield slam down between me and the blank-eyed woman at Woolworths, or my ex-husband's workmate who spent the last six months listening to how high maintenance I am, and then put his hand up my shirt the first time I dropped into the pub for a drink after The Man left.

I am going to imagine that shield clanging down like the doors to the batcave every time I'm smiling my insipid journalist smile at some racist stranger, or every time the girl at the supermarket whines 'how was your day?' when you know she really doesn't give a shit...kaching!

I can hear it now...kaching!

Idiot-proofing

If germ-proofing has resulted in the rise of deadly super-germs, what will come of making things idiot-proof?

My friends and I discuss this regularly - we're living in the age of anti-Darwinism where only the idiots are still breeding.
It's true isn't it?
The people you love, the ones you think are great parents with fantastic kids, stop at two, or even three.

Then you meet people with three kids to three different arseholes. (What happened to once bitten, twice shy?)
Or the woman I met recently with 12 children, who found a new partner when her teenagers stopped being eligible for pension payments - and found herself in hospital, in labour, at the same time as her 17-year-old daughter.
It's a joy to see them down the street together with matching prams, sharing a cigarette.

It's only just occurred to my family (not to mention me) that I can still have more kids.
And I'm sure, secretly, my parents have revived their dream of my finding a nice yuppie lawyer or international doctor.
And when I think about it I'm torn between 'ohmigod, then I'd be one of THEM' and 'maybe it's my genetic DUTY to breed a few more gorgeous, incredibly-loved kids'...to balance out all the sad, pension-sucking freaks who lined up with me at CentreLink the other day.

CentreLink scares me.
I need a new job like NOW so I never have to sit next to the incredible farting woman and the tooth-picking thong-wearer ever again!
Or a nice lawyer to breed with...LOL

Recovery

I've been cured of two ailments this week.
Firstly, the nasty RedBack spider bite whose venom was draining through my lymphatic system and turning my whole arm into an enflamed, swollen roadmap of envenomed veins.
A round of antihistamines cured that little affliction nicely, while my second illness - love of my lousy ex-husband - has been a little harder to shake.

Why isn't there a pill for that eh? Imagine if you could patent a 'getoverit' pill?
Fuck, it would completely outstrip rohypnol in the drink spiking stakes, I'm thinking.
Imagine being able to feed one of those to your ex.

I woke up the other night and suddenly there'd been a shift in my head.
All the wonderful, lovely things about our life had been shuffled to the background, and in the front was all the reasons I DIDN'T want to see him again.
All the nasty comments, the unreliable moments, the sad, angry exchanges, the disappointments and loss of trust.
And now, watching him rewrite our life, like it stopped being good on a single day makes me want to scratch his eyeballs out and feed them to him through his rectum.

So, instead, I'm going to go back to my falling-down crapbox house on a hill - that I love, and will take YEARS to get up to dinner-party-with-new-friends standard and raise chickens (if the snakes don't get them) and vegies (if the rabbits don't get them) and my babies (if the farmers don't get them).
I'm looking forward to starting my study, that sounds cool, and I'm going to have to take writing seriously and try and get a novel published...because I can't live with an orange kitchen and an avocado green missionary brown bathroom for too long.
At the moment, I need to take my contacts out before I go for a shower so that theclashing colours don't send me spiralling down into depression again.

Only two more weeks and then school starts and my life is back on track - without money, without a partner, but without a whole lot of fucking hassles as well.

Spiderwoman...sans lycra.

I was bitten by a spider this week.
Sadly, I haven't seen any signs of superpowers yet, and I haven't miraculously developed abs of steel - although I must say, I'm nicely tanned from all this out-of-character outdoor work.
And, it's not like the spiders at The Farm aren't mutants - they most definitely are.
I wondered why there wasn't much evidence of mice after the house has been empty of people but full of books and clothes and open cereal boxes for a year.
Understanding came when I realised the spiders had grown so big they were trapping the mice and eating them.
Which explains the six foot snake we found in the shed - The Farm has turned into our very own 'Lost World' complete with its own ecosystem and giant mutants.

And speaking of Darwinism and survival of the fittest...
I have a new man in my life.
He's strong, reliable and not afraid to get his hands dirty.
Sadly, he's also 65 with 14 children, 35 grand children, and apparently...testicular cancer and a regular pension...although how we got around to that little bit of information I'm not quite sure.
But I don't care, I love him! Because in two days he battled a snake for me, offered to give me money (for all our - well he calls it salvage, I call it big rusty pieces of CRAP) and has already pulled down two of the sheds that block my view of the gorgeous Flinders Ranges.
One of his 14 children is a Sparkie (my NEW best friend) and another is a Plumber (best friend number 2 - sorry girls, you've been bumped out of sheer necessity).

I spent today on a white-sand turquoise-ocean beach today, feeling like a Danielle Steel character in my new flirty skirt, fluttering in the breeze, and well-behaved children running around me on the sand.
I had a book in my lap and a choice view of too-young-to-touch-but-lovely-to-look-at men (God, I hope they were old enough to be called men or I'd feel REALLY dirty now) and, for the first time in months, maybe years, I wasn't rushing anywhere.
So...I immediately SMSd everyone I know to point out how relaxed and laidback I was. LOL.