The Girl Who Came Before liked to make pancakes. She was very good at them. She was excellent. She could have been a pancake chef. They were fluffier and thinner than the ones you make. She knew how to flip them so they twirled right up into the air, and landed back in the pan without getting all mussed up or doubled over or splattered on the ground. They were like the ones you get in a restaurant. They came in piles of perfect circles, with dripping maple syrup and squares of butter. They were cartoon pancakes. That's how good they were. They were as good-looking as cartoon pancakes. They were that perfect. The Girl Who Came Before could also bake cupcakes with perfect pink icing, smooth gorgonzola sauce, chicken soup and lasagne. Cookbooks were not a foreign language to the Girl Who Came Before, and she could do things to vegetables that would make them want to be grated, chopped, and eaten.
The Girl Who Came Before had stronger arms, which pushed swings higher and gave hugs tighter, had shapelier legs, that ran faster and danced better and a nicer laugh, which was always louder and longer. The Girl Who Came Before knew all the lyrics and all the moves, she could rock a dance floor, stay up all night and shake her (perfectly shaped) booty better than Beyonce.
The Girl Who Came Before knew just what to say to diffuse a situation, she could get Tom and Jerry to see eye to eye. She made everyone feel at ease, she told you the truth, because she was as honest as the day is long, true blue, straight as an arrow, straight down the line, always said what she meant, meant what she said and you knew where you stood with the Girl Who Came Before.
But more than that, the Girl Who Came Before would fill a room, not clear it. She was the person whose messages were always answered, whose calls were always taken. The Girl Who Came Before was the girl people came to parties to meet. The one everyone hoped would be there. She made things fun, and lively and hell, lets face it, she was the party: if she wasn't there, there was no party, there was just a bunch of people standing around awkwardly and coincidentally drinking in the same room together. She was the glue, the bond, the fairy dust, the va-va-voom and the je ne sais quoi, she was the missing piece in the puzzle of your life. She was the one with the awesomest dress, the bestest shoes, the most up-to-the-minute make-up, the cutting-edge hair, the swishiest earrings, the brightest colours. She was the one who everyone threw their arms up at and said, "Ohhhhh, I love the.... " fill-in-the-blank, "Where did you get your...." fill-in-the-blank, "You always look so...." fill-in-the-blank. The Girl Who Came Before was a riot, she was a laugh a minute, she'd crack you up, have you rolling in the aisles, you'd lose your head, split your sides, and die laughing with the Girl Who Came Before.
The Girl Who Came Before was just the right side of rude, the side that made you giggle in surprise, but never frown or misunderstand. She made you feel you were living on the tips of your toes, twisting this way and that to catch what she might do next, to keep up with her crazy, whimsical, hair-brained schemes, but she also never, never made you fear an over balance, a twist too far, a topple and a fall, splat, flat on your face and a broken front tooth.
The Girl Who Came Before was sure of herself, she knew where she stood, she was confident in her decisions and she stuck to her guns. She knew what was best without hand-wringing or ringing up to check with her superiors, because she knew what everyone else did, which was that she didn't HAVE superiors, not really, not even the ones that were supposed to be her superiors: she knew it and they knew it, and she only went along with it because it was polite to pretend they were her superiors, only went along with it because that's the way the world is supposed to work, and there'd be chaos if she didn't. She didn't need to do a google search or check wikipedia to be sure she was right and that she knew best. And, hey, even if someone else checked it up and found the google search said she was wrong, that was cool, that was fine, she knew she'd be right another time, and hey, it was still the right decision, as far as she was concerned, let it go, let it go. But the Girl Who Came Before never had to utter those words, not once in her life did she have to console herself, or comfort herself, or talk herself back from the brink, because those words, those thoughts and feelings were infused in her limbs, they kept her shoulders unknotted and her backbone straight, and her fingers and her hands unclenched. She never had to say, 'sorry', because she knew there was nothing to apologise for, she never had to say, 'It'll be alright', or 'You'll be fine,' or give herself a pep talk. Confidence was an all-day, every-day phenomenon for the Girl Who Came Before, it was part of her body, so she didn't even notice it, came as easily as oxygen, happened naturally and grew as fast as her hair and fingernails, so if a little bit ever got snipped off, it would soon be back again, soon be back again, longer and stronger than before.
So, no matter how hard you try or what things you do; no matter how much you smile or compliment or joke or tease; no matter the talents you possess or the skills you have learnt; you just won't do. You have to face up to the fact that, in their eyes, you're just ordinary. To them, you're just normal. You're one more person, a mere mortal, one more non-descript face in a crowd of similar faces, that'll be forgotten the moment that its seen. You may be many things, you may have many goals and dreams, you may even be looked on kindly by certain people, but none of this matters when you consider that you are nothing more than the Girl Who Came After the Girl Who Came Before
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Kid World
When you look after kids you end up doing things that you haven't done for years, and you never realised you lost the ability to do. I was a pretty active kid, really, when I think about it. I didn't like sports, but I loved climbing trees, dancing, going on hiking adventures, swinging on swings, going down slides, jumping on trampolines, doing cartwheels, doing somersaults etc. etc. etc. Also, being an actor, you spend a lot of time doing strange things, like pretending to be animals, or attempting to express nothingness through movement and all that sort of bizarre stuff. But, since I've been out of acting school for a while, and I'm now 27, which is ridiculously old-sounding (and must be old-being as well, because I'm not longer considered a youth by many funding bodies and programs. Pooh to you, I say), my body got creaky without me even realising.
This came to my attention today when the little one decided she wanted to somersaults. That was ok, but then she wanted me to do them too. I said I couldn't do them. She told me (cheeky monkey) that I need to practice. As I always tell her this when she gets into a strop over the fact that she can't do something, I decided I couldn't get out of it now. So, I attempted to do a somersault. I was worried about my neck. I was worried about my spine. I was worried about my tailbone. The little one wouldn't have a bar of it. 'Practice! Practice!' So, I ended up putting down two sofa cushions and doing somersaults on those.
It was a lot of fun once I got going. It reminded me of a yoga class I took last year, in which our teacher took us through a variety of balancing poses. She told us this was a good thing to do, because most of us (unless we are trapeze artists) always look at the world from the same perspective and along the same lines, giving us a stagnant view of things. But, through yoga and these balancing poses, we would be able to look at our world anew again. I liked that idea, and I thought it was probably an important exercise for someone who wants to be involved in the arts (it also gave me a new perspective on yoga, which I have previously found difficult to enjoy).
Anyway, the point of all this is, that looking after kids, and doing somersaults, for example, offers the same thing, this different perspective on the world. When I write it down like that it seems like a very boring and pedestrian observation. Something that I've spoken about many times on this blog before. I think the difference I'm trying to remark on here is that different physical perspective. I'm crawling around the ground a lot more than I have in years, I'm squeezing into tight spaces, I'm doing crazy things my body hasn't been asked to do for many moons. Its complaining a little. Its outright refusing in some instances, but it is enjoying the change. I've found that if you quit worrying, and just go along with it and see what happens, generally the body will warm up to it. It might even enjoy it. It might find it a welcome change from all the boring gym work it usually gets put through.
On another side, but still related note, it does also make me wonder how much harder it would be as an 'older' parent. I know its something that older parents vehemently deny (that they are in any way less able or capable than their younger counterparts), and I certainly don't want to draw huge assumptions and make sweeping statements, but I'm wrecked after 3 days with one little girl (not even both of them together), and I'm only 27. I'm not as fit and healthy as I have been, admittedly, but I'm no weakling either.
Despite my concerns that perhaps adulthood in the later 30's, early 40's would be, in many ways, more difficult and more exhausting, I still have no plans to have children myself any earlier than 35. My host mother told me last week she couldn't see me without children. This does seem to be a common theme amongst most of the people who know me. Its odd that everyone else feels so certain about the fact, when I'm not convinced myself. Anyway, enough babbling. That's my post for the day. Its not very funny or coherent, but, as I said, I'm wrecked.
This came to my attention today when the little one decided she wanted to somersaults. That was ok, but then she wanted me to do them too. I said I couldn't do them. She told me (cheeky monkey) that I need to practice. As I always tell her this when she gets into a strop over the fact that she can't do something, I decided I couldn't get out of it now. So, I attempted to do a somersault. I was worried about my neck. I was worried about my spine. I was worried about my tailbone. The little one wouldn't have a bar of it. 'Practice! Practice!' So, I ended up putting down two sofa cushions and doing somersaults on those.
It was a lot of fun once I got going. It reminded me of a yoga class I took last year, in which our teacher took us through a variety of balancing poses. She told us this was a good thing to do, because most of us (unless we are trapeze artists) always look at the world from the same perspective and along the same lines, giving us a stagnant view of things. But, through yoga and these balancing poses, we would be able to look at our world anew again. I liked that idea, and I thought it was probably an important exercise for someone who wants to be involved in the arts (it also gave me a new perspective on yoga, which I have previously found difficult to enjoy).
Anyway, the point of all this is, that looking after kids, and doing somersaults, for example, offers the same thing, this different perspective on the world. When I write it down like that it seems like a very boring and pedestrian observation. Something that I've spoken about many times on this blog before. I think the difference I'm trying to remark on here is that different physical perspective. I'm crawling around the ground a lot more than I have in years, I'm squeezing into tight spaces, I'm doing crazy things my body hasn't been asked to do for many moons. Its complaining a little. Its outright refusing in some instances, but it is enjoying the change. I've found that if you quit worrying, and just go along with it and see what happens, generally the body will warm up to it. It might even enjoy it. It might find it a welcome change from all the boring gym work it usually gets put through.
On another side, but still related note, it does also make me wonder how much harder it would be as an 'older' parent. I know its something that older parents vehemently deny (that they are in any way less able or capable than their younger counterparts), and I certainly don't want to draw huge assumptions and make sweeping statements, but I'm wrecked after 3 days with one little girl (not even both of them together), and I'm only 27. I'm not as fit and healthy as I have been, admittedly, but I'm no weakling either.
Despite my concerns that perhaps adulthood in the later 30's, early 40's would be, in many ways, more difficult and more exhausting, I still have no plans to have children myself any earlier than 35. My host mother told me last week she couldn't see me without children. This does seem to be a common theme amongst most of the people who know me. Its odd that everyone else feels so certain about the fact, when I'm not convinced myself. Anyway, enough babbling. That's my post for the day. Its not very funny or coherent, but, as I said, I'm wrecked.
One More Day to Go
Only one more day of NYWM. Thank christ. Much as I have enjoyed it, and sometimes it has helped me to write some good posts, a lot of the time (especially recently, when I've been very busy), its been quite stressful. For whatever reason, maybe because I set myself a reasonably easy goal (it doesn't require a lot of thought to do do a blog post every day, though it does take some time), I saw it through, when I've failed at things like Scriptfrenzy (which require a more dedicated and focused through-line on completing one script. Even though they tell us it doesn't have to be any good, I find it difficult to keep writing a script if there are problems with the structure, characters or writing in the early parts. I do need to get over this, because it makes it very difficult to finish things and get to the second draft stage. I have a pile of scripts on my desktop in various states of unfinished-ness. I believe this is what is called 'procrastination') I've failed at. Anyway, that was a long set of brackets. Worthy of an academic article. Did you even remember what was at the beginning of the sentence by the time the brackets were closed? I didn't. I started on the next sentence without finishing the last.
Yes, what a segue. What was I talking about? I'm wrecked. I've had the little one all day for the past three days because she's finished school and its pretty exhausting. She's come up with a neat way of getting around my excuse of 'not being able' to do something, which is to tell me I 'need to practice'. She said it to me today when I couldn't do a somersault, which is hysterical, because its what I always tell her and her sister if they throw a tantrum about not being able to do something. So, of course, I had to take my own medicine and attempt a somersault. I put down many sofa cushions before I agreed to do it though, believe you me.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was about NYWM. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed posting this much, and I'm proud of how my blog looks now. I don't know if the quality of the posts for everyone else has increased, but I've certainly enjoyed the month, and I like that I've got a very random but in someways more complete version of my experience here because of it.
I don't know if I will keep up the daily posts into July (for one thing I'm going to be much busier with the girls and a lot more travelling, and I do have to focus on my friggin' Melbourne Fringe and Wexford Fringe show. God, I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it. If you want to follow the progress on that one, I've set up another blog - I know, I'm obsessed - which is doubling as the show website here: http://nomatterwhereyougothereyouare.blogspot.com/ ), but I hope that I can at least do some more regular posting than I had done. I do like to look at the list of blog posts for June (April looks pathetic in comparison). It gives me such a feeling of satisfaction and production.
So, thank you NYWM for a wonderful month, even if I wasn't technically the right age to participate.
Yes, what a segue. What was I talking about? I'm wrecked. I've had the little one all day for the past three days because she's finished school and its pretty exhausting. She's come up with a neat way of getting around my excuse of 'not being able' to do something, which is to tell me I 'need to practice'. She said it to me today when I couldn't do a somersault, which is hysterical, because its what I always tell her and her sister if they throw a tantrum about not being able to do something. So, of course, I had to take my own medicine and attempt a somersault. I put down many sofa cushions before I agreed to do it though, believe you me.
Anyway, the point I was trying to make was about NYWM. I've enjoyed it. I've enjoyed posting this much, and I'm proud of how my blog looks now. I don't know if the quality of the posts for everyone else has increased, but I've certainly enjoyed the month, and I like that I've got a very random but in someways more complete version of my experience here because of it.
I don't know if I will keep up the daily posts into July (for one thing I'm going to be much busier with the girls and a lot more travelling, and I do have to focus on my friggin' Melbourne Fringe and Wexford Fringe show. God, I'm having heart palpitations just thinking about it. If you want to follow the progress on that one, I've set up another blog - I know, I'm obsessed - which is doubling as the show website here: http://nomatterwhereyougothereyouare.blogspot.com/ ), but I hope that I can at least do some more regular posting than I had done. I do like to look at the list of blog posts for June (April looks pathetic in comparison). It gives me such a feeling of satisfaction and production.
So, thank you NYWM for a wonderful month, even if I wasn't technically the right age to participate.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Rain is Fairy Tears
Today I was given some very vital information by my eldest charge. According to her, when it rains, its because God's fairies are crying. This would help explain a great deal of my confusion over the weather and why Irish weather forecasters don't seem to have a clue of what they are talking about. I mean, if they are attempting to predict the emotions of a bunch of highly volatile and sensitive supernatural beings, they've obviously got to be given leave to have a wider margin of error. The only thing I'll say is that, clearly the fairies in Australia are a lot more fixed and predictable in their moods. Maybe the fairies in Ireland are all teenage girls with PMS or something.
Anyway, today, the fairies were crying especially hard. My eldest girl asked me why that was the case.
I didn't know what to answer. Should I take it as an opportunity to teach her about the evils of global warming? Poverty? Selfishness? About the fact that she shouldn't hit her sister?
Or should I come up with something more whimsical? The fairies were crying because no-one believed in them. The fairies were crying because everyone always called them angels, and they weren't, they were actually fairies. I was about to tell her that God was mean to the fairies, but I suspected the follow-up question/remark would be 'What did God do?' or 'God is NEVER mean!'
Luckily, I hesitated so long she got bored of her initial inquiry and moved onto the next topic of conversation, which was, why did the car have to go slower as soon as we got into Bandon?
Catholicism is a lot more complicated than I at first imagined.
I didn't know what to answer. Should I take it as an opportunity to teach her about the evils of global warming? Poverty? Selfishness? About the fact that she shouldn't hit her sister?
Or should I come up with something more whimsical? The fairies were crying because no-one believed in them. The fairies were crying because everyone always called them angels, and they weren't, they were actually fairies. I was about to tell her that God was mean to the fairies, but I suspected the follow-up question/remark would be 'What did God do?' or 'God is NEVER mean!'
Luckily, I hesitated so long she got bored of her initial inquiry and moved onto the next topic of conversation, which was, why did the car have to go slower as soon as we got into Bandon?
Catholicism is a lot more complicated than I at first imagined.
Vampires
I had the most fun in the world this evening with the girls. I was pretending to be a vampire, and chased the girls around the house like this:
Except my cape had a pattern that looked like this:
Terrifying.
Except my cape had a pattern that looked like this:
Terrifying.
Cute Things Said by the Little One Today
I could create a whole blog just with these quotes, but today had some real corkers:
* She said to me, completely unprompted, 'You're my best friend'.
* Her bike has had its wheel broken for a while, and we've been telling her that we would 'get the man' to fix it, meaning the man in the bike store. This morning, when I woke up, she told me 'Her man' had fixed the bike.
* She informed me that her classmate, Michael, a real favourite with her, was Spiderman. And that he went 'whoosh' with accompanying arm movements.
* She told me to push her on the swing 'as high as the clouds'. When I told her I wasn't strong enough, she said 'Try!'
* When she was pushing her bike around the house, she got tired and stopped. She sat there, looking miserable, until I asked her what was wrong. She said, 'I need batteries, Jenny, I need batteries.' I mimed putting batteries into her bike and she was off again. Later, when we found a plastic toy of hers that the dog had bitten the head off, she said, 'Is broken, Jenny.' I said, 'Yes'. She said, 'We need to fix it.' I said, 'We can't.' She said, 'Batteries?'
* When we went into the supermarket, I noticed that she had a scratch down her face, and I told her the cat had scratched her. She then proceeded to tell EVERYONE in the store, down the street, in the library, that the cat had scratched her, it had really hurt, she had cried lots, the cat was very mean, and she had yelled at it and thrown it out of the house, when 15 minutes earlier she hadn't even noticed.
* She saw it was raining. Little One: 'Its raining, Jenny!' Me: 'Yes!' Little One: 'Why?' Me: 'Good question...'
* When we went to the woods this morning, she was so excited she did what I know as her 'crazy laugh'. Its seemed very familiar and I think I finally figured out what it reminded me of. Its this:
Which she does, all the way into the woods, and then turns around, runs back to me, throws herself at my upper thighs, looks into my face and laughs like this again. Its hysterical.
* She said to me, completely unprompted, 'You're my best friend'.
* Her bike has had its wheel broken for a while, and we've been telling her that we would 'get the man' to fix it, meaning the man in the bike store. This morning, when I woke up, she told me 'Her man' had fixed the bike.
* She informed me that her classmate, Michael, a real favourite with her, was Spiderman. And that he went 'whoosh' with accompanying arm movements.
* She told me to push her on the swing 'as high as the clouds'. When I told her I wasn't strong enough, she said 'Try!'
* When she was pushing her bike around the house, she got tired and stopped. She sat there, looking miserable, until I asked her what was wrong. She said, 'I need batteries, Jenny, I need batteries.' I mimed putting batteries into her bike and she was off again. Later, when we found a plastic toy of hers that the dog had bitten the head off, she said, 'Is broken, Jenny.' I said, 'Yes'. She said, 'We need to fix it.' I said, 'We can't.' She said, 'Batteries?'
* When we went into the supermarket, I noticed that she had a scratch down her face, and I told her the cat had scratched her. She then proceeded to tell EVERYONE in the store, down the street, in the library, that the cat had scratched her, it had really hurt, she had cried lots, the cat was very mean, and she had yelled at it and thrown it out of the house, when 15 minutes earlier she hadn't even noticed.
* She saw it was raining. Little One: 'Its raining, Jenny!' Me: 'Yes!' Little One: 'Why?' Me: 'Good question...'
* When we went to the woods this morning, she was so excited she did what I know as her 'crazy laugh'. Its seemed very familiar and I think I finally figured out what it reminded me of. Its this:
Which she does, all the way into the woods, and then turns around, runs back to me, throws herself at my upper thighs, looks into my face and laughs like this again. Its hysterical.
Monday, June 27, 2011
Wexford, Waterford and White-Water Rafting
I've been waiting to write this post for a while, because I wanted a particular photo, which I thought was going to make the whole thing so much more funny. However, its taken so long to get the blasted photo from the friend who took it (I still don't have it, in fact), so I've decided to write the post before I forget everything and it becomes a boring post anyway.
So, last weekend (well, no, not last weekend, the weekend before), I had to drive to Wexford. Wexford is about 3 hours away from Bandon, and whilst I knew I kind of had to do it, I wasn't relishing the idea, nor did I think it was going to be particularly exciting. So, I decided to drag along some au pair friends to entertain me on the journey and, luckily, managed to convince them that it would be fun - like a buddy road-trip movie across the USA, 'Thelma and Louise' except all in one-day and with more girls and less Brad Pitt, sexual harassment or horrible death at the end.
I also managed to convince them to get up really early on a Sunday morning (one of their only days off) so that we would have plenty of time. So, I drove round to various parts of Bandon that I had never been to before (all very pretty) to find the girls, as well as to a very depressing place called Crossbarry (Crossbarry has 3 empty shops, a service station, a beauty salon and a pub. But, everywhere in Ireland has a pub, so its not really that much an achievement).
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Bandon and Cork, so we were optimistic that we would have fun. Of course, this being Ireland, as soon as we thought it might be a nice day, we noticed that there were storm clouds on the horizon, and we were driving straight towards them. I can't remember much of the first part of the trip, except that we were heading towards Waterford (this is what happens when you leave it more than a week to post) and there was much giggling. It was probably about boys. How embarrassing.
Anyway, we got to Waterford, after passing over a very cool bridge, which looked like the Madonna's bra bridge in Sydney, except that Madonna was missing one of her bra cups.
Of course, because we got going so early, we got to Waterford at around 11am. Now, 11 am on a Sunday in Ireland, is not the most exciting times to be up, as we quickly found to our dismay. To add insult to injury, it then started to rain as we tried to wander around the town and get a feel for the place. So, we ran to the Waterford crystal place, but not wanting to pay the ridiculous price to enter the visitor centre (there is a limit to how much of our money we will willingly donate towards the ailing Irish economy, and we generally like to donate it to clothes stores, or in my case, to charity stores), we decided instead to go to the cafe (we willing give our money away in return for Irish cakes). There were so many amazing cakes to choose from, that I decided that no matter what I chose I would be disappointed that I hadn't chosen something else, so I took the easy route and got a Diet Coke. Then, with all of Waterford currently closed or being rained on, we decided to jump back in the car and head up to Wexford.
We drove through a beautiful area called Dungarvan, which was on the water, with a hill behind it that looked like a patchwork quilt. The sun was coming out again, but the rain clouds were ever-threatening on the sky.
I had researched things to do in the Wexford and Waterford areas (Waterford crystal visitor centre: tick), and one of the things that came up was the JFK arboretum (a big park with lots of different trees), but one of the other au pairs had found out that you could actually go to his family's old estate. This sounded pretty cool, much more interesting than different trees and we were all fans of JFK, so we headed down some tiny little back roads to find the place. It was amazingly well sign-posted (for Ireland, that is), and I didn't get lost at all. There was even a sign telling us that the estate was 100m up the road, and the reception 200m away, which seemed over-kill, but we were grateful nonetheless.
We turned into the JFK estate to find... an empty cow shed and a tiny parking lot.
This confused us a great deal. We had told there would be an estate. We were told there would be a reception. We were expecting a little place with souvenirs (everywhere else in Ireland has one). We got... gravel.
Now, this is where a photo would make the story so much more interesting, as there was a sign stating, 'Welcome to the Kennedy Family Estate' in front of the sad looking car park, making us all the more confused. We looked over fences and saw what looked liked private houses. We looked at the cattle shed, and saw no-one. We eventually decided that it must have been the 'site' of the old family estate, rather than the estate, and were just about to get back in the car, when we suddenly heard gun shots, seemingly very near by. We then freaked out (well, no, I freaked out), thinking we had wandered on to private property without realising it, and jumped back in the car. Starting the car, I couldn't help wondering if it was meant to be part of the JFK experience, which was a joke in fairly poor taste, but amused me nonetheless. As we were about to drive away, I suddenly had a thought and remembered the very helpful and specific sign we had seen earlier. I decided to drive 100m further down the road, and, of course, there was the reception. It was closed. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised, it was Ireland, though, after finding the one useful road sign in the whole of the country, anything could have been possible.
So, we headed off for Wexford. The sun came out again for us, and by the time we reached Wexford, the shops were open, and the people were out and about, giving us a much more favourable impression of the place. After a quick walk down the main pier, and a quick trial of the world's most terrifying toilet (similar to those toilet cubicles in the Sydney CBD, where everything is mechanical, and you have to pay), which didn't seem to lock properly (the toilet bowl didn't have a drain, and everything in the cubicle was dripping wet. When I left the cubicle again, it became obvious why this was the case, because the ENTIRE cubicle was automatically cleaned after each use... very strange and not at all welcoming), I left the girls and went about completing the chores that I needed to do in Wexford. This meant walking around the city looking at various venues, and in particular, the Irish Agricultural Museum, set in the grounds of the Johnstown Castle, which is now the space for the Irish half of my current show.
The castle grounds were/are gorgeous, have a look:
And the space ('The Cart Room') is pretty cool too:
So much so, that I drove back into Wexford, grabbed the girls and forced them to go back to the castle with me. I'm glad I did, as it turned out to be one of the genuinely interesting things I managed to get them to during out whole crazy road-trip escapade, and they were very patient and upbeat with me the whole time, even though it was a less than amazing trip.
We headed back on the road after seeing the castle, and I attempted to take a scenic route home, which involved driving the girls past a half-finished and completely depressing housing estate, which will probably never be built, but will rot and deteriorate on their prime real estate for years to come; past the port where you catch the ferries to Europe; and almost having them killed by pulling out in front of a hugely irate old Irishman (possibly the owner of the incomplete, depressing housing estate, hence the irateness), who then honked his horn at me for a good hundred metres down the road (I retaliated by honking my horn back even louder and longer. Probably not the best way to diffuse the situation).
We attempted to buy Wexford strawberries on the way home from roadside stalls (things from roadside stalls always seem more authentic, don't you think? Especially when they're kind of rotten and have flies over them... adds to the authenticity), but after passing between 15 - 20 open stalls, we managed to stop at the final stall on our side of the road, which was also happened to be closed.
We pulled in at Dungarvan for a lovely sea-side dinner:
And then continued the drive home. By the time we got back to Bandon, it was around 9pm and I had to drop all the girls off before heading home myself. I was wrecked, and none of us were particularly talkative by the time we said good-by. Still, it was a great day, and productive from my point of view, and enjoyable (I hope) for all of us.
Oh, and, yes, the white-water rafting. Sorry, we didn't do any of that. I put it in for alliteration purposes only. Plus, I thought more people might read it if I put it in the title. I was going to make that whole reveal much more funny, but the whole bloody post took so long to write that now I can't be bothered. Sorry, that was really cruel. I would have gone white-water rafting if I could have. Please don't unfriend me on Facebook because I lied to you.
So, last weekend (well, no, not last weekend, the weekend before), I had to drive to Wexford. Wexford is about 3 hours away from Bandon, and whilst I knew I kind of had to do it, I wasn't relishing the idea, nor did I think it was going to be particularly exciting. So, I decided to drag along some au pair friends to entertain me on the journey and, luckily, managed to convince them that it would be fun - like a buddy road-trip movie across the USA, 'Thelma and Louise' except all in one-day and with more girls and less Brad Pitt, sexual harassment or horrible death at the end.
I also managed to convince them to get up really early on a Sunday morning (one of their only days off) so that we would have plenty of time. So, I drove round to various parts of Bandon that I had never been to before (all very pretty) to find the girls, as well as to a very depressing place called Crossbarry (Crossbarry has 3 empty shops, a service station, a beauty salon and a pub. But, everywhere in Ireland has a pub, so its not really that much an achievement).
It was a beautiful, sunny day in Bandon and Cork, so we were optimistic that we would have fun. Of course, this being Ireland, as soon as we thought it might be a nice day, we noticed that there were storm clouds on the horizon, and we were driving straight towards them. I can't remember much of the first part of the trip, except that we were heading towards Waterford (this is what happens when you leave it more than a week to post) and there was much giggling. It was probably about boys. How embarrassing.
Anyway, we got to Waterford, after passing over a very cool bridge, which looked like the Madonna's bra bridge in Sydney, except that Madonna was missing one of her bra cups.
Of course, because we got going so early, we got to Waterford at around 11am. Now, 11 am on a Sunday in Ireland, is not the most exciting times to be up, as we quickly found to our dismay. To add insult to injury, it then started to rain as we tried to wander around the town and get a feel for the place. So, we ran to the Waterford crystal place, but not wanting to pay the ridiculous price to enter the visitor centre (there is a limit to how much of our money we will willingly donate towards the ailing Irish economy, and we generally like to donate it to clothes stores, or in my case, to charity stores), we decided instead to go to the cafe (we willing give our money away in return for Irish cakes). There were so many amazing cakes to choose from, that I decided that no matter what I chose I would be disappointed that I hadn't chosen something else, so I took the easy route and got a Diet Coke. Then, with all of Waterford currently closed or being rained on, we decided to jump back in the car and head up to Wexford.
We drove through a beautiful area called Dungarvan, which was on the water, with a hill behind it that looked like a patchwork quilt. The sun was coming out again, but the rain clouds were ever-threatening on the sky.
I had researched things to do in the Wexford and Waterford areas (Waterford crystal visitor centre: tick), and one of the things that came up was the JFK arboretum (a big park with lots of different trees), but one of the other au pairs had found out that you could actually go to his family's old estate. This sounded pretty cool, much more interesting than different trees and we were all fans of JFK, so we headed down some tiny little back roads to find the place. It was amazingly well sign-posted (for Ireland, that is), and I didn't get lost at all. There was even a sign telling us that the estate was 100m up the road, and the reception 200m away, which seemed over-kill, but we were grateful nonetheless.
We turned into the JFK estate to find... an empty cow shed and a tiny parking lot.
This confused us a great deal. We had told there would be an estate. We were told there would be a reception. We were expecting a little place with souvenirs (everywhere else in Ireland has one). We got... gravel.
Now, this is where a photo would make the story so much more interesting, as there was a sign stating, 'Welcome to the Kennedy Family Estate' in front of the sad looking car park, making us all the more confused. We looked over fences and saw what looked liked private houses. We looked at the cattle shed, and saw no-one. We eventually decided that it must have been the 'site' of the old family estate, rather than the estate, and were just about to get back in the car, when we suddenly heard gun shots, seemingly very near by. We then freaked out (well, no, I freaked out), thinking we had wandered on to private property without realising it, and jumped back in the car. Starting the car, I couldn't help wondering if it was meant to be part of the JFK experience, which was a joke in fairly poor taste, but amused me nonetheless. As we were about to drive away, I suddenly had a thought and remembered the very helpful and specific sign we had seen earlier. I decided to drive 100m further down the road, and, of course, there was the reception. It was closed. I guess we shouldn't have been surprised, it was Ireland, though, after finding the one useful road sign in the whole of the country, anything could have been possible.
So, we headed off for Wexford. The sun came out again for us, and by the time we reached Wexford, the shops were open, and the people were out and about, giving us a much more favourable impression of the place. After a quick walk down the main pier, and a quick trial of the world's most terrifying toilet (similar to those toilet cubicles in the Sydney CBD, where everything is mechanical, and you have to pay), which didn't seem to lock properly (the toilet bowl didn't have a drain, and everything in the cubicle was dripping wet. When I left the cubicle again, it became obvious why this was the case, because the ENTIRE cubicle was automatically cleaned after each use... very strange and not at all welcoming), I left the girls and went about completing the chores that I needed to do in Wexford. This meant walking around the city looking at various venues, and in particular, the Irish Agricultural Museum, set in the grounds of the Johnstown Castle, which is now the space for the Irish half of my current show.
The castle grounds were/are gorgeous, have a look:
And the space ('The Cart Room') is pretty cool too:
We headed back on the road after seeing the castle, and I attempted to take a scenic route home, which involved driving the girls past a half-finished and completely depressing housing estate, which will probably never be built, but will rot and deteriorate on their prime real estate for years to come; past the port where you catch the ferries to Europe; and almost having them killed by pulling out in front of a hugely irate old Irishman (possibly the owner of the incomplete, depressing housing estate, hence the irateness), who then honked his horn at me for a good hundred metres down the road (I retaliated by honking my horn back even louder and longer. Probably not the best way to diffuse the situation).
We attempted to buy Wexford strawberries on the way home from roadside stalls (things from roadside stalls always seem more authentic, don't you think? Especially when they're kind of rotten and have flies over them... adds to the authenticity), but after passing between 15 - 20 open stalls, we managed to stop at the final stall on our side of the road, which was also happened to be closed.
We pulled in at Dungarvan for a lovely sea-side dinner:
Oh, and, yes, the white-water rafting. Sorry, we didn't do any of that. I put it in for alliteration purposes only. Plus, I thought more people might read it if I put it in the title. I was going to make that whole reveal much more funny, but the whole bloody post took so long to write that now I can't be bothered. Sorry, that was really cruel. I would have gone white-water rafting if I could have. Please don't unfriend me on Facebook because I lied to you.
Animals Big and Small
I haven't given an update on the kittens in a while. They are now 5 weeks old, and utterly gorgeous. All of them have blue eyes at the moment, 3 are black, 2 are tabby, and their names are Liebschen, Tommy, Lexi, Lex and the final one remains nameless. We've moved them from the laundry to the porch, and they are being kept in a little pen which has been created by my fireplace grate and the wall. Though, they proved this evening that they can climb right over the top of it when hungry, and there is the hope of food on the other side of the grate. My eldest girl continues to find new & interesting ways to carry them about, sometimes in her doll's buggy, in her easter egg basket, in a paper shopping bag, clinging to the front of her school uniform etc.
I went for a walk this evening in the sunshine, which lasts and lasts (its now 10pm and the sun won't go down properly for another half hour), and I was amazed at how much the countryside changes in Ireland with the seasons, which I've not noticed as much in Australia. I don't know if this is, as people have often scoffed, Australia doesn't have 4 seasons, or its because I live in the city, but its pretty spectacular here. Walking through areas that I walked through only a couple of months ago, it was like a new place entirely. Some paddocks that were completely flat a month or two ago, now have grass that is as high as my shoulder.
These paddocks now have many large animals in them, such as horses, cows and bulls. I'm a fan of these animals, they lend a real authenticity to the countryside and my experience as a 'country girl', but, I generally like there to be some sort of heavy fence in between me and the large animals. Either that, or like the animals to be running away from me in fear.
None of the animals this evening felt the need to do this.
This meant, in order to not be kicked in the stomach by the back feet of a horse (heavens knows why I thought a fairly docile horse, quietly and happily munching on grass was going to suddenly bolt and kick me in the stomach is something that I can't quite explain now that I'm at home, sitting on a nice couch and watching the TV, but it must be an image I've seen in a film or TV show somewhere), I was wading through the shoulder high grass, being stung by nettles and ripped apart by brambles, whilst the horses gave me blank and confused looks over their grass dinner. The one comfort was that every time I went, 'Jesus, what about the snakes???' I was able to send a quick and grateful prayer to St. Patrick. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you St. Patrick for ridding snakes from a country with exceedingly long grasses.'
Just to give me a bigger fright and prove how ill-suited I am, despite my fantasies, to living on a farm, three of the horses decided to trot towards me, which, in hindsight, was probably because they thought I was the farmer and had a juicy carrot or block of sugar to give them (that's what people feed horses in movies, isn't it?), but when you're on your lonesome, being chased around a tree by 3 large horses in an open field, all you can really think of is the stampede scene in 'The Lion King'. Well, that's all I could think of anyway.
There were a couple of bulls that I also ran into (and when I say, 'ran into', I mean, I was in the same field as, though if I were to hold out my thumb, and closed one eye, I would probably have been able to cover up all the bulls with just the tip of it..... that is to say, there was a fair distance between me and them), and whilst, again, they seemed more interested in their grass than me, I still decided to walk on the other side of the barbed wire to them, which required a sort of tightrope act with the river bank, and some strange looks from the locals on the other side. I don't care. At least I didn't have my insides gouged by a bull's horn.
 |
| Lexi... or Lex... |
I went for a walk this evening in the sunshine, which lasts and lasts (its now 10pm and the sun won't go down properly for another half hour), and I was amazed at how much the countryside changes in Ireland with the seasons, which I've not noticed as much in Australia. I don't know if this is, as people have often scoffed, Australia doesn't have 4 seasons, or its because I live in the city, but its pretty spectacular here. Walking through areas that I walked through only a couple of months ago, it was like a new place entirely. Some paddocks that were completely flat a month or two ago, now have grass that is as high as my shoulder.
These paddocks now have many large animals in them, such as horses, cows and bulls. I'm a fan of these animals, they lend a real authenticity to the countryside and my experience as a 'country girl', but, I generally like there to be some sort of heavy fence in between me and the large animals. Either that, or like the animals to be running away from me in fear.
None of the animals this evening felt the need to do this.
This meant, in order to not be kicked in the stomach by the back feet of a horse (heavens knows why I thought a fairly docile horse, quietly and happily munching on grass was going to suddenly bolt and kick me in the stomach is something that I can't quite explain now that I'm at home, sitting on a nice couch and watching the TV, but it must be an image I've seen in a film or TV show somewhere), I was wading through the shoulder high grass, being stung by nettles and ripped apart by brambles, whilst the horses gave me blank and confused looks over their grass dinner. The one comfort was that every time I went, 'Jesus, what about the snakes???' I was able to send a quick and grateful prayer to St. Patrick. 'Thank you, thank you, thank you St. Patrick for ridding snakes from a country with exceedingly long grasses.'
Just to give me a bigger fright and prove how ill-suited I am, despite my fantasies, to living on a farm, three of the horses decided to trot towards me, which, in hindsight, was probably because they thought I was the farmer and had a juicy carrot or block of sugar to give them (that's what people feed horses in movies, isn't it?), but when you're on your lonesome, being chased around a tree by 3 large horses in an open field, all you can really think of is the stampede scene in 'The Lion King'. Well, that's all I could think of anyway.
There were a couple of bulls that I also ran into (and when I say, 'ran into', I mean, I was in the same field as, though if I were to hold out my thumb, and closed one eye, I would probably have been able to cover up all the bulls with just the tip of it..... that is to say, there was a fair distance between me and them), and whilst, again, they seemed more interested in their grass than me, I still decided to walk on the other side of the barbed wire to them, which required a sort of tightrope act with the river bank, and some strange looks from the locals on the other side. I don't care. At least I didn't have my insides gouged by a bull's horn.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
The Rain Used to Make Sense
This is Ireland:
You will wake up at 7am because the sun is shining so brightly behind your curtains that it makes your room look as if the lights are on even though they aren't. You will roll over and close your eyes, think, 'just a few minutes more.' You will then be plunged into darkness again as thunderclouds roll over the sun, and you will fall back asleep in spite of yourself.
You'll wake up at 9am to rain falling on one side of the house, but not on the other. Confusingly, the side of the house that is being rained on is also bathed in sunlight, whereas the side with no rain is covered by clouds.
The rain will stop, but the clouds will remain, but you chance it and go outside. It will be reasonably warm, but 10 minutes later, a bitter wind will start to blow and you'll run inside. Half an hour later, you'll hear sounds on the roof, look out the skylight and see that it is hailing.
2 hours later, the sun will be out again, and you'll head outside in just a singlet, because by now, its scorching. You go for a walk, but an hour later, you're shivering and the clouds are black, so you run home before the rain starts again and rug up in your warmest clothes. Half an hour later, the sun will be out again, but you've been tricked before, so you stay inside. You watch small patches of cloud come and go, and you know the sun is mocking you for hiding inside. Its sunny all afternoon. So, that evening, after dinner, you'll go for a walk in the bright, bright sun, but, suddenly, out of nowhere, apparently because you've come outside, it will start to rain. You look around for the clouds, but they are nowhere to be seen. Where is the rain coming from? You convince yourself that it must be a sprinkler, not rain, and continue to walk. The rain gets heavier, and the sun gets brighter. You begin to think you are in some sort of mind game, some sort of postmodern, philosophical mind-fuck, like the end of 'Sophie's World', where you're not sure who's fiction, who's the author, what you're supposed to believe in, and maybe the rain is just a figment of the collective imagination that knows Ireland to be a rainy country and so brings the rain out of nowhere, out of sheer belief, just to keep up appearances.
Then the rain will stop, you'll look up into the sky, and there will be a sunset so beautiful that if someone was to paint it in its true colours, people would call it tacky and sentimental, but when its there in front of you, in real life, it is heart-achingly beautiful and inspiring. There will be four or five levels of different types of clouds in the sky, in different colours of peach, pink and yellow, and you go to bed full of optimism for the next day, which will surely be better weather-wise than this one, I mean, just look how the clouds have cleared up....
You will wake up at 7am because the sun is shining so brightly behind your curtains that it makes your room look as if the lights are on even though they aren't. You will roll over and close your eyes, think, 'just a few minutes more.' You will then be plunged into darkness again as thunderclouds roll over the sun, and you will fall back asleep in spite of yourself.
You'll wake up at 9am to rain falling on one side of the house, but not on the other. Confusingly, the side of the house that is being rained on is also bathed in sunlight, whereas the side with no rain is covered by clouds.
The rain will stop, but the clouds will remain, but you chance it and go outside. It will be reasonably warm, but 10 minutes later, a bitter wind will start to blow and you'll run inside. Half an hour later, you'll hear sounds on the roof, look out the skylight and see that it is hailing.
2 hours later, the sun will be out again, and you'll head outside in just a singlet, because by now, its scorching. You go for a walk, but an hour later, you're shivering and the clouds are black, so you run home before the rain starts again and rug up in your warmest clothes. Half an hour later, the sun will be out again, but you've been tricked before, so you stay inside. You watch small patches of cloud come and go, and you know the sun is mocking you for hiding inside. Its sunny all afternoon. So, that evening, after dinner, you'll go for a walk in the bright, bright sun, but, suddenly, out of nowhere, apparently because you've come outside, it will start to rain. You look around for the clouds, but they are nowhere to be seen. Where is the rain coming from? You convince yourself that it must be a sprinkler, not rain, and continue to walk. The rain gets heavier, and the sun gets brighter. You begin to think you are in some sort of mind game, some sort of postmodern, philosophical mind-fuck, like the end of 'Sophie's World', where you're not sure who's fiction, who's the author, what you're supposed to believe in, and maybe the rain is just a figment of the collective imagination that knows Ireland to be a rainy country and so brings the rain out of nowhere, out of sheer belief, just to keep up appearances.
Then the rain will stop, you'll look up into the sky, and there will be a sunset so beautiful that if someone was to paint it in its true colours, people would call it tacky and sentimental, but when its there in front of you, in real life, it is heart-achingly beautiful and inspiring. There will be four or five levels of different types of clouds in the sky, in different colours of peach, pink and yellow, and you go to bed full of optimism for the next day, which will surely be better weather-wise than this one, I mean, just look how the clouds have cleared up....
Good Things and Bad
So, if you are also friends with me on facebook, you will have been harassed in the last few days to watch the National Theatre of Scotland's '5 Minute Theatre' event. There were a couple of reasons for this. One, it was a pretty cool event with a wide variety of pieces, some excellent, some not-so-excellent but very interesting, and some just... well... some, just... not to my taste, I guess is the nicest way of putting it.
But, of course, the second reason is that a monologue of mine, performed by me, was also included as part of the event.
I was very excited about being included in the event, I was totally chuffed that I had been chosen by 'The National Theatre of Scotland' to be part of it. However, something happened whilst I was watching the pieces on Tuesday night. I started to get very panicky. I started to get very worried. By the time it came to wake up early Wednesday morning and watch my piece be broadcast, I was terrified and majorly depressed.
There are a few things that contributed to this feeling.
Firstly, there was a chat facility, which meant that people could comment on what they were watching online. My piece, if anyone ended up watching it, was kind of ridiculously personal, at least, it was meant to look that way, and I was terrified of these unknown people who might personally attack me for what I had written, and judge me harshly for something that seemed very personal.
Secondly, looking at the other pieces, I was either hugely intimidated by the high quality or work, or insulted by the poor quality. I either thought I was going to look like an idiot compared to the really good stuff, or I was going to be lumped in with the 'bad stuff', and my achievement in being involved in the event was not as big a deal as I thought it was.
Thirdly, like all things I manage to create, write, perform etc. I convinced myself that this was 'my moment'. This was the moment everything was going to fall into place. If I could create a piece of amazing, honest, funny, gut-wrenching theatre, then someone would see it/see me and all my dreams would come true. Whatever that means... cast me in the next West End show, give me lots of money, invite me to glittering social events etc. So, when these things fail to emerge as results of the creation/performance of the piece, then, of course, I view it as a failure.
So, in the end, I couldn't bear to watch the piece, even though I had it open in my internet browser, and I only briefly glanced at the chat that was going on underneath in the chat window (most of it was about how amazing the piece before mine was... *sigh*). I struggled to remind myself of how happy and proud of the piece I was when it was completed. That I had pitched it, written it, performed it, managed to find someone to film it, got an audience, all in a country that I had been in for less than 4 months. But, because I hadn't gotten the accolades I had expected/hoped for, it was difficult for me to remember the old feeling.
I think its something that often happens with creative projects that I am involved with. I get so worked up in how people are going to react to it, how it might further influence my career or move me along the path I want to go down, that I forget the reasons I wanted to the thing in the first place.
But this post is about good things as well as bad, so I'm going to stop focusing on that and move on to something else that I created that I am convinced is great and I love to bits.
So, for my creative connections course, I was given the job of decorating the chest of drawers that is going in our pop-up cafe with one of the other lades. We were very unenthusiastic about the job to begin with. We looked at it and just sort of shrugged our shoulders and said, 'oh, I don't know. Lets just paint it.'
Luckily, one of our facilitators stopped us as we were going for the paint and said, 'hang on.' She said, it was always good to stop, slow things down and think before starting any project, and if we weren't inspired yet, we shouldn't do anything, but look at some images and come up with a plan. Thank goodness she did, because what we came up with is, I flatter myself, amazing.
We got a whole of silhouettes and put them on to projector material. We projected them on to the chest of drawers and traced the outlines. On the front, we had a house, on one side is a little boy, on the back is a dog, and on the final side, a tree. The idea was that we would take a scene/picture and wrap it around the chest of drawers, so people could follow it round, have a bit of a journey, discovery and have a bit of fun. We used pyrography to burn the images into the wood, then we painted the drawers around the images white, and rubbed bitumen into them to give the drawers and old-world look.
Then the fun stuff happened. We got all sorts of different material to 'dress-up' the images. We put multi-coloured leaves on the trees, clothes on the boy, curtains on the windows of the house and basically jazzed the whole thing up.
It looks fantastic. I'm so proud of it and I can't stop staring at it. I don't know that I have ever been so proud of anything I have made before, and, what's more, I don't need anyone else to tell me its good. I know its good in my bones.
But, it was nice last night, because as we were setting up the site for the pop-up cafe, a lady came in to look, and the reason was our chest of drawers. She loved it, she called out to her friends and family to come and look at it. She was utterly amazed by it, 'do you make your own stuff?' she asked, and patted all the little bits of material.
I think, and I'm going out on a limb here, but I think the reason its so good is because it was collaborative work. I'm such a control freak and perfectionist, which means it is very difficult to work with other people (especially if I decide I don't like their ideas or don't respect them or feel that they don't like my ideas or respect me...), and I'm also terrified that people will tell me they think my ideas are crap, so I so often hold things I'm planning or creating as close to my chest as I possibly can, not letting anyone even get the smallest peek at what I'm doing. The irony is, that the work I'm most proud of is the stuff that I have worked with someone else on, because, as long as we work well together, we add and improve to each other's ideas, and each has different skills and talents that they can bring to the partnership.
Anyway, that's enough good stuff. Here is a picture of the chest of drawers. I will post up a better collection of pictures after the pop-up cafe this weekend. I'm really looking forward to it!
But, of course, the second reason is that a monologue of mine, performed by me, was also included as part of the event.
I was very excited about being included in the event, I was totally chuffed that I had been chosen by 'The National Theatre of Scotland' to be part of it. However, something happened whilst I was watching the pieces on Tuesday night. I started to get very panicky. I started to get very worried. By the time it came to wake up early Wednesday morning and watch my piece be broadcast, I was terrified and majorly depressed.
There are a few things that contributed to this feeling.
Firstly, there was a chat facility, which meant that people could comment on what they were watching online. My piece, if anyone ended up watching it, was kind of ridiculously personal, at least, it was meant to look that way, and I was terrified of these unknown people who might personally attack me for what I had written, and judge me harshly for something that seemed very personal.
Secondly, looking at the other pieces, I was either hugely intimidated by the high quality or work, or insulted by the poor quality. I either thought I was going to look like an idiot compared to the really good stuff, or I was going to be lumped in with the 'bad stuff', and my achievement in being involved in the event was not as big a deal as I thought it was.
Thirdly, like all things I manage to create, write, perform etc. I convinced myself that this was 'my moment'. This was the moment everything was going to fall into place. If I could create a piece of amazing, honest, funny, gut-wrenching theatre, then someone would see it/see me and all my dreams would come true. Whatever that means... cast me in the next West End show, give me lots of money, invite me to glittering social events etc. So, when these things fail to emerge as results of the creation/performance of the piece, then, of course, I view it as a failure.
So, in the end, I couldn't bear to watch the piece, even though I had it open in my internet browser, and I only briefly glanced at the chat that was going on underneath in the chat window (most of it was about how amazing the piece before mine was... *sigh*). I struggled to remind myself of how happy and proud of the piece I was when it was completed. That I had pitched it, written it, performed it, managed to find someone to film it, got an audience, all in a country that I had been in for less than 4 months. But, because I hadn't gotten the accolades I had expected/hoped for, it was difficult for me to remember the old feeling.
I think its something that often happens with creative projects that I am involved with. I get so worked up in how people are going to react to it, how it might further influence my career or move me along the path I want to go down, that I forget the reasons I wanted to the thing in the first place.
But this post is about good things as well as bad, so I'm going to stop focusing on that and move on to something else that I created that I am convinced is great and I love to bits.
So, for my creative connections course, I was given the job of decorating the chest of drawers that is going in our pop-up cafe with one of the other lades. We were very unenthusiastic about the job to begin with. We looked at it and just sort of shrugged our shoulders and said, 'oh, I don't know. Lets just paint it.'
Luckily, one of our facilitators stopped us as we were going for the paint and said, 'hang on.' She said, it was always good to stop, slow things down and think before starting any project, and if we weren't inspired yet, we shouldn't do anything, but look at some images and come up with a plan. Thank goodness she did, because what we came up with is, I flatter myself, amazing.
We got a whole of silhouettes and put them on to projector material. We projected them on to the chest of drawers and traced the outlines. On the front, we had a house, on one side is a little boy, on the back is a dog, and on the final side, a tree. The idea was that we would take a scene/picture and wrap it around the chest of drawers, so people could follow it round, have a bit of a journey, discovery and have a bit of fun. We used pyrography to burn the images into the wood, then we painted the drawers around the images white, and rubbed bitumen into them to give the drawers and old-world look.
Then the fun stuff happened. We got all sorts of different material to 'dress-up' the images. We put multi-coloured leaves on the trees, clothes on the boy, curtains on the windows of the house and basically jazzed the whole thing up.
It looks fantastic. I'm so proud of it and I can't stop staring at it. I don't know that I have ever been so proud of anything I have made before, and, what's more, I don't need anyone else to tell me its good. I know its good in my bones.
But, it was nice last night, because as we were setting up the site for the pop-up cafe, a lady came in to look, and the reason was our chest of drawers. She loved it, she called out to her friends and family to come and look at it. She was utterly amazed by it, 'do you make your own stuff?' she asked, and patted all the little bits of material.
I think, and I'm going out on a limb here, but I think the reason its so good is because it was collaborative work. I'm such a control freak and perfectionist, which means it is very difficult to work with other people (especially if I decide I don't like their ideas or don't respect them or feel that they don't like my ideas or respect me...), and I'm also terrified that people will tell me they think my ideas are crap, so I so often hold things I'm planning or creating as close to my chest as I possibly can, not letting anyone even get the smallest peek at what I'm doing. The irony is, that the work I'm most proud of is the stuff that I have worked with someone else on, because, as long as we work well together, we add and improve to each other's ideas, and each has different skills and talents that they can bring to the partnership.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Gifts
She hated buying gifts.
It wasn't that she hated giving gifts, she loved giving gifts. But, she hated feeling obliged to buy gifts for occasions, like a birthday or Christmas. She loved stumbling across the perfect gift, a book of poems by a favourite author in an old hard-backed edition in a second-hand bookstore, or a postcard with just the right message blazoned across it. Gifts for no reason, she liked those gifts. But she hated giving gifts to people when they were expected. When everyone else was giving gifts. When her gift was going to be sat next to all the other gifts and judged. And rated. And potentially found wanting.
She didn't like to give junk. She didn't like to give things that would clutter a person's house. She hated stores that were labelled 'Gifts 'n Things'. Stores that couldn't specifically name what they sold were invariably stocked full of knick-knacks that nobody needed and would never in their right mind buy for themselves. She suspected, in the best scenario, most 'knick-knacks' were wrapped up and passed on to the next person to need an obligatory gift for an obligatory holiday. In the worst scenario, they went straight into the bin.
But, here she was again, 'Cardiology'. She felt slightly nauseous walking in amongst all the pastel, the kittens done up with bows, the sparkles, the glitter, the over-powering lavender smell that was pulsing through the air, sticking at the back of her throat and making her gag.
She picked up a ceramic dog that was crouching, wagging its tail and looking up at her invitingly. She had an insane desire to smash it on to the black and white tiles right there in front of the sales assistant. Surely that would be worth.... $34.95??? For a ceramic painted dog??? Jesus. She put down the dog gently, jumping slightly as it knocked the glass display cabinet.
She turned around and saw the sales assistant glaring over his wire glasses at her. A male sales assistant? In a store like this? Closeted gay, she though involuntarily. He sniffed disapprovingly as if he had heard her and looked back down at his magazine.
She sighed and looked back at the display cabinets. There were a variety of ceramic objects, baskets with bows, playful kittens with red balls, a smiling pig. The pig was cute, but surely giving someone a smiling pig for a birthday present might send the wrong message? Even if it did have a festive straw bow around its neck?
She moved on to the next display cabinet. This was full of plastic toys, ones that could be wound up, walk on their own, or be made to sit or stand in various ways. Around the back of the display cabinet were the risque wind-up toys, walking penises, the sort of hilarious things people gave for 18th birthdays and hen's parties.
She walked over to the wall, a selection of photo frames, coloured, metal, decorative... who uses photo frames anymore these days, she thought? And turned back to the store.
The sales assistant was glaring again. She smiled hesitantly at him, which he didn't return. 'Can I help you?' His voice was like ice. What on earth drew a person like this to ceramic kittens with balls? Or did staring at ceramic kittens all day long turn a normal, happy person into this? This, glaring, sniffing, disapproving grouch.
'Just looking', she chirped in her perkiest voice. She enjoyed the wince her reply drew from him. She wondered what his reaction would be if she started whistling. She began to swing her arms, a slight bounce in her walk, and started whistling, 'Tomorrow' from Annie. If he was going to inflict pain in the form of ceramic kittens on her, then she would inflict bad musical theatre on him. He kept glaring and sniffing.
On the other wall were signs to hang around the house to make it look cozy. 'There's No Place Like Home' on metal painted to look like wood and far too many hearts and birds surrounding it. No, no, no, it was all so bad. But she'd visited every other single store in the shopping centre, and there was nothing there.
She had to admit she had no idea who the person was she was buying a gift for. Well, of course, she knew who they were. It was Kathy, the receptionist from work. But who was Kathy? What did she like? Did she like to watch romantic movies on a Saturday night with tissues on one side and a box of chocolates on the other? Or did she spend her weekends going hiking and rock climbing? Was she the sort of person who would enjoy a Cecilia Ahern novel, or would she look down on anything that hadn't won the Pulitzer Prize? She didn't even know if Ruth was someone who would like to receive a card that was sincere or with a joke on it? If she got a card with a joke should it be dirty or insulting or tacky?
She turned back to the first glass cabinet. The smiling dog was smiling at her again. Screw it. She had better things to do with her time. She picked up the smiling dog, and then, for good measure, she picked up the wind-up penis. Hell, everyone needed a walking penis in an office as bad as hers. She took them over to the glaring middle-aged sales assistant, who suddenly broke into a wide smile which meant she knew she was being overcharged for her ceramic dog and wind-up penis by at least 50%, but she couldn't care less at this point. She was going to get a fresh bread roll and sit in the park and enjoy the rest of her lunch break.
It wasn't that she hated giving gifts, she loved giving gifts. But, she hated feeling obliged to buy gifts for occasions, like a birthday or Christmas. She loved stumbling across the perfect gift, a book of poems by a favourite author in an old hard-backed edition in a second-hand bookstore, or a postcard with just the right message blazoned across it. Gifts for no reason, she liked those gifts. But she hated giving gifts to people when they were expected. When everyone else was giving gifts. When her gift was going to be sat next to all the other gifts and judged. And rated. And potentially found wanting.
She didn't like to give junk. She didn't like to give things that would clutter a person's house. She hated stores that were labelled 'Gifts 'n Things'. Stores that couldn't specifically name what they sold were invariably stocked full of knick-knacks that nobody needed and would never in their right mind buy for themselves. She suspected, in the best scenario, most 'knick-knacks' were wrapped up and passed on to the next person to need an obligatory gift for an obligatory holiday. In the worst scenario, they went straight into the bin.
But, here she was again, 'Cardiology'. She felt slightly nauseous walking in amongst all the pastel, the kittens done up with bows, the sparkles, the glitter, the over-powering lavender smell that was pulsing through the air, sticking at the back of her throat and making her gag.
She picked up a ceramic dog that was crouching, wagging its tail and looking up at her invitingly. She had an insane desire to smash it on to the black and white tiles right there in front of the sales assistant. Surely that would be worth.... $34.95??? For a ceramic painted dog??? Jesus. She put down the dog gently, jumping slightly as it knocked the glass display cabinet.
She turned around and saw the sales assistant glaring over his wire glasses at her. A male sales assistant? In a store like this? Closeted gay, she though involuntarily. He sniffed disapprovingly as if he had heard her and looked back down at his magazine.
She sighed and looked back at the display cabinets. There were a variety of ceramic objects, baskets with bows, playful kittens with red balls, a smiling pig. The pig was cute, but surely giving someone a smiling pig for a birthday present might send the wrong message? Even if it did have a festive straw bow around its neck?
She moved on to the next display cabinet. This was full of plastic toys, ones that could be wound up, walk on their own, or be made to sit or stand in various ways. Around the back of the display cabinet were the risque wind-up toys, walking penises, the sort of hilarious things people gave for 18th birthdays and hen's parties.
She walked over to the wall, a selection of photo frames, coloured, metal, decorative... who uses photo frames anymore these days, she thought? And turned back to the store.
The sales assistant was glaring again. She smiled hesitantly at him, which he didn't return. 'Can I help you?' His voice was like ice. What on earth drew a person like this to ceramic kittens with balls? Or did staring at ceramic kittens all day long turn a normal, happy person into this? This, glaring, sniffing, disapproving grouch.
'Just looking', she chirped in her perkiest voice. She enjoyed the wince her reply drew from him. She wondered what his reaction would be if she started whistling. She began to swing her arms, a slight bounce in her walk, and started whistling, 'Tomorrow' from Annie. If he was going to inflict pain in the form of ceramic kittens on her, then she would inflict bad musical theatre on him. He kept glaring and sniffing.
On the other wall were signs to hang around the house to make it look cozy. 'There's No Place Like Home' on metal painted to look like wood and far too many hearts and birds surrounding it. No, no, no, it was all so bad. But she'd visited every other single store in the shopping centre, and there was nothing there.
She had to admit she had no idea who the person was she was buying a gift for. Well, of course, she knew who they were. It was Kathy, the receptionist from work. But who was Kathy? What did she like? Did she like to watch romantic movies on a Saturday night with tissues on one side and a box of chocolates on the other? Or did she spend her weekends going hiking and rock climbing? Was she the sort of person who would enjoy a Cecilia Ahern novel, or would she look down on anything that hadn't won the Pulitzer Prize? She didn't even know if Ruth was someone who would like to receive a card that was sincere or with a joke on it? If she got a card with a joke should it be dirty or insulting or tacky?
She turned back to the first glass cabinet. The smiling dog was smiling at her again. Screw it. She had better things to do with her time. She picked up the smiling dog, and then, for good measure, she picked up the wind-up penis. Hell, everyone needed a walking penis in an office as bad as hers. She took them over to the glaring middle-aged sales assistant, who suddenly broke into a wide smile which meant she knew she was being overcharged for her ceramic dog and wind-up penis by at least 50%, but she couldn't care less at this point. She was going to get a fresh bread roll and sit in the park and enjoy the rest of her lunch break.
Monday, June 20, 2011
What Turns You On?
Attempting to come up with ideas for an article for Vibewire, which I am rapidly running out of time to write. I don't know if I will write it in the end, but anyway, it makes up another NYWM post.
Here is a list:
beards
left-wing politics
a compost heap (ooh, yeah, baby, let me see your compost heap...)
guitar skills
glasses
deep voices
accents and/or knowledge of a different language (think John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis in 'A Fish Called Wanda')
one or two well-placed and unique tattoos (one that means something to you, not just some hindi letters that you thought might look deep because it was in a different language)
a man holding a baby. even hotter is a man holding a baby with a tattoo (on the man not the baby!)
the ability and desire to speak/write in grammatically correct sentences
a bicycle (but not bicycle clothes)
dark hair with blue eyes
wristbands
a newspaper or a book (see http://hotguysreadingbooks.tumblr.com/ ooh, there's a guy on the first page at the moment with a beard, glasses, a tattoo and a book! I wonder if he has a deep voice and an accent or owns a bicycle???), preferably being read whilst sitting at an outdoor table at a funky little cafe.
soccer players
a love of British comedy and the ability to pick up on random Monty Python/Eddie Izzard/Black Adder/Black Books quotes that are dropped, without explanation, into conversation
extensive travel miles
chests
chopping wood for a fire (look at my biological instincts jumping in - look after me! build me shelter! find me food!)
And a corresponding what turns you off list. Not strictly necessary, but I think its possibly more interesting:
Guys who use 'lol' (you are not a 13-year old girl wearing Cherry Chapstick. Apologies to all male friends who use 'lol')
Too much Lynx deodorant (I am no longer a 13-year old girl wearing Cherry Chapstick)
Shiny tracksuit pants with the buttons up the side. Especially when worn to the pub or a restaurant.
Too much hair product (I shouldn't have to wash my hands if I touch your hair).
Communicating via grunts (see above).
shirts that are too clean and crisp, teeth that are too white, a smile that is too wide. I don't want to date people off Colgate ads.
I don't know if that helped, but its a start, I suppose.
Here is a list:
beards
left-wing politics
a compost heap (ooh, yeah, baby, let me see your compost heap...)
guitar skills
glasses
deep voices
accents and/or knowledge of a different language (think John Cleese and Jamie Lee Curtis in 'A Fish Called Wanda')
one or two well-placed and unique tattoos (one that means something to you, not just some hindi letters that you thought might look deep because it was in a different language)
a man holding a baby. even hotter is a man holding a baby with a tattoo (on the man not the baby!)
the ability and desire to speak/write in grammatically correct sentences
a bicycle (but not bicycle clothes)
dark hair with blue eyes
wristbands
a newspaper or a book (see http://hotguysreadingbooks.tumblr.com/ ooh, there's a guy on the first page at the moment with a beard, glasses, a tattoo and a book! I wonder if he has a deep voice and an accent or owns a bicycle???), preferably being read whilst sitting at an outdoor table at a funky little cafe.
soccer players
a love of British comedy and the ability to pick up on random Monty Python/Eddie Izzard/Black Adder/Black Books quotes that are dropped, without explanation, into conversation
extensive travel miles
chests
chopping wood for a fire (look at my biological instincts jumping in - look after me! build me shelter! find me food!)
And a corresponding what turns you off list. Not strictly necessary, but I think its possibly more interesting:
Guys who use 'lol' (you are not a 13-year old girl wearing Cherry Chapstick. Apologies to all male friends who use 'lol')
Too much Lynx deodorant (I am no longer a 13-year old girl wearing Cherry Chapstick)
Shiny tracksuit pants with the buttons up the side. Especially when worn to the pub or a restaurant.
Too much hair product (I shouldn't have to wash my hands if I touch your hair).
Communicating via grunts (see above).
shirts that are too clean and crisp, teeth that are too white, a smile that is too wide. I don't want to date people off Colgate ads.
I don't know if that helped, but its a start, I suppose.
Do as I Say...
The Little One has been picking up a few of my phrases recently, which is more than a little cute.
The first one she started parroting back at me was, 'Thank you though'. You see, she likes to offer me all sorts of things, most of which I don't want. 'You have porridge?' she'll say, or 'You go to loo?' or 'You go outside?' etc. etc. For ages, I was replying, 'No, I'm alright, but thank you though.' So, then, one day, I just said, 'No, I'm alright.' There was a pause, she looked at me blankly, then smiled and chirped, 'thank you though!'
The second one was a little more embarrassing. There have been a few times when things have gotten tough with her elder sister, and I've used the phrase, 'I'm begging you.' So, one day a couple of weeks ago, the little one wanted me to play with her. I had to do a few things before I was ready to play with her, though, so I explained this and then went and started doing my chores. The little one kept calling out, 'Jenny? Jenny?' and I would answer back that I needed to finish some things before I could play. Finally, I came out of her room, ready to come downstairs and play with her, and she was standing on the bottom step, hands on hips, saying over and over, 'I'm begging you', with a little shake of the head.
The final one was the best though. Both she and her sister can be very stubborn... well, I'm sure most kids can be. But, anyway, I always try to correct them if they say something that is factually incorrect. I don't know if other people would care so much, but I feel like I should be educating them. Anyway, a lot of the time, they will insist, despite further explanation, that they are right and I am wrong, at which point, I decide I can't be bothered arguing anymore with children, it seems too pathetic, and so I say, 'Ok, ok, if you say so!' Last week, I went upstairs with the little one. She was pulling books off the shelves, so I said, 'Shall we read a book?' to which she replied, 'That's not a book!' to which, of course, I replied, 'Yes it is!' She said, 'No, its not.' I said, 'Of course it is!' To which she sighed, shook her head, rolled her eyes and said with perfect intonation, 'If you say so!'
The first one she started parroting back at me was, 'Thank you though'. You see, she likes to offer me all sorts of things, most of which I don't want. 'You have porridge?' she'll say, or 'You go to loo?' or 'You go outside?' etc. etc. For ages, I was replying, 'No, I'm alright, but thank you though.' So, then, one day, I just said, 'No, I'm alright.' There was a pause, she looked at me blankly, then smiled and chirped, 'thank you though!'
The second one was a little more embarrassing. There have been a few times when things have gotten tough with her elder sister, and I've used the phrase, 'I'm begging you.' So, one day a couple of weeks ago, the little one wanted me to play with her. I had to do a few things before I was ready to play with her, though, so I explained this and then went and started doing my chores. The little one kept calling out, 'Jenny? Jenny?' and I would answer back that I needed to finish some things before I could play. Finally, I came out of her room, ready to come downstairs and play with her, and she was standing on the bottom step, hands on hips, saying over and over, 'I'm begging you', with a little shake of the head.
The final one was the best though. Both she and her sister can be very stubborn... well, I'm sure most kids can be. But, anyway, I always try to correct them if they say something that is factually incorrect. I don't know if other people would care so much, but I feel like I should be educating them. Anyway, a lot of the time, they will insist, despite further explanation, that they are right and I am wrong, at which point, I decide I can't be bothered arguing anymore with children, it seems too pathetic, and so I say, 'Ok, ok, if you say so!' Last week, I went upstairs with the little one. She was pulling books off the shelves, so I said, 'Shall we read a book?' to which she replied, 'That's not a book!' to which, of course, I replied, 'Yes it is!' She said, 'No, its not.' I said, 'Of course it is!' To which she sighed, shook her head, rolled her eyes and said with perfect intonation, 'If you say so!'
Found in the Washing Machine
I find lots of things in the washing machine after the clothes have been washed. A lot of these things make sense to me. I've found coins. I've found 5 Euro notes, which I'm always terrified will fall to pieces when I unfold them. I've found 50 Euro notes, which are even more anxiety-inducing than the 5 Euro notes. One day, I took the clothes out of the dryer, and it was as if the shirts were laying 50 Euro notes, rather like the goose and the golden eggs. Every time I picked up another shirt to fold, out floated a 50 Euro note. I've found little plastic Peppa Pig figurines, looking shiny new, Hello Kitty dolls, and finger puppets. I've found keys, empty chip bags, receipts and notes. Yesterday, with every piece of clothing pulled out of the machine, out tumbled a brightly-coloured golf tee.
But, today's discovery was by far the strangest.
It was a slice of ham.
That's right, you read correctly.
A slice of ham.
In fact, it was an entire slice of ham, remarkably in tact, smelling of lavendar, and clean as clean could be. The colours had been renewed, and it was soft enough to dress your baby in.
Now, most likely, the ham was dropped into the washing basket by the little one when she got bored of eating it, but I like to amuse myself with other stories of how it came to be there. Perhaps someone got confused, and thought the dirty washing basket was the bin. Perhaps the cat picked it up out of the kitchen and went and hid it in the machine, like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter. Perhaps someone decided it was dirty and put in the washing machine to be cleaned. Perhaps it was an alive piece of ham, like in a Pixar animation, or that terrifying beer commercial with the walking tongue, and it was attempting to make its escape via the washing basket.
But my favourite theory is that someone in my house carries around ham in their pocket. You know, for ham emergencies.
'This sandwich needs a slice of ham, stat!'
'The vegetarian's fainted from anaemia! Quick, pass me a slice of ham!'
'We're being robbed by armed bandits, I'll throw my emergency ham in their face, while you make a run for it!!'
But, today's discovery was by far the strangest.
It was a slice of ham.
That's right, you read correctly.
A slice of ham.
In fact, it was an entire slice of ham, remarkably in tact, smelling of lavendar, and clean as clean could be. The colours had been renewed, and it was soft enough to dress your baby in.
Now, most likely, the ham was dropped into the washing basket by the little one when she got bored of eating it, but I like to amuse myself with other stories of how it came to be there. Perhaps someone got confused, and thought the dirty washing basket was the bin. Perhaps the cat picked it up out of the kitchen and went and hid it in the machine, like a chipmunk storing nuts for winter. Perhaps someone decided it was dirty and put in the washing machine to be cleaned. Perhaps it was an alive piece of ham, like in a Pixar animation, or that terrifying beer commercial with the walking tongue, and it was attempting to make its escape via the washing basket.
But my favourite theory is that someone in my house carries around ham in their pocket. You know, for ham emergencies.
'This sandwich needs a slice of ham, stat!'
'The vegetarian's fainted from anaemia! Quick, pass me a slice of ham!'
'We're being robbed by armed bandits, I'll throw my emergency ham in their face, while you make a run for it!!'
Friday, June 17, 2011
59 Seconds
Exercise 1: Thanksgiving
3 Things that you are grateful for over the past week.
1) Morning sunlight waking me up early
2) Sitting with 5 kittens on my lap
3) Having a movie night with a friend
Exercise 2: Terrific Times
Think a wonderful experience in your life, and relive it for a few seconds. Then write a few sentences about what it was like.
I'm at 'The Decemberists' concert in Dublin. I've been looking forward to it for 4 months, when I first found out they would be playing in Ireland when I was in Ireland. I've got a seat on the balcony, which I prefer to being on the floor, I've got a perfect view of the stage, no-one's pushing into me, and my body isn't aching from standing up so long. Its the final encore. Colin Meloy has come back onstage with just his guitar and he plays the beautiful song, 'June Hymn', dedicated to the coming summer, and the summer-y day we've just had in Dublin, by himself under the lights and I'm filled with complete happiness and joy. I'm on the verge of tears, hearing those beautiful chords, I don't know what they do to those chords, how they create them, how they create the right pattern, but they are just perfect, and fill you with such inspiration and hope and joy to be alive.
I'm skipping exercise 3. Well, I didn't skip it, I wrote it, and it was lovely, but I've decided its too personal to put out on the web. Sorry.
Exercise 4: Dear...
Write a letter to someone who means a great deal to you and express how you feel.
I'm going to take out the name.
Dear....
I'm so grateful to have met you. You are level-headed, always full of intelligent, wonderful advice, as well as comfort and support. You take on challenges with a smile and nothing is too difficult for you. I can talk to you about anything and I never feel judged. When I get worked up or critical, you'll gentle turn my head and make me see something a different way. You get me off my high-horse. But, apart from all of that, you always make me laugh, you've got a wicked send of humour and a fabulous smile, and you're always coming up with fantastic, creative plans.
Thanks for being so fabulous.
Jenny
Exercise 5: Reviewing the Situation
Write 3 things that went well for you.
1) Telling my host family that I wanted to move on to Kinsale in September
2) Meeting with my director and getting things organised for the Melbourne Fringe, the Wexford Fringe and the Galway Theatre Festival
3) The play date my eldest girl had yesterday afternoon
I'm not sure how this has helped my writing, but it does make me feel good :) I think some of these things are interesting exercises though, I mean, when you think over what you've felt grateful for, or are happy about, you come up with interesting responses sometimes. Again, it could be an interesting way of getting across information in a play or story. So, not a waste of time, really.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Disaster Elephant Strikes Again!
This is the result of another unconscious writing exercise from 'The Deadline Club'. You write freely for 5 minutes, writing down whatever comes into your head. Then, highlight the phrases you like. Write freely for another 5 minutes, using those phrases you have highlighted as inspiration. Highlight the phrases you like out of the second one. Then, create a poem based on the highlighted phrases from the second unconscious writing.
I'm sick of poems though, so I've written a whacked out story.
An elephant in a china-shop is worse than a bull. The Disaster Elephant attacks every situation as if it were an elephant in the tiniest, most delicate china-shop in the whole world.
The Disaster Elephant is no ordinary elephant. It is bigger than your average elephant. It is louder. It is certainly messier. It has bigger feet and a longer, clumsier snout. It gets everything ever-so-slightly wrong. Instead of giving you a yummy treat, he will give you hideous lollies that make your tongue fizz and froth. He will blow snot out of his nose at you instead of the water he had intended. He will eat his poo instead of his food, he will hit you over the head with the stick he was attempting to move out of your way, and he will trample your favourite kitten to death. He will create a tsunami, when he was tryingg to make a wave pool, he will light the Karelian Forests of Russia on fire, whilst attempting to light a stove and he will create genocide in Balkan Europe whilst only meaning to organise various ethnic and religious groups into viable nation-states of a post-communist world. This is what he does. He is the Disaster Elephant, and disasters are what Disaster Elephants do best.
The worst thing about it, for the poor Disaster Elephant, is that he is trying so hard to please. None of his disasters are created with malicious intentions. They are always plans that were originally intended to help or assist, to amuse or entertain, to comfort and love.
But the Disaster Elephant can't do anything right. It is his fate. His tragic flaw. Shakespeare should have written a play about him, and billions of school children the world over should have written essays discussing how it was his actions alone that ultimately brought about the death of his friends, his family and, finally, his own downfall.
Sometimes the Disaster Elephant cries himself to sleep in his straw.
What the fuck was that?? Seriously, though, what is that? I'm too tired to turn it into anything more logical or worthwhile. I swear I'm not drunk or on drugs. Just in case you were wondering.
I'm sick of poems though, so I've written a whacked out story.
An elephant in a china-shop is worse than a bull. The Disaster Elephant attacks every situation as if it were an elephant in the tiniest, most delicate china-shop in the whole world.
The Disaster Elephant is no ordinary elephant. It is bigger than your average elephant. It is louder. It is certainly messier. It has bigger feet and a longer, clumsier snout. It gets everything ever-so-slightly wrong. Instead of giving you a yummy treat, he will give you hideous lollies that make your tongue fizz and froth. He will blow snot out of his nose at you instead of the water he had intended. He will eat his poo instead of his food, he will hit you over the head with the stick he was attempting to move out of your way, and he will trample your favourite kitten to death. He will create a tsunami, when he was tryingg to make a wave pool, he will light the Karelian Forests of Russia on fire, whilst attempting to light a stove and he will create genocide in Balkan Europe whilst only meaning to organise various ethnic and religious groups into viable nation-states of a post-communist world. This is what he does. He is the Disaster Elephant, and disasters are what Disaster Elephants do best.
The worst thing about it, for the poor Disaster Elephant, is that he is trying so hard to please. None of his disasters are created with malicious intentions. They are always plans that were originally intended to help or assist, to amuse or entertain, to comfort and love.
But the Disaster Elephant can't do anything right. It is his fate. His tragic flaw. Shakespeare should have written a play about him, and billions of school children the world over should have written essays discussing how it was his actions alone that ultimately brought about the death of his friends, his family and, finally, his own downfall.
Sometimes the Disaster Elephant cries himself to sleep in his straw.
What the fuck was that?? Seriously, though, what is that? I'm too tired to turn it into anything more logical or worthwhile. I swear I'm not drunk or on drugs. Just in case you were wondering.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Your Letter is...
I got this exercise from a Facebook status update. How modern and down-with-the-kids and stuff is that? But, I actually think it would make a kind of cool way to structure a story, or a play, to open chapters and break up scenes. I think it would be an interesting way of showing character. So, this is how it goes, you get a letter and then you fill in the blanks.
Something I like:
Something I dislike:
Something I love:
Something bad:
Your letter is 'A'
Something I like: apples
Something I dislike: anger
Something I love: anticipation
Something bad: antipathy
Your letter is 'B'
Something I like: badgers
Something I dislike: broken-hearts
Something I love: Barrington Tops
Something bad: Botox
Your letter is 'C'
Something I like: cats
Something I dislike: cabbage
Something I love: carrots
Something bad: cancer
Your letter is 'D'
Something I like: dogs
Something I dislike: damage-control
Something I love: dressing-up
Something bad: disasters
Your letter is 'E'
Something I like: eggplant
Something I dislike: e.coli
Something I love: eggs
Something bad: e.coli
Your letter is 'F'
Something I like: food!
Something I dislike: food.
Something I love: fingers
Something bad: farts
Your letter is 'G'
Something I like: goodness
Something I dislike: gashes
Something I love: giggles
Something bad: gigantism
Your letter is 'H'
Something I like: houses
Something I dislike: hornets
Something I love: hats
Something bad: horse-poo
Your letter is 'I'
Something I like: igloos
Something I dislike: ice-cream
Something I love: ice
Something bad: ice-storms.
Your letter is 'J'
Something I like: Jenny!
Something I dislike: Jenny...
Something I love: jumpers
Something bad: jelly belly
Your letter is 'K'
Something I like: kangaroos
Something I dislike: kicks (aimed at me)
Something I love: kicks (in a chorus line)
Something bad: kidnapping
Your letter is 'L'
Something I like: labrador puppies
Something I dislike: laziness
Something I love: love
Something bad: lying
Your letter is 'M'
Something I like: mangoes
Something I dislike: mice
Something I love: men
Something bad: molten-lava
Your letter is 'N'
Something I like: napping
Something I dislike: nappies
Something I love: notebooks
Something bad: nightmares
Your letter is 'O'
Something I like: orangutans
Something I dislike: orders
Something I love: opposites
Something bad: oatmeal
Your letter is 'P'
Something I like: pancake flipping
Something I dislike: poo
Something I love: passion
Something bad: predjudice
Your letter is 'Q'
Something I like: Qantas
Something I dislike: queues
Something I love: quiet reading
Something bad: quibbles
Your letter is 'R'
Something I like: reading
Something I dislike: roads
Something I love: rain
Something bad: racism
Your letter is 'S'
Something I like: snapdragons
Something I dislike: snoring
Something I love: sunshine
Something bad: sugar
Your letter is 'T'
Something I like: tigers
Something I dislike: Taliban
Something I love: tap-dancing
Something bad: temptation
Your letter is 'U'
Something I like: unicorns
Something I dislike: unfair
Something I love: undying devotion
Something bad: unimaginable pain
Your letter is 'V'
Something I like: variety
Something I dislike: vipers
Something I love: Vicks VapoRub
Something bad: vanity
Your letter is 'W'
Something I like: whispers
Something I dislike: witches
Something I love: whiskers
Something bad: wanting
Your letter is 'X'
Something I like: xylophones
Something I dislike: xenophobia
Something I love: X-chromosome
Something bad: Xanadu
Your letter is 'Y'
Something I like: you
Something I dislike: yapping dogs
Something I love: Yogi bear
Something bad: yelling
Your letter is 'Z'
Something I like: zoos
Something I dislike: zoos
Something I love: Zip, Zap, Boing!
Something bad: zealotry
Wow. I was not going to do all of them. But I got addicted. Sorry!
Something I like:
Something I dislike:
Something I love:
Something bad:
Your letter is 'A'
Something I like: apples
Something I dislike: anger
Something I love: anticipation
Something bad: antipathy
Your letter is 'B'
Something I like: badgers
Something I dislike: broken-hearts
Something I love: Barrington Tops
Something bad: Botox
Your letter is 'C'
Something I like: cats
Something I dislike: cabbage
Something I love: carrots
Something bad: cancer
Your letter is 'D'
Something I like: dogs
Something I dislike: damage-control
Something I love: dressing-up
Something bad: disasters
Your letter is 'E'
Something I like: eggplant
Something I dislike: e.coli
Something I love: eggs
Something bad: e.coli
Your letter is 'F'
Something I like: food!
Something I dislike: food.
Something I love: fingers
Something bad: farts
Your letter is 'G'
Something I like: goodness
Something I dislike: gashes
Something I love: giggles
Something bad: gigantism
Your letter is 'H'
Something I like: houses
Something I dislike: hornets
Something I love: hats
Something bad: horse-poo
Your letter is 'I'
Something I like: igloos
Something I dislike: ice-cream
Something I love: ice
Something bad: ice-storms.
Your letter is 'J'
Something I like: Jenny!
Something I dislike: Jenny...
Something I love: jumpers
Something bad: jelly belly
Your letter is 'K'
Something I like: kangaroos
Something I dislike: kicks (aimed at me)
Something I love: kicks (in a chorus line)
Something bad: kidnapping
Your letter is 'L'
Something I like: labrador puppies
Something I dislike: laziness
Something I love: love
Something bad: lying
Your letter is 'M'
Something I like: mangoes
Something I dislike: mice
Something I love: men
Something bad: molten-lava
Your letter is 'N'
Something I like: napping
Something I dislike: nappies
Something I love: notebooks
Something bad: nightmares
Your letter is 'O'
Something I like: orangutans
Something I dislike: orders
Something I love: opposites
Something bad: oatmeal
Your letter is 'P'
Something I like: pancake flipping
Something I dislike: poo
Something I love: passion
Something bad: predjudice
Your letter is 'Q'
Something I like: Qantas
Something I dislike: queues
Something I love: quiet reading
Something bad: quibbles
Your letter is 'R'
Something I like: reading
Something I dislike: roads
Something I love: rain
Something bad: racism
Your letter is 'S'
Something I like: snapdragons
Something I dislike: snoring
Something I love: sunshine
Something bad: sugar
Your letter is 'T'
Something I like: tigers
Something I dislike: Taliban
Something I love: tap-dancing
Something bad: temptation
Your letter is 'U'
Something I like: unicorns
Something I dislike: unfair
Something I love: undying devotion
Something bad: unimaginable pain
Your letter is 'V'
Something I like: variety
Something I dislike: vipers
Something I love: Vicks VapoRub
Something bad: vanity
Your letter is 'W'
Something I like: whispers
Something I dislike: witches
Something I love: whiskers
Something bad: wanting
Your letter is 'X'
Something I like: xylophones
Something I dislike: xenophobia
Something I love: X-chromosome
Something bad: Xanadu
Your letter is 'Y'
Something I like: you
Something I dislike: yapping dogs
Something I love: Yogi bear
Something bad: yelling
Your letter is 'Z'
Something I like: zoos
Something I dislike: zoos
Something I love: Zip, Zap, Boing!
Something bad: zealotry
Wow. I was not going to do all of them. But I got addicted. Sorry!
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
War of the One-Eyed Woman
Here is another story I met in Scotland, and I'm using it as my creative post for today because I can't be bothered thinking of something else.
So, for many centuries, the Isle of Skye was home to 2 warring clans, the MacDonalds and the MacLeods. Around 1600, it seemed that the rivalry would be ended, as Margaret, the daughter of the MacLeod's clan chief, Rory, fell in love with Donald Gorm Mor MacDonald, the son of the rival clan chief. After much arguing and gnashing of teeth and threats, the clan chiefs gave in to their children and agreed to the wedding. They were kind of like 'Romeo & Juliet', except it worked out better. At least, it worked out better to begin with.
See, it was tradition in the Isle of Skye at this point, to have a one-year trial marriage before the marriage was actually formalised. So, Donald and Margaret had a wonderful year, they seemed to be a perfect match - he was handsome, she was gorgeous, they were the Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie of their day. However, Margaret failed to bear a child during the year (and overseas adoption in the 17th century was a nightmare, to say the least), and to make things worse, an accident took one of her eyes, making her less like an Angeline Jolie and more like... more like... more like Angeline Jolie without an eye.
So, Donald, being an upstanding and honourable young gentleman, decided that he didn't really like his new wife as much as he had thought he had, now that she was kind of funny-looking and couldn't make him any babies that looked like him to make him feel like a manly, virile, invincible and everlasting man, and so he told his dad he wanted to call the wedding off. This was much to the delight of his father, who hadn't relished the idea of calling of all the warfare with his rival clan. He didn't quite know what he was going to do with all the free time, quite frankly. Chief clan MacDonald said, 'No worries, Donald. We'll handle this in a sensitive and appropriate manner, to make sure that no-one gets hurt or upset, I mean, the last thing we would want to do is to provoke another horrific war with our rival clan.' It was in this spirit that he sent his not-quite-daughter-in-law who had just lost her eye home to her family on a one-eyed horse, led by a one-eyed man, and accompanied by a one-eyed dog.
Surprisingly enough, chief clan MacLeod took offense to this treatment of his daughter and a huge bloody war ensued, which resulted in large losses on both sides and is now known as 'The War of the One-Eyed Woman.'
So, for many centuries, the Isle of Skye was home to 2 warring clans, the MacDonalds and the MacLeods. Around 1600, it seemed that the rivalry would be ended, as Margaret, the daughter of the MacLeod's clan chief, Rory, fell in love with Donald Gorm Mor MacDonald, the son of the rival clan chief. After much arguing and gnashing of teeth and threats, the clan chiefs gave in to their children and agreed to the wedding. They were kind of like 'Romeo & Juliet', except it worked out better. At least, it worked out better to begin with.
See, it was tradition in the Isle of Skye at this point, to have a one-year trial marriage before the marriage was actually formalised. So, Donald and Margaret had a wonderful year, they seemed to be a perfect match - he was handsome, she was gorgeous, they were the Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie of their day. However, Margaret failed to bear a child during the year (and overseas adoption in the 17th century was a nightmare, to say the least), and to make things worse, an accident took one of her eyes, making her less like an Angeline Jolie and more like... more like... more like Angeline Jolie without an eye.
So, Donald, being an upstanding and honourable young gentleman, decided that he didn't really like his new wife as much as he had thought he had, now that she was kind of funny-looking and couldn't make him any babies that looked like him to make him feel like a manly, virile, invincible and everlasting man, and so he told his dad he wanted to call the wedding off. This was much to the delight of his father, who hadn't relished the idea of calling of all the warfare with his rival clan. He didn't quite know what he was going to do with all the free time, quite frankly. Chief clan MacDonald said, 'No worries, Donald. We'll handle this in a sensitive and appropriate manner, to make sure that no-one gets hurt or upset, I mean, the last thing we would want to do is to provoke another horrific war with our rival clan.' It was in this spirit that he sent his not-quite-daughter-in-law who had just lost her eye home to her family on a one-eyed horse, led by a one-eyed man, and accompanied by a one-eyed dog.
Surprisingly enough, chief clan MacLeod took offense to this treatment of his daughter and a huge bloody war ensued, which resulted in large losses on both sides and is now known as 'The War of the One-Eyed Woman.'
Two posts for NYWM
I haven't posted for NYWM for the last couple of days, and that's because I just couldn't bear to look at my computer screen anymore. In fact, the thought of looking at my computer screen made me want to break my computer screen, and as I very much like my MacBook and paid a lot of money for it, I decided I would, instead, take a break from blogging.
The thought of writing anything at all, also made me feel pretty grumpy, so I took yesterday off, and watched TV, and went to the supermarket, and just chilled out and it was great. But, I am determined to fulfill my NYWM promise, so I have done some 'creative' posts this afternoon. But, once again, staring at my blog didn't fill me with any inspiration, so I decided to actually write out my creative posts and photo them this time.
So, here is the first one. I was also kind of sick of words, so I wrote with pictures instead.
So, there are 2 posts from the last 2 days. I am up-to-date. Except for today's post as well. I'll get to it, I promise.
The thought of writing anything at all, also made me feel pretty grumpy, so I took yesterday off, and watched TV, and went to the supermarket, and just chilled out and it was great. But, I am determined to fulfill my NYWM promise, so I have done some 'creative' posts this afternoon. But, once again, staring at my blog didn't fill me with any inspiration, so I decided to actually write out my creative posts and photo them this time.
So, here is the first one. I was also kind of sick of words, so I wrote with pictures instead.
And, then I wrote this one, which was a thought I had in my head on the weekend. I attempted to turn it into a longer piece and to imagine what a slow food restaurant would be like, but it was kind of dumb, so I decided it was a one thought post. I put the attempts at a longer story in the photo too, so you can see that I'm not lying to you :)
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Trapped (and not Trapped)
This post comes in two parts. The first part was written around midday. The second was written around 8pm.
Part 1:
So, today I was meant to be going to the International Street Performers' Festival. I have been looking forward to it ever since my host mother told me about it back in April. Turns out, however, that my host parents are going to a wedding today, so I need to look after the girls. This wasn't going to be a problem, of course, because I was just going to take the girls with me. It was going to be a really lovely afternoon for all of us. My eldest girl, in particular, has been begging me to take her to Cork for ages, and we've never been able to go. Or, she hasn't wanted to go to things that I've invited her to. I was really looking forward to it, not only because I thought I would enjoy it, but because I thought the girls would enjoy it as well.
This morning, I was starting to worry that it might be a bit stressful, after all, the youngest tends to run off at every opportunity, twisting her hand out of mind for most of the day, running on to the road, thinking its funny and the eldest is, of course, quite moody and can snap at the most innocuous things. Everything seems to be going fine and then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, she'll be screaming her head off, kicking me, hitting me etc. But, I was still very enthusiastic about going, and set about getting food organised. I was going to cook pasta, tuna and sweetcorn, which is a favourite. The first sign that something was going to go wrong, was that the eldest girl did not want to eat this. She told me she was going to say 'no' to everything I suggested. This was not good. This was not a good start at all. Finally, she agreed to fruit salad, so I set about making a fruit salad.
However, my eldest girl... well, my eldest girl changes her mind all the time. At the drop of a hat. And, so now, I am stuck inside the house, watching Dora the Explorer, with her in her pj's, refusing to get dressed or leave the house, whilst a beautiful sunny day goes to waste outside.
The reason?
Her uncle has returned and she doesn't want to leave the house when he is here.
I can't tell you how unhappy and frustrated I am. I don't know if this is even something I should be blogging about, quite frankly, because, I'm likely to just let my mouth run off (or my fingers), and write things that are unfair and I will regret later. So, I'm going to be careful and make sure I only write things about me and how this makes me feel.
I suppose you can see from the title how I feel. There is nothing more depressing than being stuck in a house. Part of me feels like just grabbing the youngest girl, jumping in the car and driving to Cork and leaving the eldest with her uncle, but its not his responsibility, so I also feel like I am completely unable to do that. Another part of me feels like leaving the both of them, jumping in the car, driving to Cork and hopping a plane back to Edinburgh. Part of me feels like jumping in the car, driving some, as yet, undetermined place and never coming back. Part of me feels like flying home.
And therein endeth Part 1. At that point, my eldest girl came in and said she wanted to go to the Street Performers Festival with me. So, without further ado,
Part 2:
I am wrecked. Emotionally. Physically. Something else-ally. Oh, yeah, mentally.
I am never having children.
Or, if I do have children, I will have only one. And that child will be a very quiet one. Possibly mute. And also possibly who doesn't like to walk. Who just likes to sit, in the corner, quietly, reading a book. And, I will never, ever, ever be a single mother. No way, no way, no way. I will most definately be roping some other poor bastard into the whole child-rearing 'adventure' with me.
Even though I was delighted my eldest girl had changed her mind, I tried not to gloat too much, because I'm pretty sure I emotionally blackmailed her into coming with me. And I feel slightly wrong about emotionally blackmailing an 8 year old. That's wrong, isn't it? I mean, that's really wrong. I keep thinking how much of what I've said and done to her over the past couple of months she's going to be repeating back to a therapist in 20 years time. Best not to brood on it too long, though. Otherwise, I'll be looking for a therapist again myself.
So, we got her dressed and into the car. I had thought about the basic requirements for children on an outing in Ireland. I had food, I had juice, I had hats and I also had jumpers. I had extra shoes. However, after today, I will never go out with children again without taking the majority of the house with me. As well as the kitchen sink.
Here's what happened.
We drove into Cork, which was fine, the youngest fell asleep in the back, and there is really nothing cuter than a toddler who has fallen asleep in the back of a car. I actually think most people are pretty cute and funny when they're asleep, its something about how vulnerable they are. Plus, they're often making funny noises and their heads are thrown back so you can see up their nostrils. There was no parking around the park that we were heading to (Why? Why? WHY???), so we parked in the city and walked back. This is when I realised mistake number one. I hadn't brought a buggy for the youngest to be wheeled about in. This meant I had to keep a vice-like grip on her hand and drag her along the road, all the while she was attempting to eat a rapidly melting chocolate ice-cream, which got all over every single part of her body. About half way up the road, she called out, 'Nappy!' I said, 'What?' She said, 'Nappy!' I said, 'Yes, you have a nappy. Come on.' And kept pulling. She said, 'Nappy gone!' I said, 'Nappy gone?' She said, quite distressed, 'Yes!' Which I thought was hysterical, and kept repeating as I pulled her down the road. About 5 minutes later I looked down at her to realise that her pants, and nappy, were now hanging around her ankles, and this is clearly what she had meant with that seemingly cute and absurd comment. I pulled up the pants and the nappy, but, of course, it kept falling down, meaning every couple of minutes, we had to stop and adjust her, as I cursed her father, who her sister said had put on the nappy that morning. Eventually, her sister offered to give her a piggy-back, which worked for a little while, until the younger started choking the older and had to prised off her sister's back.
We were greeted by people dressed as Waldo from 'Where's Wally' (I will explain later), who gave me some giant stickers with numbers on them, to stick on the back of the girls' backs, so that if they got lost, I could report their number to a Waldo, and they would (hopefully) find them for me. This was great, except for the fact that it took 10 minutes to pull the sticker off its backing, by which stage, the girls were being driven wild by all the balloons, bubbles, sweets, acrobats, fire-twirling, slides and rides that they could see, but couldn't get at. I wouldn't be surprised if more children were lost in that small period of attempting to get the sticker on their back than the rest of the day.
Once the stickers were attached, we made a bee-line for the giant windmill slide, which was a giant wooden slide wrapped around a wooden mill. You paid 2 Euro to climb up and go down on a straw mat. Of course, it being about the height of 4 storey-building, I had to go up with the youngest, and the stairs inside were ridiculously steep, which meant that higher we got the slower she went, until, finally, just near the top, she froze entirely and started to wail, as a build-up of little children gathered behind me (children also don't understand the concept of queues, or waiting, or stopping: they think if someone has stopped, they just need a constant and determined pressure into the small of the back to rectify the problem, sort of like a car stuck in mud). Finally, I got her up the top, and as we settled in, (me at the back, with her, a backpack and my hand bag between my legs) I got the whiff of a terrible, terrible poo. Mistake number two. I hadn't brought any nappies. Or baby wipes. Now, in hindsight, it is beyond my comprehension as to why I had thought I could get away with a 7 hour excursion with a child who wear nappies without packing ANY spare nappies. After we got off the slide, I told the elder girl we had to, straight away, attempt to find some nappies. A poo-ey nappy was bad enough, but when you then take into consideration the fact that the nappy was also refusing to stay on her waist, so it was a poo-ey nappy that was sliding down her bottom and depositing its contents all over... well, you get the idea. The situation was desperate. We went to the medical tent. They didn't have any spare nappies (Why?) We went to the lost children stand. They didn't have any spare nappies (WHY??) SO, we had to walk for 10 minutes to the convenience store, where they, luckily, had one single packed of nappies. They were *just* big enough. Desperate to change the nappy, I found what looked like a quiet, shady and deserted area on the other side of the road. Of course, the minute that I had decided that was the place to change the little one's nappy, about 30 people decided that was exactly the place they needed to congregate RIGHT THEN. And stand. And talk. About nothing. For 15 minutes. In the end, I just whipped off the nappy and changed it in front of all the people and decided it was their fault for choosing to stand there.
So, after this, we were able to head back to the festival. However, instead of wanting to watch the acts, the eldest girl decided she wanted to sit on the ground and eat food. Mistake number three was that I did not bring enough food, nor did I feed the girls regularly enough.
After they were fed, the eldest girl wanted to play on the playground. This was the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. It was like football hooligan stampede, except with 3 year olds instead of lower-class British men. The poor little one was whacked in the shoulder by an evil, fat, 3 year old boy with thick glasses who came flying past after 2 seconds on the playground. Then, she spent a horrible 3 minutes crouching on the floor of the play set, as children walked around, over the top of her, pushed, shoved and pulled her to get to the slide. All I could do was, ineffectively hold her hand from the ground, as there was no space for me to get up and help her. After 10 minutes, she eventually stood up and went down the slide, but it was so exhausting for the both of us, that we both left the playground straight away.
In the end, we only got to see one performer, who was pretty good, but not fabulous. And, again, I pretty much had to throw a tantrum to force the eldest girl to allow me and the younger to sit and watch him. The worst thing about looking after kids is how many times you end up behaving ridiculously childlishly yourself, and not just when playing games or things, but just when attempting to get what you want.
The only reason the eldest girl had actually stayed was the promise of a 99 (a soft serve ice-cream cone with a flake in it), so we went in search of one of those. As we were being served, I noticed the time was 5:50pm, and the car park where we had parked was closing at 6:30pm (with a 120 euro fine if you wanted to get the car out after that), so I grabbed the girls and walked them quick smart down the road. Mistake number four, I parked the car way too far away. The little one had a charming habit of suddenly stopping, making everyone behind her run into the back of us, and in the end, I just had to pick her up and power walk back to the car. This was as well as carrying my rucksack, her rucksack and a purse. Mistake number five, not packing properly. Mistake number six, was carrying a 4 year old eating a magnum, as the magnum got smacked variously on my shoulder, my hair, my ear and right in the middle of my face.
Luckily, we managed to get to the car without any troubles, though the little one heard an ambulance and started to wail that she was also sick and had to go to the hospital, which made me both worried that she was about to throw up on the street and that people would think I was a terrible parent/carer for not immediately taking her to the hospital.
We headed home, where there was no food in the house, and the girls' uncle. Thank goodness he was there, as he was able to take over for a bit whilst I recovered. I honestly don't know how single parents do it. I have the utmost respect for them, and spent the day thanking my father over and over and over again and hoping that we hadn't caused him too much stress and worry and trouble over the years.
Well, on the subject of childhood, I currently have 'Forest Gump' on in the background (I know this soundtrack off by heart. Dad and my bro and I listened to it all the way across the USA. Ok, that's an exaggeration. All the way from New Mexico to California, but it felt like a much longer distance and bigger deal when you are 12 years old), so I'm going to end the post and watch that and have a cider or two and have a bit of a relax.
Part 1:
So, today I was meant to be going to the International Street Performers' Festival. I have been looking forward to it ever since my host mother told me about it back in April. Turns out, however, that my host parents are going to a wedding today, so I need to look after the girls. This wasn't going to be a problem, of course, because I was just going to take the girls with me. It was going to be a really lovely afternoon for all of us. My eldest girl, in particular, has been begging me to take her to Cork for ages, and we've never been able to go. Or, she hasn't wanted to go to things that I've invited her to. I was really looking forward to it, not only because I thought I would enjoy it, but because I thought the girls would enjoy it as well.
This morning, I was starting to worry that it might be a bit stressful, after all, the youngest tends to run off at every opportunity, twisting her hand out of mind for most of the day, running on to the road, thinking its funny and the eldest is, of course, quite moody and can snap at the most innocuous things. Everything seems to be going fine and then, suddenly, for no apparent reason, she'll be screaming her head off, kicking me, hitting me etc. But, I was still very enthusiastic about going, and set about getting food organised. I was going to cook pasta, tuna and sweetcorn, which is a favourite. The first sign that something was going to go wrong, was that the eldest girl did not want to eat this. She told me she was going to say 'no' to everything I suggested. This was not good. This was not a good start at all. Finally, she agreed to fruit salad, so I set about making a fruit salad.
However, my eldest girl... well, my eldest girl changes her mind all the time. At the drop of a hat. And, so now, I am stuck inside the house, watching Dora the Explorer, with her in her pj's, refusing to get dressed or leave the house, whilst a beautiful sunny day goes to waste outside.
The reason?
Her uncle has returned and she doesn't want to leave the house when he is here.
I can't tell you how unhappy and frustrated I am. I don't know if this is even something I should be blogging about, quite frankly, because, I'm likely to just let my mouth run off (or my fingers), and write things that are unfair and I will regret later. So, I'm going to be careful and make sure I only write things about me and how this makes me feel.
I suppose you can see from the title how I feel. There is nothing more depressing than being stuck in a house. Part of me feels like just grabbing the youngest girl, jumping in the car and driving to Cork and leaving the eldest with her uncle, but its not his responsibility, so I also feel like I am completely unable to do that. Another part of me feels like leaving the both of them, jumping in the car, driving to Cork and hopping a plane back to Edinburgh. Part of me feels like jumping in the car, driving some, as yet, undetermined place and never coming back. Part of me feels like flying home.
And therein endeth Part 1. At that point, my eldest girl came in and said she wanted to go to the Street Performers Festival with me. So, without further ado,
Part 2:
I am wrecked. Emotionally. Physically. Something else-ally. Oh, yeah, mentally.
I am never having children.
Or, if I do have children, I will have only one. And that child will be a very quiet one. Possibly mute. And also possibly who doesn't like to walk. Who just likes to sit, in the corner, quietly, reading a book. And, I will never, ever, ever be a single mother. No way, no way, no way. I will most definately be roping some other poor bastard into the whole child-rearing 'adventure' with me.
Even though I was delighted my eldest girl had changed her mind, I tried not to gloat too much, because I'm pretty sure I emotionally blackmailed her into coming with me. And I feel slightly wrong about emotionally blackmailing an 8 year old. That's wrong, isn't it? I mean, that's really wrong. I keep thinking how much of what I've said and done to her over the past couple of months she's going to be repeating back to a therapist in 20 years time. Best not to brood on it too long, though. Otherwise, I'll be looking for a therapist again myself.
So, we got her dressed and into the car. I had thought about the basic requirements for children on an outing in Ireland. I had food, I had juice, I had hats and I also had jumpers. I had extra shoes. However, after today, I will never go out with children again without taking the majority of the house with me. As well as the kitchen sink.
Here's what happened.
We drove into Cork, which was fine, the youngest fell asleep in the back, and there is really nothing cuter than a toddler who has fallen asleep in the back of a car. I actually think most people are pretty cute and funny when they're asleep, its something about how vulnerable they are. Plus, they're often making funny noises and their heads are thrown back so you can see up their nostrils. There was no parking around the park that we were heading to (Why? Why? WHY???), so we parked in the city and walked back. This is when I realised mistake number one. I hadn't brought a buggy for the youngest to be wheeled about in. This meant I had to keep a vice-like grip on her hand and drag her along the road, all the while she was attempting to eat a rapidly melting chocolate ice-cream, which got all over every single part of her body. About half way up the road, she called out, 'Nappy!' I said, 'What?' She said, 'Nappy!' I said, 'Yes, you have a nappy. Come on.' And kept pulling. She said, 'Nappy gone!' I said, 'Nappy gone?' She said, quite distressed, 'Yes!' Which I thought was hysterical, and kept repeating as I pulled her down the road. About 5 minutes later I looked down at her to realise that her pants, and nappy, were now hanging around her ankles, and this is clearly what she had meant with that seemingly cute and absurd comment. I pulled up the pants and the nappy, but, of course, it kept falling down, meaning every couple of minutes, we had to stop and adjust her, as I cursed her father, who her sister said had put on the nappy that morning. Eventually, her sister offered to give her a piggy-back, which worked for a little while, until the younger started choking the older and had to prised off her sister's back.
We were greeted by people dressed as Waldo from 'Where's Wally' (I will explain later), who gave me some giant stickers with numbers on them, to stick on the back of the girls' backs, so that if they got lost, I could report their number to a Waldo, and they would (hopefully) find them for me. This was great, except for the fact that it took 10 minutes to pull the sticker off its backing, by which stage, the girls were being driven wild by all the balloons, bubbles, sweets, acrobats, fire-twirling, slides and rides that they could see, but couldn't get at. I wouldn't be surprised if more children were lost in that small period of attempting to get the sticker on their back than the rest of the day.
Once the stickers were attached, we made a bee-line for the giant windmill slide, which was a giant wooden slide wrapped around a wooden mill. You paid 2 Euro to climb up and go down on a straw mat. Of course, it being about the height of 4 storey-building, I had to go up with the youngest, and the stairs inside were ridiculously steep, which meant that higher we got the slower she went, until, finally, just near the top, she froze entirely and started to wail, as a build-up of little children gathered behind me (children also don't understand the concept of queues, or waiting, or stopping: they think if someone has stopped, they just need a constant and determined pressure into the small of the back to rectify the problem, sort of like a car stuck in mud). Finally, I got her up the top, and as we settled in, (me at the back, with her, a backpack and my hand bag between my legs) I got the whiff of a terrible, terrible poo. Mistake number two. I hadn't brought any nappies. Or baby wipes. Now, in hindsight, it is beyond my comprehension as to why I had thought I could get away with a 7 hour excursion with a child who wear nappies without packing ANY spare nappies. After we got off the slide, I told the elder girl we had to, straight away, attempt to find some nappies. A poo-ey nappy was bad enough, but when you then take into consideration the fact that the nappy was also refusing to stay on her waist, so it was a poo-ey nappy that was sliding down her bottom and depositing its contents all over... well, you get the idea. The situation was desperate. We went to the medical tent. They didn't have any spare nappies (Why?) We went to the lost children stand. They didn't have any spare nappies (WHY??) SO, we had to walk for 10 minutes to the convenience store, where they, luckily, had one single packed of nappies. They were *just* big enough. Desperate to change the nappy, I found what looked like a quiet, shady and deserted area on the other side of the road. Of course, the minute that I had decided that was the place to change the little one's nappy, about 30 people decided that was exactly the place they needed to congregate RIGHT THEN. And stand. And talk. About nothing. For 15 minutes. In the end, I just whipped off the nappy and changed it in front of all the people and decided it was their fault for choosing to stand there.
So, after this, we were able to head back to the festival. However, instead of wanting to watch the acts, the eldest girl decided she wanted to sit on the ground and eat food. Mistake number three was that I did not bring enough food, nor did I feed the girls regularly enough.
After they were fed, the eldest girl wanted to play on the playground. This was the most terrifying thing I have ever witnessed. It was like football hooligan stampede, except with 3 year olds instead of lower-class British men. The poor little one was whacked in the shoulder by an evil, fat, 3 year old boy with thick glasses who came flying past after 2 seconds on the playground. Then, she spent a horrible 3 minutes crouching on the floor of the play set, as children walked around, over the top of her, pushed, shoved and pulled her to get to the slide. All I could do was, ineffectively hold her hand from the ground, as there was no space for me to get up and help her. After 10 minutes, she eventually stood up and went down the slide, but it was so exhausting for the both of us, that we both left the playground straight away.
In the end, we only got to see one performer, who was pretty good, but not fabulous. And, again, I pretty much had to throw a tantrum to force the eldest girl to allow me and the younger to sit and watch him. The worst thing about looking after kids is how many times you end up behaving ridiculously childlishly yourself, and not just when playing games or things, but just when attempting to get what you want.
The only reason the eldest girl had actually stayed was the promise of a 99 (a soft serve ice-cream cone with a flake in it), so we went in search of one of those. As we were being served, I noticed the time was 5:50pm, and the car park where we had parked was closing at 6:30pm (with a 120 euro fine if you wanted to get the car out after that), so I grabbed the girls and walked them quick smart down the road. Mistake number four, I parked the car way too far away. The little one had a charming habit of suddenly stopping, making everyone behind her run into the back of us, and in the end, I just had to pick her up and power walk back to the car. This was as well as carrying my rucksack, her rucksack and a purse. Mistake number five, not packing properly. Mistake number six, was carrying a 4 year old eating a magnum, as the magnum got smacked variously on my shoulder, my hair, my ear and right in the middle of my face.
Luckily, we managed to get to the car without any troubles, though the little one heard an ambulance and started to wail that she was also sick and had to go to the hospital, which made me both worried that she was about to throw up on the street and that people would think I was a terrible parent/carer for not immediately taking her to the hospital.
We headed home, where there was no food in the house, and the girls' uncle. Thank goodness he was there, as he was able to take over for a bit whilst I recovered. I honestly don't know how single parents do it. I have the utmost respect for them, and spent the day thanking my father over and over and over again and hoping that we hadn't caused him too much stress and worry and trouble over the years.
Well, on the subject of childhood, I currently have 'Forest Gump' on in the background (I know this soundtrack off by heart. Dad and my bro and I listened to it all the way across the USA. Ok, that's an exaggeration. All the way from New Mexico to California, but it felt like a much longer distance and bigger deal when you are 12 years old), so I'm going to end the post and watch that and have a cider or two and have a bit of a relax.
Another post! Argghhhhh....
This was a stupid idea. Blogging every day. Something 'creative'. What kind of bullshit is that? I mean, really? Something, 'creative'. What a wank. I'm sick of this. No-one's even paying me. PAY ME STUFF. The blog posts are boring. Well, they are to me. I don't have really cool drawings like this girl does:
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
Which is a really, really cool website with wonderful (hilarious) whimsical drawings and great stories and it is truly 'creative' and I have my crappy little blogspot blog with my google image search photos.
Baaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
Be warned. I'm going into existential crisis mode again.
I just need an exercise. Any writing exercise. Anyone got an idea? Preferably something quick and easy. Acrostic poetry. Now there is a good, quick and easy exercise. There's something you can shoot off in 5 minutes and feel like a writer and feel productive and slightly smug about your amazing powers of production and blah, blah, blah.
But, I've already done acrostic poetry.
Ooh. Ok, I've just gone back to the Emerging Writers Festival website and they've given me a great exercise. Ok, ok, oks. Let me get some paper.
Its another food-related post. This is insane. Am I always hungry, or do I just never think about anything else except food?
So, the exercise was to write 'I remember, I forget, I remember, I forget,' all the way down a page, leaving space for a comment in between. The remembers were very easy. The forgets weren't. It seemed a contradiction in terms to try and remember what you've forgotten. Anyway, interesting exercise, and I like the pattern and the structure. I like patterns and structures. I'm a little OCD. As well as being a perfectionist. Oh the joys of being me.
ANYWAY. Here is the exercise:
'I remember
Asking Mum to make me cheese & lettuce sandwiches and thinking I was grown-up because I wanted to eat 'vegetables' at school. But,
I've forgotten
Every single meal Mum ever cooked me. But,
I remember,
She made a gingerbread fairytale castle once for our American Christmas and she was the coolest mother on the block. But,
I've forgotten
What it tasted like. I can't remember if I even ate any, but,
I remember
Her, standing over it, in a candy-striped dress, grinning madly and so proudly.
I've forgotten
if I liked the food Mum made me, but
I remember
I hated the food Dad made me (that is, until he discovered Chicken Satay and Beef with Black Bean Sauce).
I've forgotten
How to stop eating when I'm full, but,
I remember
I used to be able to do it.
I've forgotten
Everything I ever knew about diets and losing weight.
Well, I wish I had.'
http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/
Which is a really, really cool website with wonderful (hilarious) whimsical drawings and great stories and it is truly 'creative' and I have my crappy little blogspot blog with my google image search photos.
Baaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhh.
Be warned. I'm going into existential crisis mode again.
I just need an exercise. Any writing exercise. Anyone got an idea? Preferably something quick and easy. Acrostic poetry. Now there is a good, quick and easy exercise. There's something you can shoot off in 5 minutes and feel like a writer and feel productive and slightly smug about your amazing powers of production and blah, blah, blah.
But, I've already done acrostic poetry.
Ooh. Ok, I've just gone back to the Emerging Writers Festival website and they've given me a great exercise. Ok, ok, oks. Let me get some paper.
Its another food-related post. This is insane. Am I always hungry, or do I just never think about anything else except food?
So, the exercise was to write 'I remember, I forget, I remember, I forget,' all the way down a page, leaving space for a comment in between. The remembers were very easy. The forgets weren't. It seemed a contradiction in terms to try and remember what you've forgotten. Anyway, interesting exercise, and I like the pattern and the structure. I like patterns and structures. I'm a little OCD. As well as being a perfectionist. Oh the joys of being me.
ANYWAY. Here is the exercise:
'I remember
Asking Mum to make me cheese & lettuce sandwiches and thinking I was grown-up because I wanted to eat 'vegetables' at school. But,
I've forgotten
Every single meal Mum ever cooked me. But,
I remember,
She made a gingerbread fairytale castle once for our American Christmas and she was the coolest mother on the block. But,
I've forgotten
What it tasted like. I can't remember if I even ate any, but,
I remember
Her, standing over it, in a candy-striped dress, grinning madly and so proudly.
I've forgotten
if I liked the food Mum made me, but
I remember
I hated the food Dad made me (that is, until he discovered Chicken Satay and Beef with Black Bean Sauce).
I've forgotten
How to stop eating when I'm full, but,
I remember
I used to be able to do it.
I've forgotten
Everything I ever knew about diets and losing weight.
Well, I wish I had.'
Friday, June 10, 2011
No Inspiration.
I have no idea what to write about today for my 'creative' post. I found a picture I like on someone else's blog though:
It kind of reminds me of U2.
And that reminds me of Finnigan.
And that reminds me of U2 again.
And that reminds me of Finnigan...
And that is clearly going nowhere.
The NYWM post suggested listening to Miles Davis, but I cannot think of anything more dull than the song they suggested. I like jazz, but, oh, this was boring. Actually, you know, I take that back, I don't know that I do like jazz. I like some jazz, but, I think I like the idea of jazz more than I like actual jazz and oh... look where I'm going again.
They also suggested a very cool stop-animation film, which was about making spaghetti, but the spaghetti was pick-up-sticks, and the sauce was red silk, seasoned with dice and post-it notes and cut-up one dollar bills, and I'm sure I'm not making any sense, you should really just watch it, as its pretty cool.
But, I don't know what to do with that, aside from write a story about a rag-doll making spaghetti.
Ok, screw it. I've chosen one of the tabs that's open on my internet browser and I'm going to write about that.
'I bought some strawberries from a man in overalls and wellington boots today. I'm a sucker for a road-side stand and a hand-written sign. When I handed over the money, his hands were still covered in dirt, which I took to mean that my strawberries were especially authentic ones. Like they'd actually really truly been grown in really true dirt, as opposed to just being cooked up in some laboratory or made out of plastic, which the strawberries in supermarkets sometimes look like. There's a point, I think, when a strawberry ceases to be appealingly big and juicy looking and just starts to give the impression of a mutant object from outer space, and that point is reached when the strawberry is bigger than the palm of your hand. I don't know what I'm going to do with them though. I don't normally buy strawberries. I don't actually like them.
I'm such a fool. They're sitting on the front seat of my car now, staring at me, judging me, as I drive to work. 'What kind of an idiot buys strawberries when they don't even like strawberries? What are you going to do with us now, bozo? Throw us on the compost? What a waste of money. Should have just thrown the money on the compost. Would have taken up less time. Idiot.'
Huh. The strawberries have the voice of my mother.
'We don't have a voice, you twat, its all in your over-active imagination, or are you having one of your funny turns again? You've been doing drugs again, haven't you, you pathetic junkie? Do you really think you should be driving whilst your stoned? I mean, think of the people in the other cars, they might be worthwhile human beings, like your sister and your brother, you wouldn't want to kill them, I mean, never mind about you, you're just a no-hoper 35 year old who works in a dying CD store, but they, they might be about to cure cancer.'
'I'm not a junkie, it was only that one time with the pot after Johnny's 18th birthday party and I barely even inhaled...'
'Be better for you if you were a junkie. Then you'd have an excuse for being pathetic.'
I should throw the strawberries out the window.
'Don't you dare.'
Jesus. Its going to be one of those days.'
I was going to write more, but I don't think I can be bothered. That seems to be an end to the story. Its kind of crap, I guess, but, oh well, its done, I suppose. That's not a great attitude to have, is it? Oh well, again.
It kind of reminds me of U2.
And that reminds me of Finnigan.
And that reminds me of U2 again.
And that reminds me of Finnigan...
And that is clearly going nowhere.
The NYWM post suggested listening to Miles Davis, but I cannot think of anything more dull than the song they suggested. I like jazz, but, oh, this was boring. Actually, you know, I take that back, I don't know that I do like jazz. I like some jazz, but, I think I like the idea of jazz more than I like actual jazz and oh... look where I'm going again.
They also suggested a very cool stop-animation film, which was about making spaghetti, but the spaghetti was pick-up-sticks, and the sauce was red silk, seasoned with dice and post-it notes and cut-up one dollar bills, and I'm sure I'm not making any sense, you should really just watch it, as its pretty cool.
But, I don't know what to do with that, aside from write a story about a rag-doll making spaghetti.
Ok, screw it. I've chosen one of the tabs that's open on my internet browser and I'm going to write about that.
'I bought some strawberries from a man in overalls and wellington boots today. I'm a sucker for a road-side stand and a hand-written sign. When I handed over the money, his hands were still covered in dirt, which I took to mean that my strawberries were especially authentic ones. Like they'd actually really truly been grown in really true dirt, as opposed to just being cooked up in some laboratory or made out of plastic, which the strawberries in supermarkets sometimes look like. There's a point, I think, when a strawberry ceases to be appealingly big and juicy looking and just starts to give the impression of a mutant object from outer space, and that point is reached when the strawberry is bigger than the palm of your hand. I don't know what I'm going to do with them though. I don't normally buy strawberries. I don't actually like them.
I'm such a fool. They're sitting on the front seat of my car now, staring at me, judging me, as I drive to work. 'What kind of an idiot buys strawberries when they don't even like strawberries? What are you going to do with us now, bozo? Throw us on the compost? What a waste of money. Should have just thrown the money on the compost. Would have taken up less time. Idiot.'
Huh. The strawberries have the voice of my mother.
'We don't have a voice, you twat, its all in your over-active imagination, or are you having one of your funny turns again? You've been doing drugs again, haven't you, you pathetic junkie? Do you really think you should be driving whilst your stoned? I mean, think of the people in the other cars, they might be worthwhile human beings, like your sister and your brother, you wouldn't want to kill them, I mean, never mind about you, you're just a no-hoper 35 year old who works in a dying CD store, but they, they might be about to cure cancer.'
'I'm not a junkie, it was only that one time with the pot after Johnny's 18th birthday party and I barely even inhaled...'
'Be better for you if you were a junkie. Then you'd have an excuse for being pathetic.'
I should throw the strawberries out the window.
'Don't you dare.'
Jesus. Its going to be one of those days.'
I was going to write more, but I don't think I can be bothered. That seems to be an end to the story. Its kind of crap, I guess, but, oh well, its done, I suppose. That's not a great attitude to have, is it? Oh well, again.
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