Wow. So much for a graceful farewell and redirect with panache.
I linked to a blog in Swedish.
SO skilled.
This is why I need a whole new blog. So I don't corrupt this one with baby (lack-of-)brain.
Now that I've scared off anyone silly enough to be subscribed to THIS blog after my inertia, I'm over here. Come hang out. It's still a bit lonely... Just me, her, him, the pug and a relationship with my washing machine that's just been taken to an exciting new level. 

Goodbye...hello

So things have moved on. A lot. To the extent that I thought about resuming my blog over here but decided it needed a new title to fit the new focus. Which is small. And wears a lot of pink. Her name's Audrey Fay, and we're settling into this thing called parenthood with surprising ease, if not a love for middle-of-the-night feeds. The new blog is, like her, rather small, but if you can cope with mommyblogging and the occasional snark, come on over.

absolut snark

Welcome to The Bay at Mordialloc, where the women without husbands wear Botoxed lips and eyes instead of wedding bling. I idly wonder if they hocked it to pay for their all-in-one cosmetic pilgrimage to Thailand. Tummy Tucker jeans versus Bardot jeans not cut for anyone post-childbirth or thirty. They chew gum and eye the tradies, the bar staff, the lead singer, my husband. Anything male and pulsing.

I estimate that in another twenty minutes (or however soon another glass of chardonnay can decently be necked) they'll be up step-tapping and moshing their bleached split ends in time to the bass.

But wait! Three peacocks, hopefully on break from a wedding (you know, that awkward pause between ceremony and reception where guests wish they'd brought a book and the bridal party dash madly between four locations) arrive.

On-trend cobalt with heinous faux tan, on-trend coral with divine Grecian cleavage-bisecting braided silver straps, and the season's must-have, a maxi that has been gracefully hoiked up five times in four minutes over a too-tight strapless bra cowering beneath an onslaught of orange breasts. There may also have been fascinators. I choose to label it car-crash couture.

Let's not talk about their three boys who roll in wearing real-estate suits and earrings, not a shirt cuff to be seen between them. Who to blame for this surfeit of colortexturestyle? Is it the sartorial manifestation of the instant gratification generation, everything now at once in one dress? I think I prefer the Tummy Tucker jeans.

Spotlight, how do you do this to me?

Does Spotlight fill you too with delusions of competence and domestic sewn-from-scratch perfection? I'm here to tell you only masochists make their own napkins.

Only morons see some BEAUTIFUL scarlet fabric with white scrolls and birds and curlicues and think "WOW, that would make stunning Christmas napkins. I could totally make them."
Hemming (a.k.a sewing in straight lines, in this instance) is very easy. It's more the cutting in straight lines which is a hassle. And the ironing. Oh yes, the ironing. The pressing of 100% cotton homespun into creases OTHER than the ones formed by the fabric bolt. Maybe it's just the tedium killing me.

Oh yes, killing.
I've hemmed and pressed and folded one.
Of twelve.

Admittedly, the other eleven are cut and stacked beside the machine, and the iron is now hot, so I've come further down the tunnel than I'm protesting.  I've hemmed the tablecloth (just call me Martha Stewart)

I have a distinct feeling the boy will be on loose-thread-trimming and pressing duty when he comes home. If he comes home. Meanwhile, on with the Tripod marathon and the cheery festive hemming. Frick.

Trying to be grownups

me: Where did all the Picnics go?

him: I was... picnicking. Do you like Turkish Delights? Here, you use the white ones as counters. (Tossing them at Jack) Who likes caramel? Do you like caramel? Do you like the Boost ones? (This may be a box of Cadbury Favorites, it's hard to be sure. You'll note all the really GOOD ones are long gone.)

me: Um, I don't not like them.

him: Good, you take the Turkish Delights and the Boost, I'll..

me: Do we REALLY have to divvy them all up right now? Can you not just leave them in a mixed group so we can eat them like ADULTS?

Jack: I really love these balls.

(Worth noting that a box of Lindt is also on the table. It's happy-happy Christmas time, aka end-of-teaching-year aka welcome to the crazy who is my husband on a sugar high from pilfering fridge goodies. Love it.)

revamp? too much work.

Post-ballet concert, I’m firmly embracing the pyjama-dressing trend. I did have thoughts of morphing into a fashion-inspiration-look at me blog, but I’ve decided

(a) I’m too lazy

(b) I have no decent backdrops to take such photos against, except for my new, minimalist roller blinds which have couches in front of them and there’s NO WAY I’m moving them just to take a photo of myself looking (i) uncoordinated (ii)out of focus,

(c) I HATE most photos of myself

(d) don’t I already have enough to do?

(e) I’m lazy. As you may have noticed from my month of blog-neglect.

Besides, you don’t really want to look at photos of me in my pyjamas. That’s what the Peter Alexander catalogue is for (and as if I could ever compete with THAT?!). It goes like this: silk blouson pants, country road tee. Painted cotton harem pants and singlet top. Stretch waistbands and floaty cotton all the way. Flat shoes only, and if they can be easily kicked off, all the better. 

I’m starting to think that the world might be a happier place if we all got our snuggle on and saved the stilettos for occasions already softened by alcohol. I’m already feeling that I can get from working-state to relaxed-state with much more ease. This has NOTHING to do with concerts being over and a six-week break so close I can almost taste it. Hm. How do you get your snuggle on?

Oops.

There’s been a lot going on that hasn’t really been mine to write about; then there’s been a lot going on that’s been so incredibly deadly boring that living it is soporific, let alone reading about it. Take today.

Today I learned that forgetting to run a load of washing for two? maybe three? weeks is a crappy idea. I also learned I have a propensity for scribbling random information (crucial stuff, mind you) on random bits of paper, then confusing those bits of paper with the bits that should have been thrown out weeks ago.  That’s not to say that I threw out the important bits instead, just that I have a house littered with pieces of irrelevant and relevant notes that need collating, sorting, and filing. In the bin.

My ‘housekeeping’ was going brilliantly this morning, until I ferried a miscellaneous pile of cello strings downstairs and squelched across the floor. Oh no. Oh yes. Those flooding rains that struck Melbourne? They struck us, too. Rather stealthily, possibly through our gum-leaf-filled gutters at second-storey height. 

Wow. 

Goodbye leisurely morning of picking up crap, hello panic stations treading towels into carpet and setting up blow heaters to try and dry the mat out pre-afternoon teaching. Loud, epiphanic curses when I discovered my little black book (a diligent effort at record-keeping, tracking each student’s progress in 2010 sopping, every page adhering to the other in a gloppy papier-mache mess. I haven’t yet reached a state of gratitude that my (mostly irreplaceable) teaching theses and workbooks were all safely stowed on shelves and have kept their ink on. Maybe I’ll get there when my carpet’s dry again. 

I'm an imposter (gasp!)

Devastation: I am not a true geek. Oh, I may wear black (a lot) and tweet with the frequency of one attached to her iPhone with an umbilical cord, but my glasses are strictly for reading and my black has heels welded on. High ones.

I judge my hand luggage on it's ability to keep lipgloss separate from my phone, not orthopedic correctness, and you will never see me in public without mascara. Minimum. So to be at a tripod gig is kind of like an out-of-body experience.
An awesome one, ok, but still. I don't think I was ever one of these girls wearing Docs and jeans and hi-necked tees (one by one, tick. All together? Gee, maybe one day in 1999 when I was trying to kick my creative writing tutor's attractive and condescending afrikaans butt.).

What? Oh yeah. The dvd's going to be fantastic. Of the show, not me engaging in poetic butt-kicking. Let's just pretend that whole digression never happened.

I once participated in a dungeons & dragons-type game with a (now obviously ex-) boyfriend. He wasn't an ex at the time. Der. It all ended badly when I carelessly slouched beneath a tree, horn pointing up (my character was a unicorn. Shut up. Stop snickering. I was fourteen. Yes, I had a boyfriend. He's STILL a lovely guy.) and a fellow gamer fell out of the tree. Onto my sharp, shiny unicorn horn. Oops. Yeah. Turns out the way not to make friends is accidentally stab them in the back. Especially when the dice conspire to kill them (seriously, I had no idea what I was doing). Yeah.

So I totally related to Tripod vs. the Dragon. Buy the DVD, they're just damn cool (in a geeky three-part harmony kind of way). Plus I'm SO going to be on it, laughing hysterically and looking stupid. Yay. (Reminds me of that John Farnham concert.... Oh jeez.)

Only in

Two o'clock on Sunday afternoon: a man in a motorized wheelchair rolls loudly down the highway. He's singing Elvis into a microphone, the lousy, over-bassed loudspeaker reverberating directionally across four lanes of traffic.
I wonder out loud if he's crazy. M, always the kinder of us two, suggests he's a traveling busker. I concede that's possible, if he's blind and indifferent to the lack of pedestrians this side of frankston. Perhaps he's warming up, building his confidence. He has a loudspeaker. That alone would seem to point to a certain level of comfort. Weird, we shrug, and carry on, watching the navy bastion of the Aussie flag flap behind him as he chugs along the deserted pavement crooning to the seagulls.

Beginning.

On Saturday I received an email from a woman whose daughter I used to teach. It's been five-six years since I last heard from her. I taught her daughter for two or three years (to the end of Book 1), and they ended their time with me by 'trying out' another teacher, asking for a Sunday morning lesson time and generally being the kind of nightmare student you dream of losing.

Her email mentions her now four-year-old twins and requests a lesson time, tells me that the older child still plays and attends a private school on a scholarship. I don't think this family is a good fit for Suzuki, and I can't in good conscience take on another student - I won't be able to continue their lessons when they begin school and there is no way in hell that I will teach Sunday morning, given that the other six days of the week are all working ones.

My dilemma is this: Do I refer her to a colleague beginning her Suzuki studio or simply give a polite refusal? Do I brief my colleague or stay quiet and let her deal with the parent on her own terms? I realise a lot can change in five years, and Mum may be seeking a Suzuki teacher because her older child has progressed so slowly through the traditional system (she's up to AMEB Grade three). Dilemma.

No.

Today is the type of day for crawling into bed and watching old black-and-white movies. Or drinking tea from my teapot for one, book in front and notepad beside. I'm stuck in a creative hiatus; ideas but inadequate time to execute; desire without the means to reach out and take. I have the feeling next year will be about paring back and (ohgod, how indulgent) making space. A little more saying no and perhaps, instead of yes, sure, absolutely.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not unhappy withe the current state of my life, but I am feeling a lot of time is spent doing instead of being. When a white space of time suddenly opens up I hurry to fill it because I've forgotten how to spend it. I'm a little addicted to the adrenalin rushes of my life instead of a slow endorphin burn. (Pleasure junkie, hand up.)

I read the other day that the accepted response to "how are you?" is an apologetic, slightly flustered "So busy!" and that we seem to equate stress to success. I'd like to become more successful at balance. So I can choose to say yes and reply "So busy!" knowing damn well my busy will end in a week, or that next month is much calmer - and that I will not accept more impositions on my time simply because it's not yet assigned to another purpose. How to start saying no?

oops.

Just a quickie; an apology for my absence from the interwebs. The reasons are many: a husband recently returned to the country, a new term with multiple concerts, a new baby (not mine!) and a little artistic collaboration of a photographic nature. Soon I might have images to share. Until life settles just a little, enjoy the sidebar. We will return to usual ranting programming shortly.

Hello term 4.

Wow. The year's evaporated and there are only ten weeks standing between me and a summer of being broke and filling up my backyard wading pool.

Time to start walking the pug (in her posh new puppia harness, courtesy of a generous friend) and maybe even to changer her collar from a glow-in-the-dark spiky to a flattering floral on black (same friend) which will complement my summer wardrobe... I'm so not that kind of person.

Time to stash a litre of sunblock next to the neutrogena MIRACLE hand-cream which is slowly restoring my cuticles.

Time, perhaps, to start plotting what will occupy my brain when I don't have quite so many classes bouncing around it. (The boy seems to be plugging MTG shamelessly; if I get asked to look at his DECK one more time I'm going to do something else to his... something else. Yes. Fill in the blank. I dare you.)

Yum yum

For today's delectation allow me to present the chicken and leak pie. Yup. Only three dollars. I've just about accepted that my battle with the misused and abused apostrophe is lost, but since when did spelling become the new leprosy?

Now with added soot!

I have a mild haloumi addiction which may lead to a parting of the ways. My husband is considering the purchase of his own jaffle maker. His n' hers: can you imagine? Imagine: me, pottering about in my kitchen, happily assembling a tasty jaffle (they're a complete meal, shut up) with a side of super-tasty haloumi.

Well, I already have a smoking hot grill surface at the ready; why use a frypan for a measly two slices of the cheese equivalent of crack cocaine? EXACTLY. Besides, residual haloumi grease? BLISS on the exterior of your gourmet toastie.

So I prepare, amble away, and am completely dumbfounded when husband extracts paper towel from cupboard and starts to scrub away at our well-used little jaffler. You all heard my screech of dismay, admit it. I mean, there goes all the FLAVOR (he called it carcinogenic soot, but I beg to differ).

Fast forward to tonight: he offers to make me the sandwich (in the shiny new thingamajig he scrubbed clean), possibly so I can't grubby it up with my greasy cheese. I graciously accept. Little does he know that I will covertly (actually, not at all covertly) chop a few chunks of cheese and grill them in the (well, it's still hot. Shame to waste that heat) jaffle iron.

Sizzle, sizzle.
"What are you cooking now?"
"Nothing..." (shifty eyes)
"But I can hear it sizzling!"
"It's a special type of nothing that sizzles?" (Yeah, I'm SO good at thinking on my feet.)

He shakes his head sorrowfully over the new encrustations of grease.
"Do you really want me to leave it like this?"
Nod vigorously.
"Really? Don't clean it?"
Shake vigorously.

Kindly, he puts it away. Memo to self: only grill haloumi on the left side.

And another thing...

And a follow-up: the email I received in response to my polite refusal makes it quite clear I am being invited as an "Old Girl" because so few of us continue to play once we finish school, and gee, what a great opportunity this is to catch up and support our school.

Hm. I nearly quit violin altogether after being victimized in orchestra, I am NOT an "Old Girl" and I've lived locally with not too low a musical profile for, like, ever, so the whole "we will encourage and support you" thing isn't flying. God, I hope they don't say "Oh, her! Yes, former student of the school, you know."

I'm totally holding a grudge. Sue me.

Random....

Those of you who know me will no doubt remember my horror sojourn at a particular private girls' school.

My life may finally be catching up with me, as (seemingly countless) of my students are trying for and receiving scholarships to said school. This has provoked a horrible (and irrational) fear that I may have to teach there. No such correspondence has been entered into... until today, when I arrived home to the following: (summarised for convenience)

Speech Night is coming up. We plan to play X. We want you to join us (translation: We have overreached the skill level of our students and are recruiting to make them look better than they really are) for MINIMUM two rehearsals and the concert. 


Rehearsal times, contact details, yada yada yada. 

Um.

Let's be clear. Not only do I NOT identify as a "past student", I left the school under openly hostile terms. There may have been threats to "set the education department onto [us]" and there was acrimony brewing for some time prior to my eventual exit.  And frankly, if I'm one of the "few other musicians" you're inviting, this would be a JOB and you could OFFER to PAY me. NOT a community orchestra, effective casual employment to "augment certain sections of the orchestra" (read: instrumental tutor to violins).

Surprise, surprise, I've very nicely refused the opportunity to perform, since you know, I don't get enough of those with my own studio, and even resisted the furious outburst of "You goons ruined my adolescence and now you want me to give up hours of PAID work to sit in your substandard orchestra and make it sound better than it really is so hundreds of fleeced parents think they're getting value for money?" in my polite email reply.

Lucky I have this blog.

Dear Student,

You are late. Again. I would not be so fussed by this except that you're never late for any discernible reason. It just happened. I would also not be terribly fussed by this, except that you then linger into the next student's lesson, taking your time removing your presence (let me be clear, you're welcome to stay as long as you like, but no-one should notice you) and generally hanging about. I'm beginning to understand why you were late.

What I would like to tell you: It's rude. Please stop. Schedule a later lesson time, plan to leave your home five minutes earlier, pack your stuff in the morning before you leave the house. Pack it on Sunday night, since I know you're not a morning person and you don't practice before school. If I was your parent I would ask you to pay for every minute of lesson time you DON'T receive because you found something more important to do on the way. Ooh, you're here. That'll be $10.

I think the universe is sabotaging me.

No, really. It's cold, wet, I spend a disproportionate amount of time sleeping (the pug has taken to gazing at me suspiciously on the rare occasions that I am in the house and awake, as if I might suddenly fall upon her in a dead slumber).

Clearly there's something very wrong when your PET believes your normal state is one of repose. It's been a dead week, shot down by general malaise and the tendency of my life to roll along juggernaut-like regardless of my participation. Take this morning: Chai will make EVERYTHING better, thinks brilliant little me. Ah, no, it really won't when its BLAZING hot and in an effort to drown the bitter, foul taste of a vile herbal tonic I burn my mouth - thoroughly. Gah.

About the only thing I CAN do is tell you all to read Steve Toltz's A fraction of the whole, which was just as good on my second read, and Justin Cronin's The Passage, which I THOUGHT was going to be a godawful Stephanie-Meyer-esque vampire saga but thankfully took a post-apocalyptic turn for the better. Despite his unwieldy name (JustIN CronIN? What WERE his parents thinking?) the prose is good. One humorous spelling error: twice the word "wretch" for "retch" (as in, about to throw up). Incongruous where it occurred and still has me wondering about the general English skills of most editors (oh, I've found some SUBLIME errors lately). So.

Go and buy yourself two very different books and cuddle up.

This week...

I've been using Twitter to find new penpals. Well, not quite, but I did ask who would like a pretty card in the mail, and quite a lot of people took me up on it, avowing their love of letterbox surprises and pretty things in general.

 It tickles me that I'm using the fastest communication to support the slowest; I check my email and twitter several times a day (oh, the vagaries of an iphone) but nothing is quite the same as pulling a personally addressed envelope from the mail. It's grounding in a way that all this electronic communication is so much fairyfloss. Hit the delete button and it's gone, might never have existed. This envelope in my hands? Just to walk to the bin requires my active engagement, participation with measurable action.

Writing, like so many other things, is a luxury. Like slow food, like handmade gifts, like learning a new skill and practising it (not just going to a six week course and then forgetting the whole shebang) until it becomes familiar. How terribly ironic that in a world full of devices to make life easier and faster we have lost the time to go slow.

I'm struggling a little with the parameters of time while living by myself (although the pug's constant harassment for food means I can never fall too far off balance. I go to sleep too late, wake up untethered and not knowing whether I really have slept at all. I suspect I may be nocturnal and merely participating in this "let's all be awake during daylight" merely out of habit.

What do you do to ground yourself?