hot dumpster heat

i knew there was a reason i avoided cleaning up. somewhere in my bones i knew it was the wrong thing to do... cleaning up only ends in tears and dumpster crawls - remember that kiddies!

recently i found myself in a tidy-up frenzy, throwing things out left, right and centre. those of you who know me will know how extremely unusual that is for me given my tendency to hoard, keep or "collect" anything and everything. i have spoken previously of my habit of keeping everything so i hope you appreciate the rarity of this occurrence. i used to put this down to laziness but now i know that the reason i have avoided cleaning and tidying all these years is because intuitively i knew it was wrong.

last week my boyfriend, dave, generously bought me a ticket to hot hot heat on the understanding i would pay him back when my impoverished state would allow. i'm not a die hard fan but interested enough to shell out $45 to see them...

i'm sure the quicker-witted of you are beginning to see how this story may go.

it would appear that in my cleanliness frenzy i disposed of said hot hot heat tickets.
apparently the space in our house for old bills is also the space for concert tickets - who knew?
i'll tell you who didn't fucking know.... me.

we live in a big apartment block and therefore are lucky enough to have one of those chutes you just throw the rubbish in and never have to think about again. the rubbish goes down a big slippery slide down to the bottom floor and we never have to think about it again. this system works well for me, until something is thrown out by accident.

this is not the first time i have been robbed by the clean-up fairy.

on my 21st birthday i had a soiree on my rooftop with friends and family and most importantly presents! when it began to cloud over and rain, (as it does every year on my birthday despite the fact my birthday is right in the middle of spring) we all decided to go down stairs to continue the festivities. being the responsible people we are, and still mostly sober, we thought we'd do a quick clean up. i delighted in showing everybody the garbage chute and how easily we were able to dispose of our rubbish, and so dispose we did.

little did i know at the time that someone was mistakenly disposing of my presents! MY PRESENTS! presents are my favourite thing and they make the passing of each year acceptable to me. i can ignore my ever increasing age when each birthday brings presents. i love presents!

and so when this accidental disposal came to my attention it is fair to say i was suitably upset (if being suitably upset can include a lot of foot stomping and hungover crying). after the tears dried and my foot became sore from too much stomping i became determined to recover these lost possessions which i barely had time enough to get to know before they were tragically ripped from my ownership. and so donning rubber gloves i trudged down to the bottom floor of my building and spent the next hour in a dumpster sifting through the rubbish of the building.
i was on a dumpster crawl.
rotten food, off milk... they deterred me not. i sifted and sifted until finally, sadly i had to admit defeat. it appeared that my presents had been taken away by the garbage truck before i had a chance to save them and bring them to their rightful home.

well this week saw me once again, in the dumpster. instead of looking for a bag of goodies i was looking for two pieces of paper in a bag of my own rubbish. it seems the garbage room has acquired a few sifting tools since my last visit and so dave and i sifted, ploughed and dug through the waste of the building. it was an eventful dumpster crawl as we tried to avoid the occasional incoming bag of rubbish hurtling wildly down the chute and dave very narrowly escaped what would have been a very dirty and painful injury to the face, had i actually whacked him with the metal claw thing i was digging through the rubbish with, as i very nearly did. a time was had by all.

unfortunately my second dumpster crawl was as fruitless as the first. beaten to it by the bloody garbage truck again - those bastards.

and so dave , the understanding and generous soul he is bought the tickets again. the box-office lady recognised him from his first purchase and queried as to why he was buying more tickets. when he relayed the tragic tale to her, she asked him if i was still his girlfriend in light of the recent occurrences... yes he replied.

and so now i owe dave not just for the one ticket he generously paid for but for three. this brings my total ticket cost to $135! hot hot heat better be fucking shit hot, that's all i'm saying.

anyway the lesson to be learnt here is to never tidy up. it is wrong and will only end in tears and/or dumpster crawls. learn from my mistake friends... learn from my mistakes.

musings of the mute

i know its been a while and i will not bore you with any mediocre excuses...
the truth is that i'm lazy...very lazy.
the good news is that my household has finally joined modernity and we now have a reliable source of internet access at home...can you beleieve it? ...internet...in the home! what will they think of next?
anyhow, this may or may not result in more frequent posting. only time will tell.

in the past few weeks i've been thinknig a bit about consequence and what a harsh master it can be. seemingly meaningless actions or even words can have terrible consequences. once those are set in play, there can be no way to stop them. they can be like a snowball rolling down a hill, gathering more speed and mass with every second.
yesterday i looked at a woman whose life is mostly misery now and while her cirumstances upset me, i cannot help but think that she is where she is today as a direct consequence of her actions.
but how much can one person suffer, and when is that enough?
when you stare into the eyes of a woman who has caused so much pain and commited acts of selfishness incomprehensible to anyone but her and with those eyes she looks at you with nothing but love, it hurts.
i know what she wants and i know that i can't give it to her, and even if i could the truth is that i don't think she deserves it.

age and disease do not free you from your past, especially when you show no remorse.
in my bones, in my blood and with my heart i love her and part of me wants to sit by her bedside and give her everything she wants but when it comes down to it, she just doesn't deserve that. i'm willing to help her, but i have my limits and had things been different, my help would be limitless.
all her actions over her near 80 years have contributed to where she is today, and its a pretty awful place to be.
i love her and i wouldn't wish her circimstances on my worst enemy, but i can't change them either.

everybody has their story. every murderer, every junkie, every little old lady... everybody has a story.
in the past few weeks i've heard a lot of stories and my heart has near broken for people i don't know. i know she has her story and i know its a pretty awful one. i look at this woman that i love, who is no harm to anybody anymore, and i still feel angry. this little old woman; demented, covered in cancer both inside and out, emaciated and probably near death. i feel guilt and immense sadness that this is how she has ended up but i know that consequence has ruled it so. her choices have led her here and they're still keeping her here now.
it didn't have to end up like this and she is the only one who could have changed it...
i wish she had.

crap

i have been the recent recipient of 13 boxes of belongings that i put into storage all those many moons ago when i thought i was moving to canada.

all those many moons ago when i was packing these belongings, i paid no attention to whether these things actually needed to be my belongings or whether, in fact, they would be more at home in the bin.

(i think that was my 'drunk for six months' stage)

i am a hoarder; a self-confessed, irrational, impractical hoarder.

thus, last weekend saw me sifting through boxes and boxes of utter crap, looking for that diamond in the rough which might (in part) justify me having kept all that crap. i found many things which made me laugh out loud, some that made me feel like crying and some that found me rushing to the garbage chute to dispose of immediately before anyone else saw them

(mental note: if you are going to keep photos of you 'in the act' make an effort to remember where it is you are going to keep them, lest they turn up unexpectedly and take you by surprise in the presence of your current boyfriend.)

i cursed at a lot of the crap that i kept but when it came down to it, could not bring myself to throw it all out either.

the phone number of some random irish guy i shagged in scotland one night, the ticket to the sex pistols concert i went to on my 16th birthday, letters from friends 10 years ago soaked in the intensity of emotion that is really only available to 14 year old girls or those suffering from a mental illness, boots and clothes i will never wear again.

all these things make up my story, and i love that story.

sure i've made mistakes and have regrets, made clear through the beauty of hindsight, but in the end what of that would i throw away given the opportunity?

every misnomer, mistake, wrong decision and act of stupidity on my behalf has brought me to where i am today, and that's a pretty good place to be.

things could be better, but they could always be better.

i love my crap and the way a simple written note can bring

me to tears or send me into fits of laughter.

i know its means fuck all to anyone else but its mine and i'm keeping it...

and even though i never look at the stuff or really even know that i still own it,

it occupies a space in my heart (and a lot of space in my house)

*cue Barbara Streisand "Memories"*

hear that housemates?

can't argue with babs now can ya?

those drawers are mine and the crap is staying...

i love my crap.

Bette

On Saturday april 30 i took in the beautiful beast that is bette...

i laughed, i cried (almost), i ate hot chips.

At the tender age of 59, miss m bounded about the stage like a teenager, swore like a sailor and managed to crank out her old faithfuls faultlessly.

she put shit on john howard, westies,and even sang the vegemite theme song.

gotta love her! don't you just?

she belted out most of the classics: wind beneath my wings, from a distance, the rose and also a rendition of peter allen's tenterfield saddler and also sang my favourite beaches ballad "i think its going to rain today."

more interesting than that though - she's a filthy bitch!

she had all the blue-rinses sitting aghast at her potty mouth and crewd jokes.

yay for bette! more of the swears and less of the god stuff!

she had this filmed skit where she was taken to the court of judge judy and ordered to apologise to anyone who had ever ever watched television or seen one, for the atrocity that was the short-lived sitcom Bette... and she lost and she did apologise.

she chastised Xtina for trying to capitalise on the "cheap blonde with big tits look" that she claims to have created. she pointed fun at brit and kev. it was a regular riot... of sorts.

Bette was great, even if i id feel a bit out of place in my ziggy stardust ankle socks, fishnets and big furry coat.

yay for bette!

wish you had've ben there elmos and nads!

note to family and friends

now i don't claim to be an expert on these things so if you do, feel free to correct me. but i was quite sure that my copy of "how to win friends and pash boys" mentioned something about funerals not being pick-up points, particularly when the funeral is for the mother of your crush. am i wrong?
without naming names or pointing fingers, i am next-to-certain that a certain someone attended my grandmother's funeral this week, with the express purpose of cracking onto my uncle (i.e. my grandmother's son.)
now call me a prude, i can handle it, but is this not possibly a bit inappropriate?

am i the only one who thinks this?
now i am a fan of numerous forms of inappropriateness; inappropriate flatulence; inappropriate laughing; inappropriate language; inappropriate drunkenness; inappropriate outfits; inappropriate jokes. and my family is no stranger to any of these phenomena.
but trying to pick up at a funeral? the son of the deceased?

i don't know kids. particularly when he is your ex-husband.
apparently i too have partaken in the inappropriate pick-up, but i was inappropriately drunk at the time and therefore don't remember a thing and can live in the warm womb of denial....aaahhh denial.
anyway i diverge, if you want to pick up just get blind drunk and throw yourself at someone, don't come to funerals of my family members and try to pick up your ex-husband.

Mary Patricia Faulkner

As I watched your lips turn blue and pulse slow down and held your hand as it went cold I selfishly thought of myself. I wanted you to wake up so I could ask you all the questions I never got around to asking. I wanted to hear all the stories you never got around to telling.
What secrets have you taken with you?

Your history is my history.

All your life was dedicated to caring for other people and your only wish was that you would never reach the state where someone else would have to care for you.

Constantly giving with nothing asked in return.
Friends and family spread across the nation; I will never know the full extent of the loss your passing brings about.

Your heart kept beating long after you stopped breathing, but we always knew you were all heart.

You fought battles and overcame hurdles that I will never have to.
Though I only ever knew you as a loving older woman I know you were a force to be reckoned with in your youth. Amidst the oppression of ultra-Catholicism you took your destiny in your hands and, right or wrong, left your family to caravan around Australia with the man you loved. 8 years I think you said you did that, fruit picking, hairdressing, cooking... from town to town with no agenda but the road ahead.

I wouldn't have the courage to do that now.... Let alone as a married woman in the 70's.

A simple woman with simple pleasures who had 7 sugars in her tea and enjoyed a cheeky beer.
She wasn't always right but her intentions always were.
I never met someone with such a capacity to care and love. While you told me stories of distant second cousin's nephews and nieces, I pretended I was interested and knew who these people were. You had a seemingly limitless knowledge of the most distant branches of the family tree and you loved them all.

I love you more than I showed with my infrequent visits and phonecalls, but I know that you know that.

Never one to demand more for yourself, despite deserving more than the rest of us put together.

I know the end was just as you would have wanted it, and thank god it never got to the point of me having to suffocate you with a pillow, as you once tried to make me promise that I would.

We were the exact same height with the exact same body (yours just a bit older) and I'm hoping some of your spirit spilt over into mine.

You are one of the most amazing women I will ever meet and I will miss you always.

I love you Ma.

speakings of the silent

i know its been a long time. you thought i'd never return didn't you?
let me explain; this blog's main purpose is to provide me with an activity to assist in the further procrastination of uni work. given that i had no uni work over the lengthy break, i felt no need to even approach a computer. in fact, i made every effort to avoid them. thus the silence.
as i now find myself in my university library on a wonderfully sunny day, trying to muster the motivation to actually do some work, i find i again need the blogosphere.
the blogosphere allows me to sit at this computer and tap away at the keyboard as if i was actually doing something productive, like all the other kids are doing!
i know the logic behind this predicament seems flawed. 'if only i dedicated a space of time to actually doing work, rather than inventing ways to put it off, i may actually have some time to go out and enjoy the sunshine' i hear you say.
WRONG!
the problem with that theory is that it presupposes that there is an end to this stream of work. it rests on the assumption that if i were to just work constantly there eventually would come a time when all the work was done. this argument may work in some situations, but not in the situation of 4th year Arts/Social Work student. no i'm afraid not. the situation of a 4th year Arts/Social Work student is one overflowing with dry and depressing articles regarding the decline of the welfare state and the ramifications of economic rationalism; the differences between public policy and social policy; the infinite number of ways in which structural factors create personal problems.... and the list goes on.
so you see blogosphere, why i need you.

i would also like to take this opportunity to acknowledge the sad passing of one Toffee; the talkative ginger tabby who never grew out of looking like a kitten. i'm so sorry nads.