Oh, Whatever!

December 31, 2007 at 2:52 am (a new year, dreams, wishes)

This is a throwing-my-hands-up-in-the-air moment, as if to physically cast off what plagues me. I’m sad, yes, and seriously concerned for my living situation for the next couple of months, but it’s almost a new year and I can’t let him ruin it.

So, some wishes for next year… not so much resolutions or promises that I’ll inevitably break, but just some little things I’ll be wishing when the clock ticks over. Warning: even more self-indulgent posting than usual.

  • I want to make a little home for myself; have the perfect little red and white kitchen that I have wanted since I was a little girl, complete with coordinated oven mits and junk like that. Pot plants, pictures on the wall, pretty matching cushions on the sofa… somewhere that I can shut out all the bad people and feelings, only letting in sunshine, happiness, inspiration and people I love.
  • I want to read beautiful books and watch momentous movies – I always forget what I came for whenever I go to the library or the video store, so I’m going to make a list and cross it off as I get through it. I have realized that I’m not reading as much as I should..
  • I want to launch my little shop-thing. Alright, alright.. it’s called Violonjello. I am in the process of drawing/painting the designs for my first set of gift/note cards – they are lyrical, botanical inspired ink drawings, embellished with some watercolour. I’m also working on illustrations for robot t-shirts and some larger scale illustrations to be sold as prints.
  • I want to finish the illustrations for The Frilliant Adventures of Scala and Soldad and send it off for consideration by publishers. This might take a while.
  • I want to be the best girlfriend in the world for Sebastian. He is ridiculously indescribably wonderful, he deserves so much better than the cranky, occassionally teary mess of disorganisation and brattitude that I have been in recent months years.
  • I want to buy my first pair of Manolos Blahniks. I’m quite sure that when I get them, I’ll cherish them forever to the point where I can never actually bring myself to set foot in them.. ah well.
  • I want my family to sort themselves out.. with the exception of Elle, they are desperately dysfunctional people who are driving each other insane.
  • I want to, for the first time in a long time, cast off all the brainwashing I have endured from Dad and Lucien. I am not fat, there are people who love me and they are justified in doing so, I do have talent, I am smart, there is weight and importance in what I say, I will succeed, I don’t need a degree to validate me, et cetera. It’s very easy to say these things, but it’ll be a long time before I actually believe them the way I did when I was a little girl.
  • I want to be a better friend. Next year I’ll have no more reasons to hide.
  • I want to learn how to be a better cook – my Mum is an awesome cook, but unfortunately it only got passed to me for certain dishes.
  • I want.. a canary.
  • I want, more than anything, to rediscover my joie de vivre and become the girl I was meant to be.

I think I’ve run out of ideas. These should keep me busy for at least six months though.

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Open Letter

December 30, 2007 at 8:27 pm (random)

Dear Daddy,

Soon enough, you’ll cease to exist for me. Your calls will go unanswered, your birthday will be just another day.

You won’t be invited to my wedding. I won’t call you when I get published for the first time. If I died suddenly, you wouldn’t even know unless somebody bothered to tell you.

The connection is has been cut - I am tired of feeling guilty. It’s not my fault that you don’t love me. No, I’m not being melodramatic. People who love their daughters do not pull them out of bed by their hair when they have a neck injury, to take the garbage out. They generally don’t kick things at them, or throw things at them, or slam doors into them, or throw them against a wall, et cetera. Their daughters don’t hide in their bedrooms, barely daring to breathe.   

Yes, I sprang from you but I am not your daughter. I’m made of something else entirely. You were so eager to replace us the first time, now you are doing it again. Letting your new daughter sleep in my bed – I suppose she has proved herself and is thus deserving of your kindness, or even civility? How can I prove myself when you drag me down? You sabotage everything that means anything to me, anything that I believe in. You belittle anybody who supports or encourages me. You want me to be something you can brag about, but you won’t brag about anything I already am.

You had a new daughter to replace me, and now another one to replace her. Is this one brilliant enough to escape your anger? I may be mistaken, but I always thought that encouragement might be a better way to help your child succeed, rather than constantly telling them how pathetic they are. Yelling at your daughter about how she fails at everything she attempts is definitely a novel way of helping her through university.

The playfulness and joy that used to infiltrate everything I did is dampened; the spirit and passion with which I tackled challenges is waning.The colour in my life has almost all bled out. I can’t let myself die like this – there would be more dignity in dying at my own hand than being pressed into a corner like this. Or is that what you’re hoping? It would definitely be a relief for me, but I could not give you the satisfaction.

You’ll be alone in the end, Dad. You are cruel to everybody in your life, in one way or another. Maybe when you’re old and nobody cares you will realize everything that you have lost. But it’s too late. Every time I forgive you, it gets worse. I’m not going to forgive you again.

Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I’m through. 

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Solitary Empress

December 21, 2007 at 5:04 pm (christmas, kids, the future, work)

I got the job – turns out that calling me on Monday actually meant “sometime on Thursday”. Minor problem in that it doesn’t start until January 14th, but I’m pretty adept now at making plain pasta taste good and finding five cent pieces in the couch for bus fares, so I think I can ride this out until then.

The little boy playing the 4 year old version of Tommy sat next to me during notes last night. He’s so tiny and his smile makes me smile. He’s so joyful, playful and fascinated by everything. Could this be a hint of maternal instinct creeping through; that thing that I vehemently denied ever existed in me?
I’m not totally sure what I think about children anymore. Someone’s Mum died the other day; she wasn’t even sick. Her husband tried to wake her in the morning to no avail. If you are ‘old’ and you lose that singular love of your life, who do you have left? I suppose siblings and friends, but they have their own families. Pets are so good for talking to; if only they could talk back.

Maybe it’s just Christmas getting to me. Back before my family splintered and everybody started hating each other, it would be oh so nice. Everybody being together and being so happy was something I looked forward to all year, so much more than presents. I never planned on having kids, but I also never planned on not having a loving family – now that mine is so irreparably fractured, I realize how much I took for granted.

I also never planned on finding myself most probably unlikely to be able to have children. Having that fact handed to me makes my choice a little harder. Can 20 year olds go for fertility tests, years before they would even consider anything, or is that jumping the gun? This is an actual fear of mine; being robbed of what I always considered was my ‘right’.

Well, if I decide to have kids and can’t have them anyway, I’m sure I’ll be able to console myself by surrounding myself with obscenely expensive furniture and art sans crayon marks, dribble and grubby hand prints.

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The stars go waltzing out in blue and red

December 17, 2007 at 5:17 pm (a new year, disappointment, poetry, poppies)

What a relief – in a matter of weeks, this whole blasted year will be over. The prospect of starting afresh is so enticing, even though I know that come January 1st, nothing will have changed spectacularly. Everything hanging over my head right now will still be there; I suppose the comfort will come in knowing (hoping) that next year things will be very different.

Today has been a poetry day.. I spent a lot of the morning in bed, hiding from my Dad, daydreaming and reading. My mind is awash with words, images, conjurations of a thousand different things that move me.. I can’t pinpoint why it’s working, but it is. I hope it doesn’t stop anytime soon.

My bedroom has bright white walls, and for a while now, I’ve been trying to tame the urge to paint bright red poppies on it, growing up from the floor, with blooms as big as dinner plates. Maybe I’ll ask my Mum for a huge, huge canvas for Christmas – one so big that it takes up my entire wall. I can paint poppies on that.

I’ve spent the day waiting for a phone call that has not come… a job offer. It would have been perfect; I interviewed well, I really thought that just this once that things would work out. Unfortunately not.

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What Sustains Me

December 14, 2007 at 2:43 pm (einstein, inspiration, lots and lots of love, sebastian)

Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.
- Albert Einstein

Sent to me with “like lots and lots of love, not just regular love” from Sebastian.

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Red

December 13, 2007 at 2:07 pm (booties, cat food, old frumpy women, red hair dye)

I want to dye my hair – of course, it’s one of those wishful things that won’t happen for a million years until I have money, but dreaming about that time is better than living in the present. Having a different hair colour always makes me feel like a different person for a little while. When my hair was black, I felt small like a mouse and more serious. When my hair was red, I felt sexier and more vivacious. When I went dark blonde (tried) I felt conventionally pretty. Right now my faded auburn is seeping back through the faded black, making me feel like a dowdy, frumpy old woman. I imagine that people see me on the street and wonder if I live in a shoebox, eating cat food and knitting booties for grown-up children.

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The Mean Streets

December 11, 2007 at 1:01 am (audition, sebastian, the wedding singer, vertebrae, woe)

So, I didn’t even make ensemble for The Wedding Singer. Surprise – turn up to a dance audition in a neck brace, what did I really expect? I did not sing spectacularly either – I’m finding it incredibly difficult right now to open my chest and throat muscles up enough to sing properly without lengthening my neck, which hurts. One of my vertebra is sticking out alarmingly, even now, and hurting a lot when I press on it. Sebastian scored yet another lead, and I will admit I am jealous. I snapped at him tonight over dinner, and he looked so hurt that I have been feeling terrible about it ever since. I am very, very proud of him and glad for him, but really wishing that I could have such good fortune right now. In anything.

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Tedium

December 7, 2007 at 6:37 pm (laying flat on my back is not particularly fun, survey)

Because laying flat on my back is the only real way for me to be right now, I’ve resorted to perching the laptop on my bent knees. A true measure of one’s poverty is when one possibly has something quite bad going on with their SPINE, and they can’t even afford an x-ray.

Ah well, here’s a random survey that I found on Hayley’s site. Blame her.

1. What’s your favourite children’s book? Rapunzel is my favourite fairytale, but how much I like it largely depends on the illustrations. Otherwise, I love The Red Tree by Shaun Tan.

2. What’s your favourite type of cake? Depends on my mood. Sometimes a lovely spiced pear flourless torte will be divine, other days I want the full enchilada – Pepperoni’s on Elizabeth Street have a brilliantly decadent honeycomb and caramel cake. It’s about 20 centimetres tall.

3. What was the last song you listened to? Precious Things by Tori Amos.

4. Grab the book nearest to you, turn to page 18, find line 4. Write down what it says. (Including the sentence in its entirety) – He continued his monologue while I vomited from the window, although I was too incapacitated to pay any attention to him until the worst of my seizure had subsided. (from The Grenadillo Box by Janet Gleeson)

5. What are your 3 best qualities? The problem with this question is that most of my qualities have a flip-side and can be bad things too. I am trusting, loving and honest.

6. Do you think you are a kind person? Yes. I can be very selfish in some ways though.

7. What colour is your toothbrush? Pink.

8. Who was your first TV crush? Watching David Bowie when Labyrinth showed on ABC, I was five. Strangely enough, I used to have vague dreams of Jareth until I was 12, but had no knowledge of where I had seen him, when my Mother hired Labyrinth and I realized where that odd man in my head had come from.

9. If you have to choose one celebrity couple to hang out with for the holidays, who would it be? Kevin Rudd and his wife. By day two, she would have stormed off in a jealous rage, and I would be all alone with the gorgeous man who called me “beautiful”.

10. What is your all-time favourite, most repeated movie quote? Christ, is there some kind of support group I can join? (from Reality Bites)

11. What was your least favourite class in school? Maths. I am simply not made for it.

12. What was the last thing to make you laugh uproariously? I don’t know… honestly. Sebastian, probably.

13. If you had to choose between a million bucks or the ability to fly, which one would you choose? Flying.

14. Where were you when 9-11 happened? I was in bed, asleep, looking forward to my birthday. We went on an excursion that day for school, wading through mud for a couple of kilometres to get to a waterfall. Being stuck out on the bush with no real contact, I had no idea whether the planes were just the start. I was so scared that I’d come home and find out that exactly the same thing happened in other places.

15. What do you do when vending machines steal your money? Cross my fingers and put more in.

16. Name three things you have on you at all times. iPod, phone and money (or at least empty wallet).

17. Can you change the oil on a car? YES!.. I think.

18. What did your last text message you received on your cell say? No, why, dos it say I am?
19. Do you like to cook? I do, but not just for myself. Which is rare. Sebastian currently does not eat ANYTHING.

20. Would you rather wake up after surgery and find that they’ve accidentally given you Barbra Streisand’s nose or Dolly Parton’s breasts? Dolly’s rack.

21. What shampoo/conditioner do you use? L’Oreal Elvive, only because it comes in pink bottles.

22. What are you wearing? Nothing. It’s hot and I’m in bed.

23. What kind of bear is best? Moon bears.

24. What do you think of this quiz? I am so bored that it seems like the most exciting thing in the world.

25. What was the last book you finished? Tess of the D’Urbervilles – I have a bad habit of starting books, then losing interest. Well, maybe it’s just the authors fault for not grabbing me.

26. What fictional character is most like you? Maybe a combination of Daisy from The Great Gatsby, Meredith from The Family Stone, Amy from Little Women, Charlotte from Lost in Translation and somebody else who I can’t quite pinpoint.

27. Do you like to dance? Yes!

28. What did you have for dinner LAST NIGHT? Last night was a piece of roti, eaten whilst sitting on the curb waiting for Sebastian to take me to rehearsal.

29. What is your favourite painting? I don’t know, but it would probably be by Kandinsky.

30. If you could have any hair in the world, what kind would you want? The colour of sunshine, in a mass of waves and ringlets, like a tiara that cascades down my back. Something that actually resembles the phrase “crowning glory”.

I am too lazy to tag also, so if you’re reading this, you’re tagged. End of story.

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Shepherd’s Pie

December 7, 2007 at 12:48 pm (food, misadventures, shepherd's pie)

The alternative version, for when you don’t have very much in your fridge!

You’ll need: 2 medium potatoes
About 3 cm of a stick of salami, finely sliced, then chopped some more
Small piece of pumpkin, chopped (I used the top of a small butternut)
1 small onion, finely diced
Half a broccoli stalk, trimmed and then diced
1/3 a jar of chunky pasta sauce
Some Parmesan
Butter
Milk
Salt and pepper

Put the potatoes on to boil, and in a separate pan start to fry the salami a little. You don’t need any extra oil, because there is enough fat in the salami. Add in the onions and saute until they are soft. Add the pumpkin and broccoli, and cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring often so they don’t burn. Add in the pasta sauce, cover, and let it cook for maybe 3 more minutes.

Once the potatoes are cooked, mash them up. Add some milk, butter, salt and pepper to them for flavour and consistency.

Spoon the meat and vegetable mixture into an oven-proof bowl, smoothing the top a little. Then spoon the potato mixture on top, again smoothing the top. Score the top with a fork and put it into an oven at about.. *guesses* 180-190 degrees C.

Go and watch America’s Next Top Model for half an hour, checking it every ad break. When it just beginning to brown, sprinkle some cheese on top (not too much, you just want flavour, not a swimming pool of plasticky goodness). Bake for 7ish more minutes, then eat!

This makes enough for dinner, and leftovers!

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Divine Retribution

December 4, 2007 at 9:36 pm (childhood, suspected spine injury, taipei, vomit)

It’s odd; realising that you are experiencing pangs of homesickness for a place that, technically, isn’t your home. The last couple of days have been simultaneously hot, overcast, humid and rainy – a perfect replica of what Taipei’s weather was like, almost constantly. I’ve been reading lots of blogs of expats in Asian countries too, which is not helping. What I crave is not the holiday experience of living in Taipei, but the everyday – what happens on the streets.

In my last week in Taipei, I spent five out of seven days laying in a hotel room routinely orally delivering the contents of my stomach to the toilet. On the sixth day, I drank a tall glass of orange juice for fortitude before venturing out in a taxi. We were not a block down the road before I was ankle deep in my own fruity pulpy vomit. Staring at the ridiculousness of it, I just burst into tears – the sight of a small foreign girl covered in tears and sick in the backseat was too much for the taxi driver, who began apologizing profusely. I just ruined his car, yet he was trying to make me feel better. Such a thing would never happen here.

My head is squirming with images of my childhood in Taipei – the black chickens with green flesh, influxes of toads in my swimming pool just before typhoons, the towering pillars of embroidered silk at the markets, birthday cakes built like works of art.. all that.

Something that is happening right here and now though is two suspected fractured vertebrae. Hopefully it’s just muscular; only two to three days of chowing down codeine and an x-ray shall tell.

Oh.. and another thing:

sudan.jpg

Is it just me, or is the idea of a “carefree refugee” a total tautology?

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