NOT A RETURN. PROBABLY. POSSIBLY. NOT YET.

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Not a WIP. Just some words that came along while Luscious was sleeping. I still don’t know if I can be bothered climbing onto the carousel again. No promises.

 

Antimony Lavage was quiet, and pale, and very well brought up.

She knew how to be polite, and respectful, and share, and care, and always, always be a perfect young lady around visitors. She knew how to wash her face, and brush her teeth, and tie her long, white hair in her prettiest black ribbon, and dress herself in her best black crinoline and black satin dress and black gloves and black bonnet. She knew how to make polite chitchat, and be seen and not heard, and amuse, and smile, and converse, and perform, and obey. She knew how to observe, and record, and dream, and make solemn promises, and in all things forever work to overcome the very real disadvantage of being no more or less than a six year old girl.

So when she determined to commit murder, Antimony Lavage knew exactly why, and how, and to what end.

SURVIVED, ALIVE, AND ALL THAT JIVE

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So, it’s over. Tropical Cyclone Veronica became Very Strong Wind Veronica, and finally, Was That It? Veronica. Port Hedland was battered to within an inch of improvement, Wickham and Roeburne received a bloody good wash, and Karratha lost a few trees and spread an awful lot of leaves about to be the mulch of the future.

As to us, we evacuated from our house because we were advised that our house was likely to be flooded, and spent three nights camped out on air beds on the floor of our local indoor basketball courts, surrounded by as much food as we could cram into two eskies, a veritable fort of water bottles, and the hacking coughs and sneezes of 60 or so other people who received the same advice… only to return home and find that up the half a dozen of our emergency sandbags had become partially moist.

I make light, of course. This is the blog of a bitter and broken curmudgeon. News sites start to the left.

But, we’re okay, the house survived, we’re all back at work and school and regular service is resumed. So, on that note, I shall resume my position of rough radio silence for at least a few more weeks while I go back to trying to resolve my future as a writer, artist, failure, empty vessel, and hermit-best-treated-as-a-sort-of-roundabout.

Thanks to all who got in touch to make sure we are okay. See you all soon. Ish. Probably. Maybe. Probably.

CYCLONE VERONICA: THIS IS SERIOUS, MUM.

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Breaking silence just to update you on our current state of Real Life ™.

As many of you know, we located to Karratha, in the North of our State, at the beginning of last year. Right now, that puts us in the path of Cyclone Veronica, a category 4 cyclone off the coast that is expected to reach category 5 by the weekend, when it is expected to cross the coast somewhere within 350 kilometres of my side of the bed.

By tea-time Sunday, we are likely to be gifted with winds in excess of 125km/hr, potentially reaching to over 165km/hr. According to the Bureau of Meteorology, we’re also highly likely to receive rainfall in excess of 150mm within a 24 hour period, resulting in major flooding and a very dangerous storm tide.

Continue reading “CYCLONE VERONICA: THIS IS SERIOUS, MUM.” →

HIATUS

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Time for a break here at the Batthaim, I think.

After a year of relief teaching I’ve accepted a contract to teach English at the local High School part-time, and to say I suck at it would be like noticing the Antarctic is a touch nippy at this time of year. Consequently, running full-pelt just to keep up with everyone else’s strolling is eating my life. Writing has come to a shuddering halt, and frankly, I’m dispirited and disillusioned enough that it’s entirely possible it will never start up again. Thanks to an unpaid Christmas period, I can’t afford to pick kickboxing back up or renew my pool and gym memberships for months– if at all this year, thanks to all the other massive financial hits that have decided now was the right time for a multi-issue cross-over event– so fitness and workouts have taken a dive into shitedom.

Everything is all too much, and  right now I have neither the energy nor the will to pretend that I have anything to offer the Universe. I might have a handle on this new position by the end of the ten-week first term. I might not. I might be in a position to return to my dancing monkey-boy side job. I might not. After 48 years of scratching every moment to try and be something special beyond the anonymous food processing unit my family history and social stratum bequeathed me at birth, I’m ready to admit defeat. I can’t help feeling I would have been better off just settling for a life of unambitious pissheadery, as did all my forebears.

Time for a break.

G’WAN TO YER POPE, UNIVERSE. YOU’RE ELEPHANT’S

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Sometimes I really don’t like the way the Universe pretends to be conscious. Exampley-poo:

I started writing The Boy from GOBLIN three weeks ago. In the very first session, I needed to name the woman who runs the Home my protagonist, Daniel, runs away from. I call her Miss Fitch: it’s a nice, harsh sounding name, a name you can hiss as much as pronounce. Sorted. One passing mention, move on.

Today, a whole bunch of scenes later, she comes up in conversation between Daniel and his new friend, Gygax: a Grotesque, and total wide boy, from the East End of London. I look up the Cockney rhyming slang for ‘bitch’………

I don’t like you, Universe.

HAPPY AUSTRALIA-FOR-MOST-OF-US DAY

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I love living in Australia. I love being Australian. I get highly shitty when anyone plays the “You’re a pom, you’re not a real Australian” card on me. I’ve been resident in this country since I was 5, a citizen since I was 11. I watch the world. This is, in many ways, a truly great, great country in which to live.

So wouldn’t it be nice to make it great for everyone? Not just in the relative political, judicial, and social safety we enjoy without thinking about; but emotionally and (though I hate to use the word), spiritually, as well. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a day we could all feel that good about, without having to really consider the implications? If, instead of hearing somebody say This date causes my people pain because of these reasons, the response was less Strayaloveitorleaveitturnbacktheboatsfootygobackwhereyousecamefrom and more How can we help lessen your pain? ? More, I don’t know… Australian?

Wouldn’t it be nice just not to have to argue about it, because we could simply. just. agree? Continue reading “HAPPY AUSTRALIA-FOR-MOST-OF-US DAY” →