miss polly had a dolly

Sick today.

Have spent the day sleeping and traipsing about the house in my purple stripey thermals (which Byron thinks are hilarious. How rude.)

My body is filled almost to bursting with orange juice and water and vitamins and lemon-and-ginger tea.

I am desperately longing to collapse on the couch in front of my DVD of Labyrinth, but alas it was last seen in the possession of the ex. Dammit, why do jailbird ex-boyfriends always flee the country with your best stuff?

I think I shall curl up with a nice worn copy of Lewis Carroll, for a much needed dose of comfort.

out of the mouths of geriatrics

A conversation while patermunkey, Ms Cait (my 11-year-old sister) and I were visiting with Grandma Miller for Mothers Day:

patermunkey [to G.M.]: Have you seen Cait since she got her earrings?

G.M.: Yes, I think so.

patermunkey: She just had the basic ones then, but now she's got new ones.

[Cait shows off her pretty new earrings.]

G.M. [casually]: I was just reading in the Herald Sun about a woman whose daughter went to have a vaginal piercing, and it went wrong. They messed it up and now she's going to sue them.

[Mystified silence.]

G.M.: They get all kinds of things pierced these days, don't they, these young girls.

If you had asked me to make a list of one million topics I thought my Nanna might ever raise in conversation - especially with my little sister! - I can assure you that genital piercing would not have been on it.

the pot calling the kettle hack

So Spider-Man 3 has beaten Revenge Of The Sith's record of highest grossing weekend ever (or something). And George Lucas has responded in a typically mature and thoughtful manner: by bitching. Apparently, according to George, Spidey is "a silly movie ... There just isn't much there - once you take it all apart, there's not much story."

Now I haven't seen Spider-Man 3 yet, and I'm no huge fan of the franchise, but still I feel I must say: What the fuck?! Has Lucas ever actually sat through one of his own (recent) films? I defy anyone to give me a logical synopsis of what actually happens in Attack Of The Clones.

You may also recall that last year Lucas rejected Frank Darabont's screenplay for the fourth Indiana Jones film. Yes folks, George Lucas rejected a screenplay. Does anyone else find this absolutely absurd?

I would love to go back to 1990 and submit the screenplay for The Phantom Menace to a studio, with all the names changed (except the name 'Jar Jar Binks' - we'll leave that in). How do you think the studio would react to its structureless, clunky, melodramatic inanity, if it didn't have 'George Lucas' or 'Star Wars' written on it? I confidently suggest they would use it to line their rubbish bin.

In conclusion: Shut up, George Lucas.

birthday! the musical

So it was my birthday party on Saturday night. The invitation looked like this:


After Byron staged a kids' party (complete with fairy-bread and pass-the-parcel) earlier in the year, and Lili's short-story-writing activity party, I was informed by my friends that I was simply not allowed to have a "normal" party. My plans for a straightforward "let's go out for dinner and get drunk" went up in smoke.

Well I showed them! My musical birthday party began with all the guests (who were necessarily limited to quite specific numbers) submitting a song choice. It could be any song, as long as it had words and was reasonably well known. This was done a few days in advance, so Byron and I could make sure we had all the tracks available on CD. I also organised ahead of time to have a couple of people bring along some dress-up items, as well as a video camera. My friends were intrigued! And frightened!

Once they arrived, the activity began: we were making a musical! The process was a bit complicated, but worked something like this...

First we decided on a title. After each submitting a suggestion we picked "Compromise! The Musical" Next everyone randomly selected (by picking from a hat) a Character Role, a Character Description, and a Character Trait. So, for example, I ended up being "Romantic Lead #2" who was a "Busty Lusty Showgirl" who was also a "Fingernail Biter".

Then we arranged all our chosen songs according to showtune archetypes such as "Song of Unrequited Love" or "Song Of Villainous Intent". Once that was done, all we needed was a flimsy plot to string the musical numbers and characters together... and we had our musical!

Compromise! The Musical told the story of Verity (the busty lusty showgirl) and her love for Hetty (formerly Hudson, a transexual ingenue), amidst the treacherous plots of Helga Brunhilda (the absurdly-camp villain). Secondary characters included Jan the Janitor, a mustachioed lesbian best friend, and a mysterious bag-lady who is secretly a millionaire caviar farmer. Meanwhile the musical numbers included Cher's "If I Could Turn Back Time" (the unrequited love song), Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" (the love duet) and Bon Jovi's "Livin' On A Prayer" (the wise-old-person's advice). We performed and filmed our improvised musical scene-by-scene, while drinking copious barrels of grog (or was that just me?) and a generally rollicking time was had.

Of course, the whole idea wouldn't have worked at all if not for the fact that I have the awesomest friends in the galaxy, who were willing to go along with this madness. It's not everybody who can say to their friends, "Tonight we are going to put on stupid wigs and sing along to Madonna and The Cure on camera" and have them all agree. I realise I am extremely lucky to have such wonderful people around me. Thanks guys!

Now, I have edited the musical together, but I was made to swear a solemn oath that no footage of the production would make its way onto the intermanets. However I'm sure no-one will mind if I put up a quick still-frame, just to show how ridiculous and hilarious it was:


This is the final pose (incl. JazzHands) of "Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend", the opening number. To protect the innocent, I shan't identify the players... but Yours Truly might be the very unattractive woman in the candy pink ball-gown.

I must say, if you're looking for a theme for your next party, Abject Humiliation Of Yourself And Those You Love is always a winner.

time marches on

Every now and then, life throws one of those days at you where everything you encounter only serves to remind you that the world can be a total fucking misery of a place. Unfortunately, my birthday this year was one of those days.

I seem to be making a habit lately of being in a shitful mood on special occasions. Last Christmas, I was in an awesome humour through all the parties leading up to December 25th, but come the Big Day I was suddenly a misery guts for no entirely rational reason. Exactly the same thing seemed to happen with my Birthday this year.

It may have been partly that I was still a little hungover from my party on the previous Saturday (which was awesome, and which I shall hopefully blog about later tonight). It was partly the inevitable feeling of getting older and older without really accomplishing much. It was partly very bad news from a faraway friend that put me in a too-familiar slump of desperate uselessness. It was partly some stupid little issues that were making me annoyed - at the issues themselves and at myself for being too gutless to deal with them...

Anyhoo the upshot is that I'm feeling a lot better now. The world is still full of woeful, unfair things, but my own personal slump has drifted off. Twenty-seven is an okay age to be, I think. It's got a 7 in it! And it's 3 times 9! (Yes, I am bizarrely superstitious about numbers.)


And in even better news, I've been doing more creative stuff recently than I have in ages. I'm working towards making a proper demo of one of my songs for the first time. Exploring the equipment and software is fun, and Byron's helping me heaps (mostly by saying things like "I know you don't want it to sound completely clean and robotic, but it might be good if the instruments are at least kind of, you know, in time with each other"). I'm also working on a short story which I'm hoping to submit for an anthology Lili's helping put together - so fingers crossed I can get it to a good enough standard.

I've also learned that if there's something that's making you feel a little upset or uneasy, the awkwardness of bringing it up and dealing with it is much less painful than letting it fester and stew. I know everyone could have told me that, but yeh... I've never been good at the conflict thing - even tiny minor conflict that isn't really conflict at all.

Anyway this post has become way too long and emo, so I might just run along now.

TWENTY-SEVEN: BRING IT! etc.