Cookies

First, let me tell you a story.  I promise it will be relevant later.  Twice!  (Photos unrelated, except that this is a post all about ME.  And so are the photos.)

When I was a kid I did ballet in a little hall in a nothing much town in the hills.  I wasn’t very good at it, but I would only have been about 5, so that wasn’t really the point.  I didn’t love it, but it was fun.  I wasn’t super enamoured of the dances we did and clearly these were all Neat Girls and I was the scruffy one, but I got to be a woodland animal, so I could deal (they already had too many fairies – fine by me).  I didn’t like the attention being on me and being watched physically doing things that I wasn’t very good at (still an issue – I HATE going dancing or participating in other activities where I might be physically embarrassed) but it was ok.  I did it for almost a year and I quit just before the major performance.

I quit because of the stockings.

I had what I now realise were minor sensory issues, mostly around my feet, which is really common for kids, although I also couldn’t handle anything around my neck (as in, I would have a minor breakdown, couldn’t handle.). I could not (still can’t) handle having the seam of a sock pulling on my toes or sitting under my toes.  Can. Not. Handle it.  I will take my shoes off on the bus to fix this.  I really should just start wearing my socks inside out.

 I can’t handle it when socks get long and baggy and pooch out at the heel and there’s all this extra fabric.  I cannot handle shoes with tongues, especially on my right foot.  I have to tie them SUPER tight so they are snug around my feet, and then I have to stop every five minutes or so and adjust the tongue of the shoe so it sits just right.  Even if it was already sitting just right.  And I HAD to do it, even though I was aware that it made me look ridiculous. 

 I would have screaming arguments with my mother over socks.  I fold them down.  She wanted me to pull them all the way up.  I was not ok with this for two reasons: they then got all saggy and poochy and they also constricted my ankle.  And I hated it as much as you would hate it if someone got a piece of hot metal and wrapped it around your leg.  That is the level of discomfort I am talking.  So I would fold them down.  And then we would argue about it.  SCREAMING ARGUMENTS.  And we had the same ones about stockings.  It would take me forever to put them on.  And then they would always be twisted.  And then they had to have the same tension all the way up my legs.  And then of course we would be late and my mother would be cross because she didn’t even WANT to take me to ballet, she was DOING THIS FOR ME and WHY COULDN’T I PUT ON MY DAMN STOCKINGS and ARE YOU DOING THIS ON PURPOSE?

 I am wearing stockings today, and it took me about 10 extra minutes to get dressed, while I took them off and put them back on again, trying to get the legs on straight.  I am 26.  It takes me 10 minutes to work out stockings. 

 This is not a diatribe to tell you how broken I am and how you should pity me (SRS I promise, it becomes relevant.  Twice!) It’s just that as an anxious 5 year old, that was not a fun thing.  Add to that the thought of being put on a stage to do something I didn’t think I was very good at and have lots of strange people looking at me?  Halfway through one argument, I sobbed that I didn’t want to do ballet anymore.  And so I didn’t.

 And so, on to the cookies!

 Cookie the first:

Is me.  I am one.  A smart one. 

I have about three half-written blog posts about how bad I am at accepting compliments.  Accepting compliments is something I have actually been working quite hard to get better at.  First up, you should go to this post on the Pursuit of Harpyness and  read the links there that give some excellent background on how I have been trying to think about this stuff lately.  And I don’t do too bad.  When someone says ‘did you make that?  It looks great!’ I say ‘thankyou, I worked really hard and I like how it turned out’ and I try really hard not to say ‘well, the sleeves are a bit short and it fits a bit funny in the waist, and there a gajillion other ways in which I am IMPERFECT’ or ‘are you mocking me ARE YOU MOCKING ME???’.  If someone says ‘I like your hair!’ I say ‘thanks, me too!’ and if my boss says ‘you’re doing really well learning your new job’ I say…  ok I admit it, I said ‘well, I haven’t fucked anything up too badly yet’.  But I’m trying.

So, ok, lapses aside I don’t deflect or argue too often about things.  I am sometimes really uncomfortable NOT qualifying a compliment, but with a few notable exceptions in particular areas I usually resist.  Those areas appear to be: being a Good Person, and being smart.

I constantly tell people that I am a bitch.  I do this for lots of really complicated reasons that I haven’t untangled yet and probably will never get to the bottom of, which is why it is still a behaviour I engage in.  The most obvious is that it lets me off the hook from a lot of social niceties that I think are dumb.  And in fact, it allows me to own OTHER good things about myself without apologising – because I have already said I am a bitch, so people can’t be surprised that I am not being ‘polite’ by insisting that actually, everything I ever do is shit.

I do it because I don’t like to lie.  As a kid I lied a lot.  This is related to being smart (smart kids lie better and earlier) and also related to the fact that my mother was emotionally abusive, as you might have gotten a hint of from my lead-in story.  This fact (the emotional abuse) is something I have only gotten ok with putting a name to recently.  There is another heartfelt post about that for you to look forward to, as well.  Anyway, kids of emotionally abusive parents lie.  They lie a lot.  They lie by default, even when there’s not an obvious reason to lie, right now.  They lie to make the world a better, safer place for themselves and also to make their unpredictable parent more predictable, to play damage controller.  But I don’t like lying, it takes too much energy and also it sucks, so I don’t.  So if someone says to me ‘do you like me’ and I don’t, I will probably say ‘no’.  I wouldn’t walk UP to someone and say ‘I don’t like you’.  I would consider myself a passive bitch rather than an active one.  But still… apparently it is not nice to admit that sometimes you don’t like certain people.

I also tell people that I am a bitch because I was taught that I am.  I was taught that I deliberately disregard what other people need and want, because I am selfish and ignorant and arrogant.  This is plainly not true.  But as the sock story illustrates (see!  Relevant!), my mother considered her subjective experience to be far more important than mine.  And folks, let me tell you, her subjective experience?  Was fucked.  When her five year old daughter couldn’t manage stockings, it wasn’t because said five year old daughter hadn’t quite managed the concept of long weird stretchy tubes and inserting them over her legs.  It was because her five year old daughter was DELIBERATLY BEING STUPID in order to spite her.  When said daughter reacted strongly to having socks pulled up, it wasn’t because she had a legitimately negative experience, it was because she could NEVER DO ANYTHING PROPERLY.

This is only a minor example of all the ways in which I was taught that I was not good enough, and that I was a sneaky horrible child and that I should apologise to everyone around me for what essentially amounts to being a human being with flaws and subjective experiences.

So, the POINT of that is, I am trying to stop doing it.  Pointing out that I’m a bitch, I mean.  Because, whatever.  It’s boring.  People can figure out what I am or am not by themselves, without me putting a label on it.  I don’t need to fear that they will reject me once they really figure out who I truly am, so I don’t need to cover that fear by telling them that they should reject me first, to take the sting away when it inevitably happens (as my subconscious tells me it will).

Remember how this all started with me saying I am bad at accepting compliments? (You remember Alice?  It’s a song about Alice?)  I am really uncomfortable being told I am a nice person and people like me for me.  We have traced that back to my mother (I mean, mostly.  It’s not like everything I don’t like about me is her fault.  Just MOST things. :P).  I am also really uncomfortable being told I’m smart.

So, I mentioned before that I’m seeing someone.  This has meant a lot more compliments than I am used to.  And folks, it’s weird.  It’s weirding me out.  He thinks I am the shit.  And while I don’t disagree, and tend to think that, actually, that is a good prerequisite for someone I am in a relationship with, it is CONFRONTING.  The other confronting thing ties in to the smart.  S is trained as a teacher.  He’s currently working as a teacher’s aide.  He focused, in his degree, on learning difficulties, and on gifted children.

So, every now and then he’ll say something.  For instance, I mentioned something about the tights and socks saga (relevant!  Twice!) and he said ‘yes, that’s very common among gifted children’ and then when I opened my mouth he gave me The Look.  You know the look.  The ‘I know what you are about to say, and you’re wrong, and you know you are wrong.  Why don’t you rethink it before you embarrass yourself’ look.

He has a point.  I am smart.  I have always been smart.  I went to a small primary school, with combined year level classes (ie, R/1, 2/3) and I was always doing the work of the year above me.  I was in extension programmes.  I got good grades.  I did all of this without really trying – year 11 was a bit of a shock because suddenly I had to WORK at things.  I enjoy thinking and making patterns and working things out.  I am and always have been curious about and engaged with the universe, while at the same time having a rich internal life.  There is a lot of evidence that I am, in fact, one smart cookie.  And yet I am SUPER uncomfortable even typing this.

I mean, I’m certainly not saying I am the smartest ever.  I am very smart in some ways, and not in others, just like most of the population.  I’m not saying that being smart makes me better than anyone, or that smarts are enough in isolation.  But given that I value all the smart people around me, what is it that stops me from valuing it in myself?  I guess girls aren’t supposed to be too smart, and even the smart ones shouldn’t talk about it too much.

Well, fuck that.  I am smart.  No qualifiers. So there.

(WHY was that so hard?)

Cookie the second:

Will draw for cookies, which I discovered today, because of this post.  I need that illustration as a printon my wall.  Stat. 

Cookie the third:

I think I might have posted this before.  But I LOVE EET

What does that even mean, anyway?

I have about a half a post written about language and how fuzzy it is, and in particular as regards women’s bodies.  I think it’s akin to the way the word ‘socialist’ and ‘liberal’ has been hijacked by the right in America.  They now mean things completely divorced from the original, specific meanings of the word.  I’m sure there are plenty of more Australian or general examples, but those are the two that jump out at me all the time, since I find them so jarring.  Especially since we have the big-L Liberals over here.

I think mostly it’s all tied up in the weird morality games we play with bodies.  Salad is ‘good’, pizza is ‘bad’.  (As one Shapely Prose commenter put it ‘it’s pizza for lunch, not genocide’*)  Fat doesn’t really mean fat – it means ugly, disgusting, unhealthy, unlovable, unworthy.  It doesn’t refer to how much we weigh, or our mass or our hip measurements, it’s about how we look – which is why a skinny girl can say ‘omg I am so fat!’ (code: I look ugly) and in the next breath assure someone like me ‘but you’re not fat at all!’ (code: but you are perfectly attractive!).

Pretty does not mean good to look at, it means fits a certain group of characteristics such as looking innocent and pure and also probably white.  Beautiful is reserved for people who are not virginal and aren’t trampy-sexy but who you’d still bang.  Sexy does not refer to people that you personally would like to have sex with, it means someone who has the required body shape and has spent the enourmous amounts of time neccessary to fit patriarchal standards of feminine beauty and is wearing appropriate clothes and shoes.  (Many times I catch myself thinking ‘yeah, she’s hot.  I don’t find her attractive, but she’s hot. What does that even mean omg.)

And most present in the last few days, ‘flattering’ does not mean ‘makes you feel good’ or even ‘makes the most of what you’ve got’.  I means ‘fools people into thinking you are closer to the ‘ideal’ figure, ie tall, thin, hourglass, than you actually are.’  Already Pretty just posted today about different body shapes and how they look great and how, sure.  Minimize your hips if you want, but you don’t have to.  I can wear a flowey tunic dress that doesn’t accentuate my waist, if I like.  So there.  I don’t care about your abitrary rules, patriarchy/whoever else would like to become involved.  But likewise, there are things that other people can rock that I can’t – and that is awesome.  Why shouldn’t they?  Why shouldn’t we have options.

I mean, in reality we do.  But how many times have you heard someone say about someone else ‘that dress is so unflattering on her?’.  By which they mean, doesn’t hide her stomach, or you can’t tell that she has as much waist as she does, or it makes her boobs look MASSIVE.  Well, why shouldn’t it?  ‘Flattering’ should not mean ‘slimming’.  We already have a word for that!

Anyway.  In a completely random aside, I was reminded yesterday of the ‘Yes, we can’ mashup video.  And I watched it today, and it still made me emotional and hopeful.  Sure, things never turn out that neat or easy.  Sure, America is fucked and K Rudd isn’t the messiah.  But I dare you to listen to that speech, to watch those artists, and not feel a bit of a tear in your eye and joy in your heart.  I DOUBLE DOG DARE YOU:

*I really really love Shapely Prose and the comment ecology over there.  It shifted my whole view of the world I live in, and I sort of feel like it’s the centre of my part of the internet, now.  If you have never read it, I genuinelly encourage you to at least go have a look – it’s not just for fatties!

Clowns to the left of me…

I’m what is known in FA (fat acceptance) and fatshion circles as an in-betweenie.  This means that I am somewhere in the range of an aussie size 14-18.  It means I have big-girl issues with clothing (weird fit, darts hitting me in the wrong places, inappropriate styles available) but I can still shop in straight sized stores, although what I can find there may or may not be extremely limited, depending on the store, the season, current trends, how stretchy the clothes are or how willing I am to wear skin tight things. 

I was listening to fatcast last night and they were discussing what a plus size actually is.  They said it might start at maybe 14, but really their cutoff is about size 18 (depending on locale and other factors such as height and general body shape – it’s harder to find nice flattering things if you are large and live in China, or are a body shape that the fashion world dislikes).  I thought ‘but wait!  I’m a fat girl!  Why don’t you count meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee’.  I’m used to being told ‘don’t be silly, you’re not FAT!’ but usually by people thinner than me, and as code for ‘but I don’t find you repulsive!  And fat people are repulsive!’  I had a really strong reaction to being told by fat people that I couldn’t join that fat people club (which was not what they were saying, btw).  And then I had to look at my Thin Privilege.  Yes, yes I just said the P word, and also refered to myself as thin, IN THE SAME SENTENCE.

Right now, fads are doing me kind.  There is a lot of jersey and a lot of loose fitting, which means I can get into medium sizes a lot of the time, if there isn’t a large.  And tghe larges fit comfortably.  They don’t fit me the way the designer intended them to, but since the designer generally does not want to acknowledge that people my size or bigger exist, I am not particularly fussed about this.  Case in point, last week I went into Cotton On (being the only clothes store in town that is open after 5:15pm) and spent what I consider to be quite a lot of money there.  And then I reflected that actually, I spent less than the price of a dress I was looking at on the City Chic website, which I really liked but was clearly made out of some horrible acrylic fabric.  So then I felt better about that.

Let me put this another way.  I went into a trendy store, which caters for young people who want the latest trendy thing.  And I tried some stuff on and I bought a lot of it, because it looked good on me.  This is something that many fat people just cannot do.  Ever.

I bought three jersey pencil skirts – one in black, one in navy and one in black with little rosebuds on.  Tres trendy, and also reminds me of a dress I owned when I was five.  (Apparently the eighties are back.  Again.  Why won’t they die?)  I bought two tank dresses, one black and one navy and white striped.  (BIG HORIZONTAL STRIPES oh noes don’t I know that’s against the rules??)  I bought two light jersey cardigan thingies and four 3/4 sleeved tops in varying degrees of stripes and spots, with ruching on the sleeves so they have sort of eighties shoulders.  The things I bought were a mix of XL, L and medium.  This upped my wearable, work appropriate wardrobe by about half.  The only problem being that I need to get some fat girl stockings, because I generally only wear stay ups and knee highs, having been traumatised by going to a catholic girls school and the horrible brown tights (but was fortunate enough to learn the undies-on-the-outside trick for keeping them up).  But the skirts are really to short to wear to work without stockings, and the ones I have technically fit, but are mighty uncomfortable, and gusset hoiking is generally frowned on in public.

And here we are back to being in between.  A lot of stuff technically fits, for which – do not get me wrong! – I am eternally grateful.  If I went on holiday and my luggage got lost, I would not, as the lovely ladies on fatcast point out, be fucked.  I could walk into a store and buy something that fit me.  Even a gift store.  It might not be sartorially elegant, but I wouldn’t have to fashion a toga out of a beach towel or two.  There are clothes that fit me.  They are readily available.  They are affordable.  Sometimes they are even trendy or beautiful at the same time as being affordable and readily available.  I can shop in op shops and it isn’t that much more frustrating than for the average punter.  I can avoid ‘big girl’ clothes which are often badly made with a poor cut, from terrible acrylic material.

I’ve been looking at ASOS, which has a very lovely plus size section, much of which I covet.  I also covet most of their straight size section.  According to their size charts, I am smack bang between an 18, their last straight size, and a 20, their first plus size.  This is making trawling the site very annoying, because most of the time the top and bottom sizes are sold out.  And sometimes the straight sizes go up to 20, sometimes they only go up to 16.  If it’s something stretchy, I probably want an 18, and it isn’t I’d want a 20, but I have to look in two seperate sections so I can’t just pick one dress and choose the size.

Ok, so it’s annoying.  That’s a pretty low bar, I’m not saying that ASOS is oppressing me or anything.  And I really, truly do not want to underemphasise that I can go on a last minute shopping trip and find clothes that fit.  This is super important.  Plus, my proportional ‘hourglass’ body shape (apart from my annoyingly long waist) is the shape that about half of commercially available clothes are designed for (the other half being for people built like a pole) so that helps.

However. If we’re taking the fatcast cut off of a size 18 as canon (which they wouldn’t endorse, they fully admit it’s subjective etc) my recent weight gain has put me over the top, US sizes being a bit bigger than Aus sizes.  I believe I would now be a US size 20.  And I would absolutely say that there is a line, somewhere in the middle of a size 16.  When you are a 14 or a smaller 16, you can buy things on sale.  You can buy BRAS on sale.  You can buy bras with lace and colours, you can buy bathers, and more styles are open to you because things that are designed to be baggy are.  If you want to be ‘on trend’, you can, although depending on the trend it may be inadvisable as you will possibly look like an egg with two rubber bands around it.  But if the thing of the moment is tshirts with sparkles on, you can probably find one that you fit into.

From Married to the Sea

Once you hit a high 16, bras come in beige, beige, ‘bone’ beige and off white.  There are never any in your size left by the time the sales roll around.  The clothes that make the sale racks are all cut in a way that does not do your body any favours.  Things designed to be baggy are tight, even in your size, and things designed to be tight are TIGHT.  Things cling in the wrong places, darts are in weird spots.  Things get sized up without the proportions being revised, so they get weirdly massive in strange places.

Buying clothes can be a challenge for everyone.  Besides the venturing out into public and the spending of hard earned dollars, there is the social aspect of it.  What you wear says something about who you are.  They do – even if that thing is ‘it’s Sunday, and I’ll wear my uggboots to the shops if I damn well want too’.  Sometimes it’s hard to find the things that accurately represent you to the world.  That gets harder as your size gets larger. Not least because when some people look at you the first thing they will see is a fat person.  It’s tempting to dress to be invisible.  To be non threatening and part of the background.  Which is fine – frankly it’s relaxing.  But I find myself shying away form certain things, not because I think they will make me look bad, but because they will make me look FAT.  Not ‘unattractive’, which is what ‘fat’ is code for, more often than not.  but that if I show a bit of leg, people will see that it is a fat leg. Because, you know, they couldn’t have guessed that it was going to be a fat leg just from looking at the rest of me, no matter how covered that leg might be.

I don’t really think I should end this with another ‘FUCK YOU IM FAT AND IM NOT TAKING IT ANYMORE’ because I did that last time, and that’s not what this is about.  What this is about is ‘whatever.  This is my leg.  It’s fat.  It’s sexy. I will show exactly as much or as little of it as I choose.  Goodbye.’

I’m still not really ok with the nuggets I get in front of my armpits, though.  I’m working on that one.

I feel fat

It’s true.  I feel fat.

Well, ok, I am fat.  Last time I got weighed (when I went to the doctor, about… um… a year ago?) I was just shy of 90 kilos.  That put me one point into the ‘obese’ on the BMI scale… which admitedly is not at all a sensible scale – check out the BMI project.  Next time you hear about the ‘obesity epidemic’, we are the people they are talking about.  That would have made me about the same BMI as Kate Harding .

That’s not the problem.  I’m ok with being fat.  I’m ok with being large.  I’m NOT ok with the BMI system, but that’s a seperate argument.  I’m even ok, in theory, with the fact that I have put on weight.  I dunno what I weigh now, but that really isn’t the point.

The point is twofold.  One, I feel like crap.  I need to get off my butt, because I am stiff and crackly and I feel like an old lady.  But it’s cooooold!  And I’m laaaazy!  Anyway, that one’s gone on the to do list: ‘get off butt and do some sort of stretchy exercise and possibly ride to work a couple times a week even though it is cold and you are unfit and it is further than before and you do have to ride down scary South Road.’  I’ve been making an effort to eat better, too – what with all the renovating and moving, etc, I got into too many bad habits, and then the last week of work at the old place I gave up on breakfast (which I hate) altogether.  But I’ve been sitting myself down and making myself eat a proper breakfast, and cook a proper dinner.  I intend to continue this.  This is not about dieting (I just ate half a packet of jubie lollies and I am NOT SORRY so there) it’s about putting good things into my body and feeling good.  Along with the lollies, if I so chose.  So there.

The second point is, none of my clothes fit.

Most of my work skirts are hand me downs or op shop finds.  As such, when I got most of them they juuuuust fit.  Some of them, the high waisted ones, only fit if I only do them up to the waist, and left about 2cm unzipped.  But now, when I wear these, they sit funny and they are a bit tight and they are uncomfortable.  I sort of only clicked to this a couple of days ago, and then I realised why I had been so cranky lately.  Lack of excercise means I am tired, and don’t feel like I fit into my body.  It’s like it’s a meat suit I have to carry around.  And now that body does not fit into its clothes.

Let’s be clear.  It’s not that I don’t fit my clothes.  They don’t fit me.  I am not the wrong size.  My clothes are the wrong size for me.

The first place I put on weight (and lose it) is my stomach.  This is why my tops still fit (mostly – I need to have a purge of all the shirts that will never ever fit my built-for-carrying-shoulders properly, but that is unrelated to recent weight gain) but my skirts don’t.  I’m still skating between a 16 and an 18 on top, I could probably even wear a 14 if it was stretchy but below, I ain’t getting into anything less than an 18.  Or some pre stretched 16s, maybe.  I mean, my jeans (16) still fit, and my underwear (14s and 16s) do, too.  Yes, you needed to know about my underwear.  But anything with a rigid waistband is a bit of a squeeze.  Especially after lunch.

Because I am a crafter, I know my measurements.  Last I checked (probably about 6 months ago), they were 110, 95, 112.  Yes, I have that memorised, shuddup.  Now – and I mean RIGHT AS OF NOW, because I just this second went and measured myself in the work bathroom FOR YOU, INTERNET, that is HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU – they are 115, 105, 115.  So that’s 5cms added on top and bottom, and 10 in the middle.  Which changes my proportions, which changes how and where my clothes fit. And this is the important bit, because for me, my ‘weight’ and how ‘fat’ I feel is not about how much flesh I have on my body.  It’s not about my mass.  It isn’t, in fact, about my physical presence in the world as a body.  It is about how I feel about my body.  How I move in it, how my clothes fit me, how I feel in my clothes, how sexy and good and beautiful I feel.

At the moment, that is ‘not very well’.

So.  Something needs to change.  I’ve been reading fat fashion blogs as well as a couple of straight sized ones.  Because I’m fatter (or a different shape) than lots of the fatshion bloggers anyway.  And the point is to look nice, not to be thin.  And I’ve made a promise to myself to take better care of my insides by feeding them well and stretching them and all that.  And now I’m looking at my wardrobe.  (In my mind, I’m at work).  Some things – like the majority of my skirts – need to go on hold.  They need to be taken out of my wardrobe because every time I look at them, I see ‘you are the wrong shape and size’.  Which is a LIE.  So they can go live under the bed or something, since my waistline has fluctuated quite a bit in the last year or so they might fit again later.  Things like my shirts need to be tried on, assessed for comfort, and purged. 

Things that ARE THE WRONG SIZE are going.  I am staying.

And then… sigh.  I am going to have to acquire some new clothes.  This is something I dislike doing.  Hopefully it will involve sewing, but either way it will definitely involve angst and money.  And I dislike both of those aspects.  But I also dislike feelig lumpy, and I ALSO dislike wearing the same thing every day.  I enjoy picking out my costume for the day, and I want to be able to choose that costume from a wider array of goodies.  To wear outfits, not just some clothes I picked up off of the floor.  I want to have clothes that I consciously choose, not ones that fit, so whatever, I guess that’s as good as I’m getting.

I can’t do anything about all the thin people who tell me they are ‘soooo fat’ or who talk about ‘obesity epidemics’ or who say ‘oh, you’re good!’ when I have a salad for lunch.  But I can do something about my wardrobe.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go home and sew a hammer and sickle banner for a friend’s party.

Another goodbye

When I realised the other day that I only had three weeks more of living in my suburb, I got a bit nostalgic.  Not sad, really – I don’t love the area.  Well, that’s not exactly true.  I love the neighbourhood, I love the bits of it that I see all the time.  But it’s not really near any good shops, there’s nowhere that I spend a lot of time in the area, there’s no one I know around here – not like when I left Birkenhead, I missed the people, the shops, the beach, almost everything about the place.

But I quite like the walk to the bus.  It’s just a short one, but I’ve come to know that street and the houses, and it feels like a friend.  A companion.  I’ve walked down it with a spring in my step, dragging my heels, winging my arms, weighted down with tiredness.  In heels and in bare feet (sometimes one right after the other).

So yesterday I brought my camera with me and took some photos.  Maybe I’ll start doing YIP again – I stopped when I started doing etsy stuff, because I didn’t have the energy for both.  But I miss looking at the world through the lens.  And it did make me a better photographer – not that I’m GREAT, or even, I would say, GOOD, but it made me better, and I was taking more photos that I liked.

This is my favourite house on the street.  There is an old Italian lady who lives there, and she sits outside on nice evenings.  You can see her mustard chair under the palm tree next to the front door.  She waves and greets me, although the couple of times I’ve been walking home from work in bare feet, my heels in my hands, she has given me the evil eye.  Her sneaky green gate down the side, and her colourful roses, make me smile every single day.  I love the way the garden is ordered but not over groomed – I suspect the back yard of being full of fruit trees.

Just for contrast, this is the house next door.  The street is like the suburb – a mix of old and new, concrete boxes with manicured lawns (or neglected ones) and old character houses with fruit and roses (or lots of empty beer bottles)

Does this look like a labrador to you?  It’s out the front of the house with all the olive trees in the front garden, and the straggly roses down the drive.

I admit that these aren’t to my own taste, but they certainly are well executed.

I was struck the other day by the blue windows against the orange brick.  I must have stood looking at them for about a minute.  A friendly older couple live here – they’re not often out when I’m around, but sometimes the man is taking in the bins in the morning, or standing on teh lawn (waiting for someone?) in the evening – in which case he always greets me cheerfully.

It’s opposite the road to the house that’s been being renovated for the whole time I’ve lived here – they took down part of the roof, smashed off a cinderblock room, and put the roof back on, among other things.  But the men who live there (brothers?  couple?  flatmates?  none of my business?) were inthe yard while I was taking my happy snaps, and I didn’t want to look like a creepy stalker.  They have two yippy dogs, but reputable breeds – some sort of wiry terrier effort.

This is probably the worst shot possible of this house.  You can’t see the bright turqouise trim, or the vivid roses, or the cactus flowers.  I don’t know who lives here – I saw a young woman in office garb taking out the bins once, but the blinds are always down and there’s a big ‘security’ sign up. 

I do love their flowering wall of colour, though.

The view towards the main road where my bus comes.  Hello, semi-industrial area.  The building on the right is a tralier store, and out the back they make laminate cabinets.  There’s a bloke with a beat up powder blue truck that works there.

This is the view from my bus stop.  I missed out Trio cafe on the corner to the left – an ugly brown building that always has people sitting outside drinking coffee in the morning.  I bought some meat from Austria Meat once.  They were super friendly.  I got food poisoning.

Also from my bus stop.  This massive tree is on the grounds of the old folks home, and to the right of this picture is the managed apartments.  I helped a lady from there bring her bin in the other day.  She had her walking stick with her, and looked ready to whap someone with it.

Progress report

I’ve officially owned my house for one week now.

On Monday I went there with a couple of friends.  I needed to buy a ladder, so I shanghai’d a friend with a stationwagon to go to Bunnings with me.  We got there about 7:30 in the evening, and the recycling plant next door was going full pelt.  I can’t remember if I’ve even mentioned the recycling plant.  It’s this one. (If you watch the video here, I’m pretty sure the guy in front of the blue house is my bogan ex-neighbour.  More about him later.)  And, dudes.  It smelt.

At first it wasn’t that bad.  But after you’d been outside for a bit, you went inside and you realised that your eyes were stinging.  It smelt a little bit but, more than that, it was that hit-the-back-of-your-throat burning plastic effect.  It was truly unpleasant.

I went home feeling very glum.  As in, maybe this was a mistake, how am I going to deal with this every day, am I entering a totally hellish situation, glum.  I envisioned myself trapped in my house, unable to go outside because of toxic fumes.

We went back on Wednesday.  It’s fine.  Slightly pongy, but they shut down for the evenings and it fades away after about 6.  A bit noisy in the front garden, not that noticeable out the back – inside it sort of sounds like a fan going in another room.  Not ideal, sure.  I like silence.  But actually much less disturbing than our noisy neighbours at our rental, who will shout at random times and have arguments.  Certainly not as bad as the house I lived in near a freight train line, or even a passenger train crossing where the train blows its horn every time it goes past.  Every half hour or so.  Totally able to zone it out.  Phew!

We’ve been cleaning.  It’s gross.

There were obviously smokers living there – although maybe not for very long.  The first wall we cleaned had a big smear at about couch height.  When scrubbed, it oozed orange gunk – three or four wiped and scrubs later, it’s stopped.  I think.  none of the other walls were as bad – one scrub and a wipe and it’s mostly clean.  They’ll all need another go-over before I’m happy painting them, but it won’t be as much of a struggle.

We’ve cleaned the lounge room, the main bedroom, the toilet and the hallway.  I want to get the kitchen and the laundry area cleaned this week, for painting next weekend.  Puttying etc will have to happen some time then, too.

My sister has been super helpful.  She’s been supportive in general, and in particular she’s been coming with me to clean.  She’s not such a fan of cleaning the walls – well, it’s hard, and you can’t really see results, so I don’t blame her.  But on Friday we went over and while I did another go on the lounge, as well as cleaning the bedroom, she cleaned the toilet – the walls and the floor and the toilet itself – as well as sweeping out the laundry area and squishing all the spiders.  Then we went outside for a change of scene and while I dug up three cornered jacks (they’re everywhere) she cleaned out the garage.  After a while I retreated back inside where it’s less pointy to clean the hall, and she cut back one of the trees leaning over the fence.

Dear three cornerd jacks.  I WILL WIN!

I wish I’d taken a better before photo before my sister cut down half a tree!

It’s still a small disaster zone.  It’s grimy everywhere, and neglected.  The three cornered jacks are so horrible.  They’re covering the backyard, and it’s just about seeding season.  They stick in your shoes and you track them everywhere are then you step on them later – so painful.  All the bins – reguler, green and recycling – are full of rubbish from the bogan neighbours who moved out as we were looking at the house.  Full dinner sets with food still on, magazines from 1994, and one bottle of every alcoholic spirit you could think of.  Yuck.

However.  It’s starting to feel like it might be home.  I’ve had a couple of moments, walking barefoot through all the dirty room, where it felt like mine.  And once it’s painted… well.  I am very excited about the thought.

I got about a 2 square metre patch of the three cornered jacks up.  Not much, but considering that the soil in the garden is as dry and hard as concrete, and that direct pressure will allow a jack to puncture a gardening glove or even the rubber of a gumboot, I consider that a good effort.  Wile I was digging up the roots, I thought about how, although I’m not HAPPY to be digging up f*&#%ing three cornered jacks, there is certainly a sense of triumph about it.  A sense that I am winning my house.  Coming into ownership of it through all the work I’m putting in.  PROPER ownership, not just having a piece of paper that says I owe the bank my first born.  Proving to the house that I’ll take care of it.

Silly, I know.  But still.

The house next door is empty – the neighbours moved out while our house was being sold, as I said.  We peeked over the fence when we were there on Friday.  There are a bunch of trees overgrown, hanging over our fence.  Since it’s the bext fence to plant things along, I want them gone.  We peeked over and… it’s a classic bogan garden.

I think they must have just left all their furniture when they moved.  Two twin beds, a crib, a child’s bike, numerous wardrobes and other storage furniture, not to mention enough tires for at least six cars. 

I went over and nicked a tire to make a pond, and I might yoink another to plant a rosemary shrub in – apparently they make better leaves if you give them sandy and rocky soil – the oils we favour are their protection and they don’t need it as much if they are pampered.  So I’ll plant it seperate from the rest of the garden.

And we will be chopping the trees back to the fence line before anyone else moves in there.

Tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse

It was a friend’s birthday party yesterday, and we all got on a mini bus and went up into the hills to Grumpy’s Brewhouse for pizza and beer.  I was a bit jumpy about it, frankly.  There’ve been a few hiccups in the group in question, none of which directly involve me, but in which I am firmly on a ‘side’ – in terms of who I am closer friends with, not necessarily who I think has acted in the most appropriate manner.  That’s a tougher one.  I was a bit worried that one of the people involved in that mini schism would say something to which I might have to respond defensively for one of the absent parties.

Thankfully, that didn’t happen.  It was a lovely day of sun and beer and company and food.  Until we got back to Adelaide, and there were only a handful of us left.  Some comments were made that had exactly the effect I was concerned about of putting me in a horrible, defensive position – from completely unexpected people, and not about any of the topics I was feeling defensive about. 

It was nothing major, but it really upset me – to the point where I cried on the way home because, really, is it supposed to be this hard?  It seems like everywhere there are friendships fading away, falling apart, imploding.  People reacting badly to all of those phenomenons.  People backstabbing, bitching, alliances forming against others, falling apart, reforming.  You have to remember who likes who, who dislikes who, who’s slept with or has a crush on who… it’s exhausting.  I can’t handle the swirling tides of personal politics for more than a few hours without feeling like I’m drowning in them. I did think of Sara and her lovely post about handmade love – the panda hat I sent her on impulse because it had to be hers, among other things (isn’t it lovely to have something you spent time and love on appreciated?  I don’t know that many other things are as validating) which made me feel better.  But that feels like a cop out – Sara and I, like most of my bloggy friends, don’t have to see each other fail at life’s little tests of character day in and day out.  What would it be like if we knew each other in person?  Would the Use By Date on our friendships move closer, then?  Because, you know, tout passe, tout casse, tout lasse, there’s no avoiding that.  But still, does entropy have to win so obviously?

The comments made last night were fair, if (in my opinion) too vehemently put.  But the fact that I am good friends with the person in question left me in a horrible position – do I defend them against reasonable criticism, or sit in silence, feeling complicit and two faced?  I don’t mind what was said – I think it’s important to be able to see and understand your friend’s failings or character ‘flaws’, although that is different from bitching, which was what happened then – just that it was said in front of me, involved me in the atmosphere of picking apart people’s personalities.  Not that I don’t do that myself, I’m only human, after all (besides being as bitchy as the best of them, when I get a good run up to it) but I do try not to do it in front of people who will be offended by it.  Is that better, or worse?  Anyhow, I felt that it was rude to ME to say those (admittedly minor) things in front of me.

In retrospect I got quite sunburnt and that, in combination with a day soaked in beer, left me dehydrated and probably with minor heatstroke – which goes to explain my extreme tiredness and emotional vulnerability.  Also, the whole day I sort of felt like I was fending off people’s personalities, being buffeted by them – do you like what I like, dislike what I like, have the same opinions, tastes, preferences.  Someone did this thing, isn’t that horrible?  What, you don’t agree?  You must be horrible too!

I know I am exaggerating most of this in my head.  Making it more complicated, harder.  I’m not very good at large groups of people, I find it easier to get along when it’s small groups or one on one.  I’ve not ever had a very large group of friends before, which means when there are schisms, I don’t really know what to do.  In the past, if it’s turned out that I dislike someone, I just stop seeing them.  Now, I see people all the time who I have decided are not my cup of tea – and I feel like a hypocrite for pretending to be great friends with them.  But isn’t that how society works?  Grin and get along?

I don’t know.  All I know is that yesterday left me with a sense of sadness that was hard to shake. Why, why, why are people so pettily horrible to each other, such minor nastinesses?  It’s like being pecked to death by ducks. 

Phew.  That was cathartic.  I’ve been chewing that over, but I think I just need to let it go and move on.  It’s nice to get it out of my head.

Although, while I’m venting, can I just say: people who complain about the weather.  It’s boring.  There’s a difference between saying ‘jeez, it’s hot, eh?’ on the fifth day over thirty, and being miserable whatever the weather is.  After a certain point, it just makes everyone else glum, too.  I’m not saying I ENJOY 40 degree heatwaves, or weeks of rainy grey days… only, sometimes, I do!  There’s something about every season I enjoy, whether it’s sitting cosily inside watching rain chase itself down the windows, or bright blue skies that go on forever.  And when people only ever talk about the bad bits (hot, humid, sweaty, grey, cloudy, depressing) then it makes it harder to see the good things. 

As Tom Robbins said in Fierce Invalids Home From Hot Climates, ‘Weather should either be celebrated or ignored’. 

Thus endeth today’s rant.

How do you stay warm in the cold shadow of death?

Bear hats, that’s how!

I read these comics ages ago, and just recently, they’ve been echoing around the inside of my skull.

Link

Link

I feel like I’ve slipped accross the line between collecting and creating.  I mean, I’ve always created.  I don’t remember a time when I didn’t.  Crafting was something my family did – whether it was sewing, gardening, woodwork… and I feel like I transitioned from creative play into crafting.  I remember making palm trees from toilet rolls like they did on playschool.  The masking tape is still on our living room rug.  And I remember, about the same time, knitting and sewing, dabbling in cooking and baking (with appropriate supervision, of course).

But it’s been something I do, not something I AM.  Even when I realised I was a Knitter with a capital, not just someone who knits.  And then I was a Crafter.  But I feel a bit more like a someone who creates these days – getting closer, anyway.  Thinking of a thing and then causing that thing to exist in the world.

Here are some things I had invented lately.

Quilt Cover

I saw some bedding somewhere and coveted it.  When I move, I’m planning to paint the bedroom peacock blue, and I don’t want to repaint my bed.  So in order to cut down on the colour chaos, I figured all white bedding was the go.  With my overlocker, this was a breeze.  I LOVE my overlocker.  This project wasn’t hard, but it was large, and it took a surprising amount of thinking and planning.  It pleases me to no end.

Panda Hat

You saw the first version earlier.  That one went to a work friend who was leaving.  This one went to Sara.  A third is on the way and will go in my etsy store, once I finish it and figure out how much it should cost.  I’ve just made a blue one (sans eyes) to be part of a Grumpy Bear costume for myself for a TV themed party tomorrow.  I’m trying to decide between sewing the tummy piece and just drawing it – drawing is winning at this stage!

When I was little – maybe about 8 – we went to spend the holidays with my cousins.  They are a family of four… no, I must have been younger, because I was an only child.  Maybe 5 or 6.  The weeks before we went to visit, I made up a whole play involving care bears, and I carefully made facsimiles of the tummy pictures they have.  We often put on performances, and made the adults endure them, and I planned ot unveil my master plan and have us put on my play. 

I was too shy to bring it up and the paper tummies stayed in my bag all holiday.

Top Hat

My sister works in a bar, and for NYE they were required to wear hats.  I suggested that I make her one.  She LOVED this idea and said ‘it could be a top hat!  You could KNIT it!’  Since I was thinking about just rigging some fabric over a plastic canvas frame, this took me a bit aback, but I said ‘sure’ and set to knitting.  A few hours later I had a floppy top hat sitting on the table.  My sister couldn’t believe that I’d just done that, in the time since she mentioned it.

I whacked it in the washing machine to felt, and blocked it over a jar.  I left that bit a bit late, and it was still a bit damp and floppy.  I ended up reinforcing it with plastic canvas anyway.  Sewed it to a headband and whacked a ribbon around it, and we were set!  I’d not felted anything before, and I didn’t quite compensate enough for the difference between vertical and horizontal shrinkage – to me it looks more like a bowler than a top hat.  But still, a good effort.  I’m thinking about selling these in the store, too, if I can find some more headbands, and get off my bum to make them!

Isn’t she pretty!

Farewell present for our boss.  More explanation here.

None of these projects were anything I’d consider complicated or hard.  They all involved only skills I already had, and took minimal time and effort.  But they were things I thought of, and made real.  And there’s something magical about that.

Link

Cackle and Lay

Every time I think about chickens, I get C.J. Dennis’ ‘The Feast’ or ‘The Famine’ stuck in my head.  Do you know them?  They’re from his Book for Kids, which we had in a precious old illustrated hardback copy, and also an audio version narrated by Noni from Playschool.  And also several recent hard hitting dramas, but shoosh.  Noni was my second favourite (who could beat John?  And now I’m grown up I love him even more).  On the other side of the tape was ‘Meanie and the Min Min’ which is another excellent Aussie kids story.  Magically creepy, too, in that way that kids love to be creeped out.  (Ps the good guys win.)

The Famine

Cackle and lay, cackle and lay!
How many eggs did you get to-day?
None in the manger, and none in the shed,
None in the box where the chickens are fed,
None in the tussocks and none in the tub,
And only a little one out in the scrub.
Oh, I say!  Dumplings to-day.
I fear that the hens must be laying away.

And then, on the next page;

The Feast

Cackle and lay, cackle and lay!
How many eggs did you get to-day?
Two in the manger, and four in the shed,
Siz in the box where the chickens are fed,
Two in the tussocks and ten in the tub,
And nearly two dozen right out in the scrub.
Hip, hooray!  Pudding to-day!
I think that the hens are beginning to lay.

My favourite poem in the book was The Ant Explorer, although it’s hard to choose.  The profession ones, like ‘the pie man’ or ‘the porter’ are lovely little snapshots of ordinary life, too.  I haven’t thought about this book for a long time as such.  Although phrases will stick in the mind.  Whenever I hear the word ‘tannin’ my brain automatically runs “‘You’ve taken too much tannin!’ jeered the jug” from Tea Time, for example. 

Anyone else got any lovely aussie kids books like this tucked away in their childhood?  I might just see if I can get my hands on a copy.  And I need to retrieve ‘Honey Sandwich’ from my mother’s house before it goes missing – another classic, although from a more recent era!

Travel

I like airports.  And planes.  I like trains and train stations.  Bus stops, not so much – too ordinary – but planes and trains have so much promise, somehow.

Maybe it’s because they’re the ultimate in in between places.  No one lives there, no one owns it, no one really likes it there, no one stays there for long.  And yet, such magical moments happen there, such large transitions, farewells, meetings, returnings, exiles.

I love the in between places in life.  When you have an epiphany in the shower.  When you enter a public toilet stall and suddenly realise that something in your life has shifted and you were too busy thinking about what to have for dinner or how annoying the people you love are to notice but now, suddenly, in the spasming flourescent light, you realise that nothing is the same.

I was sitting in Adelaide airport, that morning a few weeks ago.  Free from work, waiting for a long awaited holiday to kick off, feeling the absence of an accustomed weight. I sat opposite two women.  They looked vaugely familiar – one looked like my year 9 art teacher, I realised, and one like the younger sister of my ostensible high school ‘best friend’.  Then again, it’s Adelaide – they might be people I catch the bus with, or see at the shops.  They might by my neighbour’s sister.  I am almost certainly connected to them in some way.

You used to have to walk right out on the tarmac at Adelaide airport.  Right from the lounge where your family waved you off into the weather.  Starting your journey on foot.  This is not quite the same, but there is something charming about a rubbish bin on a dolly and a string of flags being all that’s keeping the passengers boarding at the rear from being sucked into the engines.

I was half watching them.  They were so different.  The one on the left was short, fat, just creeping past middle age.  Short red hair, dyed, glasses were a deep, bright metallic colour.  Purple, maybe.  Dressed the trendy side of expensive.  She sat with her hands clasped accross her belly, legs out. 

The one on the right was thin and angular, long blonde hair tumbling from her head, plain black thick rimmed glasses.  Young – just out of university, maybe.  Dressed the expensive side of trendy.  The sat perched on her seat, folded up almost, hands draped on her lap or by her sides.

They looked so different, I thought.  They must be related – otherwise I wouldn’t expect to see two people whose lives must be so seperate sitting together like that.  And then I looked up from my book just as they had obviously finished one of those small conversations you have with someone you know well, while you’re waiting.  They were both staring into the distance, half smiles on their lips as if they were savouring the echo of a pleasant thought.  And they were eerily similar, the thing that looked out from under their faces was the same.

I don’t know what the moral to that story is.

I love flying.  I hate rollercoasters.  You know that feeling you get in your stomach, when you’re on a rollercoaster?  Or on an aeroplane and there’s turbulance?  When I’m on a rollercoaster, a machine built for fun, the clitoris of the mechanical world with no other function…  all I can think is that the car is going to come off the tracks and I’m going to dye a horrible death, and then I won’t be that misfortunate person who died a tragic death, I’ll be that idiot who died a senseless death for the sake of a funny feeling in her tummy.

But turbulance on a plane?  Love it.  Pure joy.

 Don’t the fields look like patchwork?  A cliche, I know.  But those colours – brown and green and purple, more purple in real life.  Glorious.