Well, not that anyone actually cares, but it feels good to finally have unblocked!! I was sooo stuck, no writing, drawing, just endless consumption of other people’s creativity and boy, was I feeling down. But I’ve written a couple new poems (hate me if you want to, poetry’s pretty subjective stuff, one in fifteen million people usually like your particular brand… and then that’s usually you..)

ALSO I’m starting to draw again!! I have never posted any pics here, but I am trying my hand at a cartoon, and if all goes according to my plans, this page shall host it! As egotistical as this seems, it will be based loosely on my life, i.e. the funny and that which is funny in retrospect. And some of it will be complete bull. But I shall attempt to make it cute at all times.

 Anyway, that’s enough out of me, clogging up the blogospere, so on to the poems, and I hope you recover quickly from reading this or any other posts I have published. I always find scones and tea can erase even the most horrendous images from one’s mind….

 

Just Like Me

I am not a God
I am not omnipotent
Don’t tell me all you’ve done
behind closed doors.

 I will not forgive you.

 Do not wear your heart out on your sleeve
I will rip it off
I will break you down
just to know what it’s like to be

on the other side.

 Do not confess to me
I am not a priest, I will judge you
as though perfection is attainable.

I will be the worst thing
that ever happened to you.

 If you are vulnerable
I will make you
miserable.

This is just another mistake
I will teach you what it is

to hate.

 And when the tears

burn

down

your

cheeks

 

You’ll be just like me.

 

 Such a Boy

Well I know what it meant
and I heard what you said
but I’m sure it was different,
You don’t understand.
You said it was deep
you said it was real
I believe you, I believe
but you just don’t feel…

Well you talk and you talk
and you talk it to death
and you think and you thought
’til there was just nothing left
You have thought of it all
now i’s complex and new.
You cling to it, this miracle,
but you’re just a fool

Given one and  one you have all the equations
But a sum’s just a sum and you’re too damn creative
So unhealthily strung-out and selling your secrets
I’m worried you won’t find out ’til you’re knee-deep

You cannot create it and expect it to stay
It will not be how you feel just because you say
You’re a fool and naive and it won’t go your way
You’re such a boy, oh
You’re such a boy, and I cannot save you
Boy, from yourself…

Well a fool with a dream’s
just fooling himself
And you sort as you must
on your segmented shelf
You’ve got labels and numbers
categories, oh sections
and it all fits so neatly
with no room for transgressions
Well if it won’t fit you make it
stubborn as a mule

Do you truly believe it,
that it all fits the rule?
You pine and you fret
You shake and take pills
wanting to fix it yet
so you charge to spill

All of your secrets and all you’ve discovered
every rejected ideal and lover
Have you any idea how wrong you have got it?
I can’t break your fall but you won’t stop running
You cannot create it and expect it to stay
It will not be how you feel just because you say
You’re a fool and naive and it won’t go your way
You’re such a boy, oh
You’re such a boy, and I cannot save you,
Boy, from yourself…

Running riot expecting to be directed
But I’m not your mother and what you expected
was more than I could give, but I still give plenty
You’re far beyond saving but you want to save many
You fool!
Such a boy, such a boy, such a boy
A fool!
And only fooling yourself,
Boy, I cannot save you…

 

That last one’ s a song so yeah, it’s good when you have the rhythm down (of course, that varies…)

Shall leave you all alone now! Peace! \/

Yep, that’s right, being single is a disease. At least, that’s what I’ve been led to believe, chiefly by the actions my co-workers seem to be taking to ‘cure’ me of it.

I’m only twenty! I have my whole life ahead of me, but apparently not having a significant other is a bad way to be.

This I am being told by several happily-paired people in my life… as well as everything stupid their partners do and how annoying they are…

Here’s how a usual day at the deli goes. I work with proudly half-caste Kujo, and her best, New Zulland bud (also Kujo).

Miss C walks up to customer: Hi, how can I help you?

Kujo/s elbow Miss C in bony rib-cage (ouch!) and jibe with one of the following selection of… jibes… (where’s the synonym button when you need it?)

 ”The question is, how can he help you?”

“Give him your number!”

“Ooh, she’s hot, maybe you should swap teams?”

..huh?!

Not that I’m shallow.. well, I am, but come on, as if I’m going to jump the first tradie that walks past me! And my New Zulland Kujo in fact seems desperate to ‘cure’ me of my single disease. Or at least, that lurking childhood illness of virginity. One in every two shifts she is drilling me on men, my likes and dislikes, and then getting to the nitty-gritty:

“Do you want to have sex?” Kujo asks.

O.O

“Well what kind of question is that? I’m not frigid!”

“Aren’t you worried?”

At this point in the conversation (and trust me, it usually hits this point pretty early on, thanks to my dear, pessimistic and oh-so-thoughtful deli bud) I shoot her the accusatory frown and bark, “Why, should I be?”

The fact that the conversation runs less along the lines of finding yours truly’s true love, and more along the lines of giving nookie, leads me to believe that Kujo – currently in the honeymoon period of coupledom – is getting waay too much; and has therefore had an epiphony: *cue dramatic pose, hand on forehead* without it she was nothing, and now a renewed, rejuvenated, energised woman, has taken it upon herself to save me from the desperate throes of morbid self-gratification by hooking me up.

Meanwhile I am planning my next counter-attack, namely asking her if me and sex are on her mind so much maybe she should just lay me and get it out of her system. Of course I’m joking, she’s too chromosomally advanced for my liking.

But then, should I be worried? Should I be concerned at her attempts to sell me to the tallest customer, when she is constantly hitting Big W for cheap bibs for her baby box? (She’s a forward thinker.) Obviously she’s nesting and while I understand it, I cannot live it.

The terrible, publicly indecent fact of the matter is I cannot get myself pregnant, and I’ll be damned if I let her do it! Obviously indirectly, but still… I never dreamed that 20 was old, and never once thought I was in a dire situation - or any situation at all – until the paranoia that has slowly crept in ever since she, and the other Kujo, were so verbally concerned for me!

And then there’s the party incident. This is a while back actually, but it stands fresh in my mind. One of our co-workers was leaving to go overseas and the two Kujos teamed up to make the ‘dynamic date-arranging duo’. (So what if it’s cliched?) We’re sitting in a circle, talking to a friend of our go-awayerer, (who is off somewhere dancing a beautifully sequened shirt, so long it could almost be a dress). Then Kujo (from now on there shall be no distinction – it’s pointless) comes up with something to slip easily into the conversation to change topic:

“Miss C is single you know.”

Well of course I go bright red. It is important to note at this point that my face has a mind of its own… so to speak…ahem… anyway, I constantly blush – when I am mildly embarrassed, when I overheat (and my head overheats randomly, it’s weird), and also, when ever my cheeks feel they need rejuvenation. Worse, is when I can feel it happening, and people look at me like ooh, she’s blushing and then judge why I’m embarrassed, and I get embarrassed and blush uber bad because I can usually guess why they think I’m blushing and I hate being judged like that!!

Whoo, moving on.

Before I get back to the party scene, I should give you the background to explain what Kujo said next.

There was in fact a third Kujo, a guy, funny but gross and when we closed the deli, he used to pretend he was ‘owning’ deli materials, if you catch my drift. You hear a ’squeakity-squeak’ of wheels, turn around, and there was Kujo, riding a trolley with vigour cowboy-style.

He called it taming.

Many a time I would walk around the corner, and he would be taming the edge of the bench, dominating the corner of the chicken-oven, or in the coldroom inexplicably on the top shelf, demanding the identity of said grill’s daddy. (Actually, the only exaggeration there was the daddy part – I swear to God I was putting ham away and he was up above me taming the cured meat shelf.)

So, can you guess what Kujo said to Mr Army Man at the party?

“She’s never been tamed.”

He didn’t get it, but every one else did. And then they said they had to go over the other side of the room and promptly left. In the ensuing uncomfortable half-hour I discovered that said army man, 24 and divorced, was still desperately in love with his cheating ex-wife, although he never said it in words, and even if he were my type I would not hook up to be an unpaid counsellor and rebound girl.

I also am extremely wary of getting into any more situations like that, and fully intend to avoid large social functions where I get left alone with any of the three Kujateers and an available male.

Well, that is all I have to say, I need to sleep and if I went on about it all you’d be even snorier than you are now!! Although, I’m sure my story is nothing in comparison to others, but it was enough for me! Keep half an eye open for more, as my life is getting increasingly complicated at this very moment.

So something to ponder… or laugh at.

Divorce: (v) future tense of marriage.

The Mutterer

I sat in class the other day, which had dwindled from 15 to 5, and once again found myself in close proximity to The Mutterer.

I say once again, but I have never actually told the international public about The Mutterer, so here is a brief explanation.

In my tutorial on a Friday afternoon, there is this guy who mutters things in a half-whisper, to himself, when the tutor is talking, when there is a DVD on, or when the mood generally strikes him.

It freaks me out.

It’s just mumblings grumblings and a lost, off-balance glint in his eyes, and I’m not paranoid, but…

Well, the only other person I’ve ‘met’ with this trait was a homeless guy. He set up camp in the trees alongside the path I used to take when I walked to school. It was the section of path that wound quickly but quietly among the paper-barks.

This guy was all very well and fine, I suppose as far as being homeless and slightly disturbed goes, and I was generally unconcerned with his mutterings and the distinct aroma that infuses the air surrounding people who wear everything they own on their back.

(It is the odour of off, bitey sweat, new bitey sweat, poverty, not uncommonly alcohol-infused bad teeth and quiet humiliation and indifference intertwined. And on occasion such as this, a distinct whiff of insanity.)

But one morning his mutterings exploded into a violent argument, with what I can only assume was a particularly provocative patch of air in the man’s general vicinity. He raged at it, and he turned as he raged, keeping his eyes on the skulking mix of offensive intangible gases, and I was lucky enough that the pace I walked matched the pace he turned, and I managed to stay directly behind him the entire time he pivoted. I doubt he would have heard me, but I’m pretty sure he would have thought I was in cahoots with the air, had I been spotted rudely breathing it in.

The crazy mutterer in my class has not had an argument with any desks as yet. However, I have primed myself to take swift evasive action, should said mutterer look like he’s even thinking of turning and plunging his biro into my eyeball.

 

The Family Splinters…

Blondie has left the building! She just turned 16 and decided she hated Mother, and she’s gone.

Mother was of course both devastated and overjoyed – a bottle of scotch (NB: may be slight exaggeration) and several blocks of chocolate (NB: see previous parenthesis) later, she was quite content to openly discuss how little she cared, how worried she was and exactly how off-limits the topic was moments from becoming.

Delilah was as happy as a pig in poo and The Blob was doing his usual ‘this is none of my business’ thing and spent the night being that boy who uses our bathroom and eats our food.

 

Internship Schminternship…

Actually, back to uni now: I discovered to my disdain that the situation at my internship had changed on Wednesday morning. Did I tell you about my internship? No?? Well then!!

I got an internship! At my local paper, in the lift-out entertainment section. My first two days (I do one day a week) introduced me to interviewing singers and the goings on in the magazine. I thought I was just getting the hang of it, when I arrived on a bleak autumn morning, and there is the entertainment editor (EE), with red-rimmed eyes, sitting in an office that can only be described as tangibly silent.

“Oh, hi Miss C,” says EE. “I’ve just found out I’ve been made redundant, so I don’t really have anything for you to do today.”

“Oh.”

It is a tense few minutes discussing the sudden dismissal that evolves into EE turning abruptly away from me and making strangled little chokey-gaspy noises, and struggling to keep her shoulders still, that provokes me, the coldest of all cold, to offer my bony shoulder.

“Uh, do you want a hug?” Miss C (I) asks with minor apparent trepidation.

EE shakes her head. “No,” she burbles, followed swiftly by a retraction in the form of a sob-strangled cried-out “Yes!”

So for yet another odd moment in my life, my bony shoulder is welcome against somebody’s tear-stained face.

EE of course got severance and by the end of the day, being so over-qualified but under-paid, EE had already received a possible job-offer.

Where does that leave me? Tenderly retitled the “Glasshouse Intern”, I am now to flit among the departments (well, a couple of them), learning the tricks of the trade in Advertorial, and sub-editing. I am thrilled, dismayed, and anxious.

And also, after the sudden demise of the over-crowded entertainment corner of the small office, loaded up with CDs I have never heard of, books I have never read, and a few random promotional t-shirts and inexplicably, a High School Musical 2 bag, cap, diary, and temporary tattoos.

GET YOUR HEAD IN THE GAME!!

To add an all-new creep-factor to the already creepily techni-colour-saturated High School Musical paraphernalia, all the tattoos, (some disturbingly of a basket-ball-uniform-clad Zac Effron) were given extra bright blue eyes, which thanks to dodgy glitter application, have no pupils or whites.

Stick that to your arm and avoid a crowd.

But life throws curly-ones aplenty, and you know, there is so much more but being more diverse than this, I feel a separate blog entry would be appropriate. Also I am an exhausted university student and I cannot operate my eyeballs and brain simultaneously for much longer without short-circuiting.

So, just one more thing before you run screaming from your computer, if you haven’t already:

Please don’t ever, EVER mix chocolate and whiskey.

I need  to pluck my eyebrows
I need to shave my legs
I need to treat my  acne
and I need to cut my hair

I need to write an essay
And I need to read the news
And I need to call some sources
And I need to finish soon

And I have to be there for my friends
when they are in despair
I need to share with them my time
and show them that I care

And of course I need my downtime
to air my creative side
Yes I’m sure this wasteful downtime
is mentally justified

Oh, that reminds me
of my sister
I need to keep from
growing bitter

I need to tell my Mother
the things that I have hidden
and I need to keep them secret
cause theyr’e not her jurisdiction

And, desperately, I need new clothes
the kind that is, that don’t have holes

And I need to read some more
to keep my vocab up to score

I need to diet badly
and I need to exercise
and I need to get up earlier
and avoid supersize

I need to…drink less

…need to focus… longer

need to aim much higher… and

I need to  be… much… stronger…

I simply can’t be perfect
jsut the person that I am
…so anihilate the perfect?
Then no one would give a damn!

I try not to air my opinion on politics, but this is just too weird to ignore!

The Premier of Western Australia (check your maps, it’s the biggest state in the country… I think like three people live there or something…) Alan Carpenter is in the middle of a political scandal.

There’s an intra-party fight going on… and then there’s these two claims: Mr Carpenter lifted a female MP’s top and showed everyone her bra at a karaoke party.

That one… yeah, I’d sum it up to many drinks and joviality, and him being a bloke.

(For those who don’t know, a bloke is a man typically of Australian or British standing, and generally a term applied to a tradie, someone who’s just had a run of bad luck, or a man with at least two  beers in his system.)

And then opposition leader Troy Buswell is a chair-sniffer??  But the chair sniffing allegation, as reported in the Courier Mail:

“The Liberal leader has been under intense pressure to resign after admitting last week that in 2005 he sniffed the chair of a female Liberal staffer at parliament house after she had stood up.”

Is it just me, or is that a little weird?? The only stranger things I’ve heard came from America — cigars, and men in back alleys etc.

But chair sniffing, I dunno… must be a West Australian thing…