Why.
So that you don't spend sunday afternoons alone. If there are going to be lonely hours, that is when they will find their way in. Even the sun slowly sinks away in a way that says 'goodbye'. On Sundays.
So that you can go to your friends house for dinner, friends plural, who are a couple. Because they will invite you as you will be the right number for wine glass sets, games and four sided tables. Two.
So that you can say 'we' and 'oh yes my husband has one of those' and 'i better get home, hubby will be wondering where i am'. And someone will be at home, kindly wondering.
So you can relinquish a job or two that you hate, forever. Such as the rubbish. or the lawns. Even though he doesn't like them either, he does them for you. Til death do you part.
So that you can be sick. Because being sick, when no one cares, is not really sick, you might just be pretending. You cough a little 'achaa' ...and sniff a little 'sffft'... just to check if you are really sick, because unless there's someone to tell who says 'oh dear' and frowns and really means it, what's the point.
So you can go on walks. To walk as one you need alpipne sticks or an umbrella or to hurry slightly your step. One is going somewhere. One is exercising. One is on an errand. Two is just out for a walk.
So you can share all the burdens of your world with another person.
So you know you will always be loved after the fight.
Loved after the fight has gone out of you.
Loved after the light has gone out.
So you can make tea for someone. And have them say, this tea is perfect.
So you can watch movies you wouldn't otherwise watch. Like 3D action films. Or old westerns. It's good for you, to see these films. Saves you from banality of rom coms and tear jerkers.
So you can say 'lets' followed by anything, to someone, out loud.
So you can say 'have you seen my glasses? I'm losing my marbles!' and then say it again the next day, and the next, because they are losing their marbles too.
And when alls said and done. Rocking chair porch and sun setting looks faded weathered faces, calloused crippled hands and rings stuck forever on fingers swollen with age, stirring bright purple stewed plums in a bowl and drop them on the floor SWOOSH red everywhere and shed a tear as you kneel to clean up all the lost sweetness. Kneels next to you and says, I love you.
Sunday, May 13, 2012
Friday, April 20, 2012
Cheap Therapy and Hot Tips from Beauty Salons and Dentists
I went to the beauty salon the other day. Don't get the wrong impression, by salon, i don't mean five floored luxury spa with wings that each have their own temperate pool where buff tan men in short white shorts offer you lemonades off trays..
i'm sorry what?
oh yeah, the salon, or whatever they're called. And don't get another wrong idea, i almost NEVER go to beauty places (you're like: no shit), this was only my third or fourth time my whole life. And no i wont' disclose why... just trust me it was worth it.
So the lady who runs the one woman show that is said salon, is Iranian. She's gorgeous. She's kind of half physically gorgeous, and half just so warm and amusing you can't help but want to hear her thick Iranian accent believing everything she tells you about the new mineral make up...
Everything about her makes me think of the word honey. She has honey coloured skin, and honey brown eyes, her perfectly coiffed, short 'bob' is streaks of golden honey blonde, very natural, for a dye job. She is perfectly made up, of course, in a nice way, not over the top. And she is fairly small, but a big presence, with spectacles sitting on the bridge of her nose.
She is warm and welcoming and immediately feels like your no-nonsense aunt that you love even though she tells things you how things are and what is what.
Well, Roya, her name is, has me on the fake leopard skin 'fur' covered salon bed.. and she says to me amid the 'getting to know you' banter 'You have boyfriend!?' She sort of jabs the words at me, not unkindly, matter of factly: 'you have boyfriend!?' she says. 'No' I reply (wait for it..) WHY YOU NO HAVE BOYFRIEND!? she says 'tall, beautiful...? (it's clearly as puzzling to her as anyone)... let me look at your eyebrowz' she says, and lifts her spectacles and peeeeers deep into my occular region. I'm apologizing and saying yes they probably need plucking (you're always cowering with embarrassment around beautiful beauty salon people as you know they are taking you apart and lamenting your complete lack of decorum).. and I'm wondering what ancient iranian astrology can tell about me from my eyebrows.. perhaps the name of my future lover...
'Ah yes' She says, as if it is plain for all to see. 'yes, we shape you eyebrowzz we tint your eyelashes, you get boyfriend'.
If only I'd known it was so simple at an earlier date. All I needed was an eyebrow shape and eyelash tint. Shit, for twenty five bucks it seems more than reasonable...
Well I left there and went to the dentist.
I know. No i do work. just not on thursdays.
I saw a deal on group on, and bought it. HIghly risky and i had been imagining all week all the kind of horrific dental atrocities the dentist was probably going to perform on me to try and make money out of me like some backstreet abortion clinic... I really got my defenses up.
Turns out the dentist is a pretty nice (for a sadist) Eastern Block lady, maybe russian, called lily. Lily is perfunct and matter of fact and a charactature of herself, with far too long dyed blonde hair, dark roots showing, half a pot of turqouise eye shadow on each eye lide, quirky rectangular spectacles, and a white apron over intersting, but not fashionable, worn out looking dresses, with puffy sleeves that continually drape in my face and smell sweet and of dust.
I lie down on lily's blue leather dentist chairs (god i love these chairs!! the ones that go back and up and down and forward like each of their 8 parts moves in complete independance to get you just so underneath the biiiig white light, with a pleasant little humming motor gently whirring against your skin....) there i am saying 'no i haven't been here before' and lily GASPS as she says 'YOU HAVE VERY GOOD TEETH!'.
THis is mostly why i came, i've decided. IT's like a kind of all round feel good day for me this day. She says 'you have very good teeth' and i say 'oh really (in that funny way you talk when you're trying not to show your teeth because as soon as someone mentions teeth yours go all shy) and she's saying 'yes, you do, let me look' and thumbing back your lips so she can get a good look at your pearlies and she says: 'do you drink fizzy drink'.. and i get to say 'no, no i NEVER do' (proud as punch) and to add to my own self inflation i say 'i don't really like sweet food'. This makes me feel holier than thou, and lily gives me a, what i think for her is warm, little nod of approval. IT's not true of course. I like russian fudge, and apple crumble, actually any crumble, and very dark chocolate occasoinally, i like anything that tastes like sour apple, like zombie chews or apple lollies, and sour coke bottles, and frozen coke, but only at the movies. But what i mean is, i haven't spent any part of my life consistently gorging on sugary food, and in doing so, i've saved myself aLOT of pain and dental bills.
I think that's why i went to the dentist. THen she sands my teeth with a pointed ended electrical saw, or at least that's what it sounds and feels like, that she'd first frozen, and then sharpened to razor sharp point. and then she polishes (is this the same word as polish, as in, from poland, or can i not spell?) them with that chalky, sweet, slightly orange flavoured tooth paste.
And i am good to go.
Clean pearlies, and only one shape and tint away from true love.
Happy days.
Monday, April 9, 2012
holy matrimony batman
Three conversations have coincided this week to make me have a slightly major epiphany. About marriage.
One conversation occurred on a semi-date, making this a legitimate entry onto my blog. (phewphs, i'm trying here people!)
I met a really interesting guy at a friends house, and in this case, I'm not using the words really interesting lightly. Smart, quick witted, easy to talk to, and an artist, oh and a greeny. Tick tick tick. Through our mutual friend he asked me if I would like to go for coffee the next day perhaps? Sounded swell to me. Then after facebook and web stalking him and viewing his art online and genuinely liking it a whole lot, I asked if as well as coffee, I could see his studio. I know what you dirty little monkeys are all thinking, but you can just forget about it. I genuinely wanted to see his art and workspace. You: *smirk*. Me: *rolls eyes* pfft!
So the next day we set off on a perfect, crisp, sunny long weekend day on foot towards town to see his studio (Ak uni, elam). And all the way we talked. Interesting talk. Actually, so interesting and easy that it made me realise how utterly boring most men are. yes you. you are so boring. We, i, women, bend over backwards making conversation puzzle shapes so you can put your conversation puzzle pieces in them. We bring up topics for you to talk about, and do all the right nodding and question asking. God it is all so tedious. But in this case, it was not at all so. I think it is fair to say I might never have met someone so worldly, in the truest sense of the word: so well travelled and broadly knowledged. This AND a great artist. I'm quite taken. I called it a semi-date because it wasn't one of those god-aweful, awkward, contrived, pressurised drink-at-a-bar scenario's. It was more like a really cool hang out. SO ANWYAY god before i lose the point entirely.
Said man, I'll call him the artist, he's got pretty good general knowledge, knows pretty much enough to talk about politics, history, geography, shit.. you name it. And you know, me, well, i'm smart, but i don't KNOW alot of stuff. i know alot about some stuff, but i really missed alot in school. i smoked weed and drew funny pictures of my teachers and wagged and got drunk right when things were getting, what i in hindsight now realise, were fairly critical. like history. ouch i just got a pain in my body even thinking about history class. but now i see, one should really know a little about the major events that occurred in the last few hundred years for example. because they shaped our culture, and our world, they shaped lanuage and art and philosphy and through that, shape today, and me. And besides, you just look dumb when you don't know things. And no body likes dumb people.
So i came home from this enlightening and educational, as well as truly enjoable day, with a bit of a mental list of things i wanted to read up about, you know, homework so to speak, and one of them was marxism.
So i'm reading away about karl marx, thinking shit, i'm kind of marxist! and i follow the wikipedia link about 'marxist feminism' because that sounds interesting. And here i read that marxist feminism is the theory that: the root of the oppression of women is capitalism, as it deprives women of property, economic equality and independence, and breeds unhealthy relationships between men and women. In this capitalist society, the family structure (i.e. marriage) serves to subordinate women, putting them at the service of men.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bells go off in my head.
(This is why you should stay at school and learn, kids, so you know when someone is oppressing you).
Bells went off, and the ringing that they made sounded distinctly like the words 'fuck me, it's true'.
Just the night before, i had been talking with one of my best friends who is newly married and about to have her first baby. We talk about this and that and of course we talk about men, my complete absence of, or whomever i currently squeezing if i am squeezing (which i am not!), and her husband. And I can tell she really needs a vent you know, she tells me how he drops the cleanly washed towels on his poisonously toxic shoes and leaves them there, how he can't see the butter on the bench or anything else that needs putting away after he's made a sandwich... and on it goes. It's not particularly inspid, just home truths... and at the end of it she huffs and says crossly:
"I just feel like i'm his slave".
And this is one of the relationships i consider in the 'good' category. Well suited people who are in love. CRIPES.
And it's not just this friend, it's all my married friends. All the women feel this way, not just like slaves, but trapped. Trapped is a word I hear these days. They are totally dependent on men for financial support and their identity is suffocated out of existence by the all encompassing role of mother, the overwhelm, the expectations, the isolation.
Like the guy at the end of the bar, marriage looks less attractive the closer you get, I am finding.
Now now, I hear what you are thinking, what about the men? Exactly, what about those poor bastards, as emeshed in this dysfunctional system, shackled to their jobs, bearing the sum and total responsibility of bread winning. How horrible for them too. And I don't have even the vaguest idea of what an alternative solution to pairing and reproducing might be. But I have to say marriage seems a fundamentally oppressive institution, in light of these points. But MAINLY oppressive to women.
And this is not all. I had another conversation, via email, within days of these conversations, with a friend of mine who has been married several years. This friend said to me how they had wanted to discuss a particular sensitive theme with their spouse and it had created a huge explosion, which supported their growing belief that marriage was not a relationship in which you could be completely honest, or completely yourself. They went on to add, that marriage is so loaded with unconscious projections and expectations and that people subconsciously think that by getting married they have the right to be outraged if their spouse does not comply with their unvoiced assumptions, and that only non-married couples still had, at least, a sense that they didn't actually possess the other person.
And I thought, you know, it's really true. I see it all the time. In relationships, we negotiate, compromise, barter, because we KNOW that person can leave us and is opting to stay, essentially. And then the knot gets tied and people starting treating their 'loved one' like property, like a pet they need to perform well so their lives can remain on course.
It reminded me of another friend of mine who's husband wants sex all the time, and she'd quite happily live without it. She gestured to her wedding and engagement rings with the thumb of the same hand and waving them at me says: but this says i have to do it. I was slightly shocked, but only slightly. Which is shocking.
Hmmm swapping sex for gold and security... doesn't it sound a bit like... slavery?
So here I am, reading for the first time about Marxist feminism, with these conversations rattling round in the recesses of my brain, coagulating and attempting to form cut and paste messages for me, and I think a funny thing: marriage, is not, really.... feminist.
I'm struck that that is funny, mainly because i've never thought of it that way before. How come, in a world that was broken in two by our feminist mothers, (MY feminist mother!) and patched back together with women in the work force, equal pay (ha HA!), women in the army etc. well HOW COME we are still reading 'princess gets married to prince and lives happily every after' to our daughters, and how come our grown up daugthers, aka me and my UNmarried friends, are even still considering marriage an option, much less treating it as a GREAT TRIUMPH?!?!?
Someone's put something in the koolaid, becuase if the world was ever truly burnished by feminisms branding, the scar it left has all but faded to white.
Ahhh, look what the women have done, a little foot stomping, isn't that cute! Now send out the magazines to show them what to buy, how to look and how to act so they can use up all that silly energy covetting prams and cooking lamb roasts.
Shudder.
Now, being the daughter of a feminist mother, with an entirely feminist family, and feminist type expectations of me like, be everything, succeed all the time, have it all, feel fabulous being stretched within an inch of your inner resources... I thought i had been doing a fairly adequate job of feigning feminism. But here's the thing. THere are two ways you make decisions that support feminist ideals. One, is because you ought to, kind of the way you ought to finish dinner because african children are starving; and the other way, is because you're outraged.
And all these conversations and events and unveilings have culminated in me a feeling of, yes, a little outrage! And this outrage, lead me to all in one moment realise that I don't have to, need to, and in fact I think I may not want to, get married.
Ta da! That's the end of the show folks. Final bow, curtains fall. I mean, i never thought of myself as a ring-chasing big fat gypsy wedding type anyway, especially compared to many of my peers. But in a way I held this loose etheral idea of me getting married, the way you see yourself sitting on a porch when you're old. It's just how it looks. I may have watched too many movies.
And I tell you something else, boy does that take the HEAT OFF!
I didn't think I was dating in order to get married (and I feel like i'm going to be sick a little just writing that out loud to you) but the idea that i will never get married, by choice, well that just feels like a big fat gust of wind just blew into my life, peeling the curtains apart and the view it reveals is across a wide sea of freedom and possibilities, as far as the eye can see.
I've also downloaded lectures from oxford university explaining capitalism... next thing you know i'll be up and quitting my oppressive office job....
Yeah so that's all I got and it aint really funny so look at this fucking hilarious cat gif.
Oh, i don't know how to put it in... i'll try something else.
Oh and yes. I will be seeing extraordinarily interesting artist man again. This time armed with some prior reading! There you go. Nice call back at the end there! you see what i did. :)
One conversation occurred on a semi-date, making this a legitimate entry onto my blog. (phewphs, i'm trying here people!)
I met a really interesting guy at a friends house, and in this case, I'm not using the words really interesting lightly. Smart, quick witted, easy to talk to, and an artist, oh and a greeny. Tick tick tick. Through our mutual friend he asked me if I would like to go for coffee the next day perhaps? Sounded swell to me. Then after facebook and web stalking him and viewing his art online and genuinely liking it a whole lot, I asked if as well as coffee, I could see his studio. I know what you dirty little monkeys are all thinking, but you can just forget about it. I genuinely wanted to see his art and workspace. You: *smirk*. Me: *rolls eyes* pfft!
So the next day we set off on a perfect, crisp, sunny long weekend day on foot towards town to see his studio (Ak uni, elam). And all the way we talked. Interesting talk. Actually, so interesting and easy that it made me realise how utterly boring most men are. yes you. you are so boring. We, i, women, bend over backwards making conversation puzzle shapes so you can put your conversation puzzle pieces in them. We bring up topics for you to talk about, and do all the right nodding and question asking. God it is all so tedious. But in this case, it was not at all so. I think it is fair to say I might never have met someone so worldly, in the truest sense of the word: so well travelled and broadly knowledged. This AND a great artist. I'm quite taken. I called it a semi-date because it wasn't one of those god-aweful, awkward, contrived, pressurised drink-at-a-bar scenario's. It was more like a really cool hang out. SO ANWYAY god before i lose the point entirely.
Said man, I'll call him the artist, he's got pretty good general knowledge, knows pretty much enough to talk about politics, history, geography, shit.. you name it. And you know, me, well, i'm smart, but i don't KNOW alot of stuff. i know alot about some stuff, but i really missed alot in school. i smoked weed and drew funny pictures of my teachers and wagged and got drunk right when things were getting, what i in hindsight now realise, were fairly critical. like history. ouch i just got a pain in my body even thinking about history class. but now i see, one should really know a little about the major events that occurred in the last few hundred years for example. because they shaped our culture, and our world, they shaped lanuage and art and philosphy and through that, shape today, and me. And besides, you just look dumb when you don't know things. And no body likes dumb people.
So i came home from this enlightening and educational, as well as truly enjoable day, with a bit of a mental list of things i wanted to read up about, you know, homework so to speak, and one of them was marxism.
So i'm reading away about karl marx, thinking shit, i'm kind of marxist! and i follow the wikipedia link about 'marxist feminism' because that sounds interesting. And here i read that marxist feminism is the theory that: the root of the oppression of women is capitalism, as it deprives women of property, economic equality and independence, and breeds unhealthy relationships between men and women. In this capitalist society, the family structure (i.e. marriage) serves to subordinate women, putting them at the service of men.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
Bells go off in my head.
(This is why you should stay at school and learn, kids, so you know when someone is oppressing you).
Bells went off, and the ringing that they made sounded distinctly like the words 'fuck me, it's true'.
Just the night before, i had been talking with one of my best friends who is newly married and about to have her first baby. We talk about this and that and of course we talk about men, my complete absence of, or whomever i currently squeezing if i am squeezing (which i am not!), and her husband. And I can tell she really needs a vent you know, she tells me how he drops the cleanly washed towels on his poisonously toxic shoes and leaves them there, how he can't see the butter on the bench or anything else that needs putting away after he's made a sandwich... and on it goes. It's not particularly inspid, just home truths... and at the end of it she huffs and says crossly:
"I just feel like i'm his slave".
And this is one of the relationships i consider in the 'good' category. Well suited people who are in love. CRIPES.
And it's not just this friend, it's all my married friends. All the women feel this way, not just like slaves, but trapped. Trapped is a word I hear these days. They are totally dependent on men for financial support and their identity is suffocated out of existence by the all encompassing role of mother, the overwhelm, the expectations, the isolation.
Like the guy at the end of the bar, marriage looks less attractive the closer you get, I am finding.
Now now, I hear what you are thinking, what about the men? Exactly, what about those poor bastards, as emeshed in this dysfunctional system, shackled to their jobs, bearing the sum and total responsibility of bread winning. How horrible for them too. And I don't have even the vaguest idea of what an alternative solution to pairing and reproducing might be. But I have to say marriage seems a fundamentally oppressive institution, in light of these points. But MAINLY oppressive to women.
And this is not all. I had another conversation, via email, within days of these conversations, with a friend of mine who has been married several years. This friend said to me how they had wanted to discuss a particular sensitive theme with their spouse and it had created a huge explosion, which supported their growing belief that marriage was not a relationship in which you could be completely honest, or completely yourself. They went on to add, that marriage is so loaded with unconscious projections and expectations and that people subconsciously think that by getting married they have the right to be outraged if their spouse does not comply with their unvoiced assumptions, and that only non-married couples still had, at least, a sense that they didn't actually possess the other person.
And I thought, you know, it's really true. I see it all the time. In relationships, we negotiate, compromise, barter, because we KNOW that person can leave us and is opting to stay, essentially. And then the knot gets tied and people starting treating their 'loved one' like property, like a pet they need to perform well so their lives can remain on course.
It reminded me of another friend of mine who's husband wants sex all the time, and she'd quite happily live without it. She gestured to her wedding and engagement rings with the thumb of the same hand and waving them at me says: but this says i have to do it. I was slightly shocked, but only slightly. Which is shocking.
Hmmm swapping sex for gold and security... doesn't it sound a bit like... slavery?
So here I am, reading for the first time about Marxist feminism, with these conversations rattling round in the recesses of my brain, coagulating and attempting to form cut and paste messages for me, and I think a funny thing: marriage, is not, really.... feminist.
I'm struck that that is funny, mainly because i've never thought of it that way before. How come, in a world that was broken in two by our feminist mothers, (MY feminist mother!) and patched back together with women in the work force, equal pay (ha HA!), women in the army etc. well HOW COME we are still reading 'princess gets married to prince and lives happily every after' to our daughters, and how come our grown up daugthers, aka me and my UNmarried friends, are even still considering marriage an option, much less treating it as a GREAT TRIUMPH?!?!?
Someone's put something in the koolaid, becuase if the world was ever truly burnished by feminisms branding, the scar it left has all but faded to white.
Ahhh, look what the women have done, a little foot stomping, isn't that cute! Now send out the magazines to show them what to buy, how to look and how to act so they can use up all that silly energy covetting prams and cooking lamb roasts.
Shudder.
Now, being the daughter of a feminist mother, with an entirely feminist family, and feminist type expectations of me like, be everything, succeed all the time, have it all, feel fabulous being stretched within an inch of your inner resources... I thought i had been doing a fairly adequate job of feigning feminism. But here's the thing. THere are two ways you make decisions that support feminist ideals. One, is because you ought to, kind of the way you ought to finish dinner because african children are starving; and the other way, is because you're outraged.
And all these conversations and events and unveilings have culminated in me a feeling of, yes, a little outrage! And this outrage, lead me to all in one moment realise that I don't have to, need to, and in fact I think I may not want to, get married.
Ta da! That's the end of the show folks. Final bow, curtains fall. I mean, i never thought of myself as a ring-chasing big fat gypsy wedding type anyway, especially compared to many of my peers. But in a way I held this loose etheral idea of me getting married, the way you see yourself sitting on a porch when you're old. It's just how it looks. I may have watched too many movies.
And I tell you something else, boy does that take the HEAT OFF!
I didn't think I was dating in order to get married (and I feel like i'm going to be sick a little just writing that out loud to you) but the idea that i will never get married, by choice, well that just feels like a big fat gust of wind just blew into my life, peeling the curtains apart and the view it reveals is across a wide sea of freedom and possibilities, as far as the eye can see.
I've also downloaded lectures from oxford university explaining capitalism... next thing you know i'll be up and quitting my oppressive office job....
Yeah so that's all I got and it aint really funny so look at this fucking hilarious cat gif.
Oh, i don't know how to put it in... i'll try something else.
Oh and yes. I will be seeing extraordinarily interesting artist man again. This time armed with some prior reading! There you go. Nice call back at the end there! you see what i did. :)
Sunday, March 18, 2012
A bunch of paintings
Just in case any of you are aucklanders, and were thinking of going to 'Degas to Dali' at the new revamped auckland art gallery, AND wanted my appraisal, here it is:
The collection comes from the National Gallery of Scotland. While they claim to have some of the 'best art in the world' i think it would be more accurate say they have some of the works of some of the great masters, but generally, the kind of pieces I imagine the painters would give to their favourite baker, or dying aunt, or bequeath to a, dare i say it, scottish gallery.
There are Dali paintings yes, and there are Degas paintings, there are freud, bacon, bonnard, magrite, nicholson, von jawlensky (a personal favourite), manet and monet... it's a veritable swingers party of great painters.. however, this pick and mix collection seems to encompass mainly works that were achieved prior to the artist really getting on a roll with their personal style, and before they became famous.
Picture Francis Bacon in his painting room slapping a hat and coat still life together, then when looking for canvases to paint over, to save money, this one just BARELY escapes a paint-over job. Bacon to me is a rich array of larger than life colours forming harrowed and haunting faces alongside sinister and morbidly sexual motifs like skulls. Francis Bacon is madness. Francis bacon is not: Hat and Coat Study.
To badger this point, there is one monet. It is of boats in a harbour. When I was seven I saw all of Monet's collection of watercolour lilly ponds and bridges and the lilac hued beauty of it burnt into my brain. Boats are nice too though.
As well, 'Degas to Dali' is somewhat of a liberal interpretation. The collection is not a sequential view of artworks, transitioning from movement to movement. Rather, it is a slap together of some expressionist, some impressionist, some surrealist, and sprinkle of pop art, oh and some landscapes. Because who doesn't love a landscape. Where, ever, have you viewed Picasso, alongside Warhol? Is it just too nouveau? Am I just too antiquated?
There are EVEN some 18th Centurey Japanese prints, welllll before Degas' time. I guess the curator thought: why take them down, when you'll only have to dust behind them. A sentiment I can strongly empathise with. But then, I'm not the curator of The Auckland Art Gallery.
While he/she was at it, he/she thought fit not to change the light bulbs. Probably the two most rewarding paintings, in terms of familiarity, as well as sheer brilliance, are Degas' two paintings from his most famous 'ballerina series'.
They are truly beautiful, emotive, you can smell the wooden dance room floors, hear the young ballerina's whispering girlish secrets as they practise plie's... but one of the two paintings is so poorly lit, that it is hard to see. It is genuinely hard to see. Like reading a book by an eco-lamp, waiting for it to take hold of it's identity and brighten the fuck up, but the brightening... it never comes. Not to go on, but to go on, further in the 'exhibition' is a single Morandi painting - he is known for painting bottles and jars in a monochrome of beige and bluey creams, that while just bottles and jars, manage to speak of silence and humility - and here is this single Morandi, being lit by a blue fluorescent light. I never liked those blue fluorescent lights in 5th form painting, and I certainly don't like them any more in the AAG.
I went to the Dali exhibition in Melbourne, it was mammoth and unhestitatingly astounding. And I don't even like surrealism. Surrealism is at the best of times like somebody telling you about their dreams. If i'm not in it, why would I care? It's abstract and often looks like somebody spilt their coffee on the rug. These particular pieces, ever the more. But this exhibition had me at hello. It took half a day to absorb it all. I came out at least having some appreciation of the great life and contribution of Salvidor Dali. The piec on show at the AAG, looked like a doodle Dali had made whilst talking on the wireless combobulator.
Highlights are: 'Maurice' - Pop King Andy Warhols fluorescent pink and blue screen print of a friends daschund. Eminently charming, farcical and at once noble. Andy Warhol famously said everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame, what he not so famously also said was 'even pets'.
Of my favourites: The Lustre Bowl by Sir William Nicholson, exhibits a single lustre bowl (copper oxide and glass veneer over wood creating a lusturous sheen) and a dozen green peas on a plain white table cloth in a black room. Has to be seen to be felt, this painting, is probably worth the $20 admission fee. You can feel the temperature of the room. Feel the mood of the owner of the bowl. Someone who does seem to know a little of how to do their job at the gallery points out on the plaque how the bowl looks so hard and shiny you can hear it ping, whilst the peas soft and malleable and each displaying their own character. It's quite a fete. Lest I wank on.
I truly love Picasso, and there is one simple painting of his from the blue period showing the back of a woman holding a baby. The weight of her body, heavier on one foot, the curve of her back and crook of her neck are all perfectly executed. Barring the cubist period, Picasso never put a foot wrong.
To conclude, The Auckland Art Gallery has had a surgical facelift, it looks great. It's gone from Anna Paquin to Cate Blanchet. I think it could hold it's head up alongside, not the Louvre, but let's say the National Portrait Gallery of London. They have left the skeleton with some flesh on it, of the old building to be seen in places, such as alcoves that end abruptly at glass, waist-height walls, which meet spiralling staircases that dwindle symmetrically to smaller and smaller staircases. I had the greatest of expectations for this new gallery and their first international exhibition. I rather enjoyed closing my right eye and looking with my left, and then closing my left eye and looking only with my right, to see what each hemisphere of my brain would notice more.
I think go, it's only twenty bucks right, you get to wander around with the middle and upper middle class feeling cul-cha'd and like a better person, whispering in hushed tones your 'informed' (touche) opinion of great works.
I just think instead of calling it 'Degas to Dali' they should have more honestly entitled it 'a bunch of paintings from Scotland, not the best, not the worst, to be fair, the B team'; bring a torch.
The collection comes from the National Gallery of Scotland. While they claim to have some of the 'best art in the world' i think it would be more accurate say they have some of the works of some of the great masters, but generally, the kind of pieces I imagine the painters would give to their favourite baker, or dying aunt, or bequeath to a, dare i say it, scottish gallery.
There are Dali paintings yes, and there are Degas paintings, there are freud, bacon, bonnard, magrite, nicholson, von jawlensky (a personal favourite), manet and monet... it's a veritable swingers party of great painters.. however, this pick and mix collection seems to encompass mainly works that were achieved prior to the artist really getting on a roll with their personal style, and before they became famous.
Picture Francis Bacon in his painting room slapping a hat and coat still life together, then when looking for canvases to paint over, to save money, this one just BARELY escapes a paint-over job. Bacon to me is a rich array of larger than life colours forming harrowed and haunting faces alongside sinister and morbidly sexual motifs like skulls. Francis Bacon is madness. Francis bacon is not: Hat and Coat Study.
To badger this point, there is one monet. It is of boats in a harbour. When I was seven I saw all of Monet's collection of watercolour lilly ponds and bridges and the lilac hued beauty of it burnt into my brain. Boats are nice too though.
As well, 'Degas to Dali' is somewhat of a liberal interpretation. The collection is not a sequential view of artworks, transitioning from movement to movement. Rather, it is a slap together of some expressionist, some impressionist, some surrealist, and sprinkle of pop art, oh and some landscapes. Because who doesn't love a landscape. Where, ever, have you viewed Picasso, alongside Warhol? Is it just too nouveau? Am I just too antiquated?
There are EVEN some 18th Centurey Japanese prints, welllll before Degas' time. I guess the curator thought: why take them down, when you'll only have to dust behind them. A sentiment I can strongly empathise with. But then, I'm not the curator of The Auckland Art Gallery.
While he/she was at it, he/she thought fit not to change the light bulbs. Probably the two most rewarding paintings, in terms of familiarity, as well as sheer brilliance, are Degas' two paintings from his most famous 'ballerina series'.
They are truly beautiful, emotive, you can smell the wooden dance room floors, hear the young ballerina's whispering girlish secrets as they practise plie's... but one of the two paintings is so poorly lit, that it is hard to see. It is genuinely hard to see. Like reading a book by an eco-lamp, waiting for it to take hold of it's identity and brighten the fuck up, but the brightening... it never comes. Not to go on, but to go on, further in the 'exhibition' is a single Morandi painting - he is known for painting bottles and jars in a monochrome of beige and bluey creams, that while just bottles and jars, manage to speak of silence and humility - and here is this single Morandi, being lit by a blue fluorescent light. I never liked those blue fluorescent lights in 5th form painting, and I certainly don't like them any more in the AAG.
I went to the Dali exhibition in Melbourne, it was mammoth and unhestitatingly astounding. And I don't even like surrealism. Surrealism is at the best of times like somebody telling you about their dreams. If i'm not in it, why would I care? It's abstract and often looks like somebody spilt their coffee on the rug. These particular pieces, ever the more. But this exhibition had me at hello. It took half a day to absorb it all. I came out at least having some appreciation of the great life and contribution of Salvidor Dali. The piec on show at the AAG, looked like a doodle Dali had made whilst talking on the wireless combobulator.
Highlights are: 'Maurice' - Pop King Andy Warhols fluorescent pink and blue screen print of a friends daschund. Eminently charming, farcical and at once noble. Andy Warhol famously said everyone would have their fifteen minutes of fame, what he not so famously also said was 'even pets'.
Of my favourites: The Lustre Bowl by Sir William Nicholson, exhibits a single lustre bowl (copper oxide and glass veneer over wood creating a lusturous sheen) and a dozen green peas on a plain white table cloth in a black room. Has to be seen to be felt, this painting, is probably worth the $20 admission fee. You can feel the temperature of the room. Feel the mood of the owner of the bowl. Someone who does seem to know a little of how to do their job at the gallery points out on the plaque how the bowl looks so hard and shiny you can hear it ping, whilst the peas soft and malleable and each displaying their own character. It's quite a fete. Lest I wank on.
I truly love Picasso, and there is one simple painting of his from the blue period showing the back of a woman holding a baby. The weight of her body, heavier on one foot, the curve of her back and crook of her neck are all perfectly executed. Barring the cubist period, Picasso never put a foot wrong.
To conclude, The Auckland Art Gallery has had a surgical facelift, it looks great. It's gone from Anna Paquin to Cate Blanchet. I think it could hold it's head up alongside, not the Louvre, but let's say the National Portrait Gallery of London. They have left the skeleton with some flesh on it, of the old building to be seen in places, such as alcoves that end abruptly at glass, waist-height walls, which meet spiralling staircases that dwindle symmetrically to smaller and smaller staircases. I had the greatest of expectations for this new gallery and their first international exhibition. I rather enjoyed closing my right eye and looking with my left, and then closing my left eye and looking only with my right, to see what each hemisphere of my brain would notice more.
I think go, it's only twenty bucks right, you get to wander around with the middle and upper middle class feeling cul-cha'd and like a better person, whispering in hushed tones your 'informed' (touche) opinion of great works.
I just think instead of calling it 'Degas to Dali' they should have more honestly entitled it 'a bunch of paintings from Scotland, not the best, not the worst, to be fair, the B team'; bring a torch.
Saturday, March 17, 2012
Just a little about me
That isn't really me by the way. In breaksupsville. It HAS been me and that is a true story... but not right now. I was just thinking about it... how tragically the same it always is.
Today, a completely different post. I want to tell you about something awesome I did. Seeing as this blog is drenched in woe.
Today I did a crossfit competition. I am sitting here icing my thumb and shoulder with pea's. Thumb taking breaks from peas to type.
My crossfit gym (quattro) and another one (rapid) met up at their gym in eden park, got put into teams, and competed against each other.
Crossfit, for anyone who doesn't know, is awesome. It is a the new style of fitness training, everyone who does it, gets obsessed with it, because it's that good. It's that good and getting you fitter, stronger, faster, more flexible, more agile, more able, more functionally fitter, and to levels of fitness you never even imagined for yourself.
Part of the ethos of crossfit is that the working out centres around camrardarie. It is the furthest cry from dudes working out in gyms, doing completely non-functional movements that don't translate into life, calling each other a pussy and hurting their bodies by compromising technique to look like a hard man.
It is everyone together, learning, being challenged, overcoming the scariest fucking shit, encouraging each other. Little tiny women come in, scared, we all are. And in three weeks they're over head snatching half their body weight. It changes you. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, crossfit.
Every time you go to crossfit, you do something you have never done before.
What ever you deadlifted last time, you aim to do more. If your technique on snatch was lacking, you practise and practise. Every day, you acheive something. And i'll tell you something about that. Anyone with even an iota of depression in their mind, should do crossfit. Doing something better everyday, while people who love you, yes, love you, stand around and get psyched for you and share your success, ask for your times, pat you on the back, egg you on, cheer, run with you to the finish etc. jolts you out of a bad mood so fast and furiously you can't remember what the fucking problem was.
yada yada. Everyone's obsessed with it because it's THAT good.
We turn up, there's about 40 athletes. We get teamed into fours. Two Rx'd and two scaled. What this means is that Rx'd do the workout as prescribed, and scaled people get a lighter weight or shorter set. EVERYONE works their guts out, it just allows for the different levels of ability. I'm Rx'd. There's alot of pride in that for me. I am naturally athletic, but i have to work FREAKIN hard to get there, and stay there. There aint no shortcuts and no faking. You work til you cannot work even one milimetre harder. You collapse on the floor when you're done.
First workout:
300m row on machine, no probs.
Then what is called a hang clean. You take a loaded up barbell from the floor and 'jerk' it/pull it up to chest height, flick your arms under neath and 'catch' it, elbows pointing forward. sorry if that makes no sense. essentially, you get the weight off the floor, slide and jump it up the body, to a position where you are standing with the barbell 'racked' on your chest. They're hard.
I have to do it at 40kg. 40kg is ALOT. I weigh 68kg. It's more than half my own body weight. All your shopping, the day you do the big epic supermarket shop and spend $200, probably weighs about 15kg. 40kg is alot.
I'm first too, and i start, and i go to jerk it and that mother fucking bar does not go up. I put it back down, reset, lift, jerk. And that goddamn scary fuck shit bar is not going up. I look up like a lost lamb, and i'm saying 'dave (my trainer) it's too heavy' in disbelief. Because what are my fucking options at this point? the workout has started, I"m Rx, nothing can be done, this IS my weight.
And Dave comes rushing over like a protective papa bear, bends down, puts his hands on his knee's and says JUMP AND SHRUG as hard as you can. An order. It's now. Can you do it or not? I lift the bar, I JUMP AND SHRUG as hard as i can and the fucking thing goes up. catch. stand. JESUS CHRIST. I have to do 15, then 12, then 9, 36 in total, with barbell jumping to tire you out in between.
This is the part of the workout where I start feeling emotional. You feel fucking emotional, because it is SO hard, and there's no backing out. You didn't come here to wuss out and not do what you are capable of doing. You came here to see what you were made of. There is no not doing it. Your mind says two things to you, IT's So HARD I DON"T THINK I CAN??!! and it says, NOW WAY OUT, JUST DO IT.
And that's upsetting. I won't lie.
I've done alot of sports, and trained other people, so i know about the mind.
It is all in the mind. Everything. Everything you do, you are what you believe you are, if you believe it, then it is. We get brought up/socialised/nurtured to beleive certain things. I am fat, thin, I am slow, I am fast, i learn quickly, i'm funny, i fail often, if i try i can do anything etc. etc.
Do you know about people with split personalities where one personality has ALLERGIES the others don't have?
The mind people, the mind.
The difference between doing, and not doing, is believing you can do it.
So crazy scared mind feels the heavy weight, feels the lungs on fire, unable to get breath, feels dizzy, feels pain and says HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'M SCARED, I CAN"T DO THIS.
And experienced, well trained mind says: Keep going. You ARE going to do this. That's all there is to it. IT is going to get done, and by you. There is an end to this, and you're going to be there soon in 20, 19, 18, 17...
you just keep telling yourself all the thigns you need to hear. And you keep going.
Crazy scared brain is crazy and scared, and upset goddamit. And smart brain has to drown it out. It helps when your friends are there being smart brain all around you. Yelling KEEP GOING, you can do this.
The workout is insanely hard. After the clean and jerks, you jump laterally across the bar. you're gassed. you're spent. the very last rep i do is a contorted mess and the judge is looking at me egging me up to standing position so he can call REP! and i'm done.
I'm done. I literally, have never done anything that felt SO beyond my ability before.
We complete. We're last. I doesn't matter. Everyone has pushed themselves to within an inch of their lives, everyone is psyched and proud for each other, just for doing it.
after a short rest the second work out looks like this:
30 40cm box jumps (jump up, jump down, etc.)
30 Kettlebell high pulls - 16kg kettle bell from ground to chest.
30 burpee's (pure evil)
30 kettle bell swings - 16kg kettle bell from between legs to over head.
nd then 20 of each, then 10.
And a 400m run to finish. fast as you can.
Suffice to say, very hard. The kind of hard I really love though. It's when you're lifting tricky, heavy weights, unsure if each rep is going to make it, that's scary. Lungs, well i'm used to them screaming at me, you just think, fuck it, keep going, you can't DIE right? You can't DIE doing this...?
Again last. And on the final run on the way home (to end the work out) amanda yells I LOVE OUR TEAM, and i say ME TOO, and we do. Everyone had there strength, their failing, their weakness, everyone worked til they couldn't work anymore, and then worked a litle bit more.
It does something GOOD to the insides of you, it does something good to the people all around you.
That's all I have to write about today. Not funny, or embarrsing, or entertaining, or about any sad dating foible, or singleness, love, break ups, or anything of the sort.
Just wanted to tell you how awesome I was today.
:)
Today, a completely different post. I want to tell you about something awesome I did. Seeing as this blog is drenched in woe.
Today I did a crossfit competition. I am sitting here icing my thumb and shoulder with pea's. Thumb taking breaks from peas to type.
My crossfit gym (quattro) and another one (rapid) met up at their gym in eden park, got put into teams, and competed against each other.
Crossfit, for anyone who doesn't know, is awesome. It is a the new style of fitness training, everyone who does it, gets obsessed with it, because it's that good. It's that good and getting you fitter, stronger, faster, more flexible, more agile, more able, more functionally fitter, and to levels of fitness you never even imagined for yourself.
Part of the ethos of crossfit is that the working out centres around camrardarie. It is the furthest cry from dudes working out in gyms, doing completely non-functional movements that don't translate into life, calling each other a pussy and hurting their bodies by compromising technique to look like a hard man.
It is everyone together, learning, being challenged, overcoming the scariest fucking shit, encouraging each other. Little tiny women come in, scared, we all are. And in three weeks they're over head snatching half their body weight. It changes you. It's the best thing that ever happened to me, crossfit.
Every time you go to crossfit, you do something you have never done before.
What ever you deadlifted last time, you aim to do more. If your technique on snatch was lacking, you practise and practise. Every day, you acheive something. And i'll tell you something about that. Anyone with even an iota of depression in their mind, should do crossfit. Doing something better everyday, while people who love you, yes, love you, stand around and get psyched for you and share your success, ask for your times, pat you on the back, egg you on, cheer, run with you to the finish etc. jolts you out of a bad mood so fast and furiously you can't remember what the fucking problem was.
yada yada. Everyone's obsessed with it because it's THAT good.
We turn up, there's about 40 athletes. We get teamed into fours. Two Rx'd and two scaled. What this means is that Rx'd do the workout as prescribed, and scaled people get a lighter weight or shorter set. EVERYONE works their guts out, it just allows for the different levels of ability. I'm Rx'd. There's alot of pride in that for me. I am naturally athletic, but i have to work FREAKIN hard to get there, and stay there. There aint no shortcuts and no faking. You work til you cannot work even one milimetre harder. You collapse on the floor when you're done.
First workout:
300m row on machine, no probs.
Then what is called a hang clean. You take a loaded up barbell from the floor and 'jerk' it/pull it up to chest height, flick your arms under neath and 'catch' it, elbows pointing forward. sorry if that makes no sense. essentially, you get the weight off the floor, slide and jump it up the body, to a position where you are standing with the barbell 'racked' on your chest. They're hard.
I have to do it at 40kg. 40kg is ALOT. I weigh 68kg. It's more than half my own body weight. All your shopping, the day you do the big epic supermarket shop and spend $200, probably weighs about 15kg. 40kg is alot.
I'm first too, and i start, and i go to jerk it and that mother fucking bar does not go up. I put it back down, reset, lift, jerk. And that goddamn scary fuck shit bar is not going up. I look up like a lost lamb, and i'm saying 'dave (my trainer) it's too heavy' in disbelief. Because what are my fucking options at this point? the workout has started, I"m Rx, nothing can be done, this IS my weight.
And Dave comes rushing over like a protective papa bear, bends down, puts his hands on his knee's and says JUMP AND SHRUG as hard as you can. An order. It's now. Can you do it or not? I lift the bar, I JUMP AND SHRUG as hard as i can and the fucking thing goes up. catch. stand. JESUS CHRIST. I have to do 15, then 12, then 9, 36 in total, with barbell jumping to tire you out in between.
This is the part of the workout where I start feeling emotional. You feel fucking emotional, because it is SO hard, and there's no backing out. You didn't come here to wuss out and not do what you are capable of doing. You came here to see what you were made of. There is no not doing it. Your mind says two things to you, IT's So HARD I DON"T THINK I CAN??!! and it says, NOW WAY OUT, JUST DO IT.
And that's upsetting. I won't lie.
I've done alot of sports, and trained other people, so i know about the mind.
It is all in the mind. Everything. Everything you do, you are what you believe you are, if you believe it, then it is. We get brought up/socialised/nurtured to beleive certain things. I am fat, thin, I am slow, I am fast, i learn quickly, i'm funny, i fail often, if i try i can do anything etc. etc.
Do you know about people with split personalities where one personality has ALLERGIES the others don't have?
The mind people, the mind.
The difference between doing, and not doing, is believing you can do it.
So crazy scared mind feels the heavy weight, feels the lungs on fire, unable to get breath, feels dizzy, feels pain and says HOLY FUCKING SHIT I'M SCARED, I CAN"T DO THIS.
And experienced, well trained mind says: Keep going. You ARE going to do this. That's all there is to it. IT is going to get done, and by you. There is an end to this, and you're going to be there soon in 20, 19, 18, 17...
you just keep telling yourself all the thigns you need to hear. And you keep going.
Crazy scared brain is crazy and scared, and upset goddamit. And smart brain has to drown it out. It helps when your friends are there being smart brain all around you. Yelling KEEP GOING, you can do this.
The workout is insanely hard. After the clean and jerks, you jump laterally across the bar. you're gassed. you're spent. the very last rep i do is a contorted mess and the judge is looking at me egging me up to standing position so he can call REP! and i'm done.
I'm done. I literally, have never done anything that felt SO beyond my ability before.
We complete. We're last. I doesn't matter. Everyone has pushed themselves to within an inch of their lives, everyone is psyched and proud for each other, just for doing it.
after a short rest the second work out looks like this:
30 40cm box jumps (jump up, jump down, etc.)
30 Kettlebell high pulls - 16kg kettle bell from ground to chest.
30 burpee's (pure evil)
30 kettle bell swings - 16kg kettle bell from between legs to over head.
nd then 20 of each, then 10.
And a 400m run to finish. fast as you can.
Suffice to say, very hard. The kind of hard I really love though. It's when you're lifting tricky, heavy weights, unsure if each rep is going to make it, that's scary. Lungs, well i'm used to them screaming at me, you just think, fuck it, keep going, you can't DIE right? You can't DIE doing this...?
Again last. And on the final run on the way home (to end the work out) amanda yells I LOVE OUR TEAM, and i say ME TOO, and we do. Everyone had there strength, their failing, their weakness, everyone worked til they couldn't work anymore, and then worked a litle bit more.
It does something GOOD to the insides of you, it does something good to the people all around you.
That's all I have to write about today. Not funny, or embarrsing, or entertaining, or about any sad dating foible, or singleness, love, break ups, or anything of the sort.
Just wanted to tell you how awesome I was today.
:)
Wednesday, March 14, 2012
Resuscitation
Things you do when you have just been broken up with:
Not eat. Drink alot of tea. Smoke alot.
Look at their face book page. Imagine everything they say is an encoded message to you. Cheer up. Or to someone else. Back to wanting to die.
Check your phone.
Do sudoku. Alot. At night. When your bed is a hot enemy and sleep is a rumour.
Plot your new, successful, perfect life. How happy you will be. How achieved those goals will get. How good you'll look. How in love you'll be. How better the next relationship will be. How self sufficient you'll feel. Good hair. Great clothes. Tiny waist. How beautiful your blue and white china sitting on the wooden bench with sunlight filtering over it in your perfect kitchen. Feel wind in your sails. Lie on your bed and cry.
Feel a jolt of painful electricity in your chest when your friend tells you she just got engaged.
Run. Run. Run. Believe that the pain in your legs is the pain ebbing out of your heart.
Not clean the bathroom.
Check your phone.
Not change the sheets for too long. Then change the sheets. Sniff your pillow case on it's way to the washing pile. Sob once as the smell of their greasy head and the knowledge of their goneness wrenches at your soul. Toss the sheets into a pile with the sharp angry flick of resolve. See the sheets drying and wish you could hadn't washed them away.
Cut your hair. Love your new hair. Hate your new hair. Cry.
Over dress in too sexy clothes, go out, get too drunk, kiss someone ugly, fall into a bush.
Tear up when you see animals show affection.
Watch sex and the city. Every season, every episode. Laugh and cry. Think you will be alright.
Write a sad, epic song about them on your guitar. Know that if you could just sing them this song they would understand everything, the burnt bridge between you would be resurrected, they would flood into your life again, touched by your depth of feeling and deep insight. Think about sending them an MP3 file of this song. Restrain yourself.
Write a list of reasons you didn't like them and you're glad you're broken up.
Tell yourself you are over them.
Imagine the list they'd write about you.
Wish you'd been nicer, shared more, less jealous.
Write them an angry, furious, vehemnous, raging email of hatred, blaming them for everything. Send it.
Write them an apologetic, jokey email. Begging them between the lines to take you back. Send it. Promise yourself never to email them again.
Have a moment of happiness. Know that things will be alright.
Sing along loudly to love songs that come on in the car and supermarket. Wonder if God put the songs there to fuck with you.
Check your phone.
Get heart palpitations.
Spend four hundred dollars at the mall. Wear your new expensive mohair cardigan for 24 hours straight. See it in the corner a week later. Regret two things.
Go on a health kick. Start with a green smoothie and lemon water. Have a coffee at lunch. Then a bacon sandwich cuz you're so hungry. Then twelve cigarettes. Start health kick tomorrow.
Call a friend you haven't spoken to for ages.
Tell them everythings great. Hang up and wish you hadn't called them.
Call an ex-flame you think never got over you. Find out they're married. Hang up and cry.
Get thinner. Put on pants you haven't been able to fit for awhile. Tell yourself it will be alright.
Check your phone.
Throw out your ugly underwear. Wish you hadn't worn it around them.
Plot your own suicide, the fictitious imagining of which centres around how sad your ex will be that you are gone. Picture him at the funeral, realise he will get sympathy that he doesn't deserve, and that you had to die to get him to shed a single fucking tear. Decide not to kill yourself.
Check your phone.
Have another tea.
Not eat. Drink alot of tea. Smoke alot.
Look at their face book page. Imagine everything they say is an encoded message to you. Cheer up. Or to someone else. Back to wanting to die.
Check your phone.
Do sudoku. Alot. At night. When your bed is a hot enemy and sleep is a rumour.
Plot your new, successful, perfect life. How happy you will be. How achieved those goals will get. How good you'll look. How in love you'll be. How better the next relationship will be. How self sufficient you'll feel. Good hair. Great clothes. Tiny waist. How beautiful your blue and white china sitting on the wooden bench with sunlight filtering over it in your perfect kitchen. Feel wind in your sails. Lie on your bed and cry.
Feel a jolt of painful electricity in your chest when your friend tells you she just got engaged.
Run. Run. Run. Believe that the pain in your legs is the pain ebbing out of your heart.
Not clean the bathroom.
Check your phone.
Not change the sheets for too long. Then change the sheets. Sniff your pillow case on it's way to the washing pile. Sob once as the smell of their greasy head and the knowledge of their goneness wrenches at your soul. Toss the sheets into a pile with the sharp angry flick of resolve. See the sheets drying and wish you could hadn't washed them away.
Cut your hair. Love your new hair. Hate your new hair. Cry.
Over dress in too sexy clothes, go out, get too drunk, kiss someone ugly, fall into a bush.
Tear up when you see animals show affection.
Watch sex and the city. Every season, every episode. Laugh and cry. Think you will be alright.
Write a sad, epic song about them on your guitar. Know that if you could just sing them this song they would understand everything, the burnt bridge between you would be resurrected, they would flood into your life again, touched by your depth of feeling and deep insight. Think about sending them an MP3 file of this song. Restrain yourself.
Write a list of reasons you didn't like them and you're glad you're broken up.
Tell yourself you are over them.
Imagine the list they'd write about you.
Wish you'd been nicer, shared more, less jealous.
Write them an angry, furious, vehemnous, raging email of hatred, blaming them for everything. Send it.
Write them an apologetic, jokey email. Begging them between the lines to take you back. Send it. Promise yourself never to email them again.
Have a moment of happiness. Know that things will be alright.
Sing along loudly to love songs that come on in the car and supermarket. Wonder if God put the songs there to fuck with you.
Check your phone.
Get heart palpitations.
Spend four hundred dollars at the mall. Wear your new expensive mohair cardigan for 24 hours straight. See it in the corner a week later. Regret two things.
Go on a health kick. Start with a green smoothie and lemon water. Have a coffee at lunch. Then a bacon sandwich cuz you're so hungry. Then twelve cigarettes. Start health kick tomorrow.
Call a friend you haven't spoken to for ages.
Tell them everythings great. Hang up and wish you hadn't called them.
Call an ex-flame you think never got over you. Find out they're married. Hang up and cry.
Get thinner. Put on pants you haven't been able to fit for awhile. Tell yourself it will be alright.
Check your phone.
Throw out your ugly underwear. Wish you hadn't worn it around them.
Plot your own suicide, the fictitious imagining of which centres around how sad your ex will be that you are gone. Picture him at the funeral, realise he will get sympathy that he doesn't deserve, and that you had to die to get him to shed a single fucking tear. Decide not to kill yourself.
Check your phone.
Have another tea.
Friday, March 9, 2012
Black and Brown is Frown
We need a new flat mate again. Actually we found one. But of course the usual flat mate interviewing preceded this. After meeting a dozen potential flat mates, my existing flatties and I sat around the table together and Mike - if you read my blog you'll remember him, he's the death metaller, six foot tall, shaved head, vegan and serious - said that one of the applicants, cherie, with her heart bracelet and rainbow t-shirt, and her insanely high pitched effervesence, seemed like the opposite of him.
Following this comment, a discussion ensued about what would be our opposites (great theme for a party). I tried to pick mine and said, maybe a really thin, mousy, quiet little librarian type girl with glasses and dyed black hair, but really why and depressed and introverted and emo?
And my flatmate pipes up and says, no, yours would be Malibu Barbie.
And everyone including myself erupts into laughter.
She carries on: with bleached boofy perfect hair, tan-o-rexic, fake boobs, six inch pink heels, heaps of bling and a handbag dog, and just really Done Up.
This reveleation at first brings me pride.. I yam what I yam... and then when it sinks in a little further I realise, I really AM NOT ... a done up girl. All that wearing of grey sweatshirt material, singlets with built in bra's and sneakers, the absence of makeup, the long tangly hair.. and the appearance of not having looked in the mirror (somedays it's true) has obviously not been lost on anyone. Huh. Sometimes you realise how the world see's you, and it's strange.
So I have been thinking that perhaps I would give being a girl more of a nudge. Maybe. Although it does look like a lot of hard work and time.
So the guy from the party... who tracked me down and was very interested in me.
Well he was nice, I saw him a few times, we hung out and it was fun.
But one problem was, he was a bit smaller than me. Okay quite a bit.
This is not hard to achieve... I have an athletic figure that has also been described as 'amazonian': tall, broad shoulders, kinda strong looking. I love it and am happy in my body, but being around a smallER guy... sometimes the words 'big mama jumbo' would go through my head. No girl wants to feel like big mama jumbo. Ever.
I mentioned this hitch to a male friend of mine, he's the kind of guy who likes his women skinny, in make up and with breast implants, so I thought he'd understand.
He said 'no problem, just wear more dresses and some make up and do your hair'.
Like possibly he'd been trying to find a time to say that to me for awhile.
Well, I thought this was potentially good advice, so out I went, and dresses I bought.
The problem then, for someone such as myself who is not exactly The House of Style, is that I don't have all the things that go WITH dresses: belts...handbags and other things I don't even know about, no doubt.
So here I was last night rummaging through my unfailingly stylish cousins wardrobe and admiring her new buys, she is deliciously stylish, always, and has impeccable taste, her outfits are art, I am in constant admiration of her. And there amongst her new things was a brown stretch belt. I said, hey i might borrow this to go over my new dress? It's black and like this and like this with some white flecks.
And she screws up her lips and goes mmm Black and Brown is Frown.
I crack up. did you just say Frown?? I ask. Yeah, she says, black and brown is ... frown.
Oh. She's serious!
In mock horror I ask her 'is there anything ELSE i should know?'
and she immediately says 'blue and green should never be seen... unles it's blue jeans and a green top' she says succintly.
Wow. The things you didn't know you didn't know. I mean, there are SLOGANS?
I suddenly felt a sharp feeling in my chest, that picked last left out feeling, like somewhere along the line every female had been taken into a girls only club and taught how to accessorise, what necklines suited them, dressing for your season, and how to remember fashion rules using rhymes leaving me playing outside in a muddy puddle with a wooden sword and pulling the legs off crabs.
There are so many things about being a woman that I clearly don't understand, but the thing is, it isn't my fault!
Growing up I had exactly two types of clothes (barring nickers), the ones my brothers had grown out of, and the ones my mum made at home.
Skivvy's featured heavily in my wardrobe, faded from years of use, in red, navy blue and forest green. As did track pants. Good, hard wearing, comfortable, practical clothes. I can remember tracking items of clothing as the passed from the folded pile in the hot water cupboard that belonged to my oldest brother, and then to the pile that belonged to my second oldest brother, and then finally! to my pile. Because I of course, wanted nothing more than to be my brothers.
Mum kept my hair short, boy short, once I had a rats tail. So short dad accused her of trying to make me a lesbian (multiple issues revealed by that little interaction). And then, when my parents divorced, I lived mostly with my dad. I was eleven. I lived with my dad, and two older brothers. I can't tell you how little they knew about being a girl, let alone dressing like one.
MY dad, was the man INFAMOUS for his choice of practicality over style.. no, not even style, over APPEARANCE. Dad is the man in the funny fluffy hat. Dad was the man who wore sandals and socks (it is an awesome combination, one must admit they deeply know this) but not just ANY socks, knee high, ribbed, folded down at the top, white or light pink or mint green 'business' socks and not just ANY sandals, brown Roman sandals. Dad is the man who now wears every day seeing glasses that are large round ovals that nearly join in the middle, they are somewhere between an owl, an old lady, the 80's and a made scientist. They are truly laughable. When he got these I actually had to intervene and tell him that they looked ridiculous (but in softer terms) because I didn't want people judging my dad as a crazy old bat!!
After considering this for several days my dad said to me: i listened to what you said, and you may well be right, but i have given you lots of good advice in your life that you haven't taken, and I am going to keep wearing the glasses. And so it was. is. People looked at my dad, for many of the wrong reasons.
Where was I?
Oh so yes. A girl. I think I ought to be more like a girl. Only, it seems like such a lot of hard work and frankly.. time wasted. Is it really worth it? Perhaps I would be married now if i had just put in a bit more effort. That's what aunts would say about me behind their hands if it were the 1900's and I had lifted my skirts to chase after a croquet ball.
Are black and brown really... frown?
Blue and green? never be seen?
I squatted 80kgs today. That's my max squat so far. Wearing leggins with a hole in them and a Y back single. Sweat ran off my nose and through my unwashed hair. The guys at crossfit were stoked and cheered for me.
Maybe I just need to find.. my own kind :) start looking outside of Malibu.
:D
Following this comment, a discussion ensued about what would be our opposites (great theme for a party). I tried to pick mine and said, maybe a really thin, mousy, quiet little librarian type girl with glasses and dyed black hair, but really why and depressed and introverted and emo?
And my flatmate pipes up and says, no, yours would be Malibu Barbie.
And everyone including myself erupts into laughter.
She carries on: with bleached boofy perfect hair, tan-o-rexic, fake boobs, six inch pink heels, heaps of bling and a handbag dog, and just really Done Up.
This reveleation at first brings me pride.. I yam what I yam... and then when it sinks in a little further I realise, I really AM NOT ... a done up girl. All that wearing of grey sweatshirt material, singlets with built in bra's and sneakers, the absence of makeup, the long tangly hair.. and the appearance of not having looked in the mirror (somedays it's true) has obviously not been lost on anyone. Huh. Sometimes you realise how the world see's you, and it's strange.
So I have been thinking that perhaps I would give being a girl more of a nudge. Maybe. Although it does look like a lot of hard work and time.
So the guy from the party... who tracked me down and was very interested in me.
Well he was nice, I saw him a few times, we hung out and it was fun.
But one problem was, he was a bit smaller than me. Okay quite a bit.
This is not hard to achieve... I have an athletic figure that has also been described as 'amazonian': tall, broad shoulders, kinda strong looking. I love it and am happy in my body, but being around a smallER guy... sometimes the words 'big mama jumbo' would go through my head. No girl wants to feel like big mama jumbo. Ever.
I mentioned this hitch to a male friend of mine, he's the kind of guy who likes his women skinny, in make up and with breast implants, so I thought he'd understand.
He said 'no problem, just wear more dresses and some make up and do your hair'.
Like possibly he'd been trying to find a time to say that to me for awhile.
Well, I thought this was potentially good advice, so out I went, and dresses I bought.
The problem then, for someone such as myself who is not exactly The House of Style, is that I don't have all the things that go WITH dresses: belts...handbags and other things I don't even know about, no doubt.
So here I was last night rummaging through my unfailingly stylish cousins wardrobe and admiring her new buys, she is deliciously stylish, always, and has impeccable taste, her outfits are art, I am in constant admiration of her. And there amongst her new things was a brown stretch belt. I said, hey i might borrow this to go over my new dress? It's black and like this and like this with some white flecks.
And she screws up her lips and goes mmm Black and Brown is Frown.
I crack up. did you just say Frown?? I ask. Yeah, she says, black and brown is ... frown.
Oh. She's serious!
In mock horror I ask her 'is there anything ELSE i should know?'
and she immediately says 'blue and green should never be seen... unles it's blue jeans and a green top' she says succintly.
Wow. The things you didn't know you didn't know. I mean, there are SLOGANS?
I suddenly felt a sharp feeling in my chest, that picked last left out feeling, like somewhere along the line every female had been taken into a girls only club and taught how to accessorise, what necklines suited them, dressing for your season, and how to remember fashion rules using rhymes leaving me playing outside in a muddy puddle with a wooden sword and pulling the legs off crabs.
There are so many things about being a woman that I clearly don't understand, but the thing is, it isn't my fault!
Growing up I had exactly two types of clothes (barring nickers), the ones my brothers had grown out of, and the ones my mum made at home.
Skivvy's featured heavily in my wardrobe, faded from years of use, in red, navy blue and forest green. As did track pants. Good, hard wearing, comfortable, practical clothes. I can remember tracking items of clothing as the passed from the folded pile in the hot water cupboard that belonged to my oldest brother, and then to the pile that belonged to my second oldest brother, and then finally! to my pile. Because I of course, wanted nothing more than to be my brothers.
Mum kept my hair short, boy short, once I had a rats tail. So short dad accused her of trying to make me a lesbian (multiple issues revealed by that little interaction). And then, when my parents divorced, I lived mostly with my dad. I was eleven. I lived with my dad, and two older brothers. I can't tell you how little they knew about being a girl, let alone dressing like one.
MY dad, was the man INFAMOUS for his choice of practicality over style.. no, not even style, over APPEARANCE. Dad is the man in the funny fluffy hat. Dad was the man who wore sandals and socks (it is an awesome combination, one must admit they deeply know this) but not just ANY socks, knee high, ribbed, folded down at the top, white or light pink or mint green 'business' socks and not just ANY sandals, brown Roman sandals. Dad is the man who now wears every day seeing glasses that are large round ovals that nearly join in the middle, they are somewhere between an owl, an old lady, the 80's and a made scientist. They are truly laughable. When he got these I actually had to intervene and tell him that they looked ridiculous (but in softer terms) because I didn't want people judging my dad as a crazy old bat!!
After considering this for several days my dad said to me: i listened to what you said, and you may well be right, but i have given you lots of good advice in your life that you haven't taken, and I am going to keep wearing the glasses. And so it was. is. People looked at my dad, for many of the wrong reasons.
Where was I?
Oh so yes. A girl. I think I ought to be more like a girl. Only, it seems like such a lot of hard work and frankly.. time wasted. Is it really worth it? Perhaps I would be married now if i had just put in a bit more effort. That's what aunts would say about me behind their hands if it were the 1900's and I had lifted my skirts to chase after a croquet ball.
Are black and brown really... frown?
Blue and green? never be seen?
I squatted 80kgs today. That's my max squat so far. Wearing leggins with a hole in them and a Y back single. Sweat ran off my nose and through my unwashed hair. The guys at crossfit were stoked and cheered for me.
Maybe I just need to find.. my own kind :) start looking outside of Malibu.
:D
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