So my enthusiasm to resurrect this blog lasted about 40 seconds. I'll try again. We've been through some shit the past 5 years, but we are in recovery. The house renovation is finished. It took way too long and was a series of fuck ups which cost us dearly in terms of finances, emotional, physical and psychological health. I ended up in hospital with pneumonia, lost my dearest friend because after days that started at 6am and didn't end until 11pm I didn't have the time or energy to be a friend and for a long while I lost my self respect.
My husband lost his grip on reality and has been forced to give up his true love - alcohol. But we are done with loss: we battled, we struggled and we eventually fought our way to the surface. Our house is GORGEOUS and we are thrilled, everyday, to have such a beautiful home.
I had something resembling a mid-life crisis and decided to pursue a PhD in structural biology. I was awarded a scholarship and I'm half way through. My girl is in high school now and, to her delight, one whole centimetre taller then me. I'm very proud of her and the person she is turning out to be.
The delinquent step-son got kicked out of his mother's house six months ago, so he's ours now. I was really nervous about him moving in - he has a history of violent behaviour and drug abuse so actually I was terrified. But he's been great. He helps around the house, pays board and has stayed clean and even quit smoking. I'm at a bit of a loss as to why he was so off the rails previously. He says it's just that his Mum and Step Dad are so uptight and his Dad and I don't wind him up. It can't be that simple can it? Well, whatever we're doing is working so everyone is happy. He's working towards enlisting in the army, he just needs to drop some weight and finish year 10 of high school. He's already lost 22 kilos and enrolled in a course so he's well on the way. I'm really impressed with what he's achieved and how focused he is.
After six years of unemployment my husband is now designing for a new company that makes envirodenim. He's designing their haute couture ranges and he's coming up with some fabulous stuff. He's not getting paid much or regularly but they aren't actually selling anything yet but we have high hopes. So all in all many reasons for pride and happiness. Read more!

A spark of life...

Life's hecticness, dramas and exhaustion had led to me giving up on my blog. But then I got a comment... Nothing radical, just an anonymous reading saying they liked my page. Maybe that's all I needed, a small spark of encouragement. Isn't that all we all need/crave? A bit of validation and acknowledgment? Well, it was enough for me. I hereby declare this blog resurrected! So thank you Anonymous, I hope you continue to enjoy myself indulgent babble. Read more!

Forgiveness is not mine

I deleted this post not long after writing it because it seemed petty. It was, and still is however the sentiment remains. The more things change the more they stay the same. I had a fight with my best friend. She broke my heart. We’ve tried, unspokenly, to mend our friendship but the cracks are still visible. I find I can’t forgive her so I keep her at arm’s length. I want to let her back, to embrace her and forget the things she said, but I can’t. It seems stupid because usually I forgive so readily, I’m always quick to see the positive; I want to believe everything is perfect. But this time I can’t. My husband upsets me every other day of the week and I forgive him instantly. So why can’t I forgive my closest female friend? Because I expect my husband to hurt me – he’s a man, men are stupid, thoughtless, ignorant creatures and they can’t help themselves. I expected more from her, I expected more compassion, more understanding, more INTELLIGENCE. She acted like a man. I can’t forgive that. Read more!

Beginnings, Broken Hearts and Building part 1

So having been unable to sell my car, at 7am on Sunday the 28th February I got into my car and said good-bye to Blandberra forever. I put an 8 hour MP3 CD on the stereo and the pedal to the metal. I had considered buying adult diapers so I didn't have to stop - but given I could only get 150 miles to a tank of petrol stopping was inevitable. 9 1/2 hours later I pulled up out the front of my beloved home and I can't remember ever feeling so relieved, comfortable and totally, blissfully happy.
I had made some good friends in Blandberra, and it had served a valuable purpose - time with my child. But overall I had been out of place, lonely and miserable. We had lived in a small, overcrowded and uncomfortable house that was such a dust bowl my asthma and allergies had been in overdrive the whole three years I was there. My joy at finally being home again was overwhelming. I love this house. Since 1993 it has been my home and my sanctuary. And where I live I have easy access to all the things I love - food, live music, shopping, theatre and park lands. Home, sweet home. I never want to live anywhere else (except maybe Edinburgh).
My step son answered the door wearing rubber gloves, holding a dish cloth and looking stressed. Apparently three months warning of our move had not been enough. He had been living there the past six months. I wasn't worried about the house being a mess, I was 20 once and did the student lifestyle with all it's cliches. What I wasn't prepared for was a trashed house. The restumpers had been through and the floor boards were ruined, which I had half expected. But there was rubbish in every room, piled in the hallway and in my bedroom. Door handles, light fittings, power points and cupboard doors were broken (and also, I discovered later, was the dishwasher and stove), locks on the wardrobe were smashed, the place was filthy. The backyard no longer existed, it had been replaced by an overgrown rubbish tip.
Now I lived in some dodgy places when I was in my twenties but I had never seen anything like this. Seriously, I had been to squats lived in by drug addicts that were cleaner. I did the only thing I could think of - I ran away to my neighbours place to give the step son a chance to clean.



When my dear friend S showed up I went back home and we helped to clean my room so I would at least have somewhere to sleep. I moped the floor several times to get rid of the dirt and rehung the curtains while S helped the step son get rid of the boxes and stuff that was in the wardrobe. Finally I was able to put down the camp bed that S had brought for me to use and we sat down to drink some champagne. By this stage my enthusiasm for celebrating my return had waned slightly but I remained optimistic. My daughter would be returned to me the next day and I had a week before the dog arrived and another few days after that before the truck full of stuff arrived. After that I had three days to unpack before starting work. There was a lot to do but I was confident that with the stepson's help I could get through it all. I hadn't brought anything other than personal items with me - I assumed that since the step son had been living here for six months then things like televisions, cutlery and cooking utensils would be here. But he had packed all that stuff up and I had nothing. I borrowed a spoon and a bowl from the neighbours so I could eat my cereal in the morning. I wasn't worried - if step son chose to remove his stuff from the house that was his prerogative and my mistake for assuming otherwise.
The girl and I lived on our neighbours generosity and take-away food and everyday I cleaned. But somewhere along the way I had picked up a cold and with each day I got sicker and sicker.
A few months earlier the stepson had woken to find someone rummaging through his things - the lock on the back gate had been broken by the restumpers and the back door had been left open. He complained to me about it, quite rightly, and I set about making the house secure as a priority. One night after the girl and I had gone to bed I heard the step son out the back and got up to see if all was OK. He had gone but had left the backdoor wide open and the back gate also. I was outraged. So security is only an issue when he's home? Obviously he didn't consider a woman and small child subject to the same risks he was. I locked up then went back to bed and played on my phone - had a look at facebook. There was a post from the step son "First round of bleach in my hair". That did it. My hair was a mess, my nails were a mess, but I didn't have time to get them fixed because I was getting the house in order before the truck arrived. I had spent days - alone - cleaning his rubbish up, dealing with the mountains of crap he had left in the house, the months of filth that had accumulated, fixing all the broken stuff and he was out getting his hair done???
The next day I left a list of things he needed to do taped to his bedroom door while I went out to do some shopping. When I returned he and his friends were there loading stuff into a car. As soon as I saw him my anger and hurt boiled up and I started yelling: why hadn't he picked up his rubbish? Why hadn't he made arrangements to get rid of the bags of clothes in the hallway and the mountains of rubbish in the yard? Why had he let the house get into such a state? He yelled back: he didn't have any money since he was only getting 20 hours a week work and he didn't have time to clean. It wasn't his fault. I was gobsmacked. Not only did he take my offer of a house for six months - rent free in a neighbourhood where rental was well over $450 a week - and treat it with such disrespect it amounted to vandalism but he had the audacity to throw it back in my face! Later I rang him and left a message saying he had three days to get his stuff out or I'd throw it all into the street.
That weekend my husband flew down as we were attending the Golden Plains music festival. I was quite sick by then and the weather was awful. We were determined to go regardless. We have our little caravan so knew we would at least be warm and dry.

So I spent two days, on a banana lounge in the rain, drinking red wine from a plastic glass, listening to great music. The only time I was less than happy was during the 45 minute wait for coffee in the morning.
Back in the city the husband did a mammoth effort of cleaning up his son's rubbish before heading back to Blandberra for the last time. Before I moved we had done 18 months of commuting back and forth so the trip to the airport was poignantly familiar and we were both elated that it would be for the very last time. I decided to give the step son a chance at redemption and left his stuff in his room and left more messages on his phone asking that he help me take care of all his crap. The only time we saw him that weekend was when we coincidentally got on the same tram one evening, he acted uncomfortable, exchanged pleasantries with his father then jumped off the tram as soon as he could. He made no attempt to communicate and wouldn't answer our calls. He put a post on Twitter saying "would someone please drop a house on the wicked witch of the west?" I tried to arrange meeting with him to discuss the situation but even when he agreed to talk he didn't show up.

A few days later Bela arrived. He suffers from motion sickness and since work was paying for the move we had decided to be extravagant and pay to have him flown down and delivered to the house. He didn't cope well. He had been vomiting, was stressed and wouldn't eat. It took days for his stomach to settle.


But I felt better having a rotty around the home, even a sick one, a dog always makes me feel secure and I was still nervous about the previous break-in.

The day before the truck was due to arrive a note was put in the letterbox telling us the street would be closed the next day due to the construction at the end of the street. I went berserk, rang the council and ascertained it was seven days notice required not several hours and the council would prevent the closure. My stress levels were through the roof by this stage and I was so sick I could barely get out of bed but we do what we must. The street did get blocked, in spite of council assurances, but was miraculously clear 15 minutes before the truck arrived at the end of the day. The removalists had spent the day putting 50m3 of stuff into storage then unloaded another 30m3 at the house. They were lovely guys and worked their bollocks off lugging all our crap around so I decided to forgive them days later when I started discovering the amount of boxes at the house marked "storage" and realising how much stuff was missing - presumably put into storage. I struggled to unpack and get things in order. I really just needed to go to bed and rest but the house wasn't going to set itself up.

To be continued....



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Valentine

I wrote this poem for my husband, he gave me a kilo of scallops. True love indeed.
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Release is immanent

Stacks of boxes are appearing all over the house. Finally, the move is happening. I have one week left at my current job then three weeks before my next job starts.
Here is the plan:
Sell my car.
The girl flies down on the 24th and goes to stay with her Dad so she can start school on the 26th for census day.
I fly down on the 28th so I have time to prepare the house, fix fences etc.
The caravan gets trucked down on the 2nd.
Bela flies down on the 9th, he gets to fly because he gets car sick.
The truck with all our stuff arrives on the 11th then I have 3 days to get organised before I start work on the 15th.
The husband drives down with Rose the staffy some time after that, depending on how long it takes to close up (clean and repair) the house.
In between we have the Golden Plains music festival on the 6th which the husband is flying down for and we have tickets to Emilie Autumn on the 19th and The Pixies on the 20th - these having been purchased when we were still under the misguided belief that we would be moving in January. C'est la vie. The bottom line is.........I'm coming home!! Read more!

A Letter to my Daughter

Today, after arguing with you for about an hour to try to get you to brush your hair, I smacked you on the leg with the hairbrush. I thought it was just a tap, an attempt to bring you back down to earth, but it left a red mark and I realised I had let my anger get the better of me. It frightens me to think I have the capacity to hurt you, even if just slightly.

My relationship with you is complicated, I struggle with it constantly. Motherhood hasn't settled easily with me - which is something I never expected. I look after things, I always have - people, animals (although I've never been that great with house plants)and I just expected to be a natural mother. But there was a whole lot of stuff I didn't anticipate...

I wanted a baby, I wanted to get pregnant and I wanted to be a mother. After two years and two miscarriages though I was defeated and depressed. I'd almost given up on the idea of having a baby and as is usual for cases like this once I stopped trying, I got pregnant. But unlike the previous two - you hung in there. I can't describe the elation I felt the first time I felt you move, you were my little passenger, my constant companion and I felt such a bond to you it was euphoric. But after 14 hours of hellish pain, exhaustion and finally a forceps delivery I was so physically and emotionally wrecked that when we finally met face to face I couldn't care, I just wanted to go to sleep.
Apparently it's not unusual for mothers to not have that instant maternal bond that we hear about. There is supposed to be an endorphin rush that wipes away all memory of the pain and induces a flood of love for the new baby, but it doesn't always happen. It certainly didn't happen for me. I didn't feel like I was your mother, my brain couldn't make the connection between the little passenger and this new baby - I didn't know who you were. Yet I was fiercely protective. When the nurse did the heel prick to take a blood drop I heard your little dolphin squeal and I jumped out of bed and ran straight to you, even though I was in so much pain from the episiotomy that all previous attempts to walk had been unsuccessful.
A few days later I walked out of the hospital with you in my arms and was baffled that no-one was trying to stop me. It felt so wrong, I had no idea how to look after a baby and I couldn't believe I was being allowed to take responsibility for this little life. The mother-baby bond just wasn't there. I felt like your caretaker and if a woman had knocked on my front door and said "thank you for looking after my baby, I'll take her now" I probably would have handed you over.
For the next few months we fought every four hours as I tried to get you to breast feed, eventually just the act of me picking you up would have you screaming in anticipation of the coming battle. It broke my heart that I couldn't feed you, I felt like a failure. The basic instinct of mothers is to feed their young and I couldn't do it. I tried everything to get you to feed - I took you to an osteopath who said the forceps had compressed the skull plates and you had a constant headache. After that treatment your mood did improve, but you still wouldn't feed. I went to a lactation clinic every week and dozens of midwives tried to help us. I took you to a doctor who said you were tongue tied. I remember your little face looking at me with total innocence, then the look of shock as the doctor shoved her fingers in your mouth and the look of total betrayal when the doctor snipped the membrane under your tongue. Your little mouth filled with blood and you screamed - the whole time looking at me not comprehending why I had let someone hurt you.
The battle to breast feed became harder and harder until after 10 weeks I finally surrendered. I didn't want to fight you anymore, I wanted us to be friends. I wanted to try to build our relationship but I felt so wretched, I condemned myself as the worst mother in the world and I've never really been able to shake that.
I also couldn't understand why I couldn't get you to settle to sleep - it took over an hour every time. You cried and I didn't know why and I couldn't comfort you. More failure. Eventually your reflux was diagnosed and medication changed our lives. Suddenly you were a happy baby, the heart burn that had afflicted you was gone and you got on with the business of being a baby.
But by this time my mental health was failing. I had reached a stage where I was convinced you hated me. Usually what would happen is that after an hour of fighting with you to breast feed or trying to calm you to sleep I would give up and your father (if he was there) would take over and be the conquering hero with the welcomed bottle or his calmness would be all that was needed for your exhausted little mind to finally surrender to sleep. I was the bad parent. Also failing was our ability to support ourselves financially. I had changed jobs too recently to be eligible for paid maternity leave and your father had mismanaged our investment property and lost us a considerable amount of money. I was forced to return to work when you were only 3 months old.
I hated leaving you at creche, in the care of strangers, while I went off to work. The first day I tried to relished the luxury of being able to drink a coffee while it was still hot, to go to the toilet at my leisure, of being able to spend a day uninterrupted but the guilt nagged me. When I got back to day care and they told me how good you had been, how quiet and compliant you had been my heart sank. My belief that you hated me and didn't need me was obviously true. Total strangers could take better care of you than I could. I was wrong. The minute we left the premises (how did you know??) you stared screaming and you let loose a whole days worth of fears and anxieties and pain. You gave me what you had been saving all day long, what you had been unable to let out with strangers. For over an hour I sat let you cry and cry and tell me, I imagined, all about how lost and abandoned and frightened you felt. Finally you settled enough for me to take you home.
Eventually we formed a routine and you began to enjoy day care. As you got older I began to realise you would have more fun there than you would ever have with me at home and my anxiety waned.
The stress of work and a baby that was still feeding at night was too much for me, the sleep deprivation and the lack of support from your father wore me out. I fell into depression. Once I realised that there was something wrong with me I went to the doctor and she gave me antidepressants. With the medication, you sleeping through the night and support from my work mates I finally began to cope.

But is was hard. When you were less than 2 years old my marriage with your father ended. His career was in question and I didn't know if he would be employed again soon. My own job was subject to funding and unstable so I accepted a job that wasn't close to your day care and that wasn't sympathetic to my single parent status but it was permanent and paid well. Once your father moved out of the house my bond with you started to solidify. All we had was each other. I realised I had put so much energy into resenting your father for being unsupportive that once that was gone I had more energy for you. However, the conflict that had always existed remained.

I remember one morning we left the house, you were in the car seat in the back and I was driving. It was a cold day so I had put a jumper on you. You didn't want the jumper. In the thick of Melbourne peak hour traffic you started screaming "I want to take my jumper off". You screamed until you were hysterical, then you kept screaming. I couldn't pull over, there was no-where to go in the heavy traffic and I couldn't reach you. Eventually we arrived at day care and I found a parking spot. I reached into the back and ripped the jumper off you then collapsed into tears of my own. You were shocked, I don't think you'd ever seen me cry before. You crawled into my lap, apologised and tried to comfort me.
Another time we were driving to Torquay for the weekend, it was Friday night, it was getting late and I was lost. You were in the backseat babbling as usual and I started getting stressed. You asked me what was wrong and I said we were lost. You replied "it's OK Mamma, I'll take care of you".
Bless your little two year old heart.

When you were 4 years old there was a headlice epidemic at the day care centre and every three days I would comb conditioner through your fine, thick hair with a fine tooth comb. Generally you were pretty good and tolerant of the procedure. Unfortunately your father was less vigilant and when you returned to me after a week with him I would invariably get a call from day care telling me you had head lice and to come and get you. My sick leave and annual leave got used up very quickly. The manager was furious and even though I told her to dock my pay and I didn't let my work suffer she refused to be sympathetic to my situation. The stress at work became so bad I was constantly sick, my ability to cope erroded and eventually the only solution I could see was to quit my job and move us to Canberra to live with Marc.

The move hurt you. You missed your Dad and you missed your friends at day care. The preschool I enrolled you in had only 10 students and 7 of them couldn't speak english. You struggled to make friends, your outgoing and happy nature dissapeared and you became shy and withdrawn at preschool and volatile and uncooperative at home. My efforts to rescue us had back fired.
That first year in Canberra we really got to know each other. We had only had weekends and evenings together your whole life - you had effectively been raised by the day care staff. I knew how to be a part time mother but full time is totally different, I had a lot to learn. I knew how to be organised with food and clothes and how to get you to places on time but when we didn't have to go anywhere, when it was just you and I for days on end I was unsure. But we muddled through and when you started school I stood and cried with all the other mothers. A week later I was still crying and they all started to think I was a bit soft in the head.

Your only friend from preschool went to a different school and once again you were alone and insecure. I went back to work and you started attending after school care, it was there you finally started making friends and some of your spark came back.
We had settled into Canberra but the distance from your father and his inconsistant contact was hard for you - you missed him. When you returned from a visit with him you were always an angel, but as the weeks passed and his phone calls dwindled your behaviour would deteriorate and we would end up fighting.

You're an early riser - I like to sleep late. Marc is a night owl so in order to spend time with my husband but also take care of you I was perpetually sleep deprived and as a result: cranky. Unfortunately you feed off my energy and the crankier I got the worse your behaviour got and we would invariably end up screaming at each other.

I want you to know I've done my best - I've tried to enjoy playing with Barbies and the endless board games you own but it just isn't in me to fake it.
Recently we had a mother/daughter week of activities - my attempt to build some bridges and give us some time together where we weren't bickering. I mostly succeeded but WOW was it exhausting. When we were in the pool I realised that it was the first time I had been swimming with you. You went swimming all the time with your father and I realised I had to start letting myself be the good parent too. I think you're at that age now where we can enjoy more things together and I know I need to make the most of it because pretty soon you'll be embarrassed to be seen with me and trying desperately to get away. But you're still very young. I think I expect you to be more self sufficient that you're ready to be. I get cranky when we are riding our bikes and I have to stop every 10 meters to adjust the strap on your helmet or wait for you to catch up because you had stopped to look at a twig. I need to remind myself that it's the journey.
You are one of the most tolerant and big hearted kids I have ever met. You continue to love me even when I loose my temper and smack you with a hair brush. You are generous and caring and very loving and I will always be fiercely protective of you. I guess the whole point of this is to tell you that I love you more than anything and I try to be a good mother - I'm just still working out how.

We've been together over seven years now and our bond is solid. You are my one and only and you tell me "you are the best mother I've ever had" and can't ask for anything more. Oh, except that you brush your hair. Read more!

Are you Vamp enough?

The first vampire film I remember seeing was the 1979 Werner Herzog version of Nosferatu the Vampyre. I sat mesmerised, enraptured by the most beautiful and erotic film I had ever seen. It was the early 80’s and I was a country town teenager, totally disgruntled with where my bogun upbringing had landed me. That film set me on a road to a different life; it planted in me a taste for the ethereal and the elegant. Over the next year or so I shed my denim cocoon and emerged in black, with my hair shaved into a long Mohawk with my eyes rimmed in black. I discovered self adornment and a passion for beautiful clothes. There were many other influences of course, and I have written about them before, but that vampire film was the spark.
I have since devoured as many vampire books and films as I could find. And I’m the first to admit that most of them are rubbish. The recent surge in vampire literature and film has me again pondering the hold that this legend has over us. I’m not going to rant about the psychology of it all, it’s been done to death (pardon the pun), but I will give my opinion on the best of all that’s Vamp. There are a gazillion blogs, web pages, forums etc about vampire films and in comparison I am a mere amateur, but I have been a fan of the genre for almost 30 years and even though this list is by no means comprehensive it encompasses my experience and opinions.

So the 1979 Nosferatu of course led me straight to the 1922 F. W. Murnau film Nosferatu: A symphony of Horror. This film is a masterpiece.
I recently saw Avatar, James Cameron’s epic 3D fairytale. Sure, it looked fabulous – but that was all there was. The story was Fern Gully meets Land Before Time, the acting was laughable, the dialogue was terrible and the husband and I agreed it was truly an awful film. And it cost $500 million to make! Yet in 1921 Murnau made a black and white silent film that has more impact, more atmosphere and an intensity that has rarely been equalled. And it was probably made with the equivalent of a few hundred thousand dollars. So the Nosferatu films are my benchmark. I was worried when E. Elias Merhige made Shadow of the Vampire in 2000. As we all know, Hollywood’s ability to take something glorious and turn it into trashy shit knows no bounds and I was terrified they would do this with Nosferatu. But no, in this rare instance they got it 100% right. The combination of the surreal nature of the original, the clever incorporation of original shots into the new film and the humour and brilliant performances works sublimely. It is a beautiful compliment to the original.
Of course the 1931 version of Dracula with (my puppy’s namesake) Bela Lugosi is the definitive Dracula. It is a classic. Often overlooked though is the Spanish version which was filmed at the same time with different actors but using the same sets at night. It is a superior film in terms of direction and cinematography, but the actors don’t have the presence of Lugosi or Frye (Renfield) and the film ends up being a bit on the boring side. If only they could have used the English actors with the Spanish director!!
The 60’s and 70’s gave us many vampire films and I personally love the kitschy Hammer Horror versions, although I don’t like Christopher Lee. The Twins of Evil is a personal favourite. Daughters of Dracula and The Vampire Lovers are great, even if just for the clothes. There were a dozen other lesbianesque films made in the 60s, but they’re all pretty much the same. The uber kitsch blacksploitation film Blacula is actually a lot better than you’d think. I love it. The Fearless Vampire Killers, Polanski’s 1967 film, is very funny although in light of recent revelations about the rape charges against him I’m almost ashamed to own it. I feel like I should hide my Polanski collection under the bed. Polanski also made a cameo in Andy Warhol’s Blood For Dracula, which is trashy and outrageously funny. Pair it with Flesh for Frankenstein made at the same time and with the same actors and you have a very entertaining evening. The BEST vampire film of the 70’s however, was actually Australia’s first attempt at a vampire film, The Thirst (1979). Unfortunately it was overshadowed by Mad Max and it is now somewhat obscure. It is available on DVD though if you search hard enough.

I was a very serious teenager and as a new release The Lost Boys (1987) didn’t do it for me. I watched it again recently, having long since removed the stick from my arse, and thought it was very good, a nice spoof. The sequal Lost Boys 2: The Tribe (2008) is quite bad. Another 80’s effort was Vamp (1986), starring Grace Jones. Watch it just for her work. She does an amazing striptease and I bought the DVD simply for that - the rest of the film is trash. In 1988 Ken Russell made Lair of the White Worm, based VERY loosely on Bram Stoker’s novel. It is an absolute hoot, in spite of the Ken Russell trademarks all over it. 1989’s Vampire Kiss with Nicholas Cage is very clever and very funny. But the best of the 80’s would have to be the sublimely erotic The Hunger (1983) and Near Dark, released in 1987 starring Lance Hendriksen who I adore. They are two of the most realistic vampire films I have found and in my top 10 all time favourites.

1992 brought us Wynona’s pet project Bram Stoker’s Dracula (F.F. Copolla). If you can ignore Keanu and Wynona making a total hash of the English accent and the fact that Keanu couldn’t act his way out of a paper bag, the rest of the film is gorgeous. Richard E. Grant is, as always, brilliant, aside from the blaring continuity error in one scene but the reason I love the film so much is Gary Oldman and the costumes. The scene where Dracula is walking the streets of London, wearing a grey suit and top hat and round sunglasses with his long hair flowing down his back is to me borderline pornography. When he looks over his glasses and says “see me now” I melt. Stunning, utterly stunning. When this film was released it was a hot summer, I had a broken heart, it was the summer break from University and I lived near an old cinema. I think I saw that film about seven times in two weeks. It was an escape from the heat, escape from my emotional pain and an escape from the hippy bullshit of the house I was living in. That film took me from cheesecloth-vegetarian-beige-share-house hell and transported me to a world of gentile elegance and glamour. The costumes and the sets are divine. So even though it is fundamentally flawed, it is one of my favourites.
Also from the 90’s we have Cronos (1993) a Mexican film with the fabulous Ron Perlman. Nadja (1994) is very arty and lovely to watch. Razor Blade Smile (1998) is a low budget gem with terrible acting and bad production but the story is unique and clever. Wisdom of the Crocodiles (1998) with Jude Law is an unusual take on the genre but ultimately dull.

The 00’s have thrown a mixed bag of vampire films at us. The best are the Russian films Night Watch (2005) and the sequel Day Watch (2006) they are brilliant. They crap all over the American vampire efforts for that decade, as does Eternal Blood (2007) another Mexican horror. The exception is The Hamiltons (2006) which was an independent release and a very good attempt at realism.

I am Legend, the 1954 novel by Richard Matheson, is undoubtedly one of the best vampire stories around. So good it has been made into film three times. The first being Last Man on Earth (1964) starring Vincent Price. Apparently Matheson worked on the script but was so unhappy with the end result took his name off it. I love it, but then it has Vincent so what’s not to love?? The next was in 1971, The Omega Man starring Charlton Heston. It’s very good and does the book justice as best as Hollywood can – which is to say, not very well. Then there was the 2007 blockbuster I Am Legend with Will Smith. As a standalone film it’s very good. But I can’t help compare it to the book and they just messed with the story too much, and for no real gain other than conforming to the stereotype – vampires bad, humans good and good always wins. Changing a fundamental aspect of the plot also changed the meaning of the title. I live in hope that one day, someone will make I Am Legend as it is written and it will kick arse.
Also released in 2007 was 30 Days of Night which almost impressed me: the scenario was brilliant, the vampires looked great but I just got annoyed with all that blood splattering. Sure all the red splashed on the snow looked dramatic, but really, if you go to all the effort of isolating a whole town in order to harvest a precious resource – why would you then spill it all over the ground?
Let The Right One In (2008) is a Swedish film that unusually uses a young girl as the vampire protagonist. It’s very good but very Swedish.

I am now waiting for the release of DayBreakers starring Ethan Hawke,Sam Neil and the marvelous Willem Defoe. From the trailers I have seen it is something of a spin on The Thirst, possibly due to it's Australian production?

So then we move onto the bad. Interview with the Vampire (1994) is awful, although not nearly as bad as the appalling sequel Queen of the Damned (2002). Even though I was an extra in Queen of the Damned I still can’t bring myself to buy a copy of it it’s just SO bad. The Blade films (1998, 2002, 2004) didn’t appeal to me, neither did Ultraviolet (2006) or the Underworld series (2003, 2006, 2009). That said, I love Bill Nighy and think he makes an excellent vampire and I suspect my husband secretly masturbates over Kate Beckinsale in that outfit.
Dusk Till Dawn (1996) has bored me to sleep twice, Dracula 2000 is dreadful but the notion of Dracula being Judas Iscariot is interesting. And then there is Twilight (2008), which was actually my inspiration for writing this. Twilight and New Moon the 2009 sequal, have made such an impact on tween culture, and have helped bring vampires very much into fashion, yet they are utter, utter rubbish. Well, I haven’t seen New Moon and I don’t intend to but I can extrapolate. Watching Twilight made me feel like I’d been robbed of 2 hours of my life. The best that can come of these films is that some of the more obscure films I have mentioned will get some attention now that vamps are the new big thing. It saddens me that the genre has been so cheapened, but then I said I loved Blacula, so what the fuck do I know?
As far as television series go there’s been Nick Knight with Rick Springfield, the pilot was released as a movie in 1989 and it’s terrible but he drives a gorgeous Cadillac. The TV series wasn’t made until 1992, with different actors, as Forever Knight. It’s awful. Also awful is Moonlight and The Vampire Diaries. True Blood is however, great stuff. It’s tacky, kitsch, very, very silly and I love it. I even love the opening credits. But by far the best TV series I’ve ever found is Ultraviolet (1998), a British police drama about a secret unit who exist only to hunt vampires. It is very well made, and has a British touch of class. The word “vampire” is never used.

So that’s it. Larissa’s guide to vampire film and TV Top 10:

1. Nosferatu The Vampyre
2. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror
3. Near Dark
4. The Hunger
5. Razor Blade Smile
6. Bram Stoker's Dracula
7. Ultaviolet the TV series
8. The Thirst
9. Cronos
10. Night Watch/ Day Watch


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Yule Tidings

As I have vehemently stated previously – I love Christmas. Last year was something of a dud and with the girl off to Melbourne to spend time with her Dad I expected this Christmas to suck as well. The day would be only myself, the husband and the delinquent 16 year old whose company I have become loath to keep. My usual enthusiasm for baking cakes, puddings, gingerbread and panforte was absent; my enthusiasm for decorating the house and tree was also subdued by the very high possibility that Bela would just eat everything. Finally, I managed to gather some resilience and I bought a small tree – green much to the girls delight – which we decorated with pink balls and white tinsel then hid in the corner where hopefully the dog couldn’t get to it. We then baked and decorated a few trays of gingerbread for the girl to take with her for her other family.
The girl’s birthday party went well and her father whisked her away for her three week stay with him. After an initial few days of feeling lost without my sidekick some of my usual Christmas cheer started to bubble up. I made rude gingerbread people and bats and skulls for workmates. On the 23rd December, my last day of work for the year, I took in little cellophane bags of gingerbread to hand out. No-one else showed up. I hung around for a bit, eating gingerbread, then left at lunchtime. I ran around trying to find one of those reindeer so we could recreate this:
Unfortunately there were none to be found in this crapulous city. I panicked that the husband would be disappointed in the meagre collection of stuff I had as presents for him so on Christmas Eve I set out and bought a Weber BBQ. I couldn’t afford it but I rationalised that it was wanted and given we only had one oven to cook a ham, a turkey and a heap of roast veg it was also needed.
The restaurant where the husband has been working was closing after lunch on the 24th for the staff party. They had a small group booking for lunch and they thought they could get rid of them early enough. Not so. The revellers carried on until 4pm. The staff broke world records for cleanup time then settled in for a condensed two hours of eating and drinking. Note to all restaurant patrons: staff have lives too - have some manners. The chef presented us with several dozen Coffin Bay oysters and a giant ocean trout, served simply with lemon and pepper and chunks of rustic bread. It was the best fish I have ever tasted. Ah yes, on the premise of driving the husband home so he could drink, I had managed to invite myself to the lunch. What a treat!!
On Christmas Eve I prepped food (brined the turkey, boiled then marinated the pork belly in soy and garlic), wrapped presents and drank champagne, ate cherries and relaxed. Christmas morning we were woken by my Mum ringing at 8:30am (damn her early morningness) then went back to sleep for a few hours.
Panettone and champagne for breakfast then onto the business of opening presents.
I had taken a photo of the husband in Venice which I loved so much I had it printed onto a 300 x 400mm canvas, I had also purchases him new earrings (after he lost his but then found them again), a bottle of Amaris DeVin, a Bill Bailey collection DVD and of course, the Weber. He was over the moon about the print, saying it made him look cooler than James Dean.
I received a set of weights (unromantic I know, but at my request), a Soda stream – red, a bottle of Green Fairy Absinthe, and a Bill Bailey DVD. Fortunately the DVDs we had bought each other were different, but it was a cute coincidence. I gave the delinquent an Oxfam chook and some foot powder (ain’t I a bitch?) and he gave us a shower curtain and bathmat set – psychoesque blood splattered. Not a bad haul indeed.
I put together the Weber while the husband and the delinquent watched Bad Santa then we wondered how the hell we were going to cook outside in pouring rain. As the eternal optimist I convinced everyone that the rain would stop and all would be well. I peeled the ham, cut the fat, studded it with cloves and glazed it with blood orange and brown sugar. It cooked beautifully.
But the rain continued. Eventually the Weber was positioned precariously on the front door step and we fired it up. After the coals had burned and the porch hadn’t, we put the stuffed (macadamia, prosciutto and cranberry) and wrapped in ham rind turkey in to cook. While we waited I ate prawns and garlic scallops and gleefully made soda water and the husband ate oysters.
Four hours later we shoved the still raw turkey in the oven. Obviously there were things we had yet to learn about webering. Christmas lunch was served at about 7pm with kipfler and King Edward potatoes cooked in duck fat, roast pumpkin, sugar snap peas and spinach.
I had made cranberry sauce from scratch for the first time and it was divine. Simply frozen cranberries, sugar and a splash of cherry brandy boiled until the fruit was cooked (thank you Nigella, kitchen Goddess).

I will never buy the stuff in a jar again. The ham was gloriously flavoured and the turkey was moist and gorgeous. One of the best Christmas lunches I have ever had.
So after all my misgivings it ended up being a lovely day, in spite of the rain. It was relaxed and stress free. There were no frazzled, over tired children to deal with, no bad food or complaints that what we had cooked was “too rich”. Even the dogs behaved themselves and Bela refrained from eating the tree.
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My Kingdom for a finial.

A few days ago I attended a mediation session with the council to discuss my proposed house plans and to find a way to get their approval to include a walkway from the balcony to the bungalow and to allow us to gable the roof. I met with our Town Planner the day before and we went through our case. As soon as he told me the main objector, the architect from no 5, wasn't going to be there my optimism soared. Without his vitriolic input we only had to fight the council and as far as I was concerned they didn't have a case.
So armed with a photographic representation of my street and photos of several houses in the immediate area that supported our case, my town planner and I met with the VCAT mediator, the council rep. and the remaining objector - the woman who lives behind me and is worried about her privacy.
I had no problems offering to do anything to appease my neighbour's privacy concerns - I was willing to raise the screen height of the walkway, make it totally opaque and even move the walkway to the south border so that the bungalow itself blocked any view. The council wouldn't allow the walkway to be moved, said maximum screen height is 1.7m and it has to be 25% transparent. My neighbour changed sides and was my friend again. They did say we should narrow the walkway by 20cm and that satisfied them, we were now allowed to keep the walkway.
The second item up for contention was the gabling of the roof. The council had denied us this and insisted we have a hipped roof to "keep with the original roof". Well, bollocks to them, the Victorian era was all about mixing it up, mashing styles together and making it as ornate as possible. I was ready to fight. But then the council girl pulled out her copies of the plans with the gabled roof, lowered, already drawn on. So she had arrived ready to give in. It was almost disappointing, until she started going on about the finials - the pointy bits on the end of the gables, saying how they were an Edwardian feature and not suitable for a Victorian house. Seriously? Is that all you're worried about? You've delayed my plans for over seven months, costing me $1500 and forcing my family to live in a half demolished house, with no bathroom and no safe space for the dogs - because of a finial?? A 30cm piece of pointy wood? I gritted my teeth and said quite sweetly "that's fine, I'll delete those from the plans". I asked about fretwork - no, she said, that was not acceptable. Fine, plain it is.
Then she starts on about the screen on the walkway/balcony, she doesn't like the picket style we had suggested, she wants something more modern. You mean, like something Edwardian??!! I silently shouted, but I bit my tongue and just agreed to whatever she suggested. It will have wysteria growing all over it anyway.
The third problem was that they want us to include windows along the second storey south wall. We don't want windows, we want nice, thick insulation and internally we want a built-in wardrobe and many, many bookcases. "But the expanse of weather board is too much!" She exclaimed, "we need to break it up somehow to reduce the visual bulk!" I offered that we could paint a nice mural on the wall, but for some reason she didn't think I was serious. Eventually I agreed to put a small, highlight window in opposite the upstairs bathroom. So that was it, we had reached an agreement.
So now the planning permit will be reissued, then we apply for a building permit, a hoarding permit so we can block the lane way and the building company needs to buy in supplies and we can start. So maybe the end of January? About the same time as we are moving in. We should have been moving into a house that was almost finished not two rooms, a kitchen and a big hole. I worry about how we will live, we have no idea what to do with the dogs and it's all too hard to comprehend. But at least it will start now.
And the council cannot control what colours we paint, I'm thinking those gables will look nice fire engine red with a spider web painted on. Read more!

An exercise in unnecessary maintenance

My car was over-revving when it was trying to change gears, so I decided it may be time to change the fuel filter. Why oh why didn't I just leave it alone?? I changed the filter, even changed the clamps. The car started, there were no visible leaks, it all seemed good. Too easy. Next morning, the car wouldn't go. I figured the filter was empty and there was an airlock of some sort. I removed the filter, filled it with petrol, put it back on and the car fired up. I drove into the street and it stopped. By tipping petrol into the carby I was able to get the car back into the driveway. I was baffled. There was petrol in the fuel line but it wasn't getting to the carby. My conclusion was that the fuel filter must be dodgy. Buy a new one. I filled the filter with petrol, made sure the clamps were tight and tried again. The car wouldn't go unless I tipped petrol in the carby.

A phone call to my auto genius uncle later I was kneeling behing the EK. A quick check to make sure no-one was looking and I wrapped my lips around the fuel tank inlet and blew. There was quick resistance so I stopped and collapsed laughing on the ground. I've often said I love my car, but giving it a blow job? That's beyond weird. So I ascertained there was no air leak in the fuel tank, petrol had come out of the fuel line so there was no blockage. What next? Maybe fiddling around with the filter etc had thrown some gunk into the fuel pump so out with the spanner and take off the fuel pump. Pushing on the pump arm resulted in air being pushed out of the pump so I figured it was OK and bolted it back on - after making a new gasket. But still no fuel was getting through. I removed the pump again and dismantled the whole thing. It was so full of crud I couldn't believe it had worked as long as it did.
I scraped all the crud out, got it all sparkly clean, remembered to push on the arm to stretch the diaphram while tightening the screws and bolted it back on again. No joy. So pull the pump off again - now the return spring was missing. So off I go to AutoCo to buy a magnet on a stick. After about 30 min of fishing around in the block I managed to snap the stick. Great, I thought. Now I'm going to have to go buy another magnet on a stick to retrieve my magnet on a stick. But I was able to fish it out with my finger. I declared myself beaten and made a plea for help phone call to one of the car club guys. Fortunately the wonderful, generous man not only brought around a spare fuel pump but stayed to help me get the car going. He took the return spring off his fuel pump, put it on mine and after we worked out I had put the pump back together backwards, took it apart and put it back the right way, bolted the pump back onto the block. Not working. Take the pump off again and.....the return spring is missing. I collapsed. Fortunately my Saviour was able to fish the spring out with my mended magnet on a stick. By comparing the two pumps we discovered that the arm on my pump had much more slack than on his pump so we swapped some bits around, made one good pump and put it back on the block. Fired up the car and decided we had won. My friend left and I went about cleaning up the mess. Tried to start the car again and NOTHING. I was starting to go a bit loopy at this stage asd was ready to start screaming and crying, but I pulled up my big girl pants and continuted to investigate. I worked out that the two inch piece of rubber fuel line from the pump to the metal fuel line was perished and cracked. It had been sucking air the whole time!! OK, it was 4:30pm on a Sunday, I figured I could make it to AutoCo by 5. I jumped on my bike and peddled off, arrived at their door 10 minutes later bright red and gasping for air only to discover that AutoCo close at 4:30pm on a Sunday. I was beaten. With a grey cloud over my head I slowly peddled to the house where my daughter was visiting a friend to take her home. I was babbling to my daughter's friend's father about my ordeal and he says "I think I've got some fuel hose you can have" and proceeded to pull about 4km of hose out of a cupboard in his garage. I made my daughter's day by dinking her home on the pack rack of my bike and set about putting the new fuel hose in. It worked. I had won. I was utterly elated, my week long saga was over. I patted myself on the back and opened a celebratory beer, forgetting that pride goeth.
The next day, driving home from work the smell of petrol filled the car and I knew I was in trouble again. The connector between the metal fuel line and the carby had come lose. Easy! Grab the spanner out of the boot but then to my dismay discovered that it wasn't lose - it had snapped.
I drove home praying the engine wouldn't burst into flames as petrol dripped onto the manifold.
The next day my husband dropped me at work and drove up to Speeds to get me a new connector. That night I went to put the new connector on the carby and discovered that my old connector had been straight, the new one was L-shaped.
It fit, but the metal fuel line was completely the wrong shape to connect to it. I carefully bent the fuel line, praying it didn't break and finally, finally got my car working again. Now I am back to square one - the car is still over revving on the gear changes. I'll leave that one to the professionals when I win tattslotto.
Next time I decide to do some maintenance I'll tell myself to shut up.
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Pardon me, your political correctness is stepping on my toes..

I am a snob. This is a fact I have never been ashamed of. But my snobbery doesn’t include brand names or private schools; I simply appreciate quality and don’t understand people who don’t. My snobbery made an appearance this morning when I was dropping the girl off at school. They are celebrating book week and all the kids were asked to come dressed as a character from an Australian book. As I walked through the school yard I saw Spiderman, Indiana Jones, Cinderella, a multitude of fairies, a cowgirl, Peter Rabbit, Mickey Mouse and a possum. I overheard a few parents saying “we don’t own any Australian story books”. I was outraged. What’s wrong with these people? Are we so resigned to the Americanisation of our country that we don’t even try anymore? Disney is not the whole of children’s entertainment!!
In this ultra conservative city of middle class public servants it seems that my brand of political correctness is a dull flicker compared to the blinding glare of the mob mentality. I was reminded of my rant at Christmas last year when a card informed my daughter that “Jesus sends Angels to look after us”; this is apparently an acceptable card to distribute amongst a school that prides itself on being multicultural. Then again, I was equally annoyed when the day care centre my girl was at in Melbourne had an “end of year party” with a clown distributing presents. OK, so “Christmas” isn’t in the Jewish calendar, but which religion does Santa belong to? Christmas is such an integral part of the Australian culture and these days it’s so far removed from religion that I don’t understand why it is any more offensive than Melbourne Cup day.
The Chaser’s recently received so much abuse for their “Make a realistic wish foundation” sketch that their show was subsequently axed. Apparently making jokes about kids with cancer is over the line. Mind you, on the same show they did a sketch comparing the Fritzl family to the Brady Bunch and no-one said a word about it. My eldest step son was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma when he was 12 years old. He spent a year in and out of hospital and underwent a rigorous chemotherapy regime. During this time his father was a single parent and struggled with a non sympathetic work place, a dilapidated car and the 2 hour drive to Sydney to spend time with his sick son. My step son was granted a wish by the Starlight Foundation - he asked to go to Monkey Mia in Western Australia to swim with the dolphins. At the time he made the wish he was very ill. By the time the wish became a reality he was in remission and wasn’t comfortable with accepting it. His mother insisted and so an embarrassed boy went swimming with dolphins while other kids he had been in the oncology ward with died. The reality is – these foundations don’t have unlimited money or resources. For every child that receives a wish there are others who miss out. When watching the Chaser’s offer a child in a hospital bed a stick instead of a trip to Disneyland the husband and I were laughing so hard we could hardly breathe. The recovered cancer child was also laughing heartily. Then the PC brigade began their campaign to bring the Chaser’s down. My husband commented on the fact that during his time travelling to Sydney to support and care for his sick son there was not a single offer of help from the (private alternative education) school, the community or his workplace. No doubt the same people who were “offended” by the sketch were the same ones avoiding eye contact with him in the car park years earlier. If we can’t laugh at a situation as tragic as a child with a terminal disease then how do we deal with it? At least laughing at it is acknowledging its existence, not staring at the floor hoping it will go away.
We made a big deal of apologising to the indigenous Australians about their poor treatment in the past but their present remains unchanged, we buy Fair Trade Coffee but it’s served to us by 14 year olds who get paid $6 an hour, we will pay $100 a litre for boutique olive oil at a farmer’s market but won’t support local business and we would rather buy Disney merchandise than support local writers.
I continue to live in my own fantasy land, a land where people think for themselves and actually give a shit. Where political correctness is executed with some thought and reasoning, not just a knee jerk reaction to a fashionable cause.
I am very proud of my little Josephine the kangaroo who wanted to dance (Jackie French), and say “well done” to the parents of the little Korean girl who came dressed as the possum from Possum Magic (Mem Fox).

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Understanding Youth

When I was 16 I applied to Youth For Understanding, an organisation that shuffles students around the world, to go to Denmark for a year. . I was a miserable misfit of a teenager, living in a country town with a dysfunctional family and victim of an oppressive education system. I was bullied at school, had very few friends and yet was convinced that there must be something else out there.

In spite of a poorly disguised Mohawk, bad behaviour at school and my shy, sullen attitude one of the members of the selection committee took a shine to me and a few months later I was on a plane with about 50 other over excited teenagers. It was 1985 and Frankfurt Airport had recently been bombed, we walked past the rubble to our connecting flight to Copenhagen and I realised I was out in the real world and I was alone. I have rarely felt so alive.

I settled in with my host family and went about the business of being a 16 year old in a foreign country. One evening my host father said to me “why haven’t you been to the pub yet?” Realising that this was acceptable behaviour I grabbed the American girl who lived up the road and we nervously wandered into the local tavern The Horseshoe. We were overwhelmed that we could buy beer legally and sat there thinking we must truly have landed in heaven.

I was wearing a tartan skirt, an oversized white shirt and a long tartan vest, cinched at the waist with a wide belt.* Hey, it was the 80’s. A very cute boy sat down at our table and asked me if I was Scottish. Many beers and many hours later he walked me home.
It was one of those clear Scandinavian nights, the moon shone over the trees and reflected on the bay the small town was centred around. We stood on the steps of my house and he kissed me. His soft moustache ticked and I was drunk and giggly and giddy with the romance and possibilities.

I don’t remember the progression to coupledom, but it happened rather quickly. We were head over heels with the wild passion and abandon that only teenagers are capable of. I was a (somewhat) naive girl from the country, raised in a culture of taboo subjects, stiff upper lips and denial of any positive emotion. He was from a culture of self expression, freedom of speech and permissiveness. We would regularly go to the local nightclub, Silvers I think it was called. The dance fashion, back then in Denmark, was for couples to hold hands while dancing – sort of a disco/swing dance mix. He was a good dancer and I learned quickly. It was so much fun, twirling around the dance floor until we were exhausted and needed to refuel with more beer. We would dance until dawn then stop at the bakery on the way home to buy pastries for breakfast.

I’d known sex, but was completely unaware of sensuality. He slowed me down, taught me to enjoy the journey. The journey from sleazy bogun chick to sexually confident young woman. I can still remember the feel of his skin and the soft, fine, pale gold of his hair and the way our bodies fit together so easily. His love enveloped and empowered me. I was blissfully happy.

Then one day he told me he wanted to end it. I was gutted, confused, bewildered and terrified. He had spent months beating his head against the brick wall of my emotional repression and had finally had enough. He walked away and I thought I would die. I pursued him for days, begging for a second chance. He steadfastly refused, finally saying “I need you to change and people can’t change”, I looked at him through my tears and insisted that I could and would if given the chance. He gave in and for first time in my life I told another human being that I loved them.

Together we broke through the barriers I had hidden behind for so long. I opened my heart and finally learned the most important lesson: how to love.
We had many adventures (see Faith, Sept 2007) I remember being on a train and him jumping from seat to seat with a curled paper megaphone shouting “I love Larissa”, another time dancing, pants down, on a table in a restaurant to “prove his love”. I also remember him kneeling before me, in a laneway outside the nightclub, and asking me to marry him and offering a tap washer as a ring. Of course I agreed, but being only 17 was unable to.

We made plans, I organised a job for him in Australia and investigated visas. He had finished high school and was going to work and save the money for his ticket. But then he got called for 12 months National Service, he was unable to leave the country until his obligation had been fulfilled. The day of my departure arrived and I was collected by a bus and driven to the airport. He was supposed to meet me there for our goodbye, but as I wandered the terminal looking for him I was called to the phone. He was still at home, unable to bring himself to face the goodbye, he apologised, and with his voice breaking told me he loved me, said goodbye and hung up. I collapsed in a flood of tears and near hysteria. I had to be half carried onto the plane I was so distraught. I cried all the way to Frankfurt, drank all the way to Dubai and by the time the plane landed in Melbourne I was hung over, jet lagged and completely numb. I managed a smile for my excited family and pretended to sleep in the car so I didn’t have to talk to them.
We reached my Grandparents house and I crawled into bed and slept several hours. When I woke there was a cow looking in the window at me. I looked around the room and everything was familiar – I even recognised the cow. It occurred to me briefly that it had all been an elaborate dream, but then there was my suitcase over flowing with Danish souvenirs. I felt so strange, a stranger in a familiar land. How could I have changed so much yet all here was still EXACTLY the same? It didn’t make sense and I carried the sense of disorientation with me for several years.

We spoke on the phone a few times, for hours on end. Eventually our phone got disconnected because my Mum couldn’t pay the $700 phone bill. I wrote to him but he had disappeared into the army and contact faded. It was a year before I could bring myself to go on any dates. Then 18 months later I got a letter from him, his service had ended and his letter told stories of his time as a soldier and declared his undying love. I excitedly wrote to him several times, but I never heard from him again. It was another two years after that before I was able to open up again and let someone else into my heart and I surprised myself by discovering I was able to love another with almost as much intensity.

Years passed, life took hold and I grew up, got a mortgage, a career and eventually a husband and child. My Danish boy became a part of my past that I thought I would never revisit. Then at work the other day, bored and aimlessly surfing the net I plugged his name into Facebook and suddenly there he was on my computer screen. Older, a bit less hair but still the same cheeky smile and sparkling eyes. I stared at his picture for several minutes trying to think of something to say to him – I had nothing! What could I possibly say that didn’t make me sound like a bunny boiling stalker? Eventually I just wrote “You shaved your moustache” and clicked send. I spent a nervous night wondering just how psycho he would think I was but the next morning got a message full of surprise, mirth and joy at the contact. We have exchanged email addresses and promises to tell our life stories. 24 years is a long time. We were children; in fact, our children are the same age now we were then. I know we have nothing in common apart from our shared ancient history and once stories have been told there will be nowhere else to go but back to the pages of history. Am I making a mistake? Will the fantasy of my youth be revealed as a romanticised teenage half truth? I hope not.


When my friends and I were leaving high school to go to university several of us were given big cheques by our families to cover our rent. I very sensibly deposited mine in the bank and used it only for its intended purpose. One of my friends cashed his, bought a combi van and drove to Cairns. His family forgave him eventually and he had adventures worth much more than a year at Uni. I’ve never been capable of that sort of recklessness. When friends were hitchhiking to Confest, on acid, I was working in Hungry Jacks so I could pay my bills. I’ve often wondered what would have happened if I’d taken that cheque, my passport and a taxi to the airport.

*How come I can remember what I wore to the pub one day in 1985, but I can’t remember where I put my car keys?
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Every lab should have some

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Detox me

I decided to do a detox diet. I've always been devoutly anti-detox but my "lifestyle choices" (read: drinks like a fish) and the new found knowledge that bowel cancer is in my family tree got me thinking about making some changes. I decided to make a fresh start, give my body a clean out and ditch some bad habits. I investigated what detox diets were out there and discovered that as I had always suspected, most of them are a crock. There's the lemon detox - you pay a fortune for a syrup mix of maple syrup and palm sugar that you make into a drink with lemon juice and live on that for a few days. Sounds ridiculous, and dangerous. Then there's the herbal concoctions that apparently remove the "plaque" from your bowel - people on this detox poo out black stringy stuff then photograph it. I searched the medical journals for this plaque and could find absolutely no reference to it anywhere. It doesn't exist. The black stringy stuff is probably just a product of the herbal mix. Then I remembered that a friend of mine swears by the Blackmores detox. So I researched it and it actually made sense. It's a regime of digestive bitters, milk thistle and acidophilus capsules and skin exfoliation while eating a wheat, dairy, red meat and processed food free diet. Milk thistle has been shown to have beneficial effects on the liver and acidophilus is good for your gut, exfoliating makes sense too as you excrete a lot of stuff through your skin. So last Saturday I went and bought the kit, studied the menus, wrote out a shopping list and went to the market. The next day I began:
Day 1. 15 minutes before breakfast take 5mls of digestive bitters. OH MY GODS! That is the foulest tasting stuff I have ever experienced! And the taste lingered, but wait, while I was screwing up my face and going "ug!" my stomach started to feel really good. It felt settled and calm and comfortable. OK then, maybe that stuff is worth the horrible taste. So on to breakfast..two poached eggs on rye bread. Nice, add some smoked salmon and hollondaise and it's even better. I rationalise that the smoked salmon was in the fridge and was going to go bad and the husband won't eat it and it would be such a shame to waste it.
By 12 the caffeine headache kicks in and of course I can't take anything. I try to appease the pain with dandelion tea, add soy milk and it's still yuk, so I add forbidden honey.
Lunch is a chicken and salad sandwich with rye bread. Nice.
15 minuted before dinner take the horrid Bitters again, my hopes that I would get used to the taste fade. Dinner is chicken and veg stir fry on brown rice. Again, very nice but needed chilli and soy sauce (forbidden as it contains wheat)to make it interesting. So, day 1 went OK, some deviation but not tragic. I can't find the exfoliation glove that came with the kit. Before bed take a spoonful of Colon Cleanse, which is awful, but not as bad as the Bitters.
Day 2. Muesli for breakfast, chicken and salad sandwich for lunch, mango chicken and brown rice and steamed vegies for dinner. All good. I'm struggling without my morning coffee and mid afternoon can of diet coke but I'm determined to do this properly. Still very headachy.
Day 3. Berry smoothie, rye toast with cashew nut spread for breakfast, pumpkin soup for lunch, veg and tofu stir fry for dinner. About mid afternoon I get wind pain that has me doubled over at my desk, but otherwise I'm going good. The headache's gone!
Day 4.Scrambled eggs on rye bread for brekkie, salad and goats cheese for lunch, chicken and veg stir fry for dinner. I have now purchased some tamari so I can season the stir fry legally. Generally I'm feeling pretty good, getting up earlier each day and not being so sluggish in the mornings. Still can't find the exfoliation glove.
Day 5.Buckwheat pancakes with strawberries and yoghurt for brekkie - I could get used to this. At lunch a girl I've been helping in the lab insists on buying my lunch as a thank you. We go to the Asian place and buy some take away, I try to be good - brown rice, steamed vegies, stir fry tofu and then at the last minutes 2 dumplings because they are so yummy. I take the food back to my office and the girl who bought it for me gets called away. I now have a choice - I can put the purchased food in the bin and eat my salad, the girl who bought it would never know and she feels she's done the right thing by buying my lunch and I can stick to my diet. I rip the lid off the food and eat it.
Salmon patties with tabouleh for dinner. It occurs to me later that this is contrary to the no wheat rule, I make a mental note to ring the help line and ask them what the deal is with that one. I find the exfoliation glove in the back yard, ripped to bits. Apparently Bela wanted to help me.
Day 6. Muesli for brekkie again, the salad I should have had yesterday for lunch and I'm feeling really good. I feel virtuous and in control. I have energy, I've lost some weight and I start thinking I could eat like this all the time.
That afternoon I get a message from my Mum, I ring her and she tells me the oncologist has upgraded her cancer to grade d and says it's aggressive. They want to begin chemo as soon as possible and he suggests that my sister and I get colonoscopies too. What was a probable good outcome has suddenly become a very serious situation that might all go horribly wrong. I'm shocked, I'm scared and I don't know how to deal with it.
I go home and have spicy wedges with sour cream for dinner, drink two bottles of red wine, eat half a packet of raspberry shortcake biscuits and a freddo frog. I watch silly chick flicks, immobile on the couch until the husband makes me go to bed and I pass out.
Day 7. I am hungover and my head is killing me. The husband lets me sleep all day and takes care of the home and the children. I spend $200 that I don't have on a psychobilly swing dress with petticoat and a handbag on ebay. I have a burger and wedges for dinner followed by a chilli hot chocolate and resolve to start detoxing again tomorrow. Or maybe on Monday. Read more!

It doesn't rain...

The next time I complain about being bored I want someone to slap me.

Three weeks ago my Dad was walking my brother's dogs (don't get me started on that one) and the pit bull (again..) crashed into him and knocked him over. Pit bulls, as anyone that has ever met one knows, have a specific gravity of 27.9 (lead being 11.35) and the crash resulted in a fractured fibula. Six titanium screws were required to put the bone back together.
Two days later my Mum was diagnosed with bowel cancer and scheduled for surgery. Being a dutiful and loving daughter I donned my saintly robes and an hour on a plane, two hours on a bus and 20 minutes in a taxi later the girl and I arrived at my parent's house.
The first few days were spent cleaning, cooking, shopping and visiting my Mum. It became apparent that asking my brother to chop wood was a futile past time, so I began a morning routine of walking the dogs, feeding the horses and then chopping wood for the slow combustion stove. After a couple of mornings of this I started to feel more confident with the wood chopping and decided to try using the splitter. It was very cold so I was wearing gloves – the splitter got stuck in the wood so I was using the axe, upside down, to hammer the splitter. The axe bounced, my grip on the axe slipped and the axe head landed on my left index finger which was on the splitter handle. At first I thought “it’s OK, I’ve only knocked it, it’ll stop hurting soon”, but when the pain only got worse I thought I had better take my glove off to have a look. My fingernail had been completely ripped off and the nail bed and part of my finger was mashed. I put the nail back and holding my finger with blood dripping I went into the house to call an ambulance. I called the husband while I waited and he was horrified that I was going out in public wearing grotty old trackies and insisted that I get changed immediately into corset, boots and full make-up. He then flew into a rage about why was I chopping wood and he threatened to get on the next plane and smack my lazy brother in the mouth. I didn't argue.
Four hours later I walked out of the emergency department, still in my grotty trackies, and crossed the road to visit my Mum. She was finally recovered enough to laugh at my bad jokes and it was really good to see her smile for the first time since I’d arrived. Not quite worth maiming myself for, but good.

That night my brother-in-law came over and chopped a heap of wood, enough for the rest of my stay. That was a huge relief. I began to understand why I was such a moody, disagreeable teenager: I was cold! My parent’s house is uninsulated with poor window coverings and the only source of heat is the slow combustion fireplace in the lounge room.
I had suffered the cold for two nights and then told the girl to move over and got into bed with her. We topped and tailed in the single bed for the rest of the two weeks, she would snuggle up to my feet in her sleep and I was glad of the warmth.
On Saturday I took my Mum’s car, a white Mercedes may the Gods of Goth forgive me, and drove to Melbourne. We went to my house, which is now occupied by the older step son and his friends. We checked out the new lounge suite that I had bought on ebay and the girl got to see her old bedroom.

She doesn’t remember much about the house and was excited to see the colours and sparkles on the walls of her room. I reminded her that we used to put fairy lights around the ceiling and her face lit up when she discovered that she did remember her little room. Her Dad arrived to collect her for the night and I headed over to Northcote for an evening of catching up with dear friends, good food and lots of wine. My friend and I sat up drinking and talking until 6am and it was just what I needed.
On Sunday, after too little sleep and feeling more than a little seedy, I went to a cafe in Brunswick to meet up with more friends – this time the ones with babies. There has been something of a baby boom amongst the gang in recent years and it’s so nice to see the next generation emerging. And I must say - we've all made some good looking kids! The food was excellent and reasonably priced. I wanted to steal a menu to take back to Blandberra to show people and say “look! This is what proper cafes serve!” Our previous attempt to go out for breakfast in Blandberra resulted in us being turned away from a cafe at 11:30am because “breakfast is over!” Seriously, everybody else on the planet has been doing all day breakfasts since the 90’s, I guess it’ll be the 20’s before Blanberra catches up.
Driving back to Ballarat I was pulled over into a breathalyser stop. I was scared shitless – I was sure I’d still be over the limit. But apparently I didn’t even register and was thankfully free to continue.
The next morning I was in at the hospital at 8:30am to talk to the surgeon and the oncologist and then Mum was able to come home. She has had over half her large intestine removed, which contained a large tumour, and also 27 lymph glands 9 of which were malignant. She will need chemo every two weeks for the next six months once she has recovered from surgery but her prognosis is good. We are optimistic.

At home I got frustrated with my Dad for being so helpless and demanding (e.g. "..for breakfast tomorrow I’ll have a poached egg on toast, cheese on the other piece, a glass of milk and a coffee and half an orange cut into thirds..") and my Mum for insisting on doing too much. I threatened to break her leg too if she didn’t rest more.
My list of things to do became significantly smaller with my injured finger hampering my efforts to clean. At one stage I dragged out the vacuum cleaner, discovered it had the little upholstery attachment on it. Apparently they had been using the 8cm piece for two years! I exclaimed “what do you mop the floor with? A toothbrush?”. “No”, my Dad replied indignantly “we have a mop”. I had to remind myself it was their house and their lifestyle and if I didn’t agree then I should get myself a big dose of Shut-The-Fuck-Up.
My sister had been dropping her kids off at 8:15am. The story was that she started work at 8:30am and the school bus didn’t arrive until 8:40am so Mum had been driving them to the bus stop. I had inherited the job - without being asked or thanked I should add. When I discovered that the reason she did this was not because her boss was an unreasonable arse but because that way she could have a full hour for lunch my head exploded. The next time she arrived I ripped into her and told her exactly how full of shit she was. Having previously screamed at my brother about his dogs and his parasitic girlfriend I AGAIN reminded myself to calm down. I informed my mother that she should stop letting her children boss her around, me included. I figured it was time to book some tickets home. Meals on Wheels and Home Help had been organised and I had the freezer well stocked with frozen meals, soups and casseroles. I had cleaned and organised as much as I could, stocked the fridge and shown Mum how to grocery shop online and set up an account for her. Another friend that I had managed to catch up with was travelling from Ballarat to Melbourne that Friday with her two girls and offered to give me and my girl a lift. I was very grateful as we both had big suitcases and the thought of struggling on trains and trams sent my anxiety levels soaring.
The X, who was in full sympathy and what-can-I-do-to-help mode was picking us up from my friend's house (friend 1) and dropping me at another friend's house (friend 2)on his way home with the girl. It was all sorted and went mostly to plan.
As we were leaving friend 1's house friend 2 sent a text asking where I was. We were running a bit late as X had wanted to chat with friend 1 and the girls were playing. I replied to the text that we were on our way and as I pushed send the two little girls collided in the hallway and much crying ensued. Once we had calmed the girl we loaded her into the car and set off. The X dropped me at friend 2's house and drove away. It became apparent that she wasn't home. I pulled out my phone to ring her and discovered a second text informing me they were leaving in 5 minutes. Of course I hadn't heard Worf announce that I had a message as I had a wailing child in my arms at the time. Still, I had said I was on my way so I thought to leave without me was just plain rude. I had travelled 150km with a small child, relying on two other people for transport, through Melbourne peak hour Friday night traffic - and they couldn't wait 15 minutes? I was angry and hurt and rang the husband to say I was getting a taxi to go to an expensive hotel and order room service and that my friends could all go fuck themselves. He said if that was what I really wanted to do then OK, but then reminded me that I was already over $600 out of pocket with groceries and plane tickets and maybe I should take a deep breath and think for a minute.
So I handed myself yet another dose of STFU and made my way to the bar. After a few drinks I was calm and forgiving and even enjoyed myself.

Finally back in my own home, with my gorgeous husband who had cooked me a curry and filled the fridge with my favourite things including cherries (in the middle of winter, what a luxury - and I don't care if they are imported from the USA) and sparkling shiraz. What a joy, to finally be the one being cared for and cared about!

So I have learned that most of my family are useless and selfish, most of my friends are wonderful but have selfish tendencies, my X can be a decent person in spite of his past selfishness and that my husband, above else and all, loves me.
On Monday morning I took the girl to school, came home and crawled back into my big, warm, comfy bed and finally, thankfully slept.

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