The Daily Blog experiment – hello winter

Yesterday was a top of 20 degrees Celsius. Today, it was 14, and even cooler up in the Hills. MidWife and I had lunch at Miss Marples’ Tea Rooms in Sassafras.

I don’t know why people rave about the Devonshire tea. Because I have never had a good scone out of that place. The gluten ones are cut and have the consistency of a cake slice. The gluten free one I had today fell apart, was coated in flour, and tasted like flour all the way through. Dry as buggery too. Urk. Oceans of butter might have saved it, but all I had was good raspberry jam. I gave the scone up as a bad job, and contented myself with the pumpkin soup, which was excellent.

It was very obviously a tourist bus day. Every company tells their mob to eat at Miss Marples, which they dutifully do, then run around a Sassafras in the 90-120 minutes given to them to find the epitome of a Sassafras souvenir. Will it be raspberry jam? A tea cup from Tea Leaves? Woollens? A plush flying possum? whatever it is, it must be packed and if a size to go on the bus.

We trooped in and out of every shop, skittering between rain showers, and increasing cold. Fog lingered in the folds of the hills.

I can’t wear wool, but I do like stroking it, so I searched for skeins to buy and knit with over the winter. I didn’t see any. I suspect I’ll have to head to Healesville for that.

I got back into my car around 2.30pm, and drove slowly down the mountain, heater on, and Joan Anderson’s A YEAR BY THE SEA chattering quietly.

A happy, if chilly, day.

The Daily Blog experiment a photo from the vaults

Black Summer bushfire fundraiser, early 2020, before the COVID lockdowns.

Ah, the summer eastern Australia caught fire, and our then Prime Minister Scott Morrison, aka ScoMo or Scummo, lied to Parliament about work-related travel, and instead fucked off to Hawaii with his family.

“I don’t hold a hose,” he justified.

Meanwhile, photos emerged of previous PM Tony Abbott(loathed him too, but at least he pitched in) fighting the fires as part of the Country Fire Authority.

A Melbourne dancer and crafter decided to raise money to help the Firies out. She put on a fundraiser, and I said “Sure, I’ll help out.”

I decided to fulfil a long-held dream to dance to The Goodies’ theme music. I ordered a tshirt and it arrived the day before. I raced to get it cropped, and elastic sewn into the new hem.

A friend’s daughter cut me a fringed hippie waist coat a la Bill Oddie. I figured my glasses would represent Graeme Garden. And, well, my vaguely pageboy hair would do for Tim Brooke-Taylor.

At the last minute, I decided to add a beard, and my local hairdresser trimmed a faux beard and moustache to look like Bill.

I slunk onto the stage, veil covering my face, then revealed myself to a huge WTAF from the audience. About half the audience were old enough to get the references.

It was all of 2.13 minutes, and some of the best fun I’ve had as a dancer.

You can see the limitation of my left shoulder before my 2022 shoulder joint replacement.

The Daily Blog experiment- the LOW down

I haven’t felt quite right since my 2 day experiment with Strattera meds for ADHD sent me on an express train downwards into a depressive episode.

I feel low. Not the super low of my pre-anti depressant circa 2008, but enough so that I notice it. Certainly a holding pattern low from pre-TMS.

I’ve tried sunshine, walks, dance, outings, quiet, and time with my grandkids. Nope, still low.

I tried going to see the retro band The Herberts this afternoon. Sort of a ‘sweat my prayers’ situation. I just could not get into it. I felt heavy and lumpen – full of concrete and grey gravel.

I’m home again now, in my pj’s and trying to settle enough to get a book out and have a read.

Tomorrow will be my first chance to make some calls, book an appointment with my doctor to perhaps moot another bout of TMS.

I do wish doctors and psychiatrists would fully read up on meds before handing them out. Like, is there a big red sign saying ‘May affect mood’? If so, perhaps don’t prescribe them to people with a mood disorder.

It’s not hard, bozos.

The Daily Blog experiment – Yellowed Memory

I have spent a convoluted morning unpacking, reading, posting to Instagram and Facebook, reading, attempting to write poetry, reading, and generally feeling flat and as creative as a brown dwarf star(not at all, a burnt out thing).

Somehow, all this has lead me to what is either an appalling memory,

dissociation,

or alienation from my own writing.

Because there’s fewer short stories, I can usually trace my inspiration, my intention, and the general plot, even from scraps. But not always. Oh, it’s not the “I dreamed an amazing story, woke up, wrote some notes, went back to sleep. And when I woke up in the morning, the note said: ‘the black glove, Tim, American politics’.”

I usually have some slight memory of writing a story. Usually.

Poetry – well, we’re in much dicier territory. There’s A LOT of them. Many’s the time I’ve turned to my support worker and said: “What the actual fuck? What the hell is this about? Why? Who? When?”

Now, when I enter my ‘flow state’ I have no consciousness of time, body needs, anything around me. It’s pointless me playing music. I don’t hear it. I often don’t feel my feet falling asleep. My poor bladder has to fend for itself. I’m told this is hyperfixation. It may well be. I have the ADHD badge.

Later, I will not have any memory of what I’ve written, nor be able to recognise it later. Channeling? It’s been suggested. But if so, the dead poet using me is also keen on dinosaurs, space, fabric, tarot, science fiction, and dance.

I don’t know if I just have a shite memory, but if so, why do I remember everything about Bentleigh in the 70’s, and Carrum Downs in the 80’s and early 90’s, but not my own work?

Do I dissociate when I write? It doesn’t feel like it. I never have a sense that I am sitting in the back of my own head while something or someone else looks out of my eyes. That’s a very definite state and I know if I’m doing that.

Is it alienation? Do I not, on some level, want to own my work?

I honestly don’t know. This morning as I wrestled with The Giant Blah Feeling of ‘nothing to say’, suddenly there appeared on the page a quite decent little poem that I didn’t know was in me. It was about a small moment, or series of moments with XP. Nothing exciting, but it still needed saying. And I didn’t know that until I came back to myself and saw the page.

I like the idea that I enter an altered state between the worlds, and make magic.

The Daily Blog experiment – 1500 poems

A quiet background project I started nearly 2 years ago is the organisation of my writing files. I hired a support worker, because I didn’t know where to start on this enormous project.

At first, it was just putting all the articles in one folder, the poems in another, short stories in yet another.

Then Josie the Wonder Support Worker found me an easy-to-use database called AirTable and helped me set up databases for my various categories of writing.

When I interviewed Josie, I said there were maybe 80 articles, perhaps 30 short stories in the ‘unfinished’ basket, and 300 poems or so in first draft.

I have underestimated my output considerably. Josie has moved on, and I’m now working with Em the Blonde.

Short stories – 86 in first draft.

Articles – close to 120 published, 20 or so unpublished.

Poetry – today I databased poem number 1500, and there is more to go. This includes the published ones, and those on my books, and those I read out on TikTok. (Take into account the 5 or so new poems I’ve written for Season of the Wolf, the NaPoWriMo count which will be 30, and the April PAD poetry challenge, which will be another 30.)

I have not yet found or databased my 2 one-act plays, and the 30 minute radio play.

I can no longer find my old Star Trek fan fiction, but the State or National Library archives will help me find copies of the stories in the old SPOCK, BEYOND ANTARES, KATRA, METALUNA and THE MENTOR fanzines.

I have 3-4 first draft memoirs, the start of an autobiography, and 5 novels in first draft.

There are some song fragments, haiku, scifaiku, and other sundries.

I was somehow under impression that I hadn’t written very much since 1989. Oh, my dear mind, what a big lie you’ve been telling me!

Anyway, hurray for poem 1500! Onwards with more databasing next week.

The earrings I had stashed away as a reward for reaching 1500 poems.

The Daily Blog experiment – enthusiasms

Up until recently, my stock answer to the “what’s your special interest?” has been ‘dinosaurs’. And it’s true. I first encountered dinosaurs in about Grade 2, when we did a term in them at school. But next term, when we had free choice to pick our own study subject, I was floored. Surely it would be dinosaurs forever? No. Because the cover of my How and Why Wonder Book of Dinosaurs featured a water-supported diplodocus, and an erupting volcano in the background, I chose volcanoes, because they were ancient, like dinosaurs. And maybe I could work dinosaurs into my poster. Imagine my shock when I could find no info on when volcanoes died out.

To this day, if a notebook has a Dino on it, it’s a definite buy. I’ll always watch JURASSIC PARK if it’s on tv.

I hedged around other enthusiasms, or hyperfixations. But now that I’m reading ODD GIRL OUT and finding things to highlight on most pages, let’s get real.

The consuming passion I had for my best friend Gina in Grades 3-6.

Taking notes on my cat’s kittens the way a naturalist might study chimpanzees.

Planet of the Apes – movies, tv show, comics. A huge crush on Roddy McDowall.

A six month delve into Sherlock Holmes academia.

Star Trek – tv show, cartoon series, fan fiction, Austrek, cosplay, fandom, movies.

Belly dance – learning, performing, costuming, jewellery, music, teaching.

Harry Potter fan fiction – 70,000 words on fan fiction.net in 6 months, in between the long hiatus between books 4 and 5.

The Life And Times of Grizzly Adams – I cried for days when they cancelled that show.

Tracing pictures from TV WEEK and colouring them in.

My first herb garden at Honeyeater Place.

Writing a poem a day for months, years on end.

Researching the late diagnosis female experience.

Tarot, and tarot deck collecting.

Sporadic returns to astrology studies for a deep inhale of new info, and then it’s dead to me for a couple of years.

Earring collecting.

Johnny Cash music.

Each and every one of these has had its time in the sun with me. Some I return to, many I don’t. All inform who I am now.

The Daily Blog experiment – NaPoWriMo Day 2

Today’s poetry prompt was to recall the plot or part of the plot of a book I read a long time ago.

DUNE – water sparse planet, lots of sand. I chose a character on Mars talking about DUNE. It’s a shoddy first draft, containing the word ‘water’ four times, ‘sand’ thrice, and not a single mention of spice.

Apparently Mars is not made of cinnamon, nutmeg, or paprika.

I felt I was pulling very thin threads from inside myself, really straining to apply the prompt to my chapbook project.

The voice I have for this isn’t the strong one I had for A WOMAN OF MARS. I’m still finding it, and have to corral it from turning bitter or snarky.

I had an image in mind, an actress actually, when I wrote AWOM. I don’t have a fixed image of my current narrator….

Although….I do have plenty of images from Bruno’s Sculpture Garden, and there’s one I’m thinking of in particular that might fit the bill. No sharing though until the month’s over. I’m not pre-empting myself.

There’s no harm in sharing my mental image of my unnamed narrator from A WOMAN OF MARS, though.

Actress Grace Zabriskie. I saw her in BIG LOVE, and realised she was the ‘voice’.

The Daily Blog experiment- hard study

I’m halfway through the generative writing workshop Season of the Wolf, with Carina Bissett and her Storied Imaginarium.

We workshopped last Friday, so it’s reading week this week. Carina always provides LOTS of reading. Call it reading, study, fueling the genius loci who lives in the walls.

I’m ensconced on the couch, iPad in hand, following links to read stories for the module on The Robber Bridegroom and Medical Bias.

ThirtiesPerson has chosen to sit near me. While I valiantly try to concentrate on The Maiden Thief by Melissa Mall, TP is trying to crack my finger knuckles. They don’t crack easily. I don’t crack them habitually, having been told as a teen that I’d get arthritis if I kept doing it. TP loves cracking their joints, and knows I’ll make a grimacing fuss when they do it.

They’re bored, as evidenced by them sitting downstairs with me. They’ve done the dishes, taken out the recycling, even put MY laundry on. It seems there’s no support worker coming today to take them for a walk.

I’ve asked them if they want to go out. No. That would interfere with being publicly bored.

So, while I study, I get the mostly fruitless effort of them trying to crack my finger joints.

I suspect this is not the ideal study vibe. I’ve read half of the story. Do I know what’s happening? No.

However, I get little enough interaction with TP, so I’ll take what I can get.

The Daily Blog experiment – Fangirl

In the past week, I’ve had the book FANGIRL presented to me on 2 bookshop shelves, and 2 op shop shelves. I figure the universe wants me to reread it. For some reason. I don’t know why. It’s a simplistic coming of age story with an autistic-coded main character, who is wrapped up in a Harry Potter-esque set of books.

So, I succumbed to starting the reread late this afternoon. I’m 20 pages in. Already I’m a bit over the character.

I sometimes think that because 1960-70’s society, schooling, and the world demanded that my autistic traits be squashed down, and it’s likely any tics and fidgets were slapped out of me, that I’m impatient with younger people with autism who have not had that experience, and we’re in fact supported. ‘Indulged’ yells my old near-boomer self. ‘Get over yourself!’ ‘Finish growing up!’

The character has social anxiety, safe foods, obsessions, feel safe only at home where nothing changes, and resents her twin sister for wanting something different.

But, she’s afraid of the student dining hall, and thinks she might be able to survive on muesli bars and peanut butter all term if she’s careful with her supplies, and I have no sympathy.

Despite me planning to take a couple of tea bags with me tomorrow when I have brunch with a friends. Just in case there are crappy tea choices. Despite me planning to take a little tub of grapes.

Despite me estimating that an American girl in her first year of college is 17, and thinking of me at 17, absolutely shit scared of the thought of leaving high school(which I hated) and going to uni.

Why am I so impatient with her? Why do I sneer at her comforts?

The intolerant part of me thinks that because I had to do it so tough, a similar person/character should do it that way too. Why should she have it easier? I didn’t.

Good gods, I’ve turned into “I had to live in a gutter, and walk 50 miles to school in a blizzard”.

This all reflects back on a new conversation I’m having with myself about treating myself kindly, speaking kindly to myself, and allowing all the parts of me to have their say. Not just the Military Commander, Gladys the critic, and Kenneth the Art Critic.

So, this book has come along to highlight where I’m being hard in myself, and still high masking. Okay, universe, I’m listening.

The Daily Blog experiment – overexertion

I should know better. A late night Friday. 3 hours of dancing yesterday. Yoga this morning. My body said “Are you crazy?” and showed me which muscles were tired, and fed up with the whole business. WE WILL NOT BE DOING WARRIOR THREE IN ANY FIRM, BITCH!

Good thing I had a massage booked for late this afternoon.

However, that’s not the only area of overexertion. As some of you know, I always have about 8 projects on the go.

Currently:

– databasing my writing

– doing generative writing with ‘Season of the Wolf’

– getting my garden beds into order

– slowly filling up what used to be the back lawn so that it’s a bee and bug habitat

– burlesque classes

– once Wolf Season finishes, I’ll be doing a second draft of my dance memoir

– getting my NDIS funding reviewed

– launching ThirtiesPerson into independent living

– getting all my travel journals typed up

Well, I’m about to add another project. A WOMAN OF MARS is my first poetry chapbook, printed professionally by PS Publishing in 2010. It’s the chapbook people ask for the most. It was a 300 copy print run, and was marketed as a collector’s item. Secondhand copies may be floating around.

All copyright has reverted to me, and I want to reprint it, with a new cover, and make it a paperback, and ebook.

Which means figuring out a flow-chart of what needs to happen.

As if I’m not spread thin enough – all of my own doing.

Nothing like being busy, I guess.