If You Notice This Notice You Will Notice That This Notice Is Not Worth Noticing.

Apparently writing/creativity is a muscle that gets stronger with use.  A writer told me that, and by 'writer' I mean someone who actually gets paid to write, not someone who is trying to avoid her stalled career as a television producer by expressing an interest in becoming a writer. But here's the thing: I'm struggling with motivation, or perhaps more accurately, a complete lack of disclipline that traces right back to a school career spent dodging assignments and taking the easy way out (report cards with A for result, D for effort).  So, by way of sating the Gods of Creativity (and in a hope that my creativity muscle will one day bulge), here is a haiku about my bad cold.

Tissue in nostrils

To slow the persistent drip.

I snore when I'm sick.

Blubber Is A Thick Layer of Fat that Lies Under The Skin And Over The Muscles of Whales

Grab your vuvuzela... I'm back on message.

This one has taken me a while to get through.  Not in the sense of the time it has taken to read (because that, as usual, is somewhere under the two hour mark) but in the sense that I have allowed a lot of time to pass between reading sessions.  I fear my reflections have suffered for it... but watch as I disguise that with overfamiliarity with the most recently completed chapters.  Wool, over eyes, pulled.

There are two things a child could take away from this book.  The first is that there are worse bullies out there than you, and the second is that there are kids out there being bullied way worse than you.  I have never EVER been as mean to a kid as the girls in this book are to Linda/Blubber... and trust me... I've been pretty mean to kids.  No sense losing sleep though, because kids have been pretty mean to me too... but on reflection no kid I've ever known, even Jessica Whiteside who was MY Wendy, was ever so mean to me as these girls are to each other either.  To the sometimes bully and the sometimes bullied in all of us, this book gives some perspective to the cruel years of early high school, making the crimes committed seem somewhat moderate and the persecution experienced comparitively mediocre.  In other words, I don't need to track down Rubina Whatsit from school to apologise for my part in encouraging her to flash her minge to the whole PE class during an over exuberant display of the 'splits'... nor should I use the medium of facebook to stalk Jessica Whiteside in the hope that she's been involved in a freak merry-go-round incident resulting in permanent facial disfigurement and intermittent incontinence. 

Here's the story in point form.

- Jill lives across the street from her best friend Tracy Wu who goes to the same school but it unfortunately not in the same class.

- She has an annoying little brother who constantly spouts useless information and statistics (I fear I was this younger sibling in my day, though I would intersperse my 'facts' with 'jokes' from my many joke books... ADORABLE).

- Jill's parents don't understand her (stop the presses!) but her live-in Nanny does.

- Jill is a picky eater.  Her primary food is peanut butter sandwiches.

- Each member of Jill's class has to do a presentation on a topic of their choosing and the mildly overweight girl in the class, Linda, chooses to speak about whales.  Her presentation includes the sentence expertly adapted to function as the title of this post and from that moment she is ridiculed by her classmates and nicknamed 'Blubber'.

- Halloween is moments later, and Jill decides to dress up as a 'Flenser', which according to Blubber's presentation, is the name for the person who cuts the blubber out of whales.  Apparently flenser's wear floppy hats and windcheaters and carry big knives... which is not too far from the truth, I imagine.

- In the meantime, Blubber is victimised out the wazoo.  She's forced to introduce herself with her new nickname, is essentially stripped under the threat of physical violence in the girls toilets during lunch break and she is teased about the unhealthy contents of her lunchbox.  She promptly goes on a diet and is teased for that too.  Points to Linda at this point for not killing herself.

- On the night of Halloween, Jill and her friend Tracy crack rotten eggs into a mean old man's letterbox.

- Despite their disguises, which sound dangerously similar to the outfits often chosen by the Klu Klux Klan, Mr Machinist manages to identify the perpetrators and they are enlisted to rake up the leaves in his yard as their punishment.

- Jill decides that Blubber must have dobbed on them, and accuses her of it when they are brought together coinidentally at a Bar Mitzvah.  Blubber doesn't understand the accusation, and in the meantime makes great friends with Jill's annoying little brother, which really gets up Jill's nose.

- Shortly after that, during a rainy lunchbreak spent indoors, Jill and the other girls decide that they will put Blubber on trial and they assign roles to classmates.  When Blubber complains, she is locked in a closet and again expertly manages not to kill herself.  A level headed nice girl called Rochelle (the only one of her kind) speaks up to say that Blubber needs to have a lawyer for her defence.  Mean Wendy says no, but Jill says yes, because her father is a lawyer so she, of course, knows all about it.  As Wendy holds her ground, Jill starts to notice how much Wendy throws her weight around, as well as how mean she is as she takes pot shots at Jill and makes a racially insensitive remark about Tracy Wu, so Jill stands up to her and releases Blubber from the closet.

- By the very next day, Jill is an outcast and Blubber is an... incast?  Jill is nicknamed 'Baby Brenner', is teased for her penchant for peanut butter sandwiches... and is about to be stripped in the school bathrooms when she throws a logic grenade at Wendy's henchman that undoes the whole power structure of Wendy's regime.  Caroline turns against Wendy, who tries to win her back by selling out Blubber, who then also turns against Wendy.

- Now blessed with awareness, Jill befriends that very level headed Rochelle and life is sweet.

It may be a little unrealistic that this one girl can hold enough power to decide who is 'in' and 'out', Heidi Klum-style, but geez young adults are just mean waiting to happen.  No wonder 'we' found our Mark's, our Luke's and our Anthony's (?) to get us through the gauntlet of high school.  Boys germs are way less harmful to your health than young womanhood.

Response... What I Learned At College...

Reading that article now, I remember so entirely how I felt reading it for the first time over ten years ago.  Feeling simultaneously understood and defensive, my own feeble version of feminism challenged a little by some of the extreme statements and specifics of this author.  In part, I can see that this is a symptom of my own indoctrination at the hands of 'college socialisation', but on the other hand... I do think that I (just me... not everybody) had a different experience of college than many other women, and that maybe, in some very minor respects ('deck chairs on the Titanic' minor), our college was ever so slightly different.  I do feel I have to reserve a special sentimental spot in my heart for college because it gave me you... and you... and lots of other worthwhile people and experiences.

Firstly, and I invite response to this, I didn't feel that our college had a 'fuck-a-fresher' culture exactly, though I concede there was certainly a feeling that a new batch of first years brought new blood...but for everyone. For a group of a hundred or so sociable people who had lived closely and intensely for at least nine months,  we were both keen to see who was next to join our social spiderweb and worried about the threat they represented to it. Weren't they just a bunch of new faces coming into a world that lived so like family in some respects that any relationship was tantamount to incest?

As you(se) know, I heartily agree with the assertion that outdated college norms are handed down from one generation to the next, completely independently of, or even regardless of, progress made in the wider community.  That people (men?) reinvented themselves in the image of their college seniors is also not going to get an argument from me: the descriptor 'Hell Men' is so easily replaced with 'Top East Boys' as to not warrant any further comparison.  But I am challenged a little in that these people were my friends, and I did feel that the 'brotherly' protection offered was genuine and that I (personally) did not hand over any sexuality, feminist belief or independence at the door to gain their respect.  In this, I feel a little self-conscious: it feels  like shaky ground because I suspect that my loophole was that I was adopted as 'the honourary bloke' so therefore not seen as a 'woman' per se.  And that perhaps I was too guilty perpetuating the regime myself, a regime that I was comfortable in, to see what was happening to other women.  My experiences as a woman at college are not necessarily the experiences of other women at college. 

I also don't feel that the comments about eating disorders was particularly relevant at our college... but at the same time... why was there even an expression 'B... H... Butt'?

And a final mention for the Indoor Sportsman and Sportswoman of the Year.  Weren't they both revered and disapproved in equal measure regardless of gender?  Wasn't the man actually considered a little pathetic for 'trying', which we all know is not something that was to be admired by our generation?  Was it maybe just that the woman didn't particularly like to be identified for that?  Regardless... how horrible that we did that... and found it funny?!?  Yes... we really were out of step with what was acceptable behaviour and got away with murder away from public scrutiny, didn't we?

College... I loved it... I hated it.  I got out, just like the article said, when the gloss wore off and it was no longer fun to be living under such scrutiny and in such an outdated patriarchy.  But in truth (self conscious truth) I was cooler at college than I ever was before and ever will be again, and it is hard to not have some sort of sentimental attachment to that.  It made me... until it didn't and then I got out with just enough sting in my tail to reject it without rewriting history to delete the good things entirely.  Were I a different person, the experience could have (would have?) been completely detrimental.

How To Be A Woman: Things I Learned In College

I read an article of this name at Uni and have spent the eleven years since wondering which Sociology subject it was for (Collective Behaviour and Social Movements?) and which 'brick' it was in.  A couple of years ago, my vigor was renewed when I recommended it to my Aunt as she puzzled over my much younger cousin's experiences at an all male college in Sydney.  At that stage, I launched a fruitless search of the boxes of uni notes in the attic and I think even googled 'Fuck-a-Fresher' to see if I could find it but I was easily distracted with articles about panic and cults and so forth, so a few stones were left unturned... until now.

It is too late for me to read it right now, but I never want to lose this link again, and this is a safe place for right now, and yours are safe brains to share it with.

How Do I Love Tina Fey... Let Me Count The Ways

Just home from seeing Tina Fey in Date Night which was wholely satisfying on the 'umour front.  Maybe overall, it did lose a little in the ending, but I love her.  I love her today like her loved her when we first met in Mean Girls.  I love her with Amy Poehler,  I love her WITHOUT Amy Poehler. I love her as a Producer, I love her as a barren single woman, I probably even love Sarah Palin a little bit because of her physical resemblance to Tina.  Here's what I love about Tina:

1) Big bum curves... which I have read she attributes to her Greek heritage (who knew!?  I wonder if she knows about spoon sweets?  If I ever meet her, I'll ask her that)

2) Intriguing scar... which happened when she was five and a stranger slashed her while she was hanging out in her front yard in Pennsylvania.  Usually scar stories are boring, but that is just about the best scar story ever, which is only fitting for our Tina.

3) Self-consciousness.  She just seems to always have a little of it in her performances which help make her a little bit human and familiar.  A sex scene with Tina Fey would, I imagine, be a little similar to a real life sex scene... like when someone's elbow is leaning on someone's hair and that someone can't lift their head off the pillow until the other someone moves, or when somebody throws in a bit of a movie quote or cliche at the crucial moment to try and make the other somebody laugh but just gets in trouble for ruining the mood.

4) She writes, and nothing gets me green like a lady writer.

5) Elizabeth Stamatina Fey.  Her real name according to the internets.  I love celebrities with made up names.  I especially love knowing their real names in case it shows up in the Good Weekend quiz, or at a trivia night.

6) Late Starter.  I can't believe she's been interviewed about it, but apparently she was 24 when she lost her virginity.  The implication for me is that she came to cool late, and I think that just makes her even cooler.

7) Umm... ooh... err... I know!  She's funny.  She is not a comic actress that holds her own opposite male comedians cum movie stars, she is genuinely deep down funny.  It's hard not to sound lame on this point, so it is here that I must sign off from this post... a quivering mess.

I heart you, Stamatina... you are right in all sorts of way.

Here's A Cool Thing... Eames House

I think I'm going to need one of these... I just wish it was a dollhouse and then I could waste hours sourcing miniature Eames furniture and staging beat poetry evenings with lego people sipping Fimo soy lattes.  I could probably make cravats too.

The Record Stays Still... The World Spins Around It

Before you read on, you may need headphones and time in order to fully participate in this post.  I am become a musical wanker, and the prose below is my soft porn AND my yacht rock. (Pumps chest with fist).

Listen to this ... thank you Dazza Hanlon for the title for today's blog post.

I have rediscovered my love for music.  Not Gaga, nor La Roux, nor whatever other horrid 'new sounds' are currently being pushed by hipster friends on Facebook, but quirky, feelgood folk/pop (and a hint of feelsad folk/pop for good measure).  It has been a bloody long time since I've heard a song and wanted to know it with the intimacy I reserve for my late 90s favourites (Heavy Heart, Unsent Letter, Glory Box et al), but this song by Darwin Deez provided the very beginning of a spark and a few days away with friends with guitars provided the kindling for what is now a raging fire of musical enthusiasm. 

In recent years, I have let the growth rate of my admittedly already plentiful CD collection dwindle with fewer and fewer additions (more often just an album here and there to fill a gap in the back catalogue), but I realised last week, as we sat on a balcony wrapped in doonas and staring off to sea, that the playlist of late night guitar favourites needs some updating (though Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead and Red Hot Chilli Peppers never fail to slip on like a comfortable old shoe).  So I went looking.

The amateur guitarists from the doona/balcony scene told me it was akin to herecy that I had not yet embraced The Shins, so I dutifully jumped online and ordered 'Wincing The Night Away' upon my return from the South Coast Buddymoon (r).  Seeing as I was already logged in and all, it seemed a shame not to throw in Darwin Deez and The Drones, so I did. 

The Shins album arrived today... and as it did it's first lap of the CD player I was reminded to listen to the Fleet Foxes album that somebody gave me a copy of once, so I did.  A bit of online research later, I found myself smitten with a Swedish duo of sisters called 'First Aid Kit' and their cover of Tiger Mountain Peasant Song.  So I was on their MySpace page and they were 'friends'/label mates with some band/artist called Peggy Sue, and that sounded good too, and THAT reminded me that I have often wondered whether I should buy some Joanna Newsom, as I usually like what I hear of hers. And I still do.  Then I saw that Fionn Regan had a new album out, and I really liked his last one, so I clicked on that one too.

I also remembered to look whether Chaos had the Rockabye Baby albums of popular band's well known songs done as lullabies, because I have been meaning to give these as gifts to every child I've known born in the last six months.  And they did.  So click, click, click.

Exhibit A - The Order

 

Now I just have to wait for them to arrive.

n.b. Decemberists... Mountain Goats... you're on my radar too.