I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.
Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.
Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle.
"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked.
"What?"
"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."
I stress, on a day all about the paterfamilias, I’m not trying to hold onto some unreal hypothetical father. A dad who didn’t exist in reality. Some kind of miracle worker who could fix Foxtel in a single bound; Saint Kennebec of the Holy Tasmanian Potato who suddenly, after death, becomes a fast-tracked candidate for canonisation, and consists of a fondly and vastly inaccurately remembered combination of Don Bradman, Glenn Miller, Douglas Bader, Terry Pratchett, Fantastic Mr Fox and the Duke of Wellington.
I have written about my misadventures with the world of haircuts before - well, actually, probably more so with the world of haircolouring, and what one really, really ought not do.
This is inclusive of, but not limited to, dyeing one's own hair an even brighter shade of red in an all white bathroom (Psycho comes to mind), dyeing one's own hair in a hurry (big missed patches) and pretty much dyeing one's own hair full stop.
I may also have to write a post at some stage about the dangers of overuse of the word 'one' and how it leads to being ostracised by friends and family but that will have to wait.
Today is, as is usually the case with this blog, (well, it's mine after all) - about me. And my hair.
Vanity, thy name is, quite possibly, Kate.
I have cut my hair.
Short.
As in, short, short. Anne Hathaway getting into character for Les Mis short. I did draw the line at having my teeth pulled admittedly.
I expect the world to now stop and enter a period of official Kate Hair Mourning (length of said KHM to be determined - I am thinking about two months - I'm not Queen Victoria for the love of lambchops), and for everyone to buy me some really nice shoes to help me cope with this traumatic event.
Let me explain - because I know you are thinking 'she cut her hair - big whoopsies - what a superficial trollop' and calmly going on with your Sunday brekky (I hope you're having something yummy. Like bacon. Mmmmm. Bacon).
This was a bit of a no choice haircut. Because, despite the delightful treatment I am on for my even more delightful current munchy little cancer promising me the world in terms of 'less hair loss than last time' - this week saw the dreaded return of the bathroom floor of death.
Lotsa hair. Everywhere.
Now, I am massively lucky. I know this. I just like whinging. Not only do I have a very early stage and treatable cancer, I am not likely to lose all of my hair, unlike friends who are currently undergoing far yuckier treatment - it just gets thinner and doesn't feel like 'my' hair. But it also doesn't look crash hot in long stringy strands that casually come out in my fingers when I do my model turn of whipping my head around as I chat to someone - and then watch their face as my hair ends up in their drink.
And possibly their food. And their handbag.
You get the picture.
I have Osky the Spy's fur to contend with. My house does not need two Kats shedding.
So the chop it was.
And after I stopped sobbing, I was actually quite happy.
Well, I will be.
Present tense needed. Not past.
And the colour's nice!
Oh bugger it. It's just hair. There are more pressing issues at hand. Like world peace. And the craptacular state of Australian rugby. And shoes. I am off to eat some bacon. And look at pictures of girls with short hair. Or possibly Alexander SkarsGod with no shirt on.
“““She was clean”: no piercings, tattoos, or scarifications. All the kids were now. And who could blame them, Alex thought, after watching three generations of flaccid tattoos droop like moth-eaten upholstery over poorly stuffed biceps and saggy asses?” ”
— Jennifer Egan, A Visit From The Goon Squad
I (rather foolishly) got into a debate the other night on Facestalk with people far younger than myself on the merits or otherwise of getting a tattoo. Once I stopped shuddering at the heinous spelling and grammar and concentrated on what was being said it was incredibly interesting to see the range of views from very young Gen Ys. Beautiful, ugly, go for it, don't do it - I loved to see the debate, and I also loved that my opinion was taken into account (although the 17 year old boy who said 'you're REALLY old!' is a dead tadpole walking).
I was reminded of this yesterday with someone asking me my opinion of tatts - for a few reasons - and I started thinking about why I really, really have never wanted one, when I have succumbed to pretty much every other trend on the planet and I have the pain threshold of a non-complaining elephant.
I know that people get tattoos for sentimental reasons, not just because they think they look beautiful, and I comprehend this. My friend Lady L has a breast cancer Pink Ribbon tattooed on her foot and as a cancer survivor I don't do anything but applaud that. Others have names or symbols - Angelina Jolie with the latitude and longitude of each of her children's birth places. All this I understand.
Yes, I see the beauty in them to some extent. David Beckham flexing his abs and running around without a shirt - well, yes. Until he opens his mouth, I will sit and drool like a mindless idiot with the best of them. (Sorry Becks, but the day you started spruiking about 'Pepsay' in that voice, you lost me at 'ullo').
The beautiful Miss A has them, and they suit her. I know the reasons behind hers, and I can appreciate them.
And yet.
The preponderance of meathead footy players with neck to ankle ink and twits like Justin Beiber covering themselves with symbols they don't understand - perhaps this is part of my 'thanks but no thanks'. Mostly though I think it's their permanency and the way they look on ageing skin. Today's proud eagle is tomorrow's sagging chicken after all. And the thought of living with a static image for the next forty years... quoting directly from yesterday's convo 'do I want a picture of Calvin & Hobbes lurking around for the next forty years?'
Well, no.
Perhaps the biggest thing for me - and this is very personal I admit - is something that is almost indefinable, and may sound painfully 'here she goes', but it's not intended that way. Judaism strictly speaking forbids the tattooing of the body for non-medical reasons as (this is simplifying it immensely) it breaks the sacred seal of the human body and the covenant with God. Piercings are the same - and yes I see the inherent hypocrisy as I have been there and well and truly done that. But with tattooing - what tool did Hitler use as the ultimate humiliation? What did he and Goebbels know would hit hardest?
And there we are.
On a very much lighter note, I secretly know what my ultimate objection is.
I will pick out a wonderful Chinese character, and have it put somewhere strategic for a select individual. One day I will be having a massage, or at the doctor, or wherever, and will be under the scrutiny of a Chinese speaker.
They will snigger, and I will ask them what they are laughing at.
'Why do you have the character for "arse" on your hip?'
