A Form Of Chemical Madness...

““I wish I’d done everything on earth with you””

— Daisy Buchanan, The Great Gatsby

I saw the trailer for Baz Luhrmann's production of The Great Gatsby the other night. It hooked me from the start because the entire trailer was played to the background of Jack White's cover of U2's 'Love is Blindness', which is one of my favourite songs on the planet.

Luhrmann is a genius at the juxtaposition of the old and the new, and using Jay-Z to create the soundtrack to a Jazz Age story? Brilliant. A man who lives, loves and breathes the Big Apple, composing for a story about said city - if nothing else, the music will be magical.

But I am anticipating that more than the music will rock - or as the case may be, Charleston. For Jay Gatsby, Daisy and Tom Buchanan are enduring figures in that great conundrum of humankind - the bizarre love triangle. And of course F Scott knew a thing or two himself about that, with his life being not exactly on the conventional side.

I love Fitzgerald's writing. The Great Gatsby is not my favourite of his ouevre - that honour goes to Tender Is The Night, and always has done. Maybe Jay G (as opposed to Jay Z) is just too tortured - or too selfish - for me. Maybe I like Tom too much! But what I love most about Fitzgerald's (anti) heroes is that nobody is remotely perfect. They are all human and frail and weak in their own ways. They are real.

And most of all, they are all willing to love.

Some can only give so much of themselves - but what they can give, they give to the full. Maybe it's that 'we only just survived the war, and we may not survive tomorrow' frenetic fatalism - but they are willing to emote to the best of their ability.

Sometimes I think that in the Age of iPodius, we are so careful with our feelings that we live a half life. We read the words on the page (or screen), and happily requote or repost them - and at the same time, keep a caul around our own hearts for fear of getting hurt.

I feel very grateful that those I care for - and yes, love - are willing to let me know how important I am to them. And unlike many a literary heroine, I don't need public pages of poetry or Shakespearean prose.

For actions often speak louder than proverbial words.

And said actions don't need to be public either.

I'm still grateful for them.

No Terror In The Bang

Anticipation can be both a wonderful and a terrible thing. Sometimes we can build something up in our heads to the point where we are a bundle of nerves - in a good way, or in a 'I could wet myself at any moment even though I am a grown person' way, simply through an ability to imagine the worst case scenario and run with it.

I am a genius at the latter. I can have a fatal illness before I've even made a doctor's appointment simply because I have an itchy eye. There is no doubt in my mind that said itchy eye means I have a rare and incurable disease which nobody else in the world has ever had before and my painful and horrible death will mean great advances in technology and the Kate Foundation for Weird Eye Diseases.

They may even make a movie.

With Alexander SkarsGod or Daniel Craig as my grieving and dedicated lovah.

Where was I?

Oh yes. Anticipation.

On the other hand, sometimes we build things in a frenzy of yay-dom to the point where the reality never quite matches up to the daydream. Which is also silly, as it means that whatever situation we are heading into is probably going to leave us feeling a little - well, flat - as the buzz we have created in our fertile little brains is much bigger than anything that life can match.

Usually.

On occasion though, if one is very lucky, the way one shivers with anticipation (to quote a certain Frank'n'Furter) turns out to be the way one shivers - or grins - when it comes to the real deal.

And for that, there should be gratitude overflowing.

Just pray that it is the good anticipation that works out in reality. Not the scary eye disease kind.

I don't actually want to have to find any gratitude for that.

Not even if they throw in Daniel Craig.

Seriously.

They Say It's Your Birthday!

Today is - or would be, since he no longer walks among us (or does he?) - the King's birthday. That's right. The Man from Memphis. The swivel hipped, curled-lipped all shook up black soul voice in a very white boy's body.

Uh-huh-huh yeah.

But today is also, to me far more importantly and personally, my Bailey's birthday. Now, I am aware that she is not my biological daughter, much as we may joke around - and yes we do look scarily alike; but she has wonderful parents who love her very, very much and do everything for her, and I don't want to belittle that in any way.

However, she is as close as to me as any daughter may be, and I am proud and grateful to be her Mama Kato. Therefore my B, on the occasion of your 17th big day, a few words from mother to daughter. Feel free to laugh. Or even snort.

Advice To My Daughter On Her 17th Birthday

1. Be grateful that this is your 17th birthday, and celebrate accordingly. Think of your Mama, who in exactly a month's time will be hiding her head under the covers and breathing into a brown paper bag as she turns 41.

2. Be grateful that you have so many people in your life who love you. This has been a very rough year my B - but we got through it. And 17 is going to rock, because you learned so much from 16. Windowlickers unite!

3. Your education in the finer things in life - shoes - will only deepen. This is a promise.

4. Dystonia sucks like a sucky thing. But try to be grateful for the people it has brought to you, and the support you receive - and pass on that support to those who aren't as fortunate as you.

5. Don't waste a minute of 17. Even though you are going to have really craptacular days - because Dysto is not going to magically disappear as a birthday treat - live your life to the fullest my B. Carpe jugulum - seize life by the throat.

I am grateful for you. I am grateful to have a snarky, funny, feisty redhead who calls me Mama and whom I will scream 'Happy Birthday' at later on today when it is actually your birthday in Tennessee time.

Oh - and don't do an Elvis and start hoeing into the deep fried sarnies and double cheeseburgers.

Otherwise you won't fit into your white sparkly birthday jumpsuit!

Hmmmm... maybe I should have told you that was your present.

Oops.

Clockworks And Cold Steel

Yesterday was one of those days where I almost wished that I didn't have people in my life that I cared deeply about and loved. Because there were so many individual situations where there was hurt or physical risk.

Sometimes the hurt was in itself a physical pain - but generally it was emotional distress. As for the bodily risk - well, that's another story altogether. But when those we most feel things for are not happy in body or mind, it can be much, much simpler to become something of an automaton - to close off, to turn into metal. 

To make our hearts into gears and cogs, not somewhere we store our soul.

Simpler for ourselves, that is. But what happens then to the people who have come to rely on us for support in whatever shape or form we are able to give it?

Are they supposed to just shrug and say 'Oh well, better just pick myself up and forget about them, then'? Simply forget that for a long time, X had our back?

If you have the cold comfort of a new metal skin, with every part clicking away in precision time - and precision blandness - then what are those you love left with, but a smooth, featureless surface personality and a metallic tang to your traits?

Be grateful that love hurts. That caring for others is not easy. Because it is what separates us from the machines. Don't let your heart and mind retreat to the easier world of mechanical actions.

They may make you feel no pain - but you won't feel much of anything else either.

And I for one would not be grateful to lose my sense of anticipation, or excitement, or enthusiasm.

Or love.

Even if sometimes - just sometimes - I would like to forget to wind my own key.

Letter To The Non-Editor

Dear Facebook

As a faceless entity who already has the power to influence the liking and disliking of almost any product, photo and person on the planet, I think you need to take a long, hard look at yourself.

Because I am about to press 'dislike' on you.

I realise the relative paradox of posting the link to this blog on you, considering the vitriol I intend to spew forth in your general direction, however, needs must where the devil drives, and so on and so forth. Use your enemy.

I was a latecomer to the Book of the Face. Hard as it is to believe, given my chosen career path, my natural love of the printed word and Luddite-ish tendencies kept me away from anything that involved the words 'social' and 'media' together for a very long time. But of course, like any addictive substance, you lured me in with your promises of witty exchanges between old friends (true) and the ability to stalk complete strangers because my friends think they're hot (also true - scary but true).

But now, my dear FB, you have taken the partnership and stamped on it. Disrespect has no place in my one on one relationships, and you have shown me no love of late. Timeline... having to re-set all of my security settings ad infinitum... we could have worked it out, Booky Wooky. But no. You had to add insult to injury, and start the monstrous perversion that is, one might say, the straw that broke the social media llama's back.

"What's on your mind?"

"What's happening in your day?"

You really don't want an answer to these queries, FB. Because the answer will be both full of naughty words and ripe with criticism of your empty questions. However, since you asked:

STOP ASKING ME STUPID ARSE STUFF. NOW. OR ELSE. I CAN UPDATE MY STATUS WITHOUT YOUR HELP. MY IQ IS MORE THAN 33, AND I STILL HAVE AN INTACT FRONTAL LOBE. SO SOD OFF, YOU BEHEMOTH OF BUSHWAH, AND LEAVE ME ALONE.

I can live without you Facebook. I actually can. People may scoff at this, but it's true. I did it before - and I can definitely do it again. So you want to know what's on my mind... see the above. The reason I use Facebook is because I am interacting with people, not a program. 

Don't pretend you care facebook.com - just sit back and be the Great and Powerful Oz.

I like my friends asking me stupid arse stuff (no offence friends).

Not a machine.

A Spark Of Hellish Fire

Yesterday was such a strange contrast. I happily sat at the SCG, watching people dig deep for breast cancer research - seeing big, boofy blokes wear their very pink bandannas, without hesitation, was nothing short of a refreshing bath in human kindness. The 'Pink Test' is a wonderful thing for sport because it makes everyday blokes focus on a disease which has often been seen as women-only and which is sadly not the case.

Yet at the same time, to know that a place where only the day before I had also been happy was in a state of bewildering and sudden destruction - it was hard to make sense of it all.

Hobart was on fire. My brother, my beloved Panda - both were out trying to save their homes. The photos that the Panda sent through, and which I am, totally without telling him, putting on this post, were horrifying. My parents were on their way last night to help my brother and his family try to either save their house or get to safety. The Panda rang me late last night to say that the police had told him to evacuate and that is the last I have heard.

A strange contrast in hope for a cause - and a cure - and inexplicable hopeless destruction.

This is particularly painful when it is highly possible that at least some of the bushfires in Tasmania are the result of arson. Deliberate, sheer, wanton malice.

So despite heartbreak at the insanity of possible loss of life, and definite loss of property and in some cases livelihoods, I have to somehow reach down deep and find some gratitude for what has gone before in the last 24 hours.

I am grateful for the generosity shown by the Australian cricket community to a cause in which I have a very personal stake. I am grateful you are willing to give.

I am, more than ever, grateful for buccaneers who despite working like scurvy dogs on their swashbuckling adventures, make the time to ensure that I am OK and are concerned about not only my health and happiness, but that of those whom I love.

And of course I am enduringly grateful that both my brother and his wife and the Hughbot, and my Panda and his cubs are safe.

Walls can easily be rebuilt.

People, however, cannot easily be replaced.

Remember that today.

I Saw Something Nasty In The Woodshed

“Mary, you know I hate parties. My idea of hell is a very large party in a cold room where everybody has to play hockey properly.”

— Stella Gibbons, Cold Comfort Farm

One of my favourite books of all time is Stella Gibbons' wonderful Cold Comfort Farm, which follows the adventures of the very determined Flora and her wondrously wild and woolly Starkadder relations on said property.

One of the ways in which Grandmother Starkadder keeps a tight rein on the household (and tight hold of the pursestrings) is by being - well, slightly mad - and her frequent pronouncement that as a gel, she saw 'something NASTY in the woodshed'. Or the cowshed. Or the bikeshed. What this was, or whether there even was a shed, is unimportant. The thing is, she saw it, and by God it was nasty.

After what I saw in my fridge tonight, my heart goes out to old mad Granny Starkadder. Because if what she even imagined she saw was half as nasty as the possible Teenage Mutant Ninja Turkey that had evolved out of a free range chicken breast I was stoopid enough to leave behind while I went away for a few days, then she was right to go totally doolally.

I think it possibly gave Ripley's friend a run for her money. This thing was looking as though it would like to spawn out of my stomach.

So I am eternally grateful to the lovely Christine, who smartly suggested leaving the beast's memory where it belonged - in the outside garbage - and with a lighter heart, and a few battle scars (and a freshly sterile fridge), I trotted off to see Les Misérables.

Where I proceeded to bawl my eyes out at regular intervals.

I am a sucker for musicals. And Tom Hooper's interpretation of this one is an absolute ripsnorter. Redemption, revolution, tubercular prostitutes - how can you go wrong really? Even Russell Crowe brings his game voice - and manages to inject a bit of humanity into old Javert. And as for young Eddie Redmayne - le yum.

So gratitude in a roundabout way, as a scary encounter with my fridge with fangs ended up with me singing Jean Valjean's greatest hits all the way home.

Now I just need to be able to turn the light off tonight.

Last night I didn't even bother.

Back Down The Rabbit Hole

It has taken being at 'home' here in Tasmania for a few days - and it has been a very brief visit - to truly make me realise something.

The people that I most like - well, love really - in my life are all as weird as hell.

It's ace.

I have written in the past about embracing your own personal peculiarity, but I don't think I have ever said how much I appreciate, and am grateful for, the weird and wonderful ways of my friends.

The eccentric and the elusively ironic are far more interesting than the straightforward. And they are not any the less steadfast or true; they just don't often show their smooshy or sentimental side publicly, but keep the private, private - with an occasional leak in the dam wall admittedly in my case!

The thing is, it is usually those who are a little off centre who have the most creative and fertile minds. Who have the wicked sense of humour. The Machiavellian mastery of the written and spoken word. The crystal clear clarity of Top A on a violin.

I wish I could count myself in this kind of exalted company, but I am just odd. Thankfully they let me lurk on the sidelines and clap like a monkey.

Did I mention kindness goes with weird?

And my goodness, if 2012 taught us anything, it was that the old saw of 'being mad to work here isn't compulsory... but it certainly helps' is pretty much on the money, if we just change the wording a little.

Being mad on Planet Earth isn't compulsory... but I am grateful that I am.

Because it definitely helps.

And it makes this a lot more fun.

With added fun. And sparkles!

A Good Christian

I sometimes amaze myself with how strong I am. Deep breath here, and I know you are going to find this very hard to believe, those of you who know me well.

Um.

Last week, I gave away a pair of Louboutins.

I need to lie down for a little while before I keep writing.

Please hold.

OK, I'm back.

So - this is the dealio.

Two years ago, I bought a pair of Loubs online. Being a total tard, I happily ordered my usual pair of 39s - and didn't realise that I had ordered an Italian 39. Not a Euro 39.

There is a differenzio. This is Italiano for big fat mistake. Because they are two different sizes, and when you buy on sale online, there often is no going back.

Buggerino.

So - I have worn them once. And they looked amazing, but they hurt like hell. And I couldn't do it again. So in the spirit of the red sole, I have given them away to a worthy and chic recipient - rather than selling them.

God speed my darling shoesies - and enjoy your new home.

And as for me - the piggy bank will fill up again.

One day.

Vive les Louboutins!

When We Begin The Beguine...

So. The very first post on the new blog.

This had better be good hadn't it?

What to say, what to say...

Happy New Year would probably be a good place to start. 

I started being 'grateful' on New Year's Day in 2012 - in another life really, as a novice blogger on Tumblr, not knowing much at all about the whole shebang, going through enormous changes in my own tiny little world.

And here I sit at the dawn of a new year. 2013.

Well, it's not actually dawn.

It's lunchtime.

Blame New Year's Eve.

And I am adamant that I will not be making any formal resolutions this year, because every time I have, I have either broken them or regretted them. I do intend to give out more than I receive. And to live in the spirit of the two points below.

Grateful - and ready to write about it.

2013 will rock like a rocky thing.

Let's get it on.

And be grateful for a new year, without any creases in it, or toast crumbs or gravy stains sitting on its lap.

A fresh, crisp 2013.

Take a big bite out of it people.

It sounds delicious.