She Don't Like That Kind Of Behaviour

““There’s no map to human behaviour””

— Bjork

I am by no means a perfect person. I am so full of flaws it isn't funny. I am attempting, however slowly, to fix the ones that are fixable; but I am willing to accept that there is no such thing as perfection in humans (except for Alexander SkarsGod, but he is semi-divine so is therefore exempt from the rules of men).

And yet.

We give people the benefit of the doubt. Particularly those we love and care for and about - it's natural instinct. If they do something that disappoints us, we usually try to forget and forgive - or at least forgive - and move on. If we didn't do that, then we would be both highly hypocritical and probably extremely lonely, because everyone is allowed to stuff up. Give some latitude, receive some latitude - it usually all comes out somewhere down the line on the plus side of the ledger rather than the minus.

But sometimes there is a point where it's actually unhealthy to just keep saying 'It's OK. I know you didn't mean to do that - and you have apologised, so let's just move on'. Because either the action was intended, and therefore the apology is simply dust in the mouth; or by accepting said sorries over and over for various actions, one ends up enabling behaviours that should never have happened in the first place. 

Or sometimes... sometimes there isn't even an apology.

This may sound like a very serious and un-shoe like post, and yes it absolutely is. But when you realise that through allowing too much benefit of the doubt you are actively hurting yourself emotionally, then something has to give. And I think that it's important to admit that and not bottle it up. Because for me, that's when I start getting mean and that ain't pretty. Think Linda Hamilton in Terminator Two (but with better shoes) and you probably get the picture.

The Ice Queen Cometh.

Almost without exception, when I write a personal post like this, I get phone calls or messages from those close to me saying 'are you OK?' - and normally I say 'yes, you're reading too much into it - I'm just expressing what everyone thinks, but doesn't necessarily put into words'. But this time; well, this time it is about me. And it's not OK. I am angry, and fed up, and tired. I try to live by the maxim of 'give more than you take' - but sometimes people run with it a bit too far, and take without giving anything back.

Like James Reyne, who for once was intelligible when he was singing, I don't like that kind of behaviour.

So don't be so reckless.

Because it will not make me throw down my guns.

It will make me pick up my pen - which is, as we all know, mightier than any sword.

Or semi-automatic.

And you will well and truly learn where I stand.

All That Is True

““I paint things as they are. I don’t comment.””

— Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec

I was at the NGA yesterday with the Dread's delightful parents (yes pirates have parents - where do you think they come from - treasure chests?) Anyway, the work of the above-quoted artist is currently on special exhibit there, which is wonderful for the NGA and for Canberra, particularly in her big birthday year.

Toulouse-Lautrec has been one of my favourite artists ever since I chose him as my particular study way, way back in my HSC - or the year 637 B.C. (Before Choos).

Incredibly (and ridiculously) ambitiously at the age of 16, I chose to reproduce one of his most well-known works - that of La Goulue (The Glutton) on stage at the Moulin Rouge - what is essentially a poster, which along with his images of Aristide Bruant are what come to mind when people think of T-L.

And I didn't do a bad job. For a 16 year old school girl who is not and never will be Toulouse-Lautrec, or any other great artist (although I will try absinthe any old time if pressed), it was a bloody great job.

But for me his work has never been about the Eldorado cabaret posters of Bruant, or the cynical twisted grin of Mlle Weber as she enters a restaurant on the arm of her sister. It has always been about his fascination with the demi-monde and his - and I mean this - respect for the girls who made their living sleeping with men for money.

Walking around the exhibition, I saw so much tenderness in his paintings and sketches and lithographs of those from a sphere of society totally removed from his own aristocratic upbringing. His studies give a dignity to these women - but also don't pull any fairytale happy ending punches - about the end state of the life of a prostitute.

I love that he could see the beauty in these broken women. That he found a way to show their humanity in an age when they were treated as no more than pieces of meat. And as they aged, like Mlle Lucy Jourdan sitting at Le Rat Mort, out they went, to be replaced with the fresher and younger and newer.

It'd be nice to say things have changed Henri.

But your sketch pad - or more likely your Nikon, or LifeFrame - would still find plenty of material in 2013. Of a first world and third world variety.

What I am grateful for is that I know you could find the beauty in the subject still. What I would be more grateful for is if the subjects didn't have to exist - or perhaps subsist - to be there for you to capture.

But that I know is a pipedream. So I shall just have to be grateful that things are better than they once were, and keep striving for change. And put up my prints of Henri's sketches on my walls, and feel gratitude for his compassion. And his wisdom. Because with the quote below, in any age, boy he hit the nail on la tête.

““Love is when the desire to be desired takes you so badly that you feel you could die of it.”
”

C'est vrai. And I am grateful for that too.

One Man's Trash Is Another Woman's Treasure

““I’ll bet this, though: in a hundred years, people will be writing a lot more dissertations on Harry Potter than on John Updike. Look, Charles Dickens wrote popular fiction; so did Shakespeare - until he wrote his sonnets, desperate to show the literati of his day that he was a real artist. The core of the problem is how we want to define “literature”. The Latin root simply means “letters”. Those letters are either delivered—they connect with an audience—or they don’t.””

— Brent Weeks

I love books. Looooooooooove them. I don't just love reading them; I love their physical smell, feel and touch. Admittedly most of my reading tends to be done on an iPad now, but if you think this means I don't purchase the hard copies of the books as well - think again.

What the iThingy does allow me to do is indulge my very guilty pleasure. And it is a pleasure. And it makes me feel a little bit guilty, much like eating an Elegant Rabbit before Easter makes you feel guilty (don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about fellow chocoholics).

It lets me buy really, really trashy books without paying a fortune for them. Because I have to tell you, the thought of paying $30.00 for 'Penelope (A Madcap Regency Romance)' makes me feel a little bit as though I've eaten not just an Elegant Rabbit, but said bunny and the whole of Beatrix Potter's menagerie in cacao-bean covered form.

Rather ill.

Why? Because, dear reader, it is predictable, fluffy, turn brain off at the door baloney that means one thing;

I don't have to think.

I can simply let the words wash over me and know that in the end the slightly ditsy/clumsy/plain/poor yet intelligent and feisty heroine will end up with the stern/remote/emotionally damaged yet still ridiculously handsome and rich (and titled) hero. The End. And if I fall sleeps and miss a chapter or two because my iDooby flicks through, I won't even notice.

Yay.

This means two things.

One, I give my brain a nice warm bubble bath of froth and silliness - a proper break from concentrating on the real world on a regular basis. And two, when I do read something worthwhile and incredibly well-written and challenging, I appreciate it all the more. For example - even though at the moment I think the British public has a fatwa out on her for maligning the Duchess of Cambridge (context people) - Hillary Mantel's Bring Up The Bodies was unputdownable. Just like Wolf Hall.

So give your grey matter a bit of a break, and indulge in some idiocy with your reading material. There is nothing wrong with some heaving bosoms and tight britchery - but for heaven's sake, don't stay in that world full time.

You'll get a toothache in the brain.

And may well start saying 'la, Sir' and smacking people with a fan when they tell you that you look nice...

Ahem.

Wax On, Wax Off

““I’ve never been certain whether the moral of the Icarus story should only be, as is generally accepted, ‘don’t try to fly too high,’ or whether it might also be thought of as ‘forget the wax and feathers, and do a better job on the wings.” ”

— Stanley Kubrick

I don't know about you, but I dream about flying all the time. I love it. And I can tell when I am close to waking up because my 'flights' turn into a strange kind of bunny hopping where I don't achieve much height and can only get off the ground for about ten seconds at a time; and the more I drift towards consciousness the shallower the jumps become.

Dammnit.

But when I am truly sleeps - then I am soaring over power lines, zipping around the sky, having a total blast. It's the ultimate freedom. Possibly, much like birds, I should be looking out for passing A380s, but in dreams they tend not to be a feature - it's all swooping and soaring and not so much being sucked into jet engines.

I sometimes wonder what would have happened with old Daedalus and the luckless Icarus if the latter hadn't got a bit too big for his feathers. Would the course of aviation history have moved up a good two millennium or so? Or did they even really exist - and if they were real people, did their wings do anything other than look like big flappy things which would have been ace Mardi Gras accoutrements? 

I may be naive, or simply a believer in the improbable, but I like to think that young Icarus was (obviously before he went splat) on the right track. You know why? A couple of reasons. One, he was willing to try something radical; and two, he was massively grateful that the the only person his father wanted involved in this project was him. So many parents would say 'don't - you'll always be here. This is my project, not yours, so naff off and leave me to it.'

Hubris may have gotten the better of I&D Industrial Aerospace, but if you are lucky enough to have awesome parents - or family members - who you engage with on a personal and professional level, don't ever, ever underestimate the value of their brains and their passion for what they do. If they let you in, be in.

And if they make you a set of fairy wings?

Wow. Never, ever stop being grateful.

And don't fly too close to the outdoor gas heaters.

Not Waving, But Drowning

“Inigo Montoya: I donna suppose you could speed things up?
Man in Black: If you’re in such a hurry, you could lower a rope or a tree branch or find something useful to do.
Inigo Montoya: I could do that. I have some rope up here, but I do not think you would accept my help, since I am only waiting around to kill you.
Man in Black: That does put a damper on our relationship. ”

— The Princess Bride

This may seem initially like a very depressing post, and nothing at all to do with gratitude, or even shoes for that matter (and when shoes aren't helping it means it's a bloody great beast of a black dog kind of day). And you would be right in some ways. It isn't a happy, marshmallow-filled, fluffy bunny kind of entry. But that's OK. Because sometimes, life just isn't like that - which is one of the reasons why I write about shoes some of the time (see Heel Thyself for background on that one).

I have been having what I tend to term a Long Dark Teatime of The Soul, or as I also call it, A Need To Give Myself A Good Slap Around The Head And Sort Myself Out. I am aware that the latter is not a technical psychiatric or psychological term, and quite possibly is actually frowned upon in said circles, but it tends to work for me most of the time. And one of the ways I deliver said Slap is to write down what is wrong - and also what is right. Having now done that, things are seeming to make a lot more sense.

Nobody can be happy one hundred percent of the time. That would make them robots. But sometimes - well, sometimes the happiness quotient slips below the acceptable mark to a point where it's hard to get the energy to come back to the median point on the table. And this is where the Slap is so important - and also hard to deliver when one is physically and emotionally tired.

Please be aware that I don't go around physically hitting myself in the head - I may be depressed but I am not masochistic (those who have witnessed me wearing shoes that are vastly uncomfortable but incredibly gorgeous please hold their tongues. Oh - I just mentioned shoes - see, writing things down does help!).

What I am talking about with the Slap is recognising that something is wrong; that you are perhaps caught in the UnderToad of Life and are being swept out from the shore. That the frantic hand gestures are not a sign of buggerising around in the waves and having a good time but are actually a gesture for help.

This is where the gratitude comes in. And it takes two forms.

I am grateful that I have incredible people around me who both are close enough and intuitive enough to recognise when I am in fact flailing and coughing up salt water. They are supportive and empathetic without being sooky-la-la (which they know I can't stand above all else) and they reach out to grab me without my having to reach for them first. They are all incredibly busy people - some in massively stressful situations or even outright dangerous occupations - but they support me, and in the right way. And secondly - I am grateful to myself. Which sounds supremely egotistical I know; but once upon a time I would not have had the strength to admit I was going under the water; and would instead have just let it take me out to sea and ended up who knows where for who knows how long.

So you see, this is about gratitude. As it turned out, it was also a little bit about shoes.

Mostly though, it's about not going under.

Because the School of the Slap doesn't believe in that.

I Shall Not Want What I Can Not Have

““Sometimes you don’t even know what you want until you find out you can’t have it.””

— Meghan O'Rourke, The Long Goodbye, A Memoir

There are times in life when we have to face up to some basic home truths. They may be tiny; they may be life changing. They may smack us in the face abruptly or creep up on us with the stealthiness of a thief in the night. It could be something as simple as 'don't have two short macchiatos at ten o'clock at night, because then you will end up writing your blog at one o'clock in the morning' - or as complicated as 'if you enter into X transaction with X person you will get burnt for X number of years'.

The point is, when they hit you, they hit you. And unless you take notice, you never learn your lesson. The reason for the saying 'it's all just a little bit of history repeating' is because we are stubborn creatures who refuse to listen to our own brains yelling 'you idiot, sharks patrol these waters... watch out or next thing you know, you'll be off the surfboard and a tasty treat!'

It's the same with the things in life we want and can't have - sometimes can't have immediately, sometimes can't have at all. I don't know about you, but when I want something, I want it. Any delay, and I want it even more. I know it's human nature, but it shocks me sometimes. There is no rational thought behind it; it is a primal urge that propels me towards whatever is in my line of sight like a missile zeroing in on its target.

And I don't necessarily mean material things (although admittedly when it comes to shoes, get in my way and it will be ugly as hell - for you I mean. Not for me, because I will be wearing beautiful new shoes). It could be something as simple as wanting personal space, or sleeps, or as complex as wanting an emotional investment returned.

What has this to do with gratitude? It's a bit roundabout, but I'm getting there.

I am grateful that gradually, I am learning something about wanting what I can't have. And whilst it hurts to admit it, like the whole home truths scenario, the fact of the matter is this.

Sometimes, even though we may desire them with every fibre in our being, things that we want, but can't immediately have - or can't have at all - aren't meant to happen for a reason. It's because they aren't good for us. A bit like eating chocolate cupcakes for breakfast five days in a row, trying to invite things into our lives which we desire to be there - but ultimately don't belong there - end up in only one way.

With a feeling of afterburn in the region of the heart.

And because chocolate cupcakes don't come cheap these days (and neither do new shoes) - an empty wallet.

So be grateful that you don't always get what you can't have.

It may save a serious case of indigestion, if nothing else.

Heel Thyself

““I like Cinderella, I really do. She has a good work ethic. I appreciate a good, hard-working gal. And she likes shoes. The fairy tale is all about the shoe at the end, and I’m a big shoe girl.”

”

— Amy Adams

I was talking to someone the other day about this blog and they said to me 'I really like what you write - the whole gratitude thingy, it's lovely. It makes such a difference to my day - you should feel really good about it'. I was just feeling all warm and fuzzy (and perhaps a little teary, because well, it had been a bad day), and was about to thank them, when they put their hand on my arm and shook their head at me.

'You do ruin it all though of course'.

Huh?

'It's all that stuff about shoes. It's so trivial and shallow. You should only be writing about meaningful issues. Otherwise, well, nobody's ever going to take you seriously. OK, bye!'

And they were gone, like a well-intentioned air to surface missile which had completed its mission and could knock off for afternoon tea.

Said target of the strike stood there dumbfounded for a minute or two. And then realised something.

I like writing about shoes. If I didn't write about shoes, I wouldn't be able to write about anything more meaningful, because it is the trivial and shallow pretty bits of life that carry me through the sookypuss parts, and let me get on with being grateful.

Shoes are spectacular. They are an instant mood-lifter. Feel craptacular? Throw on a pair of black suede stilettos. Bam. Suddenly the sun is shining - even if just a little bit. Throw in a little black dress and the world is your oyster.

Something about a pair of stunning shoes makes me feel mysterious and alluring. Sometimes it makes the difference between me being able to go forth with confidence into a room full of strangers - or not. And they don't have to be high; they just have to be gorgeous. And much as I might tout that 'one must suffer to be beautiful', they also have to be comfortable.

Shoes are a little piece of heaven wrapped up in tissue paper and individual cloth bags. And I love them. From a purely logical perspective, there is no point to them other than to keep my feet from freezing. Do they love me back? Hell no. They are pieces of dead animal and slithers of satin and lace. I'm besotted, not insane. Are they a good investment? Only if leather suddenly becomes a viable building material (NB: check out leather as a viable building material). But that's not the point.

The point is, shoes are seriously fabulous.

And I will write about them.

Because otherwise I might hurt their feelings, and next time I wear my favourite nude patent Mary-Janes, I might get a blister.

And cue the insanity.

The Katrina Monologues

““Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.”
”

— Margaret Millar

To get it out of the way - yes, my real name is Katrina. Feel free to use it.

Once.

And now, moving on:

One of the best things about writing a blog is very simple.

It's a chance to talk without anyone interrupting.

I know, I know - that's incredibly selfish. But when it comes down to it, the chance to have a captive audience is incredibly rare. So even if only one person reads said blog, as they are scanning my words on the page - or on the screen - it means that for a moment in time, someone is paying complete attention to what I have to say.

Fabulous!

I try very hard to listen to my friends, and make sure that what they are expressing is not going in one ear and out the other. What they are feeling is important. What they are saying should never be discounted; and let's face it, the art of active listening is rapidly losing traction in the Age of Apathy. But come on - who doesn't love the opportunity to express their opinions about life, the universe and everything without interruption?

It's also mentally a very soothing thing to do. It allows at least a part of your psyche to relax a little - well, that's what it does for me anyway. It means I can do a re-file of my thoughts and let some fresh air in, and usually gives me a little bit of clarity to start my day with.

I am immensely grateful for the ability to string words into some semblance of prose. To be able to speak to people in a way that resonates - not perhaps on a very grand level, but on a level that connects just the same.

And I am even more grateful that I get to do it without anyone interrupting me.

Because to enjoy one's own conversation may make us selfish - but it also makes us human.

And I defy anyone to say that they don't love the sound of their own voice...

Ain't That A Kick In The Head?

““Love is a universal migraine/A bright stain on the vision/Blotting out reason.””

— Robert Graves

There is something about a migraine which is almost impossible to explain to a non-migraine sufferer, apart from the tremendous and overwhelming desire to hit them with a mallet when they call what is happening to you a 'headache'. That part's pretty easy to explain; you pick up a mallet, swing it somewhere damaging, and say sweetly 'it's not a headache'.

Because it is not a headache.

Headaches are what happen when you sleep badly, or you have a few too many glasses of the good stuff.

Migraines, on the other hand, are a foul breath from the innermost regions of Hell sent forth to torment those who dared to presume that the last one was, in fact, hopefully, the last one.

I used to get migraines 3 or 4 times a week. I now cannot understand nor fathom how on earth I stayed upright most of the time, let alone relatively sane. Because I only get them occasionally now thanks to the power of modern medicine and they just about rip me to bits.

It's as if, in a full blow doozy, there is a Hieronymous Bosch painting in my head such as The Garden of Earthly Delights  with everyone invited to stomp on my skull - in other words, a complete and utter Barry Crocker. Flashing lights, amplified sound, throbbing head.

If I wanted all of the above, I could just go out to a dodgy nightclub. With the added bonus of a. alcohol, b. men to look at and c. nasty outfits to be nasty about.

But no. I need to have a full on rave in my own skull. And it seems the entirety of Hell's Angels of Australia decided to attend. And thus - out comes the painkillers.

Painkillers are in theory, a great idea. They kill pain by definition. In reality, they make you talk to invisible people and quite possibly see dead people (if you are anything like me, and I guarantee you I am not alone here). Woozy, drowsy and slurry. Again, it seems someone has passed the tequila my way too many times.

But no. And herein, for me, lies the rub.

Take mild painkiller - nuthin'. Take strong painkiller - result. But then I can't function for 24 hours.

So I have a genuine query for migraine sufferers out there (and unlike some of my more exotic health issues, this is being a sufferer, not a survivor) - what on earth do you do to get them to SOD OFF AND LEAVE YOU ALONE?

All answers welcomed.

There may even be a prize. Not a good one, but still - free stuff is free stuff.

Now I must go. I am getting a headache from staring at the screen. And I emphasise headache, not migraine. This time you are safe from the mallet.

But be warned.

I have itchy swinging fingers.

Terms Of Endearment

““You don’t write because you want to say something, you write because you have something to say.””

— F. Scott Fitzgerald

I was writing an e-mail last night, and for some reason the way I had started it made me stop and think about the words we use when we are blathering on the page to our close friends and loved ones.

For example, I have a very bad habit of giving people strange nicknames, which they then for the life of them can't shake (enter the Panda and Dread P). Someone I think even described me as a 'nickname virus', which sounds vaguely unhealthy, but I hope was intended to say that when I give someone a nickname, that's it - they have no hope of ever getting rid of it.

Great. I am the equivalent of an STD for pseudonyms.

Hee hee.

Seriously though, the language of like and love is something that I feel very grateful for. I like expressing how I feel in words about those who matter to me. I like very much the fact that they express the way they feel in return - but I don't expect the return. For a reason.

It's as simple as writing to someone 'you are gorgeous', because they are. Using affectionate expressions is something many of us seem to be afraid of, because there is a chance we will be rebuffed in the return of call. But unless you express, you'll never know.

If you think someone looked beautiful, tell them. If someone made you happy, tell them that. If someone needs to know you care, for goodness' sake tell them. And don't go into it with expectation of acknowledgement, or because you think you should be saying something for the sake of it; if you do, then you are doing it for self gratification, not because you truly want to make someone happy.

I am massively grateful every time someone I love takes the time to write a word or two of sincere and expressive emotion. It's not gush or guff; it means they simply had to get onto the page - or the screen - that they were thinking of me at that moment in time.

Terms of endearment. They may not be conventional ones, like 'darling' or 'sweetheart'. They don't have to be between lovers. They are simply words that need to be put on a page because not to would be a disservice.

If anyone ever calls me 'nice' however...

That I would not be grateful for. And terms of abuse may become de rigueur instead...

Fashion Rhymes With - Rugby?

““Girls do not dress for boys. They dress for themselves and, of course, each other. If girls dressed for boys they’d just walk around naked at all times.””

— Betsey Johnson

Yesterday, whilst a lot of hard work, meant combining two of my favourite things.

Footy and frocks.

When I say footy, I mean of course the Great Game - Rrrrrrrugby Union. And by frocks, I mean playing dress-ups with my wonderful Hurricane Henry.

A lot of people can't understand how I can love fashion and sport in equal proportions. Well, it's quite simple; whilst I love playing in the Wardrobe of Life, there is so much pleasure to be had in watching a really impressive try, or for that matter a great game of cricket or AFL - or netball, or a superb drive from the Jensonator in F1... and why should I have to choose between Marchesa and a maul? There's room for both in my brain.

It's hard to explain in some ways; suffice to say I feel the same letdown in the pit of my stomach when Net-A-Porter sells out of the one item I have earmarked as 'gettable' when it's on sale that I do when the Waratahs royally stuff up a potentially very winnable game (no names mentioned - oh wait, Israel Folau).

Girls like sport. They also like dressing up. Why do boys get surprised by the former, but not the latter? And I am not talking about 'oh he's gorrrrrrgeous so I'll watch this' liking sport; I am talking about loving the game, the tactics, the actual play. Because quite frankly I would rather eat my own hair than think about the dudes who play the sports I love (notable exceptions perpetual crushes Carlos Spencer and my husband to be, Jenson Button).

Women do understand sport. We do enjoy it. We like commenting on it. But many people (read: men) still think it's weird if we start in on what we think of Australia's chances in the Ashes (bugger all) or why Collingwood are finally going to lose the preliminary final curse and be holding the Premiership Flag this year (I dreamed a dream).

Yet if we talk about shoes... eyes roll back in heads, auto-yawn commences. So treat those of us who love the game as a precious commodity, lads.

As the Dread commented to me recently, my dream job would be designing the jerseys for the Wallabies - and getting to yell at them for the state of the team as I am doing the fittings. Assistant Coach (Design and Back Line Tactical Play).

Hmmmmmmmm.

As for my quote - well, we all know this to be true. It's probably the one point of this post that nobody would argue with.

Just remember - sport and style can meet halfway. Even on the halfway line in fact.

Now, about the Tahs...