Sometimes, when you’re sitting in an exam room while the kids finish their tests, ideas pop into your head to help pass the time. Sometimes I do a bit of work, other times I divide the students into which Hogwarts house they would belong to. On other occasions, I write a little poetry. Well, admittedly it is mostly doggerel, but occasionally a lucid idea occurs.
For what follows I can only apologies to Andrew Marvell, and thank him for his groundwork, which I encourage you to read.
Had I world enough, and time,
I’d teach kids poetry, not rhymes.
I would sit down and find a way
To show them all man has to say,
To show them all the very best
Of human thought, in verse expressed;
For each and all to see and hear:
Joy and grief and pain and fear.
There is much verse that I could use
To show that life is quite old news.
My smattering of texts would grow
Vaster than empires, there is much to show.
For wit and humour I’d include
Verse that’s fun but sometimes rude –
A.A Milne’s innocence I would mash
With that brash Yankee Ogden Nash;
Maya Angelou is there to start
A fire burning in your heart;
Romantics to show that beauty transcends
The desperation of dull days end;
Larkin and Auden to demonstrate
The beauty and art found in the sedate.
But at my back I always hear,
Time’s winged chariot hurrying near.
I worry that there is no time
To delve any deeper than the rhymes.
And yonder all before me lies
A sea of desperate, pleading eyes;
These souls consider Shakespeare dull
And Eliot would make eyes roll,
Tales of opium, Keats and love
Would merely make their shoulders shrug.
Now I believe while youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires
Is just the time to be immersed
In realms of literature and verse
Which boil the blood and flood the heart
And drive us in to worlds apart
From commonplace and everyday
And people with not much to say.
With such possibility my heart explodes
But then decays and fast erodes
Because in the room I can’t compete
With pro-skating YouTube on repeat.
I’ve been involved in enough share-houses to know that they involve constantly evolving relationships, and by and large just figuring out what will work. Fortunately for me (and I hope my friends would agree) all my share housing experiences have been really positive and I’m still pretty much besties with all my ex-housemates.
Hopefully my journey with PezDog Millionaire will end the same way. In the mean time, here is a small overview of the journey.
Pre House-mate phase involved many meals of nachos or burritos paired with occasional MKR and Home and Away viewing sessions.
Then of course, PezDog moves into the “nursery” in my new house. So called because it has what is clearly a baby motif running through it, with baby blue, and check and cream combinations. Its not as ghastly as I just made it sound – it is actually a rather cute room. This whole baby joke becomes creepily insightful when she gets sick and I have to ferry her medicine and check she is still breathing.
not THE actual nursery, but certainly in the ball park colour wise.
Last week we rocked up to coffee with some colleagues, her with pillows and packed bags in tow ready for a weekend away. Much “hilarity” ensued with countless rounds of “she’s kicked me out, I’m homeless”. So we’ve been through our ‘faux-failed relationship’ phase.
This afternoon PezDog arrives home from her life as Dance Coach Extraordinaire, and finds me constructing a new fence for Clancy, because I’ve decided he needs to become an outside dog. “Jeez – I can tell you’re definitely the man in this relationship” she exclaims.
Well, I do like football and beer, but not everything has to be about gender-roles. Actually, I’m just the idiot who got a dog that pees constantly and chews things. Someone asked me yesterday if I thought I would ever have children. Children?? I can’t even handle a puppy.
This dog is nowhere near as helpful as he pretends to be in the photo. He is, however, every bit as adorable.
For someone struggling with reading anything more extended than my iMessage stream in the past 24 months, the fact that I’ve sat down over the weekend and read a book – a whole book! – is somewhat of an amazement to me.
The book in question is Eugenia by Australian author/legal professional Mark Tedeschi QC (as you will see from his website, he is also an accomplished photographer). It tells the story of Eugenia Falleni, who achieved some level of fame and indeed notoriety in 1920 when it was very publicly discovered that she had lived her life as Harry Crawford, a man, for something like 20 years. In this time Harry worked in a series of physically demanding jobs and managed to marry – twice. With the support of almost noone, but the cautious loyalty of a very few family connections, including his daughter, Harry was able to maintain the charade.
Eventually, a series of events led to the discovery of his secret by his first wife. Such a discovery would (understandably) irreversibly alter their marriage and Harry’s wife Annie eventually came up with a scenario that would allow for the annullment of the marriage without having to reveal Harry’s secret to anyone who did not already know. Whether life could ever return to some version of normal for Harry or Annie is unknown – her death on a picnic, and the subsequent arrest of Harry (after he had re-married) destroyed whatever normal either of them might find.
Tedeschi’s book offers a detailed and informed exploration of Harry’s childhood, his detachment from the body he was born in and his desperation to escape life as a woman. His is a sensitive, narrative account of a troubled life, and a tumultuous legal scenario. Even from our 21st Century perspective as readers, issues of sexuality and gender identity are complex, but as a society now we are undoubtedly more sympathetic and more likely to try and understand the predicament of someone like Harry. Tedeschi realises this and his narrative is sympathetic. He offers insight into what might have animated and motivated Harry, his likely emotions and desires as well as the daily frustration he must have felt. After all, in his life as Harry he had achieved almost all the freedom he craved, except for the freedom from the fear of discovery, not to mention the isolation and loneliness that must surely come from the knowledge that even in living the life that is most natural to you, where you very genuinely love the other person in your life, that there is at its basis a deception.
The public discovery of this deception is difficult for Harry, but it arises largely as a complication of the legal situation surrounding his wife’s death. The book covers Harry’s trial for the murder of Annie, and at this point – his identify revealed, he is forced to once again be Eugenia. At no point is she charged with the sexual deception or the fraudulent marriage (though these things undoubtedly plague public perceptions of her sanity and integrity). Instead, the issue is one of whether or not she is guilty of murder. Tedeschi explores the legal scenario, the shortcomings in aspects of the trial as well as providing important contrast between the legal system today and that of 1920.
The complex legal, moral, emotional and social questions which coexist in a case such as this, do just that in this book – they co-exist. Sympathy for someone living the difficult life of Harry is doesn’t dismiss the possibility of some legal case being answerable. Equally important, however, is that we never get bogged down in the issue of well, did he do it, or didn’t he? This is a case much more complicated than that. What this book does do tremendously well is demonstrate the many ways in which anyone is possibly vulnerable when involved in the legal system – particularly when it comes to equity and procedural fairness.
I must confess that by the end of this book I had become a little teary. It’s a tale of great personal courage. Had Eugenia Falleni been born today perhaps the complicated life she found herself living might have been more broadly accepted, and perhaps the need for a series of deceptions may not have been present. This certainly would have curtailed much tragedy and heartache for many people – herself, her family, her wife. Reading this book I am both grateful for the progress we have made as a society in issues of understanding, but aware of the distance still to go in achieving acceptance and fairness for all people in life.
Well, not sold a pup as such, but things are not as they seem.
I thought I was moving in with Pezdog Millionaire – PE teacher, dance coach and bongo-player extraordinaire. Now, I am not so sure. I think there might be more to the story. Let us examine:
Pezdog moves to town and it rains. In fact my first sight of her is of the family drowning in a torrential downpour in the main street changing a tyre on their car. Yes. I was that awful person that assumed someone else was helping them. Not so. Pezdog and PezMum and PezDad were just all a bit soggy and 700km from home.
The aforementioned downpour was part of a meteorological event that led to days of flooding and several surrounding towns being cut off.
Today these things happened: the dishwasher flooded, the toilet was a centimetre from overflowing, the bathroom drains clogged up and Clancy went all Jesus and tried to walk on water (well, across the top of the swimming pool cover). I very nearly fell in myself while trying to coax him off.
There were tears at the end of a hectic day full of sport and work and sickness.
In conclusion: I need a plumber and appear to have moved in with Poseidon. Or Neptune.
Which of these is my new housemate? Even I can’t tell.
In all honestly though, it must be said that Pezseidon, Peztune, or PoseiDog, or whoever she is, was far more alert to ALL of these problems than I was and convinced me that something really ought to be done about it. So, we’re all about the future and options and hanging on for a brighter tomorrow. Cue music.
For the next 8 weeks I am sharing my house with a friend. Who knows how this will go, but we have decided to document our journey.
Pezdog Millionaire has been here for a day. We are both still alive and so I can only conclude we have made a positive start in this venture. She is more focussed on her health than I appear to be: I ate bread for dinner, and she had chicken and veges. Hers did look very nice, so there might be something in it. I am going to do Lite n’ Easy – because I want other people to focus on my health. On the other hand, she is currently forcing her way through a cup of green tea, which she has been led to believe will speed up her metabolism. She’s not very domestic – I had to guide her through brewing it. Yes, you do have to jiggle the bag about. Apparently the tea smells like Clancy fart (my dog), and tastes like dirty dishwater. “There’s nothing someone could enjoy about that Hannah. How could someone sit there and think that’s nice.” So thinking about this health business, you’ve got to ask yourself “but at what cost”?.
Many years ago, Australia held a little event known as the Olympic Games, perhaps you’ve heard of it? It was an exciting time for a nation which if not wholly populated with sports enthusiasts, certainly has enough to go around. But even if you don’t love sport, it’s easy to love the Olympics (Olympic broadcasting, as the recent channel 9 effort London has shown us, is a quite separate and unworthy thing.)
a quick history of the Olympics through the eyes of Horrible Histories. Love it.
Why love the Olympics if you don’t like sport? It’s practically better than any soap opera – desperation, dedication, loss, triumph, scandal, thousands upon thousands of really fit, attractive people wearing very tight clothing. There is truly something for everyone here. And if that isn’t enough for you, then yes, I’m going to do it, I’m going to invoke the big H. Humanity. Isn’t there just something pretty awesome about all the times you see a crowd cheer on the guy that is getting lapped, or athletes help up the others who trip over? Or Eric the Eel, from Equatorial Guinea made his Olympic debut in the swimming pool at home bush at the same movement he swam in a pool for the very first time. Crowds loved it, and sitting at home we loved it. Here was someone slightly more like us (though still depressingly quicker through water than anyone in my family) having a go, attempting something that they could be proud of, that their country could be proud of.
One of the things my family and I enjoyed watching the most, was actually a side piece of broadcasting – Roy and HG’s The Dream. It was irreverent, comical, thematically appropriate and had us in fits of laughter night after night. We even got the VHS after the Olympics to relive the magic, and I’m sure that if I could actually find a VHS player to watch them on, I would still laugh.
Why do I bring this up?? Well, my favourite joke from the whole show, the whole Olympics was when New Zealand (struggling in the medal tally) finally won a gold medal. It was in the rowing, and Roy and HG had us all in stitches about how the only thing New Zealand was any good at was “sitting down and going backwards.” Admittedly probably not as funny without the century long rivalry with our trans-Tasman neighbour, and a comedic but still underlying lay genuine rivalry over which country was self-evidently better, and which was a nation of sheep-shaggers. I’m sure many people (watching The Dream in Australia) liked to look on this one golden sporting achievement of the New Zealand rowing team as some sort of grand, metaphorical contribution to the national identity debate. Well, Australia – you just got owned.
Yesterday, when I was browsing the interwebs I came across a delightful piece from New Zealand, who are much in the news internationally of late, owing to their parliament having shown some strong leadership and passed a marriage equality bill, allowing same-sex couples to marry.
This speech by Maurice Williamson during the debate on the bill is superb. It pretty much sums up how I feel, buts expressed much more effectively, efficiently – not to mention humorously – than I could ever hope to. It shows that there is still some compassion, common sense and humour alive in politics today. 13 years ago, it was a source of some hilarity to think of New Zealand as sitting down, going backwards. However, it seems there are any number of issues on which we could look to our neighbours for inspiration and guidance, including this issue. So, to all Australian politicians, I would say get off your arse. Especially those of you who campaigned an entire election 3 years ago with the promise to keep the nation “moving forward.” Time to do something human, compassionate that your country can be proud of. Or else maybe everyone will move to New Zealand. Afterall, they have marriage equality and Hobbits. And all we got is the prospect of a nation to be led by Tony Abbott. It’s a no-brainer.
One of the key messages of driver safety is not to drive tired. When you are fatigued and at the wheel you are prone to all sorts of distraction that could have a really disastrous outcome for yourself and for others. It wasn’t until this afternoon, however, that I learned that risks apply, even when your vehicle is stationary. I had to drive to the nearby ‘city’ this afternoon, but I was so wrecked, so I rather sensibly (or so I thought) had a sleep before I went. “Well done”, I thought to myself. “you will be fresh for the journey.” Really I was just a little soporific even when I woke up and absent-mindedly I put my iPod down on top of the cup holder, then flipped the cupholder lid up. Down slid my ipod, into some netherworld of between immovable bits of plastic. And I hadn’t even left the driveway yet.
So what’s the big deal? Well, no big deal, but come on, my iPod, and therefore my blissfully portable collection of tunes is now buried alive in my Mazda’s interior. This is not tragic, but it is frustrating and bothersome. There is the long term problem of how to retrieve it, but there was a more pressing problem. What was I going to listen to while driving to Wagga. I’ve discussed previously how boring that stretch of the Sturt Highway is and my usual cure for this is to listen to musicals. (Yes, I know.) But they’re catchy and have plot. So its like listening to an audio book you can sing to. But would I be able to rely on the musical strategy sans iPod, and the extensive collection it contains?
Ethel Merman in Annie Get Your Gun. I simply wasn’t dressed for the part
I tried my emergency CD collection. All I had was Annie Get Your Gun, the original cast recording with Ethel Merman. I love it and hate it all at once. It’s so….exactly what it should be given when it was written. I shouldn’t be too critical though, I obviously do enjoy it, or I wouldn’t keep it in my car for such emergency situations. And besides, you can learn many great life lessons from it such as:
you can’t get a man with a gun
a man may be hot, but he’s not when he’s shot
men don’t buy pyjamas for pistol packing mammas.
anything you can do, I can do better. (this last one I have taken particularly to heart)
On the way over I had to listen to Annie Get Your Gun twice, so I was starting to get desperate for the way back. I would try my emergency iPhone playlist. Only its mostly study music and music I can work to. So no plot to speak of, however I did find one single, solitary show. Pal Joey by Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart. The recording I have is from the 80s and features Denis Lawson (a supremely attractive man and ever perfect in everything he does, especially the BBC adaptation of Bleak House) and Sian Phillips (brilliant, she pops up in everything -best of all I, Claudius – and awesomely used to be married to a) Peter O’Toole and b) the guy that plays Ethan Rayne in Buffy).
I rest my case
I don’t know about Pal Joey, there are some catchy songs. Do it The Hard Way (and it’s easy sailing) is a worthy personal mantra and that counts for a lot, but for the most part I find it frustrating when all the words just rhyme with themselves. Sondheim just knocks your patience for that shit right out of you.
That said, it too has some excellent redeeming features:
the line “English people don’t say clerk they say clark / anyone who says clark is a jark”
Bewtiched, Bothered and Bewildered. OH MY GOD – that song, as sung by character Vera Simpson – show stopper. And maybe a little bit unexpected given its raw honesty, exploring the sexuality of a character type not frequently allowed to have sexual thoughts (at least in 1940 when the show was written) – the middle aged woman. Vera Simpson knew what she was doing a long time before Courteney whoever it was was polluting our screens in Cougar Town. Unexpected perhaps, because it written and performed on stage smack bang in the middle of the same era when films made in the same country had the pants edited out of them under the Hays Code. God forbid there be anything remotely indecorous in entertainment. But the stage is always more open to these things.
Anyhoo, what a lot of ramble about really not that much.
Here is (the eternally gorgeous, but frequently badly photographed) Stockard Channing singing Bewitched, Bothered and Bewildered – its not a great recording but her voice is husky and perfect (like Sian Phillips) and it does preserve the lyrics of the stage show, rather than the somewhat sanitised version that is an excellent stand alone, non plot-based song.
That said, if you do want to see a fabulous other version, then Rufus Wainwright is the way to go. No question.
One thing I will say for both Annie Get Your Gun and Pal Joey is that they are both biographical musicals, and despite some reservations about each of them, I would take them any day over pop music biographies (except the Boy From Oz, which I love, because I love Peter Allen) and their shitty, made to fit plot around a loose selection of songs that are apparently representative. Dear god people, you want to write a musical? write some songs. /end rant.
Not being a parent, I have to rely on observations and anecdotal evidence for my knowledge of the ins and outs of raising a child. I say this as a sort of precursor/disclaimer to any and all sweeping generalisations that I might be about to make.
For instance. I understand that children undergo certain phases. One is the NO phase, which seems fairly self evident. Another is the WHY phase. This one I remember from younger family members and really, it very nearly killed me. In hindsight, I suspect that this has more to do with my generally unyielding confidence in my own knowledge/opinion (especially between the ages of 5 and 20), than it does anything to do with curious children being inherently evil.
Another of the developmental “phases” I have observed is the toilet phase, and this is where anecdotes come in. Apparently when my younger sister was born, one of the significant impacts this had on my life, was the fact that I now had a live observation project. “Has she done a poo yet, Mummy?” became my catch-cry, or so I am informed by people that I normally consider reliable. You know, parents, the like.
Devoted though I was to scientific observation, I am pleased to have grown out of this phase. At least, I thought I had. But then I met Clancy – an 8 week old puppy who now lives with me, because he has just become my 8 week old puppy. The last puppy I had, my family got when I was 12, so Mum and Dad were definitely the load bearers there, but now, in a world where I pay rent, and have carpet, and like to sleep as much as possible my priorities have just had to shift. Futile as it may be, I can’t help but wish to manage this with as much efficiency as is possible. My whole life is now about 1) Has the puppy been fed/had enough to drink? 2) Has it done a poo yet?
There are just hundreds of people like me out there; fully grown, mostly functional people, with jobs and a range of conversational topics generally available to us. And we’re all reduced to the mental age of 2 year olds, slavishly wandering around after puppies, obsessing about their bowel movements.
Up until now, I have really resisted the lure of speaking about my job on this blog. I figure that anyone who happens upon it has their own job and doesn’t really need to read about mine (seeing as this is really all just for fun). On the flip side, however, it does take up a substantial portion of my time and sometimes it just begs to be spoken about.
If you feel that life is a little bland, and you want excitement, action, adventure, dizzying highs and crushing lows. I suggest one of two courses of action
1. Read a Henry Rider Haggard novel
2. Become a teacher
If there is no chance you like kids and teenagers, then you’re probably safer to stick with Rider Haggard. Who knows, perhaps tales about journeys into deepest, darkest Africa and the most awkward range of double entendres will keep you warm at night.
Though I am a big fan of option one, I’ve also chosen option 2. Since that time I think I have felt every emotion that it is possible to feel in doing this job – both positive and negative.
Of course, some discretion is required when writing about it, so the truly hilarious or heart-wrenching or gut-busting, or blood-boiling stories just won’t ever appear here, but other things can be shared.
For instance. I’m mid twenties, but boy oh boy do I suffer ‘born in wrong decade’ syndrome. It’s a bit of a professional hazard though – this job is all about connecting with people, not being further away from them through generational and cultural isolation. I’ve made a real effort of expand my pop-culture knowledge in the last little while. I’ve also been catching up on all the things that I missed the first time round.
I was so sure I was on a winner the other day when some students I was travelling with played the OC theme song and I was able to talk with confidence (and moderate knowledge) about where it came from. They were all like “what’s the OC, Miss?”
What indeed?
I tell you what it apparently isn’t – enduring.
What it is? Well at best, further evidence that I’m still a little bit behind the times.
In the same trip, we listened to Dire Straits – a student selection, not mine. So who even knows anymore? Be yourself people, that’s what people need.
The other day a memory was brought to mind. It was 2004, after the cinema release of Troy. I was in a public place – bus station I think – and amongst the discussion of whether Eric Bana or Brad Pitt were hotter, I heard the following comment about the film my fellow travellers had just seen:
Wow. It actually wasn’t a bad story either, apparently it’s quite famous.
No shit!
Let us focus on the important issues – who is hotter? Honestly, I’m not sure, but Peter O’Toole seems to like them both, so let’s run with that.
In his better days, Peter O’Toole would have given them both quite a run for their money, but I digress…
Recently I was in a cinema and some people were discussing the film they had just seen – Les Miserables:
It was actually quite sad and emotional.
No shit! Its freaking called The Miserable Ones.
This is the being out in public version of the time I wanted to rent Amadeus and was directed to Armageddon.
