Monthly Archive for July, 2009

Actually My Dear, I Don’t Give a Frank

Published on July 28, 2009 in Books n Stuff, Pop Culture and Teaching. 3 Comments

I speed read. Often when I take my class to the school library I will pick up a book. Then I hear snickering and I realise I am being watched by half a dozen brats who are watching how fast my eyes scan the page. They find it highly amusing.

My reading for the last month or two:

Saci Lloyd – The Carbon Diaries 2015. Really looking forward to the sequel. What happens to a teenage girl and her family in London when ‘carbon credits’ are introduced to stop excessive energy use.

Khaled Hosseini – A Thousand Splendid Suns. I read this in Karratha, with its heat and red rock hills, which made it feel all the more powerful. The characters at first felt so alien to me, but by the end they were friends,  who went through hell.

Louise Bagshawe – Glitz. I knew it was gonna be chick-lit when my bestie leantit to me but when I started reading it, my lord. However, I put those brain cells to sleep and I had a indulgent afternoon read with the impossibly beautiful and rich Chambers cousins who fight their rich uncle’s new fiancee for their inheritance.

Louise Bagshawe – The Devil You Know. More of the above, except this time it is Poppy, Daisy and Rose – identical triplets separated at birth and becoming successful women, unbeknownst to them, bound by a tragic past.

Tim Lott – Fearless. Little Fearless is one of the thousands of girls kept in slave labour behind the guise of the City Community Faith School. Only she has the hope and bravery to believe they will one day be rescued. The atypical ending jarred but also packed a harder punch.

Candace Bushnell – One Fifth Avenue. I think there should be a separate novel for each character – they didn’t get filled out enough, as they were all ‘main’ characters in their own right. Another TV series perhaps?

Margaret Mitchell – Gone With the Wind. Wow – wasn’t that Scarlett O’Hara a little hussy? We always hear of the younger generation getting a bollocksing for being shallow, selfish, callow, feckless, but here we have it in 1930s form. Bit disappointed that the book didn’t actually say ‘frankly’.

You Can Call Me Al

Published on July 27, 2009 in Cranky/Dopey Bitch and Married Life. 2 Comments

Oh for crying out loud, am I that forgettable?

I trundle up to the gym after a week of taking Beloved to work and slacking off and another lovely, older lady has taken to calling me Natasha. I think we have established that my name starts with a B, and those of you in the know, it is NOTHING like Natasha.

Sigh.

K-Town

Published on July 22, 2009 in Books n Stuff, Can't be bothered categorising, Pop Culture and Queen Me. 2 Comments

On the last four days ofthe school holidays, I visited my sister and her husband in the town of Karratha, which is a 2 hour plane ride north from Perth.  It was my first plane trip alone, so that was a big adventure in itself. Perthians don’t tend to do a lot of plane travel because it is so damn expensive. And for the price we paid to get to Karratha – a town in the middle of bumfuck nowhere – I could have gone to Melbourne and back a couple of times.

Straight away I knew I would love Karratha. I got off the plane on the tarmac and it was so warm, and I could smell the ocean and the just watered gardens and I knew. I have lots to tell about the trip, including the awesome wedding collage my sister made for me, the pissy night at the feral pub and the cute yet psycho lil dog that visited me and sis while we were reading on the front lawn, but another time perhaps.

One thing that really stuck with me was when we visited Hearsons Cove. (CRAP – I just googled it and realised that it is the place where the ’staircase to the moon’ phenomena occurs. Friends of ours have great pics of it) On the way there, on your right, you have these huge red rock hills, and on the other side you have the huge ammonia plant. It is such a contrast. Having also just read A Thousand Splendid Suns, I felt the sense of a need for a different, simpler way of living (albeit not as harsh as portrayed in the book) Why do we need so much useless stuff? Why do I want a Tiffany and Co keyring? What does that shit mean in the whole scheme of things? And what are we doing to our planet and out souls to get it?

One day I think we might be forced back to a simpler life. Maybe not this generation but I feel it will happen. Hopefully our houses will be poorer and our hearts richer, instead of the other way around.

All the Single Ladies

Published on July 13, 2009 in Beloved, Can't be bothered categorising, Cranky/Dopey Bitch, Lazy Bitch, Married Life, Queen Me and Teaching. 2 Comments

As Bee stood in the crowded wine bar, she fervently hoped that she would never have to hit the single scene again.  Besides the fact that she loves her husband very much, she is not cut out for it.  Bee knows she is not a ‘wow’ girl. People don’t turn to look at her as she enters a room. Boys don’t stop her in the middle of the street to tell her how beautiful she is, as they do her best friend. Her students once saw a photograph of Bee and her sister together and they said: ‘Miss! Your sister is hot……what happened to you? ‘  Bee needs to work with her personality to get anywhere with the men-folk and that just doesn’t happen at 11pm on a Saturday night in a noisy, small space where at least $10 worth of drinks got spilled down her back.

That is not to say that Bee, Stinky and Kiwi-K didn’t spend some of the evening idly chatting to some nice, eligible men among which included 2 policemen, a fireman and a random wanker. It was the random wanker that Stinky recognised from high-school. Only in Western Australia can you go to a town 250 km from where you live and bump into people you know. Only in Western Australia can you go for a drink 250 km from where you live, meet a random wanker that your best friend knows AND one of his mates is the brother of your brother-in-law’s ex girlfriend. And he tells you that he still thinks the bro-in-law is awesome. And that your sister is pretty.  I shit you not. The second thing he said to Bee was that her sister is very pretty.

So in the crowded wine-bar with the eligible boys, Bee feels like a bit of an imposter, snob and chopped liver-ish. She knows the boys know they are all married. And she is allowed to talk to boys that are not her husband. But she feels 8 kilograms overweight and not drunk enough to use her I-know-I-am-not-the-hottest-girl-here-but-man!-Am-I-interesting! charm offensive, especially on boys who should be trying out their skills on girls without a few carats and adored husbands between them.

And why is it that they waste their skills on these girls? Is it refreshing to have a chat to some ladeez who they don’t have to impress, suss out, buy drinks for and use their psycho radars on? Does this irk the lovely girls who are there trying to meet a nice, young fella? Are Bee, Stinky and Kiwi-K stepping on their impossibly-clad toes with their casual and non-threatening demeanours and comfortable shoes?

Bee puts the drink in the other hand. If she were single, would she hang out with married men at a bar?  She supposes she would. It would be more fun and less threatening. Some people do want to go out for a nice time, rather than pick up.

It is heartening to know.

That’s Not My Name

Published on July 7, 2009 in Can't be bothered categorising, Cranky/Dopey Bitch, Fighting the Fat and Queen Me. 5 Comments

I have got myself into a rather awkward position with a lady at my gym. She calls me Bel. Short for Belinda. Which sufficed to say is not my name. For some reason, if people are going to get my name wrong Belinda is the number one option. At my old school the principal called my Belinda for a good term. I wasn’t going to go through the embarrassment of correcting him – he didn’t have that many staff names to remember.

Is it possible to tell her the news, without both of us suffering acute feelings-of-dorkiness? I think not. I will feel bad because it has taken me so long to tell her, and you can gather why she will feel tool-ish. Thing is, once upon a time she did know my name – we did boot camp together.

Today I let the perfect opportunity slip by in Pump class.

‘Morning Bel! How are you?’ she asks

‘Yeah, good.’ I reply

‘So – do people call you Bel?’

Of course I wanted to reply ‘Almost never!’ but I said instead ’Um, well….I usually get called Bee.’ I thought that was a great compromise because I DO get called Bee. While it wasn’t quite owning up I thought at least I wouldn’t have to cringe every time she got my name wrong.

‘Oh – do they?’ she asked. And proceeded to still call me Bel.

Sigh.

It is like the whole peek-a-boo booger/spinach in your teeth scenario. The quicker the person with the free-loader is told, the less painful. Rip off that band-aid quickly cos you know that they will be more embarrassed when they go to the bathroom in two hours and realise that you were one of the culprits who didn’t tell them they’d accidentally drawn on themself with a red marker.

I just tried to look her up on facebook then. If I added her as a friend she would soon get it. But she isn’t on there. Maybe what I can do is con my buddy Jazz into greeting me in RPM class with a very loud and obvious version of the name I have been christened with. But considering how dark it is there, how loud the music is, and that this lady always comes in late – I don’t think we can pull that one off.

Just in case you were wondering, it is hard being such a wuss.

Rethinking, Thanks to Lil Sis

Published on July 2, 2009 in Beloved, Can't be bothered categorising, Cranky/Dopey Bitch and Queen Me. 6 Comments

I have been having a think about what I write on this blog.  I am not going write about people I know anymore, if what I am writing can be viewed in a negative light. I don’t like thinking that my friends and family live with an odd sense of anticipation that they are going give me the shits and I am going to post it for the world to see.

So if you know me, breath a sigh of relief.

PS: I don’t know that the hell is going on with the bloody fonts and spacings on this damn blog. Beloved updated it and it keeps stuffing up. It really screws with me  – my anal retentive neat side warring with my technological ineptitude.