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Let’s wrap #1

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When I’ve got nothing specific to write about I’ll do a little wrap up of life in general. OK?

So at the beginning of last week I was feeling very “Ride On” by AC/DC, i.e. lonley and lost and a little sad. Then the days went on and I had a light bulb moment. Burlesque, the light bulb said. That’s what I need in my life to cheer me up. Glitter and false eyelashes and nipple tassles. I enquired with people in the know and on Thursday night I was watching a presentation night for a burlesque class. It was wonderful, very life affirming and I’m hoping to start a class in the next couple of months. Stay tuned for further developments (I promise not to post photos without a Public Service Announcement/Warning first).

Friday night was ska night and another chance to see the wonderful Melbourne Ska Orchestra. The venue was the HiFi Bar at EQ and I must say I don’t like it. Not a great venue and not one I hope to re-visit any time soon. MSO were great as always and I really enjoyed their support band Backy Skank. I can’t help but feel happy and alive listening to ska. It was a very odd crowd though; lots of hipsters in shorts and braces with ironic moustaches…not sure what was going on there.

Saturday night’s much anticipated Swans vs Collingwood game was disappointing as we haven’t found our mojo so far this season. I’m getting a t-shirt printed: “Buddy is a Duddy” (for those following along with the Buddy Franklin saga… well there might be one or two of you…). Two losses to start the year is not ideal but there’s a long way to go and I’m nothing if not an optimist. In other news my 2014 Swans man candy Gary Rohan looked mighty fine out on the field; last year’s broken leg hasn’t slowed him down at all.

Sunday was spent at the playground in the morning and doing a short but very enjoyable bushwalk with friends in the afternoon. As much as I hate nature it is nice to walk through trees and see little lizards scurrying about (the giant spider in the giant web was not so great… one of the many reasons to hate nature). The kids didn’t whinge as much as usual which I will take as a sign of enjoyment.

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Then there’s nothing I like more than finishing the weekend with My Kitchen Rules and yet another round of nit treatment in Miss M’s hair. This is by far the worst nit year ever. They are superhuman now, the evil little shits.

(Hopefully no one has slipped into a coma reading that exciting installment of DKG’s poor excuse for a life. Will work on making it more interesting in the future… oh, who am I kidding, this is as good as it gets folks.)

New York state of mind

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For those keeping up it’s been almost 10 months since McNulty walked out of our lives. It’s gone by pretty fast I must say. Probably because I’ve been busy getting on with it and also riding the rollercoaster otherwise known as my relationship with the Joker. That relationship can now also be filed under the “splitsville” category. I don’t have much to say about it because it hurts like a mofo right now. When it was good it was awesome and when it wasn’t it was death by a thousand paper cuts.

Today I’m thinking about New York. Mainly because I think I need an escape hatch and there’s not many places on earth I’d rather be than in NYC. It equals happy. I’m not booking my flights at this point because I promised myself I wouldn’t until the divorce was finalised (as a reward of sorts), because I know I can’t run away from my brain and my heart, because I had so wanted to go there with the Joker and because my relationship with my NYC-based sister is a little brittle right now.

There are other peripheral life things going on which mean I need to stay put, clear my brain and get through the next few months as calmly as possible. I’m not so good at calm or rational or sensible; it’ll be a bit of a challenge.

So I’m going to day dream about doughnuts and Momofuku duck and lobster rolls and walking along the Highline and day time happy hour $5 Bloody Marys. I’m going to convince myself that going alone will be even more awesomer than going with the Joker. I’m going to choose happy. And I’m going to stay in a New York state of mind until I’m back there very soon.

A Tale of Two Movies

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…like a Tale of Two Cities but with a lot less Charles Dickens.

So after not going to the movies for many months (thanks for nothing Woody Allen, “Blue Jasmine” put me off the art form almost permanently) I ended up going twice in one weekend.

On Saturday I ventured out to see “I, Frankenstein” with a very old flame who, after almost thirty years, has popped up in my life as a much needed friend. There’s not a lot out at the moment and I didn’t want something heavy like “12 Years A Slave” (though I hear it is a great film) or a romantic comedy of any kind.

So a bit of action fantasy it was. It’ll come as no surprise to anyone that this was a bit of nonsense built around some action and special effects. The storyline was barely coherent but a good cast gave it more credibility than it really deserved. How they got Bill Nighy on board is anyone’s guess.

Some of the effects were great, especially the gargoyles coming to life, but that’s the best I can say about it. Good Saturday afternoon light entertainment (and I cared more about these laughably drawn characters than I did about anyone in “Blue Jasmine”).

Sunday’s cinematic excursion was to see “Pompeii” which really should be entitled “A Lame Vehicle To Cash In On Kit Harington’s Current GoT-based Popularity” (which I will admit is a mouthful – which is probably not a word I should be using when writing about Kit Harington…).

This pile of schlock is rated M which would lead one (if one was a dirty, middle aged woman) to believe some sex scenes would be included. One would be sadly and greatly mistaken if one was to assume this. The M rating is obviously for the stylised violence which was not particularly violent, unless I am particularly jaded, but certainly unnecessarily extensive, drawn out and repetitive (enough already!).

The promised Kit Harington abs (which were possibly photoshopped) played a cruelly tiny role and seriously only made a cameo appearance at best (truth in advertising I say). There was a great deal of KH brooding sensously into the camera. There was only ONE. TINY. KISS. That’s it. If I was Emily Browning (the so-called love interest) I would be having stern words with my manager about getting her into that role under false pretences.

Basically there was lots of gladiator fighting, lots of Keifer Sutherland being nasty, lots of Kit Harington looking broody, lots of CGI of Pompeii and rumbling Vesuvius, lots of things exploding and fire and crumbling buildings and people running. But nowhere near enough Kit Harington nudity. Well basically none.

So I’m back to hanging out for Game of Thrones to return in just two short weeks where I a much more likely to see nudity, Kit Harington/Jon Snow and otherwise.

Sorry Bec

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I’ve been thinking about why I haven’t been writing these past few months. It’s not like I haven’t been doing or feeling or thinking anything. I have. But a lot of it is private and painful and weird and boring. I wish, like Eden, I could write easily (possibly/probably she doesn’t do it easily at all) about the private and painful but it gets stuck in my throat and won’t come out properly. At least not without the potential of hurting me and/or others.

So all this personal and private and painful stuff gets PM’d to my friend Bec late at night or early in the morning. Poor thing, how she copes with my stupid ranting is beyond me. She deserves a medal and one of these days I’ll get one minted for her.

This morning I was thinking maybe I can’t share (all of the) private and painful stuff but maybe I can share more of the weird and boring stuff. I like weird and boring on other people’s blogs so that’s the way to go.

You have been warned.

Blogs, what are they good for?

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I can’t answer that. My blog has been good for absolutely nothing for a very long period of time.

I think about it often. Sometimes I even have an idea which floats idly by the blank canvass of my mind. This usually happens in the car, in the shower or in the middle of the night. By the time I’m sitting in front of the computer I have absolutely no bloody idea of what that idea was.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted anything. No point even apologising because I’m not actually sorry. It is what is, or isn’t.

However, other blogs are good for lots of things. Like making me laugh and think, mostly both things at the same time. Sometimes cry. Lately Edenland (google it, I can’t be bothered with the linky thingy) has been very important in helping me find and keep my perspective. She is an awesome blogger. I was going to list some others but frankly I just can’t be bothered and will do so one day soon. The Bloggers Who Inspire Me … or some such…

Recently I put on Facebook that I’ve learnt absolutely nothing so far in life. That may have been an exaggeration. Sometimes the lessons take a while to see through the fog. And sometimes I just mentally manufacture a whole pile of bitter and twisted which clouds my judgement.

Bottom line? I’m happy. I’m moving, somewhere unknown, but moving. I’m reading quite a lot and thinking. I’m writing (a whole, actual kids book which is most likely a load of crappola but it was a very interesting experience producing it, longhand, lying on my bed in the course of one afternoon). I hope to write more here but won’t make any promises.

My First… Blogging Challenge #2

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Continuing with Kerri’s “My First…” Blogging Challenge here is her post about her first moment of terror.

Here is mine…

This is the moment that sprang to mind immediately when I read this challenge and while it is probably not genuinely my “first” moment of terror it is the one that clearly stands out. It is probably my first moment of real life terror rather than movie induced terror (for example the many nights my friend A and I would lock ourselves away in her rumpus room basement while her parents were out, turn out all the lights and watch the Evil Dead over and over until we were so scared we couldn’t even go down the hall to the toilet until her parents returned).

Anyway, I’m thinking of a night (and I could be wrong because my memories of those times are mixed up, people and events jumbled together, often randomly to form inaccurate pictures… perhaps my friend KG who has remarkable memories of this time in our lives can chime in) in early December 1983. I’m reasonably sure it was the last day of Year 10 and my friends and I had gone into the city to celebrate. I am fiften and I am about to start my first full time job the following Monday. I feel incredibly grown up, immortal, invicible.

Our main hang out at the time was the Central Markets Hotel which stood where the Pumphouse (if that still exists) stands near the Entertainment Centre. This was pre Darling Harbour and that part of the city was dark and rat infested and pretty bloody awful. Just perfect for a bunch of suburban teenage girls hanging around the outskirts of the Sydney skinhead scene.

So there we were at the Central Markets Hotel. We’d ordered schooners of beer and for some reason (was it a hot night? probably) we found ourselves outside, in the lane. My memory is of standing in that lane, or possibly sitting on milk crates and looking over at a group of the “senior” skinheads (Stretch, Spider, their underlings) standing nearby. These were the scary boys; probably they were only a few years older than us but they were big and mean and capable of real violence. We knew their reputations but we were not really in their orbit.

The moment that I remember and that still fills me with some sort of fear was when they turned around and looked at us. We had floated around these people for a couple of years but I had never felt them notice us. They were our dubious celebrities; we knew them but they didn’t know, or could possibly care less about, us. Suddenly they noticed us. But it was not a good moment. So clearly I remember being filled with dread because I suddenly and for the first time saw the situation for what it was. Big, violent grown men looking at a group of ridiculous teenage girls.

It had never occurred to me before that we were in danger but suddenly the possibility of that danger hit me very hard. It was almost like having a panic attack. I realised how vulnerable we were and how reptilian they were, looking upon as sport.

It’s funny that I don’t remember how that evening ended. I have a feeling we got out of there. Even thinking about it now I want to run out of that scene; did we run? I can’t remember. Did we stay away from the skinhead scene? No we did not. I know we stopped going to the Central Markets Hotel around that time but possibly that was because it was about to get knocked down.

This is the memory which makes me understand how and why young girls (and boys) get themselves into serious trouble. There is just no risk assessment mechanism in a teenage brain (at least there wasn’t in mine). I look back at this moment and many others which were to follow and realise how lucky I am to have made it to adulthood. It was certainly much more to do with luck than with any sensible behaviour on my part.

My First… Blogging Challenge #1

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Kerri over at Life & Other Crises has started a blogging challenge which I think will be quite interesting and I certainly need some motivation to get blogging again.

Here is her post about the challenge and her first act of rebellion.

Here is mine…My First Act of Rebellion:

I was such a goody goody in primary school I’m fairly sure there were no open acts of rebellion until high school but something happened in Year 7… I like to call it hormones… which turned me from the aforementioned goody goody into a full on, snarling, manic rebel.

Apart from the hormones I think just annoying my parents would have been a major motivation for my oppositional behaviour. I probably didn’t think about it like that at the time but I certainly see it pretty clearly with the benefit of hindsight.

1980: Year 7, Term 3 I moved from St Catherine’s (a private C of E Girls’ School in the Eastern Suburbs, where I attended for two terms due to a scholarship) to Malvina High School in Ryde (a very much public school known affectionately as Molevina). This was the start of the what I now know to be the best years of my life.

I met my soon to be best friends A and F and we plunged head first into the world of subcultures. This is probably what I consider my first act of rebellion.

Our first forray into pissing off our parents by dressing “differently” was what I call the Rocky Horror phase. It wasn’t a true subculture but it had all the makings of one. Specific clothes, a group of people who identified with each other, music, “style”.

My memory of this time was dressing in a black tutu with leggings (one leg black, one leg red), a stripey red and white t-shirt, very vintage very pointy shoes and a giant bow in my extra frizzy hair (arrived at by braiding wet hair overnight into a 100 tiny plaits). We hung out at the newly opened Hoyts Cinema in George Street with the older Rocky Horror crowd – we loved the movie though we had never been to the midnight screenings ourselves, being only 12-13 at the time.

Our crowd was gay boys and slightly creepy (in hindsight) older men – I clearly remember a 30 year old sailor. (I now ask myself, why the fuck were these people hanging out with barely teenage girls.)

I felt at my most rebelious during this time sitting in the cafe at Hoyts, smoking a cigarette (how I hated smoking but how I loved the idea of how cool it made me look – ha ha) and sipping a cappucino… waiting for whoever would drop by to hang out on any particular Saturday afternoon.

If our parents were confused and upset by this phase it was just the entree… soon enough the Konaraki boys came to our school and introduced us to the world of punk and it became much worse very quickly on the rebellion front.

Free falling

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I’ve been a bad little blogger and I’m sorry… it’s not that I haven’t had things to write about it, it’s just that I’ve been busy putting my emotional energy into other things like immersing myself in Game of Thrones (late to the party as always) and hatching this weird little relationship I’m embroiled in.

For those deeply interested in my love life (shame on you, haven’t you got something more compelling to focus on… like the fluff in your bellybutton) you may remember that my last post talked about the ending of what was potentially a very promising relationship.

I may have been a little premature in writing it off because here I am, we are, back into it.

I’ve called this post “free falling” because that’s how it feels trying to establish a new relationship after being in a very long term one. I don’t have a good frame of reference any more for how to behave with a new person I’m romantically interested in; I guess I’ve become lazy over the years. Especially when the new person has issues I don’t fully understand, yet. (Because God knows I don’t have any issues myself, being perfect and all.)

I literally feel like I’m floating through darkness and I keep hitting things. At first I used my usual problem solving approach when I hit an issue I couldn’t control: the battering ram. But I’m learning that there are other ways. It’s not always easy but it’s turning out to be more fun than I first thought.

It’s worth bending a little, adapting a little for someone special. Don’t worry, I’m still the giant pain in the arse I always have been and always will be. Some things will never change.

Yes there are allegedly a lot of frogs in the pond but some frogs really are princes, even if they don’t know it. For now I’ll just stick to kissing this one particular frog and we’ll see how things work out.

Faster Pasta #1: The One With The Smoked Salmon Tomato Cream Sauce

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Whenever I am cooking pasta, as I was last night, I ponder why people who say they can’t cook don’t embrace pasta. I know these days it is possible to eat quite well and at reasonable cost without ever entering your kitchen. Fast, cheap food is no longer just the domain of Maccas and the Colonel; so many options are now freely available.

I suspect if I was single and kidlet free I would do little, if any, cooking. For me cooking and eating is pleasurable as a social and nurturing activity and these days it’s part of the fabric of my life and of how I view my own identity. But I can remember how the other side of the coin looks.

Getting back to last night… as I was cooking I was thinking that pasta is virtually indistructible and can be used as a base for just about anything you have lurking in your pantry and fridge. A 99 cent packet of pasta plus 3 or 4 other ingredients can make a meal; once you get your head around the basic flavour principles you are away. A family of four or five can eat for under $10 easily; or a single person make enough for four work lunches for the same cost.

The good thing is, while your pot of pasta is boiling you can gather and prepare your other ingredients, drain the pasta and throw together as quickly as your chosen ingredients will allow.

A drizzle of olive oil, some gently fried garlic, a handful of sliced mushrooms and ham or bacon. Tomatoes going soft in the fridge? Peel and chop, soften in the pot with oil, onion and garlic, some fresh or dried herbs. Finish with some crumbled feta or ricotta or a splash of cream and some parmesan. Go a little fancier with some sliced chicken thigh fillets or green prawns, some grated zucchini, a little chili and some olive oil or cream to finish off.

From the simplest bowl of freshly cooked pasta with a drizzle of olive oil and a sprinkle of parmesan (as my kids love it) to a dinner party dish of home made pasta (try it, if you have a gadget to help with the kneading it’s easier than you would think, and very satisfying) with a delicately constructed sauce… pasta is something everyone should know how to make and experiment with.

Last night’s half hour wonder was:

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Pasta with Smoked Salmon Tomato Cream Sauce

Ingredients
500g dried pasta shapes or spaghetti
2 cloves garlic, finely sliced or crushed
1 small onion, finely sliced or chopped
olive oil
1 teaspoon vegetable stock powder (chicken would be fine)
dried herbs (as available or to taste, or use fresh parsley, thyme… whatever you have/like)
8 small or 4 large tomatoes (I used Roma tomatoes because that’s what I had), peeled, chopped chunky style
Large handful of baby spinach leaves, torn or sliced
200 ml cream
8 slices smoked salmon, chopped as you like
Salt, pepper, chili (if you like) – all optional and all to taste
2-3 Tablespoons of parmesan, grated or shaved

Method
1) Cook pasta as instructed, drain, set aside.
2) In the same pot heat olive oil on low heat, add onion and garlic. Cook for a 3-5 minutes until starting to soften.
3) Add tomatoe pieces and a splash of water or white wine and your herbs and stock powder. Cook on low heat, stirring regularly.
4) When tomatoes are breaking down (up to you how chunky or mushy you like them) add the cream and baby spinach and stir through for one minute or so.
5) Add pasta and smoked salmon slices and seasoning (if using) and heat through while stirring. Turn off heat straight away, you want the salmon warm but not cooked and mushy.
6) Stir through parmesan or add to individual plates (I stir through).

Seriously quick and easy (and Marianna had three serves).

The important thing to remember is don’t worry too much about the recipe. Don’t like smoked salmon? Leave it out or add ham or some leftover chicken instead. Don’t have fresh tomatoes? Throw in a can of them. Add frozen peas or zucchini instead of spinach. Go hard on the chili if kidlets are not partaking. Use your imagination and let your vegie crisper dictate what goes in. The best thing about a pasta dish like this is nothing is really “wrong” – unless it tastes bloody awful of course, then it’s your own silly fault. Go back to the drawing board.

Fallacy of fantasy

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Let’s take a sharp turn away from muffins and onto another topic I find fascinating. Fantasy. I have touched on this issue previously but now I’m going to get a bit adult about it.

I want to take a moment to talk about bedroom fantasy. Are you with me? Can you handle the truth? If not, look away now.

I am really interested in how people manage to play out their fantasies with other people. I am going to assume most other people have fantasies of a sexual nature; whether it’s your hubby doing the dishes in nothing but a frilly apron or you doing [insert celeb of choice here] in nothing but a pair of cowboy boots. These are fantasies which play out inside your head when you’re doing the old horizontal folk dancing, thinking about doing it or are just on your own enjoying a little DYI.

My problem is with people who are able to transform their fantasy into reality by getting their partner to act things out. It’s just that I find it hard enough to translate my desires to my partner on any given day. Normal household tasks never get done the way I like, so taking that scenario into the bedroom generally results in disappointment… or so I assume.

You see the ideal sexual partner would need to be totally telepathic for me to be truly happy. By the time you manage to say “more, to the left, faster” and they manage to grunt “what?” and you manage to squeak “forget it!” the moment is long gone and you may as well be loading the dishwasher.

If your partner is not telepathic how do people manage to have fulfilling sexual lives where they bring their fantasies to reality? If you like dressing up or enacting different scenarios how do you explain that to your partner and have them act it out in the way you find satisfying? I just can’t imagine it.

In my mind it would play out like the set of a Francis Ford Coppola movie: “stand here, walk to there, say this… no, no, let’s try it again”. That does not scream sexual excitement to me. Either we would be laughing hysterically or it would come to fisticufs.

So I like to let fantasy stay in my head. It’s the best place for it. In my head people do what I say, when I say it. In fact there is no need for nasty old conversation at all… luckily everyone is telepathic in my fantasies and know where to stand and when to put what where. Except sometimes, even in my fantasies, my own brain conspires against me and throws in stupid thoughts mid-good part (that toilet isn’t going to scrub itself, don’t forget the athletics carnival note tomorrow, did you remember to set up the PlayStation to tape The Voice for next Monday)… what a killjoy.

Is it just me? Am I the weird one? Do other people manage to happily enact their lewd fantasy scenarios with their partners without anyone getting hurt? I’m not being all pervy, I’m being genuinely anthropoligcally curious. Help a deepkickgirl out here.