A disjointed list

A covert operation planned between friends
Winking to each other in the school hallways for weeks now.
To take a day or three and just escape.
Up north, where we’re told the sun still shines.
To a Tiny Town (to borrow a phrase)
Rush to the airport – park illegally
Crunching sound of a side view mirror against a pole – ouch.
Panic, maybe we won’t make it on time
RUN to the check in (laughing)
Breathe out; Tickets confirmed!
Time to park properly.
RUN back to the gate – paged – oops we’re late again.
Relax and put feet up – leaving behind the stress, tears and work.
Nervous excitement – we finally did it!
The elated reconciliation of old friends meeting again.
Drinks and food (and drinks..did I mention that?)
Promises that it won’t be a weekend of ‘running around’.
Meeting RO’s husband, everything she said he was: Bloke with a capital B and twinkly eyes to boot!
Taking walks down empty beaches littered with occasional pebbles
Smoothed over by the constant crashing of water.
Conversation warmed by the sun.
Watching the surfers zip up their wet suits and chase the waves – envying their relaxed athleticism.
Amusement by the surf war pavement scribbles: “QLDers go home”.
Daydreams framed by crashing waves and contented sighs
Sleepy eyed late night talks while listening to the surf.
Sipping at a red …white …red …oh I forget
Music; louder than it could be
Jokes; naughtier than they should be
Dancing; dangerously daggy.
Company; progressively ’spaced’
Groggy start to each morning – peering at the view over a hot morning coffee
Lazy lunches in surf villages – this is how it should always be.
Four wheel driving along the shore
…On second thought perhaps I should have skipped that lunch.
Spotting dolphins in the distance
Hikes to the lighthouse
Picking the house we’d buy if we won lotto
Taking photos we really won’t ever show anyone
Collapsing into the pillow at the end of it all
Only to wake up and wish I could do it over again.

Perfect soundtrack by a near perfect band: Do It Again – The Beach Boys

Do it again – The Beach Boys [click]

And one more, because I just love this one so much:

In my Room – The Beach Boys

catch me falling

As a child I had this habit of reading well past the hour of appropriate sunlight. You could often find me pressed up against the window with the book angled to receive the last splinters of light. My mother said: “Turn on the light or you’ll go blind”
“Stop reading and do something useful” was my father’s opinion.
I still do it now when I’m too engrossed in a passage to bother shifting my comfortable book reading position. Reading well past the hour of appropriate sunlight and wondering whether I’ll finally go blind.

The same could be said for my relationship with earphones and music. Loud was the only volume deemed acceptable. I often had people coming in from the next room and gesticulating wildly at their own ears and mouthing “turn it down, you’ll go deaf”. Only they weren’t mouthing, they were shouting. It just looked like an amusing mime from where I was sitting. They were probably right. Today, I get occasional ringing reminders of that music when I’m silently thinking or doing the dishes or writing. I still play my music loud like it’s the very last time I’ll ever hear it. I was never one for lessons learned.

Here’s a song you don’t have to play loud at all. Soft works. Loud works. In my opinion, everything works – but I don’t ever come across people saying they like it. Go figure. I guess this is one of those times where my opinion is different from most peoples.

I liked the band Phoenix from the first moment I heard them, that is; before Too Young was featured in that movie where Gwyneth Paltrow gets dressed in a fat suit and pretends to be ugly. I remember being in the car with E and the song Too Young came on the mixed tape I’d made (of course my first car had a tape player!). I said: “I love this song even though it’s really daggy. It reminds me of cruising in a car along the beach during sunset”. We listened a while. She said: “you’re right, it *is* daggy*”. hmm

I was surprised to hear they were French – since when I think of beachy sunsets France doesn’t really come to mind. This is despite the fact that I have witnessed a beachy sunset while I was in France. I think of California or somewhere like this place instead. Considering my Musical Monday on AIR I guess I must really like groovy French bands who sing in (mostly) English.

Anyway, their sound now is less; driving along the beach, but something a little more guitar based and surprising. I like it and recently when I saw them in concert they surprised me by being so, so much better than I thought they could ever be.

This song here Run, Run, Run is from their second Album Alphabetical – and has a bit of ‘I’m a little bit out of place at this party’ kind of feel to it. Which makes no sense but is basically how I feel most of the time. It’s groovy and thoughtful and ..okay it’s still a bit daggy*.

Run, Run, Run – Phoenix

*sort of like ‘dorky’ but dorkier.

Dilemma

I’m having a hard time with the kids lately. Any teacher out there knows that when there’s only a few weeks left of term something happens to the kids – they go feral. Now, this would be okay except that towards the ends of term something happens to normal teacher workloads – it goes up. In my case – because I’ve been working on a little project for prin as well as doing the reports and other work my workload has literally quadrupled over the last month. I’m finding it incredibly hard to keep up with my work AS WELL AS teach.

I wish I could explain a teacher workload towards the end of term but I’ll try. From talking to friends who are not teachers I have it on good authority that the amount of extra work I am doing now is eqiv to about a days worth of normal workload in an office job in a company of any description. That’s fine except imagine that every single hour of your day ALSO involved 25 needy, sometimes incompetent, sometimes rude, sometimes lovely, mostly egocentric of your most important clients (ie: or 20 of your employers haha) coming to your desk and just demanding things all at the same time and they kept doing that for the whole day …forever? You can’t tell them to fuck off because you HAVE to take care of them first – BUT the clincher is that in terms of your boss and clients they NEED this OTHER work done pronto FIRST as well. You can’t do two things first now can you? Just how much of that workload do you think you’d get done? Not a lot. Imagine if you were a head chef in the busiest restaurant in town AND the head waiter at the same time – plus you ran the accounts after hours? You have to do all three, no delegating – just how effective do you think you’d be?

So since it’s impossible to teach AND get all our work done at the same time then us teachers are getting more and more frustrated as the term comes to a close. So teachers are frustrated and stressed and the kids are feral – great combo, huh?

My everyday workload is like the above scenario but lately because I’ve got so much other pressure on me the whole situation is magnified. I can’t concentrate fully on my classes because I’ve got so much else to do – but I can’t concentrate fully on my other workload because I have to teach my classes and get THAT stuff done. It’s an impossible situation and I’m finding myself unable to cope with all the “extras”.

Today there was an incident in the AR where a group of students were acting up. I was also hard at work and trying desperately to get things done and stressed out by that so a situation that might not have got the best of me a few weeks ago really DID tip me over the edge today. The thing is, I can’t see how I could have been “better”. I was overwhelmed by work and I will always be so, that is the nature of the job – but at the same time I realise that if I was not overwhelmed then I would have handled the situation better. It was a no-win situation for me.

Anyway, as it happened this group of students were misbehaving and after accessing the various routes of discipline (warnings, time out, send to prin etc) it wasn’t getting better so I packed the whole grade up early, told them I was basically disgusted and made them all go back to their classroom for silent reading. They then received extra punishment at recess etc.

You know what? I *wish* someone would give me silent reading as a punishment though. It’s a reward isn’t it? I kept looking at these kids and WISHING I could pick up my book and settle into a hazy fantasy for a while. I just don’t know how to make things easier while I teach but still get all this other stuff that I need to get done, under control? Should I be working instead of blogging?

How does one stay on top of things AND crowd control at the same time?

Yeah, you know her

A while back when I wrote my Kate Bush Musical Monday, I said that she was the quintessential vision of femininity. What I didn’t mention though was that I had another woman in mind for the same compliment – Debbie Harry. She however is a different kind of femininity, yet a vision nonetheless. Where KB was sultry in an ethereal way, Harry was the cool, edgy, fashionable femme. Don’t ask me how I can adore both women but I do. While they represent different versions of femininity (right or wrong women in rock are held up as representatives of their gender, while men in music are not) I find each as appealing as the other – and not just about their femininity but also for their music.

My relationship with Blondie started around the same time as my relationship with Kate Bush – I was young. I was aware of Debbie Harry. I put on my mother’s red lipstick with vasaline over the top and paraded around sashaying my shoulders pretending to be her, however it wasn’t until my late teens, perhaps 18 or 19 where I really appreciated her style and the music as a whole. I guess it was around this time (perhaps a bit earlier, in high school) where I started to be really interested in the New York style punk movement in bands like The Ramones, Blondie, Talking Heads (another MM post) rather than just listening to the music. Though, let’s face it – that’s what is most important. Does everyone go through that phase, of wanting to understand the whys and wheres of a certain musical scene/history? God knows I did.

Anyway, I was 18 or 19 and I was discovering my own femininity too – that is; the power that women can have over men if they so choose it. I think there’s probably a moment for every girl where she discovers that there is power in being a woman. It’s a weird sort of power that I’ve never actually reconciled within myself – probably because it is purely a physical thing. I have my own reasons for struggling with that, and also in a way being angry about being forced into that kind of position as a woman actually. If you choose not to then you’re not quite woman are you? If you choose to use it however, you might just be a tease or a bitch or …well label it what you will – god knows there are too many labels to list here. I never quite wanted that power and I’m not quite down with women who really enjoy manipulating it either – but it’s there, regardless. I think part of growing up girl is being faced with the knowledge that you might be sexy to someone. It’s fun, it’s scary, it’s affirming and it can also be a bloody piece of shit that drags you down into the abyss too. Great time to really get into Blondie – half playboy bunny, half serious muso – (love the contradictions) though.

To me though, Harry wasn’t simply sexy and feminine. There are some singers who are purely about the vision but Debbie Harry is not one of them. She’s not just a sexy version of femininity and style but she’s also an amazing singer and the Band, Blondie – still sound fresh and relevant. How can that be?

Today, three songs – why? Because I can.

1) Rip Her to Shreds – Blondie

Love the lyrics and rawness of this one. If you want to discredit a woman why not rip her to shreds?

2) Rapture – Blondie

If this was Rage TV and I was a guest programmer (which is my DREAM – I shall do a MM on it soon actually) this song would be a certainty in my top video clips. Debbie Harry looks stunning – the baseline is amazing the song is awesome and while it took me a while to get over the white girl rap thing I now love it!

3) Atomic – Blondie

This is a bloody great club pop song. I’m going to go have a dance actually.

Return to Sender

Dear Sheriff Lee Baca,

Why? Whyyyyyyyy? WHYYYYYYYYYYYYY?

Why did you release Paris Hilton from jail 42 days early? Is it because you saw her as a beautiful damsel in distress? Did you feel sorry for her because she cried? Was it because you were hard up?

Or maybe, you are just an incompetent shit for brains Sheriff that needs to retire ASAP.

Love,
Sick of Dumb Cops.

Dear Paris Hilton,

You are like, so NOT HOT! *giggle*

I bet you thought you were home free when you got released for “home detention” but instead you got served a can of whoop ASS and chucked back in! I laughed my head off, no really I did.

Love,
Not a Fan.

Dear Laura Doyle,

Your book “The Surrendered Wife” claims that a woman who never questions, criticises, or objects to their husband’s decisions and demands and furthermore gives over all financial and decision making power to him will have a happy marriage.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUH!

Of course! Why would you ever have a fight with someone who is a plastic sex toy? There’s no use fighting with that!

Unfortunately no one informed you that there is this other thing that exists in happy marriages – are you ready? It’s called COMPROMISE! I know, it’s a new fangled concept but I hear it really works. It’s when both wife and husband hear each other out and try to accommodate the other party. Sometimes it works more for one, but sometimes it works more for the other. In the end, if done correctly it all evens out.

But I do agree with you on one thing – yes men should buy their own undies.

Love,
Dirty Femmo.

Dear Other Drivers on the Eastern Freeway on Wednesday Morning,

Did you see that Kangaroo bouncing happily towards the city, right alongside morning traffic?

For a second there I really felt like one of those Aussies that people overseas actually think we are (but aren’t).

Wow.

Love,
Amazed Aussie.

Dear Man on Street in North Melbourne Last Night,

When you started moaning I clutched my handbag tight underneath my arm and walked faster but when you actually looked at your hamburger and started talking to it I became a contender for the 100m sprint in the next Olympics.

Are you a few short or did you have a few?

Love,
Chick with Handbag.

Dear Self,

So bro convinced you to go to the football to see the Hawks V Swans. It’s been a while since you’ve been (12 years?) and about that long since you even thought about watching a game so you decided it would be interesting in a performance art kind of way to go.

You started the day like this:

“How now brown cow?”

And ended up like this

“Come on Dover, MOVE YER BLOOMIN’ ARSE!”

They can’t take you anywhere.

Love,
Me

Dear Your Majesty Queen Blah Blah Blah,

Thank you ever so much for having a birthday so that we, a part of your humble monarchy may partake in a long weekend. Do you realise how excited we all were to have a three day weekend? I’m not a monarchist but I am a fan of public holidays

Cheers,
Fan of Public Holidays.

The Great Unwind

It’s been a long time since you last took this road home. This evening you’re on automatic pilot – wheel gripped in hand. This is a form of therapy you can afford – a long drive on a narrow curling ribbon of road with a view of the sun setting behind the trees. Bliss. You think better when the detail has been taken away; the world looks simple and innocent framed by a dusty pink sky behind a silhouette of blackened trees. How did you let things get so cloudy so easily? Why do you tie yourself so tightly to your feelings, emotions and intuition when surely being strategic and clinical is more conducive to getting ‘it’ done?

You stopped gripping at the wheel a while back and now it glides smoothly through your palms. Breath exhaled. Your mind a series of peaceful alpha waves. The music from the car stereo gives you a bear hug around your heart. The great unwind works every time.

You flash past an elvish row of glowing shop front windows, a decrepit service station, a faded zebra crossing and row after row of thick criss crossed naked trees but none of it matters, it’s all just background noise. The world blurs, just like you want it to. This drive is dedicated to an unwinding that doesn’t seem to happen as naturally as it did once upon a time. Nowadays it’s something you need to schedule into your day. You feel the stress dropping off as you drive further into the trees. Your breathing becomes low and measured with each km clocked up on the odometer. Your thoughts slow down until you can actually think them.

I got blisters on my fingers!

I discovered The Beatles when I should have been discovering Cyndi Lauper. Shall we say – it was all due to a Christmas present gone wrong, the lines of communication crossed and frayed in the midst of language and cultural barriers. While playing this critically canned and beaten up old Beatles compilation tape (Rock n Roll Music Vol II) that I’d gotten as a present when I’d explicitly asked for Cyndi Lauper I went from loathe to love over the course of a few months.

It is singlehandedly the most played album I’ve ever owned. I’m talking by hundreds of listens – not tens. God knows I’ve been listening and learning since I was 7. That’s 22 years of The Beatles (am not retarded, no). No, I was not one of those children that grew up listening to The Beatles because their parents exhausted Rubber Soul one too many times on the old record player. I was not one of those kids who knew of The Beatles because they read too many music magazines praising the genius of Sgt Pepper either. It was simply an accident they ever landed in my lap but a happy one. And no, just in case you’re wondering I’m not one of those fans that think that The Beatles are “Gods” and simply put, I don’t think they’re overrated either.

I don’t really understand how they could be considered so anyway. They were certainly no one hit wonders and it’s not like people don’t STILL cite them as an influence. Are they overrated because their music is catchy? Is it because they are commercial? How dumb the whole argument is. I can understand how people don’t love them, or even like them from a musical standpoint but to say they are overrated? No.

I visited an old music internet haunt a while ago. I was interested to see what these people were still talking about. Were they still pretentious? Were they idiots? Were they…gone? I came across a thread where they discussed ‘the most overrated musical acts’. U2, Tool, Led Zepp, The Beatles, Rolling Stones all rated a mention and then someone came up with a doozy so amazing I almost choaked from laughing. Mozart. Yes, Wolfgang Amadeus “I wrote symphonies when I was a kid” Mozart is apparently overrated. For Fucks Sake! After I finished laughing I wanted to kick his arse. The point is: a statement of something being overrated says a lot about the person saying it rather than the musical act itself. ..and so finishes my rant on so-called overrated music.

Anyway, I forgot about them in my mid teens. The tape remained buried under an old jumbled collection of other forgotten bits and pieces that didn’t belong anywhere else in my life except the miscellaneous pile. The Beatles, I suppose didn’t really fit too neatly into the life of someone worried more about their teen angsty ‘got any blacker’ situation. I rediscovered the tape again eventually though – coming across it by accident while spring cleaning. I thought about tossing it out but couldn’t. I sat and listened to it instead. One last listen – and discovered the songs all over again. Taxman, not just a bouncy tune anymore, but instead slightly disgruntled, raw and edgy. Helter Skelter, almost frightening in its frenzy, Revolution; poignant and relevant still and Get Back amusing and soulful. Where once the music was simplistic and uncomplicated, I discovered layers of cultural and musical intricacies. The only explanation I can give for missing them before was that I’d finally grown up. Experience gives you a point of reference I guess.

The most flattering thing I can say about The Beatles is not that they are ‘the best band ever’ (or any other kind of hyperbole that surrounds them) but instead a compliment that I can only subscribe to one or two other childhood favourites and that is: I’m still a fan. After all these years, I’m still a fan and I still have weeks where I will listen to nothing but The Beatles and to boot I am still discovering new things about them to like.

I’m going to go ahead and put the first four songs that I really fell in love with as a 7 year old by The Beatles. In no particular order.

Revolution

Taxman

Get Back

Helter Skelter

(looking at those four – hm no wonder I am a bit funny in the head).