Suzy Caterwaul

Day Two of Exile survived.

Good things: Training my freelancers went well, it basically turned into an industry gossip session, and they're both very cool ladies. I've missed Emily.
Got my flight back changed, so I will see Stephen and Cecil play tomorrow. YAY! I really liked what I heard from Jonathan Devoy too, so will be watching from the shadows with interest.

Less good things:
My day off on Friday was scuppered by a late request for a job. It is now a half-day off. It's corporate guff, but I like the client, so I guess I don't really mind... but jesus fuck, there's always something. Like last Monday where I was home sick, and had six phone calls and twenty-four emails. Christ guys, leave me alone!


Tropical Queensland is..... tropical. It's hot and humid up here, and I'm not used to it. It seems to give the people who live here a perpetual almost-on-holiday vibe. Things happen very slowly, and people leave work at five on the dot. They probably eat lunch at twelve on the dot, dinner at six-thirty (meat, potatoes and two veg) and bed at nine-thirty sharp. Every day, every night. Just like my grandma.

I strolled up to the local shopping mall at lunchtime today (twelve on the dot), for lack of anything better to do. Strolled is maybe the wrong word. In the oppressive heat it was more like a trudge. A sticky, sweaty trudge. You know the feeling when you peel yourself off a hot vinyl car seat in summer? A word that describes that would describe that walk more accurately.
Anyway, there wasn't much up there. I tried on every maxi dress that wasn't size Obese in Target and concluded that maxi dresses still don't suit me.
I like the idea of them - a light, comfy thing for summer that you can schlep around in over your togs... but they're all so sack-like with their empire lines and tiered skirts. Why can't they have proper waists? Gads, I could harp on for hours about the state of fashion. Perhaps that'd be a better blog than this one, but it'd only result in people accusing me of low self esteem or being too frumpy to wear the latest things. Honestly, I don't care how "on trend" a thing is, if it's ugly it ain't making it into my wardrobe. The whole concept of a thing being "on trend" sends me scurrying for my Doc Martens. Go forth, you army of spray-tanned one-shoulder sack dress wearers with your carefully GHD-curled locks, and make yourselves ridiculous. Then fall over on your skyscraper platform heels while drunk in the queue at McDonald's.

Goonmas is this Sunday. I'm going to bake cupcakes and try out fondant icing. Specifically, marshmallow fondant. I've never made fondant before, so hopefully they don't turn out too hoady-lookin. Also on the menu will be my trusty parmesan and rosemary pastry thingies, and maybe a green salad of some sort if I can be arsed. Plus whatever everyone else comes up with... looking forward to Leah's offerings, she can always be counted on to bring something delicious.

It feels like there's an awful lot of Christmas to sort out. My half-day on Friday is so I can shop for everyone, box everything up with a few little treats through the packaging, and send the whole schemozzle off to Auckland. I'd really like to get something for my eldest two cousins, because they've both turned into awesome people, but it means racking my brains for the younger ones, who are still making Miley Cyrus faces in their Facebook self-portraits. What does one buy a person who thinks that's cool? Cause, y'know... as the eldest of the crop I have an obligation to be beyond-cool and give great presents. At least my sister's easy. She always tells me exactly what to buy, how much it will cost and where to buy it. And it is unfailingly practical. I usually take the liberty of getting her a piece of clothing or jewellery as well, because presents should be pretty and fun.
This year she also took the liberty of purchasing my parents' presents from me and telling me the price! Controlling much?! I'll get something small for each of them of my choosing as well, I think.

Then there's Christmas Day. I actually have two weeks off this year. There was talk of keeping the office open with a skeleton staff over the holidays, so I planned to stay in Sydney, so here I'll be. I don't want to crash anyone's family stuff, so it's looking increasingly like I'll be hanging out by myself. I'll put together a picnic with a bottle of nice champagne and have a picnic on a beach somewhere, I think. Mostly so I can say I did something nice on Christmas Day.
In a lot of ways, I miss Christmas morning with my sister, Mum and Dad. We'd always have waffles or pancakes with maple syrup and fresh strawberries and peaches. Mum would give us each a glass of champagne with a strawberry in it (from when we were about sixteen or so), and we'd sit around the tree in our pyjamas and exchange presents. They still have our Christmas stockings hung up every year, lovingly knitted by Great-Aunty Kay, even though we've both left home years ago. If we're home, Santa still comes and leaves a bag of chocolate coins and something small and amusing. It's golden, that time. When we're all most ourselves. When we can tell each other, truthfully, that we love each other. When we can admit to things like new tattoos and peircings.
Before we have to gussy up and trek around the various relatives while aunties fuss, uncles talk about sport, and read the women's weekly, hiding from the flurry of activity around the kitchen and the table. Grandmothers force-feed us until we feel sick. While I still had Grandfathers, they'd noisily nap in the afternoons, giant grandfatherly snores periodically eminating from their grandfather-sized noses. There's fuss, and clucking. "You're too skinny, have another slice of pav!", "When are you going to find yourself a nice man?", "You know, I think your mother would like grandchildren", "Oh yes, Aunty Lotte's kids are spending the winter in Switzerland as a reward for straight As on their reports", "Smarmy buggers", "Yeah, smarmy buggers".

Yeah, for all the fuss and drama, for all their idiosyncrasies and foibles, I think I'll miss my family on Christmas Day.

This week I'm supposed to be finding parallels to photograph with my trusty iPhone. Because I lack a proper camera, but I still have this need to make pictures like I used to. Last fortnight's 'curves' assignment was easy; curves are everywhere. Your face, my face, our bodies, roads, tracks, paths, buildings, wrought-iron railings. But parallels I find difficult. You need a steadier hand, more accurate composition. I've got nothing.

Instead I've spent the week drawing parallels between the past and the present.


When I was sixteen, I met a boy named John. He was the first person I loved. We spent sixth form dancing around each other – good friends, but never quite plucking up the courage to do something about the sexual tension brewing between us. We probably didn’t know how at that age, for all our feverish adolescent dreaming about sex. At eighteen we managed to get it together. We were flatting together with another good friend, who used to read bedtime stories for us all from JRR Tolkien, and it was so easy to move from curling up together to more intense stuff. It lasted a few weeks before I broke his heart and went back to an ex that I now feel nothing but revulsion for.
We didn’t lose touch at that stage, and we spent the next eight years sleeping with each other between other partners, by turns delighting and hurting each other. By twenty, we were both heavily into clubs, drugs and electronica. I remember clearly the chase that would happen at the end of a long night. As Wellington’s silver-grey dawns slowly crept up outside we’d be circling, shooting glances, checking on each other. Who’s she dancing with? Who’s that girl buying him a beer? Will he? Will she? Are we going home together tonight? Sometimes I’d skip out early without saying goodbye, just to prove some kind of point. Exactly what that point was is lost to me now, but relations between us became meaner and meaner the more drugs we took.
Eventually I decided I was going to university, and quit getting wasted. He kept on, and got deeper into Serious Drug Problem territory. I took up with a Nice Man who my family loved – Hamish - for five years. I loved him too, and still reserve a corner of my heart for him. He’s one of life’s truly decent sorts, and I hope his current girlfriend makes him happier than I could.
When John inevitably resurfaced a couple of years in, I politely-but-firmly told him I was not about to cheat. John never had a problem with cheating. Or lying. Or stealing for that matter.
And after that relationship ended, there was John. Again. By this time he was a meth fiend and a male prostitute and was way too far gone to sustain any kind of ongoing relationship. I wasn’t keen on going back to our casual-sex arrangement either, given the nature of his work now.

It’s bittersweet to look back at the nights I spent pining and wishing. We might have had a shot, had I not chosen someone else at the start, but for much of our acquaintance it was an impossible dream. The chase was all-consuming, beautiful and painful and intense. But what happens when the chase is over? Does the magic die? How do you mould all that intensity into a workable day-to-day companionship?

Of course, John turned out to be a loose cannon. A liability. I couldn’t quite bring myself to cut him completely, but I stopped being alone with him, and then moved overseas. Looking back, I wonder how I could have been so into someone so patently a bad idea…. But I guess what I saw wasn’t the drug-addled criminal lowlife he became. It was the blue-eyed kid I kissed in the park at midnight. Before all of us got fucked up in our own special ways.



So this week I’m connecting the dots between that first, intense infatuation and my current situation. The chase, the dance, the assumptions and the meaning read into things which probably mean nothing. Perhaps as a friend wrote recently, it’s better unfulfilled. That way the magic is never spoiled. But when an infatuation endures, should one do something about it?

Is it cowardice, or preservation, to hold back and never really try?

Today's an expectant sort of a day. I feel like I'm waiting for something, I've got little butterflies going on. Only, nothing's happening. I'm not waiting for anything, just nervous for no apparent reason.

I started at five this morning, thanks to Jerkface McJerk the Wanker Network Exec, a client. I'd attempted to take a sick day yesterday (six phone calls, twenty-four emails. Heaven help those fuckers if I ever end up in hospital).
So I couldn't deliver the crap I needed to deliver yesterday afternoon. I spoke to Jerkface in the afternoon, explained the situation and said that since they needed the stuff by 6am, that I would drop it in in the morning. I duly did, only to find that one of the guys in the office had arranged it yesterday, and noone had called me to tell me I didn't need to get up at half past fucking four to sort it. Jerks.

Coffee a yarn with Leah at the Egg and Soldier at 7am smoothed over my ruffled feathers.

Last night turned out to be a fish and chips sort of evening. It got cold and rainy, which was a welcome change from hot and sticky. I ventured up oxford street in search of a decent fish'n'chippie - these are hard to find in Sydney. The city was littered with trashed umbrellas, some stuffed in rubbish bins and others just abandoned on the footpath.

I waddled all the way up to Paddington before I came across an alright-looking fish and chip shop. It was handily located just before a queue of Paddington Poseurs huddled under the awning in their skinny jeans and waistcoats, waiting for a free seat at a sushi train. More fools them, my fish and chips were delicious and I didn't have to queue at all or wear a dreadful spraytan or sack dress. Nyah.


Still got these butterflies. Why, butterflies? Is there something I was supposed to do?

Ssssshhhhhhh.... I've pulled a sickie. I'm not unwell, just couldn't be arsed today. I had friends around all weekend and people staying over 'cause they live in the deepest darkest burbs, and by last night I was feeling well crowded out. It's times like this that having a flatmate is hard work. Which is why telling the world to get fucked on a workday is nice.

This morning I've sung in the shower, waxed my legs, worked on some stupid little projects and eaten reheated pizza for breakfast. Is this what being on holiday is like? I could do more of it.

I think I've fallen out of practice at writing. Or I never have anything in particular to say any more. Head's full of other people's words, other people's songs, other people's images. All of which are superior to anything I can do, but it's never going to get better if I let myself get rustier.

Question du jour: Why do sunglasses make people's noses look like muppet noses?

Last Friday I found myself working on a journalists' awards night. It was a silly little internal thing for one of the big news conglomerates, where they pat themselves on the back and tell themselves they still have some shred of journalistic integrity. That's debateable, some of the stories being awarded were responsible for breaking people and destroying lives and families... reporters can have warped views of what's right.

Each of the winning hacks delivered a 'thank-you' speech, Oscars style. All of the male ones thanked their beautiful wives. None of the female ones thanked their beautiful husbands. I had to wonder whether the career-minded, hardworking women who recieved accolades had husbands to thank... perhaps they're too busy, or too intimidating. It's rare to find a man who will play second fiddle to a woman's illustrious career, at least in my experience. Perhaps I'm dating the wrong men. 

I found myself in a really intense conversation with the wife of one of the guitarists from the theatre tour at the party in Melbourne, who matter of factly informed me that I "need to marry a muso! It's great", she said. "They fuck off for weeks at a time!"
She might have a point, it's the closest thing to an argument for marriage that I can come up with. But I don't think I can be arsed with another bullshit attachment hogging my attention. I have work to do.

I finally do something I genuinely enjoy. I can't believe it took me so many years to find something I liked to do.... or maybe I can. I'm a much improved person from the sad little civil servant who ran away from Wellington. And goddamn it feels good.

I'm strong and lean, and I can throw around my own road cases. I have a collection of bruises on my thighs from walking into other people's road cases in dimly lit areas, which I wear as a little private badge of honour as to how badass I am. I carry tools around in my handbag, and have all my cables at home neatly coiled and taped up. I get to rock up to work in jeans and boots and I get to take things apart and make them work better. I'm working fucking hard. And most surprising of all, I'm fucking good at it. 

Today I worked a sixteen hour day, which isn't unusual lately. I've become Mistress of the Midnight Loadout. Today was good though, it was well organised and the crew was well looked after. It was an awards dinner for another big ass company, and they'd gone all out throwing wads of cash at it. There was singing and performances and celebrity MCing and ballyhoo for Africa. I've had a great run of awesome crews the last few months, and this was no exception. The staging guy who booked me is possibly the most chill fellow on the planet. He looks after his crew and has a good time doing what he does, and it means he gets the best people doing the best job.  I really enjoy gigs like this.... and it's pretty ego-inflating to be good enough to get them.

Relationships are fascinating. I'm not very good at them myself (not even with all this practice!), but thanks to a wide social circle and the magical powers of facebook, I see them constantly unfolding all around me, all the time. I'm of an age when my friends are starting to get married, buy houses and pop out crotchspawn, which is disturbing to say the least. I also see my parents and their generation, some celebrating years upon years of wedding anniversaries, and others on their third or fourth marriages. Today I even managed to have a chortle at my fourteen-year-old cousin, who's profile picture features her doing a Miley Cyrus pout (quelle horreur!), playing out what may be the most awkward first date ever, on her facebook page. I don't think I helped by commenting, heh.

In the case of my parents, I have nothing but admiration for the love, trust and loyalty they have in their marriage. I don't know why it hasn't set a "good" example for me, because I'm not at all keen on the idea. It's a funny spot to be in, to have a deep-rooted belief in love existing and being beautiful and powerful, and at the same time have, on average, a six-month attention span for men.

So, after spending a day or two being, in rapid succession, weepy, angry, defiant, and then indignant (excuse me mister, *I* do the losing interest and breaking up, okay?), I realised how petulant I become if I'm not getting any. Which is pretty humourous. It also might have to be something to get used to - I'm not the youthful and slender minx I was when I thought I could just pull whoever I wanted (and often did). It's a shameful thing to have to admit, but I've always garnered a lot of self esteem from the way that the opposite sex regard me. That attention, those flirtations that I crave are becoming less frequent. Not nonexistent, mind. I still get fucking plonkers pulling horrendous lines at bars and the like. Maybe at the same time, I've shifted the bar. Raised my standards. Because when my wily little mind turns to my mental To Do list and asks 'who's next', the options are somewhat limited.

I feel like I've done my time with regrettable encounters, and with 'sex only' type things, where I feel like I have to hide the fact that I genuinely like and respect my accomplice. I mean come on... if I like someone enough to have recurrent sex with them, there are probably things aside from sex to like about them. So I'm not really sure what it is I do want now. Not marriage, two point four children and a house in the fuckin' suburbs like people seem to be doing at a rate of knots lately. I would suffocate and die. I still want to travel, and to behave in a very selfish and hedonistic manner. I want to be the poster child for Peter Pan Syndrome.

What I'd really like is to be free from that annoying as fuck nagging desire for the rush of something new, that'd be really handy. I don't know if that's realistic or even possible, given my fucking retarded romanticality. I want to have the courage to stay open to the idea of love. while at the same time not *needing* it to function. I need to not forget that I'm still working out how to be a half-decent human being in my own right.

Actually, today I feel pretty damn good. I'm about to get ten days off my stupid little melodramas here. I satisfied my occasional need to do something retarded by getting a new tattoo (which is currently itching like hell), and I get to see one of my oldest friends twirling tassels on her nipples in Perth this Sunday. I'm really relishing the opportunity to clear my head, and remember how fucking awesome my life really is.

Welp. I guess I'm being broken up with through silence. This sucks.

All I ever asked for was honesty, but the guy can't get it together to man up and tell me he's not into it any more?  What the fuck is up with that? And for that matter, what the fuck is wrong with me? Fuck fuck fuck fuck. Now I have to try not to lose it at work - there's only so much "I have a cold" will do to evade notice.

I really don't know what to do to fix myself - everyone's so busy with the cafe and my silly little problems seem so minor it feels petty to mention them or ask for comfort. But goddamn if I don't feel.... unwanted.

It's been hard work, this last few weeks. Juggling concert tour and reality show, working from home, working from a winery, working from the airport lounge. It's been a whirlwind, and there's still Perth and Adelaide to go. It really has been loads of fun. The band and crew have made me feel part of the gang - a welcome change from the jadedness of teevee. There's always beers and time to chill after the shows, which is awesome. I think this is the most fun thing I've ever been paid for. I'm coming off the high a bit now - and I miss the band and crew. There's still a week and a half while the tour's in Brisbane before I join them again. And bonus! I've picked up some sort of head cold lurgy that's making me feel all woolly. Best I bosh some more cold pills before I go so sleep right here at my desk.

So today's a down day. Stupid cold, stupid mandramas. Howcome I only feel like writing when I'm melancholy? It'd be nice to write about happy things, but it never seems to occur to me to do that. Perhaps because I don't need to vent when I'm feeling good. I don't really know why I do this, but there's some sort of strange comfort in putting this shit out into the ether. I should really try to put down some of the better times though, that's the stuff I really want to remember.

I'm worried about my strange little Clayton's relationship - I can't tell if he's lost interest, or if he's just preoccupied with other things. I know I've been busy with this work stuff, but the last time he spent a night was in August, and it feels like an awful long time ago. I've seen him since, at the wedding, at trivia, but there's always a reason he doesn't come home with me (last week I guess was fair enough given I had to be up at 5am to go to Hobart). I should probably just knock it on the head before it gets me down any further.... but christ I feel a failure.  I feel like I'm not ... something enough. Not pretty enough? Not interesting enough? Too moody? Too cold? I don't know. What I do know is that for all that bluster about being independent, I still feel pretty fuckin needy lately. I really hope I'm wrong, and he's just being some kind of clueless manthing, cause I do think he's pretty fucking amazing. But then, he did say from the outset that he wasn't 'relationship material', whatever the fuck that is. Spose the only way to find out is to have one of those awkward conversations about feelings and shit. Gash.

The only other contender for my attention has completely lost interest. He does blow hot and cold, but it's pretty clear that he's into someone else, and I need to get my head 'round that all over again, goddamnit. I feel a little bit like a plaything with that - I'm enough to toy with when he's got nothing better going on.... I mean, it's good that he's not all up in my face, cause I was feeling guilty about it, but at the same time, it stings a little. I did spend a long time wanting something to happen there.

Ugh, why can't I just be enough for myself? That's the goal, right? So why am I sleeping spooning the pile of laundry on my bed? I guess the lesson of the day is that godawful chick-lit line: "He's just not that into you". Probably in both cases. Deal with it. And be thankful you have an amazing life where you get to gallivant about with musicians and such.

Meh, I guess I'll just get my work done today, and work on writing about things that make me happy and excited tomorrow.

I never thought I'd say this, but John Farnham is fucking awesome.

( what are you on about, you crazy bint? )

Sitting out on my balcony in the sky, I can hear all the little sounds of the city below me. It's a low hum, the drone of a hundred or so buildings exhaling through their rooftop aircon units, horns and sirens, drunkards, garbage trucks. On a warm night, the scent of flowers still reaches up over everything, but when it's windy, not so much.

Last night I found myself wondering, what would happen to the city if everyone left? How long would it take for the buildings to crumble, for the plants to find cracks and crevices and take over? How long for the earth to reclaim its own, like Yerranderie? I imagined walking through vined and overgrown ravines between towering square concrete mesas. The city would be owned by the bats, the pigeons, the possums and the rats.

This afternoon is set-up day for a certain Ageing Pop Star. It marks the beginning of my social hiatus, both a blessing and a curse. I need this to prove to myself that I'm still independent, that I can still rely on my own company and judgement. I fear this because I've never felt so loved, and people forget so quickly about a person when they're absent. That and shit's just got so darn interesting lately.

This morning my bones sound like a bowl of rice bubbles.

After work on Friday, Terry, Arkady and I piled shit in Terry's troopie and drove to Yerranderie. Yerranderie is a place that's about four hours from Katoomba - an hour of ever narrowing sealed roads, then three hours-ish of gravel, narrowing to a single lane dirt road. It's an old silver mining town, now largely abandoned.

( Read more... )( Read more... )

The last few days have been a little too mundane to write much about. Days better suited to one-liner facebook updates and pooptwitters. Well, not entirely, I suppose - since here I am attempting to chronicle them. Why? well, I suppose because I can.

( Read more... )

It's a terrible way to start a new blog, isn't it? Having a case of the snarling blues. They're less snarly now though. I've a ways to go before I'm back to myself - the next little while is likely to be a barren stretch of anhedonia and general malaise. I'm so fucking textbook I disgust myself.

The lovely bats of the baseball declared today 'honesty day'. I couldn't think of anything I wanted to ask. At one time I would have had many questions, but I no longer need answers to those bygone questions. I like it when people share things of their own accord - I feel like I'm being given little gifts of insight and humour.  And of course, sometimes a little mystery is nice. One day soon, when I'm feeling up to human interaction, I might pinch that idea and offer some honesty of my own.

Tonight I am tired. It's exhausting putting on my mask and getting things done during the day. I almost had a nap when I got home - I think I was asleep or very close to it, but the damned phone rang and that was the end of that. I feel groggily post-nap now, and have no plans, nor any money with which to entertain myself.

If I could do anything in the world, I'd drive for the sake of driving, along an interesting or pretty road. 'Course, I lack a vehicle, so that's out. I'm half tempted to see if there's a beach (not Bondi!) that I can get to at this hour of the evening on public transport. It would be nice to walk barefoot in sand, I think. Sensible Susan says no, she has a busy day tomorrow..... but terrible delinquent Emmy-Sue wants so badly for something pleasant.

Tomorrow I am having my volunteer induction for the Cat Protection Society. Yes, I am a cat lady. I miss having a cat around rather badly, and it's not fair to keep one in a city apartment. Nor is it sensible to move to the 'burbs and get one, for I don't know where I'll be in two years time. Hopefully London. So the next best thing is giving some time to many needy cats. I don't love people easily, but I have pretty much limitless, unconditional love for cats and dogs. Don't tell anyone. People might think I'm soft.

After that I'm working at the rugby - tomorrow is the Bleeding Slow Cup. Hurrah the All Blacks and all that jazz. A little tedious if you ask me, but I'll put the enthusiasm face on like a good girl.

I'm also supposed to be going to (yet another) engagement party, but I don't know whether I'll make that. It's cocktail dress, so I'll be showing up rather later than fashionable. We'll see. Monkey may be there, I haven't heard from him in a week or so. That's not out of the ordinary, of course - it really is a low-maintenance thing. However, I worry that if I see him in my less-than-okay state, I may ask more from him than he is willing to give.

It's not a great day. I'm black-doggin and as usual when I'm in this state it's like all the worry and guilt and anger and bad stuff is bigger than my head, bigger than my physical being. It's clawing to get out, and I'm crying out to anyone within reach to come and save me, come and make me better.

The lesson, which I learn time and time again, is never to talk about it. No good comes of it. Noone is going to come to my rescue and magically make it all disappear, I just bring people down and they want to talk to me less. I've got to learn, again, to contain it.

After spitting forth the nastiest piece of vitriol I've written in some time yesterday afternoon, I feel much better. I almost immediately felt better, in fact. I must have sucked the poison out good and proper. It takes a lot of energy to be angry.

( ... and then what? )