(Remember the Days of the) Old Schoolyard

One of my closest friends as an adult is a girl who used to bully me at school. Badly.

A lot has happened in the years since we were at the same school. I did my last four years at another place, but because our mothers have known each other since they were at school and are sort of friends, we kept seeing each other around, not least because she lived close by. Our first year of uni she started dating a man who became one of my closest friends, and she took classes with my ex, but we still had this awkward, difficult thing going on. They eventually broke up, and I figured that was it. Surely we wouldn’t have contact any more, our lives were too different.

Then, almost six years ago, her older brother killed himself, in one of the worst ways possible.

My mother called me at work to tell me. There was a message waiting on my voicemail that I found at the end of my waitressing shift that night, and I knew something was wrong because my mother never calls me. This left L. as the oldest child of the remaining six children, four of whom were still in school, at the most Catholic of Catholic schools that exist in this country.

In the haze of months that followed I tried to reach out to her; I made an effort to invite her to gatherings of my friends, if only so she could be with people who didn’t know the story. She never came, and as I was falling down the rabbit hole of mental illness in earnest myself there wasn’t much I could do. Again, I figured, we wouldn’t see each other anymore.

Not quite two years ago I had just started my final class of my B.A. and had one foot out the door, planning on a law degree in Canberra in 2012. It was my first morning tutorial with the mentor (little did I know what was coming) and I was yet to meet my closest girlfriend who was also in that class. I was at uni very early working, racing through the readings, when there was a tap on my shoulder. It was L., she was smiling, and suddenly – SNAP! – we were friends. After 23 years of knowing each other, and avoiding each other at parties and gatherings, the friendship was just there. Said friendship has been one of the greatest joys of the last few years of my life. We’re both on the academic track (she just finished her advanced Masters in a complementary discipline), we’re both living in the same area again, and the mental illness that has ravaged both our lives seems to have formed this bond between us that’s unshakeable. Plus, we’re both single. Hilariously we have the same psychiatrist, a discovery we made only a few months ago. It’s a bizarre experience to become friends with someone and be so close after almost a lifetime of enmity, as you have this history, but most of isn’t good. Yet it’s amazing how trauma can bring you together, hers and mine.* We have no curiosity about the dreadful things that have scarred each other, it’s just understood.

On Saturday night I dressed up a little and headed out to a bar, an unusual occurrence, for L.'s birthday drinks. I was nervous because I knew there was a good chance of other school people being there, as well as most of her siblings who I hadn’t seen in years. I’ve discovered if you’re trying to avoid people it’s best to go early to these things, as most people don’t turn up for drinks until two hours after the start time, and the trick worked well. I was coping with chatting with new people, and caught up with an old friend from last year’s Honours cohort who’s about to get married, I drank a few glasses of cheap yet good red wine and laughed at two guys wearing slankets. It was nice. Ultimately I only had to speak with one old classmate, and it was actually really great. It was friendly, and there was even a little acknowledgement that yeah, maybe we gave you a rough time way back when. To my great surprise, I had a good time (it helped I left before the scary people got there). It seemed to mean a lot to L. that I was there. I’m proud that we’ve done one better than our mothers, and actually managed to be friends for real.

As I got myself home, reeking of cigarette smoke from the bar, it occurred to me that when I host my 30^th birthday party in a few months’ time, L. will be there. She will also be the only person attending who was at my rather pathetic 21^st birthday lunch almost 9 years ago. She came late, and I only invited her because she was still with that guy who used to be one of my closest friends. I’m planning a very small dinner for September, with just the people who really matter to me. Putting her name on a very short list was a no brainer, I’m so lucky to have her. I also find it comforting that you can be wrong about people, and that sometimes even the most difficult of relationships can change on you. It’s one of the nicest surprises of growing up.

*I still think this space is better off without me being too explicit about my trauma (and I count myself lucky I didn't lose a sibling to suicide). I think most of you can put the pieces together anyway. 

Dressing Up

Last week Kirsty started a game that seems to have caught on, which isn't surprising given that I couldn't really stop thinking about it. If you can't be bothered clicking the link, she decided to imagine what her blog would look like as an outfit (and what she came up with is scarily accurate, you really should go and look), so I started looking around for my version. 

Turns out finding stuff which coordinates with every colour on my blog design is tricky, so I tried to get as close as I could. 

H M fitness shirt
$23 - hm.com

Topshop winter white skirt
$50 - topshop.com

Accessorize metallic ballet flat
$56 - accessorize.com

Nine West real leather handbag
$179 - ninewest.com

Blu Bijoux yellow gold jewelry
$28 - maxandchloe.com

Forever 21
$5.80, forever21.com

Nars cosmetic
$33 - johnlewis.com

Rimmel lipstick
$7.69 - ocado.com

By terry
$47 - barneys.com

Butter london
$18 - zappos.com



Thanks Kirsty, this was an awesome procrastination tool! (In fact it was so good that I tried to make a completely different blog post with another outfit and paste the images into blogger, but Polyvore works much better.) Anyone else wanna play?

Lisztomania (Take 3)

Most of you on the list have already received your Christmas mix CD (only several months late, but oh well....) and those of you who haven't (Nina, Rob and Ginger) should get it very soon. In the meantime I'm going to post the list of what went on last year's edition, because I'll probably forget if I wait any longer. 

For those of you new to this game, every year I put together a mix CD for close friends, both at home and abroad. The friends at home all (OK, almost all) received theirs before Christmas but I was pretty bad about getting the overseas ones out as international postage is a bit pricey.

There are a couple of rules: no using artists or bands I have used before, but side projects and solo efforts are OK. No covers. I like to include at least 5 songs from albums released in the year that's just passed, and I try and include several Australian acts. There's usually also a few classic tracks, mostly from the late 70s and early 80s because I just eat that stuff up. Live versions are always fun, but that's not a hard and fast rule. It usually works out at about 15 tracks each year, about an hour long in total, because I think that's kind of a perfect length for a CD. Maybe that's because my commute is about an hour long....

You can see the CDs I made in other years here. 

2012 - A World Elsewhere

Billy Idol - Dancing With Myself

Peaches - Showstopper

Can - Mother Sky

Morrissey - The Last of the Famous International Playboys

Bertie Blackman - Mercy Killer

Alabama Shakes - Be Mine

Ball Park Music - Coming Down

The Kills - Pull A U

Cat Power - Cherokee

Clubfeet (feat. Chela) - Heartbreak

Goldfrapp - Number 1

The Naked and Famous - No Way

Lisa Mitchell - Bless This Mess

Something for Kate - Eureka

Paul Kelly - Cradle of Love

Hairdresser on Fire

About a month ago I called the salon which employs my hairdresser to book a haircut I badly needed. I find that the hair conversation I have with myself in the mornings leading up to my haircut being booked usually goes something like this:

Days after haircut, 96 - 'Hair looks OK.'

Days after haircut, 97 - 'Hair looks OK.'

Days after haircut, 98 - 'Hair looks OK.'

Days after haircut, 99 - 'Hair looks OK. Who says I should get it done every three months?'

Days after haircut, 100 - 'Hair looks OK. Might need a hairband - oh yeah, that's better.'

Days after haircut, 101 - 'OH GOD I NEEDED A HAIRCUT YESTERDAY!' 

You see, that's because I suddenly look like a cross between these two gentlemen:

Beethoven, trying to count

and 

Einstein, as modelled in soft toy form.

And that's usually when I pick up the phone and call Adam. My hairdresser.

Adam started cutting my hair in about August 2010. It was the first time I was getting my hair done professionally in about 2 years, as I had a neurological condition that required several surgeries in early 2009 and I had been loathed to go to a hairdresser and explain the scars. So I cut my own hair for a while, sometimes after taking sleeping tablets. This was not quite as disastrous as it sounds (I have very thick, curly hair and the texture covered a multitude of sins), but maybe that's because I'm comparing it to the time in Year 7 when I decided my eyebrows were completely ridiculous and so partly shaved them off with a razor. Of course, this wasn't good enough, so I took some of the rest of them off with a stanley knife. Yes, you read that right, and no, I didn't cut myself. I did, however, have a public speaking competition the next night, and my mother drew some in with an eyebrow pencil, which essentially converted me to the wonders of makeup.         

But I'm talking about haircuts here.

Adam is from London, with a wonderful bedside manner and a deliciously curly mop of hair and snazzy shoes. He's straight, and for some reason a straight male hairdresser is alluring. He also has excellent taste in music and is roughly the same age as me, so the call to the salon to book my haircut always wakened the slightly delicious anticipation of having someone make you feel nice for a little while. I was excited to ring the salon and book an appointment with Adam. We had lots to talk about, and I was looking forward to seeing him. He got married the same week I was in Melbourne, you see. Then the girl on the desk that day broke my heart a little.

'Oh, I'm sorry to have to say this, but Adam doesn't work here anymore.'

'Is he all right?,' I asked, slightly crushed. 'What's he up to?' (Could I have sounded anymore like a fan-girl?)

'Yeah, he's great, he's working in IT now.'

'Oh, OK,' I said brightly, as I was thrust into the hell we all dread when this happens to us. 'So....I need someone to cut my hair.'

Now I get my hair done at Toni & Guy, and one of the good things about it (apart from the cuts being decent value) is that the training program they run world wide means you're pretty sure of getting a good haircut with anyone who works there. The problem instead, as with so many other instances in life, is that I have no idea how to ask for what I want. Lyn's typically hilarious (but somewhat unhelpful) suggestion was to '[make] high-pitched, wordless noises while gesturing wildly in the direction of [my] head', so I count it as a win that I managed not to do a Beaker impression in front of my new hairdresser. Instead I mumbled something about not wanting to look like a dead, deaf composer anymore. 

The woman who eventually chopped my locks off also happens to be from the UK and is good friends with Adam, my now former hair paramour. She's quite mannered in that very British sort of way, and had fun telling me how much she likes the lifestyle here (the UK and Australia seem to have this citizen swap going on where we lose people to the other, indefinitely), but it was all slightly awkward and I left not really feeling like my best self. I was mostly just uncomfortable from all the hair that was everywhere on my body covered by skin. You know, everywhere.

I like my short cut, and think it's a vast improvement, but it does occur to me in the mirror most mornings that I now look something like this: 

Oh yeah, sexy face like that Dylan Moran. 

Then again, at the end of the day, I also look a little like the other Dylan: 

you know, from the cover of Blonde on Blonde.

'But Moz,' I hear you say, 'they're all guys. With facial hair!'

I don't want to talk about it.

I am happy with the cut, I am. Except then I realised the person I really look like now is my mother. And that's a hundred times worse.

I'm off to deal with my facial hair. With a stanley knife, I'm kind of broke. 

Postcards from Melbourne (Part 2)

(Errrr.....this was not the post I sat down to write, it just came out. The final installment of my Melbourne reflections will come when my best friend passes on a copy of the letter I wrote her while there. Until then, here's this, and I'll be back in a few days with the post I thought was coming.)

Dear moment,

We have about fifteen minutes, I think, so it’s rather a long moment. It has been a very long day, a very hard day, and I’ve spent quite a lot of it talking myself up.  First there were the few hours before my presentation where I tried to convince myself it would be OK, and pictured Rocky pumping himself up in my head while I ate breakfast and drank a really good cup of coffee. Then after my presentation I had to skip the next session and try and talk sense into myself before the mentor collared me at lunch and actually managed to talk sense into me. If I trust him on everything else, maybe I should believe him when he says it was truly excellent, that I was truly excellent.

So I’m sitting here, having ordered what will be a truly excellent pizza I will eat in my plain little hotel room I have come to rather love (once I’ve stumbled there without the shoes on that have been killing me all damn day), and I am watching the very natty dressers who work here as they buzz around and tease each other on this quiet Friday night. The staff here are so friendly, and each of them seems to pause as they pass by me – I think I really must look every bit as shattered as I am. I’m thinking to myself that this day I have been working up towards for five months is here and almost over, and that this is probably a time for celebration. I did OK today. I didn’t make too much of a goat out of myself, I managed to not sprint from the room the moment the thing was done to throw up, and I had a number of lovely chats with people today, including with almost all the people who came to my presentation and wanted to speak with me about it. This is a day worth remembering.

It occurs to me that I have some money, the money I have been stashing away for five months so that I could actually live a little while I was here, on this very important trip. And the wine list is right there, oh look! The glass of red I really want will almost surely make me fall asleep right here and now, so instead I order a pinot gris and I’m happy as I smile and ask the waitress for it.

I’m waiting for the wine and for a moment I hate that I’m here by myself at the end of this day. One of the worst things about being single, one of the things I rarely think about, is that when the good stuff happens you don’t have anyone with whom to share it. I feel this very strongly because I am terrible at celebrating. I don’t know how to jump up and down for myself and get excited for something I did. It does feel very lonely, and for a second I hate that it’s just me in this little restaurant with the friendly, well dressed staff and that I will go home by myself to the little yellow room.

But here’s my wine, and I suddenly know that no one else is going to toast me, no one else is going to acknowledge how momentous today was and what an achievement it has been to just get here in one piece. I got on the damn train to Melbourne rather than walking in front of it. This was my day, this is my moment, and although I’ve spent most of the day shaking and close to tears, it really was one hell of a time. I raise my glass to myself, just a tiny bit so no one knows what I’m doing. And I blink the tears away and try to breathe.  There’s no self pity here, I promise, it’s just the way it is. It’s quite OK. I need to get better at cheering myself on.

I’m alone in this moment, and it feels pretty damn good. This little space of time, for me and my glass of wine, is golden. For just a bit I am the luckiest girl in the world.

Love,

Me x

(Yeah, I know, it was a big postcard.)

Makeover

Hi! Looking a bit different here. I took a cue from Kirsty and went for a new look. You might need to adjust your zoom settings a little, because the blog header’s a bit big, but if you do that hopefully you get the impression intended.* The look of this blog has always been a bit dark and martial  (unsurprisingly so given the content and my own personal aesthetic preferences), and I thought it might be time to pretty it up a bit. As I am completely incapable of doing that on my own, I turned to the internet for help with a (small) fistful of dollars.

In real life, I’m going through a corresponding period where I just hate the way I look and wish it was as easy and as quick to fix with a blog template and a little bit of money. I know this is pretty common, especially for women, and I do all the typical things like avoiding mirrors and not buying clothes unless I absolutely have to. I spent some time with someone recently which ended up making me feel even worse on that front, and it’s not like I’ve ever had much confidence when it comes to my appearance. It’s just that any anxiety or discomfort I might feel about how I look has been drowned out by the misery in my head, and it’s been that way for a long time.** It’s absolutely one of the reasons I don’t post personal pictures on the blog.

I also know that aesthetics matter, and maybe if I pay a little more attention to the outside I might feel a little better on the inside. Obvious, huh? I thought it might be worth doing the same with the blog, trying to spruce the place up a bit might help alleviate the dark stuff I write about. So I’m going to try and post a few more pictures, and try writing about some more everyday things, in order to make this is a slightly better place to visit as a reader. I’m profoundly grateful that I have a small, committed group of you who read and comment, especially given the difficult themes and content up for grabs here.  I’d like to try and make it a more pleasant experience for you.

But how to do it? It turns out that just about every blog template you can buy without expensive custom work is all pretties and pastel colours and cutesy fonts. They’re all so feminine and imply that the blog to hand is filled with food pictures and teddy bears. The templates I could find are for bright and shiny blogs, filled with posts about how hard things were, and now it’s OK, I figured it out. How difficult but fulfilling parenthood can be. Or how to make a yoga mat out of cucumber peelings and a picture frame out of your baby’s first teeth. Those blogs are lovely and all, but that isn’t what I write about and probably never will be. I hope that I will eventually be able to write about some things with a measure of retrospection and experience, but it will never be an advice blog.*** ‘Here’s how you get through this’ and ‘here’s how I did it’ is not my style. I’m just groping about in the dark in real life, much like how I fumble writing this blog.

I started this blog because I wanted to write about things I couldn’t really find elsewhere, especially amongst Australian bloggers. I want to become a better writer and flesh out ideas for my work while I obsess over some of problems which have defined my life. But I also don’t want it to devolve into something so dark that you all only read it out of obligation.

I want to punch a hole in the wall for some light and air. I’ll be here, in my corner, trying to breathe and start over. Hope you all like the refurb.

*Thanks, Mel! There are some small changes, physically – you can now subscribe to the blog for e-mail updates, I’ve updated my bio slightly, and my blog roll is now current. There are some other bits and pieces I’m trying to figure out too, so with a bit of luck it should be easier to navigate around here and get in touch, should you need to. And no more word verification! I apologise for that, I didn’t even realise it was part of the deal.

**This is not, in any way, to discount the mental illness or distress caused by eating disorders or something close to them. I know exactly how devastating they can be (a very close friend nearly died from one), and that they are not simply a physical disease. It’s one of the reasons they are so tricky to treat - they are both physical and mental illnesses. My friend who went through it wrote a memoir about it that I highly recommend.

*** The only advice I can dispense with good conscience is about what music to buy. 

Will Do

This is not a carefully written post, for once. This is the written version of the life raft that has been bobbing in my head since the madness descended in earnest last December. This is the expression of the need I have to reach out today, on a crappy day - a need I have resisted thus far, in some 15 months of blogging. On a day when the rest* of my Honours cohort is graduating and celebrating, I am hiding under my bedcovers. Despite my careful screening of social media, I couldn't avoid the shenanigans completely. It doesn't help that I hate myself for taking others' joy so personally, I swear I am not usually this person. 

So today I keep telling myself what I have to believe to keep going:

I will finish my work. 

I will graduate.

I will get the mark I want, or something damn close to it. (A 93, if you're interested.)

I do not expect to win prizes, but all marks over 90 (for the combined thesis and seminar class results) are considered for the University Medal. The work is submitted for consideration to the Honours committee and read by lots of people. This has been my goal from the beginning. It is a lofty goal - although about half of the students who do Honours in this department get a first (it's a world class department), the majority of them get somewhere between 80 (the low cut off for a first) and about 85. It is a scant handful of people whose work gets to the meeting. But I have the talent, I have the help. I can do this. I HAVE to do this. 

I will do this. 

Keep me honest, friends. Please. 

(On a lighter note, come back early next week to see the blog's facelift.) 

*except for a few of us who dropped to part time.