There’s no business like

I have no right to enjoy my activities from the weekend as much as I did. Which obviously sounds dodgy, on reflection and so I will hasten to ad that what I meant by that is the level of enthusiasm experienced when attending something I had up until an hour prior had next to no interest in attending was out of order. Particularly when the something attended was effectively a carnival also attended by billions of despicably consumer driven and obscenely hyper children and their broken spirited parents.

No one goes to the show any more. Of course people go to it, someone’s got to keep the small Malaysian children who make orange novelty wigs in a job, or wander about in a stunned morass, wondering why they brought their spawn to such a plastic-lust inducing seizure tank but no one that I know, really goes or wants to go to the show. We just seemed to get over it.

But this year, oh, this year, Kate and I got a free ticket. Which brought the ridonkulous price down a little so we wouldn’t have to sell our kidneys/first borns/drugs to enter the blessed gates. So we went.

That was a long intro to what will be a fairly short, probably erratic and overly uninteresting anecdote, but I’ll persevere as I don’t know yet what I want for dinner.

Look! A teeny tiny donkey child!

We approached the task at hand like the money challenged nanna’s we are by bringing our own food (Kate BAKED BREAD. Pull-a-part cheese and ham bread if you DON’T mind. The things people do, on a whim seemingly, usally whilst I’m re-loading facebook or sleeping, make me shake my head in wonder. Shake shake.), deciding to only purchase one treat (FAIRY FLOSS! FAIRY FLOSS!! FAAAAIRY FLOOOOSSUUH!!!) and heading in the afternoon to avoid the feeling of crapulence that comes from wandering about all day.

And like the money challenged nanna’s we are our entertainment came chiefly from meandering about, gazing at huge eyed baby animals, various and sundry arts, crafts and cakes that looked like other things than cake and generally hoovering up as much free entertainment/food as we could find in our voracious quest for satiation.

this is in fact a cake, not an echidna. I know it's difficult to come to terms with.

While this might sound like no ones cup of anything, I actually had a lot of fun. As I’ve mentioned I had nearly too much fun, which owes a lot to the company I was with. Kate is HILARIOUS  and we are good at providing low budget entertainment for ourselves. And it was educational.

Things I learnt at the Show:

1. Children are mental

2. Violent Orange does not a nice hair colour make

3. Oversize wigs rarely look good or humorous

4. When your friend hands you a baby lamb and says “he might pee on you” this should be viewed as a prophecy

5. Monster trucks are HUGE. And awesome.

6. Bertie Beetle is still excellent value at $2 a showbag

7. People still make things. Like, with their hands. Somewhere in the world are people who want to sit and lovingly craft intricacies out of wood and and metal for hours because they want to make something new

8. The things people make with their hands, out of wood etc, are often really inspiring and beautiful

9. Fun is cheap

So effing cool


Things I’m average at no. 398: Not being a sook- an addendum.

So I got word earlier that I didn’t get this job that I really really really wanted. It was a Good Job. It was a Grown Up Job. I wanted this job a lot. When I didn’t get it, I cried and made for myself a small cave within my bedding and lay there and cried some more.

I was full of woe because this shit brings to mind many other things I’m average at like, having a real job, being employable, being an adult etc. And though usually I enjoy the charm of being completely average, embrace it and nuzzle its neck even, sometimes I want to just like, be good at something. I feel this is normal.

And so I got super excited about this job, and imagined myself doing it, and loving it and thought about changing my study to fit around it, and then they said they didn’t want me and the world once again looked at me and shook its head “no, you aren’t good enough”. Damn, man! That shit is cold!*

Any hoo, the part of the story I didn’t mention (along with any details at all) in my previous post was that I was offered a job the other day, just not this one. This was my bestest, I Can Do This Job job, shining like the light of the sun, and the other job says “hey!” and I was like “Oh…I guess..” *hair toss*.

So here’s me, in my bed, not doing assignments or like, washing myself, reminding myself of my shittiness while wailing into my pillow because one place found someone better qualified while another said they would love to have me. SOOK MUCH?

Gosh.

So I’m in the Cave of Sadness, and I look at my wall through the Slits of Misery (my eyes) and I see all the crap I’ve stuck up there. Crap that I dig, to remind me of things that are diggable. And I realise my life is pretty effing sweet. You can read about it here, on my other blog (ohmygoshpleasedon’ttellwordpresshe’llkillme) where I post photos of things I’m glad about.

I think it’s ok to feel sad, obviously. Sometimes I think it’s really helpful. Personally I love to crank the Damien Rice and bemoan my existence. I certainly don’t want to imply that I think it’s wrong to grieve or to mourn, even things like not getting the job you thought would be so right for you.

It’s just that I’m self aware enough to know that this job wasn’t just a job. It was me saying to me, “this is your chance to get something on your own, something hard and good and worthwhile”. And I was saying back to me “dude does that mean if I don’t get it..” and then I would reply “Yep. It means you’re shit. Officially.” And then I blew it, and that means every crappy thing I’ve ever thought about myself came true in that moment.

But the thing is, I know other stuff about me, and I know I got one job, and I know I have a wall full up of pictures of travel and friends and love and light so maybe just maybe I was wrong about me, maybe I should suck it the hell up and maybe it’s not worth staying in the cave tomorrow.

Maybe..

*Apologies. I watched some Dave Chappelle earlier, it gets under my skin man.

.. and it breaks my heart

I hang out with the salvos a little, mainly just once a week when I go out with the outreach team. We give people pies and coffee and conversation.

I’ve been doing this for about two years, and mostly I love it. I have met a lot of great people and I think it’s important, what we do. Even if it is pies and coffee in answer to the problems of homelessness, loneliness, desperation and hurt.

I went out last night, and the team was great and we had a good night, except then there were these boys and they were loud and angry and full up of bravado and fear that spilled out of them and onto anyone that walked past and the street and the world. And I could see people forming these opinions, the kind of opinions that stay in minds and pollute them and help women and men decide to cross the street when they see kids in large groups and believe the news when it tell us we’re all going to die from knife wounds.

Just young boys, who joked with us and who I’m guessing don’t have mums at home that are looking at clock faces and wondering when they’ll know their children are safe.

Afterwards we met a man who was playing the guitar on the street. And he was so incapacitated that when he needed to go to the bathroom he crab walked around a corner, rolled over and just went. He got urine all over himself and across half of the street.

And as I walked home from the tram later I cried because what has happened there? Because I want that man to be in a house and holding his grandkids, and because I want those boys to be laughing with their friends and heading home to their family and being unafraid and joyful at the prospect of their future.

I wish I had a neat little way to sum this up, but this is what I’ve got: I saw things that are broken, and I will sleep comfortably tonight.

Even typing this I feel like a jerk, sitting on my lounge surrounded by my walls and my certainty and my comfort, having had my peace of mind disrupted for a half hour. Mostly I don’t let things stick, you see. There’s no point. I do what I can (I guess) and I get on with it.

But every now and then, something gets through. I laugh with a man who, in another life, I would have had a drink with at the pub, and he’s sleeping in a doorway. I see a woman, pulled behind a couple of bins that the man who wants to have sex with her has grudgingly moved so that they’ll have some privacy and as I leave I hear her ask him his name. I see those boys, who have nothing better to do and no one who has told them its ok, that they don’t need to pretend. I walk away from a man who has just pissed on himself and who only wants another beer.

Generally I believe that life is like, smeared with shit, and sprinkled with bits of beauty. And it’s our job to find the beauty in the shit. It is difficult. And it hurts.

But I guess we keep going, because what else can we do?

Thanks for listening. Here’s to beauty.

A Conversation

Phil: “So.. You’ve actually seen real birds of paradise?!”

Kate: “Yup.”

Phil: “Do they look much different?”

Kate:”.. to .. the flowers?”

Phil:”Wait. Are we talking about like, plants, or birds?”

Kate: “Birds.”

Phil: “Yeah! So do they like, sit in trees? Are they big?”

Kate: “Um..-”

Phil: “Are they carniverous?”

Kate:”What?”

Phil: “Well you’d think big birds might be carniverous.”

Me: “Why? Why would you think big birds might be carniverous?”

Phil: “… Pokemon.. Avatar..”

true story.