How many of us have wished the last 18 months away, hoping this whole COVID mess would go away? I put my hand up and plead guilty. But here we are. The last time I blogged was 11 months ago. I had nothing to say about the situation that hadn’t been said by wiser, clever …
For many years I have considered October the month of reckoning. This is the 8th month in the early Roman calendar. The 8th house in astrology is the house of sex, death and taxes. There is always a finality. The bat is the spirit animal of October. The world seems broken and not even walks …
I haven’t written here for four months because what else is there to say other than what has already been recorded by Melbourne artists much more adept than me at expressing our pain and worry. There seems to be an expectation of those in the arts community to step up during times of great loss. …
I isolated early because I saw information from my work that worried me. I read some articles and looked at the data and stayed the fuck at home. Trying to convince my socialite son to stay home was almost impossible. We fought about it. I won. He now stays at home because he worries. He …
I was up early to drive to where kangaroos sit proudly in paddocks, chewing slowly, watching the passing cars with vague interest. The air was cleaner than where I live and when I put the window down of my car, I could smell the eucalyptus trees, fresh and biting. I was picking up bargains from …
When I was a child I had a book called Lavinia’s Cottage by John S. Goodall. It was a pop-up book and it was my go-to book when I felt unwell or things in my small life felt too complicated. It was written for the illustrator’s granddaughter when she was four, the story, told entirely …
The two week holiday over December and January has been huge, with two house guests and kids on trips away and then back and then a full table for Christmas lunch. It was perfect and by perfect I mean it was perfectly fun with all sorts of imperfections that made it wonderful. I don’t like …
Dear Friend, What a year you have had. But don’t we say that at the end of every year? Probably. I know you coped with some heavy grief this year and some wonderful news to temper the loss. I hope you recognise how much you learned this year about yourself. Those dark places are hard …
The older I become the more I respect anyone who is doing their own thing, wearing what they like, basically doing whatever the fuck they like without needing the permission of others. Mostly it is people who are either older, queer or artistic or has a high level of intelligence. People who actually don’t care …
I used to smoke. I think this was my way of bringing fire into my life. Or it was a method of slowly killing myself? Undecided however the nihilist in me would say it is both. Either way, I don’t smoke anymore because of ‘reasons’ and they are all personal but one day I decided …