Writing

Ejo #125 – My Diary: Quarantine (Part 2)

Learning About Me, My Diary, Photographs, Writing, , , , , , View all 4 comments

DAY TEN
We went to the supermarket today. You know, I realised I am dismally shit at doing a weekly grocery shop. David and I are used to buying what we need, on the day that we need it. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass to go to the supermarket every day, but we’re really well serviced for grocery stores in our neighbourhood. Plus, we tend to waste less that way, and everything is always fresh. Anyway, trying to buy enough food for 14 days has been a total bust. This is our third quarantine run to the supermarket just to stock up on things like avocadoes, tomatoes, herbs etc. that go off after a few days. First world problems, right?

On the plus side, I’m proud to say that we got busy cleaning out our gimp room today. OK, so most people in our apartment complex might call it a “maid’s room”. And that’s because those people are monsters. Their live-in maids are crammed into these tiny, shitty, windowless little rooms that, frankly, are not fit for human habitation. A gimp, however….. a gimp does not have the same privileges as a regular person. No, no, no. Sorry gimp, you know what you signed up for. I’m pretty sure this is the first time we’ve Marie Kondo’d this room since we moved in four years ago. And it was satisfying as hell to just chuck everything out into the hallway, re-arrange what we wanted to keep and throw the rest away. The gimp stayed, of course. It sparks joy.

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Before

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After

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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The Who

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The Flaming Lips

DAY ELEVEN
Today I went for a walk while David slept off a hangover from last night’s invitation-only party of one (spoiler alert, I wasn’t invited). No judgement from me. It’s pandemic times, and I get it. But, I must say, as much as I love my delightful party-animal husband, it was nice to just have some alone time this morning. To not have to talk to anyone. To not have to worry about anyone else but me. Just for 40 minutes. It’s not a reflection on our relationship. At all. It’s a reflection on having to spend 24 hours a day with another human being in a fairly small apartment. And I have to admit that now, on Day 11, it’s starting to get to me a little bit. Today was marred by boredom. If you’re not on the internet, if you’re not on your phone, if you’re not reading a book or watching TV or cooking or cleaning out the gimp room, what the hell are you doing?? Huh? HUH???

OK, so today I made some more hot sauce, but this time with fresh chillies. I also designed and printed some labels for the jars. Martha Stewart, how’d ya like me now?

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Fresh jalapeños and garlic (I also added some dried ancho chilli for some fruitiness).

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The Merde! is the fresh chilli sauce, and the შენი დედამოვტყან is made from my Mum’s dried chillies

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Curtis Mayfield

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John Coltrane

DAY TWELVE
Eeek. Today I woke up with a cough and a mild dose of anxiety. I’m keeping an eye on the cough because I am prone to bronchitis. But I have no other symptoms so I’m not going to worry about it yet. The anxiety? Well, there’s not much I can do about that.

What else? I cleaned, sanded and taped the window frame in our guest bedroom. I’ve been talking a big game about painting it matte black for about two years. I’ve come to the rather startling realisation that while I might be overflowing with inspiration, I usually don’t have the time or inclination to actually follow through on my home improvement ideas. So, now that I have the time, I’m trying to muster up the inclination.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Cyndi Lauper

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Liz Phair

DAY THIRTEEN
I’m drinking way too much, not exercising enough and feeling the pressures of being stuck at home. Today we got a message from work saying that our quarantine has been extended by another seven days. I am simultaneously overjoyed and overwhelmed by this news. I certainly don’t mind staying at home. I could represent Australia at the Olympics in self-isolation. I have finely honed and sharpened the skill of staying at home during the last 11 years, and I actually love it. I’m a homebody. But still, it’s tough times for me right now. I would have thought that after nearly two weeks, I might be looking forward to getting back out there into the world, to talk to people, to go back to work. But nope, it seems that quarantine has only exacerbated my introversion. I know I just have to ride this feeling out. I know I’ll be OK. I always am.

Hey, in other news I called the guys from a charity called Take My Junk to come and… well, take our junk. The rickety coffee table that couldn’t be salvaged. As well as some old outdoor furniture and a laundry basket full of stuff left over from the Great Gimp-Room Purge of 2020. It was cathartic. David and I high-fived each other after it had all been taken away. And then we washed our hands. You just can’t be too careful these days.

OK, wow, so this just happened. It’s 8pm, and I’m sitting here on the computer, and I heard a noise from outside. I went out onto the balcony and was greeted by a swelling symphony of joyous whistling and cheering and clapping from our neighbours in the adjoining buildings. And it was beautiful, and it truly connected us all from within this weird situation we’re sharing, and I felt the love and I gave the love back, and it turned a crappy day into a wonderful one. And it was almost enough to restore my faith in humanity. For a few minutes anyway.

 

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Leonard Cohen

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Bette Midler

DAY FOURTEEN
My Mum died one year ago today. So, you know… it’s been shitty. To be honest I’ve cried a lot the last few days. I’ve been numb. Just really flat. There really aren’t any words that can do justice to the way I feel about it. That hasn’t stopped me from trying to find the words, though. I have been writing about it, and that does help. It always helps. It’s why I continue with my ejos, even when sometimes it’s excruciatingly painful to deep-dive into my thoughts and memories and feelings, just so that I can put a few select sentences onto a page. There’s been a fair amount of self-medicating leading up to this day. A lot of booze. It does make me feel better in the moment, mostly by taking me out of the moment. And that’s OK for now.

To mark the day, David hammered a nail into the wall, and we hung up an ugly, old evil-eye pendant from my Mum’s house. I don’t particularly believe in the evil eye, but I like the iconography of it, and my Mum believed it so… it’s really nice to have it hanging in the apartment. It connects me to her, in a way, and to a sliver of the past that we once shared.

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Ugly beautiful.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Tori Amos

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Peaches (Fuck The Pain Away, fuck yeah!)

DAY FIFTEEN
We played Bohemian Rhapsody at volume eleven this afternoon. I’m sure the neighbours enjoyed it. We certainly did.

That is all we did today, and I’m not even joking.

Quarantine queen, signing out.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Queen

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The Divinyls

DAY SIXTEEN
AS OF TODAY, 28th MARCH 2020, 620,938 PEOPLE HAVE BEEN INFECTED WITH COVID-19.  I’M WATCHING VIDEOS OF IDIOTS IN AUSTRALIA AND THE US BEING PRETTY FUCKING CAVALIER ABOUT THE THREAT AND I’M GETTING PRETTY FUCKING ANGRY AT THEM.  THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO ARE RESPONSIBLY QUARANTINING THEMSELVES, AT GREAT PERSONAL AND FINANCIAL EXPENSE, IN ORDER TO KEEP THE NUMBERS DOWN, TO EASE THE BURDEN ON OUR DOCTORS AND NURSES, TO HELP FLATTEN THE CURVE.  BUT NO, THESE DICKHEADS ARE OUT AND ABOUT, FROLICKING ON THE BEACH, DRINKING BEERS AT HOUSE PARTIES AND LICKING TOILETS.  YOU FUCKING MORONS.  I CAN’T EVEN EXPRESS HOW PISSED OFF I AM AT THIS DISGRACEFUL SHOW OF IRRESPONSIBILITY AND SELFISHNESS.

IN TOTAL CONTRAST TO THESE CUNTS, I ACTUALLY MADE MYSELF USEFUL TODAY, AND I PAINTED THAT GODDAMN GUEST BEDROOM WINDOW FRAME.  AND I LOVE IT.  IT LOOKS FABULOUS.  EVEN BETTER THAN I’D IMAGINED.  I DON’T EVEN KNOW WHAT TOOK ME SO BLOODY LONG.  AND OF COURSE I PLAYED PAINTED BLACK BY THE ROLLING STONES.  WHAT THE FUCK ELSE WAS I GOING TO PLAY.  AND YOU KNOW WHAT ELSE, FUCK THOSE ASSHOLES.  STAY HOME MOTHERFUCKERS.  THIS ISN’T A JOKE.  IT’S A GLOBAL PANDEMIC, AND PEOPLE ARE DYING.  THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE ARE DYING EVERY DAY.

FUCK YOU.

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Boring before.

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Amazing after.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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The Rolling Stones

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Abba

DAY SEVENTEEN
Today was going to be a total write off due to a complete lack of interest. But then I found myself electric-boogalooing down a very slippery YouTube rabbit-hole, where I chanced upon the wonderful Sarah Beth and her equally wonderful yoga channel . It was love at first sight and she seductively convinced me to dust the cobwebs off my yoga pants, and slam-dunk a super-easy ten-minute beginner’s yoga workout. And bitches, I already feel amazing for it. She has sessions of varying lengths for all levels of yoga experience, as well as specific things like lower back pain, neck and shoulders or menstruation, and even things like anger, depression and anxiety (perfect for these times, am I right?). Gotta say, it feels really good to just get my body moving again. It’s been a while.

PS Todays soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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The Police

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Madonna

DAY EIGHTEEN
I took a sniff of my sauerkraut today and oooooh boy, it smells like arse. I’m not giving up hope yet that it still might come good, but the outlook is not great.

And that’s all folks. Literally. All I did today was smell some shitty fermented cabbage. How was your day?

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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The Disposable Heroes Of Hiphoprisy

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Fat Boy Slim

DAY NINETEEN
In case you’ve been too polite to notice, I am inherently lazy. Which is at odds with the way I was brought up. Both of my parents were very hard workers and tried to instill that in me and my sisters. And sure, I’ve trained myself to have an acceptable work ethic, but at heart I am one seriously lazy motherfucker. Nineteen days of doing nothing has felt like bliss to my idle bones. Yes, I have attempted to do something (ANYTHING) to distinguish each day from the last (and also, from the next). But for the most part I have done a shitload of absolutely not much at all. To be honest, I’m not sure that’s the best thing for my mental health, and yet I am still dreading my return to work in a couple of days.

What’s up with that?

Actually, you know, I’ve been thinking about this quite a lot, and I’ve reached the conclusion that I’m just afraid of change. Staying at home, sequestered away from the world, has become my new norm. What used to be normal has become strange and unknown, and so I fear it. I’m sure that when I do actually go back to work, everything will be fine. But the thought of it right now fills me with anxiety.

Cooking is a way for me to self-soothe and I’ve been enjoying experimenting with different recipes during our lockdown.  Today’s dinner of lemon-yoghurt soup with lentils, brown rice and herbs is super quick and easy to cook (bonus points for being seriously delicious).

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Nom nom.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Tears For Fears

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INXS

DAY TWENTY
I walked 200 metres to the supermarket this morning and sustained a groin injury in the process, which will go some way towards demonstrating how out of shape I am. Sarah Beth is going to have her hands full with this one.

Also, it turns out that smelling like anus is a prerequisite for delicious sauerkraut. It actually turned out pretty damn good. High five! To myself. I’m high fiving myself.

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Sauerkraut is a great pro-biotic and really good for gut health.  Yeah!!!

So, you guys might have noticed that we’ve got a few records (350 and counting, in case you were wondering). I’ll admit it’s a bit of an obsession. Where do we get them from? Whenever I’m planning a holiday, I’ll research and map out all the cool record stores in that town.  And we usually end up loudly, and excitedly, rummaging through them after a few bevvies. Of course this always results in us drunkenly staggering away with hundreds of dollars (and several kilos) worth of vinyl, which is not the most economical purchasing technique in the world. But fuck me, we have a lot of fun doing it!! Playing records gives me a shitload of joy, every single day, and has helped make this whole quarantine nonsense more than tolerable.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brough to you by…..

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Jeff Beck

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Rod Stewart

DAY TWENTY ONE
This coronavirus crap is serious business, huh. A lot of people are downplaying it, but I have a feeling it’s going to get a lot worse before it gets better, and I truly believe that things won’t return to normal for a very long time. Self-pity alert: The prospect of spending the rest of the year in this place makes me very sad. The only thing that makes living here tolerable for me is the ability to travel. I have never wasted a single day’s annual leave by spending it in Dubai. We take off whenever we have the chance. But it’s looking more and more like that won’t be possible for the remainder of 2020, which means it’s probably time for a paradigm shift.

Cry me a river, right?

So today is the last day of our work-imposed quarantine. As it turns out, we didn’t catch CV19 in Japan (phew!) and now it’s time to head back to reality, whatever that might be. We’ve had three weeks off work, on company dime, and it’s been kinda fun. Kind of like a little holiday (coz you can’t do ATC from home, kids). It’s also been a little bit unsettling. We are all living through a crazy, unprecedented moment in history, and now, whether I’m ready for it or not, it’s time for me to head back out into the world, and to face what is there. Not knowing what to expect. Not knowing what I’ll find. Just…. not knowing.

So, wish me luck, and I wish all of you luck too.

PS Today’s soundtrack was brought to you by…..

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Easy Rider

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The Big Chill

Ejo #76 – An Open Letter To Facebook (c/o – MySpace)

Learning About Me, Writing, , View all 6 comments

Dear MySpace, I hope this letter finds you well. I know it’s been ages (ten years???) but I’m hoping that it’s been long enough for you to forgive me. I feel bad for what I did. No excuses. I treated you badly. All I can say now is that I’m sorry and that I hope we can move past all that and maybe even be friends.

I guess the real reason I’m writing to you now is to tell you that you were right. About Facebook, I mean. You told me to be careful, and I didn’t listen. You told me Facebook would betray my trust, and it has (over and over again). You said it would change the way I connect to people, and I laughed right in your face. But you were right. In fact, it’s even worse than you said it would be.

Sure, things were all shiny and happy in the beginning. Things were simple. They were… uncomplicated. Casual, even. To be brutally honest, if you’d asked me where I thought it was going, those first couple of years, I’d have said, “Same as MySpace”. I’m not saying that to be cruel. I just didn’t see a future with it. It was just a new-tech game. A novelty.

But then something happened, a game changer. I moved to Dubai and suddenly any platform which allowed me to easily and effortlessly stay involved in my friends’ and family’s lives became indispensable. Facebook went from a meaningless flirtation to a serious relationship, overnight.

Most of my friends, from what I can tell, use Facebook to check in from time to time, but it isn’t their primary friendship medium. They get the face-to-face time that I’m missing by living overseas. So I admit I became dependent on it. Just like you said I would. I’d wake up every morning and gorge on a plethora of interesting and witty, well thought-out statuses (stati???). Things like this (actual status updates used without permission. If one of these belongs to you, you should be proud, but if you want me to remove it just let me know):

Mrs X “is wondering how the child she just gave birth to yesterday is all of a sudden one! That’s one year closer to being a teenager – yuck!” (August 2009)

and

Mr Y: “The chillies were so hot I cried like a little baby.” (December 2010)

also

Miss Z “spent five whole minutes looking for lamb backstraps in the beef section. I’m not only beautiful, but I’m wise to boot”. (December 2012)

You know! Fun, silly, inane stuff that made me feel like I was hanging with my gang chewing the fat and shootin’ the shit.

More? How about these pearlers:

Mr A: ” “All flights in & out of Melbourne cancelled due to ash from Chilean volcano” – but how will I get home from Paris? 🙂 (June 2011)

Mr B “made an inane quip about himself in the third person.” (November 2008)

Mrs C “went to bed fine and woke up with a groin injury. Musta been some dream!” (December 2012)

Stupid fun stuff. No-one was trying to save the world. We were just connecting on that “little kid” level that makes friendships interesting and keeps them alive. Dumb stuff that only you and your group of buddies find funny. Facebook was good for that. I know you know what I’m talking about MySpace – I have a feeling it’s what you set out to do and didn’t quite manage. I know you’re mature enough to give credit where it’s due.

I will admit that I kind of got a little bit carried away with the whole Facebook thing there for a while. Obsessed? Perhaps. A smidge. I would “cultivate” my statuses. Something funny would happen or I’d think of something witty (in my opinion, anyway) and then I’d spend time polishing and honing those words until they were just right for posting. I like to think that it was inspiration for the writer in me. And that’s cool. Each to their own, I say.

But things changed, MySpace. They changed slowly at first, but lately it’s turned into an avalanche. At least for me.

My timeline (or feed, or whatever the hell you want to call it) became less about what my friends were doing or thinking or feeling, and more about reposted news items or “interesting articles”. And you know what? I actually caught that train. I figured I was learning something by reading long, obscure New Yorker articles. I was educating myself. But what was happening was that I was spending HOURS catching up on every article which headline caught my fancy. I was going down the hole. So I became more selective. I evolved.

But then there were the petitions. I started off signing everything that seemed like a good cause (Kony 2012 anyone?), and there were a lot of them. But then I’d get spammed by the charities for months on end, plus I started doubting the effectiveness of online petitions, so I just stopped signing them.

I’m proud to say I completely bypassed the Buzzfeed quizzes. What kind of farm animal am I? Fuck off, I don’t have time for this.

Then came the memes. Some of them were funny. Then the funny ones ran out and a cascade of unfunny, uninteresting, irrelevant memes took their place.

Lately it’s the inspirational quotes. How this for inspirational? “My thoughts are stars I cannot fathom into constellations.” Are you for real with this shit?? Same with the “copy and paste if you care about cancer” crap? I mean come on! And yes MySpace, I hear you, maybe the crappiness of my feed has something to do with the people I’ve chosen to “befriend” on FB. I get that. But lately I’ve taken the lead of a mate and created a custom list of friends whose updates I see (leaving those crapspirational posts lurking behind the scenes where they can’t irritate me with their uselessness). But even then MySpace, even then, Facebook (the one I picked over YOU) has decided that what I need to see is those custom friends’ likes and comments of shit that has nothing to do with me. WHY????????????

OK, I know I’m ranting now. Yes, I might have had half a bottle of sake (of course you know I’m in Japan, it’s all over Facebook – you guys still talk, I know you do). I guess what I wanted to say was that I miss you. I miss your simple algorithms that didn’t try to get into my head. I miss your easy going ways. I miss your privacy policies. I miss the good old days. Don’t tell Facebook this but I’m seriously thinking of breaking up with it. I’m over its controlling ways. I’m tired of always having to change my newsfeed from Top Stories to Most Recent. I’m sick of playing Facebook politics. I’m done with “liking” shit just to be polite. I want to be real again. And when I said that you and I could be friends again, I was lying. I don’t know what I want but you’re not it. Sorry. I probably won’t even send this lette

Ejo #64 – I Can’t Write Good No More

Writing, , , , , View all 6 comments

The other day I tried to write a short story. And I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t suffering from writer’s block – I knew the premise of the story. I knew what I wanted to say. I simply couldn’t put the words together in the right way in order to say it. The words spewed out of me in convulsions, inking themselves on the page in fractured, childish sentences. I persevered. A couple of hours later (a period long enough for the muse to flirt with me at least a little, usually leaving me with something of value to take home) all I had to show for my efforts were big black X’s scribbled all over the page, obliterating the crap that had disgorged from my pen. I was embarrassed by what I saw. I could not write a story.

I tried to remember the last time I wrote a completely new short story and realised it’s been over a year.

I recently went to a session of the Dubai Writer’s Group, a collective of writers that meets in a downtown café to critique each other’s work and, on alternate weeks, hold writing sessions. I went because it was one of my goals for 2015 to attend at least one of these sessions a month. I work better under some pressure and setting goals like this usually works for me (or, at least it has for this ejo which I’ve been publishing monthly since December 2010).

Because we were out of the country for most of January I couldn’t attend any of the writing workshops – so I signed up for a critique session instead. I submitted my story “Jackie” (yep, the one I wrote last year), and I will be the first to put my hand up right now and admit that this was a big fat cheat. The story was complete and didn’t need feedback. It had been edited and rewritten several times, and it was done. But I had to submit something and, sadly, it was the most recent piece of fiction I’d produced.

I won’t say I didn’t get anything out of the other writers’ evaluations of my work. A lot of what they said was actually a bit of an ego boost for me, and the criticism the piece garnered had more to do with the readers being unsatisfied and wanting to know more. I took that as a compliment. A couple of them said it was a good starting point for a novel. All very flattering. But did it achieve the goal I’d wanted? No. I’d promised myself I would go to those meetings in order to provide me with more motivation to write. And from the very first session I had already failed, because I’d failed to write something new.

In February I registered for one of the writing sessions, hoping that this would be a more successful venture, though my interest was already starting to wane. The meeting was cancelled five minutes before I left the house. Despite being grateful that I didn’t have to drive 45 minutes in weekend evening traffic to the café, I felt more disappointment than relief. That was the only February session I could make, so my second attempt at fulfilling my goal was as much of a failure, if not more so, than the first. At least I had actually attended in January.

At the beginning of March I half-heartedly checked their schedule of meetings and realised that I was rostered to work for all of them. Short of trying to swap some shifts around (no easy task) or chucking a sicky (not my stripe) I simply wouldn’t be able to attend. And that was the final straw for me. Though I can see the purpose of the Dubai Writer’s Group and how it would benefit some writers, I decided to change my goal from monthly attendance at their meetings to writing one short story a month. I figured that this, more than schlepping across town twelve times a year, would benefit my objective of writing more. And of becoming a better writer.

That is, until I actually sat down and tried to write a short story and discovered that I could no longer do so. The realisation didn’t happen right away; it was (painfully) slow to dawn. That first, difficult, attempt resulted in two or three passable paragraphs which I transcribed onto a Word document (I write fiction longhand, call me old-fashioned but I usually work better that way). The next day I had a look at my “work”, blinking with distaste as I read it. I attempted to continue what I’d started. I tried to improve it, to get it going. I truly gave it everything I had. The next three days I tried and tried and tried with the story, struggling to shape the protagonist in a way that would move the story to the place I wanted it to go. I wasn’t able to do it, and the feeling was terrible. Like I was adrift at sea, with no paddle. I thought about trashing the idea because, quite obviously, something wasn’t working with it. And it was only then that it occurred to me that perhaps it wasn’t the story that was failing, it was me. I was rusty. My writing was awkward, and inept.

I’m not good at much, and that’s OK. But I’ve always been good at writing. I’m not saying I’m amazing, but it’s an art form that I’ve always been comfortable with. Words have always been my friends – even when I’ve been blocked, they’ve still been there, only out of reach. But the words coming out now were drivel. Words had turned their back on me. Probably because I had done the same to them.

Writing these ejos every month for the last few years has been very good for my essay writing. But fiction is a whole other kettle of fish, and (let’s be honest) I’ve been neglecting my fish. Just as you can’t expect to serve up an ace or play a flawless concerto when you lay down your tennis racket or violin for a year, how was I expecting to whip up a complex, engaging, well-structured story when I hadn’t given my pen any love for twelve, long months? How very arrogant of me. Well, I have learned my lesson – the hard way. I’ve been humbled. I no longer take my ability to write for granted. I see it as a little present given to me in the crazy, random lottery of life. And I realise that I need to keep working on it. Forever. I need to keep practicing or I’ll lose it. And that would truly be very sad for me.

All I have is words

All I have is words

I used to dream of making my living as a writer. I used to dream I’d write the great Australian novel, or a J.K.Rowling style blockbuster. Maybe a screenplay that would sweep all the awards for screenwriting (on top of making millions at the box-office). But when your goal is such a high-stake one, there is always so much more to lose. My fear of failure paralysed me, so instead of just giving it a go (and perhaps not achieving these lofty ideals) it was much easier for me to pop these goals in the dream drawer. In there, my dreams achieved Schrödinger’s Cat status. Maybe I WAS capable of literary superstardom. Maybe I wasn’t. But what if I opened the drawer and discovered a dead cat…. well, I didn’t want to take that risk.

I no longer dream of fame and critical acclaim for my writing. I now write because I know that I feel like shit when I don’t. My purpose in life is a simple one. It is to put pen to paper. Thomas Mann said, “A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people”.  And unfortunately, for me, that seems to be true.  But I’ll keep plugging away at this little lemon of mine until I construct a story that I can be a little bit proud of. And when I’ve done that, I’ll write another one. And then another. I’ll keep doing that until I have twelve complete short stories at the end of the year. A collection. And whether I get published or not, I’ll know I’m doing the best that I can to not squander my little gift. I’ll be taking it out of the drawer and unwrapping it from the cotton wool. I’ll be polishing it off, throwing it up in the air and drop kicking it as hard as I can.