Saturday 2 December 2017

BIRTHDAY WEEK UPDATE

In order to achieve my aim of best birthday week ever, given what yesterday was like, it will basically be necessary for Kate Bush to appear at the front door tomorrow with a chocolate cake in one hand and a suitcase full of drugs in the other.

Look, I know as well as anyone, don't ever read The Age especially when the story is about Melbourne weather, but the prophecies of doom that began to appear in the news on Wednesday evening were really terrifying. It was the things the weather people were saying: on a scale of ten this storm will pretty much be a ten, half the population of Melbourne has never seen anything like this, references to the Titanic etc. So I had a terrible sleep then got up extra early so I could get a six oclock tram to work so I could leave early so I could go to the school fete to see Leonard play the ukelele, as if I can't see him doing that at home any day (yes I know how that sounds) then go back into town to see Hannah Gadsby's show. All day I was stressing about how all of this would go down in the anticipated flood.

(just circling back a bit, Wednesday also can go and get retrospectively fucked, because I had done the wise thing and bought myself a lovely birthday present in the shape of these beautiful earrings from Elke Kramer and Australia Post somehow delivered them to my house, and had the package signed for, by I just can't imagine who, about an hour before I got home from work, and so they're nowhere to be found. I've filled out a form :(

On to yesterday again: there was a confusing and very troubling incident just before lunch where one volunteer complained to the boss about another volunteer's treatment of a staff member, who most surprisingly turned out to be me. The complained-about person's behaviour certainly is challenging, but it would never have crossed my mind that anyone would construe it as offensive. It was difficult, because I was also delighted (not quite the right word, but anyhow) that a man had spoken up about another man's behaviour - we need that kind of thing to happen far, far more often than it ever actually does - but at the same time I was very anxious to make it clear that the behaviour that had been noticed did not bother me and nor did I consider it to be objectively bothersome. Now I think about it this probably achieved nothing more than created the impression that it takes a lot to bother me, when really, the opposite is true and I am easily triggered by a certain kind of stupid joke or dumb actions.  Well, it was a hot mess of a situation and it will continue to be so for a good while to come I dare say. I shouldn't really write these things down, I guess, but then, neither should Australia Post fucken give MY EARRINGS to the first woman it sees, and nor should anyone ever have to hear Pauline Hanson's voice again, but bad things happen to good people and that is the whole reason you are reading this blog. Yes, YOU. Don't kid yourself otherwise.

The ukelele performance was supposed to occur at 4:15 and we were early. But it didn't happen till well after five, and it wasn't worth the wait, all that happened was that I became extensively traumatised by listening to, and watching, different groups of children singing the very worst kinds of songs, badly, unconfidently, tunelessly, and out of time, for more than one whole hour. 

hell hell hell hell hell

All this time it was raining just a little less heavily than on a normal wet day. Dorian and I eventually left the fete - D's sister M stayed with Lenny (she's staying with us) and drove to the arts centre. I was starving, exhausted, frightened, reeling from the aesthetic brutalisation of the afternoon, and feeling nothing but dread for the approaching hours and days, so naturally I had a panic attack outside the NGV. Once that subsided we went in and sat down and the show began. As everyone who's seen Hannah Gadsby perform this work says, she starts out funny and ends up devastating. The very highly charged atmosphere she created, and the way she spoke with such direct challenge to straight men, but not straight women, contributed to one of the worst fights between D and me for many years. It went well into the early hours of the morning and I'm still reeling, so I will begin the next year of my life tomorrow more than usually exhausted and sad. Unless, you know, Kate actually does show up. She might, she might not....I know that

3 comments:

lucy tartan said...

Alternatively Stevie Nicks would also be highly acceptable

JahTeh said...

I am devastated for the earrings, hopefully not lost for long. I think it strange that they were signed for by a stranger considering the junk I've had delivered from China that required me to walk to the PO agency to be signed for when my passport was produced.

I considered anything to do with school and Christmas to be hell and that was when I was a child. Now I think I would need both Nicks and Bush with a carton of Bombay Sapphire if I had to go anywhere near a Hall full of children. No chocolate cake, fruit cake, iced, with gin.

elsewhere said...

Wowsers.