A little later

It's been a long time.
I think I have been a little foolish and a little down. That I have no good reason for the latter would encourage my feelings of being foolish.
One of my foolishnesses I am quite pleased with. I am ENRAGED by energy costs, and they do appear to have been a swindle. It costs me $300+ just to have gas connected to my house. It is only for heating. I'm inclined to think that if I  operated like them, I would charge them rent for the space their meter takes up on my land. In any case, I decided to trim their profits by not using my heating this winter. And I didn't. And yes, it was often very cold. And I accept that walking around one's house in ugh boots, scarf, mittens, rug swathed is not normal or efficient. Wearing pyjumpers and fleecy trackpants to bed is not normal, ( although cosy). But I felt triumphant once winter finished.
I wrote quite a lot. Some of it is ok. Faye, Fred and Susannah are young (30s) readers, they are enthusiasts who know me, thus partisan. An outside editor says some is superb, but. But.  But doesn't play well when you are a bit down.
Like many of my years, I was herded into the academic stream. Loathed or bored by much of it - latin, chemistry ...Is it a stretch to say that, like many of my years, I had no concept ever of being able to determine my own life?
Occasionally, in my middle years, I toyed with the other. Hearing my mother and friend saying that they would have loved to paint, but had never done it because they knew they couldn't, sent me off to the $2 a pop art class so that I, who also knew that she couldn't, could say that at least I tried.  The litttle girl on my name is one effort. I rather like her.

My pig, above, was not such a happy outcome. I went to a pottery class where everyone else knew what they were doing. I didn't, so the teacher set me to coil. Coil I did, until it had grown huge and something had to be done with it. I turned it into quite a large pig. It's flaws are obvious. the teacup is there for scale. I like it, too.

I have been reading other blogs. Not commenting is perhaps a sign of being down, I am also aware that it also fails to give support. I apologise.
Relatively Retirings  post about the Severn Bore  intrigued me. I had never heard of this phenomenum before: it seemed rich with meanings and myth. Myths of ancient gods striving for dominance, and the moon godddess each day saving the river from the ocean's might. Fables as to how the steady persistence of the river defied the oceans  mighty power. Why didn't I comment?
Who knows why some stop contacting, meeting, interacting, responding? Enjoying food? Memories? Music? Gossip? Media? Discussions, arguments or any exchange of ideas?  That's when things are down for you. For me, for a while.

Things I didn't know

Well, that would be a long list, here's just two.

(1) Maeve Binchy was 6ft tall at least in high school, and weighed - (her own estimation) - 15 stone.
That is 182.2 or more centimetres. 95+ kilos.
I had never imagined her as a big girl.

(2) L.M. Montgomery feared as she grew older that she was losing her mind. Some of her relatives believe that she commited suicide.

I, me, and possibly you.

When I was 10, 11 years old I was "bullied" by someone slightly older, whose streetwise I took as reality and respected.
"Look! Quick! You just missed it! That whole bus load of people who went past were laughing at you."
I believed it, and it certainly wasn't helpful. Neither were  the frequent observations that I was "queer", which had a different meaning in those days.
When my daughter turned 35 a few months ago, I pawed through birthday cards and finally, in despair at their banality, sent her one meant for the parents of a newborn child, that said  "A  baby girl is a wonderful thing". I sent it to her  (because I think she is a wonderful thing) , very aware that it came under the "you are queer" category. I know that I do "queer"things that maybe make sense only to me and those on my wavelength.
Older, that bullying shaped my world. When I was 56 I was amazed to find out, by chance, that my children thought that I looked quite nice, whereas in my mind it was only cosmetic makeup that allowed me to create some kind of illusion of looking ok: anyone who really knew me, as the bully did, I assumed knew that I was strange rubbish.  There were quite a few experiences in my life that had suggested otherwise: I had  constantly dismissed them. E. G. At one stage, many eras ago, leaving lectures on the way to the Women's Union, we had to cross a plaza where the Engineering students, all male at that time, to my horror and mortification,  would line up and shout out my name and clap to its rythmn, . I cringed, could not possibly see it as a compliment, and in time started going to the men's union. That they suggested that I beome "miss engineering" seemed a twisted joke. This was fortunate, because the genuinely beautiful Tania Verstak took the role and became miss universe or more. Other experiences, along the same
I'm writing this because Charlotte Dawson, a tv presenter whom I had never seen, never watched, and whose name was  unknown to me has chosen to bow out.
Photos of Charlotte show her as looking exactly "right": more than I could have dreamed of. Lush hair down past her shoulders could have been by LÓreal. Wide eyes. regular, lovely features like a Claudia Schiffer. Wide mouth, full lips, beautiful straight white teeth. Breasts, apparently enhanced. Exactly a la mode. A high level public exposure. An exceptional career.
And yet she has chosen to kill herself. Her life was so painful that she chose to exit it.
 She was actually 47 years old, although she looked considerably younger. That must have taken a lot of effort, a lot of money and given her considerable fears for her future.
It sems to me that my own grouches didn' t stop me growing. Didn't stop me striving, achieving.or indeed moaning and looking for and finding different paths.

I'm actually sorry for my bully, who I still know. It can't be nice to look back on your life and see that you were nasty, can it?

And so it goes

30000 words now, or more precisely, 30002.
This does not mean that I am writing quickly. I actually started this way back last July. Then I was sick. Then my computer crashed (again). I was lent a laptop, which stopped working. In October I was given another computer. This has its eccentricities - eg, it likes to put an umlaut over vowels instead of quotation marks, and can be sneaky about capital letters.
After Christmas I did naught for some weeks. Got sick again. Had visitors.
30000 at this point of my not very thrilling plot is not enough. My story is at least half way through, so to reach the goal of 80000 I should be at circa 45000 by my reckoning.
Reading fiction more analytically, I can see how much of and usually how skilful the "padding" is.  Many plots could be summarised in a page or so, although the book may be 400 pages or often more. Very clever and difficult to maintain reader interest through this.
I know that I need to plump out my characters. And settings.  These make the story come alive, and they don't come naturally to me at all. Elizabeth Jane Howard said that she always easily visualised the scene that she was writing. Lucky her.
At present, I occasionally - think of the trees! - print out the pages. As I read through I make corrections, add bits etc. This is a tedious process.  When I allow myself to print the pages out again - which I need to do to check the "flow", I inevitably see more places where I need to add, subtract or multiply.  If I add 300 words each time I edit this way, I will need to do it 50 more times to make up my missing 15000. Or I need to add more plot twists. I don't think I have it in me. But maybe I do.
Tinkering can be a dangerous process. Was it Degas who used to borrow back sold paintings to fix them up a little? And then kept them for so long that sometimes the buyers had to steal them back again? And sometimes they had been so altered that the buyers could be in doubt as to which painting was theirs.
I did my stint as a housewife-painter, (see my avatar), and know that reworking, fixing something up a little, can take all the life out of it. 

As I am generally a "near enough, good enough" person, it tickles me that it matters to me to get this right and be happy with it.  I don't particularly expect it to be published - that would rather surprise me - so it is for my own satisfaction alone. We can be odd  bods indeed. Or perhaps I should only speak for myself. You may well be saner than I.

I have read a few "ördinary"fiction books which have elevated themselves into a higher category by citing the famous. Instead of saying, "It was a nice day," one says "It was a nice day, as Nietzche once said." I assume this makes people feel that they are reading something of intellectual significance.

Enough me, me, me. Writing is solitary but not necessarily lonely. I am interested in and enjoy other people, but can forget the pleasures of mingling.

Life - ä beginner's guide

The last months have had some difficulty for me. Actually, I don't think that this has been my century.
Shame: I reproach myself. My life is far better than most peoples of the world. My problems less. But, that's the way we are, aren't we?  Or some of us, anyway?
I have been rereading "Slipstream" by E. J. Howard, and noting how, although her life, her attitudes,  her status, .her outlook are so different from mine, so much self reproach, regret and beating herself  up for youthful ignorance is similar.
Once I wrote a book. I did that because, after my husband died I wanted to read an epic story. Only familiar with "literature", I couldn't find what I wanted, so wrote it. It sank without a trace and because the whole circus around such embarrassed me, that suited me quite well. "Now write another," they said.  How could I do that? I didnt know how to write a book. That they classified it as  a "romance" only put me off further.  I had no time for "romance", and if E J Howard did, I think it was only a negative in her life.
Now I understand more about writng a book and have been writing another. It is hard work in that one cannot judge the merit of one's words, so it can easily be futile and self indulgent rubbish.  My chances of geting published are quite remote, which is not a concern. Writing a "good yarn", is.
My sweet daughter has read ooos, and of course she likes it, That doesn't count. Feedback. Feedback, so nourishing, so vital, so elusive.

Passing Time

On the wall hangs a framed poster. Its picture is a repro of a lovely line drawing, by, it looks from here, Leonardo. The large printing says: "Dessins Du Nationalmuseum de Stockholm"and "Musee du Louvre Cabinet des Dessins"1971. The small print is..too small.
I can see that the drawing, of a woman and torso is beautiful. Her head is averted, so that the beauty and harmony must lie in the drawing, the lines, the symmetry, rather than in her features. I expect that it has been analysed down to its ...whatever: but its whole: the grace, the calm, the serenity, is greater than its parts.

Once, it had a light pink wash, but it hangs by a western window and the sun has bleached it.  I am reminded of "The Women of the West":
"The red sun robs their beauty, and in weariness and pain,
The slow years steal the nameless grace that never comes again."
Well, the red sun has robbed Leonardo's lady of some beauty.  I sit here looking at it, with my knees spread wide, elbow on knee, chin on fist, and see that I have lost that "nameless grace" if indeed I ever had it.

My pose is identical to that of a gorilla, that poor first gorilla to reach, amid much fanfare and hullabaloo,Taronga Park Zoo, sometime in the 1950s or 60s. He sat there in his small cage, with sprawled legs, chin in hand, and stared back at us with a  confronting stare that seemed to express everything from accusation to contempt. Instead of feeling the pity that he deserved, or the horror that his situation deserved, I had an overwhelming feeling of shame for my species.

My knowledge of French is rudimentary. Our teacher had a daily exchange of greetings, which my friend soon corrupted into: "Bonjour Madame
                                Comment allez vous?
                                You say you have a pain in the head?
                                Well you give me one, too."
A record of our immaturity. Poor Mrs Grieves - (what an apt name) - a widow with children had a hard row to hoe in those days, no doubt. Her everlasting listing of her ailments - her headaches, her colds, her flu, her bad back, did not elicit any sympathy from me. I felt as if she was sucking me into a vortex of hopelessness, and in my heart I jeered. It felt like a survival mechanism.
Nevertheless, by some mischance I was selected for special classes to do "French Oral", and evidently I kept this illusion going until at the end of schooling I was faced with the panel of smiling examiners, at which stage I just confessed that I had no idea at all what they were talking about or asking me.
A similar situation was when I had a Viva for statistics in psych 1. Our lecturer was a young English woman, new in the role, who suffered from my own ailment in that her round healthy face made her look wholesome, a condition that made me weep for myself in despair. She also had a healthy dose of freckles, and was relentlessly heckled in lectures by the tens of male students  to the extent that she often fumbled, lost her thread or became quite inaudible,
Again, I confessed my total ignorance. She refused to accept it, and instead asked me a series of leading questions: is the answer this or Mickey Mouse? would it be X times y squared or pease pudding? I passed the test.  Perhaps she needed a certain number of passes to justify her position. or perhaps she was being kind, which was how it felt to me. There is a lot of kindness about.

Outside the supermarket today was a young darkskinned boy playing, if that's what you call it,  a didgeridoo. Its sound is, to me, elemental:  the deep strange throbbing sound of Australia. Miserly, tight fisted me put some money in his cap. He didn't raise his eyes, or thank me in any way, and I thought that that was absolutely perfect. Just as it should be.

Auld acquaintances

On Friday I went to the art gallery to buy a card.   Helen was there - she works there - and by chance, so was June.  Helen and I spoke of children and others - her niece was at school with my daughter.   I think it was Helen whotold us of walking down a street in Hay and geting the spooky feeling that someone was staring at her.  She turned around and found that she was being followed by a large emu.  June had sold her house on Wednesday and bought a new one on Thursday, largely because of problems with her knee that make  climbing stairs difficult.  She is soon travelling to Turkey.  She told us of being in a hot air balloon that crashed onto the Ghan railway line which runs between Alice Springs and Darwin.    We must have chatted for an hour or so: it was most enjoyable.
I have known June since 1968 and Helen since 198something.
Is it churlish or pedantic to say that they are acquaintances rather than friends?    They are a little like seldom seen family members.  By knowing them for so long we have shared a great deal.
Similarly with Andrew, who I met at the supermarket.  I have known him since 1980 or so.  He is now in his 70s, and he and his wife farm sheep, which they took up on "retirement".  It would be quite a tough life, but they are working hard, working together, and flourishing in many ways if not financially.
I am back home again.  These encounters make me feel as if I am part of the weft and the warp of this town.

Andrew gratuitously made some complimentary comments about me.  I took them in my stride.  Generally, praise makes me freeze and lie low.  I don't know why.

Emil Nolde

continues, with apologies

Firefox didn't crash:  the computer did. I am surprised that the post was published as I was still writing it. I would like to edit my repetitions, but the computer I am on now is older and leaves blanks here and there.
We visited D once. The "home" that she was in was sometimes in the press because it was a praised innovation. Children were in cottages to create a homelike atmosphere. Ha. We could look through the windows - no one was allowed in the cottages during the day - and see the glowingly polished floor. The girls, woken at 6, polished it on hands and knees before breakfast. There was a boys' section.  D stared ahead and explained that it was to the left:  looking at or indicating the direction was punishable. She obviously lived with some fear. Her birthday was the day before mine, and I have thought of her then for over 60 years and hoped that her life went more kindly.
I went to the dentist by myself when I was ten. Every now and then he would clasp his hands under my armpits and run them down my body. I did not like this, but did not pass it on: it seemed a churlish whinge. Only later did I recognise it, and see the oddness in  that not only did he have daughters around my age, but one was in the class that my mother taught.  An unvetted piano teacher was a pleasant young man, with an odd lurching gait. An odd odour in his room I identified years later as sherry.
My grandmother's Queensland house was filled with her beautiful embroideries. My mother and she argued as to whether petunias were weeds, as she pulled them up and threw them away. Under the mosquito netting on my bed there was a toy rabbit with long , cuddly angora hair, which immediately caused me to bring to Gran's attention that it had been my birthday recently. Yes, he became mine.  Open French doors onto the verandah left us sleeping in the warm, sweet air: I fell in love with the tropics. Older, I went catching crabs and lobsters in the mangroves. Once, anyway.
A weekender in the Blue Mountains had heavy chains from house to earth.  Bush as far as you could see, range after range; drystone walls, wallabies that nibbled my father's  vegetables.  Walk and skip and sing along the dirt road during the daytime, but as dusk fell a presence grew in the bush. I felt unwelcome, out of place and always ended up running and frightened.
My mother raised chickens, kept a cow, sewed our clothes, knitted, made jams, preserved fruit, cooked all meals from scratch. She took up leatherwork and made us gloves and belts, and she did fine crochet. And she taught school, and read. She despised housewifery and passed on few of the arts to her daughters.  She would not wear an apron - a prison uniform to her -, but her decision not to wear a wedding ring seems more problematic.
House 4 was for my teenage years, though there were no such things as teenagers then.  I went to the convent high school.  Light came through tall yellow windows into the austere chapel, where the nuns sometimes prostrated themselves. I sang in the choir during a nun's profession and a priest's funeral: splendid.
The poet Bob Adamson tells how he used to catch and kill hairtail (fish) and watch their iridescent gleam dull and fade and hate himself for it.  My childhood was largely good, enriching and secure, but I think that I am not alone in feeling that something back then made my iridescence fade.

An Irritable Reader

I have never enjoyed Patrick White's writing because of his dour world view. I would be particularly irritated each time he spoke of a woman's flapping breasts, which he seemed to do quite often.  "Flopping" seemed more accurate as well as kinder.
People chewing their lips seem to appear across the literary spectrum. I've seen people bite their lips, but never chew them and I can't even visualise what this would look like or how in fact one would do it.  This irritates me, rather as does the "mobile mouth" which is quite commonplace as well.  An immobile mouth, one that doesn't move, might be worth commenting on, but aren't mouths mobile as a rule? The Two Ronnies commented on this once, saying something like, "She had a mobile mouth, that is, she took it everywhere with her."
For no good reason I dislike books about clever families of academic distinction with children  named "Octavia".  I particularly dislike those which have a son of such brilliance that he appears to the undistinguished hoi polloi to be mentally unstable. Whether there are many of these books, or whether I just tried to read the same one many times, I am unsure.  I think that I suspect that both the family and the author would see me as being undistinguished hoi polloi.  Oh, and they use words like"chthonic", which I have to look up.  And then I forget the meaning, anyway.
I have been, in the interests of my education, reading genre fiction that I would usually avoid. "The American Wife" I read as chick lit. About 3/4 through it occurred to me that the rich, shrewd, drunken, oafish husband could have been G W Bush. And, of course the book is based on G W and Laura, and  has been widely praised. Doh, as Homer would say. that homer, not That One.
Anita Shrieve is a very competent writer. As in many American books, her characters frequently drink Diet Coke. They eat quite often - shades of Enid Blyton comfort - but always, it seemed, to be pizza. Or fritos, cheatos, -  can that be right? - cheerios, oreos. And they cook with oleo.
The formidably competent Kay Scarpetta occasionally cooks, and her author  takes us through the steps as if it's an exotic achievement. What she brews up each time is in fact a simple spaghetti sauce.
Fannie Flagg was, to me, a writer of high calibre.
Two books I read killed off the main character before the end, and this seems to be a mistake.  I want to see them succeed or fail:  not disappear. 
Robert P Parker and Sue Grafton are both adept in effortlessly sliding in the hero's back story. I was surprised at how well "Started early, Took My Dog" was received, although I quite enjoyed it. Then I read the two preceding, and so knew who Jackson was, who Julia was etc:  that is, back story.  I reread "Started early", and it was so much richer with a fuller view of the characters.
I completely fail to understand why "Water for Elephants", (or whatever it's called) and such are so hugely popular though romances ... The "Alpha male" is evidently essential.  It was interesting reading P.D. James to see that Dalgliesh is in fact a rather more old fashioned version of the alpha male. Dear me, he is priggish.
Nicholas Sparks wrote a best selling romance that was made into a film. I read a different one of his, called "Message in a Bottle", and it was very heavy going, except that it contained some of the most inept lines that I have ever read.  Eg: the heroine is, of course, beautiful. He begins describing her by saying, "It wasn't that she was unattractive. She was, or so she had often been told."  What??

Enough ramble. Once I took my daughter to visit a friend, where her excited mother had just received her Book Club choice through the mail. A Danielle Steele. She proudly showed me her whole shelf of Danielle Steele's, which to me was rather like having 30 copies of the same book.
I read a Danielle Steele once. There were 3 aristocratic Russian heiresses in a troika racing across the snow of course, with tinkling bells, of course.  Then something bad happened.  Then something good happened, which was probably them each marrying an Alpha male Russian prince.  This compelling plot could obviously be set in many different locations, which Wikipedia suggests it is. It also tells me that she sells more books than anyone else in the world.
Well, "All the world is queer save me and thee, And even thee's a little strange at times."
 That often seems to be true.  
Now, off back to my reading.