I’d say it’s what separates us, not from the beasts, but the bestial. Creating the future, renewing a learned past - these are reasons to strive. Writing for and with love, taking and framing an image, stretching new melodic skins onto old skeletons of song… it’s how we manage to fly. It’s how we stay you and me, not us and them.
Unlike Osk, who seemed to establish his own tactical task force wherever we lived, scooping up neighbourhood feline troublemakers as sidekicks (including the memorable ginger behemoth Watson, with whom he used to scope the street from the safety of the shed roof), Jelly has the intelligence gathering skills of a sponge cake.
Anyway, somewhere in between my 'and then you should've done this' and 'why didn't you say x and y, rather than z', and 'for the love of monkeys and the general public's eyesight, you didn't honestly wear that heinous shirt did you', something he was saying about the dating extravaganza we were picking to pieces finally penetrated my cloud of self-congratulatory cumulo-waffle.
"Most people don't talk about how dates are progressing as a tender process, do they?" he asked.
"What?"
"She said I was 'part way through the tender process' and that she was judging me on my submission. I'd like to think there was irony involved, and I think at the time I may have given an admittedly weak "haha, yesssss, quite". Looking back, I'd have to conclude, computer says no on the presence of Fabulon or other aids to achieving crisply pressed linen."
If the Devil is a woman, as several high-up members of organised religion seem to believe, then I don't blame her for being a bit of a naughty boots. If she's faced this pile of poo, then by crikey, she's bound to feel like taking it out on a few billion idiots who decide to sell their souls for a shekel or two. I say 'go for it, ducks - let them have it with both Beelzebarrels'.
If someone IS just that into you, and you're not reciprocating, it is an overwhelm, not a bowling over.
We spend a hell of a lot of time and effort updating our digital doppelgangers.
Maybe we need to spend a bit more time downloading some apps for our internal wellbeing instead?
I think we have, in the main, forgotten that a cape - that stalwart accessory of the superhero upper echelons - is inevitably just a bedsheet dyed a cool colour, and possibly bedazzled with a few funky sequins. The true cape? That's inside our hearts, our souls, and our hind-brain's knowledge of what is right, or wrong, behaviour for self and society.
Squishy got off the phone and she started yelling at me, some words I didn't understand about using the interwebs for education, not random surfing, and not being allowed on it unsupervised at any time, did I understand.
I did not understand, because for a start, why would I use the interwebs for surfing? I don't like water, I'm a cat.
I write because I want to put my thoughts out of my head, and onto the equivalent of the pages of a commonplace book. It is catharsis, not crowd-pleasing, and that's when I knew what I wanted to say.
Obviously in order to get what you want in life, you have to be wearing kick-ass shoes. It's as simple as that. Imelda Marcos may not have been the nicest person in the world, but the Iron Butterfly knew what she wanted and how to get it - amazing footware. All one thousand and sixty pairs. Nicole Kidman - ditches Tom for Roast Lamb with Mum, and immediately gets her mojo back, because she's out of the ballet flats and into the stilettos before you can say 'Tom Cruise is really, really weird'.
I often think the reason Napoleon divorced Josephine wasn't because she couldn't produce an heir - it was down to the fact that she wore higher heels than he did. Short man syndrome got the better of him (and possibly envy over her shoes).
Despite looking really, really fabbo in breeches, Lizzy realises that Darcy is in fact very arsey and isn't likely to change his spots anytime soon. She decides marriage would be a trap and a half and instead scandalises Longbourn by going on the stage and becoming the best known actress of her time. Mrs Bennet loses the plot entirely and simultaneously the power of speech (yay). Darcy marries Caroline Bingley and is miserable but his family is happy so bad luck.
Jane and Bingley can still get married because they're both drips.
What's The Scrabble Test? It's simple.
Think about the person you're with presently (if you are with someone - if not, think about the person you feel you'd like to be with). Now imagine the future. You're seventy or eighty years old. Believe me, it's on its way - admittedly for some of us it's closer than for others. It's after dinner on a Saturday night. You're sitting on the sofa with them, vino in hand (hey, eighty doesn't have to be boring!)
Now.
It's time to...
Whip out the Scrabble. And whip their butts.
On both sides of the world, people who were going about their daily lives were suddenly forced into fear and horror and blood and pain and death - because someone else decided to make a nightmare become reality.
What I would truly like to understand is this; what is the reasoning behind these people doing what they do? Because what scares me the most is that there may be no reason beyond a wish to make themselves heard - not out of a cry for their cause, or their suffering, but simply because they are hollow people.
You know what I mean. You sift through the pieces, trying to work out which ones fit. Sometimes you are absolutely certain that you have built an entire corner, or a piece of wall, or even managed to construct that mythical blue sky; but then you try to shove and twist two pieces together that aren't meant to be, and the whole puzzle needs to go back in the box...
And you start over again.
If you are playing by the rules, you put the pieces in upside down and go in blind.
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”
Dearest Your Majesty,
Tony here. But of course, you knew that, because we've been corresponding freely for months now. I wish I had realised years ago what a fan you were of Lifesaving, I would've thought to mention it when we first met. Then I wouldn't have been so surprised when you friend requested me in the Catholic Speedo Connection closed group on Facebook. How we have laughed about your e-mail address - 'fakeliz@jgillard.com.au'; although I do think some people might get the wrong idea, even though you have reassured me a number of times that this is the cleverness of it, and only true nobility like myself would know that it is really you. 'You are like King Arthur in the Sword in the Stone, you scabrous little hound' you say, which is one of your funny little names for me, isn't it, Ma'am?
Ma'am, I've got a bit of a problem. I'm copping some serious stick from the public and even that turncoat fat man in a thin suit Hockey. As for Bolt...
John Howard rang me up the other day and called me names, Ma'am! He said I was a bloody disgrace to the Party and to take my big ears and big mouth and bugger off home.
What would he know. He can't even bowl a cricket ball. Even Kevin Rudd has been sniggering at me.
As for that Turnbull character, I feel like one of the Fathers at school is about to give me six of the best, and not in a good way.
I don't understand it, Ma'am. You told me that if I appointed The Duke of Edinburgh as a Knight of Australia, everyone would love me! 'Do it Tone' you said. 'Do it for Australia. Do it for your country. The country will be grateful'. Well, they aren't. They aren't grateful at all. They want me to take it off him! They don't think he deserves it. Of course he does. I mean, you told me about all the good things he's done, like the time he played cards against Le Chiffre and won so that a bomb didn't go off, and that other time when he stopped a master villain at your country estate, SkyBalmoral, in Scotland.
And now you're not answering my e-mails...
I feel like a little bit of sunshine has gone out of my life. Especially since Margaret isn't talking to me because I told her you don't like to share. Maybe Prince Phillip feels the same way, and has put his foot down.
I bet he would've made a good Jesuit.
