Honestly…!

My friend James, Speculative Fiction writer and DaDa of the famous Viszla, Dennis tagged me for an ‘Honest Scrap’ meme.  I have to admit, I secretly love meme’s..the magazine version of which I cannot flick past e.g. ‘What’s in YOUR handbag, Mrs Jolie Witherspoon?’  So I’m going to enjoy this…possibly far more than you dear reader.  Sorry.

The idea is to list 10 honest facts about yourself, and here’s the rub, ‘make it interesting’…  Well, it’s interesting to me.  And it’s all about me after all.  Me, me, me.  I, I, I.

1.  I have a fear of falling (which is why I don’t like to fly…what is keeping us UP there?), perhaps because I’ ve been nearly 6 foot tall since I was 14 – it’s a long way down.  You would think that fear would abate as I’m sadly starting to shrink, but it’s worse than ever.  From decades of witnesses commenting on how gracefully I apparently fall, I suspect I actually black out a little on the way down.  Every member of my family sings out if there are wet tiles about, because unfortunately I’m also shockingly accident prone.  If I’m standing next to you seemingly doing nothing and I suddenly wince or gasp it’s because I’m imagining myself falling.  Go figure.

2.  I never wanted to marry or have children and I had no experience of babies at all until I had my own.  Didn’t like them, didn’t hold them, didn’t want one.  I married Simon because it was as important to him as it wasn’t to me.  Then one day I went shopping, saw a baby, burst into tears and that was the end of me.  Simon eventually had to go get a vasectomy to stop my plans for a fourth.  Luckily.

3.  I was smacked hard in the head (10 stitches resulting in a bald patch on my crown – fab) with a softball bat when I was 12 and was never the same again.  I became more confident, less anxious and less interested in following the consensus.  I don’t recommend this form of behaviour modification however.  I’ve been very forgetful ever since, which is one of the reasons I write everything down. AHA!

4.  Even though SH and the kids recently saved up and bought a PS3, I have no interest or understanding of it.  Now, I cannot even turn the television attached to it on.  My siblings and I were brought up strictly and were not allowed to play evil video games and I think I missed that tide.  I love pinball machines though.  Just don’t let me stand next to you while YOU play.  I can be very annoying.  Shocker.

5.  Although I’m completely capable of doing any assortment of  cerebral- type jobs, I choose not to accept these roles, ever.  OK, that’s vanity disguised as honesty.  All I’m saying is I’m smart enough.  Possibly not political enough, and that is probably why I prefer physical, repetitive work and keeps me too busy to look at the clock.  I want work that fits around my life, not vice-versa.

6.  At one point I had a casual job switching a local program to air at a TV station – it was a sweet job: the place was deserted, I popped in at 6.30pm and left at 7.30pm on a Friday night.  I did it all through my last pregnancy, and resumed after my daughter was born…sneaking her in so I could nurse her.  She spent every Friday night there in her little rocker chair with me until she was a few months old and inadvertantly pulled a few cables out of  the rack behind her plunging the national TV station into darkness.  Oops. It was seconds people.  You probably didn’t even notice.

7.  I always thought I could write a book even though it never occurred to me to be a writer until someone recommended it in my thirties.  I always enjoyed writing and was good at it, but doing something as a job to my mind is not supposed to be that enjoyable…oh, this is WAY cheaper than therapy!

8.  I’m scraping now….I always wanted a horse and I love having one now, but it has taken a year to overcome the guilt that I haven’t ridden him much.  I actually think if I stopped injuring myself and making up excuses and started riding him again, we’d probably go quite well because we have become such good buddies.  But that thought doesn’t make me want to do more than just hang out with him on the verandah.

9.  My mother is still nursing a hurt about a creative non-fiction piece of writing I wrote, in which I called her the Sandwich Queen.  As a result I don’t tell her about any of the writing I am doing until it is published – and this hurts her feelings as well.  And yet I don’t regret it at all.  Anymore.

 10.  Due to my height, and having short hair most of my life (and don’t forget the bald patch – I won’t…or maybe I will), and being called ‘Al’ (yeah, I know the song) I have been mistaken for a male many, many more times than I care to remember.  This has always offended those in my company at those times, way more than it has me.  The hips and the arse I got from my children prevents the situation occuring now.  Luckily.

Honest Scrap Meme’s rules ask that I now tag seven more to expose themselves and so I tip:

One Little Detail
Em at Itty Bitty Homestead
My neighbour Stace at Piffle, Drivel and Fluff
Voice of the Turtle AND the unwound road…because that would be interesting and fun.
Light, Sweet, Crudes Trish, of course,
and Rhubarb Whine…all because I’m endlessly fascinated with other people’s lives and these are in lieu of having coffee and chatting face to face.  If, however you’d rather eat your own socks, I understand.  No pressure.  Really.

I’m SO going to think of better things I should have written in about an hour or so.  Bugger.

Smellymeme

Isn’t it weird how life sometimes gets in the way of your blog?

Thankyou Turtle for showing me a way back in (and for so concisely empathising how offputting the overwhelmingness – it’s a word- can be of organising interweb space and time again, and BTW, I haven’t yet)!

 I love smells, very possibly because I have a little industrial deafness (what?) and am now becoming increasingly longsighted.  My sense of taste is good, but you can’t just go round using that little number to get a feel of the world.  You might get arrested. Or very ill.  And my sense of touch is hampered at the moment because of numerous tiny cuts on my hands, a result of my latest bout of clumsiness.  More of that in a later post.  Maybe.  But my sense of smell has always been strongly attuned to the point that I enjoy smells that others think are yucky: like horse poo (a good healthy smell) while manufactured ‘pretty’ smells like some scented candles make me feel as uptight as a cat in a rat trap factory!

So, my six  favorite smells in no particular order, and likely to change slightly with the seasons and a light breeze, are:

1. The baking of bread and cakes, preferrably yeasty type goods.

2. Rain.  Before, during, after. It’s a drought thing.

3. The memory of the smell of the unwashed heads of my newborn babies.  Truly intoxicating to me, but understandably gross to others, the scent is a mixture of 1. & 2.

4. The first breath of air when you arrive at the beach.

5. Christmas spices: clove stuck orange, cinnamon, ginger, cardamom, nutmeg and pine-needles - any combination of and any time of year.

6. There is a eucalypt with round, greyblue leaves which are often used in floral displays, and were used extensively in pot pourris in the 80′s – that I find eye rollingly heady, whether it is fresh ( and softer and greener in smell) or dried, when it is slightly more perfumey (it’s a word).

Good times. Mmmmmmmmm.

And to the six bad smells which are definite, rarely change, and will never ever enter the above list:

1. Bad meat, bad milk, bad fish.  I’ve smelt more than enough in my lifetime – there is something fundamental about the body’s reaction to something so dangerous.  I don’t even mind smelling bad milk, if it saves someone from accidentally using it.  Vomit.

2. Any poo on my carpet except horse poo which is totally inoffensive and very easy to clean off carpets.  I still prefer it to be outside. Of course.

3. The carpet in a pub. Not stomach turning (unless it is the morning after the night before) but unpleasant enough to have carved a place in memories of things to avoid.

4. Fake ‘essential’ oils – I’m not a snob, there is a difference between scented oils and essential oils.  One gives me a headache that starts at the bridge of my nose and goes to the back of my neck; the other soothes and refreshes me.

5. The smell of Oil of Ulan in a confined space – like the back seat of an old Valiant, with your Nan sitting in the front and you can’t open the windows because it might mess her hair up.  Crikey, where did that come from?

6. The septic when the bacteria isn’t working and the worms have fled. (Antidote: yogurt)

 

I’d love to know yours…are they memory related or sensory related?

Mi-mi-mi-Meme

 Goofy, Me and Michelin Baby.  5 years ago.  Just for fun. 

 

Voice of the Turtle tagged me, and seeing as reading those ’10 questions’ columns in the weekend papers fascinates me, (whether I know the interviewee or not) I relish the opportunity to put my foot where my mouth is, and broadcast the weirder (oh yes, there is weirder) side of myself.

1. What were you doing ten years ago?

10 years ago, we were living an idyllic life in Alice Springs, in the very red heart of Australia.  The chap above, with the Goofy hat on was 4 months old and Michelin Baby was yet undreamt of.  Stepford Husband’s father was dying of Mesothelioma and SH and our eldest son were  visiting with him in Cairns, Queensland this week 10 years ago.  None of us knew that he would die a fortnight after they left, and that he would never meet the baby I stayed at home with.  Life was bittersweet that year, to say the least.

2. What are five things on your to-do list today?

It’s now 5.05pm on Friday night – so here’s what remains on my list from now until 7.45pm when I may fall asleep. It’s happened too many times for me to say this lightly.

*  Make pizza dough, so that Stepford Husband can make pizza for this, his one night to cook (anyone else see the irony here?).

*  Call my sister and face the music about what I said to her husband (see previous post).

*  Remember to rescue the notes from the kids schoolbags so there isn’t a cranky morning on Monday (see previous post).

*  Collect the eggs.

*  Try another of Stepford Husband’s new home brew. 

3. What snacks do you enjoy?

Stuff on toast.  I’m a complete carbohydrate addict so we have a freezer full of nice, good bread.  I can always eat toast, and stuff on toast makes me happy.  It covers all the bases.  Vegemite for healthy/salty stuff, honey or homemade jam for sweet stuff, or leftovers for efficient use of stuff – particularly if there is leftover Asparagus Mornay.  Want to make me feel at home at your house, then give me stuff on toast.  Or dark chocolate.  Oooh, and at certain times of the year, Halva.

4. Things you would do if you were a billionaire.

Keep it quiet.  Pay off our mortgage and plant heaps of trees around the place.  Build a shed for Stepford Husband and a Studio for myself.  Invest properly.  Bank a bunch.  Donate to Landcare and ARF.

5. Three of your bad habits.

Fidgeting
Procrastinating
Forgetfulness

6. Five places you have lived.

1.  Canberra, ACT
2.  Perth, Western Australia
3.  Glebe Point Road Youth Hostel, Sydney (briefly)
4.  Alice Springs, Northern Territory
5.  Here – Murrumbateman, New South Wales

7. Five jobs you’ve had.

1.  Model (they were looking for very tall, gawky girls back then).
2.  Film Editor.
3.  The chick who puts the weather symbols and temperatures on the weather maps for the TV weather guy .
4.  Vision Switcher.
5.  AST (Year 12) Testing Supervisor.

8. How did you name your blog?

Where we live we have been in drought for many years – the sun is out ALL THE TIME and it’s important for me to look for, and see, the lighter side of life to maintain equilibrium.  Hence, Laugh in the Sun.

 

Hey, I’m not as weird as I thought I would be. Clearly because these are all the right questions.  So, who to tag next?  I tag Rhubarb Whine and Light, Sweet, Crude and Free Flow Life if they feel so inclined – no pressure, but inquiring minds want to know.  OK, MY inquiring mind wants to know…always with the inquiring.  That’s my fourth bad habit…my fifth is also bad language, SNAP Lavenderbay!