MEMBERS thus far: one. If I don’t stand myself up, our first meeting will include a vote on whether or not to petition The Daily Bunny for ignoring my submissions of Mr Thumpy…
Mr Thumpy.
Mr Thumpy.
Mr Thumpy.
in favour of the barely legal tail they’re currently toting.
How very predictable.
Keeper? You could start all manner of fool groups on that site!
Stuart is shifting soil from one pile to another.
THE first bloom of spring makes a city flush with short-lived friendliness, and I’m no exception. A good mood? Hellzapoppin’, let’s use this thing! Go go go!
It’s a fact that when one pulls on a fluoro vest, one effectively disappears. British photographer Stephen Gill created a series called ‘Invisible’ to bring to our attention the workmen and women under our noses who fade out of view. Stephen himself wears a fluoro jacket when taking pics, because that way nobody notices him angling his lens at them. Crims and stalkers, take note.
I reckon it’s time to give these heroes their moment in the sun, though. True, when I was younger our interaction would be limited to:
“Cheer up darling, it might never happen.”
“Fuck off.”
But that was in England, to be fair – the sun never shines there. So let’s let bygones be bygones.
Armed with my best “heyhowyagoin” and disarming smile, I approach Melbourne’s upkeepers of the Yakka – and god bless em, they all readily agree to pose without question.
Keeper? Yeah! Put me in a great mood, dunno about them. Note: try on PMT day?
Stan, doing the thing with the thing: "I'm KINDA working..."
Mick and Sam are cutting back a bit of lamp post that people keep tripping over. Mick booted Sam in the back: “She wants to take your picture."
Mark is protecting bystanders from flying concrete.
Peter the meter reader. "Do you want my phone number as well?" (x2)
SCOURING the Sunday supplements for something to do this week, I read Kate Holden’s account of going to a Japanese bath house, where she registers with satisfaction: “pink, clean, clean, pink bodies”.
I see my first such specimen immediately upon entering the women’s changing rooms. Glowing pinkly from all four cheeks is a lady with just a hand towel a-top her head. Eagerly, I take off my own clothes and saunter about naked like I do this sort of thing every day.
Despite being all ready to go nude in front of the world, I have the bath and sauna to myself – which winds up being a relief, as I find myself struggling to breathe in the heat of both. I must be some excessive kind of wuss: I can’t stick more than two minutes in the sauna before my eyeballs steam up and my blood pressure goes through the roof. In the tub, I’m stewed to the gills, with my kidneys nicely browned on either side.
Then comes the shiatsu, administered upstairs once you’re safely robed up again. Pretty sure that’s a foot in my back, but I can’t be sure because there’s a towel over my face. Cunning. “There are two weird points on my body you’d better not touch,” I warn the practitioner as she turns me over – because I’m liable to fling a knee towards someone’s jaw if they go anywhere near them. Fortunately, this lady’s got a steady touch and navigates the Valentish escarpments without reefing us both.
Keeper? Might stick with a bog standard bath – bit cheaper.
IT’S weird staring out to sea when not cast adrift in some existential crisis. Right now I’m feeling well anchored (as opposed to wankered: see 2008), but I’m keen to practise my new mindful skills and see if I can do bugger all for half an hour.
While my mind goes a-wandering and dogs come a-sniffing, I’m still pleased I manage to stay put. I get uncomfortable flashbacks to Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar, though, in which the protagonist sits by the sea one day and slowly loses her mind. I had to literally chuck the book away when I re-read it a month back, as though it was going to contaminate me this time ’round.
Keeper? Yes.
ACT stands for Acceptance and Commitment Therapy — except when it’ s applied to sportos and corporate types, when it suddenly becomes Acceptance and Commitment Training, because obviously people in those fields don’t need therapy. It updates the 7000-year-old practice of mindfulness with cognitive behavioural therapy exercises and other bits of Western psychology, and I’ve come along to a conference room in Melbourne with several hundred other curious characters to hear more about it.
ACT ties in with everything Hey Man, Now You’re Really Living is about: becoming more observant, present, grateful, fearless; developing a childlike curiosity and accepting the bits of the human condition — fear, depression, dread, pain — that we don’t like. It differentiates between our “observing self” and the “thinking self”. It’s the thinking self that has the mean streak, so ACT recommends you use your observing self — that’s who we’ve been from birth; call it your soul if you’re that way inclined — to keep it in check.
As you might expect, there’s a fair bit of weird shit that goes on. Dr Russ Harris — who has variously been a doctor, a life coach, a therapist and a stand-up comedian — gets us each chewing a sultana for five minutes and gazing wonderingly at the back of our hands. Frequently I find myself succumbing to the usual thoughts I get when asked to listen for any length of time — one-track thoughts, with an R. Kelly soundtrack — but that’s okay. You just “thank your mind” for its diversion and drag yourself back to the here and now.
Unsurprisingly, there are acronyms and analogies aplenty to help us retain all this information. My favourite analogy: the observing self is the sky, while our thoughts and emotions are the weather. They’re transient, sometimes difficult, but will always change — and we need to go out and splash around outside regardless.
Keeper? D.E.F.O.
WHEN I read Michelle Dresbold’s Sex, Lies and Handwriting, it really got inside my head – to the point that I dreamt that I was staring at the scribble of a guy I’d started seeing and it was fraught with warning signs. Then again, my own script marks me as a sexual deviant with a vicious temper, which is unfair.
Anyway, not many volunteers come forward when I decide to try out Michelle’s theories, but co-worker Ben agrees confidently to submit a sample. I lift a couple of pages from his notepad to see what makes him tick.
Size: Ben’s scrawl is not exactly shy and retiring, even if it does stay within society’s boundaries (that would be the lines on this notepad). “When the middle zone is overly large—” and I’m saying it is “—the writer has a tendency to be childlike and self-centred,” says Michelle. “It is difficult for them to delay gratification. What they see is what they want… right now!”
Angle: Leans forward slightly, meaning Ben leans towards people and his “actions and reactions are based mainly on feelings.” While that can manifest itself in friendliness, he could also be a needy, impulsive chap who has trouble holding back his emotions.
Baseline weightings: Some writers emphasize the upper zone – that is their upper loops and extensions are more prominent than the lower. Upper zone writers tend to be abstract, fantastical, flighty ideas people, while lower zone types have “an oversized need for material, physical or sexual gratification”. Ben’s is dead centre, which means he thinks with his gut, worries about his social and practical needs,and is concerned with day to day matters. Like his hair.
Gaps: Gaps in the upper zone are the terrain of hypochondriacs and neurotics, while broken lower loops suggest sexual trauma or dysfunction. Ben has gaps in his middle zone – check out those ‘e’s – but I have no idea what that means.
Curves or angles: Ben’s curvy writing suggests he is open and nurturing – which makes sense, as he has a photo of a baby stuck to his computer. However, the excessive curving suggests he is a strangler. According to Michelle.
Signature: The ‘x’ in Ben’s signature signifies a need to cross oneself out, a self-destructive urge. Ben, you’re in the company of Nixon, Bonaparte and Hendrix there. And me.
So there you have it: generally speaking, a nice guy, with the odd urge to throttle you and drink himself stupid.
Keeper? Yes, but in secret – like when you try and get a bloke’s starsign out of him without letting on. Feel free to send me your samples for a private consultation.
IN any given situation, my attitude is usually to leave it to the professionals, even if they’re professional arseclowns.
“You can’t do that” is my default setting. Sounds a bit like: “Computer says no.”
Someone’s got to do it, though. I mean, whose idea was it to move alone to the country? What made me think I’d be able to carry out even the most basic maintenance without any kind of gumption, the obligatory white ute and a driver’s licence to go with it?
But it’s getting embarrassing constantly ringing able country folk for help whenever I need a ladder, a branch grows too long or something falls off something else. Fuck this shit – I’m getting me some tools.
My first task is to build a picture frame. Really, this involves sawing two pieces of wood to approximately the same length and then stapling the picture between them. Target’s probably not the ideal place to be buying heavy artillery tools, but I pick out what I need after an emergency phone call to my most capable friend, who I’m secretly hoping will step in and offer to do it himself.
I immediately saw myself getting the saw into the bag, and I have to go back for safety goggles and staplers for the staple gun (kapow!), but then I’m all set.
“Oh my god, is someone going to supervise?” Natalie cries, back at the office.
“I knew that would happen,” mutters Ben, as I dab at my bloody hand.
Back at the country abode, I have a bit of a tizzy when I discover the pilot light’s blown out, a storm is a-gusting, and I don’t have any nails from which to hang my new work of art, let alone a hammer to bang them in. “You c%#& of a town!” I’m afraid I scream.
Keeper? Since my school FAILED to teach me the rudiments of DIY, I think I’d better enrol in some one-day course for numnuts.
I painted that wall as well.
I'm not saying I'm like Dorothy Parker; I'm saying I like her lamp.
I WONDER what it’s like having people critique your lyrics. I bet it’s not very nice, is it? I vow to set myself up for a taste of that medicine by sending my own poetic meanderings to a messageboard dedicated to verse and feedback.
I decide to submit ‘Firewater’ and ‘Taillights’ (with apologies to Buffalo Tom’s ‘Taillights Fade’), two songs I wrote in my early twenties. It’s tragic the other poets won’t be able to hear the heartrending melodies, but what can you do?
At first I register under what I reckon what would be a suitably ‘poetic’ name, Remorticia. Then I tell myself not to be such a fucking arse and change it to my actual name. I mean, choosing the former’s like reading someone’s horoscope out in a mystical voice and waving your fingers around, isn’t it? Just don’t do it.
Now, where to post. ‘The Sadness’ is a thread of “heartache, lost loves, suffering and pain. (Please post poems about suicide and death in The Tragedy)”. So ‘Firewater’ can go there.
‘The Tragedy’ is “downfalls, sorrowful conclusions, death, misfortunes and world tragedies”. So we’ll send ‘Taillights’ there.
“Very smoothe write I loved reading it. You are a great writer :)” is the first comment under ‘Firewater’. So evidently even if English isn’t your first language, my words resonate powerfully.
“Deeply written, great job,” comes another, temporarily satisfying my constant need for approval.
‘Taillights’, meanwhile, isn’t faring so well. “You know, if I over-thought things,” begins one critic with 8142 comments under her belt on a poetry forum, “mneh mneh mneh mneh.” Or words to that effect.
I can’t resist a snarky comeback, then immediately realise I may have taken it the wrong way. And at least she hasn’t given me 2.5 stars and a patronising slap on the arse in a national magazine.
Keeper? Might be a useful exercise in avoiding passive aggressive outbursts.
UNDER the cloak of darkness, my cohort and I dispatch 20 gnomes outside Armadale Station. You may think such tomfoolery does not qualify as personal development, but I’m hoping the mysterious appearance of the gnomes overnight will surprise and delight; providing an interesting centrepiece for commuter conversation; enriching mornings… making the pages of mX!
And while our gnome run has all the sophistication of a Year 12 art project (my actual Year 12 art project involved taking black and white photographs of severed pigs’ heads), Esther has never experienced a Year 12 art project herself, so I reckon she’s getting HEAPS out of this.
Keeper? Yes!
I NEARLY gnawed off my own leg to get out of this one. Nothing says “Ooooh, maybe skip it” like the thought of public speaking. And nothing says “Have a drink, why dontcha?” like the thought of public speaking at a detox.
I’m pretty sure I’m coming down with something. My eyes loom like little pissholes and my hair looks like shit. Yeah, definitely not well.
“I feel like I’d be really predictable if I cancelled,” I say regretfully to my detox setter-upper, leaving a trail of dots.
“You would be,” she answers crisply, “and it’s not about you.”
“You can get fucked,” I think. I suppose THAT’S predictable as well?
Yep.
By the time evening comes round I’m vaguer than your mum at Christmas and have been struck down by a whole raft of psychosomatic illnesses, at least one of which is fatal. I wish this stupid storm outside would break; I’m stifling in my own skin.
I used to volunteer at a detox in England, back in my most hedonistic days, and I’d always forget what side of the fence I sat on. Now, again, I feel like I’m the wayward child that needs to be guided. I shouldn’t be trusted to speak to anyone about anything.
In the TV room at the detox someone grudgingly presses mute and my voice vibrates like a freshly twanged nerve, but I resolutely get to my point and plant my flag at the summit. Afterwards people clap kindly and murmur “onya”, also forgetting which side of the fence I’m on. I guess there are no fences. The storm has cleared and I feel better. Does anybody else feel better?
Keeper: If anyone really wants a house call from Doctor Awkward, I’ll give it another shot.
Australia 2012. It's okay, we're friends.
Hey man, now you're really living 
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