DAY 85: Writing thank you notelets like Mum used to make us do

24 Nov

IN my childhood home, writing a thank you note was as vital for a healthy constitution as Sun-Maid Raisins and morning ablutions, yet I haven’t cracked out a notelet since Christmas 1987.

Get this, though. Not only could writing a thank you note almost qualify as a random act of kindness (so unanticipated would it be), but Buddhists have known since the sand flats of time that gratitude for your lot is the No.1 way you can improve your quality of life. Coming late to the party, I’ve made up for lost decades by getting a Gratitude app on my iPhone, as endorsed by Oprah. That’s got me through some tough times and boring train journeys, I can tell you.

I decide to write three thank you notes to people who probably don’t even know they gave me a warm feeling recently, with fingers firmly crossed that they don’t think I’m creepy. I choose notelets with animals on, as is customary for such occasions, and send the first one to the local vet. He handled Mr Thumpy on Saturday with a tenderness unbecoming to a veterinarian, and only charged me $27. Hopefully this wasn’t a mistake, or I’ll soon be getting a note BACK.

The others recipients I’ll keep to myself.

Keeper? I’m probably not going to be one of those people who send their favourite Starbucks outlet a postcard from Greece, but heartfelt missives should be allowed to run riot, at least until the cops are called.

DAY 84: Passing my hazard test, despite Richard Marx’s best efforts

23 Nov

It's like playing Big Game Hunter, driving out where I live.

THE question is, can I pull off my hazard test (stage one of your driving test) while I’ve got ‘Hazard’ by Richard Marx droning relentlessly between my ears?

>click the mouse when you would slow down<

“I swearrrr I left her by the river…”

>click the mouse when you would turn right<

“...All of my rescues are go-o-o-o-o-o-one”

Fortunately, I pass… although at 61%, I’d watch my brake lights vigilantly if I were you.

Swerving haphazardly off topic, I’ve noticed my Vic Roads driving manual reads like a Buddhist tract. If you replace ‘drive’ with ‘act’, and ‘drivers’ with ‘people’, you’ve got a Zen manual for living:

* Always drive co-operatively, even when others are not.

* Give other drivers plenty of space so they don’t feel like you are invading their personal space.

* Concentrate on driving and pay attention to changes in driving conditions.

* If you make a mistake while driving, acknowledge it.

* If another driver makes a mistake or becomes aggressive, try not to react – remember, it is a mistake, not a personal attack.

* Don’t make offensive hand gestures.

To that I would only add: Keep on movin’, don’t look back (except for the odd head check)

Keeper? No one can take this away from me. Not even after Day 87.

DAY 83: Thrashing around at Vaughan Springs

22 Nov


THIS is a popular local it’s-too-hot spot, judging by the utes, blue singlets and mocking gazes directed at our picnic. I am still only blowing 0.0005 as a bona fide country chick, though. A ways to go. I turned down a wild rabbit dinner tonight, and it’s not even like I was asked to slaughter it myself.

Keeper? Yes! Next time will try to thrash around less at the possibility of eels.

DAY 82: Shooting Glocks, Magnums, Rugers, shotguns and stuff

21 Nov

Don't stand like this.

QUEENSLAND’s a law unto itself – like me, man – so naturally you can work your way through an arsenal of firearms at a shooting range without a licence.

At the Shooting Centre in Southport, my fellow bloodthirsty tourist and I buy over 100 rounds of ·22; 9mm; ·38 special; ·357; ·45 auto; ·44 Magnum.

My favourite’s the ·38 Special handgun – for the chamber-spinnin’ hijinks and Deer Hunter flashbacks – while the comrade’s obsessed with a Dirty Harry-style ·44 Magnum. We’re set through our paces by Roger, an affable chap who starts us on the wussy “ladies’” ·22, all the way up to a Glock. These firearms are way heavier and louder than anticipated – it’s hard not to flinch or kick out a foot when one goes off, even if it’s you pulling the trigger. But fuck, if Kate Ritchie and Rodger Corser can do it, so can I.

clavicle-no-more

It’s the lever-action, 12-gauge shotgun Roger’s impatient to get to, though. It’s not included in our deal, but he’s dropped it into conversation three times now and is practically hopping from foot to foot when we start to consider the merits of letting one off.

Oh, all right then. I’ve wanted to fire a shotgun for ages, but even my fantasies have been accompanied by painful visions of the kickback cracking my collarbone in two. Roger admits he likes to advise people who are annoying him to hold the butt of the gun an inch away from their shoulder for optimum clavicle ouch.

“You only have to vaguely point a shotgun in the direction of something,” he says, as I faff around getting into place. “Because you’re definitely going to hit it.”

Sure enough, I pepper the target sheet with hundreds of holes after just one shot. The cartridge shoots out in front of my nose, with a pleasing puff of gunpowder. There are signs everywhere reminding punters to wash their hands and arms before leaving, as the residue of shooting leaves poisonous, powdered lead all over your limbs.

“Brought down the Roman Empire,” Roger notes. “Lead poisoning from saucepans.”

They made me wear these Protective Socks (slightly soiled).

Keeper? This gave me major ladywood.

DAY 81: Losing in the National Klop Championships

20 Nov

What's everyone laughing at?

DIDN’T rank too highly in this wee log-hurling sport invented by woodsmen on the Finnish-Russian border (allegedly), but better luck next year, eh?

DAY 80: Hanging on, on a Harley

19 Nov
I DEVELOPED a bit of a thing for bikers in my teens when I happened across a picture of Sonny Barger, the head honcho of the Hells Angels’ notorious Oakland chapter .

Sonny had one of those boyish faces that suggested mischief rather than ultraviolence – or maybe a bit of both – but I was particularly drawn to the tattoo on his forearm. When I blew up the picture on a photocopier, it looked to be some kind of abstract creature: I could just make out an evil eye and a beak. I’d been looking for a design for my first tattoo, and this was perfect. There may even have been some substitute father stuff going on. There usually was.

This was the photo I blew up x 1000.

I spent months honing this image until I’d turned it into a motif fit for permanent disfiguration… but I made a last-minute swerve after being handed some literature by a couple of cult members in Birmingham’s Bullring shopping centre, in which it predicted the human race would be barcoded with the mark of the devil and sent packing to hell.

One barcode and several years later, I saw more pictures of Sonny (he sports a tracheotomy hole these days) and realised that the mystical creature on his arm was actually a rather pedestrian cross. So thank god I got the barcode, eh?

It's a cross!

Anyway, my pillion experience has been limited to hoony Japanese models, so I decide to book myself in for a bit of HD Old Lady treatment right here in Melbourne – without the customary train pulling. Andy, of Andy’s Harley Rides and Tours, has been riding for 40 years and is a tough old boot. He meets me outside Southern Cross Station and straps me carefully into a helmet and heavy leather jacket… and quickly it transpires that this is indeed the life.

Ah, the smell of the bay and the wind in your teeth. Bolte Bridge rips the spit from my mouth and the snot from my nose, but I cling on like a koala and gamely swallow flies. Once in the Domain Tunnel, I hear echoing screams and howls of engines that you’re not privy to on four wheels. “They’re just jealous,” yells Andy, as the odd tool in a car tries to block our passage between them. Andy regularly guns the throttle to give a ferocious roar – not for effect, as I initially suspected, but to let ’em know we’re passing.

Albert Park nearly knocks my sunnies off as we hit 90. My back aches from tensing and my feet are cramping in my efforts to keep my leg away from the piping hot exhaust, but Andy assures me this passes with practice, and it doesn’t stop me grinning like the village idiot.

Cruising down St Kilda’s Acland Street, I’m glad there isn’t a big ‘Andy’s Harley Tours’ plastered on the side of the bike, as hopefully that means we’re turning heads for the right reasons. It’s a beautiful evening for a ride, with the kite surfers hooning around the wave tops and the smell of seafood in the air. I catch the train home with a face covered in grime.

Keeper? Yeah. Great for those core muscles.

DAY 79: Turning my head into a Girl’s World

18 Nov

I wasn't allowed a Girl's World. SO unfair.

THE smell of hair mousse still takes me back to being 13 years old, so I keep a can in the bathroom cabinet to occasionally sputter some into my hand and reminisce.

My first stabs at makeup at that age were with an entirely red palette. Red eye shadow (provoking the inevitable “You look ill” from Mum), red-orange lipstick and red blush. Well… It might have been that eye shadow again.

A year later, I bleached my hair and went for red lips with liquid eyeliner and mascara… and that’s what I’ve been doing ever since.

Behind the times or what? I’ve never so much as dusted on a bronzer or plucked stray hairs out of my pastel lip gloss on a windswept day.

Today I find a makeover site called www.taaz.com, and for anyone who ever had a Girls World styling head, you’re going to find this waaaaay cool. You upload a clear picture of your visage and then drag dots to fit the points of your features. Done. Now it’s time to colour in.

Before.

I decide to go for a Pamela Anderson look, to go the whole hog. At each step of choosing a colour from a spectrum wheel, I’m told which cosmetics company provides the shade (Cover Girl, Clinique, all the biggies), and for how much. You can even click to order. Or you can ignore and just turn yourself into a drag queen.

You can plump lips, whiten teeth and wig up, but let’s not be silly. I go for pecan foundation, lashings of bronzer, and line my lips with a darker hue. Dated, I know. But at least only one decade too late.

Add gloss. Add more gloss.  Now bronze. Now go out and find a footballer.

After.

Keeper? If only to marvel at how I suddenly look like I’m great at gobbies.

DAY 78: Going to the Rock Chicks exhibition

17 Nov
Little Pattie Amphlett. She looks very much like cousin Chrissie here, no?

THE name made me give a little gag, but the Rock Chicks exhibition itself (at Melbourne’s Art Centre) was very good.

Chrissie Amphlett's frock. I almost touched myself.

A TV Week 'Queen of Pop' award. Is it entirely a coincidence that it looks like an upside down vagina?

Keeper? I’ve been twice now! That’s enough.

DAY 77: Checking out Station Pier

16 Nov

Tch. They've built it on a slope!

HAVING learned about the history of Station Pier on Day 63 at the Museum of Immigration, I decided to go and have a look at the thing itself. You know it – it’s the pier in Port Phillip Bay that the Spirit of Tasmania leaves from. The original Railway Pier was built in the 1850s, but was restructured as Station Pier in the 1920s.

By the way, Port Melbourne in the morning is awesome, no matter what you think of the locals…

How good's my camera, though?

Keeper? Yes.

DAY 76: Creating a ‘Quit Smoking or Die, Fool’ plan

15 Nov

I've always wanted to be able to do that - flick a cigger in and out of my mouth.

I DON’T really like cigarettes; I mean I’m a bit princess-y about them. I feel obliged to scrub my fingers and brush my teeth after every one during the day, while during bouts of evening faggery I chew gum. If I really loved them I’d want to roll around in their nicotiney badness, and to hell with the brassy tone they give my highlights.

Ah, but the packaging is so crisp and the filters so pure. The neat, snowy casing, perfectly packed to regulation density, rolled pertly between your thumb and forefinger. Each virgin cigarette perches delicately between your lips, checked gingerly by the tip of the tongue. Yes, still there.

It doesn’t help that I’ve only just discovered Ice Chill (of death); the latest line by Marlboro. They’ve made them especially for us Australians, so it seems churlish not to smoke them… although if you were a cynic you might compare them to Marlboro Ice Blast (Singapore), Marlboro Cold Mint (Spain), Marlboro White Menthol (UK) or Marlboro Ice Fresh (Brunei). I’ve always been a menthol smoker – it’s way classy – but these take the minty biscuit. One inhalation ushers in cleansing, Arctic winds that refresh and stimulate the dusty recesses of your maw and light up your brain like a Christmas tree.

But basically, now that I’m really enjoying life, I’m going to be right pissed off if it’s cut short. That Dead-By-Thirty deal I had going with myself… it’s had its day. So here’s the plan of action.

1. Hypnotise: Didn’t work with the “only two glasses of red wine after six o’clock” ruse way back when, but apparently asking for help with total abstinence is much easier. I’m booked in for next week.

2. Allocate all existing smokes to filthy smokers: And that’s a lot of smokes, as I buy a pack whenever I’m stressed and then “quit” and leave them at home. Anyone want 80 packs of slightly soiled menthols? Oh.

3. Visualise: Recall, if you will, the self-flagellation smoking of morning three of a bender; singed lungs; Dot Cotton from EastEnders’ pursed lips; faggy fingers… Ugh, right?

4. Erect a Jar of Stench: I’m going to fish that olive jar out of the rubbish and fill it with the soggy fag butts lazing around outside my front door. And lukewarm water. This will sit on my desk.

5. Reward: Tricky, this one. I’m already rewarding myself for no booze with unlimited cake. Masturbation’s not convenient at work, and all my money’s going on the new adventures every day. I’ll have a think about what the reward might be.

You might notice, I’ve made an acronym. All good self-help plans have an acronym. Mine is ‘H. A. V. E. R.’ , as in “havering to you” in The Proclaimers’ paean to persistence, ‘500 Miles’. Would have been better if it was ‘S.T.U.B.’ or ‘A.S.H.’ but people are paid millions of dollars to come up with those sorts of things, while I’m just sat here on the train losing my shit with my internet connection.

Keeper? The quitting, yeah. Not the ciggers.

PS:
Marlboros were originally marketed at women (“mild as May“)… which is why when Philip Morris wanted to branch the smokos out to men, they had to go down the ultra macho Malboro Man route, to overcompensate.

There's an awful lot of framing of the crotch going on here. He's also kind of a swastika shape.

They’re better than eating olives at keeping your lipstick on, though, which is why Marlboros started life in the 1920s with a bright red filter, so that ladies didn’t leave unsightly lippie marks on them.

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