macbebekin

I wrote on twitter about being shy. Here's a bit of expounding:

Before yesterday I wouldn't have added you as a contact unless I knew you personally or overcame the supreme sense of hesitation after seeing that you added me and thought why on earth would this person do that? When I was actively doing Illustration Friday I loved the comments, but it was so hard for me to leave one on somebody else's site. I've always been the girl who sits at the side of the pool splashing her feet while you were out there playing marco polo or whatever. I hate making the first move and for that matter so does JM--it's a wonder we'll celebrate our tenth anniversary soon.

Anyway, yesterday I had a beer and threw caution to the wind. I started adding people left and right to my twitter and flickr accounts. I even left a message or two. Maybe only one, not two. Am I too weird? It's taken a while, but I think I'm finally getting the gist of this internet life-thing. Toes in, next the whole foot.

Well, I'm not waking up at 5:00 any more like a week ago, but since then I am pulled out of sweet slumber at around 1:30 every night. There is no way I'm getting up to write at 1:30, I'm too lazy. This will hopefully be resolved by next week when we take the back roads down to Adelaide. When traveling JM and I usually hit the hay not long after dark (which is coming earlier and earlier) and wake up before sunrise and the swarms of flies.

Speaking of flies, our trip with the Getaway group was great and best of all our interview ended up on the cutting room floor. Possible reason: JM mentioning the word "butt". We went to the regular Thursday night barbecue at Jol's to watch the segment and also say goodbye to the usual crowd since we may not be back this way for a few months or longer. I had such a fun time on that shoot and am grateful to the cameraman Chris who taught me how to use my polarising filter! Here's the Getaway segment about the Never Never Track and Jol's site Direct 4WD where you can book the trip if you're down this way (JM's done all his 4WD training with Jol as well). Also here are my photos of the Never Never excursion.

I've been trying a few products and treatments that promise to restore luster and shine to my prematurely gray hair. Most recently, I tried a product I assumed was long extinct, an artifact of the 1970s. But no: you can still pick up a tube of Alberto V05 Conditioning Hairdressing in a drugstore for a few dollars.

So I did, and that night while The Fella and I sat side by side watching a movie, I tried it out. Piercing the tube's seal, I squeezed onto my fingertip a tiny dab of what appeared to be industrial motor lubricant: thick, oily, grayish-green. I sniffed and recoiled.

"Whew! This smells like old!"

The Fella leaned in, sniffed, and nodded. "Yup."

"This smells like old dude!" I bit my lip. "The reviews said the smell would dissipate quickly."

A beat.

"I'm trying it." I spread the dab of goo over my palms and glossed it onto my hair.

Then we waited. Waited. Waited for the smell to diminish.

And in the meantime we talked. Talked about the smell. Among the things we decided it smelled like:
- old dude. Though I'd remarked upon it immediately, we thought it deserved a strong seconding.
- old dude barbershop: a barbershop for old dudes, full of customers.
- the nurse's office.
- comb sanitizer.
- cheap band-aids from the hospital.
- a clean wrestler.
- old dude, a third time.
- Great-Uncle Bill, minus the whiskey.

I'm perturbed over the fact that I asked JM to upgrade Movable Type based solely on the new user pic feature AND IT DOESN'T WORK. I'm so sorry, Bu, I'll never ask you to upgrade MT again. Instead, next time, we'll switch to WordPress. I promise I'm not doing this in order to find more grey hairs. (I swear that man has no grey on his head except in his beard. Dude, you're 38 (almost). Meanwhile, all the dyes in Australia cannot keep these little hairs brown.)

I swear to God, Spam Singles. Apparently for that subset of the market that (inexplicably) wants Spam, but not much Spam.

Cynar, a bitter aperitif made of, uh, artichokes.

Meat-flavored bottled water for your pet. For your pet. Not for my pet.

Fruit-flavored bottled water for your pet.

Just sent to Elsa:

Speaking of bloody things, last year JM and I were driving down the street when he pointed across the road and said, "Bloody Santa." I began looking for a blood drenched fat man in red and white costume. I was disappointed to see only bored Santa with a sandwich board proclaiming massive discounts on waterbeds. Oh, Titus.

Seems we've been in Australia long enough for the vernacular to seep in.

After the break are excerpts from a few of the emails I sent Elli in the course the past two days, as I struggled to write about a specific motif in Shakespeare's notoriously grisly revenge play, Titus Andronicus.

warning: uncharacteristically salty language!

Did I ever tell you about the time I buried a lady?

No? Oh, okay:

At the time, I was living with my then-partner (let's call him L) in his hometown, where we helped take care of his ailing father. When his grandmother died peacefully, L's mother wasted no time sorting out the arrangements, as they are so decorously called. She booked the service and visiting hours, found the grave plot, arranged for the cremation, and --- ever the frugal soul --- persuaded the cemetery sexton to forego the gravedigging excavation fee by arranging for her brother to dig it with his backhoe.

But, see, her brother lived a few towns over. With his backhoe.

A few towns is a long way to go on a backhoe, I reckon.

He kept not coming over to dig that grave hole. Day after day, he didn't dig that grave hole. And she fretted over it.

After a few days of this, I asked her "Exactly how big does this, uh, hole need to be?"

She pulled out the notes from the sexton. "A few feet deep, and a few feet across. Big enough to fit the cracker box."

The wuh?

Grammy's ashes were in a saltine tin. Perfect.

L and I exchanged glances, threw two shovels in the trunk of the car, and grabbed the gardening gloves from the garage. "You be sure to call the cemetery guy, let him know we're coming," I urged his mother before we left.

Digging that grave hole took a little longer than we expected, but it was a sunny day and a peaceful one. We had quite a cheerful afternoon, digging and resting, digging and resting. We chatted freely. L was nearly untouched by grief, not being close to his Grammy and quite prepared for her death. No one at the cemetery did more than raise an eyebrow, though (we found out later) his mother never had called to alert them.

[The interment was private. I won't discuss it here.]

Only as we backfilled the grave hole did it occur to me: You're burying his Grammy. Jeez. He and I eventually split up, and with no malice at all I can say I am profoundly glad that we did. But... I helped him bury his Grammy. It still feels like a... a link, you know?

We're currently spending our time at the Alice Springs Resort and due to the 100% occupancy had to move from our cozy standard rooms to the deluxe-super-something rooms. Upon first inspection of our new dwellings I noted the major difference to be the presence of a phone mounted on the wall next to the toilet. Somebody pinch me to see if this is just a dream... We also have in-room entertainment in the form of a noisy mosquito and a balcony overlooking the Todd River from which we could jump if only there was water. Okay, the bed's bigger and we have a sofa, bathtub plus shower, as well as roomier closets. I mock it now, but in two days you'll have to drag me kicking and screaming from my superior post.

Later I'm gonna order me some room service from the toilet phone!

Now it's 9:50 p.m. and I can't get sleep so I'll try this writing thing again although I'm not feeling as excited about it as last time. In fact, I'm feeling down right glum. Bitter even. Maybe resentful as well. I have no humor at this point, fresh out. Right now the sawing of logs that has kept me from my plain-jane sleep has stopped, but I know as soon as my head hits the pillow they will fire back up and no amount of sighing will get them to stop. Nope, it'll take a kick or two, a bit of flopping about and then a request, nay, demand that the lumberjack face the other direction. The past few weeks has found him expand from back-only snoring, to on the side snoring which means right towards my precious ears. I demand retribution from someone somewhere. The only thing that will make this right is a shrubbery. No, what am I saying, diamonds! Or earplugs with diamonds. And a pony, a very quiet pony that gently nudges someone whenever he snores, but it's so sweet you can't get mad at the pony. I'm not so sweet when it comes to the nudging, hence easy to get mad at, but the pony is your friend always.

Other events of the day... Dinner was had, chicken was consumed, blah blah blah.

What else did I do today? Oh, spaced out quite a bit from this general fatigue, which I've been told is affecting others as well. A friend told me to go grab some "Bug Fighter" from Woolie's (Woolworth's to you non-oz folks). This doesn't conjure the prettiest pictures of what's happening inside my body, but it's worth a shot, placebo effect being just as acceptable in the end. Flower power and delusional thinking to the rescue!