Category Archives: COLUMNS

Today is my youngest son’s last day at primary school.

COLUMNS

Today is my youngest son’s last day at primary school. I wrote about the day he started primary school way back then so I thought it only fitting to book end it with another piece.

A glittering day.

‘Why are you riding with me today Mum? You haven’t ridden to school with me for years.’

‘Because it’s significant. It’s your last day at primary school and you’re my last kid there.’

‘But it’s not a big deal. I don’t feel like it’s something I’ve achieved. It’s just something I had to do.’

‘I know, I know. But it’s a significant day for me in a way. I have been part of that school for 12 years, since Dom started. Put your shoes on and grab your bag…’

We’ve just finished a little renovation and I thought I’d put some unwanted kitchen stuff on the nature strip ‘free to a good home’ before we pedalled off. One of my neighbours who’s a close mate was poking through the knick knacks I’d put out last night. We hugged. I looked at her two sons. One and three years old.

‘Guess what? I’m about to ride Charlie down to school for the last time.’

‘Wow really! So you’re done with primary school.’

‘Yep.’

We paused and looked at her little fellas.

‘Seems so far away’ she sighed.

‘Been there done that. I’m your here’s one we prepared earlier’

I went back in and grabbed my bike ‘Come on Charlie we’ll be la….’

Late. We’ll be late. What difference does it make? Seven years. Whatever it was that he needed to be on time for is complete. He passed. We passed.

We took off on the footpath. Then I remembered Charlie turned 13 two days ago. We’re not allowed to ride on the footpath any more.

I followed him to school. He took a totally different route to the one I took with him last. We rode passed a white vinyl couch someone had dumped out on the footpath. It with graffitied SOFA SO GOOD.

‘See that Charlie? Sofa So Good. Get it. Sofa, so far….’

He pedalled along hot and sleepy. A car beeped us. One of the dads from the school also dropping off for the last time.

So far so good.

I am so grateful to the little school where my sons have done their first leg of life. I liked it because it was a daggy little school that reflected the society my kids will be growing up in. Not to say we looked at schools. At all. We’re not clipboard clutching school shoppers. We took the eldest down to the open day in his last year of kinder and told him it was where he was going to school.

‘Okay’ he said.

I am grateful to the school for keeping it together when the things in my life were falling apart. Parents are not perfect. Nor families, children or teachers. And life is not a straight flat ride. There are ups and downs. During the time the boys have been at school I have experience one major depression, dozens of shorter visits from the black dog varying in length and severity, a high profile sacking, an abortion, relationship breakdown and some pretty sad days.

On those days when I felt I was not the parent I wanted to be or person I wished I was I thank the school for keeping it together. I was always so lucky to feel I was sending my little boys off to a stable, happy, predictable familiar and friendly place when things were wobbly with me and at home. When I was hanging by my fingernails from the precipice I knew the boys were safe at school.

Some days the quick comforting chats with parents at drop offs kept me going all day. Moments of affection and warmth showed to my children by the teachers would have been a balm to the boys as the navigated the ups and downs of their dad and I’s relationship breakdown. The kindness of the other children, sharing lunch, explaining things the teacher said they may not have understood and just laughing at their jokes would have made my sons feel everything was okay. And they were in a safe place with people who knew them and cared.

I would like to take this moment to thank the teachers, parents and children from my sons’ primary school for keeping it together and showing kindness and care to my little boys when things at home were not ideal. I cannot express how deeply moved I was many times by simple acts of friendliness, kindness and generosity.
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Not changing your name when you marry? Stop acting like a feminist hero.

COLUMNS

ARGH! Stop wanting to be hailed as  some kind of feminist hero and pioneer for NOT CHANGING YOUR NAME WHEN YOU MARRY.

Wow! What a rebel. Fuck that. Want to make a real difference? Don’t. Fucking. Marry. And if you have children don’t give them the father’s surname.  Two articles I read by women bravely not changing their names when they marry while  researching my new book ‘How Not To Give A  Fuck And Other Essays’ made me gag. This from one…

‘• “What will your children have as a last name?”: They could have both our last names hyphenated, mine as a middle name, or just take their father’s surname — none of which I have a problem with. I do think it’s unequal that children automatically take their father’s name, but other approaches are not yet as widely accepted as women keeping their surnames — though I think this is will change with time.’

Err it won’t BE widely accepted unless people give their children last names other than the patrilineal. You shouldn’t do things for them to be accepted. You shouldn’t do thing only when they are accepted. You should do things because they are fair, right and correct.

And by the way, different people and cultures do things differently re surnames. Many cultures no one changes their names.

Look at me! I am straight, white, engaged, have a ring, getting married, not changing my surname but my kids will have my husband’s surname because,
1. It’s easier (no it’s not)
2. I want us all to have the same name (why can’t he change his then?)
3. I hate my surname. It’s hard to spell (you would think this effected men to but somehow nooooo)
4. I hated my father (so did I. Didn’t even go to his funeral. We had the same surname and so do my sons)
5. It’s just your father’s surname anyway (no, it’s your’s)
6. It’s just a name (fine then he can change his)

Many times I have heard ‘Neither of us cared so the kids got his surname.’
Never have I heard ‘Neither of us cared so the kids got her surname.’

Not fucking once.

A lot of people say ‘Well what in your perfect world should happen?’

Option A. How about we just do all matrilineal for the next 50 years for a start to begin to even up?

Option B. How about all girls get their father’s surnames and all boys their mothers?

Option C. Flip a coin. Heads all the issue from the couple get the mother’s surnames. Tails the father’s.

Ultimately 25% matrilineal, 25% patrilineal, 25% hypenated (half with the mother’s surname first) 25% hybrids and mash ups.

So over this cognitive dissonance, internalised mysogyny, Stockholm Syndrome and boy suckery.

You can’t be it unless you can see it. Be it.

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On being ten years old, our love party and macrame owls.

COLUMNS

When I was ten years old things were dire. The car had been repossessed, the water was down to drip, and things were missing, broken, dirty and old. I would collect the mail from the mailbox and if there was a ‘letter with a window’ I’d know it was a bill and when mum and dad got home no matter how shit they felt the mere sight of more bills would just make it worse.

We were very poor, mum and dad were stressed and depressed working non-stop and full on in an attempt to resuscitate a business on life support.

They were not home very much; they were working at the shop. The house was untidy and unclean and the grass was overgrown.

They were doing their best. We all were.

We had clothes and we had food but only just. Our clothes were ill fitting often not very clean (the washing machine had broken down) and ‘daggy’ enough for me to be teased relentlessly. I remember and please keep in mind the ‘I remember’ bit. There must have been lovely moments and some happy time but I have no memory of them. I remember waking up and our parents had left for work already. Scrounging together some breakfast and lunch walking 30 minutes to school. Often in shoes that were broken and clothes that didn’t fit well and needed mending. When we returned home from school the breakfast dishes were still there from the morning and they’d come home when it was dark.

Mum and dad came home this one night and said ‘we’ve got no money. If you can cut any corners please do.’ II knew I had a camp note in my bag that I had gotten at school that day.

I remember silently scrunching up the note and putting it in the bin. I remember tears and the gulping. I didn’t say a word to my parents.

School camps were the highlight of my childhood. The adventure, the travel, the new places the yummy food, the laughs and chats. The escape. I loved being with grown ups who weren’t grumpy. Grown ups who weren’t depressed or yelling. I loved having a break from the dysfunction of home and the constant housework or feeling guilty because I wasn’t ‘helping Mum’.

There was no time in my life that I more needed a break from the chaos and sadness of home than when I was 10.

I remember the day the kids went to camp. I watched the bus leave and felt excluded. Alone. Poor. Back at school with the rejects.

The next year I was in grade six. We’d lost the house and were now living in public housing. They’d sold the shop and were bankrupts. The worst was behind us financially. But we were still poor. When notes for the school camp where handed out I took the note home asked Mum to sign the note.

“But we’ve got no money Catherine, we can’t afford it.”
“I’ll find the money Mum. Just sign the note.” And she did.

I sold pincushions, lavender bags and macramé owls door to door and to family and friends.

Got the money. I went to camp and I still look back on it as one of the happiest weeks of my life. The sense of achievement and independence has never left me.

I have been working ever since. From 12 – 15 years old I did deliveries at the chemist an hour every day after school and three hours on Saturday morning. When I hit 15 I was clearing tables at horse races, shoveling chips and serving pies at the footy,serving up fairy floss at Moomba and icy cold cans of coke at the Zoo and so it goes. Hospitality the whole way through til I was 23 and have been making a living out of jokes, talking and writing ever since.

The point of this is not to glean sympathy. I had a miserable childhood. So did MANY people. The point of this is about lemons and lemonade.

I spent my childhood doing art, craft, music and cooking. I was constantly hunched over crochet, a sewing machine, a Kenwood Mixmaster or a piano. I loved anything creative. It was such an escape from my sad drab world. It was a puzzle I could solve and beauty I could make. A distraction. But mostly a relief. To be absorbed in something and block out the rest of the world. To reinvent something. To make something.

What I used to escape from my shitty childhood was precisely what catapulted me out of what seemed a predetermined life with a chalk outline waiting for me to lie down in.

The creativity I escaped into to take a break from the sadness created things I could sell to buy me a camp. A proper break.

I have been using this method of singing for my supper ever since.

Bear and I were in love when we were 18.  We got together five years ago.
We’ve always wanted to have a Love Party. Like a marriage but no God or Government. We’ve never had the money for it and thought perhaps we’d fo it for our joint 50th birthday. We’re 47.

Then one of my Gunnas, Fiona, went for a run and never came home.

She was 49.

This is why we’re doing the Love Party now.

I couldn’t work out how we’d raise the money. Remember the macrame owls I made when I was 12? I have one left. When Bear and I got together I came across it and he suggested I hang it in front of my desk to remind me there is always a way.

I looked at the macrame owl and though ‘What can I make?’ Which is how I ended up with the Love Party Posters.

Yes. The answer is yes. We have heaps of Love Party and Writing Sucks posters left and we would LOVE you to buy one. Why? Because the whole world needs a Love Party and we are kicking it off. No marriage. Just a Love Party. Here at home. Next March. Labor Day weekend.

Like finding money for the school camp we are raising money for the Love Party with these posters. Words by me. Design by Jen Clark Design. Our celebration of love has already raised $500 for Domestic Violence Victoria and $500 for Asylum Seekers Resource Centre. We are hoping to raise $5000 for each cause.

Here is a picture of Bear and I when we were 18. With our mates Nicole and Mark. We were trying to be cool with this picture. Note Bear’s expertly applied make-up. It was the 80’s. Guys were basically beauticians.

Love conquers all.

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Sorry. I’m just not sorry. For anything.

COLUMNS

A letter I read for Women Of Letters June 2011. 

Dear everyone,

I’m sorry, but I won’t be writing an apology letter to Bindi, Rove or the Anzacs.

Or to people who spend long hours working jobs they hate to send their children to private schools to feel good about themselves.

I won’t be writing a letter of apology to women who change their surnames when they marry, or to people who drive four-wheel drives, or to fans of McLeod’s Daughters, The Footy Show or Two and a Half Men, or to people who listen to 3AW, to readers of the Herald Sun or people who shop at Chadstone.

And I won’t be writing a letter to The Age for supposedly offending people with bad-taste remarks, inappropriate language and being me.
And I’m not sorry that I won’t be apologising to people who prop up sexism, homophobia, xenophobia or division by supporting religion, because I proudly say God is bullshit. Your faith is simply religion-approved narcissism, exceptionalism and discrimination. Sorry, yes, even you.

I won’t be saying those things because I am not sorry. I have nothing to be sorry about. And, worse still, I’m not sorry I have nothing to apologise about.

I’m not sorry because I never, for a moment, thought about someone having sex with an eleven-year-old when I said, ‘I do hope Bindi gets laid.’ But others did.

And I’m not sorry I won’t be apologising to people who twist things in their heads to offend themselves and then look to me to apologise so they can feel better by blaming me for something they created.

And I’m not sorry I don’t feel compelled to explain to the tiny and noisy minority of fuckwits that I was simply doing what I do to draw attention to the fact every single female on the Logies red carpet was dressed to be sexually objectified. ‘Who are you dressed by?’ ‘Oh, look, she’s got her Logies body back.’

I never see the headline ‘How [insert name of high-profile man] got his Logies body back.’

I tweeted ‘I do hope Bindi Irwin gets laid’ because she was the only female not dressed to get laid. And I’m not sorry if you think I missed the mark, that it wasn’t funny or that I’m making excuses. You’re wrong and I don’t care. I’m not sorry and I will not pretend to be sorry.

Nor am I sorry for tweeting, ‘Rove and Tasma look so cute, I hope she doesn’t die too,’ because that’s what I meant. I’m sorry if you have some fucked-up notion of ‘respecting the dead’. Rove and Tasma are both beautiful and I hope neither of them die. I think about death every day. Not my own but that of the people I love. Death is the sound of distant thunder at a picnic. And I’m sorry but I didn’t write that – it’s a line from W.H. Auden. But I did write this: ‘You can only truly live with the thought of death at your side constantly tapping you on the shoulder.’

And, Anzacs, you’re all dead. I don’t have to apologise to you. But you wouldn’t have wanted me to. You would have been cheering me on as I said:

‘Anzac Day celebrations refuse to recognise the chest-thumping, dick-swinging and back-stabbing politicians who create the death, suffering, torture and poverty of war.’

Cheered me on as I said:

‘Politicians should only be allowed to wage wars in which they’re happy to stand in the frontline with their own children.’

Cheered me on as I said:

‘Anyone who lived through war who is not a fucktard says no parades, no medals. Everyone who suffered and struggled should be remembered. Stop war happening again.’

Cheered me on as I said:

‘Anzac Day. Fuck respect. Respect is just code for “support our selective narrative used to prop up our power that we use to oppress”.’

Cheered me on as I said:

‘Remember war. The whole truth. Not the selective version. All the heroes. All the victims. Not just Anzac Day. Let’s move on and learn.’

When I sent those tweets, Anzacs would have held up their beers and said, ‘Good on you, love. Where were you when they were lying to us, manipulating us and making us go to war? I was scared and I came home broken.’

And to you tragic losers who get your identity from the fact some old dead relative you never met shot other men and you’ve twisted it into something that makes you feel good about yourself, I am not sorry I said:

‘I abhor people whose self-esteem is fuelled by nationalism-approved misogyny, homophobia, racism or cruelty administered by relatives who killed people because they knew no better.’

And I’m not sorry I said:

‘Live your own life. Make your own mark. Stop feeling big because your dead relative killed people because they knew no better.’

I am not sorry. But I am sorry I didn’t say it louder and more often.

And I’m not sorry about what happened at The Age. That they tried to gag the girl from the wrong side of the tracks for saying ‘the emperor is not wearing any clothes’ because no one was listening to them any more and they were overwhelmed by relevance deprivation, envy and misogyny. And still are.

And I’m not sorry to say that I miss my readers, I miss the column, and I’m not sorry those who felt validated by my weekly rants still miss the weekly rants. Those readers still grab me in the street and say, ‘I miss you.’ And I say, ‘I miss you too.’ I’m not sorry those readers may now feel marginalised because a voice they identified with is no longer being broadcast. The Age proved everything I have ever said about power, decisions, control, fear and the gatekeepers of information better than any column I could have written. And I thank them for their transparency.

And I am not sorry to say that I was not at all surprised when it happened.

I’m not sorry that when I sat down to write this letter for you all today, I thought long and hard and realised I have nothing I’m sorry about.

I’m not sorry that my house is grubby, covered in dog hair and full of people and visitors eating, swearing, laughing, messing and playing music. Badly.

I’m not sorry that I have never been even close to my ideal weight according to the BMI, but I feel unapologetically sexy, healthy, beautiful and forty-two.

Loving your body exactly as it is, is an act of civil disobedience. I’m sorry I didn’t write that. Joanna Macy did.

 

I’m not sorry I had an abortion. I’m not sorry I had an affair. And I am not sorry I like Brazilians so much I have one permanently.

I’m not sorry that I am no longer in a relationship with the father of my children but that I still care for him and we communicate every day. I’m proud of how we have gotten to the best possible place with the least amount of damage.

I am not sorry that all of us are better off and happier for it.

I’m not sorry the kids are better than fine. I’m not sorry that it clashes with your world order and assumptions that all family split-ups cause damage and that parents should stay together regardless. I’m not sorry that we are happy.

When we split up I saw many couples around us quietly smug and warm with schadenfreude. Then when I fell madly in love only five weeks later those same couples seemed resentful, angry and bitter.

I’m not sorry that I have sex almost every day. Beautiful sex with a man I adore and who adores me, who I have waited and wept for my whole life. A prince. Who calls me Princess Sparkle. And Baby Girl. You heard me. And I am not sorry that I love it.

I am not sorry I don’t care what my mum, my dad or my nanna thinks. Or what you think. I’ve never had a husband, but if I did I wouldn’t be sorry for not caring what he thinks. I only care what I think about what I do.

I’m not sorry that I feel good enough. That I look at those women’s magazines and laugh, thinking how sad those in them and those who read them are.

I’m not sorry that I feel sad for you if you feel pressure to spend money you don’t have to buy things you don’t need to impress people you don’t like

I’m not sorry I am happy. And I’m not sorry you’re not happy, but I get no joy out of you being unhappy. It does not make me feel better about myself.

I’m not sorry I want us all to be happy.

I’m not sorry I am not angry and bitter. I’m not sorry I am happy and friendly and generous and, yes, also opinionated and passionate. I’m not sorry that I do not live up to some convenient stereotype of women with opinions and passions and creative lives being somehow unhappy and frustrated. I am not. I have a big, wild, messy, amazing life. I expect nothing less.

I am not sorry if it comforts you to think that what I say or do, I do to provoke or offend you personally. I don’t. It’s actually what I think. I’m not sorry you disagree or feel offended.

I only do truth and passion. You can’t fake passion. And I know nothing but truth.

I’m not sorry I don’t care what you think. You can be wrong. I’m not sorry I just don’t care. It’s not my job to convince you of anything. I don’t need you to agree with me to know I am right.

And I am not sorry that I say exactly what I think and that I’m happy for you to do the same. And even though I don’t think the same, I have no intention of silencing you.

I’m not sorry I am telling the truth and not thinking, ‘This is self-indulgent’. That I’m not thinking I should be apologising to my parents, my children, my world or myself.

And I am not sorry I have escaped from a world of blame and mea culpa.

I’m not sorry I don’t expect myself or anyone else to be perfect. I’m not sorry I never taught my children to say ‘I beg your pardon’ or ‘Pardon me’, but instead to say ‘Can you please move?’, ‘I didn’t hear you’ and ‘I just farted.’

Sorry, but I’m not sorry about anything. I feel no need to apologise or to be apologised to. If I cut you off in traffic accidently, I will give you a wave indicating that I realise that I have inconvenienced you. But I am not sorry. I am human.

I’m not sorry I don’t feel the need to be perfect, and nor do I expect you to be perfect. Perfect is the enemy of good. I will not prop up a system that enables blaming and shaming and the default setting of perfect and the belief that anything other than perfection is a transgression needing forgiveness. There are no mistakes, only detours, and it’s the detours that define us.

And I’m sorry but you don’t need to apologise to me either. Ever. If you have done something to hurt or inconvenience me, don’t apologise. Find out if everyone is okay, see if you can fix things or make things better, and change your behaviour so it doesn’t happen again. Your apology means nothing to me.

I’m sorry but I’m just not sorry. Apologising is a get-out-of-jail-free card.

Doing the right things in the future is the best apology for doing the bad things in the past.

I’m sorry I’m not being funny, because I’m sure that’s what some of you wanted. I’m sorry I just do what I like and refuse to lie down in the chalk outline drawn for me.

Never explain. Never apologise.

I hope you don’t die, and I hope you get laid.

Dev x

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The ‘all porn all bad for all people all the time’ argument is crap.

COLUMNS

The ‘all porn is all bad for all people all the time’ argument is crap.

For most people, pornography use has no negative effects—and it may even deter sexual violence.

Not only is it crap but it exposes how limited, scared, prejudiced, brainwashed and suffering from Stockholm Syndrome people are.

Here’s my problem with the current demonisation of porn argument.

It’s steeped in the assumption that…

1. There was no porn before the Internet.
2. The impact of all porn is only negative. And it is all the same for all people.
3. The only thing to ever make a negative impact on our sexuality (and it always and only makes a negative impact) is porn.

Bullshit.

The things that have made the most negative impacts on my sexuality and that of most people I know have been….

1. Religion
2. Mainstream movies, commercial TV, advertising and traditional narrative.
3. The dysfunctional relationships and sexual oppression we grew up around.

Most porn I have seen, and I am not and have never been a massive consumer of porn I have found hilarious, entertaining, educational and/or arousing. Even when it’s not my cup of tea, and occasionally confronting, it’s been educational, making me more understanding of the diversity in sexual expression, opened me up and given me ideas to broaden my own pleasure and helped me understand where my own boundaries are.

We need to embrace the idea of life long sex education (have a listen to my sex podcasts with sex therapist Cyndi Darnell here). It’s only been during recent times that we are not seeing sex around us. Think about the small homes we shared, none of this bedroom for all with a door on it business.

Sex was happening around of it whether we were conscious of it or not. Sure not all of it healthy, buy sex nonetheless.

I’m against misogyny, violence, dangerous and illegal work place practices and the oppression of people but I am not against porn.

How is sex shameful (or better still the new fad word ‘inappropriate’)? How is it any different to eating, exersise or having a massage?

Most of the ‘science’ I have read about porn and it’s effect on people is flawed, problematic, uses poor methodology and/or reeks of confirmation bias. People are consuming more porn than ever and despite awareness and rates of reporting going up there is plenty to suggest rates of incidents are going down and understanding and embracing of the wonderful diversity of sexuality and sexual expression is blossoming in many places. Particularly amongst teenagers who are far more accepting, adventurous and less burdened with social expectation than the generations before.

Sex addiction. Sure it’s an issue. It’s always been an issue, it’s not a new issue. Some believe sex addiction is not a disorder but an excuse for people who do not want to take responsibility for their behaviour. Sure, the internet makes access to porn easier and the incidents and severity may have increased, but perhaps it’s the price to pay for liberation, acceptance and more please for all. Look at alcohol, food and information. Not all humans are not great at moderation and we are all wired differently and have our own personal battles to fight.

And no, I don’t by the ‘all porn is all bad for all people all the time’ argument any more than I buy the ‘all porn is all good for all people all the time’ argument. There is plenty of bad porn. There is also plenty of good porn. We need more good porn.

The suggestion or flat out assertion that slut shaming, sexual abuse, pedophelia, misogyny etc is something ‘new’ and caused by this fad called ‘porn’ delivered by this evil invention caused by ‘the internet’ is hilarious. And exposes the people who embrace it as Scapegoat Hunters.

And by the way, clothes don’t make little girls ‘slutty’, we do. Clothes are clothes. Short shorts on girls are described as slutty when the same on little boys described as ‘what they wear when then play footy’.

The idea women and men (but women in particular) are being forced to behave in certain ways and perform certain acts due to pressures created by ‘expectations’ as something recent and caused by the internet makes you wonder if there is a cognitive dissonance epidemic.

Human nature doen’t change, it’s only technology that does.

Gay people have been marrying straights for centuries to fit in with what society told them was acceptable. Or becoming nuns and priests to slip under the net.

Women have been expected to be the gate keepers of a men’s sexuality and the sole cause of their sexaul behavior since Eve ate the apple. And continue to be. When I was four years old a 15 year old family friend got pregnant. The words used were ‘she got herself pregnant’ and ‘he did the right thing by marrying her’.

The frigid-cock tease-slut balance is one of time immemorial. So too misogyny and pedophelia. See thousand year old institutions like Catholic Church for further details.

Not only is the argument ‘all porn, all bad, for all people, all the time’ crap, if you consider the amount that we’re all consuming porn at, more worringly it is deeply hypocritical.

I’m against misogyny, violence and the oppression of people but I am not against porn.

 

 

Fuck reading, you should be writing. BOOK HERE.

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Spending The Day With Six Year Old Me

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“You support the teachers right?” my sister Helen texts.

“Bloody oath!” I reply. 

“Good. Well then you can look after Alexandra on Tuesday.  There’s a teacher’s strike.” 

Which was how I ended up spending a dreamy day dinking my bonnie 6 year old niece on the back of my hefty black Dutch grandmother bike through the blossoming streets of inner city Melbourne. 

Think Helen Garner. Think Monkey Grip. Think Christos Tsiolkas. Think The Slap.

 So my darling Alex arrived, pink tee shirt, ruffled skirt, leggings, iPad. We did some making. Ribbons, stickers, stamps, glitter and glue while she chattered away.

“My mum goes running and did I tell you I have a musical toothbrush?” All in one breath.

It was like being with the 6 year old me. 

Then we move on to drawing. “What would you like me to draw Alex?” She responded immediately as if she couldn’t believe it had taken me so long to ask, “Me wearing a long sleeved short sleeved together top with two horses in a heart kissing”. Of course.

“Who’s Dana?” Alex asked.

“She’s our housemate.” 

“What about Michael?

“He’s our other housemate.”

“Hop on the bike, sport,” I said taking off her Aliceband and fastening a helmet to her head, “We’re going to Brunswick Street for lunch.”

“But I don’t have my bike here.”

“I’m going to dink you.”

“What’s a dink?” she asked as I tucked a blue velvet cushion onto the pack rack.

“You’ll see,” I said as I plonked her on the cushion “Hold on to Cac’s waist.” That’s what she calls me. Cac.

And we were off.

Dink, dunk, drag. Dink, dunk, drag. Growing up in the 70’s in Reservoir. Slag, slut, scrag. Slag, slut, scrag.   Growing up in the 70’s in Reservoir.

We wound through the streets of a warm and perfumed Melbourne morning. I couldn’t see her face but I knew she was smiling. I could feel it on my back. Alex is the oldest of three kids and was rapt to be spending a one on one day with a big girl away from her baby brother and sister.

Our destination was Mario’s Cafe in Brunswick Street where I’d taken her Mum, my sister, for her first cappuccino in her crumpled Macleod High School uniform when she was 14 years old. Sure I was trying to impress young Helen at the time. But what I really wanted was for her to see a life beyond the suburban, nuclear family we had been prepared for and were expecting.

As I cycled up Nicholson St. I told Alexandra that when I was her age my mum, her Nonga as she’s now known, would drive me along Nicholson Street on the way to the Iron Ear Hospital. 

The Eye And Ear Hospital. 

I had dodgy hearing and it was one of the few times I can remember being alone with my busy, harried Mum.

“I loved this street Alex. Because of the Rainbow Houses. See all those houses?”  I said pointing to the double story terraces now gentrified to respectable greys, ‘They were all painted different colours of the rainbow. Pink, purple, blue, yellow, orange and green. They had “No Uranium!” posters stuck to the windows, flags and banners hanging from the balconies and twinkling mobiles made of mirrors and shells swinging from the porch’s iron lace and bikes tied to the fences. Odd looking people were always going in and out; bearded men in sarongs, women with long hair parted in the middle wearing head bands, people with afros in beads and flares carrying guitars. They looked so different and interesting. I would say to Mum “When I grow up I’m going to live in one of the rainbow houses”. And I did.’

We locked my bike up to a pole outside Mario’s and scoffed breakfast for lunch while I told her how I loved living in share houses. I told her about doing stand up comedy not long after I moved into Bell Street Fitzroy when I was 23 years old and how on hot days my housemates and I would take off our shoes and walk through the sweet grass in the Carlton Gardens and lie on blankets and cushions, drinking wine and throwing Frisbees. All the time convinced we were the heroes of our own novels. I told her about how much I loved being a waiter. How, even now I think it’s the only job I’ve been any good at. I told her about living in Japan, how the streets were lit with lanterns at night and the air smelt like fat frying and chubby humid clouds, the crazy people I hung with; the man who worked as a dog food tester, the deaf dancing teacher and the student who would always say “Pardon me for not connecting on you so long”. I told Alex how my name in Japanese meant ‘someone who goes out with people who look like dentists’ and the exhilaration of riding my motorbike through Tokyo.

I was running off at the mouth a bit but she seemed interested. “Everything I have ever needed to know,” I told my niece earnestly, “I learned from travel, working in catering and living with people”. 

I have always lived in share households. Even when my son’s were babies we almost always had someone else living with us. Now it’s my boyfriend, my three sons and our two housemates Michael and Dana and me. Occasionally people refer to them as ‘borders’ or people who are ‘renting’. I correct them swiftly, “No, we’re housemates. We live together.”

You only get to know people by living with them. Hanging out in pyjamas, bumping into each other in the kitchen debriefing after separate nights out, cooking for each other, debriefing after triumphs and catastrophes, pegging up people’s washing, hearing about each other’s life and loves. Comparing and contrasting. I’m not into small talk, I’m into long talk and big talk. When I was Alex’s age I would be filled with glow if I saw a visitor’s car outside our house. Mum would be happier, she wouldn’t yell, there would be people pleased to see me and there would be biscuits. And sometimes cake.

My kids have grown up living with other people and it’s been great for them. When you live with just the people you are related to or in a relationship with you can get a bit slack. When you live with others it keeps you aware of yourself, your actions, your tend to present a better version of yourself. It’s a leveller. It’s one think to be told to keep it down so as not to wake your little brother, something weighter entirely to be reminded of your noise level so as not to wake your adult housemate.

Alexandra and I hopped back on the bike and treadlied over to the museum. The guide asked if she had been before. When she told him it was her first time he asked her what she was interested in ‘plants, bugs, dinosaurs, animals….?’

“People” said Alexandra, “I’m interested in people.”

First published in Paper Sea Quarterly 2013

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Pregnant With Cancer

COLUMNS

January 30 2009

This day ten years ago, in an attempt to have a second child, I got pregnant with cancer. I didn’t know that you could create your own cancer, but you can. Learn something new every day.

We started trying for a second child as soon as the town planning permit had been approved for our renovations. We were cutting it fine but if all went to plan in ten months or so we were to have a big baby, a little baby (18 months apart) and a big brick box on the back of our house. Q. How do you make God laugh? A. Tell him your plans.

We got pregnant in one go. I was excruciatingly tired and spectacularly nauseous, but egged on by the fact that I knew it shouldn’t last more than three months and couldn’t last more than nine. Leo if he was boy, Nina if she was a girl. At 14 weeks pregnant I began to bleed and then came strong, dull, relentless pain. An ultrasound discovered that there was no baby in the first place.

That’s right, no baby.   Yes I was pregnant, but there was baby.

I’d been incubating what is called a hydatiform mole. There are various ways this can occur but chances are two sperm fertilized an egg with the same time. One egg, one sperm equals 46 chromozones and you get a baby and a placenta. One egg, two sperm equals masses and masses of carcinogenic placenta that multiplies at a rate of knows. Placenta produces the hormones that make pregnant women tired and nauseous which explains why every morning I’d been feeling like I had spent the night in a tumble drier. I had the t morning sickness equivlant for triplets.

I was given a curette the following day.

I wrote at the time “This is no tragedy. All you have to do is watch the nightly news to realize that if this is our biggest problem we are pretty bloody lucky.” I was 30, had successfully made one baby and chances were we’d make another, we had just been forced to slow down our hammer and tongs life. We couldn’t try for another baby until the mole (which is a form of cancer appropriately named because it is able to burrow through the walls of the uterus and create tumors elsewhere) had not reared it’s ugly head for nine months.

But it kept coming back. After another curette and see sawing hormone results it was determined that I undergo what would become a three month course of chemo therapy. “Do you want to have a cry?” asked my partner.

“No. To tell you the truth, I feel very relieved.” At least I finally knew what was going on-bliss for a control freak like me.

“And after you get back down to normal we will give you one more fortnight of treatment.” Normal. I had forgotten that it was possible to be normal I had not been normal since the pregnancy had started five months before. And I had been breast feeding for 11 months before that and pregnant for almost 10 before that. I was pissed off that I was looking down the barrel of more fatigue and more nausea and all for what? Stuff all. Some random chromosonal stuff up. Not fair, I’d signed up for a baby five months before, not chemo. Not in my wildest dreams.

This is the best bit. Our renovations started a week after the chemo started and finished a week after the chemo had finished. We had the back ripped off our house in the middle of winter and were existing in three rooms crammed full of all our possessions. No kitchen, no bathroom and portaloo out the front. Both of us were working from home with a toddler, a 30kg dog, no backyard and me having chemo. The winter of our discontent.

I didn’t go into hospital, I had injections every day of every other week. People phoned “Hello tragic cancer friend how’s it all going?”

“Not bad, not bad, keep knitting me that beanie mate.” For the first few weeks I was inundated with calls from loving and (understandably) curious mates “What’s it like?”

“What chemo? Not that bad, you get free biscuits.”

At first I was scratching around for side effects, a little tired, dry eyes and my taste buds seem to have gone on holiday. But as the weeks progressed the accumulated affects really started to make their presence felt; thrush of the esophagus, diarrhea, a severe strep G throat infection, a wicked gastric bug that made me feel like I was passing chili sauce, pleurisy, drastic weight loss and boring old nausea. No, I didn’t lose my hair and I kept working writing and performing jokes for a living, what a laugh.

There were also the renovation side effects; mud trampled all over the floor by us and the ever present builders, plaster dust, incessant jack hammers, drills, bobcats, constant queries from architects, window reps and building inspectors. We had no heating, a frustrated dog, bored kid, nurses turning up in the middle of everything needing a place to wash their hands, neighbors threatening legal proceedings, microwave food, stress from clutter and no space.We had no running water so we had to wash humans and dishes in a bucket.

Renovating! What were we thinking? We just pretended that we were camping.

People constantly offered help. My mum cooked, babysat and did our washing, people turned up with food and invited us over for dinner, our neighbor walked the dog, our mates around the corner even went to the lengths of letting us to go over to their place during the day while everyone was at work and school.

I never got better at receiving but the whole journey taught me to be aggressive about helping. Many people said “Call us if you need anything” and you know what? We never called. It was the people who forced themselves on us who got to help. My mum’s house burned down a few years ago, some people tried to help in ways that she didn’t find helpful but it was the people who did nothing that she was angry and disappointed with.

The house got finished and I six months later I received a letter telling me I could try and have more children. So I had two. I shudder as I look over my shoulder at the three months of building and treatment, it was just one of those things. Life is full of ‘one of those things’. If someone close to you is doing it hard just hop in and help, be an angel and don’t stay long. It doesn’t have to be death, birth, cancer or renovations either, just garden variety flu, melancholy or time deficiency is enough reason to help. When you don’t know what to do, do anything. ‘The best thing to do is the right thing. The worse thing to do is nothing.’ Theodore Roosevelt.

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Why I haven’t commented on Adam Goodes

COLUMNS

Someone asked my why I haven’t commented on the Adam Goodes thing.

Look, I really don’t understand it at all. I detest football and don’t understand booing ever. When I watch my son’s basketball team I applaud and barrack for all good play. On both teams. Australia is deeply racist. Anyone who needs to be convinced if that is a fucking racist. Booing is considered okay at footy so people can veil their racism with ‘Ah it’s not because he’s black I just don’t like him and that’s what happens at the footy.’

It’s all a bit ‘No offence but’ ‘I’m just mucking around’, ‘Don’t get your knickers in a twist’, ‘Can’t you take a joke’….

I’m sick of the talking and the bandwagon jumping. I’m sick of the white people telling the non-whites what’s racist and what’s not. I’m sick of the straight people saying what’s homophobic and what’s not. I’m sick of men telling women what’s sexist and what’s not. The rich telling the poor they are rorting, double dipping and they need austertity and to tighten their belts. The ableism, the transphobia. I’m fucking sick of it and exhausted by it.

The thing I am most over is the the word ‘meritocracy’. It’s a word that has only ever been used to shut people up, undermine them, gaslight them and shame and belittle them. ‘Pipe down princess.’

Meritocracy is just another way of saying ‘don’t question my privilege.’

White straight cismen speak. The rest of us are outspoken.
White straight cismen have mouths. The rest of us are mouthy.
White straight cismen opinions. The rest of us are opinionated.
White straight cismen are passionate. The rest of us rant.
White straight cismen are confident. The rest of us are attention seekers.
White straight cismen are bosses. The rest of us are bossy.

I’m sick of the talk and the bandwagons.

I’m sick of the fact the right eat other people’s babies and the left eat their own.

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Dyslexia and why I couldn’t be a writer without it.

COLUMNS

I‘M DYSLEXIC. No secret. No big deal. I saw a T-shirt the other day that said Dyslexics Untie! Took me about five minutes to work it out. I love that joke about the dyslexic devil worshipper who sold his soul to Santa. But I would. Because I can.

Two of my sons are dyslexic and so, too, is one of my siblings. Dyslexia has a huge genetic component. It’s estimated that 10% of people are dyslexic yet very few are assessed and given support despite dyslexia being the most common learning disability in children and adults.

After my eldest son was assessed I was appalled at how dyslexia was not dealt with in our schools. The condition is misunderstood and badly managed. Teachers are not trained to pick it up and even if they do, assessment can take up to a year. By that time the child is often crushed by lack of confidence and low self-esteem.

And there’s no tailored program in our schools to address it. Reading Recovery does not work for dyslexics. Weekly private tuition for years is a luxury of the wealthy.

How do I explain dyslexia? Our brains work differently. Basically we see things from an aerial perspective, not in a linear fashion. We process everything at once and our strength is not in details. We can’t just rote learn things, we need to understand them. Dyslexics are very good at being able to retrieve a swag of information from many different domains, which makes us great creative thinkers and problem solvers. But messy cooks. When we learn it’s as if we are looking at a tree and instead of learning from the roots up we learn from the limbs down. Which makes navigating our way through learning to read and spell a nightmare of differing proportions. Some just give up.

Dyslexics see things in pictures. We tend to memorise the shapes of words, guess and take clues from other words around it. Yet if you tell a dyslexic a story their comprehension is excellent. One of our biggest weaknesses is reading aloud; we often sound stilted because our brain is so overloaded.

Dyslexics have difficulty decoding and encoding words, basically sounding them out and spelling them. Dyslexic children often appear quite bright so teachers assume they will just catch up. Dyslexics tend to make it through primary school OK, but as soon as they hit high school they are bombarded with so many unfamiliar words with similar shapes that it all gets too much. Some stop wanting to go to school, complaining that it’s too hard. They are then branded as lazy and from there it can all go horribly wrong.

Our son was captivated by books but struggled to read. Like many dyslexics he was labelled a late bloomer. He just wasn’t getting bang for buck out of the amount of effort he was putting into reading. When we told the school he was dyslexic they were on board straight away.

They gave him a Reading Recovery test and were stunned that he would not have qualified for extra help. The words on the test were all words that he had memorised the shape of. If they had used nonsense words, like turning the word laugh into raugh or tiger into siger, he would have been stumped.

For dyslexic children it’s not a case of working harder but learning differently. Dyslexics need early assessment and multi-sensory, systematic explicit teaching with a focus on phonemic awareness. This needs to be addressed by early intervention and intensive support. It’s the long way round but the short way home. In this world of increased written communication, dyslexic children need a tailored, well-resourced program in our schools more than ever before.

Famous dyslexics: Sir Winston Churchill, Leonardo da Vinci, Albert Einstein, Pablo Picasso, Andy Warhol, John F. Kennedy, Richard Branson and Jorn Utzon, who designed the Opera House. Sure the Opera House was meant to be square but who’s complaining? Also in the D Squad are people like Eddie Izzard, Billy Connolly, Whoopi Goldberg, Steven Spielberg, Muhammad Ali and Cher. Others include Hans Christian Andersen, John Irving, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Gustave Flaubert — all writers, all dyslexics. Writers are not necessarily spellers. Buggered if I’ll ever be able to spell entrepreneur without a dictionary.

Early warning signs are poor spelling, having difficulty rote learning, memorising or following instructions. Instead of following instructions, dyslexics often look at the required outcome and work backwards to find their own way there.

Dyslexia, often called a gift in America, also has some amazing strengths. Not compensating strengths, but built-in ones, particularly in the areas of design, creativity, athletic ability and social skills. We’ll get there, we just take a different route. There is a map, we just need it shown to us. As early as possible.

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Windfarms and why they hate them.

COLUMNS

They hate ‘the look‘ of the wind farms simply because the wind farms represent progress.

Gays getting married, women having power, people with disabilities having the right to access, the internet providing the democratisation of information, abortion being legal, the truth of our treatment of the indigenous no longer being hidden and misrepresented, religion being exposed for the rort it is, education being available to all, the old school tie no longer giving them advantage, their ‘alma mater’ being revealed as the heartless business it always was, their priests and fathers as abusers, children getting  their mothers surnames. Their entitlement is being questioned and wound back and they are being expected to carry their weight emotionally and domestically. They are no longer having their abuse and dysfunction being excused by and buried under internalised misogyny, victim blaming, patriotism, religion and slut shaming.

The wind farms represent they were wrong and the lefties, hippies, darkies, cyclists, greenies, lezzos, poofs, cripples, radicals, mavericks, vegetarians and non-believers were right. It represents that we have won. That they are not special because they are white, male, rich, straight acting and educated. They are the beneficiaries of an unfair system that give them more than the rest of us.

What the wind farms are is a reminder that even though these men were the beneficiaries of a discriminatory system of inherited privilege that gave them advantage and a sense of entitlement, they never took that opportunity to make the world a better place. They just plundered it for anything that benefitted them. They never saw it as privilege. They truly felt they deserved it. That’s how arrogant they are.

They resent their loss of power and control.

They resent the loss of the promise of a job for life, a job that would reward them for ‘loyalty’. They resent the loss of the guarantee of a wife who would be a willing slave and incubator for them. They resent the loss of the fairytale parents who adored them and  the children who feared and respected them who then went on to ‘do them proud’. They resent the loss of a society that looked to them as a success, a role model, the pinnacle of human endeavour and never ever questioned why they got so much for no reason.

They resent that we’re no longer buying the word meritocracy. That we now see it as the bullshit it always was. Another way of saying ‘don’t question us. We’re in charge. Pull your head in missy.’

They are suddenly realising their privilege has been born not from merit as they had assumed and embraced but from lies, oppression, manipulation, dodgy deals and nepotism. They are no longer the gatekeepers of information and the masters of the universe. They will no longer decide who gets to say what, where and how. Their corruption, ignorance and narcissism has been exposed.

By lovely peaceful beautiful windmills.

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