Monthly Archives: August 2011
My first ever TV interview: “Theatre Thespians” Briz31
I cannot even bring myself to watch it yet, I am that nervous about seeing myself on the screen.
Agh.
Will you go in first? I promise I’ll throw down a rope and haul you back out if it gets too much.
My Show is Turning Into a School Reunion (or “Is It Possible to Drop 4 Dress Sizes in 2 weeks?)
Image courtesy of ivewatchedit.com
With less than two weeks to go, I’m both thrilled and terrified to note that a significant number of tix and RSVPS for the upcoming show at Brisbane Powerhouse are from folks I went to school with some fifteen + years ago. A significant number. A healthy portion of whom I have not seen in years.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m utterly thrilled to feel so supported by these amazing people from my past. I’m stoked to have a home crowd to perform for. I’m genuinely excited to catch up with these folks (really: I was quite the Pollyanna at school. I loved EVERYBUDDY!), yet I’m finding myself also feeling the pressure of the usual “school reunion” kind.
It’s the usual worries like “am I good enough?” and “what will they think?”, you know, the insecurities that would rear their heads on me before going to any kind of reunion…only with the added ingredient of knowing that at this one, I’m going to be getting up onstage by myself in front of each and every one of them. Attempting, with varying levels of success, to sing, be moderately amusing and bare my soul. (Hmm. When I put it like that, it’s really just like any other night out.)
However, a desperate plea: if anybody knows of a magical protein shake you can ingest to make you look stunningly attractive, fulfilled and living la vida loca within 7-10 days, then now would be a damn fine time to share.
PS You can buy tix to “The Unexpected Variety Show” at Brisbane Powerhouse over here.
New Comedy Show-Reel!
So overdue.
Those of you paying extra close attention might notice that I’ve tagged this with, amongst other things, “thyroid imbalances on film.”
Nuff said.
I’m off to google “colon cleanse”.
Presenting an Artist’s Talk at Surrealism: Up Late @ QAG/GOMA
Image via Queensland Art Gallery/Gallery of Modern Art
I am an ARTISTE!!!!!!!!!
I have told myself since I was out of the birth canal, only now it’s official, yo! Namely cos I’ve been asked to give an industry talk at “Surrealism: Up Late” this Friday night at Queensland Art Gallery. I’m talking about innovation and why it’s important. Which has gotten me thinking lots of things about risk-taking, failure and extending oneself and why we need to do it. I’ll post my thoughts (and possibly some vid, if I can manage it!) from the talk early next week.
Naturally, while I’d like to THINK it’s all about me, in reality I’m only a snippet of a pretty rocking night of special events for Up Late:
6.00pm MUSIC DJ El Norto
6.00pm FILM Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro Delicatessen 1991 (99 mins)
6.00pm FILM The Prisoner (TV series) (60 mins)
6.45pm TALK ‘The Innovators’ Curator’s perspective with David Burnett, Curator, International Art
7.00pm TALK ‘The Innovators’ Industry perspective with Jenny Wynter, comedian
8.00pm FILM Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Marc Caro The City of Lost Children 1995 (112 mins)
You can book tix here!
In the new Cosmopolitan Pregnancy!
Yay! So chuffed to be featured in the new edition of Cosmo Pregnancy. Go grab yourself a copy before my Grandma buys ‘em all!
Links of the Week (or WHAT? You mean there’s more to cyberspace than ME?!)
What a week. In a nutshell:
Writing sit-com proposals!
Going to baby showers!
Celebrating birthdays!
Sorting long needed to be dealt with paperwork!
Organising my office!
Writing applications!
Celebrating tickets going on sale for my upcoming Brissie show!
And you know, occasionally leaving out a bowl of water for the kids.
As compensation for the lack of my own blog action this week (aside from my recent novel-length rant), allow me to post some of my recent faves from around the merry interwebby:
Brilliant fan mail response from Steve Martin. If I ever got famous I’d like to think that I would think of something even just a little bit awesome too.
I am rather in love with these ridicu-cool hand-made creativity journals. ARRRRRRRRRRR! That’s the sound of my inner Martha Stewart jelly-wrestling my inner Roseanne Barr.
More jelly wrestling. My laziness vs my creativity. Still, this song lyric wall art thang actually looks pretty doable.
Insights on faking it and making it from my girl/blog crush, Sarah Wilson.
Any links to throw my way? I am open for procrasti-gestions!
xx
Celebrating 9 years of the Kindness of a Stranger (or “The Jacket”)
2002. I’m a new mother on one of my FIRST NIGHTS EVER out of the house since my darling Ella arrived. It’s a balmy evening in West End and my friends and I are enjoying some groovy tunes downstairs at Tongue and Groove.
In the bathroom, I see a woman wearing a red, flower-covered jacket.
“Wow!” I tell her. “Your jacket is identical to my baby daughter’s! I have always wished I could get one in my size, I love it!”
The woman smiled at me. Then she said “Well, you know what? You can have it.”
“Huh?”
“Totally, I think it would bring you more happiness than it brings me, you can have it!”
I was gobsmacked. I offered to buy it off her, but she refused, insisting that I simply take it.
I thanked her profusely and floated away into the evening, buoyed by the warm fuzzies.
I never saw her again.
I wish I could tell her how much the recollection of that moment means to me even now.
And I wish I could tell her how much the jacket itself means to my family.
Each year, you see, we photograph Ella wearing it on her birthday.
And yesterday was her 9th. 9 years of awesome. 9 years of daughter love.
And 9 years of documenting my darling Ella’s growth into a jacket from a wonderful stranger who will never know what it means.
“Putting the Family Last.” (WARNING: Major Rant Ahead).
FOR THE RECORD…
I was a Vegetarian for 7 years. During this time, I noticed an interesting, if slightly irritating, phenomena.
When certain people would discover my lifestyle of choice, they would leap to a, shall we say “offence as defence” strategy of listing all the reasons why eating meat was better for you and the many foibles of vegetarianism.
I was at first, rather perplexed by this. Namely cos I could not have given a flying f whether they ate meat or not. Seriously. I was not there trying to convince anybody to come across to my way of life, I was simply living it the way I wanted to. I could not understand why people would take such offence to my lifestyle, to the point where they felt compelled to present their own case to bring mine down and prop their own up.
This week, I noticed a similar phenomenon in Planet Parenting.
In light of me having just completed a 2-week stint in the USA while my kids were here in Oz with their Dad, I was accused of putting our children last.
I was mad.
Last.
LAST?
WTF?
Here we go…
1. Saying You’re “Old Fashioned” doesn’t make “Sexism” acceptable.
I have friends whose partners have spent weeks away working, while they stayed home with the kids. I also have friends who have travelled abroad with their little ones, leaving the male partner behind.
I have zero problem with either scenario, by the way.
What I have a problem with is when somebody implies that the kids being apart from Mummy for a couple of weeks is so much worse than being apart from Daddy. Is the daddy-child bond unbreakable? Is it only the mummy-child one that is susceptible to damage?
What a crock.
It peeves me no end that if it is the man being separated from his child, nobody bats a freaking eyelid, or if they do, it’s a super-mild bat. A tiny flutter.
But the moment that a MOTHER dares do the same, even if it is an irregular occurence (I, for instance, certainly don’t jet off to LA every month), then she is subject to “I think you’re taking a real risk with your children,” or “You’re really hurting them by doing that,” or even the well-intentioned “I could NEVER leave my kids for that long!” Good for you. I respect your feelings. But just because I can, doesn’t make me less of a parent than you.
I have also heard this: “Well, I just believe that the mother is the most important one. Call me old fashioned….”
You know what?
NO.
Unless you wear curlers to bed, dress up in Pinafores and quote “Little House on the Prairie”, I’m not gonna call you “old fashioned.”
I’m gonna call you “sexist.”
2. My Way Is Not Best (and neither is yours)
Like with the Vegetarian stuff, I have never tried to imply that my parenting way of life is in any way better than anybody else’s. I’m not on an evangelical mission. I don’t work for Amway (though given our bank balance lately, I am considering it). All I’m doing is living my life the way that’s right for me and my family. And you know what I believe? THERE IS NO ONE RIGHT WAY TO DO PARENTING.
I could seriously not give a stuff about how you parent. I draw the line at abuse, naturally, but short of that, whether you’re stay-at-home, working mama, part-time mama, part-time working mama, single, married, whatever, what business of it is mine? I trust that you’re doing the best you know how, as am I. We’re all messing up. We’re all succeeding. Whatever.
What I cannot abide, however, is judgement, that I believe stems from insecurity about one’s own mode of parenting.
Whether it’s judgement from the stay-at-home mother who is threatened by the idea that somebody else could actually leave their children for that long, because that might mean that actually, she could too and that her personal sacrifices are actually for nothing. Therefore, she instead tells herself that “that person’s children must be really being damaged,” so that she suddenly feels better about her decisions and sacrifices. She is validated.
Or whether it’s judgement from the working mother who is threatened by the idea that the kids might be better off with a stay-at-home parent, because that might mean that actually, her family sacrifices for her career are damaging. Therefore she tells herself that “my kids love daycare” and “that mother’s life must be so boring” so that she suddenly feels better about her decisions and sacrifices. She is validated.
Regardless of what your own situation is, ENOUGH WITH THE CRITICISING OTHERS TO VALIDATE OUR OWN CHOICES!
Whichever point of view you come from, anybody judging anybody else’s “putting the kids first/last” is essentially saying the same thing: “If that person is doing things so radically differently from me, then surely their kids (or the mother herself) must be getting messed up in some major way that I can feel at liberty to criticise, so that then I feel better about my own clearly superior choices?!”
Seriously?
If you need validation for your own parenting, or your own life, via way of putting down other people’s, then I am sorry. But YOU are the one with the issue.
3. Implying That “Leaving Your Kids With Their Dad is Neglectful” is an INSULT
For the record…
When I leave, my kids are with their DAD. He loves them. JUST AS MUCH AS I DO. I am not shipping them off to some unknown promised land of abuse, I am not abandoning them never to return, I am leaving them under the supervision of their God-given PARENT who LOVES them and to whom I shall RETURN with much gift-giving, celebration and awesomeness.
To imply anything otherwise is unbelievably insulting and again, sexist.
Again, I point out: I know countless Dads who have spent significant (and regular) time away from their offspring for work reasons. Nobody seems to ever question this. I have NEVER heard anybody even utter for a moment “Wow, those poor kids.” “Oh, I could NEVER do that!” or “That is such a risk to take.”
Yet the moment a mother dares do such a thing, oh my word.
My husband, bless his darling soul, also finds this incredibly insulting. Is he such a dreadful parent that leaving our darlings in his care for even a couple of weeks is neglectful?
Please.
Again, I really do believe that such criticism just reflects on the accuser. What is it in themselves, in their own parenting, in their own life, that makes them feel better by denouncing the choices of another family who does things differently?
Would their own partner be such a horrifying choice as a primary care-giver?
(If so, I am sorry. That sucks.)
And finally:
3. Just because somebody’s life looks different from your version of ‘putting family first’, does NOT mean they’re ‘putting family last’.
I do not put my family last. I have made countless sacrifices to put them first.
Does that mean that I will say no to incredible opportunities that arise? No.
Does that mean that they are first every single hour of every single day of every single year? No.
But most of the time? Yes.
Case in point:
I live in Caboolture. CABOOLTURE. No offence to the place, but this is NOT my habitat of choice. And that’s saying a lot. I love flannel as much as the next bogan.
But this is where my hubby has found his dream job, in which he is unspeakably happy. My kids are at a school which is utterly fantastic for them. If it were up to me, I would live…pretty much anywhere else. Okay, I draw the line at Timbucktoo, but only cos the immunisations look scary.
This is the most tangible sacrifice I make, day upon day, to put my family’s wellbeing first.
To insinuate that by taking the odd segment of time here and there to pursue opportunities that are elsewhere is somehow neglectful is ridiculous. It is insulting. IT IS UNTRUE.
If and when I have to answer to anybody about my choices, it will be to my family. And though I’m sure I’m making tons of mistakes along the way, I know I have done my absolute best to love them the best way I know how, while doing what I need to do in this life. Because, shock horror, I believe that my needs are worthy too. And I believe that I am setting a great example for them to pursue their passions in life. You don’t have to believe that, by the way. You are more than welcome to your own beliefs and values on this front.
At the end of my life, I will face my family with my head held high. I know I am a great parent. I don’t need anybody to tell me that I am.
What I do take issue with is the implication that I’m a BAD one just because I am pursuing some big dreams at the same time, dreams that occasionally take me away from them.
If you think negatively of me because of that, or any other parent doing things differently from you for that matter, then I challenge you to really ask yourself point-blank:
What is it inside YOU that is finding this so hard to cope with?
*Image courtesy of techguy.org
Announcing my Solo Show at Brisbane Powerhouse September 9!
YAY!
I am so pumped to finally be showing this in Brisbane. It is the fruit of YEARS of work, tears and unadulterated joy. In fact, it’s the primary reason for not going for baby number four. Namely cos this IS my baby number four!
Tix aren’t released for sale until 18th August. Don’t worry, I’ll remind ya. 
Stoked!
