Tag: writing

The banner of a Nazi newsletter from Substack. Text overlap reads "Brought to you by Substack". A vomit emoji partially covers the swastika.

See Ya, Substack.

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Remember how I made a post a while back saying I was going to keep this blog site but would also be moving to Substack? But also they’d previously platformed Nazis (as well as COVID deniers and QAnon types) so maybe I wouldn’t be there that long? That’d be keeping an eye on it to see if they refused to clamp down on those kinds of blogs and making a decision about whether I’d stay accordingly?

Yeah, they started promoting Nazis.

This is just a little something to say that I’m no longer there, and if you are, it’s not a great idea to stick around.

Being aware that companies and people we support are doing bad things takes work, and thus takes energy. In the case of Substack, I didn’t do that work as diligently as I should have, and I was made a fool as a result.

I know there are a lot of folks who have blogs on there that are brilliant that you probably enjoy, and I know I have a lot of friends who are also writing incredible work on there too. I also know that if you read anything I write, you’re probably not real keen on supporting a company that is making money off platforming and now promoting Nazi blogs.

If you have a Substack account, consider joining me in deleting it. You can still read the free blogs without an account, and if a writer is savvy, they’ll also have a tip jar available for you to drop cash into if you’re so inclined.

Contact your favourite writers and tell them the low down on how Substack has dropped the mask on how rotten it is. Suggest they join a different platform – my favourite former Substacker David Farrier’s Webworm uses Ghost now, and as far as I know, WordPress hasn’t been too gross in their own dealings. (Though if they have, I’d very much like to know.) If you’re a writer yourself, take a look at your other options – there’s plenty around – and consider starting up a newsletter through other means so folks can still follow your work without using socials. If you have a blog on an unpaid platform, set up a tip jar so that folks can contribute without subscribing.

There are some reports that Disney has lost over a billion dollars this week for cancelling Jimmy Kimmel over the tamest of jokes at the expense of Trump. (Some other sources dispute the number and the cause, but the boycott is definitely underway.) If you feel like that it’s justified to boycott an international conglomerate of that size with such a stranglehold over our cultural lives over one show, then I’d expect you’d feel that it’s reasonable to cancel an account with a website that hosts multiple Nazi blogs, and has previously refused to de-platform them under the excuse of “free speech”.

But that excuse? It’s bullshit.

No-one’s saying that Nazis have no right to speak — but you can say, “They can’t speak in my living room. This is my house and I can decide.”

-Mike Masnick, founder of Techdirt

Substack isn’t just letting Nazis come and speak in their living room. They’re giving them a cup of tea and a megaphone.

I don’t make much money. I have bugger all reach. But I can still say something.

Today, that something is: Fuck Substack. Fuck Nazis. And fuck anyone who thinks they have a right to be heard.

Nicotina

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I smelled her before I saw her,
Tobacco remnants heavy in the air.
A waft of the taste of Dickensian smog,
So dense it was almost sticky.

I’d never seen anyone with a mouth like the proverbial puckered arsehole before
But there she was,
Smelling of nicotine and bonfires,
Grey eyes circled in wonky blue liner.

I couldn’t help wondering
How does someone fit a cigarette
Between lips as tight and tense as those?
It must be a hell of a squeeze.

***

I remembered writing this poem and desperately wanted to publish it but couldn’t find it in any of my diaries or notebooks. I turned my room upside down to find it. I hope it was worth it. x

Photo by Koa’link on Unsplash

white and gold analog alarm clock

3:59:59 17/6/24

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It’s a small thing
To see one hour tick over into another
The 59:59 turning to noughts
Another second in the arbitrary measuring of time.

Stop and think
About all those hours in your life
That ticked over without being observed,
Thought about,
Recognised.

Suddenly that one little second
Feels so incredibly miniscule
Yet so immensely momentous.
What an honour to have been one of only so many
To take note of that exact moment passing by.

*****

Poem by me. Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Two posts in a month! Crazy.

– N

How To Feel Sexy In A Flood

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Step 1:

The ground around here is saturated, but the hair on my head is dry as straw. I should go and get it cut, but the only hairdresser in town intimidates me, so I leave it limp and box-dyed with split ends hanging lower than they have in a decade.

I should have used more conditioner.

Step 2:

I can’t even shave my legs, because to even point a razor in the direction of the topographic map of itchy, pink mosquito-borne welts that passes for skin from my thighs down would be to invite a half dozen Krakatoas to burst their aggravated peaks, running lava-blood races down my calves. (They’re already doing that enough, purely thanks to my constant unconscious scratching.)

In an unexpected boon, however: I have gotten surprisingly good at smashing the life out of those bloodsucking little bitches mid-air, so at least my hand-eye coordination is improving.

Step 3:

Spend far too much of the money you were meant to be saving on stockings and suspender belts, only to find that your legs really are the wrong shape for that style, and after all, they’re too sheer to wear on unshaved legs, and we already know how well that crusade is going.

Step 4:

One thing I doubt I will ever learn is How Not To Lust After Incredibly Interesting and Attractive (And Thus Utterly Unattainable) Men, minoring in Especially If they Live 100’s of Kilometres or More Away.

Here is another night spent annoying my dog with the sound of my fanticising about someone so far out of my league that we’re basically playing entirely different sports, while I simultaneously wish he were just a little or a lot less handsome so I could stop worrying that the desire for friendship might be driven entirely by lustiness and hopeless romanticism instead of a genuine interest in the actual human being in question.

How can it be that someone so incredibly besotted with the notion of Happily Ever After-style love can be so utterly bewildered by the idea that it could ever fit in her own brain? That the feeling of warmth and hope for a special person’s future could comfortably reside with a physical attraction and be reciprocated? Sir, I am pretty damn certain that triangle is only permitted two corners in this story.

In conclusion, god damn it, I want to fuck him so bad, but also get to know him, but I’m pretty sure my fate is just to be a weird spinster with a dog.

Also: if you want high quality, ethical porn, you need to pay for it.

Step 5:

Be isolated. Notice that the last time you felt human touch was when you hugged your mum goodbye weeks ago, and with all the roads out of town closed, you have no idea when you will again. Worry that you’re forgetting how to be intimate, or even just how it feels. You stress that you don’t mean “intimacy” in a sexual sense, but rather that aura of cosiness shared with another human being where you feel like they might actually be able to see you, like a dust particle in the thinnest ray of sunlight. Ache from the loss of it, grieving to the point where you could cry, and you desperately want to, but the path your tears would take stays dry, because there’s no water left to fall from your eyes.

It’s all in the river.

A rocky shoreline, with waves coming in. The sea is relatively calm, but there is plenty of foam.

Like The Ocean – a spoken word poem

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Fuck me to the sound of the ocean
In a cottage on a cliff
On a big brass bed that creaks with each ragged breath
We push from our heaving lungs

Fuck me to the rhythm of the tides
We won’t be making love
We’ll be making waves
As high as mountains
That will make the rivers jealous
That will wash away the rockpools
And send uncertain sand dunes into the sea
To travel beneath the water line
Until they settle on a new shore
Building islands out of our sweat and touch and heat.

Fuck me to the sound of the ocean
Release the nereid within me
Send her back to her home in the spray
Away from this feeble human body
Let her run with the horses
Rushing at the shore
Before she catches the riptide out to the wide blue yonder
To the Pacific, swallowing half the world
The Atlantic, unforgiving and violent
To the Antarctic, cold and full of secrets
Until she returns to Poseidon’s arms
For their sabbatical on land
Where they will fuck on a noisy bed
In a house by the sea
Until the waves roll them out again.

*****

This poem was written at 4am, recorded at 3pm, with production completed at 11pm, all on Friday July 24, 2020.

I’m not certain if it might be something, but I’d love to see if I can get some other poets to write and record a new poem in under 24 hours, and then make a podcast out of it.

Working title: Pantseat Poetry.

Whether something will come of it remains to be seen. (I shan’t hold my breath.)

x N

A page with handwritten notes lies next to an album with the title "A Photo A Day" and the corner of an open notebook.

Little Decisions, Little Projects

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Before I start this week’s blog, I want to treat you to a little (relevant) musical interlude.

Since the start of this year (and to be honest, since very late last year), I have been doing my best to commit myself to a handful of little things. So far, they include: a weekly-ish blog post, a photo a day, a few pages of a (secret) major project a week, organising a climate action protest, a nightly routine… It’s not a long list, but there’s certainly a few things on it.

While I was in Canberra, I found these things relatively easy to achieve. Despite sharing a one bedroom flat with my mate Sophie (who has a brilliant podcast you should listen to) for the better part of a week, I managed to develop a degree of routine to my days, ticking through things I wanted for myself, both in terms of being constructive on a personal and slightly more professional (is this blog professional? idk) level. I wrote. I remembered my meds. I started to organise a small scale protest against climate change. I even found myself waking up naturally at a reasonable hour. It was freakin’ great.

But the day after my return to Dubbo, I felt all my energy sapped. Wednesday, the day I’d set aside to write this blog post, was a write off: I started it with an “ice pick” headache – the kind where you feel like someone is ramming an ice pick into your temple – which was then followed with waves of bleakness that is the hallmark of my lighter depressive episodes. In the days since, I’ve struggled to get things back on track, which I was really hoping wouldn’t be the case – surely a week is enough to build the beginnings of good habits?

Nevertheless, I’m still doing my best to make attempts at following through on these little things, doing my best to make the little decisions required to get through the day without feeling like I’ve done nothing with it. It’s really fucking hard, and I don’t think that it’s visible from the outside just how difficult it is to have to consciously think through every step of being a functional human being, but I’m trying.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go wash my face, brush my teeth, take my meds, write in my diary and get into bed, because that’s what real people do, and that’s what I’m (re)learning to be.

Photograph: A piece of cooked meat on a piece of slate, with a fork on one side and a knife on the other. It is set on a black stone table top partially covered with a red and white checked tea towel. Credit: Markus Spiske via Stocksnap.io

The Last Barbecue

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Kevin had thought about the ideal location for weeks before settling on this spot. It wasn’t far from his favourite camping spot, where he and the boys would set up for long weekends of fishing and rabbit hunting. Now he was here and it was really happening, all those memories were making him dry in the mouth. He was getting choked up. He wasn’t going to cry, though. Kevin was a man with a job to do. One last job.

He pulled out fifty cents from his pocket, pressed the starter button, and laid his barbecuing tools out on the bench next to the hot plate. While he waited for it to heat up, he opened the esky. He grabbed a beer out from beside the carcass, skinned and shining under the cling wrap. He paused and looked at it, then he ran a finger down the length of its spine. The flesh squished at his touch, just like any other meat.

Suddenly angered, he slammed the lid of the esky and went back to drinking his beer and prepping for the cook up. It might not be the right thing to do, but he was here now. He was locked in.

Skinning it had taken longer than he’d expected. There were so many little toes to get around. He knew he could have just cut them off, but if he was going to go out this way, he was committed to enjoying every morsel of flesh he could suck off those bones.

When he was satisfied that the tiny corpse was seared to his liking, he picked it up with the barbecue tongs and threw it onto his dinner plate. It nearly filled the whole thing. Perfect.

For almost a year now, he hadn’t been able eat a single mouthful of sausage, a sliver of steak, even a taste of chicken breast without breaking into hives, at best. At worst, he would go into full blown anaphylactic shock. The doctors had puzzled over it for months; meat wasn’t something you just became allergic to overnight, if at all. Kevin was a medical curiosity, poked and prodded by dickheads with stethoscopes who couldn’t tell him when he’d be able to sit down to a lamb kebab again. Finally, after analysing test after test and realising that there had been a spike in related cases on Sydney’s North Shore, they asked Kevin if he’d ever been bitten by a tick.

“Yeah,” Kevin had replied. “A couple of times. But I flicked it off and it was all good.” He’d laughed. “Don’t tell me that little bastard’s the reason for all this!”

But it was. Kevin had been struck down by mammalian meat allergy, and he would never be able to eat the flesh of another creature again.

All those beautiful Sunday roasts, Saturday night barbecues and late night Maccas runs had been ripped from his grasp, all because one little bloodsucker bit one little marsupial that couldn’t digest animal products, and then bit him, passing on one tiny protein from that furry bastard into his circulatory system, where it multiplied and took over his body, until he was allergic to that one thing integral to every red blooded bloke’s identity (after beer): meat.

Apparently there’d been a massive increase in the number of bandicoots in the area around Kevin’s place, and with it had come an explosion in the local tick population. Their favourite food? Bandicoot blood, although Kevin was apparently a close second.

After six months of nothing but rabbit food, Kevin had almost lost it. He decided he needed to eat flesh again, even if it killed him, which it probably would. He desperately longed to have something that could bleed between his teeth, something you could order on a range from blue to well done. He wanted to devour a victim of factory farming, from paddock to pan to plate.

The worst bit was watching his wife Sharon chow down on anything she wanted. You could do that when you were pregnant. While she was downing a steak and chips, Kev was stuck sucking on a kale smoothie or some other hippy bullshit. Now the baby was here, the smell of breastmilk was constantly wafting through the house, reminding Kevin of veal and lamb and all the other baby animals that were even more delicious than their parents. It was driving him mad.

He knew he had to get his revenge, even if it killed him.

Kevin took one long, final look at his last meal. He could smell the meat juices hanging in the air, making his stomach queasy while making his mouth water. He pulled out the pictures of his mum, Sharon and baby Eddie one last time, kissed each in turn, then put it down on top of the esky.

He tore into his kill. It was such a relief to taste non-plant based proteins again. Plus, it was fucking delicious.

Once he was done with his grisly feast, Kevin lay down and waited for his immune system to betray him. He thought about what the cops would think when they found his body, probably frothing at the mouth, tiny bones strewn around him, an enamel plate smeared with tomato sauce by his side. He wondered if they’d be disgusted by his crime, or if they would find his tastes understandable once they understood his circumstances. Maybe they had always wanted to do it themselves, but never had the guts to do it. Maybe they’d find it ironic that Kevin didn’t have the guts for it either.

But at least they’d know he had gone down fighting. He hadn’t gone quiet into that good night. He’d seen the cause of his own problem and taken vengeance in his own proud way.

At least they’d know he’d taken one of the bastards down with him.

Fucking bandicoots.

An area of shallow water in a creek.

Downstream

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The rains had come
Upstream
The twins expected thunder
But the river always
Refuses expectations
Instead
The air was still
Save the warbling of the magpies.
Cicadas, light and scorching heat,
Like the rains would never come.

Then we saw it
Slinking slowly
Like the story of the snake
The First of Us have been telling
For thousands of years.

The kids chased its head down the creek bank
As it slithered down the waterway
And I beamed in wonder
At this long withheld blessing.

I saw the twinkle of dew in Mum’s eye.

I took her hand,
And tried to forget all the days
The water had been too late for.

I whispered to her,
Maybe he had to go
Because he knew they wouldn’t listen
Unless he asked in person.

Her grip became a vice
But there was no sound
Despite the streams staining her cheeks.

So that’s how we stayed,
Hand clasped in hand,
As the kids pointed and laughed and raced
The rainbow serpent around the riverbend,
Downstream.

 

*****

This poem won first place in the Open Own Composition section at the 2019 Dubbo Eisteddfod. You can find the adjudicator’s notes on my Instagram.

A blank screen in the word processor, Pages. The typing curser is at the top left of the open page.

Ten Thousand Little Words

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This is the first in what I hope is a series of posts about my goals for 2018. Knowing my tendency to start these things and never follow through, I am incredibly skeptical that any of them will come to fruition (including the completion of this series), so I expect you to come into this entry with the same frame of mind.

1. Write 10,000 words a month.

I have tried NaNoWriMo twice now, and both times have been an absolute failure. I wasn’t even trying to do it properly – both times I had an idea that I had already started working on. The second time, I wasn’t even reaching for the full 50,000 words. Instead, I set myself what I thought was a more suitable goal of 20,000 words on top of what I’d already written (from memory, about 3,000 words). A month on, and I’ve reached 10,000 words of varying degrees of quality on what I believe may be no more than a novella. At this stage, I don’t really care. I just want the damn thing finished.

My last job was a “creative” one, writing advertising for radio. I’d spent my entire life working towards it, but after ten years of work experience, study and working in the industry, I was sick of the job. I was writing for the local street press, and it was scratching my itch to write, but it didn’t feel particularly creative. I had a short story sitting in my To Do pile, and my major project to finish, but nothing was coming to me anymore. I was thinking up ideas in the shower, or dreaming amazing things that set my mind alight with possibilities, but I wasn’t putting any of it on the page. It just stayed in my head, and I did nothing with it.

When I had The Seizure That Turned My Life Upside Down in March 2016, I lost the will (and the ability) to work on anything. I tried to keep my column up for BMA, but it wasn’t giving me the same pleasure it used to. It had become a chore. I thought about blogging again, and did a few times to try and get my anguish out, but it felt hollow and narcissistic. I needed a new project, a new drive, and a new job that wasn’t going to wring all my creativity into 30 second chunks for a wage that was almost half the average wage for the city I lived in.

I achieved the third thing on that list last August. I’m now working for significantly more money, in a (very) challenging job, surrounded by the kind of work culture I could never have dreamed of in the radio industry. The people I work with are incredible, the support I’ve had despite my significant health challenges over the last few months have been beyond my wildest dreams, and I’m learning new things all the time. I’m so incredibly lucky to have stumbled into this organisation. (For a number of reasons, I won’t be sharing the name of my employer here.)

But what about the other two? That need for a project and for that drive to move me forward in terms of my writing?

That’s why I’ve set this goal. Broken down, it works out to be a little under 350 words a day. It doesn’t matter why I’ve written them, what they’re about, or whether I intend to publish them. They just have to exist on the page.

Just 350 little words. Or 2,500 a week. However it happens, a total goal of 10,000 a month.

Even if I only achieve it in January, I’ll be happy with that. Because hell, it’s a start.

And I’ve got 616 words to prove it.

At Risk of Being Wrong, Here’s To 2017

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I feel like being optimistic about 2017 is foolish, but here I am, doing just that. Looking through my journal the other day, I found exactly the same optimism in my first entry for 2016, and look where that got us.

While 2016 was shitty for a lot of people because of wonderful people who died (I’m still not ready to believe Carrie Fisher is gone), or because of certain election results (there’s the obvious US and UK cock-ups, but the Australian election and its repercussions for Centrelink and Medicare scare me more), but the biggest issue for me was my health.

For most of 2016, I was ill. It wasn’t a physical malady, so even I’m a little reluctant to use the term, but there really is no other description that fits the bill.

In March, my epilepsy took me from a place of optimism and drive, to somewhere dark I hadn’t been since 2012. The ensuing depression was some of the worst I’ve ever dealt with, but this time I was willing to be open with those around me about what it was doing to me and the kind of help I was in desperate need of. I can happily say that has started to pay off over the last few months, and I’m getting the medical help I need to move towards the more even keel that will make the shift into the real world and employment a reality.

Last time it took me 10 months to recover; so far I’m clocking in at 9, but I’m in a better position now than I was then. I’ve not been working full time, but I’ve got a couple of freelance clients, and doing those occasional projects has really boosted my confidence in my own writing and in the idea that I might be able to do this as a side project.

Last time, serendipity delivered me back into a radio gig, but now that I’ve decided I need time away from that industry, where I have spent almost my entire career, that won’t be so easy. I’m working with my neurologist and GP to make sure I’m not going at it too hard, and working with Employment Services Group in Braddon to assess what my skills and strengths are so that I can find a job where I will be a good fit. I’m still in the process of completely re-writing my CV for temp work, and I’m still trying to work out what the hell I’m going to apply for, but the cogs are finally turning and I feel like I’ll get to where I’m going in the next month or two. (With the job market in its current condition, that might be a little over-optimistic, but I think I can do it.)

diary 2017In previous posts, I’ve talked about the symbolic importance the New Year holds for me. I like beginnings, but in the past I’ve often struggled to see them through in my personal life. Resolutions fall over in 24 hours, and my optimism barely lasts the week. So why is this time so different to previous years?

This year, I’m taking the advice of Joe Biden, and I’ve made a plan. It could fall through, but I’ve been slowly integrating it into my life over the last month or so, and it seems to be gradually working. I’m getting things done and creating healthy habits, and I’ve not forgotten my medication in at least three weeks! I’ll write a post about it next week (oh yes, I intend to write here a lot more in 2017).

And resolutions? Sure, I’ve made a few, but I’m going to keep them to myself for now. Hopefully I’ll spend 2017 writing about how I’m achieving them rather than reflecting on how I haven’t come close to achieving them…

Getting me through 2016 was a team effort, so there are many thanks that need to be said. Mum and Dad have been the best parents a girl could ask for, looking after me in their home, keeping a roof over my head in Canberra and supporting me as I’ve taken my first shaky steps back into the real world. My sister Justine has given me a lot of hugs when I need them, and I can’t overstate how wonderful that is. Thanks to my best mate Miranda for always being there for a chat and giving me kindness and well-deserved tough love in relevant measure. My housemate Karina, for being incredibly tolerant of my untidy and lazy ways being amplified by my less than ideal condition, and my constant travelling back and forth over the last few months. BMA’s editor Andrew Nardi has been an absolute saint in terms of my struggles to reach deadlines, and so many of my Canberra-based friends – Nigel, Beth, Ali, Cam, Rhonda, David, Josh, Justyna, Bondy, Chris, Nick, Emma, Gerry, Kath and so many more – have been much loved and appreciated connections back to the life I love to live. My former work colleagues have been incredibly kind during my illness, with special mention to Kirstan, who has been the best co-copywriter I’ve had the pleasure of working with, and a bloody good mate who has inspired me with the goals she keeps on kicking. Dr Kaitlyn Parratt at the RPA epilepsy clinic and Dr Chowdury Beg, my GP at Dubbo Medical and Allied Health Group, have both have been absolutely critical in my long term treatment and recovery. To my extended family: I count my blessings every day that I was born into our mad mob. Finally, a massive expression of love goes out to my Internet Party buddies who have been on the front line of most of my expressions of anguish this year: Alex N, Alex B, Fin, Britt, Tim, Lizzy, Beth and Lauretta.

I know 2017 is going to involve a lot of hard work, personally and politically right around the world, but for the first time in a long time, I not only think I’m ready to do it…

…I’m absolutely going to.

Happy New Year.