Who is the teacher here?

I've been wanting to write a novel for the longest time....carry on and on about the damn thing, should it be a novel, should it be a true story, when should I get an editor....on it goes, the procrastination, the angst, the self-doubt, the staring at the blank page, more self-doubt, turning to a blog as a way of 'practising' writing, 'practising' publishing (and this is a publishing writer talking, it's pathetic!).

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"I finished it, Mum!" said my daughter last night. She has been working so hard on her writing. Not wondering about it, not stressing about it, just writing; not for school - just for the fun of it.

She thumb-drived me her book and lo and behold its 90,000 words. A full and interesting 300 page novel.

Not bad for a thirteen year old. 

Thing is, it's pretty good, too.

Personal Development in the Elevator

To the Grove shopping centre where my hairdresser, Ian resides on the second floor I went yesterday afternoon. 

Ian is the sort of queer who types “xxx” (kiss kiss) after all text messages no matter who he sends them to. I adore him and his touching stories of Trooper his epileptic dog and his intense swearing habit.

If there is a sliding scale of gay to straight, he is the gay marker at that end of the scale, the one the rest are measured by.

We were discussing training regimens. He goes to the gym with his trainer (“I chose him because I am not attracted to him” says Ian) and I run alone. 

We talk about toughness and he squeals “My love, I grew up in Rockingham with this voice, don’t you talk to me about tough!” Rockingham is a tough place to grow up when you're a raging queen.

As I arrive at the centre I realise how stiff my grazed knees are from crashing down a stone step in the dark earlier that day while out running (damn daylight savings; give me honest darkness not this fake rubbish).

So I ride the lift up to the second floor. One of the pretty young students from the beauty academy is in the lift with me and, feeling a need to make polite small talk in the 15 seconds it takes to get to the second floor, says “so I guess you’re on your way to see Ian the hairdresser?”

 “Yes, actually I am” I reply, smiling.

There is a brief pause during which time I realise that I could just as easily have been going to the second floor to the bridal shop, the gym, the two dollar shop, the podiatrist, or (I would have thought most obviously) Kathmandu, the outdoor adventure shop.

“Does my hair look that bad then?” I ask her in a mild panic.

“Oh no its not that,” she replies meekly.

And we arrive at the second floor and go our separate ways. 

THEN WHAT??? What made it so clear that I was off to the hairdresser and not to stock up on adventuring essentials from Kathmandu??

White People Like Us

I was wandering around my local bookshop yesterday. A blue book caught my eye and I found myself reading through it first with incredulity then hilarity: Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander.

It is completely non PC and points directly at the mask we all put on as we grow up and head into the world. 

I came home and googled it to find the paperback had been spawned from a very  funny blog. Lander gets right to the uncomfortable squirmy truth of what a bunch of dickheads we all are most of the time.

On tattoos:

“A white person with the right kind of tattoo is generally very popular within the white community since they have shown a demonstrated commitment to irony, humor, and in some cases, self-deprecation.

If you find yourself competing socially with one of these people, there are a few things you can do in order to defeat them.

Your saving grace is the fact that white people not only enjoy getting funny/ironic tattoos, but they really enjoy talking about them too!  Therefore, it is essential that you already have 2-3 clever tattoo ideas ready to drop into a conversation.”

From the blog, Stuff White People Like by Christian Lander.

I chose this excerpt because I don’t have a tatt. I do however have some outdoor gear , go running and host dinner parties... Yikes, I even practice yoga. But I wear cheap pants!

If you’re white and this stuff about what white people like doesn’t make you feel a little uncomfortable, then the truth is that your mask is stuck so tightly and desperately to your face that you can’t see it, or you are the white version of the Dalai Lama.

When I saw the book I didn’t know about the blog, but there is another little goldmine of truth-telling: the comments that are posted on each blog.

Absolutely hilarious.  (I am waiting for installment: “white people love saying ‘hilarious’ ”)

The indignation of people who have been ‘busted’ (“man you just suck/f.u.c.k you” etc), the complete lack of comprehension (“is this supposed to be ironic?”—and that wasn’t even on the entry on how much white people love irony), the thigh-slapping Oh Yeah I get It (“Tatoos [sic] are a trendy way to declare oneself hip. When all the people with them now hit their 40s tattoos will go the way of other misconstrued cultural commodifications “)  and finally the Whoa, uh-oh! (“I have a tattoo of an ampersand….a backwards ampersand…where does that put me?”).

Its my latest favourite blog in my very new foray into the blogging world (nearly 50 million people made it to Landers blog before me).

 I looked up and down the list for “White People Love Blogs” but perhaps everyone does.