Dyke with tent!!!

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Warning: Emotional Shit

I've packed all my gear into storage and left town. Headed for the ... "sanctity" ... of the parents' house.

Har-de-fricking-HA!

You'd think that your family could understand best that you need time to get your emotions under control after you've uprooted yourself from your familiar home of more than ten years and fucked off to an uncertain future. I don't want a shoulder to cry on, I'm quite used to doing that on my own anyway. I don't want support as such. I'd rather be stronger within myself than rely on the people who have been a source of emotional instability for so long to help me through the changes.

What I do need is to be treated as an adult, rather than a misfit child.

What I need is some space to hide out and reorganise my life into something more outgoing and postive - rather than small and scared and running away through necessity rather than choice.

Fuck you, my parents.

A small note to Devil's Advocate:
Please don't argue me on this one. It's a blurt - emotional shit that I needed to put on a page to get it out of my system. If I'm argued on it I think I'll just cry more.

Today:

I have:

... hauled my overtired arse out of the swag I'm currently sleeping on (complete with a golf ball and two lighters - no wonder my ribs are sore) and got to work at 6am. An accomplishment considering I am dealing with a three day hangover.

... stuck my hand into a rotten sweet potato. They have an acidic stench that burns at your nostrils. I don't reccomend it.

... had four boxes of apples descend in the direction of, and connect with, my head. One after the other. Fourteen kilograms in each. That's like having four two year olds thrown at your head. With pointy bits.

... removed rotten potatoes from the contents of a 50kg bag. You can tell there's a rotter in there when the bag gets a wet spot on the outside. That's one wet spot that I don't find appetising at all. Open it up, tip it all into a shopping trolley and then you find the culprit/s. Ususlly the bastards sprog all over the other potatoes - it's a foul cum-like substance that stinks enough to induce vomiting. I was over cum before I worked in this part of the industry but hell, seeing this stuff and smelling it would make anybody think twice about swallowing a mouthful of it ever again.

... been called the same name by the same guy that comes in at the same time every day. It just happens to be the same time that I clean the floors. I fucking well hate being called Sadie. John Farnham fucked it up for everybody who has ever cleaned around customers as far as I'm concerned. No matter whether I try to get it done earlier or later, he still walks in and calls me that fucking name. The old prick must hang out to hear the sound of the vacuum before he comes in.

... merrily dug through a bag of onions to pull out a few for an order, thinking about other things, when by feel I came across a maggoty rotter. Yummy.

I would like to:

... recieve at least three comments telling me that I'm a whinger and to get over it.

... get some spam telling me how to make my dick bigger (yep, got a long way to go there).

... read twenty posts about politicians I don't know doing things I don't care about.

... be told that I'm fat because I ate all the leftover pizza in the fridge.

... find another redback spider in the outside stuff that I have to pack into storage.

I will:

... go back to bed, jerk off, and attempt to go to sleep.

PhotoHunt: Small

SMALL



NOT Small




I don't know if this happens all over the world, but it certainly does here in Australia. We take something that is a feature of a town, supersize it in a fascinatingly ugly way, and then we call it a tourist attraction. Tamworth claims the title of Country Music Capital, hosting an annual festival with a world's longest line dance record attempt. In general, a good place to stay away from.

A love letter

Dear Anonymous,

You're persistent in your misinterpretation of me, and I'm beginning to admire it. Perhaps the misinterpretation is mutual. Words are fickle things.

I wrote Is this the lesbian equivalent to girls saying that the guy they picked up couldn't get it up? and you responded, as you have every right to, in this public space. I'm a little disappointed that you will not put a name to your opinion, but that is your choice, as it is my choice to allow anonymous comments in this space.

My question does refer to erectile dysfunction in a way - an insinuation that I could not perform due to intoxication. It is also a way for the other party to cover up for rejection, as you mentioned also -

"To explain your question, there here are the standard reasons a woman would give that insult:

1) To justify sleeping with someone and regretting it
2) that they guy did in fact have erectile dysfunction
3) to cover up that she had been rejected by the guy and that he said no, which does happen"

So. I don't fall into category number one, because it didn't happen. But the other two? Yes. In an equivalent way. However, you say that it is not an equivalent. I'm intrigued. Why? A lot of the things I write about are generated from my feelings, and I was trying to find a simile to express the indignation and hurt I felt at hearing this rumour. I cannot say outright that the feeling IS that of a male being subjected to the he couldn't get it up rumour because I won't presume to know what it is like. I'm just looking for similarities here.

I keep going back to my inbox to read the last paragraph of your last comment:
"To answer your message to me on the next post, home is where the heart is and I hoped you enjoyed your sleep while reading this. I wish you all the luck in the world in finding where ever fortune my see you settle. As long as you are surrounded by people that appreciate you for being nothing but yourself, then you are home."

It's a truly gorgeous answer to my question, and I thank you for it. You might be a little cutting and opinionated at times, Anonymous, but I think I like you. Stick around, and I hope that someday we will be able to be on equal terms and address each other by name, as I'd like to thank you personally for those words.

Cheers,
Vic

What is home?

As I pack my life into boxes with labels, I'm losing my head. This is real.

I'm preparing to hit the road with a suitcase and a swag.

That means no daily idea of home, or not in the traditional I just want to get home to my own nice comfy bed sense.

It brings me to thinking... What is home anyway?* Define home.

*Dear Anonymous commenter from the previous post: I would appreciate your insight on this one too. In fact, why don't you write a lecture series on it? I'd be more than happy to fall asleep during it for you. Or maybe I should call that passing out - the difference appears to be a little unclear these days.

McSeediness revisited

Way way back in the beginning of the year...

It was a seedy friday night at the main drinking sludgefest pub of the time. I was picked up by a girl and went home with her. I'm pretty backward when it comes to these sort of things - it was the first and only time I've ever gone home with somebody to their place before on the first meeting. When I got there I thought, Vic, is this really what you want to do? Shag a random person you don't know? In their house? So I said sorry, I don't want to do this. And went to sleep.

Only now do I hear rumour that people were told that I passed out. Not that I said no thankyou.

Is this the lesbian equivalent to girls saying that the guy they picked up couldn't get it up?

Gaydar moments

Gayman has a theory that all dykes walk the same. They have a walk. I can't describe how it's different, but it is. Now, I didn't entirely agree. I still don't, but the idea has merit.

We were both out on a food gathering mission to the local supermarket, driving, when I spotted a girl on the footpath. My immediate thought was she walks like a dyke if ever I saw it... Checking out her face as I went past I confirmed that I knew her and yes indeed she's a dyke. Score one for Gayman.

Last Friday I was taking random roadside pictures of wool bales in another town, dressed in my usual jeans and collect-a-set sports top, when I heard a yell from a car - VIC!! My friend in the car pulled over and let me in on her thought process in idetifying me:

Well that's a dyke if ever I saw one.
That's a dyke with a camera.
I know a dyke with a camera, Vic's a dyke with a camera.
Hang on, that IS Vic.

As if I needed an excuse to go to the pub.

Note to all prospective organisers of small town Christmas Carol events:

If you feel the need to display a manger with live animals in it, make sure the fence is high enough that the goat cannot escape. Or forget about having a goat in the first place. Even better, forget the manger.

It is summer. Storms do not give warning in the morning that they will be approaching rapidly in the evening. Electricity and water mix extremely well, I've heard. Maybe a marquee of some description next year?

If you are going to bus an entire brass band from a town an hour's drive away and then cancel the second the band arrives, making them turn back the way they came, perhaps it would be good to suggest that the entire band travel together in order to avoid any jealousy issues. The two of us who got there by our own means had a brilliant time at the pub on the way home.

PhotoHunt: Long

The topic for this week's PhotoHunt is long, which I found incredibly difficult to ind a subject for. I like to do an opposite as well, which was much easier, since I seem to cop a lot of flack about being a short little tyke, or pixie as some like to refer to me.

LONG



My bass guitar - long neck and long strings to go with it.

NOT LONG (Vic)



A warped perspective shot with my tall friend Icepick.

Tradition

Every year I have spent Christmas with my parents in the house they have had for all of my life. Every year except for the last. We still had one, it was just postponed until later in January.

There can be a lot of comfort in the familiar. Every year there are the same ornaments we hung as children on the tree that seemed so huge back then. We each have our favourites, and mine have always been my grandmother's old teardrop glass balls. The silvering is spotting and fading in them now, and after a few unfortunate breakages I think there is only one surviving member of the set.

The tree itself is a classic. My parents have never believed in boxed, plastic Christmas trees. I can hear my mother now, with a tone of finality in her proper voice - "No, we'll have a real tree, thankyou." It's interesting to think about her definition of what a real tree is. They won't buy a farm-grown, brushy, filled out tree. No, that's too expensive where there's an alternative. Instead we help out Dad's golf game by going to the local golf course, selecting a prospectively threatening tree, and chopping it down on the sly. He'll come home after a round and say "Well, there's this one over on the eleventh that I've been keeping an eye on. When do you want the tree?" Problem is, they're scraggly bush-grown trees from a not particularly lush or well-watered course, so you get saggy needles and really thin branches. We have to tie the top to the architrave to keep the whole thing upright.

I helped out with the last few tree-fetching expeditions. Picture this: Vic sawing through the top half of a scraggly bush pine (it was a bit big to fit the whole thing in the loungeroom, but the top was a half-decent shape) until the satisfying crack! brings it crashing down. Crashing down, disturbing a wasp nest. Picture Vic, saw in hand, bounding in a frantic attempt at self-preservation through waist high grass and one extremely well-camouflaged drainage ditch toward the safety of the car. Eventually I had get my courage back enough to venture back to drag it over to the car, strap it on the roofracks and drive it home.

The day itself is usually bastard hot and humid so all you can do all day is sit around, feeling like you shouldn't have had so much fried ham and eggnog for breakfast, and wishing the sweat would stop rolling off your eyebrows into the corner of your eyes.

Every year. Same house, same traditions. I stated earlier that there can be comfort in the familiar. To a certain extent there is, but I feel like an outsider to my family now. I don't feel that I belong there any more, and the tradition has become oppressive. Since the family Christmas was postponed last year I had the opportunity to not go home, and spend the day with my friends instead. I felt free, liberated.

This year I will go home for I hope the last time. I am not a vagrant in my life who has to float back home for family support. I'll build my own Christmas traditions.

Half-Nekkid Thursday

I have a girly side. I just doesn't get out much.

After eighteen months of wearing chest-flattening crop top sports bras and men's shirts with ties, I bought a women's dress shirt. Which needed a bra to pull it off.

Then I bought a second one.

Scarily, I am coveting a sparly silver one as well. (Gayman said no when I showed it to him. I might buy it on the sly.)

I've been apathetic and not happy with myself lately. I go through cycles of apathy and usually at this stage of the cycle I realise what a major part of the problem is. My hair is too long and my eyebrows have not been waxed for a while. I do not feel in control of myself because outwardly I don't appear it.

Action time: I am hitting the salon today for colour, cut and wax.

There you have it. Vic is a girl sometimes. Happy?

Weekend Adventures: Take Two

I talked earlier today about going away beer wenching for some friends in a band on the past weekend. Beer wenching involves me being offical photographer for the band, giving me free roam of whatever function they're at... but mostly I zip about dragging fresh beer back for the guys in the brass section. Not to mention beer for myself in the process. Kind of a one for you, one for me deal.





I've been getting right into taking pictures of musicians. I know music, and I know these people. I've yet to have the opportunity to experiment with musicians that I don't know well - live music is rare in this town. But I will soon, when I leave.



Because the weekend held their last two gigs together, I set about trying to capture as much as I could. I was lying on the floor underneath the snare drum poking my lens up at the drummer for a while, I was hiding behind amps taking perspective shots, hell I was all over the place. I ended up resorting mainly to black and white shots because the colours in the lighting were shifting too quickly. Stupid autoflasher crap. Those things should be banned. Also there was no front lighting - which meant the night was great for silhouettes and profile shots, but not much else.

Weekend Adventures

I travelled away to Inverell with a covers band last weekend, not playing this time, but being a beer wench for my mates in the band as well as a photographer. I love the music they play (who could go past Long Train Running with a couple of brass players thrown into the mix?) and I always have a good time watching and knocking back a few beers with them. They're splitting, so the weekend just past held their last two gigs. Not a chance I would miss out on that, with my newly found love of photographing musicians. Okay... as well as indulging my long-standing love affair with beer.

That takes care of the nights. During the day I got a chance to wander around looking for weird stuff.

At a local carnival:



Oooh looky! It's a cheese grater crossed with a Dalek!

And then we have - from the same carnival - drumroll, please... The World's Strongest Plastic Chair!
(The guy owns the carnival, which explains a lot. Imagine far too many years on a diet of Pluto Pups and soggy hot chips.)



I came across a childcare centre's brilliant way to keep the kids out of the shed, and a really cool use for water towers - they were converted into office space for a business.







Oh, and somewhere along the way, I discovered the lure of religion.

And then, on an interesting quest down a side alley:



And yes, I plan to talk about the nights with the band tomorrow.

Messages:

I often write here about wanting a penis. Well it appears that I don't need one at all, because apparently I am one!!! It said so in the dew on my car windscreen. Aren't I lucky?

Fuck, I don't even feel any different.

The person who decided to write this with their finger on my vehicle's windscreen was told to get off the property a month ago, otherwise I would get the Police involved. Zedmeister, I recognise your writing, and I find it particularly hilarious that you had to wait until I was away for the weekend to have the guts to trespass and essentially commit an act of vandalism.

And let's get to the other part, the bit that has had me laughing all day:

your a dick

Get back in the classroom, bitch.

Your is the possessive pronoun form. This form is used to express that something belongs to "you". For example, Your graffiti is shithouse.
You're is used as the contraction for you are. For example, You're going to be removed from the property if you ever set foot on it again.

Next time that you want to leave a message for me on my car, Zedmeister, I would advise that you use the correct form you are (or the contraction you're) if you want me to pay attention to your message. I've been a little distracted by the idiocy of it all to take it seriously.

Better luck next time.

Monday Melee

Dammit.
It's the Monday Melee.
I have to appear to be intelligent.
Dammit.
I'll have to pretend I haven't spent the entire weekend away, drinking, dancing and generally having a ball.
Dammit.



More about that tomorrow. Hell, possibly the entire week.

1. The Misanthtropic: Name something you absolutely hate.
My neck is a beetroot roasted centre of absolute torture.
The sun was actually out.
I was in it for a long time.
I forgot what that felt like.

2. The Meretricious: Expose something or someone that’s phony, fraudulent or bogus.
Forgive me father, for I have sinned.
I used stock photos from the beggining of the month for Saturday's PhotoHunt post.
I raise my beer in penance.

3. The Malcontent: Name something you’re unhappy with.
Have you ever opened up the cupboard where you've stored the fishing rods and discovered the fishing line has metamorphosed into the rats nest from hell? You know what it means when you discover it? You aren't going fishing this weekend. You give up on the idea with the complete shits.

4. The Meritorious: Give someone credit for something and name it if you can.
My golf buddy from Saturday for putting up with the fact that I hadn't played in over a year and I suck at the game anyway. He patiently watched me take twelve shots to evict myself from a bunker and didn't mind the swearing at all.

5. The Mirror: See something good about yourself and name it.
I don't wear rings unless I have a special meaning for them, and only ever wear one at a time - or none at all, as has been the case mostly.
I like the look of my left ring finger with the ring I bought on it.

6. The Make-Believe: Name something you wish for.
To get past Christmas, where I will be free.

PhotoHunt Take Two: Red Means Danger

There’s two danger stories I clearly remember from my childhood. Both of them are associated with red, in a way. I came across both on the same day a week ago, and had the opportunity to photograph them.

The first… I was four years old and we were visiting a friend of my parents’ in Sydney. They had a kind of basement area that we got to stay in, so it was dark and dingy and a little scary. On their fridge was a spider identification and warning poster. My sister and I were told very firmly to watch out for the Sydney Funnelweb, and were shown what it looked like on the poster. That’s not what caught my attention. All the spider drawings on the poster were black, except for the last one. It had a slash of red down the abdomen - the Redback spider of tacky Aussie bush song fame. According to the song, it likes toilet seats.

Somehow I associated the fear of being told to avoid the Funnelweb no matter what with the Redback instead. That fascinating and awful red stripe caught my fear and held it.

They still strike fear into me. Any other spider? It can meet a simple death with a flip of the shoe. Not a problem. The Redback? That fear and morbid fascination cause me to stare in horror and freeze.

We had a batch of local pumpkins delivered to the veggie shop I work in a while back. They were infested with Redbacks and I didn’t know about it. I busily gathered a bunch of these pumpkins in my arms and hauled them into the prep room to cut into wedges for the shop display. Only when I raised the knife to punch through the first one did I discover a happy little family of Redbacks gathered around the stem end. Oh shit.

Yes. My workmate at the time discovered that I have a terrifying weakness. The man thought he’d have some fun and get one of these spiders on the end of a knife, pointing it at me. I was backed into a corner and shaking with a mixture of terror and anger, yelling at him to get it away from me.

The second… Red-bellied Black snakes. My family lived on a river, in a somewhat rural setting. There were tall reeds on the riverbank, and plenty of tall grass in the paddock next to the house. Snakes were a given.

The house was a big old one with a wide verandah that went all the way around to near my bedroom. My sister had built a “cubby-house” right outside my bedroom window, which consisted of some sort of frame, and blankets – from what I can remember. One day she was playing out there with her friends when I heard a scream. I was outside, too, and I knew what that scream meant.

Snake!

There was a Red-bellied Black snake in the cubby-house. Right outside my bedroom window.

We all bailed, in a hilarious manoeuvre (hilarious with the benefit of hindsight, of course), to an island of hope. The septic tank.

After that I had trouble with the idea of sleeping, just in case something came into my bed to snuggle up with me. I settled with having the bedding tucked right up to my chin, with all limbs within the covers at all times. A little Vic cocoon. I still worried about my head, but there wasn’t much I could do about that.

Another Red-bellied Black incident I had was on the riverbank itself at the family home. We had goats tethered about the place as part of some inventive laziness scheme of my father’s never to have to mow the lawns again. He was good at inventive laziness. The ideas he had were brilliant in principle, but execution was always a different matter. The goats had to be tethered because there wasn’t proper fencing. They got a star picket hammered into the ground with a rope on it, giving them a radius to eat everything within. So instead of mown lawns, we got crop circles. Of course, in the parental tradition of child labour, we were contracted into making sure that the animals had food and water daily.

I was pretty young. I had - hold back the laughter - pink gumboots on. Not bright happy playful pink, but dusty prissy boring pink, with white soles. I was standing down on the lower part of the riverbank with a bucket in my hand, feeding one of the goats when a snake came out of the reeds. I think it was a combination of good teaching and fear reaction that caused me to freeze on the spot. The good teaching said you know what to do when you see a snake? Don’t move! I can hear my father’s voice saying it to me even now. The fear reaction? I think part of the reason I froze was also a bit of a deer in the headlights situation. I just stared and went into lockdown.

So I stood there, watching with horror and morbid fascination as a Red-bellied Black slithered out of the reeds, and directly over the tips of my little pink gumboots.

PhotoHunt: Red

I've done the last few PhotoHunt challenges paired with an opposite. Since today's is red I looked up what the opposite of red was, and came across several sources that told me it was either green, blue or the combination of both, cyan. Somewhere I can across a reference that white is considered to be an opposite to red at chinese weddings. Anyway, none of that inspired to go out and take a picture for the opposite pairing so it's not going to happen today.

RED