The Writer's Emotional Investment.

I've somehow worked myself up into an emotional state this afternoon. 

In my continuing development of my latest work in progress, I've been working on the back story of my central character, Hayden Luschcombe, that involves a falling out with his father Russell that remains unresolved at the beginning of the story. 

See, Hayden's mother Lavinia died around four years before the events in the story, having suffered from ovarian cancer. His father Russell, who devoted himself to being her sole carer, died about a year later - ostensibly from a broken heart. During his mother's illness, Hayden made many trips over to Walhalla from Adelaide but often had difficulties in getting away from his demanding job in a hospital's emergency department to be with his parents and help with his mother's care.

When Lavinia's illness took a turn for the worse and Russell warned Hayden that there was much time left, Hayden tried to get a flight over but, due to circumstances at work and, possibly, some intransigence from his unsympathetic wife, he didn't make it in time. Lavinia died before Hayden got to her bedside.

Russell, in his grief, turned on Hayden and, I guess, blamed him for not being there at the last moments of his mother's life. This developed into a rift between father and son that went unresolved. When Russell died a year later, father and son never reconciled and so Hayden is left to live with guilt and regret. This is part of the reason why Hayden appears as something of an introvert at the beginning of the story and doesn't find it easy to mix with others.

Family dynamics can be really complex when cancer visits a loved one and relationships are often strained. Sometimes they can break. I was reminded of this, this afternoon as I sat trying to flesh out this aspect of the story and I couldn't help but feeling an overwhelming sadness as I considered how I am going to incorporate this back story into the main story. Part of Hayden's journey will involve him 'reconciling' with his father in a posthumous sense and I have an idea about how that will play out but getting to that point requires a bit of work. And it's not easy. 

When considering weighty issues such as these, it's inevitable that I become emotionally invested in these characters and these situations. It's a little surprising just how invested one can become. I'm not gonna lie, it's more affecting than I anticipated.

Do you find the same thing happens to you? Do you find yourself being affected by the situations you place you characters in? Tell me in the comments section below.

DFA.

The Snore Of Destiny.

So...I have a snoring problem.

I've had it for some time and it appears to be becoming more consistent. At least, this is what my partner tells me. For a while, I did the oft-done thing by...well...men and denied it. Told her that she must be dreaming it and I know for sure that I do not have a problem. And here was my first downfall - because my partner has an iPhone...and she knows how to use it.

Now, with this rather sobering evidence in hand, we both agree (trust me, I've checked) that my snore is not ground shakingly terrible, nor is it constant. But it is significant enough that it is waking my partner (who is a light sleeper) at night and forcing her to leave our bed. This is  depressing on two fronts.

Depressing that she has to leave the bed and thus I wake in the morning, alone...and depressing because of the realisation that another night has gone by in which I have snored.

Once I got over myself...and admitted that I have a problem, I have set about trying to solve it non surgically. Since my snore, as I've said already, is not an extinction level event - yet - it is reasonable to assume that I can correct this without resorting to cutting my throat out. I began by trying to contort myself into positions in bed and on pillows in such a way that would enhance airflow into my throat and neuter my snore. All I suceeded in doing was straining parts of my body that I did not think could be strained.

So, I proceeded to the next stage of non-surgical remedies - the kinds that grace many a pharmacists shelf. But herein lies the rub. There are so many non surgical "remedies" out there that it is almost impossible to work out what is B.S. and what is, well, not B.S.

I like to think I have a reasonable bullshit meter but, in the interests of solving this problem, I have committed to trying as many as I to see if I can hit the jackpot.

I first happened upon a packet of adhesive nasal strips or "splints" at my local chemist that are supposed to open ones nasal passages to allow greater airflow into the nose and throat. On night one, I applied one of these strips and, right away, I was dubious at best. At worst, I felt like a dickhead. Come morning, the snore hadn't resolved and the strip had disappeared from my nose and it was a complete mystery to us as to where it had gone.

Until I went to the toilet.

The adhesive is actually really strong. My pubes can attest to this.

The next remedy I tried was an anti-snoring throat spray. "Clinically tested" and boasting a "92% reported reduction in snoring" I gave it a go.

This shit is a cross between that cream in a can you can buy mixed with diesel fuel. You are required to insert the supplied applicator as far back into your throat as possible and spray for at least a full 1 - 2 seconds. It fills your throat with a foam that temporarily blocks your passages until it coats your throat in a disgusting slick.

It didn't work.

Yesterday, whilst on a leisurely drive out here on Kangaroo Island, we stopped by a Eucalyptus Oil Distillery at Emu Ridge.

Entering the shop attached to the Distillery and seeing the rows of little bottles of essential oils on the shelf, I immediately began to wonder if there might be a remedy worthy of exploration. There was, contained in a little booklet, just such a remedy supplied by a lady from Victor Harbour, who I am sure is a lovely lady who wears floral aprons a lot and bakes beautiful sponge cakes. The remedy consists of one drop of Eucalyptus oil, one drop of Tea tree oil and one drop of Lavender oil onto your pillow or a tissue at bed time.

Attracted by the thought of not having to shove a probe down my throat like a Face Hugger from "Alien", I bought three small bottles of said oil. Last night I tried the recipe on a tissue and couldn't decide whether to lay the tissue daintily on my chest or shove it up my nostrils. I tried both and dropped off to bed reading "The Casquette Girls" by Alys Arden.

I woke this morning, alone again...naturally.

These are early days admittedly, and the three failed experiments I have outlined here were always going to be a little out there. But, for the sake of my marriage and a harmonious budoir, the search for the Holy Grail continues. I'm the Indiana Jones on the trail of the Lost Ark of the Banished Snore.

I'm not happy.

Oh, and by the way...Happy Fucking New Year.

DFA.

Nothing Can Be Taken From The Death Of Phil Walsh. Except...

The city of Adelaide was thrust into a collective shock over the weekend, following the murder of AFL Adelaide Crows coach Phil Walsh, by his own son. 

Acres of page space and swathes of internet bandwidth has been taken up with the reporting of this tragic event so, for the sake of brevity, I won't reproduce the story in full here. A quick Google Search will yield all you need to know about the event and the circumstances of the murder.

image credit; Australian Football League.

In the collective grief that has followed, I have conversed with many people who are trying to come to grips with this heinous act. Clearly it is one in which many can't - and justifiably so. Here we have a son, coming home in the early hours of a Friday morning and, following a domestic dispute, has fatally knifed his own father. It is an unforgivable act. One which he will be tried and judged for. 

The ramifications are incomprehensible. A loving father, husband and family man has been taken from this earth and his family has, in one fell swoop, been utterly destroyed. 

In the immediate aftermath, through the white noise of incessant media analysis, I myself tried to get my head around it. I happened across one newspaper article which was moving and prescient. Penned by Herald Sun columnist Mark Robinson in April 2015, that very journalist embedded himself with Phil Walsh for a period of time and produced a insightful piece on the AFL Coach - both the professional man and the private man. 

image credit: News Limited / Sarah Reed.

In it, Phil Walsh is cast as a committed football coach, brilliant tactician, father figure to many young footballers and widely respected as an astute football mind. Walsh also reflects on himself as a family man and father and he admitted that all was not well between himself and his son. I should clarify here that nothing - Nothing - can excuse the behavior and the actions of Cy Walsh, nor can Phil Walsh be blamed in any degree for those actions. 

What does become clear is that the demands of his job and his obsession with it drove a wedge between father and son that was damaging. 

"...But have I been a good father? To my son, I had a disconnect because of footy.

“I just immersed myself, got consumed and was selfish with as much time I committed to footy. I’m basically talking about my 10 years at Port Adelaide, just the desperation to win a premiership and I thought it was all about me, when it’s all about the players.

“I lost that connection and I’m trying to reconnect with my son, which I have done."

- Phil Walsh, April 2015. 

Walsh goes on to reflect on the commitment he made to re-connect with his son, to remove that wedge and it would appear that he and his son were making strides in renewing their relationship. 

Apparently, it was not to be.

On Sunday morning, I was at my own son's local footy game and I fell into a conversation with one of the other dads. Inevitably the talk turned to the events of Friday and the shocking aftermath. Terms like utterly shocking, pointless, a waste came up. And then he asked the question, "What can be taken from this?" 

I  have indeed asked myself this very same question. My eyes were inevitably drawn to my own son, out on the field. Reflecting on my own relationship with him, there have been plenty of times where I have placed other priorities ahead of that relationship - be it work commitments, writing commitments or any one of a number of other things. One can argue the merits of degrees of neglect in this but I do know that I have disappointed him and I have disappointed myself.

If anything can be taken from the tragedy of Phil Walsh's death - perhaps it will prompt fathers and sons to sit down with one another and talk...

...just talk.  

DFA.

For advice and support, visit Beyond Blue (click above).

Summer At The Shore Leave Cafe by Abbie Williams.

Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe by Abbie Williams

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Joelle Gordon is leaving Chicago and her cheating husband to head for her hometown of Landon, Minnesota. WIth her three beautiful daughters in tow, Joelle is bombarded with an onslaught of memories that Landon evokes. Landon -- home to the Shore Leave Cafe, the restaurant Joelle's family owns -- has some surprises in store for Joelle. Finding herself confronted with the reality of single motherhood, a mysterious but handsome young staffer at the Shore Leave Cafe, her upset daughters, and the prospect of returning to her husband for the well-being of her kids, Joelle must make decisions she never thought she'd face.

A story about heartbreak, blame, family, desire, love, and the difficulties of returning home, Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe highlights hardships to which everyone can relate.

Romance can be a tough genre to write convincingly in, but Abbie Williams has achieved something akin to romantic alchemy with Summer at the Shore Leave Cafe. She combines strong narrative, threading multiple plot threads around the protagonist Joelle Gordon's central arc with a convincing cast of characters that feel so real you'd swear you know them. As a reader you are taken on an emotional journey with these characters that fully invests you in them. You care for them, champion them and sometimes you rue them, where appropriate. Williams has also crafted scenes of steamy eroticism that strike a perfect balance in advancing the story whilst giving the reader something to sweat (pleasurably) to.

I also really liked the warmth of the story and how immersive it was for me. Abbie Williams has a keen sense of place - a clear and abiding affection for her native Minnesota, of people and their emotional arcs and she blends these together effortlessly, creating a visual and tactile tableaux, one that stays with you.

Summer At The Shore Leave Cafe - the first in Abbie's Shore Leave series - is a bespoke literary creation and a superlative achievement.

Abbie Williams has been addicted to love stories ever since first sneaking her mother's copy of The Flame and the Flower; since then, she has been jotting down stories of her own in notebook after spiral-bound notebook.

Abbie Williams teaches English at the high school level (which she dearly loves). She spend her days with her own true love, their three daughters, and a very busy schedule. Abbie says she is most happy when she can sneak in a few hours to write and thereby indulge in visiting the characters in her stories.

When Abbie is not writing, teaching or spending time with her family, she can be found listening to her favorite musical groups of all time: Alison Krauss and Union Station, the Wailin' Jennys, and The Be Good Tanyas. If there's time in the evening, she might watch a few episodes of Hell on Wheels and eat a jar of crunchy peanut butter.

Discover Abbie Williams world here.

DFA.


View all my Goodreads reviews

Rita - Guest Post by The Junkenstein.

I am really proud to feature this week, a scribe who I think is an amazing writing talent. 


Andrea Costanzo resides currently in Northern Italy and he is one of those rare individuals whose ability to communicate beyond boundaries is something quite exceptional. Andrea and I have enjoyed many conversations over the past couple years. We have discussed writing, life, depression and happiness, music and madness and all points in between.


Writing as The Junkenstein, Andrea is the persona behind the blog "Making Angels Cry" and, more recently, the weekly music podcast "The Junk's Trunk" in which he show cases some wonderfully eclectic music from around the world. He is this kind of explorer, if you will, of life as we know it.


Late last year, Andrea produced a piece for Making Angels Cry that, quite literally, blew my mind. Entitled "Rita", the piece was an emotion charged vignette of a woman whose life was marked by tragedy, struggle, torment and pure love. It's power lay in the unpolished beauty of it's voice, the rawness of it's style and the impact of it's protagonist's presence.


After talking with Andrea, I asked him if I could feature this piece here and he has kindly given his blessing.

Rita.    

by Andrea Costanzo.

There was this girl. I dont know what her dreams were. She never told me, really. But when she was a kid, she was raised in a loving family; her, her sister, her father and her mother.


They were dirt poor, and not in the way people use the word today. They were seriously fighting each day to survive. The mother worked in the rice planations. It was a nasty job. You were stuck in swampish water all day, surrounded by water snakes and it slowly destroyed your back. But it got her money to raise her kids. Her sister was a "special" kid. No clear defnition of what she had, she was normal, but she had a mind developed slightly slower than the rest.


The father - who the girl loved more than anyone else in the world - was a worker in the train station and tried to make ends meet with other work as a handyman.


They loved each other. One day a form of illness, maybe meningitis - no one was sure of anything back then - it took the younger of the girls. She fell asleep. And she died.


After a while, the mother, broken down by grief, got hit by leukemia. She died too.


The girl, whose name was Rita, and her father were each other's world - the beginning and the end. The man did everything he could to full his daughter's life with love, to be enough of a family for her, to be her strength and to protect her from the pain of all that loss.


Rita had grown strong, intelligent and witty. She was a brilliant student, although she never went to University cause she couldnt afford it. She found a job quickly though and was great at it. The father was proud.


She also had started dating the son of a rich family. He wasn't a bad guy. Weak perhaps. A bit spineless - broken by a family who raised him with a steely disdain for him, his fists and his anger. But he loved her, it seemed, and he could've made her ... maybe ... happy?


Yet her father drank too much. Pain is a bad beast to cage. And that took his toll. He died eventually, of liver failure.


Rita was left alone in the world. All she had was this man she was dating. He seemed to love her, and she loved him back with all his flaws. Maybe his family could have been a family for her too. One that gave her love ... security.


It didn't happen. The two married. But the man's family always hated Rita and did everything they could to humiliate her ... hurt her ... and make her life miserable.


It hurt. Because this man wasn't on her side. He was a slave to his family, too scared to protect her. 


Too weak to react.


And then they had a baby. And Rita loved the baby the moment their eyes met. That baby was all she lived for. If only her family was there to see him, they would've been so happy.


Her husband's family kinda rejected the baby too. But she would defend him at any cost. Even if she was completely alone in this.


And the year passed. And the solitude and pain became stronger. She started drinking more and more. Her husband became meaner with age, he never understood how to be a husband or a father. All he could do was yell or say cruel things. Or simply say nothing at all. He would disappear when he was needed. Left her to do everything.


And the more difficult her life became, the more she drank.


And when the baby grew, he drank too. And he disappointed her as much as a son could. He went into drugs, failures, and all the mistakes a son can do.


And she just broke...


Rita became a wreck. Drinking all day and night. Embarassing herself. Becoming a problem and a reason for her husband and son to point their greasy fingers at her.


She was a good mother but with every drunken moment of hate, those memories of love got erased.


She did things that slowly destroyed the love that her son and her shared.


And it turned, maybe to hate.


But when she visited him one day, barely walking, unkempt hair, aged beyond her years, crushed by alcohol, pills and cigaretetes and so many attempts at suicide... 


She asked him about his coughing. His flu. She gave him a homemade remedy.


And while he hated all the hurt that she brought to her life via the bottle, he could not stop his heart from shattering, seeing her like that. He would ask her to get checked, but she refused.


All she wants now is to die. And maybe join her family, somewhere. What is left on this earth has hurt her so much.


And when they parted, his heart ached so hard.


DFA.

Copright © 2011 Andrea Costanzo. Reproduced with permission by Hambledown Road Imprints.

Ghosts

(the following is a piece I wrote back in 2008. I have reduxed it here because I liked it).

Vignette 1.

The new phone directory arrived on the doorstep the other day. It was all fresh and new, no dog eared pages, the cover fresh and vibrant, it smelled great. The arrival of the new phone directory is always cool, if for no other reason than I get a chance to ditch the crappy old and bask in the glory of a brand new one before it gets thoroughly trashed.

The phone directory is society.

It's more than just names on a page or a means to find a business or service. In it are hundreds, thousands of stories. Individual stories, family stories, success stories and stories of failure...of heart ache. It is a microcosm of the world in which we live and it more than any other piece of literature has the ability to connect people.

Do you ever scan through the pages of peoples name on your search for that one person you are looking for and wonder just who these people are? I do, but I'm kinda screwy in that way...

So the phone directory came the other day and, like previous years, I brought it in and set it down on the kitchen table. Each year when it arrives I do the same thing, bring it into the house, set it down on the table then I go about my business. I try to go about my business...but there is always a question, a ghost if you will, that returns each to foment in my mind and persist in tugging at my conscience no matter how much I try to ignore it.

Is she still there?

I'll go outside, mow the lawn, tinker in the shed, weed the garden, wash the car. But the question lingers. It won't leave me alone. Each time I go in the house and walk by the table, there it is...and the question lingers.

I put the directory away in the cupboard, to get it out of my sight...yet the question still lingers.

Is she still there?

The past for me holds failed love and loss. Though time has moved on and I have moved with it, sometimes, ghosts from the past pull me back to remind me of those failures. It is not fair to my family now that I continue to be haunted by the past. It seems, to me, to be a sort of betrayal - yet I love my now serioso and I love my son and I would never give up on them. But the ghost of my failings still haunt me.

Though I tried so hard to fix those things that were broken, I was cut off at the knees. Things happened, decisions were made that I had no control over, no choice but to accept. I was forced to give up everything and to move on. Then...when I did move on, when I tried to rebuild a shattered life there were changes of heart, she changed her mind.

I can't live without you...We could keep it a secret...I was wrong about us.!!...please don't leave me!!!

There are still so many things that I don't understand about that time and, as a result, there is still a residual grief. There are, still, so many questions - questions that I will, probably, never know the answers to. That is one part of my story, though it's one that will never be hinted at through the phone directory because I chose along time ago not to have my name listed in there.

Every year, when the new directory arrives I do the same thing. I dance around it for a while, try to ignore it while the question taunts me, then I give in. I sit down and I look. And, there she is...in the same place she was last year. In a bizarre way I take comfort in that. What is that? Is it some sort of holding on to the past?

Just by seeing her name on the page, I feel a sense of comfort. But it's wrong...way wrong...Isn't it?This year it was different. When I finally relented and hurriedly flipped through to where the entry should have been...

She was gone...

No longer there...

I was at once stunned and then sad. Why would that make me feel this way? So empty? That it was a last connection to an old life perhaps? A reminder that I had lived before? A reminder of my failings?

We tend to seek solace in grief sometimes. It is a curious notion that I have increasingly found truth in. I have found a sense of solace in grief, a sense of comfort. I have no idea why that is so but seeing her name there, knowing she was still there in her own consequence, was a comfort. Her name is gone from the phone directory now and, for a moment, I felt awful. And I feel stupid because I felt awful. Now - I just feel empty...

What does that mean?

Vignette 2.

This week, I shall say goodbye to an old friend. A friend I have known for three short years, a friend who is one of the important souls I have ever met. Together we have shared the most wonderful and enriching conversations......yet we have never spoken to one another.

Together we have been on the longest walks...

...but my friend has never moved from the one place. This friend greets me every morning as I leave for work and again when I return home in the evening...

...yet my friend has never stepped inside my home.

My friend lives on a tranquil hillside that overlooks the township, in a meadow where cows graze and kangaroos sometimes pass through. I'm rather envious because the vista up there is beautiful and peaceful. There is an uninterrupted view across the valley. I shouldn't complain though, because I have an uninterrupted view of the hillside from my loungeroom window and my friend is always the centerpiece of it.

I guess my friend has lived there for maybe 60 or 70 years? I don't really know because he looks as youthful as ever. Always healthy, always straight and tall, limbs strong.

Our best conversations are usually on a Saturday morning when I sit out on the porch with a cup of coffee and the paper. It's ironic actually that one of our first conversations/debates was about a hurricane in North America and the government's response to it and, this week, our last will be about another hurricane threatening the exact same peace of coast line. How the government responds to it this time is yet to become clear but, no doubt, he'll have little to say on the subject...again.

There were a few other significant events we shared. The day I brought home my newborn son there was a sunrise over the hill unlike no other that I can remember that I could have sworn he'd had a hand in. When the was more than a few significant domestic rows within the house it was his counsel that I sought out more than anyone else's. I'm sure he recommended more than a few of the apologies I went back to offer. The day one of my heroes, the journalist Matt Price, died he consoled me for a time as I shed a quiet tear for a man whose articles I had religiously though I had never met him.

This week I will farewell the tree that's sits alone, on the hillside above my house. And I will shed a tear again because I don't think I will ever meet someone quite like him again. The friendship we shared healed me, it sustained me and it enriched me. Saying goodbye to that tree will be harder than saying goodbye to my house, for while I love my little country cottage it is still youthful and new. It has yet to sit for the years that tree has sat and experience the comings and goings of people.

Where will I turn to now?

Whose counsel will ever be as qualitative as that of the tree above my house in the Hills?

The roots of that tree hold onto the soil of a place, the only place where I feel I have truly belonged.

Vignette 3.

This morning, as I was emptying out a wardrobe I happened across an old newspaper my grandfather gave me a long time ago. God, it was something like 23 years ago! My grandparents were moving house at the time and I found this old newspaper in a shed outside their house that was full of all sorts of odds and ends. My grandfather was a bower bird - he collected everything!

Including a complete issue on the Melbourne Sun newspaper dated July, 1948.

I took it home and kept it. I took it out every so often and had a look through it, I'd show friends, I'd marvel at how times have changed.

I was a weird kid.

The crossword had been done. Pa was a crossword fanatic. He had a tattered old thesaurus which used to sit on the table with him every morning and I'd sneak a look through it sometimes and wonder how a thesaurus used to function as opposed to a dictionary. It took a few years before the penny dropped...

Like I said, I was a weird kid...

I can't quite believe that I still have that old newspaper. And I find that it usually comes out when I'm preparing to move - it's like a bloody talisman for moving. Russia was creating a bit of trouble for the Allies in post war Berlin - the first seeds of the Cold War. The Australian cricketer Donald Bradman was playing a golf tournament somewhere. That was the year he retired from International Cricket. Joe Lewis beat the crap out of someone whose name escapes me right now. I don't have the paper in front of me right now, so forgive my lax recollection. It's been carefully boxed away for the move. It is a time capsule of a time I had no part in - hell my parents weren't even born yet. But it is a tangible link to my grandfather who I was fortunate enough to have known for twenty years of my life.

It is yellowing now, it's pages are increasingly flimsy and tattered at the edges but I won't ever part with it...well I won't as long as I can help it. Maybe I could get it to it's one hundredth year and present it to the Melbourne offices of the Herald Sun. I'll be an old man by then, if I'm still around at all.

I was numb the day my grandfather died though I did not weep then. In fact, it was a good three or four months before his death hit me. And it came late one night when I was driving home from university. I was tired, so tired. And it just hit me that he was no longer around. I sobbed so hard that I had to pull over and just sit and let it out.

It seems that there are ghosts everywhere lately. I can't work out if that is a good thing or not...

My Serioso

In recent times, otherwise known as -since I got into internet radio - I have happened cross a number of turns of phrase which I have adopted into my own lexicon. I like the way they sound. Phrases such as 'back in the day', 'excuse me', 'just sayin' and 'Do You Understand' are just a few examples of biting yet satirical quips that I can be sometimes heard saying now...

...Admittedly I'll kinda drop the volume on my voice because few times that I have uttered them, people have looked at me like I'm a 'douche'.

Of all the phrases that I have encountered, on my Alistair Cooke-like exploration of Americana via the interweb, the term 'serioso' I have come to regard with the most affection. I first heard this term on an episode of my perennial favorite podcast 'Keith & the Girl' (www.keithandthegirl.com) when the Girl (a.k.a. Chemda) used it to describe her boyfriend of something like seven years, Keith.

When I first heard it I had been my own relationship but a short time after being tossed out of a 7 year marriage and I was not quite sure how I was to refer to my own 'serioso'. I find the term partner rather sterile. There's not a great deal of warmth in it.

Partner...

Partner in what? Imagine that, at a dinner party, making introductions. 'This is my partner in co-habitating...this is my monogamous sexual partner...we engage in consensual intercourse...occasionally'

Likewise the terms 'girlfriend' and 'boyfriend' doesn't cut it for me either. I'm 33 for Christ’s sake! Imagine me, making introductions like Skippy Handelman from Family Ties to a group of adults. 'This is my girlfriend guys! Later on we're gonna go make out over in the corner and maybe she'll wanna touch mah ding dong!'

One word...Douche!

To me, the term 'serioso' has an urbane affection about it, a kind of 30 something appropriateness that isn't stupidly child-like nor is it as a bland as a cardboard soufflé.

It's a kind of hip, warm New York-ism, (kudos to Chemda), that I find appealing...I love New York. Of course down here in backwards-conservative Adelaide, Australia dropping the phrase among friends doesn't get me very far. I get those same looks of derision...

'Douche'

Here however, on this page, I have the freedom to describe my wonderful serioso on my terms and I couldn't give a toss who it puts off...except maybe my small but very important readership.

So - my serioso...

I love her.

It's as simple as that. She is the single most important person in my life, my best friend, my muse, my confidant.

Our relationship has been a tumultuous one - the result of a lot of things happening around the time we started seeing one another. But the tumult has faded and I find myself in a rather happy place in terms of our relationship.

My serioso has an romantic, old world way about her - the product of several generations of farming women who lived hard, raised family in tough circumstances and had to be self reliant a lot of time. These women were principled women of a proud Germanic/Scottish heritage who often put their family, their children before themselves.

I often refer to her as my Barossa lady. The Barossa Valley in South Australia is where she grew up. The Barossa Valley is lush and green, a wonderful melting pot of Eastern European influences that prides itself on its wine, it's food and it's country living. My serioso is the product of that heritage. Women knew how to cook then - really cook. Recipes have been passed down through generations as sort of sacrosanct treasures; however they have been quite bettered by the newer generations.

My serioso once told me that her grandmother used to make a German tea cake like no other Barossa lady on Earth. We've had some in a café or two up there and it's been good...something special even. But it never has stacked up to the one my serioso's grandmother used to make.

My brother once described my serioso as looking a little bit like Joan Jett from back in the day, say around the time of that movie 'Light of Day' she did with Michael J. Fox, though I think my serioso looks way hotter. Besides, Joan Jett is kinda old now. My serioso is tall, stately, with long legs, equally long hands. She has a wondrous smile that can light up a room.

My serioso never appears more sexier to me than when she is standing in front of the mirror in the bathroom applying her make-up or doing her hair. She performs this unconscious pout when she's checking out her application of the lip stick, her handiwork with the heating wand or how a new blouse, dress, scarf or item of jewelry and it does look hot. She hates me looking at her when she's in fashionista mode. However if I fail to give her a 250 word appraisal on how a particular item looks, when she wants it, I hear about it - alot 

Bless her f@#^ing heart...

Like the older Osbourne sister, who declined to be filmed for the reality television series 'The Osbournes' my serioso - similarly - won't allow me to post pictures here or anywhere else on the interweb. And I can understand her point.

She, like a lot of people, doesn't trust the internet, its whole invasion of privacy thing. Given my recent, shitty experience with iTunes - again - she has a point.

But that is not to say that she doesn't completely discount the internet’s attraction. I often get home, late at night after an afternoon shift at the hospital to find my laptop lying on the couch - battery completely discharged (smile through clenched teeth). When I plug it back in and boot it up to make sure that it hasn't crashed out completely (because bloody Vista SP1 still has a tendency to do that!!), I find internet windows still open for online cosmetics stores, IKEA, Laura Ashley, Janesce, curtains, drapery, clothing...

It seems that the whole invasion of privacy thing doesn't extend to online shopping.

But there is no doubting her sense of style and grace when it comes to decorating a space. We have similar tastes and that is gold dust given the challenges we encountered merging our respective collections of furniture. I have invested in a number of items of antique furniture that are of a mixed Victorian/early 1920's persuasion while she, my serioso has gravitated towards some French provincial chic. Somehow they work together. We're furnishing our home with new curtains presently. And these are not cheap fabrics we're looking at either. Though it may cost a frigging fortune, however, I can be confident that the final result with nothing short of stunning.

As a mother, my serioso is exquisite. She has a firm but gentle way with my son which - most of the time - stops him short if he's out of control. She is tender in an almost ethereal way and can bring calm to the house that exudes warmth and love.

As a woman she is passionate...in more ways than one...

My serioso is a woman in the truest and bestest sense of the world. She possesses an old world femininity and loves to be a lady whilst being fiercely independent and self sufficient. I don't mind saying that she, often times, leaves me for dead. She has the ability to bring clarity to a situation where I have lost mine. She is inherently logical and can see her way through a problem much better than I can. And she is a fascinating conversationalist - something I don't appreciate nearly as much as I should. She has an emotional strength that can sometimes come across as being a little unforgiving, but she also has a vulnerability that lends itself to much emotion.

In the end, my serioso is my companion and my best friend. And I love her...

Just to be completely random here, I commented to my brother-in-law the other day that I thought that a noticeable amount of sexism has crept into the lead up to Father's Day (which is celebrated here in early September). During the lead up it seems that television, radio and print has served up a steady stream of advertising for hardware stores.

So much so that I got pissed off with it.

To me it's akin to advertising steam irons or washing machines for women. It's saying to men 'all you're good for is doing things around the house - even though we spend our time bitching and complaining about all the things that need to be done around the house on every other friggin' weekend of the year. 'Here's a drill...now go drill something'.

Role Reversal Ladies - all you're good for is standing at an ironing board - even though we spend our time bitching and complaining about all the crumpled shirts and trousers that need to be done on every other fricken weekend of the year.

Here's a $350 iron...now go press!

See what I mean?

Where are the advertisements for package deals on the PS3 or the X-Box 360! Where are the advertisements for say a weekend for Dad and his mates to go paintballing or hang gliding for the afternoon!! And, actually, where are the advertisements for Dad to have a session with a masseuse, where aromatherapy is involved, a bit of a manicure - hell even a bit of a facial!!! (Did I just go too far then??)

Those advertisements aren't there because the advertisers and corporations (read hardware chains) don't want Dad's to have any fun on Father's Day. They would rather the population be simply conditioned towards purchasing power tools. Well I have news for them...

NOT ALL MEN LIKE POWER TOOLS!!!!!

(I myself don't mind the odd excursion into the hardware store and I can handle numerous power tools but...)

...Father's Day should be about big boys’ toys - X-boxes, Playstations, a flight in an old war bird or even a session at a day spa! NOT power tools, socks, friggin' cook books written by sporting hacks or Peter Brock tributes.

(Addendum - April 7th 2009 - I actually wrote this around the time of Father's Day 2008 but since I haven't posted for a while and I was stuck for updated content).

I got a nice bottle of aftershave and a DVD of my current, favorite TV show...