Monday, September 15, 2008

Storyteller's Thumb

Mark and I went to the alternative festival at Clunes on the weekend. When I say it like that, it sounds like he was a willing party and wasn't dragged there, complaining the whole way.

But he is a clever man, my husband. We arrive at the festival and I was admiring the hippy/witchy clothes so he forced me to buy two lovely lace up T shirts and a Spanish style dress. That was in the first 5 minutes and I should have been suspicious. He then figured his duty was done and ran as fast as he could to the pub to meet the other husbands in the group we were spending the weekend with.

My friend Cheryl got her cards read and I sat in on the reading. There was a palm reader sitting behind me and I was finding it hard to concentrate because I just had to get my palm read. He reminded me of my friend Ralph (who boasts of having 22 heart attacks and 2 strokes, he is such a drama queen). If I tell Ralph he will say "ya fucken idiot, ya should have bought me a slab of beer, I used to be a palm reader".

I change seats, Moses reads my palm and I didn't like a thing he said.
  • I am not a stress junkie
  • I don't bluster my way through unfamiliar situations.
  • I do not solve other peoples problems or create problems to thrive on the drama.
  • I am not an over organiser (even if Cheryl butts in and tells him I count how many eggs we will need when we go camping)
  • I do not have fat fingers, that are all the same length because I have emotionally retarded their growth. They may be a bit sausage like, but that is so I can wear big chunky gold rings.
  • My rings are not a security blanket.
  • He did not need to point out that I restrained myself from using bullet points when I summarised his suggestions in my diary.
  • I do not think (all) my art is not good enough
He did say that I had a story tellers thumb. I will accept that.

To pay him back, I told him that my dad had a nickname Moey, short for Moses because when he opens his mouth the bull rushes. I paid him his money and told him I didn't like him one bit. I told him that again in the pub later that night when we bought him a beer and I forgot his name and called him Max.

Thursday, September 11, 2008

Writing

I haven't been posting as I have been getting some of my older writings together and turning them into stories. A friend has recently self published and I have set myself a challenge to write 100 stories and then self publish in an Augusten Burroughs "Magical Thinking" kind of way.

Claire and I met Augusten Burroughs, author of "Running With Scissors" a couple of weeks ago. He was being interviewed at Melbourne Town Hall by Jennifer Byrne as part of The Melbourne Writers Festival. I have been a fan from the moment I started reading "Scissors" and I insisted Claire read it. I tricked her into reading it by telling her it was about teenagers and there were lots of sex scenes. She enjoyed it and then wrote a book report on it and did an oral presentation at school. The presentation went something like this....

Who wants to read a book about sex....
Who wants to read a book about gay sex....
Who wants to read a book about pedophiles....

The class all shouted out "Yeah" because she was using taboo words in an oral presentation. The school library had to order a copy in because all the kids wanted to read it. She also lent her book out, which is not really hers, it belongs to my friend Bruce.

In one of his books, he talks about not wanting to eat specialty flavoured chips in another country because he knew when he got back to the states, he wouldn't be able to get that flavour and he would crave it. I have that problem with some peanut brittle I got in WA once and fish amok the national dish of Cambodia.

After his interview, Claire and I queued to get our books signed and I took him a present of some Twisties so he could get addicted to an Aussie flavour. I told Claire she could be the spokesperson for us, but she got starstruck and tongue tied so I told him about her book report and then he posed for a photo with her. He took the book I was holding and asked my name as he signed it. He dedicated it to me, too bad the book belongs to Bruce. Its mine now!