So today was moderate. Mostly difficult. If only there was a grief weather forecast at the end of the news every night so I knew what would be coming the next day.
"Eden tomorrow there's a high chance of crying in the morning followed by some BEAUTIFUL patches of respite so make sure you go outside and enjoy the sunshine with a cup of tea. Mid-afternoon you'll be howling like a dog but you KNOW you'll get yourself together by the time your family get home because, well, you have to. You won't feel Cam around you. Again. You'll end the day watching Glenn Close in Damages, wondering what it would be like to be a high flying lawyer. Pack an umbrella, a teapot, poncho, and writing pad."
Hey so remember that cake that Reannon got delivered to me?
I been wondering a lot about the guy that iced it. So I went in to Schwarzes today, knocked on the Staff Only door but nobody heard so I just walked straight on in.
"Hi!"
"Hi!" He says.
"Look, a few weeks ago you got a request to ice some rather unusual words on a cake?"
He twigged STRAIGHT away.
"Yes! Now, I've been asked to do some crazy shit over the years but that cake? I thought about it and thought well, it can either go one of two ways. So I did it and if turned out bad I was gonna fly to Perth and just, like, I dunno ..."
Man we LAUGHED. His name is Nick, we're standing there in the middle of his busy kitchen on a busy weekend and he has so much stuff to do and staff is swirling around and I just say, "Well, my brother DID actually kill himself. It IT bullshit. And that was the best cake I've ever had in my life and I must say, I've had some cake in my time. Thank you."
I told Nick that over a hundred and fifty thousand people saw the picture of his cake on Facebook. He thought it is was hilarious. I snapped a selfie, thanked him again, and left.
If you're ever in Wentworth Falls, Schwarzes do THE BEST white chocolate mud cake bars. Also bread pretzels (or "printzels" as we call them ever since Rocco did.) And at Christmas time, my god the gingerbread. So, THANK YOU MICK! AND REANNON!
Today I saw another cake, at Roccos friends Lochies birthday party. His mum Naomi made it, she has her own local cake-making business called Dough Re Mi. (It's no coincidence that I'm friends with people who make good cake.)
As I was posing this photo , moving it round willy nilly, the guy fell off the horse and then the horse and the guy both fell of the entire cake and Naomi came up and I was all IT'S FIXABLE but she's so cool she didn't care. I really like her, and not just because she's minding my children tomorrow while I perform some spoken word at Newtown Festival LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR NEWTOWN PEOPLE. I got three slots, on three different stages at three different times. Two pieces I know off by heart. I'm still in the middle of writing the other one. It's a big one. You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they open the Ark at then end and and Indy is all SHUT YOUR EYES KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT but all the baddies don't shut their eyes get their faces melted off like wax until you see their skulls and they turn to dust? That's what it's going to be like listening to this piece I'm writing right now.
So come along, get your face melted off! Because none of the people in the crowd will know the words about to spill out of my mouth, they won't know that my brother took his own life literally up the road around the corner and MAN do I hate Newtown. I'm enraged. Also I feel sick about going. Dave is going to meet me there and film it. I told him I'm NOT hanging around, I'm not carousing and schmoozing around the shops, he knows Newtown slays me. We think Marys burgers may have some kind of stall which is incredibly exciting. I'll cry. But I'll be hungry. Thank god we'll have our own cars because as soon as I'm done I'm outta there.
Newtown Festival deets HERE ... I don't want to go! But I want to get up onstage and people will be like who is this older kind of woman with forearm tattoos and what does she have to say?
I got a lot to say. There's different stages. I'll be on the Essential Stage at 10.20, the Federation Stage at 11.35, and then 12.35 on the Essential again. I'll be doing The Prophet, Strong Bones (the poem that got me to the State Finals for the Australian Poetry Slam Championships) and then the face-melting one. I might save that til last. So if you want to come get ripped open, come find me at midday. I'll be tweeting when I'll be going on, too.
Did I mention Newtown can go to hell and gives me a physical, visceral reaction and the one person I want to perform to will not be there? But. I KNOW that some other people who felt like he did will be there. That's a fact. And sometimes you hear the right thing just when you need to hear it.
Here's a snippet of me and my boys with our failed attempt at the lip-synch competition, like, an hour ago. We couldn't help singing the words. I love them hard. We were idiots for hours tonight. Pure, unadulterated idiocy.
There's more to life than grief. So much more. Just gotta find it.
"Eden tomorrow there's a high chance of crying in the morning followed by some BEAUTIFUL patches of respite so make sure you go outside and enjoy the sunshine with a cup of tea. Mid-afternoon you'll be howling like a dog but you KNOW you'll get yourself together by the time your family get home because, well, you have to. You won't feel Cam around you. Again. You'll end the day watching Glenn Close in Damages, wondering what it would be like to be a high flying lawyer. Pack an umbrella, a teapot, poncho, and writing pad."
Hey so remember that cake that Reannon got delivered to me?
"Hi!"
"Hi!" He says.
"Look, a few weeks ago you got a request to ice some rather unusual words on a cake?"
He twigged STRAIGHT away.
"Yes! Now, I've been asked to do some crazy shit over the years but that cake? I thought about it and thought well, it can either go one of two ways. So I did it and if turned out bad I was gonna fly to Perth and just, like, I dunno ..."
Man we LAUGHED. His name is Nick, we're standing there in the middle of his busy kitchen on a busy weekend and he has so much stuff to do and staff is swirling around and I just say, "Well, my brother DID actually kill himself. It IT bullshit. And that was the best cake I've ever had in my life and I must say, I've had some cake in my time. Thank you."
I told Nick that over a hundred and fifty thousand people saw the picture of his cake on Facebook. He thought it is was hilarious. I snapped a selfie, thanked him again, and left.
If you're ever in Wentworth Falls, Schwarzes do THE BEST white chocolate mud cake bars. Also bread pretzels (or "printzels" as we call them ever since Rocco did.) And at Christmas time, my god the gingerbread. So, THANK YOU MICK! AND REANNON!
Today I saw another cake, at Roccos friends Lochies birthday party. His mum Naomi made it, she has her own local cake-making business called Dough Re Mi. (It's no coincidence that I'm friends with people who make good cake.)
As I was posing this photo , moving it round willy nilly, the guy fell off the horse and then the horse and the guy both fell of the entire cake and Naomi came up and I was all IT'S FIXABLE but she's so cool she didn't care. I really like her, and not just because she's minding my children tomorrow while I perform some spoken word at Newtown Festival LET'S GIVE IT UP FOR NEWTOWN PEOPLE. I got three slots, on three different stages at three different times. Two pieces I know off by heart. I'm still in the middle of writing the other one. It's a big one. You know that scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark when they open the Ark at then end and and Indy is all SHUT YOUR EYES KEEP YOUR EYES SHUT but all the baddies don't shut their eyes get their faces melted off like wax until you see their skulls and they turn to dust? That's what it's going to be like listening to this piece I'm writing right now.
So come along, get your face melted off! Because none of the people in the crowd will know the words about to spill out of my mouth, they won't know that my brother took his own life literally up the road around the corner and MAN do I hate Newtown. I'm enraged. Also I feel sick about going. Dave is going to meet me there and film it. I told him I'm NOT hanging around, I'm not carousing and schmoozing around the shops, he knows Newtown slays me. We think Marys burgers may have some kind of stall which is incredibly exciting. I'll cry. But I'll be hungry. Thank god we'll have our own cars because as soon as I'm done I'm outta there.
Newtown Festival deets HERE ... I don't want to go! But I want to get up onstage and people will be like who is this older kind of woman with forearm tattoos and what does she have to say?
I got a lot to say. There's different stages. I'll be on the Essential Stage at 10.20, the Federation Stage at 11.35, and then 12.35 on the Essential again. I'll be doing The Prophet, Strong Bones (the poem that got me to the State Finals for the Australian Poetry Slam Championships) and then the face-melting one. I might save that til last. So if you want to come get ripped open, come find me at midday. I'll be tweeting when I'll be going on, too.
Did I mention Newtown can go to hell and gives me a physical, visceral reaction and the one person I want to perform to will not be there? But. I KNOW that some other people who felt like he did will be there. That's a fact. And sometimes you hear the right thing just when you need to hear it.
Here's a snippet of me and my boys with our failed attempt at the lip-synch competition, like, an hour ago. We couldn't help singing the words. I love them hard. We were idiots for hours tonight. Pure, unadulterated idiocy.
There's more to life than grief. So much more. Just gotta find it.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Write to be understood, speak to be heard. - Lawrence Powell