Shout-outs To The People And Some Stuff That Need Shout-outs.

Shout-out to the donut icer person at the local supermarket in Katoomba for knowing they had WAY too much leftover pink icing. Obviously they just thought "fuck it."

                                                  THEY WERE DELICIOUS!

Shout-out to Ragnar Lothbrook do not even get me started about Lagertha this season.

Shout-out to Halloween being finished this year, I'm not used to it and it will never not be embarrassing asking for lollies.

Him: Holding a plastic bloody scythe. Me: Holding the machete I smuggled back from Africa.

Shout-out to these tables I saw the other week.

Shout-out to Mark from Glasgow who made me laugh SO HARD and I'm sorry for asking you to repeat every third word. (No nothing happened - he already has what they call "a bird" and when you say "bird" you have to roll your R's. (Not your arse.)

Mark said he never wants to come to Australia ... "I HATE THE SUN. AND SPIDERS." #istandwithmark

Shout-out to my cousin Marina for MAKING A HUMAN CALLED HARVEY.

Shout-out to both me and Rocco for having EXACTLY the same facial expressions when we first held him.

Shout-out to Dumbo Feather Magazine for re-subscribing me for another year just because I was on their cover wearing no makeup that time.

Shout-out to ATARI FLASHBACK WHUT

Pitfall. PacMan. Defender. Space Invaders .... even Chess. I been gaming since 1981. When Rocco saw my reaction to this he said he's going to save up and buy it for me for Christmas. We're currently in the throes of the new Crash Bandicoot how HARD is it also deeply satisfying when we finally, finally beat the level.

Shout-out to Rocco just for being his incredible, surreal, deep-thinking wise little self.

Shout-out to this cup that just makes me feel happy especially at the moment when I'm writing a book and script at the same time. "Bite off more than you can chew and chew like crazy!"

Shout-out to Uberkate Jewels who gave this to me for free even though I didn't even ask for it. I'm never taking it off and I'm never losing it. Cried when I opened it.

Shout-out to the lyrics and video of this Tori Amos song that never ever ceases to blow my mind and build me back up again.

(COMMENTS OFF STILL SORRY) Shout-out to you and me for still being here let's keep that shit up.

Wherever You Go ... There You Are.

My secret plan to fly to the other side of the world to escape the feelings of the four-year anniversary of my brothers suicide? Foiled. CURSES. I don't want to think about it and I don't want to write about it. I don't want to live it and I don't want to feel it.

Yesterday I had a great lunch with a huge bunch of Glaswegians - literally had to start lip-reading them when they spoke. They were so funny, I'll never see any of them again even after their (drunken) promises to keep in touch. I wasn't drunk well kind of - I can get so far down I get drunk purely on sad. ANNOYANCE for the ten millionth time I wish I didn't feel too much.

Thought I had to check out of my Zed's Dead Hotel today but it's tomorrow! Then I'm off to Edinburgh which I keep saying "Edinberg" in my brain. Heh. 

The world's still the world wherever you are but I'm too far away from Katoomba and pining bad for the boys. Need to get back stat. So I will. My sons will always be the axis of the world to me, as it should be.

                                          Love, straight up.

                                    Holding his brand new second-cousin Harvey last week. 

Off to go for one last walk around the city. It's been real .. I might come back one day, might not. I just know I am so, so much more Scottish than I am Aussie. FINALLY understand why I'm a loud abrasive crude hilarious politically incorrect human. As my brothers father used to say: "Wouldn't trade it for quids."

::

Wrote this post called "Eraser" in 2013, the year Cam died. Inexplicably feel like re-publishing - it's not cheery, it's not a happy ending. it's just what happened oh sweet mystery of life.  

ERASER.

The very first photo of us together. Me in year three, wearing a green t-shirt and blue tracksuit top. Him in baby white, smiling because he recognised a kindred.

This post is shit already. If anybody has a problem with me talking inappropriately about suicide, I ask you, is suicide appropriate? When is the appropriate time?

Dentist: 9.30
Lunch meeting
Dry cleaners
Suicide 4pm

Why do we not talk about suicide much?

"Hey  how you doin' today?
"Actually quite suicidal thanks for asking."

The suicidal among us don't like to admit that we're suicidal because we're scared of getting locked up, scared of stigma and shame, scared of what people will say or think. You know why I was in the mental health ward at Katoomba this year? Twice? Suicidal. Most people in there are. And now here I sit drinking a fucking latte and my brother's dead because he killed himself early morning three weeks ago on Tuesday, 15th October 2013. He didn't want to get help. He didn't want medication. He didn't want to go in anywhere.

Cam told me the internet was a bad place for people who want to die. He said there were so many options for painless suicide. He talked to me frankly because that's how we always talked to each other. We were friends - really fucking good friends. <-- right then when I wrote that sentence? I got up from my chair howling, pacing the room in a circle with my hand on my hip like I was in labour. Death labour.

He was so fucking smart. And funny. And gorgeous. And talented. And lived with an ache inside him since his father killed himself 25 years ago. I keep thinking, well I'm still living Cam you prick. I've entered the anger stage, which gets briefly washed away by missing and grief and yearning for him so bad. The people I love, in order: My two boys, Dave, Cam.

Cam hired a large cylinder of nitrogen which he kept in his Sydney flat for about a month. Gas mask, long hose, clips. He was also going to work, doing Crossfit, seeing his best mates, and bought a nice car. The suicidal among us, scurrying, still living, still deciding.

A few days before he did it I finally got hold of his friends who'd see him often. I was so worried. I knew there was a very big chance he was going to do it. But the same could be said of me at varying times in my life, you know? All I think now is. "You knew you knew you knew."

I've talked him out of it before. Guess I couldn't this time. That last weekend I kept waking up thinking he was dead, so I'd text him about some dumb tv show and when he text me back I was relieved. Momentarily. He kept calling me "Eden" when he only ever called me "Eed."

I should have driven down to his flat and barged in and done something. Nobody can tell me any different at the moment. Maybe in time that will fade .... but in time, HE will fade. It hurts so much I can't stand it. It burns. The more you love someone, the more it burns.

I keep going through my head how he would have done it - laid the tarp down, then his pillow, turned the gas on, laid down, and put his gas mask on. Pure nitrogen tricks the body, because we all have nitrogen in us. So there's no fighting. It takes three seconds to render a person unconscious, one minute to kill. Apparently there's a chance that right before death the person feels an overwhelming sense of euphoria. I hope so. I hope he left earth with a big fat massive boner.

Cam murdered himself. Extinguished. Euthanized. Fucked off. He gave us all the finger with a 'seeya cunts I'm outta here.'

And I completely understand.

The first sentence of his suicide note -

"Eden .... well, this was not totally unexpected."

No. BECAUSE I KNEW.

I took a photo of the tarp and tank. I took a photo of him in the morgue. And I don't give a shit how inappropriate those things are. I look at them to try somehow get it in my head that he is gone.

I taught Cam how to write his name. And now with all these meetings with my legal people, dissolving and dividing Cams assets, I'm helping him erase it. Death is everywhere but we don't seem to talk about it.

I stand at my sons school and I am the recovering alcoholic drug addict with three dead dads, bipolar II, and my brother just killed himself hi nice to meet you.

It's beyond a joke. It's easy for me to slip into "nothing is real." (Because it's not.)

The very last photo of us together, taken on Fathers Day 2013. (I'm never celebrating Fathers Day again.) Me 41, wearing a black top and my convict scarf. Him 33,  in one of his good shirts and pants. Talked non-stop for almost five hours, just outside here on the back deck. He came up to say goodbye. I knew it then and I know it now.

Both smiling because we recognised a kindred.

(Comments switched off.)

YOUR DA SELLS AVON ... I'm In Scotland What Will I Do?

Flew to Scotland, panicked BAD in Glasgow airport toilet, got it together, stood in the rain and chose a hotel called "HOTEL Z" purely because of the "Zed's dead, baby" part of Pulp Fiction.

Feeling a bit heavy and stressed like this guy except he looks like he's sulking. I'm not sulking, I'm just Panic McStressorty from WTF did I do now.

Tell you what I didn't do: eat this.

... just held it towards me like an offal weiner.

Staying around the corner from this lion lying' around. Is not that golden sword the best tattoo idea EVER!?!

Seriously - a lot of me is homesick but I was sick of home which is why I came, had to get away, now I wish I was back, etc. I'll go to Edinburgh soon and find Nessie. Or a red-haired Scot Viking holy CRAP ... it's like Eminem in that video clip with a thousand clones and he's rapping:

".. and there's a million of us just like me
Who cuss like me
who just don't give a fuck like me
who dress like me
Walk, talk and act like me
it just might be the next best thing
But not quite me."

I walk, look, and carry myself like most Scots. Upright, same bone structure, same attitude. I belong here. My father was William James Barrie born here in Glasgow in the 30's. Apparently he was a paratrooper in the Red Berets .. trying to find out more info on that, any ideas?

Heh.

Literally an hour after I arrived I went to the library. Soothing. Hi Megan.

Today I'm forcing myself even more out of my comfort zone - yesterday I tried to get a red double-decker bus but I couldn't understand the guy so quickly walked away. Walked up to Central Station, looked at the train timetable, couldn't get on a train to save my life. Walked back forlorn - looked down. It's ok, Scottish Guardian Angels exist too.

Then I did what anybody in my position would do - got a manicure, obvs. Headed back to my hotel, cried, ate two juiciest nectarines ever while hunched over the garbage bin and the juice ran all the way down my face and I didn't wipe it off until I'd finished both.

It's the Viking way.

It's now 5.30am I WILL CONQUER TODAY IF IT KILLS ME. Which it will but it's cool because the sun keeps rising, regardless.

::

SPEAKING OF EMINEM - you all know how rap battles work yeah? Marshall Bruce Mathers III turns 45 on Tuesday oh and he's now the President of the United States.






"In the video, he’s looking directly into the camera—and into their eyes—as he raps.

“If you can't decide who you like more and you're split
On who you should stand beside, 
I'll do it for you with this: 
Fuck you.” 

This is Eminem wielding his privilege as a weapon, taking on the president in the culture war he’s currently waging against the progressive majority. His freestyle is remarkable in that it’s relatively unique among music’s white superstars. Fewer than you’d think have spoken out so publicly against the horrors of this administration, let alone called out their Trump-supporting fans on record. If we’re lucky, he’ll inspire other successful mainstream musicians to consider confronting their fans over what they believe. Either way, it was worth the effort." - Piece by Pitchfork

::

PS Ok time to go almost at the bridge. THEY KNOW WHAT A FLAT WHITE IS HERE!!
PPS Scotland is its own country. Just so you know. (I googled it.)

My head wants me dead. If your head wants you dead too, watch this, hang on, reach out, get through.

The most unadulterated raw thing I've ever out on the internet .. but I feel the people who need to see it and resonate it with it need to see it. I've reached out today, spoke to people, did my washing, coped.

But it's hard - life is very hard for most (all?) of us, whether we show it or not. I'm showing it. Pretty brutally honest but it is what it is. Please share it with people you think might need to see it. I'm here, waving not drowning. Sometimes it's the other way around but people who I let in get me through. A lot of the time I don't let people in until after WOAH YOU GUYS I JUST BEEN THROUGH HELL!

I started praying for strength today but realised - I've already been given it, I was born with it, in abundance. The world is so frightening it's heightening my senses. Especially now. How will our children do this life and will change for the better? I hope so, oh my guys.

But hey - hello. My name is Eden, if I can do this I swear to heavens you can to.

(Am also sharing this on my Edenland Facebook account if you care to share ... am turning my computer off for a while because I'm so very embarrassed. Too truthy ... is there such a thing? Yes.)