I'm only lonely when I'm telling lies AKA Don't move the soap holder!

 

 

Clearly I’m failing at life.

 

Having been single for eighteen months, many-a concerned person is raising this perilous predicament I have myself in and offering their advice on how to change myself in order to remedy it. Life will not resume until (cue southern-belle/damsel accent) I find me a man to look after me.

 

 

 

 

Firstly, to those who are of this opinion and whom I’ve not already said to your face, fuck off.

 

Secondly, the more I am bludgeoned by these archaic, mind-numbingly boring lectures, the more I am finding a stoic resolve in myself to oppose them.

 

My mother, whom at sixty-nine is entrenched in her old-world views of chivalry to the point of impracticality, fought with me last week when I was moving house, insisting that I allow her seventy-four-year-old partner whom is recovering from bowel surgery to lift the ‘heavy’ boxes. Her argument was literally “Let the man do it, Monique”. Let the man do it despite the fact that I’m fit, young and capable, and he’s on the verge of collapsing? Righto. More important for him to be a gentlemen than me a humanitarian, I guess.

 

I might be getting older and therefore more comfortable in my skin, I might be a stubborn mule that is determined not to make personal, life-changing choices based on someone else’s fear that I am going to die alone and have my face eaten off by cats because I happen to not be married at the antique age of thirty-two,

 

They're getting hungry...

 

or worse, that I simply won’t survive the treacherous jungle of life without a man to walk before me and beat off every life challenge away with his man-chette (see what I did there?), or perhaps the longer I am on my own the more I realise what I am capable of – and I like it.

 

What began as a difficult and heartbreaking event has turned into the best thing that could have happened to me; a realisation of who and what I really want to be without the opinions and agendas of someone else tarnishing, and dare I say it, sabotaging it. This is not a bitter attack on my ex-partners, more an epiphany that as a younger, more pliable person I made decisions about my future and gave lip-service to those around me about my ambitions because I was factoring someone else in. I was lying to myself and everyone else.

 

 

 

 

 

Some might read this and think it sad and lonely to take the position that I was unable to flourish as my true self in past relationships and therefore better off alone. Some might even suspect this merely being a defence mechanism to mask my secret grief over my situation.

 

 

To that I say one: please refer to the last two words in paragraph three, and two: I never have and never will be the sad putz that envies married life and children. I see how hard it is. No rose-coloured glasses resting on this spinster’s nose-bridge, friends. Right now, I just don’t want it. It is my choice. And the fact that people look in on the life of others who don’t fall asleep next to the same person every night is somehow unfulfilled is offensive, and frankly, naive.

 

  

I have been told by two work colleagues inside the fortnight that one: making myself to be seen as “too independent” will “turn men off” and that “men don’t like strong women”, and two: “Moving into your own home moves you further away from the goal of finding a partner” and “getting used to having things the way you like them will make you less willing to compromise if and when you move in with someone else”.

 

 

This is what I look like now I live on my own.

 

I am not even kidding. Apparently people, men and women, still think this way.

 

It is like I’m in the Twilight zone, but the Twilight zone is the set of Mad Men.

 

 

 

If my two colleagues saw me living to their logic, I’d just stick out my tits, twirl my hair, wince when I bump myself, claim dependence on anything with a penis and be grateful. And in the meantime, I should find myself a kitch little spot in a Byron Bay gutter, place a cardboard box over my head and wait for that penis to come along and rescue me. And then I can become a whole person.

 

 

 

That sounds a lot more like my truth than someone bringing in a reliable income, educating herself, living in a safe and peaceful home whom enjoys a fulfilling social life, doesn’t it?

 

The last time I was in a long-term relationship I was crippled by depression and financial and professional oppression. Single, I have more money in the bank than I have in years, working toward my ultimate career goal, laugh every day and can hear the beach when I go to sleep at night.

Gee, I wish a man’d come and save me.

But I guess he’s too scared by the “strength” it took lil’ ol’ me to achieve what I have so far. And scared he should be, because I just don’t know if I’ll have the flexibility to allow him to move the soap holder. ‘Independent woman’ translates to ‘obstinate battle-axe’ in men’s circles, apparently girls, just in case, like me, you missed the memo.

 

 

 

Of course, I am not walking around my house singing 'I don't need a man' into my hairbrush like some dildo. But the truth is, I don't.

  

 

I proved this year, I'm perfectly capable of carrying a bed up a flight of stairs, opening jars, and buying myself flowers.

 

 

 

My little 'just because' present to myself. I'm a top bloke.

 

 

 

 I don't see why that should make me scary. I think most modern guys would appreciate the less-needy type as a refreshing change.

 

  

 

Of course I am hopeful one day I'll find the right person. And yes, he will have to shout at the bar, open the door (if men knew what a panty-dropper chivalry is, you'd quit your 'women want equality but still want the door opened for them' bullshit & just do it), learn to use his words, and not be a dick.

 

 

 

But I'll be complete before that person comes along, and the direction our life goes in will be one that benefits us both. I will make compromises, yes (he can move the soap holder if he really thinks it impertinent and supplies me with a 3,000 word essay on why, followed by a three-round arm wrestle), but not sacrifices.

 

  

I wear my heart on my sleeve.  In almost every social and professional situation I say more than I should. I used to chide myself for this and try and work on changing myself so as not to make the men in my personal and professional lives uncomfortable.

But being on my own has given me the distance to accept that that is who I am. I’m honest. If people see that as a personality flaw they can refer to the last two words in paragraph three.

 

I’d rather be judged for my honesty than admired for bullshit.

 

As far as I’m concerned, the former is far less lonely than the latter.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Really, I am lonely. Come and keep me company here.

The best talkers are listeners.

 

I attended a writing workshop today.

 

Yes, it's going to be an exciting blog.

 

I was really looking forward to this workshop. I look forward to them all. I love learning about the craft, discussing writing with peers and experts, and getting inspired to go forth and work on my projects.

 

Today’s workshop was disappointing. Not because the facilitator was lacking, nor because the content was disinteresting.

 

It was because my writing peers seemed to translate the concept of a ‘writing workshop’ into a ‘group therapy’ session.

 

Cold, heartless beast might I be, but I’m sorry, time is precious to me these days, and taking a full day out from three jobs and a full-time university degree to prioritise my love of writing is a big deal to me. If I feel there’s something personal I need to discuss, I’ll seek a referral from a GP and put that mess in the box it belongs. Or I’ll go home and write about it. Or I'll get drunk and call my sister. Like healthy people do.

 

What I won’t do is use time allocated to focus on honing my craft to indulge in ‘my story’. We all have a story. That’s why everyone on the planet is a writer (You are. Your Facebook posts are published material, just so you know…Did you proof read…?!).

 

Some people’s stories today were fascinating, heartbreaking, and truly intriguing. I am not discounting the validity of the personal story. But I was there to learn how to tell the story better, not to engage in a competition of who had the most tragic personal anecdote.

 

I brushed the frustration off and headed home ready to work on some techniques I did actually absorb today.

 

This evening I came home and sat at my computer and commenced my standard writing preparation ritual: Facebook.

 

For the umpteenth time I scrolled through ‘news article’ after ‘news’ article of utter bullshit. Apparently members of One Direction committed the ultimate offence of smoking a joint the other night.

 

Well. Holy-fuck-me-dead. If the individual who broke that riveting piece of investigative journalism feels a sense of accomplishment this weekend, I really should not burst their Walkley-deserving-high by disclosing that had they been a fly on the wall at any gig I worked on or attended in the past seventeen years, they just might have had the globe’s most disturbing front-page bombshell.

 

A joint is a quiet night in, mate. That’s rock’n’roll’s equivalent to a few Hail Mary’s and a peppermint tea.

 

If every muso who smoked a joint was news, the Telegraph would surpass War and Peace in content daily. If the amount of trees being massacred by the number of Tally-Ho being burnt up was not a news story in itself, perhaps the equivalent in extra newspaper production would be. Get on that 60 Minutes. Blow my mind.

 

Let me just spark a joint first, so I can actually find it interesting.

 

I’m not alone in my opinion on how infuriatingly pointless this ‘news’ is. I briefly scanned the thousands of comments on one post – all – not some – all stating how exasperated they were by the fact that this supposedly respected publication considered this worth violating their precious newsfeed. That shit bumped off a cat video for Christ’s sake.  

 

People are fed up with click bait. We are sick of the vacuous celebrity culture fisting our subconscious’ every second on every device we engage with.

 

The consequence of living in an ultra-connected world is that we are more aware than ever of the problems facing humanity globally. As a race we are conscious of the struggles of our brothers and sisters down the street and on the other side of the world.

 

We might be privileged and spoiled enough to access to the internet that provides us with this information and choose to express outrage in the atrocity that is Taylor Swift’s attempt to ‘dance’ and share three second videos of some bogan in Campbelltown doing a burn-out in his Torana, or share sappy memes that declare love for their children (please), but deep-down the shift of awareness to what really matters is happening and it’s happening just as quick as the next iphone will be released.

 

Media everywhere, we want and expect more from you now. We know your budgets are being slashed and you think Lara Bingle and Sam Worthington’s selfie is more deserving of page three than an article about domestic violence or elder abuse or indigenous affairs or the youth body image epidemic or animal welfare or pollution, but for me, all it does is repel me from your brand and motivate me to seek the truth of the world elsewhere.

 

The conversation is occurring publicly, in real time, all over the internet and living rooms all over the world.

 

If it's your job to talk, perhaps you should consider listening first.

 

 

 

 

 

I whinge here too!

 

 

 

Saving our own worlds

“We can’t save the world, Monique,” my mother said to me in an early month of 2007, as I sat in my recently deceased grandmother’s armchair, crying at the television.

 

As many mothers do, she rubbed my back, and consoled me on bended knee, as I wrapped myself in a luxurious felt dressing gown she had bought me for my previous birthday. I felt her pain, feeling my almost irrational pain.

 

My grandfather, in his final months of terminal dementia, sat across from me staring blankly at the news bulletin. His head rested in his left palm as he rejected the world’s affairs and quietly lamented the loss of his beloved wife of sixty-four years. At eighty-three years of age, who really gives a shit if the world around you is imploding or exploding? Two months ago, his world already ceased to exist. The moment the woman who he held in the highest regard died, the moment his fairy tale came to screeching halt, was the moment he check out of any major world issues, or local for that matter. Who can blame him?

 

My grandfather, whom passed away twelve months later, was a rare breed of a man. He held my grandmother on a pedestal and recognised her to be a woman of strength, character, stoicism, and grace. She managed their life, family, household, and general affairs with class and resolve, and made decisions that impacted countless numbers of family members beyond their time for the better. She wasn’t just a great woman. He was a great man, because he owned the depth and comfort of his own masculinity that stepping aside to allow the more capable person in the relationship to make calls on behalf of the family was not a concern for him. He knew her power, and his ego did not interfere with the greater good of our family.

 

At the time, I was in a state of turmoil. Not only had I lost my grandmother, whom was a friend, confidant, and idol to me, I had split from my boyfriend, moved back in with my mother and grandfather, and was commuting five hours a day return to pursue an arts career. I was grief-stricken, exhausted, broke, and lost.


Still, I thought it was my obligation to look outward.

 

Watching atrocities committed in my own backyard and across the globe was more than I could bare. I wanted to contribute to a positive shift in this wayward world of ours, but I was paralysed by the enormity of it all.

 

I resented what I translated to be my mother’s flippant dismissal of world events: animal cruelty, genocide, corruption, rapes, murder, human rights violations at every turn… and I was determined to prove her wrong as a defeated white, middle class person who just got on the treadmill of life and forewent greater good for personal preservation.

 

Seven years on, I now understand that my mother did not become shut off from the world, or ignorant to the issues of the human race, rather, she developed a filter that allowed her to block out what was beyond her reach, freeing her to nourish, protect and nurture her world. It wasn’t that she didn’t care. She just had the wisdom to know that her best practice was caring for her children and her parents.

 

It starts at home.

 

I have ridden a rollercoaster of guilt and grief for every person and creature on the planet that has endured a less fortunate hand than I have been given. I was certain I would do something that would change it.

 

At thirty-two years of age, I now find myself shutting out world news, so I can connect with who I am, and make sure that person is someone I would want to be around. It has been a challenging, arduous journey.

 

What I now know to be true is that, of course, my mother was right. I cannot save the world. If I weigh myself down with every issue that faces us as a race, I will fall in a heap and cry with despair and helplessness like I did so many years ago.

 

If I make sure I am progressing toward an open, honest, altruistic and flourishing existence, I will be better equipped to extend my understanding of the world to those around me, and hopefully, have a positive impact on my own, small world.

 

There are 234 girls in Nigeria who desperately need help. I will do everything I can to contribute to a movement that will take them back to their families and send a message that in the year 2014, whether you’re in Australia, Africa, Asia, America, or Antarctica, we’re all equal. We’re made of the same stuff, and we will suffer as long as our neighbours suffer.

 

The current model is failing. We’re on the brink of environmental suicide, children are dying from starvation, the vulnerable are ignored or exploited, and women are supressed.

Meanwhile, this week, our headlines were dominated by two cashed-up bogans in fisty-cuffs, and our Treasurer having the audacity to be a human and smoke a cigar. Four blokes. Running the country. Winning.

 

The patriarchy is failing.

 

It’s time to embrace change before we end up in damage control as a race. Growing older, and more comfortable in my own skin, I am more aware now of my capabilities and the realities of what is being fed to us through media.

 

I know this is heavy for a Sunday night. It is Mother’s Day, after all, but I can’t think of a better way than to pay homage to my mother and grandmother than acknowledging their strength and significance as people. Women who have struggled without complaint through generations of oppression and change. Women who know through instinct and emotion and experience that we should be in charge, if not completely, at least fifty percent, of this world, because if we were, incidents like Nigeria would not happen.  The rate of sexual assault (currently 1/3 of every woman on the planet will be sexually assaulted in their lifetime – WHAT?!) would not be what it is. There would not be the domestic violence rate there is. The poverty rate for women would not be what it is. I’m just going to say it: the world would not be as broken as it is.

 

I’m not a man-hater. In fact, quite the opposite. I think it is a tough time to be a man. But beating and raping and extorting and controlling women through action or non-action or worse – silence and condoning  - things as they are, you are contributing to the demise of our people.

 

You have had your turn, men. Now, be like my radical, forward thinking, brilliant grandfather, and accept when it’s in the best interest of the greater good to step aside.

 

And the only way we can really achieve change, is by looking in the backyard. Criticise those who are taking action all you want.

 

What are you doing about it?

 

 

Save the world on Facebook.

I just don’t believe you.

Caution: Someone's about to get on it again.

 

 

Robert McKee and I were just rudely interrupted.

 

There we were having a robust one-on-one conversation about how I am going to become the greatest writer in this whole-wide bedroom of mine, all I have to do is listen to him, when some nugget actor popped up on my screen …

 

Ah! Busted!

 

For those of you who weren’t quite sure, Robert McKee is not at my house delivering private tuition in my bedroom. I know it sounds feasible. But it just isn’t true.

 

I was watching him speak on Youtube. There. Now you know.

 

Back to the nugget actor who interrupted me and ol ‘Bobby McKee’ (maybe he gave Janice some private bedroom tuition in the day? Inspired a song?).

 

He claimed to be from Vodafail, sorry, Vodafone.

 

He crap crap crap crapped on for twenty of the most boring seconds of my life as bright colours danced around him and he smiled through the words I’m sure were not in anyway slowly murdering his acting soul, that were basically designed to convince the viewer that Vodafone has changed.

 

 

Vodafone is cool! Vodafone is fair! Look I’m smiling! Look at the bright colours! Get suckered in!

 

Give me a break.

 

Sorry to make an example of Vodafail, sorry, Vodafone, and perpetuate my passionate hatred for every telco on the planet. Companies and advertisers on every square inch of the globe are doing the same thing.

 

 

 

They’re treating us like we don't know there is a solution beyond what they're offering - or that there isn't even a problem for them to solve in the first place.

 

 



 

 

 

I have worked in marketing roles and have marketing qualifications.  I know how things work from the inside. Strategy for change communicated with relevant IMC is great. No worries.

 

It’s when it gets passed over to the advertisers that bothers me.  

 

 

No. It’s when the advertisers get to people that bothers me.

 

 

 

I possess an average IQ, therefore, I am legally excluded from ‘idiot’ status. I can think beyond a twenty second ad! Horray! I implore fellow cognizants to do the same.

 

Yesterday, I turned on my television for the first time in three months to watch the news. I flicked through a dozen tv stations that were dominated by infomercials: Some new device to work-out on; some new appliance to cook with; some new piece of shit you’ll never use.

 

 

    ^What he said.

 

 

I know I said this in my last blog, but come on. If we buy this crap, people will keep making it. They will keep clogging up our tv screens and we will in turn keep clogging up our atmosphere with manufacture pollutants and our earth and sea with discarded useless waste.

 

Almost every ad patronises us or lies to us. Advertisers treat us like idiots, and that’s why I’ve stopped watching tv*.

 

 

 

The real reason this all bothers me, though, is that the likes of banks and telcos and insurance companies re-brand themselves to convince us they’re all customer-centric now and it’s safe to head on in to their murky, shark-infested waters, and when we take the bait, we all get stuck with another rubbish contract and rubbish time-wasting service.

 

Until I see unequivocal evidence of major corporations changing their cultural philosophy, I cannot reasonably believe any piece of marketing tripe I see from any of them. Tell me through filters that you're going to give me a fair deal after I've had nothing but the contrary for seventeen years all you want: You can't polish a turd, mate.

 

Companies who change their culture from the top/down and inside/out will be the prevailers of business in this fake world of transparent advertising fluff.

 

Practice consumer safety: Swim between the flags and yell loud as hell when you’re in trouble. Things will only change if we do.

 

 

*The real reason I stopped watching tv is the aerial broke.

 

 

We can be friends here.

We can talk shit here.