What is a writer, really.

Writers seem to have been getting a lot of press lately, haven’t they? Most of it good too! Glowing, in fact. If you were to believe everything, you would think that writers excrete cures for cancer and build homeless shelters out of used tissues once the cum on them dries. Writers can immortalise you and bring you to orgasm with little more than a probing preposition and a firm set of parentheses; they just make you comma all over the place.

But have you stopped to think about who might be creating all of these little odes? Did you read it? Well it must have been made of words. And if it was made of words, it must have been written down. And if it was written down, someone wrote it. And bingo! Writers! Writers have been writing about writers. Making themselves look ten foot tall and made of benevolence.

Finding my own luck

                          I need to                   quit the
                       shit of saying          ”If I could be
                     so lucky”, ease      off complaining
                    about the mucky    state of a  sucky
          life and get into fighting   and righting things, not
      crying for  the  downturns    that life brings. I do know
      that luck is out there  but    it had to start somewhere;
     with a small change in the   air from a falling chair that
      blew a paper to be  snared showing words that  bared
        an idea to the receiver making her a believer in the
                love that gave her. That chair is what I
      must                     be instead of  the                    one
   who just waits to see. Everything starts  with  a  random
  series of events but there is an event  and  tracking  back
 the segments prevents waiting for  the presents and  being
 content to lament.  I must   try   to start the daisy chain of
   personal gain, ingrain it     in a    part of my brain so that
       the pain when things     wane    will not ruin the gain.
            I can be so lucky       if   I      get   plucky,  stuck
            in  and  grinning,        with      the aim  to  start
             winning. I just            need      stop spinning out
                if life pins me           down        for  a  bout.
                    I know                   luck           is out
                                                  there,
                                                   some-
                                                    where.

                       It’s only fair I do my share in finding it.

Wentworth Went

Wentworth was the littlest duckling in a small family of little ducklings. Like most ducks, he could not afford the excessive rental prices of a medium-density residential area, so he lived in a tiny pond found in a miniature park on the shortest street in the smallest village in the— Well, Wentworth was not really certain that there could be anything larger than the village so he did not think about what the village might be in because he was a duck, and ducks did not give much time to speculation.

From very early on Wentworth knew that he was not a typical duck. For one thing, he had a name — something that none of his duckling siblings seemed to have. He would never mention it of course, but Wentworth could not even tell if his kin were girls or boys and when it came time to buy Christmas presents, he usually relied on how masculine or feminine their “quacks” were . Another thing that made Wentworth different from other ducks was that he celebrated Christmas and could use words like “masculine” and “feminine” correctly, even if it was only in his internal monologue.

How to milk a koala

I'm Australian. I apologise for this fairly regularly but conversation always comes back around to my nationality and, in the end, I am an Australian first, a person second. After I finish saying how beautiful the view of Sydney Harbour is from the top of Uluru; how Great White sharks aren’t so bad once you get to know them; and explaining that yes, nine out of ten creatures here will try to kill you but only if you try to hurt them or go near them or they come near you; conversation inevitably comes around to food.

Vegemite® is a regular point of gastronomic discussion when talking with those not familiar with the foods Downunder. For the uninformed, Vegemite is a yeast extract paste made from brewery leftovers and it has a few vegetables and spices in it too -- because we’re not barbarians, we like a bit of flavour in our food. The thing with Vegemite is this: You will probably hate it and there’s not much I can do about that. Most Australians love it though because a strong taste sensation in your mouth makes it easier to ignore the dingo that’s dragging away your baby and the spider that’s sitting in the corner planning to steal your soul.

Vegemite arose once more in a discussion that I was involved in recently. I was asked my favourite way to enjoy it. I explained that the best way to have Vegemite is to spread it sparingly over freshly buttered toast and top it off with a few slices of Koala Cheese®. This relatively nonchalant remark caused a stir in the conversation because in order to make Koala Cheese, you need to have Koala milk and in order to have Koala milk, you need to milk a Koala and milking a koala was scoffed at by all. So, I have decided to enlighten you to some secret Australian Knowledge.

Am I a writer?

I sit and stare, my will to live locked firmly in the grip of the common cold. My nose cannot decide if it wants to run like a waterfall or suffocate me by erecting an impenetrable barrier in my nostrils, so it flickers between the extremes at random intervals; my eyes feel like they have been rubbed by the coarsest sandpaper, doused in lemon juice and kicked around by a primary school soccer team; my thoughts move at a snail’s pace and my ears pass information to my brain well after my mouth has already responded; and my throat has managed to procure razor blades to line its walls as defence against swallowing. I am quite certain I am going to die — at least, that is what I have been telling people.

I have a lot of work to do, my free time sits precariously on the edge of a mountain of menial tasks. My inbox is backed up further than a Chinese traffic jam and many of the messages contain less comprehensible English; my attention feels like it is divided into more flows than the central nervous system and less able to transmit a valid signal; the time allowed to complete each job decreases exponentially with the increasing complexity of the item; and putting more effort and time in, only leads to more expectations and more questions asked should I decide to skip the overtime for a day. I am quite certain that if I worked non-stop for the rest of my life, the list of things I have done will not equal the list of things yet to do — at least, that is what I have been telling people.