Strange Week

It's been kind of a strange week for me. When I found out I didn't make the writers short list, so therefore no trip to Qld I thought I'd be a lot more disappointed. I don't know why I wasn't. Immediately I sent off two submissions and through myself into forging forward.

I have also been busy at work, not happily busy I have to say but busy keeps my mind occupied and means I don't have time to dwell on things. I had to pull 21 pages of book titles off my shelves for a 50% markdown. My line manager suggested I should be happy to be getting rid of my dead stock. Problem is not all of it is dead stock. My other concern is that I won't be sent books to fill my shelves but toys. This is a big problem for me. When I started it was a bookstore, now they want to be a gift store. An overpriced gift store. This isn't something I haven't said to my managers in one way or another. When I noticed an item had gone up by 20% in time for it to be placed on the promo poster for the holidays I expressed my disgust only to be told there was nothing I could do about it. I know that but I still had to let someone know what I thought.

Books I can sell, toys I have no interest in selling. A customer asked me the other day for a recommendation, I started going through my list when she said she didn't want a book she wanted a nicknack. my response was, "I have no idea, I'm a kid's book specialist I suggest you pick something the child will be interested in." I know that won't win me points with the company but I don't care. I was hired as a kids book specialist not a toy expert.

On top of all of that you can buy toys that are just as nice if not nicer down the post office for a lot less.

So bottom line life goes on and not always as we hope. Next time I'm sure I'll write something deeper. So till then have a good one.

Suicide

It seems this week that there have been an abundance of youth suicides. A sentence that never should be written. I can’t name them but Ellen mentions some here.

The issue I want to talk about isn’t sexuality, it’s bullying. If I’m really honest I have to admit I’ve struggled with the idea of killing yourself because of being bullied. Partly, no probably mostly because I was teased and picked on a lot at school. Though I remember school being hell at times and I’m sure there were times it bought me to tears, it never once entered my head to kill myself.

Suicide is not a new topic of interest for me. When I was 15 I knew a girl who had tried or at least thought about it. I remember being totally appalled with the fact that this girl had come back to the hostel after a weekend at home with fresh cut marks on both her wrists and one of the adult supervisors saw them and did nothing. When I was at uni I researched the topic for a news story and received a lot of grief from my lecturer in front of my peers, deriding my concerns and idea and asking if I was going to ‘tell people how to kill themselves’.

Like I said earlier I was bullied but I took refuge in books and more often than not the fact that I was smarter than those who teased me gave me the grounds to mentally dismiss what they said. Don’t get me wrong it all left it’s mark and contributed to my period of self-harm, these issues I deal with in greater depth here.

Recently a point I heard or read somewhere finally really registered with me. Bullying is different now. I used to dismiss this but when I think about it I realise it is true. It is much harder to get away from now. In my day it pretty much didn’t leave the playground. Now mobile phones, social networking and the internet all mean that it can be with you 24/7 and it can be there for all the world to see.

It makes me so angry and it breaks my heart.

I struggle to understand how we let go of responsibility so much that an issue like this can spin out of control and reach such epic proportions.

One thing I know is that that kind of brutal behaviour would never have been tolerated in my house. If either of my parents had ever found out I’d done something like that, there would have been hell to pay in one way or another.

I’m not about to say any one thing is to blame here. Yes children can be cruel. Yes they copy behaviour modelled for them. Yes adults don’t always model respect. There is a strong acceptance of the idea that ‘it’s not my fault’ for things such as drugs, alcoholism, domestic abuse and flat out other criminal activities. Added to this the prevailing thought that greed very well may be good.

Things need to change. Irrespective of colour, creed, race, religion, eye colour, sex or sexuality, it is time we started to stand for the fact that we are all people. Different yes but that makes us no less deserving of a little basic respect.

Please hear my prayer, my plea – if you are bullied you need to know that you are not alone and you are worth something. Words may seem cheap in the midst of what can be overwhelming and all encompassing emotions but there is love and support for you. There are networks and groups (To Write Love On Her Arm, is just one). And mostly there are survivors. There is light somewhere ahead, please hang on.

And if you need to hear that from someone else :

“We're all worried, we're all in pain. That just comes with having eyes and having ears. But just remember one thing - it can't get any worse, it can only get better. High school is the bottom, being a teenager sucks, but that's the point, surviving it is the whole point... So just hang on and hang in there.” Mark Hunter (Christian Slater) Pump Up The Volume (1990)

Masterchef@home

An interesting thought popped into my head this week and that was there were probably people who thought my hubby was lazy and took advantage of me. The reason I’m bringing this up is two fold: 1) I never really considered this; 2) I’ve never understood women who let themselves be walked over and their dreams ignored, in favour of their partner.

Strangely this all spring-boarded from cooking. I know that’s strange but none-the-less…

Last weekend I hit a really low point. It was closing week of the show I was doing, work was being a pain and I haven’t been sleeping well. It all culminated with me having a mini break apart something along the lines of ‘You need to step up because I can’t keep doing all this anymore. When you were working I did everything around the house, now I’m working I’m still doing it all. From now on you need to cook two meals a week.’

This may not seem like much but it was a big thing for me to ask. I don’t like to admit I’m not coping and I don’t like to ask for help. Also hubby has often said he’s not good at cooking anything except spaghetti bolognaise.

To tie this into my two points, not long ago a friend said she thought he wasn’t carrying his share of the weight. I just excused it as a creative low. Yes he has been in one of those but it’s no excuse. Some of our problem (because when it involves family it becomes our) was him but in some ways the bigger part of the problem was me. I didn’t ask or let him know I was struggling. Cooking is something I mostly don’t mind doing and I didn’t want to live on spaghetti every night so I only asked him to cook on occasion. Guess what though? It turns out with a little practice cooking is something he is going to be fairly good at and I think he actually enjoys it.

So he has stepped up, in fact he did nearly all the cooking this last week. And our eldest is interested in learning so they will get the chance to do some of that together. Another bonus as far as I can see.

Moving on to point two. It may seem that the two points aren’t connected but just bear with me. There are women who do everything for their partner’s and it often seems as though they do little for themselves. I have wondered, I admit, why they let their partner dictate their whole life. I didn’t see that from the outside my life probably looked a bit like that because I have a tendency to do everything and let hubby do whatever he wants. Part of the reason I didn’t see it was because I still get to write and play at the theatre. He has never asked me nor expected me to give up those things. Yes a lot more money has gone on his pursuits than mine but mine don’t require much equipment and he is always encouraging me to spend more money on myself. So I’ve never really thought of it as being taken advantage of.

The dynamic of our relationship is a natural state of unbalance, he’s a phleg personality and I ‘m a choleric; that is he’s laid back (yes sometimes lazy) and I’m ‘let’s do it now and the right way which is my way’. He is not inclined to volunteer to do something I seem okay doing and I’m not inclined to ask him to help. Somewhat of an impasse really.

So what have I learnt? Sometimes things aren’t what they seem if you are on the outside looking in. And sometimes when you are inside looking out you can’t see what’s really there. Also sometimes the problem isn’t always the other person (it’s often hard to see the problems with ourselves).

Thankyou God for eyes to see, courage to ask for help, a husband who hears and does and the wisdom of friends.

Drab Is Coming

I have to say I really struggled this week. Not so much with faith, I am quite alright with our decision to go to a different church every other week. It gives us the chance to experience different preaching, church styles and catch up with friends.

No my struggle has mostly been with work.

After having just been told they (the powers that be) don't want the stores to lose their character and passion we have just received a litany of new regulations.

* Uniforms - one must always act on your best behaviour when wearing the company logo...(I don't mind a uniform so much but excuse me you can't tell me what I can and can't say and do when I'm outside of work hours, irrespective of a logo on my uniform)

* No water bottles on the shop floor (this came in a week or two ago) - a stupid regulation because apparently we aren't allowed to drink water apart from when on our breaks - three hours with nothing to drink, excuse me I drink two bottles of water a day and do a lot of walking and lifting stuff.

* No visible tattoos and piercings - there is certain staff members gone.

* Obviously coloured hair is discouraged - guess that's me gone. (What gives them the right to tell me what colour my hair should be? It's not like we work in some boutique/upper class place.

Now I work where I do for two reasons 1) it's a book shop

2) I could keep my own style and personality

Thing is we aren't a bookstore any more - they want us to be a gift store (I've spent more time organising toys and sidelines than books in this last week) and now they are killing off my personality.

You can bet though they still want me to do things like holiday dress-ups. It isn't going to happen, I'm sorry you can't kill my individuality off and still expect me to jump through hoops when you want.

Please oh please won't somebody pay me to write instead.

About four more weeks before I find out if I made the cut for the Writers Retreat.

Update

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I last posted. I have been really busy, mostly editing my novel. Which I have now submitted and feel at somewhat of a loss. There are a few things I may want to blog about but at the moment none spring to mind.

My week was mostly good but then Friday it went to crap. So my plans to actually blog about something of substance have gone out the window as I allow myself time to celebrate making it through the first round of cuts in the manuscript competition. And of course catch up on some reading. This weekend I've already finished the first of Michael Pryor's Laws of Magic, and Robert Muchamore's Shadow Wave, and I've started Suzanne Collins' Mockingjay.

I also have a one act play to learn by tomorrow and a short monologue. Hmmm. Shouldn't be a problem though.

My other plans for this down time include more reading (obviously) I have a pile of books to get through that seems to get bigger by the week. Also, the up-coming One Act season. Taxes. Oh and sitting in on writing sessions of lyrics with the guys.

Today I got to sleep in and sort out a few idea's for kids books and my second Evayn novel.

So all up I've got plenty to keep me busy. I will soon write a blog that is more than simply an update.

Taking Out Religion

Think of it this way, it’s not about blind hope in a deity, rather an understanding of how life works and your place in it.

This is a sentence I wrote after I decided to take religion out of my novel. As I wrote it I questioned how that statement stacked up against my beliefs. On the surface you probably think it doesn’t. Yes I am aware it sounds rather new agey. I think though this statement has come out of my struggle with churchianity.

Yes it is easier in some ways to keep your faith going when you are plugged in to a church but here is the question; is that living, understanding and growing your relationship or is it merely existing – adhering to the parameters put in place by those who run the institution you choose to worship at?

I get how these thoughts in my mind can be confusing, believe me I live with them. So let me break it down a little.

I find services to be uber structured. Yes I understand the need for structure, but if the structure is too rigid then there isn’t a lot of room for God to move. I’ve been in some awesome services where music has opened the floodgates from heaven just not so much recently. Just when I feel on the brink the service moves on and we go to church news or communion.

Now communion should, you might think, not disrupt the flow. For me though I have found it has very little depth in any service any more. As much as the way it was done when I was a kid was very ritualistic, it had far more gravity. Two minutes to think ‘thank you God for saving me’ doesn’t give anyone the chance to truly meditate on the concept that you’re not supposed to come to communion with anything against anyone. Let alone consider and meditate on the breadth and depth of the sacrifice made to make it possible for us to communicate with God personally.

Moving on, we have news, and tithes and offerings. A giving Sunday I attended recently included the plea to give to these charity things we are helping with, oh and we need many times more than that for the new building we want. This conflicts me in a way. I know churches cost money to run but at the same time…

Then there is the sermon. I have gone to church for as long as I can remember and so many sermons are repetitions of what I have heard before. Often these sermons are on a very limited range of topics as well. So I ask are things kept simple only because of new people or is it also to keep our faith simple?

All I know is I find church doesn’t do for me what it used to. My conclusion…I need to feed myself. The early church, I imagine, spent a lot of time talking to each other. They met in houses and they talked. That is what I tend to be doing now. Talking. Not in specific meetings but with others, online and when I catch up with them, friends. In amongst a lot of sad stories we find golden nuggets of truth that help us. Little things that buoy our spirits, help us through and give us the wisdom we seek for our lives.

So all this comes down to understanding life, the way it works, how faith weaves through it and finding out our place in it. So my original statement is not as far from faith as it may have originally seemed.

Quick Update

Well hello lovely people. I didn't post last week because for the first time in years hubby had a saturday off so I threw a late surprise birthday party for him. It was really great to catch up with friends.

This week I have something written, just not yet on my computer, thing is I really need to get my editing done. I have about 110 pages left and need to get it done this week. So things should be back to normal soon. I promise. Some interesting things are happening. Hubby wants to get back into writing worship amongst other things so stay tuned for upcoming updates.

Also I start rehearsals this week. Life is busy...crazy, and we're facing it head on. Got to go and I love you lot. Stay strong.