Thursday 24 March 2016

Life. Oh Life.


I was very lucky to be in the audience for 'Tears of a clown' by Madonna
Hello there readership, how are we all? My, my, aren’t we powering through 2016 at an alarming pace! I attempted to have a month of organising myself. You know, one of those months where you pretend to adult, make some life plans, sort your life admin and generally try to succeed at, well, in the words of Desiree, life. Then I suddenly realised it has been two whole months and I have not blogged and neither is my life in order. Oh life.

My ability to adult is getting better despite some evidence to the contrary, I don’t actually know what adulting is… I assume it’s where one has the appearance of having ones shit together. I think I’m too honest for that, I am sure most of my stories begin with… You’ll never guess what I did today? It’s better to be real and authentic though don’t you think? Otherwise we end up back in the 1950’s where woman politely laugh at their husbands jokes and nod in agreement with every one of his arguments around the dinner table about how the world is flat. My what glorious times! Well, I am sure all the men reading this would concur life would be better if we could revert back to this era… Then I am also surprised if there are any men reading this… If there are then I imagine they typed in ‘lesbian’ to their Google search engine and are now ‘hugely’ disappointed. Oh life.

There’s also something quite romantic about the 1950’s… The innocence and politeness of it all, but gosh I would not have coped very well. I think it was while watching a wonderful movie (which you have to watch) called Carol with the delightful Cate Blanchett, that the thought struck me of how lucky I am to be alive now because oh my god, there is nothing on earth quite like the experience of falling in love and this movie is unique in the way the characters fall in love. Beautifully shot and much to the disappointment of my accidental Google search followers, the most un-tacky and romantic lesbian movie I have ever seen. However, I think the gloriousness of the movie is the unlesbian-cliché-ness… In fact you don’t even feel like you have watched a lesbian movie. You feel like you have just watched a 1950’s fairy tale of love against all. I have to say that if I had lived in the 1950’s I cannot guarantee I would have had the same bravery… I probably would have been at the dinner table politely laughing and nodding at my husbands jokes… While probably, most likely, no actually – most definitely, secretly lusting after the maid… What darling? I would have totally been highbrow.

And isn’t that rather apt for my blog that summarises my latest adventures through February (well, also March) is also the first time I have felt like watching a ‘romance’ in a long time, especially during valentines month herself. I braved the cinema alone to experience that feeling through someone else’s eyes and it was well worth the experience, so go watch that movie.
Alice and Vicky during birthday celebrations!
It was also the housewife’s birthday month in February, so we should all start singing Happy Birthday to Alice. I headed back to Perth for a visit to help her celebrate the day she was born. While I was back Alice was telling me a little tale from a whale shark experience she had. She was in Australia’s North West heading out to sea, the boat had set sail a mere two minutes when Alice asked ‘are we nearly there yet?’ to which she received the response, ‘it takes two hours to get to the area where the whale sharks are at.’ Alice was already dressed in her wet suit ready to go hanging off a seat excitedly rocking her legs. Now if you know Alice you know this would not have gone down well as patience is not really listed in her strengths.

Another thing and Alice that do not go well is instructions, because along with having minimal patience she also has the attention span of a… Oh look a shiny bit of paper… Ahhh, now I see why we’re such good friends.

Anyway it was explained to stay at the side of the whale shark and not to move too frantically as they like bubbles. Alice missed this little instruction and she swam out wondering why the rest of the group were around the side of the whale shark, she was totally going to get all the action right in front of it! Of course as Alice was swimming, creating little bubbles as she swam, the whale shark was like, ‘oooo bubbles’ and swam towards Alice. Alice got a little bit unsure and swam a bit harder creating more bubbles and the whale shark followed more enthusiastically, and of course the more Alice tried to get away the more her new friend was attracted to her like a magnet. ‘Ooo bubbles.’ When she returned from her trip she showed the video of her experience with some friends who while watching this massive whale shark on the big screen began to laugh saying, ‘what is that crazy tiny thing away from the rest of the group? That is insane!’ to which Alice eventually had to reply… ‘Oh yeh, that, that’s me.’ Oh life.

And this is why we love her and her stories with her wonderful Irish story telling abilities. So as she starts the adventures of her 30’s and I hit the final straight of mine… Mmmm, maybe not straight… Final fence? Final bend? Something like that. I literally have three years to do everything I wanted to do by the time I was 30 (I incorrectly applied the use of the word literally… It’s actually a little over three years but enough of me bragging to my elders…) by the time that I’m 40. I am not sure how achievable that is as I had planned to buy a house, travel South Amercia, the whole of Europe and the West Coast of the States and Canada… Oh life.

The last few weeks have felt very #YOLO, as I ended up seeing Madonna twice in concert when I wasn’t supposed to be seeing her at all. One of the concerts I was very lucky to win tickets to the tears of a clown show. It was an amazing week, however I was greatly disappointed at the fabrication of the press and the lies I read in print… Madonna drunk. Madonna losing it. Madonna was 72 hours late. I was at two shows in Melbourne and she was on point. What saddens me about the press reviews is that they were bullying a 57 year old woman who is quite frankly looking amazing and smashing out a 7 month intense concert. So I go back to my point earlier in the blog about the 1950’s… As much as we have evolved, there are a few areas around gender diversity and age equality I think we need a wakeup call on.

So as we close off the blog of February/March I thought I would share the news that I have a full time editor for the book to try and hurry things along… Well we don’t want to rush things but at last the publisher journey will begin and if I get my skates on I might make millions of pounds/dollars in time for me to do my ‘before I’m 30 list but really before I’m 40’. Then everyone can finally get their hands on my book. Oh life.

Written by Corina Hawkins, soon to be author of ‘Tattoos of memories’.