Barometer 2, March 2009
Hello to my old friends and my new friends, and those of you who aren’t sure where you stand, who await an effort of cajoling, of flirtatious prising from my end, until you finally hop onto the Barometer Boat, until you are a firm, steadfast sailor of HMS Jessica. Hoist the anchor, scrub the decks, puke over the edge, cos you’re here and you’re staying.
This week’s Barometer might be a bit kerazy and out there because I’m sitting in a really hot room listening to the new Guns n Roses album, trying to concentrate on my Important Literary Endeavours, but instead rocking out to Buckethead’s flamin’ riffs. But enough about my Saturday night in. Time to set sail.
HOT
Facebook notes
I have a bit of a routine in the morning. It goes: get up, get the bus, stare at the blind guy who takes my bus while imagining his inner monologue, get to work, drink a cup of coffee, delete my new emails, then go on Facebook. One of my favourite things on Facebook, apart from stalking those fuckers from school who called me Bell-armi Salami, is to check out who has written Notes lately.
There is a new ‘meme’ (nerd-speak for: ‘list of shit’) sweeping the internet at the moment, where people have to write twenty-five facts about themselves like, “I’ve never felt comfortable in crowds” or “I have loved twice and lost twice” or “I still haven’t kicked that paedophilia thing”.
Because I am a massive FB-friend-whore who ‘friends’ people I’ve met only once at parties, I get to read a whole bunch of incredibly personal and awkward confessions from virtual strangers. These are amazing, not only as a source of inspiration for future writing, but as a chance to build up my arsenal of ‘people whose lives are not as good as mine’. Because that’s what makes life rewarding.
Seachange
I’m not normally in the habit of staging 90s nostalgia revivals, but this show is AMAZING. It has Sigrid Thornton’s lopsided smile, David Wenham’s shaggy stubbled charm, cute bratty kids and Kevin Harrington who isn’t JUST my favourite character in Neighbours, but my second favourite character in Underbelly (a close second after the hilariousness that is Roberta Williams). Our house has recently invested in this box-set and let me advise you to do the same if you are a fan of HAPPY WEEPING and UNCONTROLLABLE EMOTIVE THIGH-SLAPS.
NOT
Waiting
Those of you who know me (and let’s face it, you’re probably the only ones reading this because you know I’ll test you on the contents later) will know that I have an attention span best described as ‘fox-terrier on crack’. I can only clean my room if I’m watching a TV show at the same time, something like the aforementioned Underbelly, where there are drugs and guns and angry sex to distract me from the fact that I’m doing something constructive. Similarly, if there were a prize for facebook-time-wasting, I would come second only to my friend who niftily CHANGES NETWORKS WILLY-NILLY in order to stalk as wide a pool of people as possible.
So you may understand the inherent difficulty of someone like me performing a simple task such as waiting for a bus. Therefore I have set myself a challenge for every time I find myself waiting for a bus that is running late, since challenges are known to make life more fun AND rewarding. I make myself write the first line of a crap romance novel, and so far have come up with two openers:
1. Things were frosty back at the ranch. It had come to a stage where the only place Jenny could get any thinking time was in the bath.
and
2. Ethel wondered if every marriage would feel like this, or if, yet again, she had managed to snag a dud.
And don’t get me wrong; they’re good lines. However their majesty didn’t quite make up for the time when the bus I was hailing DROVE RIGHT PAST ME despite my enthusiastic flagging and even pausing Flo Rida’s new single on my iPod. It drove right past me, this empty bus; the driver sort of shrugged at me in contempt while doing so, and I bubbled with rage best described as “primal yet ladylike”.
Only one thing could calm me down and let’s just say the theme song starts with “I don’t wanna live in the city, my friends say I am changing” and ends with “The time is right, now I’m going through a seachange”.
Ahh. Better.
