Author: MR

Chelsea Brown said it …

/ MR / 11 Comments

… “and that’s the truth !” (Who remembers Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In ? – Stringer and I loved it !)

Here’s a link to an article about being published. As you will deduce if you’re really clever, this subject still rankles with me, which is typically egotistical. Sighh …

The article is actually about novels (other than the first example written about), whereas my subjective ramble is a memoir. As to how come I expected, even for a moment, that my heartfelt grief-therapy-that-really-helped (but not as much as my wonderful bereavement counsellor did) was ever going to launch me into anything … whose nose ?, as the central character of my egocentric rave was wont to utter.

What isn’t mentioned in the article is one of the reasons behind the Really Big Nothing that usually follows publication — when the Marketing Manager of your publishing company doesn’t like your work (and yes, she told me so).

I shall now stop whingeing and feeling sorry for myself in retrospect. Time for breakfast !, she said briskly, rubbing her hands together and grinning …

At long last ! – yaaaay !!

/ MR / 15 Comments

I’m back to my bad old ways.  🙂

Moving on Wednesday, 1st October. This I have no doubt will be my last rental, and that’s not being dismal, just sensible. I mean, one not only cannot but has no wish to go through what I have over the past year again – not even one more time !

I’m moving to a Melbourne suburb called Footscray: Chic was born there, but I never knew precisely where (nonetheless, that’s a very nice thing !) I know Footscray well; because when I first returned to Melbourne I spent nearly a year in a being-gentrified suburb called Maribyrnong, and trammed it to the train via Footscray-the-place to Footscray-the-station. It’s really multi-racial – Vietnamese and Chinese, mostly, with Arabic and Indian as well. The food !!! [swoon …] My favourite is Vietnamese, as when I was in Maribyrnong the building’s janitor’s wife – they were both from Vietnam – used to make extra meals for me, bring one up to my flat then come back and take away the plates !!! She it was, the gorgeous Oanh, who got me over my loathing of coriander. Her husband, the adorable Bang Pham, was the sweetest man; and the sole fly in the family ointment was their little girl – outrageously spoiled and commensurately demanding. Cute, but.

I’m longing to start over again with arranging my things. One of the best aspects will be that I have actual walls of which I can choose whichever to put my recliner against, and not have fucking reflections on my laptop screen driving me insane (as they are currently doing). I shall need to have my ground-floor balcony enclosed in bird netting so as to confine The Boodster and stop him from rushing down the yard and out onto the main road.  😦

An only slightly historical screen-grab for you, showing my flat (bike on the balcony) from the street forming the corner with the bigger road upon which block sits my flat-block. You can see the road of my address in the left centre.

I am so thrilled about this move, with my removal from vomit on pristine walkways, shopping trolleys filled with garbage, gardens choked with detritus— shut up, M-R ! Anyway, you get the picture. I am, I say, so thrilled that I shall entertain myself with describing my development of my final home. Here, I mean. You do not need to keep up; just accept that I’m truly happy … happier than I’ve been since my third move in Geelong to St Albans Park, and that was many years ago.

You don’t want to know …

/ MR / 13 Comments

… what I’ve been occupied with.

Well, my American friends would be interested, and so would my friend Hev. But the rest of you couldn’t care less, I suspect, when told. And that’s not good, because what’s currently driving my rage is going to affect all of us.

I wish I could flood the Internet with it ! Obama became my all-life political hero when first I started reading about his candidature for the Presidency – that’s a fair span of years (even though a fraction in comparison with my total). He is readily acknowledged by everyone who is not a tRumper to be by far the best President in living memory. And the mad bad man, surrounded by lickspittles and followers-only-for-a-purpose (looking at you, JD) can simply remove the portrait because he hates Obama more than anyone, and not a soul in the White House raises an eyebrow.

I’m following two Substacks: one is by American historian of note Heather Cox Richardson and the other by Robert Reich, who has so many titles and past occupations – “Robert Bernard Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and he served as secretary of labor in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton” – as to almost defy listing ’em. The former’s Substack lays out exactly what’s happening on a daily basis in terms that make you understand her being an historian; and the latter— well, his latest post is this. He posts all manner of things, all in some way positive.

And I’m commenting fairly often on both. (Yes, there have indeed been some blokes who decided they wanted to ‘befriend’ me; but they were easily put off and just went away. They all, btw, protested that my being 82 did not affect their desire to chat. I think there are lots of lonely people …) When I shut down the laptop to go to bed, I wonder how many likes and return comments there will be in the morning: that’s sort of fun.

tRump’s insane tariffs have already started affecting Oz, and they’re not going to improve trade any time soon.

But in truth, it’s America that’s breaking my heart: country of Obama’s 16-year stint as the President whose employment as such was mostly joyful. It was certainly filled with intelligence, grace, charm, humour, music and deep thinking. For that, so recent and so memorable (in spite of Mitch McConnell) to be now replaced with the police state that’s almost there … the anger, the cruelty, the carelessness of everything except power and money … I don’t have the words.

Nah, I’m just hopeless :(

/ MR / 7 Comments

I start out with high ideals.

I always end up having dropped ’em by the wayside.

Yeah, that’s me alright.

I do have a sort of excuse— no, I mean explanation: it’s the dwindling of energy that being almost unbelievably ancient causes … brings … is responsible for.

When I was young (about two years ago), I would NEVER take any easy way out of bloody anything ! – in fact, I was driven to being a kind of seeker of Trouble … right here in River City; and that rhymes with P and that stands for Pathetic. [Apologies to that extraordinary wordsmith, Meredith Wilson. Oh, there are some wonderful American musicals ! – no wonder Stringer loved them so.]

And the pathetic is what now characterizes me, alas. Rather than save muchos dollari and forego Microsoft, learning how to make the large change from Outlook to Thunderbird – also a downward step in terms of calendar function – and the only slightly less large change from Excel to LibreOffice’s Calc, within which I cannot find most of the functions I use regularly in Excel without having to open the online manual and search … Oh, and also take the plunge to NOT LOG IN TO MY MICROSOFT ACCOUNT when firing up the old laptop … Rather than take on all these challenges, I say, I have opted out. Pa-the-tic.

So, seeing as how I’ve capitulated to Bill’s software megalodon, I might as well do the same to Matt thingummy’s blog platform.

I have admitted under (blogging) oath to being weak and useless and totally unadmirable, so what’s the point of taking a stand about anything ?!

[sits back with satisfied sigh …]

Still tired, but now infuriated

/ MR / 10 Comments

A bloke named Chip Franklin, who has a lengthy and successful history in various media, posts regularly on YouTube and I read his stuff.

The post that caused me to choke can be watched here (pretty sure I’m not meant to do this, but I honestly think the channeleers ( ! ) don’t care.

I did write in time (meaning, before they closed off comments) to the NYT to add my piece regarding the shutting down of Stephen Colbert’s late-night talk show, and am happy to see it there amongst all the others. The orange lunatic at his best.

The YouTube clip can be said to show him at his most typical – to say two-faced is to grossly flatter the fucker.

I’m tired of being ripped off

/ MR / 26 Comments

This was the latest item in a seemingly unending line of statements from suppliers about escalating prices:

Your WordPress

I’m not going to cough up that amount, any more than I’m going to put up with Microsoft’s appalling greed – with regard to which I shall forego Outlook in divesting myself of Office 365 and Edge and use Firefox and Thunderbird, as my sister tells me the latter can now have a calendar added.

With regard to Automattic’s cash-grab, I shall cease this blog. It didn’t do much, anyway.

This is fearfully unfair !

/ MR / 17 Comments

I spend far too much time on the Web, watching videos of crocheting, of cats, of dogs, of musical items, of American politics, of ‘amazing things’ … You get the picture: I’m a YouTube addict, basically. I even pay the bastards to keep their ads to themselves !

You’ll note that I didn’t include videos of cooking: this is because I haven’t done any real cooking for absolutely yonks, now. I have their prepared meals delivered from a terrific place up in Queensland – although I had no idea of its location when I first started ordering from it. Because I believed I was safe from cooking I gave away my entire kitchen infrastructure.

Today – which might become a day of infamy (in M-R terms, that is) – I came across this site:

https://www.youtube.com/@BOSHTV/videos

and have only stopped watching some of its contents ten minutes ago – when I got to my feet, went to the frig and, having removed a carton with 7 eggs in it, hard-boiled them and ate one.  It was A Kind Of Statement, I think …

Some of the blokes’ multi videos are on topics like tempeh, lentils, beans … I drooled, positively drooled, and had to wipe my front. I LOVED being vegetarian (although these blokes are vegan, I can live with it) and found vegetarian cooking hugely more tasty and certainly more easy than omnivore cooking.

I have written slightly savage comments under one or two videos, as is my wont – the comments, rather than their being slightly savage, that is – in trying to explain to the pair of chefs just how unfair they are in presenting a cooking-infrastructure-less person with dishes such as those they present. They’ve written a cookbook. I see a possible out, albeit an expensive one …

Hang on ! – that’s a different one ! Oh Jesus, they’ve published two … I’m lost.

I’ve been doin my thang …

/ MR / 16 Comments

Do you remember this ?

It was my last failure. I wanted to try making a cardigan from cuff to cuff; but I didn’t keep the edges straight, so I frogged it entirely.

This is how it’s (almost) currently looking, but that it now has a biiiiig cowl neck added, and I’ve run out of yarn for finishing the other sleeve. Must await ordered ball. This is a pattern I bought – the last:

This is the stitch, which I positively enjoyed doing: it’s called Closed V-stitch, in case anyone asks:

And here’s something I would be really happy with were it not for the horrible yarn. I ordered 8-ply from Oz Yarns, and what they sent me – indeed being the yarn on their lists that I ordered – was 10-ply and almost 12-ply. Bloody bulky.

So bulky is it that I couldn’t use my favourite stitch pattern for the sleeves as well as for the body  and had to change down to dc for the neckline in order to set up matching fabric. Why I’m happy with it is that I now have a template – as it were – to make another in real DK yarn.

Please note the side stripes, done so that I could crochet the sleeves in the round and not have to join the underneaths. I was tickled pink with how this worked; and it’ll look brilliant in a single colour !

Here’s a quick jumper done in that lovely stitch, using horrible Mandala (never never again !):

My cousin’s lady saw me wearing it and claimed she would like a colourful one with green as the main shade – hence the above sweater.

This one was made to get rid of the very nice to work with but over-loud yarn. I wear it with a pink under-thing; although it could be worn with any of those colours.

I haven’t added my off-white cardi. I should, as it’s part of this tranche of crochet. I’ll take a shot of it when Boodie gets up off my lap.

You see clearly that my lack of creativity as a designer makes me rely on the yarns and the stitches for variation …