the end of cabin fever

We're housesitting for friends. Swimming pool, view over a lake, frogs and ducks wake us up in the morning, huge living room minimalist enough for the girls to play happily for hours in the giant playpen I've constructed for them from two corner sofas...we drank gallons of fine red wein last night and demolished an entire BBQ chicken on the terrasse.

The village itself is actually the kind of place you find yourself humming the Deliverance banjo theme music but never mind, we'll go out for a walk later and see if it's improved since the last time.

Managed to write 500 words today! I'm not getting carried away and contacting literary agents just yet but my god at least I wrote something.

Resisting the lure of the Playstation 2 in the corner. I'm a secret video game junkie, cold turkey for years now like an ex alcoholic. Just..one...game..of Silent Hill..can't hurt...

9 month old twins

gratuitous cute photo!!

They're 9 months old now. I'm still breastfeeding in the morning but they need a top up an hour later. Nap at 10:30. Then solids at lunch. Nap at 2:30 ish, and a bottle at 3 with a snack. Breastfeed a bit at 6 then a bottle to finish.

Feeling sad that the breastfeeding's dropping off but they are just too impatient, too jumpy and full of beans, they love holding their own bottles.

Solids is easy, I just cook up whatever we have. They love aubergine and garlic purée. Purée of haricot verts. They love mashed up fish (careful w the bones). Camembert they go crazy for. Sardines they adore (fresh, mashed up with a little pepper). They do have some exotic stuff but only exceptionally- day to day stuff is pretty ordinary.

As for behaviour- well- they seem to be entering a clingy stage. Fear of strangers. Also a kind of violent "I'm going to scream until I vomit because I want something you're not giving me because you're not understanding what I'm saying" phase. I had a good one the other day- in 35 degree heat, by myself (as usual when something dramatic happens), I finally gave in to the hysterical shrieking, hauled them downstairs three flights of stairs to the doctors. Of course everything OK. I was afraid of ear ache (they're teething again). the doctor just congratulated me on their lung power and said "when they hit two it starts to get better"

They're both crawling, both standing up, one is almost walking. They're both about 9kgs. Flat is getting progressively more and more babyproofed every day. When I let them loose on the living room floor its out of control. Thank god I bought a playpen (the giant size...big enough for me to lie down in there with them).

For naps, now we need a little bit of light and the radio on. They also refuse to sleep at night before 8pm (as opposed to 6pm a month ago). Still all the way through the night tho, so there's time to recover.

voila! that's my twin news. this was a post for twin mums really. you are not alone! although it can feel that way...they're physically much more active- they never stop in fact-so in a way they need much more surveillance. I'm not sure if this is the general experience, but I reckon that safety must be a much bigger issue with twins..you just can't look away...ever....it must be impossible without a playpen or a dedicated empty room for them to play in???

They've been asleep now over an hour! this is bliss! but dangerous. must go and wake them up from their afternoon nap before its too late....

kool aid for the kool kids (i am housewife scum)

I went to a gallery opening last night. A set of black and white photographs of suspiciously photogenic people doing pretty mundane things. Sitting around a big kitchen table staring at each other, mainly, a vacant look in their eyes.

Frankly I could have been attending the opening of a rubbish bin in a Marseille heatwave (I did actually, we all did, in 2005) and I would have been thrilled, given I hardly ever go out. Hardly ever means last night was the third time I've gone out in a year.

Any thrill of excitement or pleasure I may have had was soon squashed by the sheer....social torment...I endured.

I knew three people there, one of which had specifically invited me. She's friendly enough, and she introduced me to everyone that came up to us which was nice. The problem was the moment the introductions were over they wandered off to find the bar and never came back, or looked me up and down, asked me what I did and did I have any up coming exhibitions, and eventually in more than one case simply turned their backs on me to continue their conversation about French new wave installation street art with a silent P with skinny girls called Quentin.

I mean what is the problem?

I'm not hideously deformed, I'm relatively cultured, I was wearing black (oh so necessary to be taken seriously for these functions), had discrete makeup, had recently showered, wasn't drunk (yet), asked them questions about themselves and pretended to be interested in their "comm" jobs (communication- PR, events management, snorting cocaine off of the local mayor's penis for all I know), I don't think I smelled bad (unless I had baby spew lodged somewhere I hadnt noticed).

The nicest person was a drunken Swiss journalist who struck up a conversation then lurched off saying "Sick to death of bloody art, off to find a pub". But at least he asked me some questions about myself. I was so incredibly grateful for his attention, as it had been five full minutes of standing by myself in a large crowd praying the girl that in daylight hours is more than happy to chat to me in the street said "oh just off to get a drink back in a second" was actually going to come back so i could stop pretending to text friends on my mobile phone (she never did).

Then the bar closed for speeches and I couldn't even drink.

Does this happen to anyone else? Its mindboggling. I was 14 again at the school dance. Excruciating.

I felt like displaying my CV and cool credentials. I mean I do have some. But then no bugger that, whats wrong with being a normal person? Aparrently in the cultural milieu normal's not good enough. I shouldn't need to tell them about my creative credentials just to NOT be ignored.

Two hours later the speeches still weren't over and I'd long ago drunk my one glass of red wine. Horrifically sober and feeling like housewife scum I went home. Nobody noticed me leave.

GOD I HATE THE COOL KIDS


I include here an angry photo I took walking home. And to be honest, its about ten million times better than anything the Skinny Girls Called Quentin were exhibiting.

In fact if truth be told about these people, most of them don't actually create. They just hang around the minority that do and talk about it. Everyone has cultural projects and stuff they're developing but it never sees the light of day. All those culture euros poured down their throats with the cheap cask wine.


The nicest part of the evening was coming home, cuddling my sleepy babies and having my man pour me glass of red and comiserate. I remember these occasional blows to the self esteem from when i was single- how on earth did I cope with nights like these alone????

somwun's blockking my creatif powers

Oh yeah so I decide 24 hours before the deadline that I have to submit a short story or something to a literary journal. The editors sound possibly just as disorganised as me so they've given everybody a week extra, but still.








I went through my so called "writing" box last night (in the two hours I get from girls falling alseep to me falling asleep) and was horrified to find that most of it is utter krapp. What do you do with the old stuff years later after you've moved on and become someone else?? Even the good stuff, the stuff that was published?

Well- there's nothing you can do about that stuff, it's out there in the public and as scary as it is you can't get it back and rewrite any of the sentences, although there's a NZ writer, the great Witi Ihimaera, currently rewriting all his novels to try to make them fit in a bit more with his headspace now.




Anyway. The going to bed process for the girls (now 10 months old) has lasted3 hours from evening feed (breastfeed and then bottle) to final (I pray) going to sleep....

It's really hot tonight. Partner has left me for the evening to go play drums with some boys (I told him to play nicely). He may be back any second and I havent even looked at my alleged writing.




What am I going to send??? I've even thought of sending some tormented poetry from 5 years ago. It's certainly...er....intense.

I've been having major existential crises again. Second refusal of places in the creche. I do not understand how there are 68 people ahead of me on the list. I will not have places until (at best) September 2010. The girls will be TWO!!!!

If not I can hire a nanny and they go to her house and get babysat but the twins need stimulation, action, other kids....I think the max on the licences now is 3 kids at a time.

This is so typical bloody French. If you want anything done you need to know someone in the city hall. Or does it work like this everywhere and I'm naive?

Bleh. tonight I'm feeling philosophical but by god yesterday I wasn't. This kind of crap can change the course of your life- will I be able to go back to work? retrain?afford to pay for a full time professional babysitter? if not, I'll be 40 when the girls are old enough for school and I can have my days back. Re entering the workforce at 40??? as what? babysitter? what about my brain? will I ever get to go home again? how can I lose these sodding buggery extra 10 kilos?? etc etc

Better get back to trying to be creative....take my mind off it.....I'm going to pour a red wine, the girls seem to be asleep. I may even have a ciggie...just one. And try to feel like a writer again.

Funny how the old negatives give me the impression that I've really frozen the images, that I possess them...it really is magical in a way that digital isnt...

we're all gonna die one day part II

UH??!

Michael Jackson can't die. He can't just die. He's like the pope. He was supposed to just go on forever.

we're all gonna die one day

I know it sounds morbid. But I get a slow building sweet melancholy when i work on these photos. I take the glass plate out of the box, clean the dust off. Take the photo and make it a positive.

Faces appear, the life, the full flesh and movement, even in these posed scenes. The awareness that everyone in this photo is surely dead. The realisation that I'm the first person to look upon this image for decades, at least...perhaps ever...and now ten minutes later it's up on the internet and you're sharing it. They live again.

In Australia we're not allowed to show photographs of Aboriginal people after their deaths, out of respect for traditions and beliefs. Images are powerful things. Certainly these images are, from their sheer rarity- before throwaway cameras, colour film, 35mm kodachrome (this week discontinued for good- the passing of an epoch), then video and now digital where the number of images being produced is mindboggling. Even fifty years ago those who could even afford this expensive hobby would take maybe a couple of dozen photos a year for high days and holidays.




I spoke with an artist/photographer friend of mine the other day who told me that she still uses film, because being somewhat pessimistic by nature, fears that in 30 years not everybody will have access to a computer to look at their digital photos. The way she sees it, few people will have the privilege of electricity. What will we do with a lifetime's photos when we can't switch on the computer?

The other thing about the past, is that everybody used to wear hats.

A terrible tenderness I feel towards these little girls and their grandmother (?) sitting in the shade on a hot summer's day.

Another thought I have about these photos is how did they end up on the flea market? At the bottom of an antique dealer's cardboard box? Who threw them out? What were they thinking in that instant?

and who will there be one day sorting through my stuff?

That's why I collect them, I think. The urge to keep these people alive just a little bit longer...

ghost photos

When I lived alone in the big town after leaving my French man, my discount psychotherapy was very occasional frozen lasagne for one from Marché Plus down the road, enormous quantities of Cote du Rhone, roll yer own tobacco and all night sessions in my kitchen- cum- darkroom with fine music playing softly.

Developing your own photos is the perfect meditation- it's a mix of science and creativity that really appeals to me. It also requires a lot of concentration. You can't be thinking about anything else while you're trying to do it, at least not directly, if you want it to work.

Now I am a responsible mother of twins with 28 seconds' free time to herself a day I can't do this stuff anymore...a source of major recent existential angst (what do i really want to do with my life? when will i have time to write? maybe i should retrain as a luthier/violin maker? or maybe a lifeguard? which continent shall I live on? where do i belong? should i get a haircut? etc)


anyway. my homemade dodgy version of my old darkroom is a lightbox and photoshop. Here's a photo I'm fond of, an old glass negative picked up at a flea market, a bunch of family holiday photos from..when? I need help dating the clothes. I think maybe the 30s? More to follow...

summerbirds

the summer birds are circling high over the old town. it's hot. the bal de quartier kicks off tonight at 9pm with a long table set for a hundred neighbours sharing dishes and wine and talk and music from the temporary stage in the square- provençal singers and local flaneurs with their guitars and bongos. wish i had something fascinating to tell you all but the last month has just been a long procession of little things...life, quoi.

fame at last

I'm breaking the blogging fast to show off about an audio track I put together broadcast on Radio National Australia last Friday night, on their Sound Quality show:

You can listen again to me me me here

(belledemai- sour pickle)

or just listen to the track MP3 without having to listen to the original show directly here

Now i am cool! at last!

For music purists, no, I'm sorry, I didn't play a single one of those intruments. They come from a freecopyright sample pack. I have a musical ear without the committment necessary to actually learn an instrument...

blogging holiday

I think i might take a break from blogging for a while (but not stalking you on your blogs, I enjoy that).

I am all giddy from not having a Facebook profile anymore and realize I'm way too present on the net, and need to simplify my life...I feel like I'm dull......also I have this crazy project of setting up a website and finishing my book of short stories and could be writing a page of drivel-fiction in the time it takes to blog........ oh yeah and also have two small babies...... I dunno. Quite often when I plan to do something then I tell people, I end up never doing it so I guess I just gave these goals the Kiss of Death once again...

if anyone's got any writers procrastination cures please let me know....

ps I guess this is to explain Ill be blogging but like once every 28 years. But I'm still here!