Aw.

Good to know my sword gets along with someone.

AUGH.

I am *cranky*. I just had 3 1/2 hours of belly dancing, in which I was spectacularly useless and injured myself besides. The first 90 minutes was rehearsing my new sword piece, which is both my first solo and my first sword anything, and &?@*%#!!!. Last week we did the first half of the choreo, and my sword work was fine but the rest of my body was having the day off (to the point that my very, very supportive teacher could muster little more than, 'um... I'm sure you'll be fine'). This week we finished the choreo, and my body was more or less behaving but the sword didn't want a fucking bar of it. It would not stay anywhere I put it, and I ended up dancing the entire second half with my hand on the hilt EVERY TIME I RAN IT THROUGH. FOR 90 EFFING MINUTES. Oh, and it went crashing to the floor at one point - which it has never done before - and caught me hard on the wrist, right on a nerve, so I had some really fun tingling all through my thumb and will have a whacking great bruise there tomorrow.

And then, as if that wasn't enough, I had another rehearsal right after with the troupe, wherein we were learning a new drum solo. Except it wasn't new to me, as I did it for six weeks in Zehara's class (which is separate from the troupe) a few months ago. But do you think I could get a fucking step right? No. No I could not. By the end, Zehara was openly laughing at me and telling the rest of the girls about how I'd cussed my way through my first lesson with her. Which, I had to laugh too - it was pretty funny - but it was dead clear that she'd just given up on me tonight. I was not to be helped, so she'd written me a pass. But honestly, I was just... I don't even know how to spell the sound, you guys. And I'm performing both of these songs A WEEK FROM SUNDAY.

I need to lie down.

XOXO

Yippee!!

I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job! I got a job!

I'm a little bit excited.

Few of you who read this will have had the chance to meet Roseanna Fernandes, so you'll have to take my word when I tell you how loved she was. She was endlessly kind and generous, even to - or especially to - awkward high schoolers who got in the way by hanging around Room 012 at every possible opportunity. She was a rare and special person, and as good a role model and friend as I or any student could have hoped for; she will be sorely, sorely missed.

She is also the reason I still love gospel music despite all of my objections to religion. In that spirit, then, please take a moment to listen (ignoring the Franglais) and raise a glass to the memory of Mrs. Fernandes. She was one of the good ones.

XOXO

I read the news today, oh fuck...

So Julia 'The Icewoman Cometh' Gillard is PM.

This is a tricky thing to take in. It got dropped on me this morning while listening to NPR on the way to work, and I reeled. I'd only checked the ABC News website not 48 hours before and there'd been no hint that this was in the offing; now all of a sudden Australian's got it's first HBIC and I'm torn between feeling thrilled to the core that a woman - a competent, intelligent, effective woman (i.e., Bishop, Hanson and Palin: not you) - is running things; impressed by her ability to make such a tough choice and act on it quickly and successfully; and absolutely effing terrified that Labor has just handed this year's election to Tony Abbott. I've thought long and hard about this, and I believe that I would rather see John Howard back in power than Tony Abbott. That's how much I fear that lunatic.

This morning I read a piece by Annabel Crabb that said that while Rudd was popular with the electorate, he was never much liked by other politicians, and when his public rating started to slip there were very few people left to catch him. Gillard is, by all accounts that I read/heard, very popular with and well-respected by other pols; however, I'm worried that she's not nearly as well-liked by the public, and they're the ones who'll be deciding if she keeps the job. The problem is, while Gillard is smart and experienced and a hell of a politician, she's also a bit of a cold fish (Josh Thomas memorably referred to her as the Queen of Narnia), a fact that will count against her even more because she's a woman. She's not soft, she's not maternal, and she's not a sex object; she's the boss that the men refer to as a ballbuster because she got further than they did and doesn't put up with blokey bullshit. She can't be accused of having slept her way to the top, so she must have castrated her way there instead.

And she's a ranga besides.

I didn't mean for this to turn into a feminist dialectic. And let me make myself perfectly clear: if allowed to govern, Julia Gillard will be excellent; I do not doubt that for a moment. I'm just not at all sure she'll be allowed to govern.

What's killing me on a personal level is that I had no idea this was in the offing. Even with all my reading I can't get a feel for the timeframe of the whole thing, apart from 'really fucking quick', but I can't help but think that if I were there I would have had some inkling, some insight that things were afoot. And if I didn't, if it had been the shock to me there that it was here, I'd have rung Anthony and Paul and Alison and Hamish and Nikki and Michelle and Amanda and Emily and Stuart and we'd have sat around with our soda waters and beers and Long Island iced teas and absinthe and talked and talked and talked until I felt like I had some grasp on it, like I knew what to think. I feel very, very far from home at this moment.

XOXO

My Beach Holiday

So the Cape was brilliant, and exactly what I needed. The sun, the sand, the salt water... all of these things work wonders on me, they always have. And it was reassuring to learn that I could love Atlantic Ocean beaches too, and that the sun here is strong enough to tan me.

But it was more than that. One finds guidance in the oddest places, and this weekend I found mine on the $1 shelf of a used bookshop, in the form of a book of poems by one of the greatest dramatic talents of our generation, Ally Sheedy. Yes, that Ally Sheedy. Bet you didn't know she was a poet. And that's because she bloody well isn't. This book contains some of the worst attempts at writing that I have ever seen, and I include my own high school journals in that statement.

It has long been observed that nothing bonds people like adversity, and it was in that spirit that six of us came together in the wee hours of Saturday morning, fueled by the finest Ireland has to offer (Barry's tea and Bushmill's whiskey), to share Ms Sheedy's efforts in the only way that could possibly do them justice. You are all in my heart and my nightmares forever, and if you bastards weren't all leaving the country so soon I'd say we should make a habit of it. As it is, we must console ourselves with becoming Internet Phenomena.

XOXO

P.S. Thanks, Oscar! I'll pick you out a really good rock.

Thanks, Internet!

With respect to Mary from Junee (R.I.P.), it's been a bit of a sea hunt of a week. I have a couple of things I'm keen to write about but I haven't had the energy and tomorrow I'm off to Provincetown, gay capital of the Atlantic coast, for what is unlikely to be an at-all-wild weekend. But I wanted to leave you with something I've been promising you for a while, so....

Go here. And no one gets to make fun of my getting the giggles.

XOXO

Eurovision 2010: Vhat Are You Doing?

Oy. It's been far too long, and I know it. But things have been happening, and by 'things' I mean EUROVISION!!!!1!!!111!!!!

I drafted Caitlin to join me (for her first Eurovision!) in front of my laptop for the archived SBS feed. I had hoped to LiveBlog it but I didn't get my ish together in time, so I took copious notes of our conversation. Here's the best of our discussions of gender confusion, Serial Pests and my travel plans for the arse end of Europe, complete with links to the performances should you want to relive the magic. Strap in, kids!

*****

Azerbaijan: Julia Zemiro kicks off by noting that Safura has 'a touch of the Holly Valances about her'. I have to agree, and am bothered by the fact that this is the third reference to Holly Valance I've made or heard in a week. Safura is one of the favourites but pulled a shitty position, so I reckon she's out from the word go. Mind you, she may also have been overrated: Caitlin and I are alarmed to learn that they got Beyoncé's choreographer from the 'Single Ladies' video, to no obvious end. Surely Azerbaijan has other things it needs to spending money on right now.

Elena: 'Lots of stair work.'

Caitlin: 'Maybe he wasn't working with a Beyoncé-calibre talent.'

Spain: Daniel Diges and his hair decided on a Leo Sayer look for the event, resplendent in what may be the shiniest suit of the evening. The rest of the performers are wearing wacky circus costumes, possibly to try to normalise Daniel's hair.

And then, quel scandal! A crasher! Mind you, it takes everyone a sec to work out what happened because the random guy is no weirder than anything else that's currently happening on the stage. An excellent side-effect of the invasion was that when the Jonah Hill to Daniel's Seth Rogen appeared a few moments later as a back-up singer, there was audible wondering about whether or not he too was a Serial Pest.

Norway: Didrik Solli-Tangen has the unenviable task of representing the host nation. General consensus is that he's not up to the standards of last year's prize-winning Norwegian, which is... harsh, really. Caitlin notes that the performers must be able to tell which camera has the feed at any given time, because they seem to be able to turn to face the correct one with an almost uncanny accuracy.

Elena: 'He has the cold, dead eyes of a killer.'

Caitlin: 'He must have put some kind of spell on [the camera operators] with those cold, dead eyes.'

Moldova: Sunstroke Project and Olia Tira are channelling several different '80s moments, with various degrees of success. The saxophone player has made a particularly fine effort, coming off as a natty cross between Miami Vice and That Guy From Madness.

Caitlin: 'I couldn't work out what the fuck a "saxOFFonist" was.'

Cyprus: Jon Lillygreen and the Islanders are my favourite story of this year's event: they're a Welsh band who were - unbeknownst to the band themselves - entered into the Cypriot Eurovision competition. And won. That'll teach us all to underestimate the Welsh/Cypriot powerbloc.

Caitlin: 'His haircut makes me a little uncomfortable.'

Elena: 'I keep thinking he's going to say "slapped me in the crotch".'

Bosnia & Herzegovina: In preparing Caitlin for the Eurovision experience, I told her that the Eastern European countries tend to send us either insane trashtastic doof-doof with big hair and small costumes or maudlin love-as-a-metaphor-for-cross-border-conflict Guitar Numbers, depending on where they currently fall in the war/peace cycle. Vukasin Brajic took the second option, dressed it up in 'Les Miserables' outfits, and crapped it out on an international stage. Cheers, Vukasin. Good on ya.

Caitlin: 'You see, it's about a couple reconciling after a fight? But it's ALSO about ethnic groups reconciling after a war. You see? LEVELS.'

SBS Break/Interstitial 1: As we start playing the second file, the video ident information pops up on the screen. Caitlin, unaccustomed to the high quality of Australian tele, murmurs, 'Wow, you're really showing us how the sausage is made.'

Belgium: Tom Dice, the Belgian Ben Lee. He was... pleasant. Short-panted.

Elena: 'Come on, Oslo! Rock out with me in a very cute, non-threatening, acoustic way!'

Caitlin: 'Why is everyone wearing vests? I mean, they're all very distinct vests....'

Elena: 'I feel like there's a bow-tie there, but there isn't.'

Caitlin: 'There's a suggestion of a bow-tie. An implied bow-tie.'

Serbia: Milan Stakovic trained as a doctor, but gave that up for... this. He's been heavily profiled in the lead-up, but seemingly less for his song than for his hair. His hair is... oh, words fail me. Just watch the video. Keep an eye on his very committed dancers too.

Caitlin: 'Oh, it's that guy... guy? Hey, it's that ladyman!'

Elena: 'It's like a mullet, without the party anywhere.'

Belarus: 3 + 2 is made up of the top five finalists in Belarus Idol (three women, two men). Caitlin and I tried to work out who was the winner, but resigned, baffled. The song was called 'Butterflies', and the costume reveal associated with it shocked exactly no one. It would have been better if the wings came out of the guys' suits instead of the girls' dresses, but whatever. This song is going nowhere, wings or no.

Caitlin: 'That guy at the piano has Metal Hair and an embroidered coat!'

Elena: 'That's a guy?'

Caitlin: 'Yeah... he has a beard.'

Ireland: Niamh Kavanagh performed at Eurovision during Ireland's heydey of the '90s. I don't remember if she won her year, but it doesn't matter: she's not winning this year. She's elegant and has a great voice, and it's a classy arrangement: she has brought a lovely, antique silver table knife to a gun fight. Mind you, she also brought a wind machine, so she's not entirely immune to the excesses of the night.

Elena: 'Those are some huge hands on that lady.'

Caitlin: 'And by "lady", we mean "guy".'

Greece: Giorgos Alkaios & Friends bring us the first big get-up-and-dance song of the night, a cheery little number called 'Opa!' Because here at Eurovision, we deal exclusively in national stereotypes. I'm amazed they weren't breaking plates on stage. Still, there's no denying that it's good fun, and definitely my favourite so far.

Elena: 'Every one of those back-up dancers is named Nico.'

U.K.: Josh Dubovie is cursed with performing this year's U.K. entry. There was lots of hope as it was penned by Stock and Waterman of the famous Stock Aitken Waterman collective who wrote pretty much every English #1 of the mid-'80s; unfortunately, 'It Sure Sounds Good to Me' only proves that the U.K. has cornered the international market on irony, and that Aitken was the one with all the talent. Josh wasn't helped by the back-up singers, at least one of whom was so glaringly out of key that large portions of the song were painful to listen to, or by the choreography, which involved a staircase with semi-clothed male and female dancers posing on it while Josh flounced by.

Caitlin: 'What is that dance, "Last Night at the Gay Bar"?'

Elena: '"I'm just going to keep walking, ladies. Clearly, I'm not interested in you."'

SBS Break/Interstitial 2: Julia Zemiro is talking with Giorgos & his Friends. Caitlin: 'I bet they'd be fun to go drinking with.'

Georgia: Sofia Nizharadze's performance is completely unmemorable, apart from the back-up dancers who make Josh Dubovie look like the manliest man who ever manned.

Elena: 'The Gayest Sailors in the Navy!'

Caitlin: 'The Spray-Tannedest Sailors in the Navy!... Oh, and there's the wink!' [She's learning fast, folks.]

Turkey: Turkey usually goes with a dyed-blonde trashy pop tart type who fake-belly-dances (from a country full of actual belly dancers), so I'm surprised to see maNga, a group who appears to be My Chemical Romance having a good time. There's lots of vinyl and a slightly terrifying gimp-robot-stripper girl and some very Matrix-lite visuals, but overall I come down in favour of it.

Elena: 'What does "how different you are" have to do with "dancing like a star"? And am I overthinking this?'

Caitlin: '...It's possible.'

Albania: I have to say, I really thought Albania was in with a chance with this one: good production values; catchy electropop song that showed a surprising awareness of modern music trends; attractive vocalist trained at the Allison Goldfrapp Academy of Singing That Way She Does. I am particularly hopeful because I believe that an Albanian-hosted Eurovision would be a very, very special thing indeed. I mention that seeing Eurovision in person is one of my dreams, and Caitlin suggests that I go the year that Albania hosts. It is decided.

Caitlin: 'Ooh, he has Depeche Mode hair.'

Iceland: Julia Zemiro has a bit of a thing for Miss Hera Bjork (it's like Smith over there), a majestic figure in an unflattering burgundy tent. She certainly has an excellent voice, and in any other year this song would have been a gimme but it didn't fit the mood this time. Nevertheless, I confidently predict that it'll be a big hit in the gay clubs of Europe this summer, and Hera will be the Martha Wash of GlacierLand.

Elena: 'Sorry, I was just instinctively reaching for the lasers.'

Ukraine: We stop talking about Iceland just long enough to note that the singer looks naked.

France: I love it! Zemiro hates it, which makes me love it more! I'm convinced that if this had been in English it would have won handily, but France always makes a deal of asserting French as one of the Official Languages of Eurovision, so no way that was going to happen.

Elena: 'Hey, black folks! There's a thought!'

Romania: Paula Seling & Ovi are giving us an extravagant performance featuring a clear Lucite double-piano, except that it's more like two Casios. Because all of Romania's money went into Paula's outfit.

Elena: 'You and me, can't you see we're playing with camel toe!'

Caitlin: 'I like how many of these have the classic Soul, Girl-Group back-up singers.'

Russia: Peter Nalitch & Friends have the following exchange:

'Vhat are you doing?'

'I am looking at her photo.' [except that it's a bad pencil sketch]

'Throw it into the fire!'

I cannot improve upon that.

Caitlin: 'Oh, it's the Scarf Guy!'

Elena: 'Ah, and there's some excellent prop action. In addition to The Scarf, I mean.'

Armenia: Eva Rivas presents a tribute to Armenia called 'Apricot Stone' - apparently apricots are the symbol of Armenia? I don't know. It's quite a production. Caitlin notes that there's an entire village on stage with her, including a cistern and an old man sitting on a boulder. Eva also entreats us to 'keep [her] cherished fruit', which just sounds dirty.

Caitlin: 'She's the lost Kardashian sister!'

Germany: Oy, this fucking song. Lena is apparently the favourite, but god almighty this is awful... though I will admit that if she didn't have that weird, Missy Higgins-ish pronunciation thing I might like it. It's certainly catchy as hell, but the lyrics are awful and her affected Cockney accent is even more annoying that you'd think.

Elena: 'Oi deed it jahst thee othah dae!'

Caitlin: 'She's taking the Eliza Doolittle approach.'

Elena: 'That's not how Germans speak English.'

Caitlin: 'No, no it is not.'

Portugal: I take Sam Pang's suggestion and made tea.

Israel: Another fucking power ballad - this time with phlegm. Now we drink tea.

Denmark: It's a duet, there's an opaque glass screen, it's all been going on too long.

Elena: '"Nevergreen and Sharnay"? Is that what they said?'

Caitlin: 'Sounds like it.'

Elena: 'Ah, excuse me: it's Chanée and n'evergreen. N-apostrophe.'

Caitlin: 'Oh, it's a contraction.'

Caitlin: 'That's a rough haircut that guy has.'

Elena: 'That's true. Mind you, that's a horrible weave she's got.'

Caitlin: 'Oh, I've seen way worse weaves than that. You clearly don't watch much "America's Next Top Model".'

I'm not recapping Spain's second performance. It was better with the Serial Pest. I will say that I loved Norway's interval acts, with the groups all over Europe doing the dance. It was surprisingly affecting. I love the idea of all of these strangers having a big goofy dance together across the continent. Not to get all highfalutin', but I reckon we could do with more of that sort of thing.

Voting, random comments:

Caitlin, on the introduction of Svante Stockselius: 'The Man. The Myth. The Executive.'

Svante: 'Nadia, let the excitement begin!'

Elena: 'Because it sure as hell ain't starting with me!'

Elena: 'I might move to Portugal.'

Caitlin: 'Yeah, Portugal? Why?'

Elena: 'I don't know. They seem like nice people. And they have a good way with a sausage.'

Caitlin: 'Switzerland's neutral - their points can go anywhere!'

Elena: 'They're storing them in a Nazi vault.'

Thoughts on the winner, Lena (Germany):

Caitlin: 'She's very off-putting.'

Elena: 'Why the hell is she talking! Stop her talking! STOP!!'

*****

So, there you have it. As is usual with Eurovision, it ended not with a bang, but with a whimper emitted by a nitwit. Thanks for indulging me, and a big, big thank you to Caitlin for going on this journey with me. I will never throw you into the fire.

XOXO