Shakespeare in Love (Griping about Greer)

My mother sagely commented that the busier I am with work, the more I blog. Or was she politely telling me off?

Anyway, I have been having a hell of a morning, so I shall write a post to cheer myself up/vent spleen.

As I've mentioned before, Andrew loves buying me books. Some women get jewellery and flowers. I get fiction and non-fiction.

A while back, he bought me Germaine Greer's Shakespeare's Wife. I have read nine chapters and I am not going to read any more. It's essentially a defence against the prevailing view of the 'bardolators' (as Greer calls them), who assume that because Will neglected his wife, this means that Ann was an illiterate wench who trapped/seduced him into an unhappy marriage.

Fair enough. What's not fair enough, though, is that Greer rants against the academics and Bard scholars who extrapolate all sorts nonsense about his marriage from his writings, with no historical evidence to validate their positions - and then does exactly the same thing herself. The fact that Ann gave birth to live twins is suddenly proof that she was a sensible woman who ate well. WHAT?

I get the feeling this could have been (and possibly already has been) an interesting essay. Instead, it's a meticulously researched (by underlings), hashed-together polemic that I suspect only got published (and well reviewed) because Greer is Greer.

On the last page (Andrew read it, not me!), she says 'There can be no doubt that Shakespeare neglected his wife, embarrassed her and even humiliated her, but attempting to justify his behaviour by vilifying her is puerile.' Indeed it is. But on the same page, she says 'The Shakespeare wallahs have succeeded in creating a Bard in their own likeness, that is to say, incapable of relating to women ...' - so, Germaine, baseless criticism of AH is not ok, but a broad swipe at all male academics who study Shakespeare is just fine?

I read the Female Eunach when I was fifteen and it changed my view of the world. This just made me want to go and read something else.

Dazed and Confused

Sometime in the next 24-36 hours, we will know whether we've bought that horrible house. My brain is all over the place. I have a ridiculous amount of work, but every time I try to write something, I start thinking 'Should I put in a feature wall with wallpaper in our bedroom or is that SO three years ago?'. Or 'I wonder if there is hot water in the laundry?'. Or - and this is the most persistent of the thoughts - 'Oh my god, are we going to DIE in the SUBURBS?'. It's a slippery slope - Kings Cross to Bondi Beach to Lilyfield to Hunters Hill ...

Hunters Hill is as posh as can be (Cate lives there, after all). The house that may soon be ours is at the completely non-posh end.

In my house dreams, I always imagined I'd move into an oldish house - my ideal would be a small Georgian manor, but there aren't many of those around, unfortunately. I love old houses and I had lots of pictures in my mind of how I'd do one up. I never thought I'd buy a hideous post-War thing with an even more hideous 70s extension on top of it.

The Craft

I read this post with some amusement. While I love to make things (when I'm not too busy/tired/sulky/lazy), I am extremely cautious about a) wearing stuff I've made and b) going to places full of people who like to make things.

I think the message is: just because you CAN sew/knit/applique/felt/bead, etc, doesn't mean you should. Especially not all on the same garment. Or the same person, for that matter.

Which leads me to another 'craft' thing I do not understand - knitted 'washcloths'. (What are they, anyway? Are they facecloths or things you use for washing dishes?) If you have pretty or interesting yarn, make a scarf. If you have boring but serviceable yarn, make a simple cardigan or a weekend jumper. Make socks, if you must. And please, do not EVER mention knitted undergarments. I hope I don't need to explain myself.

[The Wo]Men in Black

A few weeks ago, I expressed the need to read something light and fun, after finishing My Sister, My Love, which is wrenching and funny and awful all at once. [And LONG! What is with JCO- she's an incredible writer, but sometimes I feel like she's trying to squeeze every last word out of every single scene.]

Andrew duly went out and bought me a copy of The Women in Black, by Madeleine St John. I read her novel The Essence of the Thing years ago and loved it.

It was interesting to read The Women in Black. I didn't actually think it was that marvellous (it's just been published for the first time in Australia, despite the fact that MSJ was Australian, so we get the usual over-enthusiastic reviews). It's a very slight little novel, but I did enjoy the 'dress love' scenes, especially after reading Linda Grant's The Thoughtful Dresser.

My favourite:

She was experiencing for the first time that particular species of love-at-first-sight which usually comes to a woman much earlier in her life, but which sooner or later comes to all: the sudden recognition that a particular frock is not merely pretty, would not merely suit one, but answers beyond these necessary attributes to one's deepest notions of oneself. It was her frock: it had been made, however unwittingly, for her.

The Friday Night Knitting Club

Apparently the movie of the book is in production and Julia Roberts will star. I remember a few years back when it suddenly (ha) become fashionable (really?) to knit, and she was one of the stars who fessed up to being a knitter. I just can't see it, somehow. I haven't read the book either.

Anyway, I seem to have lost my knitting mojo. Actually, all of my making mojo. I haven't even been doing much interesting cooking, and I'm feeling a little unproductive and frustrated.

Weekends are usually my time to cook long, slow meals or try new things, but the weekend just gone was marred by WORK. Friday night one of my clients had a potential crisis that required me to churn out a load of 'communications' ... just in case. The crisis was apparently averted, but my Friday night was ruined nevertheless. No knitting.

And another client rang me on Friday and said 'hey, you busy this weekend?'. Funnily enough, I could tell she wasn't about to ask me to a party. So I sulked most of Saturday, knowing I would have to work on Sunday. Why didn't I work Saturday and enjoy Sunday? Good question. I think after Friday night I felt like some downtime, but it was A Bad Idea.

Australia

Phoebe has been at a drama/horse-riding camp for four days this week, the lucky creature. Her unlucky mother has wasted three hours per day on the driving back and forth. Grit teeth. Think of child. I love how these camps are supposed to relieve the working parent of the burden of children at home on school holidays, but actually do nothing of the sort. If she'd been home, I could have said 'sure, watch telly, eat peanut butter sandwiches till you're sick, I'm in the office if you need me'. Instead I drove and drove and drove. And paid ridiculously for the privilege.


Last weekend we drove down to Our Nation's Capital (thus lazy blog title) and Andrew ran the marathon. Sadly, he didn't make his goal of a sub-3hr, but he did run a PB and we were very proud of him. He hasn't bought a photo yet, but I think he's going to choose this one, with Parliament House in the background.

I don't run but I feel like I SHOULD. I was reading one of my preferred blogs where there was some talk of running and motivation, and it made me WISH for motivation. Surely wishing is the first step? Fact is, I am lazy and asthmatic, which makes running doubly challenging. At least I made it to yoga today, where my teacher was almost nice to me.

The Naked Lunch

Sometimes writing is a bloody horrible way to make a living. Did I say 'sometimes'?

I am working on something that I thought I could crank out in an hour or so. I started at 9am, once I'd made crepes for the swarm of children who are in my house, and had three doses of caffeine myself, and run out of excuses for avoiding the studio. It's now 11.30am, and I've barely made a dent in it.

And, of course, it's a beautiful autumn day and I'd much rather be, um, doing anything at all. Or nothing at all.

The more I look at this job, the less I care.

Maybe if I eat lunch early I will be re-energised.

Boogie Nights

Today I took a look inside the house I posted about.

Goodness me, the 70s was a different era, wasn't it? The house, which is not especially large (unless compared to our current box), has two bars - one on each level. You know, in case you need to entertain but walking downstairs is Just Too Hard.

But the piece de resistance for me, the bit I completely fell in love with, was the black and white funky/graphic wallpaper inside one wardrobe. It took me a moment to realise that the images were topless women. I'd love to see if I could find a similar image, but I'm afraid of Googling anything with 'topless women' in it.

PS. WOW. I just Googled 70s wallpaper and HERE IT IS. Seriously, this is THE wallpaper. Oh my lord.

Running a close second were the saloon doors separating the upstairs bar from the rest of the rumpus floor ... It's not often you find saloon doors in a house these days.

As the agent said to me 'You'd need to have at least one 70s themed party before you redecorated'. Who knew I'd ever agree with someone who was born in the 80s ...

Bride of Frankenstein

So there I was at the plastic surgeon this morning, having things cut out of my face. I now look like I have flies stuck on my face randomly - stitches. Ick, I know. But not nearly as ick as the admin staff. They are all women of a certain age (which ALWAYS means older than oneself, of course), all with snooty accents and a patronising manner. But even worse, they have all had 'work' (as you do when you work in one of these places, since you get it cheap).

It's not the fact of the work that bothers me, really - it's that they've all had the currently fashionable 'filling' stuff done, and they all look slightly bloated, a little simian around the lower face. Perhaps if it had just been one of them, I wouldn't have noticed, but as I sat waiting, I observed three of them, all with the same odd effect. Did they look 'younger'? No. Did they look 'fresher'? No. Did they look 'better'? Not to me. Obviously you need Madonna's plastic surgeon to get the good version.

By the way, this is the least scary picture of JW that I could find.

On the Waterfront

We want to buy this house. It is stonkingly ugly, but it's in an amazing street, right on the edge of a national park, with a big garden ... Of course we can't afford it. It's not actually a waterfront at all, but the park it looks onto is on the water, so Andrew claims it IS a waterfront.

We also looked at this place - beautiful, dilapidated and the victim of a truly terrible subdivision.

The Wedding Singer

Ha ha. Just joking. There was no wedding singer. But it was a lovely wedding. (Isn't her dress fab? Mel wore a white one for the ceremony and this gorgeous red and pink Akira for the reception.) I did have to speak, which I was dreading, but apparently I did ok.

My Best Friend's Wedding

I am quite aware that it would be impossible to walk in these shoes. But aren't they amazing? I think I read a comment from someone, somewhere, saying that they'd put them on a shelf to display instead of wearing them (if they could afford them, which is another matter altogether).

I have realised that my interest in clothes and shoes is entirely seasonal. I hate summer fashion, being a pale-skinned, freckly person who doesn't look good in shorts and has an allergy to summer frocks. Winter is another matter altogether. Boots, scarves, hats, trousers, woollen things and darker colours ... all good.


And now I have to take that all back because I bought a very green, very 'spring-ish' dress at Akira last week, to wear to my friend Phil's wedding. It's the same fabric as this dress, but it's just a plain sleeveless shift, without the sculptural stuff at the top. To cover my tuckshop lady arms, I shall wear a vintage lace jacket that belonged to Andrew's grandmother.