El tagged me last week, when I was in the thick of a few things (don't try saying that five times quickly). I've finally cleared these items for release. So here we go:
What was I doing 10 years ago?
Helping with a Safety House committee, playing piano for a school choir occasionally.
Writing a romance, in a totally non-theorised litsnob kind of way, just to see how hard it could really be - and hey, it's harder than you think to write one you'd actually like to read. As I told my sister at the time, it was like completing a toile (calico or cheap fabric mock-up) for a haute couture garment and deciding, nope, this design is not really cutting the mustard, is it.
In 1998 I attended a twenty-year school reunion and realised I did not want to go around for the rest of my life telling everyone my son has autism and my life is screwed, and resolved to go back to university and try to get whatever a real job might be, so that I had something else to talk to people about. (I just realised that now, tarting up this draft. That was ten years ago. Whew.)
For that year and several following I was also trying to make sure none of us disappeared under the collective weight of autism and epilepsy, being the linchpin and main communicator with disability service providers, doctors, and three schools while my husband consolidated his career. Ten years on, we have fingers crossed - give or take more than a few glaring inadequacies in TEH SYSTEM, we seem to have broken on through to some kind of 'other side' - so far, so good, nobody's dead yet. In fact, we're 'feeling rather better' on a few fronts. Unrealistically, almost foolishly so, for the next ten years may be even busier. But at least I'm no longer terrified of the prospect of the next five minutes. (As Therese Rein has said, sometimes you just need to get through the next five minutes...)
All that said, I am looking forward to our thirty-year school reunion later this year. It's going to be a blast, and I may even turn up unfashionably half-grey, or nude. Or both. Nude reunions on Facebook - now I'd like to see that.
Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:
1. King Island Roaring Forties blue, crackers and good red wine (all ingredients are part of the snack). David, whatever you bought us at the Standard the other week was very impressive, I hope you find out what it was because I am in need of some more.
2. Lindt dark chocolate with orange in it (both kinds).
3. Left-over burgundian beef casserole, OR curry, OR veg and gravy beef stew with tomato and paprika, cold, in chunks from the fridge. (Also cold pizza. YUM.)
4. Crumpets. Usually cooked and hot, though.
5. Doughnuts shared with young nephews and nieces.
Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:
6. All of the above, but I try to eat less of them.
7. Those rosemary grissini you can get in Safeway.
8. Coffee from Atomica in Brunswick Street, Fitzroy. Or Culinaria at Brentford Square, Forest Hill, which is getting better all the time.
9. Baby carrots, celery sticks with raisins, rice crackers (getting a bit sick of them though).
10. Viognier, sauvignon blanc and semillon blends, brandy and lemonade.
Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:
1. Get a collective of billionaires on the job. Given that along with the money I have the networking skills of a media mogul, right? the world in the palm of my hand, so what am I waiting for? what are they waiting for?
2. Fix climate change with said billionaires, and make everyone promise NEVER NEVER to mess up the ecology again.
3. Buy several farms and set up cluster housing co-ops with other families with disabled children to care for. Harass all state governments to provide permanent support and staffing, as well as ongoing third party insurance to provide for supported accommodation in the future.
4. Bribe the Brumby government to change its mind about the desalination plant and recycle Melbourne's water instead. And install a fleet of cloud seeding aircraft at Ballarat and Bendigo, and put some serious scientific research and/or funding into this.
5. Buy that gorgeous creamy yellow and black schooner that's always moored at the St. Kilda marina and learn how to sail her. And blog about it.
Five jobs that I have had:
1. Shop assistant in Clark Rubber
2. Parent/ disability advocate (ongoing and permanent position)
3. Wedding singer - just the church, no opportunity to abuse the crowd there though.
Unfortunately.
4. Personal care worker
5. Cataloguer
Three of my habits:
1. Drying the skin under my rings (quite a new one actually - there are good strong ridges on both ring fingers that require attention several times a day).
2. Not putting the packaging from shopping away immediately - leaving it lying around so I can feel I have achieved something by handing over cash and carrying something home again. I think.
3. Stopping in the middle and wishing, quite abruptly sometimes, that I was somewhere else.
Five places I have lived:
1. Kingsbury, Victoria
2. Heathmont, Victoria
3. Mitcham, Victoria
4-5. Ocean Grove and Wye River (Vic.) for so many holidays that they almost qualify as two additional places.
Tagged: anyone who would like to do it :-)
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