Children Die In Hot Cars. So Do Sandwiches.

Picnics don't exist. Now, before you go all jazz hands and I wake up one morning with a shredded tartan throw in my bed what I mean is they don't exist in the sort of idyllic Norman Rockwell, Sense & Sensibility way. For one, there are insects, ants and bees mostly. And wasps. Don't think there won't be wasps. Secondly, something they neglect to mention in their vivid depictions of breezy luncheons is fields, or any expansive grassed area, are nearly always muddy - moisture being prerequisite for grass. A blanket in a field is not entirely dissimilar from the skin that forms on the top of a Latte or that crust on the top of the sewage trap on a dairy farm (for two universal analogies). Plus there's a high probability of an arctic wind - the kind that gets deep into the bones. In fact, for regular, down-home country people the difference between picnicking and being a tramp is blankets. And bindles. And I'd rather give both to an actual homeless person than participate in one of these alfresco shams.

I have no doubt that in Austen's time picnics were probably quite nice. Not having to prepare and transport food yourself would make for quite the leisurely afternoon of flattering young ladies with tales of derring-do or, if you're an old woman, planning your daughter-based pyramid scheme. But in her day people had grounds and people had people to tend those grounds - "grounds people" I believe they're called - who could search out a few square feet of unsodden terrain for brunching on. It's funny that those who had grounds had no jobs and people that didn't were actively employed. Hahaha.

Maybe my experience is not everybody's experience. Maybe my antipathy towards outdoor lunching stems from teenage trauma - if acute boredom can be deemed traumatic.

I was seventeen when I attended my first and only non-compulsory picnic. Someone had the idea for the picnic - probably me as I had just read Washington Square and imagined myself as one of its characters (possibly Catherine)

We decided to be classy. This meant beer in bottles rather than the canned variety. And with seventeen-year-olds being famous for their sommelier abilities; there was wine. Two bottles of pink fizz and a cask of the fruitiest of Lexias - which having travelled in the back sill of the car was as tongue-blistering as it was tannin-heavy. Being the designated driver, which I must say was news to me at time, of course meant basically no drinking (one already hot beer nursed for hours somehow makes you more sober). And when you're not drinking your sloshed friends can be incredibly boring.

The highlight of the day was when my good friend John*, cigarette in one hand chicken wing in the other jokingly calling another picnicker a "cock" over his shoulder as he relieved himself, only to have said cock shove him forward so he got piss all down himself. He spent the remainder to the afternoon pointing his crotch in the direction of the sun and demanding new pants.

The Observer Effect, in science, is the theory that you can't measure the outcome of an experiment without changing the outcome. Maybe that's the same with picnics: planning a picnic spoils the picnic.   

Oh and as we were packing up Sally* got stung by a wasp. I guess that's the real moral of the story: DON'T THINK THERE WON'T BE WASPS.


*: Names changed to protect the urine-encrusted and throbbing

Lying Liars & Labels

I have Muscular Dystrophy. Specifically the Becker variant. I was diagnosed at the age of four and being a degenerative, muscle-wasting disease my body got progressively worse until seven years ago, at the age of 21, I ended up in a wheelchair. There were years of tears and anger and frustration and bullying in between. I didn't realize this at the time, but it also quite likely that I had depression.

When I joined Twitter in August of 2009 (!!) I decided to keep this a secret. "Decided" isn't right - I convinced myself I didn't need to mention it. That it didn't matter. It was a choice. And one made of fear. Fear of not being taken seriously. Fear of being talked over; of having my opinions discounted. Fear of being bullied; of being called a retard; of being excluded; of being ignored; of being alone. I couldn't hide in real life no matter how desperately I tried. But on Twitter, and online in general, I could and like a coward, I did. And it was easy. For a while.

Had I been a different person this mightn't have weighed on me as it has. I lied - and secrets are lies - because I was scared. But I was also ashamed of being afraid. And of being dishonest. It was a lie told to keep from feeling alone and one that had the opposite effect. The more online interactions, the more friends - and they are friends - the lonelier I felt. Keeping part of myself hidden from view made friendships seem false. I felt worthless. Trying to be not me hadn't worked offline and, obviously (now), nor does it online.

Six months ago I seriously considered deleting my account. Rather than own up to (or worse be found out) a lie that's making me lonely, I'd disengage from everyone and be completely, properly alone. It seemed only fair. To me, these relationships were attained feloniously, I didn't deserve them; I was willing to cut off my nose to spite my face. I don't what changed my mind. Maybe it was that people in my Twitter periphery were speaking up even though they were afraid (#1reasonwhy and others). Maybe I was just tired of it. I spasmodically sent out a few vague tweets here and there in a craven attempt at testing the waters, hoping someone would ask me and I could be open. But mostly this is for selfish reasons. I don't want to feel like a liar anymore. I don't want to be a liar anymore. I'm fucking tired.


* * * * *

A vegetarian is vegetarian. A feminist is a feminist. A Greek is a Greek. They are not “People with Mediterranean Needs” -try saying that at the local bouzouki disco and you're likely to get a face full of moussaka and not in a good way. How good is moussaka by the way? I don't know, never had it. But then, I'm an incredible racist. That is a joke. Some of my best friends are sweaty Greeks.

Some time in the last fifteen years or so the tweedy boffins at the political correctness lobby decided “disabled” was exceedingly offensive and the suffix “with disabilities: was preferable. Personhood First became the mantra. People apparently had to be reminded that the disabled were people as opposed to, say, umbrellas or marmosets. Excuse me. My personhood was never in question -My manhood, on the other hand, is questioned with impunity, particularly when I'm watching Bunheads. To imply my personhood is anything other than obvious is downright offensive.

You only have to look at Monday night's QandA Education Special to see what a cack-handed approach "personhood first" is in practice. A question was asked about disabled students. Both men, but particularly Garrett, though that's probably because he spoke more, struggled with what descriptor to use to refer to the students. Disabled fits -the students are not only disabled by their disabilities but are also disabled by an under-funded, under-resourced education system. Personhood First lays the responsibility at the feet of the disabled - "with disabilities" implies ownership - instead of at the feet of society.

I'm sure this sounds incongruous given the above but I'm nothing if not a hypocrite. What I would say is "Disabled" is not, to my mind, offensive. The stigma associated with it is. You don't fight stigma by locking words away. And you definitely don't fight it by throwing a minority's humanity out with the political incorrect bath water.

States Of Play

I was just about to start high school when the men came to cut down the tree. I say tree, it was in fact a Pampas Grass - a big grassy clump that looks like an oversized version of beloved children's book character, Grug. The Pampas had been declared a noxious weed and therefore, illegal. It had to be removed immediately, lest it poison us. At this point the plant had been in the family nineteen years and had never poisoned us. Not even a little. Not a single hospitalization. So in mid-February the guys came in their council t-shirts and tiny shorts and they dug and chopped and swore until the plant was gone.

A few weeks later when school started I began taking the bus. The bus would snake through my little town before crossing the river into Victoria -I lived in New South Wales but for proximity reasons went to high school in Victoria- and there, passing by the bus window, I'd see it. Pampas grass proudly adorning every other lawn. Pampas being legal south of the border. Now, I was never particularly enamoured with our limp Grug-corpse of a plant, but this was a virtual Pampas forest and I admit I swelled with Pampas envy.

Living on the border meant this wasn't the first time I felt the tyranny of the state system. Give three examples, you say?

A) As a teenager I'd spend sun-burnt summers with the Victorian kids lording it over me by dashing about on the wet concrete that surrounded their unfenced pools. New South Wales' pools, by law, had to be fenced and were usually padlocked. This of course meant precious swimming time wasted looking for the key which would always be found on the wrong side of the fence, the most gazelle-like boy would have to retrieve it by jumping the fence.

2) Or the annual spending of an entire Saturday waiting with my father at a dank Mechanics while the family car was subjected to a road worthiness exam, which only had to be done once on the other side of the river, and then on Monday morning at school being regaled with tales of Victorian fathers taking their kids to the seldom open Karate and Go-Karting Centre. I wanted to drop kick them into the tyre wall.

III) Say you would like to register a caravan. Go on, say it, it's fun. In Vic it's simple. That'll be two hundred bucks, have a nice day. Awesome outfit by the way. In New South - we call it that for brevity, adding 'Wales' takes valuable time that could be better used gambling or watching Rugby or whatever is stereotypically New South - it's a baffling ordeal. That'll be five hundred thousand dollars -half in Italian Lira and half in uncut diamonds (they'd better be Congolese, none of that Liberian nonsense) and watch the attitude mister. 

This brings me to my point (no, really): We should abolish the states. Dismantle them. A prohibition on states. Yes, there's a chance prohibition will lead to back alley 'State Easys' -underground clubs where corrupt City Treasurer Steve Buscemi sells bootleg... Nope, not even prohibition can make the states seem interesting or necessary.

And what real purpose do the states serve? I mean apart from those terribly un-hilarious bets the Premiers make where the loser has to wear the others' football jersey. And nobody likes those.

People understandably like having a local face in charge of things. It provides some small comfort. This would be fine if they were seen to be doing things. But they aren't. I've only seen O'Farrell literally once this year. He made a Craig Thomson joke that's overall terribleness was doubly embarrassing considering the time he, quite clearly, has on his hands which could be used to polish jokes into a state approaching mirth. At least the previous Labor government seemed busy. There's only 24 hours in a day in which to be corrupt and, by Jove, they got on with it. However, if the only good thing you can say about your state government is that they were efficient in their corruption you've got yourself, as Schwarzenegger would try to say, True Lies a Raw Deal.

And Victoria is no different - if you thought Brumby and Co. were time thieves you should check out a list of Baillieu's achievements. Go on, it won't take long.

This past week the Federal Government decided to undo their Victorian health funding cuts. But they did so by giving funding directly to hospitals and Baillieu was all like, "Whoa! Can they do that? I can't believe they did that!" It's a novel idea, giving money directly to those who need it but, yes, they can do that. The states' one real purpose was service delivery and in one fell swoop the Gillard government has seemingly made the states unnecessary*

Of course, there are other, better reasons to dismantle the states than those mentioned here. Hell, Katter has argued for more states and, as we know, holding the contrary position to Bob is always the most reasonable course of action.

So how do we proceed? Well, the Federal Government working directly with local Councils seems to be the preferred model. Sure, giving more power to local councils seems foolhardy given they seem to model themselves on the Swiss during the war (You feel better on Swiss. Mostly because of the piles of Nazi gold). But then, when they inevitably screw the pooch you can, at least, turn up at their doorstep, glove at the ready, and demand satisfaction.


*: hyperbowl