Opportunity

My hometown is Castlemaine. Not "Carstle-maine". It's "Cassle-maine" thank you very much. For some, it's a home to hipster Melbourne-bred tree-changers, a thriving arts scene, or Broadsheet-featured Johnny Baker - the destination patisserie. For locals, it might be Saffs, Lot 19, or The Little IGA. Definitely the generational trauma of the death of the Stonemans cat. For me, a girl who lived on a hippy hobby farm hidden between sheep paddocks out past Newstead, Castlemaine became my spiritual hometown. My Newstead Primary School friends headed west to the private school in Maryborough, and I went east in a quest for new friends and a public education. 

Now when the country calls me home, Castlemaine still feels just the same. It doesn't matter that I don't recognise anyone strolling along Mostyn Street's goldrush-era shopfronts. Or that the Country Target my mum fainted in after a blood donation is now a "K-Hub", it's still all so warmly familiar. Its old-timey cannons in Victory Park (obligatory in every regional country town for some reason). The grand steps of the market building. Cosy homewares displayed in the windows of Taylor's. Two competing fish and chip shops barely three shopfronts apart. The cool shade of the enormous Indian bean tree in the Botanic Gardens. 

So much has just carried on for all these years. 

One that has carried on for longer than all of us is the Theatre Royal. Standing grandly on Hargraves Street since 1854, the theatre has been a stately and solid feature of Castlemaine's cultural scene. It is the oldest continually-operating theatre on the Australian mainland, a source of great pride to the town. 

Aside from being a noble home to arthouse theatre and live gigs, the Theatre Royal was the venue for our first movies (The Lion King), first dates (Ned Kelly) and first kisses (see also Ned Kelly. My date: 1 star, Orlando Bloom: 5 stars). It's where my mum cried watching Babe when the duck's girlfriend got served up for Christmas dinner. It's where my dad took me to an Australian film about a country girl leaving her farm and moving to the city, special because it's really my only memory of doing something just the two of us. 

I saw one of my very favourite films - the cinematic classic (and personal inspiration) - Legally Blonde. It randomly stopped about 10 minutes in, while the person in the projector room scrambled to get Elle back onscreen. Our school treated our Year 12 cohort to a screening of the film adaptation of the Italian novel I'm Not Scared by Nicolo Ammaniti. My friend and fellow Lord of the Rings nerd, Annie and I went to a double feature of The Fellowship of the Ring and The Two Towers. Luckily we were seated on comfy couches on the ground floor, below the usual creaky and stiff red leather theatre seats on the balcony.

Most notably, the Theatre Royal was home to our formals. My first one was as a starry-eyed Year 9 attending the senior formal with a Year 10 boyfriend, in a blink-and-you-missed-it terrible high school romance. I borrowed my bestie's sister's dress, and still remember feeling self-conscious as my hips had made a sudden appearance and I hadn't quite grown into them yet. I didn't even know how to dance and sat awkwardly for much of the night. (Note to the reader - this was before the introduction of a very well-played CD of The Killers' 2004 masterpiece Hot Fuss, the album that taught me to dance). My boyfriend pulled me up to dance to Sexyback by Justin Timberlake, which in my defence has a pretty weird rhythm, and I embarrassed myself enough to be encouraged to sit back down for the next one. 

Our high school years flitted by and before I was really ready for it, 2006 brought us our last year at Castlemaine Secondary College, and with it, our final formal at the Theatre Royal. There were no dates for this one, just the easy companionship of best friends as we curled hair, layered mascara, and spritzed ourselves with lashings of Paris Hilton's signature perfume. As we arrived at the theatre it felt significant. There was a palpable shift in the way we saw ourselves, as we began to wonder what was next. This girl gang, nearly young women, was shaking off high school politics, ready to step out into the possibilities of our own lives. 

Out on the dancefloor, the class of 2006 was serenaded by a Year 11 kid, whose name I'm quite sure was Dave, singing Pete Murray's Opportunity. 

Hold on now, your exit's here

It's waiting just for you

Don't pause too long

It's fading now

It's ending all too soon, you'll see

For my entire life, I have always been so acutely aware of the sensation of time slipping between my fingers. It is a blessing, to deeply appreciate all the beautiful moments, but has also given me a life saturated by nostalgia, tinged with a sadness for those moments as they pass into memory. It has given me a fear of change and an unwillingness to step out of how good things are, even if better things are waiting ahead for me. 

I felt the poignancy of this moment so deeply, aware of all of the opportunities that lay out ahead of us. Moving out of home and away to the city, grown up jobs, university, and hopefully, maybe, love. We didn't know what we were about to begin, but we knew that we had each other. 

So how moved I was, nearly 20 years later to find myself in the Theatre Royal as Pete Murray himself played Opportunity onstage, just him and his guitar. This time with Al, while our toddler slept soundly in Mum's little mud-brick house. 

Time was circular, and here I was, on the same dancefloor, under the same paint-peeling ceiling, hearing those lyrics again. 

Had it been everything we had imagined? 

Dinners and trips and nights out. A college year surviving on porridge and mountain bread, but simultaneously filled with laughter and creativity. Learning and study (and wild university parties). New friendships forged, some just for a season, and some for the long haul. Shitty jobs and worse bosses. Grief. Tiny apartments and countless moving days. New furry family members. Love, both passionate and comfortable; destined and unexpected. Engagements. Weddings. And now for some of us, children of our own.

The years have passed, but each one full. What lives we have lived. 

As Pete sang, it felt like I'd done all of it and none of it. Like it was all about to begin again. New challenges and changes. Books to read. Words to write. Places to find and beautiful people we haven't met yet.

So much life still to live. 

So much joy unseen. 

It's waiting for us. 

Jump in the Way Back Machine with me

 There was an internet sweet spot, a little later than Neopets and age-inappropriate Hotmail email addresses, but well behind the "trending audio" Tiktok slop funnelled into our feeds now. And that time, this historian explains, was where one would purposefully visit a website, usually in blog form, to catch up on the latest posts. You'd simply click back a few pages to catch up, and then switch off your desktop computer to get on with your life. This said computer was probably housed in one of those computer desks with roll out keyboard drawer that slowly retreated back into home base while you typed. Eventually, when only able to access the spacebar, you would yank it back out again and start again. Like a typewriter but more annoying. 

We weren't just stuck on the same three apps. The internet was a broad and wild place, full of wonder and mystery just waiting to be explored. 

One such quest led my friends and I to a website that each of us still checks in on from time to time, and that is the splendour of Randy Constan's Peter Pan-inspired life. Randy, a self-styled Peter Pan who refused to let this dark world corrupt his inner child, documented his life, his search for his very own Tinkerbell, and - most importantly - his outfits on his personal website. 

When checking in recently, I was unnerved to read a pop-up explaining that Randy has updated and modernised the site. Thankfully there was little of the latter, because Pixyland.org is still there in its purest 2000s form. It is a riot of grainy, sparkling GIFs, Comic Sans, and emojis circa 2002 chain emails (4ward to 10 ppl on ur friends list or bad luck 4 10 yrs 💗💗💗💗💗😞😞😆). While the website itself is a museum, and I mean that in the most wholesome, nostalgia-filled way, Randy's fashion creations must not be missed. The loading screen alone makes this website a must-visit. Trust me. 15,608,865 visitors (at the time of publishing) can't be wrong. 

The 2010s were a time when you would stalk the website and then buy the book. I bought a few of the books, and Cake Wrecks was one of them. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the website lives on and is updated regularly! This was the website for appreciators of wild and desperately incorrect applications of spelling, as well as some really creative interpretations of different living things handcrafted in cake form. I was very unkind to my best friends for taking cake decorating classes as an elective in Year 9, but it's a shame that they did. They might have ended up here in this museum of horrors otherwise. 

Another book that still sits on my shelf, is the printed form of snark blog Regretsy, only available now to view through the Way Back Machine. Savage and merciless, the blog was penned by voice actor April Winchell, featuring the most craptastic and unhinged creations sold on maker website Etsy. There was a steady flow of vaginas, bad art and poorly-executed craft, drip-fed to us post by post that you'd periodically check back in on. It was an early form of internet bullying, sure, but the snark was top-tier and I really did lol reading back through some of the posts even today. Often featured items were snapped up quickly by readers from the blog, so like content creators of today have worked out, any engagement results in more sales. Also... someone needed to tell them. 

'Merica.

Behold the glory of this deliciously nostalgic photograph. The slightly mullety haircut, Valencia insta filter and the coloured flats. I actually love how it captures the time. 

Just, no. 

Lastly for today in my nostalgia round-up, I can't forget the kinda horribly titled food blog This is Why You're Fat (TWYF) Partly appreciative and partly in horror, like a slow-motion car crash of heart disease and spiking cholesterol, TWYF documented the most creatively obscene culinary concoctions. Posts were submitted, let's face it, almost entirely from Americans, who had discovered completely and wholly unique methods of cosuming calories. The calories. The fat content. The sugar. The complete lack of any featured vegetable (does potato count?). Decadent and delicious? Or a single bite away from an early grave? You be the judge. 

KFC Pie: six pieces of fried KFC chicken breasts baked into one pie. (Submitted by Shazmodo.)

Pulled pork and mashed potato parfait. (Submitted by Anne.)

The Bacon Mug: A giant mug made out of bacon and filled with cheddar cheese. (Submitted by K8.)

That is all for my round up of 2000s internet nostalgia for one day. Honourable mention to STFUParents (obnoxious parents, still hilarious even though I now am one), and NSFW dishonourable mentions to Chat Roulette and especially Cake Farts. Don't ask. 

Keep Calm, It Happened to You

 Today in my daily depressing trawl through the internet (though, now I suppose it's more like what the algorithm force-feeds me), I saw a video of an American sorority who had a kitchy 2010s theme for their O-Week party. Girls dressed in their interpretation of the 2010s - denim three-quarter jeans and a long top -  held up their moustache-adorned index fingers above their lips, and danced energetically to Gangnam Style. Behind them was an enormous "Keep Calm and..." sign printed onto a mint and coral chevron background. All of this was mildly alarming. I wasn't completely convinced by the outfits - one girl was wearing chunky white grandpa sneakers (no thank you, sweet summer child, millenials would never), yet the attention to detail was definitely accurate but concerning. 2014 was only a few years ago, and no-one can convince me otherwise. I'm not ready for infinity scarves, peplum tops, and bandage dresses to be packaged up into a packet at Spotlight as a retro party costume. 

This unkind reminder of the disappearing decades was compounded later in the day when the internet deemed Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros' Home as the 'worst song of all time'. The voters have short memories, or more likely had not yet been born, when Crazy Frog burst onto Video Hits and assaulted us with his aviator helmet, micro penis, and the most annoying song you'd ever heard (one that the completely deranged could download as a ringtone). The demonising of the "stomp clap hey" era of music is just another attack on millenial culture by our nihilist Gen Z rivals. That genre of music sold itself as anti-establishment, yet was so catchy it was snapped up by enterprising advertising executives to sell everything from cars to Big Ms. It was overplayed and as a result is now being dismissed as hipster nonsense, and worse - 'millenial cringe'. 

Actually we all made fun of hipsters too at the time, and we lived in the capital city for hipsters. but what I wouldn't give to see a vintage bearded Melbourne hipster with no socks and loafers, skinny pants just a bit too short around the ankle, wearing an SLR camera as a fashion accessory. I actually saw this for real once in a copy of MX (RIP, iykyk), and he told the interviewer that the camera didn't actually work. 

'Millenial cringe' is a statement that, no matter how many times I hear it, cuts me deep. Once upon a time, we were the cool young generation - Josh Thomas with his cutesy, awkward antics on Talking About Your Generation alongside his Gen X and Boomer counterparts. Raised on Neopets, we taught our parents how to navigate between windows on their computers, and we snapped photos of our food as early adopters of Instagram (#brunch #adulting). Somehow we blinked and to paraphrase Grandpa Simpson - It happened to us. 

At a recent work party, many drinks were consumed, and staff had a chance to let loose and have a dance in our kitchen garden. My Gen Z colleague stood on the side, watching the dagginess unfold with her arms crossed and almost a look of pain upon her face. While my Gen X colleagues were having fun, she was dying of secondhand embarrassment. When she asked what my song of choice was on nights out and I replied with the anthem Mr Brightside (and let it be said on the public record that I expect my wake to be exactly this), her reaction was, and I quote, "Cringe". Likewise too was winged eyeliner, for some mysterious reason. 

But when I watched my Gen X colleagues drunkenly attempting the Dirty Dancing lift, egged on by laughter and cheering, and then back at my mortified young friend, I realised that perhaps Millenials are the last generation to really have fun. Gen Z, who have grown up with their image carefully curated, haunted by the fear of going viral for the wrong reasons, have lost the freedom to truly live. 

While I depart to dance to Mr Brightside with my arms in the air (yeah, that's cringe too apparently), my thoughts turn back to my favourite writer and appreciator of youth. So much so, that he penned a novel entirely dedicated to the dark depths one would go to to retain his youth and beauty. "Ah," writes Oscar Wilde. "Realise your youth while you have it... Live! Live the wonderful life that is in you. Let nothing be lost upon you. Be always searching for new sensations. Be afraid of nothing."

More heartbreak from a Saints fan

I was cleaning out my email, and found a copy of an opinion piece that I was very lucky to have had the opportunity to write for the Herald Sun. I wrote this in my lunchbreak at work and it was published in the paper after St Kilda coach Ross Lyon made his cold and calculated move to Fremantle. This was September, 2011. 

* * *

I’d love to have one single year without a St Kilda making headlines for all the wrong reasons. We’ve had sex scandals, nude photos of our beloved players stolen and ejected into cyberspace, spats between players and opposition coaches, and enough sensational headlines to last a lifetime.

And Thursday night gave us the biggest bombshell of all. Adored coach Ross Lyon – the man I genuinely believed would take us to our first premiership in half a century – had walked out on the club. St Kilda officials, players and supporters (hell, and even Ross’s management) were totally blindsided.

It’s been a bad week for St Kilda fans. Last Saturday we watched our 2011 premiership hopes slip away with each Sydney goal celebration. After the game, Ross Lyon joined the Saints as they huddled on the field, remaining there long after the Swans returned to the rooms. I’ve heard people say that the out on the ground can be the most private place for a footy club, away from the hangers on in the change room. So as fans we could only speculate what was being said. Of course we assumed it would be that the players need to focus, regroup and look ahead to next year. Strength through loyalty, right?

Then on Thursday night it was announced that Mark Harvey had been sacked, and rumours swirled about his replacement. Would it be Rodney Eade? That’s when the bombshell hit. It was Ross Lyon. I headed straight to the rumour mill- Twitter.

And so I watched it unfold, and it got worse.

Sure we heard rumours that Melbourne was interested in Lyon, but never did I consider that he would consider leaving the Saints, for Melbourne, or for anyone. So when I read that in fact Lyon had been talking to Fremantle for FIVE weeks, it was like a punch in the guts. He was finishing the season knowing that there was a fair chance that he wouldn’t be in a Saints polo shirt come trade week.

Fans were stunned. There was anger, shock, disgust. Don’t get me wrong, either. I don’t want to speak for all supporters (Ross certainly had his critics in fans, Shane Warne being a high-profile example), but most Saints supporters really liked Ross. I loved Ross, and he has certainly been St Kilda’s most successful modern coach. All those coming out of the woodwork now saying ‘I never liked him anyway’ are just feeling the hurt. And you know why? Because our coach has given up on us.

So here is my question Ross: why did you prematurely announce the retirements of three Saints players, including my favourite club veteran Steven Baker? Could it have not waited one more week after you’d gone,  or at least have given you time to speak to your players who would have done anything for the red, black and white?

Lyon rode the highs and the lows with the players, club officials and the supporters. Together we’ve felt the elation at two winning preliminary finals, the heart-pounding moments in three grand finals in two years, the same stunned, empty feeling of a drawn grand final, and the absolute heartbreak at two lost premierships. I watched the 2009 grand final squashed into standing room on the bottom level of the MCG. Half of the ground was obscured, but I lived and breathed every moment and like always, stayed til the very end.

For Ross to have come just so close to knowing what a premiership could feel like, and then walk away just blows my mind. Doesn’t he feel what we feel?

While the supporters are reeling, I can only begin to imagine what the players must be feeling. Ross didn’t sit down with the players and face them like he should have, he was a coward. I’ve heard that Ross was a tough man to work for. Sometimes he arrived at the club at 5am, and expected the same level of commitment from coaching staff and players alike. So when the players gave him the commitment he required, shouldn’t they expect the same from their coach? Next year would have been the real test for the Saints, and he owed them that.

Losing two consecutive grand finals (as well as the off-season that will haunt them forever) definitely did take its toll on my club. How could it not? How could you go all through that and still have the same level of drive and determination? But the Saints really did turn their season around, and put in a solid foundation for a better year in 2012. I want to know- why jump ship now? Give your players one more chance.

Call me naive, or even delusional, but I believe whole-heartedly that I will watch this playing group win the flag that they deserve, with or without Ross Lyon. I hope with all my heart that the club can get through this – its biggest challenge ever – and come out firing. St Kilda needs unity right now. I want all the club officials, the coaching staff and especially the players to know that their supporters are passionate and loyal, and we’ll be with them til the very end. 

Tosca

The story of our dog. The best I can give him is my words.

I met Tosca when I was seven years old. A local family had advertised puppies to give away, and Mum took  my brother Luke, my best friend and I to choose one. My first view of Tosca was seeing him chased around and around by his mother, including right through the back seat of our car and out the other side. He was born with an overbite, a condition that never gave him problems. But the original owners were planning to "knock him on the head" if they couldn't find a family for him. He was the black and white, stocky, pointy-eared brother of a ginger-coloured litter. He was the underdog, and we knew he was perfect. From that moment he was ours. But he was a dog who could never have been owned by someone. He belonged to us in the same way that we belonged to him. Just family.

Tosca wasn't a lap dog, or the sort of dog who would sleep at the end of your bed. He lived his own free and independent life. On the very first night he spent outside as a puppy, he bravely warded off a fox eyeing off our chooks. Our 13 acres were his territory, and he knew every corner like we did. He was a villain to the rabbits on our land, and spent much of his happy life chasing a sprinting rabbit along the hillside. In the long summers when the grass would be tall and golden, you could watch the waves as Tosca would weave through the grass. When the chase was on he would leap high, his head reaching above the sea of gold to follow the movement of his poor puff-tailed prey. He would visit our dam to cool off; wading through the cool water and mud, lapping some up with his pink tongue as he walked.

On our childhood adventures through the paddocks, he was always by our side. We would climb through fences, and he would stalk the fenceline with his nose, looking for the right place to follow us under. Sometimes we would lift it up for him, but he usually always found a way in on his own. He never walked on a lead, and could mostly be trusted to behave. He wasn't interested in chasing sheep or chooks, but he did have to be called occasionally when we ventured into the Sandon forest and he picked up the scent of kangaroos. Thankfully he never had a run-in with a snake, despite plenty of opportunities, but he did unfortunately do some minor damage to a rather angry blue-tongue lizard that he was 'protecting' us from.

He was by my side the day I ran away from home (unprepared, on a cool autumn evening in summer pyjamas). He sat with me at the end of our long driveway, and as he waited patiently beside me for nothing in particular, that was the moment that I knew he understood. He understood humans in more ways than one, including the year he ate all of the Cadbury Creme eggs on our Easter egg hunt, leaving the cheaper and slightly less delicious options unscathed. Despite chocolate's toxicity to dogs, his iron stomach won that round. He also survived eating a huge pellet of rat poison, and enjoyed many more years of healthy life after that.

When I left home, it hurt so much to leave my family behind and my visits to Sandon were the only time I felt whole. When the car would stop at the top of the hill, I knew Tosca's wagging tail and cold black nose would be waiting to greet me. Like big skies, cool floorboards underfoot and cups of tea with Mum, Tosca's presence at Sandon was something that was unchanging - a comfort knitted into every visit. Luke left not long after me, and Tosca and Mum became sole companions at Sandon. As the years rolled on by, he slowed down. That's we were so surprised when he showed up one Easter with a huge rabbit in his mouth, and he was as proud as could be.

His last few years were not his best; he had lost his stockiness, his big black ears were no longer really hearing, and his eyes were clouded with a darkness he couldn't see past. His nature became needier, and his loss of independence revealed the kindness, companionship and mutual understanding between him and my mum. If she left him inside for a moment without her, he anxiously waited by the door for her return. Mum cooked him special meals, and when he was too unwell to sleep inside, she created a small pen around his kennel with straw to keep him comfortable. He gave her companionship and a welcoming wag of his tail when she came home from work.

We lost our dear dog this year, after his 17th birthday. It wasn't a trip to the vet, and it wouldn't have been right for his free spirit. He simply wandered a little way from the house and came to rest. My first visit back home without him was at Christmas, and he should have been waiting for us when we arrived, and he wasn't. He should have had his wet nose making marks on the window at the back door, but he wasn't there. He should have been sneaking onto Mum's expensive rug without her noticing, which was their nightly game. But there was no usual outburst from Mum shooing him away.

In our life as a family, there has been so much difficult change to get through and Tosca has always been a comfort and our companion. We have lost our dog, and Sandon, with its rolling grass, creaky gum trees, and slow, winding creek, has lost its guardian.

Goodbye to our dearest dog.  

Looking back to something new

With the beginning of my post-grad study just a week away, I've been reflecting on my time since I started my under-grad degree as a naive 17-year-old in 2007. Although I'm attending the very same university, suddenly it all feels daunting again. I'm nervous about everything, from the simple things: not being able to find the right lecture hall, affording textbooks (I miss the days when the most expensive item to purchase amongst my novels and poetry was a $40 dictionary), and whether or not I'll make friends quickly. And then there are the bigger things: whether I'll be able to balance my part-time job (and only source of income) around the demanding placement hours, and the biggie: is this huge change in career the right path for me?

All of these worries make me look back on when it all first began for me. I was not quite 18 when being awarded a couple of scholarships pushed me out of home, and into a big city. To accept the scholarships (which, in hindsight was the only way I was able to attend university), meant that there was no option of deferment. I had three weeks to pack my life up, wave goodbye to my two best friends, and, hardest of all: leave my family, my dog and my home behind, knowing that I was never going to live under that roof again. And while Quayles Lane would always be home in my heart, I would never truly belong there again.

How did I go through all of these things at 17? Six years later, I'm trying to find the strength and courage that I can't believe I must have had in 2007. In my first year of uni I struggled academically, with none of the nurturing that I had enjoyed from my high school teachers. For the first time in my life, I had no friends in class. The girls in my course were angsty, hoodie-wearing introverts. And in the end, it was the boys in my classes who became my saviours. Gone were my gang of giggling girlfriends, and in was this new kind of mateship. I missed home terribly, and while I went back every weekend, I began to hate arriving back in the city, with its hot bitumen, traffic, and the sea of unsmiling, hurrying faces everywhere, that was both stifling and alienating at the same time.

I returned home every single weekend. I'd relish that train journey back, and as the months got colder, I'd watch through the window as the whizzing hills transformed from dusty, scratchy and brown, to rolling waves of silky green grass. I'd be spoilt by my mum at home, in a way that only living independently makes you appreciate. But before I knew it, I'd be watching her wave me off from the train station platform. And seeing that never really got any easier. And it still hasn't.

But while it was very hard to feel so alone in a big city, I was lucky to be living with my aunty and uncle, who were the perfect surrogate parents for me. And although I'd left my friends behind, I was fortunate enough to  have a blossoming love that might, just possibly, be the love of my life. With the help of (finally!) my first female friend at uni, I started Deakin's cheerleading club, and in the one hit, completed a dream and opened up a gateway to meeting like-minded souls at university. And I will call many of these people my friends for a lifetime.

Slowly but surely, the city became my home. While I still feel like my heart belongs out where the big skies are, I call Melbourne home. It feels good now, to stride along Elizabeth St, ducking around slow walkers and knowing the traffic light patterns. It makes me feel alive to be a part of this concrete and glass world, with all of us moving, talking and breathing beings giving this city its heartbeat and its life.

A very new chapter is scary. Really scary. But if I could do this six years ago, when all of this was for the first time, I can do it now.

A quick one but a cute one

Your too cute Wednesday pick-me-up! Tiny fluffy puppies herding ducklings.

http://holycuteness.com/2012/03/19/puppies-herd-ducklings/