Random thoughts from a cluttered mind

The club where everyone knows your name

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Wed, 10 Jul 2019 12:06:00 +0000

In 2011 my friend Scott created a Facebook group for music lovers with eclectic taste, and invited a hundred or so friends to join. I was one of those friends. 

It operated on a simple premise. Share a link to song you enjoy, that you think other people might also enjoy. At it’s most simplistic level the group is still that; a place where people share youtube links to songs they like. 

What we soon discovered was if you share something on social media, you tend to say something about the thing you are sharing, And what happens when you share music is you talk about it in an emotional way - eg I love this song, this song reminds of that time my heart was broken, this album was the soundtrack to my divorce, this song takes me back to a special time in my life - that sort of thing. And when people bare themselves in this way, in a trusted environment, it allows deep connections to be made. 

Those deep connections can lead to many wonderful things. In my case it has led to treasured friendships and important support networks. These are mostly sustained online. 

In 2014 or so, I had an idea. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to meet some of these people in real life? 

So I dreamed and I planned, and I started to make it happen. 

First, I went to the Netherlands, to meet the group’s most active and prolific member. That went well, so I dreamed and planned some more, and I learned how to shoot video for social media. That led me to another idea. What if I filmed interviews with people about the music they love? 

So that’s what I have done, on my last few big holidays. I have traveled around seeking out members of this group, to meet, to drink, to talk and to film an interview, so that other members of the group can see them and hear them and get to know them a little bit better. 

So far I have interviewed people in (USA) San Francisco, New York, Boston, Cleveland, Montgomery Village, and Portage, (UK) Bath (Northern Ireland) Belfast and Den Haag in the Netherlands. 

Tomorrow, I’m off to the USA again, to meet some people for the first time (yay!) and to spend time once more with beautiful friends I have already met along the way. 

See you soon my Club Eclectica family. 

Write about... anxiety

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Fri, 28 Jun 2019 10:01:00 +0000

Please note: This blog post contains a personal account of an anxiety attack. If you are likely to become upset or distressed by reading a personal account of an anxiety attack, do not read on.

Write about... anxiety

I reckon it’s been over a decade, maybe even two decades since I last had a serious anxiety attack. Before today that is. Today’s attack was surprising and intense. And it happened in a swaying gondola high above the canopy of a rainforest in North Queensland. If you had to choose a place to have an anxiety attack, a swaying gondola is probably one of the worst places you could choose. There is literally no escape, no reprieve at all until the gondola reaches it’s destination.

The worst part of it was, I was alone.

There was no one to soothe me, no one to talk me through it. No one but me. So that’s what I did. In between sucking in tiny gulps of air, I tried to talk myself through it. My self talk consisted of positive affirmation (It’s ok, you’re ok, you’re going to be ok) mixed with self-loathing (you idiot, why did you put yourself in this position) and power phrases (you are strong, you are brave, you can do this). It’s hard to choose the most terrifying part, but definitely the thing I liked the least was the shuddering of the gondola whenever it passed under a gantry. Being able to focus on that one aspect allowed me to prepare myself for every gantry crossing with the mantra “jiggle, jiggle, jiggle” a second or two before the gondola did indeed jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.

The ride from the Smithfield Skyrail terminal to the Kuranda terminal involves two stops, at Red Peak and Barron Falls, with a ride of about 10 minutes in between stops. At the first stop, Red Peak, I scrambled out of the gondola and said urgently to the smiling attendant “that was terrifying, I don’t think I can do that again.”

Enter Chanel, a friendly, calm Skyrail staff member, who comforted me and told me there was no rush to get back on. She steered me toward a seat, telling me to sit a while, drink water and take deep breaths. She also told me that if I really didn’t think I could get back on then they’d find another way to get me back down to Smithfield. Knowing there was an option there if I needed it, was incredibly helpful. After a while my breathing slowed, although my breaths were still shallow. I walked around the observation deck to a lookout, and waited there for a half hour or so, until I felt t I could go on.

Back at Red Peak station I waited in the queue for the next leg of the trip. I got to the front of the queue, saw the gondola coming and squibbed it. I headed back down the stairs to try and get my breathing under control again. Chanel noticed I had left the queue and she wandered over and stood with me a while, until it was time for her break. She promised to be back in 10 minutes. I decided I couldn’t let this awesome young woman see me sink down any further, and i headed back up the stairs and into a gondola.

This time, as well as the “jiggle, jiggle, jiggle” mantra I put my headphones in and listened to music. Again, I was alone in the gondola. My breathing was still shallow, and I still had a few leaky tears and fearful squeals and moans, especially when the gondola came to a complete stop at one point, but the music definitely helped distract me a little from my fear.

At Barron Falls I was able to walk around the observation deck (avoiding the section with a glass floor), take photos, and talk to people. I didn’t need as long to recover from my panic as I had needed at the earlier stop.

For the third leg of the trip, I was again in a gondola alone. I relied on what had worked for me so far, the “jiggle, jiggle, jiggle” mantra, music and the positive self talk from earlier (you’re going to be ok). I even took photos and made a video, so I had a record of what I was experiencing - like I could ever forget it, right?

Me, being deeply unimpressed with the Skyrail experience, due to anxiety.

When I arrived at Kuranda I was greeted by another female staff member, who took one look at my face and just knew there was something amiss. She told me that if I didn’t think I could go back down by Skyrail, they’d find another way.

I walked out of the Skyrail station thinking, that’s it, thank god, I don’t have to do that again. As I wandered through the village of Kuranda, I didn’t feel well at all. My legs were heavy, my head was thumping, and I still couldn’t get enough air into my lungs. My chest was tight and painful. As I walked up the main street a glance to the right revealed a sign, “Massage” it said. I scuttled toward the sign, which was in front of health food shop. The young woman in charge was sympathetic, but had bookings all day. Then she handed me a business card. “This woman is in the Heritage Market and she’s awesome. You should give her a call.” I was literally 5 minutes walk from the market, so I just headed over, and found Debbie.

Debbie is one of the best massage therapists I have ever encountered. She asked me what had brought me to her today and as my tale of airborne panic spilled out of me, Debbie tapped the middle of my back, gently and repeatedly. As I talked, and she tapped, I started to feel calm. Debbie spent about 20 minutes teaching me where Meridien points are in my body and how to tap them, so that I could perform this therapy on myself, whenever I needed to. She also explained to me what cortisol and adrenalin were doing to my body at that moment, and how the more she tapped, the more I returned to a better colour. What? I asked, what colour am I now? Red, she said. Bright red.

An hour-long massage followed, and it was definitely one of the best massages I have ever received. In her little cubicle, with a wide window overlooking a small man-made lake (in which I could see freshwater crocodiles) Debbie skilfully found all of the pain and tension I was carrying and with firm gentleness she released it. By the end of the hour, I felt like all the tension I had been carrying not just today but for many months, now had an avenue for release, and I felt a smile stretch the skin on my face.

Debbie then offered to drive me back down from Kuranda to Smithfield. What an absolute angel. I couldn’t take up her kind offer though. It was totally out of her way and I have never really been one for shying away from life’s challenges. I wanted to go back down in that bloody gondola again, just to prove to myself that I am not anxiety’s bitch. So we came up with a plan to keep me calm on the way back down.

I spent a bit more time in Kuranda. Lunch, wandering, looking, soaking it all in. And then I returned to the Skyrail terminal. As I moved forward in the queue, I could feel my breathing start to constrict again. Nup, not doing it, I decided, and fled to the bathroom. Some breathing exercises later, I rejoined the queue.

There was a big queue of people waiting to head back to Smithfield, so there was no way I was going down in a gondola on my own this time. The female staff member I had spoken with earlier greeted me warmly and told me she was proud of me. She put me in a gondola with another solo traveller, a guy in his thirties from either the U.S.A. or Canada - I couldn’t really tell and didn’t want to ask - and a couple of guys in their twenties who appeared to be visitors from Japan.

I felt sorry for them, and hoped I wasn’t about to ruin their Skyrail experience. Headphones in, music cranked up, I started tapping the side of my right hand with three fingers of left hand, just like Debbie showed me. At the first gantry I whispered “jiggle, jiggle, jiggle”. Everything was going to be ok.

When we arrived at Barron Falls, the solo traveller in his thirties told me he found the “jiggle, jiggle, jiggle” mantra weirdly comforting, which was pretty awkward for me for a moment because I hadn’t realised I was saying it out loud.

In the next gondola I was seated with a family of four, visiting from China. To the young boy, I said “can you see the waterfall?” before cranking up the music again and resuming tapping the side of my right hand.

When the gondola arrived at Red Peak, Chanel was waiting. She said “I’m so proud of you!” and she told me she noticed I wasn’t there when she got back from her break, and had wondered what had happened to me. She said she asked her male co-workers “what happened to our lady?” Those same male co-workers, when I had spoken to them about being scared and anxious had both said “you’ll be ‘right,” which I think they thought was comforting. When it came to practical and useful advice and assistance, it came from the women I met throughout the day.

On the final leg, I rode the gondola with a woman in her sixties and her son. The woman tried to chat with me but I explained there were things I needed to do in order to get down to the bottom in one piece, mentally, so to speak, and she left me to it. Earphones in, music cranked up, tap, tap, tap on my right hand, steady breaths, jiggle, jiggle, jiggle.

Me again, on the final leg, riding through the clouds, deciding I wasn't going to be anxiety's bitch.

At the bottom, I clambered out slowly, smiling. I had done it! As I walked back in to the Smithfield terminal, I saw a man leave the office and administration area. His name tag said “general manager” and I smiled at him. “Just the person I need to see,” I said, before telling him how awesome and caring his staff had been with me today.

“You would be surprised how many other people experience the same thing on Skyrail,” he said, “even today, there were other people feeling the way you felt.”

I found that a little bit comforting. In my most terrified moments, my aloneness was really heightened. But maybe I’m really not so alone after all.

Notes:

If you're not afraid of heights you should totally ride the Skyrail to and from Kuranda. The scenery is really beautiful, Kuranda is a gorgeous village full of lovely people. Don't let my experience put you off - it wasn't about the ride, it was about the rider. If you're in North Queensland, do this.

https://www.skyrail.com.au

Marvellous massage therapist Debbie can be found at Kuanda Massage Services.

www.kurandamassageservices.com

If reading this blog has caused emotional distress and you need support, contact Lifeline if you're in Australia, or your local equivalent support organisation.
https://www.lifeline.org.au

Five Songs For Darren

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Fri, 21 Sep 2018 03:22:00 +0000

True Colours - Cyndi Lauper
Dancing Queen – Abba
It’s Raining Men - The Weathergirls
September - Earth, Wind and Fire
I Don’t Want To Talk About It - Rod Stewart

Foreword

I want to be crystal clear here. I am an atheist who doesn’t believe in heaven, hell or the afterlife. I think we get one shot at life and then we are dust. I don’t believe in spirits, or ghosts or souls. So I don’t think for one minute that our dear departed Darren is going to read this letter. It just made sense to me to write this piece this way.

This blog post discusses grief and ways of grieving. If you find the subject matter distressing, can I suggest you reach out to someone? Lifeline can be contacted on 13 11 14, beyondblue can be contacted on 1300 22 4636 and GriefLine can be contacted on 1300 845 745.

A letter to Darren

It’s been a year.

It doesn’t feel like it’s been a year, but the calendar doesn’t lie. In my heart and in my head, it still feels like it was just weeks ago that I called in on a Friday night, to sit on your bed watching Home and Away, listening to you talk proudly about Luke and Jack (and bitch about everyone else).

If I’m not paying attention on the way home, sometimes I find the car turning toward your place. And then I remember that it’s not your place any more. And then I feel your loss again. Over and over it happens. It doesn’t really hurt any less than it did a year ago, but I have stopped crying every night on the drive home. That’s when I think about you most - when I’m in the car. I don’t know why that is. There’s so much I don’t know.

I called this letter five songs for Darren because my precious memories of you are tied strongly to music.

Even though we knew each other from a really young age, when we first started primary school, we first became close when were part of the high school musical Pippin, in year 8 or 9. We would have been 14 or 15. Those were fun times.

My next musical memory of you is when we were reunited after about 20 years without contact. When school ended in the mid-80s, we seemed to all just fade away from each other. Thank goodness for Facebook. I remember feeling really excited when your name popped up as a suggested friend. I couldn’t wait to re-connect.

Our first outing after that was so much fun. Australia Day celebrations at Club Festi where we laughed our heads off and danced our arses off.

And then of course there were your Friday Facebook posts. Every Friday morning you’d post a song to encourage all friends and family to celebrate Friday. We all miss your Friday posts. We miss you.

I want to tell you about the five songs. Your beloved family chose three perfect songs for your funeral. True Colours, Dancing Queen and It’s Raining Men. They also organised a hot pink coffin decorated with donuts. You would have loved it, it was so you.

Those three songs are so you too. I can remember you singing True Colours to me once. I tried to join in but you shooshed me and held your finger up like some kind of shield against my voice while you sang it at me. And you sang the whole damn song too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPn0KFlbqX8

I’m pretty sure we danced to Dancing Queen at Club Festi, and I feel like you shared this as part of your Friday Facebook posts on a fairly regular basis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xFrGuyw1V8s

And of course It’s Raining Men was perfect for you, the biggest gay in the village. Even before Grindr it rained men for you. You were unstoppable once you got the app you big slut.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5aZJBLAu1E

But you won’t know about the other two songs because you weren’t here when they became significant.

On the day you died I was home alone on a Friday night, music playing and drinks flowing, having a wee party on my own, and September came on. I was having a full-on boogie in the kitchen, having a whale of a time, when I spotted the message from Lindy. Poor Lindy, having to break the news to me.

So instead of dancing, I was sobbing. Sobbing to September, pieces of my heart breaking off. So much raw pain and grief. I remember howling like a wounded animal (I’m so sorry Lindy) and the song played on and on.

I fucking love that song, but the association with your death made it impossible for me to enjoy it. Every time it came on I’d quickly turn it off and move on to another track. A few months ago, I was able to listen to it again without having a cry, and I let this dance number back into my life. I sealed the deal by dancing to it at my 50^th birthday party.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk

And then I Don’t Want To Talk About It is what got me through. Which is weird, because I don’t even like Rod Stewart that much.

So much bad stuff had happened to me in the months before your death (Dad died, I had various health issues), I felt really overwhelmed when we lost you. I was teetering on the brink of an emotional breakdown as it was. Losing you almost tipped me over the edge. Rather than talk about it, I felt like the only path to survival was to contain it. Holding it all in helped me hold it together.

To help me keep it all in, I got into a routine.

On the drives to and from work I would play I Don’t Want To Talk About It and sing along if I could. In the early weeks I would just cry my eyes out, and it’s really fucking hard to cry and sing at the same time. Then the crying ebbed and the singing took over. Over and over I would play it, and over and over I would sing it. I didn’t want to talk about it, but apparently I wanted to sing about it. Have I mentioned that I don’t even really like Rod Stewart?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U-uAdxpj-KY

And then one day, I’d had enough. I was done with Rod Stewart and I moved on to other songs.

It’s been nice this week to go back and listen to these five songs, and feel again all of things that I associate with them. Looking back hasn’t hurt as much as I thought it would. These songs keep me connected to my memories of you

I still don’t want to talk about it much, and I have stopped singing about it, and now, I am just really happy to be able to write about it.

If you really could read this I would tell you that I’m so sad and angry that you left us you fucking bitch. And I miss you. And I'd ask you questions, like are there donuts in heaven? And what did you do with my spare set of keys?

And I would tell you that it’s getting better now and I’m starting to remember how to be happy again. I still miss you but I am happy.

And I know that you would be happy for me. You’d probably roll your eyes and tell me to snap out of it, but you’d be happy for me. I know you would.

Love, your friend Leanne

P.S. I inherited your fish, you know the aggressive little bastards that I hated and that you said hated me. When I got to your house your brothers were draining your big fish tank and your precious fish were in a Tupperware container with the lid on! Well guess what? Those fish are all dead now too. The little bastards didn’t take to my tank and they dropped off one by one in the months after you did. I mourned each little death like it was massive deal, expending so much emotional energy on each little cichlid corpse. I bet it would have made you laugh to see me sooking over your bastard fish.

Farewell my dear friend

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Wed, 04 Oct 2017 02:03:00 +0000

I wrote a thing for you.

I first met Darren in the 1970s when we were both at Reservoir East Primary School. We weren’t in the same year but in the Reservoir East playground we all mixed with each other. I didn’t know Darren well at primary school, but I did know him.

In the 80s, we were at Reservoir High School, again, not in the same year level, but there was some cross polination. In those years, I got to know Darren best when we worked on musical productions together - not on stage, but on the production side of things like helping in the wardrobe department or turning pages for the band during the nightly performances. What I remember most about that time was Darren’s outspokenness and his sense of humour.

After school, we went our separate ways, but when we connected again almost ten years ago, Darren’s humour came to the fore again.

It was through Facebook that we connected, and not long after that we caught up in person. When we did meet up again, Darren very seriously explained there was something he needed to tell me, something that I did not know. We were sitting on my back deck and I poured him a glass of wine, for courage. Darren explained to me that unbeknown to most people, he was gay. Well, I frankly pissed myself laughing and assured him that unbeknown to him, most of us were aware he was gay. Maybe even before he realised it himself. To say he was pissed off and disbelieving is an understatement. Pissed off, because I had ruined his big moment by laughing at him, and disbelieving because he was completely unaware of just how obvious it was to the rest of us.

Coming out is not an easy thing to do, and I shouldn’t have laughed. I now understand that people who identify as queer are on a lifelong journey of coming out. It’s exhausting and it’s a brave thing to do and I really should have been more supportive of Darren when he told me.

It didn’t affect our friendship though, and over the last decade we became important to one another in a way that not all friendships do. We didn’t plan it, it just kind of happened and we built it on a foundation of a supremely excellent night out at a party in Lalor, where we danced our arses off all night.

We didn’t go out together much after that - Darren was really a homebody, preferring to hang out at home rather than go out at night. Although we didn’t go out much I have lost count of the hours we spent together on my back deck or at Darren’s house drinking coffee and sharing tales of woe. And Darren’s woes were legion. He was always in some kind of dispute with a government department, a business or a fractious individual. At those times we would put our heads together to write a letter to whatever decision maker could fix the issue and mostly those letters would get Darren a result. He would have been a formidable advocate, if only he had decided to go down that path.

We didn’t just write cranky, officious letters though, we also judged people on their fashion choices, judged people on their parking or driving ability. More seriously though, we talked about the big things that were happening in our lives - relationships, ailing parents, careers. On that front, I think it is safe to say that Darren found his vocation working as a disability carer. I was so proud of him for taking that step, of training to get his qualifications and then putting himself forward to take on clients. Caring is not easy work, but Darren was a natural at it, and even he was proud of himself especially when he could see the difference he was making in people’s lives. And he had the rare joy of forming friendships with some clients, in particular Luke, who Darren had a lot of love for and enjoyed a special bond with.

I can only imagine how painful the loss of Darren is for Luke, and I’m thinking of you mate.

A few years ago I developed an interest in tropical fish. It turned into an obsession for a little while, surprising my friends and family who had never known me to have an interest in fish before that. Darren is totally to blame. Totally.

Just after Darren came back into my life I visited him at home and was surprised to see a giant fish tank full of beautiful tropical fish, in his lounge room. I couldn’t stop looking at them, they were gorgeous.

Not long after, I rescued an old fish tank from my daughter’s room and set it up again. I was cycling the tank, running it without fish for a while, to get the water parameters right. One day, without warning, Darren turned up at my door waving a water filled bag at me. It contained a white fish. Darren said “you have to take this fish, my fish are trying to kill it”. He knew I had a tank set up and, in what became a pattern over the years, he offloaded his “problem fish” on to me. I protested that I didn’t know if the water was ready for fish yet. He told me he didn’t care, strode into my kitchen, lifted the lid of the tank and tipped the fish in, despite my protests. That says a lot about Darren actually. He did what he wanted to do, whether you wanted him to or not!

The fish became known as Alby and I started to research, to learn more about this fish. The first thing I discovered is that kind of fish should never have been put in the same tank as Darren’s fish. The second thing I discovered is that the bloody thing was pregnant, and within weeks I didn’t have just one fish, I had six fish. Then those fish started breeding with each other and pretty soon, Darren and I were trading with each other the fish that we had bred. Sometimes I’d get a call from him “Hey, have you got any guppies? What about mollies?” And sometimes he’d turn up at my place with a container of fish that I didn’t have room for and didn’t want, but I would take them in any way, fearful that if I didn’t they wouldn’t survive.

On weekend afternoons we would visit aquariums and think about expanding our fishy empires even further.

The most exciting times were when our favourite fish would breed. Darren and I would cluck over the eggs laid by my angel fish, and grumble when the fish ate those eggs, dashing our dreams of tanks and tanks full of beautiful angel fish.

A month or so ago, we jointly came to the realisation that we were both a bit over it and it was time to start downsizing. A week before he died and not for the first time, Darren asked me again if I wanted his big fish tank, knowing full well the answer would be no.

The news of Darren’s sudden, unexpected death has been a massive shock to me. Darren was the friend that I saw most frequently, at least once a fortnight. For most of this year we had slipped into the habit of catching up on a Friday night. I would let him know when I was leaving work and he would leave the front door open for me. A twitch of the upstairs curtain when I pulled up outside confirmed to him that my arrival was imminent and by the time I got upstairs he would be ready with a kiss hello, a hug and smart arse comment.

The second last time I saw Darren, he was unwell with a virus and wouldn’t let me near him, for fear of making me ill. The last time I saw him, a week before he died, he was feeling better so a hello kiss and hug was back on the agenda. If only I had known it would be last time we saw each other. What would I have done if I had known? Would I have held on longer and tighter? Would I have bought him a gift? Would I have stayed longer? Sometimes, we miss the really important moments, or only realise their significance with the benefit of hindsight.

To say I am in shock is an understatement.

I am shocked. I am sad. I am angry. I am bereft.

At times, it feels hard to believe that this has happened, that Darren is gone. And I wonder how on earth I will go on without Darren - my glorious, loud, cranky, smart-arse, funny, loving, bitch of a friend.

I hope there was no pain. I hope you rest in peace. And every time I see someone wearing leggings as pants, I will think of you Darren.

Farewell my dear friend.

Election eve

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Fri, 01 Jul 2016 11:33:00 +0000

It’s the last week of what feels like a marathon run and I fell before the finishing line.

It’s election eve in Australia and I’m sitting upright at a computer writing words for the first time in almost a week. A combination of pain from a non occlusive thrombus in the right radial artery (translation: blood clot in my right forearm) an allergic reaction to medication and a virus of the head-spin inducing variety have kept me from the things that have held me together for the past year – basically sitting at a computer writing words.

Because it is the eve of an election that is being largely fought on the issue of health funding, I wanted to write about Medicare. I wanted to tell you the story of how the public health system has caught me and my family every time we’ve fallen. Like, when my son’s birth turned into an emergency situation, from which he eventually arrived safely into the world, or about all the times my kids needed urgent medical attention and were able to get it, without delay and without cost. Or how, in the last few weeks when I have witnessed the health system up close, every test – even those using expensive, cutting-edge equipment – was covered by Medicare. And the care I have received has been mostly excellent.

I even had a bulk-billed home visit from a doctor on a Sunday. If I lived in New Zealand, that visit would have cost $400. I can’t even begin to imagine how much such a thing would cost in the US, thousands maybe? The US health system is the stuff of nightmares.

As much as I wanted to write about that, and have in the past written love letters to Medicare, it’s really a universal story here in Australia. I bet everyone reading this can think of a time when possession of that little green card meant you could get the care you needed, without it costing the earth. You don’t need me to convince you that Medicare should be saved, do you? And, tbh, I think that Australians are so passionate about protecting Medicare that vote to save it.

What people are talking about though is a people powered movement that has been steadily growing in the last twelve months. It has been dubbed by The Australian newspaper as a "secret army" and the subject of many illuminating media stories* about a campaign involving people talking to one another. The people in that movement have set up market and street stalls, knocked on doors and made phone calls - oh so many phone calls – they’ve literally had thousands of conversations. Each week, more people have joined in.

Watching a movement grow is very special and it’s been a brilliant campaign to watch and to work on. The campaign organisers around the country and the team at campaign HQ are some of the finest people you could ever meet. I’m inspired by their stamina and drive, and their tenacity and creativity. They've literally given their all and I know I'm not the only one that doesn't have much juice left in the tank. But still they carried on, week in week out, facing greater adversity as the looming election grew closer - the tales of chicanery and bastardry at early voting centres have been toe-curling.

I’ll be watching the results very closely tomorrow night. my ears pricking and my pulse rate raising a little every time there's an update on the results in the thirty-odd seats the campaign touched. Good luck one and all, the Build a Better Future campaign team.

*That secret army’s not so secret anymore

*Election 2016: Union volunteers staff Labor’s ‘ground war

BONUS: ELECTION EVE TRADITIONAL TUNE

BONUS: THIS TRACK INSPIRED THE WORK OF THE HQ CAMPAIGN POD

My Left Foot - Part 2 - Surgery and Hospitalisation

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sat, 28 Feb 2015 09:07:00 +0000

Surprisingly, I felt very calm during the morning of my foot surgery. It was probably because everything was organised.

The kids were at school and would head to their dad's house in the afternoon. The dogs were at my brother's house and I had done 30% water changes on all of the fish tanks. The guinea pigs had fresh hay, water and food and the plants had been watered. My friend Darren was driving me to the hospital and my friend Jacky was picking me up. I had rearranged the lounge room, ready for many weeks of convalescence. There was food in the cupboard and ready-made meals in the freezer. There wasn't anything left to do, but I couldn't sit still and spent the whole morning on my feet pottering around the house.

I arrived at Epworth Hospital Hawthorn at lunchtime and waited on shaking legs for the admissions officer to call me to the window. When it was my turn, I was asked for payment of the hospital excess of $450. I had already organised to have the excess waived, and I took a seat while she searched for the right piece of paper to confirm it.

A nurse with a bubbly personality collected me from the waiting area and wheeled me into the pre-op ward. I was handed a surgical gown and a large paper bag and shown into a change room. Once I got the gown on I hobbled to the nurse's office where I was quizzed about what I had consumed that day and how I was feeling.

She left me alone with a stack of trashy magazines and after ten minutes or so the surgeon entered the office and greeted me. He asked if I was ready and I told him I was more than ready to get this show on the road.

"Ready when you are Doc,"

With a permanent marker he drew a dark blue arrow on my left shin, pointing at my left foot. "Now we're ready," he said. We laughed together before he left me alone in the room again.

Next to enter the room was the anaesthetist. He had warm hands and a gentle manner and he nodded sympathetically when I told him that, like just about everyone on the planet, I was terrified by the idea of general anaesthetic. He promised to look after me and changed the subject, asking me to climb up on the guerny and tell him about my work. I could feel my heart thundering in my chest as all of the anxiety I had suppressed all day came bubbling to surface and I babbled.

While I was part way through a despairing diatribe about union density in the Australian private sector the anaesthetist and his nurse wheeled the guerny the short distance from the office to the operating theatre. As the double doors were pushed open I heard myself say, in a fairly belligerent fashion, "they get all the benefits and the buggers still won't join their union!"

6 pairs of eyes stared at me, surgical masks hiding facial expressions. I sincerely hoped I hadn't been wheeled into a room full of Tories with sharp knives!

The anaesthetist asked me to sit up on the guerny and roll onto my stomach and said he was about to give me something to help me relax, as well as a nerve block.

I don't know who the other people in the room were, but they seemed busy fiddling with machines and murmuring softly to one another. I felt a quick sting in he back of my left knee and stayed face down for maybe 30 seconds more. The anaesthetist asked how I was feeling.

"A bit light headed actually," I told him.

He helped me sit up and the room started to spin. As soon as I lay down again, this time on my back, the anaesthetist said "We're ready to start now Leanne." A black mask was lowered over my mouth and nose and I was told to count backwards from ten. I don't think I even got to 9 before I was out like a light.

When I awoke a couple of hours later, my first thought was "It hurts."

My eyes blinked open and I saw a nurse behind a desk at the end of my bed. My elevated foot was resting in an open cast with crepe bandage wrapped around it, held together with tape.

"It hurts," I said, aloud this time, in a croaky voice.

She moved away from the desk and I closed my eyes. When I opened them again the anaesthetist's nurse was at my bedside.

"Hi," I said, "It hurts."

Then I cried a little She put her hand on my arm, to comfort me.

"We're going to move you into your room now and then we'll get you something for the pain."

I was becoming more alert and the pain was waking up too, growing in intensity.

"It hurts," I breathed, trying not to cry again.

The guerny was wheeled into an insanely large private room and I transferred to a bed with help from two nurses.

Now that I was fully awake I noticed how thirsty and hungry I felt and I could smell the hot meals that had been delivered to the other rooms in the ward. My stomach growled loudly. A nurse told me she would organise a light meal for me and handed me a cup of tablets, followed by a cup of water. I swallowed the contents of both before having a quick lesson in how to operate the bed and how to call for help. Before leaving the room the nurse switched the TV on and handed me to remote control, which I used to find ABC24. I watched the rolling news coverage through bleary eyes and it wasn't long before I dozed off.

When I opened my eyes again it was night and I could see the bright street lights through the window. I pressed the call button next the bed and a curmudgeon nurse appeared in the doorway. My most pressing needs were urination and food and she helped me get up on my right foot and pushed a wheeled walking frame within reach. I used it to hop to the bathroom and the nurse left to find me some food. The plate of sandwiches that arrived about 15 minutes later were gratefully received and I savoured all three of them.

When I had finished eating I was handed another cup of pills and a cup of water, and then I snuggled into the bed to watch Lateline. I slept well, deeply.

The pain woke up the same time I did and I buzzed for a nurse who told me the meds would arrive in half an hour. I counted the minutes, 28, 27, 26, 25, and tried to distract myself with emails and social media.

My first visitor that day was the surgeon. When he asked me how I was feeling I said "better than Campbell Newman," to which he looked perplexed - I'm not sure he got the reference, but he glanced at the television and said "Oh." (I can’t actually remember what was going on with Campbell Newman on that day). He told me the surgery went very well and the most important thing to do now was rest, and he’d stop by again the following day.

My next visitor was the hospital physiotherapist, who showed me a range of mobility devices I could use while in hospital and hire to take home. I took a knee scooter for a test ride up and down the hallway, moving fast on the smooth linoleum-covered floor. I chose the wheeled walking frame for in-hospital use and arranged to hire a knee scooter and a commode seat to take home. All three were delivered to my room before my next visitor arrive.

Darren was immediately drawn to the knee scooter and took it for a spin around the room before heading out for "real coffee". I was almost feeling like my old self by the time I finished that coffee.

I slept through the afternoon until my kids arrived, dropping in to visit me on their way home from school. I was so very happy to see them. We cuddled, held hands and shared a bag of lollies while they
told me about their respective days.


Mum's on Endone

After they left I tried to read, first a magazine, then a book, but I was struggling to concentrate and stared at the television instead.

The next day passed in much the same fashion, without as many visitors. Wake, visit the bathroom, take meds, eat, doze, repeat. The surgeon came again and Darren popped in to drop off a bottle of Vitamin D capsules and reassure me that the fish and the guinea pigs were all fine.

Day three of my stay was a Friday, the day that the acute surgical ward was converted to a weekend IVF clinic, meaning I had to move out. I was transferred to the rehab ward soon after lunch, for my final night in hospital.

There's a big difference in the level of nursing supervision patients receive in the rehab ward than in the acute ward - well, that's my experience any way. Things take a bit longer to get to you, nurses are more likely to be up for a chat (maybe that's why things take longer?)

I was in there for less than 24 hours and in that time a wheel fell off the walking frame twice - both times while I was using it, causing me to land heavily on my injured foot. The second time it happened, I was in the bathroom and had just finished using the toilet. The toilet blocked and overflowed and while I was moving away from the overflow - pretty quickly, I might add - when the wheel fell off for the second time. I was in pain, I was immobile and water from the toilet bowl was snaking across the bathroom floor toward me. I tapped the call button and was shocked when four nursing staff burst through the bathroom door.

I gestured, first at the toilet and then at foot, and asked "You're filming this right? Where's the camera?"

One of the nurses snarled at me "you pushed the wrong button - we thought it was an emergency."

I pointed at the overflowing toilet bowl, and my foot, and said "It kind of is."

Three of the four nurses turned their back and left he bathroom, one remained behind to get me back into bed and deal with the toilet situation. He unblocked it pretty quickly and mopped up, while I tried to get comfortable on the bed, bristling with nicotine withdrawal and indignation. I slept fitfully that night.

I'm just speculating, but the nurse who brought me my morning meds looked and smelled like she had come straight to work from a booze-fuelled all night dance party. Her long fake nails were decorated with glitter, her orangey skin peeped out over too low pants and under a too small shirt and her smeared make-up had a definite "morning after" look to it. She was nice enough though, and certainly wasn't going to take any crap from me.

She got me medicated, fed and showered and organised my take home meds from the hospital pharmacy. She taught me how to give myself injections of Clexane (an anti-coagulant, taken to reduce the risk of blood clots) and helped me get my things together, ready for departure.

The surgeon left a phone message saying he wouldn't be stopping by that day and that he was happy for me to be discharged. He'd see me in a fortnight at our pre-arranged appointment.

Jacky arrived and gave me a big squeezy hug before picking up my overnight bag and the commode seat. The orange coloured nurse followed us to the lifts, carrying two pharmacy bags and yelling at me to slow down - I was scooting down the hall pretty fast and it felt great!

Jacky, who incidentally is the queen of parking, had found a spot right next to the hospital entrance. I got myself into the front passenger seat and waited there while Jacky and Nurse Orange wrestled with the knee scooter, trying to find the lever that would make it fold down. They found it (hooray!) and we took off, waving farewell to Nurse Orange.

I found my sunglasses, leaned back in the seat and lowered the passenger window.

It was time to go home.

#myleftfoot

My Left Foot - Part 1 - The Injury

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 03:23:00 +0000

I didn't really think about my feet very much prior to November 2013. Sure, they had done a good job of carrying me across continents, mountains and dance floors but they were also annoyingly wide and difficult to shoe.

Besides, there were other parts of my body that demanded the lion's share of attention, like the hip afflicted with severe osteoarthritis and the knee joint that has so thoroughly pulverised it's meniscus I can both feel and hear the bones grinding against each other whenever I take a step. I had grown used to living with chronic (often debilitating) pain for almost fifteen years and in the back of my mind I knew I would need to have both joints replaced some time in the future.

In the early hours of Monday 18th November 2013 my left foot made it's bold play, dragging me into a world of white hot pain and long-term limited mobility.

It had been a lovely family-oriented weekend. My son and daughter were with me (they have two homes and spend 50% of their time at the home they share with me) and we spent time with my father and two of my brothers and their families, celebrating my son's 16th birthday. Underlying the celebratory good cheer was a deep concern about my father's increasingly apparent mental decline, due to dementia.

Dad and I jointly purchased a new bed for my son, a combined birthday and Christmas gift for the young man who had well and truly outgrown his narrow single bed. We completely emptied and cleaned his bedroom and my son and daughter assembled the new double bed. By Sunday night, the contents of his room were either gathered near the front door ready for collection by a charity or packed away again in his room - or so I thought.

On a middle of the night dunny run, with neither my eyes open nor the lights on, one of my feet connected with a box of action figure toys out of its usual place. I don't recall if I kicked the box or stood in it, but whatever I did caused a spectacular fall that resulted in my body slamming against a wall and my foot bending like a banana. While reaching out with my hands to break my fall I managed to pull a heavy electric keyboard onto my thighs and a basket of percussive instruments onto my head. Cowbells, rhythm sticks and maracas created a brief cacophony as they rained down on me. My brain did a quick assessment of my injuries - sore head, sore thighs, my foot. MY FOOT!

My long, loud howl of pain roused my thirteen year old daughter. In her levelheaded way she calmly lifted me from the floor and supported me as I hopped back to bed. She helped me into bed and gently rested my foot on a pile of pillows before heading to the kitchen for an ice pack. What a trooper! Did I mention she was only thirteen at the time this happened? #likeagirl

The pain was excruciating but I tried valiantly to give my daughter a reassuring smile as I sent her back to bed. It was just after 3am and she needed to get up at 6am to get ready for school. She returned to her room, but I discovered later that she didn't sleep again that night, so great was her worry about me.

I didn't sleep again either.

For the next three hours I quietly sobbed while my foot swelled and throbbed. I set my mind to the problem of how the hell I was going to get the kids to the train station and myself to hospital. I went over and over the plan I had nutted out - lie here until 6:30 am, call cab and call brother, drop kids at station and pick up brother, go to hospital.

As the hours passed I added another item to the list - lie here until 6:30am, hop to the bathroom, call cab and brother, etc. My tumble had derailed me from the purpose of getting up in the first place and my bladder was uncomfortably full.

At 6am my daughter returned to my room to check on me, and when the tousled head of my son appeared in the doorway and he asked "what happened?" his weary mother and sister snarled in unison "how on earth did you sleep through all the ruckus?" Poor fella. He dropped to his knees by my bedside and hugged me tightly. Eager to help, he kept asking what he could do for me. I laid out the plan for them and my son helped me get off the bed, then supported me while I hopped to the bathroom. Every hop jolted my left foot, giving new life to pain. I gritted my teeth and sank gratefully onto the toilet seat.

I couldn't bear to jolt my foot any more, so I crawled on hands and knees back to the bedroom, grabbed whatever clothes were within reach and after levering myself onto my right foot, I threw the clothes and myself onto the bed. I dressed myself lying down and waited for the kids to finish dressing, having breakfast, making lunch and packing bags. The pain was so overwhelming I was having trouble talking, so I booked a cab via an app and sent a text to my brother telling him to be in his driveway and ready to jump in a cab.

When the cab arrived I crawled out to the driveway and, using my elbows on the taxi seat and with a helping hand from the taxi driver I levered myself up on to my right foot so I could get onto the seat. The driver was very kind about my predicament.

As I looked at the worried faces of my children when I left them at the train station, I wondered if I would see them again that night, or if I would be spending the night in hospital.

I was relieved to find my brother waiting in the driveway at Dad's house as instructed. He was Dad's primary carer and there was every chance he wouldn't have been able to get away. Thankfully, Dad was still asleep when I arrived. Knowing that the Royal District Nursing Service would be along soon to supervise his morning insulin injection and make sure he ate breakfast, and also knowing Dad's habit of wandering off from home in search of his "other home" usually occurred in the afternoons or evenings, we felt we could take the risk of leaving him alone for a little while. All I needed Shane to do was get me into a wheelchair. Once he had wheeled me into the emergency department I told him he should head back to Dad, but he stayed with me and asked his partner to keep an eye on Dad. #dementiaadventure

At the triage desk I graded my pain as 10/10 and gratefully swallowed the morphine tablet handed to me by the nurse. After 20 minutes, when the morphine had merely taken the edge off the pain, I figured I had sustained a fairly serious injury. Although still in pain, my mood improved dramatically and I was able to smile and joke around. That's morphine for you!

I was wheeled into the x-ray department and the pain reared its head again when the radiographer insisted I bear weight on my foot. I waited in the short-term emergency ward trying to calmly breathe my pain out (some hippy pain management technique I had used successfully during labour and childbirth) and chatting with my brother. I sent an email to my boss and my staff, letting them know I probably wouldn't be coming into the office.

A doctor arrived at my bedside to let me know the x-ray did not show any breaks or fractures, so they were sending me home. A woman arrived with a pair of crutches and an equipment hire form, so I could pay the $30 hire cost before leaving the hospital. I was discharged without a prescription for pain relief medication and was advised to take paracetamol to help with the pain.

I spent the remainder of that week on the couch with my foot elevated, using my phone and iPad to work from home.

The following week I hobbled into the office for a day-long management meeting and spent the rest of that week working from my couch. When there was no significant improvement by the start of the third week, I went to my local general practice and asked for another x-Ray. Again, the x-ray didn't show any bone damage and the GP said that I should continue to rest it as much as possible, and it should be back to normal within a couple of weeks.

I felt frustrated with this advice and wanted to look into it more thoroughly, but there was so much intense, serious stuff going on in my life right then that I let go of the idea of healing and settled for carrying on and coping with a bung foot.

For the next seven months I hobbled around on my painful, misshapen foot while life went on. I hobbled to the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal for the hearing to be appointed my father's guardian and administrator. I limped through tours of aged care facilities in the north and north east of Melbourne. I clomped around Dad's house, helping my brother's pack up his belongings after I moved him into a nursing home. I shuffled through airports in Melbourne, Sydney and Adelaide and dragged my foot along those cities' streets and throughout the north island of New Zealand. All the while, biting back the pain and discomfort. I almost managed to stand through an entire Polyphonic Spree concert, but I just couldn't make it through the eight song encore set and trudged outside the venue looking for a seat.

Stupidly, this injury also co-incided with my sudden and surprising obsession with tropical fish-keeping - an interest that involves lugging around heavy buckets of water and other heavy things like tanks and gravel. #tanktales

There wasn't much time to elevate my foot over those months as the demands of the campaigning work I was doing in my regular job, coupled with the work I was doing out of work hours on our internal election, saw me working fourteen hour days and working seven days a week. I can't be sure of this but I think my stress and fatigue left me in a fog so thick that the pain couldn't pierce it. I just kept stumbling on, knowing the end of this intense period would surely come.

Then two things happened in July 2014. We lost the internal election, throwing my job security into question, and the twelve month waiting period for the private hospital cover I had organised on the advice of a health insurance consultant I had met at a pub in mid-2013, expired.

I pushed my job security fears to one side and made an appointment with the sports medicine doctor who had diagnosed my knee issues a year or so ago. I told him I wanted to organise hip replacement surgery as soon as possible now I was eligible for private hospital cover. He had watched me closely as I walked into his office and he said we could talk about the hip but it seemed my foot was the obvious priority.

The MRI he ordered showed the ligament that normally holds the foot bones in their place was, in my foot, a "ball of grey mush". Arrows on the scan pointed to spots of arthritis and possible fracturing. The doctor referred me to two surgeons for urgent assessment and asked me to let him know which one I decided to go with.

The first surgeon I saw sent me off for a CT and CT-spect scan. The process for these scans takes a day and when I next saw the surgeon he was able to show me an in depth look at the damage to my foot. The ligament was beyond repair and there were little fractures and small loose splinters of bone.

In the fall all those months ago I had sustained a lisfranc (mid-foot) injury along with the ligament damage, and the only course of action available was a surgical procedure called a mid-foot fusion.

I was relieved to finally have an understanding of the injury and to learn there was, if not a cure, a procedure that could give me some relief.

Between the diagnosis and the surgery (about 7 weeks) I got through by having the foot strapped by a podiatrist (surprisingly effective) for four days per week, then wearing a soft ankle brace on the other three days.

On 5th November 2014 - almost a year after I fell - I was wheeled into surgery.

To be continued.

Tank Tales: A new blog by an amateur aquarist

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sat, 21 Feb 2015 02:39:00 +0000

I haven't been posting much here on RTFACM because I have been busy posting over there.

Over a year ago I was given a tropical fish. Since then I have developed MTS (Multiple Tank Syndrome) and I am writing about my adventures* as an amateur aquarist.

You can check out Tank Tales on Blogger and Tumblr.

#tanktales

Enjoy!

*sounds more exciting than it actually is

Medicare is worth fighting for

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Thu, 29 Jan 2015 10:47:00 +0000

We had a health scare in the family this afternoon and after I picked up my family member I debated whether to head to the public hospital emergency department or a doctor's clinic. The health scare was serious but didn't seem to be immediately life threatening so I called my local doctor.

They had no appointments, so I headed to the bulk billing clinic in Preston to see how long the waiting time was. There were 20 people with appointments to see 5 doctors and another 10 people who were waiting for the first available doctor. The receptionist took one look at my family member and decided to have her assessed by a nurse straight away.

Within 2 minutes (I'm not kidding) the nurse was with us and my family member was assessed. We were told a doctor would be with us shortly. Within 3 minutes (again, not kidding) the doctor arrived, conducted the examination, asked questions and diagnosed a severe allergic reaction.

10 minutes after we arrived we walked out with a diagnosis (and peace of mind), antihistamine and a doctor's certificate. We weren't charged for the assessment and diagnosis. We didn't take up a bed in an emergency department, we didn't take the doctor away from other patients for very long and we got the care we needed at no cost.

I know that it doesn't always work this way and sometimes it is just the luck of the draw, but to me this is a very clear sign that Medicare works.

If there had been a co-payment (as our govt wants to introduce) I am certain I would have gone straight to the hospital emergency department and would either still be sitting there waiting or, more importantly, we would be taking up a hospital bed unnecessarily.

Medicare works and it's worth fighting for.
http://www.savemedicare.org.au/

Can you lend some ass-istance?

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Fri, 14 Mar 2014 21:17:00 +0000

My friend Anna is an awesome lady.

She runs Australia's premiere go-go academy and has taught thousands of Melbournians the greatest fad dances ever created. Anna's go-go classes are legendary and everyone who goes along walks away smiling, chock full of good vibes. There's a nice warm buzz from the exercise too!

Anna is a feminist and a music, fashion and culture connoisseur with a big heart. She's a woman with a quick wit, a sharp mind, an infectious laugh and the best hair you'll ever see in your life!

She is the Principal of Anna's Go-Go Academy, the creative and technical mastermind of extravaganzas like Thrill the World Melbourne and So You Drink, You Can Dance and she has taught tens of thousands of people the art of go-go dancing at The Falls Festival and White Night Melbourne.

And now, Anna's making a documentary about something that's close to all of us. Our bums!

It's called 'Does My Bum Look Big In This Documentary' and it's going to be amazing.

Anna is one of the most funny and insightful people I've ever met. She's got a terrific production team headed up by Rebekah Holt and the director is Jonathan Brough - he directed Time of Our Lives and It's A Date for ABC. The end product will be fabulous. Who doesn't love bums, right?

To make this film, Anna needs your help. And she needs it in the next couple of days.

So I am asking you to get behind The Bum Project.

You can contribute as little as $5 to receive Anna and Rebekah's heartfelt thanks.- every contribution helps! If you can contribute a little bit more there are perks on offer to thank you for your largesse.

Anything you can contribute will help get this show on the road, and on the air.

Check out The Bum Project on Indiegogo and Facebook, and watch this clip from the Today show.

Get cracking!

Get off the couch, go see a show

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:56:00 +0000

There is a fact that I must face: I am no spring chicken. This salient point has been demonstrated to me by the sheer physical and mental exhaustion I am experiencing after nightly sojourns to comedy shows.

I have spent most evenings in the last week or so sitting in dark rooms while friends and strangers have bared their own souls, and prodded me to discover (or rediscover) parts of mine. I have chuckled and I have winced, I have had my thoughts provoked and my fancy tickled. I have heard gags that made me laugh so much I thought I might stop breathing, and I have heard jokes so cheesy you could spread them on a cracker.

We are ten days in to the Melbourne International Comedy Festiva l and I feel like I've seen a fair swag of shows already. By the end of this evening I will have seen 9 shows, but when you consider that this year's Festival features 430 shows, I have barely scratched the surface. There are plenty more shows on my “to see” list, but time, money and my dwindling pool of physical energy mean I will be lucky if I manage to see any more shows this festival. (Unless of course you're offering me a comp to your show, to which my answer is: hells yes!)

Some folks go hard and try to crack the funny tonne (100 shows in the space of a four week festival). Other folks will see one show only. Plenty more won't even bother to show up at all; and that is tragic.

Performers spend months writing, refining, rehearsing, funding and staging their shows, and most do all of this while holding down a day job so they can pay the rent. Plenty will take leave (often unpaid) to stage their show, and there will be some that don't make enough money for it to be worth their while – some may not even make their money back. There are considerable costs to stage a show – festival entry free, venue hire, ticketing agent fees, props, costumes, tech equipment hire, tech staff, publicity and other production costs. Every ticket sold increases the likelihood of a performer being paid for their time and effort.

So get off the couch, turn off the telly, leave the house and go see a live performance.

It doesn't have to be comedy, and it doesn't have to be during the Festival. Go to a music gig or a music festival. Go to a spoken word event or a poetry slam. Go and see dance, theatre, mime, or puppetry. See a performer that you love. See someone you've never heard of before. See anything. See everything. Just go.

And just in case your mind is already filling with reasons you can't go out, I have prepared a list of common excuses for not going out, and rebutted each one. Common, I hear you ask. Common to who? Well...me. Yes, I have invoked all of these excuses at one time or another. But if I can change my ways, so you can you!

Common excuses for not going to live performances

I'm tired

Aren't we all? But nothing will perk you up quicker than seeing a good live performance. It might feel like a struggle to get out the front door, but the reward will repay the effort tenfold. If the thought of rocking up to a show that starts at 10pm on a school night really does make your eyes roll back in your head, look for gigs scheduled early in the evening, or even during the day. And if the show you want to see is on late, well, it's only one night. You've got the rest of your life to catch up on sleep.

I can't afford it

I hear you, I really do. Ticket prices for some international acts, and music festivals, can take a large chunk out of your weekly budget. But considering a ticket to most comedy festival shows will set you back $22-$35, equivalent to a sum you probably spend on booze each week, it's really not too high a price to pay for a great experience.

There are plenty of ways of reducing the spend on tickets too. For expample, Comedy Festival offers cheap tickets for preview shows and on Tightarse Tuesdays. Keep your eye out for ticket giveaways, and get on mailing lists that offer cheap or free tickets. If there's a performer that you really like, get on their mailing list. Get on venue mailing lists, as well as festival mailing lists, so you don't miss out on special offers and previews.

Like the Comedy Festival on Facebook, and follow #micf on Twitter for last minute specials and giveaways. And sometimes, if you head out on the first couple of nights of Comedy Festival and just hang out at the venues, there's a chance that you may be offered a freebie or a 2 for 1 deal to see an unknown act, just to get your bum on their seat.

I can't find a babysitter for the kids

Granted, that is a tricky situation if your kids are babies or toddlers. But if they're school age, consider taking them with you! By avoiding venues that have strict over-18's only policy you can usually find a show that won't offend your offspring's delicate sensibilities. And if it does, so what? It's just another experience in the rich tapestry of life, and you'll be there to support them through it.

A recent survey revealed that an alarming number of school age kids don't know where food comes from - 27% believed yoghurt grows on trees. Would a survey on entertainment show that kids think performers live inside the TV? Don't let this happen to your child.

If you're already taking your children to see Play School concerts, Hi-5 or The Wiggles – congratulations, that's a great first step. Comedy Festival offers kids comedy shows that are fun for adults too. You can all have a laugh together, and it sure beats having Big Red Car stuck in your head.

It's too far

If a performer can travel to a gig night in night out then you can too. Most performers probably live further from the venue than you do. Listen to your favourite music on the way there and back to make your journey less arduous, and if you see something that moves you, entertains you or inspires you, then it will have been well worth the trip.

It's too cold

Harden up people. Wear a jacket, and a scarf. And don't forget that a great live performance can warm the cockles of your heart. Sitting in a packed small venue with heat radiating from the stage lights will warm you up pretty quickly too.

I've got no-one to go with

You'll only need to buy one ticket then – see, you're saving money already! It's hard to feel lonely when your sitting in an audience and the lights have gone down, because you are sharing the experience with a number of people. Most audience members are lovely - look for other people on their own, and sit next to them. Strike up a conversation with people in the bar before or after the show, or simply enjoy the fact that you don't need to be conscious of another person's reactions and can just respond to this experience in your own way. If you feel the need to connect with people that you know, well, that's what social media is for. Just make sure you turn your phone off while the show is on.

It's comfy here on the couch

That's true, and it's also true that seating in some venues leaves a lot to be desired. But you only have to endure an uncomfortable seat for a short stint and the couch will still be there when you get home. Some of life's best experiences happen when you step outside your comfort zone, or in this case, when you roll yourself off the couch.

Packed to the Rafters/Home and Away/My Kitchen Rules is on

Relax. Some channels have 'catch-up tv services' and if you have access to a DVD library or shop, or an internet connection, you won't miss anything on the telly. No amount of close-up filming can replicate the potency of flecks of spittle or sweat landing on or near your person courtesy of an enthusiastic performer enduring hot stage lighting. Nothing beats laughing along with a crowd, or brushing up against strangers at a packed concert, or belting out your favourite tunes along with the rest of the audience.

What if it's shit? What if I don't like it?

What if it is? What if you don't? Life's a gamble innit? Despite the fact that I have invoked these excuses, and therefore missed a lot of things, I have still managed to catch quite a few performances over the years. Very few of them could be described as shit, and you get something out of the experience even if it is a shit one. I can only think of one show that was a complete and utter waste of everyone's time. It was staged during Melbourne Fringe Festival a few years ago, and it was truly awful. It was a family show (as in a whole family appeared on stage), so not only did the adults make absolute arses of themselves, but they dragged their wee kiddies into the mire as well. It was the longest hour and twenty minutes (to add insult to injury it went over time) of my life, and when it was over, my ever-discerning children scowled at me and declared that it was “terrible” and the “worst show ever.” I wholeheartedly agreed, and we managed to laugh about it. As far as I can tell, this act has never made another appearance, indicating that the shit suff usually gets weeded out pretty swiftly. If you really want to avoid questionable acts, do your homework. Look for reviews (both international and Australian) and get word of mouth recommendations.

Convinced? Book tix for Melbourne International Comedy Festival shows here.

What have I seen so far? (and what did I think)

Laurence Leung – Beginning, Middle End, Trades Hall (3.5 stars)
Denise Scott – Regrets, Comedy Theatre (4 stars)
Geraldine Hickey – Turns Out I Do Like Sun Dried Tomatoes, Portland Hotel (3.5 stars)
Asher Treleaven – Troubadour, Melbourne Town Hall (3 stars)
Carl-Einer Hackner – Handluggage, Melbourne Town Hall (4 stars)
Felicity Ward – The Hedgehog Dilemma, Victoria Hotel (5 stars)
Fiona Harris & Mike McLeish – Plus One, Trades Hall (4 stars)
Dead Cat Bounce – Howl of the She-Leopard, Trades Hall (2.5 stars)

What am I going to see?

Die Roten Punkte – Eurosmash, The Famous Spiegeltent at Arts Centre Melbourne

What would I like to see?

Celia Pacquola – Delayed
Andrew McLelland, Asher Treleaven, Celia Pacqola & Sammy J – Tie Her To The Tracks
Tim Ferguson – Carry A Big Stick
Judith Lucy – Nothing Fancy
Kate McLennan – Homeward Bound
Justin Hamilton – The Goodbye Guy
Daniel Kitson
Bob Franklin & Stephen Gates – Stubborn Monkey Disorder
Adam Richard & Justin Hamilton – The Shelf
Anyone for Tennis?
Bedroom Philosopher's The High Schoool Assembly
Cal Wilson is All Ears
Contact!
Wanda Sykes
Paul Foot – Still Life
Political Asylum's Late Night Riot
Josh Earl is XXX
and the list goes on and on and on.

Taking up the fight

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 05:51:00 +0000

Worker and community advocate Veronica Black has had her fair share of battles.

The fight for worker’s health and safety at ANZ bank bought Veronica Black and husband Matt Goodwin together.

“Our eyes met across a strategy meeting table and that was it.”

Working for rival state branches of the Finance Sector Union, they kept their blossoming relationship under wraps until deciding to live together.

The pair settled in Sydney's Newtown where they live with their three children, and ten years later 36 year old Veronica is Director of Organising in the union's NSW/ACT branch.

Veronica's interest in community activism was sparked at Southern Cross University in Lismore where she answered a student newspaper advertisement for volunteer mediators. Veronica completed the training, but didn't enjoy mediation.

“I prefer to pick a side and fight, rather than be a balanced adjudicator.”

Veronica became active on the student representative council and sat on the university's academic board.

“Few union organisers made the trip to Lismore, so people in the community often called me for industrial help. My passion for union organising grew from that experience.”

An Organising Works traineeship led to a placement with the Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union.

With a growing reputation for fighting for others, at the age of 20 Veronica was in a fight for her own life. In the 1995 state election Veronica ran for the seat of Ballina. At the time she was the youngest woman to win pre-selection for a NSW seat. While on route to an ALP campaign training session, the car Veronica and her campaign director were travelling in left the road at high speed, and slammed into a tree.

As the front seat passenger, Veronica bore the brunt of the collision and sustained multiple serious injuries. A broken leg, multiple stitches, damaged liver and collapsed lung kept Veronica in hospital for months, however it took another year before the full extent of her injuries was known.

“I broke my back in three places, needing spine fusion surgery to prevent spinal cord damage.”

Doctors told Veronica she would never work fulltime again. She dutifully followed the doctors’ orders, but eleven years ago she reached a turning point. After fighting for her life and recovering from injury, Veronica had one more fight ahead of her.

“I couldn’t listen any more. I decided I would do the things I wanted to do. I would have a life and make a contribution, and just deal with the pain rather than sitting at home feeling miserable.”

Veronica continues to experience chronic pain and back problems but is working, and enjoying life with Matt, and children Zac, Jake and Kate. Her passion for art and reading helps sustain her.

By combining political activism with a love of photography Veronica has amassed a vast collection of social movement images, urban landscapes and portraits, and she collects Booker Prize nominated books.

“I keep old nominee lists in my handbag, so I can search second-hand bookshops. I will read them all eventually.”

“The accident helped me gain a longer term perspective. Things take time, and some things are completely out of my control. I can't fight that.”

This profile was written as an assignment from a course I am undertaking with the Sydney Writers Centre and was published with the permission of Veronica Black.

Yammer

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 09:53:00 +0000

It started with the gender pay gap in Australia. Nationally it's 17%, in the finance sector it's 28%.

The union I work for, the FSU, tries to address this by conducting joint pay equity audits and projects in Australian finance sector companies.

At a meeting with one of these companies we started fleshing out the joint communications strategy, including internal comms.

With around 180 staff in my organisation, I planned to communicate with colleagues via email and the fortnightly internal e-news. The finance sector company, with around 20,000 employees, said they plan to use Yammer.

I had no idea what they were talking about.

After the meeting I went straight back to my desk and looked up Yammer. This is what the home page said:

Connect with your coworkers
Yammer is the free private social network for your company
Enter your work email. Sign up.

“Free? Private?” I thought. “Yeah right.”

Then I figured, what the hell, I can sign up, have a play, and shut down the account if it's bogus right?

That was a month ago.

On the first day I read the FAQs, the privacy policy, and googled the company and the board members. The CEO is the guy who set up PayPal. There's a former Facebook exec on the board. All the others looked legit. The testimonials looked legit.

By the end of the first day I had invited a couple of people I'm close to at work to join Yammer. We had fun for a while chatting online, and then we got bored and got on with our work.

On the second day I logged on and discovered the Yammer population had doubled. Everyone had invited another co-worker to join. Even members of the leadership team joined in. We had fun for a while, chatting online, and then we got bored and got on with our work.

We were all really busy because our biennial National Conference was coming up and there was lots of preparatory work to be done, so Yammer was quiet on the third day and the fourth day. And the fifth and the sixth. On the seventh day I posted an update. “Not much yammering going on.”

A colleague responded quickly. “Too busy to be yammering.” And then my colleague mentioned the things she was working on, giving me insight into her working day.

I started thinking about other ways we could use Yammer. What could we possibly talk about that we couldn't get covered with emails and phone calls? Was it just a time-waster? A superfluous tool?

It was on my mind while we filmed interviews with conference delegates. They talked about the power of connecting people.

We decided to use Yammer to connect our own people with the conference that would determine their work priorities for at least the next two years.

We sent an email to all staff telling them we would be providing live updates from Conference via Yammer. We would also be publishing daily email updates, and they would receive those, but only people on Yammer would receive regular updates, as well as photos.

Our Yammer population increased dramatically, 80 staff signed up in 24 hours.

It was around that time that I had an email from Aaron, a San Francisco based Yammer account executive. He'd noticed an increase in our Yammer population, and wondered if he could be of assistance. He attached a case study guide to the email which talked about the sort of companies using Yammer (around 100,000 worldwide) and some examples of how some of those companies are using it.

Colleagues from all around the country are now connecting with each other using the in-house micro-blogging service that allows users to post updates and exchange private messages with each other. Yammer assumes you are talking about work by posing the question “What are you working on? “ in the status update field.

Over the four day conference we provided live coverage of the presentations, discussions and resolutions of conference. We posted over 700 updates, posting every few minutes during some sessions. Verbatim statements, as well as photos and links to the conference videos were published on Yammer. We even posted photos of the food.

The feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. Colleagues have said it almost felt like they were present at the conference, others said it made them feel included. They were able to ask questions, and make comments, and staff who couldn't follow the live feed were able to catch up at a time that was more convenient.

There were some grumbles about the volume of updates, particularly from people who had been out on the road for four days, but by using Yammer they could make their thoughts known and I was able to provide a short summary of what they'd missed.

So our first big Yammer experience has been a good one, and many of us are now talking about how we can best use Yammer in future.

And while we work those things out some useful discussions are occurring on Yammer, about how we should behave toward one another online, and the different things that we are working on. These insights can lead us to think about ways we might help our colleagues or contribute to their projects, or how what they're doing may help you and your work.

We are having conversations online that we wouldn't be having otherwise – how often do you ring a colleague just to ask them what they're working on? And if you don't know what colleagues are working on, how can you possibly link up, and share information?

When you publish on the company feed on Yammer you are talking to everyone in your organisation. It's an enormous opportunity that also comes with risks. It is incredibly important to think about how others may perceive you and the things you say when you post an update on Yammer. Like with any social media, rigorous care should be taken in order to protect your reputation. Choose your words carefully.

At the moment Yammer is providing us with the ability to work collaboratively, and stay in touch with colleagues that are not geographically close, and I'm enjoying getting to know them better. I am also excited about learning what other things Yammer can enable us to do.

Yammering

artbylea

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 06:02:00 +0000

This is what comes from having time on your hands...

I now have an online gallery of some of the visual art I have produced over the last ten years.

Enjoy.

Review: The Threepenny Opera

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 03:18:00 +0000

Either high school productions have improved greatly since I last saw one nearly 30 years ago, or the drama students at Koonung Secondary are exceptional. The performance I attended on Saturday evening was terrific.

The small close-knit group of students ranging from Year 8 to Year 12 were brave to have a go at this show, and they were prepared to take risks. Those risks well and truly paid off and the company can be proud of what they have achieved.

Students composed music for the shows songs, and the music was a highlight of the night's performance. Bravo. My 13 year old companion thought the soundtrack created too cheerful a mood to complement the dark material the actors were working with, but I thought it was fitting and struck the right note of melancholy.

The simple staging techniques were well executed and effective. The absence of scenery and extensive costuming exposes the actors more than usual; the mood, the scene, all has to be conveyed by the actor, as well as the dialogue. Hard going, but the Koonung students pulled it off. The cast members, many of them experienced performers, were well equipped to cope with the demands of the script.

The Threepenny Opera is a bit “out there” and heavy and despite their youth the cast members handled the material with maturity and sincerity.

My only quibble is a technical one. I had trouble hearing the soloists over the piano, and I was seated in the second row. The majority of the theatre couldn't hear those lovely singing voices well enough to truly appreciate them.

Overall, a top show. 4 stars.

The Tweetpenny Opera?

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 03:14:00 +0000

Published in the Koonung Secondary College newsletter 31st May 2011

The Tweetpenny Opera?

I heard a sample of Koonung Secondary College’s forthcoming production of Bertolt Brecht & Kurt Weill’s The Threepenny Opera at a recent Open Night at the school, and I was so impressed by the students’ performance I jumped online and booked tickets straight away, and you should too!

But don’t just take my word for it. I asked Casey Bennetto, who starred in the joint Malthouse Theatre and Victorian Opera production of The Threepenny Opera in 2010, why the Koonung Secondary College community should see this play. Here’s the response Casey sent in a series of tweets via Twitter.

“3Penny is one of the first musicals to attempt to turn the form on its head - where musicals are normally la-di-da and implausible romance and sugary ridiculousness, 3Penny breaks out the chainsaw. Everyone is corrupt, everyone has an angle. Full of sex and violence. And the school community will be seeing this? I object in the strongest possible terms!”

So there you have it folks - an evening of debauchery awaits you! I hope to see you there.

Leanne Shingles

Talk to the Hat podcast 1: Bec Kavanagh

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 00:37:00 +0000

After attending a session on podcasting at the Emerging Writers Festival I thought I would have a go at producing my own podcast. Here is the first attempt.

Talking to the Hat is Bec Kavanagh, Festival Director of A Thousand Words Festival.

Listen to Talk to the Hat podcat.

Five Formative Books

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Tue, 10 May 2011 02:21:00 +0000

I woke up with a shocking cold and virtually no voice so I'm at home in front of the heater wearing red tartan ear muffs and warm fluffly slippers, thinking about formative fiction.

Inspired by Leslie Cannold's blog post The Books that Changed me, and with time off work due to illness, I've had a go at compiling my own list of the five books that changed me. If you visit Leslie's blog you'll see I have commented and republished my list there. The descriptions under each book title are shorter and limited to the book itself rather than going off on a tangent as I have below. It seemed poor form to fill Leslie's comments section with such drivel, but here on RToCM there's room for drivel a-plenty!

I'd love to read about the five books that changed you. Post away!

The Poisonwood Bible - Barbara Kingsolver

A ripper yarn, beautifully told. The voices of the Price women/girls are so distinct from each other and the characters are richly drawn. The story structure is superb too. I remember taking comfort in the passage about a mother’s love for her last child, reading the book for the first time when my youngest child was only barely clinging on to infancy, and I knew there would be no more babies after her. “She is the babe you hold in your arms for an hour after she has gone to sleep…She’s the one you can’t put down.” I went on to read most of Barbara’s other novels which were great stories too, but none of them affected me as much as this one did.

To Kill A Mocking Bird - Harper Lee

I read this at school in either year 6 or 7, and I remember being engrossed even though everyone in the class taking had turns reading passages aloud (with varying degrees of literacy) it took ages to get through it. As well as being a great story, reading this book provided our teacher and my classmates and I with the opportunity to talk about racism, justice and inequity in a way we hadn’t done before.

When Marnie Was There - Joan G. Robinson

Our family didn’t have a lot of disposable cash when I was a kid so instead of organising outings on school holidays to keep us occupied, Mum would take my brothers and I to the Opp. Shop at the top of Plenty Road and we’d stock up on books that were 5 or 10 cents each. My youngest brother was almost squashed in his pram by the boxes of books sitting on the awning above his head, and the base of the pram sagged from the weight of books underneath him. As a kid I didn’t have a strong sense of what I liked so Mum chose a lot of books for me, usually stories with great female characters - Cherry Ames, Sue Barton, Trixie Beldon - and this one. I wasn’t keen on it as it looked very dull, so I didn’t pick it up for ages. When I did read it I quickly became entangled in the beautiful, mysterious tale of the friendless foster child Anna who meets Marnie the sand dunes of Norfolk. This was the first book that made me cry, and the first novel-length book I re-read.

The World According to Garp - John Irving

I read this in my late teens, one of my first “grown up” books. I found it shocking, enlightening and funny, and although it was disconcerting to discover that adults perhaps didn’t have all the answers and could be just as confused as we teenagers were, it was also a relief. I looked at the adults in my life with new eyes and different expectations, and the pressure to develop into an “all-knowing” adult myself was relieved a little.

Tales of the City - Armistead Maupin

It seems unfair to single out the first novel in this series of initially 6, and now 8 books, but I do so as it was my introduction to the folk of Barbary Lane, the free-wheeling uncompromising souls who became my fictional friends; I love re-visiting them from time to time and cheer when Armistead releases a new instalment. They are getting quite old now, particularly Mrs Madrigal. How the old girl hangs on is beyond me - I suspect it may be too traumatic for Armistead to consider killing her off. We have lost a few favourites along the way (sweet Dr Jon and corporate giant Edgar Halcyon) and some not-so-favourites (Norman Neal Williams, the creepy P.I. who lived in the roof-top apartment, and charming philanderer Beauchamp Day). All that pot smoking and sherry sipping has to catch up with Anna Madrigal at some point, surely.

I came to the book via the television mini-series that screened on ABC in the mid 1990s, twenty years after instalments were first published in San Francisco newspapers. I remember it was billed as a “controversial” television series, and it was certainly the first time I remember seeing gay and trans-gender characters taking centre stage, and being represented authentically, instead of the vacuous hyper camp all-male clichés of British comedy or the disturbed individuals of American dramas and novels. I don’t know if that makes it “controversial.”

The dialogue driven narrative of Tales of the City is funny and engaging, and for those of us that didn’t live in San Francisco in the 1970s, naïve nice-girl Mary Ann Singleton’s move from Cleveland to ‘cisco is the perfect vehicle for introducing us to that time and place.

In Australia, at the time I read Tales, John Howard was wresting the Prime Ministerial mantle from Paul Keating. From a period of hopeful optimism and burgeoning maturity (as well as a crushing economic recession) our country seemed to change rapidly and dramatically. Small-mindedness, meanness and bigotry dominated public debate, hostile racists were elected to our parliaments, and any attempt to honestly acknowledge our nation’s past and address some of the wrong doing was dismissed as a “black-arm band” view of history that shouldn‘t be entertained. Workers’ rights were under attack, as were the arts, and conservative men and women tried desperately to corral working women back into the home to have the required number of children. And if that wasn’t enough to put women in our place, the federal government deemed sanitary napkins and tampons were “luxuries” and we would therefore pay a goods and services tax on these essential items. (I believe this is still the case in 2011!). What does all this have to do with the book? Nothing really. But is it any wonder I preferred to spend time with fictional characters as big hearted and wise as Anna Madrigal and her Barbary Lane ‘children’ while all that was going on in reality?

My own living arrangements were similar to the Barbary Lane residents. I was in a large share house with a group of open minded big hearted folk, and at times we were like a family too. It's a time I look back on with genuine fondness and perhaps the way I associate those two households, one fictional the other real, has something to do with the fondness I feel for Tales of the City. Or maybe it's just a damn fine book.

Having a larf

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 13:33:00 +0000

I’m just home from seeing Eddie Perfect’s performance of his show Misanthropology for the Melbourne International Comedy Festival at the Famous Spiegel Garden, and it was brilliant. He's such a talented man. Go see it if you can, there are only 4 more shows (and may even be sold out by now). I was entertained, challenged, made to feel mildly uncomfortable, and laughed my guts out. You can’t really ask for more than that!

But that’s not what I want to write about.

I went to the show on my own, running a wee bit later than I’d planned, and managed to walk through the door bang on start time. One of the glamorously attired front of house staff quickly ushered me to the remaining empty seat in the house, I dropped my bag on the floor, whipped my jacket off and sat just as the house lights went down. Timing!

The opening to the show is fairly spectacular, with dramatic lighting and a voice over intro from Eddie before he makes his way into the performance space to sing the first number. The intro, like everything else in the show, was funny. Not side-splitting guffaw funny, but worth more than a mere titter.

The woman sitting next to me laughed, along with most of the people in the tent. But her laugh rang out much louder than everyone else’s (not just because she was sitting right beside me - it was definitely a volume issue). And that was ok.

What made me really notice her laugh was the sound of it. It sounded like a fake laugh. Forced. The sort of laugh you might whip out when you’re trying to make someone feel like they are the funniest person in the world when in reality they are not in fact funny (which of course backfires because it is so obviously fake). Again, that was ok. It’s not unusual for some comedy patrons to bring out the fake laugh early in a show - maybe they want to be supportive of the artist, maybe they’re trying to encourage others to join in - who knows? But it’s not an altogether unusual occurrence.

As the show went on though, the woman’s fake sounding laugh continued to ring out. She was laughing in all the right places, but still I worried about her. It must be really hard work maintaining a fake laugh for so long.

I found myself stealing glances at her to check that she was ok. After all, fake laugh can be an indication that you’re not having a good time, maybe a sympathetic smile might make her feel as though she didn‘t have to try so hard. Maybe a smile from a stranger could help her relax a bit. I saw other heads turn her way, so I’m fairly confident I wasn’t imagining things.

But to my surprise, every time I looked at her she appeared to be genuinely having a great time. It didn’t add up.

And then the realisation hit me. She wasn’t fake laughing at all. She was laughing for real, only her real laugh sounded fake.

What an absolute curse! What a terrible affliction! To spend your life with the sound of your laugh causing suspicion, doubt and concern, when actually all you’re doing is having a giggle.

And it got me thinking about the sound of laughter. Anatomically, we’re all doing the same thing when we laugh, but in the same way that our voices sound different when we speak, I think I can generalise and say we all make slightly different sounds when we individually laugh. En masse though, it can be really difficult for your ear to discern the sound that each individual is making, unless there’s someone with a really distinct laugh in the group.

And in this case, poor old fake-sounding laugh lady was definitely discernible.

It reminded me of another distinctive laugh I heard a while ago. I was in a cinema with a friend and although the movie we saw could never be described as a comedy, it had a few funny moments in it.

A fellow sitting a few rows in front of us was a honker. Whenever he laughed he made a sound that can only be described as Demented Goose. HONK.

I was so alarmed when I first heard it, and wondered if perhaps he was choking. But he was still sitting up right, still moving a little, didn't seem to be jerking (as I imagine he might have if he had been choking) and I settle back to watch the movie. Next funny scene there it was again - HONK!

I exchanged a bemused glance with my friend.

Then it came again - HONK!

And I couldn’t help myself, I started to laugh at his laugh. So did my friend.

Appreciating that we were probably being a bit rude, and being women who tend to throw our heads back and laugh with gusto, we struggled with it but in the end successfully reigned in our mirth.

Until the end of the movie that is. We stayed in our seats while the rest of the patrons filed out, including the honking man. And then we laughed and laughed until we had tears streaming from our eyes.

And there wasn’t anything fake about it.

Vale Sandy Kirby

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 02:55:00 +0000

The first time I met Sandy Kirby was over coffee at Café 101 opposite the Victorian Trades Hall building in Lygon Street, Carlton.

A couple of weeks before we were due to start working on a project together, Sandy had called me to arrange this meeting. It all felt very organised, which was a fairly alien concept to me - mostly my life was shambolic, often chaotic. But Sandy was a very organised woman, and she also understood and appreciated the importance of relationships. She was determined to forge one with me.

At that café I was pleased to encounter a warm humorous woman who was thoroughly intelligent and disarmingly frank. Sandy was softly spoken, and in the time that I knew her I never heard her raise her voice, even in moments of anguish or frustration, preserving her vocal volume for moments of laughter. And there were many of those moments during our time working together.

We worked together on a project celebrating the 150th anniversary of the achievement of the Eight Hour Day in Victoria, sharing office space first in the Melbourne Museum then later moving into the grand Trades Hall building in Lygon Street Carlton.

On day one of the project Sandy’s top priority was joining the CPSU. She’d always been a union member, but never a member of that union. The CPSU were located in Trades Hall at that time, so she raced up and grabbed a couple of forms for us both and got our membership sorted. Once that important formality was out of the way we started work in earnest.

Sandy was the project curator and she created exhibitions and found iconic (and unexpected) images with which to brand the project. She took delight in aesthetics and I remember the way she sighed delightedly upon seeing our re-worked logo “Look at those eights. Such exquisite curves.”

She was right, they were exquisite. And kudos to Melbourne Museum designer Luisa Laino for her meticulous work on the logo.

It was hard going sometimes, convincing trade union officials to support and embrace the arts & cultural programme of events the Eight Hour Day committee had developed, but we persisted. For Sandy, this was not new territory. She had encountered the same hesitance from some unionists in the 1980s while working on the Art and Working Life programme.

This programme encouraged and assisted cultural activities in the Australian trade union movement, including a project that enlisted artists to work with unions on the creation of banners. The union I currently work for, the Finance Sector Union has one of these banners; created by Megan Evans-Griggs for the then Australian Bank Employees’ Union in 1988.

The Victorian union movement in conjunction with the government of the day celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Eight Hour Day with 22 events staged over most of 2006, and Sandy and I were involved in most of these to varying degrees. Sandy was heavily involved in the exhibition of trade union banners at Melbourne Museum and an exhibition that travelled around the state called It’s About Time!

The research, writing, and location and selection of images for these projects fell to Sandy, and it was Sandy who suggested we track down and use images created by Melbourne photographer Ponch Hawkes for the overall branding of the project. It was an inspired suggestion, and although it wasn’t a popular suggestion in some quarters of the union movement I still believe it was the right one.

There was so much about this project that was fun that it’s quite difficult to nominate a favourite event or moment, but I do have fond memories of Sandy and I travelling around the state scouting exhibition locations for It’s About Time! In particular I recall an overnight stop in Albury where much wine was consumed, much laughter occurred and much shit was spoken. How either of us managed to drive a vehicle the next morning is unfathomable. We took turns, but both felt equally seedy. It was a pretty quiet drive to Shepparton, that’s for sure.

During the latter part of the project, Sandy became ill with cancer, and began treatment.

She continued to work throughout her treatment, even though it was clear that chemotherapy and radiotherapy were taking their toll and sapping her energy. The treatment worked though, and Sandy entered a period of remission and regained her energy and zest for life.

By then the Eight Hour Day project was over, and Sandy and I went our separate ways in search of our next challenges and adventures.

The last time I saw Sandy she was being cared for at the Caritas Christi hospice. A new cancer, this time a brain tumour, had invaded her body. Her left ear could no longer hear and left eye could no longer see, but when I visited she was listening to Radio National with her good ear and working on The Age crossword using her good eye. Her bed was draped in colourful scarves; artworks and images covered walls and shelves. Sandy’s room overlooked a garden courtyard and she was at pains to point out that it wasn’t a bad place to die, especially as the staff were keeping the religious crap to a minimum.

Sandy trained her good eye on me and it pierced through my façade as it always had done in the past. And just like she had done in the past, Sandy asked me the questions I didn’t want to be asked, on all the things I didn’t really want to face. Are you still in the same job? Are you still painting? How’s your love life?

The period I worked with Sandy was one of the most tumultuous of my life – marriage breakdown and divorce, regular separation from my children, a new relationship, lost friendships, new friendships, developing as an artist. I consider it my very good fortune to have spent this time in the company of such a wise, funny, good natured, challenging and caring woman as Sandy Kirby.

Sandy was a life partner to David, a mother to Alexander, a feminist, a writer, an historian, an artist, a teacher, a researcher, a builder, a communicator, a unionist, and a helluva woman. She was my colleague and my friend, and I feel blessed to have known her.

She taught me a lot and introduced me to ideas and artists that I may not have encountered otherwise, and she put up with me when I was being bitchy or tiresome. She encouraged me, in fact she never doubted me. I liked the way she questioned my reasoning when it needed questioning, and the way she gently steered me in a different direction rather than telling me I was wrong. And she infused me with a passion for Sudoku that I am yet to shake.

Sandy impressed upon me that cultural pursuits and art were integral to organised labour’s aim of communicating and engaging with the wider community, and I still passionately believe this to be the case.

It would be a fitting tribute to the life and work of Sandy Kirby if the Australian union movement made more of an effort to celebrate and promote union culture and to never forget the significance of union history or that history’s relationship with current struggles.

Vale Sandy. Rest in peace.

Cooking: Swedish Meatballs

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Thu, 03 Feb 2011 22:00:00 +0000

I hadn't made this dish before but it was so easy and tasty that I'm sure I'll be making it again and again.

Throw a handful of chopped fresh herbs, like flat-leaf parsley, dill or chives (or all three!) into a bowl with 300g of fresh pork mince and 300g of fresh beef mince. Add 75g of breadcrumbs, 100 ml of milk, one egg and a teaspoon of allspice. Mix together with your hands. To make “elegant meatballs” I rolled half the mixture into a sausage shape and then sliced it up before rolling the meatballs (keeping hands wet as much as possible).

Lay the meatballs on an oiled tray, cover with cling film and refrigerate for an hour.

Heat some olive oil in a pan and gently fry the meatballs, rolling them around the pan until browned and transfer cooked meatballs to a plate.

Drain the oil from the pan and add the juice of half a lemon, a tablespoon of plain flour, 60 ml of double cream (I used regular cream and increased the amount I added), and 300ml of beef stock. The recipe I was following also called for the addition of a heaped tablespoon of berry jam, but I dispensed with that.

Bring to the boil, then simmer until the sauce thickens enough to stick to the meatballs. Return meatballs to the pan and stir until they are well coated.

I served the meatballs with some baked potatoes and a crunchy salad with lettuce, sugar snap peas, cherry tomatoes, grated carrot and spring onions.

Yum yum!

I found this recipe in Jamie Oliver's book Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece and France.

Dear books, I love youse

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 11:51:00 +0000

I love books. I love the feel of them in my hand and the weight of them in my bag. I love the sound of pages turning and that f-f-f-f-f-f-f-tt sound the pages make when you fan them. I've heard people say they love the smell of books. I love the smell of a brand new book as it wafts up when you turn the cover of your new book but I'm not fond of the dusty, musty smell of books acquired after sitting unread for a time.
I love having them around me and letting my gaze linger on favourite titles while I remember the tales and characters within the covers. They are the first things I packed each time I moved house and I couldn't go a night in a new place without cracking open at least one box of books.

And it hasn't been a one sided relationship. They've kept me company in lonely times and when I've been waiting for transport/doctors/dates/friends, they've cosseted and cocooned me when I've needed comforting or distraction, and they lull me to sleep every night.

But like all relationships there are cons. Collecting dust and taking up space being chief among them.

Notwithstanding these small irritations I still have about 80% of the books that I have either bought or had given to me over the last forty years. And while you might imagine a person wouldn't accumulate a lot of books over that time, let me assure you, you can. Especially when you take into account my inability to walk past a second-hand book store/sale/market without at least having a look, and that I receive at least one book at Christmas and birthdays.

It all adds up, and with so many good books on hand its sometimes hard to let them go. You have to apply a ruthless attitude to book-culling but every time I try to do a serious cull I hang on to all the ones I enjoyed reading and hope to read again some day, and all the ones I bought thinking I would read but haven't yet, in case I do decide to read them some day. Most of the books on my shelves I have read at least once, but my proximity to the quarterly Darebin Library book sale has seen the numbers of "I'd like to read it someday" books swell.

Over the years I've given away heaps of books to charities and our local school to help them with fundraising, but still my bookshelves are overflowing and there are piles of books beside the bed, on the coffee table and the kitchen bench. I found an unopened box of books in a cupboard yesterday, and a stack of books out in the shed. Not just my books either. My two children each boast a fair collection of books too.

In a further step along the road to putting my own stamp on the space I'm inhabiting I am rearranging the lounge room for the first time in ten years, and faced with the task of moving bookshelves (and by extension their contents) it is clear to me that we are running out of space and need to cull again.

So over the weekend and this evening I have been filling boxes. Out go the Little Golden Books my children have outgrown. Out go the children's encyclopaedia sets from the 70s and 80s. Out go most of the picture books – there were some I couldn't bear to part with though, like When The Big Dog Barks (by Munzee Curtis, illustrations by Susan Avishai) and Jane Hissey's gorgeous Little Bear and Old Bear books (lovely illustrations).

I kept classics like A Sausage Went For A Walk, Winnie The Pooh, Robert Ingpen illustrated versions of Peter Pan & Wendy and The Secret Garden, and all of our Dr Seuss books. I kept the books that made us laugh like Kaz Cooke's The Terrible Underpants and it's equally brilliant follow-up Wanda-Linda Goes Beserk. Maurice Sendak's Where The Wild Things Are and In The Night Kitchen stayed, along with Werner Holzwarth/Wolf Erlbruch's The Story of the Little Mole Who Knew It Was None Of His Business. The entertainingly subversive Click, Clack, Moo, Cows That Type and Vote For Duck also remain on the shelf. And quite a few more. Sigh.

Still, I have managed to fill four large boxes. As I stuff the culled books into boxes I try not to think about how many times I read them aloud to my children before they could read, and the times we read them aloud together since. I try not to remember the funny voices we put on, or the pictures we marvelled at, or the way we cuddled up on the couch or in bed to share and enjoy these stories. Because if I do remember for too long I'll be tempted to hang on to them in the vain hope that by keeping them I will relive those times. But the memories are inside me not in the books, so I continue to cull and pack and shove out the door.

Re-homing these books is a celebration of my children's maturity and hopefully they will provide pleasure to other, younger children. Besides, with more than 40,000 new book titles published each year we need room to store all of the books to come. We need room for the new stories, the new authors and illustrators that will delight, engross and challenge us in years to come.

We'll read some of those new stories on e-readers, and maybe some old ones too. But I think there'll always be room in my house for a book or two.

What are your favourite books?

Following the recent devastating floods in Queensland, Romance Writers of Australia has launched a book appeal for flooded communities. Find out more and donate books if you can.

The one where this blog becomes a bit like those blogs about cooking and eating.

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:15:00 +0000

I've never been a fan of making New Year's resolutions. There didn't seem to be much point making a vow that no one seemed to expect you to keep. Whenever asked what mine were I'd scrabble around in my brain for a response that would satisfy, rather than searching for something meaningful and achievable. For many years I didn't even bother, “I don't make resolutions,” became the stock response.

I spent this New Year's Eve with new friends, and not having celebrated the New Year with them before I was surprised by the seriousness with which the making of resolutions was undertaken. Surprised and delighted as it turns out, as the ensuing discussion delved into many areas of our respective lives and gave us all a bit to think about and made us laugh.

I held steadfast on the night and didn't make any resolutions then, but I decided to spend some time thinking about what resolutions I could make if I did want to make some. One friend suggested that five resolutions was a good number, so you could cover off maybe one largish goal, a couple of medium sized ones, and two smallish goals. And if you don't keep them all, the odds are that you'll keep at least one or two, which would be an achievement in itself.

Eleven days hence I've managed to come up with three, and they are neither exciting nor particularly challenging. That's the way I'm feeling right now anyway, on the tail of a three week break from the work/school/life grind. But on the eve of hurling myself back into the maelstrom of fulltime work, I wonder how long it will be before these three resolutions are harder to stick to.

I've spent the last three weeks simply pottering around at home gardening, cooking, eating, sorting, reading and I reckon I've spent about a third of that time washing dishes . My resolutions for 2011 reflect this period of pottering.

1.Leave the car at home once a week and walk to and from the station.
Our family were without a car for three months in 2010 and while at times it was a pain in the arse we were all a bit fitter and leaner due to all the walking – there's a fair bit of festive season excess to walk off. The extra time spent walking together was great for our relationships, we had some top chats. A regular day of the week will be set once we know the children's school and extra-curricular activities schedules for 2011.

2.Cook something I've never cooked before at least once a fortnight.
There's a stack of cookbooks in my kitchen, I scour the recipes on the cooking pages of The Age, and I'm a huge fan of the dinner spinner on the AllRecipes iPhone app. Yet I don't cook new dishes all that often. I was gifted a new cookbook for Christmas, Jamie Oliver's Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France and this seems to have inspired a rush of exploration of new ingredients and recipes. It's been fun so far, as well as tasty.

Recipes successfully attempted so far:

Chorizo and Tomato Salad
Croquetas
Patatas Bravas
Ratatouille-style Briouats
Choc Chip Banana Muffins
Jansson's Temptation

3.Establish a vegie garden
In some areas of my life I'm action-orientated, a doer. In other areas, such as say home improvements, I'm more of a plodder. Things can bother me for years before I act on them; and so it was with the Hills Hoist swing set. I remember the night it was assembled and installed. Like so many other parents that night we spent our Christmas Eve sweating and swearing in the dark while taking fortifying sips of Santa's whiskey. Many hours and skinned knuckles later we looked proudly on the safe and sturdy swing set, and in the morning two happy little faces shone when they spotted the contraption.

The kids grew out of the swing set about five years ago, and it has sat there taking up space in our suburban sanctuary ever since. Occasionally smaller children would visit us and take pleasure in swinging on the yellow plastic seats, but even those children have now grown too big for it. I kept telling myself I'd dismantle it when I had time, how hard could it be? Lurking in the back of my thoughts though was that sweaty Christmas Eve installation, and I imagined the task would be more daunting than I realised.

One morning last week I got up, walked out on to the back deck to survey my tiny kingdom (queendom?) and decided that was the day the swing set would go. I ventured forth confidently with my shifting spanner to undertake the massive task. I put on sunscreen, took a bottle of water out with me, and fretted about not wearing a hat. After all, I could be out there a while.

I was shocked by the looseness of the nuts – how had this thing stayed upright for so long? The long uprights that were pegged deep in the earth slide out easily. Twenty minutes after I turned the first nut I was swing-set free.

Idiot.

I'm going to use that space to establish a vegie garden.

Cooking: Chorizo and Tomato Salad

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:13:00 +0000

The first recipe from my new Jamie Oliver cookbook that I tried. Three large tomatoes and a punnet of cherry tomatoes chopped up and thrown in a bowl with parsley and spring onions and a splash of red wine vinegar. Slice up and fry a chorizo sausage, when it's cripsy throw in some garlic and turn the heat down. When you don't want the garlic to cook any more (don't burn it!) add a splash of red wine vinegar. Mix the sausage with tomato mix for a yummy salad.

This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.

Cooking: Croquetas

noreply@blogger.com (Leanne Shingles) — Tue, 11 Jan 2011 01:09:00 +0000

Another Jamie Oliver recipe from Spain, this was a near-disaster. You make a standard white sauce with butter, flour and milk and add nutmeg, cheese and ham (prosciutto is recommended but I went with leg ham), then you chill the mixture. Once stiff you're supposed to mould the mixture into little sausage shapes and coat them in flour, egg and breadcrumbs and fry in hot oil for a few minutes. I'm not sure if my mixture hadn't been chilled sufficiently, or whether I'd mucked up the amount of flour needed (I really need to look for my kitchen scales!) but the mixture wasn't exactly stiff, more sticky than anything else. It was messy and took ages, and I ended up with some fairly munted shapes, switching to patties rather than sausage shapes (although I did manage to mould a couple of them into little snags). A very tasty dish but time consuming a labour intensive. Including chilling time, it took three hours from start to finish.

This recipe is from the Jamie Oliver cookbook Jamie does Spain, Italy, Sweden, Morocco, Greece, France.