Clowns to the left of me, jokers to the right

Freedom is hammered out on the anvil of discussion, dissent, and debate.

Hubert Humphrey

This is a cropped image taken (stolen) from the Herald-Sun’s #occupymelbourne gallery. I was flicking through, & this poster caught my attention. I flicked back & forth & still ended up at the same image.

Why? Because it speaks to me so loudly of everything that I find disturbing about the occupy movement as it exists in Australia. No economics or factoids in this post. Purely visceral.

Firstly, an apology to #occupysydney participants for not fully understanding why the camp was established outside the Reserve Bank of Australia. I was hammering away, railing inside my head & on Twitter as to why camp hadn’t been set up in Bridge Street (drunken aside: #occupybs would be a cool hashtag) given it’s home to the ASX? I asked a question on Twitter tonight (depending on how quickly I write this, maybe last night) and, thanks to @hailants, I learned something. Securency. I thought polymer notes were just a cool invention. I asked politely, genuinely, & I got a polite, genuine, informative answer about something I knew nothing about. That’s pure gold to me.

OK, so back to the poster. This is so fucking far from pure gold to me it’s not funny. Starving African child juxtaposed with obese Western kids eating junk food. Seems like everything capitalism, everything wrong, everything #occupy represents. Not to me.

I am in no way accepting of how totally fucked it is that gross poverty, is delivered in white 4WDs to the Global South by, yes capitalism, but also inept, corrupt governments & non-state actors. The answer (according to me) to a fraction of that starving African child’s problems is not the carte-blanche, lazy finger-pointing at evil capitalism. It is pathetic infrastructure. It is more expensive to transport food to famine-declared areas from a food bowl IN Africa than it is to ship food aid from Europe. As this Massachusetts Institute of Technology project contends, it is only through global actors such as the World Bank that intra- and inter-country roads in Africa can be built and maintained (the example it uses is the Mombassa - Nairobi road project in Kenya). People in sub-Saharan Africa starve not because there is no food, but because transportation costs are so high, making them aid dependent, and if the greedy Global North cannot be arsed, they die. Dambisa Moyo’s seminal work, Dead Aid may not be popular, but her central thesis, that cutting aid will force these capitalist solutions to take hold, is worth study. I do not agree with cutting foreign aid; but I would play with the idea and put forward the following solution – that the member states which signed up to lift aid to 0.77 per cent of GDP under the UN Millennium Goals – make that abysmal fraction higher, and invest in an infrastructure fund that will assist in building transportation routes and enable, empower the most impoverished to trade with their neighbours. It’s a capitalist solution to a problem that exists, that is so obvious, that for the life of me, I cannot understand.

Next: is this problem assisted by a poster in Melbourne? No. Bring forth the person in, Melbourne, or my Sin City of Sydney, this city of 4.5 million, who is not aware, that somewhere in the world, people are starving. Seriously, I will travel to them, I will jam my foot in their front door  & show them this poster if I am wrong. People know famine exists; they may not understand why, beyond natural causes such as drought; but we know it happens. Forgive me, Occupiers, but where are your solutions, where are your ideas, to fixing this unnecessary, base evil, ill? Capitalism Isn’t Working? It’s not an idea; it’s a statement of questionable fact. There is no attempt to make a constructive argument; it’s not even a talking point memo. Where, in the general assemblies or working groups, are the solutions? I know what the problem is. I’m disgusted by it. I’ve been to Dharavi, one of the world’s largest slums. I’ve seen poverty in South London, where I worked in social housing; in Gaza; in Russia; in Redfern – none of which this poster represents – barring one teeny, tiny thing. The fat kids. The ultimate representation, the tool to demonstrate, about the greedy Global North. Shyeh, right on.

Yep, the fat kids eating junk food. What greater depiction of corporate greed could you imagine? Oh, I can. Teeny, tiny mind of mine suggests that the kiddies sat at the Golden Arches of the capitalist piggery of the Global North, are the the poorest percentile, those totally dependent on welfare; the kids who grow up in households where generational unemployment is a fact of life … these kiddies, the fat capitalist pigs gorging on the fries – they are the 99 per cent. Not you, not even me, with my multitude of fucktardness visited, uninvited, on my childhood. Fact: poor families sacrifice, or cannot afford, fresh fruit and vegetables. They eat fried food. They have less playing space. They are the children whose life expectancy is slashed; who will develop NCDs (non-communicable diseases) such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease. They will die earlier, their lives straining public health systems in between. They will, on average, not go to university. They won’t make these posters & camp in Martin Place or City Square, because they have never fucking been to Martin Place. They are in our rural and regional centres. They are on the fringes of our cities & at there epicentres. They do not regularly attend school. They are supplied with breakfast & taught how to read by the best of the 99 per cent – our under-valued teachers. These are the children Occupiers need to speak to; not Twitter twats like me. These children are growing up poorer than any of us – not in terms of disposable income, the measurable, cold, economic indicators I have written about before but under-educated, not even disengaged. They are the scorn of our ‘current affairs’ programming. Fringe-dwellers, regardless of race. The underclass. The illiterate and innumerate. The kids who set London on fire while we, the lucky 99 per cent of the Land of Oz sat here and watched. Rail against quantitative easing, #occupysydney … give me a small break while I imagine an austerity package, two or three, visited upon us. The truly frightening thing is that these children are not the stereotypical fat, unruly progeny of Macquarie Fields, or Fitzroy Crossing, or Frankston: they are the middle classes of  the BRICs, especially China and India. There are 78 million Indians with Type 2 diabetes. To work these most basic health issues through, we – who are not the 99 per cent – must get off Martin Place and reach Mumbai. Indians don’t see themselves as victims of capitalism. Indians thrive on trade; not just now, but through the ages. They live in a post-colonialist, still caste-ridden and religiously-divided country. They are more powerful than this lazy portrait, the Indians, South Americans, South Africans, Russians than our piss-poor democracy can imagine.

OK, I am drunk, and tired and I have ranted and railed more than enough for the early hours. Please leave a comment or tweet me about what this poster says to you. I am a cranky old woman, sure; but I genuinely want to know, in more than a cut and paste about how we are controlled by the banks, the media, the corporations and politicians, just what this poster represents. I want more of you,from you, as the individuals who claim to make up the 99 per cent. Agree, disagree; just don’t ignore. Oh, and don’t bash the people you have so long admired for kicking against the pricks of the right, and laughed at the idiocy of the Convoy of No Confidence. If you believe that Wayne Swan is going to chuck a Tony Abbott and stand in front of an ‘occupy buildings, abolish gaols’ banner, you are sorely mistaken. Barack Obama is endorsing #ows in his cool, pragmatic style. He wants to save his presidency by appealing to his base. End of Politics 101. Time for bed. Like this, loathe me, just think about it. Please.

The perfect social media manager (via Prakkypedia)

Professional communicators are often terrible at selling themselves – eight points on what sets us apart from the rest!

A lot of blogs have been written about the ‘perfect social media manager’ or, as often called these days, ‘community manager’. Social Media Today wrote about “What Makes an Exceptional Social Media Manager" and there are some great traits listed on this blog by Powerhouse USA (an older post, but still valid). As social media seeps more into organisations, employers are grappling with finding the right person to manage their online forums, Faceboo … Read More

via Prakkypedia

Dear Nellie …

Nellie of Penrith Posted at 5:54 PM October 17, 2010:

… as for Kristina Keneally allowing her husband and sons appear in a family photo and allowing the stillbirth of her daughter to be used as brownee points for politics. She should be ashamed, I know any respect I had for her has gone, gone, gone.

http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/spin-out-of-control/story-e6freuy9-1225939672167

Dear Nellie,

My name is Kimberley. I have one brother, and three sisters. I was born a huge (9lb, 11 ounces, 23 inches long!), healthy baby girl at 1.18am on 6 December 1971. I am my parents’ second child; their oldest surviving one. I am the younger sister of Kelly Margaret, who was born, and died, in 1969. In all of our birth notices, my parents celebrated their healthy babies’ arrival with the words, ‘sister / brother of Kelly, in heaven’. I cannot begin to tell you how much I respect my Mother, who quietly, but factually explained to us as children that she went into labour with her daughter’s heart beating; a heart which stopped beating before Kelly was born.

As the member of a family with first-hand experience of stillbirth, I find your comments, which I believe relate to this story (http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw-act/kristina-keneallys-sad-memories-of-a-stillbirth-10-years-ago/story-e6freuzi-1225939374867), abhorrent. If you click on this link, (http://www.stillbirthfoundation.org.au/node/125), you’ll see that the story relates to the Premier’s decision to become patron of Stillbirth Foundation Australia.

As an adult, I look at my parents in awe to think that they could even attempt to turn what must be unspeakable pain into a part of our lives; just as Ben & Kristina Keneally have done for their sons. I am proud that the Premier has shared her love for her daughter, and her very real place in her family’s heart, since she entered public life. You may not know, but Caroline Keneally’s name is in the NSW Parliament Hansard, in her mother’s maiden speech, along with the rest of her family. Like the Keneallys – and too many families – mine has an angel in heaven as well.

Yours sincerely

Kimberley Ramplin

PS: You can help make a difference to this parent-run charity by visiting http://www.stillbirthfoundation.org.au/node/95. The five-year Little Feet lunch raised more than $50,000 for research into why so many stillborn babies’ babies’ deaths remain unexplained.

DISCLAIMER: I work in NSW politics, as a ministerial adviser. I disclose this on my Twitter account and in the ‘about’ section of this blog. While this post isn’t about politics per se, it was sparked by the ‘anonymous, vicious, troll’ debate. I actually agree with the, ‘yes to anonymous, vicious, trolls’ argument, but I have been obsessing over it today because it instantly brought to mind this pseudonymous online comment – almost one month later. If you think I didn’t cry when I read it, or cried again when I started typing tonight, think again.

About a boy

The language is so foreign

I can never understand

Come Back (Light Therapy) – Josh Rouse

Today (November 1) is Communication Shutdown Day, a global push to raise awareness and funds for autism spectrum groups in more than 40 countries. https://communicationshutdown.org/?view=home. I’ve read a few excellent blog posts on the efficacy (or otherwise) of the social media campaign (DragOnista here: http://dragonistasblog.com/2010/10/31/autism-badly-served-by-communication-shutdown/ and Mike Stuchbery here: http://mike-stuchbery.com/2010/10/31/communication-shutdown-youre-doing-it-wrong/. The latter includes a good rejoinder from one of the people behind Communication Shutdown). Having participated in several social media awareness campaigns (most recently RUOK? Day), I thought I’d have a crack at a post as well. I am not a social media guru. I loathe the term, and most variations on it.  As you can see, I don’t even know how to insert links on my blog properly. What I thought I knew, professionally & personally, was how to communicate; until I met, erased from my memory, rediscovered years later, and fell in love with the man whose battered long-sleeve t-shirt I climb into on nights when I feel a bit flat and vulnerable – such as tonight. This is about a boy, a sweet, damaged, delightful man I love who has Asperger Syndrome.

I met Michael in 2002. I had just arrived in Sydney after more than five years in Europe and a broken engagement. I knew no one; so when I became the ‘ring-in’ in a tight knit bunch of people who had, it seemed, all been in and out of love with each other for a decade or so, it felt great. When I met Michael, it was a classic case of sexual snap, crackle & pop. I wanted him, he wanted me, & off we went to my new, barely furnished flat. The next day, we hung out and he was the first person to sit on my new lounge. The first person who arranged it like a bed and pulled me down next to him, and talked and kissed and cuddled to me for the rest of the day. When he left that night, I felt sure he was really interested in me.

The call never came. Michael was in love with someone else in the circle of friends, the ex-girlfriend of someone else in the group … messy is not the way to describe it. They ended up moving in together shortly after our night together, & I am big enough & ugly enough to admit that it hurt. That I could let my guard down – with someone so intricately connected to my new, and only social circle in Sydney – turned that hurt into an impressive nonchalance whenever he & his new partner came up in conversation. They moved out of Sydney, so I was spared contact with them.

Fast-forward to 2006. Friend’s birthday at a Thai place in Newtown. I’m late, bolting up the stairs to find a group of 20 or so … including Michael. We sat at opposing ends of the long table. He got up & walked away. Then I realised I’d forgotten it was BYO, so I did another runner to find some alcohol. Down the stairs … smack into Michael, who was on his way back to the table from the bottleshop. There was no avoiding it, so we said perfunctory hellos. I came back to the restaurant, we ate, we ignored each other. Fine. Until someone suggested drinks at a pub across the road. I lollygagged about, one of the last in. Mistake: he was waiting at the bar. For me. This time, he didn’t let me go the next day.

I am not the easiest person to be in a relationship with. Make of that what you will. With Michael, though, it came so easily. My new boyfriend was enchanting (and aargh! enchanted with me). We didn’t need anyone, or anything else. Completely entwined, intertwined, entertained. He would do the most ridiculously sweet & amazing things for me (like find old video of Sigmund the Sea Monster when I told him I loved it as a kid – and sit in bed with me and watch it); I would spend hours at antique markets finding additions for his collection of 50s & 60s kitsch. But there were signs that my candy-sweet confectionary world was fragile. At first, I just thought it was one of those, ‘bloody men’ things.Turning up hours late for dinner; inconsistent phone calls – either five a day or none; the fact that we couldn’t really stay at his place because he had pulled apart a car engine in his bedroom and was sleeping on the lounge. Then things started to fall apart. He would stop speaking to me for days at a time, and not come out to dinner with friends, not answer texts or frantic phone calls or think that I might be worried sick about him being in an accident. Worst of all, were the days and nights when he would arrive at my flat and cry. Just walk in the door, unable to stop the tears and unable to talk to me. This strange, beautiful, boy of mine was terrified of me trying to stroke his face; if I cried he walked away, hysterical, apologising, unable to allow himself to be loved and protected from whatever was hurting him. I adored him, and the more I tried to show him, with infinite excuses and open arms, that I loved the whole of him, the more he pulled away. I was drowning, hating myself for suffocating him with my anxiety and I started to react. If he was fine, I wasn’t; I couldn’t sleep, I was angry with him for making it difficult for me to breathe. I was furious that he didn’t understand how difficult it was to switch all of this and go to work, that he was totally disinterested in politics, that he didn’t accept a promotion at work when he was so dedicated and gifted.

The more he withdrew, the harder I pulled. He rang me one day and said, ‘I’m going away for three weeks to think about things. I won’t be contactable’. It hurt, but I had my warning. Three weeks to the day, he called again. He was back, he wanted to see me. He sounded so calm, I thought he had been on holiday and just needed a circuit breaker. No, he said when he walked in, I haven’t been away. I just wanted to disappear. I just turned my phone off and stayed at home, and decided:

“I can’t be in this relationship anymore. I can’t be around you. I can’t stand loving you.”

It wasn’t the words; it was the casual cruelty, the way the phrases didn’t seem to make sense and the way he looked at me.

“But WHAT, Michael – what have I done? Why won’t you talk to me? I love you, what are you doing; you cannot do this. You can’t do it? I can barely hold it together and you can’t stand me, but you love me. I just have to accept this?”

I screamed at him, begging him not to leave, pleading that I would be better, that I could be better. And something switched on inside him; and with whatever empathy he could summon he stopped and just told me he loved me; he was sorry; ssshhh, please don’t cry.

This scene played out again, and again. The monthly phone call, the tortured hours of crying and laughing as we broke up again. The inevitable knock on the door the next day, the promises we both made not to do it again, my all-too-ready kiss as I set myself up for the repeat performance. Like a pathetic, punch-drunk boxer I kept dragging myself up for more until I despised myself and he started drowning with me. I was still in love with him; and he kept coming back. He must love me.

It wasn’t until Christmas that he told me the truth. He was with his family, I was with mine. He called and said his brother was out of control, things were a nightmare. No, you don’t understand, he said. He’s got Asperger’s. So do I.

How could I have been so blind? The unwillingness or inability to socialise. Refusal to make eye contact with me. The problems with making plans for the future. The unrelenting focus on detail. It all made so much sense. Now I knew, we could work through this, together; I could learn to understand him, help him, let him go when he needed to be unseen.

A week or so later, after making plans to spend New Year’s Eve with me, he didn’t show up. He didn’t call, or even text, and I knew that was it. I will always treasure the wonderful things and experiences we shared. The great stuff was truly great. His easy, gentle kiss on the forehead. The deep, exhausted, intimate bliss as I lay in his arms, in front of the 100 watt lights and tin foil heater I bought on his recommendation. Getting busted kissing by a friend in a bottle shop in Newtown … and me not giving a damn who saw us. Watching TV with him, and the way he laughed at my foot stomping during the World Cup. The fact that he liked me without make up, in passion killing trackies. What makes me sad? The real and lasting sadness was that the last time I saw him, he cried in my arms for the first time. He wouldn’t tell me what was wrong; and all I can think of is that he knew then he wouldn’t be coming back.

There is a post-script, of course. I did see Michael again, at a friend’s birthday. It was September 2007 and I had a new boyfriend. I was planning to go to India. Life was good. Not golden, but I was as at least prepared that I would see him. He came into the room, he said hello to me and walked away. Then he came back, sat down with me, we talked as easily and openly as we ever had. Here he was. The man I had fallen in love with. Half an hour later my boyfriend called; he had gone home to Melbourne for the weekend. I pulled my phone out of my bag and looked at it, but didn’t answer. Michael had walked away. I looked for him and found him outside, alone, crying. At first I tried to make him laugh, but I couldn’t, so we both cried. I haven’t seen him since he brought me home the next day. Worse, he moved and has cut off all contact with the people closest to him, the friends who loved him and tried to understand. That group has finally fractured under the weight of changing relationships, children and I no longer see them. So, what will I do today? I will think of Michael and I will try and communicate with him. I will shelve my feelings and try and find him, not to love him, not to try and fix him, because I can’t do that. I can communicate. I can make a donation to autism spectrum disorder research; but I will not shutdown. Not any more.

Four dead in Ohio

As a copykid many, many years ago, I was sent on a ‘death knock’. For the uninitiated, a death knock involves getting a picture, vision, anything, on a person who has died in a ‘newsworthy’ way. In my one and only experience of performing this duty, a backpacker, BASE jumping from Blues Point Tower, had been killed. It was a news story. BASE jumping was a pretty big deal in the early ’90s, and it wasn’t a suicide, which generally aren’t reported. So the news desk sent me to a hostel in Coogee to get a photo of the dead man. Which I did. From someone who had known him for a few months.

I thought about that death knock last night – and why, in a world where we leave ourselves open through Facebook, Twitter, etc. death knocks like that will become almost redundant. I’ve been to two funerals this year – both friends of mine who died in shocking ways and well before their time – and the amount of shit families have to go through to close down email accounts and Facebook and blah blah blah – it’s worse than dealing with banks. For this reason, I’ve started mapping my extensive digital footprint so that if my brain really does leak out of my ears one day, my friends won’t have to see my mug when they want to check in with Kim Kardashian (thanks to the wonders of auto-fill).

So … the Grog’s Gamut outing. Quelle surprise – having announced it on Twitter, the ‘Twitterverse’ responded – as did what many people perceive as the ’dark overlords of the MSM’. In the previous week, I agreed in a Twitter exchange that pseudonyms were annoying; that people should ‘man up’; if you have an opinion, and you want to express it, have the conviction to stand by it. I also believe that people have a right to engage in social media under a pseudonym if they choose to do so – not for the ‘anonymity’ get-outta-jail free card (writing a blog is NOT the same as being an anonymous source or whistleblower) but because it’s not how things work. Every day, mainstream media outlets invite the general public to offer stories; capture vision; dial in to talkback radio; participate in forum-style programs such as Q & A or Insight; trawl Twitter for, and post promos or links to yarns there. I think it’s a good thing; we’re just having trouble finding our way with the acceptable ‘citizen journalist’ who films a hail storm and bloggers who don’t need to write a Letter to the Editor to critique the media. It cuts both ways, and sometimes people get hurt.

I admire many Australian journalists; even if our jobs require us to go mano a mano on occasion, at the end of a day, most of the journos I’m in contact with will sit down and have a beer at the end of the day. Someone (sorry, it’s been a blur) wrote that journos are under increasing pressure because of staff cutbacks; a lot of people dismissed this. I think it’s not just cutbacks in staff, and the expectation that journos will file stories on multiple platforms, but cutbacks in time. I truly believe time is needed to work up the game-changing yarn (was there a better story in recent memory than the UK Daily Telegraph’s exposé of systemic expense rorting by MPs? I can’t think of one) and it just isn’t available to many journos these days. It was the result of a leak, but also defo-defying reporting and editing.

What we all have to get a grip on is that there are more than 60 million blogs online, and social networks such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube mean vision and words can be transferred globally in minutes. Twitter can be used as one giant, free ad and blogs are unfiltered, unedited responses. As Richard Edelman, founder of one of the world’s largest public relations firms, told an audience of students in Salt Lake City in November 2006:

What we have now is the evolution of a horizontal axis of communications that complements the traditional top down vertical axis. We are witnessing the democratisation of information. There is no longer a single source everyone agrees is always accurate. The sweet spot … is the intersection of vertical and horizontal, the controlled, top-down and the spontaneous peer-to-peer discussion.

So, eyes to the front, back to me. As one of the few ‘out’ political staffers, I made a conscious decision to ‘unlock’ my Twitter account. I also made a very conscious decision NOT to tweet about work (barring the odd shout out to some of the NSW Press Gallery, and on very rare occasions, to tweet on my way to an event my boss was speaking at). I accept that because I don’t lock my account and despite disclosing my name and job, that there are people who don’t play nicely BUT thanks to expressing my obsessions with UK & US politics, professional cycling, the World Cup, AFL (in particular my beloved Sydney Swans) and Manchester Utd, I have hit the ‘sweet-spot’ and made some great ‘mini-networks’ of people who have been there for me. Sometimes a *metaphysical hug* is what you need.

Some people like the 140-character version of the rest of me: my dazzling wit & repartée (that was sarcasm); some people I’d never heard of find my retweeting of Malcolm Tucker ‘risqué’; so god help the people who think I swear too much. They are your thoughts and opinions, and while I may think you have a bee in your ‘jaunty little bonnets’, as Malcolm would say, don’t follow me. You have a choice, like all of us, with our developed-world problems, of which media – mainstream, social, red, blue, girly mags or celeb rags – we want to be bombarded with. In so many other parts of the world, people are threatened, not by a middle of the book yarn and a Twitterstorm, but with their lives and liberty, for finding their voice by whatever means is available to them. If that’s Twitter, then so be it. 

So, my ‘takeaways’ from #grogsgate:

1/. I think that it is a ‘gate’ is fucking ridiculous, but so are most ‘gates’. They diminish Watergate, which should be the only gate. Ever.

2/. Twitter is dangerously close to creating your own private cargo cult. Think about the language … ‘followers’; ’blocked’; ‘unfollow’; ‘spambots’; ‘trolls’.

3/. I think James Massola was wrong to use his own avatar to point to the story at 12.15am. It wasn’t a big enough yarn for the official Australian Twitter site to point to, but really, big deal. Most journos do it. Bloggers do it all the time! Let’s call it evens. We’re all wankers of the highest order.

4/. I saw the yarn when it was posted. I read it. My first thought was for Greg Jericho’s wellbeing. I don’t know enough about APS rules to know whether they’ve been breached, but I sincerely hope he has a great network of support in a time of undoubted stress as he is no longer blogging or Tweeting.

5/. That said, there is NO excuse or justification for threats against James Massola. Post a blog, write a Letter to the Editor of The Australian, get bolshie on Twitter, raise it at Q & A but as I have said on more than one occasion that the Twitter I had enjoyed until the last two weeks is descending into a bad parody of Lord of the Flies.

6/. I’m not quitting Twitter. It’s inspired me to write again. So consider yourselves warned: if you don’t like cycling, horse racing and cricket, bad language, and the lowest form of wit, don’t follow me on Twitter. If you do, feel free to join my sparkly unicorn-filled world; where Kim-Bo Il is the rightful heiress to Kim Jong-Il and drinks sour apple martinis while cabana boys attend to her every need.

PS: “Four dead in Ohio” is a line from a Neil Young song about the Kent State University shootings in 1970. That was a yarn. These are photos of the four young people killed on 4 May 1970:

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_HyyDHyAwI6k/S8op1Z-49jI/AAAAAAAAI1M/Iu7IPLlHVEE/s1600/kent+state+victims+2.png

You can read more about it here:

- a KSU sociology department paper:

http://dept.kent.edu/sociology/lewis/lewihen.htm

 - a column from a local newspaper:

http://ourcommunitynewspaper.com/2010/05/when-the-viet-nam-war-came-to-america-and-there-were-four-dead-in-o-hi-o-i-was-there/ which includes John Filo’s iconic Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the dead body of Jeffrey Miller.

They didn’t need to go on a death knock to get the pictures of three of those four young people. Americans produce class yearbooks.

From the archives: www.sortmylifeoutforme.com.au

Friday, August 17, 2007 www.sortmylifeoutforme.com.au

It’s almost a full month since I wrote anything. I’m not what you’d call a consistent writer, but I used to check myspace everyday, respond to messages reasonably promptly, support the musicians I’d become ‘friends’ with and generally enjoy the whole thing. Then along came facebook. Ah, facebook. I have renamed it face(ache). What started as a minor flirtation has become a full-blown affair; and my new love is a demanding master. Why bother calling, even texting friends when you can show your love by biting them using the ‘vampires’ application. This month I’ve learned about a pregnancy, a former colleague’s new job, and become friends with Kevin Rudd (he follows me everywhere, what can I say?). I’ve posted lots of photos, drawn a map of my world travels, reviewed books and movies, joined fellow West Wing anoraks in discussing our favourite episodes and quotes, and play in a Fantasy Football league. I have an aquarium at home and online and forget to feed both my real and cartoon fish. When asked to name one thing I was good at before it became fashionable, I wrote, ‘bandwagon-jumping’. It’s not perfect. You can’t blog on face(ache) and it’s more a way of renewing old friendships than making new ones (although one of my fellow West Wing fanatics – a young French guy – did message me unprompted), but it is sucking the lifeforce out of me. Between face(ache), myspace and three e-mail acounts, I’m finding it difficult to keep up with my virtual life (I’m not going to say second life given the freaky things I’ve heard that go on there …), let alone my so-called real life. I’m arranging drinks after work and tickets to concerts and cricket matches online – even when I’m speaking to my friends, we leave the detail to http://www.sortmylifeoutforme.com.au. I’ve even been invited to a wedding in Goa in November by e-mail (the invitation is in the mail – I’d dropped out of the loop and this friend didn’t know my actual physical address). If only I could shift this fierce bout of ‘la grippe’ onto my home page. Then I could go out and have a sour apple martini instead of knocking back ‘cocktail hour’ on face(ache)!