Four zebras in the road

Ways to wake up

susan m wills — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 23:14:35 +0000

I’m really glad blogs aren’t like cars. Or this one would need some jumper leads and another writer to push me down the hill. It’s sort of embarrassing, this non-writing; this white page publicly gathering virtual dust. This lonely collection of words and coding floating further and further from home, if you consider each post a tether to the author – and the audience.
It’s not that I’ve forgotten it, by any means. I’ve just been rather occupied (literally, and physically, but more about that later – and maybe in a different blog).
Anyway, this morning I awoke in a particularly nice way for a writer, which had the effect of sending me straight to the blog.
Well, almost straight, via coffee, breakfast, Twitter, facebook, hotmail, gmail, the morning paper, the filing and the laundry. (I accept we might have to agree to disagree on our definition of ‘straight’ here.)
I awoke to the pleasant sounds of a van door opening and closing, then a thump on the doormat.
Now this has got to be one of the more appealing ways to transition from sleep to awake. Nothing says get out of bed than ‘there’s a present waiting for you’. Even if you know you’ve bought it for yourself.
And the knowledge that I was due a nice little package of books from Amazon, was an extra incentive to swing myself out of bed.
Factor in that I have neither the time to read these books nor had the budget to purchase them, and you have the literary equivalent of an entire Dobos Torte cake sitting in front of a lone pensioner.
An extra delicious pleasure.
A literary rush to get me going again.
I have two novel, one poetry anthology, one provocative non-fiction book and one city biography.
I’m hoping they help me back into my blogging – now when I am about to need it more than ever. But again, more about that later. Promise.

The ugly reality of television

susan m wills — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 07:17:50 +0000

You’d think that it would be easy to have a telly-free night in New Zealand.
When the Buckwell and I first moved back, we moaned constantly about the dearth of good telly. We missed so many things about British TV. I think we moaned for about a year.
Then at some point, maybe a few months ago, or perhaps even earlier, we realised that we were turning on the television every night we were home – and not complaining.
We were just watching whatever rubbish was being dished up to us, gobbling it down, then waiting for the next instalment. We were like ducks being fattened up for fois gras. Yet it wasn’t our livers turning to fatty mush; it was our brains.
Don’t get me wrong – it wasn’t stopping us going out and doing real things, actual things – going to festivals and theatre or out to dinner, behaving like normal people when we were outside the house. But another month could have tipped us over the edge.
Luckily we acted while we were still able; before the remote permanently migrated to the sofa and stayed there. We instigated a TV-free night once a week – and for a short while it lasted. Until a couple of weeks ago.
Against our better judgement, we allowed ourselves to watch one episode of reality TV. X-Factor Australia. (Just one episode can’t hurt, right? It’s winter – what else is there to do?)
It was quite enjoyable. More than that – we laughed out loud. And now tonight, ‘just one’ is about to become ‘just one more’. Which as we all know, is the beginning of the end.
And it’s all Kyle Sandilands fault.
My name is Susan Wills and I’m a tellyholic.

An open letter to the bus who splashed me

susan m wills — Tue, 07 Sep 2010 00:57:23 +0000

Dear Mr/Ms bus driver,
Yes you, the one who was driving along Quay Street just before 9am, almost opposite Queens Wharf. It must have been nice driving in that lovely empty bus lane, enjoying that wide open space in front of you, with no cars to block the way. I can only assume that you were feeling very relaxed, perhaps reminiscing about the perfectly crisped piece of toast you had at the beginning of your shift. Maybe you have recently begun a new relationship, and were lost in a warm happy fug of love hormones. Or maybe you are not really a bus driver but an artist working as a bus driver, and you were appreciating the way the many greys of the morning cloud were like a multitude of brighter colours to your sensitive artist’s eyes.
Whatever the case: YOU WERE NOT CONCENTRATING!
Or you would have seen me, my overstuffed bag and fine Tate Modern portfolio holder, striding along Quay St next to the very large puddle – which was actually more like a lake – and you would have slowed down as you approached, to allow me to pass the puddle safely, inside of whizzing by in your toast/lover’s/cloudophile’s daze, sending a wall of water up and over me and all I carried.
Over my portfolio, over my bag, over my jacket, into my ear. So when I dropped off my portfolio to its destination, an office a few metres further along, I appeared in the guise of a half-bedraggled rat.
“Excuse me,” I said. “Do you have any paper towels? I’ve just been splashed by a bus and I have water in my ear.”
To her credit, the girl at reception did not laugh.
Mr/Ms Bus Driver – I will assume you did not do it on purpose, vindictively stomping on the pedal as you recalled your burnt toast/lover’s scorn/34th rejection from the Elam School of Fine Arts.
Instead, I accept your apology, which I am sure you wish to give, and advise you that I am not holding you personally responsible for the splash, but have apportioned blame elsewhere.

Sam, otherwise known as ‘Catty Boomsticks’, ‘Chairman’, ‘CatDuck’ and ‘Dude’ decided that I was not allowed sleep last night. His hourly requests for pats, punctuated by attacks on the sofa out in the lounge, left me dazed and confused this morning, like my head was full of sand. (Unfortunately he is not allowed out at night, as he gets into fights which then lead to large vet bills. So he has decided to try and break me, instead of just my bank balance.)
If I had been more alert, I am sure I would have clocked the puddle, checked for buses and slowed myself down, or up, to avoid being splashed. In an ideal world, that would be the case.
So Mr/Ms bus driver. Don’t feel bad. But maybe next time you could concentrate a bit more. Some of us are disadvantaged, you know. We have cats.
Unless…perhaps it was not the toast, your lover or your aesthetic sensitivities that led you to miss the puddle and me. Maybe you were just shattered. Perhaps you have a cat like Sam, too. You poor bugger.