Ruby Rose - Girl Adventurine

I have turned my woollen underlay to the woollen side.

I have put the flannelette sheets on my bed.

And I have taken two weeks' leave (pretty much).

So I'll be seeing youse all for a while.

About 8:45pm on Friday 12 May 2006 - my mother Noelle Margaret Oke makes history in our family by being the first to receive a postgradaute degree - her Master of Arts in history from La Trobe University.

She left school at 14, minjou.

Proud? Who, US? Never!

It was a brilliant, intense, (tiring!) and fabulous weekend - the whole tribe there, and four little girls bouncing, crawling and toddling in all directions.

I hate that the older I get the more I realise that there really is a Collective Unconscious. It is the only rational explanation for a horrible vague suspucion that I am no longer able to express myself with verve and originality, because the CU is there, lurking, spreading stealthily around my ankles so that any lightning bolts of inspiration are earthed in its lower-common-denominator GOO.

I can tell you precisely when the CU (I guess the "nt" is silent) finds a way in - it is at that delicate moment when I am searching for a word or phrase to realise the inexpressible, when I open my mind to the Universe.....and I come back with CLICHES.

I have to fall back on onomatopiea to convey my disgust: Eurgh. (Or indeed: Ew.)

Just so you know that when I use the term "Wake-Up Call", I do so in the full and horrible knowledge that this is a crappy Merrkan pop-psychology cliche, which I am using simply because it is more convenient than typing "Full and Sudden Realisation That I Am Older and Losing My Va-Va-Voom And Need To Do Something To Stop This Slow and Evil Attrition".

Anyway.

I got two of these Wake-Up Calls in 24 hours. The first was reading the quarterly magazine my old secondary school sends me (I can't drop off the mailing list - my mother set up the damned database when she worked there, dangnabbit) and there it was - the call for expressions of interest for the 20th anniversary for the class of 1986 - yup - my high school reunion - you can't get much more cliched than that. I think they'd get a better response if they asked for expressions of dread.

I'm still sorting out my feelings about this, they are weird and complicated.

Although one of them is pretty clear:

TWENTY YEARS???

Really? Surely it's only been ten minutes since I left that hell-hole behind forever.

Wake-Up call no 2: My fitness has GORN.

I got up at sparrowfart this morning to finish cleaning the house prepatory to the Family Invasion this afternoon and evening. I had it all planned - first do the tidy-up and rubbish removal, then the dishes, then put away clean clothes and get all the dirty ones into the laundry basket, strip the beds, corral the free-range books, dust and vacuum, wipe down the bathroom, get dressed and GO, arriving at work at my usual time.

After all, I used to be a cleaning machine. I got angry at the dirt, dust, grime and clutter and whipped myself into a frenzy. Plus I'm a deadline junkie. Lay-down misere! What I was expecting was to look something like the Tasmanian Devil. It always worked before.

Er. Um. Right.

It just wouldn't work. I could do about ten minutes' cleaning and then I would have to go and sit down for ten minutes. And I had trouble getting up and crouching and kneeling down. Like someone elderly.

Alarm bells going off much? Oh baby, oil my sad little squeaky joints.

I have some leave coming up and I'll be inhaling fruit, vegetables, dairy and meat and doing weights weights weights.

Impossible, to be 37 and suddenly having no strength and no stamina and no muscles and having to cope with deciding whether or not to go to the high school reunion claiming to have invented post-it notes*, AND my mother's graduation AND having two little girls sleeping on a mattress in my room (which means two MORE mornings of getting up at sparrowfart, cos at 6am they go from asleep to full bounce in about 0.1 of a second) AND having to wait another week before I can switch off and feeling it happenning anyway, like a tide of oblivion sweeping across my brain TOO EARLY.

*Get out Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion on DVD. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll wish you had the legs to wear their Corporate Bitch Outfits.

# posted by Ruby Rose : 1:13 pm  2 comments

All sorts of crap has been going on, but I have sublimated it all by hyper-focusing on two facts:

1. my beautiful singing teacher, Julia, turned 40 yesterday and I had a lesson today

2. I have no spare money - but I can sew stuff.

Hence, my latest attempt at bag-making: the over-shoulder satchel bag.

This is a picture looking down on the bag as it is being modelled by Janelle, Melinda's flatmate, who, being about the same size as Julia (ie teensy) gives a good idea where it sits on the body.

I really really liked and yet loathed the feature fabric - it's a subtle, pretty Japanese-style print and it's just the thing and Julia LOVED it.

But the colours are all "wrong" for me - which means I could probably use it to make stuff for Bron and Imelda seeing as I owe them both birthday pressies - they like similar sorts of colours.


This one shows the layout of the bag - basically it's a long, pieced-together bit of fabric folded into an envelope, finished and then a 160cm x 9cm strip (also a finished piece) was top-stitched in place to form the sides and strap. Ah - has life ever been the same since I discovered the blessed zipper foot for top-stitching?

This shows the inside of the bag - yes, that is pretty, shiny gold fabric. my credo is that linings should always be as luxurious as you can make them, like a lovely secret. This almost exactly matches the gold blossoms on the feature fabric.


Bit of an action shot - just to show the bag "in use". Also I think Melinda was trying to be a bit creative in her photography - not easy when you are taking shots for posterity of what is essentially a bit of folded fabric.

And one of the bag plus creator. Erm. I look approximately spherical. Anyway.