August 28. Day 241. Celebrate good times. Come on

 It's birthday season in my family. There's something about November that seems to make people want to conceive and August that makes them want to give birth. This means present shopping and in return cake. This is a fair deal in any man (or women's) language. So it was today that we all gathered at the home of my sister Marie for a combined celebration for the birthdays of her daughter Scarlett, my mother Margaret and our niece Amelia. For each it was a special birthday. Mum reached three quarters of a century, Scarlett left her teens and Amelia entered them. Now if that's not a good reason to eat, drink and be merry I don't know what is. And then because we are all getting old we went home and had a little lie down (well I did. I can't really speak for the others). It's their party and they can lie if they want to.

August 27. Day 240. Les Liaisons Dangereuses

John Warner as Le Vicomte de Valmont

Fiona Kennedy as  La Marquise de Merteuil

 Every generation seems to think that they invented the sexual revolution. Young people think those who went before are old fuddy duddies. And the old fuddy duddies allow the belief to prosper by seeing the young as wild and promiscuous. How quickly we forget. Let me take you back to 1782 (no, I wasn't alive then although I'm sure many of my students would find it hard to believe). But that was the year Pierre Choderlos de Laclos wrote Les Liaisons Dangereuses a positively scandalous novel written entirely in letter form. Even today the antics of those wild French aristocrats would make the nude selfie-sending teenagers blush. In fact my jaw may have dropped just a little as I sat in the audience of Villanova Players' stage adaptation this afternoon.  This is a wickedly funny tale of revenge, betrayal and manipulation as well as many, many dangerous liaisons. The performances were as captivating as the characters were conniving. And that was only round one. But a few hours later on the other side of town I was transported to 1926. This time it was Growl Theatre's production of  The Constant Wife written by W Somerset Maugham. Once again the tale is about duplicitous dealings, infidelity and the battle of the sexes. It raises interesting questions about love, lust and the manoeuvres of marriage. I may have snorted just a little when the lead character Constance Middleton delivered the classic line about modern wives being parasites "a prostitute who doesn't deliver the goods". Lordy. And we think we live in enlightened times. Okay, this may not exactly be a history lesson but we can learn a lot about a time from the works created by the greater writers of the period. And actors allow the audience to be a fly on the wall. There are far, far worse ways to invest a few hours on the weekend. I for one highly recommend it.
The Constant Wife is on at the Windsor School of Arts Hall until September 3.
Les Liaisons Dangerueses is on at the Yeronga State High School Hall until September 11.

August 26. Day 239. Poetry in motion

There's a certain poetry about a Friday afternoon. No, I don't find myself sprouting verse, blank or otherwise. It's more that Friday is POETS Day, a fine tradition known as Piss Off Early Tomorrow's Saturday. I must say that this week more than most I felt an urge to down tools and escape. There's probably even some perfectly wonderful rhyming slang to describe the mood but I am too tired to think of it or repeat it. But with my furry  accomplices in tow, we went off to visit Grandma. For the dogs, it was more like Christmas than Poets Day. They got to charge around the back yard after birds that were close enough to suggest a possibility without ever getting close enough to present any danger. And I got to sit back and watch the stage show. It really was poetry in motion.

August 25. Day 238. You can all duck off

 And here we go again. It's that time of semester where the overwhelming sense of drowning begins. Where the piles of marking mount and the piles of bottom flare from sitting so long over the mounting marking. It's exhausting and of course the more you need sleep the less time there is for the dearly beloved ZZZZZs. But I have come to realise that saving time by tying yourself to your desk is a false economy. The brain as well as the bottom need a break and the dogs need a walk. So off we went to visit the ducks. I feel fairly certain that the ducks could have lived without the enthusiastic welcome offered by Rumple and Winkle. They were, indeed, ducking for cover but when it was all over I know we all felt better for it. And it's not as though the marking's going anywhere much as I might wish it would. Sighs.

August 24. Day 237. Rain, rain go away

 The only advantage of a rainy Wednesday is that it doesn't make a day spent marking feel so bad. The marking still sucks. The resentment is a little less, or at least I think so. There would want to be some compensation because there is one big, fat negative - Winkle. Winkle, she of the book Winkle Did a Wee, reverts to character every time it rains. Every single time. Pretty Princess Winkle simply refuses to get her fur or her paws wet. She wees indoors and today she decided to do number twos as well. Yes that was a plural. Not only more than one in my house but in more than one house. She left a little present when we went to visit Margaret as well. Seriously, cleaning up dog sh*t makes marking look like a walk in the park. Perhaps that was her gift to me today to distract me from the pain of marking. It didn't work. It just gave me another thing to be annoyed about. But with hump day over things can only get better, right? Right?????
(Please say yes. I'm talking to you, Winkle)

August 23. Day 236. It's hard to get good help

If you want a job done properly do it yourself. Well that's one philosophy and I admit that there are times when that is the best, often the only way to go. Trying to find someone and brief them and supervise them and then correct the mess can take more time and effort than simply pulling your finger out and getting on with it. But there's no need to be silly about it. Recognising when to delegate and/or outsource is a fine life skill. You have to trust  that the master knows what he or she is doing and leave him/her to get on with it. My dogs are especially good at that. They are incredibly trusting. They watch me with admiration and trust with no sign of doubt or questioning. They might "prompt" gently around meal times but for the most part I'm the leader of the pack and they are good with that. There must be times, however, when they wonder. Like today. My only job was to take them to the dog park after a long day marking. They had been most patient. At the dog park you don't need much - the dogs, a ball and I normally pack a treat to reward them when they come when called at going home time. Well at least I had the dogs. One out of three ain't bad. It's terrible. The forgiving little creatures played chase instead and tomorrow they will once again leave me in charge and once again I'll probably fail. It's hard to get good help.

August 22. Day 235. Art imitating life

Sure, life sometimes imitates art but it is so, so interesting when it happens the other way around. This is especially so when it's about sex, religion or politics. The story of St Mary's, a Catholic Church in South Brisbane just down the road from where I live, is a story of such intrigue, such fascination that it reads like a stage play - and now it is, or at least it will be in a week or so. The priest and congregation of St Mary's is now in exile and worships not in the church built Italian Renaissance-style church built 1893 but in the very ugly Trades and Labour Council building which is, ironically, just across Hope Street. The story of how the church in Brisbane split and how Father Peter Kennedy was excommunicated from the Catholic Church is the story of an unholy uproar within the church. When you hear Queensland Theatre Company Artistic Director Sam Strong talk about it, as I did at a play briefing tonight, you just want to see it. It is rare that a writer and cast are able to meet the individuals they are representing on stage. It is rare for an audience to be able to see such local stories on stage before the ink is yet on that page in history let alone dried. It is an exciting project. I'm pretty sure that after two years in the development stage, this isn't the last we will hear of St Mary's in Exile. 

 Father Peter cried when he saw it at a special private preview. I have a sneaky suspicion I might just do the same.