Monday, December 14, 2009

Embarassing Fathers

Hello,

Just a quick one tonight. Earlier this evening I was talking to Zig, who was lamenting her father's embarrassing traits (which I pointed out were no worse than anyone one else has to put up with from their own families).

I tried to describe the lengths my own father would go to in order to embarrass us. Which included driving a large calf shit yellow four wheel drive (back in the days when they were still rare). He would also play really daggy rock and roll, loudly since he was a bit deaf and enjoying himself. One song in particular tended to make me cringe whenever he was driving anywhere anyone who knew me might be (but which i secretly liked). So I'd like to share it here :)





My Ding-a-ling by Chuck Berry.

My Ding-A-Ling-A-Ling

When I was a little biddy boy
My grandma bought me a cute little toy
Two Silver bells on a string
She told me it was my ding-a-ling-a-ling

My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling
My Ding-A-Ling My Ding-A-Ling won't you play with My Ding-A-Ling

When I was little boy In Grammar school
Always went by the very best rule
But Evertime the bell would ring
You'd catch me playing with my ding-a-ling

Once while climbing the garden wall,
Slipped and fell had a very bad fall
I fell so hard I heard birds sing,
But I held on to My ding-a-ling

Once while swimming cross turtle creek
Man them snappers right at my feet
Sure was hard swimming cross that thing
with both hands holding my dingaling

Now this here song it ain't so bad
Prettiest little song that you ever had
And those of you who will not sing
must be playing with your on Ding-a-ling
 


It turns out the lyrics Chuck sang in this version are different from the ones above, but I'm sure you get that with all performers who mess around with live audiences :) 
Cheers, Kate :) 

Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Static shadow...

Hello,


Yesterday I woke up feeling like I was a shadow of myself on a tv with static...you know how you get a slight ghosting of things a few millimetres behind the main image. I felt like my soul was displaced from my body by that much. Enough so that instead of filling my body, there were gaps inside me where I'd fallen out, and areas where I was floating around in the ether. I usually feel quite shaky and unsure of my body when I get like that. I tend not to travel too far from home in case my body just ceases to respond to my thoughts, and I feel I can't rely on reflexes to react if I'm in driving. lol, or if I reach out for something I'll miss touching it, because only my soul made it to the object rather than my body :) Yet another example of how odd I am. 


I can certainly understand some of the feelings of people who suffer with body integrity identity disorder (B.I.I.D.), or even disassociative identity disorder (D.I.D.). The first is when someone does not associate a part of their body as being part of them (like and arm or leg), thinking that it belongs to someone else (or not themselves) and that they'd be better off if it was amputated. Which is caused when the brain is developing, and mapping out the area of the body...basically the brain leaves the offending limb out of it's map of the body. The second disorder used to be called multiple personality disorder. It's usually caused in times of great trauma, when a person is unable to deal with the trauma and withdraws, and a splinter personality takes over until the trauma has passed. I know that I've paraphrased both of these disorders, but I mean no disrespect, and certainly do not intend to make light of either disorder; I'm only associating my feelings of not quite being in my body or being able to trust it to do what I want, with these disorders.


I used to have a friend who was D.I.D. Her alters trusted me enough to come out and talk to me. I never knew who would come out to talk to me on any day, whether they would be in their mid thirties, teens or only three or four. Each of them had their own personality, which I could see mirrored in their host (but she couldn't) and a lot of the time I knew more about what her alters had been up to than she did herself. She would have blackouts whenever an alter came out. If you've seen "The United States of Tara", you can imagine some of the personalities that could come out. Each with their own role to play and desires they wanted fulfilled.


OK...lost my train of thought as I wandered off to spray blackberries of all things. Why I felt the need to stand up midway through something and go and garden could be put down  to being bipolar, or perhaps the fact that I'm only sleeping every other day...but most likely I'll blame the dog (he wanted to go out), so then I thought the cats might like to go out, and in the process of tying Tig up by the pond, I did a little weeding, then remembered I had an old pump spray thingy in the garage, and some poison in the kitchen...quite simply one thing led to another and to another, until here I am a couple of hours later finishing this entry :)


I hope your day has been as productive ;P
 Kate 

Friday, December 4, 2009

Hanna's Suitcase

Hello,


Well I'm here watching reruns of ABC on Iview. The documentary on Hanna's suitcase, which was sent to a Japanese Holocaust museum, and the way the curator and children in her class chased down Hanna's story from before and during the war so that the exhibit could be about her life, rather than just her death at Auschwitz.


It's a lovely story, but contains the common tragic currents that go along with many Holocaust stories. If you're imaging something along the lines of Schindlers List, or the Diary of Anne Frank you're quite close, although if you've been to a Holocaust Museum (like the one in Glen Eria, or other parts of the world) then you'll have a closer connection to the significance of the simplicity of a suitcase that once belonged to a little girl can evoke...especially if you've been there when a survivor has told their story to you in person. It has broken my heart everytime I've met a survivor.


Suitcases like Hanna's, with names and birthday's written on the outside.
 
One of the sheds at Auschwitz-Birkenau filled with shoes and clothes from the prisoners.
It's these mountains of shoes that always make me cry, since most of the owners were ushered into gas chambers...and the few that were not shivered in rags when it snowed, starving and slaving in work camps.


Anyway, although this story is tragic, this doco held a surprise for me within it. There was a little old lady who when she heard of the museum opening she decided to volunteer there. She was a survivor of Hiroshima. She'd learnt about the Jewish plight when she'd visited Europe after the war. She felt that unlike her survival of one of the Second World War's horrific tragedies, she ought to volunteer because the Jewish people had no say in the events that led to the death of so many. It was almost as if she was saying that since the Japanese had started the war in the Pacific, that she deserved to have been bombed with nuclear weapons. I am dumbfounded with this thought. What have we done as "winner's" of wars...have we stooped so low as to condemn people, simply because they've not taken a stand against political leaders? That after these wars we've brainwashed the survivors into believing that they deserved everything they got because they were the evil ones? We are the lucky ones; lucky in that we had the good fortune for supplies to reach our troops, generals who've made the right decisions at just the right time. Our politics are no better than theirs, you just have to look at the human rights abuses that go on in our own country, and the state of affairs in regards to treatment of prisoners by our allies fighting in the middle east, and the mental health of our own returned servicemen.


I suppose that it's very easy for us to say that we're ok just because we don't have death camps like the Germans or Japanese...but is it just that we've learnt to hide our abuses a little better since their mistakes? Are the degradation of civil liberties, and constant put downs of anyone that is different from ourselves, and damaging the psyches of whole nations any better than the wholesale slaughter of their people? Have we created mentalities equal to battered wives or slave nations purely because of who won which war? Is that kind of life truly better simply because we've let them live?


I would like to think that the world is moving beyond these suppressive political motivations and moving towards a supportive global community where we are all treated equally, but it seems that with every war we seem to have learnt very little in regards to treating each other with kindness and compassion.


Surely it should be as simple as drawing up a list of rules, with the basis of "Would you like to be treated that way yourself? No? Well then it's not ok to do that to anyone else either."...bring it all right down to a personal level, if everyone understands the rules then they are less likely to break them. During the First World War, there was a spirit of "Live and let live.", where if it wasn't hurting you, then an informal truce would fall, troops could withdraw to safety, or celebrate Christmas, simply to allow someone to live, rather than always being ready to persecute them simply because they were the enemy. "The Enemy" were still seen as humans who were simply caught up in a government's polotics.


Obviously we need to remind ourselves and each other everyday to see everyone we meet as we see ourselves, and treat each other with that same respect.


*deep sigh* I know this is a theme I keep repeating in my blog, but so often I'm reminded of this by little things I see around me. 


Well enough of me ranting, I'll let you  get on with your day...enjoy yourselves :)
Kate