Thursday 26 March 2015

Who would you invite to your dream dinner party?


  Oscar Wilde would definitely be invited to my dream dinner party. He could fill the evening with witty and shocking stories, mostly true tales of debauchery and academia. Utterly delicious. And I think I might seat him between Woody Allen and Katherine Hepburn to ensure there’s plenty of zing—sexual tension, smouldering innuendo and unfettered eccentricity with lashings of fine wine.

Right across from the three of them I’d seat my dearest long-time friends John and Jenny. I know they’d have fun. There’d be laughter and plentiful mutual admiration. John would both shock and fascinate Oscar with his award-winning body-building physique, his incredibly well-crafted Mardi Gras costumes, and his erudite knowledge of all things artistic and stylish. He’d probably intimidate Woody, but let’s face it. Who wouldn’t?

Jen would have Katherine’s head tipped sideways in rapt admiration as she chatted about sea-kayaking off the coast of Patagonia, having her beloved dog’s ashes compressed into a diamond, and existing in the twin worlds of conventional medicine and naturopathy. Katherine would adore her. I know she would. And Woody might just find the inspiration for his next movie.

Some friendships are like that, aren’t they? We three have known each other for more than forty years. At various times, each of us has lived away from Australia for extended periods. But it has never mattered. As things stand now, we are still separated by thousands of kilometres. But that doesn’t matter either. Whenever we are together, Distance and Time dissolve in the laughter and champagne bubbles.

Other people have claimed we have the sort of friendship that even if we see each other but rarely can just be picked up wherever we left off. Some would probably continue to assert it even  today. But they’d be mistaken. Or kidding themselves. Because for them, unseen is the same as invisible. Our friendship amounts to little more than a sort of comfortable habit that can be broken. 
Or forgotten. 
Discarded. 
Disregarded.

Their warmth is just air kissing.
 I’d never invite them to my dream dinner party.
But I probably wouldn't want them to be eaten by zombies either. 


Monday 23 March 2015

The Great and Powerful Theme Reveal — A to Z Challenge


 Dearest All & Zundry,

As the clicky linky pic thing to the right of this post reveals, I am participating in another month-long blogging event during April. So far, 1150 bloggers have signed up to write for the 26 non-Sundays of April, with each day being represented by a letter of the alphabet.

Now, as regular visitors know, this blog is usually arbitrary bits-and-pieces cobbled deftly together. During April, however, I intend to follow the advice of previous participants and will endeavour fervently to conform to the goddamn hellish idea of writing to a theme. And today is theme reveal day.

Jostling keenly for contention have been literary, mischievous, noble and ordinary possibilities. Quite realistically, some topics I usually think very worthy of exploring, just didn’t lend themselves to being alphabetised. Or would have bored you guys up a drainpipe. So I zeroed in on the central concept.

Letters.

That’s what I’ll be writing: twenty-six letters of various types, to and from whomever I please. And each letter will be inspired by a letter.

You might find an apology to Adam from Eve,  a soldier’s note to Florence Nightingale, a hate letter from Baby Born to Barbie, an audit request of the Tooth Fairy, a love letter from Catherine to Heathcliff, or perhaps God's letter of resignation.  

Anything is pozzible.
All good things,
Wendy

ps: For an added degree of difficulty, I’m going to try  also to add an appropriate song. And where better to start than with Patti Smith asking you to come 'break all the rules' and ‘ride like writers ride’ in April Fool.


  

This post is here linked to the A–Z Theme Reveal Blogfest