07 December 2008

Redottification


When I was just thinking about starting a blog, my friend Miss Marzie - herself a longtime blogger - said that you meet some lovely people in blog world. Now it's not that I disbelieved her, it's just that meeting lovely people was not high on my list of motivations for starting the Daily Boop... and then I met Whimsy Cate.

Y'see the luscious, lolly-like dots you see here before you (as opposed to gloomy green and yucky yellow) are thanks to Cate and her man Tim, who wrote a comprehensive step-by-step guide through image editing and HTML that was so easy to get, I had new dots up by lunchtime.

So when Miss Marzie said I'd meet some lovely people online she was so right! Thank you Cate and Tim... you have made me a very happy Boop!

PS Whimsy Cate writes a lovely blog, as does the gorgeous Miss Marzie. So if you haven't ventured out into blog world yet, I highly recommend doing so. You'll be amazed at what - and who - is out there.

04 December 2008

Beginnings


When I was just two years and nine days old, my little sister came into the world. I don't know why my dad thought I needed a present to mark the occasion but I doubt very much that he was aware of the impact the three little books he gave me would have on my life.

They were by the creator of Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne: When We Were Very Young, Now We Are Six, and The House at Pooh Corner. I adored these books - especially the first two - and even now I love to pull them off the bookcase and read them loud and animated like a primary school librarian.

I don't know why I love these poems so much and I don't want to think about it too deeply in case it tarnishes the beautiful innocence of it all. But I do know there's something uplifting and inspiring and beautiful about the way stories like these can shape a child's imagination; and I'd like to think they had a similar influence on mine.

My favourites have changed over the years. When I was really little I loved one called 'Happiness' which was about John and his great big waterproof boots. As I got older I laughed out loud to 'Bad Sir Brian Botany' (an eccentric old soldier whose long-suffering neighbours took their revenge in a duck pond), and wondered at how that precocious little upstart, James James Morrison Morison Weatherby George Dupree, persuaded the King to help him look for his mother in 'Disobedience'.

But this is my all time favourite AA Milne poem. It's called 'The Four Friends' and it's from When We Were Very Young.

Ernest was an elephant, a great big fellow,
Leonard was a lion with a six foot tail,
George was a goat, and his beard was yellow,
And James was a very small snail.

Leonard had a stall, and a great big strong one,
Earnest had a manger, and its walls were thick,
George found a pen, but I think it was the wrong one,
And James sat down on a brick.

Earnest started trumpeting, and cracked his manger,
Leonard started roaring, and shivered his stall,
James gave a huffle of a snail in danger
And nobody heard him at all.

Earnest started trumpeting and raised such a rumpus,
Leonard started roaring and trying to kick,
James went on a journey with the goats new compass
And he reached the end of his brick.

Ernest was an elephant and very well intentioned,
Leonard was a lion with a brave new tail,
George was a goat, as I think I have mentioned,
but James was only a snail.

03 December 2008

I survived self promotion (and other stupid stories from the bad old days)


You may find this hard to believe but I turn into a wobbling blob of insecurity if ever I'm faced with the need to self-promote. Happily, at the grand old age of 39 I have found myself in the fortunate position of not having do it anymore... I have a job I like and, all going well, I won't need to hit the streets, trumpet in hand with which to impress a doubtful employer.

I have a husband I plan to keep, so as long as he's happy to keep me too, I won't be out trolling the clubs promoting myself as an ideal incubator for a 40-something nobody who's already been rejected by the majority of my peers.

No, it seems I've managed to all but wipe out the need to tell people what a great girl I am. But a girl will do almost anything when she's hungry... she'll even stoop to self promotion.

So I'm guessing it would have been early April in 1997. My job, along with those of a handful of my colleagues, had been made redundant in the previous January when the ad agency I worked for lost a major account. All I can remember doing with my redundancy package was buying a bikini, a bottle of Baileys and paying for fornightly visits to a tarot card reader called Annie at Orange Lane Markets. By April the money was gone.

I'd visited the two creative directors who didn't scare me to the point of peeing my pants and started to pick up a bit of freelance work but not enough to survive on. So to avoid any face-to-face time with Adelaide's creative directors, I wrote a headline, added a heart-wrenching story, a pic I'd hijacked from the newspaper and made it look like the lead the article on the front page of The Advertiser (Adelaide's daily rag). I then mailed it to every creative director I knew of and waited for the work to come flooding in.

Of course, it didn't and looking at it now, I realise it was really dumb to use than name of a real Advertiser journalist. Super dumb. Unbelievably dumb.

Anyway, last week I was preparing the spare room for a visit from my mother in law* and I came across my old portfolio; and in a tatty, yellowing envelope, I found my pitiful poverty ad.

Poverty stricken writer forced to eat her own words
By Scott McKenzie (aka the alias that probably did me out of a week's work) in Adelaide

A spokesperson from the Royal Adelaide Hospital has this morning told of the amazing survival of Tracey Linnell, a copywriter driven to survive on words alone after a prolonged dry spell in the advertising industry.


Tipped off by concerned neighbours, police entered Miss Linnell's home on Sunday; and while initially driven back by the stench of foul language, they found the woman in a room at the rear of the house, huddled unconscious over her thesaurus.


"When police found Miss Linnell, she was in a very bad way. Her condition suggested she had been eating words for at least a month, and tests showed no vowel movement for quite some time," the spokesperson said.


Asked of her current condition, he replied "Miss Linnell has responded well to treatment. Fortunately she chose her words carefully and the damage to her vocabulary was kept to a minimum."


It's expected Miss Linnell will be released later today and be fit to make an immediate return to work.


*Now that I know my mother in law's a reader of The Daily Boop, I'll refer to her by her first name (which is Lyn), refrain from swearing and blasphemy and not blame her for Georgie's wind trouble.

Indisposed

This is the first - but probably not the last - post I've ever written from my nine to five desk. It's been a busy, busy time in the world of traceyboop because every day when I finish work I go to my other job which is conveniently located in my head and it's called inertia.

I've only been working at inertia for the last few weeks and it's the easiest job I've ever had! I leave my nine to five and furiously fight my way through the Sydney traffic, eager to get home to the couch where the real work begins.

I try to be there by seven which coincides with the start of the Colbert Report on the Comedy Channel. The boss doesn't mind if I'm a bit late because the show is repeated on Comedy 2 at nine so in between times I can get busy doing stuff all.

When the Colbert Report is done it's time for a break so I rest my head back and look at the ceiling. I know I do this because I've noticed there's dust in the light fitting and I've made a mental note to fix it when I finish my stint at inertia. Not long after that I get so busy doing nothing that before I know where I am the time has gone and I'm back at my nine to five again.

So I hope you understand my not having time to update the Daily Boop... because I'm hell-mad with myself for letting it slip.

So... fresh, new and insightful posts will be delivered daily - as promised - to this here blog... if I gotta break the telly to do it.