Paleo, Pilates and Physio

I've been dreaming about you...

It's been rather quite at Ballpoint Arcade, however things are firing at all cylinders in every other respect! Coincidently (or not) all these things start with the letter P. Which is ever so pleasing for someone who enjoys alliteration!

I'm into my second week of the whole30 (read more about paleo here). This has been something I've been something I’ve intended to do for ages. I choose to ignore my celiac crippled stomach whilst on the road last year – bread, pasta and noodles are basically the cheapest of food world over. My bank balance was happy for the decision, my poor rumbling stomach not so much!

I've made half-hearted attempts in the past, to get on top of my food intolerances, but this time I seem to be sticking to the no-grains, no-diary guidelines. Well for the most part*.

For a diet that eliminates so much food - it's bloody time consuming figuring out meals for breakfast, lunch and dinner! It doesn't help the fact that I have little to no kitchen finesse.

It took me a better part of two days to make soup (I made stock from scratch) and another two days to make grain-free granola (which incidentally got burnt to a crisp). But it seems like it’s worth the effort. I feel like a fog has been lifted. I’m actually waking up before my alarm and eager to leap into the day. I used to need more sleep than a newborn baby. This can only have a positive affect on my writing – well once I unchain myself from the kitchen stove top!

When I’m not at work, Pilates continues to take over my life - juggling study, personal practice and supervised teaching. I’m literally counting down the days until this diploma is over! I’m enjoying it, but I dread the homework assignments!

Needless to say, not only has the blog been quite, but also my writing desk. I haven’t produced much in the last fortnight. But with this boundless energy I’m planning on squeezing in a few writing sessions. I have some exciting ideas brewing away! And I have a bundle of books to review as well!

*Seeing that I’m laying it all bare at the moment – I did eat some feta on the weekend. Yup, call the paleo police! 

Tunesday #14 - Ben Lee

Rules of writing

There are three rules for writing. Unfortunately, no one can agree what they are - Somerset Maugham

I think I learnt one of the three rules today -  constantly save the document you're working on. Every five minutes according to my techie brother, any less and you're a fool apparently.You may risk RSI, but at least your work won't be gone with the wind when your computer crashes! 

Tunesday #14: Armand Van Helden + A-Trak present Duck Sauce

Gaga for Gigi

I have always adored the film Gigi. The film unfurls across the screen in all its technicolour majesty, as fresh as when it was made in 1958. The scenes are swaddled in red velvet and trimmed with lace.

I have only just recently read the novella. Golly I was blown away. Not only by my ability to actually read something start to finish (why has life gotten in the way of reading??) but the book has infinity more flair than the film. The language is lush. The sentences are strung out with sensuality and tart with wit. Colette is just marvellous!

It’s a coming of age story in a most peculiar age. Set in Paris in 1899, young Gilberte, also known as Gigi, is raised by her Grandmother and Aunt Alicia. Gigi’s mother makes infrequent appearances and has even less to do with her upbringing. 

It is not a standard childhood; Gigi is being primed to become a courtesan. There are clear expectations of how Gigi behave and what sort of society man is becomes “involved” with.  There are certain pressures to perform as Grandmamma warns Gigi  “we sink or swim together”.

What threatens them to sink even involves how Gigi performs at the dinner table:

“The three greats tumbling blocks in a girl’s education, she says (Aunt Alicia), are Homard Á L'Américaine, a boiled egg, and asparagus. Shoddy table manners, she says, have broken up many a happy home.”

The lessons don’t just involve table etiquette, but extend to posture, poise and even pastimes:

“Grandmamma says: ’Don’t read novels, they only depress you. Don’t put on powder, it ruins the complexion. Don’t wear stays, they spoil the figure. Don’t dawdle and gaze at shop windows when you’re by yourself. Don’t get to know the families of your school friends, especially not the fathers who wait at the gates to fetch their daughters home from school.”

These lessons often fall flat as Gigi is “a bit scattered-brained in certain things and backward for her age” and is "governed by the unconcern of childish innocence.” She rather play cards with her Uncle Gaston, gossip and eat liquorice.

For being only fifty-odd pages long I became utterly wrapped up in Gigi’s life and her journey to womanhood – “she was losing some of her sweetness”. This journey is sped up by an unexpected proposition which forces Gigi to grow up quickly.

If Downton Abbey leaves you leaving cold and pulse sluggish, then you my friend may adore Gigi. The French certainty exchange more then chase looks and heaving sighs. Plus Colette is an absolute wordsmith and awash with wanton witticisms. 

Tunesday #13: Daryl Braithwaite

How to avoid writers 101

Street art, Berlin

Did it feel like you were being watched today? 

If you were in Sydney it was more than likely you were being scrutinised by professional ‘people watchers’. They would have almost certainly taken notes too. Detailed notes.

So as a public health and safety warning - watch what you say on the streets of Sydney this week – it may just end up on the pages of the next bestseller.

It's the Sydney writers’ festival this week.

Sydneysiders, you may have noticed an influx of tweed & cardigans. Library bags and ink stained fingertips. The plethora of people reading whilst propped by a tree or lounging on a grassy knoll*. Or realized that every bench in the CBD has been commandeered by pen toting types, waxing lyrical about Proust between furiously scribbling notes.

It has been said that you shouldn’t befriend a writer. Not because occupational isolation has left them defunct of rudimentary social skills. Writers are generally affable types - when highly caffeinated and not forced to stand in direct sunlight.

Though they will use you. And more than likely without you even being aware of it. I’m not suggesting that they will fossick through the back of your sofa for loose coins whilst you boil the kettle. But they may just silently extract elements of your personality and graft it into a character in their novel.

This wouldn’t faze most people. In fact it could almost been seen as a compliment if a writer has decided to create a character based on you. You of all people! Think of it as an honour!**

But if you have a particular character foible that you don’t want to have fictionalised, and you reside in Sydney, perhaps it’s best you lay low for the next week. 

Or if you must get out, to buy the milk or insist on topping up your precious vitamin D, here is a quick guide to help you identify writers. It was written for people wanting to look like writers.

Besides the obvious – carrying a notebook, pen or book – there are a few odd pointers. Take a deep nasally whiff of the suspect writer. If they smell “nostalgic” then step away.  Or if they are wearing a used duct tape rolls, step away quickly.  Clearly they are keen on cracking this writing malarkey (why else would they have googled “How to look like a writer”?) so they would be hunger for any stories. Even yours.

*Note the pre-requisite for lumbar support for writers - the hours spent battering away at keys in a dark room results in appalling posture and bones brittle from vitamin D deficiency. So

**Of course as a writer I am somewhat biased and will paint personality pilfering in it’s most positive light – it’s most honour worthy light