harryipants

I don’t have proper photos yet, but thought I’d show you a few of these, just so you get the idea.

This is the dining table. What you can’t see is that it’s a 100 year old cast iron hospital table/writing desk. Adjustable enough so I can write at it sitting or standing. And it tilts to become a writing slope.
I had to put a new top on it, which is actually a single piece of Australian Red Cedar, my favourite timber, just edging out oregon. This piece of timber is really old too, salvaged from an ancient piece of broken furniture. The armrest under the window is the same timber.
Yes, that granny blanket draped over the seat is mine. Yes, I’m comfortable with that. It reminds me of my grandmothers. And that mess you see top left is usually hidden under the lounge cushions.

This next pic is looking to the rear of the bus The lounge cushions, for some reason, are up against the back windows.
The cupboard over the bed is where I keep my clothes, it’s Australian Red Cedar, and was a bugger to build there.
The doors are off a 1940s Tasmanian oak kitchen dresser. It was my favourite piece of furniture. Many photos of my kids have that dresser in the background, then it was damaged while in storage.
So I took off the doors, used the bottom doors on the cupboard under the lounge, and these doors here.. they’re leadlight with concave glass, and beautiful handmade workmanship from the 1940s. And they still have the beautiful original hinges.
The lamp at the left is a bit of Aussie history, a highly collectable Planet Lamp from Bellingen NSW. Ms iSkirt found it for a dollar at a garage sale, and gave it to me for the bus instead of selling it for hundreds of dollars. So maybe I’ll let her come with me when I travel around Australia. I might even let her sleep in my bed sometimes. If she behaves.

Below is what I see above me when I wake up in the morning. I’m no cabinet maker, but there’s something so satisfying about having made something beautiful that works. It’s a tiny home, but it’s comfortable, and it’s beautiful, at least in my eyes.
Any home is ok, a roof over your head is better than none. But an ordinary house compared to building something you love is like a churned out ebook compared to a beautiful hardcover book someone loved so much it had to be a work of art in itself.

An oregon book case, a big wide opening side door at the foot of the bed, lots of sunshine, bare feet and a borrowed dog. Does it get any better than this?

This is the first meal I cooked after connecting the gas. Mmmm… sausage, egg and mushrooms.
It shows the very modern 3 burner gas cooker and sink, with its glass top raised into the splashback position.
It also shows the oregon bench top, made from two really old painters planks. Pity you can’t see it properly, it’s really something.
And if you look bottom right, you can see a little bit of one of the 1911 hand carved Kauri Pine cupboard doors. Lousy photo of something beautiful. I gotta get some decent photos.
And at the top you can see a tiny bit of the hand carved Australian red cedar I salvaged from a broken chaise lounge.

Here’s a close up of the oregon bench top. Too close to see how beautiful the grain is, but hey, it has the remains of one of the bullets my old man threw into the fire when I last visited him.

And here’s what happens when some madman throws bullets into the fire, if you’re lucky. Yeah, I still have my eyes and all my genitalia. I was lucky.

So, that’ll do for now.
As you can see, it was originally a school bus. I moved some letters a bit, and added UN in front. From a distance it looks like COOL BUS, then as I get close people see the UN.
I did that for a joke with my kids, but plenty of people seem to get enjoyment from it, so I left it. So there it is.
My UnCool bus, seen here parked beside a pretty little creek. The best home I’ve ever lived in, and a work in progress.

Ok ladies, here he is.
Actually, he’s a girl puppy, and that’s an ugg boot, and my very beautiful daughter would be horrified to see this pic on here, sans makeup, and seriously needing to stand a lot closer to a hairbrush.
And her name is Scruffy. Not my daughter, the dog. Thank goodness for punctuation. ( Not my daughter the dog? )
Actually my daughter calls her Sooky, but I call her Scruffy, and so do the ladies in every opshop between Tuncurry and Urunga, but that’s another story. Anyway, give me your favourite punctuation mistake.
Maybe I should have said “your most colourful punctuation mistake”, then all you Americans would have thought I’d made TWO spelling mistakes, but that’s another story too. So many stories… someone should write some of them…

Chook struts to waterbowl, pauses, looks at water… head turns half away… Moves off… pecks at nothing, feigns another peck, pecks again…
Man watches all through shadecloth screened dunny door, sees iron lacework, recently invented shadecloth, lazy stillness of spring… he shits…. Feels time stretched all ways… life moves… somewhere…

Where’s the story ?

Is the story on the water, under it, in it ?
Is the story the water itself, or how it got there ?
Is the story the reflections on the surface, the ripples sent out by the crazy old man, the good times shared by three generations of family as we drank coffee we made with the water ? What’s the story ?

Forget fast food, forget packaged and processed food, this is what food actually looks like.

I was planning to write about how food is food, and packaged shit is packaged shit, and writing is writing, and most of what seems to pass for writing is now actually packaged shit too, but then I realised that there now seems to be more writing about how to write than there is actual good writing, and actually this is just more regurgitated packaged shit, so Shut The Fuck Up Me.
Nice food though. Not for thought. Just for eating. Nom Nom Nom Fucking Nom. Whatever.

Is there any excuse for this ?

Ok, so, let’s say you’re writing a story whose protagonist is kinda nuts… is it helpful to take on an appearance that may suit such a character ? Or to act the way he or she does, sometimes, but in your own life… And how far should you take it ? Like a method actor, but for writers instead.
Unless you’re writing about serial killers… but then again, maybe the appearance at least ?
Or is there just no excuse to wander around looking like the, umm, Thing in the photo ?

Does this look like the sort of man who needs some other man’s name printed on his undies to make him feel better about himself ?

Yes, that’s a little knife he’s holding. Yes, that’s pieces of kangaroo he’s been cutting up with it.
Yes, that’s his axe you see behind him, and yes, in his late 70s he’s still cutting all his own firewood plus enough for a neighbouring family.
(No, my American friends, the u in neighbouring is not a spelling mistake, and neither are most of what you might think of as my spelling mistakes, it’s the correct spelling in English, as used in pretty much every English speaking country in the world except yours, but that’s a subject for another day)
The life of the old guy in the photo is the basis for much of the best and truest and most meaningful fiction I will write. But I really want to do justice to it, so I decided to write two other novels first, hoping to learn how it’s done.
But… I’d really like the old guy in the photo to read some of that future work, and given the nature of ageing, and also the mad bugger’s propensity for high risk behaviours, I sometimes wonder if I should maybe write some of the stuff based on him first. Waddayareckon ?

Page somethingorother, Touched with Fire by Kay Redfield Jamison.

So last night I wrote a suicide note. which is a bastard of a thing to tell people, although, fairly obvously, if you are now reading about it….. etc etc.
I’ve been Not Very Well in the Head lately, always happens for me this time of year, quite normal and nothing I can’t handle.
So I’ve been trying to get some writing done, and had this great idea to take advantage of it and write a suicide note one character may or may not end up writing in my FWIP. It turned out pretty well I think. Well it upset me a lot anyway. Anyway, there is a point to this stupid post.
Just having a problem spelling it out somehow.
Is it worth it, writing crazy shit when you’re not right, and it might make you worse ? Or should someone like me not write about anyone like me ?
Or, whatever, make up a better question and give me an answer, I’m a fucking moron to be writing this, I’ll probably be in the shit with everybody who knows me for doing it anyway, or maybe not, I don’t know, I’m pretty big and old and ugly now, maybe people realise I can look after myself and I might just be trying to find an answer to something. I suppose if it bothers anyone I could do a post about fluffy bunnies next.
Of course, those bastards, or mechanical versions of them anyway, have been known to inflict certain injuries of their own. 33 years ago today in fact. Fuck them.
Can anyone believe how much I rant, considering I don’t even drink ? Almost seems like I should start, just to have an excuse.
Anyway, if anyone has any sort of answer to any of those questions half way down this rambling pile of shit, I’d love to hear it.