How I will explain my complicated feelings towards Courtney Love to my teenage kids

Kids, I will say.

Kids, you might not know this but Courtney Love is one of my heroes. She changed my life when I was your age. The best day of my life was in August 2009 when she replied to one of my tweets: it was both illiterate and exhilarating.

They’ll roll their eyes because it’s another of my crazy 2000s stories. I’ll ignore them and carry on.

Kids, I love Courtney Love. I really do. But she can sometimes be a bit of a dick. This all became very clear to me way back in 2011, when I went to see her give a talk in Istanbul.

Oooh, did you fly there on a plane, my sarcastic son Surfer Rosa will ask.

That’s what we all used to fly on back then, I’ll say defensively. And then my tone will turn really serious.

Kids, I need you to understand that sometimes you can think a celebrity is amazing and brilliant whilst at the same time recognise they can also be arrogant fucktards. And that’s okay. See, everyone’s personality has contradictions; shades of light and dark, like the album cover of The CD Version of the First Two Records by Bikini Kill.

Booooooring, says Pattinson-Stewart-Meyer, my daughter, conceived during a brief but passionate Twilight phase. She hates me because she’s at that age where everyone thinks she’s a law firm. I ignore her and begin the story:

'It had always been my lifelong dream to interview Courtney Love, so when I heard she was coming to Istanbul I was determined to get ‘access’ to her, which is what we used to say back when celebrities attended events in real life, and not as holograms like they do now.

'Sadly, it didn’t happen in the end because she was whisked away by a short PR guy with bleached orange hair before I could speak to her, as so many of them were in those days.'

I take a moment to wipe away a tear and then pull myself together and continue.

'Anyway, I wrote down everything she said and then posted her quotes alongside photos from the day on the Internet, which is this thing we used to have.'

And then I will wheel out the Internet and it will start up with a splutter and a whir and Surfer Rosa will roll his eyes.

But Pattinson-Stewart-Meyer will say with that attorney smirk she is perfecting, Mum, is this even ethical: I mean, throwing all of Courtney Love’s quotes together, completely out of context and probably misquoted, for your own purposes?

Of course it is, I snap. Who are you: Katy Perry? And Surfer Rosa will say, Duh Mum, I think you mean Perry Mason: we did him in our 16th-century culture class.

Surfer Rosa Bossanova Doolittle! I holler, because he knows he’s really in trouble when I use his full name. Neither Perrys—Mason nor Katy—were alive in the 16th century! I am appalled at the ignorance of my own sperm-donor-flesh-and-blood! What are they teaching you at that school on that planet I send you to?

Exasperated, he explains I told you Mum—there's too much culture in the world now so they've streamlined it all into one century.

And as they pore over my Courtney Love photo essay which I constructed so they might learn a moving lesson about humanity and also because I was too lazy to write the story up as a proper article for money, I repair to the valium room to unwind and listen to early Hole records and weep.

Courtney Love at Istancool, May 2011

Courtney Love on music:

‘I want to win the Grammy for liner notes.’

‘Most of my friends are Metal rockers and I go round to their place and read Yeats with them.’

‘Michael Stipe and I had dinner the other night and we talked and you know what? We decided Kanye West is okay.’

‘I hate continually referencing Michael Stipe because he’s here in the room*. But yeah, we’ve just written a sea shanty together.’


On acting:

‘It broke my heart not being in Moulin Rouge. It was between me and Nicole Kidman. I wanted the part in theory but I guess I didn’t want it enough in my soul.’



On her music career:

‘No, Fiona Apple was after me.’

‘My earliest memory is of wanting to be famous.’

‘It’s insane how impure it has become to be an artist.’

‘I don’t see myself as a brand.’

‘I write couplets for a living; that is my job, that is just what I do.’



On the venue:

‘It’s hard to hear in here. Are we in a mosque?’

‘Can we smoke in here? Is this a mosque?’



On gossiping:

‘It’s important to zip it. What you do is make art.’



On not giving away the secrets of her daughter's life:

‘Not to give away the secrets of my kid, but I read her diary and they were doing Grease at school and she really wanted Sandy but she got Rizzo, and I know she was thinking, Will they ever see the Sandy in me? And I’m like, Well, sorry but you’re the child of badasses. It’s really hard.’


On guys named Kenny:

‘A guy named Kenny gave me Horses.’


On showbiz:

‘It’s showbusiness: you’re up, then you’re down.’


Final words of wisdom:

‘You know, if it’s in your heart, do it.’



*Courtney is not speaking metaphorically here; Michael Stipe was actually in the room. He and Kirsten Dunst stole our front row seats and we were made to stand.


PHOTOS BY JOHNNY MACKAY

No cause for her pain found

It's been almost fourteen months since my last confession post which is such a humongous timelapse there is no other proper way to explain all my goings-on during this time except through the use of a frenetic, nonsensical mind map, which you can enlarge or ignore according to your level of interest:


But basically, all you really need to know is that the past fourteen months culminated in a gazillion recent medical tests, which can all be neatly summarised in this pleasingly existential diagnosis, below, which also inspired the title of this post, as well as—with eerie, retrospective, ultrasonic insight—the past 31 years of my life in general:


And now that you know the exact size in millimetres of my left ovary, let me tell you even more about myself c. 2011. Five days ago I moved to Istanbul, which is where (as you would know if you have ever imbibed more than half a bottle of anything with me) I lived for one year as a 17-year-old exchange student. I've been wanting to come back for years, and suddenly a situation has come up where I get to live in a magnificent multi-storey, artist-run space that also has trapeze fitness classes twice a week and a terrace that looks out onto the Golden Horn:


It's stunning! I love being back here so much. To celebrate my newfound happiness, here is a quick story. Last night my new friends took me out, and over a feast of pancakes, one of them—an American who has lived in Istanbul for years—told me about the time she and a group of friends were violently attacked down the road by some glue-sniffers who were trying to sell them a coat and who ended up stabbing them. The story was compelling for many reasons, not least because the location of the attack was within a kilometre radius of where we were sitting, and also because she is now married on Facebook to the man she met the night they got attacked, and will marry him in real life just as soon as they can both find their birth certificates. (FACT YOU SOMETIMES FORGET: While you don't need a birth certificate to get married on Facebook, you do in real life.)

Anyway, obviously I wanted to hear to the end of this romantic tale, but after just two cuba libres my jetlag—which I thought had disappeared quite impressively after a nice day of sleep when I first arrived—came back to settle itself upon my eyelids like butterflies made out of elephants. I simply couldn't keep my eyes open, and regretfully announced it was time for this Australian to get on her kangaroo and hop home to bed.*

(*I didn't say this. I would never say anything like this. I don't even know why I'm saying it now.)

I asked my hosts—directing the question with particular pointedness to the friend with the stabbing story—if it was safe to walk home. She described for me a simple calculation I can use whenever required: Before Midnight = Totally Safe, but After Midnight = Get a Cab.

I checked my watch, and seeing that it was 11.30pm I put on my coat and prepared to walk home. However, due to the entertaining bon vivant qualities of my friends, somehow I didn't actually end up leaving the bar until close to 1am, which rendered necessary a revised calculation: After Midnight = Get a Cab.

The cab driver was young and all I could see of him were his eyebrows in the rearview mirror, which made me trust him because they were well-tended eyebrows, which I respect in both men and women alike. The thing about the neighbourhood I'm living in right now is that it's an industrial area and apparently most cab drivers are like, "What? You want to go there? But noone lives there," and they refuse to take you. This guy, as predicted by his eyebrows, was cool though. He was even cooler when, once I admitted in spiked Turko-Inglizce when we got to where I asked him to take me that I recognised absolutely nothing about the place, and that it was all hopeless because there was no way I would be able to find my street in the dark let alone the door to my home, and that he should just leave me on the side of the street to die like a dog because I was a stupid, pathetic, human being, he drove up and down the narrow and hilly cobblestone alleys until we miraculously found my place.

I paid him and spoke two of the truest words I have ever said: "Thank you", and he replied in the grandiloquent Turkish fashion, "And I, also, thank you". He kept the engine running while it took me five minutes to clumsily unlock the three deadlocks on the door, and drove off only when he saw I was safely inside.

I found this to be the height of gallantry, which is not a quality I remember night-shift cab drivers in Istanbul possessed back when I was a 17-year-old exchange student, but when I told my friends about it they said, "Well, he just would have been terrified and certain that you were both going to get murdered out here, because it's so deserted cab drivers think people must frequently get murdered out here."

Repeated use of the word 'murdered' disarmed me so impressively I spontaneously delivered some of the most precise Turkish I had attempted in the past five days. "Öyle mi?"* said I.
*Really?

"Yeah," she said. "But it's crazy really, because if somewhere is completely deserted like it is here then how can you get murdered, because, I mean, there is noone around to murder you, right?! That's what deserted means! Noone! To murder you! I mean, right?!"

IN CONCLUSION! Earlier that day, during a pleasant walk in a new neighbourhood, I insisted getting my photo taken next to a bus advertising the colourful and amusing Greek travel company, Vergina Travel:

The original photo has me doing a happy thumbs-up next to it but I've cut myself out of the picture because I don't feel comfortable exclusively endorsing Vergina Travel anymore when, as you have just heard, I have recently found penis travel—and here, in case you missed it, I am hilariously alluding to the all-male microcosm that is the Istanbul cab driving community—to also be extremely satisfactory.

NEXT WEEK! More bad jokes.

Thirty

This is a photo of my tenth birthday dinner. CAN YOU SEE ME AT THE CENTRE OF THE TABLE, COYLY NIBBLING ON A CHIP? My haircut is based on Mary Stuart Masterson's in Some Kind of Wonderful. I wanted to be a drummer back then, but my school music teacher made me play clarinet instead because I was a girl and girls played clarinet; he had obviously never seen Some Kind of Wonderful.

Although the catering at my thirtieth birthday dinner tonight will be a lot more more sophisticated, I can't vouch for the improved maturity of the behaviour. I'm actually secretly hoping that everyone acts like giggly ten-year-old girls, in fact, with maybe one underwhelmed younger brother sitting there at the end of the table awkwardly, because what else is a thirtieth birthday but a good reason to act like you're ten.

In other news, I must explain that I've been neglecting this blog because I haven't had time for it. It's a most ingenious paradox because I wouldn't have so much brilliant and challenging work unless I had this blog, but because I have so much brilliant and challenging work it's hard to have this blog. I'm trying to get back here, but the trip is taking longer than I thought. Stay tuned though; I'm a believer.

Meanwhile, I'll be listening to this all night, and I urge you to as well. My amazing friend Jess McGuire wrote it and I just discovered she wrote this as well, which is better than a telegram from the queen and I don't know what I did to deserve it. Thank you, Jess. And thank you, everyone for reading and staying with me.

Workspace

The Queensland Writers' Centre is having another little blog tour, and once again, I've been invited to take part. This time, we get to invite you all in to our workspaces. Which is perfect for me, because I was looking for a distraction anyway. Come in. Great to see you. Take a seat. Mind the crap.

I personally love looking at other writers' rooms, so I know you're going to just bubble over with feverish excitement at the prospect of seeing mine. But first, let's talk for a moment about what went into creating this particular writing space. Essentially, I based it on the Jane Austen ideal:


*Jane Austen's actual writing desk. I think.

And combined it with the Tina Fey model:

*Maybe not Tina Fey's actual writing desk. Probably just a set-up for the American Express ad the photo was for. But maybe not. Maybe her daughter does write all her stuff. Maybe her Post-It notes do all stay stuck up on the wall like that.

And voila. This is what I got:

If you'd looked at this image straight after the Austen pic, I feel certain you would have fled for fear of contagious disease/clutter, but compared to Fey's I now think it looks rather orderly, actually. Thanks, QWC! Now, a game!

CAN YOU FIND:

1. Two children's dolls, both half naked
2. Two chairs (WHY TWO?)
   
3. A scattered jigsaw puzzle
4. Four unread New Yorkers
5. Twenty-three books recently scored from Lifeline Bookfest, none of them even opened as yet
   
6. A green pencil sharpener
7. A red apple
8. A power extension cord connected to nothing
9. An empty guitar case
10. A photo of Leo, my friend Phoebe's son
11. A mostly-full bottle of moisturiser that I'm very disappointed with
    
12. One burnt disc of Glee
13. Fourteen wheatgrass sachets in a plastic sandwich bag
    
14. EM Forster's Aspects of the Novel, a beloved old teal edition
15. The Chicago Manual of Style
    
16. A random record collection: all that seems visible is Treasury of Great Operettas but there is absolute, utter gold in there if only you'd let me show you
    
17. A DVD of A Chorus Line
18. Two of the most awkward tables known to mankind, purpose-built to be neither ergonomic nor properly sit-at-able
19. A cushion which does nothing to aid in comfort
    
20. Somewhere in there, a computer, where all the magic happens. Occasionally. When you're not in here distracting me. Get out will you? I said—GO. Git. Vamoose. Etc. Oh, and thanks so much for coming over, I loved having you here.
    

A sporting mystery

The second most viewed article on UK newspaper the Guardian's website today (after the one about the Apple Tablet) is headlined: Robbie Fowler refuses to start on bench for North Queensland Fury.

I thought this article sounded interesting. I always try to keep up with any mention of Australia in the overseas press: Two Indian Students Assaulted in Melbourne, for example. Or: I'm exploding with happiness, says pregnant Danni Minogue as she returns to Britain with Kris Smith, and so on.

So of course I clicked on 'Robbie Fowler refuses to start on bench for North Queensland Fury' because Robbie Fowler sounded like one defiant young man and I am naturally curious about defiant young men and how they might be connected to North Queensland, and why, indeed, the Guardian should even care.

I read the entire article, and while I can feel moderately confident that Robbie Fowler is a sportsperson of some kind, nowhere in the piece could I find a reference to which sport his skillz relate to. I daresay the answer to the mystery hinges on me finding out the meaning of the word 'striker' and whether it pertains to archery, baseball, pheasant-hunting or just plain hitting people over the head with a stick, but to be honest I can't be bothered. I'm just old-fashioned, I guess, because I think it should be the responsibility of the journalist for an online newspaper to explain these things to me, especially if it's going to be the number two most popular story of the day.

Of far more interest and amusement is the fact that Mr Fowler's wife is failing to 'settle' in Townsville. 'It's not like back at home where there's more stuff to do,' Mr Fowler explains. I adore that quote, with its mild tone of astonishment hinting that the Fowlers had moved to Townsville under the impression that there might be stuff to do there.

Here is the article, in case you'd like to try to unravel the mystery sport for yourself. The only other clue you've got to work with is the word 'goal', which makes me think it's probably about netball after all.

The former Liverpool and England striker Robbie Fowler sat and watched his North Queensland Fury team-mates from the stands rather than take his place on the bench for their A-League match against Brisbane Roar on Saturday.

Fowler refused to start as a substitute for the home match against Brisbane in Townsville and was subsequently left off the team sheet by the Fury coach, Ian Ferguson. Brisbane and North Queensland subsequently played out a 1-1 draw.

Ferguson later denied that Fowler had made his final outing for the club. "No, not at all," he said. "There's a couple of issues we have to sort out. Robbie's a great player, he's an experienced player, he's a player that we want to keep at the club.

"At the end of the day I felt it was obviously a decision I had to make, I wanted Robbie to go on the bench and he refused to go on the bench. We'll go over it on Monday, we'll have a serious talk and see what it takes."

Fowler has scored nine goals this season for the ninth-place Fury but reports have suggested the 34-year-old is seeking to leave despite still having a year to run on his contract. Fowler, who is the Fury's captain, has admitted that his wife has failed to settle in North Queensland.

Fowler told the Daily Mail this week that his wife is finding it tough adjusting in Townsville, the northern Australian city where the Fury are based.

"The kids are very adaptable to where they are, but my wife still needs a bit of convincing," he said. "It's not like back at home where there's more stuff to do and more families that we know, so she's still adjusting."

Fowler, who scored 161 goals in the Premier League, became one of the A-League's biggest recent recruits when he joined the Fury in February of last year.

Postscript: I have since revisited the article. And there, on the Guardian website, right up the top, I can now see the subheading 'Sport—Football', swathed in two different tones of green and surrounded by a general sort of 'DUH, YOU IDIOT' vibe.

But I still stand by my point that the content (and heading) of a story shouldn't be so rude as to assume that the reader will realise they've been whisked far away from the frothy little page they were reading in the Life & Style section, all the way over to the 'Sport—Football' section if they happen to click on some mysterious 'most viewed' story of the day.

Sorry if I've just given away the mystery, by the way.

Who Wow It Better?

With apologies to the more common:'Who Wore It Better?'

Kylie Minogue 'Wow'

Kate Bush 'Wow'

PS You don't really need to answer, I already know.

Anyone moderately familiar with the rigours of composition

Will not need to be told. How he wrote and it seemed good; read it and it seemed vile; corrected and tore up; cut out; put in; was in ecstasy; in despair; had his good nights and his bad mornings; snatched at ideas and lost them; saw his book plain before him and then it vanished; acted his people's parts as he ate; mouthed them as he walked; now cried; now laughed; vacillated between this style and that; now preferred the heroic and pompous; next the plain and simple; now the vales of Tempe; then the fields of Kent or Cornwall; and could not decide whether he was the divinest genius or the greatest fool in the world.

—Orlando, Virginia Woolf, 1928.