Sunday Night

I hated school from about Grade 5 through to the very end, which for me was halfway through Year 10 (I left to do an apprenticeship). I hated being taught useless stuff that had no apparent application to my life. I hated sitting in stuffy classrooms, being taught by apathetic people who couldn't make anything exciting for a student who would then go home and copiously read library books off her own bat. A lack of confidence (hidden behind a brash exterior) meant that the things I was most drawn to - the arts - were the things that I didn't even consider I could do.

What I hated most of all was Sunday nights. The depression. The claustrophobia of plodding slowly towards Monday morning with nothing I could do about it except bleat about it to my similarly suffering cousin and cry over Brian Mannix (or Dale Cassar, if we're talking Year 7 - he was in Year 11; or Marc Ward, if we're talking Year 8 - he was in Year 12. I liked my boys older in those days).

It feels a bit that way tonight. I have cooked myself some dinner (baked battered I&J frozen fish thingymies, steamed cabbage and capsicum, mashed potato). I'm about to watch some TV (which includes one of my favourite movies, Lovely and Amazing). I'm not dying of cancer. I don't have to get up tomorrow and go to a job that I hate (just one that bores the shit out of me). There is nothing inherently wrong, apart from a bit of sadness about a few life situations (including my football team losing its final in rather lacklustre fashion) and the fact that I am in as unhealthy a position as I have been since I have recovered from CFS, and the fact that I have absolutely no idea what the hell my life is all about. There is so much to be thankful for. Or agog about. Including the fact that right now I just looked up at the television to see a zookeeper masturbate a rhinoceros to remove its sperm to later inseminate a female rhinoceros. Disgusting. But still, better than the Australian government's workplace relations adverts we're being fearmongerishly subjected to at the moment. Apparently if any government other than a Liberal one gets in, we shall all spontaneously combust.

I think part of my mental malaise is that I have the writerly equivalent of blue balls (that concept always disgusted me and engendered a grudging respect at the ingenuity of teenage boys). I haven't written anything except blog posts for a couple of months. I was just reading some poetry before and a short story and I felt that familiar stab of wanting to reach inside and see what I can pull out. I have been looking at a whole stack of blogs lately that are full of artistic beauty. So many people creating so many good things. I don't know where to start. But that's a start.

I have forgotten how to write something that isn't less than 10 paragraphs and that I expunge onto the internet in 15 minutes. I have the urge to craft, to pare, to discover, to be delighted at the crap that comes out of my head. And you know what? That's enough for a Sunday night. I have barely felt that gentle urge for the past eight weeks - the feeling is good enough.

I must be getting better.

Edit: I apologise for references to rhinoceros sperm and teenage male genital issues. Must be my convict stock.