Nicknames

Like every Australian I've grown up with nicknames. This is due to the fact that most people from Oz refuse to pronounce anything longer than two syllables. I'm guilty as well, it's not until you're in another country shortening strangers names after your first encounter that you start to realise how weird it can be. It doesn't stop at a nicknames - there are even nicknames for nicknames.. I think it has something to do with the statue of limitation on the first nickname… once people have sufficiently forgotten the object, place or persons original alias and the nickname has become it's identifier then that name will be shortened as well. On top of this is our tendency to slur so words become sewn together in a sentence like a patchwork quilt. How are you doing today becomes  

"howyadointday?" 

You're starting to get the picture. In short, nicknames are unavoidable. Unfortunately I have a name that lends itself to nicknames I would rather not go by. Lesley so often becomes - Les (a boys name) or some way of implying my sexual orientation - lessy, lesso, or as one friend so eloquently put it lesby… maybe if I actually was a lesbian it would make sense, but I'm not. I tried making up my own nickname - but for those of you who have ever tried that, you will understand how pointless this pursuit turned out to be. 

The story ends happily though - when my little sister was born she couldn't pronounce my full name - so Lesley quickly became Lely, and just like that - my nickname was born - a 1 year old had solved a problem I'd been facing for 11 years - I was elated to say the least and tried to convince my parents to let me take my sister with me everywhere so people could hear the nickname and it would stick. they weren't convinced... 

It did stick though and to this day my friends and family still call me Lely.. or Lel as the second round of nickname mania has shortened it to. I like it - ironically it sounds a lot like the hungarian pronunciation of my name - which is how my parents came across it in the first place - mum wanted a uni-sex name that would give me a fair chance in the work force and Dad wanted a name from the family - my noni's maiden name was picked and that was that. 

Part 2 of nicknames next week...

In the meantime - do you have a nickname? 

A-choooo!

For anyone who happens to check my Facebook page now and then - hey to both of you… you may already know that I have been seriously suffering from the worst sneezing fits I've had since I was little…er... seriously I've been like sneezy the dwarf for three days now! 

I've always suffered from hay fever and sinusitis , but there's a lot more than pollen that gets me going, I still remember being forced to do the prick test when I was about 11. They drew a grid on my arm and slowly pricked the different squares with a variety of essences most common to cause distress. Most squares quickly filled up with small red welts, nothing too serious, the biggest was dairy, that after only a minute or two, had already started creeping into the neighbouring squares. 

The final square was dust. As the doctor lowered the needle I stopped him and said, that's ok, I know I'm allergic to dust, we don't have to prove anything here today. He looked at me over his glasses, a half patronising smile on his face thinking, listen girly, just let me do my job. I released his arm and as soon as the needle pierced my skin a giant angry red welt erupted across it's white surface, blotting out all other welts and causing me at once to feel the need for 9 inch nails so I could scratch the flesh of my bones. 

Gruesome, but true. For those of you who've ever suffered allergies you'll understand my suffering. It sucks. 

Enough woe is me though, things have been a lot better for me over the last few years, I try and stay away from highly polluted areas, dope up on Zyrtek in pollen season, have warned all that know me to cross chocolate, flowers and incense off my birthday list and lastly drastically change what I eat. Easy enough once you get the hang of it. 

But this weekend I was a mess, on Sunday night after what I'm sure was about 50 sneezes in a row (and like most in my family, these are quite violent, often ending in pulled muscles, thrown discs or impaling ones self on sharp objects), a turn at sticking my finger half way to my brain through my ear to scratch the itch and weird clicking noises I make with my tongue to tickle the back of my throat I looked around wildly for a reason this could be happening. After all, there is only so many times you can dust your room. 

As I scanned the scene with hazy, itchy eyes I suddenly came across the GIANT bag of lavender I had bought on Friday to stuff a toy I was making. It struck, like the scene in ratatouille when the critic is propelled back to his childhood in the South of France, skipping home from school on dirty tracks and feasting on the delicious rustic delights of his dear mother. I saw the welt on my skin, the one labelled... lavender… 

Acting quickly with freshly gloved hands I grabbed the bag and chucked it out of my room, across the hall and down the stairs. In hindsight that may have been a little over dramatic. I had succeeded in removing the cause of my sudden Flu though and finally got a good nights sleep. 

So the next time your suffering bad allergies and are convinced you just have a cold - have another look around - you may have unknowingly sabotaged yourself with a giant bag of your worst. nightmare. 

Have a great week everyone!

I'm not completely certain this much saliva comes out of my mouth when
I sneeze... but I could be wrong

Sketch Dump

I haven't really had time to finish anything so I thought I'd put up some sketches in the meantime :) 

Hope you guys like them - the photos are a little dodgy - my sketch book doesn't really fit in the scanner... one day I'll have an A3 one... 

I did these over the last few days, looking at the books - Lydie and The Best Birthday Party Ever! I've been feeling a little rusty from not sketching for a while so this is usually what I do to break through the barrier - just try and do as much as I can as fast as I can so I don't over think asnything - much easier to do when you have reference as you don't feel the pressure to create from scratch... 

Hope everyone has been well - Promise I'll have some more finished stuff up here soon :) 

Dear Fatty

I had a few ideas about what to write over the last couple of weeks, in fact I can recall the moments exactly. Where I was, what I was doing, seeing, eating, smelling even wearing. You know what I can't recall… What I was going to write about. 

It seems the older I get the more my brain becomes increasingly unpredictable… thankfully I'm not talking about turning into one of the loonies that suddenly starts yelling at people on the street (having said that, if people don't start respecting personal space we wont rule anything out).No, for now It has more to do with my memory, that is, how and when it decides to work. 

The other day I was in the car and discovering I'd forgotten my Ipod (a life without my iPod doc seems so long ago) turned on the radio… to my surprise I could sing along to every single song they played, I'm not exaggerating… as each new verse blared from my tiny speakers I surprised myself with my lyric prowess. Sure I count myself pretty creepily attuned to remembering lyrics but I don't even remember listening to the songs in the first place. 

There I was raping, scatting, singing and cooing until I arrived at my destination to discover I had completely forgotten why I was there. 

So my faithful bloggers, cheers to those that had to walk up and down your stairs five time to today as each time you forgot why you were doing it yet can quote on demand the choice lines from your favourite tv shows… stay safe and when in doubt - write it down - I mean after all - what else is the back of your hand is for ^_^

Looking forward to hearing some of the things you've forgotten recently… unless you can't remember them ;) 

The story behind the illo is my little ode to the amazing Dawn French - I don't know what it is about her but she's always made me giggle - this is a little scene I envisioned when reading little excerpts of her book "Dear Fatty" 

Where wear were... in a word, confusing

I can't spell. 

It's an omission most that know me would not be surprised by - I'm sure even you, my lovely bloggers, have noticed a discord in my grammar abilities.  I can't hide it, even with spell check the arrangement of letters alludes me. It doesn't help that in a rush to get the words on paper I skip letters and occasionally entire words before I even get to more finite specifications such as their spelling.

So it may then come as no further surprise to know that my means for getting it write (sorry, right) grammatically, phonetically and punctuationality (yes I know it's not a word) have been somewhat unconventional. 

My first attempt - as instructed by my mum was to read. So I read (u-huh an example of spelling frustration) I read, and re-read . I read in bed. I read while I slept (ok so that was for purpose of making a nice rhyme) but if I could have read while sleeping I would have. I read so much I developed a stigmatism in my eye and had to get glasses… as well as bad headaches at night. I DIDN'T however get good at spelling. Instead I was merely opened to a world of new and fascinating words I couldn't use in a sentence… 

One of my school stories actually read...

"Tilly waked throo the bush and found a g___________ (its the word for reely big) tree" 

(teachers comment… did you mean great?")… how could she have known I meant gargantuan. 

I was 9… hardly young enough to say I couldn't have known better. My next attempt was to cheat - I tried to get permission to write everything on the computer so I could use spell check. Mum said I was being lazy and should instead make use of our countless dictionaries. Great, more reading. However I quickly discovered the dictionary didn't do much good when you didn't even know the letter the word started with - I mean really "knife" … just stupid. 

Finally I came across a method of success - singing! Words being spelled out in songs - I have an annoyingly good memory for song lyrics so when I came across ones that resembled a rhyming spelling bee I couldn't believe my luck! 

I still remember the night I heard L-O-V-E a POPular song of the 90's. I ran down to mum bursting with excitement. 

"MUM MUM MUM MUUUUUM …. (catching breath) guess what!!" 

"… whaaaat?"

"I know how to spell LOVE!" 

"Oh really that's lovely darling" 

"Can I spell it for you?" (practically dancing with the thought of the impending spelling related kudos)

"Sure" 

"hang on… I just have to get the tune…(mum looking perplexed)…(under my breath) hmmmhmmmhmm a wuurl tastes good now (loud as I could go)  L-O-V-E - LOVE!!" 

pause

"that's… fantastic darling.. now you just have to learn it without having to sing the song" 

Other children may have found this discouraging, but soaring on the success of getting a word right I couldn't care less about the hours I'd have to spend getting the tune out of my head. 

Well the end of the story is I still can't spell - what HAS changed is my attitude - my bad spelling defines me in some odd way - those christmas cards corrected in red the failed spelling tests (I'm still the only person to get 0 in the spelling test you have to take year 7 science… it's out of 20) I'm oddly proud of this little flaw in my design. Because at the end of the day, it really doesn't matter that I can't spell, I'd much rather talk anyway :) 

Stay safe everyone 

Lesley 

Oh and as always let me know your thoughts - is there something you're oddly proud of? 

I was brought up on cult videos...

well I know what you're thinking. it's about time! No?…. how about, thought something had happened to you!.. 

Well if it's the later shame on you for not attempting to see if I was ok!

I kid. I am indeed back for now, hoping very much to get back to my startling early year record of one entry a week. In my defence we all seem to drop the ball a bit mid year , right? I mean think back to that distant January first day (don't be shocked as you realise it was 6months ago). The day you decided to make that all important resolution… how's that going for you?  

That's right, I'm defending my laziness and dragging you down with me. On the plus side things have been busy. I've just finished a few big jobs that were (as well as being extremely fun and rewarding) a bit of a time suck. As I've said now to some random people I've caught up with recently where small talk was necessary I'm hoping to get to some of my own work in the coming months - especially with my big US trip getting so close (That's July 18th for those family members that can't seem to retain dates.. you know who you are). 

So yes, busy times, fun times blah blah blah. 

I've been trying to think of a story for this week - it seems an age since I've written one, and you faithful bloggers deserve more than just petty ramble (see above). So what can I tell you… hmmm 

Ok this one combines the old and new. I've been getting into a bad habit lately of putting things of… not procrastination as such - as this act involves the guilty remembering's of tasks not done… no I simply discover their existence then tell my self (very convincingly I might add) that I will get to them later and COMPLETELY forget about them.

Emails, Meal times, taking medicine, so many little tasks throughout the day that unless acted upon their first impulse never eventuate. So to combine the old. I've made a little mid year resolution to get myself back on track. DO IT RIGHT NOW. I can see my sister (who I'm not convinced reads this, but moving on) giggling to herself as she understands exactly where I derived the inspiration for this mantra from. 

You obviously can't take it too literally - if you're sitting on the loo and happen to remember that today was the day for calling your grandma… it can wait. It does however help to get things done. the idea came from a video my sister and I used to watch as kids. For some reason Mum doubted her ability to ensure the development of our basic manners and social skills. solution - the weirdest video I've ever seen in my life. 

From what I remember after numerous viewings, and laughing fits, it was a video about manners, family and God (keep in mind that neither of my parents are religious). Sung in amusing rhymes by very peppy kids who's ethnic variety resembled a Beniton add.

Among the tracks were 

- Helping hands - not as sinister as it sounds

- Do it Right now

- God is our sun … a difficult song to get out of your head which was unfortunate when hanging around my extremely atheist father. 

- My mummy is having a baby - fairly self explanatory.. 

- Try it, you just might like it - A song my mum still quotes to this day… 

- A song about kittens fighting… I never really did get that one… 

- AND our favourite H-A-P-P-Y which like L-O-V-E by a girl group in the 90's taught me how to spell. (more on that later) 

I've included some highlights below for your viewing pleasure. 

(do it right now) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1N02cwjM4k&feature=related

(Helping hands) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNqpmyoF3-E&feature=related

Well that's it for me this week. 

Hope you're all well and are now motivated on getting past goals on track or you know - maybe I just reminded you to call your grandma. 

Let me know if you have any stories about weird parental techniques, goals gone by or when not doing something straight away has cost you. 

Until next week ( I may write it now while I'm thinking about it ;) 

The illo this week comes from a comp I entered recently - if you want to vote for my design 

click on the link below - then click on a "appreciate" and finally 'like' ^_^ Thanks! 

http://www.footlockerartprize.com/entry/318668

Gender Woes

well hello there faithful bloggers, I write this with the hope you're all well middle of the first week in May… May… ~sigh~ Does any one else find it difficult to process the fact we are already almost half way through the year??

moving on…

I come to you this week with a drawing I know you've already seen but before you feel cheated I have good reason for it's use - you see, the remarks it has received lately have prompted the memory of a rather good story that gets the vote for entry of the week. 

(probably the most r words you'll see in a sentence that isn't an example of alliteration) 

Firstly you should know that my inspiration for drawing this illustration was to depict my reaction to modern art. My. Reaction. Yeah, it's me… yet I've had almost everyone refer to the character as a boy. Ok, so I'm aware that  for someone who has always been somewhat androgenas in their dress sense the idea of jeans and a jumper leaning towards male seems strange. However despite the less than girly clothing and unkept do, this little one is indeed a girl. 

Luckily  the whole saga reminds me of a time when I was first shown how fluid the notion of sexuality is - don't worry, it's nothing risque. I was around 11 and on another glorious Lemon Tree holiday romp staying at a friend of our cousins for the night. It was out towards the red centre so the increase in heat and flies had become particular noticeable. Fortunately we found solace in the sudden burst of breeze we felt jumping on the trampoline in the front yard (whilst trying to push each other of) which is how we met … the neighbors. 

Sad story, their mother had died when the youngest (a girl) was born. Unfortunately she was the only girl… and growing up in a household of boys had made her…confused. We tried our best to educate her otherwise but alas, our attempts were futile. In fact she was perfectly happy being a boy, and lets be honest, at 6 there really isn't a huge difference. I was happy to let it go, some however found the idea of gender far more important….  

Have you ever seen an 8 year old explain to a 6 year old the difference between boys and girls?

I have…

I will never forget the memory of Alex becoming increasingly agitated in what she thought was an imperative gender intervention..

"NO. NO. NO! you're not LISTENING… ok, Boys… Boys have, a sausage…. Girls, have a…. a…. (desperately seeking word for something flat...) a pizza. YOU. have a PIZZZA… get it???" 

Classic. 

So, I guess what I'm saying here is when I really think about it, I don't care whether people think she's a boy or girl, as long you get the message, and any way, it's not the first time someone's thought I was a boy… but that story's for another time ^_^

Happy Mothers Day for Sunday!