Lou Sanz

Ok, so someone once told you that you bear a striking resemblance to Harper Lee and you thought yes, yes I do, and so of course the only logical thing would be to become a writer. And so that’s what you’ve decided to do. Great. Welcome. Pull up a chair. Can I get you a drink? No? Of course, me too, I never drink before midday either. Now before we go any further I’m going to get you to grab a pen, because to be a real writer you’re going to need a few things: latent carrier syphilis, a cravat and a Twitter starter account for writers (follow Stephen Fry, Benjamin Law, Marieke Hardy and current left-wing political poster boy – insert applicable name here). It would also do you good to develop an irreverence to Augustus Burroughs (e.g. he’s just like me, but I’m not gay, he’s the symbolic cock in the arse of my life), an apathetic and uneducated understanding of Cloudstreet (e.g. everyone knows it’s New Zealand’s answer to Angela’s Ashes) and an almost anecdotal dedication to Margaret Atwood (try you need a certain amount of nerve to be a writer at your next Camus cheese-and wine appreciation night). Done? Great. Now you’re a writer! Might I be so bold as to say the hard work is over? So what next? Should you start a blog? Sure, why not?….

So you’ve decided to toss acid in the face of the teen queen we like to call conventional publishing and start a blog. You call it Thinking of You, the story of a young boy spurned by his father’s love exploring his relationship with his now deceased mother, set in a seaside town. It’s a really good blog, too, so much so that after encouragement you decide to upgrade it and expand your readership. An ex of yours, who to this day believes it wasn’t cheating as long as you didn’t know about it, offers you some career advice, the only thing they’ve ever been good at getting up. They suggest funding, but what path to take? You could apply to the Australia Council which is, after all, about the promotion of new vibrant and diverse talent, which you have in spades, if you do say so yourself or you could register for Google Ads?

You decide to apply for an Australia Council Grant….

It was five months ago but you did it: you applied for an arts grant. Unfortunately, blogging isn’t recognised as a legitimate artform and your submission is denied. But hey, we encourage you to apply again in the future and might we suggest you try your hand at short stories. You can pick your sorry self up from the pub floor and apply for another grant for something else in four months?  or – fuck it – just throw in the towel here. Your choice.

You apply for an arts grant, again, and you are denied, again. But hey, they encourage you to apply again and encourage you to keep writing and thus the dance begins again (if you want to apply for Google Ads go for it.) But congratulations my friend, that empty or almost chronic feeling of failure accompanied by a burning desire to keep on trucking, well, that’s the feeling of being a writer, a real writer, so don’t despair, you’re a real writer now. Go buy yourself a t-shirt! Your career begins and ends right here.

You decide to apply for Google Ads….

After carefully accessing your blog traffic with Google Ads, you finally start to see some revenue from your writing. You celebrate by buying a stamp to put on the envelope that holds the letter to your Year 10 English teacher – a rampant alcoholic and failed writer who once had an open letter published in The Sun (yes, before it amalgamated) – telling them you’ve made it, you’ve finally made it. You celebrate by writing your own open letter to the Green Guide about a recent episode of Two and a Half Men asking why a wifebeater is allowed on prime-time TV. A Herald Sun writer hits upon this small but poignant letter and they demand your resignation from The Australian, which is fine given you don’t write for The Australian, but as the writer from the Herald Sun doesn’t actually read, they weren’t to know. Bless ’em. As a result you are commissioned to write for online publication The Drum. With your Twitter followers now around the hundreds, the possibilities open up before you. You could submit an article to some indie fashion / badgesavvy culture mag – let’s just call it Spankie ? –Sign up for a radio course at some public / volunteer-funded station?  or record a spoken word single of Mandy Moore’s ‘Crush’ on rhythm guitar and enter it in triple j’s Unearthed contest ?

You submit an article to Spankie, then wait for a reply. You can hear crickets in the background. You bide your time by subscribing to it, maybe they’ll notice? Nice try. Should you do the radio course while you wait? If not, your career ends here.

You decide to do a radio course at a hip volunteer station ’cause after all you have heaps of cool ideas… wait… there’s a really long waiting list. To bide your time you subscribe, maybe they’ll notice? Don’t worry, someone will die soon enough.Should you enter Triple J’s Unearthed?

Otherwise, your career ends here.

You decide to record a spoken word cover version of Mandy Moore’s underrated hit ‘Crush’ – and it’s cool now ’cause she’s married to Ryan Adams – and enter it in triple j’s Unearthed. It does so well it pretty much kicks the latest indie comedian’s single in the dick, and not only does it win but it goes on to become the number one most requested video – a homage to Kate Bush’s ‘Running Up That Hill’ directed by some guy who used to play the drums in Powderfinger on Rage. Invited to headline at Splendour in the Grass and various other summer festivals, you finally find the time to draft that short story you’ve been meaning to write, and then when you’ve finished writing it you decide to have a crack at a book? Wait, no, fuck that, you apply for an arts grant to write that book, like any clever sod would?

You decide to write a novel aimed at a local indie press entitled I Forgive You, the story of a young boy spurned by his mother’s love, exploring his relationship with his now deceased father and the brother he never knew he had, set to the backdrop of a once prosperous mining town. But before you do that you’ve got to complete a double shift at a Portuguese chicken family restaurant and then go to rehearsal because the band you manage is playing a venue where the boys ride fixies and the girls work in PR, and the gig is tonight and you promised them you’d be there, and then you’ve got your writers’ group like the next day and you haven’t done anything for it yet and it’s your turn to read and that girl’s going to be there, the one that’s really into Janette Winterson and Sarah Waterson, and sure she’s got a girlfriend but that’s nothing: the well-placed whisper of a Hunter S Thompson quote will wet the legs of any writer girl. Look, you’re just too busy right now living life to write about life and win the Vogel and anyway, MasterChef is about to start, so it really isn’t a good time.

Your career ends here.

Your Literary Career: Choose Your Own Adventure was published in The Reader November 2010

http://www.emergingwritersfestival.org.au/reader/

It’s a new year, a new blog, well ok, maybe I’m just using a different font on the blog but it’s hot, so off you go have a shower and cool down…I’ll wait, but not forever, only fleetingly…you have to admit it’s more romantic that way.

Now before I sat down and decided on that font change (and trust me that was as a hard a decision as whether or not to throw out my Leona Edmiston tights because they kept falling down and I couldn’t justify wearing my undies on the outside of them anymore just to hold them up), I was at a summer music festival kicking back with the kids (well people predominantly born in the 80s) and as much as I’d like to admit I went with my surfer buddies armed with our date rape drug of choice and St Tropez tan accelerator I was actually there for work – drunk, ambiguously consensual he-said, she-said group sex would have to be on hold for the festive season.(… and that’s why children I don’t believe in Santa Claus).

After very limited and ill considered conversation by my director along the lines of:

‘You’re doing it Lou’

‘But I have artisitic credibility’

‘You just stuck a twig up your nose for a joke Lou’

‘Well played, well played…’

…it was decided that it would be cute to film me trying to stalk Karen O of the Yeah, Yeah, Yeah’s – a band I was dying to see, but preferrably not while being led away with handcuffs.

It’s not that I didn’t kinda like the idea of following Karen O around for a few days, trying to get her to notice me where maybe she’d catch my eye as we both ordered another plate of Gado Gado in the dining tent and both laughed that there was such a thing as too much satay, it was more the fact I’m completely rubbish at stalking, it feeds into a deep seeded insecurity from high school. I knew my best friend was friending someone else on the side. When I confronted her of course she denied it, so I decided to follow her – the problem is it’s rather hard to stalk someone at the local swimming pool incognito when you have only just learnt to swim again after having tubes in your ears for 4 years and as such are surrounded by flotation devices and still manage to nearly drown in the wading pool and the cute life guard has to rescue you, arse in the air as your best friend yells from the other side of the pool

 ’Are you stalking me Lou?’

‘…yes, yes I am and I think some kid just urinated in here, and I’m pretty sure I got some in my mouth…’

‘I don’t think we should be friends anymore’

‘Yeah, thought you’d say that, fair call.’

So aware of my shortcoming’s as a stalker I asked around:

‘I tried stalking once, but ended up being charged and it just left a bad taste in my mouth after that’ bemoaned a random stranger stabbing his dinner next to me one night.

‘Yeah, I can see how that might dampen the whole experience’

‘I didn’t think she’d take it so seriously, it’s not like the window wasn’t already open. You want anything from the bar?’

‘Um, no thanks, trying not to drink around repeat offenders, bit of a New Year’s resolution.’ I joked as I edged my self closer to the cute boy seated to the other side of me, but it would appear that the only difference between him and the guy one might describe to a judge as a ‘perpretrator’ was he just had never been caught.

‘It’s all about electronic stalking and getting the right software to erase your IP address. You gotta be smart about these things, otherwise it goes from being romantic to downright scary.’

His other advice involved:

1. Breaking the lock of their door by filling it with blu tak so as to make it easier to open when they weren’t at home and then smelling something of theirs.

2. Climbing a tree outside their home, but make sure they don’t see you. You want them  to feel someone’s presence, enough to make the hair on the back of their neck stand on, but not enough for them to call the police.

3. Hiring someone to do it because you can’t be everywhere at once and  the thing about stalking is consistancy, you need to be consistant.

Great,  so cute guy was not only romantic but also a little bit scary…well I could break that new years resolution later. A  girlfriend of mine justified his explanations by citing that his parents met via stalking – ah, well if it’s a family tradition…and as for my friend there was no use in asking her for advice because here was a woman that stalked her current beau to the point she sent him anonymous messages, flyered their neighbourhood with declarations of her love for him and made a film about the whole thing – me Googling Karen O paled in comparisons to the lengths those around me had gone to to get someone to notice them.

What didn’t help was that she wasn’t due to arrive until about an hour before her set, so I spent the days leading up asking around after her, getting free juice off the boys that ran the juice stand, molesting the VIP bus driver for information and being forced on a ferris wheel(with the lady who ran it telling me to grow a pair as I trepidatiously stepped on board) regardless of my fear of heights to see whether or not her helicopter had arrived yet, being caught pretending to break into her house and using the word strap-on straight to camera more than was probably necessary at the time and building a shrine of Ms O near our camping spot – in short it was 56 hours of humiliating myself for a joke that at this stage was more set-up then punchline.

And then finally she arrived and with her arrival came the declaration that no one was allowed near her. I was relieved, I’d never actually planned on meeting Ms O, in fact the joke rested on my inability to meet her and so now I could just sit back and enjoy her concert, well just before I was told I was going to have to climb a fence into the mosh pit armed with a sign that read ‘Karen O be my best friend and maybe something more’…yep, I wasn’t quite done with my destroying my career quite yet.

My friend handed me her scotch filled hip flask and with dutch courage I headed out into the 16, 000 strong crowd, well me behind a barrier with water pistol armed security and some delightful boys behind me miming me giving them blow jobs straight to camera – such is the burden of fame I’ve been told. If that wasn’t enough, a segment I’d shot then went to air…

‘Is that you?’ a regular looking cockspanker next me asked.

‘Yep’ I nodded.

And with that confirmed he tossed a bottle at my face.

‘You gonna cry now?’ he scathingly asked.

‘No’ I told him, but of course Isaid that without taking into consideration that only moments later  a renegade beach ball would hit me in the eye and it was then I burst into tears – I like to choose my moments – a bottle in the eye doesn’t make me cry, but soft beach toys…

Running away to the toilets I found my hip flask friend and got drunk on the steps of the VIP toilets, at one point drawing the attention of a local Melbourne muscian who told me that some woman had licked him that day when she realised who he was…’so you see Lou there are cockspankers everywhere.’ He was right, I needed to get my dignity back and the only way to do that was to go and watch Ms O on stage, strutting her confident gold…the only problem was I’d gotten so drunk I’d missed the concert – I was losing my patience with 2009 fast.

Feeling a little ill I headed off into the bathroom only to turn around and realise I was face-to-face with a sweat covered woman – Karen O.

‘Hi’ she beamed at me as she adjusted her hair in the mirror.

‘You ok?’

‘Yep, I’m fine’ I mumbled back (please don’t light a match around me Ms O, I’ll kill us both)

‘Did you enjoy the concert?’

‘Um, I didn’t see it…I’ve been trying to stalk you.’

‘Oh’

…awkward……………………….silence……awkward silence…………………………………………………….

‘Do you want a photo?’

This was my opporunity to get my dignity back, to finally get the front foot…and so I said the only thing I could say.

‘No, that’s cool.’

‘You sure?’ asked a perplexed Ms O

‘Yeah, totally, I have heaps of posters of you…I even have a shrine of you up here with me so I’m sorted.’

‘Ok’ and with that Ms O, or Kazza as I like to now call her walked away from me and to be honest I would’ve walked away from me too and sure I might’ve misplaced my dignity that day and ruined any chance ever of being Facebook friends with Ms O but I got something better than that – I’d successfully (albeit incidentally) stalked Karen O and so I smiled to my make-up smeared, scotch soaked self with toilet paper stuck in my shoe reflection and hi-fived it.

Surely I was the winner here? and now to make the bold decision…whether or not to throw out those tights as I could feel my undies rolling down again…

I’m really going to stop walking home. Sure I need the exercise but for the sake of my sanity and at the risk of exacerbating my already impotent nature when it comes to relating to the average person, I really think I must stop.

To be honest though, this is not something that has gradually been eating away at me, adding to my state of restless sleep and unsatisfying daily minutiae; it has it’s nexus firmly rooted in an encounter I had on Tuesday, and before you judge me with me with your judging hats (I should know, I own 3 in various colours) this is not an over reaction, well 3 days later it isn’t, but possibly on retrospect it might be seen as a slightly over zealous and ill thought out move on my part.

Her name was Betty. She was, and is one of my on-and-off again friends. The sort that always seem like a good idea at the time, but 20 minutes into a lecture from them on how cork shoes never really got a fair run, not to mention Espadrilles and it’s all Jennifer Aniston’s fault, you can understand why Brad left her for Angelina – you stare at them with all the hatred you can muster and then come to the crushing realisation that being with them only makes you hate yourself more.

But my Betty was worse than that; spending more then an Australia Day lunch with her made me want to do things to myself, bad things to myself. Like the time I actually contemplated going home, foraging around my clutter cupboard for my tennis racket, far from it’s glory days of Under 15 Round Robin matches and immersing it in a bath of rust and lime scales for 24-48 hours, where upon immersion complete I would de-string it, leave it in the rain and then after a couple of whiskeys insert it either orally or otherwise into myself and scraping my insides out.

And yet here I was now, walking in the middle of the city, unaware that she was right behind me – that is until she yanked my iPod ear phones out of my ear, and then in front of everyone I screamed ‘I’m being assaulted’ which was not only humiliating to myself, but a point of great concern to everyone walking past who really quite clearly didn’t give a toss – I felt comforted in the knowledge that had I been being assaulted the most I could hope for was a couple testing out their new iPhone posting yet another urban stereotype on YouTube with the tag line ‘the girl who got over excited when her friend touched her.’

Now, here’s the thing, I’ve only recently surrendered my Sony Discman because after scratching my forth copy of Janet Jackson’s Rhythm Nation and then being informed it is no longer available to purchase in any other format than Mp3 (yes, I felt like chaining myself to a Sanity Christmas display stand as well) I conceded defeat and got an iPod, nothing fancy, you can’t touch the screen, but it’s mine and I’ll be damned if anyone other than myself or a mugger yank it out of my ears…

‘What the hell?’ I spun around only to come face to face with Betty.

‘Hey’ she offered back – no apology, no nothing, as I struggled to pick up my head set and stuff it in my hand bag.

‘That kinda hurt’ I muttered…

‘Hurt – what hurt?’

‘When you pulled my head back via my earphones just now’

‘Did I?’ she stated – it wasn’t a question, she knew what she had done – let the dance begin I thought. Let us dance.

‘I haven’t seen you since Australia Day – you never call, why is it you never call Lou?’

‘I invited you to my birthday’

‘Ahh, yes, Sex and the City was on at the IMAX the next night and I really needed to rest my eyes.’

‘Fair enough.’

‘Yep’

‘And I invited you to my show’.

‘Oh…well Andrew didn’t want to go.’

‘Andrew?

‘I got a new boyfriend, well he really started out a f**k buddy but than I thought come on Betty you’re over 25 and you have to start getting serious about your life, like what if the world ends and you have no one to get on the Arc with, like I’m sure they’ll be a boat for the singles, but really what would God get of saving them, I mean really – how committed are you in saving humanity if you aren’t willing to breed for existence right? And anyway, Andrews doesn’t really like funny girls, which has really kept me in check, I can tell you.’

‘Fair enough’

‘You know Andrew anyway; you went to high school together’

‘Yep.’ – we never spoke, most of our interaction coming to down to him coming up with a scoring system of how many things the boys in class could get down my top without me noticing.

‘So what’s new with you Lou?’

‘Not much.’

‘Still living with your parents?’

‘Yep.’

‘That’s not very good is it? – Not very good for your ‘life’ hey?’

‘I don’t have a ‘life’ so it suits me just fine. I’m actually very busy.’

‘You just said you weren’t doing much.’

‘Well its just stuff, like I have (oh please Lou, don’t stoop this low) – I have a couple of scripts I’m developing.’

‘That’s great Lou, just great. I tend to think screenwriting is like how everyone was in a band in the 90’s won’t you agree?’

‘Not really, I think there’s a lot more to it –‘

‘– I’m just trying to say that isn’t everyone developing a screenplay? Like my autistic cousin Benji could have something development if he was so inclined – surely you agree Lou?’ - Again, not a question, more a statement.

‘I guess if he was motivated that way’

‘Don’t be cruel Lou, for god sake he’s autistic.’

I had nothing to say, she was right, I had been cruel – cruel for thinking that at right that very moment she was talking to me I was thinking that I really wanted to be home self-harming myself live on the web.

‘What you listening to anyway?’ she grabbed at my iPod and examined for evidence of music.

‘Dannii Minogue?’ she quipped, reluctant to give it back to me like a mother who just discovered her toddler was playing with laundry detergent.

‘Yes, Dannii’ – judging hats on!

And she scrolled through my selection I could see her face despair – but that was cool, I was ready for this, and I’d been waiting for this moment all my life.

Her head shot up ‘You’ve got her entire back catalogue Lou.’

‘Yeah, lots of people do.’

‘That’s not true, is it Lou?’

‘As a matter of fact there are a lot of us out there who think Dannii has done a lot more for modern music than anyone is willing to give her credit for.’

I knew it was a bold statement, yes, I also know there wasn’t much to back it up and her ill fated marriage to Julian McMahon and her slight dalliance with being a darling of the Right in 2002 following a poorly interpreted magazine interview about the French fascist president at the time did tear at her credibility – but I wasn’t backing down.

I snatched my iPod back.

‘How soon we forget how important she is culturally to us! – I mean what? Have we all forgotten Secrets! Or how she made every frumpy brunette in Australia actually think they too could be on Young Talent Time! Or how she was nominated for a Gold Logie! And yes, we’d all like to forget ‘This is It’ but you can’t honestly say that Neon Nights did not have some well earned party anthem highlights, and sure she looks a little strange now in the flesh and slightly out of proportion – but she’s the accessible Minogue and for that, and that reason alone I will always go to bat for her and so Betty if you want to make something of this go right ahead, but her music gives me a much needed spring to my step as I walk home and no one is going to take that away from me – no one….especially not the likes of you.’

For a moment she said nothing, nor did the crowd that had gathered for my rousing ‘Pro Dannii’ speech. For a moment I expected a slow clap to start rumbling up through the crowd of 5 or so, I expected Betty to look at me with tears in her eyes and thank me for finally making it ok to like Dannii, something so many of us have been seeking permission for, for years…

…but as the crowd left to go and watch a guy talk to himself on the other side of Bourke St Mall, I was not left with a liberated and admiring Betty but was faced instead with a Betty who know longer knew the person that stood before her.

‘Listen Lou…’

She reached her arm up to my shoulder, but quickly pulled away, as if correcting herself.

‘I – it’s just don’t think we can be friends anymore, well not for now anyway….you seem a little lost and I’ve made a promise to myself to only surround myself with people who have direction and a firm grasp on what is right and wrong, and from what I’ve just witnessed Lou, you can no longer tell the difference. Take care Lou.’

And with that she looked at me one last time, clutching my iPod and started to walk away…but it was ok, I had Dannii and you know what that’s all I needed.

And so, looking back and with the kindness of hindsight it would be wrong of me to stop walking home, sure it reaffirms that my talent lies almost exclusively in alienating people and losing friends (to misquote a book) but more importantly because if no ones actually listening to Dannii does she really exist?

At a BBQ on the weekend, a friend of mine after checking I was single, over my slight thing for sexually ambiguous and in some cases ambitious men, wasn’t a little bit gay as was the current rumour of the day or celibate, declared to me that she had found me the perfect guy  – her son.

‘He’s good looking’

‘All mother’s say that.’

‘Yes, but I can appreciate his good looks not only as a mother, but also as a woman.’

‘This is how Norman Bates got started…’

‘No, you’re wrong there – maybe if Mrs Bates had appreciated her sons beauty then he wouldn’t have done the horrid things he did.’

‘I think you’re wrong. I think it was her ‘appreciation’ of her son that started all the ‘troubles’.

‘Well my son is not Norman Bates, Louise.’

‘I think someone doth protest too much…’

‘Anyway’…choosing to ignore me…’He’s not only good looking, but he’s also funny, smart, well read and likes strong woman.’

‘I just don’t think so…’ I mumbled back as I played with an ingrown hair on my leg.

‘So, he’s got a girlfriend – I’m sure a woman like you Lou can work around that.’

I watched as my piece of cheese fell into the make shift ashtray of a coffee cup – perhaps I could invoke the 10 second rule – it began to felt into the tar and ash – perhaps not.

‘I don’t do mistress very well – it’s got something to do with a level of self respect I’ve built up over the years – both a blessing and a curse, I know.’

My friend adjusted her skirt, so her undies were no longer visible.

‘No, no, you wouldn’t be his mistress, you’d be his girlfriend and then you’d get married and I’d become your mother-in-law – oh it’s almost too perfect Lou.’

As I reached for a handful of potato chips I was confronted with the sudden realisation that perhaps I’d forgotten to put deodorant on that morning…and then suddenly the penny dropped.

‘You want me to break them up?’

My friend grabbed for the wine bottle, but it was empty – a half drunk, slightly warmed crownie would have to do. She lit another cigarette.

‘Yes, yes – fundamentally your role would be to break them up, but you would have other activities to fill your days with.’

I now felt like a character in a Bronte novel, sent away to act as Governess to three wayward daughters, but always knowing that the true meaning behind my employment was to give the Lord of the house the heir he always wanted and the heir his now barren (after an episode of Typhoid), frigid wife could not give him.

‘He needs an older woman to show him the ways.’

‘Older?’

‘Yes, an older woman to take control of the situation so to speak.’

‘He’s got a girlfriend, I’m sure he’s coping just fine.’

‘To be honest, I’m not sure he’s ever bought her to orgasm, and that concerns me Lou, as a mother that concerns me.’

‘Drugs, as a mother drugs should be a concern – maybe he takes drugs?’

‘And if he did Lou I’d have no control of it – you know what teenagers are like these days.’

‘Teenagers?’

‘Well he’s almost 18, so I guess we can’t really call him a teenager anymore!’

She popped the cork on another bottle and offered me a glass – in a state of befuddlement I accepted.

‘I think you’ll find you can call him a teenager a lot longer– because he is one! – What the hell!’

‘Don’t be like that Lou, I’m totally cool with you dating my son, it’s not exactly illegal – I mean he’s 17!’

‘And I’m almost 30.’

‘Exactly – that’s why it will work.’

To be fair, with the exception of his age he sounded great and it wasn’t like I’d be scraping the barrel on this one, I mean the fact he didn’t have a drivers license had never been an obstacle before, the fact he didn’t have full time employment (fuck Lou! when did you start demanding the world!) and the fact he hadn’t finished high school …well you see where I’m going with this…

‘Come on Lou, you know you’d be perfect together.’

‘He’s a child – I don’t want children.’

‘It’s not like you gave birth to him.’ She spat out as she ashed her cigarette on my dissolving bit of cheese.

‘…Oh well when you put it like that, it doesn’t seem nearly as wrong as society would dictate.’

‘I’m just saying Lou, I understand now why some fathers send their sons to older prostitutes…like in France.’

I put my wine down and considered for a moment what she was saying…it didn’t take nearly as long as I’m making out.

‘I’m not a prostitute.’

‘And you’re not French either…don’t split hairs Lou.’

‘I don’t really see it as splitting hairs, more as a much needed clarification it would seem.’

‘Well if I were you Lou, I’d take it as a compliment – the French are a very sophisticated people.’

‘Ok  – so why not send your son to France, may be on a high school exchange program? – You know, under the guise of getting an education, but really what he’s getting is an education…but then he finds out he’s barren….’

‘What – my son isn’t barren.’

‘That’s not what he told me the other night when he couldn’t find a condom.’ I joked to lighten the mood, in retrospect it was ill timed.

‘That’s not funny Lou. Nothing to joke about.’

‘I know – I’m sorry.’

Grabbing her car keys I watched my friend as she busied herself to leave.

‘You know what Lou, on second thought I think you should stay away from my son – I thought an older woman would be good because of the maturity you’d bring to the situation, but once again you’ve proved me wrong.’

‘It was a joke.’

And then my friend Tom came over to introduce me to whom I could only guess was his new girlfriend and her 12-year-old son –

‘Hey Lou’ he yelled.

‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere – there’s some special people I’d like you to meet.’ He tussled the 12 year olds hair, as if they were about to toss a ball around.

And before I could respond my friend turned to me with a kindly reminder, just before she was to storm away from me…

‘Sex with teenage boys is nothing to laugh about Lou’

Suddenly everyone stopped and stared.

‘Stay away from my son – it would do you good to remember that.’

And with that she left.

I turned around to my friend Tom and his newfound family.

‘Who wants to play a bit of football?’ I asked Tom’s proxy son.

‘I don’t think so.’ Tom replied on his behalf.

‘Yeah…I thought as much…’ I replied.

It was time to leave the BBQ – the Mister Whippy van had arrived and I felt a lynching on the horizon.

For years my relationship with my self-esteem has been fraught with friction, none of it helped by my self-esteems amazing ability to fuck off when I quite obviously need it the most.  Such famous incidences include:

1.    The time that in the middle of sex a guy told me he fancied someone else and without the guidance of ‘self-esteem’ I thought what the hell ‘let’s finish what we started, I mean he had to like me to get this far.’

2.    The time I set my boyfriend up with my friend because she was blonde because as he told me ‘come on Lou, you know this isn’t going to work out, like I don’t even like you much, well not as much as I like your friend – come on help a fella out.’ And with my self-esteem nowhere in sight I did.

3.    The time I closed my eyes and let an old boyfriend of mine pretend I was a man, my self-esteem more then likely watched from a gallery seat.

4.    The time I got back together with an ex based on this conversation ‘so I was in San Fran trying to tap… well, let’s just call them someone, and… let’s just say their tits weren’t real and then I thought ‘you know what… Lou’s tits are real’ and so then I thought about it some more and thought ‘yeah, I quite like Lou’s tits’, so deep down in my subconscious that meant that some part of me was attracted to you, and is probably still attracted to you – so what do you say we give it another shot? – and I did.

Now I’m not sure what when my self-esteem decided to leave me, but if I had to guestimate I’d say it was around the time I needed to get my first bra. I was about 14 and after my mothers comments of ‘I can see your crumpets’ and ‘someone’s been invited to party at bolder mountain!’ I agreed to go and get fitted for a bra. As my mum grabbed the car keys and rounded up my father and younger brother for another Sanz family adventure I excused myself to the bathroom only to discover that to coincide with ‘Lou gets her first bra’ I also had been visited for the first time by ‘Aunt Flo’.

Now. I’m not sure how most of you purchase your feminine hygiene products, but on that day my mother decided we should stop into ‘Campbell’s Cash’n’Carry’ to stock up; but she didn’t come in with me, couldn’t find a car park – no she sent my dad and I in together and just before we stepped inside the building she wound the window down and shouted ‘get super  – I’ve run out of mattress protectors.’

The department store wasn’t much better, as mum had ordered my brother to walk behind me on ‘spot patrol’. A lovely woman named Irene approached us to help out – I think she saw the large jumper tied around my waste as a sign that perhaps this was the first time out of the house without my polio support unit. She offered my mother one of those bras that does up at the front – my mother was not impressed ‘gotta make the boys or girls work for their crumpet – hey Lou? Hey? Hi five!’ I watched in horror as my mother and Irene shared skin.

Finally I convinced my mum that the dignity of a changing room was much needed, especially after that cute Xavier boy walked past me as my mother fitted a bra on the outside of my Sportsgirl t-shirt and just as he was in ear shot spoke the irretrievable words ‘and smells like someone’s going need deodorant too – this is a big day for you Lou – if you’re lucky it’ll be boys next.’ Following that remark I knew I was going to be lucky to be fingered by a cousin in later years.

Now it’s rather hard to hang yourself in a department store change room, but fuck I gave it a right go and if you look at the little stool they give you to rest your clothes on as your jumping off point then you’re well on your way to success, that is until your little brother crawls under the door but only enough to see you putting a bra around your neck and screams out ‘mum, dad! Lou’s doing that thing that Michael Hutchinson did to have an origami!’.

Suddenly the door burst open, my father hurtling towards me before I could jump off the stool and my mother sternly standing in front me taking the scene in – me in my undies and a bra around my neck, my brother still lying on the floor and all she could think to do was offer up more advice ‘now is not the time to start a life of self pleasure Lou – first things first let’s get you some supportive underwear and then what you do behind the privacy of closed doors is up to you.’ She then turned to my brother ‘now who wants milkshakes?’ and then to my father ‘I think your daughter might like your opinion on the whole front or back clasp debate Michael.’

I didn’t think it could get much worse but as the years went on my self-esteem became more of absence in my life rather than an active participant – such as last Friday night when I ended up at Billboard nightclub.

I could end this story on that above line alone but then I wouldn’t get to the bit where inside the nightclub and with my friend telling me I looked like a mother searching for her wayward daughter and almost being overwhelmed by the amount of pussy that one can glance based entirely on the knowledge that Friday nights at Billboard appear to be underwear free nights, I had a man approach me – ‘a man of the one eyebrow, I sweat a lot and probably chaff variety’- and what happened next was entirely my self-esteems fault – rather than think I was too good for him, what went through my mind was this ‘that guy looked around this nightclub spotted me and thought I can tap that – oh my god he thought I was achievable; I have become achievable for men who fit the profile of a sex offender – fuck me, does this mean I’ve finally decided on a type?

My friends laughed at me, pointing out that maybe tonight I could find if sex-offenders spooned after that act and so I escaped off into the bathroom hoping to just take a moment to find my confidence in the bottom of my handbag when I walked in on two girls helping each other adjust their g-strings and in the middle of a conversation entitled ‘if you don’t get Brazilian waxes you shouldn’t be allowed to have sex.’

It was then I realised I couldn’t hate my self-esteem – because unlike those two girls in that bathroom that night, well at least I knew what self-esteem was (well that’s what I told myself as I removed the toilet paper from the bottom of my shoe that both girls were kind enough to point out – they could probably tell I was one of those girls now banned from sex according to their new rules) – Score one for Lou! Hi-five….anyone?…anyone?…anyone at all….

Last week I was off finishing up a contract when I noticed one of the girls in the office staring at me, the type of stare normally reserved for the blacks drinking from whites only water fountains in Mississippi during the 1960’s, gays attending an evangelical church conference, or a severe burns victim.

‘Is everything ok?’ I asked, putting my pen down.

‘You’re left handed’ she pointed out, almost accusingly. Obviously she’d never seen a ‘Southpaw’ up close before, perhaps her only exposure being a leftie idiot savant who ‘liked sling blades’ but accidentally beat children to death with rocks. I could see it in her eyes, the sort of eyes that said ‘being left is a choice so don’t flaunt it round these parts.’

‘And you’re ok with it?’ she continued.

‘Ok with what?’

‘You know, being all left?’

‘It’s not really something I can do anything about, I was born this way.’

‘My grandma says it’s a choice.’

‘You’re grandma isn’t the most educated of people is she?’

‘Well at least she ain’t a leftie.’

…this was not a time for ‘touches’….

I picked up my pen, partly in an act of defiance, partly because there was work to be done ‘You can get it fixed right? – like there’s lots of mutations they can fix these days’.

“It’s not a mutation’

‘I’m just surprised with all the advancements in technology you haven’t done anything bout it.’

‘It’s not something you can fix’.

‘Oh, that’s a shame – I’m sure if you wanted to change you could, but I guess you minorities like your soap boxes. Personally couldn’t think of anything worse.’

‘Really? You couldn’t think of anything worse then being left handed?’

She spat out what was left of her chewing tobacco and sized me up one last time.

‘I had to hit a ball with my left hand once, looked like a spastic - now if you ask me that ain’t no way to live.’

And with that she went back to work, or posting anti abortion rhetoric on the web, I didn’t want to speculate.

This wasn’t the first time I’d faced the ‘idiot brigade’ (a group of like minded people generally set up to pontificate about subjects they know little to nothing about).

At a pub once playing pool a small man, who after inadvertently trying to touch my vagina 2-3 times while trying to reach his beer, noticed rather suddenly as I was about to take my shot that I was in face left handed – he called it out from the other side of the room ‘well fuck me till Tuesday she’s a leftie…shit hand jobs but gotta give em an A for effort’.

So now we were bad at manual labour, which further compounded what the lady at the supermarket check out once said to me as a signed for my purchase.

‘you think you guys be extinct by now, what with survival of the fittest and all, I mean statistically you’re more likely to be schizophrenic, more prone to alcoholism, dyslexia, Chron’s disease and mental disabilities…like you hear all them people going on about how getting rid of a kid when they have the downy gene, if it were me and my kid was a leftie, I’d have to say I ‘d give it some thought – I mean most of you can’t even cut paper.’

Ok –she was right there, most of us (lefties) remember primary school and being allocated the special green Crayola scissors sans blades! And it didn’t matter how many times you tried to tell the teacher that you didn’t have a learning disability you were never allowed on the swing like the other kids and, were supervised unlike the right handed kids in class whenever you required a toilet trip, or any other trip that involved being responsible for locking your own door.

Registering at a doctor’s surgery one day, my boyfriend noted that I had failed to put anything in the ‘suffer from any other condition we should know about’ section.

‘You should let them know you’re a left handed.’

‘Why?’

‘Cause what if they give you the wrong medication?’

‘Maybe you should put down you’re Jewish’.

‘That’s being stupid, it’s not an illness – it’s something you’re born with.’

‘But what if they give you medication for Christians?’

‘What a stupid thing to say Lou, for a smart girl you can be so ignorant sometimes, I mean you try being part of a minority.’

I was banned from writing on the board at school because I was a ‘smudger’, a devout Catholic wouldn’t sit next to me once because I was powered by the hand of the devil; this was a girl mind you who masturbated next to me 8 months later in church, but to her credit she used she used her right hand – the hand that Jesus would’ve used.

My mum even took me to a left-handed support group once (where you could buy the T-Shirt; ‘Once you’ve turned left you won’t want the rest’), where an expert on the affliction came along to talk to us (he was right handed). He told us that in his experience that being left handed was just one of life’s anomalies – sure we all had a predisposition to violent primitive crimes, but we also be geniuses in the making, basically that we made up the extremely gifted – we all smiled – but he continued – ‘but a majority will find that you make up the extremely compromised’, and we should be encouraged to get involved in wrestling and boxing – any sort of primitive sport that doesn’t involve thought or reason – we were after all left handed and according to Darwin’s theory of evolution should’ve been killed off years ago – and then he asked if there were any more chocolate biscuits left to go with his tea.

The mutants in the room all grunted, some even banged their chests…but chose not to attack…our time would come.

Not to long ago I went on a date with someone. Things looked promising that is until he asked me what my favourite colour was; when I responded ‘red’ rather then smile with the knowing that comes with sitting opposite me complete with red lipstick and nails, he merely got out a notepad and pen and said ‘you’ll have to pick another one, that’s already taken’.

‘Already taken?’ I asked quizzically ‘ are we playing a game?’

‘No, it’s just I like to colour code everyone in my life and red just happens to be taken’ He waited, pen poised for my next suggestion.

‘Ok, well I’ve always quite liked green’ and in an awkward attempt to flirt, as I leaned across the table and traced my red nails over his hand ‘I especially like green on dark haired boys.’

Pulling his hand away to flick through his notepad he let out a gentle sigh ‘nup, sorry – gone’.

I slumped back into my seat and closed my legs. ‘Ok fine, why don’t you tell me what’s available and I’ll be that’.

As he took the last piece of bread in the basket, he chewed silently for a moment and then with his mouth still full remarked ‘well, there’s lilac or mahogany brown’.

Now, I don’t know about any other ladies out there but the idea of being assigned a colour usually relegated to the 1990’s or a Harvey Norman catalogue wasn’t really what I had in mind, surely I was good enough to claim a primary colour? I mean we were on a date, he could’ve just lied, but as was the case with most men I’d been meeting of late, this one had a flare for the truth.

‘I don’t want to be a catalogue colour’ I mumbled, tearing at my drink coaster.

‘I don’t really think you’re in a position to choose Lou – I mean did you honestly think you’d risen to the ranks of being allocated a primary colour?’

I said nothing, as my eyes scoured the restaurant for a bar tender.

He smiled to himself as he shut his notepad ‘oh, you did – you thought you were better then mahogany brown – oh how cute. That’s why I like you Lou you always dream big but end up getting woken right before the end.’

I contemplated emptying the ash tray of beer liquid that had somehow found a home there when he placed his hand over mine.

‘If it makes you feel any better, most of the woman I date get  a little upset about the colour code thing.’

‘Most of the woman?’

Like an impending sex offender he grabbed my hand harder and looked into my eyes.

‘That’s kinda what got this whole colour coded thing started’.

I pulled away and began fingering my pasta.

‘So this whole colour coding thing is a new thing?’

‘Yep, it’s the only way I know to tell all you girls apart’.

Ok – so it’s now at this point that most people ask ‘where the fuck do you meet these guys Lou?’ And it is at this point in my life that I say ‘I choose not to answer that, just leave me alone – life is a journey!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!’

‘Tell us apart!?!’ I yelled – the whole restaurant turned.

‘Hey, lower your voice Lou’

‘Sorry’…I mumbled…

‘That’s ok, apology accepted’ He looked around the restaurant, most people had returned to their meals.

‘Tell us apart?’ I whispered harshly ‘have you ever thought of just looking at our faces, it’s generally how people tell people apart.’

‘Conventionally yes, but when you’re seeing more then one girl at once it can get confusing’

‘you’re seeing someone else?’

‘I’m a player Lou, you know that.’

‘No I didn’t – you failed to mention it between the whole – I’ve never met anyone like you bullshit you were peddling’

‘Ok Lou, now you’re just being petulant’

I drained the last of my wine.

‘So, who is she? This ‘other’ girl?’

‘It wouldn’t be ethical of me to name names’

‘This isn’t a war crimes tribunal’ I spat out.

‘Fine, but if I tell you we’re splitting cheesecake for desert – deal?’

I pondered it a moment – the cheese cake did look good….very good….

‘Deal.’

‘The other girl is the colour red’

I was quiet for a moment. The funny thing is I would of been fine had she been beige or bisque – but red – my colour!

‘That’s funny’ I said ‘Cause you’re about to see red’

And with that I poked him in the eye with my desert fork. No cheesecake for me.

I wear eyeliner.

I make no apologies for that, but when it results in me getting forcibly removed from a stationary train…I start to get a little pissy. 



For some reason I often get mistaken for a hair dresser, even the girls that have been doing my nails for the past few months still think that, even though I have corrected them on many an occasion. Comments about how my eyes are tired from staring at a computer screen all day, how I adore their hand massages because as a ‘writer’ my wrists feel constantly strained (and this is not due to being a chronic self pleasure as some might allude to…). I’ve even bought in published articles I’ve written from reputable magazines and asked if I could leave them in the waiting room for their other clients to enjoy (to this day they have denied my constant requests). 



One might be wondering at this point what this has to do with another tale of my woe? I’m on my way there. I bought my train ticket at the window (I like to think that somehow this small gesture keeps someone employed – and gives me brownie points in hell). The transaction apparently went smoothly, that is until the ticket man told me how much I reminded him of his wife. She was a bitch and she was also dead. (I’m now a big advocate of ticket machines at train stations). 


I ventured to platform 12, as directed, purchased a newspaper, tossed the sports section, and hopped in what I failed to notice was a stationary train. After about 10 minutes of being stared at by a small blonde man who blessed me under his breath every time I tried to avoid eye-contact with him, I got up to find out what was going on and dreaming of the day I’d have my own personal driver, who with the slap of a glove I could fire for such insubordinance…when suddenly I was confronted by a woman who bore a striking resemblance to a brick wall – the kind kids bounce tennis balls against, or as a high school kid you pashed behind. 

Her name was Sarah, though when we were at high school together, she was referred to as ‘the terror’.

Rumour had it, that upon graduation she had tried to flee to New Zealand to shack up with some guy she’d met on the Internet. She’d run into strife when, while going through the metal detector she got a little worked up and was aggressively subjected to a cavity searched to make sure she wasn’t carrying a bomb. She would later recall the incident as the only time she’d ever needed help cuming. I was a little scared of her, and to top it all up she was a certified ticket inspector. 


‘Well, well – if it isn’t Louie Da Fly’ she rumbled.

‘Barely recognised you for a minute, but then I watched you for a while through that window and then it was just like I knew it was you, cos I had this dream about you once and you were in it and your hair was really short – so that’s how I recognised you cos you looked like that girl in my dream, but she was proper tall and you’re not that tall are you?’



Supposing it was a rhetorical question I chose not to answer. Instead I smiled politely, and tried to get off the train –’Look it’s really nice to see you again Sarah – do you know what’s happening with the trains?’



The storm came suddenly, without warning – ‘What? Aren’t you even going to ask me how I’ve been? What I’ve been up to? Is this what happens when you get famous all of a sudden?’ (So sudden – I was caught completely unawares…)


‘You heard me! Someone told me you’d become one of those celebrity hairdressers, so I Googled you and there you were and I found your blog…ooh, so now you’re published…but I read it, not my cup of tea if I’m honest, but I thought I’d at least be in there somewhere – but it’s like you’ve forgotten me – why? Are you too busy with all your famous friends and their famous people parties? (I’m going to point out at this point that I was running late for a meeting at an employment agency…)


Trying to ease the tension, I went for humour ‘I’m more of a stay at home with a DVD type gal.’

‘You’re not funny,’ spat back Sarah.

I hung my head ‘I know.’


A few seconds passed with neither of us saying a word.

‘You wear eyeliner’, she stated. 


‘Yes, yes I do.’


‘I’m rubbish at it. Eyeliner that is.’

The door was only inches away….

‘It’s pretty easy, practice really.’


‘Teach me’ she asked,

‘Um, I really have to go.’ I responded, like a coward. 


‘No, I’ve got a break coming up, we could go to the girls bathroom and –’she was insistent.


My discomfort was growing.
’I really must go Sarah, if you’ll just let me-’
’-oh now you’re in a hurry – you were sitting on a stationary train a few minutes ago and didn’t seem in a hurry.’ (damn Connex!)

‘Listen Sarah, I’m getting the impression and correct me if I’m wrong – that you think we have some sort of friendship that I’m obligated to rekindle – well my recollection is of a girl who smeared dog faeces on my locker – in short Sarah from what I recall you are no friend of mine!’



She said nothing for a moment. I imaged for a second that she might step back, nod her head and let me get on with my life – I was wrong.


‘Can I see your ticket?’ flipping out her official ID.

‘My ticket?’

‘Is there a problem? – If you can’t produce a ticket madam I’m going to have to escort you off the train.’

Ok – so she wasn’t taking my little outburst as well as I’d hoped. 
 Searching my handbag, I began to panic, when suddenly I spotted the ticket at my feet. 
 As I bent down to pick it up, I felt a clammy hand take my arm and start to forcibly remove me from the train. 


‘I’m sorry, but failure to produce a ticket when asked is an immediate on the spot fine of $180.00′ – I swear she was grinning. 


I looked at the little blonde man with pleading eyes, needing his help, to look within himself – to acknowledge that while he’d been mentally undressing me he’d remember seeing my ticket drop from my bag to the ground. Both myself and Sarah stopped for a moment as he cocked his head, opened his mouth and proclaimed – ‘Don’t cha wish your girlfriend was hot like me?…Don’t yah!’



I’m not a big pill popper at the best of times, but recently after finding a lump under my arm (nothing serious) and a last minute scheduled flight to Edinburgh, I was a little stressed. Based on this, my doctor prescribed me some Valium, a little bit of sensory deprivation he called it ‘in a bottle’ for my long haul flight.

Previously the only thing that had kept me sane on while ‘flying’ thousands of miles in air was the idea that on board my flight was the cure to AIDS and my ‘miracle’ flight was going to be ok, cause the world needed to be ok; that the pilot had an important dinner date he needed to keep at the other end, promise he’d made to his little girl that he’d be home for Christmas/ her birthday/ that school play – and he was going to honour that promise no matter what, because no matter where he was in the world he lived for her happy days and to keep that blood oath he’d made to her on the day she was born, that he’d always be there to see her face when she opened her presents on Christmas day/ her birthday…you get the idea, and is wife would be there too and she’d smile, a smile that said ‘you’re a good man’.

The pilot’s story would unfold in more detail as I made it closer to my destination, but with the recent spate of planes being pulled out of the air, I was concerned that my pilots wife had found out about 6 year old on and off affair he’d been having with a ground crew member in Hong Kong and now they were involved in a bitter custody dispute over their daughter – about where she got to spend Christmas, and maybe he had begun to think that without those Christmas/ birthday mornings he had nothing left to live for anymore. Valium was my only hope in making it to Edinburgh – I could only rely on myself from now on.

I’ll say at this point – I think it’s not wise to take a pill before entering customs, where upon getting through passport control you draw attention to yourself when both of your comfy and functional flight shoes fall off and you fall over them and fall on a customs official.

‘If you could just step over here with us madam’

‘It’s ok really, I’ve just taken a pill and it’s gone to my head’

‘You’ve taken a pill?’

‘Yeah, in case the pilot decides he can’t go on anymore’

‘Are you saying there is something wrong with this flight?’

‘Oh, I think I know what this is about – I’m not a terrorist’

‘Why would you say terrorist?’

‘I always get stopped at airports under suspicion’

‘You’ve been stopped before under suspicion of terrorism?’

‘It’s sorted now, Interpol got rid of the flag next to my name’

‘Ok, madam if you’d like to accompany us this way’

‘But I’ve got a flight to catch.’

‘You’ve just admitted to Australian customs officers that you were once detained by Interpol under suspicion of terrorism.’

‘You’ve taken it all out of context, this always happens’

‘I wasn’t detained – I was flagged, and anyway it was a mistake – it was to do with some fraud charges I was supposedly facing – but it’s cool, the embassy got involved and the safe house they put me in was cool.’

‘Madam would you like a legal representative present?’

‘No – I just need to get on this flight’.

‘And why this flight in particular?’

‘I bought a non-refundable ticket’

‘So you’re not coming back’

‘I think you’ve got it confused with a one-way ticket’

‘Don’t play smart’

‘I was just trying to help – and anyway my buzz is about to wear off so I need to hop on that plane’.

‘Do you really think you’re fit to fly?’

‘I’m fine – maybe it’s your captain you should be concerned about…’

‘Captain Stokes is a fine captain.’

‘I’m sure he is…. but tell me, has he told you about this wife?’

‘We didn’t know he was married’

‘He’s going through a bitter custody battle right now…won’t even be able to make it home for Christmas’.

‘We didn’t even know he had a kid’

‘You weren’t to know, how could you? It’s the kinda thing a man keeps bottled up. He’s just trying to save face. Imagine the unrelenting isolation he’s going through right now, coming to terms with the fact no one loves him, needs him or adores him anymore.’

‘His passengers need him’.

‘Do they? Or will we be mid air when it hits him that he never wants anyone to have to feel the pain he is feeling and so in one final act of trying to save humanity from itself he plunges one of your planes into the ground.’

Subsequently my flight to Edinburgh was detained as they led a confused Captain Stokes off the plane – in shackles for this own safety – I hated being right some of the time (even if now was not one of those times).

I hoped for his sake he was married with a young daughter that might love him again in time for Christmas.

Earlier this year I tried to write someone a letter…

It didn’t work out very well, so I decided to tell a story about it at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Inpress Magazine said I was ‘one to watch in 2009′ , and Chortle UK seconded that by saying I was ‘…decent enough’.

But I also wrote for Life Support (SBS) when Abbie Cornish was on it so if anything that might sway you.

**I’ve written for other things, but Home and Away doesn’t quite have that independent artist edge I\’m going for, but if you’re a fan of Home and Away come along…why not I say. Neighbour’s fans also welcome.

Oct 2, 3 and 4 7pm
Glitch Bar and Cinema, 318 St Georges Rd North Fitzroy Victoria
Tickets @ www.melbournefringe.com.au or at the door.
$14/12