Tindersphere- Ms Skoobington.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time i hooked up with somebody from Tinder it was an exploratory and investigative experience..,a little challenging as well to meet a stranger for possible intimate intercourse but after 5 shots of frozen Polish vodka and numerous spliffs…. The dude was located in a suburb of decency, i consulted with my housemate and he confirmed there would be no rape dungeons in that part of the world, “great” I said as I wrote his name down and the street he had given me to leave with Paulo. “Ok this is his mobile number and address, I’ll send you a text when I get there so you know its cool”, “Ok, and if it’s not I’ll have to call Maya and we’ll come and rescue you”. Oh how very chivalrous, I thought, and people thought chivalry was dead. So I toodle off, find the street and call the Captain Swinging Jib, I can’t even remember his name at this point (it’s been a month after the fact) but he told me it was the house with all the gravel out front..it was actually the house opposite the house with the gravel out the front…I found it and found him standing outside. “Hey” I casually tossed out, there were smiles from either side and he opened the back door for me, the garden was chaotically horticultural. His house was the only one in the flash street that had horticultural chaos as a theme, the rest were all perfectly manicured with shiny regularly polished vehicles of international extraction astride clean clean concrete. He didn’t have a hunch back but he exuded the vibe of a man with a hunched back, under his cockney cap there was a smile but all i could think of was Riff Raff from Rocky Horror but it wasn’t a bad vibe, there was not a feeling in my gut that I shouId make some polite conversation, have a smoke and a drink and then get the fuck outta dodge. If I could get an orgasm not administered by my own hand then it would be mission accomplished (and not in the George W. Bush sense of the phrase).

“I can’t find it” he said, “I thought I had the extra shot glass but I must have put it in storage with everything else so we will just have to share”, hmm, well a that’s a quick way to develop and display some level of intimacy from the get go. I entered the sparsely furnished space, “Yeah, the house needs re-stumping so I had everything put into storage that i didn’t need”. “Hang on” I said, “what is that oxygen doing at the end of the couch?”..my head wrenched back to our initial conversation the night before and the snorting strange laugh he had, I saw the oxygen and imagined he was like the Dennis Hopper character out of Blue Velvet, there was after all a mask attached to a tube attached to the canister..”nah, it’s helium left over from a friends kids birthday party and i was blowing up balloons”. I had sent the text to Paulo confirming my vibes were ok, for a second the David Lynch ambience was a tad unsettling but the Polish Wodka lessened it’s chill. Descending into one of those cheap 70s vinyl couch (mustardy colour, anyone in a share house over the last few decades knows what I’m talking about) covered in a white flannel sheet (real classy) we got to chatting, chugging and smoking. We got down to business after sufficiently lubricated.

Where are my shoes..they had been pushed under the cheap vinyl couch while he had fucked me forcefully from behind, just how forceful would be revealed in 2 days when the black black hand prints bruised into my chest had appeared.

We had moved to the bedroom..well the empty room with nothing but a mattress on the floor and a cabinet to keep the sex toys snug. The whole transaction was quick, I think. I was so exhausted after bagging my needs that really couldn’t be arsed returning the favour, in truth i just wanted to drift off into satisfied slumber..which is, well i was gonna say rude but the thought uppermost in my mind was what the fuck could happen if I ain’t completely compos mentis. The next minute we were back on the cheap vinyl couch. We talked some more and I realised this guy had taken way too much ecstasy in the 90s while banging and raving high in Nepal, shagging senseless in Shanghai. I had gathered 5 orgasms on the end of his cock which resembled a stick of cabana.

We talked about politics and music, if somebody can chat with knowledge about the music of my mind and the politics of the globe then i can probably fuck them, even if they do give you a bit of a Riff Raff from Rocky Horror vibe. It is just kinda like a servicing, pure and simple. Only required at 10,000 km intervals. And that’s fine & dandy.

 

 

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Healthywildand50plus – Shirley Bode

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

This is the intro to a health and fitness related e-book I am writing that links to my blog and my fb business page.

I’m a blogger and a part-time health coach and a full time working for a wage woman and a mother and a lover and a pet owner (my dog George is a therapy dog so he also works for his dog bikkies).

I am writing a self-published e-book to help people (mostly women but hey, I won’t discriminate against the rest of the population!) achieve their health and fitness goals. I’m really fit, active and healthy and my family, friends and colleagues are always asking me “what’s your secret?” Well, there is not one secret, but there are strategies you can put in place to help you set and achieve your health goals and I’m here to help you.

I’m not a doctor, well I am actually, but not that kind of a doctor – I’m a Phd doctor. What that means is that I’m a really good researcher and I have spent a lot of time researching and reading and analysing loads of information and research studies and filtering out the rubbish and the fads.

I am a Health Coach and I take an holistic view of your health and fitness and will show you how you can achieve the healthiest you imaginable.

About me

I am a 58-year-old woman, I have one grown up daughter (she is pretty awesome) and I live alone with two dogs and a cat – so not alone, I do have my furry friends, but no other human co-habitant at the moment, but I’ll keep you posted if that changes! I do have a boyfriend/partner/lover and he is gorgeous and has great guns and occasionally I can coerce him into coming for a run with me… I have loads of friends and great colleagues at work (yes, I do have a day job and my health coaching is my sideline business and my absolute passion in life). I run and compete in fun runs (yes, I know – where’s the fun in run?) I like competing and raising funds for worthwhile charities. I also like to run past people younger than me, smug for sure, but what a confidence boost! I love hiking and living in Western Australia we have some awesome hiking trails, Bibbulman Track anyone?

I try to swim around once per week because swimming is an all-over body workout and doesn’t put any strain or stress on your joints. I aim for around 20 laps of the 50 metre pool. And because I am a dog owner I have to take my pooches out for regular walks at the park or alongside the river near my home.

I have recently taken up dance classes (the aforementioned boyfriend has coerced me into learning Cha Cha and I am surprisingly reasonably good at learning the steps and not crunching his toes -mind you I’m only in beginners’ classes!)

When it comes to food I aim for healthy and fresh. Mostly plant based foods (I’m not a vegetarian, but full respect to those who choose that lifestyle) I eat a lot of vegetables, fruit, lean protein including non-animal protein like tofu and quinoa. I make my own muesli for breakfast with oats, nuts, seeds and add plain yoghurt and berries when in season. And yes, I do eat carbs, we need good healthy wholemeal carbs as part of a complete diet. When I use the word diet, I do not mean diet-fads, I mean your daily intake of food in a balanced and healthy way.

Do I take supplements? Yes and no, well kind of yes. I take a Berocca (effervescent multi-vitamin) if I’ve been out with the girls the night before and had a few champagnes and yes I do drink alcohol; not a lot and not every day, so I’m not about to make you give up your wine, but I will ask you to think about it and whether it’s having any kind of a negative impact on your life. The other supplement I do take is a Vitamin C tablet daily – mostly because I’m superstitious and think they’ll prevent/minimise catching colds at work. My workplace (I work at a university with thousands of students and hundreds of co-workers) is a hotbed of germs and bugs in the winter time and many is the meeting I’ve been in where a half-dead colleague is hacking up a lung on the meeting room table!

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IN HER FOOTSTEPS – Liz Blizzard

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

Untold stories of long forgotten women,
their journeys, and the pursuit of gold.
The stories about my great grandmother Kate Herry, passed down to me by my mother and grandmother were incredible. I thought: What an amazing woman!
After months of searching online, and at the Public Records Office, and travelling to the places the family lived…the Buchland Valley near Bright, and Coopers Creek near Walhalla, I discovered many more stories, some deeply shocking.
One was about the attempted rape of Kate, aged 9, in 1871. At the PRO, I copied the actual  notes from the rape trial held in the Sale Courthouse, which was presided over by Judge Edmund Barry.
And Annie [O’Donnell] Handforth, Kate’s mother, was jailed for insanity in 1882! Annie had sailed from Ireland to Melbourne at the age of 17 to help her Aunt [and her 4 children], whose husband had died on arrival in Melbourne.
 After marrying goldminer James Handforth in the Buchland, Annie and James [with 3year old Kate and Martha, aged 1] walked approx. 350km to Coopers Creek in Gippsland. Annie had a baby at Woods Point on the way. Before Annie had been jailed, 5 of her 10 children had died. A few months after the funeral for their 14 year old daughter and 4 year old son, who both died of diphtheria, her husband James was declared bankrupt. Annie died of ‘insanity, refusal to eat’ at the age of 52.
I was proud to discover my great grandmother Kate’s signature on the 1891 Women’s Suffrage Petition. She lived until she was 92. She was a strong, determined and caring woman who worked hard all her life and helped many people.
So many pioneering women’s stories have been forgotten, or ignored. I decided to paint about my women ancestors and their families.
I’ve been painting this series of 24 large works for more than 3 years, and they will be exhibited in June 2017 at the Art Gallery of Ballarat.
Although the paintings are about my family, they are also representative of the struggle and hardship that many pioneering women endured – birthing and raising children in difficult circumstances and environments, the walking and travelling; and being tied to their husband’s ambitions.
I want to place these stories at the front of my own history.
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unfinished – J.Alexander

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER 

The first time I saw this little boy was the only time. The memory of his face rests close to mind, ready for retrieval.

At the time I was looking for new sights, sounds and smells trying to regale a once animated but now indifferent self. I was like a hollow shell which held no sounds of the ocean when held to an ear. Like a ragged husk with spindly legs which moved in a regular, yet stagnant, habitual momentum to a barely beating, died in the arse heart. Travelling life’s currents and tides aimlessly, unrecognisable amongst the floating plastic debris of humanity. Bitterness had been bleached to a void, but the sadness lingered, worn as a heavy, drenched, oversized coat. Dismal at best.

I was god knows where, just another strange place which held little attraction, other than, there were more sounds of nature than that of people. Solace in nature is what I longed for. I had walked for miles before encountering the small village. With no desire to connect I kept moving, my gazed fixed upon the path ahead.

For some reason my eyes rested upon a child. Instinctively I felt there was a rarity here which set him apart. Upon seeing me a huge smile expanded his peach like face surrounding his shining eyes with crinkling lines. His spontaneous eruption of happiness caught me off guard and I found myself smiling back.

He threw his head back and cackled at some secret jest, his laughter echoed around me and tickled the sky. Tears of laughter rolled down his rosy cheeks and drops fell from clouds above which rumbled and quivered like a huge, cuddly belly racked with mirth. He laughed on, tummy held tight by chubby hands. Rain fell, droplets heavy upon the crown of my head, slam, slamming, slamming. I stood motionless, smiling at the boy, strangely mesmerised. The rain continued slamming into me, pounding, pushing, as if making space for my own laughter to arise. The boy continued to roar, unfettered by any self consciousness and now rolling from side to side. How absurd I thought yet how undeniably contagious it was. I could not help but to join the laughter, escalating to a hilarious pitch at the fact that there was actually nothing to laugh about, other than the joy in watching another laugh.

It wasn’t mine anymore, that husk, the empty shell. His childish spontaneity was not extraordinary of itself but the power of his smile and laughter was. I had felt the honesty and authenticity of his happiness.   There were no derogatory overtones, the laughter was an equaliser, a healer of melancholy. A sense of restoration filled my empty heart space.

Happy new year to me! Really? Though it was not new year I recognised the potential for a new beginning and wanted to envelop it wholeheartedly. I began to be fearful the unexpected glimpse of happiness was temporary and the heaviness would return. And then I realised I had a choice in how to perceive things. I no longer wished to feel the weight of the wet coat – the lightness of the laughter was invigorating.

The rain had ceased and caught in the emerging sunlight, water droplets sparkled. “Is that yours, that bag?” I asked as I walked towards a crumpled wet sack on the grass nearby. The child laughed again as the wet bag stood up, shaking the rain from it’s coat. “That’s my dog” he replied, laughing heartily as he danced playfully about dodging the attention of a leaping, but still very wet dog.

unfinished….. time up….Dev’s rule

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She was fire – B.F.

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Fuck the ice-water cool she’d been taught was the only acceptable way to be
Constrained in a container so tight it was as if someone was forcing the fullness of their weight down on her chest
Where only the tiniest splashes were permitted to escape
Heavens forbid anybody else felt uncomfortable
She was fire
A roaring storm of unapologetic flames
Packed with the burning desire to scorch the soul of all those who were brave enough to enter her world
Setting them alight in a way that would be seared into their soul forevermore
Permission to be all of who they are
Authentic
Raw
With zero apology
This is who she was
And nobody would ever extinguish her flame again
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The Whiting – Orania Theoharidis 

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Takeshi and I bob up and down on the deck of a restored, aluminium dingy. The air is cool and the odour of dead fish is wafting through the boat. We huddle together for warmth, but it’s not yet dawn, and I have to squint to try and trace the outline of Takeshi’s face. But it’s futile in this darkness. I am deprived of all my senses and all I can feel is the relentless swaying of my body as we drift over the black saltwater that heaves and swells underneath. I capitulate to the darkness – to the emptiness of the open sea. There is a subtle and strange peace when everything of unimportance and irrelevance is rendered black. As we bob up and down on the waves, I start to feel a bit queasy. Take holds me tightly, so tight that I can feel the heat of his body. A radiating, pleasant heat. Out here, we are just two animals surviving – rocking and swaying on the waves.

The darkness is penetrated by the first rays of morning sun that trickle into the boat. Through the narrow beams of radiating light, I see the tip of Take’s fishing rod start dancing – and right on cue, the fish start biting, as if playing their part in nature’s orchestra. Accepting his cue, Take is jolted into action. He clasps the cold, rubber handle of the fishing rod and steadies his body for the battle ahead. It is still dim. But now there is enough light that I can vaguely make out Take’s silhouette as he fights the fish. His hand moves mechanically as it controls the reel, winding and releasing. The tip of the rod, bending and straightening, like an obedient puppet, yielding to the will of the puppeteer.

The fish must be nearing the surface now, but it’s difficult to say – peering into the black depths provides no clues. I lean over the wobbly boat with a net, ensuring the fish doesn’t make a lucky escape. Abruptly, the blackness is pierced by a shiny, glowing creature that flails and fights to escape. But I am too quick. I haul the creature onto our boat. It thrashes about on the deck but stands no chance now. Take secures the shimmering, slippery body with one hand, and with the other, mercifully drives a sharp blade through the magnificent creature’s head.  It stops flapping. It simply stops still. With a cursory toss, Take flings the corpse into the cool esky. I steal a glimpse of the whiting’s face as she lies in an icy morgue. She stares at me – the shock of being hooked still lingering in her eyes – or is that my shock simply reflected back at me? Cruel I think to myself. Or is it? Caught locally from the middle of Port Phillip Bay, she is a decent size and would have led a good life for a fish. She will be our lunch later, and we won’t bag more fish than what we can eat. In the darkness I muse: perhaps the world would be a less cruel place if we all engaged in this type of honest cruelty.

 

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Perceived Needs – Ari Amala

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

I am vigilant as I scan the room

And extraordinarily quick to assume

That other people want and need my help

It’s kind of something I’ve always felt

 

So when I see that someone is about to sneeze

I seize the opportunity to people please!

I pass him a tissue but he shakes his head

And pulls out a hanky to use instead

 

I smile at a woman but she looks away

Because she doesn’t feel like being social today

I sit there incredulous until I start to see

That my perception of people’s needs are just a projection of me

 

Oh shit. Do I really have the audacity

To think that no one has the capacity

To take care of themselves without me?

That’s definitely an uncomfortable thing to see

 

Maybe all the needs I perceive and pre-empt

Are simply my ego’s masterful attempt

To masquerade my own desperate need to be needed

Yep, this stuff is pretty deep-seated

 

In the past I’ve found love by being nice

But avoiding conflict has a price

Because discomfort and everything that makes me squirm

Are actually what I need to grow and learn

 

If I am really going to change

Two things in my mind need to rearrange

First I must trust people to ask for what they need

And wait for an invitation before I intercede

 

The second thing I must learn

Is that love isn’t something I have to earn

I don’t have to pay compliments, placate or please

I can be loved just for being me

www.ariamala.com

 

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Grief’s Hand – Jan-Louise Godfrey

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

Grief’s hand can be felt like a slap to the face.  A shock.  A surprising jolt to the head that disturbs the everyday as the world spins out of control.  Her hand can be hard, constantly pushing against your back, fingers digging in and reminding you that the world will never be the same.  Even when life brings you joy, her hand still has you firmly in her grip.  She may push you down until you connect with a deep sadness, lost in the abyss.  But she is not only tough – her hand can be soft and gentle.  She may clear a seat for you so that you may sit in amongst the pain and remember the beauty of what was been lost.  She can hand you a kind of acceptance, a way to move forward in the new world and a strength that creates a changed you.  She delivers her payload with no pattern or logic but her touch reminds us that we have loved.

 

 

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Off the Hook – Janelle Moran

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

 

This Christmas, my partner, Leslie, gifted me the ultimate expression of love in the form of a firm and not-very-subtle kick up the arse. It was wrapped beautifully, with ribbons and flourishes and unusual attention to detail that disguised the firm, uncompromising message it contained inside. It appeared the time for gentle encouragement and soothing support of my writing aspirations was about to be over quicker than I could say ‘Deck the Halls’. He’d brought in the big guns to re-educate this recalcitrant writer – inside was a gift voucher to attend Catherine Deveny’s acclaimed Gunnas Writing Masterclass. I simultaneously loved and hated him so much in that moment that I’ve no idea what kind of expression crossed my face when I realised what he’d done, and what I’d have to do now.

It seemed Santa’s elves had been watching me these past few months and they were, quite frankly, fucking sick of what they saw – a crabby unfulfilled, hypocritical sycophant who built her small child’s dreams by day (‘you can do anything you set your mind to, you just have to try!’) while systemically destroying her own by night (‘don’t try anything because you will FAIL so it is POINTLESS’)

“This is too much – you’ve spent too much,” I started.

“Please. It’s all I want”.

“It’s all you want?”

“For the love of that sweet baby Jesus lying in his manger, I don’t want any other gift. All I want for Christmas is for you to stop torturing yourself and just fucking write!”

I knew this wasn’t entirely true. What he really wanted was a copy of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare and seven expectation-free days to play it, but he’d called my bluff and invested $290 doing it. I had to put out or shut up. He’d stitched me up with love, support and financial obligation. ‘God I love this clever, scheming bastard,” I thought. “He’s really played me this time and there’s only one way I’m going to get off the hook.”

Attending the master class would be just the first step in Dev’s patented two-step program to actually getting ‘off the hook’, of course – the second being the very small fact that you had to actually just write some stuff. This, obviously, should not have been real news to me, but still, the delivery of this magic bullet, when it inevitably comes, is like a miraculous revelation every single time! This time I would write that shit down with my good fountain pen in my best notebook as unassailable fact to slap myself in the face as often as necessary.

There are a thousand reasons I do not or cannot write, even when it is the thing I want most in the world to have done. Some of them are valid, but none hold up when subjected to any real kind of outside scrutiny – by best friends, professional mentors or probing therapists. There are a million holes letting the air out of all of my excuses and they’re all so obvious I’m sure there are astronauts in space rolling their eyes at my predictability as they look down upon me.

 

 

 

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New eyes – Lucy Louca

Another brilliant piece from a GUNNAS WRITING MASTERCLASS WRITER

She opened her eyes and looked around her bedroom.  Everything seemed pretty much the same.  The faint morning light creeping in through the small openings of the drawn curtains.  A pile of yesterday’s clothes on the floor, most of it having fallen off the velvety wingback chair she picked up at a garage sale somewhere.

Everything was the same.  She looked down her doona covered body as she lay in bed; the same doona she always had; the same doona that used to warm his body as well; the same one they often hid under avoiding sunlight, prolonging the blissful state of darkness.   The same doona that was quickly thrown off in their moments of passionate love making.

She reached to the bedside table silencing the alarm clock before it even went off.  She couldn’t stand alarm clocks.

Slowly, she sat up, still in bed, cross legged, surveying the room, suspicious of its sameness.   Two windows, one view.  She fixed her eyes on the tall boy blocking the second window, trying to see through it.  She can’t even remember what part of the garden that window looked out to.

Thoughtlessly, she got up.  Puts both hands on the tall-boy and tries to move it.  But it doesn’t budge.  It’s her grandmother’s, antique tall boy, stuffed with god knows what.  Must weigh a tonne.

She is angry; angry at the tall boy, angry with all the stuff in it, angry with her grandmother who burdened her with its care.   It must be removed.  She must free that window.   Insanely she starts pulling out drawers one by one, not caring what falls out, what breaks.

She pushes again, and it slowly gives way.  She pushes more and more until it’s as far away from the window as she can push it.  She pulls the blind up and there is the window.  The glass hasn’t been washed in a while and the view is a bit cloudy.  But she can see.  There is more to see from the two windows.

The room is different.  She is not sure how, but it’s different.  She knows it’s her eyes.  For the first time she is seeing things she’s never seen before.  Different light, different shadows, a different view.  Sadness suddenly overwhelms her.  Her own eyes had been betraying her without her knowing; so many things remained unseen for so long.   But the sadness is quickly replaced by the joy of newness.  Freeing the window, has given her new eyes.

Her room is very different.  No tall-boy and no alarm clock.

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