The baby named Baby, part 2

So where was I? Oh yes. We had just finished living at the quarry, and then we were moving.

Do you know anyone who has lived on a farm? Yes? How about someone who lived on a farm, but in a bus? Yes? Ok, well then do you know anybody who lived on a farm, in a bus, with circus performers? No? Well let me tell you the next part of this story so that you can finally say that you do in fact know someone who lived on a farm, in a bus, with circus performers.
I don’t know why we moved from the quarry I really don’t remember. I wonder who initiated the move?
My mother? Did she get tired of pulling her kids down from precarious cliff faces? Was the dust getting to her?
Or was it my father? Did he grow bored of living in that quarry? Was it too unoriginal? Did he want a more curious address?
Well for whatever the reason was, all I know is that the next chapter of our life was… interesting.

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The baby named Baby, Part 1

I thought I would tell you the very strange and curious story of the baby named Baby. Some of the things you are about to read will sound too strange to be true, but it is this story that will prove that sometimes truth can indeed be stranger than fiction, and I know that everything in this story is true, as the baby is me, and the story is mine.

I call this tale, “The baby named Baby.”

Imagine that there is a war

Imagine that there is a war. Bombs fall and stray bullets tear apart the ground spitting clouds of dust up into the laces of the boots of soldiers who run, run, run away from buildings that fall, fall, fall to the ground. There is no safety anymore, just things falling apart. The scenery that once made up your life is collapsing around you and amongst the noise of the sound of lives coming undone you can hear a very clear and very sound voice in your head say ‘You have to get out of here’

US radio interview with Rowan Radio 89.7

Good morning!
I was interviewed by New Jersey station “Rowan Radio” 89.7 earlier this week for their ‘Womens room’ segment to discuss onethousandsingledays.com and what i’ve learnt so far.
I am continued to be humbled that the lessons I have learnt through my life experiences could have the power to speak to people beyond my physical reach.
Many thanks to Allie Volpe and to Rowan Radio!
You can listen to the interview online HERE

Ease her heart

This is why…

6 assignments, 3 exams and the reason I have not been able to write until now…

When i’m not writing, this is why.
I have been shackled to this table writing one assignment after the other after the other after the other. However at 5:00pm yesterday afternoon I submitted the last assignment for the year. *Pause to take in the enormity of this statement…..

When I saw the confirmation of submission come through I sat there in absolute shock.
There really are no words to describe how it feels to sit back after months and months of intense study, stress, assignments, late nights, tears on text books, exhaustion and clinical placement and realise that you’re done, that you got through it, that you made it…

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For those who would like to see me nervously fumbling my way through my interview on The Morning Show, click THIS LINK

As it was live, I was extremely nervous and felt like a deer in the headlights and this comes across on camera a little bit, but I am extremely grateful for the opportunity to share about the blog so many thanks to the producers and crew of The Morning Show.

Is it ok to wear red lipstick on television?

Oh so much has been happening in my single little world and I hadn’t realised it had been so long since we spoke until today….It has been two weeks and I miss you. I have been fitting the writing of countless assignments around full time clinical placement and I didn’t mean to get too busy… it just happened.

Despite my hectic schedule, I have been doing some secret squirrel things and have some news to share with you.
On wednesday 10th October, at 8:20am QLD time, I will be appearing live on Channel Seven’s ‘The Morning Show’ to discuss my 1000 day commitment to celibacy, to promote onethousandsingledays.com and to discuss the new love of my life: Writing.

The hosts of The Morning Show Larry and Kylie… I am a huge fan of them both.

As The Morning Show is a popular (Australian) program that airs Nation wide, I am extremely grateful for the publicity it will bring to this site and I am trusting that it will somehow open some doors to further my writing.

I have other secret things going on but will share those things with you as they unfold, but it is all so exciting and it all makes me so terribly happy. For all my readers outside Australia who would like to see the program, I will try to provide a link to the show so you can watch it online after it has aired.

I have 7 more long days and late nights to go until I wrap up my time on the wards and submit the last of these dastard assignments and then I am on holidays until March 2013. I will stock up on wine, new music and a comfortable garden chair and write my heart out for you all summer long. Oh my soul is so incredibly exhausted that just the thought of that bought tears to my cheeks…

Qualification: Pain

Her file is heavy, thick and pregnant with the details of over a decade of brokenness, pain, confusion and hopelessness.
I have been watching her for four days while she wanders though the hallways and the courtyard like a ghost without a plan. She breathes and moves and sees and knows to pause for the food cart and to step aside for a busy nurse, yet there is no one home. She is alive yet not alive. Not living, just existing.
In the hope I might be able to understand what would cause a woman so young to be so burdened, I pull her file and begin to read. I open up the transcript of her most recent admission interview. It makes no sense, her words are strung against words which were never meant to be partnered, it is nonsense and it is tragic. A woman admitted so mentally ill and tormented that the only verbal response she can give to any question is one that describes the fear of death and the certainty that the world is at an end. ‘Even if I tell you my name I will die‘
Diagnosis: Schizophrenia.

One Thousand Single Days Turned Vanessa Katsoolis into a Blogging Success

My recent interview with Anna Rydne of Communicateskills.com. For all those who want know how the blog came so far in such a short space of time, all the tips and advice can be found in this article. Enjoy

Anna Rydne Communicate (your) Skills

With her blog One Thousand Single Days, Australian based blogger Vanessa Katsoolis, has turned into a rising star on the blogosphere. Writing personal stories about her up-bringing in a bohemian Kiwi-Greek family and about her self-created challenge: staying single for 1,000 days until March 14th 2015, Vanessa’s blog has been read over 70,000 times by readers in 135 countries and she has well over 3,000 subscribers, just 3 months since her first blog post hit the internet. What a kick-start for the new blogger!

Today, I have the privilege to publish an interview with Vanessa, in which she talks about her blog, its success and what led up to it. She also shares some advice on how to boost your readership further down in the article.

>>The question that was the first to hit my mind after seeing Vanessa’s blog title was what would happen if she doesn’t stay single…

View original post 1,637 more words

My time is running out

These words are about the most precious thing in the whole world. The only thing on the face of the planet that is truly priceless. The thing that dying men beg for, rich men try and barter for, and yet it can neither be granted nor purchased. It destroys gardens and pathways and footprints and castles and empires and memories. It turns rocks into sand, turns black hair grey. Rubies lose their hue in comparison to it and diamonds lose their glitter when shadowed by it and the thing is more valuable and sought after than both combined. It discriminates between no man, no race, no gender, no social status. Oh does your father own the bank? Is your grandmother related to royalty? It means nothing.

It presses holes into the soles of our shoes, draws lines upon our face, closes wombs and weakens bones. It quenches love and creates legacy…
What is it that could possibly have this power? To make and break kings? To be both the father and the reaper of life?

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Bad news

You and what army?

If you witnessed Travis Pastrana to get on a Suzuki RM250, ride it full tit toward a large jump and then do a backflip, then you might shrug your shoulders, maybe nod your head, semi impressed.
However, if I got on that same Suzuki, managed to actually work out how to start it, figured out what makes it move forward, and then rode that thing at top speed toward a huge jump and then pull a backflip, you would go insane right? So why the difference in reaction? We both did the same thing, we both did a backflip while holding onto a loud, wheeled bullet. So whats the reasoning here?

I’m not a jerk, but I am sorry

I received an email from a reader recently calling me to account over why I reply to so few of the messages, comments and emails I receive. He bought up the point that since so many people take the time to write such beautiful, thoughtful and sincere messages, that I should return the love and take the time to acknowledge each one.

I really appreciate that he bought this up, as it had been weighing on my conscience and I did wonder if this irritated the people that had in fact taken that time to write to me, and his email confirmed that it had irritated him at least, so it may very well be bothersome for others, so this is my apology.

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Anytime I get relationship withdrawals, I just sit down in front of 5 mins of ‘Divorce Court’ and them withdrawals go right on and disappear.

Lost and found Pt 2

Most dreams are forgotten somewhere in those few hours after we wake up, but then there are those dreams which you can still remember years later.

I have dreams that I dreamed as early as 5 years old which I can still remember, but the memory of a dream is different to the memory of something that really happened in your waking world. With the memory of a dream, there are parts that you remember with crystal clarity, and then other parts that are scattered and foggy.

Dream recall can often seem like watching a movie in which odd parts have been edited out, so you may find yourself in a field in one moment, and then all of a sudden you are in that house you used to live in when you were 10 years old and there is no bridge in your memory to connect  the field to that house. It chops and changes and sometimes makes no sense at all…

Lost and found Pt 1

I cannot find the beginning to this story. Every time I think I have found it, I realise that there was something that preceded that moment, which preceded another moment, and the further back I go, the more history seems to light up, and as I sit here, I realise that if I were to truly tell this story and give it any real justice, I would have to write a book, and a book will come, but not today, so I will have to pick the part of the story which I love the most, and make that the beginning.

And so, the part of this story that I love the most, was the night he kissed me, and that, I suppose, really was the beginning of a story that would span over 10 years, and not end in happily ever after.

A very scary story Pt 2

You don’t want to reckon with a Dutch man. Well, you don’t really want to reckon with a Dutch person full stop. But one night, we not only reckoned with a Dutch man, but we brought him to his knees in quivering fear. And this is how we did it….

A very scary story Pt 1

The story I am about to tell you cannot truly be understood, or visualized unless you can imagine the scene in which it is set. I have set this scene as well as I possibly can in my previous story: “After living in a hospital, we moved to paradise’

If you have not read that story, I suggest you do so first, so that when I begin explaining the strange and scary series of events that takes place in this story, you can see the scenery in your mind, and ‘remember’ it almost as well as I do.

The story I am about to share with you, as all my previous tales, is 100% true and unembellished. Our stories need no embellishment. They are strange enough and scary enough and curious enough as they occurred.

I call this: A very scary story.

Remember those long summers I told you of, where we ran free through mountains, and bush land and swam in oceans so deep and blue and warm under full summer sun?….well, there is something I left out.