Please enjoy this week’s dramatic reading of Monday’s post: “O Mother, Where Art Thou?” 👇
Notes from the Captain
My dearest crew,
This one has a lot of personal stuff in it, I guess. Not sure if that matters, and I don’t really mind folks knowing dumb stories like the Kentucky Fried Chicken saga, which I almost ditched from the video for time reasons, but left in because it makes me smile and I’m an idiot. They’re just stories. It’s just me.
Until next we meet, love what you love,
Your Captain, Janeen 🫡
Thangs mentioned in this episode…
👩✈️ The Speed Poetry Project
I wrote a poem a day for a year in 2019, based on a word prompt and with a ten-minute limit. Yes, I wrote a poem on the day my mother died—it was a daily thing—and I’m not sure if you’ll think that’s weird or insensitive or whatever. The prompt word I got was Fossil, and I’m glad. It was totally unrelated to what had gone on that day, so was in some ways, a nice little distraction. I dug it out for this video because I was curious if any of the weight of the day had seeped into the poem—it had not.
I wrote Fossil in 6 minutes and 36 seconds, and yes, I know spelled ochre incorrectly. I can tell by the wood that I wrote it at my brother’s dining table. It had been a long day, at the end of a long series of days.
As an aside, the Speed Poetry Project is still stuck in Phase 1—all the poems are written, but I haven’t done any of the things I had planned after that. I had an idea for a book pitch that would contain all the poems and some other stuff but I’ve never gotten back to it. I had also planned to just send raw ones off as part of the construct to see if any could get published as is and that would be part of the book too—like an experiment of sorts—but like most of my hair-brained ideas, I still haven’t closed the loop on that project phase either. They are compiled, and I marked 33 of them as being actually OK. Out of 365, that ain’t bad, right?
Coffee table book? I looked into some print-on-demand book providers but they’re all so expensive.
👩✈️ The Kentucky Fried Chicken Debacle
Here is a picture of me at 15 with my broken leg and my crutches and my sassy 80s school uniform style in the bottom parking area of my High School during photography class.
👩✈️ O Brother, Where Art Thou Soundtrack
👩✈️ CWA Cookbook
The CWA stands for Country Women’s Association. Mum was a member. We lived in outback Queensland for a while, and the CWA was very important to folks who lived remotely like that. I’m assuming it still is important. Ladies, bring a plate!
The cookbook had Aussie classics like Anzac biscuits, pikelets, pavlova, and very buttery scones (which are nothing like American scones. They’re like English scones because we’re a colony. God save the King!). Here’s just ONE variation on the CWA Anzac Biscuits recipe. I miss Golden Syrup. I’ve never seen it here in America.
👩✈️ Mamma/Mother songs
Here’s a playlist of most of the mother-themed songs that either ended up in or were considered for this video.
👩✈️ Some intel on the photo of my Mum
According to Dad, that photo was taken on their wedding day in 1968 and would’ve been after they’d gone and got changed for the ‘going away’ part after the reception. Wedding and reception over, the bride and groom put on some fresh duds and leg it. I love Mum’s jacket. She’s so cute!
Thanks for listening/watching/being. Do something great this weekend. Do. Do Do.
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