EXCUSES! EXCUSES!
In the first entry of ‘The Complete Perks’ in January, I quite pointedly suggested that the first month of the year was littered with the promise of blogs that had foundered on the rocks of May. As it has transpired, this subscriber chronicle barely stumbled into March before confronting its first crisis of commitment. As a writer, who also plies his trade as a live performer and screen actor, I won’t bore you with the collision of obligations that leads me away for the keyboard for appreciable periods of time. Instead, here are a litany of excuses you can select at any time if my vaguely promised, weekly posts drags out to a fortnight.
· Due 2 the knck on effcts of Clmte Chng, thre is a wrld wde shrtge f vowels
· ASIO informed me that my blog was being used by a Russian spy ring to communicate plans for a cyber hack on the library services department of the Corangamite Shire in Western Victoria. They asked that I not post for a few weeks until they worked out why they were trying to alter the scheduled mobile library times for the township of Skipton.
· I had to can my previous novel length blog post, when I found out that there was already an Australian book set at the turn of the 20th century about the mysterious disappearance of a group of private school girls at Hanging Rock. Changing the title to ‘Al Fresco Dining at Hanging Rock’ did nothing to assuage the concerns of my lawyers.
· A recent DNA test revealed I have 3% Norwegian blood lines. As a result, I had to serve 3% of Norway’s compulsory 19 month military service requirement. This amounted to 16 days, 6 hours and 12 minutes, not including travel time & from Melbourne and the training camp in Målselv.
· My computer was hit with a virus that disabled the use prepositions.
· My side hustle naming new housing estates has suddenly become extremely busy. Unfortunately, I had to put by blog on hold as I was too pre-occupied coming up with the likes of Drained Lakes, Imperceptible Rise, Parched Plains, Reclaimed Swamp, Mortgage Gap, Marital Rut, Single Income Gulch, Affordable Ponds, Financial Plateau, Third Child Precipice, Urban Eyesore, Fabled Amenities, Broker’s Promise, Familiar Gully, Sprawlborough, Same Springs and Separation Gorge.
· I decided to learn how to properly fold a fitted sheet and lost 17 days.
· I got called up for jury duty in Oslo.
· I was asked to sit for an Archibald Prize Portrait by a pointilist painter who only paints one dot per minute and insists on her subject not moving for the duration of the process.
· I agreed to be a part of an Edith Cowan University scientific study into what happens to writers when they don’t write.
· I had some Norwegian relatives turn up out of the blue and they’re staying until Sytennde Mai [Norwegian Constitution Day]
· I was in the toilet queue at Womadelaide
· I went to a surrealist’s convention and my car melted into a puddle that was drunk by a giant ibis, so I couldn’t get home.
· I went to a nihilist convention and briefly rejected the notion of language.
· I went to a stoicist convention, but the venue was double booked for a hedonist convention, so we decided to wait it out.
· My side hustle naming a new line of obtuse paint colour tones has been more time demanding than I imagined. Many of my new lines are proving popular. In particular … sentient mattress, impoverished tailor, misjudged comment, gauche ointment, thirsty liederhausen, buttressed jeweller, discarded tea towel, prolific carpet, formidable goblet, haunted glove box, laudable valet, pugnacious mist, fragrant tourniquet, jaunty staircase, lamentable stapler, borrowed headphones, royal shoe, misplaced bucket, insulated clover, chastened altar boy, sentimental spoon, jaded translator and abstract clown.
· I was on the phone to Telstra.
Excuses, excuses, excuses. Believed ‘em all, expect your Norwegian ancestry. As a Viking myself, you don’t appear to possess any of the Nordic characteristics, like horns. Så jeg kaller tull på det.