Disastrous Divorces

"I'll buy a house-"

"No."

"With a backyard-"

"No."

"And a treehouse!"

"No."

"Why not?"

"It's not the same."

"It will be the same. Just new."

"No."

"I'll have to do it one day. A garden with a vegetable patch? A big, great garden bed. 

Has your mum found you a higschool yet?"

Sitting down at La Porchetta restaurant the other day with my sister, I opened my mouth once more, this time to take in the last bite of my splendid chicken breast, marinated in Vino Bianco sauce, held on my fork with bits of leafy green salad and a fried chip. I must have done this really slowly to have her staring at me in an agitated manner. She had, for once, finished her food much earlier than I had, and this time she was waiting for me to finish. I was savouring every bite, for the sake of not leaving hurriedly like one would at a fast food restaurant. This time, I was going to savour my time here. Little did I know how much I would want to savour my time after the bite, after the last legitimate reason for lengthening my stay.

Just as I was bringing the forkful of lovely food to my mouth, a man in his late forties and his daughter, who appeared to be around eleven years old, were led to the table behind me by a waitor. They took their seats, and as I was chewing on the last bite of my meal, the conversation above took place. I quickly took out my smartphone and documented the exact conversation. It did not occur to me that this man was a fresh divorcee until the last sentence. And for a while, I found it seemingly difficult to swallow the best bite of the entire meal.

My mind processed the information rather slowly. And now, instead of looking at me with agitation, my sister looked at me in fear, as if she were thinking, 'oh dear, another story idea...' But it was not another story idea, it was another essay idea. It was the most realistic, most raw idea I have yet to come across. This time, I did not have to make up any dialogue - it was flawless, the entire dialogue was unfolding itself behind my very nape, and I could have sworn that my ears had turned to face the direction behind me, just to have their turn at savouring something for once.

Rather than chicken, salad, fries and a chilled Coca Cola, my stomach was now processing a sullen, mellow feeling, topped with guilt, guilt from me being unappreciative toward the family I am blessed with, guilt from all those nights that I thought I had the worst family when, despite our slight dysfucntionality, we actually have it all very well pieced together. And I sat there, listening to his daughter's confident disagreeing and his begging, his failed attempt at bribery - this man was trying to bribe his own daughter into encouraging the rest of his life alone.

This man was bribing a product of the twenty-first century with a vegetable garden, a treehouse, an entirely new house. How can a young girl accept these things when she is too busy thinking about the Barbie dress-up application on her up-to-date iPad? How could she abandon the comfort of the television's glow to spend time in a naturally heated treehouse, built by her very own father? This could not be. But most importantly, how could she tear herself apart from her mother, who she was obviously close to, and spend time with her emotional wreck of a father who tried to show her love by offering to grow her a vegetable garden? Had this man lost his mind? Had her father forgotten the convenience of Coles supermarket? She was a girl of class, not a girl of farms. How could he forget that?

Now that more people are admitting to being homosexual because of the wider acceptance of marriage equality, the divorce rates in Victoria have jumped over 100% since the year 2001, making Victoria the second nation-wide state with the highest divorce rates. Out of every one-thousand people in Australia, 2.5% of them are divorced. Women in Australia have been filing more divorces than men – in fact, today, Australian women are more likely to get a divorce than to die. Approximately fifty-one thousand, three-hundred and eleven divorces have been happening each year.

This means that the father and mother of this little girl at La Porchetta are in the divorce statistics of Australia, a sad but true case. In fact, I have seen more divorcees recently when I am out shopping. I even came across one at the beach, who, while I was metal-detecting, taking a leap of luck, with a hint of a tear in his eye he suggested that I go to the main area of the beach, since I might be more lucky because apparently married couples fight there and may lose their wedding rings from vigorously throwing about their hands. He mounted his motorbike after advising me and telling me that he was an interior designer, since my guess of him being a writer, judging by his glasses was wrong. He revved off into the distance.

Divorces are horrid experiences. I can only presume so, because for starters, I am yet to be wed. From eavesdropping unintentionally on the conversation behind me at La Porchetta, I was able to receive a minuscule glimpse into the divorced life, from two perspectives – one, the perspective of a desperate and lonely father trying to bribe his daughter into accepting his new living conditions and in doing so, almost soothing himself over the fact that major changes are about to take place, and the latter, the perspective of the little girl disinterested by the bribery of a vegetable garden and a treehouse, who most likely is questioning why this separation is taking place.

Having these sort of romantic downfalls around me, I dread to find myself wed and separated, especially if I am ever to be blessed with children of my own. For divorces do not drag each member of the couple through the dirt, but if the circumstance permits, also the children. Like the little girl puts it, “it’s not the same.” It simply is not the same.

How to be Famous Today

For as long as the paparazzos and media have been working collaboratively to bring the status-quo feelings of self-hatred and self-consciousness, things to view and gossip about, the status-quo has felt the need to dream big, to dream rich, to aim for things acquired by, in most instances, getting down on your knees. The several aims to fame, if you want to get in the game, are as follows:

Extend your tongue as far as it can go whilst rubbing a foam hand on your crotch and dry-humping Robin Thicke on stage.

Miley Cyrus is an iconic disaster who is, despite her highly sexual and borderline homosexual and satanic behaviour, is still classed highly in our media. Though people despise the very idea of her, most girls have now set her as their mobile phone’s lock screen, and have shaved their heads to mimic her so-called ‘style’. Ex-Hannah Montana star has shown us that to leave behind Disney’s contract and to open up a wider journey of fame, you just slice through lingual frenulum, the flesh looking flap of skin beneath your tongue, get on stage with Robin Thicke, an older and married man with children, and dry-hump him, later showing your utterly sexual desire for hairy older men by rubbing a foam-hand on your crotch area and pretending you are enjoying every second of it, just to make your audience feel as though they should be enjoying it also.

Learn how to twerk.

Miley Cyrus has come a long way with twerking. This ludicrous act requires a human to bend over and shake the area where the sun tends to shine least until they appear as though their method of shaking becomes sexually interesting and alluring for people of all genders to enjoy. Some people, note that Miley Cyrus is not included, have great twerking abilities, and if one was to glance at their sizeable behinds, they would notice that the better the twerker is, the more squats they would have done. Judging by Miley Cyrus’ epidemic of a performance at the MTV awards, she is blessed with neither of these. Twerking is a great way to acquire fame and popularity though, if you have been squatting an awful lot and if your face is also visually appealing, because the media plays a part in any aspect of fame. Let us not forget Caitlin Heller’s failed attempt of twerking against her door upside down, though, and almost ending up portraying the epitome of Katniss Everdeen.

Use a lot of hashtags in your social media posts.

Hashtags allow you to acquire more views on something you post to a social media site, and they will also, depending on your wit, gain you an extensive repertoire amongst your followers. The status-quo will fall in love with you and your life if you make a posted picture interesting by pointing out what to notice in hashtags. Hashtags like #swag and #yolo are quite popular in this day and age, accompanied by teenagers wearing Obey Snapbacks and Nike apparel, all thanks to the wonderful role models they have in their lives – so-called ‘rappers’.

Get discovered by Usher on Youtube.

Justin Bieber was a screechy fourteen year old when he was discovered on Youtube by Usher’s managing partner. Bieber was then introduced to Usher, who thought that Bieber’s voice was money to his ears. And indeed it was, though it was really his adorable little Canadian-boy-with-a-cute-little-blonde-fringe image that brought every mentally-unconscious girl’s dreams to a frenzy. Parents now scavenge their bank accounts and pay top dollar just to allow their daughters to go and witness Bieber getting bottled in the head at his concerts.

Use autotune.

Britney Spears, Ashley Simpson, Katy Perry, every popular pop singer uses this ingenious device to allow themselves to hide their strenuous attempts of a voice, in some cases, a whiny whisper. In fact, autotune assists so-called ‘singers’ into tricking fans into thinking they can actually sing, thus enforcing them to purchase their music albums, look them up on Youtube – earning them lots of revenue, and advertently purchasing concert tickets so that they can go and watch their favourite singers roll around on a faraway stage while a computer strains its technological vocal cords to enhance the singer’s reputation.

Wear nothing.

Sex sells. Though people try to deny it, fail to admit it, become feminist and demand that it stops, sex truly does sell. Miley Cyrus tried to be sexy in every way possible, and failed, yet people still talk about her, making her even more famous than intended. If you want to get far, wear less clothing. This is what the media has done to our minds. It highlights that personality is an unimportant factor when it comes to beauty – blonde, beautiful? Great, you can be on a Vogue magazine cover – the possibilities are endless, if you walk around looking like a softcore-pornography object. You do not need dignity if you have fame. There is no dignity in Hollywood. Most actors have sold their very souls in order to have a higher income than the status-quo. The Black Dahlia murders tell this story quite well.

Possess no actual talents, just pretend that you do.

The art of acting takes one a long, long way. If you continue convincing yourself that you are worthless, you have no skills or interests and you will amount to nothing, then yes, that is exactly what will happen, because you are also saying this to the world. However, if you wake up one morning and convince yourself that you are invincible, that you are beautiful and you will fulfil your very dreams then chances are you will. Look at Kritsen Stewart. The amount of time her head twitches in movies does not stop her from making it to the big screen – and you sit there, denying yourself the potential, chewing angrily on popcorn and secretly enjoying her awkward acting.

Write a vampire love story.

Stephanie Meyer had a nightmare one night, and woke up and made it everyone else’s nightmare too – Twilight. If you have a romantic nightmarish dream depicting bestiality and monsters romantically going about affairs, then jot it down and expand it into every teenager’s dream, because despite your horrible grammatical skills, you will achieve almost as much as the amazing J.K. Rowling. Emphasis on almost.

Star as a lead actress in a movie based on a book about a vampire love story.

Kirsten Stewart starred in seventeen movies prior to Twilight. Robert Pattinson starred in seven movies prior to Twilight. Billy Burke starred in twenty-two movies prior to Twilight. Taylor Lautner starred in three movies prior to Twilight. Need I say more? Fine, Harry Potter.

Be 16 and be pregnant.

Back in the good old days, MTV was a place for music, purely music. Now, it is a place that gratifies ‘reality’ shows that depict sixteen year old teenage mothers who whine and moan and act as though the fathers of their children, not any older or mature themselves, actually care about the havoc they have wreaked. Now, you can liberate yourself from the mere status-quo and become pregnant at a fragile age, and pray that your parents love you so much so that they will also love the child that you cannot financially or emotionally support because you yourself are still somewhat of a child internally.

Be Italian and live in New Jersey and start a television show wherein you host faux fights as faux as your personality and accent.

Jersey Shore is the most horrid show I have ever mistakenly laid eyes upon. It depicts a bunch of feisty and cocky Italians who live under the same roof and, well that is about it. If you would like more drama than a female cat in heat fighting for the last dying male cat, then you should invest in acting in this trainwreck of a show, and any other show like it.

Create any television show, really.

Honestly, you will be a star in no time. People will gratify how utterly stupid you portray yourself, and they will love you for it. It will be a hate-love relationship but you will be famous, nonetheless.

Make some rhymes that include words derogatory to race, colour and women.

If you become a drug abusing rapper that uses the words “n*gga”, “b*tch”, “sl*t”, “h*e” against women, coloured people or people of other races, then you will be famous in no time. Trust me, you will end up wearing a golden chain so heavy that your nape will cave in by the tie you are Betty White’s age. This also applies if you use words such as “gangsta” or “thug” or “slug” or “pop a cap” or “penitentiary” or “blood” or “crip” or any words that portray sexual activities in vulgar manners.

Be a singer and write lyrics that make great Facebook statuses.

Most humans have a Facebook page nowadays, and it constantly prompts them to input what is on their mind. If you write lyrics worth writing as statuses, then you will gain fame in no time. Lyrics based on “bad b*tches”, “getting money”, “weed”, exes or “getting wasted” will be the most popular. Amongst the hipsters, you will find that deep lyrics with a poetic twist will also gain you fame.

Eat a tampon.

Years ago, a statement like that would have been laughed at, and spat on, but unfortunately this is a legitimate way to acquire fame. Giovanna Plowman has shown the world that consuming her used tampon is the quickest way to get a mention. Even if Nosferatu was alive, he would not be able to compete with this girl’s blood-sucking ways. I do not recommend you take this road to fame, but hey, it is your choice.

Make a song about what foxes would potentially say had they the ability to speak.

Such a song will make the angriest of men laugh at how utterly ridiculous it is. Like an absurd toddler’s ‘animal sounds’ book come to life, this song makes you wonder if it is a song or a practical joke. It would make Beethoven intentionally deafen himself. The recreation of a song as such will easily get you famous.

Host an immature war via Twitter and letters and alcohol whilst on an airplane with a selfish lady during Thanksgiving. (Elan Gale and Dianne from 7A)

Instead of ignoring Dianne from 7A and her constant complaining, Elan Gale took it upon himself to blast the Twitter-sphere with continuous posts, updating an average of three-hundred people at a time with the little war he had waged with this Dianne woman. Find an annoying person on a plane, and wage a social networking war with them. Be witty, people will screenshot all that you post and cackle on about it for their lifetime, in the same way they cackle on about how Samuel L. Jackson is sick of snakes on a plane. The poor man’s cries of annoyance of snakes on a plane had not gained him any fame, yet Elan’s irritating complaints about a woman complaining had him semi-famous in no time.

Work as a low-level government intelligence contractor and expose the United States' spy programme to your fellow humans, and earn a spot n the heart of Wikileaks.

Do it for the people. This is a positive flare of advice. If you care about the greater good, endanger yourself by the government by going against them and hiding in Russia.

Create a Vine whilst driving, twerking, or doing any other crazy thing that is likely to acquire views.

It is not okay to drink and drive, but it is okay to Vine and drive. Most early members of this Vine committee have brought their faces and videos instant fame by acting out something that the status-quo agree or adhere to. And we will follow you blindly like sheep with their eyes gauged out.

Get an undercut and create songs that sound like the shaver you received the undercut from drowned in a cat's uterus and had a spasm.

Skrillex’s ‘Bangarang’ has been overplayed so much so, that I cannot tolerate his route to fame. He, Sonny Moore, has brought himself more fame by creating electronic orgasms than he had when he was in the band, From First to Last. Now he is from last to first, beep beep beep.

Marry Kanye West, have a baby with him and call her North.

Kim Kardashian, after finding an alternate way to gain fame, had her own television show, but soon after became unpopular again, or another status-quo member. Now that she has married the very Yeezus himself, she has regained her popularity. Kim, Kanye and North West. If you want to take this path, I suggest you hurry and marry a rapper before they are all taken by the gold-diggers that they despise – hypocrites. Jay-Z, the richest of them all, Wiz Khalifa, and now Kanye West. I am terribly sorry, but you will have to stoop so low as where Nicki Minaj used to be before she brought the world her Super Bass, the underground, to find a rapper to rise with, that is if he does not end up Chris Brown-ing you like Rihanna. And guys, you have schizophrenic Nicki Minaj or fast-tongued Snow the Product to choose from.

Star in a pornographic film and act as though you are famous because you are Kim Kardashian.

Come on, Kim Kardashian needs to be famous! Everyone has forgotten how she first acquired fame though, forgotten about what went into her and made her feel as though she was star quality. If you want to be famous and fast, drop your panties for Ray J.

Be in a boyband and pretend to be homosexual to tease mindless teenage girls.

One Direction has taken the female status-quo members in one direction and pranced off with them under a rainbow. British accents are slowly taking over the sexiness of American accents. Start finessing yours, and perhaps you will also be famous for being a lanky teenage boy with minimal vocal abilities wearing suspenders and a silly straw hat on a beach.

Tease terminal illnesses and people that hold them.

Yes, apparently it is now ‘cool’ to tease the terminally ill, or bully the mentally ill, or push someone at edge over the edge. Despite what you are surrounded by, be better than that. Do not take this pathway. If you feel as though you need to, please seek counselling.

Be Fat. Be Rebel Wilson.

Apparently, being overweight is now something that you can use to acquire not only sympathy, but friends, and fame.

Be Leonardo DiCaprio or Ryan Gosling or Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt or Meryl Streep or Zach Galifianakis or Jennifer Lawrence or any other physically attractive and talented actress or actor Hollywood has to offer.
This goes without saying. Most of Hollywood's finest are truly great. The question is, though, can you be too?

There are hundreds of silly ways to acquire fame nowadays – you can just about to anything. We are in dire need of true role models, not like Kony, and we need to come together and despise the very idea of fame, reject what the media tells us, and enjoy being un-famous so that we are not constantly stalked by the paparazzi. Be famous in your community and help out those in need, because being on the cover of magazines does not assist the greater good.

The Toxicity and Paranoia of Pigeon Poop

There is nothing more adorably cute and heartwarming than witnessing a small flock of pigeons innocently roosting high up in or on an abandoned building which they have claimed their own. Unlike the adorability in the sight of these loving clusters, however, is the thick, crispy cream-coloured trail of poop they leave behind, which takes the likeness of melted candlewax.

Apart from the crusty and disgusting appearance of these trails, what the general public, general public meaning all humans seeing as humans and pigeons are of a different breed and humans are affected by the pigeons, tend to miss is that this unsettling path of faeces has the tendency to not only be unsettling to sight, but also to microscopic human parts, as, like a human surfer on a gigantic wave, these waves of poop carry pathogens dangerous to human health. 

The truth is that the inhalation of pigeon excretion by humans can cause humans to ingest diseases like salmonella, tuberculosis or a form of pneumonia called ornithosis. All this can come to you from a gooey form of digested bread or fried chips. It is frightening to think so. It is also frightening to think that like someone awfully sick sneezing in your vicinity, whilst you are in an unventilated place covered in dried pigeon poop, you cannot inhale safely unless you are wearing some form of respiratory protectants. If not, you are probably also capable of being affected with meningitis, where if not treated in the correct manner, can shut down your nervous system and kill you off within twenty-four hours. If you are treated though, you still run a risk from having neurological or lung damage, or other effects not yet known due to the extreme phobia of pigeons – think about it, if so many people were not afraid of pigeons, that amount of people would have likely died of pigeon poop attacks.

Apart from pathogens, pigeon poop can also harbor varied deadly types of fungi, such as Histoplasma Capsulatum, which can cause Histoplasmosis in humans, which begins flu-like and with no other lethal symptoms, and leaves the human feeling as though pigeons pooped in their lungs. Another type of fungus, Cryptococcus Neoforans, whose name in itself is quite cryptic, excuse the pun, can also arise from dried pigeon poop, but can only affect those with a weak immune system, so if a person like Hercules had pigeons as pets and roosted with them, he would only be affected in the Histoplasmosis sense of things.

If anything, pigeon poop can be useful as a fertilizer. To avoid contact of pigeon poop, if you are extremely paranoid and now are suffering from unsettling paranoia from reading this essay, then you should purchases a new pot-plant and somehow attach the pot to your head whenever you wish to walk around a place that has a heightened probability of having pigeon poop unknowingly to yourself placed upon you from a nearby pigeon, in which case it would dry up and you would have inhaled it when it was too late for you to avoid any sort of potential disease. If you do so, then instead of running the risk of ingesting tuberculosis or any other horrid disease, you will have a healthy pet plant. That way, you both receive sunlight and fresh air.

In reality, though, anything can kill a human, whether it be the eventual demise from smoking, the overdose of illicit drug substances, or a freak accident where while trying to avoid pigeon poop coming onto you and trying to turn it into instant fertilizer by wearing a pot-plant on your head, you have a gigantic dog climb your shoulders and drag your down face first into the concrete as it tries to mark its territory on your quite looked after plant, thus dying from fatal head trauma. Anything can happen, really. So you, my fellow reader, should not take this post as offering the implication that what pigeons excrete can immediately kill you – it may, but so might your hairdryer, or your oven – I apologize, horrible Sylvia Plath reference.

All jokes aside, do not fear pigeons. Fear only the pranksters who fed them laxatives and had them poop all over fellow strangers on a warm sunny day in England. That is fearful.

August: Osage County and its Effects on my Mind

August: Osage County is definitely a movie where you sit there and think that despite your insomnia and job at McDonald's, there are worse things in life that could happen to you such as sleeping with who you thought was your first cousin who actually turned out to be your brother. But please do not read on if you would like to save yourself more spoilers.

The powerful themes in the movie lift your soul from your body and take it on a rapid downhill journey where the bad things that can possibly happen to someone just get worse. There are no themes stronger than the combination of life, death and incest, betrayal and loss and lust, and this movie holds all of them and more. Upon viewing it, I have felt the need to clutch everyone and everything dear to me tightly in the very two palms of my hands, and squeeze them until the colour runs out of them.

I felt that I could easily connect with every character in the film. The depiction of their personalities was absolutely sensational and realistic. From the powerful whirlwind of a personality named Violet Weston comes the equally as strong Barbara, the so-called vivacious Karen, the elusive and confused Ivy, all adored by the deserted Beverly. Set in Violet and Beverly’s house, the movie follows the portrayal of a family and their direct relatives when Beverly allegedly commits suicide. Violet, affected by mouth cancer and a large variety of drugs that she abuses with cancer as her reasoning, undergoes a painstaking mental journey as she attempts to spin webs to maintain her relationships with her daughters and sisters, only to watch them all find a way out and slither well and truly away from her fragile reach.

The movie made me think – what does it take to push one off the edge, mentally? How would I act in this situation? Would I be able to tolerate the pressures faced? Most importantly, why am I not enjoying my own life and living to my fullest potential before dismay of this sort charges in and tears me away from all of the possibilities I could achieve? I do not know the answer to that question, but I do know that this film has awoken the need to live, to exist, to be.

It is not our situation that controls us, it is us who control them. We are the bearers of the burdens of situations, yes, however we can also access the controls to them. We can, if we set our minds to it, stand tall in the hours that exist to incinerate us. Most people do not accept this because it is easier to give up on something than to try it. Circumstances can also act as hurdles to our success however we can overcome them too – take Ivy, for example, having held a secret sexual relationship with Little Charles, the person she thought to be her first cousin, she utterly fell apart when she was told that he was really her brother. Instead of thinking the situation over and solving it, she overreacted and drove away, assumingly to her suicide too – this is unclear, but it is what I predict from her crazy reaction.

Situations are better when the attempt to handle them is made. Rather than storm off in a fury of emotions and disbelief, Ivy should have sought other ways to go about learning that she has been performing incest – one upside is, well, it is unintentional incest from both parties – neither one of them knew that they were brother and sister, and she is not pregnant. Ivy could not see this perspective because of her utter fury at the time.

What I am trying to say is, though, that despite all the bad things that could happen to you, you must weigh your problems out and come to the realisation that something worse could have happened, and that your problem can, in one way or another, be solved. Something can always be done, compromise exists but you have to shy away from circumstance to approach it. And when you approach it, you must do so wearing the shiniest of knightly armour – nobody and nothing can break through this armour, you are strong.

Do not be the Beverly or Ivy in your situations. Be the Barbara, or if you really want a mental trip, be the Violet. Be positively proactive. And watch August: Osage County, because the way it has altered my thought process will also benefit you. All of the actors involved present these harrowing themes so well that you will be a fool to miss it.