Museum of Idiots @blockodiledundee - Tumblr Blog

This is fine.

I stood outside the subway station on Nostrand Avenue, bags of rubbish on the ground behind me and a business called Nina’s Fashionz in front of me. My bulging suitcase sat beside me, the beanie I’d crocheted doing its best to keep my ears warm. My breath, a white mist,...

nikkee-boyle-blog

It’s quite likely that every Australian has, at some stage, fantasised about attending school in America. The vast majority of school-based movies we watch are made in America, and it’s hard not to get swept up in the fanfare. There are wild frat parties and sorority socials, pep rallies and...

blockodiledundee

This is probably one of my favourite stories for my project so far!

I Try (Life is Hard)

Hey, so, I’ve created a Tumblr to post the chapters of my Creative Writing Masters project - www.nlboyle.tumblr.com - and this is one of the things. I try; I really do. They say that nobody really knows what they’re doing and that everyone is just faking it, but the general population is pretty convincing, even if it is all a ruse. I have friends who own houses. Many of my peers have had babies and, even more impressively, have managed to keep them breathing ever since. My youngest brother is a business owner. Granted, he’s an insufferable overachiever, but the fact remains: he’s 21 years old and he runs a business, I’m 27 and I had yogurt for dinner last night. I’m 27 and I’ve never been in a relationship that’s spanned more than two of my birthdays. I’m 27 and I still break or lose everything I buy almost instantly. I’m 27 and I’ve worn lycra hotpants in lieu of underwear more recently and more frequently than I care to admit. I always thought I’d have sorted things out by now, you know? I was always the overachiever of the family. I’m the one who got perfect grades. I’m the one who made the Australian roller derby team. I’m the one with nearly two degrees! On a day-to-day basis, however, I seem to struggle. I try; I really do, but I never really got the hang of feeding myself. Aside from not understanding exactly what I should be eating, and having a schedule that makes regular meals a far-flung dream, no cooking method seems foolproof enough for me to master. Whether I follow a recipe to the tee or simply use my inherent womanly intuition, there’s a very good chance that anything I touch will end up undercooked, on the floor, or engulfed in flames. My cooking skills (and the existence of things like baked beans and peanut butter) mean that, where my diet is concerned, there’s a lot to be desired. A typical day of eating for me will be something like an entire bag of grated cheese, an entire packet of Doritos, or an entire package of ham eaten at sporadic intervals throughout the day (and often into the night). It can fluctuate pretty wildly, however, depending on things like internet inspiration and health scares. There’s the “health kick” I went on when I was nineteen, during which time the only lunch I took to work was a ziplock bag of lettuce leaves and an apple. To the best of my knowledge, I was eating more healthfully than I ever had before, but the fact that I was as pallid as an anemic sheet of paper and could barely climb the stairs suggested otherwise. The day I almost collapsed at work came as a wake up call that spawned an intervention by my mother.I learned a lot about nutrition over the next few years, but knowing and doing are still two very different things. These days, every six months or so I’ll find myself overcome by good intentions that drive me to fill my fridge with healthy cuts of meat and fresh vegetables. I’ll make an award-worthy salad with roast chicken and an exotic strain of cous cous that first day, then spend the next week or two periodically assessing the edibility of vegetables and throwing them away one by one as they begin to spoil. Except, of course, for the cucumbers that worm their way to the bottom of the vegetable crisper where they quietly stew until I find them, rancid and liquefied, a few months later. These bouts of aggressive healthiness are definitely less dangerous than eating mostly lettuce leaves for weeks, but they don’t do much for my bank account. On the topic of my bank account. Actually, let’s skip that topic entirely because just typing that now, I felt an amount of bile inching its way from my stomach into my mouth. I try - really, I do - but I don’t know how to have an uncomfortable conversation with someone. I’ll wash up every dish my housemates use before I’ll ever ask them to stop leaving half-drunk cups of tea in the living room. I’ll go out of my way to a much more inconvenient coffee shop before ever telling the one by my house that they burn the milk. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve eaten something I didn’t want just because I didn’t have the guts to tell a waiter they got my order wrong. You could literally do anything to me, and the worst thing I’d do in response is not make eye contact when I thank you. It would be so easy to blame someone else for every one of my shortcomings. Surely somebody should have taken responsibility for these things. Who was supposed to teach me how to eat and cook, manage my finances, and adequately express my feelings? My parents? The public school system? Maybe ABC For Kids should have picked up some of the slack. I’m eager to learn, and I try my best, honestly. There’s just been a disconnect somewhere along the line. Maybe it’s a generational thing. Strictly speaking I’m a Gen Y, and those guys are just terrible. While it’s technically accurate, I resent being lumped into that category, if only because I got none of the good stuff that makes everyone hate us. You know, us pesky, entitled Millennials who get everything they want without lifting a finger. I mean, sure, most children born at this time were told, “You’re a wonderful, special flower and you can do anything you want, my child. You don’t think university is a good idea? You’re the boss!” I, however, was told, “You can’t be an author/musician/painter; you won’t make any money. Why don’t you go into the public service? You can get your artistic expression done on the weekend.” To this day, though I have nearly two writing degrees, my father continues to ask me why I don’t just go into the public service. You know they finish work at 4:00pm, right? And sure, I got my first car for free, but it belonged to my late grandmother and was older than the Spanish Constitution of 1978. The implication that people my age are lazy, non-committal workers makes me cry a little inside, as I recall the enterprising and odd-jobs I did until I was legally employable at the age of 14 and nine months. Why didn’t somebody tell me my parents were supposed to be slinging me unlimited pocket money for my entire life? I had better things to be doing, like scheming to retaliate against my two younger brothers who inexplicably managed to gang up on me most days. At the same time, it’s not as though I had a difficult upbringing. Sure, growing up as the eldest child of a middle class family in the 90s, things were tough. We had nothing to eat but home-cooked meals made daily by my stay-at-home mother. We had no computer or video game consoles, and therefore had nothing to do but read and draw and play under the sprinkler all day. Maybe it’s just me. I’m in my own world a lot of the time. I knowingly take my insanely British skin out in the sun without wearing sunscreen, like, all the time. I’ll go without meals if I’m really engrossed in the book I’m reading. And I drive a car that barely goes, and wear the same old clothes for years, just so I can go overseas whenever the opportunity arises. So, sure, maybe I’m screwing up in some fundamental way. But what I lack in routines and shoes and household items, I make up for in stories.