Easter Sunday, early

Extracts from comments I have had from the author of a book I have been working on

• I am mystified as to why you thought this was a good idea... 
• I am not impressed with this design...  
• This is not very professional... 
• I am not 100% convinced by the cover photo 
• Is there any way of sending me the pages in a readable format? This is unacceptable as it is
• Am a bit disappointed that the corrections have not been done the way I asked them to be. Please do them again

Books: On Wine and Hashish, Charles Baudelaire

These two essays are Baudelaire's jubilant celebration of intoxication, by (as the title indicates) wine and hashish. He describes the experience of drunkenness and getting high as transcendental experiences, and really tries to give some sense of what it's like to people who have never tried either. Part of a bohemian group of artists and poets living in Paris in the mid 19th century he saw alcohol as a great social leveller, and hashish as an exotic and mysterious drug that opened the user up to new ways of seeing the world, though (surprisingly) he does point out that drugs are only useful to the artist when they are the slave and not the master, advice he didn't succeed in following himself.

Back when I was eighteen and read this for the first time I was blown away. Here is someone describing the thrill of getting out of your own head and inhabiting a different state of being in such ebullient prose that it makes it seem as if the pursuit of intoxication is somehow noble; he talks about "the totality of beings in the universe rises before you with a new and hitherto expected glory. Grammar, arid grammar itself, becomes something like an evocative sorcery; words rise from the grave clothed in flesh and bones, the substantive, in its substantial majesty, the adjective, a transparent garment which clothes and colours it like a glaze..."

Rereading it ten years later I can still enjoy the language and admire his creativity in trying to describe things that are essentially indescribable, but it felt a lot like getting stuck in conversation with  someone who tells you that they had the weirdest dream last night and your heart sinks because you know the next twenty minutes are going to include sentences like; 'and when I got to the beach my dog was the lifeguard, expect it wasn't really my dog, you know? It was actually my driving instructor but also my dog, right?'. So like that, but much better written. I've got a feeling that this is one of those books that you have to read when you're still impressionable enough to take it seriously, but I still have a soft spot for Charles and his ramblings.

The Lovely Swimsuit (with apologies to Edward Monkton)

Once there was a beautiful swimsuit, and it said to the lady "wear me, for I will hide your wobbly bits, and you will be HAPPY and will FROLIC on the beach with confidence."

And the lady bought the swimsuit, and it was indeed lovely, and she lived happily ever after. 

From this you may deduce that I have new bathers. Well done, you. 

The last time I bought swimmers I wasn't yet married. I hadn't finished my degree. John Howard was still Prime Minister, the Pope was still a cuddly old man and not an escapee from Star Wars, and Steve Irwin was still ramming his thumb up the butt-holes of various animals with impunity. 

What a long time ago. 

The reason I've put it off so long is not because I hate going shopping for swimmers. My body hang-ups are more or less a thing of the past, mostly because I just can't bring myself to give a shit anymore. This is how I look, I'm too lazy to exercise and too greedy to eat less, so that's not going to change much anytime soon. 

No, it was more to do with the fact that I rarely go to the beach, and it seemed silly to spend the money one something that would get so little use. I'm just not a beachy person. I'm a creature of the indoors by nature. It would be like buying a cherry-pitter or a pair of driving goggles. Nice to have, sure, but when would I ever use the damn thing?

What forced my hand was that my swimmers blew away the last time I ventured out in them. Not while they were still in use, thankfully. But when I'd come in from the sea and draped my (ancient and rather stretched-out old suit) on the verandah to dry, the top simply blew away. I like to think that perhaps they became the basis of a pair of semi-detached bird's nests, or perhaps that a small child is even now using it as a double sling-shot for cantaloupes.

Whatever the case may be, they are long gone, and after six months I started to feel embarrassed at living this close to the beach and not owning suitable beach attire.

But I found the most perfect replacement. It's a one-piece halterneck with blue and white stripes, in what the shop lady described as a 'roaring twenties' style, and it makes me feel like Daisy Buchanan. It's magical. It's ruched across the stomach, it's got a sheepdog bra fitting*, and most importantly, the legs are cut for normals, not 1980s aerobic fanatics. I love it to pieces, and have been to the beach twice since I bought it, which is more times than in the previous two years put together.And not because I wanted to go, simply because the suit is too perfect not to take out in public.

This swimsuit has actually changed my life. I don't even care that I bought it from an old-lady store.

And that's it really. The first time I get on here to write anything in months, and it's to crow about swimmers. To be fair, my job has left me with very little in the way of extra brain power, so be glad it wasn't just me slamming my head repeatedly into the keyboard, which is what I usually do before rejecting what comes out as 'not edgy enough'. 

Tomorrow I may have something about more serious things, or possibly just a string of puns about coffee which I haven't decided if I'm game to publish because it is very silly. 

Can you stand the suspense?!?!

*rounds them up and points them in the right direction

This week's collection of things that made me laugh like a buffoon