Mark O’Meara: the blog

At some stage when I was a kid we lived in a house with a pool and I know I wanted to have a pool party for my birthday. However March was too late in the year for such a thing so I was out of luck.

All the years later it often seems warm enough to swim in March and I have been wandering about the place is shorts every day I can think of this month. Except today.

The forecast said only 22 but there is nice 22 and miserable 22. It was something of a surprise when it turned out to be a miserable twenty-two. Cold winds, some rain, cloudy skies, the whole deal.

So for the first time in a while I wore not only jeans but a jacket all day long day.

So there.

Lesson for the day - weather is a lot less predictable than I imagine it is.

I am not a particularly good speller at the best of times and often I am just slack.

All the same I had trouble keeping a straight face when fellow students went through their slidepack which repeatedly talked about clothes being manufactured in third-world sweetshops and the roll of various folk in all of this.

Like these folk presenting I rely just a bit too much on spellchecker finding my mistakes.

Lesson for the day - writing correctly is not just a matter of going to the shops (unlike buying lollies).

Tonight Nicky cooked up some chops using a recipe which called for a generous coating of ground pepper and other similar substances.

A little twist came when this substance produced quite a lot of smoke in the frypan. This is not the first time we have set off the smoke alarms while cooking but it is the first time the smoke has made Nicky cough and splutter and Finn and I just go outside.

Happily we cleared the air pretty quickly and sat down to dinner inside. Less happily this extremely tasty dish, no sarcasm at all, was just too hot to eat all that much off.

Lesson for the day - while I think that Nicky is good-hot I think that perhaps this dinner was just too all-around-hot.

I must confess that I often have doubts about the ability of my fellow teaching students in terms of their ability to stand on their feet and speak which, and feel free to call me a crank, I regard as important to teaching.

In tutorials most people barely speak and when they do it is often mumbled, nonsense or a very special combination of both.

However today I got to hear seven of my colleagues speak to first year students about school rounds and to a person they were confident, clear, personable, entertaining and insightful.

If you are wonder what that sound is it is me eating my words.

Lesson for the day - at times like this it is a warming experience to be so very wrong.

Many of the tv shows we seem to like show late at night and, as often goes with this, move around from night to night and time to time. Sometimes we are able to keep up with them but sometimes we don’t and season four of Angel was one of the times when we didn’t manage this feat.

We have all of Angel and Buffy on disc and the plan was always to watch through the missing section and of late we have been doing just that. Most of the episodes we have seen but here and there is a key episode we missed and just knew nothing about.

While I would describe season four as a bit plodding it is also the case that the story shifts quite drastically from time to time and when you miss those episodes it is hard to engage much. Seeing it all, as we are now, is much better.

Lesson for the day - I am looking forward to my next Angel episode.

Since Nicky’s money arrived today we bought her a shiny new camera. She has been interested in a more sophisticated camera for a while now and after all those years of corporate toil it seemed only fair and reasonable.

She has a quick play with said camera this evening and I especially like this shot.

Lesson for the day - it’s now March but I felt artistically justified.

I always find it annoying to hear men talk about the women in their lives as if they are a nuisance to them or just plain stupid. If someone is that much of an imposition then perhaps it is time to change things.

Of course it’s not all men and, if I am being truthful, it is often women I hear speaking like this. Living the life I do I mainly hear women talk and perhaps the men do the same at the footy clubs I avoid. I sometimes wonder if it is women taking “women are smarter” thing as being factual rather than hyperbole or if there is another cause is for them feeling all superior.

Whatever the cause I often hear how they, in all earnestness, believe they are entitled to respect, affection, intimacy and support but that the very idea of the man in question getting any of these is so silly as to be laughable. The message is all to often articulated that the men just better take whatever is offered as that’s all they deserve.

Perhaps sometimes this is true, they don’t hand out halos in the same queue as boys bits or girl bits.

Of course you can treat people as fools or mostly worthless for as long as you like. But you also have to be realistic and realise that even if they believe it for a while there is also the chance one day someone will tell them something different. And that something might be nice to hear.

This might all end in tears and damaged lives but I can absolutely see how it happens.

Lesson for the day - even better people are subject to market forces.

I read in the paper the other day that the recent tropical cyclone, along with all but destroying a town, has all but wiped out the banana crop for this year. It seems that our bendy yellow friends will be all but unavailable for nine whole months.

This is a pity because bananas are one of the few fruits Finn will just eat. But also I just like them because they are all bendy, yellow and ironic. I am not sure why the banana is a fruit of such wimsy but it is, at least for me.

Lesson for the day - bananas might be gone for a while but they are far from forgotten.

“I have tried to work things out
The more I know the more I doubt
But this I know - we’ll still be here
When all this is over”
Melbourne Girls by Paul Kelly.

I wanted to quote this line, the more I know the more I doubt, but couldn’t remember for the life of me where it was from or even if I had the words right. I googled it but just got a wash of results for the band No Doubt. After trying to sing this lyric to myself I was pretty sure it was Paul Kelly. Actually I was pretty sure it was Paul Kelly singing Leaving Her For The Last Time.

So I had a listen and discovered two things. The first is that I really like that song and the second is that the lyrics I remembered didn’t come from it. But I was even more sure it was a Paul Kelly song so I googled it with this extra information and there it was.

Lesson for the day - instant recall is nice but just plain getting there does the trick just fine.

I don’t claim to have anything profound to say so I’ll quote someone else. While Dar Williams sings Echoes I don’t think she wrote it. Whoever it is they are both profound and clever.

Every time you love just a little
Take one step closer, solving a riddle
It echoes all over the world
….
When a leader gets the hungry fed food
When you just make love inside your bedroom
It echoes all over the world

In case people are all inspired to go shopping the album is called My Better Self.

Like most people, and possibly more than many, I have done things that were ill-advised, ill-fated, foolish and downright destructive. But along the way I have done many many little things to make the world around me more fun, comforting and hopefully more enjoyable. It’s helps to think that those things echo too.

Lesson for the day - it’s nice to think small acts don’t just vanish a second later.