I FORGOT TO HAVE A CHILD

Actually no, I didn't, and my advice to anyone else wo didn't, is... the family that smokes together stays together. The Alpha C*nt has spoken.

So here's the BIG QUESTION, do we take Eve Ensler's (author of The Vagina Monologues) advice and liberate the C word or do we let people use it against us in the most pejorative way possible? I trust my Pussy Posse will back me up on this, I say for fuck's sale let's liberate the F word and whilst we're at it, let's take the C word back as well. I'm proud to be the Alpha Cunt and I would like my Pussy Posse to speak the word loudly and fondly. Okay it's 2:30am ( that would be 6:30am your time, all my bevy of British lovelies) and my family (Thea and I, just like back in the day) has definitely been stayin' together tonight but this has been on my mind for awhile and it was gonna be written sooner than later.

I have this love/hate relationship with the patio (I like to think of it as a veranda)/garden) outside Thea's flat. On the one hand it is very lovely... chairs, table, a palm tree of sorts to shade one, on the other it is a nightmare of living crawling, shambling creatures. Possums for fuck's sake! I told all y'all Mother Nature is a cunt! There you go... yes, yes, yes, I know I used it in the pejorative sense (usually I never use the same word twice in a poem, oh fuck me! this isn't a poem, but some words and some lines, the city loves it's cum scum {serious orgasms when I wrote that line}) are just too good not to use again.

Here is the absolute truth (well actually it was Jameson's, I prefer the Irish to the Russian) if we want to make it ours we must be prepared to use it not only as a word of respect but also as a weapon to defend ourselves against our worst enemy, women. I swear we are one fucked up gender, we make more problems for ourselves than any man could. Come to think of it, that's probably why we are known as the smarter gender persuation. Those poor lads just aren't up to the machinations of which (no sloppy ending a sentence on a prepostion for me, darlin's) only a devious female mind could concieve.

I really need to stop now or I may..........................................

Wednesday AM - sorry folks but it appears certain words, which appear in the above have got some people too excited. The following is for them.

Will you perverts calm down, this is about the real world, not about your weirdness. Go away.

HOT AS HADES

Apparently its true that hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, 'cause the lovely Miss Rita (the hurricane) has left Austin in the midst of a heatwave you wouldn't feckin' believe. I'm assuming that although she may have turned away and not dropped torrential rain on the ACL festival, she wanted to ensure that we knew she'd been in the nighbourhood. Thats right boys n' girls, its in the 100s here, but no worries it goes all the way down to the mid 70s at night. I'm so glad I only went to ACL on Friday, by Sunday not only had the temperature gone up to 108 but the dust was kickin' up something fierce. Thea came home coughing black stuff and I was seriously worried her asthma was coming back after all these years.

So I know the question that is nigglin' away at your brains is... what the fuck is Bette wearing these days. Here's the deal, its true that black clothing is a sun magnet, however, that's pretty much all I own. I've had to get the arms out, from the shoulders down, not a pretty sight but fuck it all the fashion rules have had to go out the window. Y'all will be pleased to know that I haven't gone totally mad, no shorts thank you.

We interrupt this discourse on the heat for a telephone call from the Naked Kobrinsky who has just returned from a Yoga retreat. Dude what are you like? She's back in San Francisco practising her driving so she can take the test. Then she and August are off to New York to spend a couple of weeks with his mum. There you go, a Sarah update for all of y'all back in blighty.

I've discovered that if I come outside Thea's flat I can piggyback on someone's internet. Even though its got dark, its just too fuckin' hot to sit here any longer and the ants are starting to attack so I'm retiring to Thea's air conditioned flat for a little dinner.

I'M AS SERIOUS AS A HEART ATTACK

This is a letter that I just emailed to the Editor of The Chronicle, a very hip Austin newspaper. I've never sent a letter to the editor before but, damnit, I really felt the need to get this message across.

Dear Editor,

I am an American who has recently moved to Austin from London, England where I lived and worked for sixteen years. The universal question I am asked outside the US is, Why is there so little news in the US about the rest of the world? Therein, I believe, lies the reason the current administration has been able to perpetrate the politics of nightmares. Americans have always been insular and after September 11th seemed to turn even more inwards, if possible. Most young people ouside the US apply for and use their passports as soon as they are eligible, about 17 years old. They travel, they work, they experience other cultures and other cuisines. Yes, its true that many British people still believe that the sun never sets on the British Empire, but they absolutely know what is going on in other countries and continents. Although Blair was able to commit British troups to Iraq, the British public at large has and remains vociferously against this war, even after the recent bombings in London.

The Chronicle is an excellent paper. I would like to challenge you to bring more international news to your readership and encourage them to explore the world in which they live. Do the people in this country really want to be personally ridiculed and reviled by the rest of the world, truth is they pretty much are, or will they make the effort to assimilate with worldwide indigenous populations proving that the government may be an ass but the people are genuine and intelligent?

The Chronicle has an opportunity to dispel the enduring American media message, There's no place like home. Help your readers awake from the nightmares instilled by Washington. The reality is, no place is perfectly safe yet no place is entirely dangerous either.

Bette O'Callaghan

DON'T SMILE TILL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THEIR EYES

You may remeber, darlings, that I mentioned in an earlier posting how very friendly people in Austin were. Well now I'm wondering if that is only when they are face to face with you. I have sent out numerous emails, re: poetry and jobs, from both London and Austin with no response at all. People of Austin, what's your deal? I have afforded you a few risible moments, do you not remember the day y'all saw me walking down the road dressed up like a dog's dinner and carrying a full length mirror on my head? Of course you do.. you slowed down pointed and laughed and I was more than happy to bring a little amusement into your day. You've watched me fumble with coins with which I am no longer familiar and look at you stupidly when you tell me how much I owe you, 'cause I can't yet get my head round the fact that tax is not included in the price. I've nodded and said mornin', afternoon and evenin' to y'all when I see you on the street and I always thank the bus driver when I reach my destination. What more do you want of me? I don't even care if I get a fuck off response, any response would be appreciated. Let me know you're alive out there Austin.

Did y'all notice I didn't mentioned smoking at all in this posting?

THE SLUT IN THE SLIP N' HAT

Yep that woud be me prowling the car park late at night desperately smokin' one fag after another.

Cigarettes are meant to be smoked at leisure whilst reclining on one's bed, affording one the pleasure of idly watching the smoke coat the walls, ceiling and personal accoutrements so dear to one's heart with that oh so subtle tinge of yellow to which every fashionable decorator aspires. Smoking should be accompanied by music and preferably with a glass of alcohol of one's choice. Upon arising one should be able to inhale the aroma of the coffee as it brews, whilst chain smoking the 10 to 15 cigarettes necessary to replenish the overnight loss of nicotine. Bliss.

BUT FUCKIN' NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Step away from the music, step away from the coffee, step away from the friggin' air conditioning and get your ass outside into the oppressive heat where you furtively suck the life from the fag you clutch in your fingers as if you've just been ordered to abandon ship and the fag is, in fact, your only lifeline, shark repellent, lifeboat etc etc. Where is the joy in this?

Which leads us to thought of me in a slip, okay it's actually a dress but if you ask the Fashion Avenger I'm sure she would characterise it as the sort of garment worn by a ho in a spectacularly tacky house of ill repute. The hat is my attempt to lend just a bit of style and mystery to the entire undertaking. But of course the hat band is festooned with skulls (thanks, Jen for the laces) which I reckon, if the sight of me in a slip isn't enough, will scare away any Texas chainsaw nutters.

Failure To Light Up May Cause Offense

Texas has some definate advantages. I was very pissed off that on the very day I arrived the no smoking ban went into effect, however, I have decided it is of little consequence as I will continue to smoke anywhere and everywhere I can. I know some of you have been concerned about the amount that I smoke and its effect on my health... here's the advantage to living in Austin - the sun is so fuckin' intense that I will, no doubt, expire of skin cancer long before the fags get me. I am now happily lighting up one fag after another n' smokin' once more like it's my job, 'cause kiddies, it don't make no never mind (as they say out here).

There's lots of funny only in America stuff... like the female DJ on my favourite country radio station whose voice is so much like the one I described in my poem Country Women. I swear it's as abrasive as fingernails on a chalkboard turned up to supersonic level. I reckon she must have done the casting couch thing to get on the station as I don't believe anyone in their right mind would hire a DJ with a voice that evokes the sound of rabid hyenas mating unless they were thinking with their cock. Other than her lilting voice, she seems like a very charming woman.

I personally have an entire crew of homeless men whom I have met at bus stops who run down the street after me to say hello, whenever they see me. I used to be pleased that people always recognised me, hmmm, perhaps that's not really a good thing after all. The homeless here are actually very nice, they don't ask for money or fags, and are totally unthreatening. Could this be the beginning of a new male branch of the Pussy Posse?


I occasionally get very homesick for London, it couldn't be more different here. Everything is big, huge, enormous. Too generous portions of food, miles from here to there in town, four lane roads in town n' freeways everywhere. Then there's the cars, if its not a truck, then its a by god SUV. I can't figure out how people can afford these cars, gasoline is $3.00+ per gallon. I heard a bloke the other day say that it cost him $130.00 to fill his tank. That would buy a whole lot of fags and by the way, they are, in the land of NO SMOKING FUCKING ANYWHERE very cheap - go figure.

Things that drive me mental - the effing mosquitos who feed on me as if I were the sacrificial goat at their daily voodo ritual. Y'all know when I wake up I need two things, a fag n' some seriously black coffee, but oh no, I can't smoke in Thea's flat so I have to get up, put clothes on which are suitable for human consumption i.e. people can look at me without fainting at the sight of too much elderly flesh, put the coffee on n' run outside for my fags. Fortunately there is a small patio outside her flat and look there are even two chairs n' a table. Wait.... can't sit there because the chairs are crawling with ants. I had an epiphany the other night as I paced outside smoking... Mother Nature n' I are both alpha females n' we ain't never gonna get along.

Good stuff here is that you can look up at the sky at night and actually see the stars. There are trees everywhere and a huge park just around the corner from Thea's flat where there's a natural spring that is 68 degrees year round where you can go swimming. Every bar and restaurant has live music - some good, some so so but all worth dropping into. Lots of good country music on the radio - from the patriotic flag waving anthemic hymns to the good ole USA to the really excellent people like Willie, Emmy Lou, Lucinda, Steve etc etc who we all know and love.

I can't think of a better reason to be in Austin than that Thea is here. Well... Thea n' vanilla ice cream with Big Red sodas.