Dear God what have I done..

Who the hell do I think I am? I mean really. It all seemed like such a good idea at the time, something I could totally pull off. Now, I'm having anxiety and regret of such epic proportions I'm finding it hard to breath/sleep/function..

What have I done, oh I'll tell you what I've done... No, I don't think I can bring myself to type the words for fear of asphyxiating on the fumes of impending failure (dramatic enough for you?)

Oh all right.

You'll need to read this next paragraph in a fast high pitched slightly manic voice and try not to breath. (This is how it loops in my head)

I've booked in a venue for my one woman show and now I have to sell tickets and I'm afraid no one will turn up except Mum and Dad who will be there out of obligation. I'm also concerned that I will sell tickets therefore people will be expecting to be entertained only what if I can't be entertaining? What if my voice can't hack the grueling 8 pop songs a night? What if people find my stories self indulgent and boring? Oh God, what have I done.


Yes I'm aware this entire line of thought is self indugent. Yes I'm aware doing a "one woman show" telling stories about my life is pretty self indugent also but bare with me folks, I'm a woman ON THE EDGE.

I hosted breakfast radio for 4 years, I have interviewed Prime Ministers and Pussy Cat dolls. I am on live national television every week, I was a finalist on the most successful season of Australia Idol but I have never had to drive and be responsible for my own show. Now, after years of bitching about how everyone else gets it wrong I have put myself up for ridicule and judgement.

At the start of the year I made a few resolutions, if you feel so inclined you can read them here:

Orah, Eurovision and world domination - Em 2011

I am trying to stay true to these promises I made myself so I decided to take myself way out of my comfort zone and do this show.

Let me tell you all a bit about: "Em Rusciano - The Saintly Bitch Sings."

The show is my big haired guitarist Ryan (who gives me instant music cred due to the afro) and I on a small stage in a very cool performance club. I have 8 stories to tell and with these stories comes the pop song that helped define the moment for me. For instance, my very first dancing concert...

(Imagine me on the small stage, I will have my own smoke machine and Ryan sitting casually looking cool... Cue spot light)

"If Hitler had a female counterpart her name was Glenda Jean and she resided in the outer eastern suburbs of Melbourne and ran an operation called “The Glenda Jean Dance Academy”. Every Thursday and Saturday I would turn up with 30 other girls my age to be barked at by our all mighty leader. Why she went into working with children I will never know, I think she may have been more suited to a career in a Maximum security prison or slaughter house..

Glenda Jean's Mother Jean (how very Spears of them) played all the accompaniment for us on an old, decrepit black piano. It had seen better days and sadly.. So had Jean. 

Jean was a lovely lady, however she was the wrong side of 70 and sometimes wouldn't hear Glenda's cues. By sometimes I mean never.. Glenda took to violently whacking a large stick on the top of the piano to let her Mother know when to stop playing, this scared the living shit out of Jean EVERY TIME. This scene would play out at least 50 times a lesson:

“Mum, stop. STOP!” - WHACK

“Oh, heavens, Glenda you scared me”

EVERY TIME.

Our annual concert was of course a highlight.. I religiously watched Young Talent time every week just dying to be like Dannii Minogue (Spelled with 2 n's and 2 i's- Hasn't she come up trumps in the end..Poor Kylie) so our yearly concert was a close as I got.

 It was also my first taste of drag queen like make-up. So much hairspray, so much lycra and sequins and the tantrums oh the tantrums.. My Mother still speaks in emotional tones of having to front up to “Costume Inspection” where you not dare make eye contact with Glenda Jean as she went over your offering with a fine tooth comb. If one seam, one rosette was out of place she would simply yell “not good enough” and the poor Mother would scurry off to try and fix the offending costume.

One year we did a saucy little jazz number to a song called “Black Velvet” 

The costume was a one shouldered leotard made of...Oh Yes.. BLACK VELVET.. Looking back it probably wasn't all that age appropriate to have thirty 9 year olds gyrating to this song on stage but at the time I remember feeling amazing."

End Scene... The music will start and I will give you all an acoustic rendition of "Black Velvet" complete with an exact replica of the costume I wore when I was 9. Don't think I didn't attempt to make that one fit me... Oh I did. It really didn't..

My husband is going to have me on a plate for admitting to everyone I am feeling less than confident in people showing up or even caring. He is all for the positive thinking and living in the now.

He tells me to only worry about the things I can control.. Saying that kind of thing to a control freak like me is pointless.

I am going to post a link to the tickets here:

Tickets to Em's show can be found here.

I am not going to beg.. I mean I can but I won't... I can though.

Thanks for sitting with me in my hour of need.

I feel much better now, I can focuses on delivering a fabulous show and my 7 costume changes in an hour.

I cannot control who turns up or how they feel about it..

(I wrote all of that for the benefit of my husband who vets this blog however he won't read this bit as I have added it post vet)

E x

Broken Vibes.

I always thought I had pretty good vibes.. You know, a tad crazy but earthy and authentic at the same time. Well meaning if not a little un predictable but all in all solid, dependable, fabulous vibes...

Up until a short time ago I thought if my vibes were a person they'd look like this:

It would appear I had my vibes all wrong.. It would appear my vibes actually look like this:

Yes friends. I have rancid vibes. How do I know this? I know this because someone I have known for 12 years and held very dear to my heart recently ended our friendship due to my aberrant vibes.

Recently I was sent the following text message:

"Your vibrations are no longer welcome in my life. I'm sorry if that sounds hurtful, but it's my absolute truth."

What? Hurtful! No of course not... That's a perfectly reasonable text message to send to someone you've been quite close with for over a decade, fine. I'll just be taking my unwanted, toxic vibrations elsewhere then will I? Is there somewhere I can go to have them counseled? Can I take some sort of a tablet to fix them? Can I get new ones?

Obviously there was some sort of catalyst that lead to the SMS being sent. I will have to simplify the situation that resulted in this text message for NUMEROUS reasons. Mainly because it's a very long, boring and juvenile tale. Here's the break down:

This person's sister started seeing a friend of mine. 

It ended spectacularly badly. 

I stupidly got in the middle of it. 

This person felt I didn't protect their sister adequately enough during the ugly ending. 

I have since learnt this person's sister has many problems, one of which appears to be distorting the truth to make herself out to be a victim in a situation she exacerbated by erratic and appalling behaviour. 

I had no idea my friend had an issue with me until I went to send them a message on Facebook and realised with a sting that I had, in fact, been deleted!

Ah the facebook deletion.. It's my generation's answer to slamming the phone down. It's hard to hang up on someone with flair nowadays. The person on the other end cannot sense how hard you push the "end call" button on your iphone or blackberry so we turn to the facebook deletion.. 

Its not as sudden but when the relisation hits that you've been barred from someone's profile you once could access easy breezy, the effect is just as breath taking. 

I thought... Wait a minute! We have plans this weekend.. We spoke only 3 days ago... I've been deleted? DELETED!!

I immediately called this person, I had to know what had happened.. No answer.

I text them.. No answer..

Finally after a week the now infamous "vibes" text arrived on my phone..

I was truly flabbergasted. We had not even had a conversation regarding what I assumed to be the issue which was their sister's and my friend's relationship going horribly wrong. Not one word spoken. They'd taken the word of their troubled and hurt sister over mine. I didn't even get to take the stand. Given a guilty verdict without trial, sent to the chair without an appeal - I'll stop with the law analogies now.

I felt the need to canvass all my friends on my "vibes" just in case I did have an underlying issue I was unaware of.. You can never be too careful with these things. I was re-assured I had excellent vibes by all "The Gays" and "The Girls" confirmed the health of them also..

So, I've had to try and be at peace with this person's behaviour and decision to end our friendship. 

My husband Scotty probably had the best response to this whole situation. After viewing the text message and dealing with my sobbing he said: "Emy, that message is piss weak. Move on." 

Sage words husband, my vibes and I are going to do just that.

Speak soon.

E x

Big Occasion Fighting

My family are what's known as "Big Occasion Fighters" most of the time we are pretty civil towards each other. Give us a wedding, birthday, funeral, Australian Idol live performance, national athletics final and we are at it like Mike Tyson in a room full of ears.

This is why I have grown to hate my birthday.

Here is a fun fact for you all.

Every year from age 5 right through to 16 I was sent to my room DURING my birthday party for poor behaviour. Yes EVERY SINGLE ONE. I remember one particular year I was having a pool party and I refused to be kind to my little sister. I really didn't want her there, I begged Mum to ship her off to my Auntie's for the day- No dice.

My Mother became so frustrated with me withholding the pool pony from her and generally being a cow I was sent to my room....

Which over looked the pool....

While my party continued on I sat on my bed watching it silently plotting the death of my sisters guinea pig, it was to involve a slinky and some peanut butter (Note, no harm ever came to Oswald the guinea pig, well that's not entirely true.... Wait, I'll get into that in a moment)

The next year I had another party which involved me being sent to my room because we had been busted putting incense in our mouths and blowing it out like cigarettes....

It was PATCHOULI for goodness sake! My Mum freaked out and I was banished.. It seems a few of the kids got a little light headed on the incense (Ok so maybe a few had joints instead of incense but I was not one of them, I was too piss weak so I went with the sandlewood patchouli mix. Straight off the incense stick no less!) ....and may or may not have let him out of the cage.. To this day there is no hard proof that someone at my party killed him, I still think he could be out there roaming the streets of Diamond creek....

Once I moved in with my husband we took over the proud tradition of B.O.F.. At our wedding we fought right there on the dance floor, he refused to twirl me.. I'd pretty much waited for this moment my whole life and when he refused I was livid. So as we swayed to Al Green's "Let's stay together" those sitting close enough to the dance floor would have heard me muttering through gritted teeth "God, you are so selfish. Just fucking twirl me".....

Anyway, today is my birthday.. I have become very anxious about this day. I wake up expecting to fight with someone in my family. I didn't realise this is why I hate my birthday so much until my husband was doing some "unsolicited life coaching" and got to the bottom of it.. He asked me to think back to as many birthdays as I could and see if there was a common negative theme.. There sure was! Me, in my bedroom hating the world while my friends played. I usually deserved to be there mind you, it's not that my Mother was a sadist.. She turned into one when I hit 15, as did I.

It's 6:07pm and I am about to meet my parents for dinner. I am going in with a positive attitude.
I must put an end to the Big Occasion Fighting for the sake of my children. This is not a legacy I wish them to have.


Smiling and waving!

Em x