18 Aug 2014
It’s a lamentable event in an otherwise perfect world but I feel at the moment that my creative well has run dry. I’ve had less urge to blog lately and when I found out we had yet another bloody week of dress ups at childcare, this time for book bloody week, I almost wept.
I mean don’t get me wrong, I get a certain satisfaction that most people get from doing something worthwhile, when I manage to turn items from the dress up box and the odd bit of household recycling into something that would make Catherine Martin jealous. But keep in mind that woman only does a movie a year and I’ve got to produce nine outfits TIMES TWO this month alone. That’s 18 outfits for the mathematically challenged.
It’s exhausting this being lively of mind but devoid of mojo. I can’t even get the energy up to be pissed off at #TeamAbbott. I mean they are doing the job for me so I know I can take some time out but really – between Abetz, Brandis and Hockey I should have been typing out blogs and opinion pieces at such a rate that my fingers bled and my brain exploded.
But all I’ve managed is a muttered ‘ah bunch of tossers’ as I perused the news and a delighted ‘how funny is that hashtag #otherthingspoorpeopledontdo” to my husband yesterday? Answer: pretty funny.
Andrew Bolt was hoisted on his own petard by Emerson of all people and I just thought “ha, take that you stupid man.” I couldn’t even summon up a suitable profanity.
It’s a little alarming. I’m unsure if it’s my recent flirtation with domesticity – I mean I’ve been using the slow cooker to make casseroles and baking banana bread like I’m somebody else entirely. Is it possible that these small acts have tamped down the fires of my inner anarchy?
Is it the seven billion four thousand six hundred and twenty seven times I’ve had to play jigsaws with my beloved children in the last week. An activity I find only slightly less stultifying than pretending I like watching children at a play park and I’m unsure why they’ve decided to become addicted to things that will improve their minds RIGHT NOW.
Is it the fact that I have now listened to Frozen’s soundtrack so many times Nick and I had a discussion about the obvious pathos in the lyrics that is not as evident when accompanied by the visual feast of the actual movie and all that arm waving that Elsa does? People. It’s a cartoon. A good one, but it’s a cartoon. The emotional impact of a lonely childhood of an imagined character should not be part of my discussions with the love of my life.
Look I don’t know what it is but I want rainmageddon to not just be further evidence of the climate change that doesn’t really exist because apparently the scientists just make that shit up for fun. I want it to fill my creative well and have me banging away with gleeful disregard for the finer feelings of those that find me too outspoken.
Or I’m going to have to use my cross face.
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13 Aug 2014
For those that don’t blog – I’m going to a conference the week after next called ProBlogger. It’s a training event for people that blog both professionally and for fun and it’s an excellent opportunity to ‘do the social medias better’.
Which since I ‘do the social medias’ both professionally and for fun makes it a pretty useful event.
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| But quite tiny in real life |
Last year was my first one. The forums indicate that there are LOADS of newbies coming to this year and people are writing lots of meaningful and useful posts about getting the most out of the conference, or any conference.
I kind of feel people are addressing worthy points, but not actually any of the things newbies secretly worry about when attending conferences alone.
So here you go – my insights.
1. If you meet Mrs Woog for the first time, even though you love her ballsy attitude, her general hilariousness and her willingness to share information about blogging, the very first thing you will say is “YOU ARE MUCH SHORTER IN REAL LIFE THAN YOU SEEM ON YOUR BLOG”.
Yes, that loudly. And that daftly. Because how can anybody tell how tall a person is by their writing? And you will die a little inside and she will be very lovely about it and you will slink away hoping against hope that while you said that sentence, she actually heard the things you MEANT to say.
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| No dugong will pass by to make the moment less painful |
2. No matter where you sit in the auditorium, it will never be the right place. You will either feel you are too far forward, no where near anybody you know or you will find yourself sitting at the end of a line of fashion bloggers, pretty much feeling like Homer Simpson making small talk with Kris Smith.
If you are male you won’t give a shit, but if you’re female you will spend the session feeling acutely self conscious even though every single one of them is completely lovely and quite frankly doesn’t give a rat’s bottom about what you are wearing.
3. The reason everybody seems to know each other is only because they read the form better than you and knew about the Thursday night drinks where you go along and meet people while drinking wine.
You won’t realise this until the end of the second day when you’re just settling into your groove and summon the courage to ask how long this little group of seeming besties has known each other and they say ‘about 48 hours’. The simple lesson is unless pregnant or teetotal – slip wine into your morning coffee if you can’t go on Thursday night so you find your groove earlier.
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| I think that went well don’t you? |
4. People are actually that lovely. They are not just being nice to you because you look like the only liturgical dancer at a rave. If they aren’t speaking to you it’s not because they are arses, but probably because they are feeling a bit ‘wooooo’ as well. Even if they have been a zillion times.
So if you say “Hi, my name is XXXX, how are you?” they will probably just start chatting, not leap away from you screaming “SOME LOW LIFE WITH A BLOG I HAVE NEVER HEARD OF JUST DARED TO SPEAK TO ME! DARREN BOOT HER OUT!”
5. Those tips about photographing key slides are good ones. Also, the basic unspoken challenge is to try and tweet more than Carly Findlay who is like ‘quick draw Mcgraw’ at these things. And she normally gets the point quicker than you do. So if you can beat her, it’s a bit like winning bingo when you just went along for the cheap drinks.
If you don’t manage that just retweet her. It makes you look slightly cleverer than you are.
6. If you meet a male blogger that asks if you want to hold the snake, just assume he means a live snake and don’t slap him for insolence.
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| Snake, me and a male blogger |
7. You won’t need most of the business cards you have printed and when you do you will not have them on you. So you’ll just pull out your smartphones and become Facebook friends, swap numbers and extend your tribe that way.
Or write their number on your hand and hope you remember their name when you wake up the next morning. If you have been drinking Tequila – it’s probably Danielle’s. She’s lovely like that.
8. No matter what you wear, where you stay, who you know and how badly you fangirl somebody – It’ll be fun. And inspiring. And you’ll meet people. Those people become friends. And you learn stuff. Lots and lots and lots of stuff. And you laugh. And take a lot of photos. And write lots of notes that mean nothing afterwards like ‘use that quote’.
So I hope I sorted that for you all. Basically doesn’t matter what you did – I was way more gauche last year so you’ll be completely fine and dandy.
See you there. I’ll be the one in the corner wishing I knew how the f**k to dress like an adult.
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| I was told original and colourful was IN damnit. |
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12 Aug 2014
Today my Tully had to go to the doctor because she’s got a skin tag on her tongue growing faster than her, and is about due for her 4 year old ‘pokes’. So Cass went to childcare and Tully and I went off to look at toy shelves and have a doughnut to help get her in the zone to have both arms ‘poked’.
We wandered around hand in hand, having girl time, and she was in the chattiest of places. Questions and observations tumbled from her mouth in a constant stream of colour. And I was struck afresh that I have an almost four year old. Seemingly only yesterday I had a big fat beautiful baby who was the spitting image of Chairman Mao and now I have this tall, long legged, big hearted, intelligent little person who is curious about everything. Everything.
“Mum, who is God?”
“Ummmmm, how much do you know about theology, spirituality and religion?”
“Not bery much I don’t fink”
“Well in that case, I’ll let Daddy tell you tonight who God is because I don’t either.”
“Okay”
“Mum, if girls have ginas, boys have geniuses, what do dogs have?”
(And YES I know that men around the world wished more females mispronounced penises)
“Well sweetheart, dogs can be boys or girls too. So they can have either”
“Even though they are dogs”
“Yep.”
“What about other animals?”
“Mostly the same but I’m pretty sure there are lots of sea animals and insects which can be both.”
“Really? Where would an insect put a gina?”
“Hmmm, a good question. We might want to find somebody that is an entomologist, that’s an insect expert, who can answer those questions, I’m not quite sure.”
“Mum, why did that man die hung”
(They miss no conversation do they? Not one)
“Robin Williams? He had depression sweetheart. Which is a sickness and he didn’t get better so he died.”
“Dead?”
“Dead. Which is really sad because people will miss him don’t you think?”
“Like his mummy or his sister?”
“Yep, that’s right”
“Mum?”
“Yes sweetheart”
“Did Bobby Wheels have a genius or a gina?”
And there, just there, is IT. We are trying to wrap our heads around mortality, death, loss, sorrow, happiness, joy, love, hate, war, politics, famine, money, work, life – the list is endless.
And she just wanted to know about his gender and his family. No interest in his celebrity, his achievements, his failures, his illness. Her world is made up of simpler things.
Gender. God, Insects. Pokes. Doughnuts. Small people give all questions equal weight. All aspects of life is given a measured validity that we disregard as we get older. And there is a joy in those questions, the random nature of their discourse, their thirst for knowledge.
And I hope her edge is never blunted by depression or the careless words of people that fear questions. I hope her little spark of madness always flickers, that her curiosity always burns and that when we speak of this again, (for she’ll have taken it all away to mull over and bring up as a time waster on the toilet, or as we are running late for childcare), I can talk of birth, death and the insanity that lies in between, in measured, honest mouthfuls.
For life is complex. Messy. Unfair. And the more we talk of things, the more we understand things.
And that is not just true of the children.
Vale Bobby Wheels.
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11 Aug 2014
I’m going to say something very controversial here. Ready?
You don’t have to have kids.
You don’t have to want them. You don’t have to have them. You don’t owe your parents grandchildren. You don’t owe your partner children. You are not selfish if you don’t want them.
Everybody is different. The number of conversations I have had with people over the years that just don’t want children is larger than people might think. But it’s a bit of a dirty secret. Not wanting children is something you kind of have to say with your chest thrust forward and your fists clenched. Because people are judging you. Especially if you’re female.
And if you marry somebody that says they don’t want kids, you can’t be mad with them when they ummm, don’t want kids. If they lie to you about it, well, kick their sorry butts from here to kingdom come but don’t think they’ll change their minds if you bang on about it long enough.
Because some people don’t want to be parents. And why is none of your business.
In fact, there are a lot of extremely good reasons not to have children. Truck loads in fact. Here are my top ten.
1. Never get woken up by somebody weeing on your leg UNLESS BY CHOICE. (No judgements here people that like to be weed on)
2. Being allowed to laugh really loudly and for a long time when a child says or does something completely inappropriate. Because, not your child. Ever.
3. Wiping your own bottom. And ONLY your own bottom.
4. Sleeping. Blessed, blessed sleeping.
5. Money. Who cares if you go broke and lose everything – with nobody but you to worry about, a few weeks without food will kick the diet off nicely.
6. Getting up and going places. Just getting up and going places. Even to another room. And not having to talk about it, explain it, take people with you or have them follow you.
7. Catching up with friends at a moment’s notice. Because. Sunday. Or Tuesday. Or lunchtime.
8. Arguing with your partner about stuff that matters. Like world politics or the price of tea or whether the Lethal Weapon series is tainted by Mel Gibson’s stupidity two decades on. Not the ‘I am more tired than you’ argument which is the only argument that parents have forever.
9. Profaning. Glorious glorious glorious profaning with gay abandon and much volume. Actually, you can do this as a parent too but people judge you for it. Even the types that like to be weed on judge profaning parents.
10. Personal space and privacy. And I don’t mean a room or a chair. I mean not having small people pry your eyes open, stick their fingers up your nose, finger your boobs, pull your willy, discuss your business with strangers, bite your knee, headbutt you, sit on your knee as you poop, join you in the shower, eat from your plate, stand under your tummy for shade. You know?
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5 Aug 2014
It is said that friends come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime.
Hoarders like myself try not to let any of them go because if I liked them for a reason, surely I can keep them for a season or even a lifetime?
But it doesn’t always work like that.
People change. Your life changes. Their lives change. You disagree over something you think is big and it’s not, but by the time you realise that you’ve actually forgotten what you disagreed on, the moment has passed.
You move house, cities, countries. You may even have done this before social media. You lose numbers, lose addresses, lose touch.
Some people fall out because they are too proud to apologise. Or too hurt to acknowledge their own culpability. Or just because.
Some people don’t fall out, they drift. And friendships are like relationships – they require work. You can’t complain somebody never calls if you never call them. Nobody owes you friendship.
And if you only ever accept invitations, not issue them, people stop asking. Not because they don’t like you, they just assume that if you had the same interest, you’d put in the same effort.
People that have just had babies or have young families quite often feel isolated and bemoan the loss of friendships and accuse people of not caring. It’s probably not that, it’s probably that you just haven’t said anything apart from “it’s so hard, I’m so tired, and you’d never understand” for about 12 months and they are waiting for you to reemerge from the fog.
I like my friends. I assume my friends like my friends. This is not always the case. Sometimes your friends find your other friends to be awful. Which is always a mystery but there you go. On the other hand, sometimes your friends like each other so much they end up having sex with each other and that is also a mystery. And one you’d prefer they didn’t discuss with you because ‘ewwww’.
Sometimes you have nothing in common with your friends. You just enjoy their company. Sometimes you are friends with people because you work with them. Sometimes you are friends with people because you live with them. Sometimes this works. Sometimes it doesn’t.
And we think that nothing is ever as awkward as when we used to date as teenagers, but finding friends in your adult years that suit the new improved you, the finally comfortable in your skin you, the parenting you, the career change you, the new fitness freak you, the living in a new country you, is just as hard. You have to exchange numbers, make dates. You don’t want to appear needy so does the three day rule apply? Or do you just call them and say ‘DUUUDDEEEEE’. When is it appropriate to add them to your facebook friends list? WHAT IF THEY DON’T HAVE FACEBOOK?
Friendships are always awkward to start. Maybe only for two minutes and the first tequila shot, but they are worth it. Those lifetime friends, the people you call your tribe, they are the ones that give life it’s messy, chaotic, diversity. They are the ones that have your back as they kick your arse.
Those friends. You have them for a reason. And a season. And a lifetime.
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4 Aug 2014
In my humble opinion, life consists of two main groups of people.
People that understand what ‘opinion’ means and those that don’t.
For instance, some people are of the opinion that Sydney has the worst traffic in the world. That’s their opinion. It’s not fact. It just means that they probably haven’t travelled outside of Australia.
Other people have an opinion on your parenting style. They are of the opinion that they could do it better. And your opinion is that if their children are an example of what their parenting style produces you’d rather take your chances with your own methods.
Some people are of the opinion that brands matter. Where mostly they don’t. Though it’s not recommended to run 14 kilometres in a pair of Lowes sneakers purchased the day before the run.
Some people are of the opinion that Justin Bieber is a talent to rival the greats. Of course there was a time when I was of the opinion that Indecent Obsession was one of the greats. One word people. Puberty. Opinions uttered during this period should never be held against you.
The scientific world ganged up on the planets and ditched Pluto. Anybody who was educated prior to about 1990 find this a travesty even though our opinion probably doesn’t matter one little bit to the educated folks who made the decision based on the facts.
Some are of the opinion that Scott Morrison is a Christian man doing great things for Australia by repelling hordes of safety seeking individuals.
It’s not just my opinion but fact that if you believe that you’re an idiot.
And some are of the opinion that crocs are high fashion and others may disagree. But I think we all share the opinion that having your underpants come up higher than your jeans is a fashion cycle we don’t need to see repeated.
You don’t have to share opinions to be friends with somebody. Or even lovers. My husband is of the opinion that leaving the coffee, sugar and filters out of the cupboard doesn’t hurt anybody. But he has never felt the physical pain that his lackadaisical approach to the morning routine causes me.
But ultimately, never trust a person that doesn’t have one. Opinions are representative of beliefs and values and the person themselves. If they don’t have an opinion they’ve probably not thought about things.
Which, in my opinion, is decidedly odd.
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