6 Feb 2013
I woke up this morning to the news that the UK had pass the marriage equality bill 400 – 175 votes (more here). Nick Clegg (who I think is a pratt generally) summed it up beautifully when he said “”I genuinely believe that we will look back on today as a landmark for equality in Britain … No matter who you are and who you love, we are all equal.”
Exactly. Well said Mr Clegg – the laws we live by should apply to all people. Gender, race, colour and creed have NO part in the laws which govern a country. ARE YOU LISTENING AUSTRALIA?
(queerty.com)
The mistake people make is thinking that marriage equality is just about gay people. It’s not. The injustice, the violation occurs, in that we legislate against part of the population, therefore making discrimination somehow acceptable. Its not. By eliminating discrimination from law, step by step, we are truly working towards a truly equal society. You can’t eliminate bigotry from law, but you can eliminate acceptance of discrimination as a cornerstone of the society in which you live.
Which leads me to another national disgrace. Almost like a segue but less pretty. Nauru. A nurse has spoken out about the conditions of Nauru which support the findings of the UN and Amnesty International late last year (see here) and the only thing the Immigration Department is upset about is that she violated the terms of confidentiality that she signed up to when she agreed to work for them. Okay – in respect to individual cases fine but the conditions that exist over there should be so freakin’ above board that we could log in to ‘Nauru-cam’ 24/7 and see a stable, supportive environment like they claim they are providing.
(news.com.au)
All our detention centres are a disgrace. We are a first world country who violates UN recommendations and with an election looming are probably going to see this disgrace promoted as leadership by both parties. For the record – if you are in favour of petitioning for a humane approach to asylum seekers (the clue is in the name guys!) – sign up to Amnesty’s Behind Bars campaign.
So there I was with my cornflakes almost finished – all steamed up about the state of the world, properly mad and glad about two causes which matter to me – and also upset about the fit of my work dress despite Spanx and state of my hair (I’m human, a compassionate one I hope, but still human), when I read an article about Beyonce at the SuperBowl and I remembered that she admitted to Ellen DeGeneres once that she wears Spanx. And I’ll be honest – I felt a little bit better about myself.
(take40.com)
Which means I care about things that don’t matter as well as things that do. And that my friends is the juxtaposition of the human condition.
2 Feb 2013
Cancer is a stupid bumhole. I’d like to put it more violently but recent evidence suggests that at least one of my parents reads my blog on occasion so I’m going to leave it there. 2012 was a particularly crappy year of young lovely people getting cancer. To the point that I was starting to get a little fed up with the universe pissing on my homies and wishing it would take its stupid stinking cancer bollocks and shove it up the backside of one of the more deserving.
One of those young lovelies is a gorgeous giant of a man known as Rusty. Rusty was first diagnosed with cancer when his daughter was a baby and she started high school this week. He’s a stage four cancer survivor and a man of incredibly few words. The kind of guy that makes cancer sound like man flu. Okay. He doesn’t make it sound that bad… he makes it sound annoying, irritable and in no way the violent poisoning of a young healthy body that it is. He doesn’t mention the effect it has on him, his gorgeous almost wifey and his beautiful young daughter. He doesn’t talk about the months and months of his life he has spent in hospital, the failure of remission to remain permanent, the difficultly of building up a small business when you’ve got to keep popping out for chemo or to have a lymph node removed or some ribs or even just for a lie down because it turns out that no matter how healthy you start, what the disease doesn’t fuck with, the cure will.
And Rusty is lucky. He’s going strong at the moment and he has an incredible woman beside him and the love of a beautiful talented daughter who just finds him annoying and dorky because he is her dad. And he is also lucky because for whatever reason, his big ol’ compassionate heart turns his cancer into an inconvenience to be conquered probably because its dragged on so long now it’s boring. Like an old friend who is getting unnecessarily tedious and high maintenance.
So last year, to mix it up, two and half seconds after his last surgery, he decided to support a friend doing the Rottnest Island Channel swim and raise some money for the Melanoma Institute. I mean its only a 20km paddle. I could do that. Provided it was in a kayak equipped with a motor and cocktails. And that’s before we mention the sharks in the water and the bodies washing up on Rottnest Island these days.
And now, because he had to have another encounter with the bitch called Cancer during 2012, he decided to do it again. I mean, what’s a little light exercise for a good cause? I think he should paddle back as well but apparently he’s not taking suggestions from lightweights.
Seriously though. There is very little I can do to make any of the cancer journeys being undertaken at the moment for people that I love and care for very much, any easier. Unless they need to outsource profaning and being generally cross at the universe in which case I AM THE MAN! So if in some way, having a blog can help Rusty help the Melanoma institute to sort out a cure for a least one of the stupid things and also support all the brilliant medical staff that have helped him and others on their unchosen journey, I would like to do it.
So this is a blatant, undisguised plea for you to donate to Rusty’s latest ‘Pay it forward’ moment by going to http://melanomainstituteaustralia.gofundraise.com.au/page/MelanomaAwarenessRottoSwim2013. And know that in donating your fiver, your fifty or your five hundred that you are making a donation for all the beautiful people having the big argument with Cancer at the moment.
See Rusty having a few laconic words on Melanoma Awareness day last year by clicking here. And click on his photo above right or click on this phrase ‘Cancer is a bumhole‘ to donate
And in the meantime. If when you think about Cancer you think Cancer is a ‘C’ word, congratulations on a successful education. Now Donate. No excuses. And share this so others do too. Just the price of a coffee would be lovely, there is no need to go overboard. But if you could donate three coffees that would be even lovelier.
PS: PUT ON THE SUNSCREEN. YES YOU!
31 Jan 2013
One of the things that gets me all het up, hot under the collar and well – mad (despite being old enough to know better and a very solid grasp of how this is a ‘little thing’) is people addressing me as Mrs. Just because I’m married. When I was single, I didn’t go by Miss. Since I was old enough to know I had the choice, I’ve been Ms.
Mail addressed to Mrs enrages me. The only exception is people of very advanced years because I understand for them its an ingrained etiquette and they appear flabbergasted that I’ve given this any thought. And when you’re that old – you can ignore me. But only when you’re that old.
I never fill in a form with Mrs. But the nameless faces of customer service in nearly every organisation see married and they start sending me mail addressed to Mrs. They presume to assume I made a mistake on the form. I insist on cards being reissued if they use Mrs. My daughters are not Miss either. All their paperwork is Ms. Because quite frankly – they deserve the privacy of Ms until they choose their own way.
Its bolshie behaviour. I do understand that. But my marital status is nobody’s business. The fact that assumptions are still being made about women based on whether or not they are a Miss or a Mrs infuriates me. Boys growing into men are not discriminated against by title. Nobody can assume a maritial status, an age, a life experience, anything BUT gender based on the two letters M and R. They remain a blank slate until they choose to expose themselves.
But for all women in the Western English speaking world, their titles define themselves by the relationship they are in. It’s antiquated, its unnecessary and it’s inherently discriminatory because people do make assumptions, they do form preconceptions. And then there are the women that revel in becoming Mrs as it proclaims to the world that ‘they got themselves a pardner’. It pains me. They were awesome before that.
If I was to run the world as of tomorrow, of course I’d put the emphasis on equality and world peace (DER!) but the next thing I’d do is ban Miss and Mrs. I would rub them right out of the dictionary and they would become things of yesteryear, to be exclaimed over with the same disbelief as sacrificial virgins and the like. You can keep your Doctors, your Dames and what not, I’m not bothered with intellectual or hierarchical affectations – its the sexism that’s bred into us from day one that bothers me, when at birth a female’s card is marked as UNMARRIED and a male’s card is marked MALE.
30 Jan 2013
I was looking at this photo and loving it to pieces. For the bazillionith time. And for good reason, it’s an adorable snap one of about 60 we took trying to get the girls to pose adorably in their Christmas shirts for our Christmas cards. But they weren’t interested in sitting adorably. They wanted to jump and squirm and strangle each other. They mooned, giggled, looked left and right at opposite times, fell over, pulled faces, squealed, yelled, jumped about and then they got bored and wanted to downstairs and play. And we just wanted to fall in a heap and sleep. Kudos to professional photographers I tell you.
But when we were looking through the photos and saw this one, it made us laugh because it captured them perfectly in so many ways. So we added some text, a border and headed to the local Big W to print them out.
And that’s the modern way.
Somebody was bitching recently about Instagram and how it has ruined honest photography. But photography has never been completely honest. Few of us hang around in posed positions, or dress to complement each other*, or happen to be laughing into each others eyes with the sun in the right position. The daily snaps we take of our children, our lovers, our pets are all reminders of when people are at their best. Moments which make your heart swell. For some, they feel like this about food if my Facebook feed is anything to go by – but that’s fine – love is love.
And the fact is, when you love someone or something, the love is all the time, not just when they are being photogenic. You love them when they are yelling, cross, cross-eyed, out of sorts, bruised, toilet training, asleep and drooling (looking at you husband) and a myriad of other times. You love them when they say funny things, stupid things, cross things and loving things. You love them when they sulk, don’t talk, grump or do the eye-roll thing that drives you wild with exasperation. You love them sweaty, smelly, dirty and tired. And when you try to explain to people how this love works for you, there aren’t enough words.
So you take a picture. And you soften the edges, brighten the colours and frame their smiles. So that when other people look at your picture, they can see what you see all the time. Love. Happiness. Joy.
(* I obviously exclude young hand holding Christians newly in love – who always seem to wear matching stripey tops in either navy or red. It’s true. You’ll notice them everywhere you go now.)
21 Jan 2013
So today I read a really great article by a Dr Stephanie Burns (here) on establishing good habits and I resolved in that spontaneous I’ll-regret-it-for-sure-way that tomorrow I start a 21 day program to establish a habit of NOT consuming Red Bull and Coke as a daily pick me up for when I hit the “I-have-two-small-people-and-I-am-not-getting-anywhere-near-enough-sleep-ever-at-the-moment” slump at about nine o’clock in the morning and then again in the afternoon.
The fact is – I drink a bucket load of water every day. I don’t drink tea or coffee or hot chocolates. I don’t even like the taste of red bull – I just appreciate the sharpening of my brain and the kick to get me ‘zoned’ again. And it’s absolute bullshit that apples give you the same zing. I tried.
I know its bad for me. I KNOW. But it works. It gives me wings. And you can’t beat the real thing. And Mark Weber races for them. They jumped out of a spaceship and parachuted to earth. It got me through to five o’clock still able to string a sentence together. That pink crap is goooooooooooooooooood.
But I told my work team, and now I’m putting it out there in a public forum, that for the next 21 days I am eschewing the gentle addiction and hoping that the fear of public failure will provide me with the same afternoon rush to push me into the brave new world. It means that I’ll drink even more water and will probably end up with the reputation of “that lady from the marketing team that has some kind of obsessive compulsive relationship with the toilet” but surely a small price to pay for the imposing of self discipline and new good habit.
Which surely frees me up for a new bad one? Whatever will I choose.
19 Jan 2013
When my second daughter was on her way, some friends of mine gifted me a photo session (with credit for photos) so that we could have some professional snaps taken. Today, with the cheeky monkey almost ten months and her sister almost two years and four months – we went in and performed like a deranged circus act to have them look in the same direction while two very patient women snapped a trillion photos of them.
And then we sat down and went through the photos and loved pretty much all of them. Those talented ladies caught some brilliant moments.
Now is a precious time with our girls. Both of them have really distinctive personalities emerging and a genuine love of each other’s company. The younger is learning to walk and clap and high five. The elder is exploring language and dance and stories. They are remarkably alike and yet very different and we document daily. Photos on our iPhones or the camera, video footage and old fashioned notebooks. Their every moment is precious and we adore seeing them interact with the world around them. I don’t trust my memory so I put it all down so that they can see when they are older what we thought, how we saw them and what we hoped for their futures.
And I am aware, every step of the way, like the bleeding heart that I am, that people like Ranjini and her three boys are being denied the same freedoms. The same opportunity to document their histories and their stories and record wrinkled brows, thumb sucking, pursed lips, raspberries, bruised knees, family hugs, and that myriad of banality that is universal yet so intensely personal.
Because the wrinkled brow of your newborn is so much more wondrous to behold than any of the others. so many moments are fleeting, beautiful, unrepeatable.
And with over 90 per cent of refugees found to be genuine in every way I can not work out how the government in any form or in any name can justify Manus Island, Naru, indefinite detainment. I can not comprehend how we lock up the Ranjinis without recourse. We are living in Australia in 2013. We are contravening accepted UN behaviours. We are fostering fear. We are depriving people of liberty. In 2013. We are not allowing families to put together photo albums, build histories, integrate. We are not allowing meaningful input and the sharing of knowledge.
If Ranjini is so dangerous – monitor her in the same way you monitor people who have given you justification. Have her touch base daily with her local police station, randomly drug test her or question her. Whatever you think is working to keep us safe from the genuine criminal element born here. But let her be with her husband. Let the other ‘nameless Ranjinis’ out. Let them put together photo albums, stories of first bike rides, pencil marks on doorframes to mark off the growth of their children, have cross words about school report cards. Let them argue like all parents of small people, let them worry about the cost of school shoes, where they can find childcare, where the eldest two are picking up such terrible language. Let them laugh at the bad jokes, let them write to their families, let them donate to the bushfire appeals, vote on The Voice. Let them breathe.
And if they are evil, if they are planning wrong, if they have lied – prove it and then punish them. Don’t punish them while you try and prove it. That is not who we are. That is not good parenting. That is not good government. That is not good anything.
That is bullshit.
