3 Dec 2012
Today I have become an over user of the word ‘Totes’. And it is not even lunch time. I am not a ‘Totes’ person. My hubby and I use it ironically or stupidly between ourselves but we don’t use it in regular conversation. I’m not perky enough, short enough or young enough to say it without sounding like a complete prat. But today is obviously ‘Totes’ day.
“This rain is really heavy”
“Totes”
“What do you think of this picture”
“Totes adorable”
“I really like Zooey – I hope she’s as cool in real life”
“Totes”
You see? Get the picture? Embarrassing.
I have a vocabulary. I am comfortable using the word ‘Totally’ in its entirety and I can even use it correctly and not as substitute for intelligent conversation. Every time I say the word I also get the urge to make this little rapper hand movement at the same time.
You know the one. They do it all the music videos when they’re checking out the backsides of girls wearing no clothes. That sentence is enough to guarantee that I should not be using ‘Totes’ in conversation.
Such a dilemma. What to do with myself?
2 Dec 2012
You know the joke where Bono stands on stage and clicks his fingers. One. Two. Three. Four. And then he says sonorously into the microphone. Every time I click my fingers a child dies. Five. Six. Seven. And from the audience a voice calls back – “Stop fecking clicking then ya sick bastard”.
I feel like that about some news we got on Friday night. Shitty, crappy, poopy news. It’s not our news so I can’t talk about it but if I could unclick my fingers and go back to the stage before this news. Before it happened. If I could take it all away and make it better I would.
Because I honestly feel like somebody is clicking away merrily, pissing on people I care about. And whoever the clicker is – he/she has gone a little too far.
You wake up and you wish that it was just a bad dream. But it isn’t. And I know that if for me its awful, I know that for the people living it – its more awful. Its crap. It sucks. It bites. There are not words big enough for the storm that’s hit them from behind. Good people. Nice people. Ordinary people. Very very much loved people.
Adored and beloved people. The after will come. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable to wish for them ‘the before’. Back when the world was normal. Made sense. Was less random and fucked up.
So I’m channelling love, good karma, positive thoughts and whatever credits I have wherever towards them.
Big, huge, mammoth love.
30 Nov 2012
Have you noticed that everybody is talking about the weather because its hot. Like really hot. And over in England they are talking about the weather because its cold. Like really cold. And over in America we talked about the weather because it was windy. Like really windy. And… well you get the picture.
For talking about the bloody obvious there is no bigger topic than the weather. For us here in Australia, we start summer tomorrow so its not unreasonable for the weather to be warming up. And yes it’s hot. But that is what the seasons are about. Summer is hot. Autumn is cooling down. Winter is cold. Spring is warming up. And I hate to be the one to break it to everybody – but this happens every bloody year.
EVERY YEAR PEOPLE.
If it’s hot, carry a little fan or sit in the air conditioning or go swimming. Don’t bitch about it. You can’t change it, I can’t change it and quite frankly, the fact that you are surprised by hot weather in summer makes me doubt your intelligence and general observation skills. I definitely don’t want to talk about it with every single person I encounter be they friend, foe or sharing the bus seat with me.
And if you’re living somewhere cold – put on more jumpers, wear boots and sit near a heater. Are you with me here people? Deal with it. Don’t talk about it. If you need advance warning so you can prepare yourself – visiting bom.gov.au. Download the app. Take action!
But if it’s raining? Go out side, turn your face up to the sky. Stick your tongue out and catch the raindrops. Jump in puddles. Spin around with your arms out. Ignore the stares. Because walking in the rain is most awesome. Fact. And I am more than happy to talk about this any time.
28 Nov 2012
Sometimes, no matter how you look at the world – via print, online or just out the bus window, there is evidence that the world is not operating to the best of its capacity.
Basically, it could be a whole lot nicer if people focussed on being lovely. Like a lot.
I don’t know if you know about Edward Monkton, a genius man who sums up the right approach to life with a few lines, sometimes a dinosaur and often with shoes. Like Leunig, he is a man who has a gift for seeing the world in a way that makes a lot of sense.
Go to edwardmonkton.com.au for more of his stuff.
Can you imagine a world where this is our approach. Loveliness, Kindness, Freedom. All the days of our lives. A bit like anarchy but without the inherent narcissism – this would be my utopia.
No violence. No nasty politics. No bitchy remarks. No second guessing. No random deaths. No queue jumping. No mocking the homeless or the differently coloured or the differently faithed. Respect would proliferate. Kindness would rule. People would use nothing but temporarily cross faces and emphatic tuts to express disapproval and people would be open to communicating so that every ending was a happy one.
And as Mr Monkton would say – let there be shoes and chocolate. Because even those that are happy with their lot and the blessings that come with it, like nice shoes while disliking killer potatoes.
There is much to be said for that I think.
27 Nov 2012
My daughter slipped off a ladder on Sunday and hit the ground with the kind of sickening thud and squelch that fills your stomach with bile, increases your heart rate and has your mind go into meltdown. Her mouth was gushing so much blood that we initially failed to notice the lump on her forehead. Turns out that that was the real injury and the blood came from her putting her teeth through her lip. Which was messy but not as heartbreaking as the lump that grew.
This is what my two year old looked like. The lump was seriously that large.
This time last year, she fell of a trike and knocked her front teeth out. Well, one out and broke the other one. The broken one had to be removed at a cost of $2000 for a ten minute dental surgery. We didn’t have major dental for our one year old. That was an expensive lesson.
I don’t have words for the love I have for my girls. I adore their father but in a less visceral way. If he hurts himself I’m a bit ‘there there darling, buck up old chap’. My girls hurt themselves and I want to weep with them. However, in the height of the emergency I turn into a very sensible, matronly type with lots of bustle and pragmatism. It is only afterwards that I want to hug them until they pop and howl at the unfairness of it all. And that’s just when they bump heads or graze knees. These bigger accidents tear me apart.
Adding in the hurts that come from a cranky old world as they get older, it appears to me that I’m going to need to harden the fuck up. Or work out a way to carpet the world with pillows and have all the nastiness sucked out of people.
I should get to it then.
20 Nov 2012
Just a brief observation – the funny thing about tonight’s Click Frenzy is not that the site failed – they wont be the first group that were surprised by the size of their success – but that everybody moved in ten minutes from “HIP HIP HURRAH CLICK FRENZY GONNA GET ME A BARGAIN I LOVE ONLINE SHOPPING” to ‘Oh I totes knew it wasn’t going to work out – I mean HONESTLY’.
Seriously – the majority of the world appeared to give it about ten minutes. Its a 24 hour sale, it was a bit over successful and the whole thing started more slowly than planned. You’re still talking about it, you’re still logging on or checking for cheat codes to get your bargains. Click Frenzy is not in any way a failure.
And I’ve got me a whole bunch of loot that says so. And if you want the same BUT YOU WANT IT NOW NOT IN A FEW MINUTES – get you to #clickfrenzy on twitter and calm the fuck down.
