The Blog Shall Set You Free

Hidden in Jest

2011-09-28T23:26:00.001+10:00

Sometimes I half believe and almost wish that, were my skull to be opened up for some yet-to-be-determined reason, the doctors would find a fist-sized tumour in my brain. Not because I want to face a physically and emotionally agonising death, but because the discovery of something that shouldn’t be there, something that’s crowding my memory centre and interfering with the efficient rapid-firing of my neurons, would explain everything. Suddenly my embarrassing stupidity, my frustrating slowness of wit and my worryingly poor memory would all make sense. In a few short hours, the easily operable and completely benign tumour would be removed, and my former mental acuity would return. Perhaps I would also become beautiful and slim. Why not?

The sobering reality is that, as a non-super working mother with many demands on my paltry resources of time, energy and long-term memory, I may never regain the sprightliness of cognition which abandoned me around my third pregnancy like some deadbeat dad. Even more mortifying is the possibility that my brain power hasn’t changed at all; that I’ve merely sloughed the scales of callow, arrogant youth from my eyes and finally recognised my own stark inadequacies. Whatever the explanation, I watch in wistful envy as grads I saw enter the building barely out of nappies now outstrip me in a job that’s evolved past my abilities. Confronted with the esoteric challenges of the work, I see their minds leaping ever onward like mountain goats on the Matterhorn, whilst mine struggles feebly like an axolotl in the mud.

During my interview with the Department of Hippies, they laughed incredulously when I told them how long I’d been in my current job. They told me changing teams every couple of months was de rigueur in their department. If they’d asked me then, I would’ve said I stuck around for reasons that added up to me loving the work, and meant it. Obviously I loathe the peripherals – certain unpleasant people, the waist-high drifts of red tape through which I must constantly wade – or I wouldn’t be searching for jobs elsewhere. But I’d always felt I was doing something challenging, rewarding and important. In the last few days, though, reading through boring and meaningless documents on which I’ll eventually have to write boring and meaningless reports, the cogs of my slow and unwieldy brain finally ground into place, and I realised I hate my job.

I know I sound wickedly ungrateful for my health and employment. I know I should be doing the equivalent of pounding the pavement looking for jobs, CV in hand and hopeful determination on my face like a plucky character in a tacky ’80s movie about making it on Wall Street. Right now I don’t feel fit for much more than wallowing in apathy-inducing depression. It’s not all bad, though. I bypassed a nervous breakdown a few weeks back, perhaps I’ll revisit it and try it on for size. I may not be eligible for cure-all brain surgery, but mental health leave’s as good as a holiday.

Plato? Aristotle? Socrates? Morons!

2011-09-25T11:21:00.001+10:00

I’m not in the habit of inhaling the miasma of public toilets, but I can’t help noticing the ladies’ loos on my floor at work smell uncannily like toffee. I don’t know whether the unsavoury proximity to the kitchenette or some freakish accident of rodent decomposition is responsible, but it’s a smell I find somewhat unsettling. (Side note: my sister was changing my infant niece’s nappy when an unfortunate bout of projectile poohing struck. Arcing gracefully through the air like a ballerina executing a grand jeté, the erstwhile breast milk landed with a sizzle on the wood-fired heater. The aroma of cooking excrement, so my sister said, was a disturbingly pleasant caramel.)

It was for somewhat more than this trivial reason, however, that I applied for a new job some months ago. Feeling that circumstances were such that only a change of department would do, I limbered up my fingers for some fancy typework and bashed out an application to the Department of Hippies. Now, my diehard followers (cue the chirping of crickets in my abandoned corner of cyberspace) will know that I somehow fooled all the flowerchildren and passed unchecked through the Gates of Recruitment with the correct arcane buzzwords on my lips and suitably convincing referrals in my hands. My new job was a mere length of red tape away.

And so I was left to dither in an agony of indecision; I felt tied to the Department of Meat Products by a fear of change and the pleas of a harried boss who’d already lost too many experienced staff, but impelled towards the Department of Hippies by a new supervisor I rather suspect may be a high-functioning sociopath. For months, while the bureaucratic wheel – square, of course, and oft diverted for no explicable reason – made its slow revolution, I demanded career advice from family and friends, with varying and often unsatisfactory results. My resolve swung like a metronome counting out the beats of a funeral march, for either a significant personal era or my chance of escape would soon be dead and gone. But at last, I made a decision I was happy with: I would join the chanting, daisy-crowned ranks and kick my unpleasant supervisor goodbye.

And then the wheel turned with a final jolt to crush my foolish hopes. The faithless hippies had led me on with sweet-talk and smiles, only to reveal they liked someone else better.

So for now, as much as I dread work each day, nothing remains for me but to suck it up and handle my disappointment philosophically. After all, toffee-scented shit happens.

Just popped in to say hello…

2010-05-30T02:37:00.001+10:00

Yoohoo! Anyone home?

I idly clicked on my blog link today after months of purposely avoiding it, and was surprised to see how much time had elapsed since I last delighted the world with my fulsome inanities. Has it really been five months?

I can’t say I haven’t enjoyed laying blogging aside to take up other things, although I’m not sure that all-day mega marathons of America’s Next Top Model provide the same stimulation and creative outlet that even my humble efforts at blogging do. Forgive what sounds like lame self-help psychobabble, but it’s been somewhat of a months-long exhalation of relief not to worry about doing anything (you know, aside from all that parenting-and-earning-a-living malarkey), and just being. I’ve spent hours happily sewing sock monkeys, reading novel after novel, and surfing the net with as little purpose as a leaf afloat upon the waves.

But always there’s been something niggling at the back of my mind. I think I’ve mentioned before that my job entails writing reports of the sort that every government department produces and no-one much cares to read. I’m considered reasonably good at churning out dry and utilitarian pages on sausage casings, smoking techniques and other meat-related issues, in which there is no call for arresting vocabulary or inventiveness of expression. This week, though, I staged a one-woman rebellion and penned some flowery prose on the characteristics of the latest all-in-one robotic meat slicer and vacuum packing marvel. Such a seemingly small thing as choosing one set of words over another made me disproportionately happy, such that I was grinning and giggling even as I knew I’d be forced to rewrite it. It was then that I thought perhaps it was time to start writing again, time to unblock the outlet for the excess of pomp and overblown construction swirling around in my little brain.

However, the niggle wasn’t content with this. Without the distraction of any other form of recreational writing to keep such thoughts suppressed, I’ve been forced to confront the probability that my skill in writing is not what I judged it to be three or four years ago, when I was fired with the prospect of successively completing my three works in progress and tripping easily down the road to bestselling riches and renown. I’ve come to accept that these few months of doing nothing, achieving nothing connected with questionable talent may not be merely a period of sabbatical, but a reflection of the life I am destined to lead. Excuse me my moment of poor-little-comfortably-off-white-Westerner, but it makes me sad to think that I’ve spent so much of my life foolishly pursuing ambitions that are beyond my reach and dessert. At the end of my life, I had hoped to be able to look back and point out some achievement besides my kids turning out okay despite my terrible mothering. Alas, right now that seems unlikely.

Still, what kind of a deluded self-deceiver would I be if I gave in now? I’ll keep turning on the computer pretending I’m going to get on with some serious writing, even though I know I’ll end up reading about ugly tattoos and uglier handicrafts. I might even start blogging again and pretend that someone cares about my tiresome whining. In that spirit, let’s pretend I’m going off to write a book about sparkly zombies who use magic to solve the mysteries of secretive Moonies, or something. Look out for it on the bestseller shelf!

Thanks for the tea. Toodle-oo!

2010-01-09T16:11:00.003+11:00

Let Me Explain...

2009-12-28T01:42:00.001+11:00

No, there is too much. Let me sum up:

So, I didn’t win NaNoWriMo this year. It was always going to be a struggle, what with no plot and no unexpected inspiration. Still, I tried to cobble together the hastily-gathered scraps of derivative storyline and clichéd characters into something that could pass for a 50,000 word novel, until it became all too much like hard work, and I was terribly behind on my daily word count, and then…

Mr. Lonie’s dad died. Yes, died. He survived heavy smoking, heavy drinking, Maralinga and Vietnam for 77 years, but the reaper finally caught up with him. I’m not going to be hypocritical and pretend I’m heartbroken, but despite our lack of affection for each other, he was never unkind to me, so that’s something to be grateful for. His death had been coming on for a while – it was just an unfortunate coincidence it happened early in the morning of my very important job interview…

Which, despite being dog-tired from the strains of death-watch and subsequent death, I apparently did really well at, and got the job! Hello, extra $36.00 a fortnight! Woohoo! Now, flush with my new riches, I’ve pretty much decided that…

I will go on official blogging hiatus. An indefinite sabbatical, if you will. It’s not that I don’t have anything more to say, I just don’t have the time or the energy to say it right now (I’m too busy contending for the title of Worst Mother of the Year again. These awards don’t win themselves! There’s screaming to be done! Tempers to be lost! Bad examples to be set!) Anyway, as Mutley delights in reminding me, you, Dear Reader, are not really here reading these words, but are just a fond imagining of my deluded brain. So, you won’t mind if I effect my cunning plan, which involves going away, writing hundreds of posts, then returning to blogging and posting one every single day, thereby pretending I’m a conscientious blogger. So…

Goodbyeeeeeeee!

Can't blog now. NaNo-ing.

2009-10-31T22:10:00.003+11:00

Not that I expect everyone to hunch over their computers until I publish each new post, but you might want to lower your expectations still further. NaNoWriMo starts in under two hours and my insides are beginning to clench and churn and froth in a panic reminiscent of that horrid night-before-exams belated cramming I put myself through every year of uni.

I've been trying to figure out a mildly humourous way to finish this post, but I just don't have the energy or the brain power to spare. With ninety minutes to go, I kind of need to save that stuff for things like, oh you know, COMING UP WITH A PLOT TO SUSTAIN ME THROUGH 50,000 WORDS!!! I have no plot, no title, only one character, and a few vague, disjointed ideas that are floating about in my empty, echoing skull, as insubstantial as gossamer and about as difficult to weave into something that could be loosely defined as a novel. With the usual disclaimer about maintaining perspective in the knowledge of multiple, vastly more important global issues, I'm feeling rather sorry for myself.

See you on the other side of November, if I don't come here to cry about it before.

Looking on the Bright Side

2009-10-11T23:27:00.001+11:00

Or: My Weekend

1) The trauma of being covered in someone else’s pooh is usually short-lived.

2) Based on current progress, it should only take me another hundred hours to finish my job application. But when I do, I’m told I’m a shoo-in!

3) A painful injection in the arm can often be somewhat of a relief – particularly when one has impaled one’s foot on a rusty nail.

Because I’m puerile and can’t resist

2009-10-07T21:14:00.000+11:00

My sweet little three year-old, Master Lonie, has been learning about the planets.

“Does Uranus have a ring around it?” he wondered.

Yes, my son. Yes.

The Sound of Abusic

2009-10-07T00:07:00.000+11:00

Well, our new team member arrived and she seems quite normal. Knowing how important it was for her to feel welcome and accepted, we slipped a frog in her pocket and a pine cone on her chair. Perhaps next week, if it all works out well between her and the handsome sea-captain, we'll skive off work and hike over the mountain to freedom.

Meat Product Roulette

2009-10-06T00:32:00.001+11:00

I have to get up in about five hours, but I can’t fall asleep. The reason I can’t fall asleep is because I feel anxious. The reason I feel anxious is because a new colleague is arriving at work tomorrow.

I used to be pleased and excited when new colleagues arrived; we’re a small team with more to do than we can usually handle, and it was always nice to know our burdens would be lessened by the arrival of another doughty, meat-wise worker. Yes, I used to be pleased, until Delicate Flower turned out to be, well, a delicate flower, who then blossomed into a bat-pooh crazy flower. I used to be excited until Padawan revealed his true colours as an incorrigible, arrogant upstart. I used to be optimistic until Gimme was found to be the sort of ‘worker’ that can only ever be referred to in ironic quotation marks.

Now I feel the worms of dread eating at my stomach. What will be wrong with this woman? Bossiness has been suggested by one. I’m betting on fussy anal-retentive behaviour to the point of neuroticism, manifesting in an intense dislike of everything related to my desk.

But, one never knows. Maybe, just maybe, this one will be normal, likeable, hardworking. What are the odds we get four duds in a row?

The Insanity Returns

2009-10-05T01:15:00.004+11:00

It does seem somewhat strange that someone incapable of posting even one blog entry last month would seriously entertain the idea of writing a 50,000 word novel in one month – next month, to be exact. A perfectly rational conclusion that one might draw is that I am, in fact, insane, but it would be a ho-hum old-hat perfectly rational conclusion, because everybody already knows I’m crazy as a loon.

Are thoughts of NaNoWriMo meant to distract me – in ways only a self-destructive procrastinator can devise – from more important things on my plate, such as completing a very important job application (due frightfully soon and with frightfully little actually done), or the small matter of trying not to be such a godawful mother of the kind therapists dream of while rubbing their hands with glee? Probably.

Am I making less and less sense as this post goes on? YES! It is LATE! And I am TIRED! But that, my friends, is what NaNo is all about, n’est-ce pas? One must accustom oneself to such things.

While I technically ‘won’ NaNoWriMo last year (ie: I completed a 50,000 word novel), I considered it somewhat of a Pyrrhic victory, accompanied as it was by demoralising realisations that my writing was rife with purple prose, Mary Sues and eye-rolling stream-of-consciousness narrative that would no doubt have bored the pants off anyone had I been silly enough to let them read it. Of course, my NaNo novel was written with quantity rather than quality in mind, but still, one hopes to see evidence of phenomenal talent in all of one’s endeavours and is understandably downcast when abundant evidence to the contrary is presented instead.

I tried to encapsulate the disappointment in a December post which, ironically, or perhaps portentously, I never finished. It began:

“And…exhale. Ease hands out of the clawed typing mitts they have stiffened into. Confront the draft of your very first novel and despair.

It’s surprising to me how little my actual experience of NaNoWriMo resembles the experience I imagined. On one hand, I wasn’t nearly so busy writing as I expected. Of course, that’s a good thing since I have plenty of other responsibilities which are more than enough to fill my day (especially since Mr. Lonie decided to nick off interstate for four weeks of costume balls and Sunday drives, nominally known as ‘work’). Besides, I quickly discovered that two hours a session was as much as I could mentally handle, and one session a day was as much as I could temporally afford.

It was also somewhat easier to…”

To what? I can’t even remember how I meant to conclude that interrupted thought. To spew forth crap from my crappy little brain, I expect.

So anyway, wish me luck. No, not with the novel – with finding a plot for the novel.

Yes, I know. I’m doomed.

Signs

2009-10-04T23:01:00.002+11:00

I knew she was dead before the phone call came.

It’s not that I have premonitive powers, it’s just that, while ambling about my office building minding the Department’s business, thoughts of my friend intruded persistently into my mundane musings, unbidden and apropos of nothing. It was then I knew that she was gone.

Three days later it was more with dread than shock that I accepted the phone and heard the words, delivered with so much gentleness and compassion, which confirmed my awful suspicions. She had died the day before my sudden inspiration.

At the wake, speaking to her mother who was so kind and so gracious even in the midst of her own grief, I told her how the inexorable thought of Mel had come to me that day. She smiled and grasped my hand and said I’d given her a wonderful thing.

The sceptical among you may deride or pity me for my foolish notion of messages from beyond the veil. You may argue that such things as an afterlife or spiritual communication simply do not exist. What you describe is just one of those millions of coincidences the gullible and the ignorant choose to interpret as fate or divine intervention or evidence to support their own crackpot theories, you may say.

So you thought about someone you know, those more willing to believe in unexplained sympathetic links may respond, brows furrowed over my assumption. So what? If every person who popped unexpectedly into our minds were to die, the global population would be decimated!

Regardless of your opinion on the possibility, I’m sure you’ve all noticed the glaring illogicality of my story. Why on earth would you conclude she was dead? you will think. And if you thought so, then why the hell didn’t you call her? Why did you do nothing for days until her poor brother had to ring you with the terrible news?

I can’t bring myself to articulate the answers to these questions, to see them in black and white, to release them into the ether whence I will never be able to recall them. In truth, I’m not completely sure of the answers myself, although I don’t deny that they involve a lot of shame on my part. I’ve known her for over 15 years and I never stopped being her friend, but I was obviously a crappy one. I don’t ask for forgiveness or absolution for my part in her death, because I know I deserve none.

The point is, she sent me a sign she was gone. I also, as I’ve written before, bought my Babo after (so it makes me smile to think) she arranged for him to appear in front of me, on sale. Scoff if you please, wonder how a disaffected Catholic or any intelligent, rational person can believe in that sort of thing if you must, but the truth is it gave me comfort and it gave her anguished mother comfort to know she was still present in some form even after her body was no more than an empty vessel. I’m not the type to fall prey to charlatans claiming to pass on messages from departed loved ones (for a fee), I’ve not joined some strange cult encouraging me to drink their tainted cordial, so where’s the harm?

Of course, a fleeting visitation does not ease all the sorrow of a friend gone before her time. Not long after the funeral, I wrote to her family. This is fucked up. Depression is the Devil and you were all robbed, is what I wanted to say, and I knew they’d understand exactly what I meant without further explanation. But that’s not the sort of thing one writes on a card for a 31st birthday that will never be celebrated. Instead, I settled for a lame sentiment expressing their continued position in my thoughts and prayers, and hoped they’d know I was sincere.

It’s been more than six months now, and the constant burden of sorrow is lighter. I take this as both a blessing and a token of my unworthiness. But I know she forgives me for neglecting to call, to write. I know she understands I never forsook our friendship. I know because, as strayed from the flock as I am, I still believe in a heaven, and in that heaven one is free of the base instincts and unbecoming motivations of us mortals on earth. There is no anger, no accusation, and no disappointment in the failings of others. She wasn’t like that anyway – her mother told me how she thought of me fondly even at the end. Most of all, I know what I say is true because, a few days ago as I cried over her needless death, I felt a touch on my shoulder from a hand that wasn’t there.

Signs.

Birth Control

2009-08-28T23:35:00.003+10:00

For someone who, a few months ago, tearily packed away outgrown baby clothes, wailed that my youngest would soon be all grown up, and calculated the optimum time to conceive my fourth child, I now find myself scandalously content to remain a mother of three.

It’s not that I don’t love my kids, and I had plans for another, but by the Flying Spaghetti Monster, I’m tired. I’m tired every moment of every day. I wake up tired and I go to bed tired. I go to work tired and come home even more tired. There’s no period of being refreshed and energised, just brief intervals of being less tired than during the rest of my tiring day.

Unfortunately that’s not the only item on my mental list of Reasons to Stop at Three. I don’t wish to grumble too much because I know there are many people in the world who would love to swap their cross for mine; you, Dear Reader, must therefore infer the reasons I found myself crying in bed last night, wishing only for a padded cell and a soundproof screaming helmet like Jane Jetson’s.

And so it is that the prospect of my brood growing up and attaining some measure of independence and self-reliance is quite cheering to me in this serotonin-addled state. I suppose Mr. Lonie finds the possibility of another baby daunting, too, as he’s done the unthinkable and seriously considered letting some hairy-handed doctor fiddle with his goolies and slice bits out of them.

But do not let your hearts be troubled, squeams and vas deferens lovers! Perhaps the dreaded snip won’t be necessary after all. You see, the other night in bed, Mr. Lonie snuggled up to me in a way that might be construed as a precursor to further canoodling.

“Mm,” he said, his voice husky with what I like to think was desire but was more probably the result of loudly hawking up phlegm seconds before. “My groin is full of fungus.”

Ah, Jock Itch, that’s the stuff. Who needs vasectomies when abstinence will do?

The Other Man

2009-08-07T11:08:00.000+10:00

I’ve cultivated a very close relationship with another man, and I can no longer hide it from Mr. Lonie. It’s been developing so slowly I didn’t even notice how intimate we had become until recently.

The realisation that we are practically inseparable hit me today. It was not a comforting thought, because the kind of closeness that we share is not a healthy one, particularly as I’m a married woman. The worst part is, Mr. Lonie knows. The man I married has discovered I let him down and I let myself down, yet he still loves me.

It’s time to put a stop to it – it’s time to say goodbye. As painful and as difficult as parting with him will be, I have to do it. There’s just not enough room in a marriage bed for me, Mr. Lonie and Mr. Hugh Jarce.

My Daughter the Heretic

2009-08-06T22:13:00.000+10:00

“Everyone has nostrils except Jesus.”

I see I’ve got a lot of work to do before Miss Lonie starts Catholic school next year.

Another Year Older, Another Year More Horrifying

2009-08-02T00:29:00.001+10:00

With age comes wisdom and acceptance of the inevitabilities of life. I therefore knew my endeavour was unlikely to succeed, but made a brave attempt anyway. Unfortunately my plan to draw the poison of vitriolic thoughts and words before they spilled out to an annoying colleague was not altogether successful. Though I filled sympathetic ears and wasted valuable internet space with what I hoped would be cathartic rantings, alas, I fear I may have injured the Delicate Flower’s feelings with an incautious (but justified) outburst in response to her disquieting behaviour. Ah well, just as other workmates have before me, I’ll make my forced apology and continue to work unaided while she takes more stress leave. Why meddle with the status quo?

Happily I’m not as highly-strung as some, or I’d be on stress leave too. Unlike certain others, I can usually take jests and remarks in the spirit they are offered, rather than stewing for several sleepless nights about the hidden meanings of punctuation in an email. Were it not for this trait shared by all normal, rational human beings, I would surely be a quivering wreck, and consequently unable to complete my riveting report on the latest synthetic sausage casings.

You see, now that I’ve celebrated another anniversary of my birth, I’m on the ‘wrong’ side of 30 (as my obstetrician so tactfully implied), and due to recent staff turnover I’m in the ‘old’ half of the team. I’m not rushing out for botox and collagen just yet, but I have been wistfully admiring the youthful skin of our new graduate and wondering if I appeared that impossibly young when I started at the department.

The other day, I was laughing with one of the boys (five years younger than I, but it may as well be ten. Egad! He’s never heard of Monkey Magic or The Goodies!) over an amusing anecdote he was telling about being set up with an eager girl.

“So why didn’t you like her?” I asked. “She was pretty, wasn’t she? And she has a good job?”

He stared incredulously at me. “I couldn’t go out with her!” he said, horrified. “She was as old as you!”

I briefly considered what the Delicate Flower would do were she confronted with such a remark, but immediately pooh-poohed her natural course of action. Why bother with the red-tape of stress leave when old-age retirement is just around the corner?

Bitchin' Blog

2009-07-31T00:05:00.002+10:00

This is going to sound horribly mean and spiteful, but sometimes, there are some things that have to be said. I’m afraid that if I don’t spit these poisonous thoughts out now, they’ll accidentally blurt out during my first encounter with a long-absent colleague tomorrow. These are lessons that, based on recent data, I’ve learnt from the Department of Meat Products:

* Apparently it’s alright to appear for a mere total of three weeks at one’s desk even though one has been employed in the team for 18 months. You see, even after secondment interstate, practically every training course available and a six-week junket to a delightful tropical isle, one can always find an extra five weeks of courses to go on in order to avoid that pesky little thing called work.

* When one is at one’s desk instead of away doing unnecessary training, one should while away that tedious time on the most superfluous tasks one can reasonably pretend are related to the work one is actually employed to do.

* If one is going to take indefinite stress leave over trivial non-incidents, one should time it to ensure a smooth transition into the above-mentioned six-week junket. There’s no sense in being at work when one can be out shopping for bikinis and sunglasses.

* One needs at least five days at home to recover from nearly two months in an island paradise. Those twenty-hour working weeks and business class flights are terribly taxing, you know.

Yes, I know jealousy and bitterness are ugly things. It’s just that, for the last several weeks I’ve been shouldering a heavy workload on my own while others are off padding their CVs and enjoying themselves. Then I discover that instead of coming back and helping, or even allowing the team to share in the results of tens of thousands of dollars worth of brain-stuffing, the beneficiaries of this uncharacteristic Departmental munificence are not expected to help out in any useful way. How silly I was to make the logical assumption that the training which cost so much time and money would be applied in a direct and appropriate way! Clearly, I still have a lot to learn about fathoming the decision-making processes of recruitment officers and upper management.

I wonder if they offer a training course for that?

You Know You Want To

2009-07-04T23:17:00.002+10:00

Please don’t embarrass yourselves and me with any more fruitless denials. We all know you’ve been dying to read my responses to the meme of Eight, kindly forwarded on to me by Little Snoring. Very well, Dear Readers, I shall grant you your hearts’ desire:

Eight things I’m looking forward to:
1. Having enough free time all at one go to be able to do something worthwhile. When I’m not at (paid) work, I can usually find a couple of minutes here and there to amuse myself with reading blogs of a short and instantly-gratifying nature, but settling down to my own blog, or some other project, is pretty much out of the question. That my time is spent with my children is as it should be, so I’m not complaining, but there are days when the self-loathing arising from doing nothing creative or active at all almost drives me to become one of those organised, multi-tasking, hard-working supermums who can do it all. Almost.

2. Being slim and fit again. It’s a shame that merely looking forward to something doesn’t make it so.

3. All my children being completely toilet trained and able to wipe their own bottoms. I feel a bit guilty saying something of that nature, because as all mums and dads know, parenting is as much about the journey as it is about the destination. But I’ve been wiping bottoms and changing poohey nappies continuously for over five years now, and it would be good if that were taken off my daily ‘to do’ list. Then again, having another little baby would be nice…

4. Long-awaited and much-needed training for my job in the Department of Meat Products. Now that every other person in my team, including my juniors that have been with us all of five minutes, has already been on this training, it looks like it might finally be my turn. You know, next financial year and barring unforeseen circumstances and taking into account the spending cuts necessary to pay for the Department’s new whizz-bang gadgetry and after some other underling turns up and has their turn…

5. The end of winter. I grew up in the tropics. I was never meant to be this cold.

6. Finishing this post. Good God, people, I started it weeks ago! (See point 1)

7. My sister and her family visiting in December. As delightful as the religious hatred, the suicide bombers, the constant threat of rockets and missiles, and the necessity of armed guards at the children’s school must be, I think we’re all selfishly looking forward to having them home from Israel for Christmas.

8. NaNoWriMo. The exact period of time has elapsed since my first attempt at NaNoWriMo last year, for me to feel pleasantly nostalgic about the whole experience and to start fondly planning my next 50,000 word crap-baby. I’m sure in five months’ time I’ll be cursing myself for my crackpot schemes.

Eight things I did yesterday*:
1. Tried to fool myself that joining in with the kids while they warmed up for their tiny tots gymnastics class, constituted an aerobic workout (see point 2, above).

2. Proved to the unkind television programmers that I will stay up ridiculously late to watch Heroes.

3. Cooked home-made sausage rolls. These are a lot like frozen sausage rolls in that they have no real meat in them, but as opposed to those filled with snouts and woodpulp, they’re actually reasonable healthy – I got the recipe out of a self-proclaimed healthy cooking magazine and everything. But don’t tell Mr. Lonie and the kids that. It’s our little secret.

4. Made the mistake of checking my email too late at night to call someone about a message they sent. She wanted to meet me and the kids at 10 am the next day. Oh! How I laughed. On days when I’m at home with them, we’re lucky if we’ve eaten breakfast by then.

5. Pashed a tall, dark and handsome man. Let’s hope Mr. Lonie doesn’t find out (wink, wink).

6. Very nearly called (what I think was) a man, ‘Madam’. The funniest thing was, the music playing over the PA system was Dude (Looks Like a Lady).

7. Ran out of fuel for the Gulfstream midway to Paris. We had to stop off in Dubai and make do with last-minute accommodation at the Burj Al Arab for the night. Next time you feel like complaining about your day, spare a thought for me and my troubles, eh?

8. Decided to make up an outrageous lie. My second-best Rolex to the first person to guess which part of this post I fabricated.

*By 'yesterday', I do of course mean at any time in the past few weeks since I was handed the baton of this meme. If you didn't realise not much of interest happens to me in one day, you haven't been reading my blog long enough.

Eight things I wish I could do:
1. Afford to fly a private jet to Paris, with a stop-off in Dubai.

2. Be completely fluent in several languages. A dozen would do.

3. A chin-up.

4. Write a book. A good book. One that would be published and become a bestseller and make millions. (Private jets don’t grow on trees.)

5. Be a better parent.

6. Finish this damn post.

7. Sing (in a way people find pleasant, O maliciously literal genie)

8. Exhibit fine artistic talent.

Eight shows I watch (or have watched):
1. Heroes. Yes, it’s well past the peak of enjoyability, comprehensibility and decent timeslotting. Yes, nothing ever seems to be permanently and satisfactorily resolved. Yet I keep watching – perhaps I feel some resonance of similarity, what with my very mild superpowers (of which, more later).

2. How I Met Your Mother.

3. Futurama. Surprisingly sweet and poignant ongoing storylines, and in many ways superior to The Simpsons.

4. Spicks and Specks.

5. Pride and Prejudice (, The BBC’s 1995 mini-series production of). Mr. Lonie gave the DVD to me for Christmas one year. Love it.

6. America’s Next Top Model. I couldn’t care less about Tyra or the bitching or the so-called real-life drama, I just like to look at the pretty (or not-so-pretty, as the case may be) pictures. I was rather disappointed when its run on free-to-air here was abruptly terminated.

7. Monkey, aka Monkey Magic. Who didn’t watch and love this as a child? Who didn’t play at summoning magic pink flying clouds, or creating clone warriors from a single plucked hair? I even had the soundtrack. If anyone would like to buy me the complete DVD boxed set, please do.

8. Iron Chef. Yah boo sucks to crappy rip-offs; only the real crazy Chairman Kaga will do.

Now, I'm supposed to tag eight more people to participate in this meme, but I'm pretty sure everyone I read has either done this already, or is too loftily high up in the blogging tree to take any notice of what the plebs rooting around down here in the dirt are doing. Besides, as grateful as I am for being included like one of the popular kids, I've spent so long on this (embarrassing, isn't it, given the result?) that I'm heartily sick of it. So, a big wet raspberry to the sacred internet meme. I FORBID ANYONE ELSE TO DO THIS!

Rumours Of His Death...

2009-06-26T10:12:00.001+10:00

As I write, the death of Michael Jackson has yet to be officially confirmed, although it’s widely reported as being an unquestionable fact.

The reaction of the hard-hearted cynic in me, upon hearing such news, usually goes something like Pshaw! Where’s the body, then? I want conclusive DNA tests!

As distasteful and shameless a stunt as it would be, I’m half hoping that the whole story has been concocted by Michael and his publicity agents to ensure an extended sell-out concert run for his upcoming tour, if only to enjoy watching Karl Stefanovic – drunken tv host unextraordinaire – squirmily back-pedal his way out of another lapse of professional standards. One can’t deny Michael has involved himself in many an ill-advised publicity situation before – think baffling marriages, dangling babies and naively candid documentaries.

On a different tack, if anyone were likely to be a client of Lisle von Rhoman’s, surely Michael Jackson would. Anonymity would be a high price for someone accustomed to revelling in fame, but surely for immortal beauty ’twould be gladly paid by a deeply troubled man dogged by repeated allegations of unsavoury criminal conduct, universally judged to be unfit to care for three innocent children, and addicted to cosmetic procedures beyond the ability of his mortal body to endure.

Am I the only crazy conspiracy theorist who thinks it suspiciously convenient that the very rich seem to die when personal scandal catches up with them? Christopher Skase, Rene Rivkin, Hansie Cronjie – oh yes, they’re all living it up on some exotic tropical island that mere plebs like us are too poor to even know exists, laughing over cigars rolled on virgins’ thighs and brandy distilled in the bellies of unicorns about how they fooled the world. Ol’ Wacko is on his way there now, giggling effeminately and admiring his alabaster skin in a diamond-bordered hand mirror. It all makes perfect sense…

…Except that now it’s been confirmed the reports have not been exaggerated. His three poor, maladjusted children are now to be exposed to the cruel real world with which they doubtless have never been taught to cope, and some slimy opportunists will make millions off the whole affair.

Whaddya know, it is a bloody tragedy after all.

Medicine

2009-06-08T08:00:00.000+10:00

I don’t think it’s terribly healthy that I’m developing an aversion to my own blog. I mean, it’s supposed to be a cathartic outlet for my pent-up rantings, right? But if a palpable dread pulsates in my guts at the mere thought of logging on for a look, let alone writing a new post, then it’s not really fulfilling its raison d’être, is it?

Anyone who studied psychology in high school, or ever watched an episode of Dr. Phil, can tell me that it’s some sort of associative aversion stemming from the focus of recent posts on my friend’s sad and untimely death. Understandable, you might say (if you were making generous allowances for the special Lonie brand of irrational mental processes), until I reclined on your leather consulting couch and told you that now even thinking of turning on the laptop gives me the collywobbles.

Enough!

While I needed to scoop the last few entries out of my bubbling brain and deposit them somewhere before they boiled over and caused a messy accident, I can’t let this blog become like my teen-angst-filled diaries: too painful to read, silly and self-absorbed though it may be. This is supposed to be a refuge from polite conversation, a bastion of unrestrained ranting on topics which cannot be visited in real life without unpleasant consequences. If I can’t come here anymore because of psychosomatic gut-churnings, then I may as well sew my mouth shut and administer my own lobotomy to enable me to cope with the petty trials of my family and work.

Besides, though you’re all too kind and polite to say it, you must be getting tired of my morose and downbeat blogging. I’m sincerely grateful for the support I’ve received from my readers during this and other low times, but there are enough personal and communal problems in the world without me contributing to compassion fatigue with my endless and futile musings on her death.

Let me then pour into my blog’s wounded bosom the balm of a humorous song:

Hee hee. I feel better already.

Memento

2009-06-07T00:41:00.003+10:00

"Babo will protect you. Having a bad day? Someone giving
you a hard time? Babo's got your back. What Babo lacks in
mind power, he makes up for in love. He's everybody's best
friend. He will stick with you to the end and when something
scary happens, he will send you a nice greeting card from
wherever it is he runs away to.

A very curious, mischievous creature, Babo may need some
guidance and parenting, so make sure to bring him with you to as many places as possible. Leaving him at home is fine, but
please put all cookies and money on the highest shelf."

He helped her through some bad days. He even went to the funeral. I happened upon his twin while wandering aimlessly around the shops, and he happened to be on sale.

When it suits me, I choose to believe in signs – of which, more later – and it makes me happy.

Another She

2009-06-07T00:15:00.002+10:00

"So if you wanna burn yourself remember that I LOVE YOU,
And if you wanna cut yourself remember that I LOVE YOU,
And if you wanna kill yourself remember that I LOVE YOU,
Call me up before you're dead, we can make some plans instead.
Send me an IM, I'll be your friend”

From Loose Lips by Kimya Dawson

In a parallel universe, that’s just what happened. The thought makes me smile.

The Party Guest

2009-05-23T01:17:00.002+10:00

She stepped uncertainly into the ballroom, smiling shyly as bystanders turned to regard the newcomer with mild curiosity. She wasn’t the outgoing sort who could easily jump into conversation with complete strangers at such a large and crowded function, so she stayed by her parents, with whom she’d arrived, until she felt confident to leave their side and mingle with other guests.

As the evening progressed, her confidence grew and she wandered freely throughout the many rooms of the spacious mansion. Some she merely passed through, perhaps exchanging a word or a smile, sometimes even unheeded by the busily chattering occupants. In other rooms she lingered with new acquaintances and, over laughs and shared interests their initial rapport developed into friendship. In small giggling bands they’d roam the house filled with so many guests from all walks of life, dropping some people off here and picking others up there like a virtual bus offering room to room service.

She hadn’t been at the party long – certainly not long enough to have tasted each dish in the magnificent feast nor inspected each artwork gracing the walls – when she became aware of a dull and persistent pain. Her head began throbbing with a migraine that grew continuously worse despite the medication and distraction she employed to ameliorate it. However, not wanting to complain or spoil anyone else’s night, she endured the pain as best she could. She continued to talk, to laugh, to enjoy the revels the host had provided, and very few of the other guests at the party noticed anything more than a brief grimace of pain on her face when she thought no-one was looking.

The night wore on, but alas, despite the otherwise wonderful time she’d been having, the pain grew too much for her to endure. Her parents begged her to stay, promising unimagined delights yet to come that would banish her torment. Seeing the distress the prospect of her retiring early caused, she relented and agreed to stay longer. She excused herself and promised to return soon, smiling fondly at how happy she’d made everyone she cared for, by concealing the extent of her distress, and her true intentions.

Slipping upstairs, she wandered about the living quarters opening this door and that until she found a beautiful room to soothe her ailing body, and a soft, warm bed to lull her to sleep. Gratefully snuggling under the covers, she closed her eyes and her breathing slowed. Her last thought before she floated gently into oblivion was of happiness because finally, after such a long night of endurance and pretence, her pain was seeping away.

When the other guests realised she’d gone, they were sad and regretful. They’d enjoyed their conversations with her and wished she would return to grace them with her smile, her knowledge, her humour and her kindness again. For some, the food tasted like ash and the drink like vinegar without her there to share in it. The music was tuneless, the conversation dull, and suddenly remaining at the party until its end seemed not a delight, but a chore.

But the swirling human currents of such large gatherings soon brought these downhearted guests into contact with other people who had met her in different rooms, chatted with her on other topics. And through the sharing of fond remembrances and recollections they came to realise how many facets this enigmatic party guest had, all of which she never displayed to any one person. Though all who met her that night wished she’d stayed longer at the party, they came to understand, by piecing together the clues each person offered, that she could not remain at peace if she stayed.

Through understanding came the consolation that, after all, the party would soon end and everyone would have to leave. Eventually they’d all wander sleepily up to the guest rooms their host had prepared, glad to place their tired heads upon the pillows and rest their aching feet. And in the morning, when sleep had cured a magnitude of woes and the bright sun streamed through the opened curtains, they’d all be together again.

Regrets

2009-05-03T12:12:00.001+10:00

I’m sorry, Internet. It seems dreadfully self-indulgent of me to still be sad and crying more than a month after she died. The truth is, my honest self-assessment is that I’m coping with her death and how it came about, but in the times when I’m alone, the times when mundane tasks leave my mind free to wander, self-punishingly, back to painful reflections, the grief and bitter regret return.

It is self-indulgent. After all, nothing will bring her back. And, disaffected Catholic though I am, I still believe she has found peace and contentment in a so-called ‘better place’; how could I wish her back in a world in which she suffered more than she could bear?

But the regrets will always be there like scars on my soul.

I should have been flying to her wedding, not her funeral.

Still here.

2009-04-20T23:08:00.004+10:00

Hello. I'm still here - I've not gone into a lifestyle tailspin and taken to drowning my sorrows or anything. I'm not contemplating (my own (imminent and self-caused)) death. I just don't know what to say, that's all.

There are so many things I feel like I want to write but, as usual, my clumsy interface between synapse and concrete syntax is letting me down. The aftermath of tragedy deserves more skillful handling than I can currently provide.

This will shock all of my regular readers, but for once, when I figuratively utter the following, I'm not moaning about my own petty problems: sometimes, life just isn't fair.

Gone.

2009-04-02T22:16:00.002+11:00

Now I understand how people can blog at times like this. The mechanics of typing, the whirring of one’s brain focused on something so trivial are a blessed distraction.

Earlier today I learned a friend of mine has died. I would say a good friend of mine, but obviously I was not a good enough friend, or I would have called her more recently than…when? I can’t even remember. It must be about a year ago. Yes, I’ve been busy and time certainly does fly by with a life like mine, but a year?

She killed herself.

I don’t know what to say or do that isn’t wallowing in self-pity for my own culpability in her death. I’ll settle for goodbye.

Peace, Mel.
xxx L

Killing Me Softly

2009-03-31T00:43:00.003+11:00

It sounds like the most arrogant kind of ingratitude, but when my boss told me that I write beautifully, it really didn’t fill me with the delight that it should have. Please don’t think I wasn’t happy to hear that my work is appreciated – who doesn’t like hearing praise? It’s just that for fifteen years I’d nurtured the dream of being an author, but I’d just returned to work after the crushing post-NaNoWriMo realisation that I was even worse at creative writing than that small voice inside me had been droning for some time. I’d confronted the dashing to smithereens of my dream, no less shocking even though I knew it was built on the shaky foundations of a conspicuous lack of talent and drive. So, praise for reports produced for the Department of Meat Products, though gratifying in its way, was killing me softly: a dagger slid between my ribs during a friend’s embrace. I felt rather as I imagine a classical pianist who aspires to concert fame would, on being congratulated for the most technically correct scales the auditor had ever heard.

Worse, now my reputation for ‘beautiful reports’ on inspiring subjects such as the relative qualities of lard and suet has spread. Despite becoming somewhat of a joke among my peers, my commonplace ability to pen informative and concise reports with acceptable grammar and spelling has grown into exaggerated mythical proportions, and I tremble like an overgrown poppy on my too-slender stem, waiting for the humbling blow to fall. Will it be a noun-verb disagreement? Bad syntax? An unfortunate reference to Mr. Willy Dick’s delicious sausage?

As sensible as I am of my own inherent failings, I must be allowed to plead the oh-so-slightly mitigating circumstance of my compounded and extended case of baby-brain. Almost fifteen months after the birth of Neptune (baby number three), its effects on my powers of retention and recall have barely abated. My brain still feels horribly slow and stupid and foggy and completely unfit for applying to higher-order skills. Words elude me like butterflies flitting from my clumsy grasp, to the extent that attempting to draft a simple report on 'Worst Wurst' has driven me close to tears for want of a simile. Needless to say (though say it I will) my attempts at story writing are more painstaking yet noticeably poorer than they were five years ago. I even consulted my doctor about my distressing condition, and although I passed the dementia test with enough conviction to avoid being bundled off to the Alzheimer’s ward just yet, I wasn’t comforted by her assurance that my former brain function (such as it was) would probably begin to return in five years’ time or so.

The alarming thing is, a mot juste is no longer the dearest thing my motherhood-addled brain is costing me. Last week I was nearly cleaned up by a truck when I momentarily forgot who had the right-of-way at a four-way intersection. Perhaps my language centre is not the only part of my brain inhibited by post-natal hormones, because instead of being cautious during that time of uncertainty, I swung out on the road, confident in my erroneous judgement, and was lucky the truck driver was paying attention. I got away with an angry and well-deserved blast from the truck driver’s horn; cheap punishment indeed, considering my children were with me and could have been injured or maimed or killed. Of course I am now determined to drive like the most frustrating old granny if that’s what it takes to get where I’m going safely, but given that in some alternate universe Mr. Lonie’s entire family died due to his wife’s unreliable brain, taking disproportionately long to slave over a piece of unfulfilling writing doesn’t seem that important. Between killing me softly with words and killing me dead with a ten tonne truck, I'll take the pain of a, "Beautiful report, Lonie!" any day.

Back Where I Belong

2009-03-27T00:36:00.001+11:00

Yes, yes, I’ve come crawling back, though not, I’m afraid, with any measure of epiphanic wisdom or hard-won increase in writing talent. (And yes, nearly four months after the end of NaNoWriMo, I am still moaning over the confronting lessons it taught me about the similarities to actual crap of my verbal evacuations, and the sheer laughability of my career aspirations.) I’m not sure that announcing a comeback to the ol’ cathartic outlet for my pent-up rantings is a good idea, seeing as I really don’t know whether I have it in me to make a decent go of it. More than 14 months after baby Neptune I’m as tired as ever, and still as thick as a Palin sandwich. (Don’t know what that means? Neither do I. Point illustrated.) However, I’ve been languishing in an internet purgatory of sorts, and finally decided I’d had enough.

Do you remember the bouts of infidelity I confessed to last October? Well, the latter relationship turned sour, as these things always do, and I huffily flounced away from Yahoo Answers, never to return. Like the most despicable kind of cheater, I ran blindly into the arms of the closest willing substitute and found myself embroiled in an unfulfilling relationship with Answerbag. As chagrined as YA left me, Answerbag was positively yawn-inducing in comparison, and long past the time I should have left (ie: at our first meeting) I stayed, perhaps out of a subconscious belief that intercourse with idiots was all I deserved. But now I’ve realised that life’s too short for dalliances with shameless ignorami and blustering morons. I’ve come back to the cosy surrounds of my own little nook in this vast and indiscriminate internet, made happy by this knowledge: there’s only room for one shameless ignoramus and blustering moron here.

Pathetic Apathetic

2009-01-04T00:12:00.003+11:00

*Sigh* I know I've sorely neglected this poor little blog, and I'm sincerely regretful.

It's not that my fondness for blogging has diminished, more that my occupation with real life has grown. Of course, in the hands of someone more capable, my paid and unpaid employment and decidedly non-cyber hobbies would pose no barrier to regular blogging, but in truth I haven't the heart for it. Oh, I'll begin composing blog entries in my head, flattering myself that someone among my kind readers or poor lost internet wanderers cares to read my latest whinge, but these days the whole process of drafting, redrafting, editing and publishing all seems too laborious.

As eye-rollingly wannabe-tortured-writer as it sounds, I think NaNoWriMo has ruined me for creative writing, for now at least. I know everyone's NaNo novel is supposed to suck, but I'm pretty sure no contestant who entertains hopes of a career in writing ever produced anything as cringingly woeful as my particular bucket load of crap.

I can't bring myself to lay bare the shocking revelations of last November's novel experiment just yet. In the meantime, I will resign myself to writing reports on bratwurst and delicatessen statistics in my capacity as lowly minion at the Department of Meat Products. You, Dear Reader, must content yourself with reading the millions of other blogs which are better written and more entertaining than mine.

Until my reserves of self-delusion replenish themselves, au revoir!

Rhymes With Punt

2008-12-01T21:52:00.001+11:00

It was my first day back at work today (groans of disappointment all round), much of it spent on tedious back-to-work chores such as cleaning the revolting pigsty of a desk I was allocated, and trying to persuade the IT people that yes, I really did need a computer today and not in a week’s time. I was reminded of a job I used to work at with similarly anal IT policies, where everyone was assigned a computer logon, no doubt so the boss could keep track of who was updating their blogs or looking up porn (which amounts to much the same thing for some people).

These logons were, very imaginatively, composed of the first three letters of one’s family name plus the initial of one’s given name. Mine, for example, was POLL, from POLony, Lonie, and random words like that were about the limit of the amusement to be derived from this Big Brother measure. One day, I happened upon a list of new starters who would soon be receiving their shiny new logons which, if they were lucky, might be paired with an actual working computer somewhat younger than the Pleistocene mammoth.

Now, regular readers are apprised of my level of (im)maturity and enjoyment of asinine humour, so you may well imagine my utter delight and boundless glee when I read down the list to one gentleman in particular.

His name was Terrance Cunningham.

Paraphrasing Oates

2008-10-31T00:28:00.001+11:00

So, this whole NaNoWriMo thing…I’m simultaneously apprehensive about it in a will I survive with my remaining wits intact? kind of way, yet sanguine about my ability to win the challenge. I mean, clearly it’s possible, but it should also be probable if I can better organise myself, submit to rigorous self-discipline, put off procrastinating*, and stop worrying about the aesthetic state of myself and the house.

IF. (For those of you who aren’t rebus fans, that’s one big ‘if’.)

On the bright side, I’ve already implemented one of those conditions. I ceased to care what I looked like some time ago, and I’ve come to terms with the fact that the house will never feature in Home Beautiful magazine, so the prospect of thirty days of no showers and an unchecked mess that swallows large items of furniture, doesn’t faze me.

Today being (gulp!) the last day of October, I will have to bid you all au revoir, but should you already have cleaned out your toe lint and reorganised your pantry and have nothing better to do, you can keep track of my progress (or mortifyingly woeful lack thereof) via the widget in my sidebar. Until December, then!

I am just staying inside, and may be some time.

*See what I did there? Don’t tell me Lonie Polony can’t make tautological jokes with the best of ’em.

I shall be played by Janeane Garofalo

2008-10-29T23:28:00.004+11:00

A scene from the movie of my life:

Magistrate: The accused, Lonie Polony, is charged with obscene exposure, offensive conduct, malicious damage of property, and affray.

It is alleged that on the first of December, 2008, the defendant ran from her home through the public streets, tearing off her clothes, screaming obscenities, and making lewd gestures at passers-by. She entered a greengrocer’s, whereupon she seized the display of capsicums and proceeded to hurl them violently to the pavement, shouting out that capsicums were grown in the nightsoil of the devil, and must be destroyed. The defendant was approached by members of the public who attempted to calm her ravings with soothing advice such as, “Cheer up, it’s not the end of the world,” but she responded with threats to insert several capsicums in each of their recta.

How do you plead?

Defence Lawyer: [stands] Not guilty, Your Honour, by reason of insanity.

Five weeks prior to the alleged incident, the defendant was a loving wife and mother to three small children, and a law-abiding member of the community. However, the pressures of running a household with sub-par skills, a steady decline in brain power, her husband’s impending four-week absence, and the looming prospect of returning to a lowly position at her place of employment, had, we can now see, taken a terrible toll on her mental health. Why else, if she were not clinically insane, would she make a snap decision to register for NaNoWriMo, when she clearly had neither the time nor the wit to handle such a challenge?

Over the course of the month of November, while her husband continued interstate and her children suffered under the increasing tyranny of her dissociative identity
‘Mean Mum’, the defendant’s mental state declined still further under the added stress of completing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days – a feat she has been unable to accomplish in all the years since deciding to write – and she became completely mentally incapacitated by full-blown psychosis.

Therefore, while the incidents of the day in question were certainly regrettable, my client should in no way be held responsible for them. [sits]

Magistrate: [sympathetically] Ah. Is her fragile mental state also the reason the defendant has chosen to dress in maternity clothes?

Defence Lawyer: Er…why not.

Magistrate: Very well. I hereby acquit the defendant of all charges!

Holy Unreachable Goals, Batman! What have I done?!

Bum Glove

2008-10-29T14:36:00.000+11:00

It’s a sad day when one discovers one’s emergency underpants fit like a glove.

Is it also bad that my maternity shorts are the most comfortable choice in the drawer?

Literally

2008-10-24T23:48:00.000+11:00

I sometimes write about how trying it is to mother my three young children but, since I’m sure it would bore to tears anyone who isn’t me, Mr. Lonie or our parents, I usually refrain from prattling on about what a (nearly) constant source of delight my little ones are.

Earlier this week I was attempting to make homemade paper kites (ostensibly as art and craft for Miss and Master Lonie, but secretly because I’ve never flown a kite and always wanted to) and becoming increasingly frustrated at how unexpectedly difficult it was. Hadn’t the darn sticks and string and paper listened to their grandparents? Hadn’t they watched sentimental nostalgia on television which taught us that little boys in short pants made their own kites, knocked together a billy cart and built a tree house all before lunchtime? WHY WERE THEY NOT COOPERATING?!

“Master Lonie!” I snapped as my two year-old badgered the baby with what was intended to be loving fraternal engagement. “How many times do I have to tell you not to annoy Neptune?”

Head tilted, he considered carefully and delivered his answer with a guileless smile.

“Umm…four?”

From my internal wellspring bubbled the pride and love to wash away my frown. For a moment, all was right with the world.

Dinner Debrief

2008-10-20T23:13:00.002+11:00

What is it about being in a cooking and cleaning frenzy and asking them to run along because you’re just too busy right now, that makes them want to hang around, getting underfoot and pestering you with questions? Sometimes I wonder whether husbands are much use at all, after all the begetting is done.

Mr. Lonie’s begetters arrived early – all the better to catch me sprinting naked from the shower to my bedroom – but fortunately the ones from whose loins I fruited turned up soon after to step into the breach and spare me from the awkward small talk that passes for conversation between the Inane Ones and arguably their least favourite child-in-law.

I was amused, but not surprised, to observe the in-laws eating curry and rice with a fork. Apparently they live in some bizarro ’50s White Australia (no doubt their idea of heaven) where spoons are for serving and dessert only. I considered setting their places with a knife and fork, but dismissed that idea because, as I have discussed previously, I’m a passive-aggressive soceraphobe. And though they did submit to eating curries that – quelle horreur! – contained no Keen’s Curry Powder or fruit chutney, they screwed up their faces and exclaimed in revulsion at the offer of mango lassi. That suited me and my lassi-friendly belly just fine.

The cake I was so worried about was dense and rich, with the hint of a crunchy crust I like so much. It would have been an absolute triumph if it was a chocolate mudcake, but alas it was a Genoise sponge. It was bloody awful, but to the in-laws’ credit, they ate every crumb I served them and said it was good.

Overall, the night wasn’t as bad as I’d feared, and I even told Mr. Lonie we should entertain more regularly, if only so our house gets a good clean now and then. In fact, his family is coming around next week, for his birthday dinner. They said they’d bring the cake.

Hosting a Successful Dinner Party

2008-10-17T23:39:00.002+11:00

“First, make sure you agree to host dinner at your house, without really meaning to. It helps if your place is the smallest and shabbiest available venue. Don’t worry that your dining table only seats four – the surplus adults will be delighted by the novel experience of eating their dinner on the couch, at the coffee table.

Remember to invite your parents-in-law (again, without really intending to). It’s alright if you’re hosting an Indian food night; your father-in-law will, after seventy-odd years, suddenly decide that it’s okay to eat something other than English-style meat and potatoes. And your mother-in-law won’t criticise you, your house or the food. She’ll do all that behind your back where you needn’t hear it.

Decide to make a complicated and risky cake for the very first time. The results will be even more spectacular if you run out of time to do it the night before, and have to squeeze baking into a very busy morning.

Lastly, ensure all the cleaning and tidying is left so late it is only partially completed. Your guests will enjoy the homey ambience of your child-modified décor.”

I am sorely regretting telling Mr. Lonie we should entertain, and am experiencing the first hints of panic about tomorrow…

Breaking News! Part Two

2008-10-15T20:29:00.001+11:00

…But you’ve probably never lost track of time and almost been late to pick up your children at childcare because you were too busy making fun of someone else in your blog…

Breaking News!

2008-10-15T17:21:00.001+11:00

Life with six kids is chaos!

Oh, Angelina, I can sympathise. I often wonder how you manage your millions of dollars, your luxury homes, your private jet and your retinue of domestic servants on top of six children.

The Middleman

2008-10-14T20:57:00.000+11:00

I find it endlessly frustrating and disappointing that the images I see in my mind’s eye and the passages that sound so good in my head, never seem to translate properly to paper. Clearly, the tiny little person operating the gears and levers that power my typing fingers wears coke bottle glasses and is somewhat hard of hearing.

My Brain Is Like Recycled Toilet Paper

2008-10-13T20:02:00.000+11:00

Let me explain:

Q. How do you recycle toilet paper?
A. Hang it up and beat the crap out of it.

It was once pristine, useful, full of promise, something adaptable to anyone’s needs. I chose to wipe it on the arse of apathy and laziness, after which it was screwed up by the hand of post-natal Alzheimer’s.

It was full of crap for a while, which I smeared generously around the walls of this little room in the Hotel Internet, but now it’s beaten, empty, shredded and useless except as the punch line to a bad joke.

Not that it was ever my aim in writing this, but over the last few weeks I’ve come to the disappointing (but not surprising) conclusion that no-one is going to offer me squillions of dollars for a newspaper column or book deal, and that if I want to accomplish anything I’ve vaguely listed under ‘life goals’*, something’s gotta give. Something like this blog.

Still, like any piece of bog roll – created, after all, to deal with crap – I’m not one to give up when a geyser of pointless, drivelling verbal diarrhoea is crying out for attention. So I’ll still be lingering here like a bad smell around a Chinese public squat toilet, but will have to dispense for the time being with the fulsome diatribes that I’m obstinately sure my (lovely and kind) eight readers and the occasional misled porn enthusiast enjoy so much. The new Lonie™ Polony will now be served in cocktail size, though I hope without less banger for your buck.

That is all. You may flush.†

*You may recall the career to which I once or twice professed to aspire, but which I’m now too embarrassed to mention because of my total lack of discernible progress. Plus, in case you’ve missed all the self-pitying whining, I’m now a rather busy mother of three.

†No, I no longer have any idea what I’m on about, either. Nine months on, I’m still hoping my distressing decrease in brain function is due to temporary baby brain, but I’m beginning to worry.

Home Remedies

2008-10-08T22:47:00.003+11:00

One doesn’t parent a young family without picking up a few home remedies along the way. Here is one I discovered this morning, which I’d like to share with you.

A Cure For Sleepfulness
Take one sleeping child which has crept unnoticed into your bed. While your husband attempts to reposition the child, have him smash its head into your skull.

Will also cure lack of headache.

If you’re really lucky, another time I’ll share my closely guarded remedy for slimness.

Hail To The Bus Driver!

2008-10-08T00:10:00.002+11:00

Dear Mr. Bus Driver,

I want to thank you for the wonderful bus trip you gave us today. Catching the bus with three small children and an unwieldy pram is not always easy, so I was pleasantly surprised at the effort you made to ensure our ride was entertaining and enjoyable.

I must admit, when you first turned around and angrily accused my children and me of playing with the ‘Stop’ buttons, I was somewhat taken aback, and could only protest our innocence to you and the busload of passengers. Then it dawned on me (I can be rather slow sometimes) that you were performing for us an impromptu cabaret to make the time pass more quickly, a conclusion borne out by the discovery that you had cleverly rigged the Stop signal to sound every time the doors closed.

Even as I applauded this feat of mechanical ingenuity, you further astounded me with both your acting and safe driving skills when you entered into a mock shouting match with another passenger, while negotiating the busy streets.

However, it is for remaining in character as a grumpy sonofabitch even as I disembarked and thanked you politely, that you are to be congratulated above all. Bravo!

Yours Sincerely,

Lonie Polony

It's Not You, It's Me

2008-10-06T01:52:00.002+11:00

Sit down, blog – we need to talk. I know I’ve been somewhat distant of late and you’ve probably been hurt and confused by that. The truth is – and you may have guessed it, no matter how little you want to believe it – I’ve been seeing other websites.

It started out as a bit of harmless fun, something to fill in those odd moments between housework and child-wrangling and bed when anything requiring time or greater-than-minimal brain power was out of the question.

My friendship with Blogspot Bingo started out innocently enough: we giggled together as I typed random words and phrases into the address bar, seeing how many of her acquaintance’s addresses we could guess. There were surprisingly many, as we discovered, but most of their blogs were defunct after only one entry. I began to suspect that BB was unacquainted with anyone not trite, unoriginal or incapable of sustained effort. There was something faintly sad about so many introductory posts, full of optimism and promises for blogging fulfilment to be had by all, which were also the final posts. BB was, as well, a jealous mistress, leaving entry after entry in my address bar and erasing details of my familiar friends in the hopes that I would forget them and dally only with her. I had no choice but to break it off.

Then came Google Image Labeller, the sly minx who, upon noticing my dissatisfaction with ineffectual image searches, whispered seductively in my ear that all would be made better. All she needed was my help – she was such a silly little thing, and I had such big, strong cerebral muscles – it would only take a minute.

“Just take a look at these pictures,” she simpered, “and tell me what you see. It’s all too much for little old me to make heads or tails of, and I’ll be ever so grateful…”

But as I soon discovered, GIL was perverted and selfish. Her pleasure came from watching me with others – morons, slow typers, she didn’t care who – and stubbornly refusing to release me from her unholy pairing until I’d debased myself by labelling pictures ‘boobs’, ‘guy’ or ‘thing’. And after witnessing me stoop so low, was she remorseful? No! I could hear her mocking laughter as she tossed me a few hundred points which were all as worthless as confederate cash. She took my time and my pride and gave me nothing in return. I left her to her slavish worshippers.

For a while there, you and I were happy together. We talked and laughed about anything and everything, reminiscent of those heady days when we first met. Then came The Crash, that cataclysmic event which thrust me back into the internet-deprived early nineties and forced me to reapportion time I’d formerly lavished on you. I discovered that I was more independent than I thought, that I could get along without you or any homepage wreckers on the side. The burden of maintaining a steady stream of tribute to satisfy your desperate demands, which had imperceptibly grown harder to bear over the last few months, dissolved away. So it was that, when we could see each other once again, my enthusiasm had waned. I felt I didn’t have time for you anymore, that perhaps I should concentrate on other things, like the novels that languish, weeping and hideously malformed, in some dark, cobwebbed corner of my Documents folder. But I cannot abandon you. It was you who lured me away from those very novels, with your promise of instant, guilt-free gratification without the hard work of plotting and character development. I loved you, in my self-absorbed way. But now, just as you were my distraction, my procrastination, you too are the obligation I run from, into the arms of Yahoo Answers.

She is the most seductive temptress of all, for she understands the human desire to declaim one’s opinion on anything and everything, to flock to others of the same mind, and derisively dismiss those who disagree. Oh, I know you’ll argue you do the same, but she delivers the anonymity of the drive-by shooting that you, with your obsession for building a reputation and fanbase, never could.

But never fear, love. I grow tired of YA’s lack of discernment, her provision of services to anyone – no matter how foolish or crazy – that requests them. I’ll come back to you soon enough and beg forgiveness for straying. It’s not you with the problem, it’s me. Everyone needs to sow their wild bytes.

Avast, Me Hearties!

2008-09-19T23:55:00.000+10:00

You know, today I was all set to write a pirate-speak post, a light-hearted piece to announce my triumphant return from the depths of Davy Jones’ locker to the ranks of those with fully-functional computers and safe internet access. But as the hours crawled almost imperceptibly by to the time when I could thankfully tuck my children into bed and have a microsecond’s peace and quiet before I collapsed with weariness myself, I realised I hadn’t the heart for Yo-ho-ho! or Shiver me timbers! My thoughts had grown as dark as Edward Teach’s famous beard. I’ve had a bad day.

Not a bad day as in lives lost or all my worldly possessions destroyed, nothing like that. Despite my flippant whinging in almost every post, I know my life is great, relatively speaking. Still, the realisation that one is woefully substandard at every endeavour one has undertaken – wife, mother, housekeeper, writer, blogger, lowly minion at the Department of Meat Products – is unlikely to induce in one a state of optimism like that of the scurvy wench Pollyanna. And the guilt of knowing I have nothing really to complain about, yet still feeling like the sloop bearing down on me has run up the jolly roger and is preparing for a broadside and boarding, only adds to the miserable richness of my self-pity stew.

But that’s life, and my usual harsh admonishment in such cases is to suck it up and carry on, doing better in the future. So I’m trying, but ye may have sailed many a sea afore the kraken of despondence loosens its grip on my frigate. Until then, there’ll be no talking like a pirate for me.

Data Errata

2008-08-15T17:59:00.002+10:00

Eek! What prognosticator, what stargazer, what scryer of crystal balls or reader of entrails could possibly have foreseen that operating a networked computer without firewalls or virus protection would result in obliterated data and total system failure?

Until everything is sorted out and I have my own working computer again, do try not to be too bereft at my absence from Bloggerland. You know - try to restrain all the wailing, tearing of hair and gnashing of teeth, because patchy-haired banshees with mouths full of worn-down nubs are not all that attractive to prospective mates or employers.

In the meantime, I'm going to drive without my seatbelt to the airport, catch an Air Nepal flight to Everest, climb it without oxygen, then base jump sans parachute. What could possibly go wrong?

Post-Holiday Laments

2008-07-29T22:38:00.001+10:00

So all that stuff I said a while ago about eating properly and losing weight, you knew that meant after my holiday, right? Because if you were to look at me now, nearly a month later, and hope to see some change for the better, you’d be sorely disappointed.

I make no apologies – there was no way I was going to spend two weeks surrounded by delicious, cheap food one can’t get here, and plentiful five-star resort buffets, only to crunch glumly on celery sticks and rye crispbread. Besides, as I realised with relief (and also a tinge of vicarious shame when I imagined what the staff must think of the rich white tourists) I was hardly the sole, nor the fattest, fatty lounging by the pool.

But the self-declared diet amnesty is not the only thing I miss about my holiday. For six months beforehand my mediocre parenting and housekeeping had me merely coping at home with three small children, daily sinking deeper in despair as the house grew dirtier and the mental list of Things My Children Will Resent Me For grew longer. Then came those fourteen days spent in the glorious tropics instead of frigid and dismal winter, when my biggest worry was fighting off over-eager porky Americans who couldn’t seem to grasp the concept of waiting their turn for hot waffles at breakfast. Even with the difficulties attendant on holidaying with children, it was such a refreshing relief for me.

Now, however, I’ve been rudely thrust back into the cold and the grey of forty degrees too far south, in a one-star house without so much as a personal chef or a maid to wean me off the luxury to which I became so easily accustomed.

If, like some girls I went to school with, you opine that going on a nice holiday makes me guilty of being a ‘rich bitch’, you may be thinking something along the lines of: Aww, jaded by all the extravagance, are we? Spoiled for normal life by an expensive trip beyond the means of many of us? Try not to drown in my river of tears, Rich Bitch! And I could see your point. Even though the holiday was years in the planning and paid for by the bequest from my mother’s mother; even though my annual childcare costs when I return to work could not only pay for the same holiday but fly us first class; even though that was probably the last time I’ll see my other grandmother – my sole remaining grandparent – alive, I see your point.

Still, after a taste of champagne it’s hard to go back to swigging goon, and I can’t help but pine for the trappings of a lifestyle I can only borrow, not keep. O where is my daily housekeeping service? Whither my breakfast spread? Where is my view of the South China Sea? Who will turn down my bed?

Older and Wiser

2008-07-26T13:25:00.001+10:00

The temperature didn’t magically rise by ten degrees, the housework wasn’t done by elves, the children still behaved as children do, and it was pretty much a day like any other. The shop-bought sponge my mum brought round as afternoon-tea-cum-unofficial-birthday-cake was dredged with that nasty, floury icing sugar mixture, and the artificial jam substitute inside was disappointingly insufficient to balance the flavour of the dubious fresh cream. The furthest I got from the house all day was the front yard, and I never even changed out of my pyjamas. That evening there was no party, no guests and no fancy dinner. The similarities with a non-event were striking.

But my mum visited with afternoon tea, and I rested at home instead of running errands or taxiing children to activities which tired me out more than them. I spent all day in my pyjamas which, as those familiar with my world of sloth will know, is one of my favourite things to do. There was no party to clean or cook for, no guests for whom to make an effort at sociability or stay up late, although I still received several touching birthday wishes. Mr. Lonie bought me the present I wanted, miraculously without baulking at the cost, and the card he gave me was chosen with more thought than I believed possible.

Even after far too many for a society obsessed with youth, birthdays are still good.

Thirty is the New Twenty

2008-07-25T00:17:00.000+10:00

…Right? I know the number 30 is arbitrary, and I may as well be just as unenthused about turning 28 (those were the days!) or 31. I know that in many respects – openness to new music and technology, reminiscing about my long-gone heyday, giving up (with a sigh of relief) on trying to be cool, consulting doctors who are too young to know who Mr. T is – I grew old a long time ago. Still, I feel an impotent reluctance to succumb to this inevitability of life, an inevitability which is apparently so horrifying this video was produced:

But oddly enough, watching that vapid girl indignantly protesting her youth to a world of strangers has a cheering effect on me. After all, I’m over my salad days and no longer grope desperately for peer acceptance, a façade to hide my insecurities, a career, a life partner or a family. I mean, youth is great and all but ah! sweet old age brings retirement and an average thirty or forty years of nothing to do except wax nostalgic about the good old days before flying cars and the terrifying reign of the giant mutant polony monster.

So happy birthday to me, and bring it on! It’s not like I’m turning 40.

Pre-Holiday Realisations

2008-06-30T00:25:00.005+10:00

nataliedee.com

Ugh, I’m disgusting. There’s nothing so abruptly disillusioning as shopping for new clothes and finding the number on the label of your best fit is much smaller than you’d hoped.

You read that right. I said smaller. You got a problem with that? Well kiss my skinny arse…if you can find it beneath the mound of blubber which has invaded and proclaimed itself emperor of the land of Gluteus Maximus, because WE’RE TALKING ROMAN NUMERALS, PEOPLE! It’s a predicament that can be expressed, in order for the blessedly slim among you to more easily relate, thus: imagine you have $1000. You spend a few dollars on ice cream here, a few on pastries there, and when you next look in your purse to see how many thickshakes you can afford, you’re shocked and appalled to discover you only have $50 left. Worse, you lose $10 without even realising it and then you’re down to $40 in loose change. 1000 --> 50 --> 40. In other, more brutal, words: M --> L --> XL. Where, I forlornly wonder, is my band of magic-potion-swilling indomitable Gauls to resist this corpulent conqueror? Alas, Liposux demands too much for his services, Aerobix and I have been estranged for some time, and Willpowa’s strength is unfortunately less than superhuman.

The sad thing about my increasing likeness to Jabba the Hutt – besides, you know, my increasing likeness to Jabba the Hutt – is that in our Western society my figure is nothing out of the ordinary. While no one is likely to confuse me for a waif who lives on cigarettes and diuretics, my daily routine does not involve screaming, “I am not an animal!” at a riled-up mob of people offended by my unnatural aspect, either.

In fact, I could probably tell anyone who was rude enough to point out my similarity to a suet dumpling that I’m still working off the pregnancy weight from my last baby and have them believe me, but in truth I’m a lot fatter now, more than five months after giving birth, than I was recovering in the maternity ward. My family’s concern that I was unhealthily skinny at that time, even at several kilos over my maximum ideal weight (calculated using BMI and plain common sense), seems to illustrate how normalised overweight has become in Australia. We’ve even supposedly acceded to the dubious honour of fattest nation in the world, although I find it hard to believe that our population of super-morbidly obese people who can only leave the house if carried by burly firemen through a hole cut in the wall, outweighs that of the land of deep-fried Coca Cola.

What really makes my chins wobble like an indignant Harold Bishop’s is when the jiggly among us insist they’ve tried everything to lose weight to no avail, even as they stuff their faces with a chocolate bar and chase it down with a packet of chips. And my pudgy little hands curl into fists of rage at the number of people who plead a thyroid or hypothalamus problem as if those fatty boombahs who aren’t afflicted with an unfortunate physiological condition making weight management difficult or near impossible are the rarity, not the lard-arsed norm. At least I can admit I got this way by being greedy and lazy.

But as enjoyable as being greedy and lazy has been for me these last few months, it’s time to reform my intemperate and indolent ways unless I want to begin buying clothes in shops with names like ‘Big Gals’ and ‘Muumuus R Us’. I know what I need to do – eat a balanced diet, consume fewer calories, exercise more – but as with so many things, getting into a healthier and less behemoth-like shape is easier said than done. I’ve just got to stop chewing the fat long enough to bite the bullet.

Caught In The Act

2008-05-25T21:22:00.004+10:00

Such assaults are never the girl’s fault, although some were likely to whisper maliciously that she shouldn’t have worn those shoes – pink wedges which would have looked at home on a stripper – or that tiny skirt, or the skimpy top that looked like it was sprayed on.

He’d taken a liking to her, that was obvious, and she went unprotestingly to him, but by the time she was in his clutches and his intentions became clear, it was too late for the poor, silly girl to escape.

Luckily for her, I walked in on them before he could irreparably defile her. I caught him slavering over her like a hungry wolf, one hand up her skirt and his open mouth hovering near her breast. She was rigid in his arms, resigned to her fate and unable even to cry out. Her golden hair, once her crowning glory, was now tellingly dishevelled, and her makeup which had always been so meticulously applied was a mocking mask for her shame.

Fearing no-one would believe him capable of such acts – for his mien was innocent and his reputation blameless – I snatched up my camera which was fortunately nearby, and took photographic proof of his deeds.

I don’t know if Barbie will ever be the same again.

The Story So Far...

2008-05-17T15:52:00.002+10:00

I love the idea of being tagged for memes – it appeases the high-school child inside me who will forever be hypersensitive to rejection and neglect – but when it comes time to list the last eight meals I’ve eaten or the literary character I identify most closely with or ten life forms I was in previous lives, I always realise how uninteresting I am and my enthusiasm for meme-ing becomes only slightly greater than that aroused by the prospect of a colonoscopy administered by a drunken Eastern Bloc ‘doktor’.

It was therefore with some delight that I found myself asked to participate in a meme with a difference, a story virus. A story virus is like the game we used to play on school camps where everyone takes turns making up part of a story, except that where the school camp story would continue along one line until the teachers sighed with relief and told us that the story was over and it was time for bed, a story virus mutates after contact with each different person, until after just a few transmissions each strain bears little resemblance to the others. In other words, the originator (Splotchy) tagged several people to continue his story. They then tagged other people to continue their diverging story lines, and so on. For a complete explanation by Splotchy, click here.

Of the Splotchy-p0nk-Lonie Polony strain of the virus, here is the story so far:

I had been shuffling around the house for a few hours and already felt tired. The doorbell rang. I opened the front door and saw a figure striding away from the house, quickly and purposefully. I looked down and saw a bulky envelope. I picked it up. The handwriting was smudged and cramped, and I could only make out a few words. [by Splotchy]

"Interesting," I thought to myself, "I don't know anybody named Ted Kaczynski. Unless it's going to clear this damn sinus infection in my head, I'll have to open it later.” I set it on the kitchen table, and prepared my tincture of herbal tea remedies. [by p0nk]

“You know,” said Jasper, as I eased gratefully into a chair, “it would probably help if you put your glasses on. You’re not as young as you used to be.”

I grimaced, both at the bitterness of the tea and the tactless reminder of my decrepitude.

“What ever would I do without you, Jasper?” I said, my voice thick with sarcasm as I donned my half-moon spectacles and pulled the envelope to me. “Dance naked and whoop for joy, probably.”

Jasper rolled his eyes but said nothing.

The blood drained from my face as I felt the last tenuous thread of what had hitherto been my reality, snap. I had woken that morning with the body of an 80 year-old man. My black Labrador Jasper was speaking in human tongue. And the envelope read:

Fred’s Emergency kit. To be opened in cases of strange, abnormal or infernal events. Guard the contents with your life!

This was something even last night’s absinthe party couldn’t explain.

Anyone who would like to contract the story virus is welcome, but I’m specifically tagging Mutley, Angela, Littlesnoring and Hungry Hungry Hypocrite.

Please humour me, people – think of my inner high-school child!

Futility

2008-05-11T12:53:00.002+10:00

Once, our house had a beautiful garden. The previous owner had applied to great effect his skills as a landscape gardener, and both the front and back yards looked like something out of a toffy magazine. Of course, when we bought the house and it came time to pay our first water bill a few weeks later, we discovered he’d used a volume of water equivalent to that of the Amazon River to maintain this botanic delight, and, thanks to our substandard conveyancer, we had no choice but to pay the outrageously high bill and the higher charge per litre on all subsequent use, for having exceeded our entire year’s quota of water.

Now, we haven’t watered the garden for years, and what was once lavished with enough potable water to quench a small nation’s thirst, now parches under the harsh sun. I don’t mind, because in these times of indefinite drought, a brown lawn and a horticultural demonstration of Spencer’s survival of the fittest are somewhat of a badge of honour, the blood upon the lintel by which the Angel of Water Conservation knows to pass over your house and fall upon that of your lush-lawned neighbour with wrath and indignation.

Trying in other ways to save water, and thinking of farming families who have to share the same tub of gradually darkening water for their daily ablutions, I’ve repeatedly shivered through shampoo and exfoliating routines with the shower turned off, at the mercy of my bathroom fan which outstrips the pathetic efforts of the heat lamps to counter its chilling effect, heat lamps which, in defiance of all the physics I learnt at school, produce light but no discernible heat.

But sacrificing my warm, non-goose-pimpled flesh and my clean, frequently-flushed toilet bowl to do my bit for public dam levels has all been for naught, as we discovered not long ago when Mr. Lonie crawled under the house on some manly mission of home maintenance. He found a thin but steady fountain of water splashing up onto the floorboards of our bedroom, which had, over a length of time too horrifyingly long to bear thinking about, caused significant water damage thitherto undetected due to its unlucky positioning beneath the bed. Once the flurry over stopping the flow and moving furniture was over, we awaited the next water bill with trepidation.

It was bad. Very bad. Even worse was the mocking irony of the situation, for the source of the leak was the reticulated sprinkler system installed by – you guessed it! – the previous owner. As chagrined as I am by the cost, as mortified as I feel about the waste, I’m most upset that all my efforts at saving water have been rendered effectively useless.

F****** utility.

Doin' It For The Kids

2008-05-03T00:52:00.002+10:00

One of the scariest things about having children is that they’re a blank slate and I, their mother, am a pen filled with indelible ink-

What’s that? Ink isn’t used on a slate, and slates are meant to be wiped clean and written on over and over again until cracked over the head of Gilbert Blythe for calling Anne ‘carrots’? Hang on, let me try again:

Children are sponges, equally capable of soaking up the milk of human kindness or the liquid faeces of the scum of humanity alike…no, wait! Children are the harshest mirrors, reflecting not our superficial appearance, but the juicy pimples on our character and conduct…

Ugh, I give up. You know what I mean; if I’m not careful, my children are going to end up the kind of slate that’s covered in swear words, pornographic doodles, and chemical formulas for illicit substances.

Bearing this in mind, I try to conceal from them the kinds of behaviour I don’t want them to emulate, and attempt not to burden their fragile developing personalities with my own psychological baggage. Obviously Mr. Lonie and I confine our Bacchanalian orgies with people we meet online at keyparties.com to times when the ten-year-old girl next door is available to baby-sit; and when the children are within earshot I spell out (instead of pronouncing) the obscenities I scream at random passers-by I don’t like the look of, but something I really struggle with is keeping my fears and phobias repressed deep inside where they can manifest at a more convenient time as something less traumatic for the children to witness, such as severe facial tics or trichotillomania.

Maybe if I were scared of unicorns or dodos or space aliens I might be more successful, seeing as we don’t get many of them around here (and even the anal probes aren’t so bad after the first two or three abductions), but unfortunately it’s spiders and cockroaches, with their creeping and scuttling and insinuating themselves into every nook and cranny in the house in order to leap out at me with fangs bared and antennae waving menacingly, that I loathe and fear. I know there are all sorts of techniques to combat such fears, but my preferred method of spraying DDT from crop dusters is frowned upon these days, just because a few scientists started bleating about cancer and birth defects and untold effects on the ecosystem (which sounds like namby-pamby bug-loving nonsense to me).

So I’m forced to suffer the iniquities of a society biased against people who simply want to eliminate all insect and arachnid life within fifty metres of their house. I must fight every natural inclination and actually approach said creatures of hell’s outhouse, and touch them with something less buffering than a ten-foot barge-pole, in order to eject them from my home. What’s more, in the interests of preserving my children’s freedom to cultivate their own bugbears without undue influence, I have to do all this with as much of a psychotically indifferent façade as I can muster, while inside I am screaming and quaking and cursing Mr. Lonie for his absence and his neglect of this basic husbandly duty.

Helping matters still less is the discomfiting realisation that, as I age, what started out as normal dislikes and aversions are amplifying into irrational, paralysing terrors. It seems that I’m doomed to end my days as a twitchy mental patient who can’t even look at the Dewey Decimal number of a book containing a reference to another book with a picture of a cockroach in it, without curling into a foetal ball and clutching to my chest the cans of bug spray I keep holstered on my hips. Death will come for me not with a scythe, but a fake tarantula dangling on a string, and as the massive heart attack sends me shuffling off this mortal coil his dry wheezy laughter will be the last thing I hear.

Nevertheless, I am, as I said, more scared of damaging forever the impressionable young minds of my children with my exaggerated dread (children are malleable clay and I am the potter…?). I’d hate to see them suffer the same unnecessary apprehensions I do, and be reduced to a whimpering mass of non-functionality every time an objectionable creepy-crawly crosses their path.

And besides, if I manipulate them just right, I’ll always have someone around to get rid of that cockroach for me.

For The Fallen

2008-04-25T15:24:00.003+10:00

“Lest we forget who?” we asked some years ago, as we passed the sandstone gatepost on which the inscription was carved.

“Jesus,” our dad answered absently, distracted by the realisation that the narrow road we were driving along was actually a wide footpath.

Common traits of courage and self-sacrifice notwithstanding, today we remember the other great man with a donkey, and the ANZACs and their successors for whom he has become a symbol.

Lest We Forget.

Oh, The Nostalgia!

2008-04-02T21:27:00.005+11:00

This kicks Emo Kid's skinny black arse.

Spicks and Specks is over, back to the washing-up.

Sort Of Dunno Nothin' by Pete Denahy

This is my laundry pile.

2008-03-30T21:37:00.003+11:00

Actually, it’s one of my piles of clean clothes, waiting to be sorted and folded and put away. Funnily enough, there’s also a similarly sized pile of dirty laundry waiting to be washed, hung out, brought in, sorted, folded and put away. Then there’s the vacuuming, the dishes, the general cleaning and the resisting of the powerful urge to curl up under my doona and rock back and forth while muttering The horror! The horror!

Acknowledged: I suck at housekeeping.

Corollary: I suck at regular blogging.

Result: I am just going outside and may be some time.

What’sa Matter You, Hey? Gotta No Respect?

2008-03-25T23:09:00.001+11:00

As a three-time gestatrix, I’ve put up with my fair share of insensitive, annoying and downright stupid remarks related to each of my pregnancies. Like the time when, having recently started work at the Department of Meat Products, I experienced sudden, excruciating belly pains and feared for the life of my 28-week-old foetus. Admitted to hospital overnight (and thankfully having everything turn out fine), I returned to work after a couple of days, only to have my supervisor at the time, who was fully aware of the reason for my absence, jest, “Now you mustn’t expect time off after every report you write!”

My stony silence obviously didn’t clue him in to the insensitivity and inappropriateness of his ‘joke’, as he then retold it on two or three other occasions. It wasn’t meant maliciously; none of the things people have said to me were, and I’ve therefore been led to wonder what is it about a pregnant woman that seems to cloud people’s judgement? Does her extruded belly-button transmit synapse-jamming radio waves? Do peripheral bystanders contract a temporary form of ‘pregnant brain’, like passive smoking?

Whatever the reason, many mothers-to-be are already struggling with physical discomfort, turbulent hormones and fluctuating emotions; if they are anything like me, they’re also hypersensitive, anxious about the baby’s development and wellbeing, and feeling guilty about everything from their diet to the exhaust fumes they couldn’t help inhaling on their way to work: thoughtless comments and irritating questions are among the last things they need, especially from family, friends and colleagues from whom they could justifiably expect more support and understanding.

As a public service, I’ve therefore compiled a countdown of utterances the clueless may consider terribly witty, amusing or interesting, but which should never be said to an unpredictable and volatile woman in reproductive mode.

7) Gee, you’re getting fat!
It’s called being PREGNANT, moron! And it’s only temporary, unlike your permanently flabby brain. (Okay, so no-one’s actually said this to me; I just really detest it when people, especially pregnant women themselves, equate baby, placenta and amniotic fluid with fat.)

6) Should you be eating that?
Let’s see: I’m an educated woman who’s read authoritative baby books and consulted closely with the obstetrician, and above all cares about the wellbeing of my baby. I’ve been eating healthy foods I never normally touch purely for the sake of my child, so if, on rare occasions, I want to indulge in a measly chocolate bar, then yes, I will bloody well eat it and thank you to keep your interfering nose out of my damn business.

5) Smile!
Everyone who’s read this will know how I feel about this brand of thoughtless interference. Yes, if I’m interacting with you in any way, I will smile and generally try to be amiable, but when I’m minding my own business, waddling to the toilet and back for the tenth time that day and feeling horribly uncomfortable and weary, your yelling this over the desk partition as I pass is more like to elicit a murderous scowl than a smile you’ve no right to request.

4) It’s a boy! No, a girl…no wait, a boy…
Predicting the gender of my baby with a dangled wedding ring or from the shape of my belly is a bit of harmless fun, but gets extremely tiresome when the prediction is revised on an almost daily basis along with perceived changes in my shape, as if I’m actually meant to credit such ridiculous lore. One colleague explained to me her own Old Wives’ Tale about predicting the baby’s sex, saying, “I think Karen is having a girl, because she looks so serene and pretty. On the other hand, I think you’re having a boy because…” She stopped short as she came too late to the realisation that calling me a haggard old crone was perhaps not the most polite thing to do. It’s not like anyone wins a prize for guessing correctly – and everyone can call heads or tails and be right some of the time – so just leave it the hell out.

3) Unspeakable tragedies.
I don’t care if it happened to someone you know, or is something you saw on the news or a TV show. How could you possibly think I need to hear what happened to this or that poor baby? Save your horror stories for a cold-hearted freak.

2) Congratulations on getting pregnant! Was it planned?
To me, the only possible subtext of this question is: “Tell me, are you irresponsible, or just stupid?” I’ll have no-one say my precious children are ‘mistakes’ or ‘accidents’. Enjoy your speculation and gossip if you must, just do it out of my earshot.

1) Has the baby come yet?
Yes. Yes it has. I just didn’t tell you because I’m a sociopathic freak. NO, THE BABY HASN’T BLOODY WELL COME! This one screamed up the charts to number one after the due date came and went. It was very popular among family, friends and colleagues alike, some of whom rang every day to play this number one hit. I had started to take the phone off the hook and avoid calling anyone lest my teeth be worn down with all the furious grinding.

I understand that many people never have and never will understand what it’s like to be pregnant, and therefore will never be able truly to empathise. If you must, set up a ranty blog like mine and rail about the irresponsible, moody, humourless cow you know, the one who’s the size of a house and probably going to lactate vinegar. But when the urge strikes to open your gob in my direction, ah SHADDUP YOU FACE!

Unforgiven

2008-03-19T22:31:00.004+11:00

It’s a little known fact* that several years ago Clint Eastwood, director and star of the eponymous movie, grew jaded and bitter from playing bitter and jaded gunslingers of one variety or another, and opted for a drastic change of career, a sea change if you will.

He experienced a brief period of happiness operating a commercial kiln patronised by a thriving community of artists – working closely with fire brought him a primitive pleasure his mere portrayals of a man’s man never could, and his desire to be involved in the creative arts was satisfied – but his contentment quickly changed to chagrin when increasing numbers of potters and sculptors approached him in bespattered smocks and beatnik berets, smirkingly asking him to “Go ahead, bake my clay.”

Enraged with the same bad joke and overuse of the term ‘sea change’, he shoved the next imprudent bohemian in the oven† and returned to show business where no-one dared mock him, not even with deliberate provocation in the form of Space Cowboys.

As instructive and amusing as the preceding vignette was, this post has nothing to do with an award-winning tale of revenge in the Wild West, and everything to do with the vendetta my body now wages against me in return for the sins of my youth and the ravages of age and lifestyle.

Accusation:
Once I had a magnificent bosom, the kind that, were it a character in one of Clint Eastwood’s westerns, would burst through the saloon doors to an instant hush from the pianola and murderously argumentative poker players. After a few seconds of awe-inspired silence, the piano man would strike up a lively honky tonk number, the whores would flounce out of their rooms to peer over the balustrade, and guns aimed under tables at cheatin’ varmints would be holstered unfired, former adversaries embracing like brothers.

Now imagine I joined the harlots in several spirited performances of the Can Can without an adequate sports bra, before spending four years suckling ravenous infants.

Reprisal:
Alright, maybe my bosom wasn’t that great, but it was pretty nice. These days, my boobs would be better cast as the subject of the song Do your ears hang low?, if you substitute ‘ears’ with ‘no-longer-so-much-funbags’.

Accusation:
For years I bent at the waist to lift heavy objects, with the nonchalant air of someone who snapped up an extra back the day Dolly Parton opted for two servings of front instead. “Calcium? No thanks!” might as well have been the cheerful up-yours I gave Dairy Australia each time I filled my glass with more Milo than milk for an eatable treat.

Reprisal:
Let’s just say I’ve selected my children’s careers for them: physiotherapist, chiropractor and masseuse.

Accusation:
In a time of vinyl records and rotary dial telephones, commodore 64s and roller rinks, Sid, like Norm, was just a likeable cartoon character with a catchy jingle in a health-awareness campaign market cornered by the bowling Grim Reaper and his bed of syringes. Much of my childhood was spent un-slopped and –slapped; I don’t recall even owning a hat until I was about 11 or 12, while zinc cream in attractive fluoro shades was just for decoration (because the ’80s were cool like that). Ra accepted my burnt offerings, and was pleased.

Reprisal:
The spectre of a leathery brown lizard woman haunts my dreams as dire warning against further carelessness.

Accusation:
I never expected I’d think wistfully back to the days when pimples made me feel like the ugliest bush-pig of all the self-conscious teenage girls at school. But O! for the time when those sweet, pus-filled tokens of youth were the only blemishes I had to contend with, when I could express my adolescent superiority and disdain with a thousand different grimaces, or sleep on my face as much as I wanted, as if my natural collagen would last forever. “Vanity!” I cried at the wrinkle cream advertisements, sure in the knowledge I would never be so foolish as to spend hundreds of dollars on potions and unguents which would, at best, only disguise the inevitable. Besides, I would wear my eventual creases with pride, for are they not signs of wisdom and gracious aging?

Reprisal:
Is anyone out there a young virgin? I need to bathe in your blood.

*Fact may contain lies
†Lonie Polony is clinically insane and therefore unfit to be prosecuted for libel

Sic Jokes

2008-03-01T00:55:00.002+11:00

Some years ago when I was planning our wedding, one reception venue’s attempt to woo our custom involved the promise of crudities on the menu. Whilst hearing the waiters tell Mr. Lonie’s horrible Aunt Mildred to “Eff off, dragon lady!” instead of offering her an hors d’oeuvre would have filled me with boundless glee, I reluctantly concluded that such a scene would not be setting an appropriate tone for the occasion.

Alas, impish Circumstance had no such thoughts of sparing my blushes the day I frantically searched the university library for any book remotely relevant to an unstarted essay due the next day. The tome I clutched desperately to my chest as I approached the loans desk was so old and obscure it had evaded the library’s computer system, and I was therefore commanded by She Who Must Be Obeyed to fill out a form with the book’s details so it could be duly catalogued. With trepidation I handed her the card, expecting an outraged reaction including immediate ejection from the library and cancellation of borrowing privileges. The name of the author was Dikshit.

Speaking of things in that general homophonic area, I’m of the puerile disposition that is endlessly amused by someone’s confusing ‘prostrate’ and ‘prostate’, but can never understand how Mr. Lonie’s parents manage to do it every single time they’re blithely discussing some friend or other’s medical history in front of me. I amuse myself by imagining Mr. Lonie’s dad during his police days pecking out a report on the typewriter: “…the victim’s prostate form was discovered in the vicinity of the rectory…”

One needn’t look far for the source of my juvenile sense of humour: my family can’t play Trivial Pursuit without recalling the legendary Game of the Misread Question, during which the immortal words, “Does Uranus have aurora?” were met with resounding hilarity. We still snigger about it after all these years.

I maintain the humble hope that you, Dear Reader, will similarly find this post worthy of the anals of history.

This Too Will Pass

2008-02-26T23:56:00.002+11:00

The good thing about Mr. Lonie going interstate for three days on business is…nothing really. It sucks, not only because something always goes wrong when he absents himself from the status quo, but because some things don’t change – there are still three small children, often boisterous, sometimes misbehaving and occasionally very naughty; there’s still a house that looks like a hoarder’s den the council finally has to clear out with a mini bulldozer following complaints from neighbours and a report on Today Tonight; and there are still two dogs who lay enough mines to make our backyard worthy of a visit from the late Princess Diana, but there’s only one responsible adult left to deal with everything.

I know I should be grateful that I’m not a single parent, and I have great admiration for those who manage to get through each day with their sanity and their kids’ happiness intact. I’ve really been trying to be more patient, tolerant, kind and understanding as a mother, for example when an overtired Master Lonie is screaming his throat raw instead of peacefully going to sleep, for no good reason except that he’s a toddler and doesn’t need a good reason, dammit!

I don’t think I’m succeeding though, because at such times I can’t help but wonder: Am I the only one who feels like hollering at my child to “SHUT UP!”, and sighs wistfully at the remote possibility of it actually working? Am I alone in daydreaming of a soundproofed, padded room for children in the throes of an inconsolable sobbing-screaming-thrashing tantrum? Is it wrong to fleetingly wish I were one of those obscenely rich, neglectful parents who employ a nanny for each child?

For the love of God, humour me. Please say no!

New Porn Babe!

2008-02-24T02:15:00.001+11:00

Roll up, randy gents and raunchy birds! Lenny O. Loopi’s the name, producin’ quality erotica’s the game. I’m fillin’ in for Lonie Polony on this bloggin’ lark while she’s busy wiv a baby clamped to ’er jubblies. I dunno wot she’s on about wiv this cathartic rantings malarky, so instead I’m gonna let you in on the juicy details o’ me latest classy production called Naughty Nurses 3: Push It Good! It’s one o’ me best films yet, ’cos it’s got a little something for everyone, even them wot like a bit o’ the kinky stuff, know wot I mean?

It’s set in a hospital, see, and opens wiv a shot of me brand new star – it’s ’er first movie an’ all – ’oo’s playin’ a patient. She’s stark naked and one o’ the naughty nurses is takin’ ’er to the shower.

“Let me ’elp you get soaped up,” she says, pumpin’ the dispenser and workin’ up a lather. “And then you can give me a shower…a golden shower!”

*Needle scratches on record with a jarring screech*

Sorry about that, people – Lonie Polony here. What my open-shirted, gold-medallioned friend was actually describing, albeit through his porn-tinted glasses, was my latest hospital stay. And jubbly-clamped as I am, I feel it incumbent on me to point out that, despite what a small group of perverted weirdos may think (I’m glaring at you, maiesiophiles), there is absolutely nothing sexually arousing about childbirth.

It’s true I was stark naked and being helped to the shower by a nurse. And she did ask me to wee in the shower, but there was definitely no Bow Chicka Wow Wow about it. For one thing, I’d just squeezed out a nearly 10-pound baby and was consequently too cavernous to provide a satisfying hidey-hole for even the largest salami. For another, I resembled not so much a post-match jelly-wrestler, but someone who’d taken a dip in a vat of meconium and uterine ‘goo’ (as Mr. Lonie scientifically termed it). And I’m sorry to disappoint any urophiles who were hoping for something more exciting, but the wee – which was not forthcoming anyway, my plumbing having suffered secondary traumatisation from witnessing the horrifying assault on my birth canal – was about the happiness of my bladder, not your excitable bits.

My boobs did look the part at one stage, being gigantic enough to rival those on the set of Lenny’s Knockout Knockers 6: Ten Gallon Jugs! But even if bosom-fanciers pretend they were engorged with silicone and not milk, there’s no ignoring the fact that I now look like the ‘before’ shot on the breast-lift segment of Extreme Makeover.

I suppose if you were inclined towards menophilia, you might find my bleeding a turn-on. You know, the kind of bleeding my male readers would probably prefer I’d warned them about before mentioning, so they could go and watch a testosterone-filled action movie (not Crimson Tide) instead. And I’ll admit it did make me fantasise about getting into someone’s pants and having something long and thick down there. But before you go rubbing your hands with glee (or whichever lube you prefer), you have to understand that the pants I dreamed of getting into were incontinence pants, and the something long and thick I wanted was what’s known in the vernacular as a surfboard. That’s right, a whopping great maternity pad for women who care more about cushioning their swollen, tender bits than frolicking on the beach or horse riding in what television tells me is the usual manner of biblically unclean women.

Maybe after glimpsing my ‘surf’s up!’ reflection in the mirror I could still have deceived myself that someone apart from certain fans of The Crying Game would find me sexy, were it not that Mr. Lonie’s affectionate patting of my backside became a quizzical, concerned groping of the prominent foreign object in his wife’s nether region.

The alluring scent of regurgitated milk wafting constantly from my clothes and skin completes his sensory dismay, and so I think I can safely tell Lenny that his chances of a Mandy Does Maternity porn smash hit are rather less good than my fronting the most successful anti-fornication campaign in the history of the Church.

Oh, and Lenny? The title of the post was supposed to be ‘Newborn Babe’. Slimy git.

Surprise and Relief

2008-02-13T09:57:00.002+11:00

Not a man of steel, but a man of flesh and blood, and that's what makes him a hero.

P.S. Shut up, Nelson.

Full As A Goog

2008-02-11T22:24:00.000+11:00

Oh dear. I realised too late that one might reasonably infer from my previous post that I believe I’m extraordinarily talented, and the only thing holding me back from fulfilling my potential as the most brilliant blogger ever are the requirements of mothering three small children.

Because I still haven’t completely overcome the self-conscious teenage certainty that all are beadily eyeing my every move and passing harsh judgement, I had commenced an exculpatory post in which I tried to explain that, had I communicative skills more articulate than those of a drunken illiterate mute, the implication I made should have been something more like, Gee, I have all these ideas for blog posts which seem hilarious as they swim around in my head. With a few hours and some peace and quiet, I may be able to finesse them into something adequately humorous, once the dents sustained during the laborious progress through my brain’s clumsy incoherent textifying centre are largely beaten out.

While deciding how to explain that what I meant was not that I’m a shooting star chafing at my cruel earthbound tethers, but that I just don’t have any time…I realised I just don’t have any time.

So in a nutshell, look kindly upon me, Dear Reader, and remember: I’m not full of myself, just full of crap.

Temporary Amnesia

2008-02-07T21:30:00.000+11:00

I peruse the TV guide and I often think, Hmm, that program sounds interesting and thought-provoking, I must remember to stay up and watch it.

Or I see 2008 theatre subscriptions advertised and wonder why I haven’t taken up such a good offer before now.

Or I say to myself I simply must pay a visit to that little chocolaterie and indulge myself while I relax on their comfy leather sofa, Dahling.

Or I promise that tonight I’m going to sit down and write the blog post that will have everyone urinating with uncontrollable laughter, garner me instant worldwide fame and twelve book deals, and win the first ever Pulitzer Prize for blogging.

And then I remember that I have children.

Candidates

2008-02-01T12:06:00.000+11:00

Vote for me in the 2008 Bloggies! I’m not actually nominated, but why should little things like popular choice or just deserts stand in the way of my victory?

[Insert witty segue here]

So, our man of steel’s loverboy Dubya is on his way out, then? In the tradition of election-time on-street vox pops of the most ignorant buffoons to be found, I must proclaim that “I barrack for Barack!” Never mind the accusation of an unwholesome association with a slum lord peddling shoddiness and trash.

[C’mon, gentle reader! Fill in the blanks, it’s fun! Try, “Speaking of…”]

Things must be pretty bad for her when even I’m feeling sorry for Britney. My insensitivity and bad taste have not descended to levels where I’ve actually entered a Dead Pool, but if I had…

Product Launch!

2008-01-14T15:55:00.000+11:00

We here at Lonie™ Polony are pleased and proud to announce the release of a fine, new product! We trust our loyal customers will find it meets the same impeccable standards as the other lunchmeats in our exclusive range.

Yes, I now have my very own Neptune Athelstane Polony!

*

Consequently, I shall herewith prominently display this button created by the lovely Littlesnoring:

and pretend that irregular, infrequent posts are all part of my grand plan to become the next multi-millionaire lunchmeat mogul.

Wish me luck with my growing polony empire.

*Image may not be of actual Baby Polony

You Betcha Baby!

2008-01-05T22:51:00.000+11:00

Just who do I have to sleep with to get my baby to come out, anyway? Any virile man with a plentiful supply of semen will do, apparently.

Not that I’m seriously considering a do-it-yourself labour induction – bubby will make its appearance without my resorting to Old Wives’ remedies – but during an idle search of various labour-inducing methods that you, too, gentle reader, can try at home!, I came across a rather unsavoury discussion of that oft-recommended contraction jump-starter, sex:

"Sex as means of getting labour started is thought to work in three ways: firstly the movement may help to stimulate the uterus into action; secondly, sex can trigger the release of oxytocin, the 'contraction' hormone; thirdly, semen contains a high concentration of prostaglandins which help to ripen, or soften, the neck of the womb (cervix) ready for it to dilate when labour starts.

At this stage in your pregnancy sex is easier said than done. Try spoons, with your partner entering from behind or use the bed as a prop: your bulge isn't an obstacle if you lie on your back at the side or foot of the bed with your knees bent, and your bottom and feet perched at the edge of the mattress. Your partner can either kneel or stand in front of you. Alternatively, giving your partner oral sex may work better. It is thought that prostaglandins are absorbed more efficiently through the gut than through the vagina. (Note: you may prefer to keep this piece of information to yourself.)"

(http://www.babycentre.co.uk/pregnancy/labourandbirth/planningyourbabysbirth/naturalbringonlabour/#6)

Hmm. Seems to me more likely to induce vomiting than labour (although Mr. Lonie was still keen to give it a try when I mentioned it. Funny, that.)

And just why should I be ever so slightly impatient for the baby to venture out of its current home in my seemingly stretched-to-the-limit belly, when another two weeks of relaxing in its cosy amniotic sac past the due date now upon us is considered normal? Certainly not because I’m one of those women whose suitability for motherhood I question when they petulantly complain they’re ‘bored’ with pregnancy (after all, raising a child takes significantly longer and is much more trying than gestating one).

One reason is my obstetrician’s threat to medically induce labour if I have the audacity to withhold my baby from the world until next Wednesday. Been there, done that, was so unimpressed I didn’t even bother to buy the lousy t-shirt.

Another reason is that fridge-cleaning and other nasty chores which have been put off in the hopes of baby’s imminent arrival letting me off the hook, cannot be forsaken when that pesky little internal voice I try to ignore as much as possible is barking at me to get your lazy arse into gear and at least pretend to exhibit some nesting instinct, woman!

And then there’s the fact I have only minutes left to win the birthdate sweepstakes, if the little one would just cooperate.

On the upside, a delayed arrival means I still have time to get a more elaborate baby-related betting scheme up and running, one that puts “Guess how long I’ll be screaming in pain!” and “I lack opinion and imagination! Please suggest God-awful names for my child - mine and my baby’s dignity to the winner!” games to shame.

Here’s the kind of thing I was thinking of:

Scenario One: While I’m still bloodied from giving birth, my mother-in-law strides in and immediately pronounces the baby is the spitting image of Mr. Lonie. In fact, am I sure it's biologically impossible for a child to receive all its genes from the father?
Odds: Even money.

Scenario Two: My freezer, full of delicious meals I’ve spent hours and hours preparing to make life easier when the baby arrives, breaks down the day we return from hospital, leaving everything spoiled. We grow fat on takeaways every night for two months.
Odds: 20 to 1.

Scenario Three: While Mr. Lonie is overseas, my dogs wake me from my fitful baby-related-insomnia-troubled sleep at 4 am, mere hours before I have to sit an allowance-dependant exam for work. The dog bed and laundry are covered with what I can only describe as explosive diarrhoea, which takes me an hour to clean and disinfect while I desperately try to restrain light-sleeping Master Lonie from creating a coprophiliac’s idea of an artistic masterpiece. Oh hang on, I forgot. This already happened.
Odds: all bets are off.

Further suggestions are welcome. So: Any takers?

Guilty Pleasures

2008-01-03T13:30:00.000+11:00

I’m shocked, shocked! at the widely-held perception of me as a cantankerous biddy. I simply can’t imagine whence this dreadful calumny sprang, but I present for its refutation these examples of things which give me enjoyment, albeit the kind of enjoyment that comes with its own measure of guilt.

Who doesn’t like singing along to songs with rude lyrics? Probably quite a lot of people actually, but I’m not one of them. Don’t let my prim, purse-lipped mumsiness fool you – on the rare occasions I’m at home or in the car without the little pitchers, and the mood strikes, I take a certain gleeful delight in providing tonally-challenged but lusty accompaniment to Sir Psycho Sexy, sharing a good-natured mofo with Jack Black, or cataloguing a range of sexual behaviours with the original cast of Hair.

Join me in my sinful confession and admit it, most of us love a long soak in a full, hot bath. Now I know we’re in a drought, so before you form a lynch mob and come at me with pitchforks and blazing torches, allow me to hastily explain that a bath for me is generally a birthday/Christmas/imminent delivery of baby sort of indulgence, certainly not a daily, weekly or even fortnightly thing. Moreover, to prevent the guilt from completely overwhelming the pleasure of the experience, I take certain…measures…to offset what in these days is an extravagant use of water. Short showers, letting yellow mellow, plunking the children to bathe in my lees, even the occasional homebound day with no shower. Are those gasps of disgust I hear? Hey, I said it was a guilty pleasure, not a pretty one.

What would my life be like without far too much chocolate? A lot less sugar-crazed and liable to make the creators of the healthy food pyramid faint with horror, I suspect. As it’s the New Year, and as I don’t seem to have been not-pregnant long enough since 2003 to regain a reasonable weight and figure, I have resolved to eat more healthily when the super energy-burning powers of this round of pregnancy and breastfeeding begin to wear off. What a shame there’s still about a kilo of chocolate stashed in the house. I wonder who’ll selflessly rid the Polony pantry and fridge of that delicious brown scourge?

In these days when celebrity gossip is peddled as essential world news, we all seem to absorb at least a vague awareness of the latest proof that money and fame don’t buy class or happiness. And usually I’m content to glean these smug reminders from slow news days and months-old magazines in waiting rooms, but when it comes time to waddle off to the maternity ward to birth my latest babe, my overnight bag is simply not complete without a stash of trashy magazines. I know they’re a waste of money I could better spend on a nice book, I know they encourage my nasty streak of Schadenfreude, and I know they keep paparazzi vultures in their despicable line of work. But isn’t that the point?

Guilty pleasures – they’re wrong, but they feel so right.

Spewdrops on Roses and Biscuits with Grit In

2008-01-01T16:11:00.000+11:00

Toxic heavy metals and hard seats to sit in,
Brown toilet ‘packages’ that leave stubborn rings,
These are a few of my least favourite things…

My, my, my, we are in a bad mood, aren’t we? And by ‘we’ I of course mean ‘me’. Lately it seems I’ve had more than enough cause for irritation and irascibility, but I find in my current condition I simply don’t have the patience for penning time-consuming discourses on subjects such as colleagues who see nothing inappropriate in their expectations of a heavily-pregnant woman in obvious physical discomfort (ie: me) acting as their personal dogsbody. Plus I currently have the attention span and verbal agility of the child I hope soon to meet ex utero. So, I’ve delved into the rantings that have been pent up in my resentful little mind for years in some cases, hoping to achieve some catharsis and translation to the state of Madonna-like* serenity that is other people’s tiresome expectation of mothers to newborns. I’ll see the hardier of you at the other end of the post…

Bad driving. Gasp! You say I’m not the first ever person in the world to complain about bad driving? Well tough mammaries, I’m gonna do it anyway. Have you ever noticed how different cities seem to specialise in particular strains of bad driving? Well down my way, the prevailing transgression is the use of indicators not like a polite cough to inform you of someone’s intention to move your way when they’re quite sure it would not be an imposition, but more like an unexpected rough shoulder-charge before you crash winded to the ground. Apparently in the years since I passed my driving test I missed the amendment of ‘give way’ to ‘barge as barge can!’ in the road rules.

Warm seats. Don’t tell me I’m crazy – my neurotic posterior and I already know it. There’s just something about sitting in a seat still warm from the buttocks of a stranger that makes me cringe. Call it an overly-sensitive delineation of personal space.

Poorly-constructed underpants. Without wishing to encourage any stray fetishist pervs that may have come across this post (and who are shortly to be bitterly disappointed), I must confess I tend to buy underpants of the inexpensive, plain cotton kind. It’s one of those purchases I can’t bring myself to spend more money on, even though in this extortionate, profit-driven world such a seemingly simple item is still subject to the maxim “Pay peanuts, get underpants sewn by monkeys.” I find the worst thing about cheap undies is gussets that don’t fit where they should, which is not life-alteringly terrible in itself, but what really annoys me is that several years ago that ghastly crone Jeanne Little opined on television that only fat cows with big bums experienced that problem.

Not being allowed to use the word ‘opined’ in Department of Meat Products reports. Apparently it’s considered by our customers to be too toffy. So to avoid rubbing our education (which was required for the job in the first place) in anyone’s easily baffled and offended face, we’re restricted to bland alternatives like ‘stated’ or ‘said’. This may explain my propensity to pomposity here in this blog…

Spurious and idiotic explanations of the origins of words like sh*t and f***. What kind of (unjustifiably) self-satisfied loser fabricates such tripe? The kind whose creativity is limited to obscene and repugnant fan-fiction, I suspect. Worse still those who believe and propagate ‘Store High In Transit’ or ‘Fornicating Under Consent of the King’ when a half-decent dictionary will set even the most brainless of knuckle-draggers straight on etymology.

Those stupid signs you see in workplace kitchenettes. You know, the printed ones blu-tacked above the sink or next to the microwave that exhort everyone to clean up after themselves because ‘Your mother doesn’t live here!’ or, ‘The housework fairy is on strike!’ I don’t know about you, but I go to the kitchen for a break, not for edicts from someone you just know is one of those bossy, annoyingly perky people who take such things upon themselves, and whom you fantasise about punching in their irritating toothy faces.

People who don’t change empty rolls of toilet and hand paper at work. Yes, we have regular cleaners through our office building, but it’s not their job to station themselves in the toilets constantly topping up supplies and drying everyone’s hands with fluffy white towels like some downtrodden American washroom boy. I frequently wonder what the culprits find so difficult about taking a new roll of t.p. from the neatly-stacked pile and replacing the one they’ve stripped bare save for a few fluttering scraps. And why can’t they take the ten necessary seconds to load the hand-towel dispenser instead of leaving the roll of paper to become sodden and useless by the sink? Don’t they realise their mothers don’t live there?

Infantile psychoanalysis. This is a long-nursed grievance which thankfully hasn’t troubled me afresh since school, when doing something as innocuous as wearing purple or idly peeling the label off a drink bottle set certain ninnies to air-headed giggling before informing one smugly that “You must be sexually frustrated!” At twelve years old? You braying buffoons! Freud, whom I’ve long suspected to have been little more than a dirty old man, has a lot to answer for.

When the work sucks,
When the fools goad,
When I’m feeling mad,
I simply blog about my least favourite things,
And then I don’t feel so ba-a-ad!

*Do I really need to state I don’t mean the singer?

A Valuable Lesson

2007-12-29T01:28:00.000+11:00

What kind of intelligent, progressive human beings would we be if we failed to learn anything from Christmas? For example, I learned that I can only buy my husband so many watch fobs before he becomes exasperated at having to remind me for the tenth year in a row that he doesn’t actually own a pocket watch, and he learned that fancy hair-combs do nothing to improve the appearance of his wife’s newly-shorn locks.

I learned that, while my in-laws are unlikely ever to improve to a degree that I voluntarily seek out their society, with a lot of determination, effort and forbearance on my part, Christmas Day spent with them can actually be more bearable than I would have thought possible. Sure, they’re still going to swear like troopers, blaspheme like they haven’t just been to Christmas Mass, and scream like harpies in a most un-Christmassy manner. They’re still going to tell appalling so-called ‘jokes’ that aren’t funny in the least (one was about bringing my baby home from hospital and burying it in the back yard; another denigrated Jews and made light of the Holocaust). But, keeping in mind the promise I’d made to myself to try reeeeeeeally hard to get along with them on that of all days, I somehow managed to rise above the despair-inducing fug which emanates from them with each utterance.

I ignored the idiocy! With an iron will I kept my face a mask of impassivity! I initiated conversation! I chatted with the ill-mannered child, my niece! I managed a tolerable show of graciousness! I even smiled at the less offensive jests. And as if my unaccustomed efforts jolted the planets out of their normal courses into some rare alignment, my in-laws were seemingly less objectionable than usual.

Perhaps they responded subconsciously to my improved behaviour. Perhaps it was extraordinary luck the usual noxious stream of prattle remained largely dammed behind their teeth. Perhaps it was a Christmas miracle. All I can say is, I’m glad I’ve learned that maybe, just maybe, time spent with them doesn’t have to be such a trial after all, if I only try to be a (much) more tolerant person.

Just don’t ask me to try it too often – after all, Christmas comes but once a year.

A Return to Normal Programming

2007-12-26T12:18:00.000+11:00

Christmas Day is over for another year; strife on earth and ill will to all men may now resume.

God Bless Us, Every One

2007-12-25T00:46:00.000+11:00

I don’t usually write serious blog posts, mainly because I’m too ignorant to construct rational, reasoned and well-informed essays on important issues, or because I’m too selfish and self-centred and petty, or because earnestness and sincerity tend to seem trite and affected when my inadequate little brain tries to convert them into the written word. I’ll keep this short, then, and trust to your goodwill to regard this humble Christmas offering in a favourable light.

As hollow as it sounds to me, given that Christmas is a difficult time for more people than not, I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a New Year filled with health and happiness.

Without wishing to pontificate on philanthropic gestures (Lord knows that would make me an insufferable hypocrite), this year I’m really going to try to be thankful for what I have, even down to spending the better part of Christmas Day with my (really) annoying (and not-usually-to-my-liking) in-laws. It’s a prospect which, though not exactly my preferred option, is a darn sight better than that facing many people at this time that all the corny movies and cynical ads rub in the faces of the lonely and bereaved as a time to spend with family. I will try and remember others who are less fortunate than I; in particular, L and T – God grant you comfort in your time of grief; my thoughts and prayers are with you.

Stay safe and happy, and God* bless us, every one.

P.S. Confused and disturbed by this uncharacteristic post? Normal posting (ie: meaningless, small-minded twaddle) will resume whenever I can stir my spreading derrière into action.

*Substitute with deity/life force/benevolent entity of your choice.

Christmas is a cruel time for the lonely

2007-12-07T21:18:00.000+11:00

My poor, neglected blog. Who would you have to love you, if not me? If you're very lucky and very well-behaved, Father Christmas may bring you an early present of a new blog post, sometime during the 0.5 free days I have before Baby Polony makes an appearance.

In the meantime, rest well and dream of large statcounts.

An Explanation

2007-10-23T15:27:00.000+10:00

I know I’ve been a bit quiet lately on the blogging front – I trust my hordes of devoted readers who check this site several times a day have managed to find a suitable substitute to console them in their empty hours, and stave off morbid contemplations of joining the Foreign Legion. You might be pleased to hear that I’ve been busy negotiating the unexpectedly generous publishing contract for my first novel which I’ve finally finished, and consulting with an architect to build a more spacious and better-constructed house for my growing family.

I’d be pleased to hear that too, if it were true. What’s really been commanding all my time and energy is my ongoing performance in a strange play called Lonie Polony and the Seven Dwarfs. It’s rather an avant-garde adaptation of the Disney movie, with a large chunk of Herman’s Head thrown in. There are no capering, patronising caricatures of short-statured men in my version; instead, the dwarfs are actually aspects of my own character which jostle and compete for dominance in a struggle destined to continue for several more weeks until the show’s run comes to its natural end and I reprise my role in Alien: It Burst From My Uterus.

There’s Happy, first to appear and ever-present, but frequently held down and red-bellied by his rowdier, more demanding brothers. There’s Sneezy, who exploits my lowered immunity and necessary abstinence from most medications to breathe in my face as often as possible, bringing with him the varied delights of hay fever and general unwellness. Bashful insisted that for the sake of accuracy, his name should be changed to Taciturn. He often appears in the company of Sleepy, Dopey and Grumpy, that unconquerable triad who, months ago, warned my husband to “stay off our turf, mofo!” before laughing at the vulgar literalness of their joke, and remaining in the ascendancy ever since.

And don’t forget Doc! He is the only dwarf incarnate in this production, and appears right at the end, in the labour ward scene. Played by a different actor every night (the script is very strict on this point), he nevertheless unfailingly strolls into the room just in time to deliver the placenta before pocketing his $3,000 fee.

What I’m trying to say, in my rather long-winded way, is this: expect fewer posts than ever – I’m trying to sleep. Expect dopier writing. Expect more sickness-induced self-pity. Expect more whining and complaining in general. You have been warned, so please, no chiding me for my bad attitude, or Grumpy and his boys will be around to red-belly YOU.

In Lazy News...IN YOUR FACE!

2007-09-29T14:15:00.000+10:00

Sorry about that. What I meant to say was, "Thanks awfully chaps for your votes. I'm honoured and humbled to win one of Diesel's caption contests."

Now back to sleep...

Help Me, Doctor Freud!

2007-09-13T20:27:00.000+10:00

It would appear, Doctor, I’m doomed to nine months of dreams which, while not nightmarish, are also not particularly pleasant. What perplexes me is, I can’t seem to discern any meaning in them, no relevance to my real life. In my latest dream, for example, which left me feeling decidedly angry and frustrated, I happened to be doing things that would never happen in real life, and I was hoping you could help me discover what it all means.

For one thing, I was holidaying at a fancy tropical resort, when in reality I’m working full time while gestating my third child under four. Secondly, I looked fabulous in a bikini although I’ve never been able to do justice to one in real life. Lastly, I was repeatedly slapping my mother-in-law. What can it possibly signify?

Oh…I’m sorry Sigmund, my mistake. It seems your psychoanalytical services are not required after all.

Meanwhile, in the Real World…

2007-09-08T22:39:00.000+10:00

Smugly thinking to myself that at least there are some benefits to contracting yet another debilitating virus, which for the past week has left me incapable of much more than sleeping or lying catatonic on the couch, I blithely changed my baby’s horribly messy nappy with the confidence of the nasally-obstructed. I scraped the contents into the toilet, preparing to crow to my husband how relatively un-unpleasant the experience was compared to his latest nappy-related fiasco. And then I realised my finger was smothered in pooh.

Illness-blunted senses: a double-edged sword.

[Please forgive any errors or incoherence; I’m still non compos mentis. One day I’ll tell you why I dislike that phrase so much.]

Excuse Me, I'm Pregnant

2007-08-11T23:46:00.000+10:00

There are several things I like about being pregnant: I can wear all those tops that have languished in my drawer, forlornly awaiting the miraculous day I achieve infomercial-worthy weight loss, because suddenly my rotund belly is no longer unsightly, but ‘beautiful’; I can ignore the fact that ‘eating for two’ is a deceptive and outdated concept, to justify eating two jam doughnuts in a sitting; I’m permitted – no, encouraged – to put my feet up instead of slaving for hours over cleaning chemicals and heavy washing baskets; and of course, a sweet little baby will soon pop out of my nicely pre-expanded birth canal.

Pregnancy being what it is, however, I’d be lying if I said there weren’t things I didn’t like about it. Sure, the closest I’ve come to Hollywood-movie morning sickness was my pregnancy-sensitised stomach rebelling violently at the taste of an envelope I’d just licked, or the couple of times my mouth decided my tooth-brushing made it too clean, and therefore ordered my breakfast to make an encore appearance. I’ve never had high blood pressure, swelling, varicose veins or haemorrhoids, or (thank merciful God) a cyst growing on top of a haemorrhoid, a phenomenon I’d never imagined in my most tortured nightmares before some woman gleefully volunteered that particular personal experience in my unwilling hearing. And while I do suffer with daily heartburn, seemingly constant low-grade illnesses from lowered immunity and the normal discomforts associated with foetal cells multiplying rapidly inside one’s uterus, it’s the invisible symptoms that seem to wreak the most havoc.

I’m talking about hormones, those insidious chemicals that have surged through my body like a tsunami of craziness, leaving me awash in aggression, irrationality and paranoia. At least this time I’m prepared for the occasional-to-frequent appearances of Mrs. Hyde, unlike during my first pregnancy when I angrily snubbed my entire bewildered family for two weeks until unburdening myself of exaggerated slights and grievances during a tearful accusatory phone call to my mother from the sick bay at work. Now I’m experienced enough to know that what seem like deliberate attempts by my family and friends to offend and anger me, probably aren’t. However, this realisation does nothing to appease the beast inside, a beast which scoffs at attempted restraint and even the outpourings of a vitriolic blog, instead demanding BLOOD! (or at least lots of swearing and rude hand gestures.)

So it is that I find myself yelling and cursing at other drivers on the road like I haven’t since my callow child-free days (only when the children aren’t in the car with me, of course – what do you think I am, one of those chigger mums whose children’s first word is ‘f***’?). Or I wallow in maudlin contemplation of horrible news stories I normally try to forget for the sake of my own sanity, and weep indulgently at tragedies in movies and books. I harbour resentment against perfectly nice people for causing mild negative effects on my life through no real fault of their own. I find irritants and insults and disdain for my condition in the actions of acquaintances and strangers alike. In short, I’m grumpy, irritable, scowling, bellicose and prone to flash-floods of tears, with none of the self-control a normal functioning adult member of society usually employs.

Yeah, pregnancy hormones. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Farewell, My Friend

2007-08-09T14:28:00.000+10:00

It was only today in the doctor’s waiting room that I realised how serious your condition is: the etched wrinkles, the peeling skin, your dull and worn-out appearance. I can’t pretend it didn’t shock and sadden me, even though I’ve known for some time that our days together are coming to an end. It doesn’t seem fair – we met short years ago, and I thought we’d be together forever, but now I don’t even know whether we’ll see in the New Year together.

When first we met I felt an instant attraction, and we’ve been close companions ever since. I remember many an occasion you kept chill winds from me with your close embrace, and often it seemed your mere presence was enough to comfort me on days of grey and gloom. Whenever we were out in public I always felt so proud of you – you drew so many admiring stares and compliments, and by association made me look and feel great. Now, because of your delicate condition, we don’t go out much anymore.

I fear it won’t be long until our memories of happy times will be the only things we have left to share. Each time I study you, trying not to let my concern show, you seem older, more fragile and too tired to carry on. Perhaps the worst aspect of your sad degeneration is my complete futility and utter inability to prevent or even slow the cruel process. The only thing I can offer you is this promise: even when your life is over, I will keep you with me always, and no one shall ever replace you.

How could they? You were the best fake leather coat a girl could have.

Spakfilla

2007-08-02T21:52:00.000+10:00

Complain…whinge…moan…

…“Nobody cares!” I want to scream at my in-laws during their incessant chatter…mutter…backstab…

…Rant…self-pity…grumble…

…My boss exclaims over how sick I am but stops short of sending me home…

…Whine…pout…refuse to count my blessings…

There. Now no-one will notice the lack of a proper blog post.

Queen Victoria’s Joke Book

2007-07-23T21:02:00.000+10:00

Q: How did Lonie Polony spend her hard-earned day off?
A: Sick and miserable at home, looking after her sick child.

Q: Why was the baby bathed clutching two large balloons on sticks?
A: Because the sick and miserable mother could better endure a couple of eye-pokes here and there, than the inevitable tantrum.

Q: What’s the difference between a pig and a polony?
A: A pig wallows in mud, a Polony wallows in self-pity.

We are not amused.

Lonie Polony and the Vomiting Toilet of Plot-spoilers

2007-07-21T20:25:00.000+10:00

What kind of perverse people derive pleasure from spoiling the enjoyment of others? Who vaingloriously posts on the internet pre-release copies of long-awaited books they’ve acquired through underhand means, and then sits back, a complacent smile on their face, expecting – what, congratulations? The kudos such people seem to think is attached to knowing something before the vast majority of others do? The same kind of people as tag-happy graffitists and knuckle-dragging vandals, that’s who; people who know deep down under all their blubber-like layers of self-absorption and arrogant façades of disdainful superiority that they are such talentless and unpromising losers they are unlikely ever to achieve anything of worth. People who calculate with the meagre brainpower apportioned to them that their sole chance of making any sort of mark is to deface and despoil the work of others.

Thankfully, the day has finally arrived when I can cloister myself away from smug morons and mean-spirited ‘news’ stories from networks trying to trump their rivals. I’m safe from people who accidentally-on-purpose remark in public at three times their normal speaking volume they never saw it coming that

THE DUMBLEDORE WHO DIED IN HALF BLOOD PRINCE WAS ABERFORTH, NOT ALBUS! Or

PERCY IS DUMBLEDORE’S DEEP-COVER AGENT IN THE MINISTRY! Or

NEVILLE WAS ‘THE CHOSEN ONE’ ALL ALONG, BUT DIES FROM WOUNDS INFLICTED BY BELLATRIX AND VOLDEMORT JUST SECONDS BEFORE HIS PARENTS REGAIN THEIR WITS!

But there’s only so long I can impose a blanket media ban in our house and shun public society. Hmm…

Can’t post – reading.

A Growing Family Business

2007-07-17T21:01:00.000+10:00

Lonie™ Polony is pleased to announce the imminent release of a new product currently in development.

As with all Lonie™ Polony lunchmeats, our customers can be assured of the highest standards of quality, taste and visual appeal – and of course, our famous ‘100% rectum free’ guarantee applies.

Look for the latest addition to our Lonie™ Polony range in early January 2008!

An Impostor In My Midst

2007-07-06T14:51:00.000+10:00

I’ve been back at my job at the Department of Meat Products for just over three months now, and I think the nightly dreams about work are finally abating. The intrusion of tedious real life into the realm of fantasy was quite tiring for a while – it was difficult to feel refreshed after a night spent contemplating the ingredients of various lunchmeats, and composing media releases assuring the public that, contrary to recent scaremongering, polonium-210 is not an ingredient of polony.

It seems, however, that the mingling of the mundane and the fanciful is not a unidirectional flow, because lately I’ve noticed odd things happening in my office, as if the lovechild of Gumby and Thursday Next has been strolling around in the Harry Potter books displacing random characters and scenarios in a fit of plasticine pique.

Snape has been wandering our corridors for some time, although I’m pretty sure she’s not an embittered sadist of uncertain allegiance, with a penchant for black and an inadequate hair-care regimen. Then there’s L’Estrange, but I think he’s probably a lot more reasonable and easy to work with than a slightly unhinged, murderous fugitive. We even have a Justin Finch-Fletchley, or at least that’s how I’ve secretly thought of the poor boy ever since I discovered his name was Justin Fossington-Bligh or some such mouthful.

What’s really discombobulating is that someone seems to have cast a rather powerful Confundus Charm over my colleagues and supervisors, such that they seem to think I’m possessed of attributes that make me want to look over both shoulders before asking, “Who, me?”

“You’re a real people-person!” one supervisor enthused at a compulsory feedback session, while I tried to keep from scoffing audibly at his kind but obviously ill-informed praise. I always thought being a people-person meant you had to like people, and enjoy dealing with them on a regular basis, rather than being a solitude-loving homebody who writes vicious personal diatribes on an anonymous blog.

“You’re a very eloquent speaker,” a co-worker assured me after I confessed my nerves over upcoming talks my boss seemed (erroneously) to think I was qualified to give. This time I could not keep the scornful disbelief off my face. Had she not heard my last disastrous work address, during which the whole auditorium laughed at something I intended to be perfectly serious? Had she not witnessed me stuttering awkwardly to strangers at job-related functions, trying and failing to appear erudite by using words such as ‘panacea’, only to have them pause momentarily before gently correcting me to ‘placebo’? Of course not, or she’d never have uttered such an untruth.

Then there was this statement which issued, unfacetious and apropos of nothing, from the mouth of my befuddled boss: “You’re always so cheerful in the mornings!”

It was on hearing this that I knew with certainty something was awry in the Department of Meat Products. Seemingly the only one left clear-headed and rational, it is therefore left to me to ask:

Who am I, and what have I done with the real Lonie Polony?

Oh, The Inanity!

2007-06-30T22:53:00.000+10:00

Have you ever noticed how the people who talk the most are often the ones with the least to say? I’m talking specifically about those who faithfully relate the minutiae of their daily existence as if each inconsequential detail is a pebble on the path to Nirvana, and who subscribe to the notion that ‘everyone is entitled to my own opinion.’ Such are my husband’s family.

Ever since, at only our second meeting, my mother-in-law blithely spoke right over the top of me and my father-in-law blustered scandalously on about A-rabs, Nips, Chinks, and Abos, I gave up trying to converse with them in anything but the sparest fashion. Like squealing in fright at a trench-coated flasher, it only encourages the undesirable behaviour. Now every enforced visit sees me hunkered down in the ‘I must supervise my two small children!’ foxhole, trying to avoid the barrage of outrageously offensive remarks and slow-mo replays of the week’s non-events.

“How heavy d’you reckon this chair is?” my father-in-law might ask as he brings an ordinary wooden dining chair out of the spare room. “Much heavier than it looks!” he will answer himself triumphantly before Mr. Lonie and I can formulate some reply other than a quizzical “Umm…?”

“It’s had about seven coats of paint since we bought it!” f-i-l will then enthuse, undeterred by our glazed expressions, before listing each colour it’s been, from white, to cream, to bone, to beige, to every shade Richie Benaud has ever worn.

Or: “She is my oldest and dearest friend!” my mother-in-law might gush with what she probably believes is sincerity about the woman who just made her lucky escape from the House of Blather. “But hasn’t she gotten fat! She’s absolutely huge! She must have gained at least 140 pounds since I knew her as a girl. I wonder she travels so much, how does she possibly fit in the aeroplane seat? She must need to pay for two tickets and have the armrest up. If she lost a bit of weight she might finally find herself a husband…”

I’m not averse to a bit of histrionic hyperbole in the name of humour and fun, but sadly I’m not exaggerating here, although a lapse into shameless excess would be entirely understandable after a few captive hours in their company. Over the next retellings (of which there will be many), seven coats of paint will become fifteen, and 140 pounds will become 250. The chilly wind on the holiday they took five years ago is now a raging tempest which threatened to induce fatal hypothermia, and the hour at which a boy-Mr. Lonie woke them on Christmas morning is no longer six o’clock but three.

In my weaker moments, usually when I’ve managed to secure more than a few days without having to resort to sub-conscious defensive hunching and attempted selective deafness, I almost feel sorry for my in-laws. With a rare flash of perspicacity I know their small-minded gossip and prating comes from ignorance and – to put it as bluntly as the metaphorical tools-in-the-shed they are: stupidity. Their unabashed exaggerations are a placebo for their sense of inferiority instilled in them by parents which, from all I’ve heard, I can’t help but be glad I never had to meet. Deep down they think, I believe, that surely no-one will deign to bestow their notice, let alone listen to what they have to say, without the promise of thrilling tales and spontaneous-gasp-inducing statistics, and that’s why they practise this twisted form of self-aggrandisement.

The regrettable thing is, it doesn’t have to be this way. I’d much prefer to hear about f-i-l’s varied employment as stockman, RAAF officer, and murderer-catching policeman, but instead I must grit my teeth through parroted recitations of every right-leaning article he’s read in the paper during the week, styled as his own thoughts and conclusions. M-i-l would find me a ready listener were she to recount her youthful days as a news-making daredevil skydiver, but she’d rather engage in pointless quibbling with f-i-l about whether an uninteresting drive to somewhere I’d never care to visit ended at 11:05 or ‘much later!’ at 11:15.

One day they’ll be gone, but it seems they’re content to leave as their monument to posterity not treasured memoirs, but a woeful collection of drivel. It’s not the Hindenburg, but a tragedy all the same.

For Your Reluctant Enlightenment

2007-06-01T14:06:00.000+10:00

Gasp! Two posts in two days – what has precipitated such a rare occurrence in these dark days of sausage-centric drudgery? I’d tell you, but…I don’t wanna. Some things sound too insufferably whiney even to me, so instead I present for your amusement/horror/disgust five things you probably never wanted to know about me.

1) When I was about two years old, I stuck a tic-tac so far up my nostril it never came out again. I’m assuming it managed to slide its way down my throat, because as far as I’m aware I don’t have any tic-tac sized growths obstructing my nasal passage. I remember being surprised because the other tic-tacs I’d already eaten had made the return journey into my nose without any problem.

2) I caught glandular fever off the first boy I kissed. I think I got off lightly; he tried to give me a whole lot more. Fortunately for me, I found that short-arse, bandanna-wearing boy's clumsy attempts to give me an early introduction to meat products all-too-easy to refuse.

3) When I was a little girl, I woke in the middle of the night to an unwontedly urgent call of nature. Leaping out of bed, I whipped off my pyjama bottoms and underpants to facilitate a quicker connection of rear end and toilet. As I raced to the loo, I stepped on something that didn’t belong on my floor, something that must have slipped out of my undies after its premature arrival during my sleep. It was a pellet of pooh. That was a long time ago, and two babies have presented me with a lot worse since, but oh! I can’t help cringing at the memory.

4) I once got so drunk I spent the entire next day in bed, puking up the meagre contents of my stomach. The revolting sight of green, phlegmy stomach-lining globbing into my enamelled wash basin was nevertheless accompanied by weak relief that at last, there was nothing left to bring up. Accepting shot after shot after shot from creepy older men in China didn’t seem like such a bad idea the night before - I sometimes marvel I survived my salad days relatively unscathed.

5) I once flashed my boobs in a busy street. I’d rushed out of the house that morning stupidly forgetting my bra in my haste, and had been wearing a jumper to preserve some modicum of decency. In the afternoon warmth I absentmindedly removed my jumper, my top rose up with it and [cue Benny Hill music] instant nudie show! Of course, my boobs have made public appearances many times since then in their capacity as milk-dispensers, so I'm no longer mortified by the experience. And every goggling teenage boy needs a break now and then.

I'm It!

2007-05-31T12:13:00.000+10:00

After much wheedling, Hazelblackberry has prevailed upon me to participate in one of these blog-meme whatsits, and as I had nothing better to do I finally agreed to grace the online public with fascinating insights into ‘Why I blog’. (Actually, we all know I’ve been hopping around on the balls of my feet, hand in the air, pleading, “Pick me! Pick me!” to the well-connected and oft-tagged since I first started blogging, so I’ll try not to widdle with excitement while I set down for your perusal my raisons de blog.)

1) It was on my list of ‘Things To Do Before I Die’, and seemed somewhat easier to achieve than fluency in German from a ‘teach yourself’ cassette tape, or finding someone to publish a book with only two completed chapters. “Ich trinke wein in Wien,” and “Scheisse! Zis vill neffer verk!” is about as far as I have gotten with those latter two objectives.

2) I can pretend I’m keeping my creative writing juices flowing, instead of acknowledging the car that is my novel is stranded in the Nullabor Plain with an empty petrol tank. And the tyres are punctured. And it’s rusting to dust. And the Department of Meat Products road train is ruthlessly bearing down on it, ready to flatten it into sheet metal. And I’m too lazy to heave it out of the way because that would mean less sleep for me and I’m oh-so-tired here in the desert sun with two children moaning at me and a report on the proportion of saturated fat in brawn to complete.

But that’s what’s great about blogging, isn’t it? I can whine about how in forty years’ time when I’ve retired from the Department with my gold salami in hand, I’ll be saying Brando-style that I coulda bin a contender, because:

3) A blog is a great medium to whinge and complain, especially if you specify that your blog is a cathartic outlet for pent-up rantings. I can gripe as much as I like about whatever I choose, whether it be work, in-laws, anal probes, in-laws or work, and no one else can really complain because, well, I’ve made my manifesto clear. Caveat lector and all that.

4) Everyone needs a hobby. Various ones have come and gone in my life, but until I took up blogging, nothing so efficiently combined my propensity for physical laziness with my love of anonymous venting. When I’m too bitter even for this, I shall move on to writing parochial letters to the editor, and calling television network feedback lines to bemoan the waste of my tax-payer dollars on avant-garde tripe instead of more programs about old people pottering around at home.

5) Blogging is the new Crack. How sweet were those palpitations of excitement induced by the very first comments on my blog! How frabjous was the day my blog at last became google-able! How gratifying it is to my pathetically insecure ego to welcome each new reader, each return visitor! How delightful it is to pretend I’m in the league of the more talented and amusing people whose blogs I frequent! That’s why, when I can wangle it, I sit for hours in front of the screen, reading avidly, typing feverishly, finally stumbling to bed when my dark-encircled bloodshot eyes can stay open no longer, happy that I’ve secured my fix for another day.

What’s that? Nothing very revelatory in what I’ve just told you? I’ll change the rules, then. The topic is ‘Five things you never wanted to know about me’. You’re it.

The Art Of Diplomacy

2007-05-08T22:55:00.000+10:00

A university lecturer of mine once told me I’d make a great diplomat because I laugh a lot. As well-intentioned as her comment was (she meant, I think, something along the lines of laughter setting a good vibe and making people happy and relaxed), she was overlooking some crucial traits a great diplomat ought to display, such as subtle political sensibilities, a commanding influence, and prowess in the delicate art of high-stakes negotiation – traits which are conspicuously lacking from my character. Contrary to her opinion, I harbour grave doubts about my ability to broker a history-making solution to the Iraq problem by chortling loudly at Dubya’s unfortunate mispronunciation of ‘Shi’ite Muslim.’

We should therefore all be grateful that I am not involved in minimising ethnic strife in Africa, mediating between China and Taiwan, or securing the disarmament of rogue nuclear states. However, there is still the issue of the petty politics of my daily life, which could clearly benefit from the wise guidance of a career stateswoman, but which, alas, I must navigate alone.

The two major obstacles to diplomatic détente, as I see them, are social ineptness borne of shyness, and a stubborn, proud refusal to lie about my feelings and opinions. I’m not so concerned about the former even though most people think I’m an utter twit for saying things like, “Yeah, she has a lot of mental problems,” when what I mean is, “She has a lot of issues weighing on her mind”. I just cross my fingers and hope they can see my verbal vomits for what they are – flustered attempts at conversation, with no malicious intent.

What gets me into awkward situations is the latter character flaw, when I’m forced to express some sort of opinion which, for the sake of ‘if you can’t say anything nice…’ I’d rather not. I dread pregnant acquaintances excitedly announcing the names they’ve chosen (“Neptune for a boy, and Rubella for a girl!”), or new parents proudly showing off their babies (every baby is beautiful – even the ones that look like weird little Jim Henson puppets). I fear being asked what I think of someone’s outfit or hairstyle. I’m ashamed to recall my final farewell to a roommate with whom I’d had a rocky relationship (she hugged me and said sincerely, “I really like you, you know.” I would never see her again and had the chance to release some good energy into the world by saying I liked her too, but instead I submitted limply and replied noncommittally, “Hmm”).

It’s one thing to be true to my feelings and express sincere opinions, but platitudes and evasion will not stave off a breakdown in diplomatic relations forever. I’ve come to the conclusion that sincerity is a two-edged sword that must be tempered with tact and John Howard-style non-core truths. It’s either that, or kick someone under the table next time they ask me in front of three bosses, “So, are you glad to be back at work?”

Problems Of The Privileged

2007-05-07T21:21:00.000+10:00

I’m very grateful I have access to good health care and can afford it. That’s why I’m trying really hard not to complain about the administration of the dental practice I visited today, or the size of the refund I received from my private health insurance.

At least I’ll be covered when I burst a blood vessel from the effort.

From Sen. The Hon. Neil O’Nooply

2007-04-30T12:06:00.000+10:00

It recently came to the attention of the Minister for Meat Products that certain of his suit-clad minions have breached the Australian Public Service Act (Supplementary) paragraph 10.1, Duty to refrain from looking stupid, and it fell to me to draft a minute to be propagated department-wide, reminding all staff of their obligations. Hereunder a reproduction of the salient points of the minute, including infractions and remedial instructions:

1) Multi-coloured mullets.
No. You are not cool, trendy or young. You are just a (poorly informed) fashion victim with a hairstyle that doesn’t go with anything, let alone business suits or your head.

2) Surf-brand lanyards.
Three times wider than everyone else’s, in eye-blinding colours and emblazoned with trademarks you pay to advertise, these should be avoided by everyone who isn’t a try-hard fifteen-year-old.

3) Expensive utes that have never been on a farm or unsealed road.
What’s the look you’re going for here? Gentleman farmer? Country boy made good? Wealthy landowner? Whatever image you’re attempting to project, the only one I see is ‘tool’ (and not the useful sort).

4) Shorts.
No, no, no, ladies! The weekend was yesterday. I don’t care what Cue has in its window display - today we wear trousers, skirts or dresses.

5) Hands-free mobile phones.
Unless you’re driving a car and on an absolutely necessary call, you should not be sporting one of these. People do not see you swaggering around talking over-loudly into your headset and think, “Now there’s a powerful high-flyer! Look, he’s in constant demand on the phone and far too busy to use his God-given hands!” They think you’re an arrogant technosexual.

Staff are reminded that strict adherence to all parts of the Public Service Act is required for salary progression. Dress code for IT staff remains extant (ie: jeans and tee-shirts are mandatory at all times).

Meanwhile, the Act doesn’t proscribe looking like a comfortable frump, so I guess my pay-rise is in the bag.

Misters Are Doing It For Themselves

2007-04-28T23:56:00.000+10:00

I thought he’d learned his lesson after the gaffe shortly before the birth of our second child. The one when I remarked that I hoped this delivery would not occasion the same pain and suffering as the first, whereupon he asked, “What pain?” Sputtering with enraged incredulity, I’d somehow managed to refrain from squeezing his abdomen in a vice and shoving a prize-winning butternut pumpkin through an inadequately tiny orifice while maniacally screaming, “This is what you missed while you watched telly and ate sandwiches, you empathically-challenged pig-man!”

But no. It seems Mr. Lonie wagged a lot of classes at the Academy for Sensitive and Supportive Husbands, because even the greenest of dangly-genitaled spouses would have the decency, if not the self-preservation instincts, to prevent his latest clanger from passing their lips.

“Why does it feel like I do everything around here?” I complained, referring pointedly to Mr. Lonie’s habit of sitting at the computer monitoring sports results while the housework and child-wrangling is accomplished seemingly magically around him. “Hmm, sometimes I feel the same way,” he said. Not as in, “You’re right Darling, I’m sorry I haven’t been helping more”; but as in, “That’s funny, I thought I did everything in this house.”

You can imagine my flabbergastedness. I was so shocked it took a few minutes for the righteous anger to seep into my consciousness, but if he thought for that few minutes he could voice such an outrageous opinion with impunity, he was wrong. Just in case I’d grossly miscalculated, I mentally ran through my obligations and accustomed duties, tallying them against his. “Nope,” said the little accountant in my brain, punching some final numbers into his calculator. “The figures say FIRE AWAY!” So fire away I did.

It was a short, sharp volley which ended in the perhaps none-too-mature denunciation: “You think you do all the work around here? Well now you can see what that’s really like!” followed by my desistance from all normal tasks and complete refusal to lift a finger to help. (Well, except for the grocery shopping. And the laundry. And the washing up. Because if you want something done properly, and all that.)

The only apology I received was half-hearted and obviously insincere, so until I get a real one, I’ll be enjoying my new leisure time. And Mr. Lonie can forget any bedroom hijinx – he’ll soon learn the meaning of doing everything himself.

Ripped off, metaphorically speaking

2007-04-25T12:27:00.000+10:00

After its failure to provide me with the anticipated twenty-nine dollars and ninety-five cents worth of enjoyment, it was with a faint sense of disappointment that I returned a book, the latest to fulfil its raison d’être, to the shelf.

The prose was tritely formulaic and the protagonist another eye-rollingly boring woman of great beauty and greater character flaws, who ultimately finds redemption and a happy ending in the arms of the man she loves. Yawn. The characters were as endearing as my baby’s last vomit, and the enticing premise was nothing but a fraudulent ruse, an invitation to undertake a free personality test before an assault by pests worse than scientologists – and the natural enemy of high-school essayists everywhere – metaphors.

Alright, so maybe I should have expected as much, given my selection of a book from the magical realism genre. And I know that must seem like an odd complaint, given that many of the books I enjoy are intentionally rich in metaphors, allegory and social commentary, but the beauty of those stories is that they can, if like me you are lazy-minded and still rebelling against minute analysis of dull school curriculum books, be read as simple tales of good versus evil, or triumph over adversity, or coming of age, or sentient meat products.

What I object to is the laboured metaphor, the diversion from the narrative to irrelevant details designed to sledgehammer the author’s ‘real’ message into our heads, and repeated every couple of pages just in case us thickies didn’t get it the first dozen times. I’m talking about such twaddle as a character inexplicably stopping to pull at a loose thread, and find it unravelling just like her predictable life is unravelling! Or interspersing scenes from The Wizard of Oz with the heroine’s own adventures, because she too is both literally and figuratively lost, and realises there’s no place like home!

Do I lack an appreciation for creative works with non-literal meanings? Probably. I dislike modern dance. Stanley Kubrick films have stolen hours of my life that I want back. I look at most modern art and see bogus tailors making clothes for the emperor. Does this mean I’m contemptibly low-brow? Perhaps. Sometimes my brows are so low I could pass for the amazing moustachioed woman. So to appease my ruffled sensibilities, the next book I read is going to be a familiar favourite, one I know I can enjoy just for the story, without exhausting my brain with ponderings on deeper significance. I was thinking of Animal Farm.

This Is Me...

2007-04-16T22:15:00.000+10:00

…but not. My skin is redder, my body more cylindrical, my insides less offally (guaranteed 100% rectum free!), but you get the idea.

I’m off to bed – it’s more comfortable than my computer desk. Wish me sweet dreams that aren’t about populating work databases, and perhaps tomorrow I’ll actually get around to posting something worth a click.

Exhausted and Blasphemous

2007-04-07T00:44:00.000+10:00

The intelligence and aptitude tests I was forced to take for my current job are obviously not the dunce-filters my department hoped they were, because I find myself burdened with responsibilities I feel grossly incompetent of shouldering to my satisfaction.

After weekdays now spent alternately berating myself for being an ignorant moron whose underachievement must surely become clear to my colleagues and supervisors once a reasonable period for patient understanding has expired, and marvelling at the contradiction within my ethos which allows me to adopt a ‘good enough is good enough’ attitude towards practically everything else but places such high demands on my performance in a position which lost its lustre long ago, I find I have insufficient energy and brain power remaining to formulate a blog entry of any description, let alone a mildly diverting one. Weekends have not been spared, either; my former days of rest are now victims of the cruel housework:spare time equation.

So, Dear Readers, thanks for your loyalty. While I have absolutely no illusions about the interest in the earth-shattering reports I'm paid to produce, on things I can’t imagine anyone possibly caring about, it’s nice to know that someone reads and perhaps enjoys at least some things I write.

Oh, and Jesus? Thanks for the long weekend! That whole excruciating-death-and-miraculous-resurrection-to-save-mankind-from-our-sins thing was pretty cool too.

Fugitive Recaptured!

2007-03-26T21:56:00.000+10:00

“A dangerous fugitive is back in custody today after evading capture for 12 months. Lonie ‘Lunchmeat’ Polony was hauled before the authorities and summarily sentenced to an indefinite period of tedious labour for her crimes against society.

“Known to broadcast her unsolicited opinions among the innocent members of Bloggerland through the medium of a ‘blog’, she was found guilty of subjectiveness, tiresomeness and ‘whingeing like a Pom’.

“Polony’s defence relied heavily on supplication to the compassionate nature of the governing powers, citing motherhood to two small children as grounds for continuing freedom. However, she failed to recognise the complete lack of compassion or empathy in the very seigniors to whom she plead her case.

“We believe Polony may, given the slightest opportunity, attempt escape and a return to her antisocial behaviour. Whilst citizens should ON NO ACCOUNT confront Polony, who is considered armed and dangerous, we urge the public to be continually on their guard against further cyber-rampages, and to report any sightings of Polony or her perfidious works on 1800 123 400.

“That’s all for this special news bulletin, I’m Ivor E. Towers. Goodnight.”

Mother Of The Year

2007-03-24T16:25:00.000+11:00

I’ve stuck stickers on my baby just so I can laugh at him perplexedly trying to remove them.

I’ve let him snack on ice-cream cones and eat food he dropped on the floor.

I’ve added chocolate syrup to his formula (which ‘they’ insist he must have while I’m at work) because I can’t get him to drink it any other way.

I’ve driven 200 metres down the road before Miss Lonie piped up: “Mummy didn’t strap me in!”

I’ve done all this and more because I’M THE BEST MOTHER IN THE WORLD!

(Britney Spears and Madame Bovary also ran.)

Deforestation

2007-03-22T14:57:00.000+11:00

Two pockets of old-growth forest were arbitrarily razed today. Countless unique species were lost forever, and too late the ruin of a Thylacine den was discovered in the stark desolation.

I hadn’t realised it had been so long since I last shaved my armpits, and I must say, even with my lucky inheritance of the South-East Asian propensity towards sparse body hair, I was surprised at how productive those little follicles have been. It’s not that I think women with unshaven armpits are, as one well-adjusted netizen has opined, ‘lesbian sasquatches’; in fact I see the merit of the argument that ‘real’ women (as opposed to pre-pubescent girls) have hairy armpits, although I haven’t encountered many women who subscribe to that notion within my circle of acquaintance.

When I lived in China it seemed common for women to leave their armpits au naturel, and I still remember my mother wrinkling her nose in distaste at what she considered the East German female Olympians’ unsightly hirsuteness. Perhaps it’s bourgeois to shave? Well, call me a counterrevolutionary running dog, because I choose to maintain depilated axillae – when I’m not living a vanity-neutral (the less charitable might say slovenly) lifestyle, that is.

Shocking as it may seem to those who disagree that house slippers are appropriate footwear in which to go shopping, I’ve enjoyed my year of not wearing makeup, not styling my hair, and completely eschewing pantyhose and high heels. But now it’s time to let my outward appearance reflect my change of circumstances, and smarten up for the office. So I’m taking up the hems on my new trousers, dusting off the makeup, and deciding which hair product to helmet my hair with. Oh, and Ferals? Chaining yourselves to the trunks will not dissuade me: logging starts on my legs tomorrow.

My Medical Certificate

2007-03-20T11:57:00.000+11:00

To Whom It May Concern:

I have examined Lonie Polony who is
suffering from

A psychosomatic disorder

And will be unfit for work from 26 March 2007 to indefinitely

Signed Dr. Lionel Nopoy

Please bear with me while I post another return-to-work rant – or else just go away, twiddle your thumbs/have a cold shower/enter a chubby bunny contest and come back another day when there may be a post more to your liking.

Over the last week or two I’ve begun to feel weird aches, pains and heartburn afflicting my poor polony body. I’ve blamed everything from too much lactose to bug-filled reservoir dregs (insert Mr. Brown joke here), and even did a wee on a stick to rule out an unscheduled firing of my uterine oven. However, I’ve had to conclude that in the (hopefully) unlikely event of kidney stones or one of those horrible giant tumours that makes it into the Guinness Book of World Records, I am indeed, like Miss Hoover, suffering from a psychosomatic disorder. (Whether that means I’m crazy or not is highly contentious – popular opinion has it that my tenuous link with sanity snapped when a speck-cleaning gone awry caused my own eyeball to wrinkle.)

You see, I’m becoming rather anxious about once more donning the yoke of a humble minion to His Manofsteelness and all that entails for my children, our family life and my accustomed sleep-in-and-day-long-pyjamas. Even though over the last couple of weeks I was supposed to ease myself back into the early mornings, the showers in the cold and dark, the application of make-up and wearing of presentable office clothes, and the readying of one helpless and one unaware-of-urgency child to leave the house before eight o’clock, this morning was the first in a loooooong time that I’ve managed to haul my indolent carcass out of bed by then.

And with less than a week to go, I’m experiencing a rush of guilt which is not nearly so pleasant as, say, a rush of melted chocolate, because I haven’t been the baking-and-craft-and-enduring-childhood-memory-creating mum I somewhere got the idea all other at-home mothers are, to my children while I had the chance. So now I’m going to go and assuage that gnawing sensation in my tummy with home-made glue and cut-up cereal boxes, and hope that cleaning up the inevitable house-wide mess will take my mind off that fact that I’m utterly unprepared for going back to work.

Monday 26 March is going to be a scandalously obscene, XXX-rated shock.

While The Cat's Away...

2007-03-19T00:08:00.000+11:00

We ordered Chinese takeaway from the restaurant we haven’t eaten at since my mother decided one day she disliked it.

Then my dad passed around Easter eggs.

No-one bothered to record The Bill.

Have a great holiday, Mum! (I love you!)

I Have My Needs!

2007-03-17T15:02:00.000+11:00

I was going to sit down and write a new post, but I’m too distracted by thoughts of once more biting into those soft, creamy-white buns. It’s been some time since we last indulged ourselves, and frankly, with two small children, we haven’t had much time or opportunity.

But now my longing has increased to undeniable desire, and I no longer care what strange things they see or hear – it’s a perfectly natural activity after all, and I can’t shelter them from the facts of life forever. So now I’m going to oil up, and prepare to get really sticky and messy.

Yes, I’m going to make mantou.