Paraphrasing Oates

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

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

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

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

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

“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

…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!

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

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

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

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!

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

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!

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

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

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

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

…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

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

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.