Bitchin' Blog

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

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...

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

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

"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

"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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

*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

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

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…