fear and loathing

God, Angela Shanahan irritates me. Here she is, keen to reassure conservative Australians that there is no need to fear "Lesbians going nuclear":

"...the prize for the weirdest reaction was the SMH which apparently saw lesbians at the vanguard of the new nuclear family announcing "Lesbians Go Nuclear!" Sounds alarming. Of course we are used to hearing about this inevitable decline of the family so we are only too willing to accept this gloomy scenario. But is it true?

Right. It's "gloomy" and "alarming" to think lesbians fall in love and want to make formal commitments and raise children together just like heterosexuals. Shanahan goes on to explain that there's no need to worry, because:

As for the gay family. Well, they are almost non-existent. They are mostly lesbians with children from former marriages. They constitute about a quarter of a per cent of couples with children.

Phew, eh! Shanahan acts as if marriage is a finite quantity and there's only so much to go around. If gays start helping themselves to happy family lives and the rituals that go with it, there'll be less for the heterosexuals. Or something. Never can quite figure out why lesbians "going nuclear" would be a threat to anyone.
But here's something there is a finite quantity of: the natural resources on our planet. Yeah, and there's only a finite quantity of our tax dollar, in the form of family tax benefits available to all parents and in all likelihood claimed by the Shanahan family too. So if I were Angela Shanahan, I would stop bragging about having nine kids myself. After all it's just genetic selfishness. And possibly overkill.

lone wolf theory

Had to wince a bit yesterday when I heard Mark Latham drag out that line, "In politics, disunity is death". Because the embarrassing thing is, in 2004, even unity was death.
Still, having read this article about the Latham loss in the Oz at the weekend, I have to say it sounds as if Labor was far less united under Latham than we all thought. Or it was kind of one-sided unity: We all got behind Latham as our one great hope, but Latham allegedly acted the 'lone wolf' throughout his campaign.
You know that saying, nothing succeeds like success? Well, the reverse is also true: nothing fails like failure. So I just can't see Latham getting another bite at the cherry, cruel as it seems.
You wonder how true the stories are though, don't you? There's always bound to be one or two disgruntled staffers who'll spin it like this. But if it is true, well, then Latham deserves to bear the blame for the failed campaign.

let's get metaphysical

One last thought before I switch off the machine...
You know this theory that a more advanced species of life in another dimension of the 'multiverse' could've created our universe using computers? Well, the theory is criticised because an "unimaginably large" computer would be needed to achieve such a simulation. But a computer too large for who? They Might Be Giants, as the band name goes. Their computers might be able to handle it. Just wondering.

beach, baby

We're moving Tuesday so the computer’s about to be packed and I'm not sure how long it'll take to get connected again in the new place. I’m stoked about our new shack. It’s only one bedroom-plus-sunroom, but it’s cheap and big and anyway, who cares when you’ve got the ocean a hundred metres away? Location, location, location! We're going to be right in the middle of three surf beaches. Down the road there's a small row of shops, including a video store (yay), and our chemist and doctor will now be within walking distance. We’re going to be able to go to the beach early in the mornings and in the evenings too if we like and from our house we’ll have a great passing parade to watch, surfers and tourists and kids walking past to the beaches and shops. And we’ll be able to hear the ocean at night....ahhh! What more could a girl and her bub want?
So anyway--back soon, hopefully.

apprentice latham

Anyone else a fan of Donald Trump’s The Apprentice? Yes, I am talking about a reality TV show, sorry. [Insert argument here about watching reality TV being no more or less valid than watching any other sport--Ed.] I find myself in complete agreement with Mr Trump on every sacking. I’m especially glad Raj went. There was something creepy about him, even while he played the role of charming raconteur. He seems like the kind of person you know would be a belligerent and aggressive drunk, not a happy one. And for all his bragging about being such a ladies’ man, he was really quite a sexist pig, once you saw how he actually interacted with the women on the show. The show’s tagline may be ‘it’s nothing personal, it’s just business”, but that’s a laugh--the whole thing is personal. The apprentices, being in fierce competition and apparently unable to control their egos, are unable to cooperate even to achieve a common goal, and most of the disputes seem to be personality-related rather than about business. One of these people is going to be a CEO for Trump? Good luck to him. They may have been to Harvard but they act like kindergartners. Ah, love it.
Speaking of apprentices, if Mark Latham had been on The Apprentice, he would definitely be fired now. After all, he was Project Manager and he completely botched the ‘mission critical’ element of marketing (I'd say particularly on the issue of Labor’s economic ability). Not only that, but the public didn’t warm to him personally--and they had a chance—and that would appear to be fatal. Look at Crean. The same taint of unpopularity is going to be Latham’s downfall, too. Mr Latham...You’re fired.
Having said that, I’m not really a fan of this so-called white-anting as it just seems too easy for Labor to simply blame the leader when the policies were evidently also unpopular with the public. And the team was responsible for the ideas in those policies, and for selling them too. But if Latham really is a deadpollywalking, I’d really like to see Gillard/Rudd up. But it’s probably just wishful thinking!

yesterday's papers

As you may have noticed, I'm still not finding much inspiration in the news. But as I'm packing and culling stuff I keep finding things that make me smile, at least a little. One clipping, from the Manly Daily in 1998 (no link), describes a bank robbery and dwells on the description of what the male and female offenders looked like. The headline was, "Not 'Bonnie and Clyde'. The reporter notes that the man is riddled with acne scars and the woman is "160cm tall with blonde-streaked brown hair in a bob cut." What's more, "she appeared frumpy." I don't even know why I kept the clipping. Perhaps I was imagining some young cadet at her typewriter at the Daily, wishing she was writing up the fashion shows and not the court reports.
Reminds me of when we first came to Oz and my dad was a reporter at the Mosman Daily, one of the same group of papers. When I was three, they put a photo of me naked on Balmoral Beach on the front page. I'm not kidding. I'm holding an umbrella, but it's not hiding anything. I mean, this was about 1975. But still, who's idea was that?
Speaking of beaches, have just been around to look at a place to rent, right across the road from one of the beautiful local beaches. It's smaller than this house but it's cheaper. Think I'll take it. This means I could move as early as next week. Joy.
Oh damn...talking about myself again...was going to try and cut down on that. That's what the anon. blog is for, after all. It's cool having an anon. blog. Feels a bit like throwing a party when your parents are away. Have updated it, for those who are reading me there. Link available by emailng me--I haven't sent the new link out en masse or anything because I don't want to be presumptuous. Horses, water, etc.

facing facts

Well, I’ve pulled that piece I posted yesterday about face-reading because I thought it made me sound like a bit of a wonka (even if I am a bit of a wonka sometimes). But then this morning I kicked over some old psych notes and clippings and the clipping on top of the pile was, completely coincidentally, the Good Weekend article by Malcolm Gladwell called “In Your Face”, the article I was thinking of when I wrote yesterday's post. No link available to that story but Googling leads you to this piecein the Annals of Psychology by Gladwell, called "The Naked Face".I haven’t had time to read but I’ll put up in case anyone's interested in the subject too.

go ahead, don't make my day....

OK, I get the hint. Ever since our curbside standoff a few weeks ago, my neighbor has arranged to do the very noisiest things possible at the very time he knows my baby is supposed to sleep. In quick succession: spider-spraying the house; re-laying carpets and tiles; something involving two days' worth of jackhammers (again, only during the baby's regular nap periods), and--the piece de resistance--sawing down a massive tree right across from Harley's window. That ended up being fun though, we ended up getting up and dragging chairs outside and watching all the little men up in the tree. I've never seen tree-felling done this way (professionally, I suppose). They go down the tree, sawing off little half-metre chunks all the way down the trunk. They didn't even shout, "TIM----BER!!!!".
Little does my neighbor know that the baby can sleep through sledgehammers.
Well...he used to. In the past two days seems everything has changed again. The baby now refuses to sleep all day but is sleeping from about 9pm til 6:30am, and I'm told I shouldn't complain about that. I don't know, I miss the two regular two-hour day sleeps--doing an eight hour day shift is insane. At four o'clock yesterday, I found myself in the kitchen crying into a teatowel for a minute, moaning my god this is harder than I thought. I rang a friend and she kacked herself and said, "Welcome to motherhood". It's really been turned up to eleven lately.
Anyway, I really think the guy doesn't like me. I mean, maybe I'm just paranoid....anyway, leaving soon so it'll be moot.

self-love

Lately I keep coming across that message, pride comes before a fall. A friend sent my baby a bunch of children's books including the wonderful Mr McGee series [ah, so this is where Bobby ended up...Ed]. One particular book has Mr McGee discovering he can fly, so off he goes, calling out for everyone to look at him! And sure enough he crashes. Or there's the Christian ad you might have seen on TV at the moment where a young boy kicks a soccer goal and then runs around whooping it up until he, too, falls flat on his face. The ad quotes the saying and references it to the Bible.
The gist of it all seems to be that you should be modest and humble, not be proud of yourself and your achievements, not think you are somehow better than you are. See also 'tall poppy syndrome'.
I sometimes look at something I've written on this blog and think it makes me sound like I love myself, but then I think it's OK, I didn't spend many years and many thousands of dollars in therapy doing a psych degree if not to learn how to let me love myself. Or at least, like myself. I suppose it's a fine line--you should love yourself, but not too much. And worst of all, you shouldn't show it. Like writing about yourself in a flattering manner on your blog, heh heh.
Anyway, the whole thing makes me wonder about religious organisations like Hillsong Church, where they apparently preach the usual self-help dogma about getting stinking rich and so on. I don't know. Can you be stinking rich and love yourself and be proud of yourself and yet be humble and modest as well? Anyone out there fit this description? If so, there's a Paypal button over in the righthand column.(I jest.)

she's so weather vane

When is my weathergirl going to get into a bikini, I wonder? Looks like she's in a sarong at the moment, but it's just way too hot for that much clothing right now. I'm not sure the Bureau of Meteorology is passing on all its information. Either that or she's more concerned with her wardrobe than doing her job. She's very chic. But she's now claiming it was only 26C an hour ago up here when it's been about forty in the shade since the sun came up (not to mention about 99% humidity...ugh). But maybe it's just me--maybe Tamworth Airport isn't the closest weather vane after all?

every blog will have its day

What? What? WHAT! Is it April 1? Talk about quitting while you're ahead. Chris has dropped a bombshell and is bowing out of blogging. A sad day for the Ozblogosphere. He's switched comments off so wailing and bashing your head against his comments box is futile. Go read his impressive blogging manifesto and last words. Vale, backpages and best of luck with your book, Chris.

update: "Vale" was probably the wrong word, because there's a chance Chris will return to blogging after his book is finished in six months or so. An eternity after such prolific daily blogging!

fully sic

I was going through some old letters today and came across this one I found in my mailbox once. It is handwritten and photocopied and the envelope says "To the tall lady with the light brown skin". I'm not tall, so I knew he didn't mean me but I read it anyway. The letter read:

To a very pretty woman that I followed once and left a letter there explaining that I will write again when I got a post box address. I would like to explain I never learnt to talk to the opposite sex because I was in boys homes in prison for burglary and i ended up doing three times longer so the woman can work there which allegedly we got electronically brainwashed and destroyed wtih medication because everyone trains against corrective service in the beginning because people can't get their life together through what was done to them and people can't find girlfriends because children were never thought about men's eggs on the end you've got all the ugliness on TV through men's smelling steel and concrete and suffering two frustrations because they require a woman's scent. I put my post box there for you to write back [address]. We have put this under 5 or 6 different doors. Could you give this to the tall lady with the light brown skin.

OK, it's a bit creepy and he sounds mentally ill, but there's something kind of poetic about that last line, doncha think? Wonder if he ever found her?

lightness of being

I've been worrying there's something wrong. I seem to have no appetite and I've lost a lot of weight lately, or so I'm told by a few people who hadn't seen me in a while.
I guess people did say the baby weight would drop off once he started crawling. Or it could just be because I'm in love. I used to lose weight sometimes if I had it real bad. I got it bad.
It's been interesting though, the changes to your body after having a baby. Contrary to all expectations I actually like my body better now. I can't say I feel any of the body loathing that the media encourages me to feel, post-pregnancy. The daily walking, pushing 20 kilos up and down hills, has made me a lot fitter than I ever was before (not that it's hard being fitter than a sloth), and I know I'm stronger because things are easier to lift. Moving house will be easier than last year when I was seven months pregnant...
It's possible the weightloss is just because in recent months I have been eating what the baby eats instead of the other way around. So I'm probably grazing more and not getting very hungry. I often don't have time to cook a proper meal for myself so if I'm steaming the baby some vegies, I'll just have some of that too. The only other thing I can think of is I switched to drinking soy milk about a month ago.
My sister started to get cranky after I told her I'd accidentally lost weight. She is still carrying her baby weight. She says it's because the baby's crawling now.
"Now you'll get busy," she said, long-suffering. She always acts as if I have it really easy because I only have one child compared to her two. She's kind of competitive.
"Hmm, I dunno, I've been busy from the start."
To my other sister I said, "I don't miss the man."
"What do you mean," she said suspiciously. "Which man?" and now I had her full attention. She often reads her emails while on the phone to me. It drives me crazy. I said I meant the role of the spouse; it's not a gender thing. I just never stop to consider there could be someone else helping, another set of hands. It must be bloody great.
Anyway, enough about me. No, really! I'm going to start talking about John Howard again real soon, you watch.

stormy weather?

tamworth airport
These weather pixies are pretty cool. Let's see if mine can keep up with our crazy weather. (Found at lifeislike.)

groundhog year

I knew it was too good to be true. I got a call yesterday from my real estate agent saying the owner wants to move back into this house. I have til January 10 to move. Just when I was congratulating myself on having cured my nomadic ways and finally found a place I loved, where I could see myself settling for a few years at least. Bummer. There go my fantasies about lazy good times over the summer. Another hot Christmas moving house. Trying to look on the bright side though. Might even find something better.
Anyway, posting will probably be slow and infrequent for the rest of the year. (Should get to posting that anon. blog today.....................argh......)

rolled on?

I've finally got around to updating the blogroll. Even though this site is officially on hiatus this month, I still intend to catch up with everyone else's blogging. So anyway, if I have accidentally left off your blog, please email me again.
While I'm here, thank you for those who have emailed me for the link to my new anonymous blog. I have my first story up there but want to do a quick revision so will send the link out later today (baby permitting). It has cheered me up a lot to know that you guys do like my writing. (And yes, I was kidding about the lesbian sex scenes. Just trying to snag a few hapless googlers.)

you're such a lovely audience

I've started a new, anonymous blog where from now on I'm going to post those longer, fiction-style reality pieces (this kinda thing, if you're new here). I've decided to go anonymous out of curiosity to see if being less inhibited affects my writing style.
I find that having people from my real life read my more personal posts makes me feel slightly uncomfortable these days. It's not so much that I have something to hide, or that I want to write nasty things about anyone (never makes you feel any better) or reveal secret love affairs or whatever. It's just that the self-disclosure is too asymmetrical. (Though I did mention the other day how one motivation for blogging is having friends overseas read your blog to keep up with you...those aren't the people I'm talking about...)
Anyway, we'll see how it goes. Its worth a try.
By the way, the Non-Bloggable Thing taking up my time lately should be wrapped up by next month. So instead of closing sanctuary completely I'll just give this site some R&R while I deal with Things and go off on writing tangents. Needs it too, I feel.
Meanwhile, having a new, anon. blog should be fun. I even thought about switching genders, but then decided I didn't want to have to forfeit writing up all the juicy lesbian sex scenes stray too far from reality, so the only real change will be that I won't use anyone's real name.
If anyone would like the new link they can email me. And please don't blow my cover....!

thank god

Signing us into playgroup yesterday my glance fell for the first time on the letterhead, which read, 'Families First Playgroups of NSW'.
"Hey," I said suspiciously, not letting go of my two dollar coin. "You're not affiliated with that Rightwing religious political group are you?"
She sighed and tugged at the coin. "No, that's Family First," she said, in a voice that suggested she'd been asked that question alot lately.
"Phew, eh?" I said, and I let her have the coin.

bloggus interruptus

Hello all. Due to unforeseen circumstances am a little short of free time lately, but expect to be back in the saddle real soon. Don't forget me, eh?

PS. So looks like Bush has got in again. Sigh...do I give up all hope or do I give up all hope.....................