potted history of a weekend
Sunday 26 June, 2005
jean michel basquiat : new stripy slippers : mastitis : butterfly party : charity : cy twombly : found paper : so much to learn : whites on whites : asian packaging : wish lists : believing : street art : ginger tea : goodie bags : paper cuts : carved rubber : design a handbag : morroccan lounge music : tamarillos : willoughby draws snails : cut lunches : ayurvedic soap : green tea noodles : give and give for growth : get outta town : jpegs of fijian sunsets : violet dye on thirsty paper : motorcycles diaries : broken sewing machine : fabric roses : inspiration workshop : chillies on pasta : plastic heart beads : small strip of sun : nesting : tea with wellingtonians : late nights : rocket salad : sunday supplements : no email : thirst
FOUND POEM :
THINGS BJÖRK SAID IN A BBC DOCUMENTARY
sneak down next to the moss
a girls' world - baby skyscrapers
no trees at all
consuming the city
collect moths - because of the isolation
functioning with too much logic
one day off in 1994
like, roots.
like, a locked universe.
give them the big finger
synchronising the inside and the outside
microbeats : tiny insecty noises
these things that travel outside my nerves and inside my mouth
I feel you trickling down my shoulders
a generous palmstroke
fight with love.
Posted on 26 June, 2005 | 4:55pm | 0 comments |
party planner
Wednesday 22 June, 2005
Next week my 'biggest baby' turns five. I can hardly believe it. Five has gravitas. Five is 'child', not pre-schooler. Five is half a decade.
So, it's time to plan a party. Last year (see above) was the first time we had a 'proper' kids' party. Before that it was more just family and a cake - he was too little to know about or appreciate parties, I reckon. I found organising his 4th birthday party just as nerve-wracking as organising a grown-up party. Lots of the concerns are the same: will everyone show up, will there be enough refreshments, will someone drink too much and throw up on the sofa?
But it went really well. I love the photo above because of the sheer delight in Willoughby's face on first seeing his train cake. I also love the way that in his excitement he's grabbing at his dick. Such a boy reaction! And look at Felix and Katrina's faces...spellbound by the lollies...suuuugggaarrrr....
Fraser and I had a lot of fun making the cake. We did it 'free-form' without a recipe, pattern or guide. I like the little 'log-car' with the chocolate flakes. Fraser thought the little lolly-people on the passenger car looked a little like terrified P.O.Ws on their way to a labour camp, but apart from that - it turned out rather jolly, I think.
This year Willoughby has asked for a 'Butterfly and Bug' theme. I picked up some cool yellow and blue butterfly wings for him at the op-shop recently and he wants to wear them to his party. I googled 'Butterfly Party Theme' and all the hits were pinky-purply-girly suggestions. Why are butterflies considered female? We have a swan-plant and every summer Willoughby watches his stripy caterpillars turn into coccoons and then bright orange Monarch butterflies. I can see why he is entranced by butterflies, and yet supposedly it's a 'girly' interest. Ah well...further confirmation that the world is nuts.
The invitations are in the mail. We've drafted a 'pattern' for a butterfly cake. Now I just have to shop for party supplies and we're all sorted.
Here are five cool things about Willoughby lately, to celebrate his upcoming fifth birthday:
everytime we go outside, he picks flowers for me.
he has a kooky sense of humour and likes to tell lame jokes (current fave: What's brown and tall? A poo on stilts.)
he is kick-ass at yoga.
his art is amazing, he can draw dinosaurs and rabbits and people and he always draws their brains inside their heads.
he's a natural actor - yesterday we were out walking and he squished an orange that was lying on the ground with his foot, then he lay down on the ground, 'became' the orange, and narrated the whole scene to me. "I was just lying here and then this giant gumboot came down out of the sky and went SQUDGE! SQUISH! and squashed me flat, and I was all sad and my juice went everywhere....etc". He then repeated this performance for his Dad later that night and, man, he was SO the orange. I mean, I believed!
Here's to the blossoming of 'babies' into their brilliant, beautiful, quirky child-selves.
Posted on 22 June, 2005 | 4:55pm | 0 comments |
put the needle on the record
Monday 20 June, 2005
At the opshop today I got 'Shilo' by Neil Diamond for $1 (in mint condition!) and have been jiggling around the house ever since to Kentucky Woman, ta da da, you got to love her, ta da da, you got to please her, to da da, Kentucky Woooo-mmaaan.
I'm not exactly a fan, but lately I've been revisiting the music of my childhood. I've been borrowing records by 10CC and Carole King from the library and remembering how the songs sounded blaring out of my dad's transistor radio, as we floated in our Para pool and sucked on homemade ice-blocks. I had a pair of purple and green togs with a weird stylised aerial view of fields on them and a little pleated white skirt attached. They always used to slide up my butt but I thought they were cool. I remember getting my friend Sharon to squeeze a lemon onto my head in the hope it would make my hair go blonder faster, but it just ran in my eyes and stung like hell and I yelled at her and then we didn't talk again until she came over one day weeks later to gloat about the 'Donny and Maree Osmond' 'Maree' doll that her aunty got her from the States...anyway...I digress...
On the cover, young Neil is wearing a fetching yellow floral 70s shirt and a brown suede jacket with long fringes. A thick gold chain is nestled in his chest hair. Rowr.
Back in the pre-irony, pre-jaded early 70s, music marketing people used to write heartfelt mini-essays on the backs of records, describing the artist's sound and motivation. I wish they still did this on CDs. CDs just aren't as witty and tangible and cool as records. This is off the back of 'Shilo':
"Neil Diamond writes and performs with a deep insight and clear vision of fundamental human truths and the type of human pain that everyone can identify with. This is not to say that Neil Diamond is a heavy artist. He is not. His appeal is based in human values rather than human labels. He reaches and penetrates through the heavy facade of today's frantic life both soothing and refreshing the listener.
Love that bit about 'human values rather than human labels'. He sounds like a human anti-depressant. Which I guess is kind of apt.
Girl, ta-dah-dah-dah...you'll be a Woh-Man, soon. I love you so much I can't count all the ways, I'd die for you girl yet all they can say is...he's not your kind...don't let them make up your mind...
I gotta go...the heavy facade of my frantic life has been penetrated.
Posted on 20 June, 2005 | 4:53pm | 0 comments |
right here, right now
Monday 20 June, 2005
Ten things about me in this moment:
I ate a kiwifruit and a handful of cashew nuts for breakfast.
I have four layers on, the heater blazing and yet I'm freezing.
I have to collect Willoughby from kindergarten in ten minutes but I only got two things on my to-do list done so far today, so I'm feeling resentful.
I have had this head-cold for nearly two weeks now and feel pissed off because I lead such a boringly wholesome life I don't think I should get ill.
I spend too much time on the internet to avoid doing housework or thinking about my life in a genuine way. The screen drugs me into inertia and yet I sort of feel like I'm doing something 'productive'.
Everything I try to write lately turns into bad satire with sex scenes.
I'm considering a career writing bad satire with sex scenes.
I'm wearing brown and black, and in the vein of that Smiths song, it's making me feel "black on the inside".
I think people who write blogs to talk about how blah they are feeling lack imagination and are tedious bores.
Today, I lack imagination and am a tedious bore.
and one bonus thing...now I'm late for picking up Willoughby.
The day just gets better. Oh look, it's started raining and I think I've burned my chickpeas. Get off the internet, Helen.
Posted on 20 June, 2005 | 4:53pm | 0 comments |
more poetry
Sunday 19 June, 2005
INVITE SOMEONE DANGEROUS TO TEA
But wear a helmet, under your hair,
put gold coins in a saucer behind the milk,
do not show your talismans - the severed rabbit foot
you stroke, the flower essences distilled in brandy
to calm your heart. If they knew
how superstitious you were - your worst fears
would occur, curdle the cream and blacken the cake
-so perfect before- but you invited them,
you made it happen. So keep your lips a glossy red
to hide your chattering teeth, and pinch your thigh
to keep your eyes dry, smile and while you struggle
to stay upright, try to pass the Melting Moments
without a shudder.
Posted on 19 June, 2005 | 4:52pm | 0 comments |
kvetch
Thursday 16 June, 2005
I like to complain. (You might have noticed.) I find it therapeutic. I think what irritates people can be as interesting, revealing and even endearing as the stuff they love.
Below is a list of my current pet hates. These are things that really get under my skin and make me go "grrrrrrr" on the inside, actually, sometimes even on the outside. (Email me yours - I'd love to hear them and would like to turn them into another post on the topic.)
I hate:
it when people say "with a twist", as in "Italian, with a twist" or "Retro, with a twist". When salespeople say this in the context of trying to sell me something...I just want to slap them.
Speaking of slapping, I hate The Feelers. Something about that hang-dog faced lead singer guy makes me want to slap him too. There is always a Feelers video on C4 when I'm trapped on the couch breastfeeding Magnus without the remote. It's hell. (Up there is a badly staged photo of me kicking the TV when the Feelers are on it, unfortunately you can't see the Feelers. Or maybe not so unfortunately. My friend Ben has a Feelers cd. Loser. I can hear him saying in retaliation, "At least I can DRIVE!")
the words combo, portion and succulent. (Sometimes you see all three of these words together on menus - ugh, gagsville.) I'm not all that fond of novelty either. Why is it that toys etc described as 'novelty items' are never novel?
fake vinyl crackles at the start of music on CD. If you want your song to start with a crackle, release it on vinyl, already!
price stickers on books and cds that rip when you try to remove them, leaving that shredded white goop that eventually goes all black and icky if you don't spend ten minutes right then scraping it off with your fingernail. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!
shop assistants who decide you look like a shoplifter and so lurk menacingly in your personal space, waiting to catch you in the act. This seems to happen to me a lot. Maybe I have a dishonest face?
music that is just wanky-guitar, predictable "loud/quiet/loud/quiet" style and no sense of humour. e.g. all "Nu-Metal".
locally-owned cafes that sell their coffee in three different sizes. (Yes, that's you I'm talking about, Cafe Cuba.) If I wanted to indulge in this sort of capitalist silliness, I'd go to Starbucks.
people who say "Wow, that's...um, different!" when they mean is "Omigod, that is really weird and you're cooking my noodle here 'coz that is totally out of my realm of experience altogether and I'm finding it extremely threatening" i.e. most of my wider family and the people from the town where I grew up.
op-shops which are label-savvy and hence, charge silly prices. Sure, it might be a genuine Gaultier tube dress, but it is twenty years old, has lost its elasticity, and was pretty ugly to start with. No one is going to pay $35 for it.
showers which are basically a warm dribble (i.e. our shower). It takes me five minutes just to get my hair wet. Chase that dribble 'round the shower box, chase it!
and people who have blogs just so they can constantly blah-on about the boring minutiae of their lives. Oh, wait a minute, I don't hate that at all.
I loooooooooooooooooove that.
Posted on 16 June, 2005 | 4:50pm | 0 comments |
husband in absentia
Wednesday 15 June, 2005
See? Even deepest suburbia can be pretty, sometimes. This picture isn't a patch on the real oranges and llilacs that this sunset had, but you get the idea.
Fraser is away on a work trip. It's just for a day, but he left at 5am and won't be back until we're all in bed, so a long day. I just wanted to give a big "shout out" to all those single Mamas out there. I find it hard doing it for a day. I can barely fathom how hard it is doing it alone all the time.
I'm feeling like F and I are 'ships-passing-in-the-night' lately. I know its just life with small children, and the 'real us' is still there...but it's hard to keep the romance alive when you're both constantly tired and covered in either puke or poo. Rowwr! Sexy!
Here's a poem I wrote about the elusive husband:
The way into you
is a hairline crack
entrance by seeping
a slow way in, a creep,
I barely fit, wedged in the dark slit,
if I move, I change you.
I'm a bloom of decay.
You are a zen garden-
no flowers,
not a stone out of place.
If I were grading this poem like I do for my students, it would only get a C+ because it has a partial rhyme (and we all know rhyme must be throughout, or not at all), it uses the slightly abstract word 'decay' without quanitfying it with a more detailed metaphor, and the whole poem is evasive with no real sense of the 'I' or the 'you'.
Can you see why marking other people's writing is bad for your own writing? It turns you into a hyper-critical tosser. However, the beauty of running your own blog is that you can inflict your bad poetry on your readers at will. There is nothing like writing about relationships to draw out the angsty teenager inside you!
It's nearly sunset time again. I'm going to go outside with a coffee and watch over the state house roof tops for some more purple patchwork sky.
Posted on 15 June, 2005 | 4:47pm | 0 comments |
progress report
Tuesday 14 June, 2005
Isn't this a pretty cup? It's the birds that get me - it's such a rampantly lush and fanciful scene. I have three and tried to sell them on trademe but they didn't go. I think I'm glad.
It's very much hibernating weather at the moment and the highlights of the days are what manner of comforting stodge to have for dinner and that moment that my bottom hits the spot on the bed where my hot water bottle has been sitting.
Yesterday I got Willoughby to eat a kiwifruit! He's been strictly an apples and pears guy since he was about two. He ate a whole kiwifruit and was delighting on the sludgy sourness of it. But then I spoiled the moment by insisting he try a mandarin segment. He rolled around on the floor with his face puckered in horror and then hid behind the sofa. Ah well. Little steps.
Magnus is now eating bowls of mush at lunchtime and dinner time. He is a natural at eating and even liked some pretty sour green apple sauce that Fraser made. It's funny, he'll be eating away quite happily for five minutes and then suddenly gets all distressed and cries for a breastfeed. It's like he's saying "Yeah, that food-stuff is okay and all that,...but I still need the boob, you dig?."
I've been using some of the tips from the scarily perky flylady. The site design is hideous and she is extremely suburban american. I suspect she votes Republican, too. BUT! If you are an at-home mama...her tips do work and make the endless cycle of housework easier to cope with. Anyway, after a week or so of flylady, our house is tidier, and more organised and I'm feeling calmer and more centred. (I am a virgo, after all. Order uber alles.)
I'm also getting so much better at letting stuff go, throwing, cleaning out, passing things on...I'm realising how with that "maybe I'll use this one day" approach...well, that day never comes. I'm also getting better at throwing out cards and letters etc from family and friends. I'm a terrible hoarder of 'sentimental' things. I'm realising that I don't need these things as physical evidence that I am loved...the love is real and intangible and exists in my heart and mind. So now, I only keep things that have very special messages in them.
"Life cannot be frozen in objects and symbols; it is a powerful movement forward."
-Catherine Texier
and, even though this week I've been happier at home, I thought this was an interesting idea from American sociologist, Jessie Bernard:
"The way we institutionalize motherhood in our society - assigning sole responsibility for child care to the mother, cutting her off from the easy help of others in an isolated household, requiring round-the-clock tender loving care, and making such care her exclusive activity - is not only new and unique, but not even a good way for either women or - if we accept as a criterion the amount of maternal warmth shown - for children. It may in fact be the worst."
Posted on 14 June, 2005 | 4:45pm | 0 comments |
boys
Sunday 12 June, 2005
I did a lot of cleaning and decluttering today. (The mission continues.) Somewhere in the middle of sorting the piles of boys clothes and boys toys it really struck me that I live with three males now. THREE!
I think of myself as a "women's woman". My female friends are extremely important to me and I'm quite girly in some ways. I like frocks and cooking and gardening and other stereoptypical girly things. When I was at university I imagined I would always choose to live in a house full of women. How wrong was I?
I support the notion that feminist mothers are the best people to breed and bring up 'nice men'. I'm cool with that. But in the process I have to live with three times the smelly feet? two times the goaty-smelling teenage boy bedrooms? all those male hormones...yikes, I might even have team-sports enter my universe (ugh)...maybe even...rugby? Oh goooooood.
F and me are certain that our little family is complete, so the "house of boy-stench" is the way it's going to be for the forseeable.
I can see I'll have to make the most of my girl friends, my neice, my sisters-in-law, to get my female-energy-fix. I think I might have to start organising 'pink days' where I get to go out and indulge my feminine hankerings as an antidote to the boysville that is now my home. I'll eat cup-cakes with pink-icing, drink those complicated cocktails which come with a swizzly straw and a cherry, and shoe-shop...for hours and hours.
The wall of my study has a predominantly 'pink' theme at the moment: pictures of roses and dresses and tea-cups. When I re-did the wall back in March, I thought at the time "What's with all the pink?" because my favourite colours are red and orange...but nooooow, I get it.
Subconsciously, I was declaring the one space on the property that's just for me, an Independent State of Girly-ness.
Viva la rose!
Posted on 12 June, 2005 | 4:44pm | 0 comments |
screw the Foos
Thursday 9 June, 2005
As of last night I am an ex-Foo Fighters fan.
All week I was looking forward to the interview on C4 last night and excited about the new album out on Monday. Then, during the interview Jono asked the Foos about the new record and they said "It's two discs, one is real hard rock guitar and screaming vocals and the other is accoustic love songs...it's for chicks...yeah, it's the part of the record for your girlfriend."
Patronising dicks!
I'm a girl. I like hard guitar and screaming vocals. My record collection contains Bad Brains and Crass and Shihad and lots of other extreme guitar/screaming music. I'm so bored with this stereotype that electric guitar wank music is for boys only.
Then Jono (who is a prat, by the way) asked them about groupies (sigh) and they were revoltingly Beavis and Butthead about the question. All "dribble...hur-hur-hur..sniff...girls...hur-hur..."
Well, Dave Grohl, it's official - you are a twat. I regret defending your lame-ass efforts with the Foos to all those Nirvana devotees who thought you'd sold out. I was wrong. They were right. Kurt Cobain, for all his faults, would not have said that dumb "acoustic is for girls" comment or gone dribbly over a (stupid) groupie question.
Here endeth today's pop-culture whine.
I'm away for the weekend so here is a couple of cool links to entertain you until Monday.
For vegetarians:
Here is a girl whe appreciates a good punk rock toon AND is a vegan-diva. And here is somewhere to get a stylish vegetarian t-shirt, instead of the usual pup-tent-sized white 'Save the Sheep' numbers that health food stores sell.
For crafty types:
Here is a fabulous crafty-mama and here is another one.
Have a good weekend, y'all, and be sure not to buy that Foos record come Monday.
Posted on 09 June, 2005 | 4:41pm | 0 comments |
tea therapy
Wednesday 8 June, 2005
One thing about being a chronic internet addict and reading mainly nothern hemisphere blogs, is that I'm painfully aware they are all heading into summer up there. The blogs I read are all full of the joys of warm weather, al fresco dining and skimpy cotton skirts. On one hand it's depressing as all hell when it's bleak and cold here...on the other hand, it gives me inspiration and reminds me that the seasons turn and one day it'll be summer here again too.
Speaking of inspiring, that delightful tea scene above is from Cath Kidston's new summer range. I nearly ordered one of her catalogues, but then realised that with the exchange rate it would cost me about $20...just for the catalogue. Anyway, you can get a taste of her gorgeous, retro-inspired, 'shabby-chic' wares on the site. Her stuff is so girly and summery, it is sure to cheer up any S.A.D-affected southern hemisphere dwellers!
Speaking of sweet things, I just discovered this site - that's right, a whole site devoted to tea-drinking and biscuit eating!
Here is their manifesto:
"Well, I think we should all sit down and have a nice cup of tea, and some biscuits, nice ones mind you. Oh and some cake would be nice as well. Lovely."
Who can argue with that?
I have to say that I find it perplexing that such avid tea affecionados would consider PG Tips as the uber-brew...but each to their own. My brews of choice at the moment are Planet Organic's Ginger Tea or an old-fashioned cup of Twining's Earl Grey, with milk.
I know I harp on about drinking tea rather a lot, but I do adore it and it can be a meditative ritual, under the right circumstances. I like to sit at the table and look at the teapot my friend Tony made for me and my tea-cups, carefully sourced from antique or op shops, the milk in the 40s glass jug that belonged to my grandmother. I like to place them just so on the freshly wiped table - like a 'still life' painting in 3-D. I watch the steam unfurl in the air, hold the warm cup in my winter-chilled hands, take a sip and give thanks for quiet moments, beautiful objects and simple pleasures.
"Blessed are they who see beautiful things in humble places where other people see nothing."
-Camille Pissarro.
Get off the internet, people, it's time to brew up and sit down.
Posted on 08 June, 2005 | 4:39pm | 0 comments |
pack it up
Tuesday 7 June, 2005
Here's the thing. Today I still feel like cleaning and tidying, but I know it's not just about the mess.
Today I want to tidy the house, then pack up everything inside the house and throw most of it away and just keep the favourite, important things. Then when the house is empty, I want to scrub its walls in thanksgiving for the year and a bit that it gave us. Then I want to reach god-like down from the sky and fold the house away as though it is a pop-up book. I want to slide it back over the celestial counter and magically have the money we paid for it in our bank account. I want to leave this loser neighbourhood and never come back.
Then I want to have a deep, hot bath and scrub and scrub at my skin until I've scrubbed away ten years. Ten years would put me back in London, young and stupid with big dreams and a shiny new map. I would have my children still exist but hanging out in the sidelines for a while. Cared for by the sweetest Tibetan Buddhist monk since the Dalai Llama.
I would be me, in London ten years ago with everything I know now.
I would rent an apartment in Golders Green that was white and clean and empty. I would write a novel on a lap-top and only leave the house to go dancing.
I would try harder to live my dreams. I wouldn't accept "good enough". I wouldn't come home after two years.
This is a sick and stupid fantasy. I know I'm supposed to have gratitude for my health and my beautiful children and a roof and all that. But screw it. I feel grey, washed out. Today I just want be free. I want to be young and careless and self-indulgent.
I want a week without a baby crying or a preschooler making demands. I don't want to wipe any shitty butts for a while or tone down the chilli or pick up toys or be woken hours before my body is ready to wake. I want to get to know my husband again because all we do lately is bond over how tired we are and have an occassional hug en route to more wiping, feeding, fetching.
I'm not depressed. I don't have PND. There is no danger that I will harm my kids or myself. I don't need an intervention.
I'm human. I'm tired. And I'm trying to be honest about it because most mothers aren't and we need to be, because it helps us all. Tomorrow I'll probably be happy and light-hearted again and I'll feel embarrassed about this.
But today, this is how I feel.
Posted on 07 June, 2005 | 4:39pm | 0 comments |
clutter bug
Monday 6 June, 2005
I should be cleaning. There are toast crumbs on every surface. Clothes on the floor in every room. The oven is filthy. The nappy bucket is full of soaking nappies that will turn into festering nappies soon. Toys everywhere, especially lego. What is it about lego that it is always just where your bare foot is about to fall? There is lego in the pot cupboard, the laundry basket, lego in the herb garden...it creeps...it breeds...it multiplies.
The photo above is of the first four things that crossed my path as I walked into the lounge. I don't even know where most of the toys in our toy box come from. Children spawn clutter. It's like magic.
The clutter is driving me nuts. I can't seem to get on top of it. Even if I get a room straightened, the children trash it again in minutes. Last night I strode across the lounge floor and Fraser laughed at me, because I literally had to climb across, stepping over the baby gym, the baby rocker, taking care not to tread on the baby's floor rug, the Thomas the Tank Engine train set, the carefully constructed Star Wars scene and the lego pirate ship.
I'm just as bad. I breed paper. Piles of paper. Drafts of creative writing, leaflets and flyers, letters, to-do lists, recipes. Leaves and leaves and leaves of important things that I musn't throw away yet because it's terribly vital that I keep it, although when I come to it again four months later I can't remember why I thought that at the time.
I feel a major winter 'spring' clean coming on. I'm itching to throw things out, to chuck, to purge, to empty. I've been reading too much zen literature. I hunger for a white room, empty but for a big floor cushion and one exquisite cup of tea. I've never been a minimalist sort of person before, but now I dream of straight edges and emptiness. There is so much mess in this little house, clutter, junk, vindictive night-lurking bits of lego, snot on the sofa, play-dough in the carpet...
Willoughby is at kindy, Magnus is asleep. Just before, I got out a rubbish sack and stood at the kitchen doorway for a while trying to decide where to start. Then I put the kettle on and turned on the computer instead.
The Internet is so clean.
Posted on 06 June, 2005 | 4:38pm | 0 comments |
i heart geek boys
Thursday 2 June, 2005
Aaaah...Rivers Cuomo... one of my favourite geek boys, isn't he pretty? He's right up there with Morrissey, Jarvis Cocker and my husband, Fraser.
I love geek boys.
I once saw a photo of Jarvis Cocker in a Sunday supplement wearing a mustard cardigan over a beige skivvy, brown cords and suede old-man shoes. His hair was greasy, his expression baleful and he was drinking tea from a floral cup and saucer.
Hot. Hot. Hot. I was instantly transported to waves of swoondom.
I realise I have an inverse aesthetic when it comes to men. The stereotype of 'sexy masculinity' that (supposedly) women go for - the oiled muscles, the tall, dark and handsome, the uber-male chest-thumper leaves me absolutely cold. I'm one of those women who would probably get out her knitting if her friends forced her to go to an all-male strip revue. Blech.
I like my boys brainy, opinionated, fey, emotional, compassionate, good at computer stuff, and funny. (It's a fact: geek boys are always funnier.) Also, it's only geek boys who can match my encyclopaedic knowledge of music trivia and obscure pop-culture references.
My husband is geeky, my brother-in-law is geeky, my best-male-friends are geeky, my oldest friend from high school is geeky deep down (although he tries to hide it a bit by surfing the fashion zeitgeist.) I have surrounded myself with beautiful geek-boys.
It's probably because I'm a geek too. Not in the techie sense, but I've always been a four-eyes, a music train-spotter, a bedroom-dwelling obsessive. It's probably just a case of birds of a feather.
Now I've got two sons. I hope I raise them to appreciate a good cup of tea, to know how to make a woman laugh and to understand the manifold joys of brown corduroy.
It may sound cruel, but I hope I raise geeks.
Posted on 02 June, 2005 | 4:36pm | 0 comments |
remember
Wednesday 1 June, 2005
I haven't written in my paper journal for a couple of weeks now. This isn't like me. I feel like I haven't had time, but I know that's crap - there are always little pockets of time here and there. Not writing in my paper journal is usually a sign that things are getting out-of-balance.
I need to get back there. First, I have to FIND my journal. I think I saw it under the couch with some stray bits of lego and a couple of dust-bunnies.
Above is the front page of my current journal. I took photo of it a couple of weeks ago (our scanner is kaput) with the intention of doing some 'inspiring' monologue on here about the wonders of journaling and the importance of writing as a tool to stay present.
But right now, I think I need to take my own advice before I attempt to share it with you all.
Tonight I'm going to leave the laundry unfolded, take a break from grading other people's writing, cook a quick pasta thing for dinner rather than my usual nutritionally balanced three-dish effort, find the fattest, blackest, inkiest pen I can and scribble away in my journal until I can remember who I am.
See you when I'm whole again.
Posted on 01 June, 2005 | 4:35pm | 0 comments |