Is It Just Me?

Leave a comment

Seriously, who has people running into them all the freaking time? Me, that’s who. The other day a guy ran into the back of my car driving around the corner. He was old and I asked him if he was okay, first and foremost. What I was thinking was something along the lines of holy fucking shit why does this always happen to me, or whatevs.

statefarm2

Second thing I asked was if he had insurance, because the last time I was involved in an accident, the old lady who literally turned right in front of my car while I was doing a nimble 45mpfh didn’t have insurance. The dude’s got Statefarm.

statefarm

Hoping Jake pulls through on this one.

It wasn’t a big accident – we were both in turning lanes turning and he hit the right rear door/wheel area, but I’ve got a fuck off big black car, so the damage will be $$, I’m guessing. And no one was injured. The boys didn’t even know what had happened, they probably thought I’d run over something on the road, like a curb. It happens.

This is the fourth time someone has run into me. The third time was the doozy.

First was leaving a kid’s birthday party, a young driver ran up the ass of my car. Her air-bag went off.

Second was some idiot backing into me while I was waiting for another car to reverse out of a carpark. I was literally not moving and the old twat just backed on out.

Third was the old lady who went to hospital and was cited by the cops.

And fourth was the fellow this week. Good times.

None of the above happened when Husband was around, which goes towards proving that

a) I’m a tough motherfucker who can handle pretty much anything. Don’t fuck with me.

b) It doesn’t matter what colour car one drives – red, silver, red, black – they’re all in for the wreckers at some point.

c) I may have been a shit driver in a previous life.

d) Statistically, in my experience, young drivers have less accidents than old – 1:3

Moral of the story: open your fucking eyes, people!

Ideas Of Beauty

Leave a comment

I’ve been seeing a lot of press for Georgia Clark’s “The Regulars” (adding it to my list) and she has written a bunch of articles on feminisim and beauty and etc, plus blog tours. I just read one over at annalisebooks.wordpress.com in which she talks about her perception of beauty as a child, and it got me thinking about my own perceptions at that time.
I thought I was hideous. I literally thought I was that bad. I drew a self-portrait once in the back of a book in case it got lost, so people would know who to return it to (even though I did not live in a small town where everyone knew each other and more importantly, knew who the ugly kid was). The picture had long hair, big goggly eyes (some fuckstick in primary/elementary school actually called them goggle eyes to my 6 year old face FUCK YOU GUY), a probable mouth and enormous bags under the eyes.
My grandmother had dark skin under her eyes, maybe she was always tired, maybe it’s ’cause she was european and missing the art and weed from her native Holland, maybe it was a medical thing. Or whatever. I thought the skin under my eyes was just as noticeable (I probably was tired because I used to stay up ’til all hours reading) and I thought it was awful. Looking at my 2nd grade school picture now, the skin under my eyes was a bit pronounced and my eyes are excited (FUCK YOU GUY), but my slow-roll-into-40ish self thinks I look like a cute little school kid with the long hair and missing choppers and uniform collar.
Why would I think I look so awful?
Ads. Tv. Jerks, obvs. If course, it all gets worse as we get older where there are more ads, more tv, and more jerks. Maybe there would be less jerks if there were less ads. Maybe jerks are universal. Fuck you jerks.

Doppelgangers

Leave a comment

Jodi Foster
Bryan Brown
Rod Stewart
They are just three celebrities I have seen this weekend who turned out not to be themselves but someone else.
Doppelgangers. People who look like eerily similar to someone else.
image
There’s a market for it and probably a lot of other things, too, which I need not mention.
Apparently there’s one of me, two people have said I look familiar but that happens to me a lot. Not sure if it’s an wasy segway into conversation because I can, apparently, never use easy segways – I just stand around looking awkward and unapproachable.
Do you remember the movie Aeon Flux?
image

Cult cartoon with either nude or semi-nude people somersaultimg around and being spies. The hollywood remake detailed the lack of material in the DNA pool and they were basically recycling people.
image

Theoretically that explains doppelgangers. Outside of manga, though, I’m drawing a blank.

Space Hogs

Leave a comment

I’ve read a lot recently about men being society hogs, among other things and of course there are exceptions, and even the majority being exceptions, but regardless. Men are hogs: seats, tables, meetings, media, rooms, societies. Enough is enough.
Close your large manly legs. I don’t care if your junk is larger than life – I don’t want to see it straining against the fly of your trousers because you think it’s okay to take up the whole goddamn seat we are sharing on public transport because you won’t sit with your knees even remotely close together.
Keep your shit in your own area. At a table of four, you don’t have a right to spread your papers and books and computer and pens and dirty used tissues and snacks over half of the fucking table. Nor do I wish to hear your comments that aren’t under your breath when everyone else in the room is listening politely, and I certainly don’t want to feel your breath permeate my space or worse – touch my skin (arm and neck by proximity) because you won’t breathe politely instead of lecherously over everyone because your manly lungs like your manly thighs, need room to expand.
I’m actually in meetings this weekend (shock! horror!) and have seen men speak over female counterparts over and over again, without malice, certainly, and I think without being aware of what they’re doing, but they also don’t talk over male counterparts.
And don’t even get me started about politics.
Damn it, you guys.

We Bought A Canoe

Leave a comment

And not like Matt Damon bought a zoo, either.

image

We actually love MD, even tho we laugh like hysterical bastards when this is on

We bought a small canoe with a bunch of machined holes in the bottom because 8yo (in nearly three weeks and I haven’t even started his bday stuff) likes kayaking and this thing was $20 and a stones throw down I5. Husband was over the moon because it was a shorter drive than he had thought, never mind that we would be saving $300.

image

We managed not to scratch the car AND we found a youtube video that was literally made for Husband, named something like “so you bought a canoe off craigslist and you need to fill up them holes and save yourself $300”.
It would have been a great project for the boys but apparently filling in the holes involves all types of epoxies and resins and sanding down fibreglass, so they’ll probably watch a movie while Husband bitches about the job, even though we saved $300 by not buying knew.
Disclaimer: Husband is a hard worker who values his down time.
There was a noticeable lack of child input and distraction during the eerily calm 18 minute segments of the dude’s videos. Anyhoo, I’ve big expectations about when its finished!

image

Full credit to Isiah Mustafa - those are not my abs

Book lovers day

Leave a comment

So Monday was #Nationalbookloversday and it was all over twitter so it must be legit. I’m not reading anything right now but I am a book lover, not a fighter. I don’t fight with books, I let them take me, clothing optional.
I’ve read loads of books, obviously, since I’m mid-30s, maybe on the cusp of mid-late, but there are a few that stick out in my mind. Many of them are more recent reads as I’m apparently losing my mind but that doesn’t make them any less awesome:

image

so many books, so little time

Night Film by Marisha Pessl was riveting. So excited about reading Special Topics in Calamity Physics next!
The Stand by the grand Master Stephen King. I’ve read it about ten times and was thinking the other day that I need to get into it again, but it’s in poor condition and I don’t actually know where it is, sad emoji. Also most of the other SK books, especially The Dead Zone, which I always get mixed up with The Dark Half.
LOTR are wonderful, but I couldn’t get into The Hobbit and I probably wouldn’t read them again unless I was stranded somewhere.
The Time-Traveller’s Wife.
Most Jane Austen novels, obvs. And Brontes.
The Mayfair Witches series by Anne Rice.
A Discovery Of Witches and etc by Deborah Harkness loved loved loved.
On the other hand, I feel like I’m cheating on a book if I don’t finish it, and honestly there must be less than five books that I’ve put away unfinished. I’ve finished more books that I thought were rubbish than books I’ve stopped reading. Not finishing a book is like not putting the shopping trolley away properly, or a bunch of other bullshit things I do that are just the right thing to do that neither Husband nor I can think of right now, even though he can get so pissy because I’m doing them.
I’ve really enjoyed reading everything recently. That probably means I’m no critic but it also means I’m an optimist, or naive as shit. Whatevs.
Enjoy reading bitches.

What Constitutes Romance?

2 Comments

Husband sulks off to bed mumbling about lost romance while I lay face down on the couch, farting myself stupid because there were onions on my burger and now my life is ruined.
But what is romance?
‘Tis but an idea of a feeling when near someone else. A glance, a touch, a whisper. I googled it and the top few results were “feelings of”. And then there’s the kissing and the hand-holding and the progressing from there.
What has romance been for me, besides not using the bathroom with the door open? Recently, being a mid-30s woman has not required much romance but before that, well I can’t remember what constituted romance so I looked on my phone for pics but there was only 39,002 pictures of me and the boys with a sprinkling of photos of Husband in there occasionally.
image
But getting an awesome haircut was sexy, which led to romance. Watching Vikings together with the bared chests and long hair and whatnot led to some romance.

image
Going along with my crackpot schemes is a large, blinking neon sign of a wonderful partner, but it isn’t necessarily romantic per se.

image
“Flowers, chocolate, promises you don’t intend to keep” are all pretty standard, but can be more exciting when they are initiated by one’s very own beast.

In the beginning, our romance was via text because Husband had an operation and was out of commission for a bit. The texts were not romantic but I’m pretty sure they had us both thinking along romantic lines. I bought him flowers in hospital, he told his sister to beat it, there must have been some romance on top of the hospital linens until the nurse told me to beat it.
He wrote me a poem once, that was romantic. He bought me flowers a number of times, definitely romantic
image
(and I get even better tokens of love now that I’ve produced heirs). He’d call me all the freaking time (still does) just to chat. I call that romantic because it didn’t end with one of us in jail.
So what has constituted romance for me are actions which create feelings. These feelings reinforce pair ponding so parents will take better care of offspring so that they in turn will become romantic individuals who create future pair bonds and further their species.
So it’s true, romance is a feeling.

Should I Try To Be Nice?

Leave a comment

Still faced with the impending threat of getting a day job, I’ve begun to think about interacting with others and the prospect of having to be nice or be quiet. And frankly, when people are too quiet they’re assumed not to be nice anyway, and I don’t want to miss out on anything because nice guys finish last. Or do they? [I certainly will be when I “compete” — haha wtf? in the full-length CLR next weekend.]
I recently read an article where that age old adage was all but disproved. It mentioned dating questions about who looks (better) nice overall and rated people on their facial expressions. I’m not sure how dating can correctly predict niceness, ’cause we’ve all made those kinds of mistakes. But what would I know about dating? I dated my husband for all of four hours before I asked him to marry me (he said no).
So does it matter that I’m not nice? My kids would say it does, when it suits them, of course. Maybe it’s just me.  Maybe it’s just that I’m always tired from having time to myself at the end of the night. Maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore. But If I’m not me anymore, who would I be? I would be what I think society’s idea of niceness was, and I think that those people are generally not my fave.
But maybe small steps is all it takes [just like in the relay race]. A while back, like a few years I think, I started saying “thank you” to Husband for every little thing he did, every single thing. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve got good manners up the ying yang, but I started laying it on thick, and it wasn’t even cheesy. It was just more good manners and when you’re sitting together at the end of the day, a little “thank you” for some seemingly inconsequential thing, really makes a difference, even if it’s just breaking the ice. Or maybe people do this all the time and I really am just a bitch.
image

How else could I be “nice” all day if not giving profuse thanks for borrowing a stapler? I just woke up from a nap so I’m drawing a blank, but let me cast my mind to what I tell the boys about being nice…
Being gentle, with words as well as actions
Being kind
Being helpful
Being thoughtful
Not being a dick

Seems simple enough. Maybe I can put motivational speaker on my resume as well.

Oh, The Poor, Wee Souls!

Leave a comment

“Hey guys, wouldn’t it be cool if I got to work with the police?”
“Would it be dangerous?”
“Who would look after us?”

Of course, the answers are “no” and “seriously?”. The boys would either play all day in their underpants with no food or would scrounge from the pantry or fridge themselves if they didn’t see me in a congealing mess of offal and writhing ants, or they’d call 911 if they did. In either scenario, I consider that to be taking care of themselves. Case closed.
5yo starts full-time school in September and turns 6 (gasp!) in December, so they are old enough to be taking care of me! Any theoretical jobs I could hold down would be during school hours in all probability, so the day to day love and trudgery would still be on my shoulders rather than some slender nanny with long hair and an attitude (bitch better have an attitude if she’s taking care of my monkeys). And let’s face it, a bit of before or after-school care would probably be the pinnacle of my children’s days, and especially if I came home with tales of heroics and standoffs from the world of filing cabinets and multi-line phones.
So I guess it’s just myself I have to convince.

Mother’s Loads

Leave a comment

Mothering is a tough gig, and I say that as only a mother can whilst saying nothing at all of people who may or may not be fathering, parenting or child-rearing in any other form. I am merely speaking from my own experience and blah blah blah.
My kombucha mother has been fading away into despair and desolation for a few months and I have cast mine eye upon her only occasionally when rooting around the pantry, but only today did I act on my thoughts to rehydrate the poor thing. And not half an hour later, she started to revive. We’ll see if she produces anything worth drinking any time soon, or if she punishes me for a few weeks first with piss and literal vinegar.
I experienced the same forlorn malady this afternoon after a long day with my excitable children and my first cup of wine, so revived!
image

The only one bigger is the novel by Stephen King and a big tent in middle earth.
My parents are flying back to Australia tomorrow and they did us a solid amount of babysitting – grandparenting, if you will – and so tomorrow we bid them adieu.
Someone else who is gearing up for babysitting/parenting/stealing the younguns is Mabel, our resident grandmotherly chicken. Princess Fiona has been nurturing her eggs for about two weeks I think, so soon enough, the boys and I will be listening at the doors
image

for the pitter patter of tiny feet and adorably small chirping, whilst simultaneously trying to keep Mabel occupied in the yard so the littles can get acquainted with their mother rather than the mother being edged out by a clucky Mabel, even though she won’t sit on any clutch of eggs of her own. Anyways, we’re all very excited at the probability of babies, except for Husband because he’s all about mouths to feed and other whatevs economies and etc. 5yo was telling me today all about where the eggs come from and where they go and how they grow, and when he was a baby and I brought him out to see the baby chicks. If for no other reason than that, I am excited for the babies. Lifecycles, that’s what my peeps are talking ’bout!
Here’s to the mothers!