Ohhh…I so tired!

I took miniFP away for four days to stay with the lovely Wildly Parenthetical and her parents.

Road trip down, lunch and dinner with everyone there, kayaking and puppies followed by an adventurous solo run in which I got chased by Country Dogs (scarier than city dogs since no one is around to help you and you may step in horse poo trying to get away) and vego feasts for dinner, knitting and card games and a late late night, breakfasts of eggs and mushrooms and tomatoes and juice and coffee and lunch with home made pasta and veggies and fetta and herbs with Jennifer Gearing and her partner talking blogging and gaming and politics, dinner of home made baked beans followed by home made brownies, history and theology discussions, more knitting, Dollhouse, puppies, more puppies, breakfasts and study in the sunlight and lunches and dinner of ratatouille whipped up from a well stocked pantry, more Dollhouse, more knitting, more breakfasts and puppies and study and a long long bus ride home in which I finished the study I’d set for myself.

It was thoroughly delightful, but I stayed up too late and didn’t sleep all that well freaking out about the approaching exams so it was pretty tiring as well as restorative.

Back last night – I had called TBO to see if he’d come to my rescue as I’d not get home til 8:00pm and the thought of shopping and cooking was abhorrent. He rescued me with style and flair cooking a fancy-pants mac and cheese and a big salad YYYYYYYYYYYUUUUUUUUUUUMMMMMMMMM – and packing a bit of a hamper of breakfast supplies for a sleepover.

Nowhere near enough sleep, lots of coffee and music and laughter made for a lovely morning, sadly followed by work (which it’s best not to talk about really), late leaving the office (GRRRRRRRRR), shopping, and prepping for dinner tomorrow night so I can feed the sharehouse full of friends who will help miniFP and I carve a Darth Vader Pumpkin for the Halloween night at his school.

Despite being hysterical with tiredness and I suspect hormones (curse you PMS) and a bit of Impending Exam/life stuff stress, I managed to get tomorrows dinner prep done, draw a pretty good Darth Vader from a pic of a pumpkin someone else has carved, cook tonight’s dinner, fit in calls to Mum and from TBO, clean up, cut the lid for the pumpkin and carve its guts out – YUCK! SLIMY STUFF!!!

AND I have a recipe to roast the pumpkin seeds. I dropped them all over the floor which nearly made me cry, but the floor was mopped today, and the bastards have to be seperated from the goop and washed and boiled in salt water anyway, and roasted, so fuck it, I picked those bastards up. They left my floor all slimy though. Yuck.

SO all I have to do tonight is wash the freaking seeds off a bit and leave them in a pot of water overnight, clean the floor, sort the seeds out tomorrow morning and draw the Darth Vader face onto the pumpkin in tomorrow’s lunch break (no, really, I have to carry a fuck-off-enormous pumpkin up the road to work tomorrow cos I won’t fit it all in otherwise).

Oh yes, my washing machine that I paid $290 to have fixed the other day? It DOESN’T WORK!!!!I also have to map out dates and make a study plan, and you know, actually DO some more study.

I didn’t get any study done tonight, and I still have a billion things to do, but we will carve this fucking pumpkin and it will be awesome and that will make MiniFP happy and that will be cool.

Oh…and [major heartbreak warnings] following the links over at Hoyden About Town, I saw pictures of the 2007 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Photography…I got up to number 9 in the office when I just had to stop because howling in misery for this young boy and his mother and the things they had to go through just wouldn’t be considered acceptable in the office.

It’s the saddest (and loveliest) set of pictures I’ve ever seen. Such beautiful photography, but utterly devastating. Wait til you are alone in a room and can howl and rail at the universe because I promise you, you will. The photos leave you devastated, but amazed by the strength of love and commitment and heartbreak and joy – what Cyndie went through for Derek, and what Derek himself went through…it astonishes me that anyone has the capacity for it all.

Christ…better drag my sorry tired arse to bed.

Yeah, I’ve been a slacker

I’ve been away what feels like an awful long time…away from blogging that is, not ‘away on vacation’ away sadly.

So most of you know that I went pretty quiet when TBO and I broke up and I set up another blog with a plan for a third.

But then, you know, life got busy as it does, and things intervened as they do.

TBO and I are kinda working through stuff and are trying to give it another/a new shot, so you know, the whole ‘Let’s blog hilariously about being single and getting into comic scrapes in the dating scene’ thing isn’t really a go under the circumstances.

And I seem to have lost my enthusiasm for hunting down things to write about here – I’d notice stuff that pissed me off but my energy was directed elsewhere so I just didn’t have any follow through.

Then I was sick for about two weeks and felt like I was just shit out of energy. (While I was sick I was determined to be Ms Independence and when I was all fevery and crampy I knocked down a big wooden framed mirror which hit me several times on the legs/feet leaving me all bruised and scratched…but at least the fucking mirror didn’t break, I honestly think I would have sat down and ‘quit’ had that happened).

So what’s new? Well I’ve gone nutty for exercise. Boxercise once a week and swimming at least a couple of times a week, plus I’ve started a running program that says it will get me running five Ks by Christmas (I remain slightly sceptical). I never really thought of myself as fit/athletic, but I guess I like noticing the change in my muscle tone and having a go at seeing what level of fitness I have – happily enough I’ve been surprised that my cardio fitness situation isn’t quite as dire as I’d thought. But I have *muscles*! Honestly I got muscle-fatigue in places I hadn’t even known I *had* muscles, and I’m getting quite the bicep line! It’s quite fun and gives me a nice break from more ‘thinky’ stuff.

I’m headed down south again this weekend to visit the folks of the lovely Wildly Parenthetical and to hang out with them, with WP, with miniFP and two other friends, and play with puppies, and maybe knit…I should study but frankly I’ve had the sort of semester that means I can’t quite make myself give a shit about “should”. I totally deserve a holiday/some free time. And it’s *that* sort of thinking that will cost me my usual distinctions this semester. But who gives a crap right? I need to pass, I’m not shooting for a merits scholarship.

I also found a flyer for a community permaculture garden! Community garden!! Permaculture!!! I know nothing about how to grow shit but I’d like to, plus I like the community-project idea, and I love home grown veggies and I’m keen on the permaculture idea. So it’s win/win/frikkin win really.

I’m doing a lot of thinking and talking about thinking and talking (oh and about ‘feelings’ and stuff too) which is surprisingly not as scary as it previously seemed. It’s really nice to be seeing TBO in different settings, and to be stealing time for coffees together, and to be laughing together again.

Mini FP was in a school choir thing at the Opera House today. That was pretty cool. I generally don’t love school-band-type performances. I feel mean for that but they usually make me cranky and want to throw things, but that’s because they’re generally FAR too loud for the venue and it hurts me and gives me really bad headaches. But in the Concert Hall of the Opera House nothing sounded painful/too loud, and I was really quite surprised by the level of talent on display. And of course it felt pretty special to see my son up there performing – he was so nervous! He got all rigid and his eyes kept flicking in our direction and he refused to dance freeform when they were allowed, but he was totally into the whole idea and seems very happy after it all.

Things are going well with work too – I dropped down to three days a week and while I was really nervous about that and what the workplace would be like, it’s working out well. We’ve got a new paralegal and a part time legal secretary and time is being freed up for me to do ‘proper’ legal work, and it means I’m not in the same bored funk work-wise that I’ve been in for a couple of years.

Uni’s nearly over – I have 50% of my grades earned in both subjects, and reckon I’m sitting on a high credit at the very least. One final exam on trusts and equity and a final essay on mediation in family law and I’m done. I’ve got fuck all time in which to prepare for those, but you know – I’m just going to put in the minimum necessary and just get it over with.

Then we’re on the downhill slide to the end of the year. I’m going to take miniFP on a holiday we probably can’t quite afford, but really fucking need and try to get a sense of a total break between 2009 and 2010. It’s been a tough second semester.

But I’ll be trying to get back into blogging a little more regularly over the next couple of months.

Ooh, and I just ‘discovered’ Tom Waits…so much cool music waiting to be listened to!

So sorry for neglecting commentors of late, there were some great comments in response to the Hey Hey post, but I was in a bit of a flat ‘funk’ and just had no energy for responding at the time, promise to be a little better in future.

Hey Hey WHAT?

[Merciful Zeus I made a lot of grammatical/spelling errors below. I admit I have gone through to fix a few. Apologies to those who read it prior to amendments]

I think I might just be a teensy bit in love with Harry Connick Jnr.

With thanks to @Jennifergearing on Twitter this morning I read about the Hey Hey it’s Saturday (it’s BACK??WHY??) Red Faces ‘gag’ where a bunch of guys ‘blacked up’ to be the Jackson Five. Except of course for Michael who was pale faced.

Oh, the thigh slapping hilarity of ‘blackface’ humour, of ‘Michael Jackson – is he black or white??’, of ‘Haw haw how silly are those black performers with their comical and unwittingly homoerotic moves’ etc etc.

Enter Harry Connick Jnr. While the crowd whooped it up, and John Blackman (if it’s still him) did “Michael Jackson” voice overs (ie/ high pitched/’effeminate’ breathy strangeness. Oh the humour! Such wit!! Stop it, my belly is SORE) and Darrell bumbled along laughing and congratulating these ‘performers’ HCJ sat seemingly staggered and disbelieving and gave them a ‘zero’ along with a mouthful.

Of course in that uniquely Australian-fuckwit-way the performers laughed in that  ‘Haha your attempts at discussing racism are funny you fool’/'I’m simply so daft that laughing open mouthed is my response to everything because I have no idea of *how* to engage’ way, Somers and co were immediately all ‘Oh, of course! In *your* country that *would* be offensive’.

But here where we did our best to wipe out the Indigenous population and still continue to ignore the policies that are fucking things up, that sort of racism is a-o-fucking-kay. Cos it’s *funny* right? Like golliwogs! (I need a flashing ’sarcasm’ sign).

God I HATE Hey Hey it’s what midweek? Is that the name now? Hey, Hey We Just Won’t Fuck Off? I HATE that show and the munt heads who are involved in it. The bar for humour is set low enough in this country without them taking the bar away and beating us all about the head with it. Is that fucking OSTRICH back? Or Dickie Fucking Knee? Oh haha, a bad pun and a misogynist little head on a pole…oh more puns…ha ha. And my my John Blackman and Red Simons are HI-LAR-I-OUS. Is John Blackman dead? It certainly hasn’t stopped the inane voiceovers if he is. And Jackie just smoooothing things over again. Silly Yank! We don’t care about race here, go back to where you come from!

Yeah I’m feeling pretty fucked off right now.

Oh and the ‘aplogy’? Not TO people of colour or *everyone* who is offended by this shit, but to Harry Connick Junior on the basis that his ‘countrymen’ would have found it offensive:

“I know that to your countrymen, that’s an insult to have a blackface routine like that on the show, so I do apologize.”

Yeah try again douchehound.

A few random things

How scary are travel agents!!?? I walked in today and asked for some advice for my holiday with MiniFP and the woman was so freaking enthusiastic I was nervous. She was all ‘Darl’ and ‘Hon’ and she talked so fast and her eyes were so wide I suspected she’d just had three cans of RedBull or something. There’s a level of happy-to-help that’s just *too* happy you know. Take it down a notch. Otherwise I begin to feel like I want to hide, or my level of enthusiasm about my holiday looks morose next to theirs.

How awesome is it that there is a place you can call and for a small fee they’ll get your dinner from one of a couple of dozen yummy restaurants for you?

[Oh yeah, on less 'random shit' and more actual 'news' Mini FP got into the selective stream at a good public High School. Hence the celebratory ordering fancy dinner business. How awesome is that?!? He has Asperger Syndrome and ADHD and he got into the selective stream. I think we need to start thinking about some CBT stuff for next term to help with organisational stuff and commitment to homework, but there's a good support program at the school for kids on the spectrum, and I imagine they'll modify homework for him somewhat. Even if he does a year and sees how it goes, it's a good opportunity for him to be stretched a little more intellectually].

Back to random shit…How great is water? I LOVE water. Not even like ocean water. I just mean drinking water. I don’t quite get Travel Agent Enthusiastic about water, but almost. I think this about half a dozen times a day. I have a glass of water and I think DAMN that’s a great drink!

How much of a nerd am I? I wrote an essay and finished it two days before it’s due. My “reward” was to clean the house, and put clean sheets on my bed (okay in conjunction with ordering dinner in and looking at cool places for a holiday).

And really, I was SO happy to do it. In the last four days of essay prep I ignore any non-essential housework and I’m so in the zone I don’t care too much but it’s a background irritation until the first thing I want to do when I’m done is make my house look shiny and new again.

I’m sick and I want to swim. Like really really want to. But I don’t want to take my germs to the public pool.

Looking back over that list of things that are making me happy, I really think need to take up an ‘ice’ habit or something and even all that functionality out a bit.

Oh and the best bit of today was when I went to do the fortnightly bill routine and realised that I didn’t need to pay my debt to my friend back (cleared the debt) or my monthly huge-with-interest credit card payment: loan repayments come out of my pay and I have a clear credit card for emergencies and St George can fuck off and die. Whee!

Also I have clean sheets on my bed. (Seriously…a little drug habit would even things out,no?)

Fucking facebook!!

I check Facebook this morning and I see that a friend has posted a ‘WOO God’ video. Whatever, it’s her wall right, so I don’t comment.

A friend of theirs has commented to say ‘Oh an argumentative friend of mine said that’s not Einstein, but I’ve heard Einstein was a believer’ and closed with this charming mother fucking pig of a quote:

“God did not create evil. Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God’s love present in his heart.”

Morning atheists/agnostics/anyone not exploding with the presence of the love of god in their heart: did you know you’re EEEEEEEEEEEVIL!!!

And here you thought you had to actually DO bad shit to be considered eeeeeeeeeevil, but no, because you don’t have a little god in your heart you are eeeeeeeeeeeeeevil. And what of the uber-Christians through time who committed eeeeevil? Well easy, that’s not God’s LOVE dummies! God’s love is beyootiful and the bad Christians who do bad shit in God’s name, well they don’t have enough of God’s LOVE and those who have God’s love can’t be evil so their actions aren’t really evil? Get it, got it? Good.

Fuck. I couldn’t stop myself and have responded saying “That’s a fairly offensive definition of evil”.

E.T.A my friend came back and suggested maybe it should be ‘Evil is what can happen in the absence of God’…um no. Evil is a make believe construct for fairy tales so none of us have to confront the fact that the world can be bad, that the universe can be uncaring, that god can’t save people from shit or if he can he often doesn’t in which case fuck him, and all people have the capacity for good and bad actions and society allows certain kinds of bad to continue cos we don’t mind so much or we don’t know how to do it and this Supernatural God hasn’t done anything about it when he apparently went to extreme lengths to fix things before and religion has instigated as much evil as god’s love has allegedly prevented? Bitter rant? Maybe.

E.T.A #2…fuck. It’s now become a ‘perspectives’ thing. No, your friend said I’m ‘evil’ because I don’t believe what you believe, I don’t care what fucking ‘perspective’ you look at it from, that’s FUCKED. But eventually she signed off with ‘Peace Mama’. Grr. Peace as in ’shut up now please’ and ‘Mama’ since that’s what she calls every woman who’s had a child. HI. I HAVE A NAME and YOU know the name. USE it I didn’t change it at deed poll and pay for the change with my personality.

Jesus!

So I’ve been coping with things pretty well I feel, but the wheels have just fallen off a little.

I’m exhausted, having been doing a lot of exercise lately (5 days out of 7), and having been on on-campus sessions, and yes that whole grieving thing. I keep forgetting it’s only been just over three weeks since TBO and I split up, that it’s okay to not be 100%.

I kinda ‘accidentally’ got shitfaced last night: my bosses insisted on us all getting together for a big dinner and piss-up on a Friday night where I wanted nothing more than to study for two hours and sleep indecently early. But when you’ve got free Little Creatures on tap and you’re mocking the Riverview graduates and their families it’s a little hard to call it a night.

I stumbled home around 12:30 a.m, ill with rich food, too much ale and an aching uterus, I inexplicably emailed various people for a good hour (though probably because I knew the room would spin if I lay down) and slept fitfully.

So today I’m exhausted, hungover and pms-y. I studied a little, got caught out by a friend of my son’s who likes to call at say 3:00 and say ‘Can I stay over tonight’ and a drama over a missing battery pack for a 360 controller. I wasn’t dealing with it well and MiniFP and I got into a bit of an  hysterical screaming match. He headed off to get some sleepover supplies only to call in tears realising how sick he was and how over it he was and how he no longer wanted his friend to come over (his friend having dicked him around over times such that we both lost a good hour or two of time).

Just as I was about to head out the door for a swim I found TBO’s b’day card to me from a couple of months ago.

The *only* thing that saved me sinking into a deep hungover depression was a swim. I swam and swam and swam some more. I love that since I’m teaching myself to swim I can’t concentrate on anything other than swimming, on pulling my stomach muscles in, on floating on the right angle, on how my arms are moving, on kicking my legs properly. I can swim and swim and know that when I get out there’ll be a nice break between the chaos before the swim and the rest of the day after.

I really wish I didn’t have a fucking essay to write. When I get through this godforsaken semester I am taking miniFP and myself off for a cracker of a holiday. We’re going to whoop it up in Melbourne, and eat our own body weights in food! We’re going to sleep in and run amok and be lazy arseholes! It will be great.

Anyway, that’s my self pity rant. I have to go. Mini FP and I have blue-cheese burgers on the way and a date with Pirates of the Caribbean. Mmm blue cheese burgers!

In case anyone wants to make blue cheese burgers:

500 g mince

70 g blue cheese

couple of Tbs of Worcestershire sauce

couple of sploodges of Tabasco sauce.

Sqidge together into patties and YUM!!!!

Later people, see you when I’m less flat!