End of an era.

For a variety of reasons, tomorrow is going to be the last day that Squirms and I spend at home together in uninterrupted stay-at-home parent and child situation.

I never, ever thought I would be a not-working-outside-the-home parent. But it's really been the most enjoyable two and half years. Yes, there were times when I thought my face would melt off from playground induced boredom. Yes, I've despaired at what has become of my education and aspirations. But I've been lucky to always live in an urban, intellectual, walkable, wealthy area and we always made the most of it. I loved cuddling with her late in the mornings, and eating breakfast in my pjs, and going to library and having lunch with friends whenever we wanted to. I loved reading to her, and steering her clear of crappy toys and books and tv shows, I loved that we had time to hang out and not be rushed when we saw each other. Obviously, this isn't the right thing for everyone, but it was for us. I think Squirms eats better, sleeps better, is more literate and numerate, watches less tv, is more independent, and more affectionate because she's been home with me. I think I've learnt to be more respectful of other parents in the world (who the fuck knows who has a secret law degree!) and generally patient with life. I swear less (a bit less!). I don't buy tabloid magazines anymore.

We've had a good run.

Some random thoughts

Blueberry frozen yogurt. Mmmm.. yum.

• The Jay Leno Show is the biggest waste of television time and money in the history of television.
• So I switched over to Home Alone. What I like best about that movie is the family home. See also: The Family Stone, Father of the Bride.
  
• While I watched I was eating this delicious bowl of frozen yogurt and frozen blueberries.
• Which made me think of this post from Shapely Prose about various favourite foods that have appropriated as diet foods. I often choose fro-yo or sorbet over ice cream (because icecream can be really gluggy) and I do sometimes get a pang of DIET FOOD! gross! this is all you'll eat forever! when I do. Fuck you, diet industry.
• The number one food ruined for me by dieting is ricotta cheese. Doesn't that suck tons? On the South Beach diet you eat ricotta sprinkled with Splenda, like, twice a day. Foulness.
• Which leads me so nicely back to the show I was watching before Jay Leno and his giant stupid chin got all up in my TV face: The Biggest Loser.
• I am so conflicted about that show. It's clearly just fat porn. Aren't I watching because omg all those people are fatter than me I'm so good? Shouldn't I just switch off?
  

Thanks for letting me empty my brain all over here.

Uppance update

Our car looked like this, too. Then Boogs dug it out.
Someone else's car via Washington Post.

A neighbour with a truck kindly drove me to Target/Old Navy this morning. I snagged boots (a size too big- blargh) for Boogs and a coat for Squirms. They had no shovels but I did get the very last ice scraper in the store- the worlds smallest ice scraper BTW, the runt of the ice scraper litter. I got a car washing brush that will reasonably double as an extremely annoying short handled ice brush.

Then, via a community listerv, I bought second hand from a different neighbour, snowpants and snowboots for Squirms. Boots were a little big, but she was keen to try them out in the snow anyway.

The roads were slippery as hell. Before we even made it off our block there was someone jackknifed across the street, completely stuck. It took about eight dudes pushing the car and others shovelling and sticking carpets and cardboard under the tires to get that station wagon moved. We were in a giant 4-Runner, so we were OK. Once we got out on the streets it was creepy and quiet and icy.

It was actually pretty great to see all the people out on the street walking to and from the supermarket instead of driving, and helping each other with the shovelling. It was nice and village-y.

Our street and the surrounding streets still haven't been plowed. The metro is still closed. Boogs' work is canceled tomorrow. More snow day!

My uppance has come

Can you see me shopping in this weather? Or driving?

I cannot have been more stupid about this snow storm.

Up front, let me say, it's totally gorgeous and wintry and Christmassy and fun and I am in no way being a Debbie Downer about the actual snow. It looks like tomorrow is going to be heaps of fun playing in the snow with snowballs and snowmen and sledding.

It's just that our family did not in any way prepare for this. Oops.

I am the only one who could go outside today because I was the only one who had boots. Not good boots, mind, the cheap shitty ones I mentioned here. So I had to be the one to go outside, with my shitty back from falling down the stairs, and trek to the supermarket to buy milk and cereal and noodles and carry it all home in a heavy backpack and canvas bags becoming increasingly soaked with ice. I had to do this walking in the three feet of snow and more coming down because all yesterday I had mocked the fools who were stocking up and I had assumed I would go do the grocery shopping on Saturday like I do every weekend.

Squirmy has no snowboots, no snowpants, no ski coat, no waterproof mittens, and no hat that doesn't cause her to throw a mind-meltingly intense tantrum.

Boogs has nothing warmer than his everyday uniform of tracky daks, sneakers, and t-shirts and jumpers that advertise an alcoholic beverage/sporting team/college event (bonus points if it's all three *cough Bruce Hall 1997 Inward Bound Powered by Bundy Rum cough*).

We have no snow shovel to clear our front path or dig out our car from its snowbank. Even if we got to our car, we have no ice scraper or brush to clear the ice off the car. Even if we had all this the roads are totally impassable, and we have no way of driving on them to the shops to buy snow clothes or any of the ice implements we so badly need. Even if we could get there, the shops are probably closed.

Also the metro is not running.

So our options are-
:Check in with the Metro again tomorrow to see if they have opened. Maybe I can get to the mall in the morning. I can get clothes there but not the shovel etc.
: Reinvestigate driving conditions in the morning. Maybe I can drive to the Potomac Yards shops where they have a Target and and Old Navy. Between them I could probably get all the clothes and shovelling devices I need, unless they are sold out, a distinct possibility.
:Wait until 12pm when the Gap Outlet on King St opens. I can walk there. They'll probably have clothes and boots for Squirms. Outside chance of boots for Boogs.
: I can ask a neighbour with an unburied 4-Wheel Drive to take me to the shops.

Seriously though, this is the second DC winter I have experienced, and it seems like every two weeks the whole city area loses its collective mind about a potential snowstorm that never materialises. Or its like 2 inches of slop and they still close the schools. Even OBAMA said this city was totally wussmo about snow. Can you blame me for skepticism?

However, indeed my uppance has come. Biggest snow storm since 1922. Biggest snow dump in December of all time.

I mostly feel bad for Squirms, who's going to have to wait until I can scour some clothes for her to wear before she can play outside. That's likely to not be until the afternoon. All the other kids in the neighbourhood will be playing outside from daybreak. Boo me.

Conceded: Or, Shoes Part Deux

These boots were made for walking... on my feet.

I bought these boots.

After wise words from a friend to the tune of:

1. How environmentally friendly can it be to have dozens of pairs of shoes shipped overnight to and from your house while you try to find the one non-fug pair of non-leather boots in existence?
2. How environmentally friendly can it be to buy a pair of thin plastic shoes (if that's all there is AND THAT *IS* ALL THERE IS!) and have them last one season (viz, the last pair of non-leather boots I bought for $50 that kept my feet freezing and fell apart after a year)?
3. Spend decent money on one pair of of leather boots and take care of them well and they will last many years.
4. You did your best. Now stop.

I researched the various environmental costs of leather vs plastic, and it seems leather still loses. And there is the ethical issues I still have with the dead things on my feet. I looked into which countries make the most environmentally destructive shoes, and have the most egregious animal treatment industries, so I could avoid them (guess what? CHINA WINS. Guess what else? CHINA MAKES ALL THE SHOES IN THE WORLD). I couldn't win there either. All I could do is buy a pair that uses vegetable tanning techniques instead of chemical tanning techniques. One win. And I sought a pair that had a sole that protected the upper leather at the sides, so it would last longer.

One win plus gorgeous, gorgeous boots.

Oh yeah...

Earlier this week I Twittered about how I fell down the stairs, and nearly killed myself. This resulted in much laughing, much worry for my well-being, the diagnosis of cracked ribs via Facebook, and frantic international concern from my mother and sister urging me to get x-rays and/or Percocet post-haste. I blamed the fall on a combination of comfortable footwear and good housekeeping. What I didn't mention was that I was standing at the top of my freshly mopped stairs in my fuzzy slippers LEANING OVER DEMONSTRATING TO BOOGS HOW SQUIRMY LOOKS WHEN SHE SLEEPS RIGHT ON THE EDGE OF HER BED AND NEARLY FALLS OUT ONTO THE FLOOR.

Thank you. I will now gladly accept my Almost Darwin Award. Let's call it the Alfred Russel Wallace Award.

These are the people in your neighbourhood

It's been eight whole days since I last wrote, becuase I was shocked into silence over the response to my last post.


KIDDING!!!!!


I have just been really busy and/or lazy.

I've been busy with kid stuff and uni stuff and gathering and reconsidering and then returning and then buying new versions of Christmas presents to send to my dear friends and fam at home in the O.Z.

That necessitated about six trips to the post office, of which today I conducted three and the last led me to this nasty human. Allow the story to unfold...

~~~~~~~~~~~~ doodle do doodle do doodle do wiggle-fingers-make-Wayne's-World-dream-sequence-noise~~~~~~~~~~~~

So I finally finalized all my presents, wrapped and labeled them at home and took them to Post Office A. At this point Squirms and I had just come from yoga and we were walking down the street all bourgey-suburban holding hands and it was nice and pleasant. As soon as we arrived a woman came to the door and put up a sigh saying 'Office closed for computer malfunction'. It was like a scene from an movie set in the Depression, where just as our hero is getting to the front of the line for jobs at the canning factory, an old man walks out with a sign saying 'no work here'. Boo.

So we walk back to the car and head to Post Office B. At Post Office B I wait nicely in line and Squirms waits squirmily in line then we get to the front, fill out a page long customs for and then, THEN, the lady tells me I can't send perfume to Australia. Oh BULLSHIT. I fought it a little bit, but the way that the Post Office clerks kept consulting with each other and pointing at regulations that said things like "may be hazardous" and "if wrapped improperly", and me being a lawyer and knowing the difference between the language of obligation and the language of authorization, made me think this was just a matter of their judgement, so if I just took that shit home and relabeled it 'cosmetics', we wouldn't have an issue. So I did, and that led me to Post Office C.

At Post Office C there was a Christmas tree with ornaments. Squirms dropped to the floor as soon as we went in and was, no kidding, patting the ornaments when the clerk yelled at her to stop touching the tree. So I got her back, we wait, I get to the front with my box of cosmetics and pick Squirms up to keep her with me while we sort out the mailing. On the counter is a stuffed toy dog with a Santa Claus hat and a bell on top. So, Squirms starts wiggling the bell and making it ring. I asked the clerk if she could hold the dog, and she says no, she doesn't want her to break it. Break it. A stuffed toy dog. Then she turns to the man next to me and says personally, I would never let my child touch someone else's stuff. Some people have no respect for other people's things. So fine, she's a mad bitch. So *I* picked up the dog and was wiggling it around for her making its hat ring. The lady snatched it out of my hands and was all really don't touch it she'll break it. Oooookkaaayyy... so now the lady is not a mad bitch but acting like an *actual child* DON'T TOUCH MY PRECIOUS THINGS YOU'LL BREAK THEM!! She was not sharing like a big girl.

I wanted to say to her: lady, you work at the Post Office. That means at Christmas, people will come in and want to mail packages and since you only open Monday to Friday from 9-5, that means sometimes they will have children. So if you don't want them to play with the toys you have lying around, maybe don't put toys around. That was a motherfucking toy dog in a Santa hat. A toy for children. And she was guarding it like it was the Arc of the Covenant.

But I didn't. I finished writing the label and then let Squirms hold the plastic biro while I paid. Which the lady also proceeded to snatch back, becuase, hey, who would let a child practice air-writing (not chewing, not drawing) with a 25c plastic biro to keep them occupied while their parents paid for their goods? Blargh. At least we were done at that point.

You may be wondering what was the response of the man to whom the commentary on my parenting skills was addressed. Well, since his English was not great, and he was sending a package to Italy, which the clerk had just yelled at him to relabel, since he had addressed it Italian and this is America! You have to write in English!, he just kind of went, yeah, heh heh and ignored her.

I have no idea how that package is going to find its way to the actual address in Venezia, Italia, that she made him cross out and rewrite in English to Venice, Italy.

Anyway, I was all steamed up about this (and no shit, I nearly cried in the Post Office when she snarked at the Italian Dude) and then I was like, hey whatever. You have a terrrrrrible job. You're probably way more poor than me and you're black and you live in the South. People probably treat you like shit all the time. I can take it. In the end I was glad I wasn't a bitch back to her.

Is it too much to ask that I be allowed access to some nice boots?

Not my boots.

World, bewares, first world problem of the highest order coming your way.

I can't find any good boots to buy. I think I want them knee-high, brown and flat. Maybe riding boot style? But I'd settle for scrunchy-down ones if they looked good. But none of them do look good. Because I am trying to not buy leather. I dunno, I just feel like leather is the wrong thing to do these days. I'm not eating meat. I'm not wearing leather. And there is NOTHING out there in not-leather that doesn't look like awful, cheap, plastic crap. I think people who make non-leather boots assume that one doesn't buy leather becuase one can't afford leather. So the shoes are poorly constructed and thin and designed for 12 year olds who've saved up their pocket money to splurge $50 at Aldo. FUG FUG FUG FUG FUG.

I have bought and returned EIGHT PAIRS OF BOOTS online in the last few days. I have had my heart broken over and over again. Especially when I learnt that the "vegetable leather" invovled in these boots doesn't mean "leather made from vegetables", it means "leather dyed with vegetable-dye". Fuck this shit.

What I'm making do with (oh, poor suffering me) is a pair of vintage cowboy boots from an op-shop in Old Town and a pair of three-year old quilted faux-fleece lined cheap, leaky, snowboots from Target. The cowboy boots are leather, but it doesn't count because they are 30 years old. So I'm not killing any new cows to get them.

Tell me, where are my boots? I HAVE MONEY LET ME SPEND IT.

Scary As Shit Book Club: Baby Edition

So we have one book about babies and one book for babies.

Let's begin with Babyville by Jane Green. I will declare upfront that I have read and enjoyed my fair share of shameless chick lit over the years. Some so impossibly dumb that I felt like throwing the book against the wall in frustration afterward (see, the Shopaholic series by Sophie Kinsella). Some so shamelessly rooting in consumption that I felt dirty afterwards (see, everything after Four Blondes by Candance Bushnell, or anything after The Devil Wears Prada by Lauren Weisberger). Some that I have no shame in telling people I really liked, and openly, if not proudly, keep on my bookshelf (see, everything by Jennifer Weiner). Never before Babyville have I come across a novel so incredibly and, I suspect, unintentionally frightening.

The structure is your basic gals-about-town Sex and the City knockoff, in this case, three sexy ladies in London. One is obsessed with babies and trying to get pregnant with her boyfriend, without success. One has a baby and is obsessed with being a perfect, organic, earth-mother type. The last is a career-minded single woman who has a one-night stand with a colleague and gets pregnant. And that's where the scary takes off. Our protagonist is determined to have a termination right away. She makes the appointment for the surgery and, seeking counsel, tells a few close people what she's going through. Including her mother, a friend, and the colleague jointly responsible for the pregnancy. And they all turn on her. The colleague and the mother hound her to reconsider. The friend tells her how she regrets her own termination at age 18. Our protagonist cancels the clinic appointment. The colleague brings her pregnancy books. The mother buys baby clothes. They keep pushing and pushing her to put off the appointment. And so she does. Then she loses her rented flat, and the colleague and the mother conspire to have her move in with the colleague. She never gets the chance to make another appointment for a termination. And then it's too late. She finds herself more than three-months pregnant, having been cajoled into keeping the pregnancy and now living with the father, a man she doesn't know, who's pressured her into having the child so that he can prove his fertility (there's a back story about him being afraid of sterility). Oh my god. How terrifying.

I think it's meant to be funny. Or maybe ironic, since of course, she ends up happy with the baby and in a relationship with the colleague. Maybe it's even meant to be heartwarming. But reading it I felt a sense of encroaching doom similar to The Garden of the Finzi-Continis. Or, more parallel, Rosemary's Baby. If the target audience is pregnant woman who read chick-lit, which I bet it is, the book should also come with a label "inaccurate medical advice inside". Since there's a fairly obvious implication that prior terminations can cause infertility, and that woman who eat peanuts while pregnant "often give birth to children with severe allergies". Fucking hell. I think with a different cover (maybe something akin to Twilight?) this could be marketed as a horror story.

That book is going immediately back to the "take-a-book, leave-a-book" library at my local cafe, from whence it came.

The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck by Beatrix Potter is also structured around a sense of impending catastrophe. I guess as a child I never noticed Mr Fox grooming Jemima to take eat her eggs. Gaining her trust over time, protecting her and defending her against the other barnyard animals. It's so obvious to the reader (except very dozy children like me, I suppose) that she's being duped, that I wonder what sort of emotion Beatrix Potter was trying to elicit. Are we supposed to be laughing at Jemima, who is, remember, about to have her children killed? That seems so cruel. Are we supposed to be scolding Mr Fox? That seems insufficient. And here's the kicker; when someone- a pack of sheepdogs- catches on to Jemima's exploitation and comes to rescue her, all that happens is that instead of Mr Fox eating the eggs, the rescue team eats the eggs. It's such a bloody ending. And with such sharp foreshadowing.

I try not to censor what I read to Squirmy, but The Tale of Jemima Puddleduck is so misogynistic- she's so dim, and the other animals are so cruel to her, and the ending is so mean- that I try to avoid it when I can. It's possible that in Potter's time, the reality of death, especially on a farm, was something children had to be taught about, so this book would not have seemed so massively unfair. I still don't like it.

What say you, world?

False Advertising

So Squirmy's going to be starting day care in January. All the day care centers around here actually call themselves "pre-schools" so that all the parents around here can double-think their way to the idea that pre-school is like, necessary or something. Problems with that?

• Going to work if you want to or need to fine
• Staying home is also fine (I personally dig the 'sticking it to the man' aspect of this choice- but if it's not for you, sweet)
• Day care is fine
• Kids don't need school when they're 18 months old
• Capitalist consumption is bad.

Seriously, there is so much to consume to make sure your child grows up on the straight and narrow. Fortunately, you only have to be a semi-conscious individual to just ignore the shit out most of it.

Anyway, Squirms was all ready to go to one center, until I found out that I had been duped! Duped I tell you! This place was no ordinary day care center. Oh no, it was a FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIAN ACADEMIE FOR TOTS. And believe me, as I know you do, if I had known this was what that place was like I would never have enrolled her there in the first place. It was never mentioned to me. It was never raised at all. The place was new (since May 2009) and it wasn't on their website at all at first. I think as the business began operations, they built up their website to include this small fact. Because they are in the business of providing bourgey parents with a soul-soothing academic environment, of course, they have a "curriculum". Let's take a gander at their "curriculum":

"...presents the universe as the direct creation of God and refutes the man-made idea of evolution.

“The lessons flow from the Word of God, through the heart of the teacher, to the heart of the student.”

“Students need a realistic view of history, government, geography, and economics based upon the foundational truths of the Scriptures.”

“…uplifting history texts that give students an historical perspective and instill within them an intelligent pride for their own country and a desire to help it back to its traditional values.”

“They give a solid foundation in all areas of science -- a foundation firmly anchored to Scriptural truth.”

“But as Christians, we still believe that the Bible provides the only credible explanation for the universe, of man, and of language.”

The first clue I got about the God stuff was when I went to pick her up after a trial visit one day, and there was some Jesus music playing. I tried to think charitable thoughts like "maybe this is a CD with all kinds of cultural songs on it and they will also play Hava Nagila and Frere Jacques". Then I saw a poster with their theme of the week. The theme was sharing. The poster said "sharing is a biblical concept". Then I looked up the website again and found that shit.

And so today, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Charles Darwin's 'On the Origin of Species', I would like to say a very hearty 'go fuck yourself' to Dr and Mrs Arlin Horton of the Abeka Curriculum, and the insane schools that use it.

Needless to say, I withdrew her and she's going somewhere else.

Feminist Halloween Costumes

Pic of Halloween in our street
Squirmy didn't get that nick name by being still.

Remember how I so briefly mentioned on Monday that Squirmy likes to pretend things are violins? Somehow, she became a little obsessed with violins a couple of months ago. It may have been buskers at the farmers market, or a segment on Sesame Street, but what ever it was she really began to dig them. This became especially awesome when I discovered I could play NPR Classical Radio in the car instead of bloody Play School or the Beatles. Squirmy's love for John, Paul, George, and Ringo was cute for about a year, but a 12 month audio diet of Revolution gets a little old.

ANYWAY, the violin obsession, plus her sheer terror at the idea of wearing an Elmo suit informed her Halloween costume last month. She went as the violin player in an orchestra. Specifically, Isabelle Ballot Cailliere the First Violin of the Vienna Philharmonic and one of only five women since 1842 to have played as full members of the orchestra. Rock out, right?

Squrims wore black leggings, a black turtleneck, black socks and black patent-leather shoes. Totally cute, warm, comfy, not hazardous, and unlikely to reinforce worrisome gender stereotypes (odd sexualization of small children a whole 'nother post in itself).

Except we couldn't find a violin so she had to carry a recorder. And she didn't really get trick-or-treating. But she did get eating Reese's Peanut Butter Cups for dinner and dancing to the Monster Mash.

Wanna hear some stories about my child?

99% of the time you shouldn't be asking anyone that question; because the answer is "no" but they have to say "yes". Here, I decide what happens. That is the 1%.

Little Squirmy is at a particularly adorable age where she makes up little stories for herself and acts them out with whatever she has at hand. I think I'm supposed to discourage playing with food, but when she's picking up two bits of her dinner and making them say to each other "Hello Mr Capsicum, how are you?" "I am fine" and then narrating a story about how they went on a picnic and then fell asleep, who's going to stop her? She makes pieces of sliced apple kiss and fallen leaves clap hands with each other. If she drops her dolly on the ground she'll pick it up and say "Oh, Dolly, are you ok"? And then describe to herself, "Dolly had a tumble. Dolly's going to sleep now" and then she'll make the snoring noises. Toys and bits of whatever that aren't having conversations, falling down or going to sleep are turned into telephones or violins. It's fun. She just tells stories out lound to herself every minute of the day.

I wonder what at what age our monologue turns internal? I have such a racing, chatty inner mind, I can't imagine what it would be like to narrate out loud my every thought. I think Squirmy almost does exactly that.

Detox

I've been feeling kind of gross lately. Just grumpy and gluggy in my own body. I think having shit-tons of work to do and endless houseguests (we had more this past weekend) and a wee one running around has just made me eat heavily and exercise very little. Some of the eating was good, restaurant-with-friends type big meals. But a lot of it was just eating an enormous bowl of pasta at 10pm after being too busy to get anything else. Oddly, although all of that sounds very active and busy, I've done a lot of sitting. Sitting frantically writing. Sitting skim reading. Sitting surfing the Internet. I don't feel very good. Last night I had a dear friend over to bake apple pie and watch the season finale of Mad Men (which was sooo fab) and it just hit me, sitting on the couch, how yuck I felt.

So for the next month I'm going to chill a little on the consumption (especially of the pasta and cheese variety), try to up my dosage of fresh air, and think positive thoughts. I'm going to cut out caffeine and alcohol. I'm going to walk around outside when I can. I'm going to turn my computer off more and use it more wisely when it's on.

I'm doing OK so far. No morning coffee, although I haven't been out for a walk. I have actively tried to think happy thoughts, although my mind tends to wander. Sometimes it wanders to Facebook. Oops. Nonetheless, I shall press on.

Voices

On Tuesday I am giving a presentation to my class on In A Different Voice, by Carol Gilligan. It's a great book. I find it really helpful for thinking about exclusion and privilege and meaning and truth and so on and so on. And I'm really not that into psychology- it just makes sense to me. But I know in my class there is this one guy, this awful, stupid dickface prick who's going to heckle my presentation and downplay the importance of what I'm saying and he's going to say that when Gilligan focuses on women's voices THAT'S SEXIST and that when she describes relational thinking as equal to hierarchical thinking IT'S ACTUALLY LESS DEVELOPED or we wouldn't see it in children and uneducated people. Fuck this dude for ruining the mental process of presenting a great text. I'm so pissed off that I have to consider his reaction when planning my discussion. And I'm equally pissed off that in the written thingy I have to go with it, I have spent what I consider to be disproportionate time emphasizing that men can think relationally, too. Seriously, can women not have one single fucking thing to themselves? To quote Lizzie Skurnik: "I am quietly outraged at how apparently it is against the law to not talk specifically about boys and what they might need/enjoy/prosper from for five seconds."


Note to reader: I have noticed that you have a particular weakness for Young Adult novels. Particularly the adventures of Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden. You really, really should read Lizzie Skurnik's book Shelf Discovery and the archive of her columns for Jezebel. Ignore how ug-mo Jezebel looks these days. Columns are at the right.

Contexts

Contexts

Posted using Super duper excellent interesting maps from Sociological Images

Despite my mixed feelings about Australia, deep down I am still massively parochial. Whenever I look at a map of the world my eye is always drawn straight to my homeland. The SI maps linked to have cool representations of accessible roads, rivers and railroads around the world. And would you know it? There's a giant empty space occupying about two-thirds of Australia. The white space of no-access shows up in the map of Australia, quite sensibly, becuase there aren't any people there. Comparable access-black holes like Central America and Northern Africa are full of people.

Not a bad thing, at all. I'm definitely not advocating building awful, wasteful cities in the middle of the Nullabor, or anything just to fill up the space. I'm just continually amazed at how I failed to realize, before I moved away, how isolated and empty Australia is. And yet! All the people are crowded into just two cities (sorry, not-Sydney and not-Melbourne. You don't get a look-in) and the house prices are FREAKING RIDICULOUS. Being a real-estate whore is the last sign one is a Sydneysider. My accent will go before that characteristic does.

I find it really hard to focus my eye on any big picture without reasonable distance. It's like I live the Monet effect; up close it's all fuzzy. This is one of those times.

Just how much change did PBO bring to this city?

This weekend's Washington Post was really good! Firstly, there was an awesome piece in the magazine about the importance of space and financial freedom to womens' creativity (rock on, 'room of one's own' theory). Fucking. OATH. the minutiae of childcare and housecleaning and keeping 80 zillion administrative matters in your head stifles the ability to contribute meaningfully to the world's dialogue (artistic, political, economic or what have you). I can't even meaningfully update my own motherfucking blog.

Secondly, Courtney Martin of Feministing.com is a finalist in a Wash Post writers contest in which the winner will be awarded a weekly column in the print edition! Finally, something on the op ed pages to counteract the rampant twattery of Kathleen Parker.

Is it possible that newsmakers and/or public sentiment is leaning marginally less to the right here in the upper echelons of D.C.? I don't mean left, lord no, just maybe slightly more centre than Taliban.

I know what you're thinking!

I do! I do!

You're thinking, hoooo, boy, is this blog about to become que ironico, as Jane Lane would say.

Well, it's not. I do have things to share. I just also am taking three classes in my graduate school program and I have a toddler who doesn't go to day care or have babysitters and my mum is visiting from Australia for a month and I am sooooo fucking drowning in busyness.

You know what I'd like to point you to in the meantime, gentle reader (singular)? Go poke around Shapely Prose for a bit. The writers of that site have opened my eyes this year like nothing I've ever read before. Obvi, I don't agree with everything they say, but I do have damn close to a 100% head-nod rate. Kate Harding alone is just about the best writer haunting the interwebs these days.

PS- You know who's fucking busy? I just heard on the radio that Renee Montagne gets to work at 12AM (she's GETTING UP then, not staying up). She and Steve Inskeep are at least 50% of the reason I get up in the morning. The other 50% is croissants from Bonaparte Breads.

Dude, you're giving brand new bloggers a bad name

So just for funsises I looked around to see who has all the the blogs with a variation on the name An Open Letter, and who have snatched up all the good URLs, leaving me with this one (which is meant to be like "hey, an open letter!"). Anyway, I came across Open Letter Blog, a blog the authors intend to be a forum for readers to submit their open letters to the world: Dear Mr President, Dear Producers of Lost, Dear Guy at My Deli etc. This sad little flameout took place entirely between the dates 22-23 February, 2009. Two days. Three entries. That's it.

Please world, don't let that ever be me.

Nice site design though.

Yep. Jealous.

Went to see Julie & Julia tonight at the movies. A movie about a lady blogging! And now a lady's blogging about it!

I was totally jealous of her apartment. It's what I imagine my dream home to look like (world, I dream small). The apartment set design was my favourite mix of clutter; witty French prints on the wall, interesting ceramic jugs with flowers in them, exposed brick walls, cozy, patterned rugs on the floor, a comfy fabric couch with colorful pillows and a big(ish) heavy wood dining table. Of course, I can't cook worth a damn, so perhaps all that domestic friendliness would be wasted on me. My intimate gatherings of like-minded souls would have to be catered. You know, that home sounds a lot like the one of a certain friend I am missing right now. Who could that be?...

The photo I really should attach to this post is not the dark, bad angle of Julie's apartment, but the one I had to take of the GIANT bucket of popcorn and ENORMOUS sodas we bought as we went into the film. I'm going to say, picture your average waste-paper basket filled with popcorn and I AM NOT EVEN KIDDING ABOUT THIS 1.5 LITRES OF COKE. No exaggeration whatsoever. Seriously, I've lived in the US for nearly six years now, and this was the first time that a foodstuff has forced me to record its image based on sheer size alone. Photographic evidence forthcoming.

In praise of Facebook

Is it embarrassing to admit to being an unironic fan of Facebook? I have some concerns about the amount of screen time I log each day (maybe 4-5 hours each day- but no TV!), but none of that concern is related to the 'book. Since I live on the oooooooother side of of the world from my family and most of my friends, FB really does help me feel caught up with them. In the pre-2007ish world, before everyone hopped aboard the bandwagon, it would sometimes be weeks and weeks between phone calls and I would lie in bed every night consumed with guilt and sadness about being a bad daughter/sister/granddaughter/friend and not communicating more. Although I still feel like I should call home more often, and it saddens me, on the other hand, that having the easy access of FB has cheapened some of the contacts I have with friends (is a HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!! post on your wall worth anything if you would post the same message to a friend from two jobs ago? I loathe the happy birthday wall post *removes secret curmudgeon hat*).

So I am in the middle of thinking seriously about where I should live and why, and it's a little weird to think that if, in the end, I stay away for more time that I had ever intended, it will be partially due to Facebook. It might be the truth, though.

Through this blog I want to explore some of the reasons why I will or won't move back to Australia, and when, and what it will be like when I get there, so more on life far away to come.

Just checking...

While you give me a sec to pretty up the joint layout-wise, why don't you riddle me this, world: did everyone except me know that Helen Razer is a now a married, lesbian fitness-freak? Because I'm reasonably certain I remember her spending most of the 90s extolling the pleasures of cock and/or great big steaks and beer. And Kurt. My, how the world moves on.

Well hello there!

World, for my 29th birthday I have given myself a blog. At the moment you can consider it an open letter to my dear friend Jess. Even if we are each the other's only reader, the endeavor will be worth it. And that reminds me of this.

Which reminds me of two more thoughts. Firstly, I really hate it when websites provide a link and not an embed of a REALLY FUNNY AND CUTE AND ALSO SHORT video. Secondly, first world problems; I haz them. Aside from that little sook, I have been occupied for days with the irritation that the new $70 headphones for my iPod keep falling out of my ears. Also, my Grandpa thinks the word 'Hi' is an "Americanism" and was palpably disappointed when it was my daughter's first intelligible utterance.

OK, that was three thoughts and the last didn't make any sense, disconnected to anything except that I am saying hi, right here.