Don't walk on my clean floor!

For my status update on Facebook the other day, I wrote: By up-ending all the chairs on the dining table in order to clean "properly" underneath, I have proved irrefutably that I have in fact, turned into my mother.
The response from my friends was amusing and showed that I'm not the only one who is house proud.
It got me thinking why we get annoyed at our kids (and partners) for messing up our freshly mopped lino or leaving clothes all over the floordrobe.
These are, in the scheme of things, unimportant. We all work - both paid and caregiving - and these tasks are menial and they'd be jobs we'd pay someone else to do if it was practical and affordable.
And it finally dawned on me that the reason I and my peers take these things seriously is because it's the only validation we get sometimes.
Having kids requires, for most working women, the inevitable compromise of leaving a fulfilling career for the less cerebral tasks of cleaning up spew and poo and being the primary carer.
These are tasks which society doesn't place much value on - as evidenced by the lack of statutory paid maternity leave - and often goes unnoticed by those we're caring for, so if we don't place any importance in it either, then why bother.
If we don't take it seriously, then we're reinforcing the view that being a carer isn't real work and doesn't have value in the same way as paid work does.
And that's today's amateur psychology lesson.

Racism begins at home

I ran into a neighbour at the shops today. Lovely bloke, very chatty. Told me the guy a couple of doors down from us died suddenly last week. He was only young and apparently had a heart attack. He has/had a relatively young family, and I feel so awful for them. So my neighbour was telling me the story - at this point, it should be pointed out that these neighbours are clearly practising Muslims, as the bloke's wife wears a hijab - and he says, "they really keep to themselves, don't really talk to the Aussies." and then he went on to say that "she talks just like us" with an element of real surprise in his voice. Of course she does, she's a bloody Aussie too!

It was this incident and a number of conversations I've had with people recently which has jolted me out of my idea that Australia isn't a terribly racist country. It pretends it isn't, but scratch the surface, and people's prejudices aren't buried particularly deeply.

Someone relatively enlightened mentioned the other day that there were a lot of Asian people in Australia. Well derr... Asia is our closest neighbour geographically, if not culturally, and the statistics actually show that Brits and Kiwis are still the most numerous immigrants to Australia. It's just that they look like "us" and "Asians" don't, apparently, so you notice "them" more.

When you really start to think about it, it's quite confronting to start to think about your own in built prejudices. Are you more likely to lock your doors in the car if a swarthy man walks by? Or do you make assumptions about a woman because she wears a hijab?

We have such a long way to go.

Don't be a hater, be a celebrator... in a sec

So, I posted a little while ago about people who have hurt me in the past. I've been very good and been quite creative with my writing. Not today.
I had lost contact with a friend who was very close and with whom I always picked up from where we left off, no matter how much time had passed.
After probably two years of not much contact, I found her blog which I was mentioned in. Not only was I mentioned, but I was a thinly veiled character in a story about her turning 30 crisis - how I was a rebel, but now I had the "perfect" life, married, child, good job, so somehow I had turned my back on all the values she associated with me. That, by my life having taken this particular path, it was a personal slight against her.
Perhaps she always thought that she would be the one to "succeed" (and I use the term loosely, because I don't define my life as particularly successful or otherwise, it just is). That I would always be the chubby one, intellectually challenging, but perennially awkward. And she could always perceive herself as the superior one.
It's interesting, because I didn't peg her for someone who would think like that. But her blog was telling.
I put it to her directly to see if I had done something to offend her, but she claimed no.
However, she has since not taken up many passive opportunities to get back in contact with me. So I guess that's it. I spent a long, long time grieving for that friendship. And actually spent some time (in a very Woody Allen-esque way) talking to my therapist about it, until I finally realised it wasn't my problem. It's her problem.
So at the risk of devolving, I'd like to say to this person: Fuck you. Fuck you for thinking it's OK to be so pass agg to blog about me. And fuck you for lacking the courage to talk to me about it instead of talking to the world about it. And fuck you for using me and my life story to assuage your insecurities about your perceived inadequacies. I didn't make you choose what you chose, so don't blame me and don't use me and my life as psychological fodder for your narcissistic psychobabble. In short: fuck you.
Aaah, I feel better. Now back to my perfect life.

Excuse me, would you like a seat?

During both my pregnancies (and god and some pretty effective contraception, there won't be any more), I caught public transport pretty almost daily.
I can count, on one hand, how many times I was offered a seat on a bus or a train.
Admittedly, I am of the festively plump persuasion, so I can understand people's hesitancy in leaping to their feet lest I just be retaining chips, rather than a foetus.
But when I was eight months along and had 10kg of baby and amniotic fluid and guts and black stuff sticking out the front of me, it was kind of hard to miss.
And I'm not complaining (well, maybe a little bit). Pregnancy isn't an illness and I was still pretty fit and well, so perfectly able to stand for 20 minutes or so.
But it got me to thinking about people offering anyone seats, or opening doors or showing any other common courtesy.
People of my father-in-law's ilk use this as the reductionist argument against those crazy feminists who "won't let blokes hold the door open for them". The thing is BLOKES DON'T OPEN DOORS for anyone. Actually, NO ONE OPENS DOORS FOR ANYONE ANYMORE.
Besides which, since when are good manners sexist?
I was taught to think of people in a more difficult situation than you, and to do what was practical in order make their lot a little easier. Get up for the old lady on the bus, help the guy with the crutches off the train, whatever.
I can report though that the pursuit of shitty manners is an equal opportunity concern. I will always remember the day when I was on the bus about eight months pregnant, and two fat bitches (see the festively plump comment from before, so I can say that), watched, from the reserved-for-less-mobile-passengers seats (being fat doesn't qualify you, molls), as I helped a woman with her small child off the bus with her pram and they didn't lift a goddamed obese digit to help.

Good manners don't demean the "fairer" sex, they show respect for your fellow humans. And as far as I can see that isn't a gender politics issue.

Whine 'flu

My daughter had a fever yesterday, so naturally, I thought she probably had swine flu and imagined her little body hooked up to tubes and an oxygen mask in the ICU.
And here I am, edumacated media-aware journalist as victim of MEDIA HYSTERIA (which by the way is a misogynistic word because its origins are from the use to describe women's "unusual" behaviour).
I've probably got too much time on my hands (like my neighbour who patrols the street like a war-time volunteer should someone mistakenly pull into his driveway, or accidentally brush leaves into his immaculately concreted yard). I consume a lot of media. Radio on ABC all day, practically attached to my phone and the computer with a USB, TV in the evening, so it's very hard to protect yourself from overexposure to the same message. As well as the 24-hour news cycle which demands a fresh story for each update.
It also makes me think about how you control a message from a PR perspective as well where you have media champing at the bit for new information, and you want to give it to them without creating panic.
And from a consumer perspective how do you protect yourself from overreaction?
The democratisation of information is a truly wonderful thing, but it places quite the burden on responsible people to invest a lot of time and energy into getting balance and perspective from their information.
It's actually a pretty cogent argument for "real" journalism, that you need to be able to trust the source and information.
*gets off soapbox*

My daily Twittascope

Today, you will spend a lot of time reflecting... on yourself. The morning may begin with some strenuous physical activity you feel the need to share with everyone, followed by the inevitable gripe about work.
Later in the day, you may find yourself in the middle of a flurry of activity on the internet where you spend a lot of time talking about what you're doing (not much), which others find endlessly fascinating.
Watch out towards the end of the day, you might go out with the gfs and who knows, you could meet the man of your dreams... which you will document in minute detail on the interwebs. Or perhaps you'll just sit at home and watch a chick-flick (and Tweet all the way through) because you're sad.

Charlie

Charlie was my dog. He was a beautiful tan and white beagle and he would have been seven in August.
On June 25 Charlie died. He had lymphoma. My husband and I decided that rather than put him through chemo, we'd euthanise him instead. What an awful decision to have to make, and how it's made me ponder on life, death, faith, regret as well as happiness and love.
It's divested me of any vestiges of a sense I might have had that there is a "higher power", because who would put a wonderful animal like Charlie through cancer? (or anyone for that matter).
It's made me incredibly sad too. Telling my three and a half year old son that his "big brother" Charlie wasn't coming home was truly one of the most painful things I have ever done.
Everything I do around the house reminds me of him. When I open the front door, I always look down in anticipation of the little brown nose poking around the edge of the door and the whole body wag that would greet me and the kids each and every time we returned home.
When the kids have leftovers in their bowls, I have to stop myself from going to scrape them in his bowl. When I drop some food on the floor I wait for the instinctual click of dog claws on lino as Charlie scampered into the kitchen to see what gastronomical delight had fallen into his territory.
The way he would bark and feint resting on his front paws while Baby Chocolate would lunge at him cackling with joy. And the way he would come to my side of the bed on a cold evening and use his nose to flick at the edge of the doona in the hope he could scramble underneath for a cosier night's sleep.
I have also been meditating on how I was very impatient with him at times and yelled at him. What I would do to take back all those angry words I had for him from time to time. He was a great dog, but had a distinct naughty and willful streak, which only made him more lovable.
Even with two crazy little kids screaming around the place, it seems so very quiet without his gentle and quiet presence.
It's also caused me to ruminate on regrets and how I'd like to live a life without them.
Dogs are amazing creatures and if you like them, I highly recommend Dogs Never Lie About Love (sounds crap, but it's a great book). They are pure creatures who express emotion purely, and frankly, we'd be nicer if we were more like them.
As much as I regret Charlie's passing, and god I do, my life is better for having known him.