Eight reasons why I had to break up with July...

Oh hello July. Nice to see you. Oh, you’re leaving already? Seems like you only just got here.

We need to talk. Yes, I'm afraid it's THAT kind of talk. You see, it turns out you’re my second most hated month. So I guess I won’t be too devastated when you run out the door.

(Oh don't look at me like that June. You KNOW you win the prize for being the suckingest suck arse month of all time. You excel in craptacular suckage, just so you know).

Hey July don’t forget to take your cold mornings and UV deprivation with you when you head off. Oh and make sure you tag August so he knows it’s his turn. It’d be confusing to go straight from July to September. Could that trigger the end of the world? Who knows. At best it’d make for some very awkward questions.

Although… I’m sure there are some school events I’d like to avoid in August…

Nope, don’t argue, I’ve made up my mind. You have to go.

Oh, don’t take it personally. You’re just a month, remember? Harden the fuck up.

We had a good run but now it’s over. What? You want to talk about the good times we had before you go? Well OK…

1.       Achey Breaky Ankles

Together, you and I found out I am the Gold Medal Record Holder for breaking things (mainly ankles).

2.       Prunella Gertrude Mabel Frog was born

We called out my inner Random Sarcastic Idiot (RSI). RSI is a dumb name. From here on, I decree that my RSI is called Prunella. Prunella Gertrude Mabel Frog. Prunella has had a busy month. She is a bitch.

3.       You can’t open a wormhole using an iPhone

We remembered that I had a DHD app on my phone. (no it’s not a hair straightener. Google it, if you’re not a Stargate fan already. And shame on you if that’s true!) I’d installed it and promptly forgotten. You can use it to dial your phone. I am in nerd heaven with this thing:

Getting my nerd on.
It even sounds like a DHD,
and has an animated wormhole splash.
Deep satisfied Geek Girl sigh.

It occurs to me that it’s just as well it doesn’t really open a wormhole in space because it would mean the end of the world make a big mess be really inconvenient to be phoning for a ham and pineapple pizza in a really important phone interview while fighting off invading aliens at the same time. Plus I reckon the effort of bending time and space would drain the shit out of my iPhone battery.*

4.       Spellingnazis rule

We discovered that – ermahgerd - Blogger doesn’t spell check the titles you give your blog posts. Big thanks to Debbish (@RockafellaSkank) for pointing it out and generously saying that she assumed the mistake was deliberate. Yes *cough* of course it was…

5.       Alltime Winningest at Mummyness Award hell

You were there when I was awarded the Alltime Winningest at Mummyness Award** because I made these. Child coloured them in.

Minecraft. Kill me now.

6.       Alltime Winningest at Attracting Weirdos Award

You looked on as I discovered I was winningest at attracting creepy older guys on planes. Here’s a tip fellas, it’s completely appropriate for you to strike up some harmless banter with the woman sitting next to you on the plane. However, when she’s offered a different seat that suits her broken ankle, don’t express disappointment that you’re now not going to be able to go the grope while she’s asleep. It’s disgusting creepy repulsive not funny. What the everloving hell were you thinking, dude? Let’s just take the line between funny and inappropriate and pull down your pants and shit on it jump right over it into the ewwwwwwwww zone.

7.       Cos that’s how this frog rolls

July: “What did you do today?”

Me: “ I raged about the stupidity and futility of humanity and got sad. Then I discussed how to milk a cat and felt better.”

8.       I had to work

We decided that if I had to work, this was how to do it:

Don't hate me.

And so, July, looking back, we’ve had some scary creepy bad weird painful ... times. All I can say is before you go, order me a spectacularly immense one of these please:***

Make mine a double.

Now, let’s have one last kiss, July, and walk away (no - don’t look back). We may not have each other, but we’ll always have our memories.****

*OK I lied, that last bit occurred to Prunella. Sarky moo.

**I lost some Alltime Winningest at Mummyness Award points by accidentally bending the sword. Yes, it’s a sword. The other one is a pickaxe. God don’t you know anything?

***If you own it, please let me know so I can attribute it pull it down say thank you.

****Now send in August, I have a bone or two to pick with him…

My inner voice is a random sarcastic idiot

So there I was at 2am today, lying in bed, iPhone in hand, making notes of what I should blog about. As you do. Instead of sleeping. Which is apparently something I don't do. As you do. Do do. Oh Dog I'm so tired.

OK actually they were sarcastic random sentences that I'll be sarcastically and randomly inserting as my blogger/Twitter bio and/or subject of my blog in coming weeks/months/eons.

One sentence in particular caught my eye.

My inner voice is a random sarcastic idiot.*

Interesting, isn't it, what crazy bullshit truisms slide out of the subconscious to slam you between the eyes gambol across your sleep-deprived brain in the wee small hours?

I should have risen from bed at that point and started writing this rambling drivel stimulating blog post but frankly, insomnia saps my ability to do much except make iPhone notes and needily Twitter-stalk British actors. Cos they're the only ones who are awake at that time, OK? (Sorry Ben Miller).

Where was I...

My inner arsehole random sarcastic idiot. Having one of these is a serious affliction. Don't believe me? Well here's an example. When limping pathetically with a broken ankle walking elegantly through Melbourne airport two weeks ago, I saw this sign: 

Yes OK I was too busy lurching and swearing to take a photo
so here's an artist's impression of the sign.
It's not the real sign. So pedantic, you people.

My random sarcastic idiot (let's call it my RSI from now on - I'm running on TWO HOURS SLEEP AND THE SAME NUMBER OF SCONES, PEOPLE! so tired) reflected that actually, it wasn't way out at all. It was quite conservative, as it happens.

Really? Thank you brain. My rational brain shook its head, tsk tsking sadly, much the same as you're doing now.

Fifteen years ago I witnessed a caption that could have adorned the publicity headshot of every Australian politician elected since then.

"Fresh Fillets of Fathead' was carefully, lovingly spelled out on a sign above fish fillets in the supermarket.

These days my RSI would be grabbing her iPhone and splashing that photo all over Twittsville and Blogwood. This alone is proof that there was once - unbelievably - a time when people didn't take a Bazillion GB camera with them to do the grocery shopping.

On the subject of supermarkets, in the spirit of feeding my RSI even in the most mundane of locations, here is a sign spotted at Woolworths on the weekend:

 No, I know it's not an artist's impression this time.
You people need to calm down.

Is the Canned Fish stationary? LET'S HOPE SO. Shudder.

That'd make stacking and sorting the shelves REALLY funny to watch dangerous.

Is the inability to lie still in a dark can with your fishy elbow up another fish's nostril be stationary one of the criteria for being rejected by John West?

What damage could a 250g can of dolphin free tuna in olive oil with chili and onion do, hurtling at 60 kilometres an hour towards your head?

Maybe this sign is an actually a Occupational Health and Safety warning. Do shelf stackers get danger money? Maybe they should.

So tonight I'm hoping my inner random sarcastic idiot will STFU so I can sleep. For the sake of the rest of my brain and the online safety of British actors everywhere.

Do you have an inner random sarcastic idiot? How has this affliction affected your life?

* Sometimes my outer voice is too. Not often.**
** Not often = all the time

A message to the Sheriff of Blogwood - get outa town

OK so it’s been over a week since Blogopolis 2012… a week full of ankle pain, school holiday angst and post-conference depression. I’ve already done my Blogopolis post, but I still have something to say. Eden Riley from Edenland said last weekend that your voice is a muscle; the more you use it, the stronger it gets. Eden also said that the Blogosphere is like the Wild West. There are no rules, man. Bring that shit on.

OK hombres, which one of you is the sheriff of Blogwood?

No? Nobody steppin' forward?

Coz week just gone, I was pretty sure I heard a few of you cowpokes tryin’ to tell this blogger what she could and couldn’t do.

Somethin’ about fights with pardners and vomitin' on the internets.

Now, I ain’t lookin' for a fight. No siree.

I just figure how this is the Wild West and all, if we’re all law-abidin' folk, doin’ what the sheriff tells us, soon it won’t be so wild no more.

What’s good for the goose ain’t always good for the gander. Some of us bloggers wanna talk about the latest bonnets outta Philly. Some of us wanna bring the latest news from the East coast. Some of us wanna be cowboys and outlaws.

Blogwood is big enough for all us citizens, right? If you gotta think twice ‘bout that post before hittin’ publish, hit publish and be damned. Everyone ain’t gonna like you. So what? There ain’t no rules; we’re putting down roots in a new frontier over here.

Who gave that sheriff a badge, anyhoo? Did they pin it on theirselves?

I s’pect so.

So this is a message for the sheriff of Blogwood.

Before you come saunterin' into the Blogwood saloon, clickin' those spurs and flashin' that shiny star round, tellin' us what we all should be doin', remember that there ain’t no rules in this town.

If you keep tryin' to make all us bloggers obey your rules, this town ain’t gonna be big enough for the both of us.

So drink up, sheriff, cos you’re on the first coach outa here in the mornin' and it’s a thirsty journey. Don’t let the saloon doors hit you on the dusty butt on the way out.

The Blogger With No Name

How we invented spoon porn and other adventures at Nuffnang Blogopolis 2012

There will be a bazillion wonderfully written blog posts about the session content that made up the tea-fuelled glory that was Nuffnang Blogopolis 2012. They will be written in superlative style, with skilled Instagrammed photos of towering high tea trays and perfectly coiffed fashion bloggers.

This is not one of those posts.

I learned a lot at Nuffnang Blogopolis 2012, and had a totally fantabulous, snazbig time. I’ll be making changes to my blog over the next few weeks to reflect what I’ve learned. I met so many wonderful people that I can’t list them all. I came away enriched and inspired.

Here are my highlights.

Highlight 1: Starting my day started at 3.35am. OK so that’s a lowlight, not a highlight but I needed to let everyone know HOW MUCH I SUFFER FOR MY ART.

Highlight 2: Finallysnogging body slamming kidnapping hugging my stunningly wonderful soul sister Redundantmother for the first time. Not only is she a great writer, she’s a mega hugger and a sexy thang a beautiful lady to boot.

That's my soul sister on the right. I heart her to the max.

Highlight 3: Receiving this gorgeous framed quote from my soul sister.

Excerpt from Desiderata there's something in my eye

Highlight 4: Meeting Mrs Woog! AHMAHGERD!

“It's Wooooooooooooog…”

Highlight 5: Sharing a table with two lovely ladies from Something Gorgeous –Toni and Giulia. I forgot to check my emails at 3.35am so missed the notice informing me that animal print was the uniform of the day.

Bloggers are ANIMALS

Highlight 6: Morning“high” tea, which was genteel and lovely and far too fancy for the likes of me. This isn’t a food blog and there are already loads of shots of it all over the internet so here’s a photo of a random meerkat instead.

Random Meerkat is random

Highlight 7: Meeting Eden Riley from Edenland. What a kind, generous, real woman. So touched that she was familiar with my froggy brand.

Highlight 8: Seeing Woogsy and Eden speak on separate panels. They speak EXACTLY how they write. Authentic much?

Highlight 9: Meeting the fabulous Kim from Allconsuming. Hilarious, warm, wonderful, talented.

Highlight 10: Spoongate.

We were set up!

What spoon?

Exhibit A for the Prosecution

Spoon porn. These are not my boobs.
My boobs totally do not look this good in a spoon.

Highlight 11: BREAKING THE INTERNET. Well, Instagram and Pinterest anyway. Oh and the hotel wireless…

Highlight 12: Meeting Jaclyn from Little Paper Trees at drinks. This lady is smart and radiant. Go follow her blog!

Highlight 13: Drinking wayyyyy too many sauv blancs, and waking up in the morning (thankfully in my hotel room) to find this photo on my phone:

Shoe porn for long-sighted foot fetishists

I was a bit worried that I’d drunkenly joined the out-of-focus shoe porn industry overnight. I didn’t remember taking that photo. I trawled back through my twitter feed and discovered that I was so overjoyed when I got my shoes off that I took a shot of one to celebrate. It’s also proof that I AM CRAZY PSYCHIC. More on that later.

Highlight 14: Stuffing my ankle. OK this is actually another lowlight but stop judging me, Judgey Judgersons, this is my post to do what I like with. AND THAT’S A SUBJECT FOR ANOTHER POST.

In the morning I showered, checked out, and went over on my hypermobile ankle three metres from the hotel

So I must have known that I was going to wreck my ankle so I could have a shoe porn BEFORE shot, to go with this AFTER shot:

Ouch

Actually, I think Betadine is also psychic because in the totally generous and snazbig goody bags, was this…

Prescient goody bag contents

… which is perfect because I’ve woken up today with a sore throat.

I still have one good ankle, so who’s up for the Problogger event in Melbourne in October?!

The exploding nappy post

Yesterday I was reading the fabulous Mrs Woog from Woogsworld where she posted about her Roadtrip from Hell. I had a good chuckle about her travel story and the stories her other readers have shared in the comments. (Go have a read, and comment – there’s a some neat prizes being given away too).

I left my own travel story comment; the short version of an event that occurred almost exactly 6 years ago. It’s a story that’s been sitting on my iPhone “Writing List” for a good while. Mrs Woog’s post finally gave me the push to write it. (Thanks for the kick up the arse Woogsy).

I often hear childless people commenting that parents shouldn’t bring children on planes. Shame on you all.

I have few clear memories of the journey from Dublin to Melbourne. Post trauma induced amnesia I think. I am returning home, bringing my Irish partner and our 14 month old son here to live. The whole journey takes something like 32 hours, door-to-door. R and I don’t sleep on planes. Terrific.

Dublin, Birmingham, Dubai, Singapore, Melbourne.

Child is too big for a crib and too small to sit in a plane seat without help. So we take a car seat with us and strap that into each seat. We each carry a backpack and I have one extra bag. On each plane. All four of them.

Birmingham

The flight from Birmingham to Dubai is delayed by four hours. Now we have a hyper 14 month old to entertain for four hours.

We’re carrying loads of on board luggage. Spare clothes, nappies, bottles, instant formula, water, medicines, entertainment. The weight off all those accusing eyes saying “HOW DARE YOU BRING A BABY ON BOARD A PLANE”.

We think about walking but we don’t own any scuba gear. Or a submarine.

My face when we found out we had a 4 hour delay

A woman in front of the child turns around and asks us to stop him from kicking the back on her chair. We sympathise. We have no clue how to stop a 14 month old doing anything. It’s one of the great mysteries of science. Controlling kids.

Dubai

It’s 8am and about 40 degrees. In a cruel twist there’s no aerobridge. So, a bag in one hand, backpack on back plus a car seat in other hand, I WALK out to the plane on the tarmac.

I walk up the steps to the plane and feel my hypermobile hips rotate, one after the other, as I climb. "There go my hips" I say faintly to my partner. He’s wrangling a feverish 14 month old monster and two bags himself.

Singapore.

Nothing…

Finally the last leg... nobody except the child has slept.

He's feverish (and we are incoherent with exhaustion). Six hours from Melbourne, I smell THE SMELL. Yes, the child has filled his nappy. I pick him up and queue FOREVER for the only toilet with a change table. I stand in a faint green haze of fetid stench, avoiding eye contact.

Oh god please hurry!

OH MY GOD SHE NEEDS TO CHANGE THAT NAPPY IT STINKS!

Hint: The nappy in question looked nothing like this

I finally get there. Lock the door. Wrestle the pathetic excuse for a change table down - it's more like a toothpick than a table, designed specifically to endanger your child and make nappy changing virtually impossible. I lay the child precariously on it.

OH MY GOD.

The nappy has exploded. All over his front, up his back. Now smeared all over the front of my t-shirt as I'd been clutching him, waiting for the toilet, swaying in a sleep-deprived fugue of desperation.

Now I have to somehow clean him up - with only baby wipes - in a space barely large enough to move an inch in any direction. In the bin go his old nappy, almost a whole packet of wipes, and his clothes.

New nappy on. Sorted.

Now for me. When I'd packed the cabin luggage I had loads of stuff for the child. Then comes to horrifying realisation. I HADN'T PACKED SPARE CLOTHES FOR ME.

So now I'm washing out my shit-covered t-shirt in a plane toilet while balancing my child, for his safety, wedged against a wall with my thigh.

And now I'm putting my shitty wet t-shirt back on. And praying that nobody else can smell what I can smell.

I finally finish up and exit the toilet, to the icy stares of a dozen people waiting for the toilet.

HOW DARE SHE NEED TO CHANGE THAT CHILD’S NAPPY.

I’m sure they were wondering what the hell took so long. Some might also be wondering why I took a clothed baby in and brought a naked baby out.

I stalk back to our seats. Partner asks why I'm wet. I fix him with a steely gaze and reply "Nappy explosion". A fellow passenger beside us laughs.

I sit down and ponder, with six hours of shitty wet t-shirt travel left, how many years I'd get for strangling that guy. Preferably with my shitty wet t-shirt.

Next time you’re on a plane and grumpy that someone has brought a baby on board – put yourself in their shoes (or shitty wet t-shirt, if you like) and cut those parents some slack.

Send for the negotiator...

Today there is only this:

I have my family held captive. I won't eat their still beating hearts if you send:

• junk food
• red wine
• Valium 
• cheese
• good science fiction TV
• a great big dose of leavemethefuckalone

Oh and you should probably throw in a rescue team for my loved ones.

Looks like nobody's gettin' out alive this time.

P.S. Normal service will resume shortly (in about 3-5 days)

What does that bitch horrid teary aggro unbearable shit the glory that is womanhood do for you each month?

Did you know... slothful Friday...

Hi everyone.

I know I've been quiet for a week - lots going on with work and home and inspiration seems to have taken a holiday.

So, in the spirit of my Did you know... series (the series that fills in for my brain while it's AWOL)...

Did you know... that the sloth is the world's slowest mammal, so sedentary that algae grows on its fur?

Perhaps that explains my faint green tinge.

Happy Slothful Friday!

The bog blog

Dear Cistern Sisters,

Today, not for the first time, when I went to the bathroom, I sat in someone else’s pee had an unpleasant experience.

So I have a bone to pick with some of you.

(Gentlemen, feel free to look away now. If you choose to proceed, don’t bitch complain to me. You have. Been. Warned.)

My Cubicle Colleagues, it’s time you and I had a frank chat. I need to talk to you about the way you use that most hideous of common structures; the Public Toilet.

You know the ones. The ones with undefinably nauseating smells, noxiously mystery stains and frightening tragic hilarious bemusing graffiti. The Laydeez Lavs. The bog. The loo.

I’m not going to talk about men’s public toilets. I neither know NOR WANT TO KNOW what those are like. The last time I was in one was thirty-two years a long time ago. Our family was on one of its frequent interstate road trips. At 2am we stopped and a bleary 12 year old me stumbled, half awake, into the (thankfully empty) wrong toilets at the petrol station.

Therapy has done wonders, although I still flinch when someone says urinal.

Which, as it happens, is surprisingly often.

I try to avoid using the public loo. Sometimes, though, the need outweighs the fear and you just have to go.

I know many of my fellow Porcelain Princesses share this abject horror of the Public Lav. If you work in an office, you also have to share a Corporate Loo. There’s no avoiding the fact that sometimes you’re going to have to use amenities that have also been used by revolting filthy alien horrid unknown humans.

Recently, some of you have told me of your techniques for avoiding contact with any surfaces in these offending amenities. Some of you have told me that you don’t sit on the seat.

Excuse me?

That’s right. You hover above the bowl in a feat of super human gymnastic strength, and don’t sit down. I get it – you’re trying to avoid sitting in someone else’s urine. Or maybe you’re just trying to develop the upper-thigh strength of a horse.

This has solved a mystery for me. See, I’m a Butt Planter. When I sit down on said bog, I sit on the seat. And no matter how hard I try, no matter what creative angles I use, I cannot get pee on the seat. It’s physically impossible.

Yes, I’ve tried. Why do you ask?

So exactly whose pee is it that we’re all sitting in avoiding? Who’s responsible for all these porcelain puddles?

It’s you. It’s all you Toilet Hoverers.

You’re trying to avoid the pee created by all the other women trying to avoid the pee of all the other women trying to avoid the pee… in a weird, self-perpetuating Obsessive Compulsive cycle of puddle creation that would make Howard Hughes proud (and revolted).

So here’s the deal, on behalf of myself and all other Butt Planters. If you Bowl Hoverers and Lavatory Levitators promise to plant your butt cheeks firmly down on the seat as it was designed, there will be no more pee puddles.

If you need to develop your upper thigh strength, go to the gym.

(And use the Public Toilets there. I guarantee I’ll never sit in your pee there).

If you don’t honour your part of this deal, I promise I will blog about my theories around why I often find the seat on the toilets in the Ladies Lav up, rather than down.

Think about it.

Don’t make me go there.

Are you a Lavatory Levitator, or Butt Planter?

Who do you see in your mirror?

The other day, a gorgeous mother of two was in the press, talking about her career and family.

Some people posted lovely supportive comments under the article online.


Some other people posted some extremely mean, judgemental, callous and arseholey comments under there, judging her on her mothering skills, her appearance, and mostly her weight. I'm not going to link to the article here. Don't feed the beast.

Chrissie Swan, you didn't deserve any of that judgement. Nobody does.

The wonderful Mrs Woog, and equally fabulicious BigWordsBlog blogged about this appalling turn crap. Then got their own fair share of nasty weight-ist comments as well.

Of course, all these keyboard heroes posted using anonymous handles. And they all said that weight was a health issue, costing us blah blah per year as a community, responsibility to our children to be healthy, blah blah wanky smug blah.

Fuck that shit.

To all the cowardly weight-ist anonymouses...

Before you get too smug about science, science tells us that people who are overweight have higher life expectancy than the under or "healthy" weight people out there.

Fitness impacts life expectancy far more than fatness.

So let's not hide our prejudice behind the great god of science, OK?

Let's get real here.

Being "fat" is an aesthetics issue, hiding like a coward inside a simpering faux-caring costume of health.

Being over size 12/14 is not currently within that narrow, ever-changing FASHION of how we're supposed to look to be attractive - to be ACCEPTABLE.

A couple of hundred years ago, plumpness was the epitome of sexy for women. But, fashion is a fickle mistress and a complete bitch to boot.

People are too scared to admit that they've been conditioned to not like looking at people over a particular size. It disgusts them. But saying "you disgust me" isn't very nice, is it?

So they hide their mean-ness, their shallow conditioned prejudices in talking about what's "good for us".

In the same way we should stop telling women what to wear to be pretty/age appropriate/safe we need to stop telling people what size they should be.

Be who you are.

Diet if you like, or not.

Exercise if you like, nor not.

It's your responsibility, not mine, what you choose to be.

Weight - like age, gender, race and sexuality should never be used to put people down, as a way to make you feel superior when you look at another person.

Frankly, I'd rather look at a nice fat person, than a healthy-weighted judgemental arsehole. And that includes looking in the mirror.

Who do you see when you look in yours?

In the previous edit of this post I had a picture of Nigella Lawson and a picture of Gillian McKeith. Nigella is, as most of us know, a food writer/chef.  Gillian makes her living telling other people what they should eat. I juxtaposed the two photos, stating which person I would rather be. In light of comments made - rightly - about the unintentional inferences this made about appearance, I've removed that piece of this post.

Keyboards breed cowards. But that's a subject for another post.

So come on, all you keyboard cowboys, disagree with this post? Tell me.

I'm an angry, fat, 44 year old woman with a severe cold and the first day of the first period I've had in 10 months.

Bring. That. Shit. On. I dare you.