October/November saw MrLaurie and I take off on a grand adventure, travelling to New York, Washington DC, San Francisico, Las Vegas and Los Angeles. The whole tale would take quite some doing, so here are just a couple of highlights:
Unexpected things:
1) I completely loved what I saw of the USA. It was way way down my list of places to visit, but I'm so glad I went.
2) Not withstanding the above, I was shocked that I was bored witless in Washington DC. How is that even possible for a politics nerd like me? Must have been the rain and the boring hotel in a boring bit of town. The Washington monument was pretty cool though.
3) LA was actually kind of awesome. Santa Monica in particular was brilliant.
4) LA had useable public transport. Huh.
5) Las Vegas was a strange bizarro world where you can drink on the street at noon and seem quite restrained, as unlike many, at least you didn't start at 9am. It is also where pole dancing is a public event. In trucks. On the main street.
6) San Francisico is utterly beautiful and amazing, but oh my gosh, the people must have calves of steel to handle those hills.
7) Baseball is actually kind of interesting. American football remains a slow mess of a game.
8) The cutest halloween costume was a little kid in a bumblebee outfit, following her mum around the supermarket. The weirdest was a girl at the party we went to, who went as 'Octomum', and proceeded to give birth to eight small dolls every half an hour.
9) The most irritating part of New York was the uber-wealthy part where there were no cute shops, and lots of nannies pushing small children wearing shoes more expensive than I will ever own. The best part was a tie between the Blue Note jazz club and the Trailer Park bar in Chelsea.
Geeky highlights:
1) Dinosaurs at the Museum of Natural History. T-Rex! Stegosauras! Triceratops! Eeei!
2) MoMA. Van Gogh, Cezanne, my school books coming to life.
3) The actual return module from Apollo 11.
'Place' highlights:
1) Looking over the Golden Gate Bridge from high on the cliff on a gorgeous sunshiny day, with the sailboats bobbing about the harbour.
2) Standing on top of the Empire State Building on a clear cool night after 27 hours of travel. Wow.
3) Sitting on Santa Monica pier drinking margaritas and just contemplating the gorgeous wide beach.
*sigh* I want to go back!
Monday, December 21, 2009
Blog paranoia. Sod it.
Okay, so I abandoned the little blog just as it found a reader or two.
The thing is, I got self concious.
I started freaking out about people reading my inner thoughts, and linking it back to me, as MsLaurie is hardly the most impressive bit of pseudonym. Not only have I been using it for years (I have a very stable online identity, which all of a sudden I'm not so sure about), and for some reason, MrLaurie, who blogs in real-name territory, insists upon linking.
Not to mention, writers block and being utterly convinced that I had nothing of import to say!
So I've been feeling a bit exposed. Also, what really gets me ranting about politics is health, and as I work in that area, I don't feel like I can rant in a public space about it!
Hence, a bit of a blog abandonment.
Strategies I've considered to re-vamp:
1) Abandon the blog entirely, start a new one not quite so MsLaurie linked.
2) Stop blogging (but how unfun, and I do so love reading other people's blogs, it feels greedy not to share back)
3) Suck it up and move on.
Assessment? I'm sucking it up.
So! I hereby annouce a return to blogging, at least semi-regularly. Although given my new misgivings, I suspect it will be less big-P political than I originally imagined.
The thing is, I got self concious.
I started freaking out about people reading my inner thoughts, and linking it back to me, as MsLaurie is hardly the most impressive bit of pseudonym. Not only have I been using it for years (I have a very stable online identity, which all of a sudden I'm not so sure about), and for some reason, MrLaurie, who blogs in real-name territory, insists upon linking.
Not to mention, writers block and being utterly convinced that I had nothing of import to say!
So I've been feeling a bit exposed. Also, what really gets me ranting about politics is health, and as I work in that area, I don't feel like I can rant in a public space about it!
Hence, a bit of a blog abandonment.
Strategies I've considered to re-vamp:
1) Abandon the blog entirely, start a new one not quite so MsLaurie linked.
2) Stop blogging (but how unfun, and I do so love reading other people's blogs, it feels greedy not to share back)
3) Suck it up and move on.
Assessment? I'm sucking it up.
So! I hereby annouce a return to blogging, at least semi-regularly. Although given my new misgivings, I suspect it will be less big-P political than I originally imagined.
Wednesday, October 7, 2009
Tram Tales. Woohoo!
To the tune of 'Duck Tales', of course. I did love Duck Tales.
Last night - sudden showers in the bright sunshine. Crazy dark clouds above with the sun coming in at the horizon line. Amazing.
This morning - Turns out that a fancy-looking fifty cent piece with the corners sort curved off isn't much use in the ticket machine. On the upside, this did mean that I had a perfectly legitimate reason for not getting buying a ticket - and a spare $3 to buy an emergency coffee!
Last night - sudden showers in the bright sunshine. Crazy dark clouds above with the sun coming in at the horizon line. Amazing.
This morning - Turns out that a fancy-looking fifty cent piece with the corners sort curved off isn't much use in the ticket machine. On the upside, this did mean that I had a perfectly legitimate reason for not getting buying a ticket - and a spare $3 to buy an emergency coffee!
Monday, August 31, 2009
A Good Wife
Late last year, I married MrLaurie. Up until about six weeks before the wedding, we had not lived together (a complicated and multi-state long distance relationship. Virgin Blue made an absolute fortune off us).
And from the moment we moved in together, for some reason, although we had both been very independent until that point, I found myself immediately wanting to be a ‘Good Wife’.
In three and a half years of living alone I had not once planned meals a week ahead, or managed to drag myself to a farmers market for vegetables. I had certainly not looked up recipes online and written shopping lists (my shopping style trended more towards moseying around the supermarket where inspiration took me).
I would often go weeks without doing laundry (benefit of having too many clothes), and my cleaning was scrappy. I’ve always been the sort to do a panicked rush around when people were coming over, and tend to feel that a place is not home if there are not five pairs of shoes sitting in the middle of the lounge room floor.
But since getting married, I somehow care about the groceries. I’m planning menus. Days in advance! I care whether we’ve had the same meal more than once in a week!
I’m worrying about laundry – for some crazy reason I care that his collars are stained, and somehow decide that I need to fix this immediately. So I’m scrubbing in the ‘made into a paste’ napisan early on a Saturday morning. This is ridiculous - who even sees the inside of the collars of his workshirts?
I’ve started planning dinner parties. And worrying about his health (has he made a doctor’s appointment? No? Should I make it for him? – Talk about infantilising). I’m caring about how often he calls his mother (for some reason apparently I think this reflects on me!). I’ve started buying Christmas and birthday gifts for his family ‘from both of us’, where last year I would have firmly declared this was his problem. I’ve even sewn on his buttons, rather than taking the time to teach him, which I’d previously insisted was the only way it was happening.
Admittedly, its not all one way – MrLaurie does tend to clean up the kitchen after I’ve destroyed it through cooking. And he does put loads of washing on much more often than I do (although his attempts to hang the washing afterwards are… artistic). And we have sensibly agreed that we are both terrible at mopping and vacuuming, so we’ve hired a cleaner. (I never knew floors could shine that way!)
I just don’t quite know why it is that I find myself wanting to be A Good Wife. Capitalised. Fifties-style.
What is it about the gender relations that I’ve picked up so comprehensively that I want to prove that I have traditional house-wifely skills? Why after years of simply assuming that he must enjoy my company due to wit and smarts (not demonstrated to date on this blog, but I would like to assure any readers that it really is there, somewhere) have I suddenly moved towards trying to impress with how much I can be like our respective Grandmothers?
Clearly, the patriarchy has some seductive charms. But I’m going to have to do some serious conquering of this trend before we even start to contemplate little ones running about, or I’ll be straight back to 1956.
And from the moment we moved in together, for some reason, although we had both been very independent until that point, I found myself immediately wanting to be a ‘Good Wife’.
In three and a half years of living alone I had not once planned meals a week ahead, or managed to drag myself to a farmers market for vegetables. I had certainly not looked up recipes online and written shopping lists (my shopping style trended more towards moseying around the supermarket where inspiration took me).
I would often go weeks without doing laundry (benefit of having too many clothes), and my cleaning was scrappy. I’ve always been the sort to do a panicked rush around when people were coming over, and tend to feel that a place is not home if there are not five pairs of shoes sitting in the middle of the lounge room floor.
But since getting married, I somehow care about the groceries. I’m planning menus. Days in advance! I care whether we’ve had the same meal more than once in a week!
I’m worrying about laundry – for some crazy reason I care that his collars are stained, and somehow decide that I need to fix this immediately. So I’m scrubbing in the ‘made into a paste’ napisan early on a Saturday morning. This is ridiculous - who even sees the inside of the collars of his workshirts?
I’ve started planning dinner parties. And worrying about his health (has he made a doctor’s appointment? No? Should I make it for him? – Talk about infantilising). I’m caring about how often he calls his mother (for some reason apparently I think this reflects on me!). I’ve started buying Christmas and birthday gifts for his family ‘from both of us’, where last year I would have firmly declared this was his problem. I’ve even sewn on his buttons, rather than taking the time to teach him, which I’d previously insisted was the only way it was happening.
Admittedly, its not all one way – MrLaurie does tend to clean up the kitchen after I’ve destroyed it through cooking. And he does put loads of washing on much more often than I do (although his attempts to hang the washing afterwards are… artistic). And we have sensibly agreed that we are both terrible at mopping and vacuuming, so we’ve hired a cleaner. (I never knew floors could shine that way!)
I just don’t quite know why it is that I find myself wanting to be A Good Wife. Capitalised. Fifties-style.
What is it about the gender relations that I’ve picked up so comprehensively that I want to prove that I have traditional house-wifely skills? Why after years of simply assuming that he must enjoy my company due to wit and smarts (not demonstrated to date on this blog, but I would like to assure any readers that it really is there, somewhere) have I suddenly moved towards trying to impress with how much I can be like our respective Grandmothers?
Clearly, the patriarchy has some seductive charms. But I’m going to have to do some serious conquering of this trend before we even start to contemplate little ones running about, or I’ll be straight back to 1956.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Late winter turning into spring
Finally some pretty flowers for the little blog:
Geraniums
Daffs
HelleboreAfter months of a little tiny garden all grey and brown, with the only colour the bright green of the persistent weeds, its lovely to have some flowers.
I especially love the hellebore - its so delicate.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
stargazer: 14th down under feminists carnival
I is smug. One of my (very few) posts was featured in the stargazer: 14th down under feminists carnival!
Commandments
Have you read The Happiness Project blog? It gives tips and discussions about how to be happy. And that ‘happy’ is not being happy-happy joy-joy all the time, but being contented, and doing what feels right, and good, and positive for yourself.
One of the tools it suggests to help you choose what is right for yourself if to have a set of commandments to guide your personal philosophy. Generally, twelve commandments are involved, but so far, I’ve only got six.
1. Be MsLaurie
The famous ‘fantasy of being thin’ post on Shapely Prose first codified some thoughts I’d already had in this area (interestingly, my ‘wish’ plans never had to do with being slim, just ‘more fun/outgoing/cool’), and The Happiness Project helped me set it out further.
I’m a middle-class, white person in a first world country. I can do pretty much whatever I want, within reason. But it doesn’t really mean I can do anything, because I don’t LIKE everything, and I don’t WANT to like everything. I don’t like snow (its cold and wet). I don’t want to climb mountains (traumatic memories of hallucinations climbing Mount Oberon before dawn). I don’t really care much for staying out past three am and drinking to the point where the next day is a write off (too many examples).
But I can choose to be me. I love being a girl guide leader, even though its unfashionable. I love spending hours planning and making cards in elaborate designs, even though most of them get looked at once and put in a drawer. I like going to fancy little bars and sipping overpriced cocktails. I like to wear bright red shoes. I like to be me, even when that is unfashionable, and a bit conservative, and some people might think its boring. So what? I don’t need to please anyone else, I just need to please me.
2. Recognise ghosts
My second commandment is to know that, like everyone, there are some things in the past which messed me up a bit. ‘Recognise ghosts’ means to acknowledge the baggage, know its there (don’t try and suppress things), but to try not to let it mess up the future.
3. Act for pleasure, not reward
I’m a bit of a ‘look look I did something clever! Look at meeeee!’ person sometimes (probably why I’m writing a blog, hey?!). While I’ve decided this is a valid impulse, I need to be sure that I’m choosing to do things that make me happy, not just to garner praise or respect.
4. Direct frustration appropriately
Poor MrLaurie regularly cops me dealing inappropriately with frustration. Either he gets the bad mood I can’t properly show at work, or I get annoyed and yell when he doesn’t understand intuitively what I want done.
So I’m trying to direct my frustration appropriately – instead of just going “grah!” when he doesn’t chop things the way I want them chopped for the pasta sauce, I’m trying to either let it go (if its close enough), or say “I know this is crazy, but I’d prefer you to do it like THIS”, and show him. In other words, basic courtesy, and not expecting him to read my mind. Also, showing him has the helpful side effect of not allowing us to fall into the trap of ‘he can’t do it right/she never likes what I do so why bother’, which ends up with me doing all of the cooking. Sod that.
5. Be excited locally
For a wedding gift, we were given a fantastic digital camera, which I used like crazy on our honeymoon. And when we were in Darwin. And Sydney. And anywhere ‘else’. I can see the beauty and interest in everyday things elsewhere, but I hardly notice things locally. Which is silly, because here is my life, and where I want to be. And it’s a lovely city, and there is beauty all around.
So I’m trying to make a conscious choice to be excited about things locally. Today, for example there is a gorgeous blue sky. In Melbourne in winter! Amazing!
6. Fit items to life
This final one is a bit mundane. But its an important revelation to me. I should buy/make/acquire items which fit the way I live my life, not what I think my life should be (tied into ‘Be MsLaurie’). So I recently gave up on trying to fit my shoes into the bottom of the cupboard, or line them up neatly under the bed, and realised that what I was actually doing naturally was to just piff them under the bed (or in that direction).
So I bought some fantastic shallow clear boxes that fit under the bed, which I can slide out easily, and just piff the shoes into the boxes. Neater (which although not a core value of mine, it is handy to not trip over shoes when getting up to go to the loo), and lets me still just toss them in. Fit the item to my life, rather than change the behaviour. Much better.
One of the tools it suggests to help you choose what is right for yourself if to have a set of commandments to guide your personal philosophy. Generally, twelve commandments are involved, but so far, I’ve only got six.
1. Be MsLaurie
The famous ‘fantasy of being thin’ post on Shapely Prose first codified some thoughts I’d already had in this area (interestingly, my ‘wish’ plans never had to do with being slim, just ‘more fun/outgoing/cool’), and The Happiness Project helped me set it out further.
I’m a middle-class, white person in a first world country. I can do pretty much whatever I want, within reason. But it doesn’t really mean I can do anything, because I don’t LIKE everything, and I don’t WANT to like everything. I don’t like snow (its cold and wet). I don’t want to climb mountains (traumatic memories of hallucinations climbing Mount Oberon before dawn). I don’t really care much for staying out past three am and drinking to the point where the next day is a write off (too many examples).
But I can choose to be me. I love being a girl guide leader, even though its unfashionable. I love spending hours planning and making cards in elaborate designs, even though most of them get looked at once and put in a drawer. I like going to fancy little bars and sipping overpriced cocktails. I like to wear bright red shoes. I like to be me, even when that is unfashionable, and a bit conservative, and some people might think its boring. So what? I don’t need to please anyone else, I just need to please me.
2. Recognise ghosts
My second commandment is to know that, like everyone, there are some things in the past which messed me up a bit. ‘Recognise ghosts’ means to acknowledge the baggage, know its there (don’t try and suppress things), but to try not to let it mess up the future.
3. Act for pleasure, not reward
I’m a bit of a ‘look look I did something clever! Look at meeeee!’ person sometimes (probably why I’m writing a blog, hey?!). While I’ve decided this is a valid impulse, I need to be sure that I’m choosing to do things that make me happy, not just to garner praise or respect.
4. Direct frustration appropriately
Poor MrLaurie regularly cops me dealing inappropriately with frustration. Either he gets the bad mood I can’t properly show at work, or I get annoyed and yell when he doesn’t understand intuitively what I want done.
So I’m trying to direct my frustration appropriately – instead of just going “grah!” when he doesn’t chop things the way I want them chopped for the pasta sauce, I’m trying to either let it go (if its close enough), or say “I know this is crazy, but I’d prefer you to do it like THIS”, and show him. In other words, basic courtesy, and not expecting him to read my mind. Also, showing him has the helpful side effect of not allowing us to fall into the trap of ‘he can’t do it right/she never likes what I do so why bother’, which ends up with me doing all of the cooking. Sod that.
5. Be excited locally
For a wedding gift, we were given a fantastic digital camera, which I used like crazy on our honeymoon. And when we were in Darwin. And Sydney. And anywhere ‘else’. I can see the beauty and interest in everyday things elsewhere, but I hardly notice things locally. Which is silly, because here is my life, and where I want to be. And it’s a lovely city, and there is beauty all around.
So I’m trying to make a conscious choice to be excited about things locally. Today, for example there is a gorgeous blue sky. In Melbourne in winter! Amazing!
6. Fit items to life
This final one is a bit mundane. But its an important revelation to me. I should buy/make/acquire items which fit the way I live my life, not what I think my life should be (tied into ‘Be MsLaurie’). So I recently gave up on trying to fit my shoes into the bottom of the cupboard, or line them up neatly under the bed, and realised that what I was actually doing naturally was to just piff them under the bed (or in that direction).
So I bought some fantastic shallow clear boxes that fit under the bed, which I can slide out easily, and just piff the shoes into the boxes. Neater (which although not a core value of mine, it is handy to not trip over shoes when getting up to go to the loo), and lets me still just toss them in. Fit the item to my life, rather than change the behaviour. Much better.
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