New Memo To The World:
Using some sort of rip off of the slowed down action scene first exhibited in the Matrix is crap.
Stop it.
Don’t do it anymore. Ever. For any reason whatsoever.
I will not watch your movie if you do this. It means you have no original thoughts and don’t know how to write a comedy. Spoofing something that has been done to death is not funny or original. stop it.
(Inspired by an ad for that ridiculous zohan movie)
Boyfriend announcements
I’ve noticed in every conversation I have with new people, I find a way of saying ‘my partner’ or ‘my boyfriend’ within the first few sentences. I don’t feel like I belong to Nigel, however I am well aware of the differences in the way I am treated when others believe I am “owned”.
But lately I haven’t been doing it. At all. I have, in fact, been avoiding using those phrases at all. I say things like ‘call home’ and ‘we’re going to Sweden’ and I gloss over exact details by talking fast and moving on to another subject.
I’m not ashamed of him. I’m not hiding it. I’d like to say I’m just choosing not to flout it, but that’s not true either.
Where’s the line? Why does the P make it so complicated? It’s not in my head. There are actual implications to how you are treated after telling or not telling people you are in a relationship. So far I haven’t ever put much thought into it, I just say or don’t say. It only occurred to me after a series of events on my journey home that this is what I’ve been doing. I can’t even pinpoint when the change occurred.
Too many questions left unanswered by this very tired blogger.
General State of Being and Nigel Update
I feel fantastic. The other night, I felt content. It has been so long since I’ve felt this good, I’m not sure I trust it to last. Problems and mishaps are being kept in perspective and not bothering me as much. I am overall feeling a hundred times better than I did before I left on my trip.
The problem is, dealing with Nigel is making me annoyed. He was left with four things to get done in my absence. He had two full weeks to achieve the following list:
1) call the shop I bought my bed off and arrange pick up
2) deliver the late fathers day present to my dad
3) call my mum and organise a return of the emergency funds she forwarded to me
4) burn a copy of a set of DVDs we have.
Now these may seem like things that are my job to deal with given that they mostly serve my purposes more than his. However, given the number of things I do for him in the course of a normal week, it’s not asking much. And also given that I somehow found time in my overly packed schedule to spend more than a few hours at his parents house on father’s day, item two would have been the least he could do. And he agreed to all four things multiple times. Imagine my surprise to get home and find he’d done none of it.
If you’re imagining correctly, you’ll realise I wasn’t surprised at all. Despite him being amazingly supportive during my loneliest moments overseas, he still can’t get it together enough to help out. And the house was a shit heap when I got home.
I hate coming home to find the house is a mess.
It did strengthen my resolve to move out though. And I have found a place so now it’s a matter of time and effort and money and co ordination. It should be fixable within a fortnight at the most.
Erratic Posts
My schedule for the next week and a half is hectic, to say the least. I have two assignments due on the 12th, an on campus day on the 6th, preparation for my on campus day on the 6th, a cousin’s 18th on the 6th at night, baking to do for the 18th, dinner with my brother, sister and their partners on the 7th, father’s day on the seventh, a friend visiting on the 5th, a hairdresser appointment on the 11th, bowling on the 12th, I get on a plane on the 13th, I also vote on that date, and I have full time work in the meantime.
can you all see how blogging is not going to fit in very well here?
More from smh
I’m glad she was acquitted. I wish they hadn’t identified her as a ‘mother of six’ before anything else. Our media has a long way to go to realise that mothers are also humans, and that if they’re not going to identify men by their kids in the first sentence, women shouldn’t be either. This ‘mother of six’ was abused by a ‘father of six’.
Childcare
This is crap.
“I don’t know why some people have children at all if they know that they can only take a few weeks off work,” she said.
Really Mem Fox? You have no idea why this might happen? REALLY??? You are so wrapped up in your privileged world that you have NO IDEA why some people would have children without being able to take “enough” time off work to look after them?
For anyone who didn’t follow the link – they’re talking about young infants, but they go on to mean anyone under two or three. Can any of my readers afford to take THREE years off work to look after someone? Someone who is adding to your financial burdens not detracting from them?
She does gain more credibility at the end of the article though with this:
She said a solution to the problem was for the government to redirect the money it provided to childcare providers to families so parents could afford to choose whether to remain at home or not, free of financial pressures.
“Protectionism”
I recently had a conversation with Nigel’s older sister about being childfree. This headed quite swiftly into the territory of tubal ligation as I pointed out that women under a certain age without children are not able to get this done easily. She seemed to think it was perfectly ok for this to be the case as she has had many friends who were anti children when young, but grew out of it as they got older. She did freely admit that none of these friends were so anti having kids that they would have gotten the tubal ligation, but clearly this was not the point in her mind.
After awhile of arguing about this, Nigel’s mum jumped in to tell me how wrong I am. I tried to gracefully bow out of the argument many times by stating that they will never be able to convince me I shouldn’t have full rights to my body and what I do to it, but they continued to try and argue with me.
A few of their arguments summed up:
1) there are other options available so it’s not necessary
2) people will regret it later in life
3) doctors are just trying to protect us by not allowing it
argument one doesn’t surprise me coming from his older sister as she’s twenty five (ish) and never had sex, nor has she ever been assaulted. She is a big victim blamer when it comes to rape and therefore probably doesn’t consider the possibility that it could happen to her one day.
In terms of the regret/protection argument, no. No one else needs to protect me. Thisi s my body and my right. If I happen to change my mind at a later date, that’s my cross to bear and everyone else can just back out of it. And I don’t want ANYONE else banning me from doing something for my own protection. Women are not children. We do not need some higher authority looking out for us for our own good. We just need to be left the fuck alone.
His mum brought up people who apparently have a sex change operation and then sue the doctors as they didn’t have enough counselling to make the decision. There was no evidence used to support this argument. Just the idea that there are such people out there and that they are the reason doctors won’t engage in unnecessary surgeries.
These people make it hard for me to have any hope for women as a whole.
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