An ode to restraint

It all began innocently enough. It always does. But one false move, and now I must wear the consequences for a long time.

Literally.

I’m not sure why I decided it was a good idea to trim those nasty dry bits on the ends of my hair. I suppose I figured that a few well placed snips, and several millimetres of lost dead ends, and I would start the day feeling much sleeker.

It wasn’t really that initial decision that was the problem. It was the subsequent one involving ‘neatening’ one of my side layers. (Which, I might add, was poorly cut by a very expensive stylist and has been bothering me ever since.)

It was merely a small, diagonal incision, designed to rectify the unsightly imbalance.

Dang.

It wasn’t meant to look like that. I’ll just make a few more adjustments until I get it looking right… a slippery slope, indeed.

Oh come on, Trina! Why did you start this ridiculous process? You saw what you did to your own Barbies in 1983!!!

I know I shouldn’t play hairdresser (which may, or may not, be evidence that I have made similar attempts to cut my own hair in the past). I just assumed it would all be okay this time.

Some things, once done, can never be undone. A hand raised in anger. Spiteful words said aloud. The decision to get behind the wheel after a few drinks. Trimming your own hair.

I find practising self control tedious. I never did it well. But I am learning that a moment of uncomfortable restraint can avert the pain of a thousand needles in your eye. Thankfully my hair will grow back in time, unlike some things that I’ve wrecked in the past. Until then, I’m planning on tilting my head slightly to the right to give the illusion of balance.

I’m not looking forward to explaining this at the salon.

Journey into social demise

I’ve heard there comes an age when a person ceases to care about what other people think. Is it when you hit fifty? Sixty? From there it seems a slippery slope down into utter social breech in the twilight years when you feel it’s your personal responsibility to deliver some home truths. Like when I was told by an elderly chap during my last pregnancy “Wow, you’ve really filled out….and it’s not just the baby!” Thank you very much.

If you asked me if I was heading in that direction, I would give you a flat ‘no’. But I was a bit worried today when I realised I might be further along the continuum than I first thought.

I was pottering along one of my regular runs, and with nothing new to look at I let my mind wander. I started thinking about my shoes and the way they were affecting my stride. A natural thought considering I’m breaking in some new runners.

But then disturbingly, I thought of my socks. My purple socks.

My shoes are lime green with a black tiger pattern. Nice.

But it gets worse. I had on my comfy grey shorts (with a classic fade pattern), a pastel pink and cream singlet, and a black and white running hat.

I was distracted when I left home but I can’t claim to be entirely unaware of the discordance. Holy ham-less burgers Batman, what’s happening to me? I left my house like that without hesitation. I hadn’t done my hair (hence the cap) and wasn’t wearing even a lick of mascara. Did I even put deodorant on? I don’t think so.

Passing traffic honked me. Twice. I’m pretty sure it was in protest of my crimes against fashion and not in any complimentary way.

There is something about saluting my youth and joining the ranks of the next phase of life that freaks me out. I can’t even bring myself to say ‘middle aged’. What if I can’t rock climb anymore? Or kayak? Or wear low rise jeans? What if I have to behave?

Excuse me while I go and colour co-ordinate my underwear and lipstick.

Undetected cerebral activity

I sometimes think about blogging.

I go “Wow, now that would make a great blog”. Then I contemplate the idea for a whole 12 seconds.

Like the other morning at 5am when I woke from a deep slumber to the alarming pain of an eyelash stabbing me in the eyeball. The drama that unfolded - including moaning, gnashing of teeth, a bleary-eyed husband, and running water - was certainly blog worthy. *

Yes, I did consider blogging it.

Then I went and did something else. Like, cleaned the scum from around the dishwasher door with a toothbrush.

It’s not that I don’t enjoy conjuring up vivid pictures that make my life appear dire. No, never that. The thing about sharing ridiculous stories is that they really should have an underlying thought that nudges the more astute readers into the realms of philosophical contemplation (and the less shrewd into... well, wherever the lesser folk go).

And that is sometimes just too much like hard work. Not that writers are unfamiliar with rolling up their (pyjama) sleeves. We are not as lazy as one might imagine. What is happening is a lot of internal brain activity and perhaps not much resulting hand to keyboard action.

Now having stated my case, I have succeeded in undoing my very argument by creating an inconsequential blog listing the merits of refraining from inconsequential blogging.

Interesting.

*Why do they call it ‘an eyelash stuck in my eye’? That’s such an innocuous sounding phrase, isn’t it? I hereby coin the term ‘lightening in my eye socket’.

Of birds and odd attachments

There we were, casually driving down the western beaches of Moreton Island, enjoying the virginal landscape, when we saw a bird. A cormorant.

Not all that impressive, except that this particular bird had a baby shark hanging from its gullet; a motley, thrashing, Port Jackson shark attempting to wrangle its oversized prey to the ground.

Therein lay the beginning of a horrifically comical sequence of events involving a fish eating bird and a mollusc eating shark.

Ooookay...

I was torn between jumping from the car, Bindi style, to tear the predator away, and getting out the Canon. So instead I sat immobile and watched my friends as they tried to capture the struggling creature. It took flight again and again - exhausted - attempting to outrun our heroic team of vigilantes. It flew lopsided, then dived into the ocean, undecided whether we were of greater concern or the shark still clinging to its throat.

It eventually sank into the water, bobbing in exhaustion. At which point I encouraged Mark to strip off and dive in after it – surely he could catch it in the water. You know, the diving bird. The water bird. The flying bird. Well, he is very athletic and all…

Being the good husband, he dutifully stripped down to his speedos and ran into the autumn ocean in an attempt to placate his distressed wife. The three boys stared open-mouthed as their father dolphined out to sea, out paced by a shark-laden cormorant.

The thing about nature is that it’s violent; capricious; deadly. And yet, un-interfered with, it maintains the most perfect equilibrium and design. Unlike Bigpond on many a day, it actually works.

Civilisation appears to be about expending enormous quantities of energy removing humankind from the hostilities of its environment. Concrete barriers, sewerage systems, and ducted air conditioning allow us to hole up in our manufactured bubbles, pretending we live in a parallel dimension. (Kinda like Spock. But without the teleporter). We then pay millions of dollars (those entirely useless scraps of polymer) to produce fabricated violence and watch it on the plasma from the safety of the lounge chair. With a bag of chips. We call this 'leisure'.

Nature has become a twice-removed aunty that we visit on holidays and take photos of. We don’t really know her. But we have seen Croc Dundee. And Bear Grylls. So what do we do when the ultimate violence of nature catches up and all human contraptions fail? We are surprised because we weren’t expecting it. Death. That unspeakable ending that modernity tries to thwart.

Perhaps the circle of life is more than a catchy song on the Lion King soundtrack. Maybe there will come a day when failing to connect to the internet won’t seem like such a big ordeal. Maybe we dive into the ocean and emerge with a shark biting into our neck.

Whatever the lesson gleaned from the scenario, Mark totally looked like James Bond (and only a tiny bit like Tony Abbott...)

I think I know why they call it ‘squash’

After a several year break, I found myself facing off against my husband today on the squash court. I warmed up the traditional way by hitting the ball – he did some 1980’s callisthenics style stretching moves.

We joked and giggled for a few minutes to break the tension of the moment. What would happen when we started slamming that ball around in a confined overheated room? Would it be payback time for leaving dirty underwear on the floor? Or quietly searching the net for ‘105 new ways to cook kebabs’ while the other was talking?

We would soon find out. It was game on.

Don’t mistake us for actually being good at the game. We are equally as unskilful. But we are reasonably matched, which always makes for a healthy competition. Not that I’m competitive at all…..

So imagine my surprise when I was up 14-0 in the first game. Giddy up. I was smokin’. I even started to feel a little light-headed with my apparent impressiveness. I briefly remembered something about him being a bit of a slow starter, but dismissed it. I was clearly on fire.

He wanted to play the short game; I wanted to be gracious and not defeat him while he sat squarely on zero, so I opted for the race to 21.

‘Nice try,’ I commented (at this point I was starting to feel bad for him).

Perhaps this remark flicked something inside him, or maybe his elbow finally reached optimal warmth. Whatever happened, it resulted in me losing 4 games to love. And wouldn’t I like to tell you how close they were?

But nope, I can’t. I got nailed.

Why didn’t I agree to the shorter game? Dang slow starters….

In spite of being punished rather severely, I don’t feel any worse for it. In fact, today was maybe the first time that I have dealt with losing well. The joy was in the experience, rather than the success.

Maybe I’m finally growing up.

(I am so going to make him pay next week).

Tongue tired

The children are yawning, rubbing their little eyes and insisting they aren’t tired. The sun has embarked on its daily journey to the other side of the world where thousands of parents are bracing themselves for the new morning and the inevitable onslaught of questions, complaints, and necessary adjudications. The end of my day is near. I can smell it.

Of course, that could be the failure of my Rexona – highly likely – but my deodorant is not the only thing that is struggling under the pressure.

Amidst the chaos of it all, the thing that I find the most taxing is the talking. And the listening. Is God teaching me a lesson about how my husband feels when I download? Okay, I get it……

At any given moment I have up to four people speaking at me. They are either trying to a) tell, b) ask, c) complain, d) whinge, e) complain, f) complain g) complain h) tell me they don’t like what I’ve cooked for dinner…….

For a woman with a kazllion-billion word usage limit each day, I’ve used them all by 7pm and just can’t bring myself to do more than grunt as the cover-all response.

Which makes reading bed times stories an insult to an already tired brain.

Which brings me to my point. What was Dr Seuss thinking? Come on, man. Fifty-six pages of rhyme using made-up words? That’s just mean.

Spot Stays Overnight I can handle, but Thidwick the Soft Hearted Moose? I think I need to sit down.

Backside about

28^th January 2010

Despite the newness of the year, I find myself treading the well-worn paths of familiarity, engaging in the same old activities. I’m still eating and sleeping (skills which I appear to have polished to a level of mastery), cooking, cleaning, answering questions about why the earth spins and how electricity works (to which I always give interesting answers….) and driving kids around to their designated extra curricular activities.

Which is what brought me to the local pool yesterday, to the scene of a crime (cue dramatic music). Well, that may be a little theatrical, as it was probably a crime against fashion more than anything, but was a shocking experience - for which I may need psychological intervention - none-the-less.

The younger boys and I sat down on the pool-viewing steps to watch my eldest partake in the ‘swim fun’ class (which he continually assures me is a far cry from actual fun). I did notice the neat pile of clothes next to us - not an unusual occurrence – which we later discovered belonged to an elderly, if somewhat spritely, man.

The said man sprung with unusual gaiety from the pool in front of us, grinning and dripping (a disturbing combination at the best of times), and headed directly for us.

I realised in a flash (I took that line from one of my grade three compositions) that one of my boys was sitting atop what could be none other than this man’s clothes.

But what was he wearing? Was he wearing anything at all? A glimpse of the full frontal view suggested not! But phew, he was wearing…beige coloured Speedos? What on earth? Did he have those babies custom made?

He continued to walk towards us; I surreptitiously pulled my boy off the clothes and drew him closer, not wanting to alarm the man in the nude coloured bathers.

He was upon us.

‘Have you ever seen such a thin slip of a lad?’ were his words to me, as he pretended to flex his muscles and laugh at his own joke. Was he trying to impress me? This guy had to be eighty. He absolutely was thin, but I’m quite sure lads do not have that much loose skin hanging grimly off bone and sinew.

I gave a nervous chuckle.

He was wearing his togs inside out. The backs were navy; the modesty lining exposed to the world.

I had a bit of a chat to the old guy and he was a lovely. But I could not quite shake the embarrassment both for him and myself (aka: the woman socialising with the guy in the inside-out bathers….).

As he walked away, I wondered at which point he would realise his mistake. When he got into the change room? When his greeted his wife when he got home? Seriously, he was going to die of embarrassment! Well, hopefully not literally…

As I pondered this guy, I felt sad that I had been mortified by his error and unable to look past social conventions in order to fully enjoy engaging with another human being. The more I look at society, the more apparent it is to me how much power these arbitrary conventions have over our thinking and actions. Has the creation of a perhaps necessary set of community rules extended way beyond what is helpful, even edging our thinking into the turbulent waters of discrimination?

It looks as if 2010 is going to continue in the theme of questionably dressed older men for me. My goal is to add to the mix a sprinkling of counter-cultural active thought. I might even start wearing my bathers inside out, just for fun.

You know you’ve got kids when:

1. You have a technique for extricating playdough from a nostril.
2. You can catch vomit in one hand.
3. You have to vacuum your chairs.
4. You call McDonalds a ‘restaurant’.
5. You are prepared to exit the shower and bolt outside in a towel because you thought you heard screaming.
6. You have discovered broccoli in your pot plants.
7. You can recite any Disney movie, from any place in the script, with no preparation.
8. You are willing to pay in excess of $50 for a babysitter for a few hours out of the house alone.
9. You say ‘no’ more often than any other word in the English language.
10. You know how to sneak chocolates from the pantry without anyone seeing.
11. You can wipe someone’s bottom without throwing up.
12. You blend vegetables before you add them to a meal.
13. You cover up semi-serious flesh wounds with a bandaid.
14. You haven’t been to the toilet alone for at least 6 years.
15. You have no idea what you have in your shopping trolley when you get to the checkout.
16. You see mealtimes as a sport, which may possibly lead to injuries.
17. You have said, ‘Don’t make me come back there’ whilst driving and wildly swinging your hand into the back of the car, attempting to assert justice.
18. You have found a container full of dead lizards in your Tupperware drawer.
19. You have had to answer the question ‘why do you have to sit down to wee?’ in public.
20. You have contemplated duct taping a child to a chair.