Back for a moment

Just toying with coming back for a bit. But it just feels so weird to be angsty on a page (and oddly self-indulgent). Maybe baby steps hey?

On babies. Again.

In the last few weeks, a set of water balloons popped up my under my eyes and they are not going away. Dem's apparently the breaks of getting old.

And in other news about getting old - kids! kids! kids! Mexicana chose to provide not one but two adorbs details about child birth (which I'm going to share with you oh-so lovingly) while I was eating.

1. Babies can tear you through all the way to the butthole- a fourth degree tear, leaving you incontinent forever. In other words, you and child will both be wearing nappies.

2. In order to prevent this, your helpful doctor will take a pair of scissors and cut your vahjayjay bigger. Without anasthetic. Snip snip.

Did I mention that I was spooning noodles into my mouth at the time of these fun factoids?

And then she preceded to tell me that if I didn't have kids I would die alone and no-one would visit me in hospital.

She was trying to sell me on the idea and instead she just made me want to pack up my Winnebago (with ND) and head for the open road.

I wish someone would give me the right reason for having kids, because I have extra love to give, because it will make my life better, because it will bring happiness to people's lives.

Not because a) I'm having one because I have reproductive organs
                     b) because I'm supposed to have one
                     c) hypothetical children will help me in the rice paddies

Do you see what I mean? No-one ever says anything about good, positive reasons to have kids. Only that this is some role I'm supposed to fill. And the more I hear, the more I'm tempted to just go the other way and live my life in an armchair with some books in my personal library.

Trolling, trolling

We just finished watching Sinister this afternoon and afterwards I was looking for (sigh) intelligent discussion of the movie on the internet.

This was pretty much the first comment I saw:

"Horrible, horrible movie. I DO NOT recommend bringing your children to view this disgusting piece of “entertainment”. I brought my 11 year old and her sleep pattern is still very much disturbed. Shame on you, the makers of this film. And a true testament to where we are heading as a society."

I also don't recommend you bring your kids to see this film! Shaniqua, your points are so pertinent, you are almost a genius (almost!)

Everyday Racism

I just got a random comment on strep throat foods. Thank you..person. I will keep that in mind if ever I get strep throat.

You know you think you live in a multicultural society and you surround yourself with (relatively) enlightened people, you don't read YouTube comments and then.. racism sneaks up on you anyway.

Bloggers.

"Who cares about Haiti? I mean what did this country bring to us except baby rape?"

"How come I don’t hear about the world demanding Germany to feed the whole Europe because the Nazi slashed some heads?"

Ok yeah, all I have to do is stop reading them completely and there will be no more angry rage on my end. However I do just want to drag them by the hair into a history classroom. Seriously, mandatory history lessons for idiots. Maybe throw in some documentaries if reading is too hard on their heads.

Workpeople.

I was walking down the street with my older workmate and her friend.

OW: There are just so many Aborigines everywhere *wrinkles nose* ruining this suburb.
Fr: I know! Oh My God! We should just get rid of them.. we give them too many things already. And what is with the whole speech thing that comes before every tv show-
Me: Excuse me, I really can't listen to this. Can we please change the subject? I am extremely uncomfortable right now.

OW and Fr exchange glances like I just requested to put cherry pie in my shoe. I have broken the racism sisterhood bonding code. I don't care. I can't do it.

Family (?!)

Sumo: God, I would never date an Indian. They smell funny and-
Me: What? Do you even have Indian friends?
Sumo: No, do you?
Me: No, but I'm not tarring them all with the same brush!
Sumo: We're all racist, there's no point in denying it. I don't like Indians.

Me: *turns to ND* What the hell? Since when dinner turn into a local chapter of the KKK?
ND: She's your family!

I don't deny that racism exists and people argue that racism is innate- a holdover from when we were all cavemen and trying to keep other clans off our patch. However many thousands years later, are we not more enlightened than that?? You'd think multiculturalism and globalisation would have opened people's eyes to more than just food and tv shows, there are some people that will never get it. At the end day, it feels like a losing fight, it is almost near to impossible to change someone's mentality from the sheer force of your words. If you can't talk them through it, then it's okay not to stick around and listen if you don't want to.

Prowlers and gratitude for small spaces

So I apparently live in one of the safest suburbs in Sydney, when ND and I don't have our heads screwed on and leave the door unlocked while we're sleeping- we generally awake to find we still have our lives and our possessions the next day.

Lately however, there have been small incidences of crime that are making me a bit nervous. A bag snatching (a bag snatching?!) and prowlers. It has become a thing, every month or so to leave a note on the downstairs bulletin board pointing out someone is impersonating a cop, or lurking. in the. dark. or wandering the stairways or whatever.

(I just want to say that I don't really want to post this, because people are always murdered right after they talk about feeling uneasy on their livejourmals. I feel like I'm poking fate.)

Anyway! Even though I often begrudge my 2x2 metre space apartment and I (more frequently than you know) wish for a larger space with a walk-in closet, I am never more grateful for my 2x2 than when I walk in from garbage disposal at night. I can see every nook and cranny and I know 100% that there's no-one in here but me. Prowler, you may remain downstairs. I think if I lived in a 22 bedroom mansion ala Adele, I would  waste a lot of electricity turning on every damn light in the house to feel safe.

Oh, and if you want to feel really unsafe while I'm talking about prowlers, I recommend you go and watch Funny Games and get back to me.

Le Doppelganger

I haven't thought of Le Doppelganger in a while (super speedy update: there's someone in Sydney who looks exactly like me and has been fooling my friends for years)

So I think I may have finally found out her name, crafty-face-imitator of mine. I was exiting brunch this morning, when someone calls:

Anna!

I turn around and a girl is looking at me (excitedly) and calls again: Anna!

I'm a bit confused so I point at myself and mouth 'me???'

She nods and I walk over to where her and hey boyfriend are sitting and she says 'Hi Anna!'

I am about to disappoint her - 'Sorry, I'm a Mush!'

She's mortified and her boyfriend pats her lovingly on the elbow.

'Sorry, you look like someone I know... Anna...'

'That's ok.. no worries!' and I lope off before I/evil doppelganger person can create more confusion.

Actually I'm probably the evil one because I don't mind the idea of making mischief. Le Doppelganger, please come out so we can recreate the Parent Trap.

The paranoid generation

A year or so ago, I caught this program on TV- I think it was called Las Vegas Beauty Queens/ True Beauty. Anyway the premise was that all these girls were applying to this show thinking they were competing on hair, makeup and bikini bodies but actually they were being secretly judged on morality. So the show would give them little tests such as whether they would open the door for a random grandma or whether they would accept a bribe.

Anyway, if they passed these tests, they automatically preceded to the next round and if they didn't, they would discover that they were an ethically challenged individual and booted unceremoniously from the show, all the while protesting meekly that they meant to save the puppy from the burning building but didn't see him. (Fun sidenote: I caught this on the second season so frankly I judge these girls for being idiots who are unable to even vaguely research what TV show they are due to appear on)


Which precedes onto that terrible 20/20 segment called ( rather originally) What Would You Do?
And of course, a plethora of homeless people, battered wives and racist rednecks are served up in situations to see .. ahem.. what would you do? (Besides you know, feeling smug that you would never do what those people did!)


Which leads me to .. this one that everyone is talking about.
I like the guy with the fire hydrant. That was smart thinking. Even though I'm pretty sure no one remembered to fill in that section of the worker's comp form. Anyway I am sure there are a trillion more examples of this morally-superior infotainment that we could go through. But alas no time.

Here's the thing, this stuff is becoming more and more regular, even if we don't presume we're going to end up punked on a tv show (and judged by everybody in the world), we are more than ever hyper aware that whatever we do will quite possibly end up on the internet via mobile (Thanks YouTube!) or on some sort of cctv camera. Our bad behaviour despite our best efforts to keep it underground, is going viral. You lest be vigilant that your drunken rant doesn't end up with a million views or that your bullying ways doesn't land you on the nightly news. Here a camera, there a camera, everywhere a camera.

Which is good for exposing asses (and once again, the smug thing) but bad for the rest of us who are relentlessly paranoid about not doing the right thing.