'Imagine' & 'Re-Imagine'

 Okay, back at the desk, which can be barely seen underneath the plethora of keyboards and mouses - my sixteen-year-old used his Christmas money to purchase a gaming keyboard with mouse. From an ergonomic standpoint, I'm not minding this keyboard except for the 'return' key being set a little further away, just to the point where it involves extension of the right pinkie finger further than what I'm used to. Therefore, this keyboard will have to be swapped when I'm doing some serious typing.  Despite 2020 being a year we would like to flush down the dunny, Christmas has been very pleasant insofar as your blogger is concerned. Naturally, I ate too much, and I'm sure I am not the only person who has transgressed thus. Our lunch was cold meats, seafood, and salads; and the participants were my husband, two children, mother-in-law, local Anglican minister (a friend of my mother-in-law's who faced Christmas alone because her family weren't due until Boxing Day), and me. Oh, and the flies that are ubiquitous with an outdoor Aussie Christmas lunch. The minister said a blessing and we said 'amen', whilst my husband abused the flies. 

My gift haul includes a new Bluetooth speaker, an IOU for theatre tickets, and a book about the last few weeks of the life of John Lennon. I read the book and it was disturbing, but then again, any senseless violent deliberate taking of a life is disturbing. 

Anyway, I've found an antidote to the disturbing material. I've been watching the modern remake of Four Weddings & A Funeral on Stan. It's not a movie, but a television series, and I'm afraid I've become rather addicted to it. This remake is a re-imagining with completely different characters and is vastly different to the 1994 movie. I saw the movie in 1994 with my then-boyfriend-now-husband. We were fresh-faced young twenty-somethings as opposed to the still-good-looking (!) fifty-somethings we are now. We saw the movie at the Randwick Ritz, an establishment that is splendidly and sumptuously decorated in Art Deco style. I recall we were sitting in the dress circle. My future husband dozed off during the movie, and the person sitting on the other side to me was laughing himself into a hernia.I wanted to tell him, 'Dude, it's not that funny!'

Anyway, fast forward to the end of this suck-arse year that is 2020, and I'm not sitting in Art Deco surroundings. I'm sitting on a lounge purchased at Harvey Norman and my new DYI floor lamp from Big W is beside me (it needs a nice shade and I might see if I can find a Tiffany style one). Again, the story's action takes takes place in London, but the central characters are Americans living in London. The secondary characters are English. Also, there is more diversity in the cast. I just had a quick look at the dramatis personae for the 1994 production and I am sure there was not one person of colour there. I don't consider myself to be woke and am a staunch proponent of the ideal of Art for Art's Sake, but I must say I am enjoying the diversity in the current one, together with the background stories and subplots to the characters in question. I guess the current production reflects the multicultural society. Whatever. I'm liking it a lot and cannot wait to dive right back in after I've had my dinner! 

My Kid Looks Like One of the Partridge Family

 If you are a regular reader of this blog, please excuse my absence of late. I have been studying like a woman possessed, so I hope I have retained some information. The subject is Managing the Learning Environment. The suggestions and theories appear to be useful, and focus on maintaining dignity and respect for both the learner and the teacher. Gone are the days when you would have to quickly duck a flying blackboard duster that had been hurled by an angry teacher with force sufficient to decapitate its intended victim. If you were quick enough avoid the missile, you sustained whiplash in the ducking process.

After I have posted here, I am going to fold the washing and iron a few items, and then study some more. ROCK AND ROLL!!!!! <makes the recognised heavy metal gesture of fist with pinkies and thumbs signifying the beast's horns>

Is anybody really ready for Christmas this year? My youngest still has Christmas shopping to do. He's been growing his hair and taken to parting it in the middle, and today it occurred to me whom he resembles: David Cassidy as Keith Partridge.  I still have a few token items to purchase for his older brother, who is somewhat more sedate with his hair and looks nothing like Keith Partridge.  I will have to get a Christmas playlist happening. If you know me well, you will know my favourite Chrissy choons are:

1. Rockin' Christmas by Ol' 55. I just love this song. I guess it's because it takes me back to my childhood. Songs that evoke childhood and nostalgia are a joy. 

2. Merry Christmas by Slade - Noddy Holder has a head like a butcher's block and a voice that sounds like it's being dragged over shards of glass, and charisma by the bucketful. I loved Slade when I was a kid and still crank them up. 

3. How to Make Gravy by Paul Kelly. This is not a cheery tune, but it is very poignant and Paul Kelly has a way of delivering that could melt a polar cap. I was rostered to work last Christmas and the song came on the radio as I was driving between clients. I guess I was thinking about people who are away from family at Christmas and that it's the anniversary of my father's death (not on the 25th, but in the Christmas period), and my vision blurred with the tears. 

I don't know if I will watch Love, Actually this year. I know it's narky of me, but I do get the irrits with the implausible and preposterous vignette plots. I don't buy that a bunch of hot American chicks are going to just drop everything and come over to England with this dorky bloke because he has the same kind of accent as Prince William. Also, I just to scream at the Laura Linney character to turn off her frigging phone, let the carers in the home look after her brother, and shag that Karl guy's brains out. 

Anyway, the washing awaits. Along with a fruit cake I baked this morning in a fit of Martha Stewart-like domesticity. 

If I don't blog beforehand, Merry Christmas to you all. 

When Wednesday Feels Like Friday

 Today - which is Wednesday, but I keep thinking is Friday because school is completed for the year - my youngest son finished Year 10. Today is the last day he wore his blue school polo shirt because the senior school wear white shirts in the establishment where he is learning. He came home with his shirt covered in black sharpie-d signatures and slogans. Reminds me of my final day in Year 10 when my class signed each other's uniform. I have a recollection of the deputy principal warning us there would be trouble for anybody who partook in what was a school tradition, but we went ahead and did it anyway. What was he going to do, expel us? We were finished! Next year, my youngest will be a senior. Gosh. 

I asked my lad had they performed an end-of-year skit for the entertainment of the student body. They had not. We did. We pretended to be the teachers having a staff meeting. Everybody contributed ideas for the script, which I wrote. Can I just say it was, well, accurate? I played the English/History teacher, who had this quirk of telling the class, in air-raid siren tones, 'There is to be NOOOOOOOO talking!'  The following year, when I was in Year 11, I was recruited by the then-Year 10s (at the suggestion of one of the teachers) to assist with writing their script. I had fun collaborating, but clashed with the kid directing. Artistic differences, I guess. 

Today, I will just make a little list of some things I don't like:

1. Statements that begin: 'If you want MY advice...'. No, turkey; I DON'T want your advice. If I want your advice, I will ASK.

2. Apropos of the above point, statements that begin: 'Why don't you...?'. The reason I don't is because I don't want to do it, or maybe can't afford it, or am maybe physically incapable of doing it. Whatever the reason, I will not be taking that course of action. If the phrase is re-framed to 'have you considered', then I am more likely to mull it over. There is something obnoxiously imperative about 'why don't you', and the phrase never ceases to set my teeth on edge. I think it's because I have memories of overbearing people offering unsolicited advice. Sounds a bit like Point 1 above, doesn't it?

3. Fennel. Oh, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against fennel bulbs sliced and put into a salad. I kind of like those, and I don't mind licorice, either. I just have issue with the wild fennel growing in the vacant lot next to my home. The lot's owners had the land mowed today, so the air is redolent with the stuff, and my eyes are itching, and I'm sneezing with such ferocity that my nose is in danger of flying away. If this happens, I will have no nose, and be like Michael Jackson, if Michael Jackson had been a reasonably slim, pale-skinned woman. Oh, wait...

Over the next week, I will be arranging ISBNs for my books in order to facilitate uploading to Ingram Sparks. After such time, I can start marketing again and  you can start buying. Won't that be super-funsies? 

Anyway, time for my cup of tea. Got trivia tonight. My son probably still won't acquiesce to naming our team Tess Tickles. 

Ranting About Hanson & Cashless Welfare Card

 Okay, no doona day for me today. Like I said last post, I have registered a business. I spent the past few days constructing a website, which you can check out here. My husband said to me words to the effect: 'You know you are going to have to be so careful with what you post anywhere now, and make sure you have absolutely NO errors, don't you?' He's quite correct. I will make every effort to have no mixed homophones or misplaced apostrophes ('The horror! The horror!'). Problem is, despite punctuation being my superpower, I will occasionally make an error because it's part of being human (I know there are some who disagree with the concept that I am human). As soon as the error is pointed out to me, I make a mad scramble, akin to eager bargain hunters as the doors to David Jones open on Boxing Day, to fix the offending atrocity. 

Now, if you're new to this blog, I occasionally use a judiciously placed swear for emphasis. If it works in the art, then art for art's sake. Obviously, I would not do this in a professional article. I was thinking of making a pledge on my new website to help all, but there are people I will not help. If you're a neo-Nazi wanting your brochure of vicious filth proofread and edited, you can just fuck right off. I guess that policy goes without saying.

As stated in my opening paragraph, today is not a doona day. I am out of my fugue, probably because my tummy feels better, and probably because I am feeling ANGRY. Yes, I know I am excited about my new website (and rightly so), but there is something that always gets me very angry, and it's the politicians pushing to roll out the vile Indue card, or cashless welfare card. The House of Representatives and the Senate that been debating this over the past few days. Why are you people voting for it? What in the name of all things godly is actually WRONG with you? Pretty much nobody, or at least nobody with a modicum of scruples and conscience, wants the frigging thing rolled out or forced onto people. I will type this slowly for you: it helps NOBODY. Oh wait, it does help somebody - the people with a vested interest in Indue, and those people include Larry Anthony, son of Doug. ('*Sniffs air* 'What stinks? Is it a rat?'). It costs between $10K and $12K PER CARD per year in administration fees. Wouldn't the money be better spent elsewhere, such as TAFE, health, emergency services, or raising the benefit to those who receive it? Despite what RWNJs would have you believe, when people have received a little more, they go out and spend - not on the drugs or alcohol or gambling - but on food or appliances or maybe a little treat like the movies. I know some people will buy alcohol, but hey, don't bottle shop owners have bills, too? Besides, at what point did alcohol and gambling become illegal?

Anyway, what's got me feeling very combative today is the footage of Pauline Hanson rancorously whining her case for having people placed on the card.  She stood there and said welfare recipients have 'lost their rights'.  Pauline, fuck you. Fuck the horse you rode in on (a nag like yourself, no doubt). And while we're at it, fuck whoever chose that outfit you were wearing when you spewed forth that vicious and misinformed bile. (Seriously, that outfit! It looks like it was salvaged and reworked from my mother's old kaftan from 1973). People on welfare have NOT lost their rights. Jesus Christ hooning along the lane on a dirt bike, even people serving prison sentences do not lose their rights, as you would know. I feel a touch mean pointing that out because I thought your sentence unfair, but you should know that prisoners have rights, so why not welfare recipients. You are a prize hypocrite of the first order - you ran a campaign a few years back with the slogan: Give The Girl A Go, and yet you stood there (in that hideous outfit) punching down on people who are doing it tough. I have never liked you, ever since you came onto the scene in the mid-Nineties, but I was willing to be fair. I will still try and be fair, but your batshit vitriol about vulnerable people made me feel as though my head were about to combust with fury. To rant about people spending hardworking taxpayers' money on alcohol and gambling - ARRGGHHHH! - I am so SICK of that idiotic trope. 

Some of the problems with this card include:

* stigmatisation

* stripping away people's rights and autonomy

* not helping people budget 

* preventing people squirreling away cash to escape domestic violence, thus leaving them in danger

* not helping people save because it can't be used at markets, fetes, second-hand shops, Gumtree, etc

* humiliation for adults who have to seek permission from some drone at Indue to purchase an item from an online store like Amazon - I say humiliation because it's very demeaning to get permission like some Dickensian orphan who wants a bit more crappy gruel 

I know there are people who say: 'I don't want my tax dollars supporting someone buying booze', but I really want to know is why do people CARE how other people spend lawful income? It's none of my business, and certainly none of yours. Why can't someone on welfare buy a small treat occasionally? Being kind to yourself is an important part of self-care. People on welfare have often been taxpayers themselves and had bad luck. 

Another question: why is the Government paying so much heed to Twiggy Forrest's views over this shitty card?

Senator Hanson, and all the others pollies who voted in favour of the card, you are all a bunch mangy, flea-ridden mongrels who will be voted out when the public realise what a foul concept this cashless welfare actually is. 

Doona Day & Verruca Salt

 I am having a Doona Day today. I don't want to deal with anybody or anything. It's likely due to the fact I am unwell and slept badly, so it is my intention to crawl back into bed with my uni textbook, do some study, and then nod off. After period of 'nod-off' state, I will likely wake up ready to tackle the world, but not just now.  It's probably a good idea to hide because my current state of mind will see every little thing annoying me in the way pierced ears on babies too young to have decided for themselves or the way that song Soul Kind of Feeling by the Dynamic Hepnotics annoys me (can't explain why, but that idiotic song just sets my teeth on edge). 

I did do something exciting recently - I registered a business name for myself. It's SCB Proofreading & Editing Services. I created a Facebook page, but am yet to build a website. As mentioned in the first paragraph of this post, I honestly feel three shades of blah, and want to have a rest. 

Other nice things of late include an excursion by myself, my husband, and oldest offspring to check out a kitchen design place. Got some fabulous ideas, courtesy of a rather eager sales assistant, but we have to do other things to the house before we can do the kitchen; and in the words of the unforgettable Verruca Salt: 'I want it NOW!' 

Oh well, it's off to bed for me, and some study about managing the learning environment. 

Hoo-roo.