One of my daughters has a thing for being upside down. She is often just a pair of feet on the headrest of the couch. If you say her name, the feet will jig about a bit but there’s not likely to be any further response. It’s as if she’s in her own upside down world. I just tried the upside down on the couch pose and it wasn’t unpleasant […]
Samanta Shweblin is the writer of an acclaimed short novel called Distancia de Rescate, the translation of which (renamed Fever Dream) has recently been longlisted for the Booker. ‘Distancia de Rescate’ translates to ‘Rescue Distance’, a term Samanta invented to describe the variable safe distance between a mother and child. I haven’t read the book yet (I may not ever, it sounds terrifying) but I immediately identify with rescue distance. […]
Okay a little bit of history first up: International Women’s Day was initiated by a German socialist named Clara Zetkin (great name). She did a good job – more than one million people across the Austro-Hungarian Empire demonstrated for women’s rights – to vote, to hold public office and to have the same opportunities as men in the workforce. The United Nations came to the party for the first time […]
I posted this song a while ago but then it disappeared. Maybe wordpress has some kind of moderation process in which crappy stuff gets ditched, or maybe there’s a ghostie in my laptop. Speaking of, I just that second splashed a large mouthful of wine on my keyboard, which may well contribute to misbehaving ghosties, disappearing posts and lost data. The wine is a little consolation-celebration for the beginning of the […]
This bit of writing is an attempt to un-paralyse myself from a state of overwhelmedness (and apparent issues with expression). Often when I walk into the supermarket I am suddenly stopped in my tracks by a sense of ‘what was I here for?’. Even if I have a list I am assaulted by the enormous array of stuff – stuff in season, stuff on special, stuff on display, new stuff, […]
So this evening I stood between my children and the telly and said, “You are allowed telly not because you’ve been good – you haven’t, you’ve been little bumholes ALL WEEK. You are allowed telly because I’ve been bad, I’ve been a great big bumhole, and I’m sorry.” I have been bad. Bad mother bad; which is not murderous fraudulent thievery, lying, cheatin’ bad but couldn’t be bothered to do […]
Dear Bogans Children, I’m writing this because I think we need a record of the horrendous things you had to endure in your childhood, the things that sent you reeling through the house in flails and wails of grief; the horrific events that had you bearing your teeth in retribution and declaring war on all and sundry; the terrible acts of violence inflicted on you that saw you collapse and […]
So it’s the last official day of the school holidays and, with properly nasty weather driving icy salt into my holiday wounds, I am thoroughly, absolutely and entirely defeated. De.Feat.Ed. Today, in a last ditch effort to brighten our sickness-ridden, no-holiday holidays, I drove the children out of the bad weather of home into the bad weather of the city. There was a lot of whinging and arguing about what […]
So school’s back in tomorrow, which means that I might be able to keep my cool for longer than two days. Two days being about the longest time between some small person doing something to warrant an icy blast of my lost cool. I have spent the last bit of holidays covering and naming all the school books AND sewing name tags into the uniforms and MAN I am pleased […]
Here are three habits my children have got into that are quite adorable for the first little while, then really bloody annoying thereof: 1) Hey Mum, watch this. It plays out like this:- I am in the middle of a very important and highly dangerous feat of brilliance (such as chopping an onion or catching up on Bachelor revelations) when 1 or 3 children arrive in the middle to shout: “Mum, […]
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