Or Is It Just Me (the iphone edition)

You know when you have your friend’s phone and you know you’re holding your friend’s phone and there is no doubt in your mind that it’s your friend’s phone… but you put in your password?

You know when you start typing the password but the first digit is wrong and you know it’s wrong, but then instead of just pressing delete once you just keep typing random numbers until it tells you you typed the wrong password?

You know when you’re typing a message and autocorrect changes it to something hilarious and you automatically delete it and change it to what you wanted… but then you pause, and return it to the original autocorrect so you can seem inadvertently hilarious and not, accurate but boring as death?

You know when you’re going to take a happy picture of the pleasant scene before you, but then when you click camera it’s on selfie mode and you are confronted with chins for years and a chubby, squinty face of horror, and for the whole afternoon you are a little shaken and disquieted by the truth?

You know when you give your phone to someone to look at a picture and they start scrolling and you’re so scared that the next image is either nudity or a screenshot of a group chat bitching about them even though there’s no plausible reason either would be on your photo roll?

You know when you’ve spent a good few hours scrolling through a newsfeed of some variety rather than engage with the world around you, but you also know the problem with youths is their frightening dependence on technology?

Things I’m liking and not

Liking

A dirty chai latte is a chai latte with a shot of coffee. Despite loving chai lattes and loving coffee, and drinking chai lattes wishing there was coffee in it, and drinking coffees wishing there was chai latte in it, it never occurred to me that the two may be combined in a glorious explosion of delicious. This is why I’ll never be the inventor of a simple yet essential item, like silent velcro, or the little plastic table in the pizza box, then make my millions, then lose them all in a series of unwise investments, then be featured in a mini series.  But at least I have dirty chai lattes to drink, so it’s not all bad news.

The Good Wife I know I’m literally last to the party on this (actually second last, my best friend is two seasons behind me which is torture because I have repressed all my feelings about EVERYTHING so as to wait for her to catch up so we can decompress together) but I love it so much. I read that the creator regrets calling it “The Good Wife” because men won’t watch it because it has “wife” in the title. Talk about fragile masculinity.

My baby he is a little pudding.

 And not

Podcasts theoretically I should like podcasts- I want to like podcasts- I see myself as the kind of person who likes podcasts. But sometimes how I see myself and who I am doesn’t line up, like when I dyed my hair strawberry blonde because I saw myself as a charming and quirky redhead but instead I looked like the human iteration of a strawberry. And it’s the same with podcasts. I listen dutifully, I tried some which will make me smarter and better informed (radiolab, science vs) some which were popular (shittown) and furtively some which appealed to my repressed interests (the west wing weekly) but none of them have hooked me to the degree that, when faced with a free a hour, make me think “boy I can’t WAIT to catch up with that podcast!”

Small irritating household tasks like replacing this lightbulb, putting that picture frame up using those sticky hooks that you never know if you should trust or not, putting actual plants in the mountain of pots outside which were gathered in a flush of inspiration which instantly cooled, and so on, and so forth, forever, until we die.

I Had a Baby and Now I’m a Smug Bastard

But really, a baby is the most perfect excuse.

“I’m so sorry I can’t come, the baby is crying”

(he isn’t)

“I’m sorry I forgot, the baby didn’t sleep”

(he did)

“I’m sorry for the smell, the baby farted”

(it was me)

And in this case

“I’m sorry for abandoning yet another blog for months at a time, the baby made me watch every episode of Gilmore Girls, the Crown, and Gavin and Stacey instead”

Things Which Are Better Done Not Pregnant

Sure, sure, we all know that things like smoking, soft cheese, holding up a convenience store, and voting for Tony Abbott are not good for the health of your unborn baby as well as society at large. But following my recent events (“having a baby”) I humbly throw my hat in the ring with a few more activities which, I found through personal experience, are better done not pregnant.

• Miserably buying clothes which don’t fit your fat ass in the deluded hope that soon they will, because they won’t, you silly schlubb, and the image of the first time you try to squeeze your tummy into them, reminiscent of squeezing play dough into a tube, will be forcibly summoned in your mind’s eye every time you look into a mirror for the next two months (so far).
• Getting a ticket for texting at a red traffic light and enduring such a look of scathing judgement from the police officer that you almost call DOCS on yourself.
• Watching any feel good news story about puppies, because you will cry with such abandon the neighbours think your mother has died.
• (On a similar vein) Beginning an argument the success of which hinges upon your ability to maintain a righteous fury, because within moments you will dissolve into tears sobbing “I just FEEL SO SAD”.
• Making a cake “for your family”.
• Seeing any dog, because you will remember the feel good puppy story, and cry again.

General Indignities

• I accidentally pronounced palate “pa-LAT” in front of my husband and a friend, the cruelest of people. Their joy was unrestrained, as was my humiliation. It wasn’t as bad as the time I pronounced “archive” with the “ch”, though.
• Despite my being of the size and texture of a beached whale due to the Miracle of Life within my uterus (and bum, and chins, and ankles…), my husband’s evening foot massages have become increasingly lacklustre to the point of them almost not being worth it except I don’t want to let him get out of the habit.
• I discovered a latent library fine of dizzying proportions. The books sit on a shelf at home, taunting me with my own ineptitude to grasp the borrowing concept. So far in life there has not been a library/ video shop/ parking opportunity which hasn’t led to me receiving a fine, and then not paying it until it’s horrifically large.
• I included an emoticon in a work email, but it was not reciprocated. What does it mean? Does the recipient now look down on me as a professional, as a colleague? Was it a power play, a rejection of an informal gesture of goodwill? Do they hate emoticons, and by extension, me, and by extension, everything I stand for? Time will tell.

Things I have been duped into purchasing by companies that know I am a fool, a multipart series, part 1

A Passport Holder

In functionality, a specifically-identified passport holder is no different from a large wallet, a pocket in your bag, or the passport holder it literally arrived in whence sent to you from The Government.

The differentiation comes from parting with the financial reward of two hours work for the privilege of owning it, and it coming in attractive pastel hues that look nice poking out your bag in the instagram picture you post from the airport when curating an interesting if fictitious life for yourself.

In reality, a passport holder actually makes using a passport harder, by creating yet another impediment in the search for your passport at the check in counter, having utilised the past 20 minutes in the queue on the more productive task of scrolling through instagram making notes on how to better curate your fabulous, fictitious life.

The situation is further exacerbated if, like me, you’re sweatily fumbling around for your damn passport whilst also trying to conceal the five carry on bags slung about your person in which you’re concealing an extra 10 kilograms or so of luggage.

Halfway through the trip, the passport holder is abandoned altogether and the passport returns to floating around your bag, either sticking halfway out at a jaunty and easily snatchable angle, or collecting debris with the shameful McDonalds receipts and old pen innards at the very back corner.

My hat is tipped to the sadist who saw humans like me, and saw us wanting, and knew we would be sucker enough to purchase.

A week of crushing disappointments

I got a call last week from the Hospital in which a very nice lady called Carol firmly disabused me of my notion that perhaps my baby was just a very big baby, weighing nearly 20 kilograms at 8 months cooking, and therefore my pregnancy weight gain was nothing to worry about.

Disappointing.

I was A Fool, as I so often am, and took the call on speaker with my husband close enough to hear every word. This means I couldn’t even tell him, “no my sweet pudding pie, they told me I should be eating MORE carbs”.

Disappointing.

Now he watches me closely with a general “who will think of the baby” demeanor and constant aggravating pep talks about how almonds are filling (a lie) while secretly purchasing and consuming Allens snakes (he has been caught in the act twice). Worse, he has hidden the Coles 40% chocolate chip, chocolate chip cookies, which are not only the best cookies on earth, especially when stale, but perhaps the only bright light in my otherwise tragic existence.

Disappointing.

For that reason you will observe me starting my day (if you are my neighbour, who I suspect does) by rising at some horrific hour (“7 am”) in order to measure out half a cup of all bran, mix in a few almonds and strawberries, and cover with milk diluted with My Tears. This replaces the fresh-out-of-the-oven croissant from the Bakery I used to eat for breakfast every day, justifying the nutritional content by telling myself “it’s French”.

 

Disappointing.

Very Disappointing.

Well hello there

Yes, it is I, sheepishly returning a year after wandering the wilderness of life and recording none of it upon The Internet.

However, as a Lady User Of The Internet, you will be pleased to know I have continued to Use The Internet, and here are some of the Uses I have had for The Internet, while Using it, as a Lady:

• Buying pretty tops from ASOS. Hating them. Never returning them.
• Hate-reading Mamamia while wondering what exactly Zoe Foster Blake and Bec Judd have over Mia Freedman to justify the endless fawning thinkpieces upon her website derived from each new instagram photo, and whether they operate as a team or individually in the assumed blackmail of Mia Freedman.
• Scrolling through the Instagram feeds of Zoe Foster Blake and Bec Judd and wishing I had nicer hair.
• Keeping silent yet unnervingly close tabs on the twitter feeds of people I know peripherally and don’t like. Dying a thousand deaths the times I’ve clicked ‘like’ while trying to open replies.
• Remembering when the Sydney Morning Herald was a serious newspaper, and not a poorly laid out version of Buzzfeed.
• Opening a clickbait Sydney Morning Herald after the above reflection, comforting myself with the knowledge that I may be a lemming, but I’m a self aware lemming at least.
• Remembering when Buzzfeed was a poorly laid out website of delightful lists, and not an attack on all which is good and innocent.
• Going online shopping, trawling a whole website over the course of an hour and filling my shopping cart with everything my cold dead heart desires. Going through my shopping cart and agonisingly narrowing down the selection so as to fit in with my budget. Leaving the page open for a few days. Closing the page. Repeating after a week.
• Furtively reading fan conspiracies about the new Gilmore Girls, and then having conversations with my friend where she offhandedly starts a sentence with “I read something somewhere about Logan which said” and thus uncovering SHE READ ALL THE FAN CONSPIRACIES TOO and we are as lonely as each other.
• Browsing the twitter feeds of people who became famous on twitter and wondering how it is I myself didn’t become famous on twitter.
• Looking up recipes every time I’m hungry, but still just buying MacDonalds on the way home from work.

So, as you can tell, my sweet dumplings, all in all a productive year.

Hiatus

Sorry for not blogging for a while, but hundreds of thousands of people are running from death to Europe and Europeans are trying their best to help and it’s a pretty shameful time to live in Australia, and my mocking social commentary has run a bit dry given the circumstances.

What Strange Treasures My Phone Holds #1

Via instagram, via tumblr, presumably via the brain of a youth

Heh.

While I inexplicably seemed to constantly find myself on the other side of the unrequited love situations, I once had a housemate who was super friendly and had a passion for documentaries. Frequently myself and our other housemate would find him engrossed in a documentary about Al Jazeera, or a Fresh Prince of Bel Air marathon, with a hopeful lady over to “watch tv”. Little did she now, she really was there to, in fact, watch tv.

My husband broke my beloved car and I took this shot of him and the creepiest-and-perhaps-not-coincedentally-cheapest tow truck driver chatting. My husband comes alive in such circumstances, exuding an air of serene joy at the opportunity to extract oneself from a pickle. His unrestrained happiness in such moments only makes the situation further unbearable. A vicious cycle commences, for he approaches my mounting fury as yet another obstacle in this exciting challenge, which only increases his general happiness and satisfaction at the circumstances, which yet increases my rage. It’s a miracle our marriage is intact. I put it down to our car rarely breaking down.

A tax file number seems like such an inexplicable thing to be one of the most searched for things? Surely you apply once, lose it immediately, and regret it forever? Eyeliner meanwhile, is eminently sensible. My application of eyeliner makes me look like a drug addict or worse, an ironic goth.