because I said so

Today marks the 6 -month anniversary (demi-anniversary?) of my status as a worker-bee.

For the last six months, I have caught the bus or sat in traffic (listening to Nathan and Nat on Nova, of course) to sit in front of a computer screen in a large capsule of concrete, steel and glass (not that I ever see much glass from my cubicle) for several hours, eat rice crackers and cottage cheese at my desk, get massive headaches from the lack of Vitamin-D, then go back home to forrage for tinned soup or whatnot, then collapse into bed, just to wake up and do it all over again.

(That sentence was long and exhausting for a reason.  Any of you wannabe sub-editors who are clenching their jaws should desist and sigh with relief at the knowledge that yes, I know the rules of grammar, so I have the right to break them, a’iight?)

But what about weekends, you ask? How can today be the demi-anniversary when today is Saturday?

Because I am working today, thankyouverymuch.

My co-worker-bee has skipped town to visit the Pope the week we have a massive deadline (but to be fair, this mofo project shoulda been done months ago, and when she booked her leave we all assumed it would be gonekthxbai) and The Boss has me doing work I shouldn’t even be doing. Let alone have the capacity to do. And I am freaking out about it.

I did get out to see The Dark Knight — which is freaking AWESOME and they showed The X-Files: I Want to Believe trailer which looks like it’s going to be EVEN MORE AWESOME — this morning but I didn’t get to sleep in because I knew I had to get to the first session or else the whole day would be wasted.

This nuerotic, bitching post probably shouldn’t be here; I suppose I could’ve put it in my anonymous nuerotic-bitching blog, but I swear, I have a point.

My point is this:

I NEED A MOTHER-FUNKING HOLIDAY GOSHDARNIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Oh, my other point: people are way too overworked and we live in a society that is too fast-paced where we have too-high expectations on us and it is totally shit and we need to figure out a better way. Right now. Because this effing sucks, people. Yeah, I said “effing”. You know it’s bad.

I am just EXHAUSTED. My brain hurts. My body aches. I can’t be arsed going to the shops to get anything decent for dinner and Lean Cuisines are NOT about “Looking After Yourself” unless you are some strange bot who survives on expensive cardboard beans. My two weeks’ of regularly going to the gym is staring at me  and in sad, lonely, mouth-gaping shock and I have even stopped caring about the fact my hair looks like I should be one of the principles in Wicked. The only upside is that The Boyfriend is on a graduates’ junket with his work this weekend so at LEAST it doesn’t matter that I haven’t waxed my legs.

I feel the odd mix of catatonia and rage that signals an imminent breakdown, and I am freaking out.

There was a post on fabulous new (shiny new! Like 4-days-old new! NEW new!!) Perth blog Beyond Beeton that totally made me feel like I was in Oprah’s audience (on one of the serious episodes not the ones with the free stuff, unfortunately — wouldn’t that just be freaking GREAT?) and I just wanted to nod all seriously and shout out “AMEN, SISTER” in a manner befitting a large, Southern, African-American lady. And I suppose I could have since there was no one in the office because EVERYONE IS ON HOLIDAYS.

But of course, I am a small South-Asian Australian girl, and even I would have thought it kind of out of place.

Anyway, I will replicate the fervor-inducing passages from the post “Feminism really needs to go away and leave me alone for a while” here:

There’s nothing more empowering than having your apron strings untied from the sink.

Unless you get untied from the sink so that you can trot off in a wool suit to your box on the terrace for every daylight hour and more besides, after which you will glamorously engage in up-to-the-minute witty banter with 40 of your nearest and dearest colleagues who you are dining with again. You then of course go home, ring your mother and actually listen to what she says, clean the toilet, put the bin out (you’re a liberated woman after all), read the paper and a few novels (see the witty banter point above), bake something nice to take to work tomorrow and save at least 15 children from starvation or tractor accidents or something, all while looking hopelessly alluring.

If you’re managing all that and vodka isn’t a part of your daily routine then I hate you and there is nothing for you here.

AMEN, SISTER. A-fricking-MEN.

I wonder if the other Buddhists will notice that I’m breaking a precept during our version of Lent if I crack open the sav-blanc in the fridge that I am looking after for a friend who left it at a work do and have totally forgotten to give back (because I do not function til I get off the bus and to Ristretto, and always forget to take it to work)?

Because I have a forbording sense of desperation and fear that everything is not going to be alright.

Ah well. At least I have blogging with which to vent.

PS — Beeton, if you are reading this: I can’t comment on your posts because it says I need to log in? But you’re not on wordpress.com? Can you please check that? I would be sad if I can’t comment, and I’m sure everyone here would *realise* how truly nutso I was if I resorted to posting here so that I could ping back to you.

The Boleyn Inheritance by Philippa Gregory

3 of 5 stars

Oh my. Even though I knew/could easily guess the ending here, it left me feeling pretty horrid. Don’t read this if you wish to have romanticised visions of Henry VIII in your head; Gregory makes him out to be a complete and utter nutjob, and a gross fat, stinky nutjob at that. Which is probably about right.

I noticed another reviewer mentions the ‘myopic’ sense of narrative in this novel, and that’s pretty spot on. There is quite the sense of icky claustrophobia — quite possibly just as Anne of Cleves and Katherine Howard felt while in Henry’s company.

This was definitely a lot darker than The Other Boleyn Girl, and I would hardly call it a romance. But it was still alright.  Pre-feminism angst sources abound.

View all my reviews.

Justices Catherine Branson, Robert French and Margaret Stone today ruled the specific clause relating to annoying and inconveniencing pilgrims went beyond the intention of State Parliament.

In 2006, the Parliament passed the World Youth Day Act which allowed the World Youth Day Authority to pass the annoyance clause in 2008.

… However, [Justice Robert French] said the annoyance clause was invalid because it could not have been the intention of Parliament to make such vague and extensive limits to free speech.

Thank heavens for rationality and common sense. (The full judgment is online here.)

But I am not impressed by this:

In dismissing the other points of the [NoToPope Coalition]’s claim, Justice French found that parts of the act banning the sale of certain items including stickers, badges and T-shirts did not infringe upon the right to free political communication.

Humph.

I personally have nothing against Catholics (both The Boyfriend and The BFF are both of that particular variant of the Christian faith) but, having seen the lameness of the high levels of offendability at The University of Our Lady No Fun, I think it’s crap that, first, s116 of the Consitution is as weak as fingernails after a nice long bubble bath (’cause then Frenchy could find the fact that the NSW and Federal governments are spending stacks of cash to appease a bunch of boring over-pious pilgrims is highly wrong) and secondly, that the NSW Government decided they needed a bloody law banning funny t-shirts in the first place.

Fer Chrissakes. A t-shirt or a few bumper stickers ain’t gonna kill anyone.

And if we have to see and hear the media flooding on and on about the Pope this and a few pilgrims got the flu (oh, horror) that, surely it’d be good to see some pics of funny t-shirts among the masses at the Masses.

But frankly, it’s fricking lame that the government feels they need to protect all the Catholic kiddies from a few amusing bumper stickers (why the heck didn’t they give them all a free bloody flu shot, that’s what I want to know).

Funny t-shirts and slogans are the shizz, and Pope Benny and his Vat-City homeboyz* clearly have a sense of humour. When confirming that the Pope’s hot red shoes were made by his personal cobbler and not, contrary to media speculation, Prada, the Vatican said:

The Pope, in summary, does not wear Prada, but Christ.

Ok, it totally coulda been funnier had they employed me to write their media releases, but the point is they tried. I’m sure they even think the pics comparing Benny with Senator Palpatine is amusing and clever. I bet they totally wouldn’t care about a few funny t-shirts that say “The Pope Touched Me Down Under” or “WYD/SYD… proof that the rhythm method is flawed” or “Abstinence makes the Church grow Fondlers” or these:

"The Pope Annoys Me!" (ABC News: Lucy Carter)

But it’s probably even sadder that most of the pompous, pious poof ponces really would have had a boo-hoo cry-cry over jokes such as these. Someone I work with, who’s in Sydney for the festivities, was vehemently offended when I forwarded an amusing pic that said something like “Sponsor A Lion for World Youth Day”.  She’s not even Catholic; she just jumped on her boyfriend’s bandwagon. (Dunno if the Pope really wants to bless them, though. They live in sin.)

Chill the frick out, people. It just a joke.

But, ah well, at least the Court got it right here.

*Pope Benny is “clrly” a gangsta. Duh, he drives around with bodyguards and bullet-proof protection and has a thing for shoes, just like Kanye and Jay-Z et al:

K Rudd meets his hero; old men wear dresses and hot-pink hats (via News.com.au)

I did French at primary school for like (counts) (thinks) (counts more) 4 years. I couldn’t take it up properly in high school ’cause we did some fancy “immersion” program where they teach you normal subjects in other languages (so there were some kids who finished a year not knowing much about French or science/social studies) rather than learning all the proper rules about grammar and stuff.

(When I did lessons at Alliance while I was at uni I learned about grammatical concepts for the very first time.)

Anyway, I haven’t kept up with it since I was a poor uni student but I totally want to go back and learn.  Until I can get things organised I have decided to try reading French blogs.

Only the ones with lots of pictures, of course.

And damn, the French are so chic right now.

Actually, they always have been, haven’t they?

Maintenait. Les blogs française: Une Chic Fille, garance doré, cé.com.ça, sooishi et les grande filles ModE’lle. Magnifique!