martedì, settembre 24, 2013

(Smashed with a) poker face

So, we are closer to getting on our way. There are a couple of applications for the house. I'm starting to hope we'll have a contract signed by the end of the week. We'll see. Getting impatient. Or antsy. Or something. One thing definitely - sick of L____.

I guess I've been showing it to people here though I haven't meant to - guessing that on the basis that some of them seem to be taking our decision to leave personally in a way that I hadn't expected. Offended on behalf of their town, I guess. Now, as a rule I save my vitriol for this blog and for close friends who seem to enjoy it - I've never launched into what a ripoff dirty hippie roach infested dump L____ is to people who are actually living here. Except my Pilates instructor, who's also not from here, and with whom I'll have the odd bitch-off about how much we fucking hate this place. So my guess is the people taking our decision personally in some weird way are wildly projecting their own internal questioning about what the fuck they're doing here too.

It's an easy answer. In each case the lady half of the couple is from here. Also in each case the lady half of the couple is from a dirty hippie bullshit family who's giving her zero support. And the gentlemen's families who are elsewhere and far from perfect, of course, are at least not dirty hippies and are ready and willing to give lots of support. There's that tension already, and then you combine that with rental prices being so inflated here that we don't even need to know what negative gearing is, they must be doing some serious internal questioning about why they're servicing these mammoth mortgages they've got just to live in a glorified roach-hole.

And you know what? Now that I'm writing it all down - maybe they're right to be personally offended. I've met some lovely people in our time here. I'm close to my neighbours in a warm and friendly way that I've never been before. Some people who we've met here I hope will be lifelong friends. But at the same time I've never spent so much social time with so many people who bore my fucking tits off.

All these single-income families with mothers who are staying at home not because they want to but because it's the fucking Waldorf holistic thing to do, whose brains have consequently turned to mush. All these fucking homeopaths and naturopaths and other quacks cashing in hand over fist on the undeniable fact that most the doctors who are desperate enough to work in a fucking little podunk town like this are shitty listeners, and usually shitty practitioners in most other ways too. All these fucking cashed up New Age dickheads who make fun of hipsters because they're too old and rural to be hipsters themselves, with their unvaccinated children coughing up their lungs and spreading measles around their fucking private yoga gradeschools. All these fucking representatives of the modern bourgeoisie with their kids' teeth rotting out because they've successfully campaigned against fluoride in the town water. But at least their brains aren't being fluoridishly controlled by The Man while they spend $8 on a small envelope of fucking organic pre-seasoned lentils.

Fucking fuck, they're right to be personally offended, because the people who have been taking things personally are the people I have been least able to take for the last three fucking years but have still spent hours and hours and HOURS of precious fucking time with because of who they're married to or who they're mutual friends with or fucking WHATEVER. Oh, these fucking small town obligations to not shrug your shoulders and suggest they manufacture themselves a few relaxing orgasms . . .

I guess I'm less subtle than I think I am. 

Blessing counting

I have to keep reminding myself how lucky we are. The example that springs to mind is co-sleeping and not falling all over ourselves getting Godzilla on a sleeping schedual. He's fallen into a pretty natural one of three naps a day and a solid night, skipping the odd nap here and there, with no effort on our parts. It's a bit of a knee-jerk to raise an eyebrow - hmm - how many more body parts can I mix into this metaphor - and wonder why other parents fall all over themselves making super efforts to get their kids sleeping predictably. The answer is pretty simple when I stop thinking about it like an overentitled asshole, of course, which is we didn't have to get Godzilla on a schedual, and the fact that we were relaxed probably helped him get on a schedual as fast as babies stressed out parents try super-hard with.

But my goodness, it would be sad if we weren't co-sleeping. No matter how ratty he is during the day (and to be fair, his "ratty" is still pretty good) that time at night when we're cuddled up, and he's all peaceful and making cute little sleeping baby sounds, is always adorable. It's basically eleven extra hours of bonding that parents don't get when they keep their babies in nurseries. I do question the whole nursery concept in any case. I mean, in the six million years of human history, how many have we spent hiding our babies in a different cave when we go to sleep at night? Just seems like something you'd have to be bucking a lot of natural instincts to do.

It does mean you need a lot of other surfaces in the home that are good for having sex on, though. No card-tables-doubling-as-dining-room-tables or oversoft sofas here. Because while I'm sure that in the six million years of human history a lot of them spend it getting busy when they thought their children were sleeping peacefully, I'm just not going to do that.