White Whines

Every morning I wake up to a song playing from my phone. I like it much better to wake up to music than to some horrendous screeching noise. (Although a screeching noise mught stop me hitting the snooze button eight times, I suppose.)

I rotate the songs occasionally, or I end up hating songs I like, because I associate them with getting out of bed, something I’d rather not do some days. Recently I’ve been waking up to this:

Which I think you’ll agree, is a pretty damn awesome way to awake.

My problem comes as I clamber up the stairs to the shower, for some reason the lyrics

In a world that don’t know Romeo and Juliet
Boy meets girl and promises we can’t forget
We are cast from Eden’s gate with no regrets
Into the fire we cry

I’d die for you
I’d cry for you
I’d do anything
I’d lie for you
You know it’s true
Baby I’d die for you

Somehow morph into these ones

And I think we can all agree that a Bryan Adams earworm is not an ideal way to start the day.

Free Falling

Confession time: I am not that steady on my feet. By which I mean I fall down all the time. All. The. Time.

There are a lot of stories about me falling. The time I said to Clare “I’ll race you”, took off at a trot, cut a corner, didn’t realise there was a concrete block in the overgrown garden, and arsed out on the footpath of the busiest road in Christchurch.

The time I was walking down Woodward Street in Wellington, didn’t realise there was a step, tripped, sending my mp3 player flying, losing a shoe, and necessitating a lady helping me up.

By far the most spectacular to date, was one afternoon, after work, walking past the bus exchange in Christchurch at about 4pm. If you don’t know the bus exchange, imagine a small area, filled with teenagers. Annoying, hordes of teenagers. I was carrying a bottle of milk. I still don’t know what happened, perhaps I fainted. Whatever, I ended up, on my hands and knees, the plastic bottle of milk smashed on the ground beside me. Two of the aforementioned teenagers helped me up. I was so embarrassed, I ran inside the bus exchange, onto my bus, not pausing to thank the admittedly kind teenagers, or clean up the milk. I had milk on my clothes, in my hair, and in my handbag. It took days to stop blushing.

On Friday, I had another. I was carrying a basket of washing down my back steps. Which are wooden, quite steep, and open – as in there’s no back on them. I was wearing shoes that have a slippery sole, and the steps were wet. Can you see where this is going?

I slipped. Somehow, I ended up on my hands and knees, my hands on the ground, my knees two steps from the bottom. One foot was through the back of the step. My shoe was off, and my foot, and the shoe was covered in mud. In a particularly delightful note, the basket of washing ended up on my back.

As a veteran of many a fall, the first thing I did was look around to see if anyone had seen me (our neighbours can see into our back yard), to see if i needed to do any kind of (impossible) face saving technique. Then, I spent a few minutes extricating myself, trying to avoid my washing falling on the ground.

This is the result:

Some things about that photo:

• It doesn’t really show off the glorious black and blue and purple and yellow colours.
• It also doesn’t show the lump
• Or the grazing that made me feel like I was back at high school, playing Saturday netball in Christchurch in winter, where you would fall and graze your knee, and it would be so cold that the blood would freeze on your knee.
• It’s a spectacularly unflattering picture of my leg.
• At the bottom you can see the offending, but very cute, shoes.
• Yes, my leg is that pale.

I must love you guys a lot, to entertain you with my falling down stories, and put a photo of my pasty, foreshortened, cankle looking leg on the internet.

A month’s worth of Facebook Statuses….Stati?

Because some days, just one ten word flippancy won’t do.

Megan is tired.

Megan hates Thursdays, because it is the most tired point of her week.

Megan should know better than to lie awake reading until 1am.

Megan hates all her clothes.

Megan would like to buy new clothes.

Megan has found the most beautiful pair of shoes she’s ever seen, and is too scared to inquire further, because of the damage they may do to her credit card.

Megan is feeling like a bad person.

Megan thinks people should take responsibility for their actions.

Megan wants a puppy. For an hour a day.

Megan is a fauxmie. It’s like homie, but faux.

Megan is a knerd.

Megan is young, heartache to heartache she stands, no promises, no demands.

Megan wants to spend money on cosmetics and diet coke.

Megan specifically wants to buy a pink MAC lip gloss.

Megan thinks she should just buy it, and stop thinking about it, already.

Megan is about to start knitting a muff. Heh.

Megan would like to rid her vocabulary of awesome, hee, hee and yay.

Megan should be too old to laugh at the word muff.

Megan is looking forward to tonight’s sewing bee.

Megan is also looking forward to tonight’s mexican.

Megan thinks her gold sequined fabric might be the best $6 she’s ever spent.

Megan hates Dryly, after watching people drink whiskey last night.

Megan is, however, looking forward to this weekends dryly activities.

Megan thinks, however again, that all of the activities would be improved with the application of alcohol.

Megan thinks writing like this is just an exercise in vanity.

Megan thinks this might be the most inane blog post ever in the history of the internet. Which is a big call, but seriously, “Megan is tired”?

Megan apologises for the free associating vanity, and inanity (hey, I’m a poet!) but the alternative was overly confessional bleating about boys and stuff, and she’s not in the mood, nor does she think anyone cares.

A community spirit

One of the things that people will tell you about life now is how disconnected we are from our communities. We don’t know our neighbours (i don’t, but my lovely flatmate does) we spend too much time facebooking and texting, and not enough actually seeing people. To some degree that is true, although I think with most of my friends I am actually more often in touch with them, via email, text and facebook, than I was before any of those things. The quality of that communication is a whole different issue, but that’s a different post altogether.

But the thing that I have noticed blogging this time around is the very real sense of community in the blogosphere.  I don’t actually know Poneke, but I feel comfortable inviting myself to dinner at his house.  Julie over at the Hand Mirror and I don’t know each other, but we’ve chatted.  I’ve met Martha once in real life, but I’ve been reading her blog for so long, I feel like old friends.  Amy and I are Facebook friends.  And of course, there’s the Dropkicks, with whom I regularly drink and talk sport, but who I wouldn’t know if it weren’t for the internet.  And it is all (with the exception of the disgusting commenters over at kiwiblog) so polite and grown up.

And seeing as half the people I read have done this meme, I will jump on the bandwagon.

What was I doing 10 years ago?

Finishing my BA.  Living in a flat in Christchurch, drinking far too much, and having parties where my flatmate and I would go to bed with the front door wide open.  Waitressing.  Lusting after cricketers.  Spending all my money on wine.  (so not a lot has changed)

Five snacks I enjoy in a perfect, non weight-gaining world:

Potato chips, wine, crackers and pate, taramasalata, and chocolate.

Five snacks I enjoy in the real world:

See above, and add BBQ rice crackers, Granny Smith apples.

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:

Take my girls for a shopping trip to Paris. Buy a house with a view of the Wellington waterfront.  Make sure the people I care about were financially comfortable.  Set up a scholarship fund. Make Bon Jovi play me a private concert.

Five jobs that I have had:

Waitress, phonebet operator, 111 answerer, journalist, and fundraiser.

Three of my habits:

It used to be picking my nails, now it is obsessively looking at how long they are, and cleaning under them.  Twirling my hair.

Five places I have lived:

Christchurch, Wellington, Sydney, Melbourne, Ashburton (don’t judge!)

Five people I want to get to know better:

All of you!

Dammit, this is a problem. I keep clinking on things over on the Hand Mirror (you guys are doing a great job, by the way) and seeing things I want to write about.

I am a political animal. I love politics. I am not an activist, I don’t march, or join, or petition. I listen, and watch, and think.

While I have politics, and opinions, there’s a couple of reasons I won’t be writing about them here. Firstly, my job requires that for the most part, I shut the hell up about my opinions. And I like that – it makes it easier to do my job. Secondly, I think there are already enough voices clamouring for attention in the blogoshphere. There are political blogs I read every day, that I read the comments on, but that I don’t comment myself on. Some of the comments over on Kiwiblog and some other political blogs scare me. And for the most part, the people over at Public Address say what I think better than I can, so there’s not a lot of point me adding to the noise for the sake of it.

Also, my views change, and ebb, and become more or less impassioned, and I would hate for someone to go back and look at what I think now in ten years, and hold it up as proof of something.

So, no politics (I will right about girl things – or wimmin’s issues, if you like – because I don’t think wanting women to have equality compromises my job). But I like Helen’s point about “trying to live your politics”. I do point out sexism, racism, bigotry where I see them. But sometimes the fight is just not worth having. The other day, when I pointed out a very real issue of sexism in New Zealand (the lack of coverage of women’s sport – for which I am directly responsible, because I don’t watch women’s sport) i was told to “get off my high horse”. To which I politely responded that my high horse has suited me quite well for thirty years, and I’d be quite happy to stay up here thanks. And thought “because i can look down on you better from here”.

And as for craft, I don’t knit for political reasons. I don’t knit because I value things made in New Zealand, or fair trade, or because I think it values women’s work. I knit for me. I do it because it is nice to have a hobby, it keeps my hands busy while I am sitting still, and because I like to give things away. I could go out to Farmers and buy a $10 hat for the new babies that have been born, but I’d rather not. I think giving you something that I’ve made, that I’ve put thought into, that I slaved over and swore over, and spent time on is much more meaningful.

Giving you something that I knitted means I care. It means I thought about you for hours while I made it, thought about what colours you like, and what might work for you. Much more than if I’d just gone and bought something.

I want my (new) blog to be how I want my house to be. Welcoming, warm, restive, entertaining, colourful, interesting, occasionally booze-soaked. My parents taught me never to talk about politics and religion, and if I don’t stick to that in life, it would be nice to stick to that here.

With friends like these

This past six months haven’t really been the easiest, and yet, in some ways, have heralded a lot of growth.

I am now, surer, more confident in who I am, and in some ways, happier. Happier in myself, knowing what I want. Sadder, cos I feel a bit more grown up, and I know that things that I felt tremendously secure in can end now.

I’ve had three relationships end, or change inexorably, which have been hard. And they’ve been hard, because I’ve been sad, and I’ve either not really wanted to talk about it, or I’ve been worried that people are bored of hearing me talk about it. So, I do what so many of us do, I cover up that hurt with dirty jokes, and bitchiness.

But, some things have come out of the last couple of months, that are just awesome. My mother and I are closer than we’ve ever been. (And for mothers’ day, I am taking her to Blenheim and getting her drunk).

And I am constantly reminded that my friends are pretty damn awesome. From buying me hot chocolate, cos I sound a bit blue (thanks Nadi), to entertaining me, to helping me move, to sending me free things, to shopping up a storm with me, indulging my love of weekends out of town, taking me on dates, burning cds of bad 80s music – and not laughing when I play them (or when random German men tell us our taste in music is HORRIBLE). I’ve always known they are awesome, but sometimes, it is good to be reminded.

Plus, the Sex and the City movie is coming out soon, so I feel an orgy of cocktails, shoes and platonic girl-love coming on.