The Sound A Clock Makes

Like anything worth doing, it’s worth doing well.  And doing something ‘well’ is quite relative a term.  And I hate starting sentences with ‘and’.  Ugh.    

As I’m feverishly writing my next entry into the anthology of ‘Books People Will Read After I’m Dead’ I’ve been missing events and goings on to which I really should have been paying more attention.   As I was downing my glass of wine the other night, someone mentioned something about Tik Tok.  I’m thinking Nanny’s noisy clock that is currently hanging in her kitchen and dings every BLESSED HOUR ON THE HOUR, but no.  Tik Tok is an app for lip-syncing and karaoke-gone-awry.   It’s a social media app that lets a person download a video of someone singing badly to N’Sync or the Backstreet Boys or maybe amore current musician like the Biebs.  I’m thinking of doing ‘Bye-Bye’ ala JT with the curls and the baggy jeans and the fancy-dancy moves. 

 

I could join Tik Tok and connect with the peeps who are jammin’ to NKOTB and IT’S BRITTANY, BITCH.  Maybe somebody singin’ some Alanis…Yeah.  “Isn’t it Ironic?  Don’t ya think?”  I could so NOT do that.  Well.  Not well.  At all.  

 Maybe I’ll do a video of Mags when she borks at the ‘hood dogs.  She could be the next big thing!  Add some music and BAM she’s the four-legged Madonna of the doggo-world.  Maybe she could do a whole rap-thing. Instead of ‘Lose Yourself’ she could do ‘Poo Yo’self’.    EPIC.  

I’ll keep brain-storming some ideas whilst desperately trying to stay on-trend.  Do we still say ‘whilst’?   Ugh.  

 

All I Need For Christmas Is A Goblet of Wine and A Comfy Pillow

 

Christmas is around the corner and the anxiety and stress has hit full frontal without even the tiniest iota of grace.  All the joy and heavenly peace of the season flies out the window when shopping and baking and cleaning and wrapping takes precedence.  I’ve decided to not give two fucks and buy stuff that they ‘better absolutely love with the totality of their beings’ and not hear ‘any itty bitty words of shit’ on Christmas Day, or my life as a parent and woman of quiet dignity and strength would be shattered along with my mimosa glass.   Be warned, adults of mine.  

I think the more-than-fifty-year-old me, has taken the whole meaning of peace and love at Christmas to mean it better be peaceful and lovely around ME.  All of the damned time.  Mags has even gotten fed up with humanity and taken to growling at the air. I hear ya, girl.  She’s middle-aged, too so I’m thinking we are now miserable together.  Nice to have company.  Growling at the air has its merits.  The adults decide you have had enough stress for one day and pat you on the head and put you on a comfy pillow. They wrap you in a cozy blanket by the fire and sit silently beside you while you close your eyes.  Or, they back away and leave you to yourself.  If it was me, wrap me up, pour the wine and walk away.    Next time I’m feeling overwhelmed, I’ll be more like Mags and growl at the air.  I’m thinking an ambulance would be called and people will be asking if I need any medication.  Yes.  Yes please.  Or maybe, just some chocolate?  Wine?   A little Aretha Franklin singing Natural Woman?  Any and all of these things.

Clearly, a little breather during this hectic time of year is warranted. Hence, I have exercise classes where Coach dances and demands we bow to her will during fast feet (ugh).  Then there’s binge drinking Saturday nights and I-Don’t-Give-A-Shit-Fridays which entitles one to eat chips and chocolate chip cookies simultaneously, whilst binge watching crappy Christmas movies on the W channel. I do believe these are actual days on the calendar during this time of year.  Look it up.    I FUCKING LOVE CHRISTMAS!!

So, for all of you pre-stressed and already stressed anxiety-ridden folks who just want A LITTLE PEACE AND QUIET IS THAT TOO MUCH TO ASK?!  I give you a celebratory toast from my goblet of wine and happily share my chips and cookies with you.  May you go forward with kindness in your hearts, wine in your glass and crappy Christmas movies on the TV to numb the nerves.   Oh, and try intermittently growling, if for nothing else but to make them all think twice about asking to be driven downtown or looking for dinner.    

ITS CHRISTMAS DAMMIT!  ENJOY! 

*GRRRRR…*

Opinions About Opinion Pieces and Where To Put the Tuna Salad

I just finished reading an opinion piece in the Independent that sounded like, if I were British, and young and still cared about where I put my tuna salad or even ate tuna salad for that matter, it sounded like I wrote it.  It got me thinking how I should be writing more opinion pieces and stuff about more important newsy crap like tuna salad and Theresa May’s lipstick, and less about my trials and tribulations of being abandoned by children and having to struggle my way through Menopause.  It hit me like trying to remove a sweaty workout bra.  Smacking myself in the face while trying to pull the soaked yet suddenly rigid material up over my head.  The idea is a good one, it’s the execution that’s tricky.  Also, it’s a total piss off and funny as hell at the same time.

Then I thought if I don’t write about the daughter-who-left-me-alone-and-sad or about the Big M, what the hell will I entertain ‘the lot’ about?  That’s you all.  The Lot.  Sounds like a great title for a book.  The Lot, a continuing saga about wine-binging children-rearing sweary-sadists who revel in the Writer’s hardships with gravity and battles with people-who-think-they-know-better.   Anyway, what would I write about?  I’ve listed possible incoming topics to keep everyone happy.  They are as follows:

1. Meghan Markle’s ridiculous spelling of her first name and how I hate her hair.  Seriously, what the hell is the ‘h’ in there for?  Am I supposed to say it ‘Megawn’?  Or ‘Meghawn’???   Or Duchess of Sussex, which fills me with unending amounts of joy that it fucking rhymes.  I think the Queen did that on purpose as a joke.  And her hair!  Don’t get me started.  It always looks like she slapped it up in a bun completed by the Queen’s pissed off lady-in-waiting and then stood in front of a fan blowing 125km/h to finish the look.

I really just want to run over and spray it down….

2. The merits of reading the news on the internet vs watching that shit on T.V.  First, I can yell at the computer, raise my fist and protest in ire and everyone just thinks I’m having a bad day with spelling.  Also, I can say nasty things or laugh out loud and colleagues think I’m just reading a memo from the boss.  I can get various viewpoints from various sources who are questionable and be like the rest of humanity, and totally buy it.  I can also read opinion pieces that inspire me to write opinion pieces that spew my opinion and include tuna salad analogies and Magenta lipstick.  And judge Meghawn Markle’s hair.  Sorry, Duchess of Sussex.  That Queen is such a jokester!

3. Taking a cue from my dog and be done with petty life shit.  Seriously, that dog has got some issues with noise, laughter, people, kids, babies and other dogs.  She can’t stand loud ringing noises from the T.V., doesn’t enjoy the doorbell, she can’t stand my son.  At all.  She hates to have someone talk to her unless it’s me, then she can tolerate me in short spurts.  She will only eat her food when the dish is COMPLETELY FULL AND NO LESS.  Will NOT roll over, give a paw or lay down – those commands are just for dumb dogs who don’t know any better.  She cannot stand having her picture taken, doesn’t like baths, insists on diving under the covers because she is cold and sits on top of my head because she knows it pisses me off.   She sits on Hubby’s legs, then growls when he tries to pet her, defends her right to be perched on the softest pillow in all the land and DEFINITELY would NEVER eat off of anything other than your fingers or her dish.

“What?! Stop looking at me, Human”

I clearly need boundaries like these.

Now that I have some clear cut topics for future posts and opinion pieces, be sure to pop by to see how I delve into the complexities of these issues…or at least the mystery of where I put my tuna salad.

Let’s Pretend Reality is Really Real

As I get older, I find it harder to keep up. Keep up with the ‘kids’, keep up with the work around the house, keep up with the bills, keep up with exercising, keep up with the ever moving ever changing world we live in. I suppose that’s normal and something everybody has to deal with, but that’s not the image people play out on social media.
If one was to believe everything according to Facebook, everybody is living a perfect well-balanced, harmonious life void of any pressures of keeping up, or staying fit or feeling great or being successful. Life According to Facebook is a veritable wonderland of rainbows and unicorns. The happiness meter is on bust and the world is one great big giant playground where all the kids are having fun and playing nice and laughing hysterically…not maniacally. That would be creepy and Facebook doesn’t do creepy. Does it? 

 Well, kinda when you think about it. That’s the premise of Facebook. We gander and peruse others’ lives. We look at the pictures. We see the posts. “I had a great time eating my lunch today.” REALLY?! How is eating lunch equal to having a good time? UNLESS, there was alcohol and a lot of friends thrown in there where you didn’t have to go back to work and the food was free and the sun was shining and….see, there are parameters about how having fun eating lunch can actually occur. Who am I to judge whether someone had fun simply by eating his/her lunch? I’m not. But if somebody puts it out there for the world to see, the world will invariably judge because, duh, that’s what human beings do.  

We judge.

We compare.

We analyse.

We decide what is good, what is bad, what is tasteful, what isn’t. It’s in our nature to simply make decisions on first impressions, be all judgey about it then move on.  

Or, like me, make fun. It’s how I roll, but then I expect the same in return.  

The perfectionist in all of us wants to post the BEST of us on Facebook for the world to dissect and analyse and examine in some sort of twisted voyeuristic play, but that’s not real life.

Nothing on there is real. Really. Not EXACTLY reality, sort of a mixed-up “let’s pretend” kind of thing.  

Image is what is being projected. Someone’s likeness to the real human underneath the pouty smile or the posed stance next to the car. No one’s life is a perfect sequence of magical events all coming together in one symphonic interlude.  

But we sure as hell like to think it does. “Hey, I got a smile from my dog. Post that!” I have done that. I do that all of the damned time and then think, “Why the fuck did I just post a picture of my snarly growly tyrannical dog who actually looks like she’s smiling for once and not ready to tear the head off some random kid walking by our house?” WELL, BECAUSE MY SNARLY GROWLY TYRANNICAL DOG ACUTALLY LOOKED LIKE SHE’S SMILING FOR ONCE AND NOT READY TO TEAR THE HEAD OFF SOME RANDOM KID WALKING BY OUR HOUSE! That’s why. Because it made me happy to think she was actually happy and I wanted the world to think my dog was happy and in turn, I was happy.

Because happy is good.

AND WHO DOESN’T WANT TO BE HAPPY?!

So post happy!

As long as everyone is under the general anesthetic knowledge that NOTHING ON SOCIAL MEDIA IS REALLY REAL, only kinda sorta real then we’re all good.

So, Truman on folks.*  

Fake is the new reality. Not to be confused with the ever-nauseating phrase ‘fake news’. Pleeeeeeaaasssse. No.

Here is a picture of my snarly growly tyrannical dog who actually looks like she’s smiling for once.


I hope it makes you happy.

*[For those of you old enough, this is a movie reference to the Truman Show. Jim Carrey. Ring a bell? No? Ugh. Nevermind….]

Conversations With…The Dog

Me:  Mags, stop eating the sock.

Mags: I love socks.  Socks are heaven.  This one is my precious.  You can’t have it.  STOP LOOKING AT IT.  IT’S MINE.

Me: If you get all paranoid and possessive I will take that from you.

Mags: Oh, no you won’t!  You have to catch me first!

Me: Oh, God.  I’m not chasing you.   This is me walking away.

Mags: Okay, but look at the sock I have.  I’m going to follow you, and jump on you and pee on the floor from how exciting this sock is.

Me:  Ugh, stop being so annoying and PUT DOWN THE DAMNED SOCK!

Mags:  No.  I love the sock.  The sock loves me.  We are inseparable.  We Looooove each other.

Me:  You know the sock is a thing and not a living breathing thing, right?

Mags: Tsk, you doubt my intelligence human.  Now stop bothering me and look at my sock.

Me:  No

Mags: YES! LOOK AT MY SOCK. IT’S A GLORIOUS SOCK!!!

Me: Stop chewing bits off of it and eating it.  You’re going to get digestive problems

Mags: NO, I WON’T!  I LOVE MY SOCK!!!!

Me:  Here look.  Cheerios.  Cheerios are better to eat than socks.   Gawd, I think I said that to one of the kids before….

Mags: WHAT?!   YOU HAVE CHEERIOS?!

Me: Yes, and I’m just going to casually lay them here on the bed so you can eat them…see?

Mags: Hmmm….but, sock though…

Me:  Cheerios, Mags.  Come and have some cheerios…yummmm…

Mags:  Well, maybe just one…

Me: *snatches sock from floor as Mags eats Cheerios*

Mags:  I love Cheerios!

Me:  I know, Mags.  I know….

Maggie 2013

It’s like she’s saying, “Fuck You and give me a sock” but in a cute puppy way…