/karen/

Eerk

Sunday, 19 August, 2007

These days I've noticed I'm spending more time on Facebook and less time updating this blog. (Oh, and blog reading; I am ridiculously behind.) I've also noticed that the rise of Facebook means that fewer people leave comments. Which is fine because I'm not blogging because of you. The downside is I don't get much feedback on what I write. But then I don't really have the time to pour into this blog either so why expect to get something back from it? Getting something back is just a nice bonus.

I have managed to integrate Facebook and this blog somewhat by installing Flog Blog. (Please note that only Facebook people will be able to see that link.) It incorporates your RSS feed into your profile. Unfortunately it's listing all the dates of my posts incorrectly—Facebook isn't registering that my computer is set to GMT +10—but I can live with that.

Update: Here's Bec's take on WBW (plus the piece she wrote for her writing exercise).

I think I'm still overtired from The Faithful Writer conference and so, as a result, I'm feeling rather flat. This week has been hard at work; I'm so unmotivated, I feel like I'm working at the speed of a normal person (sorry to be rude). According to the schedule, I'm behind, but Tony regards the schedule as having some elasticity so I'm not too concerned about it. I finished editing the Pathway Bible Guide on Proverbs on Friday and I was supposed to start the Guidebook for Life on Faith but didn't really get past reading the first chapter. I wonder if all editors sometimes feel like throwing up their hands and exclaiming, “Learn to write, people!” I wonder if all editors wonder sometimes whether they're wasting their time—they should really be writing instead. This week, I did manage to do a little bit writing: one CHN and an idea for another one.

Tuesday night Ben went off to see The Frames with Malcolm and Julia at the Metro (apparently Duncan and Fi went too but they only saw each other briefly). He said it was the best gig he'd been to ever. I went to Bible Study but because we were down two leaders and there weren't that many people, we split into girls and guys, and somehow I ended up leading the girls through Acts 9 and 10 having done absolutely no prep.

Wednesday I went in to New College for the last time to train Mark and Debbie in how to do aspects of my job. It was raining and Ben didn't need the car 'til the afternoon, so I drove in instead of taking the train. But the rain made me decide not to go to the Australian Bookbinders exhibition; instead, I came home and spent the afternoon doing computer-y things and watching Buffy. I think my problem is once I stop, I can't get going again; I become a total sloth, completely reluctant to move to pick up the phone or do the laundry or cook dinner or do anything. I think perhaps this is why I fear resting: maybe one day I'll stop and I'll never get going again, and turn into a big heap of nothing. Maybe it's just greed—greed for rest. It certainly isn't guilt.

On Thursday we had Chinese for staff lunch. I don't know why but every time someone Anglo-Saxon says “Fried lice”, it makes me want to slap them. Hard. (Yes, this is why I need more rest; I'm getting more irritated than usual.) During the last hour of the day, I had my 15 Minutes of Fame with Tony (that's what we call our one-on-one meetings) during which we both moaned about how much work we have to do in the next couple of weeks and how on earth will we ever get it done?? It's both comforting and disturbing that your boss feels as stressed as you do.

In the evening, Ben and I had a nice evening together, eating dinner, catching up (feel like I haven't seen him all week) and watching the new season of Law & Order. Law & Order has got to be one of my favourite TV shows ever. It's so interesting. I like it how the law seems to be the central character in both normal Law & Order and SVU. I like how the show plays with the idea of civil justice—legislating between right and wrong, pushing the boundaries of what the public considers “acceptable” behaviour, exploring topical issues (like who's responsible if a teenager blogs about wanting someone to kill her mother and then some mentally ill blog-reader actually goes out and does it, or the results of social networking sites for teens, or Terry Schiavo or Lisa Nowak [the astronaut who drove for miles wearing an adult nappy so she wouldn't have to take toilet breaks in order to murder her rival] or Anna Nicole Smith), etc. The show also points out where the law falls short—for example, the episode with the transvestite who murdered the one who was going to give away “her” secret to “her” boyfriend; they charged “her” but then “she” was stuck in Rikers' in the men's prison, and while awaiting trial, “she” she was gang-raped and beaten senseless. Even if you disagree with the whole concept of having a sex change, that sort of treatment is clearly inhumane, and in that context, the law failed to protect where it should.

Criminal Intent is less interesting from that point of view because the themes are pretty much the same every week: when relationships go wrong. Often it's about family relationships gone wrong (e.g. what happens when a parent emotionally neglects his or her child). Sometimes it's about the consequences of adultery or lying, etc. Each episode ends with the culprit being boxed into admitting culpability (or the key witness giving them up in some sort of confrontational situation).

SVU is much more interesting than Criminal Intent because you see the effect that sex crimes have on the police. I can't imagine dealing with abuse, rape and murder cases day after day after day. It's a wonder that the characters don't break under pressure, or go completely psycho. For this reason, SVU has far more character development than ordinary Law & Order. It makes me think of 1 Corinthians 6:18: “Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body”. There's something about sexual sins (and sex crimes) that is different to ordinary homicide. It does something to the body. It does something to the people involved—the people who commit them, the people they're done to, and the people who try to clean things up afterwards.

But enough about Law & Order. Friday I met with Elsie around about lunchtime, then went off to counselling at 3. I was a bit early so I went to the Macquarie Centre—to Myer—to buy stockings. It turns out I'm a Tall, not a Medium. Why can't it be simple? Why is it that your clothing size is different from your shoe size which is different from your stocking size and your bra size? I feel like there are too many numbers I need to remember about my body, and I wonder if I am just strange for being frustrated by it all.

I went to pick up Ben afterwards and we drove to Potts Point to have dinner with Helena and my dad at a Japanese restaurant called Busshari. Helena had wanted to try it because Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban had eaten there. The food was delicious—very fresh sushi and sashmi, savoury grilled oysters, crispy soft-shell crab, yummy California rolls, Soba on a giant block of ice, and then coconut and green tea ice cream, red bean and moji for dessert. (I am only mentioning all this to make Michael drool!)

I gave my dad a copy of Fatherhood and he seemed to keen to read it, so I hope he does.

Saturday I was up bright and early to organise stuff for Word by Word. At one stage I had nine people coming but then Haydn pulled out because he had too much work on and Jo's sister was in town for the weekend. But at the last minute one of George's friends who had been at The Faithful Writer came along, and George herself was able to make it.

I drove to MM, bought milk and got there at about 8:30. For the next hour, I set up— put out the food, boiled the kettle, filled the coffee machine with water and turned it on, made up the new folders, etc. I don't think I ate breakfast. Dave took care of the coffees for me but there weren't many coffee-drinkers this time—they were all away. As Ben wasn't there (he stayed home to work on his chapel sermon for next Wednesday which, along with his stand-up comedy routine at the Moore College revue, I am missing because of editorial conference), there was no one to do the devotion, so I made everyone take two chapters of Proverbs each, and we looked at the verses that related to writing. It was a very interesting exercise that had a lot of application for blogging. You should try it some time.

For the writing exercise, I made them write down three things they'd like to write about on three bits of paper. It didn't necessarily have to be topics (though it could be); it could also be plotlines. The results were interesting:

• What I learned at the dinner party;
• An all-girl punk band called the Kitty Pop Five;
• The psychology of happiness;
• Growing up in a single-parent family;
• Organic artificial intelligence attacking the colour blue;
• Growing up in three different countries;
• Impact of trouble on our lives;
• A perfect Sunday afternoon;
• Alcohol;
• People and their relationship to music;
• A girl being thrust into a quest that she doesn't want to complete;
• How to be honest with ourselves;
• A poem about Philippians 4;
• Action movies aren't what they used to be;
• Loneliness;
• Mee-an, the vampire werefox;
• Love poem for a beanbag;
• Ferrets;
• The infallibility (or otherwise) of the Bible and especially the importance (centrality) given to it;
• Mutants;
• The secret place;
• Unconventional romance;
• The “wisdom” and “understanding” referred to in Proverbs;
• A Christian approach to materialism.

All the slips of paper went back in the box, and they each had to pull out a random slip and write something about it in 10 minutes. The results were very interesting.

Then Jess showed up and talked to us about typography and laying out text. I found it absolutely fascinating, not inhabiting the world of design and not knowing much about leading and kerning and picas and points and The Golden Mean. We had lunch after that (Ben's Thai, as always), then workshopped a poem by Little (which was awesome) and then a chapter of a book by this lady who came along to The Faithful Writer and who seems to keen to commit to our group.

I left Word by Word on a bit of a high, as always, and drove to Newtown to buy 6.5mm double pointed needles (I'm trying to knit this in cream cotton. I don't know how the author of the pattern managed to knit the gauge on 4.5 mm needles. Maybe I just knit very tightly.) There were no cheap double pointed needles in 6.5 mm in Champion Textiles but they did have Knit Picks for $11 (for five!) I remembered Jan raving about hers so decided to give them a try.

I came home, watched Wednesday's episode of House, then cleaned the living room in preparation for my steamboat dinner. Of the four couples I invited, two cancelled at the last minute. I must have the worst luck of RSVPs at the moment. The thing is, everyone has a perfectly valid excuse: one couple found they were just doing too much because they kept saying “yes” to everything they were invited to, and the other one, the wife got sick. I totally understand; people keep saying I need to say “no” more to things. The question is, what do you say “no” to? I could stop organising Word by Word but I do it because I love it—writing is one thing I am hugely passionate about, and training Christians in the ministry of writing is one thing that I feel is incredibly important to do because it's neglected in this part of the world. You can't axe church and Bible study commitments, you need to see your family some time (or they'll complain—both sides ... well, in my case, all three sides), and you need to spend time with your friends. And you need to rest. But is it me or are people around about my age having trouble doing all these things? I was talking to Bron about it this evening—complaining to her that every person over 35 that I talk to about this problem just doesn't seem to get it—or see that it's a problem at all. “What are you doing?” they say, as if I couldn't possibly be doing anything—as if I'm wasting time stuffing around or I'm doing something wrong—like I can't manage my life (well, there's some truth in that; I can't. That's why I'm tired and need another holiday). And I ask myself what I'm doing and I feel like I'm being pulled in all sorts of directions at once—trying to balance the 30 hours of work I do each week with counselling, with meeting up with Elsie for an hour each week, with the three hours of Bible study on Tuesday nights, with the three to four hours of church on a Sunday night, with the four hours of travel I have every week (one hour a day), with the cooking (and eating) and the shopping and the laundry and the cleaning and the staying on top of the bills, with spending time with my husband and building my marriage, with doing things I enjoy (like watching TV and knitting and blogging), with writing seriously (which I never get to), with being faithful in all my relationships (work/church/friends/family), with making sure I get enough sleep every night (eight hours is ideal) ... and I wonder if life is supposed to be like this. People tell me I don't know what “busy” means because I don't have children. I think that if life gets much busier, I'll go off the rails, so perhaps I'd better not have kids in case I take them with me. People tell me I should keep track of what I do and I'd be surprised at the results. I say I know exactly what I do—that's what this blog is for—and it's not helping. I need answers. I need solutions. I need to understand what it means to live in the 21st century as a Christian—a age where there is enormous choice and enormous possibilities, but a finite amount of time in which to do it all. What is important? What should be axed? Am I doing something wrong?

Anyway, I organised this steamboat dinner one month ago because I thought, “We never have people over from church for dinner and we should”. So I invited the Reids, the Trappels, the Grices, and Fish and Judith. In the end, it was us, the Trappels, and Fish and Judith. The beauty of steamboat is that it requires minimal preparation: all the ingredients you need can be bought at your local Asian supermarket—thinly sliced meats (beef, pork and chicken), beef balls, pork balls, fish tofu, noodles, mushrooms, bok choy, chicken stock, oyster sauce, hoi sin sauce, soya sauce, and, of course, the netted spoons. Our electric frypan is deep enough to be used for steamboat. You fill it with water and a litre of chicken stock, you put out all the raw foods, and then you all sit around the pot, throwing stuff in and fishing it out with the netted spoons when it's cooked, and eating it with the various sauces. Perfect for winter when it's freezing cold. And I think the Trappels and Judith enjoyed it (but not Fish who came because I bullied him into it).

When we entertain, I feel like a bad hostess, though, because I can't do those social niceties where you keep the conversation going and your guests entertained. Maybe I was already wiped from the day of organising and running Word by Word ...

I kicked everyone out at about 11, and we washed up and went to bed. Today I slept in, woke up at 9:30 when Ben got up, but went back to sleep again and slept until quarter past one. Then I got up and ate leftovers from steamboat for lunch, and watched three episodes of Buffy. I was totally unimpressed when the couch ate my 3.25 mm 20 cm double pointed needle in the middle of me knitting another set of Tua Cha gloves with black chenille—it fell underneath the seat cushion into the side down where the springs are, and I will never be able to get it out again. *Sigh!* Back to Champion Textiles for more needles.

At 5, Ben and I went to church for band practice. It was raining and no one else showed up for half an hour, and even then Cameron was preoccupied with setting up for church. Though I like the fact that we now set up church in front of the altar but facing the musicians (which means that church feels cosier and less overwhelming in such a large space), it is a lot of work to do it—putting up the lights and the screen and the data projector, putting out the chairs, moving the lectern. And I discovered (because it was the first time I've played in about six weeks) it's quite dark which makes it a little difficult to see the music (though I suppose it's a little unfair to blame my bad playing on the light). Ben led and played drums and did the Bible reading and organised the prayers, and put up with me being cranky.

This week, because of editorial staff conference, I will miss having Wednesday as my day off. I was tossing up whether to take Friday off, and I had several good reasons to come in: I'm behind with my work on the schedule and I'll lose a two working days to the editorial conference, plus I'm supposed to start editing October's Briefing on Friday (I start earlier than Tony which I think is fitting because I do about 80-90% of it, but I think he forgets), and if I don't come in, I don't get to meet with Elsie and I won't go to counselling, but I've decided after this evening it is probably better for me to rest properly—have three consecutive days of pottering and doing nothing, and then maybe I'll stop feeling so sluggish and unmotivated and snappish and irritated with everything.

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