Game on!

I got my first grin late today. It was one of those incredibly dull days where you don’t want to start working on anything new because a big-arse project is due to kick off tomorrow and you know that’s going to consume your every moment. The boredom was tiring.

I trudged my way home on bus, train, bus. Was too tired and fed up to walk home from the city. Stopped by my letterbox – I never get any mail but it doesn’t hurt to check, right? And there it was. A letter. Not a bill. Something from someone unknown.

Now, I don’t normally like getting unexpected, unknown mail, but as I opened this one… big grin!

I’ve been invited to submit to the 2010 Maj Monologues Competition. Of course, everyone who entered last year will have received an invitation today too, but that doesn’t matter. I’ve been looking forward to this.

This year’s theme is “A funny thing happened on the way to …“. I have 8-15 minutes of performance time to be as creative and entertaining as I can be. Their catch is “we’re looking for the funniest monologue we can find” so I guess I’d better make their bellies ache.

I don’t really have any ideas yet. But they’ll come. This year I’m gunning for the top eight – the group that have theirs performed.

Last year the theme was “Suburban mayhem“, I think. Suburban something, anyway. I didn’t make the cut. I’ve told myself it’s because my entry would have taken 17 or 18 minutes to perform, and therefore breached the rules. I’ve told myself that it would have been better if I’d found out about the competition more than nine days before it closed. In reality it may have been crap, but I like my excuses. If you want to read my entry from last year, I’ve uploaded it in PDF for you: Quiet.

So now it’s time to think up a character, decide where he or she (probably she – I’m more comfortable writing a female) was going and what funny thing happened. It’s game on!

Wish me luck!

I’m hypersensitive

Yesterday Abbott said:

“What the housewives of Australia need to understand as they do the ironing …”

I’ve not included the rest of the quote as in all articles it has been taken out of context and no longer makes any sense. And while his message was about climate change and ETS and taxes, that’s just not important to me right at this moment.

Today Abbott said those who were appalled by his reference to ironing housewives were “hypersensitive”. No media appeared to have a complete quote so that’s all we got. “Hypersensitive”. Oh, and apparently that’s how it’s done in his house. And it’s “more common to see women ironing”.

I’m pissed off anyway. I was annoyed yesterday to hear “what the housewives … need to understand” and I’m much more annoyed now I’ve been told I’m hypersensitive.

Sure, two words, “housewives” and “ironing” – they’re not that much to get hung up on. We hypersensitive few are being picky. But there’s a reason for it. These two words are putting women in their place. They’re saying women are meant to be doing the ironing. They’re implying women are meant to be housewives. These two words are pushing the stereotype. They’re making it bigger in a world where women already struggle to be seen as worthy.

Last week jeans were banned in my office. Two of my male colleagues (in their thirties) advised me that this meant I had to wear skits and heels and “start looking a bit feminine”. There was no joking. There was no ribbing. It simply did not occur to them at that exact point in time that women could wear pants.

I used to work with a woman who was denied a management position because she “might have children” and the position required travel. She did not submit a complaint. She decided it was too hard to bother trying to prove a spoken word.

It’s widely known that women are paid less than men across Australia. And apparently the pay gap widened last year.

Here’s the thing. I can’t come out and claim to be a feminist because, while that may be true, as soon as I do someone’s who has not met me will decide I’m a shaved-headed, big breasted, braless, stained tank top-wearing, forgets to shower for a week, man-hating, beefed-up Harley Davidson riding lesbian who burps the alphabet. And someone who has met me will wonder if I wish I was.

“Feminist” has been given a nasty slur these past few decades. Somehow people everywhere have decided it’s not a quest for equality. Instead, in their minds, it has become a bunch of anti-social lesbians asking the world to deem all women “better”. And the anti-feminist brigade were out in force in today’s press, commenting widely on the new.com.au article. My favourite has to be:

chris of perth Posted at 11:32 AM February 09, 2010
Abbott is a legend and I agree with his comments. A womens place is in the home, cleaning, cooking and most of all ironing. It seems to me, that todays woman is more like trying to be todays man.

News.com.au also ran a survey asking if Tony Abbott’s critics were being oversensitive. And here’s the final result:

Yes – just let him speak 70.59% (3223 votes)
No – he should be accountable 29.41% (1338 votes)
Total votes: 4561

I’d like to see the REAL results.

The first time I voted I seemed to get some awfully pretty numbers. I just happened to be the 2000th voter. So I tried again. And again. I got some wonderfully fanciful numbers. Unfortunately the screen shots of the last two are on my work computer. I’ll have to update this post with them tomorrow.

I’d like a little equality. I’d like a little less implication that women belong chained to the kitchen sink. I’d like people to be judged first upon their brains, their skills, their talent, and never by their gender.

Abbott’s not helping. Media’s not helping.

I’m sorry if this is a little ranty, a little rambly and a little non-sensical. I’m just trying to avoid getting on my “ARGH! FUCK YOU!” high horse.

I just want equality.

Thank you.

---

Edit:

Here are the screen shots from yesterday. When I first voted I was told the tally stood at:

Are Tony Abbott’s critis being oversensitive?
Yes – just let him speak 68.25% (1365 votes)
No – he should be accountable 31.75% (635 votes)
Total votes: 2000

Even, huh? I was vote 2000. And both camps ended in a “5″. Very neat. So I voted again:

My second vote, less than a minute later.

My third vote, less than a minute after my second

So… what’s the real result?

What the hell did I do to deserve this?

I had an average day today topped off by an awful ending which left me wanting to hit something. I was so annoyed I considered looking into buying a punching bag, but then I thought about how heavy the punching bag would be and how I’d have to carry it outside and lift it up to hang it on the hook on my balcony thing (ground floor balcony – WTF do you call that?)… and then I’d have to bring it inside again so it didn’t go all yucky after rain or the Saturday or Tuesday morning sprinklers and so it didn’t get nicked by an energetic neighbour… and then I realised that, thankfully, I don’t feel like hitting someone or something often enough to bother paying for one.

(You’d think after that failure of a sentence my Flesch-Kincaid score would go through the roof, but apparently not. Ahh well. That’s good, I guess.)

Anyway, I finally got home (after being hit on by a 60+ busker who smelt like he hadn’t showered since 2000) and was feeling pretty darned low. I called my incredibly lovely friend @beyondbeeton and asked her if she’d hate me if I cancelled on our plans for tonight. Thankfully she doesn’t – she’d been about to call me to do just that.

With that done, I drew myself a bath. I’ve been meaning to have one for many weeks, but never got around to it. My wonderful sister got me a huge range of stuff from Lush for my birthday so I raided the box to see what I could find. I pulled out a purple bath bomb (which was full of little confetti stars… very cute and sweet but I suspect I may find one or two somewhere awkward later), a purple bar of soap, and a sugar soap.

As I laid back in my surprisingly lightly scented bath I wondered why I don’t do this more often. Sure, my bath would be better suited to someone 4′ tall and skinny enough to be locked away in anorexia rehab for several years, but it’s still relaxing. I popped the bar of soap into a soft exfoliating case I picked up by mistake sometime last year and just soaked. I laid there, clearing my mind, relaxing and enjoying the nothingness of it all for an hour. Until my skin was prune-like and beginning to appear grey.

I decided to have a go with the sugar soap before I got out and rinsed myself off. I’ve never used it before. It’s meant to be incredibly exfoliating.

Unfortunately, no one ever told me you shouldn’t use sugar soap on soft, soaked-in-the-bath-for-an-hour, skin. And no one ever told me that you shouldn’t scrub sugar soap into your skin as you would normal soap. And so I scratched myself. I scratched myself so deeply I bled!!

What the hell! These products are meant to be relaxing! Why didn’t anyone tell me that sugar soap is the devil’s skin grater? WHAT THE HELL DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS?!

Ok, I’m still feeling much more relaxed than I did before… but at least when I was annoyed and wanting to hit something I didn’t have bandaids covering my legs!

Whimper.

Introducing The Write Coffee Group

Tonight I didn’t write a blog post. I created The Write Coffee Group instead. Hope you can join in.

I’m walking on sunshine, whoa!

Today I wandered into town for a coffee/writing afternoon with @fishoutoforder. I wore my orange Converse but they were starting to bug me. They’re old, they’re dirty, they’re wearing through and the fabric has ripped in two places. Plus they’re Chuck Taylor’s and my ankles just don’t like being constrained in that way.

I got to the coffee shop a little early, looked around and saw – wonder of wonders – a shop across the road that sold Converse! I’ve been meaning to buy some new ones for a while… and I was early…

I went in, deciding to buy some low purple ones. I used to have purple ones and I love, love, loved them! Wore them constantly… until they wore completely through and deserved to be thrown out… (Shh, just between you and me I haven’t thrown them out yet. I can’t bring myself to.)

Unfortunately, the store had run out of low, purple ones in my size (unisex size 6 if you happen to feel generous one day). I looked at the more appropriate colours – black and a navy blue. The shop assistant, seeing the orange I was wearing, pointed out the red ones. But my eyes kept being drawn to the yellow.

Yellow’s a silly colour, I thought. They’ll get dirty really quickly, and who wears yellow shoes?

But the navy and black weren’t available in my size and ooh, look! The yellow were!

As I walked home from the bus stop (I wasn’t going to walk all the way home in brand new shoes – I’m not completely crazy) I looked down at my feet and a song entered my head. It seemed entirely appropriate…

I’m walking on sunshine, whoa!
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa!
I’m walking on sunshine, whoa!
And don’t it feel good!

And it did feel good.

Except for my ouchie, new shoes, getting a blister, heels. Ahh well.