Dead as a dongle

Our dongle died, which means I’ve been without internet for the last week or so (except for moments like this, when we tether Alan’s phone and use his). We need a new dongle to be able to access the internet, but it’s difficult to find a new dongle without having access to the internet. It’s a conundrum.

We’re also changing carriers; I called Optus and asked what their new and exciting deals were now that it’s been a few years since we signed up – surely you can get more data for less money these days? Surely! It’s been three years! But apparently their new and exciting deals give you less data for the same money. I asked whether they have any special deals for valued customers who always pay their bills on time and bother to ask and who threaten to cancel their accounts, and they said…

They said no.

Oh internet, how I miss thee and thy connections to the world outside these here walls. May we be reunited soon, dear friend. Kiss kiss.

Books, DVDs, internet

One of the first things I wanted to do after moving to this new place was sign up for our local library. I love libraries. This is the 6th one I’ve been a member of in Sydney, and so far it’s my favourite; it’s part of a consortium of libraries around here, which means that on top of the books and DVDs at Kogarah library, I also have access to the books and DVDs at quite a few others including Ashfield, Marrickville and Mascot (to name just a few), and have therefore always (so far) been able to find what I’m after. The other awesome thing about the set up is that when the book or DVD I look for isn’t at Kogarah, I can request that it be sent there and they put it on a Collection shelf for me with my name on it.

At first I searched the catalogue hoping that what I was looking for was available at my library, but now I find myself hoping that it’s either not available or not at my library, just so that I can place a hold on it and wait for it to show up in my special corner of the Collection shelf, thus bypassing all of that annoying walking around and looking for things. It doesn’t even cost money! I’ve been placing holds like they’re going out of fashion, just for the thrill of feeling like I’m such an Important Person that I need someone else to fetch my books and DVDs for me. Picking up my stuff from the Collection shelf does for me what a massage or facial does for others (releases tension in my shoulders, makes my skin glow, etc.).

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I joined Quickflix for their free month-long trial. I managed to see five films that have been on my list for a while (listed in order of how much I liked them, from most to least): Moonrise Kingdom, I Am, The Social Network, Liberal Arts, and The Women on the 6th Floor. The last two weren’t as good as I was expecting, but I still enjoyed them. Knowing that Liberal Arts was written, directed and starred in by Josh Radnor was distracting; I couldn’t help but compare it to Garden State (do Radnor and Braff also look alike? I thought so until I actually looked at pictures), which is unfortunate for Liberal Arts because I reckon Garden State is close to perfect. The first two were better than I expected – I loved both, and I’m glad I had the chance to see them. Moonrise Kingdom confirmed that Wes Anderson is exactly my kind of movie-maker, and I Am is a documentary I think everyone should be made to watch and then talk about for hours.

They both have pockets.

I had no idea what The Social Network would be like, so I was able to watch it free from anticipatory baggage; I really liked it, in a wow-how-interesting way, and I thought the end was so good I wanted to track down whoever came up with it and high five them. I kept thinking about it afterwards, too, which surprised me. I like movies that stick with me.

Having DVDs arrive in the mail brings a similar feeling to the Fetcher and the Collection shelf at the library, although after the first month you do have to pay for the privilege, and it’s not that cheap.

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Did you know that some people have, like, 50GB of internet every month?! This blows my mind. We have 2GB. We don’t even get 50GB per year. But we can’t bring ourselves to pay more than $20 per month for internet, so until we get over that we’re stuck having to weigh up the pros and cons of every video we see posted before deciding to click on it: Who posted it? Are they trustworthy choosers of quality videos? Does it sound interesting/hilarious/inspiring? Does it go for a really long time? We cull a lot of clips through this process, and I think our lives are at least slightly better for it (I tell myself our lives are at least slightly better for it). Still, it would be really nice to be able to listen to this song a bazillion times over without having to worry about exceeding our data allowance:

Alan's 30th

Alan and I went out on Saturday night, for our first dinner out together since my birthday in March last year. It was lovely, and I’m starting to think perhaps we sucked at dating for all those years simply because we didn’t actually need dates then. Now that we feel like we don’t have the time or energy for luxuries such as conversation, it was incredibly nice to sit (or lean on the wall next to us and close our eyes momentarily) and chat and eat good food and drink good wine and nod our heads to good music and enjoy each others’ company. It was also a bonus to realise that this guy sitting opposite me was fun! And interesting! And good looking! And we were already married, so I could have mini naps against the wall because I didn’t have to pretend to be sparkly for him; I look this tired because of his children. He gets it.

I’m looking forward to our next D&M, some time in the early months of 2015.

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For his birthday, Alan requested a cake with smarties, and Moses wanted it to be a chocolate cake, so we turned to google and, after scrolling through the various “smarties on cake” images, were inspired by the simplicity of this one, and decided to make it using this recipe. But we didn’t have the right tin size, so we poured the leftover batter into a square tin, and then, when it came time to decorate, I figured we should at least try to chop up the square one to make a tail, and then Alan suggested we add a couple of fins, and we ended up with this:

It was fun to make and yummy to eat, but now I feel slightly ill whenever I think of chocolate.

Promises

I’m interested in the tag lines people choose for their companies, I ponder them as I drive around reading the backs of vehicles. I’m unimpressed with the ones that promise no more than what you’d expect from their service, like a courier van that says, “We deliver on time!” as if that’s a great achievement – if your only job is to deliver something, is it really that hard to do it on time? I don’t use couriers, but if I did I think I’d keep phoning around to find somewhere that took punctuality as a given and aimed for more, like “We deliver on time with a smile!” or something.

I saw a ute yesterday that had the line “Delivering more than you expect” under the company name, and I think I like that one. Kudos to them for aiming high, at least. It raises expectations before they’ve even started work, though, which means that now they not only have to deliver more than you’d have expected in the first place, they have to deliver more than you now expect having been told they’ll deliver more than you expected. In case that sentence lost you, here it is again in picture form:

Having a client say “This finished product is exactly what I expected“ suddenly becomes a negative response to the work.

If I owned a company I think I’d choose a line like, “We try hard!” or “We’ll do the very best we can!” which doesn’t get people too excited and also allows for horrible days (“Look, I know it’s not great, but this is the best I can do at this time. As promised”). My company would not last long, but at least I could say people were warned.

PND

from here

Late last year, Alan asked me if I was depressed. “I don’t feel depressed,” I replied, “I just hate my life and want to die.” He then asked me if I thought I should see a psychologist, and I told him that I didn’t, because what would be the point? A psychologist couldn’t change anything (babysit my kids, clean the bathroom, breastfeed Hazel when she wakes at night, find the perfect job for Alan so that he could be paid enough for us to survive while only working part-time, etc.), and if it was just about talking, why would I pay to talk to a psychologist when I could tell my blog for free?

Well, it turns out there are things I’m too scared to tell my blog because then they’d be real and that would suck and you’d be disappointed in me. I want you to think I’m killing this whole motherhood thing, so I won’t write about how I feel like motherhood is instead killing me. I won’t say “I hate this” out loud, or admit that when I search for words to describe how I’m going I come up with things like trapped and angry and incapable and weary and bored and resentful and hopeless and sad and frustrated and I wish everyone would disappear so that I could go to Hawaii on my own and just do whatever I wanted, without being needed by anyone for anything, for a really long time. Like, forever. These days, “How are you?” makes me cringe.

I won’t tell you that I’ve been diagnosed with postnatal depression and that this label makes sense and has brought comfort and hope, but it also makes me feel like I’ve failed at the one thing I wanted to be really, really good at. And every now and then having a name for it seems far too extreme, because maybe all mums feel like this sometimes, and really it’s nothing that a month or so of good sleep and a live-in grandparent and a job I loved and a toddler who always spoke to me like I was a person and a time machine and a washing line just outside the back door couldn’t fix.

In this (excellent) On Being interview, Nadia Bolz-Weber says she always tries to preach from her scars and not her wounds, which struck me when I heard it as particularly wise advice. Of course I’ll continue to write from my wounds while they’re gapey and raw and painful (try stop me), but I’ll publish later, maybe much later, when there has been healing and space. I’ll keep my posts on mothering unposted and my spokes on mothering unspoken here until my head clears and I can see light again and my insides feel better. In the meantime, I’m off to see a psychologist, just to talk.