Surnames

from here

Here’s something that I’ve been chewing on for no particular reason lately:

In the chapter on marriage in How to be a Woman, Caitlin Moran says this (from page 194): “When else do you get named something else? On joining a nunnery, or becoming a porn star. As an ostensibly joyful celebration of love, that’s bad company to be in.”

But here’s what I’ve been finding confusing (it doesn’t even affect me! Why, brain? WHYYYYY?!): women who - for damn-the-patriarchy reasons - refuse to change their surname when they marry usually have no problem keeping their original surname, WHICH IS THEIR FATHER’S SURNAME, thus continuing the whole patrilineal thing for at least their generation. AND some of those women also go on to give their children their husband’s name. The only way to get out of the system, therefore, (for those who want to) is to either change one’s surname upon signing up to feminism or to sit with one’s husband-to-be and a phone book* and pick one you both love.

Free advice. And tonight I’ll be able to fall asleep slightly faster.

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*And, possibly, if you really want to think ahead, a baby names book to make sure that your current favourites match any potential new surname. If you’ve always loved the name Tom, for example, it helps not to have the surname Morrow. You’re welcome.

Book spine poetry

Meandering around the internet last night led me here and then here, where I was inspired by this very cool response to a book spine poetry challenge:

In case it wasn't clear, this picture's from here

On seeing this, my husband immediately shuffled off to our bookshelf and returned with this (as well as a determination to “buy any second hand book that has a verb in the title”):

The lighting is a little dodgy; it says:

The prince

the little prince

burning for revenge

in a sunburned country

The idiot

the idiot

looking for Alibrandi

in the company of cheerful ladies

And I, being far less poetically-able than any of the above, came up with this:

Glasses

I spent most of my teen years wishing I had glasses (with tortoise-shell frames) so that I’d look sophisticated and intelligent. I now have to wear glasses all the time and have come to realise that appearing sophisticated and intelligent is overrated and that the grass was waaaaay greener on the other side. (At least I think it was, I can’t see that far anymore to check.) Glasses are annoying for many reasons - they don’t have windscreen wipers but do get rained on, they steam up when you’re washing dishes or pulling something out of the oven, and little boys seem to find ways of smudging the lenses less than a minute after you’ve finished meticulously cleaning them. All of these things – rain, steam, smudges – make it far harder to see than if you weren’t wearing glasses at all, which is both ironic and bothersome. Glasses are bothersome. 

They’re also very hard to shop for when you’re short-sighted, because unless you think ahead and wear contact lenses, you can’t actually see what the pair of frames really looks like on you without either standing 10cm from the mirror (EMBARRASSING! And also not accurate, because how many people will be checking out your face from that distance?) or taking a photo (POSER! And also not accurate because you’ll be putting on your photo face and therefore not looking like everyday-you).

On top of all of these hassles, the pair you choose will say a great deal about who you are just by sitting astride your nose; you have to choose the frames that will not only send the right message for every day of your non-contacts-wearing life but match most of your wardrobe. It’s tough, I tells ya! In How to be a Woman, Caitlin Moran explains that in today’s world a woman’s fashion choices are expected to say something about who she is, and that “When a woman says, ‘I have nothing to wear!’, what she really means is, ‘There’s nothing here for who I’m supposed to be today’” (from page 211). I have this problem with my glasses. I used to wear a pair of purple ones which were perfect in every way, but then one lunchtime at soccer training I stopped the ball with my face, which proved to be a very bad idea not only because it left my perfect purple spectacles in a crumpled, lens-less mess, but also because it really, really hurt.

To replace them, I went for a twofer deal and, after lots of trying on and photo-taking, decided on a sensible black pair for everyday wear, as well as a funky and chunky blue pair for the days that I was feeling particularly hip. This arrangement worked very well for me until my husband recently stepped on my black glasses, leaving me with no choice but to be funky EVERY SINGLE DAY. It’s tiring, quite frankly, and unsustainable. I honestly don’t know how some people do it. I’m due for an updated eye test, but a new prescription will be bittersweet news: yes, I’ll be able to have sensible days once again, but first I’ll have to go through the drama of shops and hundreds of frames and photos and “What do you think?”s before finding the pair that best captures who I think I want to be for the next 3 years.

If only I could go back in time and wish for something a bazillion times better than issues with my eyesight...

Four of the things I love about Glenmore Park

ONE

The clover is HAPPY, possibly because it’s on drugs (do steroids make you happy?). Not only is a lot of it ridiculously large, I have also found approximately 9 four-leaf clovers since we’ve lived here, which I’m persisting in taking as a good sign despite the fact that they’re obviously not as rare (and therefore magical) as they used to be.

TWO

A five minute walk from our house (assuming Moses is in the pram rather than poo-spotting) will get us to a pretty pond on which ducks and water birds and a goose float around waiting for us to show up with crusts (this probably isn’t true). We stand at the edge of the water and I tear up pieces of bread and throw some to the birds and some to Moses, all of whom snack merrily. It’s an outing that consistently leaves me feeling blessed and content, so we go at least once a week.

THREE

A few months ago now, Moses and I were at the local park and a kangaroo bounded by. A KANGAROO! BOUNDING! IN THE PARK!

FOUR

I whined about the roads before we moved here, but I’ve since found out that they were actually not designed by a drunkard but were in fact made bendy on purpose, in order to slow down the traffic. Glenmore Park has aged my driving by approximately 50 years. I’ve discovered the joys of watching the world pass by at only 40km per hour, finding myself doing this speed even on straight streets in other suburbs.

I may have been too harsh on Glenmore Park when we first moved here; now that I can find my way home from both entrances I’m starting to think maybe it’d be nice to stay here forever.