Work vs Self-Promotion

Here we go: yet another article with "advice" on how to find success - this time at Forbes.com with a terrific example of the genre entitled 'Want to be successful? Quit working so hard'.

There is a solid kernel of truth in this advice, at least in the title. Being known as a 'hard worker', and slaving away at a desk job (or any job) for 12 hours a day will not generally be rewarded with 'success' in terms of money and renown.  Most of us already know this, even if some of us (ahem) only figured it out after years of doing the same.

Men and Women are Completely Different

It is obvious that men and women are completely different.

For instance, women love dressing up and reading horoscopes, and men love drinking beer and watching sports. But there are many other ways that men and women are different, and all of them are scientific fact.

The below well-known examples prove beyond doubt that men and women are very different.

How not to be annoying on Facebook

There are four kinds of people on Facebook:

1. People who post happy braggy stuff about their kids, spouses or holidays, and kind of annoy everybody

2. People who post inspiring or melancholy quotes in script font on meadowy pictures, and kind of annoy everybody

3. People who post political rants and opinions, and kind of annoy everybody

4. People who post an engaging mix of news, articles, jokes, current events, personal life, family tidbits, occasional celebrations, completely on-point social observations, witty and relevant opinions and a bit of self deprecation, and who never annoy anyone at all, ever.

I am obviously in the fourth category!  I just know I'm never annoying to anybody, ever. *

So why can't everybody else manage this as effortlessly and gracefully as I do?

Ha ha. Do we all see ourselves, and Facebook, this way?  I suspect we do.

This is quite funny - it's a little dated now as most people have by now self-corrected for the most annoying stuff that used to plague Facebook (I haven't seen a "vaguebook" status for awhile, or a humblebrag), but I'm sure we can all recognise our Facebook friends - and ourselves - in at least one of these: 7 ways to be annoying on Facebook.


And yes, I do actually enjoy reading what my friends are up to on Facebook!

* I might sometimes be guilty of mommyjacking. And unintentional one-upping when trying to express empathy. And using stupid immature words like "OMG". And sharing news stories that validate my personal viewpoint on something with a comment that basically means "I always knew this!"  Other than that, I'm not annoying at all.

When men piss me off with their art

This is a ranty post. It's also not entirely serious, but it is a little bit serious, because the things I mention really did/do annoy me, though probably not all to the degree I'm presenting them here. I'm exaggerating a little to make my point.  It's just for fun :)

When men piss me off with their art

You won't get any argument from me that most great artists are men. You will get an argument from me if you try and say that's because men are better than women at art, but that's another story.

(The pram in the hall - I'm just saying).

Anyway, as there is so much great art, high and low, produced by so many talented men, I have been a big fan of a number of talented men all my life. And when you're a huge fan of someone with huge talent, it is easy to assume that that person is also a wonderful human being who you would personally like and admire in the flesh, and that they generally see the world the same way you do, because after all, don't you both agree on what makes awesome art??

So it is a shock when these artists disappoint you. You might find out they might not be nice people (Terence Howard - you disappointed me greatly, sir). Or, as is equally jarring, an artist you love suddenly produces something that pisses you off!

Gordon Lightfoot

I LOVE Gordon Lightfoot. If there is a better slow sultry country song than Sundown then I haven't heard it. I love Early Morning Rain, If You Could Read My Mind, Carefree Highway....

Carefree Highway. I do love it, but it also never fails to piss me off a little. Take a listen:

Carefree highway, got to see you my old friend
Carefree highway, you've seen better days
Got the morning after blues, from my head down to my shoes
Carefree highway, let me slip away, slip away on you

What's it about? A guy who is down on his luck, lost (possibly because his girlfriend left him, or perhaps that was some time ago), not knowing what to do. And what does he do? Takes off. Hits the highway, as he's done before. Sure, run away from your problems! It's not like anyone else ever has the same impulse, is it? Nice to be able to just throw everything away, pack your bag and take off when things get hard!

In my even less charitable moments, I think, what a GUY thing to do!  A bit like:

Bruce Springsteen

Got a wife and kids in Baltimore, Jack
I went out for a ride and I never came back...

Paul Theroux

For years, Paul Theroux was my favourite writer. I read most of his books in my teens and early twenties, and I didn't mind that he was arrogant and grumpy. At least not until The Happy Isles of Oceania, when he was finally too grumpy even for me. Plus I was a bit offended when he referred to a bloody sanitary pad on a beach as "that disgusting thing" - I mean sure, it was disgusting that it was there on a beach, I get it - but there was something about the way he phrased it that was a bit... anti-women? It seemed?

It may well be wrong or unfair, but sometimes it feels like you read something that shows a true glimpse of the writer's feelings or character.

Here's the main thing I remember, from all my hours and hours of reading Paul Theroux. Hours and hours, and books and books, and this is what has stuck with me:

This is from My Other Life, which was a weird experiment that annoyed me a bit in itself, even while it was a great read. There is a chapter where Paul Theroux (or possibly a fictional character! He won't say which!) has invited people for dinner and is forced to cook and organise everything himself because his wife, tired from her day at work and under some kind of unnamed stress, is angry with him and refuses to help with any of it, saying repeatedly "It's your dinner."

The thing is, even young as I was when I read this, and even being a massive Paul Theroux fan, I totally got his wife's point of view in this, without any more context from Paul Theroux. In this one incident, in which he imagines he portrays himself as the injured party, he instead unwittingly outs himself as a probable bastard who routinely expected a lot from his wife with little reciprocation or notice. She was busy from work, tired and stressed out, and was angry at him for a lifetime of precisely this kind of shit. A lifetime of watching him swan off to travel and write memoirs which included boastful hints of affairs or at least flirtations, and her at home to raise the kids plus keep her own career going, and then also have to entertain his last-minute mid-week dinner guests when he was back home?

Fuck off Paul, it's your dinner!

AND WHAT'S MORE: After enduring the unreasonable and unfathomable reaction from his wife, Paul Theroux (or, okay, the fictional character), happily and competently makes the dinner. He prepares a pot of curry on the stove - taking care to describe the deft and relaxed way in which he prepares it, as counterpoint to his wife's unreasonable stress - then ducks out to the shops to buy whiskey for his guests while it cooks, because his wife wouldn't go and get it.  As he walks, he passes the local pub and "wished that I could be sitting there irresponsibly reading the evening paper over a pint of draft Guinness."

Oh. My. God. I do believe this is the part that actually irritated me the most. This whole section is meant to convey how relaxed and competent he is in the kitchen and at life, but in that one sentence he conveys his sudden pique at having to do all this himself when he really, obviously, didn't think he should have to.  What an asshole.

Cat Stevens

As a teenager I discovered my parents' Cat Stevens albums, and fell for them hard. I LOVED Cat Stevens. I taped Teaser and the Firecat and Tea for the Tillerman and listened to them for years. I loved the beautiful melody in the song Wild World but it also has always pissed me off.  As a kid I had been confused by the way men seemed to sing romantic songs to girl-children ("little girl"). It took me ages to understand that the "little girls" in songs were actually grown-up girlfriends. As I got older it just started to really annoy me. I didn't know the word "infantilising" but I knew that's what it was. It was always either really patronising or really creepy and sometimes, as in Wild World, it managed to be both.

In Wild World, the singer's character is upset that his girlfriend is leaving him, and he is begging her to reconsider. We all have contradictory feelings in anger and the song is well written: the character veers between grief, despair, concern for his girlfriend and flashes of anger ("I hope you have a lot of nice things to wear"). But it is super patronising, and gives the girlfriend no credit for having any intelligence at all. It refuses to believe she has any good reason for leaving him. I mean I know it's just a "story", in character, and it's about feelings, but it just always really irked me. It is absolute proof that the girlfriend was making the right decision. You run far, girl, and don't look back!


You know I've seen a lot of what the world can do
And it's breakin' my heart in two
Because I never wanna see you sad, girl
Don't be a bad girl
But if you wanna leave, take good care
I hope you make a lot of nice friends out there
But just remember there's a lot of bad and beware

Yeah.... see ya!



And finally...

Jim Carrey

While I was looking for an image I could use for this post using search terms "angry woman" I came across this Jim Carrey quote/meme, and it pissed me off!

StatusMind

Here, I've fixed it: Dear Future Husband

There is a song that is currently HUGE on the tween girl circuit that is so teeth-grindingly annoying to me that I was very glad to see Salon just called it out for being "the worst".

If you're not familiar with Meghan Trainor's "Dear Future Husband", the real lyrics are here.

Now obviously, this is a light-hearted pop song, depicting a girl fantasizing about her ideal husband, a man she seems to know does not really exist. The 1950's sound make it an obvious retro-fantasy, and it's clearly not meant to be taken seriously ("Even if I was wrong / You know I'm never wrong / Why disagree?"). So obviously, I know this is just a fun silly song and not an actual guide to life.

But I still hate it!

I hate that whole "treat me like a lady" thing, and don't want my daughters to learn it.
I hate that whole "you better treat me right" thing, and that whole "you have to love me even when I'm batshit crazy" thing.
I hate that whole "if you treat me like a princess I'll have sex with you happily" crap that no one really means or can keep up in real life anyway.

So I've made the lyrics a bit better:

Dear Future Husband Partner

Dear future husband partner,

Here's a few things
You'll need to know I think will help us if you we wanna be
My one and Each other's only all my life our lives

Take me Let's go on a date
I We deserve it, babe
And don't But let's forget the flowers every anniversary
'Cause if you'll treat me right
I'll be the perfect wife
Buying groceries
Buy-buying what you need
We'll treat each other right
No one's the perfect wife

And we'll take turns
Buying groceries

Buy-buying groceries

You got that 9 to 5
But, baby, so do I
So don't be thinking I'll be home and baking apple pies
I never learned to cook
But I can write a hook
Sing along with me
Sing-sing along with me (hey)

You gotta know how I don't want you to treat me like a lady
Even when I'm acting But never tell me that I'm crazy
Tell me everything's Gaslighting's never alright

Dear future husband partner,
Here's a few things
You'll need to know I think will help us if you we wanna be
My one and Each other's only all my life our lives
Dear future husband,
If you wanna get that special lovin'
Tell me I'm beautiful each and every night

After every fight
Just We'll both apologize
And maybe then I'll let you try and rock my body right we'll hold each other tight
Even if I No matter who was wrong 
You know I'm never wrong We won't stay mad for long 
Why disagree?
Why, why disagree?

Dear future husband partner,Here's a few things
You'll need to know I think will help us if you we wanna be
My one and Each other's only all my life our lives (hey, baby)
Dear future husband partner,
Make time for me
Don't leave me lonely And I'll make time for you
And know we'll never see your family more than mine And we'll take turns to see our families all our lives 

I'll be sleeping on the left side of the bed (hey)
Open doors for me and you might get some kisses if you go through them first, 
Or if I'm first through, I'll hold the door for you
Don't have a dirty mind 
at least not all the time
Just be a classy decent guy
You don't have to Buy me a ring
Buy-buy me a ring, (babe)

You gotta know how I don't want you to treat me like a lady
Even when I'm acting But never tell me that I'm crazy
Tell me everything's Gaslighting's never alright

Dear future husband partner,
Here's a few things
You'll need to know I think will help us if you we wanna be
My one and Each other's only all my life our lives
Dear future husband,
If you wanna get that special loving
Tell me I'm beautiful each and every night

Future husband partner, better let's love me each other right


______

Not quite as catchy, I'll agree - but MUCH BETTER! 
Now to get my daughters singing along to this version...

Three skills

I think I am an intelligent person, but I am not gifted in spatial logic. I have real trouble figuring out those flipped around shapes where you have to choose which ones are the same. I have to turn a map the way I am going.

Many years ago I went backpacking with my cousin J and her friend J (we called ourselves Triple J, ha ha). The friend J was a wizz with maps. Whenever we arrived in a new city, she could look at the map and immediately know which way to go. My cousin J, like me, has a terrible sense of direction, but she has one weird gift, that she always knows which way is north. I only know which way is north from two places: at my house, and driving up North Road.

While travelling through Turkey with J and J, we went by bus to Canakkale. The road followed the coast and it is really beautiful. At one point I was unable to work out which direction we were travelling in and started poring over the map laboriously trying to figure it out. It was a genuine epiphany to me when good-with-maps J pointed out that the sea was on our right so we were travelling in the direction where the sea was on the right side of the road on the map.  I'm serious. And this knowledge has been seriously helpful to me ever since.

Apart from school geometry and map reading, there are three other skills I have struggled with. I have finally mastered them all, but not without great hardship and difficulty.

1. Knowing which way to twist a thing to open it

The key to mastering this valuable skill is one small phrase which I learned from a bartender I worked with many years ago: LEFTY LOOSEY RIGHTY TIGHTY.  Oh, the other people there laughed at this bartender, aged 23, intoning seriously "lefty loosey, righty tighty", but that phrase has been INVALUABLE to me I tell you.

2. Knowing which way to put the batteries in

I finally decided to teach myself this and remember it forever, just LAST YEAR. I don't think about positive and negative and such, I just remember the flat end goes against the spring. YES!

3. Knowing which way to turn when I step out of the elevator at work

This one has been the hardest. I spent eleven years in my last work building, and I memorized which way to turn coming out of the elevator after about nine years.

I've been in my current work building one and a half years, but I'm getting older and I don't want to struggle with this another seven years, so I've made a real effort.

My problem is, I overlook the obvious. Because I can't do something, I assume it must be really intricate and clever (instead of considering that maybe I'm just thick).  So initially I started by trying to keep the spatial logic of the building in my head. I'd walk up to the elevator bank, and consider which way I was facing in the lobby in relation to the street outside, then picture in my head where the street was in relation to our office window upstairs, and in relation to the elevators on our floor.

But then JUST THIS MORNING while composing this post in my head, I got into the lifts and stepped out at my floor, and suddenly realised that if I get into an elevator on my right, then I turn right when I get out. If I get into an elevator on my left, then I turn left when I get out.

As you can no doubt immediately work out, this means that when I walk into our building and into the elevator bank, I am already facing the direction of my office.  Which means even my initial mental mapping method should have been easy.

But it wasn't.

How is your spatial logic?

I've unfollowed all the gurus

samarttiw/FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I've unfollowed all the 'live your best life' and family / planning blogs I used to read.

I still like some of them. But I don't want their stuff on my Facebook / Twitter / blog feed anymore, and here's why:

They mostly don't resemble me.  While I admire anyone who is managing their life well, has changed their life or is energetic, achieving things, healthy, happy or what have you, I think of the people that run some of these blogs the same way I think of those motivational salesman of the eighties and nineties: admirable but basically of a certain personality type, once called "Type A", who is kind of wired that way.

Their lives are not mine. I'm not saying my life is more difficult or complex (it's not), but my life is my life, and the way I live it is basically working for me as is.

I've already found my methods. It's been trial and error, like everyone's life, and I'd never claim it's perfect, but through years of living it, I've found what works for me and my family, and the limitations of every method.

Their stuff doesn't work if you work full time in an office with a commute. All those slow-cooker recipes, housework schedules and the like, don't work if you work full time and don't work at home. I know these blog writers work hard, and they juggle as all of us do, but managing what you do before you "sit down to work" [in your house] is honestly very different from having to commute to work somewhere else, and do that every day.

I don't need relentless motivation and positivism. I'm not depressed (been there), and I'm motivated to get up and go every day by the need to keep my career going and keep a roof over my kids' heads. I get pleasure from the things I like and I keep active and interested in the world. That's all I need to keep going and achieve what I have to achieve.

Their stuff is repetitive. If you read any of these blogs for any length of time you'll tend to read the same intros, tips and pep talks over and over again. These blogs are designed so that anyone can pick them up at any time; the downside of that is they can irk you if you read them regularly.

We have a basic difference in life philosophy. I believe you can get nuggets of helpful information from just about anything you read. So these blogs can provide some good tips. But I also think life is messy and sometimes hard and you can't create a system that will keep you on top of it all the time.

I kind of resent what they do.  I'll admit it. There's something about running a blog about how to blog, or how to work or how to live, or how to manage family/home life, that seems like a bit of an easy out to me. I know that's irrational and unfair. Some of these people have really good blogs. But there are some I read which make me totally understand the existence of GOMI.

There's so much more interesting stuff out there to read. I read news, online magazines, blogs, tweets, fiction, you name it. I download podcasts and listen to them while I walk or while I lie in bed (but then I tend to fall asleep halfway through). There's so much to read, and so much to make you think and keep you busy, engaged and entertained. THAT'S where I prefer to direct my internet energy.

I prefer reading small blogs. Tiny ones in fact. I love reading the regular blogs I follow to read how people like me manage life, work, family and existential despair. Yes, that means you!

Do you read any of the 'big' blogs?

Do you follow any gurus?

What we argue about

They say that couples argue most about money, children and housework, and that does sum up MOST of the arguments Y. and I have. But it does omit one category, and that is "important things that my husband forgets to put in the school bags or take to the school office on his day off."

I leave lunch boxes, drink bottles and school notices on the kitchen table, where Y and the girls will sit and eat breakfast (or will walk past on their way to before-school care). The lunchboxes are often sitting with the school jackets the kids put on before they walk out the door. Sometimes I put the school bags themselves on the table and the lunchboxes and drink bottles and school notices next to the bags. I put out the notices and non-lunch things the night before, and I say "PLEASE don't forget these," and he says "Okay". I get the lunches out of the fridge in the morning and put them on the table, and I wake him up and remind him again: "The lunches and drink bottles are on the table, PLEASE don't forget them," and he says "yeah yeah, go, go, you'll be late for work", and I say "but PLEASE don't forget them!" and he says "I won't forget. Go!"

I remind the kids the night before, and tell them the bags are their responsibility and they have to help Daddy by getting ready and checking their bags.

I used to put things directly IN the bags, but sometimes they need to note what's going in so they will know to take it out again, and also on Y's day off HE should be doing the preparing and worrying and lunch-making, so I am trying to get him doing at least PART of the task. He's made lunches himself a few times but it can still lead to the same result, which is:

I come home at dinner time to see forgotten lunches/drink bottles/notices/whatever on the kitchen table, and to be informed by the kids that the notice is overdue and we owe $6 to the school office for lunch money.

And I round on Y and say "Really? Really?!" and he says, "I know, I'm sorry" or "OK, so I forgot!"

And I say "HOW is that even possible? They are right there where you all eat breakfast!" and I say "Do I really have to get up half an hour earlier than I already do, and wake up everyone and put everything in the bags myself and show you all what's what?"

And the kids say "It's not his fault Mum!" and sometimes I say "It's OK", and sometimes I say "Yes it is!" and sometimes I say, "It's ALL of your faults!"

And the conversation often ends with my signature line, "Do I have to do EVERYTHING in this house?" which is an unfair line because I know that I don't, but it's satisfying and self-righteous and cathartic and it's my signature line.

It's too bad Y doesn't have a blog to complain about me. If he did he could probably talk about the number of times I set my alarm at 5.30 and then turn it off and get back into bed and wake him up every 20 minutes with the snooze alarm. Because I'm sure that is quite annoying.

But he doesn't.

     This scene is a dramatic re-enactment

Girl Songs

The songs my girls make up and sing in earnest voices are full of the vocabulary our culture gives them. It's all dancing and wishing on stars and learning to fly and things 'in my heart'.

My daughter A had a bit of an epiphany last night, while we were driving and listening to pop on FM radio. She sighed in sudden exasperation and said, "Mum, why do all the singers have the same kind of voice and the same accent? They all go like - " she raised her voice an octave, sang a couple of words with a nasal tone and soft r's and then made a sound like a sexy exhalation.

We talked a bit about that and how it was a bit annoying after awhile when everybody sang the same. Then an old Missy Higgins song came on, followed by Taylor Swift and Pink - none of whom sing "like that".

But still, her favourite female singer at the moment is Rhianna.

A loves (in this order): One Direction, Rhianna, Taylor Swift, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry.

M loves (in this order): Katy Perry, Delta Goodrem, Sia, Rhianna, One Direction.


I've become fond of some of their songs myself, partly because the kids love them so much. Others make me grind my teeth.

And it's always fun answering questions about lyrics like "stupid girls", "last Friday night", "I kissed a girl", and "I crashed my car and I don't care."

But to be honest I prefer those lyrics to the kind of "I'm learning to fly" schmaltz that inspires my girls' own songwriting.

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