comment – three good words

May 18, 2025May 18, 2025

ad infinitum

How do you balance work and home life?

In the Year of our Lord 2025
One Work to Make the Money
Only enough to Stay Alive
More Work to Make some Money
Not enough to Live or Thrive

Balance? What Balance?

To a lot of people, Home Life is Work after Work:

You come home after a long day at The Job,
And you need to cook because hungry
And you need to clean because good Lord: laundry.

For cooking and cleaning to actually happen, you need to shop.
Have you gone shopping?
And did you get everything you needed?

One of you or both of you forgot the canned tomatoes and the detergent. Again.

And then there’s the laundry.
Always the laundry.
And then there’s the dishes.
Always the dishes.

Someone needs to strip the bed.
Someone needs to clean the bathroom.
Someone needs to wipe the floors.
Someone needs to go and vacuum.

One of you or both you forgot to put the bins out. Again.

If you have children that’s a whole other body of work right there:
From bathing and bedtime to extracurriculars and homework, there is Work to Be Done.

The Children need Raising.
The Children need Tending
The Children need Minding.
The Children need Care.

All while making sure their bodies stay healthy
And their brains don’t get scrambled
And their souls don’t get eaten by Whoever Online.

Also quality time.
Also weekend activities.
Also family visits.
Also birthdays, holidays, vacations.

One of you or both of you forgot to schedule that appointment. Again.

The Children need Raising.
The Children need Tending
The Children need Minding.
The Children need Care.

Oh, and they need clothes. And shoes.
And all of those clothes and shoes need to be season appropriate.
By the way, they keep on growing.
They need new clothes. Again.
They need new shoes. Again.
And there’s this thing called fashion.

Have you gone shopping?
And did you get everything you needed?

One of you or both of you got the wrong t-shirt. Again.

Someone needs to strip the bed.
Someone needs to clean the bathroom.
Someone needs to wipe the floors.
Someone needs to go and vacuum.

And then there’s the laundry.
Always the laundry.
And then there’s the dishes.
Always the dishes.

Also quality time.
Also weekend activities.
Also family visits.
Also DIY, Repairs, The Garden.

One of you or both of you just got sick. Again.

Sleep? Isn’t happening
Peace? Isn’t happening
Quiet? Isn’t happening.
Get well. Now.

Someone needs to strip the bed.
Someone needs to clean the bathroom.
Someone needs to wipe the floors.
Someone needs to go and vacuum.

And then there’s the laundry.
Always the laundry.
And then there’s the dishes.
Always the dishes.

Always the laundry.
Always the dishes.

October 11, 2021October 11, 2021

Listen…

This space where
rather than converse
we talk write text
at each other
not to, forget with
one / another

masses of individuals
so many I-s so many Me-s
screaming soundless
endlessly into the void

hoping for a response
but all that bounces back ping-ping-ping
is the echo of our own voices ding-ding-ding
ricochets and rebounds
off of each other

over and over and over and over and over
(why am I so tired?)
and over again
until the onslaught of words
congeals;

that deafening silence.

In the distance
longed for desperately
written about once again
murmurs of actual conversation –

September 27, 2021September 27, 2021

Hm…

Writing Season has begun.

Works in Progress lie in wait,
expecting genuine attention.

But I’m exhausted
and tired too

and this app
and this app
and this app
and this app

is driving me nuts

But everything is different now

January 17, 2015

le télé

a moment of lapsed ~~sanity~~ concentration
pressing the button to move along
the virtual stories shown
and suddenly you’re watching the unwatchable
seeing what is unacceptably
embarrassingly
(kind-of-sort-o’) funny
hilarious (but really humiliating)
so awful it actually hurts
but they keep on
and on and on
for all to see
on so many innumerable
twelve-inch screens
and you wonder
what kind of modern
panem et circenses
this really is.

What happened?
What’s going on?
I’m not even confused anymore,
anger isn’t even possible.
Why do so many homo sapiens
enjoy humiliating themselves
down to the marrow of the bone?
Why do we even watch?
Why can’t anyone say:
Stop. Please, stop.
No, no, no, no
Stop right now
and no I’m not joking.
Who told you this was good,
that this would hold?
Stop. Stop right now
and please PLEASE
stop letting those cameras in
get off that imagined stage
and just go home.
Oh. My. God.

August 8, 2014August 8, 2014

badfic, coffee and cereal cannibalism

Meh

It’s strange how everything can work rather well and you look around one evening and it’s all just… meh. That meh is the worst thing. It’s not boredom, it’s not dissatisfaction, there’s really nothing to complain about but everything’s still just… meh, and meh is very bad company. It makes even the greatest movie stupid and the best book dull. Even talking to someone you like, love can be… oh, I can’t be bothered.

It’s very selfish, meh. It spreads it’s mehness all over your private space, inviting itself over to your lunch break, and just basically hogs all the niceness around.

Or maybe it’s just the Friday blues. The week’s over, you’re exhausted, you’re finally home and don’t have to bother too much about tomorrow. Except that staying in’s not really an option. I mean it’s Friday, right? But going out, meeting friends and seeing people means having to dig yourself out of your sweats and sweater. Shower. Dress. Apply some of that and that and that, male or female it’s still just make up. And then you’re ready to open the door and walk out there to meet other humans. Not just the ones you see every day. New ones. Not necessarily better, just different. We are social animals after all.

So I will not stay in and join the meh. I will go out and see people. Join people who like joining me in all this seeing and weekending and living. Because all this work, all this Mon-Fri, 9-5 – that’s not life is it? It’s all the fun times and lovely spaces, it’s all the Me-ness in between. Me without the uh, ugh, eh, coz that’s just meh, and that’s just not me.

Breakfast

There’s a cereal advertisement on TV here, where one cubey cinnamony piece of cereal eats all other cubey cinnamony pieces of cereal the moment it’s let out of the cereal box. It’s very survival of the fittest – whoever is quickest gets to eat everyone else. Even if that means munching through walls of chocolate. Apparently that’s supposed to show just how delicious the cubey cinnamony cereal is. But… they’re eating each other. And if they’re the same species of cubey cinnamony cereal that’s… cannibalism. Cannibalism. Cubey, cinnamony, cereal cannibalism.

Now here’s me wondering: Why should I buy horrifying cereal?

Pages of Note

I just found So Bad It Hurts, a fab tumblr on bad fanfiction – or badfic – as blogger Mama Yuzu calls it. It’s a fun way to find out what is going on in those incubators of ebooks that are fanfiction sites… with a bit of a twist of course, Mama Yuzu can be very lemony when she wants to be. (Mary Sue Problems is just as fun by the way).

Coffee

My local barista told me he drinks a triple-shot espresso before he goes to bed so that he’ll wake up fresh and chirpy in the morning. He’s said it twice now.

I think he actually means it.