From the category archives:

commentatrix

Since you asked

7 March, 2010

in commentatrix, in Aotearoa, we are family

Over at The Hand Mirror, Julie raises the question of what a citizen’s to do when encountering personal questions about one’s fertility, pregnancy, and family plans more generally, and the general social judginess and boundary-crossing such queries often evoke.

At five months pregnant, I am somewhat in the thick of such experiences myself; hence using my own webpages rather than posting a comment on-site to consider the matter.  My impression has been that conversations around fertility and natality fall into two broad general groups.

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Anniversary Labours

17 February, 2010

in O internet, at home, commentatrix, dogs, in Aotearoa, we are family

Adventures with Average Baby

This spring-and-summer pregnancy is already twice the length of its winter predecessor, and as different, thereby, as two things of the same kind can be.  Not least among these differences was the way in which we passed the first eleven weeks in a kind hopeful lockdown, wary to put too much pressure on the future to carry hope that might yet be redundant again.

The brain, the spine, the beating heart that was our gift before Christmas opened the door to a different kind of experience, territory as unknown as the very notion of being pregnant was the first time around.  The tremendous good fortune whereby my morning sickness (a most inadequate moniker) receded by New Year has given me back my old ability to think about anything other than how terrible I feel (and the accompanying certainty that nobody understands or cares sufficiently) and something of a hopeful forward-gaze.

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My own land; she makes things

19 January, 2010

in O internet, at home, commentatrix, in Aotearoa, we are family

As someone who does neither gardening nor baking, it surprises me the extent to which I enjoy reading online about the gardening and baking of others, particularly since in the past I would have berated myself for my lack of competence and enthusiasm, respectively, in both areas.  (I put this down to something like the general settling of life that has come out of being married, with our mown-lawn harmony and store-bought treats.)

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Cultural Learnings for Make Benefit

16 January, 2010

in commentatrix, teaching & learning, writing & research

I honed my essay writing and editing skills on Wallace Stevens, Shakespeare and Katharine Susannah Pritchard at a time when I didn’t expect to use them for anything except the most esoteric of pursuits. My explanation to my students of these skills’ value has never pushed much beyond these boundaries, except to say that if you are well-trained in writing and editing, you can turn your hand to most writing tasks, including those of future employers that you can’t imagine yet. The primary function for me, however, of the ability to write and edit has been for my own enjoyment, with the latter, more recently, also for sale in the service of others’ work. [Hustler's aside: my business welcomes your recommendations and referrals].

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I am from the streets of Queen[s]land, Australia

10 January, 2010

in O internet, at home, commentatrix, traveller's fragments, we are family

I’ve emerged from the last fourteen weeks as if from a haze of nausea-induced amnesia, homicidal crankiness receding as the passenger within shifts its focus to consuming all the calories I ingest.  This bilious mélange of ailments has given me some insight as to why earlier societies might think women were cursed by god or gods.  As someone who has lived a brain-in-a-jar existence for much of her adult life, it has been a rude shock to be thrown back into continual consciousness of the body in this way.  You’ve read enough of these pages to infer what it did to my mental health as well.

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Memento Memori

31 December, 2009

in commentatrix, dogs, in Aotearoa, the social round, we are family

The (contestable) fact of a decade passing has been slow to come to my attention, and it was only really the appearance of the obligatory lists (particularly by writers whom I admire) that alerted me.  I have nothing in particular to rank — and what would you gain, gentle reader, if I told you that 2007 was better than 2002, for example? — but have been trying mentally to compile some chronologies that might sum up my experiences of the last ten years.

Normally I ignore the contention, both reasonable and logical, that a better measure of a decade is one that begins with 1 and continues through to (1)0, but on this occasion, this would be a more meaningful division for me.  I handed in my PhD in mid-2001, a fortnight or so after I started working in tertiary preparatory programmes, and defended it in either November or December of that year (I forget which).  This was the end of a period of continuous study that had various markers of “beginning” in the compulsory and non-compulsory sectors.  Since the ‘01, therefore, it’s been a different game I’ve been playing.

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Tumblarity*

13 November, 2009

in commentatrix, tumblr, writing & research

A little while ago I asked what I should do with my tumblelog.  I’d given up on the limited formatting and code mismatches that came with syndicating its poems and idle frippery to these pages and decided to keep all my musings in a single source.  Since then, tumblr itself has continued developing its particular character as a perpetual scroll of site-themed scraps, images, small reflections and aggregates.  In this, I’ve started to go with the flow once again, aggregating there my links from delicious, digg, and flickr, along with this site and the White Mist, and also occasionally using the “reblog” option to circulate what I like elsewhere within the tumbled network.  The last of these activities relies on reading more widely the tumbled sites of others, and this is proving a further strand of leisured amusement (not least the prevalence of sites that, following on from this one, including “fuck yeah” in their title).

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Donkey-Deep

13 November, 2009

in at home, commentatrix, we are family

Because of reasons, I am not at present in a state of sparkling mental wellness.  All signs point to this continuing for some time, after which it will likely stop, and I will explain.  My affective experience is probably closer to mild cyclothymia than my usual gloom of varying greys.  Sans doute this is an experience of dread and frustration, even if only temporary, but has all the drear of the high-functioning life: no-one can tell you’re ill unless you tell them, and even then they might not believe you.  I’m long past the ritual outing of myself at work and find it a drag when I need to do so, even if the few who know what’s going wrong have been reasonably sympathetic in their response.

I am fortunate therefore in my husband (reader, I married him) who takes in his relative stride his crazy wife, and I take perverse refuge in the language of ableism, which does much, in its deficit rhetoric, to account in private for the extent to which I feel impaired at present.  These are not so much stories as dots on the map; come midsummer there may yet be lines to be drawn.  Until then, I’ll continue with the task of saying something else here.  There’s always the fun of the rickroll, (for which a hat-tip to @doompony).

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Modern Love, with Lyrics

11 October, 2009

in O internet, commentatrix, we are family

A Full Commitment’s What I’m Thinking Of

Since the Rickroll rose from the shallows of 4chan to the wider internet, much has been written about it as a cultural phenomenon.  I have little to add to the narration: even my 1988 copy, on audio cassette, of Astley’s debut album Whenever You Need Somebody is no unique possession, but merely marks me out as a child, with hoarding tendencies, of the baby boomers.  I requested it as my birthday present that year because I liked Top 40 hits, and was vaguely looking for a pop idol to replace in my affections George Michael, who had broken my heart first by growing a swarthy beard and then by releasing the grimly lewd “I Want Your Sex” the previous year.

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To grow accustomed to this face

10 October, 2009

in commentatrix, the social round, we are family

Originally published at The White Mist.

With a long-sighted father and a short-sighted mother, it was more likely than not that my brother and I would need glasses one day.  For both of us, that day came before childhood was out.  With great determination, I switched to contact lenses at fourteen, rejecting that large-lensed, plastic-framed spectacles that were the style at the time.  I wore contact lenses until I started working full-time, when glasses became more practical in the air-conditioned, eye-drying environment.

Glasses frames remain, however, subject to the vagaries of fashion, and it’s with this in mind that I’ve decided to wear contact lenses again for the wedding.  (Señor Mojito, who, like many sensible people, cannot bear to put a finger against his eyeball, will be chancing future changes of fashion and staying bespectacled.)  For the first time in many years, then, I’ve had cause to see my face from a distance without glasses.  What a strange experience.

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