BORED

Anyone can rage against the machine. Anyone. It takes no intellect and no skill what-so-ever. There is an ongoing parade of half-wits and morons who have labelled themselves authorities.

Perhaps all it takes is a high degree of ignorance to the fact what you’re saying has been said a million times before – in a much more elegant manner.

Howard’s an idiot. Brodgen attempted suicide. Beazely is ineffective. Abbott is a moron. Costello is a woman.

Forgive me while I yawn. It’s all been done.

Oh, what about the skill it takes to tear down Australia’s television gems. There’s a challenge. Blue Heelers see Cop Shop/Homicide/Rafferty Rules etc or perhaps Neighbours/Home & Away see crap, crap and a little more crap.

There isn’t one original idea out there.

I’ve given up on the media. I’ve given up on the radicals who think they’re going to save the world by bitching and moaning while they sit in cafes.

I’ve especially given up on the woman who sits opposite me at work.

I am, by all conventional definitions, a big beast of a woman. But compared to this malcontent – I’m Elle McPherson.

“You know I don’t know what they’re thinking keeping Brogden on. I mean he’s clearly not politician material,” she snorts over her mass produced, predictable, Starbucks purchase. “If the Liberal Party what to keep their hopes of ever being taken seriously they need to seriously reconsider the character of their representatives.”

I’m sure they’ll take your advice on board. There's going to be a "Walrus saved the Liberal Party Parade" to thank you for your opinion which saved their dying party.

I let her prattle on. It’s kind of gratifying to witness people making fools of themselves. That is, it’s gratifying until I’m almost bored into a coma.

She’s not deep, she’s not hip to current affairs. She’s boring. She’s filling her empty life with concerns and worries that are not her own.

“Oh, God, things look rough in New Orleans,” She shakes her head as though she can commiserate. “What a tragedy.”

She’s a fascinating study of the blatantly obvious. I wonder just what percentage of her is American.

It’s a long enough day and I fake getting calls to cut off her talk. I pretend that those calls have hung up on me and switch the conversation to more daily matters.

I try to ground it in reality but she’s awash in the things she’s read and reinterpreted and keen to offer simplistic, regurgitated overviews of what she’s seen and heard. Nothing of what she’s experienced.

At the end of the day I’m drained and rush to leave the building and avoid her. At home the TV remains off and Tom and I find better things to do, relevant and original things to talk about.

I have more important things in my life than the unoriginal dribble that passes me by.

But there is enough room in my life to pity her.

STEPFAMILY EVOLUTION

Miss 7 and I had a fight on Saturday.

“Can you get your dad,” she blinked and said nothing. “Miss 7, can you get your dad.” She simply walked away. I stood there with eight bags of shopping absolutely fuming. But the time I stumbled through the last-minute father’s day shoppers out of the store I was ready to throttle the little beast and she knew it.

Not by what I said but by what I didn’t say.

“I didn’t hear you,” she sobbed. I wasn’t moved by her tears, they only worked to fuel my anger. “Then why didn’t you say that?” she sat silently. “Do you understand that that’s why I’m angry? I really needed help and you just ignored me.” I measured my tone, trying to conceal just how incredibly pissed off I was.

She sucked back the tears. “Sorry.” It was the first genuine apology I had received. “That’s ok,” I softened my voice. “But next time, don’t ignore me.”

And then it stopped. She stopped sulking and I stopped feeling angry with her. We’d both learned something. It was one of those “moments”.

Things got worse. It happened when I least expected it. Miss 7 jumped up from her bed and gave me a great big kiss on the cheek and then fell back under the covers. I walked to the second room and Mr 10 threw his arms around me and wished me a good night.

Then my tormentors, the children who had invaded my home and my life, drifted off to sleep. I tossed and turned for hours, trying to assess this new sensation.

Damn it. I had the walls all in place. I was creating my boundaries and they had crossed them.

We all stood at the cars ready to take the grots home. “Why can’t we stay?” Mr 10 squeaked. “Yeah,” Came Ms 7 mummble past the thumb permanently shoved in her mouth.

“I wish you could stay,” Tom said. “But it’s not up to me.” I felt as though I were to blame but I know that’s not the case.

The kids sulked a little and slowly climbed into the car as though they had the weight of the world on their shoulders. I understood how they felt.

Last night was the final straw. “Is Boswell there?” the kids had called Tom after a failed MSN attempt at communication. “Yep, she’s right here”. “Say Hi,” they chorused.

I responded with equal enthusiasm and joined Tom as we talked about Ice Cream, Dumb and Dumber and sheep’s brains.

That ping in my chest was unfamiliar. The thoughts running through my head were completely alien.

I miss them.

All of a sudden I was all maternal and resented that someone else was raising my children. My children. I wanted them in my house and I wanted to talk to them. I wanted to check their homework and I wanted to kiss them goodnight.

Now I don’t know what to do with myself. So much has happened in the past 12 months and I was determined to hold on to who I had finally discovered was the real me.

Suddenly, I’m a different me and I can’t keep up.

I hadn’t planned on children. A baby, sure, that’s a fresh slate but not a ready made set of children with quirks.

And now I have to accept that I am mother, biology aside, to two children. We are slowly, but surely becoming a family. This wasn't on the agenda, but then again most of my life fails to follow any of the paths I plot.

Damn. This is going to sting.

HYPER-VIGILANCE

It’s a blue day. No real reason. Just is.

After a mild panic attack on Friday night I seem to be completely disconnected from my life. I am, in effect, feeling a little omnipresent. Like I am watching over every facet of my life and not actually part of it. It's exhausting.

The panic attack began like this – I opened the door to our house and in the half-light I saw someone run down the hallway and into our bedroom.

I stood there and shook, I was frozen to the spot. Blood rushing to my head throbbed mercilessly and I could only utter Tom’s name in a whisper even though I knew at that moment there was someone in our home. Someone uninvited.

It’s been going on the weeks. We’ve received phone calls where the caller simply hangs up when we pick up. On Wednesday I received no fewer than eight calls in a 20-minute period.

These calls have terrorized me. Nothing is said but that’s enough to get my heart racing.

Curiosity may have killed the cat but not knowing will surely kill me.

On Thursday there were four calls.

On Friday, none. This was probably the worst assault they could have dealt me.

After a glorious dinner at my Mother-in-laws to celebrate my birthday (which by all accounts was a fantastic three day celebration – supper with mud cake at my sister-in-laws on Thursday, Dinner on Friday and a flash hotel room on Saturday) we drove home and I was enthusiastic about entering the house.

Then the form ran from one side of the house to the other and disappeared into our bedroom. Tom came up from behind and I told him what I’d seen.

“There’s only one way to deal with this,” Tom turned on all the lights. He scoured each room and made sure the house was clear. His confidence and aggression making me feel as though the house was safe and that in fact, no one was there.

“I know what I saw,” I whimpered, still standing in the doorway. I was unable to make my feet cross the threshold.

“I believe you. This house has one hell of a history and we are definitely not alone.”

I didn’t for a second feel foolish for my panic. But the anxiety didn’t go away. My heart is beating at twice its normal pace. The blood is pushing painfully through my veins. There is the feeling that something is about to happen that I just can’t shake.

Then there are the numbers. The triple 1. The palindromes. The repetitive patterns.

I know it’s just the way I’m seeing the world right now. I know that the world isn’t trying to send me some sort of cosmic sign.

But I can’t help feeling this constant awareness that something is about to happen – good or bad – and that I have absolutely no control over the direction my life is about to take.