i have decided to part ways with the daily newspaper and the wireless radio. i will no longer be listening to jon faine while at the gym. nor will i be reading the age over my breakfast each day.
why?
because it all makes my head hurt too much. i need to turn away, in order to preserve myself. some people might be able to read about all the things in the world, and not feel anything. but i can't. things stick in my head and my heart. i want to fix the world, and i can't. things make me angry - politics and all sorts of social and environmental issues - and i can feel the toxins in my body. i waste energy thinking over things, getting frustrated by things. energy that i really need to save so i can smile at my kids, help them with their homework, play the occasional grippy ball game with them.
so i have decided to be kind to myself, and leave the things that make me feel like this.
on the weekends, however, i will be buying the age and the australian.
I'M NOT A COMPLETE FOOL.
i'll see how i go with the australian. i stopped reading it cause it was too right-wing, but as i will be avoiding articles that shit me, i'll just keep to their interesting life style sections.
i still want to be able to access the articles on literature and the arts, and the human interest stories. i will avoid the stories on iraq, terrorism, george w, howard, children dying, bombs, racism, murder, mayhem.
i will turn my eyes to the light.
i will concern myself with what really matters in my life, with my family and friends.
things like:
1. why oh why the fuck can't the neighbours scriptwriters do a better job when integrating the new characters of fraser, pepper, wil and rosetta into the show.
why oh why the fuck couldn't they have come up with a better name than johnny smith, JOHNNY SMITH, oops BROWN FOR FUCK'S, as the unseen person who rosetta and carmella's mother wants rosetta to marry.
2. should i start having brazillians again?
3. i wonder whether ebay has any how and why books?
x
ps. i have rejigged my blogroll, and included a few new players.
pps. i am waiting to see whether i will be the inaugural big blogger winner of 2006. check it. i can probably get you an invitation to the finale party if you really want.
ppps. final derek and clive is coming soon.
15 comments:
Hear Hear! I was in the gym this morning and Today was on with the sound off (the second best way to have it; TV off is better) and they had a phone poll about whether viewers thought Paul McCartney beat up Heather Mills. How fucking* inane!
*Swear jar, Mr Jones
There must be something in the water. I hope we of the smart thinking left get our mojo back soon. But in the meantime, I only buy the Sat. Age for the Samurai sudoku, crosswords and the pretty magazine bits.
But I haven't given up on going to bed with Phillip Adams yet, even if I do tend to fall asleep on him.
Before you get corrected by Bevis, it was Johnny Brown babe, not Smith for Rosetta.
thanks clokes. i wasn't sure i had it right, but you are. right.
thanks for not commenting on the brazillian bit.
grover, there aint no swear jar around here.
aof - you got it. keep phillip i say. if only to be able to say that you go to bed with him and sometimes fall asleep on him.
The Brazilian thing is a no brainer, no need to comment.
PS: the internet is back on at work.
i can't BELIEVE i mis-spelled brazilian, not once but twice.
see how everything is affecting my brain?
58 days, 36 posts, and finally I made it onto your blogroll. This is what it must feel like to win "Survivor".
Seriously, thanks for the link. I am very excited. YAY!!!!
Speaking of winning stuff, good luck with Big Blogger.
I would love to come to the Big Blogger finale party, if I can also score tickets for the wife and kids, and the whole thing is over by 7pm. If Bevis the new parent is running this thing, then that's not as dumb as it sounds.
As for the newspapers, I am going to keep reading, even though it drives me mad at times, because I need to stay angry until we get rid of this idiot-collective currently passing itself off as the Federal Government.
However, you make an excellent point about spending more time smiling at the kids. That's why I only read the paper at work, leaving weekends free for endless rounds of loungeroom racing, building of train tracks and dancing to old Frente CDs.
Aaah, Frente. Mmmmemories.
And, mb, I have to admit that I get so anguished and hypertensive by the sight, sound and mention of our current leaders and their destructive ways that I usually get the news I need from the New Weekly.
About time you got back to concerning yourself with all the important stuff!!
Good luck with Big Blogger. I tried to vote for you but i think the lines are down.....or sumthin'.
Hehe ... I laughed out loud at the off-screen character name "Johnny Brown" as well. How poorly uncreative was THAT?! Clearly no one was trying very hard that day.
Next time it'll be John Q Citizen or Insert Name Here. (Actually, that'd be quite funny!)
As for Big Blogger, thanks for the link and thanks for your patience. I'm sure it'll be posted sometime in the next month. (Hehe.)
Also, I noted your new blogroll yesterday. I was very chuffed to see that I'd been promoted a few spots AND my TV blog had been added! Thanking you.
To refer to the actual point of your post for a moment, I thoroughly advocate the "head in the sand" technique of news gathering. It means nothing bad ever happens in the world. Think of all the lives you're saving! (Hey, if it's a good enough news-gathering strategy for America's Fox Network ...)
Melbournegirl,
Maybe it isn't that you need to stop reading the papers, but that everyone else in the country needs to START reading the papers.
I for one wouldn't care about reading the papers and getting depressed if I thought that the depression would turn into some kind of utopian "let's change the world" movement and not be just a fast-track to the grave stress-wise.
Also agree with you re Neighbours: having not watched it a few weeks I was completely bamboozled by not one but an apparent HORDE of new characters.
PS Grippy ball! Hooray!
we can help the world together! waddya say?
Um, I actually have been participating in the head in the sand technique for a while now. I just won't read the papers or online news services although I do enjoy young Tony Wilsons Breakfasters news in the mornings. I found myself getting too annoyed and untrusting of the papers, too cynical about where and why their opinions were coming from. Obviously I still hear about all the big things and still try and change the things that I think are important to change, without getting distracted by all the guff that most people put up with every hour of every day.
me too adam. i didn't need to read about the earthquake, i felt it. and seeing a flash of natasho stott on the news with the sound down at the doctor's, i knew the story.
it's all so predictable. and i am still feeling so much better for giving it all up.
I agree. I think the neighbours writers shouldn't be using boring names like John. Who the hell is called John anyway? Perhaps they are running out of names, but I still long for the day when a neighbours character goes by the moniker "Balls".
Post a Comment