Heroine Envy

I love movies. They're all about escapism and, let's face it, we all want to escape every now and then. (If you don't want to escape - ie you love everything about your sweet little life just the way it is - then you're an anomaly. You shouldn't be reading this. And BTW, don't even THINK about e-mailing me how sweet your life is, because I might be tempted to send hate mail.)

The best thing about seeing a movie is that I get to escape "me" for a while. No kids, no mortgage, no messy chaotic frenetic life, no panda eyes because I fell into bed without removing my mascara, no clothes that are four seasons out of date… When I immerse myself in a movie I'm able to be, for a fleeting couple of hours, a hot sexy mama with street savvy and an interesting life.

Oh, come on. You know it's true. Every movie you've loved featured a heroine who was young and slim and cool and had a don't-mess-with-me attitude (or grew one), right? And even if they were made-up to look ugly or fat or frumpy or old or whatever, they weren't even close to any of those things because Hollywood doesn't really do ugly/fat/frumpy/old. It wouldn't sell. It's not our dream.

And the heroes? (Speaking of dreams...) Mmm…

Where was I? Oh. Right. Bottom line: Hollywood produces what we (I use "we" in a broad sense) want to see. And we want to see hot-sexy-mama heroines with kick-arse attitude, not grumpy-frumpy-ugly old tarts with lemon-sucking skills. We want to see heart-stoppingly gorgeous men with you'll-only-cross-me-once determination, not wimpy weedy guys with inferiority complexes. Movies = escapism, remember?

Movie heroines always get their guy, and he's always hot. Movie heroines always save the day, or at least help save the day, and they don't get blown up in the attempt. They always have great shoes and even better one-liners. And they always end the movie looking like… well, heroines.

But movies aren't real. Sometimes it's easy to forget that and get caught up in the why-can't-I-be-more-like-her sulks - when what we should really be doing is celebrating. Because we're the real heroines and heroes. We're living it, doing it, solving it, feeling it. Every day. Bad hair, cranky mood, mismatched socks and all.

So if your made-for-the-big-screen life is looking a little less than perfect today - don't worry. You're in good company. And we my not be on a Jolie-type wage, but we're all doing star performances. (Pass the popcorn, someone!)

The Hazards Of Spring

It's spring and I'm grumpy. Why? Because it's warm and, much as I love warmth, it's more stifling than warm when one only has merino woollies on hand. See, all my short-sleeved tops and non-merino clothes are up in the loft.

The loft. (Theme-music from Jaws.) Enter who dares.

Well, I'm going to have to dare, because I don't fancy spending the next six months feeling like a sauna-on-feet. I did enough of that when I was pregnant.

The problem is - 'doing' the loft is easier said than done. First I have to make sure Mr Six isn't around (he'd try to follow me up there). Ditto for The Destroyer (at 16 months she's just discovered electric sockets and would no doubt jam a spoon into one while I was upstairs). Oh, and it has to be daylight - otherwise I'll wake one or other of them - and, trust me, I absolutely don't want to do that.

If by some strange twist of fate I do manage to find said opportunity, all I have to do is: a) find ladder; b) if no ladder, beg Beloved to return ladder from work; c) climb ladder, open manhole, turn on light; d) climb down ladder, open ladder to full height; e) re-climb ladder, enter loft; f) search for summer clothes bag, ensuring I duck to avoid roof and also stand only on framing (don't fancy falling through ceiling); g) shift other very important boxes of stored whatevers to access clothes bag; h) heave bag over to manhole, toss out of loft; i) check for signs of damage (the bag, not me); j) turn off light; k) climb down ladder, reassemble ladder at half-height; l) re-climb ladder, turn off light, close manhole; m) climb down ladder; n) remove ladder to garage without denting freshly-painted walls.

Sounds easy, right?

And it is - until you realise you've returned the ladder to the garage but left the loft light on. Or pushed a down-light out of the ceiling when you tripped up and landed on it. Or broken your kid's Christmas present. Or that family heirloom you've been saving.

But I've just thought of the perfect solution. No more loft-angst. I'll just buy new clothes. (Dreamy expression on face.) New. Clothes. For me, even. Wow. Imagine it.

(Now I've just got to work out how to hide the Visa bills for a few months…)

Conviction And Courage: Essential Writer-ly Traits

It's not easy being a writer on the road to publication. First, you have to work out how to craft a novel. Then you have to do it, and well enough that a publishing house will take it on alongside their established authors. You'll probably also have to find an agent who loves your work enough to represent you. Which means you have to do some serious research into agents and editors and the querying/submitting processes. And you have to do all this in your own time.
The quandary: writing a debut novel takes hundreds - no, thousands - of hours. You really need to give up your day job to focus on it. But you can't afford to give up your day job because until you're published you don't get paid. Sadly, even writers need to eat.

Worse, as you journey this rocky road to publication you constantly encounter failure and more rejections. I explore this further in  "Conviction and Courage - Essential Writer-ly Traits", over on my For Writers page.

QuakeZone

On Saturday 4th September 2010, at 4.36am, my partner and I woke to the biggest earthquake we've ever experienced. The pre-quake rumble was terrifying. Freight-train-through-your-lounge volume. Then the quake hit. Apparently it lasted forty seconds. To both of us it felt much, much longer. How to get to the kids in time? How to calm their terror, keep them safe? How to stay on our feet until we reached them?

Magnitude: 7.1 on the Richter scale. Depth: 10km (that's shallow!). Epicentre: 40km west of Christchurch. Effect on our beautiful city: devastation.

Miraculously, no lives were lost; the earthquake struck when Christchurch streets were at their quietest. The clean-up task will take months - possibly years. Many people have lost their homes, many have lost their livelihoods. But we still have each other. Thank God.

On TV, in the newspapers and online, new images and stories are emerging daily of the destruction that's been wreaked in a mere forty seconds. I'm struggling to comprehend it all. Twisted shop frontages, piles of rubble, torn buildings, silt and water where neither should be... it's unbelievable.  And the most unbelievable thing of all: our home is unscathed. A couple of breakages, a few doors that don't want to close... but seriously, it's so minimal it's almost embarrassing. How did this happen? How did our modest 1936 wooden house remain intact?

Five days on and the cracks are beginning to show. In me, not the house. To say I'm feeling fractious is an understatement. My nerves are completely shot! For how long will these freaking after-shocks assault us? For how long will any faint rumble have me freezing, then grabbing the kids and diving for doorjams?

You'll have to imagine the nervous responses - but for some idea of the way our week has gone in QuakeZone - check out www.christchurchquakemap.co.nz. (Thanks to Gracie for passing it on.) This simulation says it all.

Self-Cleaning Hair, Anyone?

I once heard that if you don't wash your hair it becomes self-cleaning in about four-to-six weeks. It sounded pretty good to me. Maybe I should try it some time.

The perfect opportunity arose when my partner and I embarked on a year's travel. Nobody would know me while my hair was at the manky stage. Perfect! We flew in to Malaysia and the experiment began. No more shampoo. Water only.

It wasn't easy. Hell, no. I'm a daily hair-washer. I went through Itchy-Scalp Syndrome and Lank-Hair Syndrome. Four weeks passed. We crossed the border into Thailand and my hair was in such a state it's a miracle they let me in. Clearly my hair was going to take six weeks. I braced myself for Heinous Fly-Trap Syndrome and What's-That-Smell Syndrome. Think of the end goal, I told myself, think of the end goal.

Then we met Jo, an Aussie hairdresser who thought it took a bit longer. A couple of months, maybe. Oh God. Two months? I hoped she was wrong. But after seven weeks I knew she was right, dammit. We parted ways, and I wondered if my hair had something to do with it. I mean, Jo's a professional. I bet she wanted to hold me down and wash my hair by force.

Eight weeks, and we crossed into Vietnam. Thank God nobody knew me. And was it just me or was my partner more distant with me these days? We met up with Aussie Jo again and she couldn't believe it - a) that my hair still wasn't self-cleaning, and b) that I still hadn't washed it. It'll work soon, she assured me. Maybe it's, like, three months instead of two?

I didn't want to give up. Not when I was so close. So I tried to hide my hideous mop beneath my cap and re-set my goalposts to twelve weeks.

At the twelve-week mark we flew to Scotland. That's when Scared-To-Be-Seen-In-Public Syndrome hit. We were staying with family, visiting friends. These people knew me and loved me and couldn't hide their distaste. I felt like a freak.

At thirteen weeks I gave up. I washed my hair. It took three washes before my hair even felt like hair. It took a week before I felt normal. My experiment failed.

But what if it would've only taken another few days, another week? I came so very, very close. And I'll never know because I gave up. I still can't believe I put up with smelly, ugly, disgusting hair for thirteen weeks. Would you?

Non-writers must struggle to comprehend why writers keep trying for that pot of publication gold. It's crazy, but it's a bit like my hair experiment. I know the sensible thing would be to give up - but what if I'm really really close and I just don't know it? What if I only have to get through one more week of manky hair? What if?

My Lifeline With Sanity

On the odd occasion - you know, like 90% of the time - when things seem as if they're going from bad to worse, or from worse to desperate, it's good to know I've got friends who'll help get me through.

Take this week, for example. It wasn't enough that my Beloved was working out of town. Little Miss 13-month-old (aka The Destroyer) decided this was a good week to come down with Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease.

No, our ancestry does not include any cloven-hooved beasts. (Though I do have a devilish streak - does that count?)

Who thought of the name for this virus? What were they thinking? Were they thinking? It's bad enough that we have to quarantine The Destroyer for over a week. (Ye Gods!) But suddenly she's got an illness that, by the sounds of it, will result in her baa-ing or moo-ing like a farmyard animal.

Which is quite funny, actually, because this week she developed a serious interest in the different sounds animals make. So at least two hours of every quarantine day has involved her repeatedly thrusting a Hand-Foot-and-Mouth-saliva'd book at me so I could point to pictures and make animal noises.

I studied my butt off, all through high school and university and a post-graduate qualification - for what? So I could make cute animal noises a couple of hundred times a day, that's what!

Who says education is an investment for the future?!!

My saving grace this week has been the daily school drop-off and pick-up routine. I probably would've gone mad(der) if I hadn't been able to laugh about it with other mums who've been-there-done-that with the illnesses, quarantine nightmares and animal noises. These friends have been my lifeline with sanity. You know who you are, girls! Thanks a million!

Tropical Paradise Holiday

So off we went. Our first tropical holiday in years. Our first ever as a family of four.

We coped with the 5am start. We mostly coped with the first six hours of our seven-and-a-half hour journey, thanks to drugs (for the baby, not us), an in-flight bassinette, and individual in-flight screens which Master Six loved.

Then the baby woke.

If you're a parent, imagine your child at their very worst. Then imagine holding them in your lap while they do it. For an hour, maybe more.

Okay, we won't talk about that.

Our destination was indeed a tropical paradise, with fancy-wancy five-star hotel and super-friendly staff. None of which made any difference when Baby decided she wouldn't sleep anywhere except her own cot back in Christchurch.

We soothed her. We ignored her. We tried feeding her up. We fed her so much she should've doubled her body weight. She should've slept like a… well, a baby.

She didn't. She woke every two hours, all night. EVERY night. For TEN NIGHTS. We ignored her some more. We decided the neighbours would kill her (or us). We ssshed her until we couldn't dredge up another bloody sssh.

Sleep deprivation is a horrible thing. It takes away the sparkle in your eyes, the glow in your skin and, ultimately, your will to live.

Master Six had a fantastic holiday. Why? Because, God knows how, he slept through our nightly hell, woke refreshed each morning and had a great time at Kids' Club.

Myself and my beloved? We paid somewhere in excess of $NZ6000 to lose the will to live. Then flew back without the luxury of baby bassinette. (It went to some tiny days-old scrap of baby who couldn't even roll, let alone create havoc.) We arrived home with bad necks, bad backs, bad moods and a baby who had decided life worked pretty well at two-hour intervals.

The moral of the story: just don't bother. Wait until your kids are five. Better still, make them save for their own damn holiday. In the interim, buy a bottle of non-duty-free, set up a deckchair in the lounge, and drink yourself silly so you don't feel the chill when you strip down to your swimwear.