Vertical Marathon

So, I was at my Friday morning circuit class yesterday morning, the 8.30 one, the one I never, ever miss and I was at the star jumps station when the woman at the next station (something to do with shoulders) said, ‘So where were you last week?’

And you know, I had to think for a moment. Where was I? ‘I was somewhere,’ I said, asking my brain to co-operate, and then I remembered…

that first of all, we got into the car extremely early indeed.

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We drove out of Abu Dhabi.

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Until we got to Dubai, where I registered.

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And then I ran.

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All the way to the top of this.

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And that, my friends, is an event on which I cannot believe I am reporting. Me. Running.

The statistics: 52 floors, 1,334 steps, 16 minutes.

That day, the day I ran a Vertical Marathon, it was my mum’s birthday, and she would’ve been 63 which is the age my dad was when he died. Somehow or other it all seemed to fit together in a way that made me think less about sadness and more about the depth of things.

PS See up there in that photo of all of us – that baby carrier on the back of the man behind us? There was a child in that when that man did his run.

Right, that’s it, I’m getting off the internet for the rest of today

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82n1PX1hVEY&hl=en_US&fs=1&]

I can only assume that the Tourism Australia people are in cahoots with Tony Abbott to make me feel less homesick. You have succeeded. Honestly, this makes me want to stay as far away from the place as I possibly can.

Dudes, are you for realz? This is like a weet-bix or life. be in it ad that we might have watched during the cricket breaks in the 1970s. For fuck’s sake. And to think, people get paid for this.

mutter, mutter, mutter

A little slice of my Fridays

The Friday midday prayers are the most important prayers of the week – the equivalent, if there are such equivalences, of the Sunday morning service. They are followed by a sermon which can be heard as clearly across the city as the call to prayer.

I don’t understand it of course, so I always look in Friday’s paper to find out what that week’s sermon is about. This week, it’s about conserving water.

bleeding edge

so, you know I left twitter, and with all the privacy carry-on, I’d leave facebook too, except I like keeping in touch with my cousins and playing wordtwist with my friends, and I don’t post any photos or anything, and plus, I just can’t sever my ties with the interwebs quite that much.

Anyhoo, I found this thing diaspora. I’ve got no real idea what it is, but it looks kind of cool, and I’ve always loved dandelion clocks, so I’m going to give it a try.

Sorry I’ve not had a chance to upload my photographs. It’s the thought of all the cords. It makes my heart race and my head thump. Cords suck. As opposed to the chords eldest lad has been messing with on the keyboard this week. Those chords soothe my head and calm my beating heart.

Deep breath in. Hold. Breathe out. Repeat ad infinitum

Do you know what’s stressful? Deadlines that’s what. Specially when you’re an uptight control freak with compulsive tendencies. All good living in the moment, that which doesn’t kill us practice, but not good for the knots in my back and my neck and my stomach.

On a lighter note, I am very much hoping that tonight I will have energy to upload photos of my weekend so that you can see what I did on Friday. It will leaving you gasping in amazement, wide-mouthed with shock and perhaps even a little in awe of my awesomeness.

You will have to come back to see, because YOU WILL NEVER GUESS.

PS Unless you are my friend on facebook, in which case you already know, but don’t tell anyone, okay…and if you aren’t my friend on facebook, doesn’t that just prove that you are missing out?

Maintain the rage

I don’t remember where I was the day the Governor General was lambasted from the steps of Parliament House. In a tyre swing in the front of our house at Essington Avenue, Clare, I’m guessing. But certainly, the incident shaped my early childhood – I was simultaneously mortified and proud to be driven around a small conservative town in a car covered with stickers proclaiming in red, ‘Don’t blame me, I voted ALP’ and the pretty bloody dreadful ‘Tammy’s got one, Mal is one’.

My attachment to the ALP has been as much emotional as it is political, but like a lot of people, I lost any real sense of belonging at the time of Tampa. I was deeply disappointed in my father then. I could not understand how he continued to support a party which was so clearly disconnected from the values that he had taught me were non-negotiable. My mother would have left, I’m certain of that. We fought about it, my father and I, in a way we had never fought about politics and values before. It was a confusing time, because we had never been separated in such a way before. You fight for change from within the party, my father said. Or you fight it from outside.

I had heard the argument all my life, but this time, I wasn’t convinced.

That was about the time his own, personal fight began, so I guess I’ve forgiven him for letting the ALP battle go.

Maybe all of this has coloured my reaction to Malcolm Fraser’s resignation from the Liberal Party, because do you know what?

I am maintaining the rage.

I thank Malcolm Fraser for his stand against the Howard government and I thank him even more for his stand against the possibility of one led by Abbott. But equally, I hold him responsible for creating a political environment in which a Howard government could exist.

Fraser’s government came to power driven by an unwavering belief in it’s own privileged entitlement to power. Whatever else they did or did not do, this was the foundation on which their power rested. How could the people of such a government escape a ‘born to rule’ mentality, how could they not learn to view the electorate with contempt?

It wasn’t an inevitablity. I’m not saying the Howard government is a natural outcome of the Fraser government. But I don’t think it’s any surprise that the one led to the other.

I have no scientific evidence for my belief, no psychological, sociological or even political insight. It’s just a personal observation. And perhaps it’s not even a very sophisticated way of thinking. Maybe I’m just clinging to my rage, because if I don’t, then that’s just one more piece of Dad that doesn’t exist anymore. An essential piece. Perhaps I’m directing my rage towards a man I don’t even know because it’s easier than asking yet another question of my father and my relationship with him.

Whatever the reason, I thank Malcolm Fraser for his continued commitment to human rights, but I harbour no fondness for the man.

No, really, thank you, but no

‘No, thank you,’ I said.
‘But it’s spend 8,000 dirhams between now and tomorrow, then get ten percent off the second purchase you make between Wednesday and 2 am.’
‘No, thank you,’ I said.

I think I’m the only person who has ever said no to her loyalty card. It’s nothing personal, I want to say. I just do not sign up for loyalty cards. Not the ten percent off every purchase, not the ones that get you invitations to exclusive pre-sale parties. I don’t even like the every tenth coffee free.

I get that some people love a bargain, love the thrill of the chase and so on. But see, I find shopping and buying stuff hard enough as it is. It is completely incomprehensible to me how people can ‘go shopping’ for recreation. I would say that about eighty percent of the time I go shopping, it ends in tears. Mine or someone else’s caused by me.

Loyalty cards just add to the stress. Demanding to be accounted for, to be considered, remembered. For me, loyalty schemes are just another one of those niggles, another piece of brain-noise I can do without. For a person who already over-thinks, this is an issue. If I had to think, every time I stepped into a shop, ‘But I shouldn’t buy it here, I have to buy it at the shop at the other mall, but then I’ll need to get back in the car…’ analysis paralysis, we haz it.

The only exception I make is for frequent flyer points. I am a member of two frequent flyer schemes. Which is why, after spending several hours online last night and the night before trying to book my tickets home for the summer (which will be winter – yay) I am bloody exhausted today.