Toilet paper.

"Look Mummy, I am wrapped in the toilet paper!" Iris laughs, invisible except for her muscular little legs.
"Oh. Iris." I say, tiredly, humourlessly, but fondly.
Slightly disappointed she returns to the loo to unwind.

I'm sorry. I wish I hadn't suppressed the laughter. I wish I'd let it rip. She'd laugh if I wrapped myself up and capered half naked for her.

Perhaps it's the connection with the only place in my life with a lock on the door. The children use the toilet paper for things other than its intended purpose. It's not wasting, it's using; they are exploring ideas with it. It's a cheap resource, usually it is not even rendered useless, merely less pristine. We have more, they use it clean so it's not a health risk. But sometimes I get disproportionately distressed by it anyway. I try to guess when it might matter and just put the toilet paper up high so that we won't come into conflict un-necessarily. And that's why I didn't laugh; I was amused this time, but I didn't want to reinforce playing with toilet paper only to become a shrieking ogre about it some other time.

I told her aunt.
"Is she Mummy's mummy then?" she asks.
I'm still groaning on the inside.

I traded my blog for ...

I have been thinking about Geeks on Dates, and I've even got a little further on writing a few of them, but not far enough on any particular one. I could try to blame the virus or viruses that have been plaguing my partner, or whatever it is that has been plaguing my children (each other?), also, I've been going out, I saw both Ed Byrne and Dylan Moran (I doubt they saw me). But really it's probably the new overlocker.

... a new overlocker.
"Yeah, I think I saw a geek crawl out the back door."
sew sew sew.

My next dilemma is, now I'm here will I stay, I should be making fabulous circular skirts of happiness for the children? Just think how much the utter joy of a three year old is worth when stacked up against a snort of laughter in a thirty year old or two? And that snort's if I did anything but read.

Also, while we're doing a little philosophy, what about those choosy fruit flies with their free will? How bad does that make insecticide? (Seems like there might be a brain region evolved to produce "spontaneous variations in fly behaviour").

Baggage claim.

My lovely physiotherapist said I wasn't getting better enough and referred me to a podiatrist so that if I was doing something in such a way that I kept re-injuring myself he could help me fix it. I am and he is. I've been running wrong, of course I've never been taught and I don't do it in order to annoy anyone, frivol ACC funds or even to make my team lose because our women are slower than the other teams' women, but it's still wrong both injurious and inefficient.

So I have work to do, it starts with exercises. I'm supposed to run while I do some of them. It transpires I can't think about my exercises in the game, I'm too busy thinking about the game. I also break into sheer stage-frighty panic at the very thought of doing them anywhere public. So I'm trying to fool myself into doing them around the barriers of my sports-phobia and my tendency to avoid effort in situations that may lead to failure.

I throw the disc to the other end of my lawn, I quickly look around to check no-one's watching, I run, slowly and awkwardly, thinking of all the instructions I'm trying to follow, to the disc, I pick it up furtively glancing around to see if anyone's started watching, I throw the disc to the other end of my lawn, I glower around to check no-one dared watch, I run, fuming at my incompetence in following this kind of instructions, to the disc, I pick it up and pull it viciously into the bushes at the other end of the lawn... after I while I get sick of myself and jump to the disc, trying to use my bottom as if it had muscles in it, Iris jumps with me, she gets to the disc first, grabs it and runs away from me laughing; effortlessly and visibly using her beautiful glutes.
I swear, "Bum!"
She falls to the ground giggling.
We start again.

Schadenfreude.

I took housemonkey to Emergency last night after he'd leapingly caught a disc with one hand and landed rolling his ankle off a shoe. The new easy-to-find location and airport-styled waiting room have not changed the experience significantly since I broke two metatarsals, a finger, and sprained my own ankles about three times in the seventies and eighties. We arrived before 11pm and didn't get out until after 2am but, compared to my imaginings of doing the same thing for Hazel or Iris, it was a pleasure. Fey humour is much easier to listen to than shrieking, and if he thought I should have been magically making it better instead of just sitting there he was too polite to say.

Valiant little people.

Hazel's been coughing at night during the weekend, and last night she complained about her ear hurting, Iris had lots of nightmares last night and was hot to the touch. I took them to the doctor this morning. Turns out Hazel's been much more valiant in her wonderful bee performances than I realised, she has quite a rattly chest but the show went on anyway. Iris also has a chest, and some other part of her body (not ears, maybe tonsils, I'm a bit short on sleep and can't remember), she's quite floppy today.

This is what DVDs were invented for.

Bother that Paris.

My achilles tendon hurts.

The physio said I can't play Ultimate for a week (it'll be fine and fairly calm on Saturday and Tuesday, you can plan around that), alas.

Last night's game was the first official one I've played in (hasn't the weather been awful on Tuesdays), it was fun and we won convincingly because we played better, even I helped, so not being able to run for at least a week is rather saddening.

I am still allowed to play catch though, and I got to do that tonight.

Disconnected, sick, I watch web videos in bed.

• Ruben's Tube: Fire in a tube that listens to music.
• An amazingly camoflaged octopus, Sean's nasty suspicious mind says it's morphed.
• I've seen this one before but it still entertained me: six drummers play an apartment.
• More percussion? It's an animation.
• This is kind of funny in a naked finger puppet way.

Feeling a bit more perky and interactive: Build a kaleidoscope, shave a yeti, throw a ball.

Then go to sleep.

Sick woman.

Splat, splooosh whoosh, drippity droppity and all. Rushing to the toilet, farting, glad it's a false alarm as the children have used up all the toilet paper in the house.

Sean heroically looking after children, making drinks and buying toilet paper.

But do I have any mid-void urges to use the Swiss ball? No. I think I might take another nap though.

Processing.

Get up in front of a crowd of 70 people of any age and entertain them with a story? Sure, I'd happily hop up and start making it up. You want to get married in a week and you'd like me to write and perform the wedding ceremony? I'd confidently start typing. Do the section on baby-feeding for your ante-natal class? I'd be there, breast in hand. Write 200-5000 words on a topic of your choosing? Oh, yeah. Run a creativity centred team-building exercise? Love to, I've got some ideas I'd like to try. Sing acapella in front of a group? My voice would waver, but I'd have a go. Need a brave friend to deal with a white-tail, challenge your basic assumptions, or tell you an uncomfortable truth? I'm your woman.

But I have been a craven girly dweeb when it comes to sports.

You might not remember but my new year's resolution this year was to enjoy playing backyard sports for a healthy body and to avoid passing my sporting neuroses on to my kids. That is, I decided that it was time to get over my fear of organised physical games with rules and success conditions and I started off okay.


And then, this winter, Sean was invited to come along to Ultimate by Housemonkey, Fraser and Mash. They and a whole group of role-playing friends that we've been wanting join played in Karori and practice on Ian Galloway park and it all seemed so nearby and friendly, and I felt like I could imagine the team, with its clever and argumentative women, including me and not being a strange and pitiable token feeble wierdo they'd taken on as some kind of charity mascot. And they're all so encouraging yet blackly humourous, just the kind of people I like.

So I started working through some stuff to get to a point where I could join in a practice. I played tag with Hazel while they were playing (I can run where people can see me do it), I watched bits of games and helped my kids keep score (I can follow the basics of what's happening in a game, even without commentary), and we threw a frisbee to each other almost every day of our holiday (I can throw and catch).

So tomorrow, weather permitting, I'll have a go.
Wish me confidence.

She's so cool.

Hokio is still the softest cat ever there was, she caught a garter snake today, we all looked at it, sniffed it, let it twine around our fingers, and let it sine-wave off into the flower-bed.

NYC, NY.

We drove to New York today. I didn't know I'd miss them, but there really are two great big missing things in the skyline. It looks like this:


We went out to dinner, the people who sat down behind us were from Hamilton and Te Awamutu. Now we're in a two bedroom apartment with 9 people in it. We're four of them, Michael and Kahn live here, Michael's parents, and Kahn's girlfriend's over. Fortunately, for Manhattan, it's huge. The Empire State Building is just out the window.