err... blogging. yes. um...

Whoops! So, it's been a while. I wonder if anyone even bothers to look at this place anymore. Oh well, let's not dwell on it.

Many things have been happening!

I am, at long last, in the process of trying to obtain for myself a new means of employment. And it's looking positive. Obviously I'm not going to go into too much detail here but, yes, fingers are indeed crossed. It would mean a (possibly substantial) reduction in income, but it would also mean working in a creative industry for the first time in my supposedly creative life. I would no longer sense the acrid tang of stagnancy upon waking every work-day. I would no longer feel the dull ache of shame every time someone asked me what I do for a living...

ME: Oh, I'm still at the same place.
THEM: But haven't you been there for, like... ?
ME: Seven years. Yes.
THEM: But wasn't that meant to be, like... ?
ME: A temporary job between getting back from overseas and finding something I actually liked. Yes.
THEM: And now you've been there for...?
ME: Seven years. Yes.
THEM: That's longer than you were in high-school !
ME: Yes.
THEM: Doesn't that make you feel...?
ME: Like a pathetic failure whose life is leading nowhere. Why, yes. Yes it does. Thanks for mentioning it!

(Please note that the "them" in the above exchange merely represents the voices in my head. No-one I know in real life would be so rudely honest.)

In similar munkey-finally-getting-off-his-arse-and-doing-something-useful tidings, I am about to have a short story published in an anthology for young readers. I am but one contributor among many (deservedly) much better-known names, but still... my name in a book! A story I wrote being read by kids! Kids I've never even met! It makes me smile to think of it.

Some other, far more important news is that two of my loveliest, most wonderfullest friends have recently become parents for the first time. It's not my story to tell, of course, so I won't go into any of the gruesome details, but let's just say that my beloved friend had a particularly drawn-out and arduous journey through childbirth. If there really is an Intelligent Designer, I think she'd gladly give Him an enthusiastic kick in the head as thanks for His oh-so-clever ideas about how to get babies out of their mothers' bodies.

For my part, I am simply in awe. In awe that someone I've known literally all my adult life is now a mother. In awe of the fact that she and her husband have created this amazing, beautiful little girl (yes, it was a girl!) who, for a while, will be completely dependent on them. And I know that, as challenging as it will be, they are going to do brilliantly - are already doing brilliantly. I will get to watch as - under their care - this tiny, fragile life slowly grows and learns and reveals the wonderful new person who has come into the world. A new person, who never existed before! A new person who actually grew inside my friend and then came out !

It happens every day, all over the planet, but I don't think I'll ever really get my head around the idea of reproduction. I'm not about to write in to Oprah's Remembering Your Spirit segment, or cover my car with holographic purple stickers, but it really does seem to be almost a kind of miracle - a kind of magic.

On that note, I must drag my feet down to earth. By the way, isn't it lovely to be rugging up under umbrellas again!? I do love the change of the seasons. I find it most irksome when they all blend in together.

Sincere apologies to anyone who may have stumbled upon this here blog in search of structure or reason. How disappointed you must be. Fools!