Disclaimer - I’m sure it’s been said before and in a funny way. 

GWB for sure thinks the ‘one man’ who brutally invaded Iraq is D*ck Ch*ney. Smooth brained fella. Feels no culpability past his nose. 

I think it would be funny if Joe Biden hears that Anthony Albanese’s nickname is ‘Albo’. I think he would try to use it a couple of times but someone would work out that he sounds like he is saying ‘elbow’. At some point he may ask if he can call him Tony, to still have a bit of fun with it. Convivial! Diplomatic! Buddies! 

But it’s a bad idea because the name Tony Abbott is still living somewhere in Joe Biden’s memory of Australian government. He may at some point refer to Tony Abbott as the prime minister of Australia. Or just Tony Albanese. Would be a fun day for News Corp at home and abroad. Was it a gaffe or a nickname???? An insult or proof of mental decline???? 

some reporters asked joe biden about his relationship with the new prime minister of australia as he was about to board a plane. avoiding embarrassment for everyone involved, they did NOT ask him to name the new prime minister.

Voted in a neighboring electorate. Had to do the declaration thing. 

Went back to get the ballot put in its envelope and there’s a bloke filling in his own declaration, which is sitting on top of his UAP How to Vote. He gets stuck on his electoral-roll address. Has no idea where he’s enrolled or if he’s enrolled at all. 

I reckon that scene might be played out around the country today. Guess there’s a downside to targeting people with a ‘fuck the lot of them’ attitude after all.

Did you ever get an unwanted text from the UAP that actually mentioned enrolling or updating your address? Not exactly their brand, hey?

@shawskankredemption

Mum and I started watching The Knick. She asked who was in it, I said Clive Owen. Six episodes in, she asks who Clive Owen is playing. I tell her and she says ‘wow, he looks really different than he did in Zoolander’. 

Tagged by @kidhedera - thank you! 

Favourite Colour: 

Olive green, navy blue. Things in that tone-zone. 

Current Reading: 

- I am listening to Elena Ferrante’s Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay, the third Neapolitan novel. Really enjoying. TY public library e-audiobook section. The novels adapt really well to the form. I think I am more engaged than I would be reading off a screen or pages, because I can’t rush the way I otherwise would (I mean, I could increase the speed but it doesn’t have the same effect). I feel like the novels are known/lauded enough that I don’t need to describe the recommendation.  

- I am eye-reading Samuel Shem’s The House of God. Asiel gave this to me a few years ago after their medical training in hospitals. It was described as a sort of Catch 22 for doctors. After spending NYE with some young Docs and seeing the strain after years of covid, the mood to crack it off the TBR pile struck. About 30 pages from the end now. 

Like Catch 22, my head compensates for the problematique sexism. In C22, I took the opening statement about the reverend as fact. Here, where I needed to I imagined all of the male characters were dykes. It doesn’t stop some of the behaviour being sexist, but it does make the dynamic more interesting to me (and when I can’t, I get too pissed off to keep reading a supposedly classic book. See Portnoy’s Complaint). 

There is some good humour and insight. The male characters within the House can be both tragic and absurd. There are some Irish cops who do security in the ER, and fill the Rosencrantz and Guildenstern/Vladimir and Estragon style role. It is frustrating that virtually no women within the hospital get that consideration. They are sex objects for the doctors, including the narrator, but Shem fails to extract insights from them that the narrator can’t see (which is what is done elsewhere, when the narrator is too myopic to see what is in front of him). I feel less articulate commenting on the racial issues in the book, but noticed that while the white sex object gals get names, the women of colour in servile roles do not. It is definitely most comfortable and compelling when looking at the Hospital’s role a the Jewish Hospital in New York - the history if why it was established and how that reflects on the make-up of the doctors and patients. 

The narrator’s fiance is a very sympathetic and intelligent figure, but is outside the titular House of God and a straight man, trying to return the lead to reality and human emotion. That’s an interesting contrast to C22 of course - the people going mad in this book could leave.  

The House of God is set in the year preceding Nixon’s resignation and was published in ‘79, so it’s also interesting to consider the medical technology and wisdom of the time, how the practice of medicine had changed for the author’s generation.  The way that the interns are treated by the medical establishment, and the impact on their mental health, is certainly the most compelling and upsetting feature, because it is too similar to what you hear about today. I have a couple of chapters to go and I’m looking forward to speaking about it with Asiel, as few years on from their own experience.

Last Series: 

- In terms of good TV I watch with mum in the evenings - Yellowjackets and Station Eleven. That was a great adaptation. 

- In terms of often trashy TV I watch on my own - The Dark Side of the Ring, about scandals and tragedies in professional wrestling, on SBS on Demand

Last Song: 

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - Cheated Hearts. My alarm. VERY excited to have a ticket to their show in July. The last time they played Melbourne was like two days before I moved here in 2010, and I have been pissed off about it ever since. 

Last Movie: 

I finally watched Venom a couple of weeks ago. It was fun! Lobster tank lol. 

Sweet, Savoury or Spicy: 

Ooh. All. But like... sweet and savoury combined? Love. Savoury and spicy combined? Love. I guess savoury is the most common denominator, but I have a whole sweet shelf in my fridge so I can try different fancy things. 

Currently Working on: Life admin. Neverending! 

Tagged: If you are reading this please do it and tag me in it because I would like to see your answers! People are interesting and I don’t know who has already done the thing! 

And Greta, not sure if you saw my response - it’s pilates. I think I mentioned before on the blog?

I started on my physio’s advice after getting out of the moon boot. 

They did free online classes during lockdown, and since then I’ve been going to the council gym. I like it there because it’s a pretty diverse age range and ability range with participants. I’m not surrounded by super buff people in expensive athletic wear (though there are a few of those. I myself have two pairs of $7.50 gym pants from kmart). 

It works for me and the ADHD because it forces me to concentrate, so I don’t fall on my ass. Set class times are good for the enforced external routine (but in a location that is really easy to get to from my house). And the exercises themselves have multiple levels that the teacher demonstrates. So there is both a sense of achievement and continued challenges. The pay off is my body not feeling like a sack of angry marbles day on day. It is way more rare for my neck to flare up now, and I know how to stretch effectively if something is feeling stiff or angry. 

Meanwhile, zumba has gotten my mother jacked. I feel like if she flashes her biceps at our downstairs neighbours they may reconsider how loudly they crank the bass on their stereo. 

1. Last month mum and I went to the zoo. In the aquarium section there is a cow fish. In the next tank there is a sea horse. My mother, pointing, says ‘Sarina! A horse fish!’

2. Discovered on Saturday that I can nearly do the splits. Would have been voted ‘girl least likely to’ if that were any sort of poll in high school. 

3. Balance still shocking. Still slowly working on it. There is an 85 year old lady with Parkinsons in my Saturday morning class who puts me to shame during balance exercises. Given that my ADHD meds may increase my chance of getting some of the ole Parko myself, I reckon I oughta keep chugging along with it and hopefully by the time I am her age I will have her strength and stability. 

4. Two weeks til uni goes back. It’s now two years since I completed a unit. Fuckin covid. Hoping some of the psychological skills I’ve been working on can help with building a sustainable study routine. 

5. One of the young lib creeps from student politics back in the day was outed as a neo-nazi, after filming himself burning an Aboriginal flag last month.  It’s fucked with me a bit emotionally. It’s not like his fucked up behaviour stood out among his cohort. It’s not like they weren’t praised for that behaviour and dominant in their club. It gave them a sense of belonging. When journos talk about radicalisation with someone like that, I can’t divorce it from that reinforcement he got from his peers and people in power back then. I want to know the current views of the people he was associated with, and whether they are capable of any form of self-reflection. Have they reconsidered anything, or are they working their way up in politics or business with better privacy settings and an understanding of mainstream propriety and presentation? 

Those years were so stressful and emotionally volatile. These guys were fucking caricatures of themselves. The antidiluvian alt-right. It was a BIG club. Not everyone in it was involved in student politics but they had the numbers to control it. And it’s a sandstone uni. That club was filled with people from fancy schools and fancy families with fancy careers ahead of them. 

6. It is Valentine’s Day and I started the morning with my psychologist. Last appointment was Xmas Eve. Both of these times were coincidental, she books out many months in advance. But it is FUNNY. Ugh, I gotta get a date. Not, like, today or for today but generally. Yeah my conversation is stilted post-LD but whose isn’t? I’m bored with not dating. 

I tried wordle after hearing the word for weeks but worrying I’d go down a rabbit hole. I like puzzles!! 

I wonder if Scott Morrison’s had a Covid Booster shot. His first Pfizer was back in February and he is... out there. I’m not wishing him ill! I’m just saying... he is not at peak protection right now. 

My gyno on Monday ‘your hormone levels may be... fucked, leading to the mid-cycle bleeding and endometrial thickness’ (paraphrase). ‘Consider mirena IUD when we put you under for polyp removal. I know you have had a bad experience with progesterone pills but this is a much more mild dose and won’t have you bouncing around like this’ 

My psychologist today, after I mention the possible effect of the fun new hormone stuff on my mood: ‘There are bodily effects to feeling anxiety the way you do and not responding to treatments that work for neurotypical people. A lot of my patients with ADHD who have been dealing with the effects of that chronic stress on the central nervous system have [series of conditions dealt with by gynos]’. 

Ooh, in good news, when the gyno realised I wouldn’t be able to afford to get the surgery done privately she bulk-billed a session I was expecting to pay $250 for AFTER the medicare rebate. 

I wish I could just start a group chat with the gyno, psychologist and psychiatrist and ask directly ‘Will targeted therapy for my ADHD assist with stress in a way that will get my hormones back in check?’