The Dining Room Diaries – The Nellie Melba edition

by missmaudy

I have returned. Again. After a brief hiatus. This is not the first time I have run off for a bit, and – well, it remains to be seen if I am in fact fully back or if this is just a partial return to the sphere of sharing my mindless drivel with an unseen audience. Man, I am the queen of philosophicalnessness today. Fear not. I shall return swiftly to my normal shallow and meaningless. Suffice to say I have been having what is best described as a Moment. Or two. Maybe three. Or, well, however many weeks we were in the Hokey Pokey Lockdown this last time. In and out up and down bloody hell, make your sodding minds up mateys. What rule is it again? Who goes where? Masks on what?

Yeah, this last lockdown, my brains and I did not do as well as we have in the past. Of course, work got hectic, and doing that stupid course I got suckered into added a completely unneccessary layer of drama to the whole shebang. Add in a return to school at home for a term and supervising a recalcitrant 15 year old and you have a recipe for splosions of the head related variety. But I did discover a word for what I have been feeling.

Languishing.

I have been languishing.

A lot.

“Languishing is apathy, a sense of restlessness or feeling unsettled or an overall lack of interest in life or the things that typically bring you joy,” 

Yeah. Languishing.

Meh-ness.

A state of blah.

I read about it in the New York Times (yes, I am fancy) and when I read it, I was all oh yeah. That’s me. I am languishing. Fuck. It’s nice it has a name. It is also nice that I am not the only person that’s been afflicted with a thick coating of ennui. But ennui is quite the swamp. And one can drown a little in a swamp.

So yeah. Meh. Hence, no blogging really. Can’t be fucked. About anything much to be honest. I start the weekend full of ideas and enthusiasm and by 10am, I’m like meh, do I have to? Well, actually you lazy fucking trollop, you do have to. Assuming going free range is not on the agenda…Or, I suppose you could just buy more underwear. That would work just as well, and I don’t even have to get up off the couch. Well. I have to get up off the couch to get the parcel from the front door eventually, but eh. It can wait. Or someone will come in through the front door and pick it up for me. Or walk inside and tell me there’s a parcel by the front door. Yes. That has happened. I am not the only lazy fucker at my house. I basically skipped September. Diary is blank. Mind is numb.

But there comes a time when one reaches the point from which one does have to resurrect oneself and get ones elbow out of ones lower orifices and do a spot of bridge building, and get the fuck over oneself, and do something or other that sparks a bit of fucking joy. Believe it or not, applying furniture polish to a set of drawers is something that sparks a little something something and well. It’s a start. Also ended up with a clean dunny that day and a dunny that does NOT smell of swamp really does spark a hell of a lot of joy.

So, consequently, I am dragging my slightly more substantial arse off the couch, and I am attempting to get back into the swing of everything again. Sort of. The couch really is quite alluring. Also, I’ve had a pretty good book (or two) on the go. And pineapple Freddos. They are a Very Good Thing. Ahem. Made a couple of decisions about the obsessing with covid cases (stopping the obsessing is probably good) and attempting to be steering clear of the cesspit of negativity that is the tweeter. Also, may have broken my cardinal rule of not engaging with strangers on the interwebs. It was civil-ish mostly, but yeah. Different perspectives of the same sort of thing but painted with different sized brushes.

Righty-o then. Backed away from the strangers, stopped obsessing over the covids, ran out of pineapple Freddos… What next? Doing a bit of shit I enjoy or shit that makes me feel better, mostly. And that stupid course. Well. Crikey Moses, that was a bit of a debacle. Finally finished the fucker, and next time someone says to me “you should do this course”, the short answer will be something along the lines of fuck right off!

Been painting a bit and drawing a bit and well, I am pretty shit at it, but once I get going, it’s very soothing. And crocheting because full nana mode has been entered. I have definitely not spent any long Zoom meetings this week doing 212 popcorn stitches. Definitely not. I still have about 50 to go, so there you go.

Reg and I have been watching old episodes of “Who do you think you are?” which got me all inspired and shit to stalk a few more dead people… Might have a line on ma great granny who died under Mysterious Circumstances in the mid 1950s. Allegedly. Now, great granny was from all accounts a bit of a mole. BUT I don’t know if she was a bit of a mole because her husband ran off to the War in 1915, leaving her at home with four little kids, OR if her husband ran off to the war because she was a bit of a mole. Suffice to say he didn’t come back, and she was left raising four kids on her own. I have been attempting somewhat valiantly to discover when/where she died for a few years now… all I had to go on was a note from my grandfather saying “Jane Smith (yes, that is actually her name) died in Kent I think. No idea when but a couple of years after we came to Australia”. Thanks, mate, that narrows it down. So, I’ve dropped a couple of quid on a death certificate for a possibly rando Jane Smith who appears to be of an appropriate age who died in the right location. However, considering that nobody in this family moved more than 20km from home until my grandparents got on a boat… Who knows? Four business days and I can find out if I have wasted my loot. But bloody Jane Smith. Fuck me swinging. Jane’s big sister ended up marrying some bloke who was not only a bit of a dick (his ex-wife allegedly had an affair with a prince – yay, something interesting in the family tree, but his divorce papers suggested he was a pompous git with a high opinion of himself) and he was also her cousin. I give you the tip, trawling through old newspaper records is quite enlightening. I discovered all manner of things about my grandfather who was a bastion of virtue. Just ask him. Petty criminal, gaol or army, your choice, mate. Illegitimate child…And they talk about young people today. Well, I never.

Oh, and I’ve been having a Social Life. Lordy. Last time I was supposed to have a Social Life, the whole universe went into lockdown and that didn’t happen. It was a lunch. I needed to frock up. It was warm. I have worn nothing but pants for months on end. AND I have eaten too many pineapple Freddos. Houston, we may have had a frock related problem. Since that lunch I’ve managed a birthday party, a couple of Christmas lunches (one good, one not so much), Christmas itself (wheeled the Emergency Frock out again) and I have been invited to TWO parties on New Years Eve (neither of which are frock-worthy). But Mayhem is working, Reg is generally on call, and I am specifically on call New Years Day. It’s only for a couple of hours, and I get half a day off in lieu. But staying up late doesn’t go well with starting work at 7.45am so, it will be couple of wee drinks, pick up Mayhem and be tucked up in bed well before midnight.

Two posts in a day. Nice one, Maudy. This one may have been prepared earlier. There may or may not be a couple more half started half arsed dribblings from the last six months. Possibly not. But maybe.