Master Nine: What if there’s a fire in our house, Mum?
Me: We get out. Fast.
Master Nine: Would there be time to get a few little things first?
Me: No. Get out. Fast. (Thinking OMG WHAT???!)
Master Nine: Does fire burn everything? Even metal?
Me: Pretty much. It melts metal.
Sometimes I have the strongest feeling someone upstairs is laughing at me. They’re hanging about, devising crisis after crisis to throw at me, just for kicks. Then they watch me doing my headless chicken routine. Their latest idea: let’s make her shift house with only a week’s notice. What, she’s coping? Hmm. Let’s throw in a sick kid as well. And work that is critical and can’t be delegated or put off. Mwah-ah-ah. Cackle. Snort.
Thanks, cosmos. Thanks a blinkin’ lot.
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It seems incredible to me that ten years has already passed since 9-11 stopped being my friend’s birthday and became instead a symbol of terrorism.
Ten years since I woke to images so horrifying, so emotionally overwhelming that I struggled to comprehend them.
Ten years since I waited by the phone for news of our cousins, who were in transit to the States (from New Zealand). Ten years since I went into work, wondering how I could possibly answer the questions I knew my students would have. Ten years since I, thousands of miles Read More…
Call me ambitious, but ever since I embarked on this writing lark I’ve aimed to earn a living from it. In my own mind I wouldn’t have succeeded as a writer if I wasn’t a) published, and b) making a career out of it.
Which was pretty stupid, really. I mean, hello. How many writers can say those two things? Even published authors (go you good things!) can’t often say they’re able to live on their earnings from writing.
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You’d think God would be kinder to me. I mean, s/he’s thrown half a dozen significant earthquakes at me in the past nine months (hell, by comparison even pregnancy’s fun), and we’re being put through thousands of aftershocks, not to mention the loss of job security. Our city’s broken. Isn’t that enough?
I took on a part-time job. Just a little one. Hell, it barely even counts as a job! But it’s enough to let us have takeaways on a Friday night without a dose of the guilts – and that, folks, is a Big Deal for us just now.
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