Monday, April 1, 2013
On taking things seriously.
Happy Easter everyone! I hope you all had a great time. It seems like all the people I follow on Twitter are hardcore atheists all decrying Easter as some sort of festival of the zombie apocalypse. And chocolate.
Novel.
The kids and I go regularly to our local Anglican church, so naturally celebrate Easter as, you know, well, Easter. And chocolate.
But whatever floats your boat is ok with me. I know others don't feel this way but there you have it.
Live and let live people!
Anyway, on a not completely unrelated point, I was watching "Miranda" on ABC1 last night, after Call the Midwife. Oh lordie. Sunday night TV viewing has come into its own again. I love Miranda SICK. Just in case you don't know what I am talking about here is a You Tube clip I found...
This clip is kind of like a physical representation of what I am trying to tell you in this blog post.
The older I get the less capable I seem to be of taking shit seriously. I mean, it is starting to WORRY ME!!
I work in what can only be described as an Ancient and Venerable Institution that is Very Important and Serious and Important in its Serious Ancientness. I don't talk about it here because I don't want to lose said job. But I will say this.
I find it hard to take shit seriously. The older I get the less respect I have for authority. There is something particular that happens to me when I am confronted with Earnest Serious Suit-Wearing Important Serious people, particularly at work, like in the lift or something. As they frown to themselves, stroke their ties or fondle their Ipads, I have to resist the MOST OVERWHELMING TEMPTATION to tell them a knock-knock joke, rub their belly for good luck, give them a noogie on their bald heads or make farting noises with my armpit whilst simultaneously commenting "How about those BRONCOS, eh!?" or "Did you watch Game of Thrones last night! Phwoooaaarrr!".
Don't panic people because I do generally maintain a façade of respectability and refrain from doing these things but OMG! THE TEMPTATION!
Back in the day I used to worry so much about the IMPORTANT SERIOUS NATURE OF MY WORK that I would sometimes sob in the toilets from stress and anxiety. I was the MOST diligent student at school, and lived in constant fear of getting in trouble from the teacher, constant fear of not getting into uni because that would be LIFE OVER PEOPLE, constant fear of THE PEOPLE AND WHAT THEY THOUGHT OMG THEY HATE MEEEE and so forth.
Now I'm worried I've gone so far the other way that before you know it I will be putting whoopee cushions on people's seats and giving presentations in the form of Interprative Dance.
Am I the only one this has happened too? Anyone else tempted to give your boss a wedgie in the lift and then run away giggling? Are you overly familiar with your superiors at work like me? I don't know what I'm going to do next. Think of me tomorrow. I will be sniggering in my office like a teenage boy who just dacked their mate in the playground, trying to resist the urge to tickle one of the suit-wearers until he farts.
DISCLAIMER: PEOPLE FROM WORK WHO READ THIS BLOG, PLEASE NOTE I AM ACTUALLY A REALLY SERIOUS FUCKING SMART AND HARD WORKING DILIGENT BLOODY EMPLOYEE AND I TAKE CARE OF BUSINESS LIKE THERE'S NO TOMORROW
DON'T WORRY!!!
Phewwww...hopefully that's covered it nicely.
Have fun at work tomorrow, readers! You know I do!
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Oh Slapdash, I love this post. I've also spent some time recently in Anglican churches too (my mother was ordained last week) and talk about Easter reflection in my post tomorrow along with baby vom (it's not disconnected to me). As for the atheists posting, it's only the intolerant atheists I find alarming, and as for rubbing my superiors's tummies like their Buddhas, NO, but now that you've put the idea there ...
ReplyDeleteI love this post. I adore some tie-wearing, I-pad using people but there are always those who use it as an extension of their wankerism and anyone who takes themselves too seriously SHOULD READ THIS post. I love it I love it I love it. I also appreciate your self-awareness. Isn't (gasp!) middle-age great?
PS I voted for your blog in the Australian Writer's Centre comp - I would have voted for me AS WELL, but didn't read the fine print ABOUT ONLY BEING ALLOWED TO VOTE ONCE before it was too late. How's that for a back-handed compliment? :)
Edith this is the best comment EVER! I have no problem with atheists, half my family are atheists, but I am not one. That is so cool re your mum!!!' Wow! Also, I voted for youuuu toooo!
DeleteStupid phone I meant Enid blarghhh!!!
DeleteEdith, Enid ... both old ladies :)
DeleteHaha!
DeleteYou've just described my life! The world is full of kill-joys so I try to ignore them and do my own thing. At work it's good to have a few partners-in-crime who you can have a laugh with. The trick is to also be brilliant at your job, always make that the thing they can't criticise you for. Then spread laughter and wedgies like there's no tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteYes!!! This. Exactly. Helps that I'm only there part time so I don't have to constantly be there. xxx
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Best. Spam comment. Ever.
DeleteHow to clean a pizza stone stain? - OMG - I'm there!!!!
DeleteOh how I wish I worked with you!
DeleteI get uncontrollable urges too, like this one time .... hmmm, maybe I'd better not put ideas into your head, you seem to have plenty already.
Do the belly rub though, go on, you know you want to ... ;)
I'm jealous. I've never got such a mad yet totally-relevant-to-the-post comment.
DeleteAnd now I have something else I have to clean that I never knew had to be cleaned. A pizza stone! Need to check that I actually own a pizza stone, but...
I know this comment is so hilarious I let it slip through the gate!
DeleteI am picturing a display of interpretative dance in the hallways of work tomorrow. Could make for some light entertainment. K xxoo
ReplyDeleteI'll see what I can do...
Deleteoh go on I dare you !
ReplyDeleteSo TEMPTED!!!
DeleteWhat is that meme that floats around the interwebs: Something like: Don't take life too seriously, it's not like you're going to get out alive. Looks like you've got it covered. Nice work.
ReplyDeleteOn another note, I completely forgot that the new Call the Midwife series started and I'm devastated...I need to see your interpretive dance to cheer me up.
'
Oh Ness you must try and see it on Iview, it is just DELIGHTFUL!
DeleteI so love the idea of the interpretive dance presentations. Life is way too short to take it too seriously. Love your style hun! xx
ReplyDeleteThanks SOnia! I have always been very serious and ALL ABOUT THE ISSUES MAN but recently it has ALL CHANGED!
DeleteI love, love, love Chummy. And Miranda.
ReplyDeleteAs a "pillar of society" I am expected to behave in an ernest and Thoroughly Serious Manner. People get all who-ha if I joke. If I make trivial chat about trivial things, like clothes, people seem to think it means I am Lacking In Depth. Oh how I long for someone to come up and make a knock-knock joke.
I can be shallow and deep, take my work seriously and myself not, talk trash and seriously.
Maybe all your co-lift travellers are stroking their ties to look like serious people but are actually singing "There's gotta be someplace better than this, and when I find some kinda reason to live..." inside. (If you haven't seen the show Beautiful People, can I strongly recommend it!) Then again, maybe they are actually taking themselves seriously, just like the people who can't understand a person can be both funny and serious.
Give me knock knock jokes, but please no interpretive dance. It is just too deep and metaphoric.
You are quite right about the serious people maybe not being serious on the inside. But I do suspect if you knew the people I was talking about you might be fairly sure I was right HA! Miranda and Chummy are THE BEST. I love them both SO MUCH. THanks for commenting Lucinda!!
Deleteyou are hilarious! we must follow different people on twitter because my feed was full of babies in bunny ears and links to feminist articles...you know, mixing it up is good for the soul ;)
ReplyDeletethere is always a place for interpretive dance though. always.
Oh I get the feminist articles too Bron!!! Haha. Thank you for commenting an sharing my love of interpretive dance!!
DeleteThis puts me in mind of that jokey proverb about the office being like a tree full of monkeys. The monkeys at the top of the tree look down and see nothing but monkeys but the monkeys looking up see nothing but a**holes. (of course I know its a generalisation BUT.....)
ReplyDeleteOh gawwwd it's true! You're terrible Muriel...
DeleteOh my goshness I know what you mean - I've always had so much trouble hobwigging with the Big knobs at work. I feel like i need to sit on my mouth in case ridiculous things come out or I start giggling at something like an eyebrow. Because really, they can sometimes resemble caterpillars. Thank goodness for being unemployed. I can be completely, totally, splendiforously ridiculous tous le temps!!
ReplyDeleteKim how can we make MOnEY out of our mutual love of the ridiculous??? For the love of God how??????? There has to be a way.
DeleteDammit I think you can only get paid for BEING ridiculous. Not for loving it. I'll write an 'appreciation of the ridiculous' course and start teaching it... See where it gets us...
DeleteI think we can be ridiculous. You should see the weird photos I got M to take of me the other night. They might make the blog as a sort if out takes series.
DeleteI was nearly thrown out of a yoga class - at the end where you do mediation. I couldn't stop giggling.
ReplyDelete"Feel your nostrils. Your right nostril. Follow it up the passage to the top of the nose. Feel the left nostril ...."
If there is ever a time to pretend to be a serious, pompous person, it's during mediation.
Surely it's not only me?
Oh god yes- that happened to me too, in a preggie yoga class no less. We had to plug each nostril with our thumbs and breaaathe. I nearly had a baby I laughed so hard. Oops.
DeleteI can't do yoga for this reason. I don't get it- they don't let you ride on an amusement ride when pregnant should it result in premature labour, yet they let people do pregnant yoga? I'm off to buy a pizza stone...
DeleteI used to be like this! Now I am so desperate for quiet and peace that I am more likely to be the one who falls asleep in two seconds.
Delete