Farty But Arty?

It seems to me that a blog should be about something; it ought to have some sort of core substance, a backbone that holds the parts together. I have no idea what this blog is about at all. I do have a profound urge to make a record of my recognition that I have no volition regarding productive work, and at least one correspondent has made wry comment concerning certain philosophical contradictions regarding my self-imposed brief. I have been spending time lately getting to know some bloggers in greater detail. Kristal, for instance, talks about her various problems with candour and a genuine lack of self-pity ... except maybe when she gets onto the subject of her witch-like mother in law! I find Kristal's dignified reporting quite humbling. More so because when I looked up the symptoms of her condition I immediately realised that I had it too.

Perhaps I am a hypochodriac. I already know that I am borderline autistic as a result of internet research consequent to reading Sharon's amazing blog. It really is a pain to be so ill without any actual symptoms to show anyone. The only time I've ever been close to a critical condition was when my appendix and I had to part company ... and then I drove nearly 180 miles in agony so that I could be operated on in my local hospital. It goes without saying that as an experienced hypochondriac I was certain of the symptoms and confident of the need for urgent surgery. This did make passage through the emergency department a bit tricky. I suspected that they thought I was a classic Munchausen's — even though I had a temperature that was dangerously close to 40°C — because my symptoms were so text-bookishly classic.

None of that explains in any way why I am now going to ramble on about equality and farting in baths. It all has to do with the way my mind works. Equality goes with farting for me. Years ago there was a TV show called The Equalizer. It starred the British actor Edward Woodward who like to joke that his name sounded like a fart in a bath. Since I first heard this weak joke I have kept the two concepts firmly linked together in what my mind uses for RAM ... the stuff that carries the trigger association memories that unlock the deeper and more important memories that I don't need cluttering up the front yard where I leave all the trivia ... the mental equivalent of junk mail. Also United Kingdom vernacular gives fart an extra meaning. To fart about is to fool around or fritter time away ... it is a little less sinful than bumming around. But that is a whole other subject. Anyway, I am farting around right now trying to avoid confronting an issue so it is time I stopped and got down to business which is, I am perplexed to note, a reprise of my last blog.

My post of haste the other day attracted a curious reply from Moogie. The comment was brief:

LOL! I was reading this and thinking, I really hope he's just kidding. You are, aren't you? Really?

Well first off I am a she. That may or may not explain all. If I'd read a similar piece and thought it was writen by a male then I might have found it potentially wrong-headed if not risibly offensive. The fact is that it was a simple throw-away comment. A passing thought that may be more relevant in my part of the world than in some others. There is in Britland these days a drink culture that as worrying because of the fact that so much drinking is done by so many young people as it is that half of them are female.

In the past — meaning my own youth — the guys were the ones who regularly got wasted; it was the men who got into fights when drunk; only males got arrested for public disorder. Yeah, I know that some females did it too and that most females got drunk — some more often than others — but the crucial difference was that women rarely became obnoxiously inebriated. They (we) retained a semblance of decorum; we might be smashed but not so out of it that we were willing to give up every last vestige of diginity.

So I am happy to nail my colours to the mast. In my part of the world there is every possible legal and social recognition of the rights of everyone to be accorded equal treatment. No-one seriously objects to women truck drivers or plumbers and no-one objects to male midwives ... at least in principle. Women have equal rights here, though a glass ceiling undoubtedly still remains. Of course there remain areas for improvement but the point is that progress has been made on a wide front and that the progress has been substantial. I, personally, have enjoyed many benefits from the more open and more equal society. But!

If equality consists in drinking myself stupid, in public, and having incoherent, antagonist confrontations with everyone I come into contact with until I finally keel over in a pool of vomit, unconscious ... then I say that is a touch of equality too far. Besides I am not sure that most of the women I know today are any happier than their grandmothers. My grandmother never worked a 70 hour week in her entire life; I have and I did 90% of the cooking and washing and vacuuming because my partner was working an 84 hour week at the time. My grandma also made a point of taking Sunday off; I didn't have a Sunday off for ten years. It was choice. Mine. I wanted the money. Guess what? It didn't make me happy.

So I'm sorry Moogie but I was being mostly serious in a flippant sort of way. My comments were vastly broad brush-strokes, intended purposely to be seen as sweeping generalisations. However I recognise that in my haste I saw more merit in the words than perhaps a more sober eye might have done. Damn it now I just admitted to being drunk in the morning. (Joke!)