So this week I caused a car crash while crossing at a pedestrian crossing, I fell down my stairs in some ridiculous heels and I got a lovely note from Barry Humphries who was passing through New Zealand and liked my last column. (Barry Humphries!) I went to 46 & York with Cactus Kate and bumped into Carrick Graham - no vast right-wing conspiracy there because, contrary to the tidy narrative, most things happen in life randomly not due to any sinister plot or even for any reason at all. I walked home in my ridiculous shoes before Cactus ended up making headlines by attending the gig where the Prime Minister's son was DJing.
I also went to Steve Braunias' launch for his book Mad Men, about the election campaign. A "dirty, shocking, weird, sick, toxic, unbelievable, profound" and very funny book. Buy it.
And yet: I can't help noticing the election is over but Dirty Politics is dragging on and on and on. It seems we find it hard to let go, even when there are far more important real-life issues which need to be addressed.
So how do you know when it's time to move on from traumatic events? I have been asking myself the same thing. I am tired, bored, impatient and nauseous with frustration at still being sort of broken. I'm done with it. I don't want to write about my ennui or whatever you call it. But paradoxically the only way I seem able to move forward is to spend two hours a week in therapy, essentially looking backwards. Apparently, sometimes in order to move forward you have to look back.
Incidentally, any civilians out there, I don't advise you to tell anyone you are doing therapy: strangely, you never get a good response. I just put it out there because, well, I don't know why really. Maybe that's part of the problem. I just know that for me, it is helping.
This week I discovered I don't have an inner child; I have an inner teenager. She is aged about 16 and is a right cow. She only comes out at random times - which is why people who know me well often feel like I am two different people. Not exactly Sybil, but it is a form of what's called dissociation.
My 16-year-old self is frozen in her rebellious rage, she is a bit of a Goth still, and likes to drink and make trouble. I'd like to give her a right telling-off, but apparently I have to listen to her and befriend her instead.
You have to embrace your shadow rather than denying that she exists. The way forward only comes from accepting the dark side.
Maybe I'm not the only one who could do this. Does Cameron Slater represent our collective shadow?
So-called primitive societies often designate certain members of the community to "play" the collective shadow, becoming scapegoats. But the shadow is not just out there, it's in all of us.
We need to accept that, sprinkle some fairy dust and let it go. I am.
Judges are out of touch
Can we try to choose some new members of the bench who keep up with what is happening in our fast-changing world?
The High Court judge who heard the Kim Dotcom bail breach case didn't know what cloud storage was.
"Cow storage?" he said. Or perhaps he was a little hard of hearing, which is bothersome in another way.
The Herald reported the faux pas as if it was just an amusing aside, but I find it somewhat disturbing.
The judge hearing the Cameron Slater case was "baffled by the mysterious workings of the Twitter machine". How can we have legal brains on our highest courts who are so out of touch with what is happening outside the legal beltway they don't know how Twitter works?
Let's appoint some judges who are acquainted with the dirty, real, grubby, mean world where most normal mortals live.
