2.15am

Hmmmmm. Sitting here with one cat on my lap, typing, unable to sleep. Today is a holiday in New Zealand. We're celebrating the birthday of our Queen. On one level all it means to me is another day off where I can do some more decorating. (As an update, I've spent 4 of the last 5 days decorating - have finished the living room and halfway though the kitchen).

Did you know cats can fart? A true fact, just discovered by personal experience.

On another level, I do wonder why the fuck we celebrate the birthday of an elderly woman in England, who, through an accident of birth, is a Queen. I mean I know the history of it, how New Zealand claimed by the English as a colony and all that. But, over 150 years on from that, our ultimate head of state is still someone in another country? Ponder on that!

I'm not big on the nationalist thing, but hey, let's at least try and act post-colonial here.

Deb's just come in, unable to sleep also. She's finding it increasingly harder in the late stages of pregnancy to sleep. They say that in addition to it just being hard to sleep that pregnant, it's also the body starting to prepare you for lack of sleep when the baby arrives.

I wonder if my using a term like "post-colonial" comes from reading slantgirl's website. I've just discovered it recently, and it blows me away. From the opening page with a still from "Chung-Kung Express", to the journal and essays, I'm entering a different world to my own. In between wondering why a middle class, middle aged, white boy such as myself likes the site so much, and wondering if it's something I'm allowed to like, I dive into the politics, feminism, sex and rock 'n roll, and come out with a smile and an awake brain. Go visit, it's good.

With the living room back in some semblance of order, I can play the stereo again. Well, I can once we move all the kitchen stuff that's in there at the moment back again! Anyways, I'm wondering, when the baby does arrive, just how to provide the best musical education possible.

Questions like, "At what stage do we play the Sex Pistols?", and, "How can we ensure the child does not like heavy metal, or AOR, or jazz fusion?" play around in my head. It's a heavy responsibility.

Ya got any answers? Send me a note.