Defamatory? Or just offensive?

My neighbouring editor and I are having a disagreement about a letter I printed.
The writer borders on both our areas and I printed it and he chose not to.
I've included the letter so you can appreciate just how extreme it is, especially in a conservative parochial community where, even when you have extreme opinions you're expected to shut up & keep them to yourself.
At the same time, I believe that 'shut up' ethos will stop people replying to the letter, which is a real shame.
When we had an equally viralent letter about immigration and refugees I was heartened to see the horrified response from our community.

We currently have a sector of our society (clutching at straws of respectability) seeking State legalised marriage, to cloak their sordid practices of sodomy and formication.

At least these warped souls are ware that they do rate abysmally low, in respectability stakes of humanity.
They also have the audacity to shrug off the scourge of ‘Aids’ as no big deal!
These folk need to be reminded that the Holy Bonds of Matrimony were devised for the natural procreation of our species, to raise children in a safe, stable and caring environment.
It has been said very, that “No man is an island unto himself.” On the contrary – we live in a tangled web of humanity and we all contribute daily to the uplift, or the digression, of mankind?

When I saw this letter I wanted to gouge my own eyes out but I was taught, very early on in my career, that if the media's role is to represent everyone - then EVERYONE gets a say.
Not just the people I approve of or agree with. Not just the reasonable people.
Even crazy, nasty, horrible people should have (and don't really have) the right to free speech.
And I wish there were a few more openly gay people in my community to give this woman the public serving she deserves.
But instead, I think I'll just get my car keyed one weekend for printing it at all.

Revelations

I took the family to church on Sunday (I know *gasp*) for their friends' nativity play & Sunday School wind-up.
And yes, this was the church that announced my pregnancy in the daily prayers a few months back to a chorus of gasps.

So I'm sitting with friends (in the front pew, even better) and the kids are telling the story of Mary's virgin pregnancy complete with sandwich boards that read *gasp* and *wow!* and renacting the gossip that would have obviously accompanied the great biblical event and meanwhile my friend is pinching me and sniggering, while I kick her back in the ankle.

So as Mary and Joseph in their teatowels and smocks struggle their way to Bethlehem (despite the controversy) I notice that of all the kids, I don't know the little 'Mary' and I lean to my friend and ask 'Who's Mary?'
The smart arse turns to me with shocked eyes and replies, in a stage whisper: 'Well, Mary was the lady who gave birth to our Lord Jesus'
...and that was it, we spent the rest of the service sniggering like six-year-olds.

If church was always that fun (and had Christmas carols every Sunday) I might reconsider my atheism.
I especially liked the bit where, when we finished our huge pooled lunch of angel cakes and home-made quiches I ventured outside to find my son leading the game of cricket between all the parked cars.

It was a standout day of loveliness that cured my severe case of Bah Humbug-ness for a while...Merry Christmas!

Va-va-va-BOOM!

oh my god my tits are ENORMOUS

I can't see my belly let alone my feet
& I am literally EXPLODING out of clothes

god, finally gravity (or at least whatever zeppelin force is buoying these puppies up )is back on my side & it's totally wasted
i have to sleep on my back to avoid the altitude-induced nose bleeds but then I have nightmares about being pummeled in the face with volleyballs

The Great Aussie Bogan Bus Adventure

I didn't go overseas as a high school student, because I was at boarding school with a scholarship.
I didn't travel as a uni student because I was working & volunteering while I studied.
I didn't travel after uni because I had a good job, and then I met my husband-to-be, and then I had kids...so I've been waiting for the kids to grow up to travel and WHAM! I'm pregnant and the cycle starts again.

But I'll be buggered if I'm going to keep waiting.
I'm pretty sure in a year or two I can shove two almost-teenagers & a not-quite-toddler in a bus and spend a year freelancing, blogging & living cheap.
It's time to assuage the itchy feet...if all my careful plans and secure job are going out the window, well I may as well enjoy the view on the way.

Not for the squeamish...

I've been reading up on this gallbladder stuff & it's just frightening/fascinating.

& yet it all fits.

My being told off for being Vitamin D deficient (essential for baby brain development - isn't it crazy how you have to ask straight out, to have someone explain to you why something is important? do other people just nod & take their tablets I wonder?) fits with gall bladder disease

Caffeinated colas & fatty foods, mainly animal proteins & dairy, are danger foods - so it explains why vegetarianism worked so well for me.

Sunshine is also essential for the body to process Vitamin D - so with more work going on & me being less active & therefore outside less, voila! low Vitamin D

& for today's 'too much information' - shut your eyes if you're squeamish - if you don't process fat properly your poo floats. I just thought everyone's poo floated eh?

It's all very interesting when it all fits & you can see how it affects your body/health - now I just need the mental energy & enthusiasm to do something about it.

It could be worse...

My one night and one day in hospital left me with a terrible feeling of sadness.
As I tossed and turned (and constantly jolted the alarm on my IV - well who can lay still with their arm sticking straight out for 24 hours, really?) I could hear two voices, constantly through the usual din of buzzers, a burnt-toast fire alarm, phones, breakfast trays being rattled and nurses with their jolly voices and clumping feet and loud laughter.

Somewhere in the distance I could hear a little child's voice, too worn out to even really cry anymore, just moaning 'mummy. I want my mummy. mummy' over and over again.

And somewhere, a little closer, was an old lady who'd had a fall who was in so much pain they couldn't medicate her enough to make it go away.
Even in her sleep she was groaning and crying.

I may have gone into hospital with a pain in my chest, but I left with a broken heart.
I can't imagine being that alone and that sad.

Third time's the charm...

I was leaning over a hospital bed at 4.30am in the morning, vomiting, crying, shaking - and my first thought was 'oh God - I don't want to do this again'.
The only way I can describe the whole experience was labour, but in my chest, with no break between the contractions.

Turns out I have gall stones, or pancreatitis or both - and the pregnancy probably made it worse but it's probably been the reason for my back and chest pains sometimes, late at night, which I'd attributed to the curve in my mattress.

But the scary part was waking up clammy & shaking at 2am and convincing myself it was indigestion...and then having to admit at 4.30am that I'd have to wake the kids up, wrap them in doonas and shovel them into the backseat in the dark, drive myself up the road to hospital & admit that I wasn't coming to work.

The nurses & I were all assuming it was something easier to explain, like indigestion gone wrong, until I started vomiting mylanta & fluro-yellow bile everywhere.

I was desperately writing instructions for the local staff and the potential replacement as they debated whether to give me morpheine as well as the codeine.
I was messaging my boss and kept bending the IV in half and sending off alarms because you can't text without bending your arm, let's face it.
I was fighting the morpheine to make sure the kids were still asleep on the visitor couches and no one rang my parents before they'd normally be up, unless the kids did get up, or were upset.

...how am I going to do this on my own again?
How am I going to manage the midnight runs to hospital for rotavirus or high temperatures?
How am I going to stretch myself between 13-year-olds and 3-year-olds and their different needs?

And you know what broke me, in the middle of all the drama and the vomiting and the pain and the drugs was a nurse I know just a little, rubbing my back and saying quietly 'and maybe you're just a little bit stressed as well eh? maybe you've been worrying a bit'.
It's been a long time since I cried like that.
And when my parents came & picked up the kids I just turned off my phone, rolled over with my head under a pillow & let someone else deal with it all for a little while.