Reaching a Happy Medium

So I've been single and childless for two nights and what does a usual wife and mother do on single and childless nights?

WATCH MOVIES!

Last night (that's Friday night) me and ma homies (see? I'm younger too) caught Scorsese's latest offering The Departed and I was very very happy that I got to see it. Leonardo Di Caprio looks like a real man at last instead of like a teen with stubble, and his performance is gripping - I enjoyed it more than him as Hughes in The Aviator.

Then tonight, finding I had another night completely to myself, I joined a few friends out for coffee and conversation and we ended up at Pea's house for a TV marathon.

It reminded me of my days during uni in Perth when I was working at the premier video rental place (Mosman Video, now in an old church gallery building in Glyde Street, Mosman Park) in the city where you could find the best collection of arthouse, festival and commercial films for rent. It was an education and had the great perk of employees being able to take home any movie we wanted to watch. That's where I attempted to educate myself on Fellini, Antonioni, Tarantino, Tornatore, De Niro, Kilmer, Day Lewis and Reeves (Keanu, or Canoe as they pronounced him there). During the hot summer weekends I would watch James Bond-athons and drink freshly juiced fruit like pear and strawberry, kiwi and apple, and put lemon juice in my hair during the breaks to try to make it look sunkissed (I never stayed in the sun long enough for it to work). Dalton was my favourite though the Sean really is Bond.

So anyway, tonight, being surrounded by friends and being well fed and fussed over by Pea, it felt like being a twenty year old where there was still someone else taking care of me (the real stuff, like making my food and making me comfortable), and I had nothing to think about except my own satisfaction. We watched a terrific TV series called Medium starring Patricia Arquette and it really, really is fantastic. (we got through 6 episodes)

And now it's almost 5am and I just watched a movie at full volume, and I haven't put away any of my clothes or cleaned up properly in the kids' disgusting play area and I feel great.

I'm telling ya, all this personal freedom is making it really important to get some help around the house because being a stay at home mum is making me real lazy and my tools are getting rusty (I'm talking about my brain and its facility). Whenever I get a taste of it, I drop the ball and start thinking it's okay to live in a sty and not think too much and just read magazines. I need to be able to have my own life to myself sometimes, on a regular basis, not in snatches on odd weekends when everyoe is absent - then it becomes escapism and that is really addictive.

So, the title says it all, reaching a happy medium.

By the way I have Pea's entire 5-season collection of Remington Steele that I want to get through without interruption, which I could do while everyone is around but that would mean no dinner and no huggies after falls and all that kinda psycho stuff I can be prone to if left unaided. See you at the other end of Steele.

Lovey, C