AliceFraser
patreon
I’m back! (ish), and Salon 41 details.
🕑 Added 2021-11-27 23:55:52 +0000 UTCHallo lovely Patreonites.
Andy Zaltzman (of The Bugle) is in town for The Cricket (his one true love), and so he came over to record a podcast with me on Friday. It was very strange and nice. I also did ABC radio show Thank God It’s Friday that day (also with Andy). It was absolutely exhausting, particularly as the ABC radio show is recorded standing up in the studio and it turns out standing up for an hour is quite hard for me right at the moment. In sum, it was a delightful day, if probably slightly faster off the starting blocks of back to normal than I was really ready for.
It was my first proper work since part of my body turned itself inside out and produced a new person, and though five weeks on I’m still physically feeling the impact of that body-tornado, psychologically I am excited to be creating other things than just human life.
I have finally decided on a name, by the way, though I haven’t decided what her On The Internet Name should be, so do ply me with your suggestions.
Today would be my mum’s birthday, so with a baby who is a month and a bit old now, it is a day full of thoughts. My mum would have loved to be a grandmother. I will play some of her music to my baby today, from the cassette tape of her band Phaedra that I found in our house many years ago and recorded old school onto my computer. For those who listen to Tea With Alice, it’s their recording of Elsie Thompson that I use as my intro/outro music.
Here, if you want to listen yourself.
https://www.dropbox.com/sh/4qvbuvh4hufvhvb/AADV24ii6QePqP68VybNEvica?dl=0
Today is also the day I wrote on my calendar as the “End” of “Maternity leave”. I scare-quote those words because it’s all pretty arbitrary and I’m thinking about what any of that means in the context of the way I work,
On one hand, I’m an artist. I don’t get paid leave or superannuation or any of the things people with bosses get. In exchange I get extreme flexibility. I can start writing with a baby asleep on me (as I’m doing now), as long as my brain stays vaguely functional. It won’t disturb my coworkers if I take a call with a person attached to my boob, or if I smell funny, or if I have to take a break to change a nappy. When she wakes up, I can ask her what she thinks about my jokes and get her feedback. (Feedback is what I call it when she gets some sort of digestive something while feeding and vomits angrily onto my nipple - a degrading experience, if luckily quite rare).
She doesn’t think much about my jokes or writings at all, of course, still figuring out what her own face is, but you’re meant to talk to them a lot because parental speech helps with their brain development and I never know what to say. I don’t know if it still contributes to their brain development if you just switch on one of your own podcasts in the background and go make a cup of tea, and the Parents’ Helpline didn’t have an answer for me. I think they’re more geared to answe questions from people who are panicking about a rash or worried they’ll drop their baby in the shower.
Live work will become exponentially easier somewhat later down the line when I’m not on call as a milk bag/life support system. Apart from that it’s just figuring out the balance of how to make work I can be proud of, without neglecting this amorphous quality of parental attention that builds the fragile but essential invisible girders of the human psyche. Which is an ongoing process, forever. And you don’t really find out if you did it okay or enough until they end up being able to have nourishing secure human relationships as an adult.
That said, I have this gig on 9 December at the Comedy store in Sydney. Which I was stupid to agree to but am now interested in doing as an artistic experiment. The only survival instinct I had when I agreed to do it, apparently, was to put in the blurb that it would be a mix of new and old material.
So if you’re in sydney, do come along. It will be incredibly weird for me, and possibly incredibly weird for you too, depending on what comes out of my mouth. I’d advertise it as an improvised gig but I don’t trust my improv skills right now, when most of my riffing involves saying inane things like “this is your foot! Is this your foot? Yes it is! It’s your foot!” Which would make for a very existential show, but possibly not in the way that I’m used to delivering.
I did have a good friend ask me why I am rushing back into things and don’t just take the time to be a mother, and apart from the don’t get paid if I don’t work element, I think it’s in part because I got used to … keeping on when other things are happening? With mum, if I’d stopped my life when things at home were hard, I’d have pulled a handbrake in my mid teens and never moved forward. Jokes about comedians being forever children aside, that didn’t feel like an option then, and it’s probably pathologically not an option now.
I am lucky enough that I can podcast from home, writing jokes in the spaces in my day, and stretch out my work as those spaces open up more.
We’re back to recording The Gargle next week - I hope you’ve enjoyed the special collectors editions. I’ll be easing back into Tea With Alice at my own pace, and I’ll be doing a Salon this coming Tuesday for all you lovely Patreons. It will be in UK time to start with, because I feel more confident in being able to control my mornings more or less.
Salon Details
Tea With Alice Salon 41
Time: Nov 30, 2021 08:00 PM, London
Dec 1, 2021 07:00 AM Canberra, Melbourne, Sydney
or your local equivalent
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86865441146?pwd=K2x2QUNBUTBuVjFWd1BtMlMwYS94dz09
Passcode to follow for Patreon subscribers closer to the time.
Xx
A
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As ever, if you like anything I do, please share my work around. It helps.
Comments
Ah you’re lovely Rachel! See you at the next one that suits!
Thankyou! Some are just for the few
I _loved_ the Thor Heyerdahl joke in the Bugle!
hope it's going well, sorry i couldn't go to the salon! It makes total sense to do however much or little activity or work etc that you want to and can and need to for finance etc in balance, proper equality is when it's genuinely your choice. The 'take your time to be a mother' implies you stop being one when you're working (similar vibes i guess to how some people are agin 'full-time mum' as every parent is full time a parent (and as I say in my at work signature, not 'full time' at their Full Time Job. I only do paid work 37 out 168 hours!))
As far as I can tell, most people end up reflecting on their own parents parenting a lot through the process, either understanding more and forgiving them for failures or replicating or counterbalancing their choices
It's awesome to have you back, Alice! A staggered return is also acceptable. Whatever works best for you and your 'grumlet'. I'm throwing Camellia (as in sinensis) into the ring, although it really needn't be a gendered alias (I suppose flammingo is definitely out of the question...?). I'm enjoying your reflections on motherhood, and how intimately entwined this new state of being is with the memories of your mum. I wonder whether the transition and associated emotions from being a recipient of motherhood to becoming an agent is one that all new mothers share similarly? Take care x
Donald McCoy
How about Pandora for an internet name?
I'll limit myself to five then: 1) Bonds Wondersuits last ages. They'll fit long past their suggested age ranges with feet out. Kmart stuff is unbelievably cheap and mostly quite acceptable. Used baby clothes shops exist. 2) We had great success with self settling from 4 months on and know quite a few others for whom it pretty much saved their lives. All babies are different though. You may need to experiment with different approaches. We used Save Our Sleep as a guide but I ceremoniously threw it in the bin every time it was stressing my wife out. 3) Sleep and breast feeding consultants exist. We needed the latter and ended up expressing and topping up to get his weight on track. Always trust the expertise of a specialist over GPs, CAFHS staff and relatives who haven't had a baby for more than a decade. 4) Routine is very helpful later on. At this stage just giving them a consistent day and night cycle so they learn when they are supposed to have their long sleep(s). Don't worry that they always have to sleep in their bassinet. Pram, papoose, car seat, on you – all are fine. 5) Singing All The Little Bunnies can somehow instantly stop a 4-18 month old from crying under almost all circumstances. This is magic not understood by contemporary human science. Baby sensory videos (YouTube/Hey Bear) are also a good distraction when you just need to clip their nails or something. Important bonus tip: You are an excellent mum and you have good judgement about when to ask others for help. This isn't a tip so much as a truth that is easily lost sight of when things seem to be going wrong.
I will take all tips. I call her the grumlet
So far I’ve just been spraying milk, so only using the Haakaa LadyBug passive collector, which is enough. As I get more mobile I’ll start exploring options
I love the little preview of each of you in the Zoom window, taking the photo of the other :) We call our nearly one year old practically anything but his name. "The Wiglet" in utero. Latterly, The Chap, The Child, Mister, Squishington, Goozberry, Guzman, Slobberdam, Spottyfrog (when wearing a specific Bonds Wondersuit) and Monkeybear just to name a few. Basically, anything you find funny that is descriptive of their current behaviours. You wean is currently at the stage we described as "Noisy Houseplant". I must say, I'm resisting a powerful urge to dump paragraphs of unrequested baby tips in here. It's surprisingly hard :/
J. Schuberth
Also, thought of your internet baby names when I was looking at these incredible photos of women friends on Public Domain Review. I just like these ladies: The Babbs family. https://publicdomainreview.org/collection/babb-photographs
J. Schuberth
Welcome back. I'm sure you know this, but the patent for the breast pump for women is right under a milking machine for cows. "Milking machines are still cited in breast-pump patents; mechanically, Medela’s Pump In Style has much in common with DairyMaster’s Swiftflo." Not sure if you're doing that route, but I've never felt more like a mammal than when pumping. The Atlantic had a great article: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/10/a-brief-history-of-breast-pumps/280728/ and so do the New Yorker: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2009/01/19/baby-food
Mike Machin
It was such a delight to unexpectedly hear your voice, and your fabulous giggling, on the trailer for the Urncast. It was an even bigger thrill to realise that you would be on the latest Bugle. It's so great to hear you in humorist mode. As for a suitable internet baby name, how about just plain Baby?
Richard Dunn
mini-me, minion or Fraser 2.0 could !aybe work for names.
So far I’m afraid I like my baby too much to give her a rude name.
Thanks for the suggestion! Just messaged her!
My I suggest Fanny for the name? It manages to be two different rude body parts geography dependent... Or maybe I'm the juvenile one now? 😉
Peta Thames
On The Internet Name suggestion: Phaedra?
Martin Rodgers
Can you please do a Tea With Alice with Felicity Ward? I hesitated to ask while you were on “Maternity leave” but with a certain cricket podcast going on, it seems like a good time now. There's also that other thing - the reason for your well earned break. Congratulations! Also, I really enjoyed hearing you again on The Bugle. Your podcasting studio looks great. I love the pic.
