Finding the words....

Every two weeks at work I have a little mini-appraisal with my boss.

It's all quite lovely, really. We go and sit in a meeting room for a couple of hours and talk about all sorts of things, and oh...bollocks to it.

What I was going to do then was that habitual "guess what I did at work today" thing, which would mildly bore anyone who doesn't actually work with me (and lord knows, if any of you do, I'm so screwed), elicit a few polite comments and drift into beige eternity.

I don't know where my rant has gone. I think my rant is broken. What if this is it? What if I am now one of those people who has "musings" or "meanderings"? What if I spend the rest of my life doing the internet equivalent of one of those Round Robin letters that smug people send to a carefully-chosen roster of people they want to show off to every Christmas, detailing how Juliet passed her A Level in Being Nice to the Poor and has decided to opt for a career with the WRVS (at least until Hugh proposes and the babies start to arrive), and how Clive just got that pay rise (but he worked terribly hard for it, you know) so little Arabella can have that new pony as a well done for getting such a good school report. What if that's all?

I hope you're all looking forward to it. I can tell you all about the interesting things I get up to. There won't be any swearing, as it won't be that sort of blog any more. I won't say nasty things about people any more, as it's just so destructive. I can post pictures of quilts I have sewed, flowers I have arranged and Neighbourhood Watch meetings I have co-ordinated.

Actually, fuck that.

Tune in next time for why I think Madonna and her Incredible Performing Vagina* have finally gone completely mental. Egocentric, shrivelled old bag. If she wanted that little boy so badly, why wasn't she the one comforting him on a long-haul flight? Why wasn't she soothing him through the press scrum that met them at the airport and necessitated his first glimpse of his new "home country" to have been through a fog of grey blanket? I bet Michael Jackson is feverishly colouring in the sleepover invitations as I write.

I mean, it's all well and good. I'm not denying that she can give a child a better start in life than perhaps their natural environment would allow. Well done her for donating money to support the orphans that weren't "suitable" (how do you decide that, exactly? Is it like a dog show?) from the ones she presumably inspected in Malawi. Who knows how long she had spent researching the whole thing - maybe it just seems like she stuck a pin in the bottom half of a world map, flew there, looked over a roomful of impoverished children, pointed and uttered a haughty "that one" and swept out to go and wait for a visa somewhere a little less unsavoury. It just seems a little unpleasant that there are so many underprivileged and disadvantaged kids in care in the UK and USA** who maybe equally deserved a chance, but who were bypassed in favour of the publicity-laden pity fuck of a heavily leveraged inter-country adoption.

* I wonder which leotard she wore? Gots to make sure you look serious, that's all. The dove grey? The pinstripe? Did she spend the whole meeting muttering "must not simulate masturbation in an orphanage..must not simulate masturbation in an orphanage..."

** DISCLAIMER: I understand that there are underprivileged kids living in poverty and danger all over this crazy mixed-up world who all deserve a chance. I just think that if I was going to adopt, I might try and get over the cute-baby thing in order to try and help a child who might be that little bit older, but who might already have lived through a Care experience that would make the thought of a permanent family all the sweeter. I don't know Madonna's motives. S'my opinion, thass all.