Chicken Lady

(Mary Britton Clouses's photographs of her rescued chickens.)

3 weeks ago the Husband went off to visit some friends in Joburg and somehow procured himself a job installing a bathroom?  Having experienced a D.I.Y project with the man in which our marriage nearly ended installing skirting boards in the bus* and making a bed out of crates (the legs of the bed all faced different directions), I was a little alarmed by this development (and his texts repeatedly using the phrase ‘learning curve’).  As such I have developed a policy of the less I know the better.

While the Husband has been off playing plumber, I have been living alone.  After 3 weeks alone I have realized that I am less a Carrie Bradshaw single and more of a strange cat (chicken?) lady Singleton.  I tend to wander about talking to my poultry in a sadly one-sided conversation.  After they have responded to my cries of “Cooo-cooo-coooo-coooooek” they view me exclusively as a fast food outlet.  They have become so programmed in their twice daily corn snacks that should I forget to feed them I am want to find a beady chicken eye peering in the window at me, or chicken excreta on my doorstep.

As I hate grocery shopping single life has allowed me to avoid this unnecessary pursuit and hone my womanly-gatherer skills instead.  From the depths of my store cupboard I have created a smorgasbord of pasta/savoury biscuit/toast based products, washed down by an ice-cold beer or two (Atkins would be spinning in his grave at the levels of carbs passing my lips en route to my hips).  Initially I worried that my beer vice was the beginning of a slippery slope towards old soakdom.  However I only hit the sauce after 6pm and my single friend, J9, assures me that when imbibing alcoholic beverages alone one appreciates the experience more so it is in fact discernment and an experienced palate that I am creating and not an addiction.  I do marvel at the fact that whilst I am drinking beer and eating 2 minute noodles in bed over four back-to-back episodes of ‘Girls’ most of my peer group are wiping small poopy bottoms and putting miniature humans to bed.

Luckily I have the cult T.V series Girls to keep me company.  It is my latest in T.V obsessions following on from Madmen, Homeland and Breaking Bad.  My Breaking Bad obsession is still quite rife (I mean who doesn’t like to see a High School Science teacher turned Meth-cooking criminal bad ass in the spirit of Hunter S. Thompson?) 

Heisenberg says 'Relax'.

I made this little homage to Breaking Bad, using my newly developed graphic design skills.

Now Girls is totally rocking my little (and presently rather small) world.  Oh, the delight in finding a group of 20-something girls more confused and crazier than I.  How nice to know I am not the only one having a total an utter freak out about my place in this ever expanding world population 7 billion+.  Of course the 'Girls’ in question are muddling through their early 20s whilst I am hurtling towards my 30’s at an alarming rate.  I think my present chicken lady behavior may be a precursor to a turning 30 crisis.

The lack of quantifiable signs of success is causing me a little panic. If Facebook is to be believed everyone I know is getting married/nauseously happily married/having babies/excelling at their chosen careers/going on very expensive holidays/curing cancer.  I on the other hand appear to have misplaced my Husband, be technically unemployed and spend large swathes of my time wandering about with chickens in between making (bad) serial T.V. homage art?

Sometimes I wonder if too much choice is my problem.  While I thank feminists everywhere for burning their bras and cracking glass ceilings a niggling part of me wonders if maybe it would have been a little bit easier if the only life choices available to me where like in my grandmother’s day – secretary, nurse or housewife.  And here I draw on my Madmen obsession to ask if it wasn’t a little easier when suited and booted men earned the bread and called the shots, while ultra feminized women smiled and blushed and coyly teased till they had themselves a husband.

Of course I’d never want to play the 1950s housewife and I’m radically oversimplifying things - my grandmother was a housewife and mother of five who then went on to become a highly successful ball breaking businesswoman.  She and women like her have left me little choice but to take a big swig of my beer and put my big-girl pants on.  After all, brave people have ignited expensive lingerie and flung themselves under horses so that I might be a weird chicken lady, the C.E.O of a Fortune 500 company or a domestic science executive should I so desire and for that I am eternally grateful.

I should also consider eating a vegetable as I heard an urban legend about a university student who lived on a diet of beer and toast and caught scurvy. I’m guessing malnutrition is probably not the feminist ideal.

*The Husband and I inhabited a bus for a while - complete with carpeting, skirting boards, bed (with legs pointing in different directions) and wood burning stove.  We also lived in a tent for a month, but that is another story.