Dude of the week: Sean Maher

The delightful Sean Maher, who I will love forever for his involvement in short-lived sci-fi TV series Firefly came out in EW magazine this week and the interview gives you a nice idea about how completely balls it must be to be a gay man in Hollywood, where pretty much everyone wants you to stay in the closet ("My agent was also like, ‘It’s best if you keep your options open. Maybe bisexual?’") So naturally I'm slightly gutted that the chances I will ever get to sleep with Maher have dropped from 0.1 per cent to 0 per cent but you've got to respect a man with balls. Plus, you know, he's still kinda smoking.

Only 113?

Have I linked to this post, 113 Reasons To Lead A Barren, Childless Existence That Ends In Your Death, by the charming Tara Ariano before? I feel like I have but... fuck it, I want to do it again. From now on whenever someone asks me why I don't want kids I plan to direct them to this link and say nothing more.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Milo Ventimiglia (again)

If you've never seen the short-lived TV show The Bedford Diaries then I URGE you from the bottom of my heart not to do so. Although filled with a lot of very attractive people the central concept of the show - it follows the lives of a bunch of students who all attend the same sex seminar at Bedford University - is just too super creepy to get over.

It's not just that the sex class is RIDICULOUSLY unacademic but that the Professor who runs the class and is, I'm pretty sure, supposed to be cut from the awesome-if-unconventional Dead Poets Society vein, instead comes off as a total perv who gets off on asking his super hot students to make video diaries about their sex lives. You just KNOW he's "reviewing" those homework assignments with one hand. The stupid show even tries to convince us that this class is one that simply eeeeeveryone in the entire university really wants to get into, although exactly why that would be is a complete mystery. Hilariously although the class appears to consist of about 15+ people, the show only follows the lives of the good-looking ones. Every now and again you get a shot of the rest of the class - the ugmos and fatties, basically - and it's pretty clear why those extras aren't playing a starring role.

The Bedford Diaries is a really shit show, I guess is what I'm trying to say. So why then have I just sat through the entire first (indeed only) season? Two words: Milo Ventimiglia.

Milo has appeared on this blog once or twice before because he is an extremely good looking boy and if this blog is about anything it's about extremely good looking boys and the women who ogle them (me). I loved Milo in Gilmore Girls as the tough-though-very-short rebel Jess who steals Rory away from Dull Dean and loved him even more as Peter Petrelli in Heroes, where he managed to stand out even among a cast of super hot hotties by virtue of a)being the hottest of them all, b)getting to play an adorable character with a heart of gold and, even better, Issues.

The reason Milo's cracked another mention as a Token Smokin' Hottie now is that his work in The Bedford Diaries (which predates Heroes) just goes to show how impressive he really is, and I don't just mean his delicious bone structure. Even saddled with some GODAWFUL dialogue that I really can't do justice to here, Milo is the one person onscreen you just can't take your eyes off. The plot of this show is, as I say, completely ludicrous, and yet I found myself caring what happened to Milo's character, not just because he's hot but because he's a decent actor who has, most importantly, something nobody else onscreen does: gravitas.

Also he is really, really good looking.

Songs to which you cannot listen and be sad

Belle and Sebastian: "I'm a Cuckoo"

It's no secret that I love love me some Belle and Sebastian in a way that is largely unaffected by some of their, er, more questionable output. My love for B&S can't be compared to the way I feel about other, newer, almost certainly "better" bands because it's tied up with a lot of nostalgic memories and this song is no exception. For my money it is a near perfect example of what B&S do really well and rivals some of my other B&S favourites. Also, I'm a real sucker for cute dudes who run, so this film clip hits all my buttons.

Talking Heads: "And She Was"

It's embarrassing to include a song that once appeared - I believe - in Look Who's Talking, but this is pretty fucking good. Objectively I don't think it's the band's best song but Jesus it makes me want to dance around just a little bit every time I hear it.

DJ Fresh: "Gold Dust"

This is by no means my usual taste in music this is just one of those songs that can't HELP but cheer you up. If I'm getting ready for a night out but kind of, you know, not really in the mood, this is the song that I crank up. Plus, those two girls with the afros and the pulled up socks are fairly damn rad (yeah, that's right RAD - I'm bringing it back).

The Crew Cuts: "Sh Boom"

When I was much, MUCH younger (honestly, can't put enough emphasis on the "much") I had a huge, long-running crush on an older boy. Being pretty dopey I used to spend/waste a lot of time daydreaming about this bit of buttery bit of crumpet but because I was, as I may have mentioned, somewhat young at the time, instead of daydreaming about having hot, sweaty, monkey sex with said crumpet I daydreamed about the day when we'd get married and... dance to this song at the wedding. That may not have quite worked out as planned but I still really love this song. Plus, I should mention that it makes a truly inspired appearance in one of my favourite guilty pleasure movies of all time, Clue (seriously, that movie is gold and if you don't agree you should watch this and reconsider), so what's not to like?

Noah and the Whale: "5 Years Time"

Kind of the same deal as with Talking Heads: I don't think this is Noah and the Whale's best song or anything but it's the one that make me feel happy/want to run away with Charlie Fink. Although, to be fair, most things in life make me want to run away with Charlie Fink. (Just ignore this stupid excuse for a video, for some reason the official video won't embed and I'm not tech-savvy enough to figure out a way around it).

Tell someone who cares, Sweetheart...

Have you seen these ads for the Advertising Standards Bureau? I love how they've used a photo of what appears to be the prissiest little priss who ever prissed, like even the people behind said Advertising Standards Bureau think that anyone who can be bothered to complain about an ad is kind of a drag.

Look at me

You'd think that after two decades of wearing glasses, an eye exam would no longer freak me out. I have sat in that cool black chair too many times to count, alternately fumbling my way through that teensy tiny bottom line of text that I can barely see (sometimes, I'm ashamed to say, actually CHEATING: I mean really what's the point there exactly?) and judging the respective sharpness of two images that look, half the time, very very similar to me. I have gone through half a dozen pairs of glasses: the Harry Potteresque look in my early years, tragically long before Harry Potter existed; the giant blue monstrosities in late primary school for which I will never forgive my mother (she claims they were my choice - I demand proof); more recently a neat pair of black ones that I still like, even though I may well look back on them with abject horror in another decade or so. The point is, I've been wearing glasses and having dudes look at my eyes for a very long time.

And yet, both the prospect and the reality of said eye exam still freak me the fuck out. Given the choice I'd rather have a freaking pap smear and pay a licensed professional to get up close and personal with my good China (sorry for the visual, squeamish boys) than subject myself to another eye exam in the immediate future. Nevertheless, that's exactly what I did today and did facing up to my fear help cure me of it? No. No it did not.

It started badly enough when the optometrist (or was she an opthamologist? I don't know, let's just call her Ms O) asked me a simple yes-no question and I responded with a nervous 5 minute unasked for ramble of response beginning with the day I was fitted with my first pair of specs to the moment where I had walked in the door two minutes earlier. Naturally, being the kind of person who blushes when nervous/uncomfortable/embarrassed/self-conscious/running late/embarrassingly early/addressing someone on whom I have a crush/addressing someone on whom I don't have a crush/addressing shop assistants/I could go on, I was already by this stage an unappealing shade of dusky pink. And as anyone else who blushes as much as I do will know, just knowing that you're blushing makes you blush ten times worse.

Then the tests began and LORD do I hate the tests. The thing is... I never think that I can read the letters properly - I always assume that while I'm confidently reading "E... C.... H..." off the eye chart, the person monitoring my responses is snickering to him or herself and mocking my crappy vision. As a result I have developed a bad and really really pointless/actually quite destructive habit of remembering the letters when I see them with my good eye and sort of... recalling them when asked to read the same string of letters with my bad eye. I know, I know: I'm only screwing myself but my fear of having slightly-too-weak lenses is weaker than my fear of getting the answers wrong. This explains many things, including why I am a nerd and have always been a teacher's pet.

Those of you who have had an eye test before knows what comes next: a series of tests in which you're asked to distinguish between two images and say which is clearer. The nature of the image changes but this test goes on for approximately 300 years so that by the time it's finished you're desperately shouting "uh 2... no I mean 1... can I see 2 again?" If you've ever seen the episode of Arrested Development where Michael Cera's character George Michael (not the singer/songwriter) gets glasses then it's basically exactly like that.

It ended eventually, of course, and I celebrated by getting the hell out of there. I felt pretty good and having done the thing I'd been putting off for years, happily ignoring the reality that I could, in fact, see better without my glasses and the implication that CLEARLY my eyes had changed in recent years. But I was also disappointed in myself for being so lame and nervous, for blushing and sweating and stumbling over my words - most of all for pathetically trying to impress Ms O just like I did as a kid and I was more focused on getting the right answers than getting glasses that might actually help me to see the whiteboard.

Either way, I thought I deserved a little something something for my efforts so I went out with the intention of buying myself a book and returned with a celebratory (if highly unnecessary) Alannah Hill cardigan. Yes it is adorable, yes it was sort of an indulgent purchase I can't really afford right now and yes I did blush when the sales girl made a cute comment about my cute earrings. Sometimes I worry about myself.

Possibly the most joyous moment of my weekend:

When (alleged trash-hating) Boyfriend Andy defended the integrity of 2006 teen rom-com John Tucker Must Die with these immortal words: "Honey, you can't really start picking it apart."

Not mother?

No Ruprecht, she's not our mother.

This isn't supposed to be a depressing post, honest

I think that one of the terrifying things about growing up is the day you realise that life doesn't have meaning: that, unlike a novel or a film or even a bloody good computer game, there's no purpose you're put on this world to achieve and nothing left behind when you go except what gets burnt up at the crematorium.

This isn't to say that your life has to be filled with despair and depression: it's still possible to have fun even if you know you're know part of someone else's greater plan. But it's still a sobering realisation that if you want to find purpose in your daily life you're going to have to work hard to put it there yourself. Some people find meaning through having kids, creating art or helping others. Some people just do their best not to think about it and muddle on doing whatever feels good, which I think is actually not a bad strategy. (Of course if you believe in religion, which you shouldn't because it's all shit, you may well disagree with all the points made above).

It's a subject I think about quite a bit, which is why I was delighted to see it covered by Sydney Morning Herald columnist Sam de Brito in recent column, a column he claims a friend said was the closest thing to a suicide note the SMH had ever published.

"Man, I'm gonna be glad to put this year behind me; wipe it off like a putrid paste I've pushed into the porcelain. And flush. If you read this blog regularly, you've probably discerned it's been a cracker of a 12 months for me, in which my relationship dissolved and I lost daily contact with my child..."

Regular readers might have noticed I've suddenly started banging on about de Brito, of whose work I am a longtime fan, far more than usual. The reason for this is that de Brito has been going through something of a crisis over the past nine-odd months after splitting up with the mother of his child. This has presumably been a pile of shit for him but it has also thrown up some really interesting - if sometimes depressing-as-fuck columns - for the rest of us to read.

A case in point: the column linked to above is effectively a plea to readers for some suggestions about how he can get some purpose back in his life.

"I care about very little except my daughter now, and my life feels increasingly like a misty vale, pierced every couple of days by the sunlight of her visits.
Everything else? I can take it or leave it. Now, some people might say I was depressed, but I've been this way, deep down, for the better part of 10 years, and I've still found direction, meandering as it usually was.

"Now? I truly don't give a f---, except to pile up cash to provide for my daughter's education and future... Don't go telling me to "see someone" - I've done that. And no, I'm not bloody suicidal. I've taken the friggin' pills, I've talked to the shrinks and you know what? It boils down to the same question for me - what's the point?

"They all say the same thing - every book and counsellor and concerned friend and guru says the same friggin' thing: we are the architect of our own salvation, you have to give your life its own meaning. And that's where I've lost the thread, for now. Yes, the point is my daughter, but that's 19½ hours a week.
There's got to be more than that."

For once the comments left behind by readers are every bit as interesting as the column itself and well worth a read for anyone feeling a bit directionless and lacklustre of late.

The uncomfortable conversation with the woman giving me a facial that preceded me spending an obscene amount of money on various ointments and gunk

Her: So what's your skincare routine?
Me: When you say 'routine'?
Her: Do you cleanse, exfoliate, moisturise?
Me: I.. moisturise. I wear sunscreen-moisturiser during the day.
Her: Good. Anything else?
Me: Uh. I soap.
Her: (Silence).
Me: I... use soap.
Her: Right. Now, you're going to feel a slight itching sensation...

Things I plan to do on my Holiday in Perth but probably will definitely not do on my Holiday in Perth

1. Start/finish The Great Australian Novel.
2. Start/finish cleaning my car.
3. Read books to improve my mind, as opposed to loafing around with David Nicholls and copies of Vogue.
4. Renew my gym membership.
5. Get out of my pajamas.

Charming, much?

In other news

Some people don't deserve to fuck nerds.

Things that are more exciting than this blog when I haven't written anything all week

1. Anything.
2. See above.