Make it Work

It's back: reality TV show extraordinaire and one of my all-time favourite guilty pleasures, Project Runway, has returned to our screens. I know it's the done thing to be all snoot-snooty about reality TV but, as far as I'm concerned, Project Runway is The Shit.

Much of the credit has to be laid at the feet of the judges and in particular, I suppose, Heidi Klum, who fronts the show and does her best to anchor it. The thing to understand about Heidi is that she likes to wear very very short dresses. I mean, okay, maybe that's not The Thing but that's definitely A Thing you should remember about her. Do not try to make Heidi cover up her legs or suggest she should wear something that covers The Good China or you will regreat it. No, the other thing about Heidi is that she just seems like she's having a great time. While her fellow judges fret and frown Heidi constantly seems like she's just back in town after spending a week having cocktails and hot monkey sex with Seal on a beach somewhere. Even when she's ripping into someone she keeps that beautiful smile on her face and that twinkle in her eye. Plus, you know, she's really pretty. How does she do that?

Nina Garcia is also a hot piece of arse but in a different way. She's very glossy, very serious and can basically shoot laser beams out of her eyes/cut a bitch. If you want to impress someone it's probably Nina because unlike Heidi she's not half cut on pre-show cocktails and unlike Michael Kors she hasn't spent the past hour coming up with cutting one-liners. Nina actually seems to care about the clothes. In many ways this means she has the most boring, least rewarding role on the show but the net result is that she plays a great straight woman to a) Heidi's hilarity b) The Madness of Michael Kors.

Because Michael Kors. Oh. My. God. Never let it said that the man is not talented because, yes, he's a hugely successful designer. But on Project Runway Kors shines not just like a man whose love of fake tan has reached dangerous levels (although, seriously) but like a man who has just come off his meds. This is a man who is not afraid to stick the boot in when he doesn't like what the designers have served up. The following are things Kors has actually said on the show about designs created by designers who are standing right in front of him.

“She looks like a Pole dancer in Dubai”

“She looks like an Amish Cocktail Waitress”

“She looks like a transvestite flamenco dancer at a funeral”

“She looks like her ass is in her front.”

“She looks like Barefoot Appalachain Lil’ Abner Barbie.”

But it's not all about the judges. The thing that makes Project Runway good and the reason that I watch it is that the contestants actually have talent. I mean oodles and oodles of talent. The things they can do with a bedsheet or a bunch of plastic cups and some thread are truly mind-boggling and some of the clothes they produce in about 24 hours are staggeringly beautiful. Yes, others manage to churn out some Red Hot Messes but that, naturally, is part of the appeal. Unlike some famewhores I can mention the vast majority of designers also appear to be there to, you know, become better designers or to have a shot at their own line, as opposed to a burning desire to Become Famous. Accordingly the editors do, thank Christ, do their best to avoid endearing backstories until the last few episodes and concentrate on the competition and the clothes, which are bloody exciting enough thankyou very much.

And acting as a bridge between the judges and the contestants, mugging for the cameras and weeping when his favourites depart is the loveable Tim Gunn, mentor/voice of reason to the contestants and silver fox, if you like that sort of thing. I know I said earlier that Heidi does her best to anchor the show but forget that, it's Tim who really holds it all together with his nods to the viewing audience and the blend of devastatingly criticism and wishful-thinking praise he doles out to the contestants. Although he appears onscreen Tim somehow manages to be that best of all things: the snide friend, sitting on our couch and drinking wine, saying what a bitch that Gretchen is and how he hopes Wendy Pepper dies in a freak yachting accident. Grab us another glass, Tim, and microwave me some popcorn while you're at it - the show's about to start.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Bradley Cooper

Honestly, I'm as shocked as you are. I'm not supposed to fancy Bradley Cooper, I know that. I like skinny boys and he has muscles. His jaw is square and I like pointy chins. His skin is golden and for the most part I like pale boys, unelss we're talking Gael Garcia Bernal. And the hair? The hair is too much. I guess what I'm trying to say it that BC is... he's just too... look, I don't know how to say this but he is just too damn handsome, okay? And yet...

I fancy him.

I don't know how this happened but I do know when it happened: while I was watching The Hangover II. The film was... not great but BC almost managed to carry it off, such was the force of his charisma. When he smiled his smarmy-yet-dopey smile I swooned just a little bit. When he (er, spoiler?) got shot I suggested quietly that perhaps he should take off his shirt. Dude has gravitas.

Then I saw Limitless which, again, is not a fantastic bit of filmaking (but is, I think, a fairly enjoyable romp). Once again I was entranced by BC, who plays the lead role, alternately between a loser writer and a smarmy rich git. Sure, I swooned over him as a loser writer but I even fancied him when he was being a dick and driving sports cars super fast! Also for the first time it occurred to me that he's actually a pretty good actor. And the eyes! My god he has pretty eyes.

So now I don't know what to think - my world has been turned upside down and I'm left feeling alone and confused. I don't know who I am, what I stand for and what to believe in anymore. But I do know one thing: I fancy the pants off Bradley Cooper. And so should you.

Lady Solitude

I've always enjoyed being on my own and I don't understand people who don't. It's something I miss since I've moved in with Boyfriend Andy: because I leave the house in the morning before him and generally return to it after he is already home I don't have much time to myself. Even if I'm sitting on the couch, with BA in another room, I'm aware of him, wondering what he's doing, thinking about what we should do with the rest of our night.

Which may be why this excellent essay by William Dersiewicz, called The End of Solitude, interests me so much. Dersiewicz's essay is, more or less, an argument on the benefits of solitude. A much shorter, much more readable version of Walden maybe, but factoring in the influence of the internet and television age.

"If six hours of television a day creates the aptitude for boredom, the inability to sit still, a hundred text messages a day creates the aptitude for loneliness, the inability to be by yourself. Some degree of boredom and loneliness is to be expected, especially among young people, given the way our human environment has been attenuated. But technology amplifies those tendencies. You could call your schoolmates when I was a teenager, but you couldn't call them 100 times a day. You could get together with your friends when I was in college, but you couldn't always get together with them when you wanted to, for the simple reason that you couldn't always find them. If boredom is the great emotion of the TV generation, loneliness is the great emotion of the Web generation. We lost the ability to be still, our capacity for idleness. They have lost the ability to be alone, their capacity for solitude."

You can read the rest if you follow the link above. I should also mention that I stumbled onto the essay thanks to Sam De Brito's latest column for the Sydney Morning Herald, which you can find by clicking on the links on the right hand side of the page.

The sun'll come out tomorrow

I was having an awfully shit time at work recently. After more than three years doing the same job I was bored and my motivation was at an all-time low. I mentioned this to my boss (in slightly more delicate terms than I've used above) and he suggested something very simple and, in hindsight, very obvious.

"Book some holidays," he said. "You need something to look forward to."

He was right and not just about work. I know the healthy thing is supposed to be to live in the moment and neither linger in the past or obsess about the future. But the problem with this theory, for me at least, is that without anticipation I'd go mad.

I refer you to the late great Alfred Hitchcock (and as an aside: MAN does Rear Window still hold up as amazing movie), who said: "There is no terror in a bang, only in the anticipation of it."

Somehow everything is better tomorrow: In Tomorrowland I'll somehow be more successful, smarter, prettier and come into a large sum of money donated by a dead rich relative I never knew I had. That cardigan I ordered from ASOS will arrive and be awesome, that party next month will be better than all the other parties I've ever been to.

It's not really about cardigans, obviously, but if I didn't think I had something to look forward to I wouldn't be able to get out of bed in the morning.

The downside is that sometimes this kind of attitude translates into a complete failure to enjoy the good times when they arrive. The cardigan/party/holiday comes and I'm already anticipating the cardigan unravelling, the next day hangover or my return to work. Or I'll be in the middle of my Good Time, whatever it is, and start to wonder: am I having enough fun? Is this as good as I thought it'd be? What will I do next?

Tomorrow I fly out to Broome for the week for a much-anticipated family holiday: my first in years and years. But what should I be happy about? The fact that I'm sitting on my couch right now, sipping a tasty Rose and watching the Tour de France with narry a care in the world? Or should I be happy because I'm already anticipating the plane touching down in Broome tomorrow, wondering what my room will look like and if the Staircase to the Moon is really that awesome?

These are questions to which I have no answer. But I do know this: I am not going to think about bad it's going to feel when it's over. I am not going to think about how bad it's going to feel when it's over. I'm not going to... well, I think you get the idea.

I'm on holiday

Normal service should resume in, er, a week or so. Until then I give you smoking hottness of one Monica Belluci, just to make up for all those Token Smokin' Hotties my male readers have had to put up with over the years.

Hot Air

I'm so sick of talking about the carbon tax. It's getting to the point where I'm dreading social situations because I'm scared that someone's going to ask me about it and I'm going to implode. It's not that I don't care about the issue, it's that I can no longer quite bear to read page upon page about it every morning or - worse - listen to some of the morons who call into talkback radio bleat on about things they don't understand. I think the final straw was watching footage on the news tonight of Julia Gillard being heckled at a shopping centre. Forget about the issues, I couldn't take my eyes off the hideous lime green jumper her heckler was wearing. And the hair! Don't get me started.

That much said this article about the carbon tax, passed on by Dave, made me laugh, which is a first. I'm particularly fond of the phrase "a dozen retards trying to fuck a doorknob". Nice.

This is apropos of nothing but...

This is the worst bit of advice I've ever fucking heard from a sex columnist. Try googling "cuckholding" you moron. I can only wonder what the wonderful Dan Savage would make of it. Bah!

It wasn't enough

I was driving around town yesterday running some errands when I started crying. It started with a sniffle and a bit of redness around the eyes. It ended with me absolutely BAWLING. No I wasn't having a mental breakdown, I was cryng because I was listening to The Moth podcast on my iPhone. For those of you who aren't familiar with The Moth it's a group run by some people who are interested in 'the art of storytelling' so they hold nights on which people - sometimes randoms, sometimes famous people - get onstage in front of a crowd to tell stories on a variety of topics: sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes just weird. In this case the podcast I was listening to was by a woman called Charlene Strong. I don't want to spoil it by going into any detail on what she was talking about but if you're interested you can click here to listen to it and you really really should. Don't cry!

Cute Wednesday

Sometimes I like to use this blog to expolore some controversial or contentious topics. At other times I just like to post youtube clips of an insanely cute Boston Terrier having its belly rubbed.

Nice to meet you, I'm a total dickhead

First impressions count.

Earlier this week a guy I have worked with in the same office for years - but have never previously spoken to - was a rude c*nt to me for absolutely no reason and over something that had absolutely nothing to do with me. It's too complicated/boring to explain here but basically he fucked something up and then gave me attitude for not immediately fixing the problem for him without being asked.

He must have seen the What The Fuuuck expression on my face because he came over to my desk later and apologised. But if someone asked me today what I thought of him I'd say - despite the fact that I've always admired his work and despite his apparently genuine apology - that he seems like a prick.

Is he a prick? I have no idea. A prick probably wouldn't have apologised but because this was the first proper interaction I've ever had with him it's coloured how I see him in a very particular way.

This is terrifying, really, when you consider how many first impressions we must all make on people all the time. I like to think I'm generally a nice and reasonably friendly person but when I'm in a foul mood or am having an awful day, then no doubt I too can act in an unpleasant way. To me it seems fair enough if somebody I know well enough thinks I'm rude or a dickhead or a moron because, hey, that's their perrogative and maybe I am. But the idea that someone might think badly of me based on one stupid interaction, when maybe I was just really tired or sick or just had a fight with my boyfriend, is a little depressing.

On the flipside, it's worth remembering that while first impressions count, they don't have to last forever. once upon a time I met a guy at a friend's place who thought I was (he told me later) both way too loud and dressed unappealing like a tomboy. Nine years later that poor sucker is my boyfriend.

Quiz nights: the best and the worst

THE BEST: When you know the answer.

THE WORST: When everyone else in your team also knows the answer and you wind up shaming yourself by saying it really loudly, just to prove you know it too.

THE BEST: When you know the answer to a kind of obscure question.

THE WORST: When it turns out that answer you "knew" was actually wrong and the answer your teammate suggested, which you mocked, was right.

THE BEST: Learning kind of cool - if trivial - facts.

THE WORST: When the questions relate to something you couldn't give two shits about, such as the AFL. I mean, sure it might be nice to be able to list the teams in order of where they're placed on the ladder but wouldn't you rather know which world city drinks the most booze per head of population?

Venn Diagram Wednesday

This is water

I've been finding it hard to come up with blog topics lately. I'm not sure why. Probably it's just because, although I actually have loads of shit going on, very little of it is stuff that I can blog about. So instead I've reprinted here (an edited version of) a speech delivered by American essayist and novelist David Foster Wallace, widely regarded as a genius, who killed himself a little under three years ago. He delivered this speech to a graduating class at Kenyon College, Ohio and it's interesting stuff, much better than anything I could write here but with lots of ideas I agree with. I wish someone had busted out this stuff at MY graduation.

"There are these two young fish swimming along, and they happen to meet an older fish swimming the other way, who nods at them and says, "Morning, boys, how's the water?" And the two young fish swim on for a bit, and then eventually one of them looks over at the other and goes, "What the hell is water?"

If you're worried that I plan to present myself here as the wise old fish explaining what water is, please don't be. I am not the wise old fish. The immediate point of the fish story is that the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about. Stated as an English sentence, of course, this is just a banal platitude - but the fact is that, in the day-to-day trenches of adult existence, banal platitudes can have life-or-death importance. That may sound like hyperbole, or abstract nonsense. So let's get concrete ...

A huge percentage of the stuff that I tend to be automatically certain of is, it turns out, totally wrong and deluded. Here's one example of the utter wrongness of something I tend to be automatically sure of: everything in my own immediate experience supports my deep belief that I am the absolute centre of the universe, the realest, most vivid and important person in existence. We rarely talk about this sort of natural, basic self-centredness, because it's so socially repulsive, but it's pretty much the same for all of us, deep down. It is our default setting, hard-wired into our boards at birth. Think about it: there is no experience you've had that you were not at the absolute centre of. The world as you experience it is right there in front of you, or behind you, to the left or right of you, on your TV, or your monitor, or whatever. Other people's thoughts and feelings have to be communicated to you somehow, but your own are so immediate, urgent, real - you get the idea. But please don't worry that I'm getting ready to preach to you about compassion or other-directedness or the so-called "virtues". This is not a matter of virtue - it's a matter of my choosing to do the work of somehow altering or getting free of my natural, hard-wired default setting, which is to be deeply and literally self-centred, and to see and interpret everything through this lens of self.

By way of example, let's say it's an average day, and you get up in the morning, go to your challenging job, and you work hard for nine or ten hours, and at the end of the day you're tired, and you're stressed out, and all you want is to go home and have a good supper and maybe unwind for a couple of hours and then hit the rack early because you have to get up the next day and do it all again. But then you remember there's no food at home - you haven't had time to shop this week, because of your challenging job - and so now, after work, you have to get in your car and drive to the supermarket. It's the end of the workday, and the traffic's very bad, so getting to the store takes way longer than it should, and when you finally get there the supermarket is very crowded, because of course it's the time of day when all the other people with jobs also try to squeeze in some grocery shopping, and the store's hideously, fluorescently lit, and infused with soul-killing Muzak or corporate pop, and it's pretty much the last place you want to be, but you can't just get in and quickly out: you have to wander all over the huge, overlit store's crowded aisles to find the stuff you want, and you have to manoeuvre your junky cart through all these other tired, hurried people with carts, and of course there are also the glacially slow old people and the spacey people and the kids who all block the aisle and you have to grit your teeth and try to be polite as you ask them to let you by, and eventually, finally, you get all your supper supplies, except now it turns out there aren't enough checkout lanes open even though it's the end-of-the-day rush, so the checkout line is incredibly long, which is stupid and infuriating, but you can't take your fury out on the frantic lady working the register.

Anyway, you finally get to the checkout line's front, and pay for your food, and wait to get your cheque or card authenticated by a machine, and then get told to "Have a nice day" in a voice that is the absolute voice of death, and then you have to take your creepy flimsy plastic bags of groceries in your cart through the crowded, bumpy, littery parking lot, and try to load the bags in your car in such a way that everything doesn't fall out of the bags and roll around in the trunk on the way home, and then you have to drive all the way home through slow, heavy, SUV-intensive rush-hour traffic, etc, etc.

The point is that petty, frustrating crap like this is exactly where the work of choosing comes in. Because the traffic jams and crowded aisles and long checkout lines give me time to think, and if I don't make a conscious decision about how to think and what to pay attention to, I'm going to be pissed and miserable every time I have to food-shop, because my natural default setting is the certainty that situations like this are really all about me, about my hungriness and my fatigue and my desire to just get home, and it's going to seem, for all the world, like everybody else is just in my way, and who are all these people in my way? And look at how repulsive most of them are and how stupid and cow-like and dead-eyed and nonhuman they seem here in the checkout line, or at how annoying and rude it is that people are talking loudly on cell phones in the middle of the line, and look at how deeply unfair this is: I've worked really hard all day and I'm starved and tired and I can't even get home to eat and unwind because of all these stupid goddamn people.

Or if I'm in a more socially conscious form of my default setting, I can spend time in the end-of-the-day traffic jam being angry and disgusted at all the huge, stupid, lane-blocking SUVs and Hummers and V12 pickup trucks burning their wasteful, selfish, 40-gallon tanks of gas, and I can dwell on the fact that the patriotic or religious bumper stickers always seem to be on the biggest, most disgustingly selfish vehicles driven by the ugliest, most inconsiderate and aggressive drivers, who are usually talking on cell phones as they cut people off in order to get just 20 stupid feet ahead in a traffic jam, and I can think about how our children's children will despise us for wasting all the future's fuel and probably screwing up the climate, and how spoiled and stupid and disgusting we all are, and how it all just sucks ...

If I choose to think this way, fine, lots of us do - except that thinking this way tends to be so easy and automatic it doesn't have to be a choice. Thinking this way is my natural default setting. It's the automatic, unconscious way that I experience the boring, frustrating, crowded parts of adult life when I'm operating on the automatic, unconscious belief that I am the centre of the world and that my immediate needs and feelings are what should determine the world's priorities. The thing is that there are obviously different ways to think about these kinds of situations. In this traffic, all these vehicles stuck and idling in my way: it's not impossible that some of these people in SUVs have been in horrible car accidents in the past and now find driving so traumatic that their therapist has all but ordered them to get a huge, heavy SUV so they can feel safe enough to drive; or that the Hummer that just cut me off is maybe being driven by a father whose little child is hurt or sick in the seat next to him, and he's trying to rush to the hospital, and he's in a much bigger, more legitimate hurry than I am - it is actually I who am in his way.

Again, please don't think that I'm giving you moral advice, or that I'm saying you're "supposed to" think this way, or that anyone expects you to just automatically do it, because it's hard, it takes will and mental effort, and if you're like me, some days you won't be able to do it, or you just flat-out won't want to. But most days, if you're aware enough to give yourself a choice, you can choose to look differently at this fat, dead-eyed, over-made-up lady who just screamed at her little child in the checkout line - maybe she's not usually like this; maybe she's been up three straight nights holding the hand of her husband who's dying of bone cancer, or maybe this very lady is the low-wage clerk at the Motor Vehicles Dept who just yesterday helped your spouse resolve a nightmarish red-tape problem through some small act of bureaucratic kindness. Of course, none of this is likely, but it's also not impossible - it just depends on what you want to consider. If you're automatically sure that you know what reality is and who and what is really important - if you want to operate on your default setting - then you, like me, will not consider possibilities that aren't pointless and annoying. But if you've really learned how to think, how to pay attention, then you will know you have other options. It will be within your power to experience a crowded, loud, slow, consumer-hell-type situation as not only meaningful but sacred, on fire with the same force that lit the stars - compassion, love, the sub-surface unity of all things. Not that that mystical stuff's necessarily true: the only thing that's capital-T True is that you get to decide how you're going to try to see it. You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn't. You get to decide what to worship.

Because here's something else that's true. In the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship - be it JC or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some intangible set of ethical principles - is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things - if they are where you tap real meaning in life - then you will never have enough. Never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you. On one level, we all know this stuff already - it's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, bromides, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness. Worship power - you will feel weak and afraid, and you will need ever more power over others to keep the fear at bay. Worship your intellect, being seen as smart - you will end up feeling stupid, a fraud, always on the verge of being found out.

The insidious thing about these forms of worship is not that they're evil or sinful; it is that they are unconscious. They are default settings. They're the kind of worship you just gradually slip into, day after day, getting more and more selective about what you see and how you measure value without ever being fully aware that that's what you're doing. And the world will not discourage you from operating on your default settings, because the world of men and money and power hums along quite nicely on the fuel of fear and contempt and frustration and craving and the worship of self. Our own present culture has harnessed these forces in ways that have yielded extraordinary wealth and comfort and personal freedom. The freedom to be lords of our own tiny skull-sized kingdoms, alone at the centre of all creation. This kind of freedom has much to recommend it. But there are all different kinds of freedom, and the kind that is most precious you will not hear much talked about in the great outside world of winning and achieving and displaying. The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default setting, the "rat race" - the constant gnawing sense of having had and lost some infinite thing.

I know that this stuff probably doesn't sound fun and breezy or grandly inspirational. What it is, so far as I can see, is the truth with a whole lot of rhetorical bullshit pared away. Obviously, you can think of it whatever you wish. But please don't dismiss it as some finger-wagging Dr Laura sermon. None of this is about morality, or religion, or dogma, or big fancy questions of life after death. The capital-T Truth is about life before death. It is about making it to 30, or maybe 50, without wanting to shoot yourself in the head. It is about simple awareness - awareness of what is so real and essential, so hidden in plain sight all around us, that we have to keep reminding ourselves, over and over: "This is water, this is water.""

"You can't respect somebody who kisses your arse."

I'm not going to talk about why Ferris Bueller's Day Off is not just an awesomely engaging and funny movie but a brilliant guide for how to live your life (although if you're interested, read this). All I know is that it's impossible to watch this parade scene and not feel just a teensy tiny bit happier.

"Maybe someday, maybe not": the immortal lines of Dylan McKay

Look, either you were young enough and sad enough to fall madly in love with Dylan McKay in the seminal 90s teen drama Beverly Hills: 90210 or you were not.

If you were not then there's really nothing I can say that convince you that Luke Perry's portray of Dylan as 90210's disaffected rich bad boy made teen girls around the globe go week at the knees. I mean, I was one of those girls and looking at Perry's craggy face and remembering how he used to have this impossibly lame answerphone message ("This is Dylan, you know the drill... *beep*") even I have the decency to be embarassed.

That much said Hello Giggles has come up with a list of the Top Ten Best Things Dylan McKay Has Ever Said and it's almost enough to rekindle my love for the pretentious bastard.

Here's just a little taster of some of the bon mots he has to offer.

Brenda: “You want to take a walk on the beach or something?”
Dylan: “Yeah and check out the HOMELESS PEOPLE that would be GREAT.

Oh, Dylan, even when you're being a dick to some girl you're supposed to like you still know when to mix in a bit of social commentary to keep shit real.

Pros and cons: the literary clutch

Pro: These clutch bags made up to look like famous books, by France's Olympia Le-Tan, may be the single cutest thing I have ever seen in my life.

Con: They will, however, make you look like you're simply carrying around a hardcover book to dinners, parties and the like. Which is to say that you will look like the world's biggest wanker.

Pro: But they're so purty. Plus Lolita is genuinely an awesome book and Moby Dick is... well I hear good things.

Con: 950 euros apiece. Which is quite a lot of money to have people think you might be a pretentious tosser.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Charlie Fink

It's a cliche to say that dudes start bands in order to get laid. And yet I can only imagine that it's working wonders for Charlie Fink, lead singer of delightful British band Noah and the Whale.

Sure it doesn't hurt that he's already got a certain something something with the hair, the eyes and a cheeky smile. (Of the denim shirt he is attempting to rock in the above photo I will not speak). It doubly doesn't hurt that both Charlie and the rest of the band seem completely fucking adorable, as evidenced by this delightful interview. ((Yes I am a complete sucker for anyone who professes to love the film Rushmore as much as I do but it's more than that: there is pretty much nothing sexier than a dude who can be spontaneously funny. Seriously, I think I'm in love with the entire band, particularly his super hot brother Doug who has sadly since left the band to save lives or something.)

But, really what it comes down to is that I've been listening to quite a bit of Noah and the Whale lately and I would give just about anything to be able to do what they do. And yet if it was a choice between waking up one day with a big fat bundle of musical talent or getting to spend a filthy weekend with Charlie, several bottles of wine and a big fuck off bed I can't say for sure I would do the right thing. I mean, seriously, getting to touch the hair alone would be totally worth it.

Personal information I now know about the woman who waxes my Good China after one 20 minute appointment

1. She has never been to Bali
2. She never wants to go to Bali
3. She is happily coupled-up with an older man who is not very fit
4. She and her partner enjoy 4WD holidays in WA.
5. She and her partner have twice (twice?!) had to be rescued while on 4WD holidays in WA
6. She does not have kids
7. She could not recognise an expression of pure agony on a fellow human being's face to save her life.

Weiner

I am, I have been told, a bit of a flirt. It is, I guess, kinda true although I prefer to characterise it as just being a big, big fan of boys.

Perhaps for this reason* I have taken a lot of interest in the media circus surrounding the hilariously-named Congressman Weiner who has, as it turns out, been taking photos of his junk and sending them to women who are not his wife. Classy guy. But one of the things that none of the commentators can seem to agree on is whether Weiner, who claims he never met any of the women face-to-face but 'met' them online, was technically cheating on his wife or not.

The Washington Post has a great article on this very issue, which looks at the tricky subject of the "e-ffair" and Weiner in particular. It also makes some good points about how easy it is in the modern day to fire to use technology to do something stupid that will later come back and bite you in the arse. A (coupled-up) friend of mine ran up against this very issue recently when, while drunkenly Facebook chatting with a colleague who had a crush on him got a bit carried away and wrote something along the lines of "I want to fuck you" before presumably passing out. The way he tells it he woke up the next morning horrified. But I meander from my point. To the Post...

"It was wrong, and it would have been wrong 20 years ago, and it would have been wrong 200 years before that. In previous millenniums, if a married caveman had carved a picture of his junk onto a bone and thrown it into another woman’s cave, that would have been similarly wrong. Private-part self-portraiture: gross in every eon.

"But 20 years ago, Weiner would have had to load his Nikon with film before pointing it at his crotch. He would have had to take this film to the Fotomat, wait 24 hours before picking it up, find an envelope, lick a stamp. In every preceding era, there were built-in checkpoints, moments in which one could ask oneself, “Is this a good idea? Does she want to see my dog in a sweater? Am I a congressman? Should that influence my decision?”"

You get the gist but the whole article is great and you can read it here.



* (AlthoughI hope I don't have to mention that my flirty behavious has never yet triggered me to take a photo of the good china to send to randoms).

Nerd Appeal

It was suggested to me recently that I should write a post about The Appeal of the Nerd. Having pretty much exclusively gone out with nerds in my 28 years I thought that was a cracker of an idea but when I sat down to write the post I found I didn't know what to say. Why are nerds so appealing? What is it about a kinda dorky looking guy, ideally skinny and bespectacled, that makes me go a bit red around the edges? Why did I spend the first season of The OC lusting after Seth Cohen (before he became insanely annoying by about episode 1 of season 2)? I had no fucking idea.

Then I met Carol. Carol is not, I hasten to clarify, a nerd. Carol is a girl I happened to be sat next to at a recent work dinner. And after 10 minutes of talking to her I wanted to open my throat with the butter knife.

There was nothing ostensibly wrong with Carol: she was chatty and friendly enough. But she was also impossibly dull. Regardless of the topic - and we weren't talking about fucking peace in the Middle East - she had absolutely nothing of interest to say. She was also, from her long blonde hair and skinny body to her big boobs, pretty conventionally attractive (even if, in my opinion, a bit of a Monet).

Rightly or wrongly it occured to me, listening to the way she interacted with the people around us, that Carol had probably been hot her whole life and, as a result, had never bothered to develop much in the way of a personality, beyond a gormless smile and an ability to say "I totally agree" a lot.

This - it occured to me in something of a Lightbulb Moment - goes some way to explaining the nerd appeal. I wholeheartedly believe that people who aren't gorgeous and popular as kids and teenagers make for more interesting adults. (Yes I might be a little bit biased but shut up, this is my blog). Those of us who have had to struggle to fit have naturally had to work harder at making friends, being interesting, making people laugh. We had to do more than simply show up to make people like us.

Nerds take that a step further by also being smart. I don't mean just that they can fix your computer/phone/TV (although, seriously, thanks for that Andy). I mean they know things that you don't. They have read books you haven't, seen movies you haven't and ideally played computer games you never even knew existed. They have views on things, even if those things are on the utterly dorky side.

Then there is the vulnerability thing. Because, based on my experience, no matter how cute or successful a person may become in later life, nobody who has struggled through his or her early years entirely loses that sensitivity to what others think about them and their place in the world. And is there anything more appealing than a red hot cutie with low self esteem? No. No, there is not.

Tits! On a fashion magazine!

Truth be told I'm often a little bit bored by the whole Plus Size debate. While I do think there are too many messages out there in the fashion world that very, very skinny is the only way for a girl to be desirable, I also think that by the time most of us get to a certain age we realise that actually plenty of boys still want to shag us even with our soft corners and excessively-generous tits and we stop worrying about it so much.

That much said this photo of the cover of Italian Vogue, passed on by the sumptuous Jayne, is a nice reminder of how good - and rare - it feels to see a girl who isn't model skinny made up to look super hot and sexy.

The only downside is that regardless of what I do to myself I know I will never ever look like that girl in the middle who, to my mind, is a dead ringer for a young Sophia Loren. At least when I stare at whippet thin models I can tell myself "I could look like that if I got really sick for a few months". With this girl... no, short of having a new face it's just not going to happen.

Token Smokin' Hottie: Michael Fassbender

What is wrong with me?

Once upon a time I knew what I liked and that was skinny boys, the scrawnier the better. Give me a jutting hipbone, a concave chest and, just for funsies, a pair of Buddy Holly glasses, and I'd be happy.

But, like the Pulp song goes, something changed. Obviously I still like skinny boys: they are still the ones that made me turn in the street and go a little bit weak in the knees when they serve me at Epic Espresso (oh yeah skinny barista with the adorable smile, you know who you are). But somewhere along the line I appear to have developed a taste for, um, I don't quite know how to say this... muscles.

No, I don't know how it happened either.

Anyway, the latest object of my lust is Michael Fassbender, the German-Irish hottie smoking up screens in X-Men: First Class. I first saw Fassbender in the delightful Inglorious Basterds but while he was fantastic in the role it didn't really occur to me that he was hot until his turn in X-Men. Obviously it helps that he gets to play a young Magneto: easily one of the cooler dudes in the X-Men universe. It also helps that he has sizzling chemistry with the quietly scrumptious James McAvoy (who plays a young Charles Xavier) to the point where I was actively waiting for an onscreen snog. But what also helps is, let me be frank, Fassbender's fairly sick body which is constantly lurking there beneath his clothes - out of sight but never out of mind.

Watching the movie I found McAvoy - on whom I have long nursed a quiet crush - boyishly charming. But it was Fassbender I was always watching onscreen, bemoaning the lack of shirtless scenes and wondering how a man with shoulders that broad could possibly have such narrow hips. Only time will tell whether I still find him hot in Jane Eyre as - of course - Mr Rochester, where presumably there are very few opportunities for him remove his clothes. Tragically.

Just in case anyone has the sheer cheek to be happy on a fucking shitty day like today

"Yes, I am sad, sad as a circus-lioness, sad as an eagle without wings, sad as a violin with only one string and that one broken, sad as a woman who is growing old. Sad, sad, sad."
(Jean Rhys, Good Morning, Midnight)

Yeah she loves it in the face

Look, I'm not going to lie. I have no idea if this alleged retro ad is real or fake. All I know is that it has the single greatest tagline in the history of advertising. Don Draper would be green with envy.

I mean "ashamed": Really, girls?

Most of the time being a woman is awesome. Every so often, however, I read something like this (courtesy of the Daily Maily) -

"Women find happy men significantly less sexually attractive than those who swagger or brood, researchers said today. They are least attracted to smiling men, instead preferring those who looked proud and powerful, or moody and ashamed, according to a study."

- and feel a teensy bit embarrassed for how lame we are.

Dilemma #2

I'm sure that this US couple who are attempting to raise a 'genderless' baby mean well. But Jesus Fucking Christ wouldn't you just want to kill yourself if you got sat next to them at a dinner party and had to listen to them saying things like this:

“If you really want to get to know someone, you don’t ask what’s between their legs"

And this:

“In fact, in not telling the gender of my precious baby, I am saying to the world, ‘Please can you just let Storm discover for him/herself what s (he) wants to be?!.”

And THIS:

“Everyone keeps asking us, ‘When will this end?’” says Witterick. “And we always turn the question back. Yeah, when will this end? When will we live in a world where people can make choices to be whoever they are?”

Jesus fucking WEPT.

Because I am easily amused

Courtesy of Wikibombs.

Self respect

"To live without self-respect is to lie awake some night, beyond the reach of warm milk, the Phenobarbital, and the sleeping hand on the coverlet, counting up the sins of commissions and omission, the trusts betrayed, the promises subtly broken, the gifts irrevocably wasted through sloth or cowardice, or carelessness. However long we postpone it, we eventually lie down alone in that notoriously uncomfortable bed, the one we make ourselves. Whether or not we sleep in it depends, of course, on whether or not we respect ourselves." (Joan Didion)

You can read the rest of this essay, "On Self Respect" here and it's a really good read. I'm not even just saying that because they mention The Great Gatsby.

The ladies do love a good old smasher stuck on them

Greek philosopher Sophocles had a theory that, on balance, it would have been best never to be born at all. His view on the matter went something like "Never to be born is best for man. And next, in haste, return to whence he came". I was a terrible (and extremely short-lived) philosophy student but I gather his point was that the shitty parts of life outweigh the good so it wasn't really worth suffering through.

Sometime I agree with his sentiment but today I could not disagree more because I have just learned that this exists. Yes, I'm talking about the World Beard and Moustache Championships.

Because, seriously, who would choose not to live in a world where an event like this exists. Where 150 people come together in Norway - (Norway! I can't quite say why that tickles me but it does) - to compete over the lushness and complexity of their facial hair. I think the best part is that there are 17 categories. 17 categories: just imagine it!

The second best part is that people like Michael "Atters" Attree (he's the sexy bitch pictured above and also apparently a British actor and satirist) not only compete in this competition but go about saying things like this to journalists:

"Beards are hideous things if you ask me," says Attree, who sports a traditional English moustache. "I have my moustache because I bloody well can. Plus, the ladies do love a good old smasher stuck on them."

They sure do, Atters, they sure do.

Muppet Annie Hall

Nothing I say here can improve this image. This beauty comes from Nerd Boyfriend - a sweet, sweet site passed on by Mike, otherwise known as one-third of my blog readership.

How to feel old

Hang out with someone who has never seen The Princess Bride. I don't know whether to feel more sorry for me, for being old as fuck (although seriously I was 5 when the movie came out so it's slightly unclear to me how I've managed to since see it about a dozen times), or him, for never having experienced the joy of Cary Elwes' delivery on the line: "Rodents of unusual size? I don't think they exist". Oh WESLEY.

Dilemma

PROS: He dresses like a dream. Seriously, the fit on those pants is just fucking amazing.

CONS: He is almost certainly a huge, giant, just gigantic wanker.

PROS: How does he get his hair to stay like that while he's cycling? I want to bury my face in it, even thought it would doubtless end up smeared in whatever kind of product he's got going on there.

CONS: Seriously, I just can't believe he doesn't sometimes wank to a photo of himself or - at the very least - wink at himself in the mirror.

Seething rage behind those eyes

So I can't say I've ever bought anything off etsy but it seems like a nice enough idea and all: people make shit, people buy shit. All is well. But did you ever think about the poor bastards who have to model the homemade crap their partner has made? This dude has and the result - 20 Sad Etsy Boyfriends - is pretty good.

Suck it, Trump

Maybe I just need a change, maybe I just need a new cologne

It's a very weird feeling when the woman you have paid to mess about with your Good China stops her work to compliment you on the scent of your cocoa butter moisturiser.

HER: Did you use coconut shower wash or something?
ME: Uh... what?
HER: Did you use coconut shower wash?
ME: Oh, um... uh yeah cocoa butter moisturiser maybe?
HER: Ahh, it smells nice.
ME: Um... (thinking: please God let me out of here)

At the time I was so busy gritting my teeth against the pain - and, just to be clear, the woman I'm talking about here is a bikini waxer, not a high class hooker - that I couldn't really come up with what felt like an appropriate response. Obviously it was a simple enough compliment, mindless chatter even, but it felt weird, like a doctor stopping mid-pap smear to say you have lovely eyes.

It also felt weird because I couldn't remember the last time someone had complimented the way I smelt, or the last time I had complimented anyone else on the way THEY smelt.

By coincidence, shortly afterwards I ran into a friend I hadn't seen in a bit who smelt, I don't know how else to say it, amazing. I have no idea what it was that made him smell that way but it smelt like freshly cut grass mixed with a little bit of sweat and... it was a delight. This friend is a cute enough guy but this scent, whatever it was, made him seem suddenly sort of hot. Needless to say I didn't tell him any of this because it would have been, you know ten types of weird.

Which brings me to my point: why do so few men seem to wear cologne or aftershave anymore? I have to have coffees or lunches with a lot of random men as a result of my job and most of the time I don't notice the way they smell until - blammo - I sit down to someone who smells great. I'm not talking bathed in scent but just sort of... faintly delicious in a subtle way that means you only get a whiff of it every now and again. Most of these guys I meet through work are the opposite of what I find attractive in a boy/man but the smell thing - and maybe partly the fact that you know they've gone through the ritual of aftershave or cologne instead of just rolling out of bed and spraying on deoderant - is super appealing.

You'd be hard pressed to find a girl who doesn't own a perfume or two or, at the very least, a scented moisturiser to be dutifully slapped on, but so few boys I know even bother. No doubt if they realised how much ussy-pay they're missing out on as a result all this would change.

Some men

Generally speaking man-bashing really gives me the shits. You know what I mean by man-bashing: women (because it's nearly always women) who take an All Men Are Liars/Bastards/Rapists/Generally Pathetic kind of approach, blackening an entire sex because they had a couple of dickhead boyfriends or their father walked out on them when they were a kid.

Most women have probably encountered a few women who see nothing strange or rude about indulging in this kind of ranting and it's always super uncomfortable and - above all - excruciatingly dull. The weirdest thing is hearing these women talk about men as though they were an entirely different race, as opposed to just being, um, people. (Needless to say it goes the other way: cynical men who think all women are psychos/hysterics/gold-diggers are just as boring and stupid as their female counterparts.)

So I feel a trifle guilty for reprinting this corker from Dorothy Parker, which is not exactly PRO-men, and yet I can't resist. For all that I love boys/men and hold individual boys/men responsible for some of the best things that have happened to me in my life, lately it seems hard to argue that I have spent much of that life waiting around for some damn man.

CHANT FOR DARK HOURS
(Dorothy Parker)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Book shop.
(Lady, make your mind up, and wait your life away.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Crap game.
(He said he’d come at moonrise, and here’s another day!)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Bar-room.
(Wait about, and hang about, and that’s the way it goes.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Woman.
(Heaven never send me another one of those!)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Golf course.
(Read a book, and sew a seam, and slumber if you can.)

Some men, some men
Cannot pass a
Haberdasher’s.
(All your life you wait around for some damn man!)

Of course sometimes the waiting turns out to be the best part. But it never bloody seems so at the time.

I want to be alone (at the movies)

Going to the movies by myself is one of the things I really love to do.

It hasn't always been this way. The first time I went to the movies alone was only a couple of years ago. I can't even remember what film I saw. I do remember feeling incredibly self-conscious and convinced that everyone was staring at me, wondering why I hadn't brought along a friend or a boyfriend. I kept remembering a story my sister had told me about when she went to the movies by herself and this group came up to her, asked if she was saving the seat next to her for someone else and she had to respond that, no, actually she wasn't waiting for anyone.

For anyone who doesn't make a habit if going to movies solo it's hard to explain why it feels so nice. I like seeing movies with other people too, it's just that there's something super-indulgent about doing it alone, particularly because it's often at slightly odd hours of the day: like a Sunday afternoon as opposed to a Saturday night or in the middle of a working day - one of my favourite pastimes when I have a day off from work. There's something good, too, about feeling completely autonomous, that makes it more enjoyable. If I think a movie's shit I can walk out. I don't have to worry about whether the person I'm with is enjoying the movie and laughing in the same places I am. I don't have to discuss the movie or offer an opinion after it's over. I can just enjoy it (or not), think about it (or not) and then get on with my day or night.

With all that in mind it occured to me yesterday while I sat in one of the cinema as Luna Leederville watching Barney's Version, that there is a right and a wrong way to go to a movie alone.

1. Don't get there too early. Nothing will make you feel more self-conscious than sitting by yourself in a cinema for 15 minutes before the film starts, especially as the cinema starts to fill up around you with couples and groups of friends. You will be convinced everyone is staring at you and depending on how weird and uncomfortable you look, you may be right.

2. Don't get there too late. I arrived late for a solo screening of Let Me In, a remaked of Let the Right One In. It had been a sudden decision to go (I was in Leederville, it started to rain) and so by the time I entered the cinema the credits had already started. Unfortunately the credits were really really dark and I couldn't see A THING. I had to feel my way to a chair only to realise as the room gradually lightened that I was sitting... almost on top of of the cinema's only other (male) occupant, who presumably thought I was some kind of weird sexual predator.

3. Look nice. I always check out other people who are at the movies by themselves, whether I'm there solo or not. Rightly or not I have a tendency to group them automatically into two classes: people who enjoy seeing movies by themselves and people who have no choice but to see movies by themselves. Generally speaking the former look respectable, well-adjusted and don't have weird stains on their pants. They also look like they might have taken a shower in the last week or so.

4. Don't see Barney's Version. Seriously. Scott Speedman is insanely hot and charming, Paul Giametti is good and Dustin Hoffman is excellent but the last movie I saw with this much forced mawkishness was Forrest Gump. And I really didn't care much for Forrest Gump.

One of my favourite (long) quotes from one of my favourite (longish) books ahead of a long, long weekend

"There are blonde and blondes and it is almost a joke word nowadays. All blondes have their points, except perhaps the metallic ones who are as blonde as a Zulu under the bleach and as to disposition as soft as a sidewalk.

"There is the small cute blonde who cheeps and twitters, and the big statuesque blonde who straight-arms you with an ice-blue glare. There is the blonde who gives you the up-from-under look and smells lovely and shimmers and hangs on your arm and is always very, very tired when you take her home. She makes that helpless gesture and has that goddamned headache and you would like to slug her except that you found about the headache before you invested too much time and money and hope in her. Because the headache will always be there, a weapon that never wears out and is as deadly as the bravo’s rapier or Lucrezia’s poison vial.

"There is the soft and willing alcoholic blonde who doesn’t care what she wears as long as it is mink or where she goes as long as it is the Starlight Roof and there is plenty of dry champagne.

"There is the small perky blonde who is a little pale and wants to pay her own way and is full of sunshine and common sense and knows judo from the ground up and can toss a truck driver over her shoulder without missing more than one sentence out of the editorial in the Saturday Review.

"There is the pale, pale blonde with anemia of some non-fatal but incurable type. She very languid and very shadowy and she speaks softly out of nowhere and you can’t lay a finger on her because in the first place you don’t want to and in the second place she is reading the Wasteland or Dante in the original, or Kafka or Kierkegaard or studying Provencal. She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindesmith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them.

"And lastly there is the gorgeous show piece who will outlast three kingpin racketeers and then marry a couple of millionaires at a million a head and end up with a pale rose villa at Cap d’Antibes, and Alfa Romeo town car complete with pilot and co-pilot, and a stable of shopworn aristocrats, all of whom she will treat with the affectionate absentmindedness of an elderly duke saying good night to his butler."

(Raymond Chandler, The Long Goodbye)

Token Smokin' Hottie: Sufjan Stevens

It's tough to like religious people. I'm sorry, I'm not trying to be a shit about it and I know that sounds really stupid and bigoted but it's true: I look down on religious people the same way I look down on people who are racist, rude or don't understand the difference between "your" and "you're". I just think it's so... silly. And, yes, there are exceptions like Evelyn Waugh and Graham Greene - both heroes to me - but they are the exception that makes the rule, not proof that believing in a ficticious character is a wise lifestyle choice. I have religious or semi-religious friends and family but I still view faith as a black mark against someone's character - something to be endured because I like them enough to overlook this flaw.

As with many, many things, however, this theory becomes a little... shall we say elastic when it comes to boys I fancy. Much like the way I have overlooked some pretty terrible things in the past purely in order to get into someone's pants ("Your dream is to one day hunt wolves in the wild? Mine too, I'm totally into that" - wish I was kidding).

Belle and Sebastian's Stuart Murdoch, for instance, is near the top of a list tentatively titled Boys I Would Shag In A HeartBeat Without A Second Thought For the Consequences. It's not so strange because Stuart is cute as a button and I love his music. And yet be believes in God! And sometimes sings about it! Ew.

Which brings us to Sufjan Stveens, who also... appears to believe in God and sings about it! Kind of a lot! Fortunately Sufjan is also blessed with the kind of bone structure that makes me want to tear down walls, the kind of skin you could lick endlessly, an undeniably special voice and the sort of skinny-boy frame against which I have no defences.

I'm not saying I would embrace the faith if Sufjan asked me to run away and be his bride. What I AM saying is that I would happily hole up with him in a hotel and either let him try to convert me or suck it up and pretend to share his beliefs if it got me what I wanted. Which is, of course, him. It's like telling someone you love them in the hope that they might have sex with you. Real classy like.

"Of course, Sufjan," I'd say as I tore the buttons right off his shirt, "I definitely understand where you're coming from. I too feel that there just has to be something out there greater than us."

"Really?" he'd ask, struggling with the weird clasp of my pants. "You're not just saying that."

"I mean it, Suffy" I'd say - assuming he'd let me call him Suffy, which maybe he wouldn't - "I have been touched by the Holy Spirit. And now by you."

Greedy

Recently I had cause to ask a good friend for advice about a problem in my life that had been troubling me.

I laid it all out for him pretty honestly and asked for his advice about how I should handle the situation. I was hoping for something like, well, whatever the opposite of tough love is. I wanted him to pat me on the head and say something like "don't worry so much", "nobody's perfect" or "it'll all work out, you silly sausage."

Instead he surprised me. His response, distinctly unsugarcoated went something like this: "Don't be so fucking greedy." He might not have said the "fucking" part but I think it was definitely implied.

I'd never thought of myself as greedy before. It sounds like such an unappealing way to describe anyone, suggesting a lack of self control that made me think of an obese middle-aged woman stuffing buns into her gob, one after the other after the other after the other while new rolls of fat form on her thighs and drip down the sides of her body. And yet the more I thought about it the more I realised that greedy is exactly how I would - or should - describe myself. Like a typical bloody Generation Y-er I want everything and I want it all the time. Immediately. I want to be able to write books and yet I also want the money that comes from a day job of writing stuff I'm not, let's be honest, exactly passionate about. I want to look good in a slutty dress but I also want to eat those hot chips and have that second glass of wine. I want all the lovely security and fun that comes from my delightful long term relationship but I also lust after random boys on the street like some sex-crazed teenager.

My friend's advice, to stop being so greedy, should have made me feel like shit, probably. But instead it cheered me up. Thinking about it I can see that I've always bordered on greedy when it comes to food and alcohol, for instance. But because I don't want to be fat or become an alcoholic I fight against my impulse to gorge on both and there's something weirdly comforting about the potential for applying this same moderation to the rest of my life. If I can't have it all (say the chips and the wine) then I need to decide what I want more (uh, do you need to ask?).

It's pretty pedestrian as far as epiphanies go but, meh, it cheered me up. For some bizarre reason it also made me think of a lovely Woody Allen quote, whose origins I forget.

"Can we actually 'know' the universe? My God, it's hard enough finding your way around Chinatown."

P.S: I found this picture just by typing "greed" into google search but in hindsight how fucking creepy does this kid look? Jesus Christ, imagine having THAT claw its way out of your womb?!

Precious snowflakes

I don't often link to other blogs or columns because, you know, you already know what you like but Sam de Brito has written a cracker for the Sydney Morning Herald this week. I'm a big fan of SDB who would be, I think, a shitload of fun to get drunk with. He writes:

Ever thought you're just a little different to the people around you? Maybe just a touch smarter, a tad more "enlightened"; you're sensitive and creative and surely feel and think things other people don't. Well, I reckon it's a delusion, a myth - and this widely-held fantasy of "I'm different" is a smoking crack in the earth that routinely swallows human empathy.

You can read the rest here.

I love fashion because...

... stories like this one, Top Five Red Riding Hood Capes and Dresses, can actually exist. The best part about this story is the "Top Five" bit like Oh My Fucking God there are just so many awesome red riding hood capes out there you're completely spoilt for choice and desperately need a fashion editor to guide you through this sartorial nightmare. Also I totally want one. Sorry.

The Pros and Cons of Living in Perth

PRO: Living in a city that is so small you can randomnly run into a good chum while sitting at a kebab shop in Leederville on a Thursday night.

CON: Living in a city so useless that said kebab shop doesn't even seem embarassed to say the chip fryer's broken and so you can't have any chips. Boo.

Friday... fun?

Because it's Friday and time for an existential crisis here is a brilliant scene from one of my favourite movies, Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters. To give it some context the character Mickey (played by Allen) has recently found out he doesn't have cancer, having thought for awhile that he might. At first he's ecstatic but then later he decides he wants to kill himself because he's decided that life is meaningless. He explains it thusly...

Mickey: No, I'm not dying now, but you know, when I ran out of the hospital I was thrilled because they told me I'm going to be all right. I'm running down the street and it hits me: All right, so I'm not going to go today, but eventually I'm going to be in that position.
Gail: You're just realising this now?
Mickey: No I don't realise it now. I know it all the time but I manage to stick it in the back of my mind because it's a very horrible thing to think about.
Gail: Yeah. What?
Mickey: Can I tell you something? Can I tell you a secret?
Gail: Yes please.
Mickey: A week ago, I bought a rifle.
Gail: No.
Mickey: I went into a store. I bought a rifle. I was gonna... You know, if they told me that I had a tumor, I was going to kill myself. The only thing that mighta stopped me, might've is my parents would be devastated. I would, I would had to shoot them, also, first. And then, I have an aunt and uncle, I would have... you know it would have been a bloodbath.
Gail: Tch, well, you know, eventually it is going to happen to all of us.
Mickey: Yes, but doesn't that ruin everything for you? That makes everything... you know it takes the pleasure out of everything. I mean, you're gonna die, I'm gonna die, the audience is gonna die, the network's gonna - the sponsor. Everything!
Gail: I know, I know, and your hampster.
Mickey: Yes!

For what it's worth he doesn't kill himself. Which is partly why this film is not only one of my favourites films ever but one of the most reassuring films of all time. Forget about reading philsophy or self-help books: for my money Woody Allen does it better.

Faultless logic

Token Smokin' Hottie: Jon Hamm

If you're a regular Mad Men viewer you might recall that Jon Hamm usually spends his time looking like this:

Yum. Lately, however, with Mad Men on a break and not coming back until 2012 Jon has been spending his time looking like this:

I WANT to say he's still a hot piece of arse but... no. Just no. I mean I'd still go there, obviously, but I might consider dimming the lights. And having a few drinks. During.

The moral of the story? Men of the world: how you groom yourself and dress yourself does effect the amount of pussy you can expect to acquire. Please take this onboard.

This is either brilliant or very depressing

So here's a fun fact. Today I learnt how to tell which of my many FASCINATING blog posts over the years have been the most viewed. The winner? This one! Apparently I'm not the only one with a big fat crush.

Sweet Valley High

When I was a youngster my sister was really into the Sweet Valley High series of books. I wanted to read them - the covers alone looked AMAZING - but my Mum said they were too old for me and forced me to read the totally ball-bag spin off, Sweet Valley Twins instead. Lame.

Actually, all that happened was that I snuck the SVH books out of my sister's room and read them in my bedroom, starting with the brilliantly awesome Double Love. Because, yes, I loved a pretty wild and crazy life. In hindsight, I really don't know what Mum was so worried about: Sweet Valley is the lamest, whitest, most genital-free town EVER. Seriously, Elizabeth the 'good twin' is held up to be some kind of perfect perfection despite the fact that she dresses like a grandmother, can't open her mouth without patronising someone and has a weirdly sexless relationship with her beige (probably gay) boyfriend Todd. Admittedly Jessica is... kind of a sociopath, actually, but at least the books acknowledge that she's a selfish tramp, even if she usually manages to come good by the end of most of the books.

Anyway, to celebrate(?) the release of Sweet Valley High Confidential (a book that picks up where the original series left off OMFG), I feel obliged to point you to The Dairi Burger, which has re-read all the SVH books and recapped them for your viewing pleasure.

It's pretty fucking funny. For example, from Deceptions:

Scene 2: Enid Rollins’ pathetic fucking non-Spanish tiled house.

ENID ROLLINS: (answering the phone): Hello?

EW: Enid, omg! What am I going to do? This is SUCH a disaster!

ER: Ok, I’ve cleared my schedule. I’ve canceled visiting my dying grandmother to talk to you.

EW: Oh my gaaaawd! Nicholas is like totally in love with me! And he’s so rich and good-looking! But I am supposed to be in love with my good-looking boyfriend Todd! Two guys are in love with me! Life is SO HARD!

ER: Wow, that IS a huge problem. I mean, forget that I have a drunk father, I once almost killed a kid, and I was born with frizzy brown hair, how can you stand to be you! [puts a gun to her head]

Almost makes me want to track them down for the joy of re-reading them myself. Almost.