Also the bit about jellied breast milk is... yeah, it's something.

There are many elements of this Annabel Crabb/Leigh Sales interview to enjoy. Whether you have an interest in politics or women's issues or anything really it's just delightful. It also feels like a rare treat to read an interview like this involving two smart and funny women who obviously just like each other and seem to be having a grand old time. As much fun as the entire thing was to read I think only this bit made me really laugh out loud in delight because, well: ew.

"For the book, I collected war stories. The best one is this woman I talked to who managed to hold up her end of an international teleconference work call at 5.30am while the family guinea pig was giving birth next door. Screams of delight turned to horror when the daddy guinea pig started eating the baby guinea pigs. She dealt with all this while still holding up her end of this call. That’s hardcore. I do think there are a lot of women who do this juggle, have stories like this. I find it a kind of exhilarating part of life. It’s kind of hilarious and a bit madcap. You cry probably more of the time than you should. But it also feels like life, and I think it’s sad that a lot of blokes get curtained off from that kind of experience."

You can and you should read the whole thing here.

N.B: In a superficial takeaway I think I want to look like Annabel Crabb when I grow up. For realsies.

Public Service Announcement.

The premise is this: the story of a murder investigation and a journalist's subsequent investigation into whether the right guy was put away for it.

Why you should care is this: the story's true and it's doled out episode-by-episode. It's also awesome.

Conclusion: if you're not listening to The Serial podcast you really should be.

“Today I must be very careful, today I have left my armour at home.” 

(Jean Rhys)

"Hang on tightly, let go lightly."

(Croupier)

I Rise

I don't believe in God and I would never describe myself as a "spiritual person" because, you know, I'm not a detestable human being. And yet every so often I wonder if the universe isn't trying to tell me something or make me do something for my own good.

It happened many years ago when I was using my parents' home computer, typing some document or other. When I went to save the document, instead of the computer automatically using the first few words of the document as a suggested file name, as per the norm, the file name it came up with was Ethan Frome. That's weird, I thought at the time. What or who is Ethan Frome? Ethan Frome, it turned out, was a super famous book by Edith Wharton. Once I discovered that fact I had to read it and maaaaan it is brilliant: a perfectly crafted story I now love, love, love.

I never did figure out how the hell the thing with the computer happened but, hey, thanks universe.

What happened to me more recently is not on that scale of what-the-actual-fuck by any means but it still got me thinking that the world is looking after me. Because for some reason everywhere I go lately I seem to hear about Maya fucking Angelou.

A momentary side note/confession: for someone who loves books and studied English at university I am not very well read and I am particularly terribly versed in The Canon. I've never finished a novel by Charles Dickens, for example, or read a Jane Austen that isn't Pride and Prejudice. Even outside the world according to Harold Bloom I feel like my grasp on Important Literature is very slight. I read a lot for work purposes so when it comes to my personal reading, although I do attempt to read some books Because I Should, most of the time I read for pleasure. For these reasons it so happened I had never made my way around to Maya Angelou. Until now.

For the past few months it seems like every time I tune in to one of my favourite podcasts they're talking about Maya Angelou. Articles on Maya Angelou pop up on the various news and not-news websites I read. I hear a gorgeous line of poetry or a quote and when I try to find the author... it's Maya Angelou. Of course it is.

I'm not a complete boob: Maya Angelous died earlier this year so of course she's being talked about. It's no Ethan Frome mystery. But still, it seemed like a sign I had to go and find something to read by her, to see what all the fuss is about. It didn't take me very long to get sucked down a Maya Angelou wormhole, gorging on delightful poem after delightful poem.

Again, all I can say is: thanks universe.

I Rise
(Maya Angelou)

You may write me down in history

With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may tread me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I'll rise.
Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.
Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops.
Weakened by my soulful cries.
Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don't you take it awful hard
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines
Diggin' in my own back yard.
You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I'll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I've got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?
Out of the huts of history's shame
I rise
Up from a past that's rooted in pain
I rise
I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I rise.

And the bartender’s, like, “Brian, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that.”

Thanks to Becs for the heads up on this New Yorker totally charming take on the (still kinda funny, I'm sorry) 12 inch pianist joke.

“So a guy walks into a bar one day and he can’t believe his eyes. There, in the corner, there’s this one-foot-tall man, in a little tuxedo, playing a tiny grand piano. So the guy asks the bartender, “Where’d he come from?” And the bartender’s, like, “There’s a genie in the men’s room who grants wishes.”

You can read the whole thing here.

Also...

... heh.

"Life's a piece of shit, when you look at it"

Monty Python were right: Life is kind of a piece of shit. 

I'm not going to kill myself about it or anything but life is hard and boring and unfair and lots of other terrible things. I've had what 90 per cent of the world's population would probably consider to be a blessed life and still much of the time I find myself thinking Silenus might have been onto something.

So it's important to celebrate when good things happen and people are kind and you read a silly story that makes you happy and smiley and want to go out into the world and do only good things. 

I guess this meandering entry really boils down to this: read this cool story about a dude who saved a bear from drowning. Perhaps I should have just opened with that.

Lying Cat is Everything

Why aren't you reading Saga? Why am I only just reading it now?

(For realsies I am not really a graphic novel or comic book person but man I cannot recommend it highly enough)

Just the sort of reassuring words you want to hear from the structural engineer who has found bones buried in the garden of your new house:

"It’s probably just a pet but they looked pretty big and like they might have been... cut so I left them out for you to take a look." 

How to Friendzone a Guy and be Murdered in 10 Days

Um, hah. Yes. I feel this way about a lot of guys in shitty rom-coms. The whole 'he's not taking no for an answer' thing is... not hot. And don't get me started on "friend zone"...

I'm sorry

Because I know this post will mean almost nothing to anybody but me or weirdos who fell in love with Rainbow Rowell's excellent novel Fangirl as lamely as entirely as I did. But if this tweet means what I think it means - and it probably doesn't even but MAYBE IT DOES - then I am beyond excited. Just.. beyond. Come on God I don't believe in: I've been so good lately, don't I deserve this one? Please. Please, please please.

(Comes via the always terrific Rainbow Rowell)

Things I used to worry about when the Coles delivery guy brought my groceries at 7am on a Saturday morning vs. Things I now worry about when the Coles delivery guy brings my groceries at 7am on a Saturday morning

Then:

Do I need to change out of my pajama pants into actual clothes? Should I brush my hair? Is barefoot okay?

Now

Do I... need to put on a bra?

Thursday smut: Kill Your Darlings

This one's for Dans. And, you know, for me.

"...paging a dermatologist for Mr Midas..."

I am not a food journalist and I very much doubt I will ever be a food journalist. But if I were a food journalist then reading Jay Rayner's reviews every week in The Guardian, as I do, would make me weep at my own inadequacy.

"I’ve said it many times: I have no problem spending big money on meals out. I’ve paid more than £282 of my own dosh for lunch. It just needs to be utterly memorable, the stuff of recollections whispered breathily late at night. It can’t be a pallid fart of mediocrity, priced for some dodgy clientele that’s ripped off the gross national product of a small impoverished nation and is now domiciled in London for tax reasons. That’s what your money gets you at Quattro Passi: clumsy cooking, trying to make itself look grown up and clever, generally by the application of flaky precious metals, like King Midas has suffered psoriasis over your dinner. Yes, really. We’ll get there."

You can - and should - read the rest of this week's corker of a review here.

"There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind." 

(Kurt Vonnegut, God Bless You, Mr Rosewater)

Holding the Man

The other day I posted a list of cute words in other languages for which there is no accurate English translation - the kind of words that perfectly capture a particular feeling that would take you 10 words in English to express.

Well now I wish there was a word to describe the sensation of mingled hope, excitement and fear that comes with learning that a book that means a lot to you is being made into a film. Because: eeeeeeeeeiieieieieieiei is the closest I can come to expressing it.

I first read Holding the Man years ago after picking it up on a whim: I'd never heard of it and didn't know anything about it but it was $10 and I needed something to read. I've read it several times since and it's still one of the more gorgeous books I've ever read and almost certainly my favourite Australian book (bearing in mind I don't read much Australian literature). I don't want to risk spoiling it for anyone who hasn't read it by saying too much about the subject matter but I'd urge it on anyone. I'd even go so far as to say it's not just a great book in the way, say The Secret History (another favourite of mine) is a great book but an important book, especially for Australian readers. I am not a huge crier when it comes to books, even when I do find them awfully sad, but I weep like a bitch every time I re-read it.

So if you don't have weekend plans get thee down to the bookshop with your $10 in hand (it's a Penguin classic so it shouldn't be too hard to track down) and make a date with a genuine Australian classic. Just make sure you do it sooner rather than later, before the movie comes out and shits all over your memories.

Things I learned on a 16km hike at the weekend because apparently I am now somebody who hikes on the weekend sometimes and no I don't know when that happened:

1. I am not a terrible hiker. Seriously, I… finished and I didn’t complain (I think) and my body held up fine and I felt like I could have kept going at the end. I even jogged – jogged! – for about two seconds towards the end.
2. Good food can motivate me to do just about anything. I ate a chocolate-covered Florentine biscuit almost the size of my head for morning tea and just the thought of it kept me going through the early hard part of the trail.
3. I don’t always need music or an audiobook to distract me. This one surprised me because I have a habit of listening to audiobooks or podcasts to liven up boring tasks like cooking dinner, walking, cleaning etc. So I expected to be bored shitless hiking 16km with nought but my husband’s charming company (that's not as mean as it sounds: it's just not that easy to chat on the trail when you’re in single file). To my great surprise it was kinda fun just letting my mind wander and roam and mull over things.
4. I will never be a proper hiker. I mean 16km was fun because it took three and a half hours and then it was over. But if I had to get up every day and do that for, say, a week I think I would cry.
5. I will not be able to wait very long until I have another one of those big biscuits. Seriously, it was amazing: I would marry that bitch.

N.B: The Florentine pictured above is seriously not as big as the one I ate was but when I went looking I *ahem* couldn't actually find a biscuit picture that was big enough...

Yes yes yes

Is there anything better than starting the day with a genuine chuckle? I think not. This did it for me today.

Grief Bacon and other pretty words

So you all know what schadenfreude means, even if you don't really know how to pronounce it (my German colleague insists I get it wrong every time somehow to the point where I've just stopped saying it aloud, out of shame). But about these gems of words from other language of which there is no precise English translation (but there really ought to be)?

Kummerspeck (German)
Excess weight gained from emotional overeating. ("Grief bacon", according to Google translator, which is amazing).

Tingo (Pascuense)

To gradually steal all the possessions out of a neighbour's house by borrowing and not returning.

Shemomedjamo (Georgian)
To eat past the point of being full just because the food tastes good.

Fernweh (German)
Feeling homesick for somewhere you've never been.

Yuputka (Ulwa)

The phantom sensation of something crawling on your skin.

Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu (Tibetan)
Giving an answer that is unrelated to the question. See also: politicians. Apparently translates literally as "giving a green answer to a blue question".

Iktsuarpok (Inuit)
To go outside to check if an expected visitor has arrived, over and over again.

Waldeinsamkeit
The feeling of being alone in the woods (German)

Please note: My instinct is always to be sceptical about some of these 'translations' since I don't speak any of the languages involved and I sometimes suspect internet commentators of exaggerating for effect, comic or otherwise (I know, who would've thunk it). Nevertheless, most of the words I've picked seem to crop up often enough, with sufficiently similar meanings ascribed to them, that there's something there. These translations - and the gorgeous illustration above - come from these specific websites.

You have the right to remain... selfish

“Maybe you feel pressure to be positive because so many people rely on your good, fake-positive energy? If that's the case, screw everybody else. You're not a bottle of Valium.” 

(Augusten Burroughs, This Is How)

Call is passive aggression, call it being a pussy, whatever you call it I’ve always had trouble asserting myself. In my head I’ve called it politeness and I’ve called it not wanting to rock the boat and I still believe in the value of that. I know some people who are, um, excessively assertive I guess, and to me it comes off as rudeness. Knowing what you want and valuing that isn’t the same as steamrolling over other people. Accommodating what other people want is fundamental to living a happy life surrounded by others, in my opinion.

However, over the years I have learned how to be more assertive or, as I prefer to think of it, to stand up for myself more or put myself first. That doesn't mean being confrontational - not something I'm great at - but just quietly championing my own interests above those of other people and trying not to feel bad about that. In the past I’ve put other people ahead of myself over dumb things that don’t matter: these days I try not to be such a martyr. Sometimes this means being honest when someone asks if I want to do something and the truth is I’m really craving a night in bed with my book. Sometimes it means disagreeing with someone at work who’s more senior than me and not feeling like I have to bow to their opinion just because of that fact. Sometimes it means just being very very selfish and doing exactly what I want to do, like going to a solo weekend movie and eating a choc-top for lunch.

I was thinking about this today because I came across this ‘bill of assertive rights’ from a guy called Manuel J Smith who seems to be something of a self-help author. I don’t really go in for self-help in a big way (this wonderful book is an exception) but this tickled something in me, I’m not sure why. Oh and if you're wondering why this post is illustrated by a photo of Katherine Hepburn well just look at her - do you think she took crap from anyone?

A Bill of Assertive Rights
(Manuel J Smith)

I: You have the right to judge your own behaviour, thoughts, and emotions, and to take the responsibility for their initiation and consequences upon yourself.

II: You have the right to offer no reasons or excuses for justifying your behaviour.

III: You have the right to judge if you are responsible for finding solutions to other people’s problems.

IV: You have the right to change your mind.

V: You have the right to make mistakes—and be responsible for them.

VI: You have the right to say, “I don’t know.”

VII: You have the right to be independent of the goodwill of others before coping with them.

VIII: You have the right to be illogical in making decisions.

IX: You have the right to say, “I don’t understand.”

X: You have the right to say, “I don’t care.”

You have the right to say no, without feeling guilty.”

This Be The Verse

BY PHILIP LARKIN

They fuck you up, your mum and dad.   

    They may not mean to, but they do.   

They fill you with the faults they had

    And add some extra, just for you.

But they were fucked up in their turn

    By fools in old-style hats and coats,   

Who half the time were soppy-stern

    And half at one another’s throats.

Man hands on misery to man.

    It deepens like a coastal shelf.

Get out as early as you can,

    And don’t have any kids yourself.

Perve watch: James McEvoy

Suddenly all I want to do is go home and rewatch Atonement and X-Men: First Class. Repeatedly.

Things I loved and loved to hate about the Buffy episode “I Robot, You Jane” during a recent rewatch:

The complete disregard for how technology works

I can’t really remember what computers were like in the late 90s: I used one at school and home but I wasn’t particularly tech savvy about how they actually worked and I’m assuming our desktops were not exactly top of the range. Still, I feel confident in saying that no suburban schoolkid – no, not even Willow – owned a computer that could silently connect to the internet the moment you walked in the room in order to tell you whether you did or did not have mail. I mean I know there’s a demon in there but come now.

The language, oh, the language

Giles is supposed to be an old stuff-in-the-box so that’s fine but I’m 95 per cent sure I heard Buffy refer to an email as an “e-letter”. At another point one of the random nerds, whose name I didn't bother to learn since he's so clearly never going to appear again, delivers a speech about the need to be "jacked in". I mean: there is literally nothing not to love about that.

The fearmongering

Beneath the demon-of-the-week storyline the episode is essentially about the danger of feeling like you know someone too well when you only know them online. It’s a fair point – and I say this as someone who frequented internet chatrooms as a teen – but the chances that guy you’re chatting to is going to turn out to be an ancient demon who apparently has enough spare time to spend it flirting with a 15-year-old (ewwww) has got to be pretty low. A married 70-year-old man masturbating furiously into a sock maybe.

Jenny Calendar

I’ve always loved the character of Jenny Calendar, which is saying something considering she describes herself in this episode as a “techno-Pagan” which… no. Not only was she a saucy strumpet of a love interest for Giles but knowing how spectacularly she will die and under what circumstances adds a certain poignancy to rewatching the episodes in which she plays a big role. So I am deadly serious when I say I just really enjoyed watching her interact with Giles, snarking about his stuffiness while presumably undressing his tweedy bodice with her eyes as we all would.

Buffy's wardrobe

Always a delight, Buffy does not disappoint with a series of incredibly inappropriate short and tight outfits, offset by the super bulky stuff she has to wear for fight scenes to smooth the transition between Sarah Michelle Gellar and her stunt double. Worst choice goes to the short, skintight black dress deemed suitable for computer class. Best choice goes to her bitching sunglasses at the end.

The sudden introduction of new characters, Miss Calendar aside

As a show Buffy does this all the time, for the sensible reason that a lot of people DIE on the show so they need a lot of, how do I put this, fresh meat. But for some reason it particularly stands out here with some clunky dialogue shunted in to explain how this guy you’ve never seen before has tooootally been part of the school all along. Honest. Just like these computers that are suddenly everywhere.

The final scene

Nothing not to love about a scene that nicely foreshadows the shitty relationship choices the members of the main cast will make for the next seven seasons and yet still fails to prepare the audience for the horror that will be Season 4's Riley.

Ask every person if he's heard the story and tell it strong and clear if he has not

Have I ever written about my first ever blog, which was essentially a directory (on Angelfire!) of figures from the Camelot and Knights of the Round Table legends? No? Well let's just file that one under Shameful Events from My Past.

Before that fateful first blog and long after it I have always had a soft spot for Arthurian legends in general and - although I blush to admit it - this version of the musical Camelot in particular. I'll let myself out.

Best closing lines?

"I lingered round them, under that benign sky; watched the moths fluttering among the heath, and hare-bells; listened to the soft wind breathing through the grass; and wondered how anyone could ever imagine unquiet slumbers, for the sleepers in that quiet earth." (Wuthering Heights, Emily Bronte)

You be the judge.

This is what it's all about

"This is what it's all about. It's about reading a paper on a Sunday morning while you're thinking about whether you can be arsed to go to the neighbours' New Year's Eve party tonight. It's about getting angry with me for having different opinions from yours or not expressing the ones you have as well as you would have expressed them. It's about the breakfast you've just had and the dinner you're going to have. It's about the random acts of kindness which still, magically, preponderate over acts of incivility or nastiness. It's about rereading Great Expectations and about who's going to win the 3.30 at Haydock Park. It's about being able to watch old episodes of Frasier on satellite TV whenever we want, having the choice of three dozen breakfast cereals and seven brands of virgin olive oil at Sainsbury's. It's about loving and being loved, about doing the right thing, about one day being missed when we're gone.

And that's all it's about. It isn't about heaven and hell or the love of Christ or Allah or Yahveh because even if those things do exist, they don't have to exist for us to get on with it.
It is, above all I suppose, about passing time. And the only thing I know that you don't is that time passes at the same rate and in much the same way whether you're going to live to 48 or 148. Why am I happy? Because I'm alive. And the simple answer to the question 'What the hell is the point of it all' is this is the point of it all. You aren't happy? Yes you are: this, here, now, is what happiness is. Enjoy it."

(If you don't know John Diamond and you want some context, read this.)

Pump it

It's funny sometimes when something in your life changes in a way that makes you realise how much other aspects of your life have changed.

That makes zero sense, now that I read it back, so let me explain.

I've had problems with my right shoulder on and off for a good 10 years. It's been diagnosed, essentially, as a rotator cuff problem and I've just always accepted it's one of those things I have to live with. When it flares up I rest it until it feels okay and when it's fine I forget all about it.

No more. This week it has flared up badly and I just realised I am... sick of it. I'm sick of it hurting to do up my bra in the morning, roll over in bed or raise my right arm any higher than shoulder height. I'm sick of the constant ache when it's hurting and feeling perpetually uncomfortable. I'm sick of wondering whether a twinge here or there is the start of a full-on flare up or just a random twinge. So although I am incredibly broke I decided to go and see a physio about my shoulder.

For some stupid reason I've always been a bit suss about physios - it just seemed like nothing I couldn't get from a good massage. But when I had problems with my 'good' shoulder last year (yes, the OTHER one) I saw a physio and it's been absolutely fine ever since. That experience has got me thinking that maybe my long-term problem shoulder can be fixed, not just endured.

The jury's still out on whether it will work - I had my first appointment today and, as a result, now have $20 in the world to get me through the week... awesome - but the thing that made me laugh a little bit was just how depressed I was to hear that I need to lay off my regular gym classes. I knew, of course, that I would have to stop going to body pump/attack/balance for awhile but it still sucked to hear it. I didn't realise how much I was looking forward to going to my balance class until I realised I wouldn't be able to do it.

The bit that made me smile was that a year ago I couldn't have cared less about not being allowed to exercise: I liked to walk a bit, I guess, but that was it. I didn't go to the gym. I didn't do classes. I didn't have any interest in being strong. Now, being told to sit on the sidelines suuuuucks. I worry I'll lose my fledgling muscles. I worry that when I do eventually get to go back I'll have lost so much fitness. I worry, of course, that I won't be able to eat as freely as I currently do, confident the exercise will soak up those pesky extra calories. Exercise has become just a big part of my life I rely on it for stress relief, as much as anything else. Nothing, actually nothing, makes me feel as calm as body balance and nothing makes me feel stronger than going up on my weights at pump and making it through the class.

Le Sigh. For now I'll have to suck it up and maybe consider getting back into cycling classes, which I once enjoyed but find really really boring now for some reason. Until then if you need me I'll be on the couch. Nursing my shoulder.

I tried

For Peter Capaldi and his wonderfully craggy face I tried. But although I perpetually feel like I should slip perfectly into the demographic of Dr Who fans - I love science fiction AND cheese AND camp and just this kind of thing - somehow I just... don't. Half an hour into last night's first episode of the newest season I was, well, not just lost (no surprise there given it was the first episode I've tried to watch from the start) but a little bit bored. It all just seemed... silly and if you think I'm being a TV snob or patronising-as-fuck bear in mind this is coming from someone who watches (and loves) Witches of East End. I mean... WITCHES OF EAST END, PEOPLE: this is a show that had an episode last week called "When a Mandragora loves a Woman". and I watched it and it was awesome. Maybe I'll try again while the latest episode is still on iView - I so very much want to be a Whovian - but maybe not. Maybe this time I'll have to accept that some things just aren't for me and file this one alongside Lionel Ritchie and the novels of Hilary Mantel*.




* Please, don't write and tell me how good Wolf Hall is. I'm sure it's great. I know it must be great, that many people have told me it's great. I've bought this novel as a present for other people and I have tried to get into it myself but It's. Not. Happening. For. Me. Ever.

Chris Pratt on going from a soft, portly chap to his super buff Guardians of the Galaxy body

The Friend Zone

When did Daniel Radcliffe become awesome, exactly? Because that happened.

(Via bethanyactually)

Scenes from my life: conversations about a dress

Him: I don't like it. It's too.. twee?

Me: That's kind of the point.

Him: Well maybe you've gone too far.

In case anyone out there is reading this and has recently come into some superpowers that enable them to grant wishes...

... this (the top pic) is how I'd like to look in clothes all the time thanks. That tshirt! The skirt! The white sneakers that are a teensy bit like my Fred Perrys but somehow much better... I die. I die.

Scenes from my life: The Inglewood on a Wednesday night

Barfly: You know you can tell what kind of red it is by looking at it in the glass.

Me: I'm not sure that's true.

Barfly: It is. It's all about the colour.

Me: I think you'd really need to taste it.

Barfly: Not true. I can tell that your wine is a... Shiraz.

Me:... Okay.

Barfly: Taste it!

Me: I'm... I have to sit down.

Really dumb things my gym instructor said to my body pump class this week:

"If you knew how many calories were in wine you wouldn't drink it."

In case you're not all Williamsed out

The response to Robin Williams' death that most resonated with me came from the rather excellent Sarah D Bunting at Tomato Nation.

Failure

I have waxed lyrical before now about Guardian beauty columnist Sali Hughes before now. It's no secret I think she's great: funny smart and with an attitude I both admire and wish I could emulate. So it comes as no surprise to learn she's also brilliant when writing about things that have nothing to do with beauty. A concept, even, that is almost anti-beauty: failure.

Like most people I've experienced by fair share of what could be described as failure and at times it has crushed me, depressed me and made me wonder if I'd ever bounce back. I fear I may even have fallen into this category of people, described by Sali:

"There is no one duller than a person who quacks on about life having dealt them a cruel hand. Seriously, these people are impossibly draining and so comfortable at their own pity party that repeat failure is not only a forgone conclusion, but also a lazy way of never aiming for success. Don’t be that girl. In one year, my closest friend was made redundant, diagnosed with cancer, and bereaved when her partner was killed in a terrorist attack. And yet she still put herself directly in the line of failure to launch her own small business because otherwise, she wouldn’t be living. Some failure is inevitable, but it’s never the beginning and end of your story unless you allow it to be."

Once upon a time I had a tendency to feel sorry for myself. My life wasn't, objectively speaking, all that hard but it felt hard to me and I let it weigh me down.

These days I try very hard not to be that person. Like Sali I have a friend who has faced a real shitpile the past couple of years: a seriously ill husband with ongoing health complications, the loss of a second income and all the resulting money problems that come from point a and point b. To an outsider it seems like just when one problem resolves itself another appears. I have no idea how she copes as well as she does but she has taken everything on the chin and doesn't let any of that grim awfulness stop her from living and taking risks, not to mention still being a top friend always ready to listen to other people's problems and take them seriously rather than just (justifiably) shrieking: "My problems are bigger!" in response.

I may never be quite so zen and awesome as her but I also credit myself with having learned the ability to suck it up and move on when the occasion requires it. Many times, of course, it's not as simple as being able to suck it up or get over it. Some problems, or failures if you like, require you to be able to ask for help and to accept it. That in itself - the asking, the accepting - is a way of trying to rise above your circumstances at a time when it feels like you're swimming through treacle. It can also be kind of a bitch to do.

I'll give the last word to Sali but if anything I've written here resonates you must follow the link above post haste and read the full article. She is a delight. She's also quite a dab hand with the ol' make-up brush. Just sayin'.

"You simply cannot enjoy success in the same way if you’ve never felt failure."

"I think your whole life shows in your face and you should be proud of that."

(Lauren Bacall)

Good news

Apparently I'm not the only one who has developed a serious girl crush on Keri Russell lately. She... I mean, I don't know how to say this but she makes me want to... wear pants. For realsies.

Things I enjoyed about Guardians of the Galaxy

1. The easy charm of Chris Pratt

2. Being reunited with my screen boyfriend Lee Pace, albeit distantly glimpsed behind some highly unappealing make-up and costuming. Dude got buff.

3. Jokes that actually made me laugh.

4. A romance that didn't make me want to harm myself and others.

5. The talking raccoon. I'm not made of stone.

6. Eating a rum and raising choc top while watching it. Simple pleasures.

Happiness as a 31-year-old homebody is:

1. A stack of new books, arrived in the post.

2. A two day weekend.

3. Zero plans.

Things I said on the phone today in the course of one 20 minute phone call that were massive understatements, showing great restraint on my part.

1. I'm not sure that's entirely accurate.

2. I'd have to verify that, I'm afraid.

3. That doesn't sound entirely correct to me.

4. I'm afraid I do have to go now.

Things I heard in the lunch room at work that made me roll my eyes #23

"People take cold and flu tablets and these things but you can't fight a cold, you just can't."

"Comparison is the thief of joy." 

(Theodore "call me Teddy" Roosevelt)

The movie, Reaching for the Moon, is a reminder for me of why I hate being asked to rate movies out of five stars. It's too reductive. Say "three stars" and they assume it's kind of a turd, say "four stars" and they'll be expecting a masterpiece so you have to qualify that, well, Pitch Perfect isn't for everyone.

Reaching for the Moon isn't a perfect movie. It's not even a... great movie. If I had to rate it out of five I couldn't justify more than a three, probably: there are bits that don't work, some painfully long aspects that don't seem to go anywhere. And yet it's one of those movies that has stuck with me and that I feel like will probably stick with me for awhile yet.

It's also introduced me to the work of American poet Elizabeth Bishop, who is hugely accomplished and was a complete stranger to me. I mean, come on, if this poem -

One Art

Elizabeth Bishop

The art of losing isn’t hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant 
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother’s watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.


—Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan’t have lied.  It’s evident
the art of losing’s not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.

- isn't worth $17 for a movie ticket then I don't know what is. Gorgeous.

For me, I guess, the only question that matters when it comes to movies is whether it's worth seeing. Reaching for the Moon is, to me, worth seeing. Another better made and arguably more capital-i Important film like 12 Years a Slave... well, although I can appreciate it's well made and all it just didn't do it for me. I wouldn't be able to recommend it. Then you take something pretty lame like, say Hairspray: not a great musical or a great movie, I'd argue, but I saw it twice at the movies because it was just so freaking enjoyable.

So when it comes to the movies, if you care about such things, forget about star ratings and start thinking about whether it's worth the price of admission, the calorific debt of a choc bomb and two hours of your life.

Smokin'

I am endlessly grateful that I never took up smoking. I didn't find it particularly gross when I was younger and briefly dated a smoker but the smell of stale smoke on someone now makes me appreciate I dodged a bullet. That much said, these babes - I'm sorry, there's no other word for their particular brand of boobs-out yum - made it look pretty hot. Bad babes.

Things I Have Learned Lately

Grand Designs is right: it will cost more and take longer than you ever imagined possible.

Mr Whiskerley's sneeze is the cutest thing in the world.

I can be a morning person if I have to be.

Not everyone deserves another chance or to be continually defended to others. Sometimes people aren't misunderstood: they're showing you who they are. And they're kinda dicky.

My brother is really good at puzzles.

I don't like being drunk as much as I thought I did.

Everything in life comes at the cost of something else.

It is possible to read a book and drink a cup of tea while having a shower. Just.

Awkward scenes from my life #12

Making a domestic violence joke to someone, not realising he's been a victim of domestic violence.

The lesson? Don't make jokes about domestic violent, dipshit.

“With short hair you begin to crave pearl necklaces long earrings and a variety of sunglasses. And you brush your teeth more often. Short hair removes obvious femininity and replaces it with style. When it starts growing out a little and losing its style you have to wear sunglasses until you can get it to the hairdresser. That’s why you need a variety. Short hair makes you aware of subtraction as style. You can no longer wear puffed sleeves or ruffles the neat is suddenly preferable to the fussy. You eye the tweezers instead of the blusher. What else can you take away You can’t hide behind short hair… you may look a little androgynous a little unfinished a little bare… but your face is no longer a flat screen surrounded by a curtain: the world sees you in three dimensions.” (Joan Juliet Buck)

Songs to live by

Low points from an otherwise enjoyable trip to Marble Bar

1. Realising the door on the caravan I’d be sleeping in for three nights didn’t shut. At all. Not even a little bit.

2. Being told by the woman who ran the Marble Bar Caravan Park that she recommended “sticking a knife in it” to hold the door shut.

3. Realising I did not have a knife, either to try the door thing or to kill myself.

4. Being denied extra blankets by the caravan park woman because she didn’t have any spare. But how do they cope when it was time to wash the blankets, you might ask? EXACTLY.

5. Testing the claim, made by the aforementioned caravan park woman (of course), that the air-conditioner in the caravan was reverse cycle and would heat up "if left on long enough". It was not and it did not.

6. Waking up in the middle of the night in a pitch black caravan with a half-open door in time to hear a particularly gruesome bit of my American Psycho audio book. I guess that one's on me, Marble Bar Caravan Park.

Things I learned after reading (the completely enthralling) book Rebecca, having previously only seen the Hitchcock movie based on the book:

SPOILERS ON A 100+ YEAR OLD BOOK TO FOLLOW...

1. Not everyone feels that finding out your husband is a double (kinda) murderer is a turn-off.
2. Never listen to the help. They are always trying to fuck you over.
3. It's good to have land.

Roger Federer as Religious Experience

Confession: I didn't watch the Wimbledon finale. And, sure, now knowing what a great match it was I feel a little bad about that. But the thing about finals in any kind of sport, I tell myself, is that there's always another one. Seriously, it will be back and there will be another great final. Just give it time.

You know what there won't be another of? David Foster Wallace, whose essays I love even if I'm clearly just not smart enough to get into his novels. One day, Infinite Jest, one day you will be fine but life's too short to slug through something you don't enjoy. Anyway, Wallace's essays really are great: "Consider the Lobster" is possibly my favourite or "A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again", which I took on a cruise and which made me laugh like a drain. But one that's been doing the rounds this week for obvious reasons (and which I've linked to from this blog before) is also very good: "Roger Federer as Religious Experience". I mean, what a great title - you read that title and you know this thing you're about to read is not going to be quite like all those other things you've read. As someone who has pretty much zero interest in sports journalism or sports writing this is one of the very few pieces of sports-related writing I go back to again and again.

Almost anyone who loves tennis and follows the men’s tour on television has, over the last few years, had what might be termed Federer Moments. These are times, as you watch the young Swiss play, when the jaw drops and eyes protrude and sounds are made that bring spouses in from other rooms to see if you’re O.K. 

The Moments are more intense if you’ve played enough tennis to understand the impossibility of what you just saw him do. We’ve all got our examples. Here is one. It’s the finals of the 2005 U.S. Open, Federer serving to Andre Agassi early in the fourth set. There’s a medium-long exchange of groundstrokes, one with the distinctive butterfly shape of today’s power-baseline game, Federer and Agassi yanking each other from side to side, each trying to set up the baseline winner...until suddenly Agassi hits a hard heavy cross-court backhand that pulls Federer way out wide to his ad (=left) side, and Federer gets to it but slices the stretch backhand short, a couple feet past the service line, which of course is the sort of thing Agassi dines out on, and as Federer’s scrambling to reverse and get back to center, Agassi’s moving in to take the short ball on the rise, and he smacks it hard right back into the same ad corner, trying to wrong-foot Federer, which in fact he does — Federer’s still near the corner but running toward the centerline, and the ball’s heading to a point behind him now, where he just was, and there’s no time to turn his body around, and Agassi’s following the shot in to the net at an angle from the backhand side...and what Federer now does is somehow instantly reverse thrust and sort of skip backward three or four steps, impossibly fast, to hit a forehand out of his backhand corner, all his weight moving backward, and the forehand is a topspin screamer down the line past Agassi at net, who lunges for it but the ball’s past him, and it flies straight down the sideline and lands exactly in the deuce corner of Agassi’s side, a winner — Federer’s still dancing backward as it lands. 

And there’s that familiar little second of shocked silence from the New York crowd before it erupts, and John McEnroe with his color man’s headset on TV says (mostly to himself, it sounds like), “How do you hit a winner from that position?” And he’s right: given Agassi’s position and world-class quickness, Federer had to send that ball down a two-inch pipe of space in order to pass him, which he did, moving backwards, with no setup time and none of his weight behind the shot. It was impossible. It was like something out of “The Matrix.” I don’t know what-all sounds were involved, but my spouse says she hurried in and there was popcorn all over the couch and I was down on one knee and my eyeballs looked like novelty-shop eyeballs.

You can read the whole thing here and I strongly suggest that you do.

Things I wanted to say but did not say to the person who made the comments below"

1. If you don't want to be photographed (doing a thing) maybe you should consider not (doing a thing).

2. The fact that you're shouting "You have an attitude! You're horrible!" at me makes me think you might be the one who is both horrible and has an attitude. Call me crazy.

3. You saying that you're good friends with (someone sort of important) doesn't make me more likely to do what you want me to do. It's actually kinda the opposite.

Things I was told today in the course of doing my job by just another satisfied customer:

1. "You've got a real attitude".

2. "You don't feel bad".

3. "You're horrible".

Simon Snow and Baz on the other hand...

Call me naive but until I read Rainbow Rowell's wonderful novel, Fangirl, it never occurred to me anyone would consider Draco Malfoy hooking up with Harry Potter. It still strikes me as deeply wrong on a number of levels but that's not to say this piece of fan art, via Cremebunny.tumblr.com, doesn't charm. For starters, where can I buy a pair of Harry's awesomely high pants? Inquiring minds want to know.

On Maintenance

There's nothing I can say about Nora Ephron that hasn't already been said. Either you've read her and you love her or you... haven't and/or don't. To my shame I didn't start reading her essays until quite recently - drawn in by the irresistible title I Feel Bad About My Neck, so I can't claim she's been a huge influence or that I know every word she's written intimately. She hasn't and I don't... which is sort of good news since it means there's still plenty out there for me to read for the first time.

All I do know is that she's clever and funny and very, very readable. Since this week marks the two year anniversary of her death I thought I'd post a link to just one of her very nice essays on, well, Maintenance. It starts like this:

You know what maintenance is, I'm sure. Maintenance is what they mean when they say, "After a certain point, it's just patch, patch, patch." Maintenance is what you have to do just so you can walk out the door knowing that if you go to the market and bump into a guy who once rejected you, you won't have to hide behind a stack of canned food. I don't mean to be too literal about this. There are a couple of old boyfriends whom I always worry about bumping into, but there's no chance—if I ever did—that I would recognize either of them. On top of which they live in other cities. But the point is that I still think about them every time I'm tempted to leave the house without eyeliner. 

There are two types of maintenance, of course. There's Status Quo Maintenance—the things you have to do daily or weekly, just to stay more or less even. And then there's the maintenance you have to do monthly or yearly or every couple of years or so—maintenance I think of as Pathetic Attempts to Turn Back the Clock. Into this category fall such things as facelifts, liposuction, Botox, major dental work, and the general area of Removal of Unsightly Things—of varicose veins, for instance, and skin tags, and those irritating little red spots that crop up on your torso after a certain age for no real reason. I'm not going to discuss such issues here—for now, I'm concentrating only on the routine, everyday things required just to keep you from looking like someone who no longer cares.

(You can and you should read the rest here)

Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again

I love considering opening lines in novels - why they work, which ones don't work, the point at which a cute attempt to suck the reader in becomes irritating. A good opening line stays with me even if the novel turns out to be a little bit of the meh variety. So I very much enjoyed Glen Weldon's blog post on the subject, not least because he included two of my favourites. I mean no surprises there - these lines are kind of everyone's favourites, that's why they're famous. But still:

“It was the afternoon of my eighty-first birthday, and I was in bed with my catamite when Ali announced that the archbishop had come to see me.” – Anthony Burgess, Earthly Powers

"The sun shone, having no alternative, on the nothing new.” – Samuel Beckett, Murphy

Via Into The Gloss

I don't often read interviews with people and wish we were friends so I could pop around, drink cocktails and just Let Them Speak but, yeah, Debi Mazar you got me. You got me.

Scenes from a Gorman store or How to Be a Horrible Person and Force Your Husband to Overshare With Cute Sales Assistants

Perky shop assistant: So have you guys been out for lunch?

Me: Um, no.

(Silence)

Him: We've been having lunch with my grandmother.

PSA: Oh. That's nice.

Him: And watching a movie.

PSA: What movie?

Him: Well it's kind of a short film. It was actually made by a relative of ours and...

Conversations

Her1: We all go off the rails sometimes and do things that are... not good and self-destructive. I mean me for one...

Her2: Yes!

Her1: Hah!

Her2: No, I wasn't meaning you. I was talking about me.

Her1: Oh yeah, you too.

Her2: We both...

Her1: I know.

Dear Colin Firth,

NEVER CHANGE.

Love,
All of Us

Friday reading

I don't know but the last line of this paragraph made me laugh a lot today and I wanted to share the love. The full thing (it's not long) is worth a read if you're interested in identify and, you know, that kind of thing.

"I come out of the closet twice more between the ages of 12 and 16. About twelve times more if you count the number of times I write, “Please, God, don’t let me be gay,” in my prayer journal or post anxious questions about the heavenly fate of homosexuals on Christian message boards in the early days of internet anonymity. Thirteen more, if you count the time I named my cat “Rock Hudson.”"

(You can read the full post here)

Mood music

I'm not saying I'm angry at the world tonight but if I was doing an impression of a moody teen in her room with the stereo on I might be listening to some of these and I would highly recommend you do the same next time you feel the need, ideally as loud as propriety will allow.



Nick Cave, Thirsty Dog
I should have posted one of Cave's live performances but all the ones I could find were a bit rubbish and since this is the perfect angry song I didn't want to muck it up. This song asks more questions than it answers (um, what happened at the hospital, for starters?) and is basically perfect. Love's always having to say you're sorry? True that.



The Buzzcocks, Everybody's Every Happy Nowadays
This one - and the record it comes from - got a serious workout from me in the late 1990s and early noughties. There aren't that many bands from that era I can go back to again and again but The Buzzcocks are one of them.



The Men, Candy
I don't know what it is about this song that makes me think of flicking cigarettes the faces of those that have wronged me. I wish, obviously.



The Ramones, Judy is a Punk
I used to have this song ready on my iPod in London when I had to run up a lot of steps to get from one tube to another or generally wanted to be closeted in my own little world for a very short period of time. If you listen to it I think you can see why.


PJ Harvey, This Is Love
This is a very good song, is what it is.



The Smiths, Half a Person
Obviously. I could have chosen a good half a dozen other tracks but this one is a keeper.



Robyn, Don't Fucking Tell Me What To Do
The clue is in the title.

“I wrote at the start that this was a record of hate, and walking there beside Henry towards the evening glass of beer, I found the one prayer that seemed to serve the winter mood: O God, You've done enough, You've robbed me of enough, I'm too tired and old to learn to love, leave me alone forever.” (Graham Greene, The End of the Affair)

Reasons why my oldest friend is probably still my oldest friend, or Things We Said At Dinner Last Night

1. "Oh you eat at the same pace as I do."

2. "I love the lack of interaction with the waiters."

3. "Are you full full or do you want to get ice-cream?"