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.