Wanna date?

So I'm not saying that knowing tomorrow is the anniversary of Ernest Hemmingway killing himself has improved my life exactly but I am saying I do rather like this literary calendar thing and I think you will too.

And now I want to rewatch The OC again. Thanks INTERNET.

So you don't have to have seen and loved both The OC and Mad Men to enjoy this faux credits sequence in which the latter is reimagined as the former but it helps. (If you're not up to date with Mad Men just avoid reading the text above the video, which includes spoilers about the last episode).

This one comes via Dans

Overheard at my desk

"Enough about Mandela. Until he's dead, I don't want to hear about it."

It's all gone a bit kumbaya over here

I came to this lovely bit by Bertrand Russell below via this also quite lovely bit by Stephen Fry. Pretty stuff.

It also reminds me a bit of Woody Allen's nice little speech from Manhattan ("Well, all right, why is life worth living? That's a very good question. Well, there are certain things I guess that make it worthwhile. Uh, like what? Okay. Um, for me... oh, I would say... what, Groucho Marx, to name one thing... and Willie Mays, and... the second movement of the Jupiter Symphony, and... Louie Armstrong's recording of 'Potatohead Blues'... Swedish movies, naturally... 'Sentimental Education' by Flaubert... Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra... those incredible apples and pears by Cezanne... the crabs at Sam Wo's..."

I've edited that to avoid spoilers. Anyway. Bertrand!

“What I Have Lived For. 

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair. 

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness—that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what—at last—I have found. 

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved. 

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.
This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.” 

— The Prologue to Bertrand Russell’s Autobiography

Signs I may not be amazing at this whole Being An Adult thing

My dinner tonight was two veggie sausages, eaten with my hands, and a small glass of port. Also there was a glass of water, which I managed to pour all over myself.

Baby brain

This women regrets having children.

This woman didn't have kids and thinks she made the right decision.

This woman believes concerns about women and declining fertility after 30 might have been overblown.

This woman sometimes regrets not having kids but mostly... doesn't? I don't know.

THIS woman - no there's no link there, I'm talking about myself - really kinda wishes she could stop reading articles about babies and women with babies and women without babies and babies babies babies.

Things I thought/said/tweeted while watching The Bachelorette.

13 minutes in: I am watching #thebachelorette and this isn't even the dumbest thing said so far: "This isn't my grandfather-type dodgeball". Um, what?

19 minutes in: Bringing up that domestic violence allegation/arrest/restraining order on a first date - bold move, Guy. #thebachelorette

27 minutes in: This candid moment would feel more candid if 2 camera crews weren't filming it. Let me at least try to suspend my disbelief #thebachelorette

35 minutes in: Watching a guy on a dating show get busted by his gf should be terrible but obvs it's amazing and I'm dying of happiness. #thebachelorette

37 minutes in: This cheating sucker nearly turned it around for me by saying "oh my gosh". I mean, that's charming, right? #thebachelorette

(Okay I should mention that I'm sort of making up these times now because, honestly, I'm skipping a lot of this shit).

45 minutes in: Heights, a cold wind and being forced to don a bikini after a heavy meal? #thebachelorette is my worst nightmare on a number of levels.

200 minutes in (feels like): This demeans everyone. Are those horses? I don't even...

Eleventybillion hours in: "All I can do is reassure him." Or maybe stop dating those dozen other guys? I'm just spitballing here. #thebachelorette

I don't even know how many minutes in: And other things not to say to the girl dating another 12 guys: "I am falling in love with you and... we've barely talked." #thebachelorette

Mea Culpa

I have been, it has been put to me, a very bad blogger lately and a very slack one too. I know. I know this is true. The reason is very boring: essentially for boring reasons various aspects of my life are a little bit sad and confusing right now and there aren't that many light-hearted blog posts to be written about it. But, lest you worry I'm about to open a vein let me assure you there are still plenty of things making me happy - even if I'm not writing about them much. Here are some of them.

1. The return of The Bachelorette. If only because that means I can read various hilarious recaps of The Bachelorette, which are approximately 200 times better than the show itself.

2. My new hair (mostly). Even if I do look like Demi Moore from Ghost (thanks Dan).

3. The bar of white Lindt chocolate sitting, untouched (as yet) in my top drawer.

4. Maroon pants. More specifically, the fact that I tried on said pants and can see, kinda almost, a world in which I might buy and - crucially - WEAR - said pants.

5. The novels of Lawrence Sanders. No, there are no new ones (he's dead) but I've been steadily rereading the copies generously loaned to me by Belly a long time ago (I swear I'll return them) and they are the kind of books that cheer you up immediately. So so good.

6. Port. I've never really liked port but at the moment we have a bottle on the go in the house, for some reason, and there is absolutely nothing to beat a tiny little glass of the stuff when one is tucked up in bed.

7. My friends. Not to get all soft about it but some of them are just the best and their presence in my life makes it worth living.

8. My cat, Mr Whiskerley. Not to get even softer but I basically adore him. It's been so many years since my lovely old cat Tikki died that I'd forgotten how wonderful they can be. Neither did I imagine a cat other than Tikki could worm its way so firmly into my heart but goddamnit the little fucker has done it.

Things that were googled during dinner on Saturday night to settle an argument:

1. The name of the TV show on which Chris O'Donnell appears.

2. The genetic origins of the hyena.

Overheard at my desk

"Why do you have a boy's haircut?"

I don't know...

... what this is but according to the wonders at GoFugYourself it is a genuine product, which makes this ad... sort of awesome.

Things to read on a Sunday

Con: I now have a certain very catchy, quite terrible song stuck in my head.

Pro: This made me laugh.

Just another day in the office

Caller: Another thing you might want to look at - I wonder, I mean sometimes I wonder, whether this whole cancer thing isn't just a money raising opportunity.

Me: Uhhhh.

Caller: I mean, what were people doing 100, 200 years ago? They were using natural remedies.

Me: But, um, life expectancies were a lot shorter then, of course.

Caller: Were they though?

Me: Um... yes.

Apologies

I swear this blog is not turning into Poetry Corner (two blog posts in a row - I know, I know). I barely even read poetry these days and when I do my tastes are embarassingly mainstream, unoriginal and kinda childish: I like W.H Auden and Robert Frost, T.S Eliot and Siegfried Sasson - poets who write the kind of comfortable and familiar verse known to schoolchildren. Sometimes I pretend I like Geoffrey Hill more than I do but I don't think I'm quite smart enough for him somehow and other than the odd lovely line or two ('One cannot lose what one has not possessed'/So much for that abrasive gem./ I can lose what I want. I want you) mostly his words just wash over me.

All of which is a very long way of apologising in advance for reprinting a lovely Clive James poem published this month in The New Yorker but it's so so lovely and sad I can't even bear it. I have long been a fan of James' journalism - his wit and great talent with words - but I never realised what an awfully pretty poet he is. The fact that he's producing this kind of stuff at the very end of his life is somehow even more impressive. Faced with looming death I'd probably spend my remaining days doing something stupid like finally watching The Wire.

Leçons de Ténèbres

But are they lessons, all these things I learn

Through being so far gone in my decline?
The wages of experience I earn
Would service well a younger life than mine.
I should have been more kind. It is my fate
To find this out, but find it out too late.

The mirror holds the ruins of my face
Roughly together, thus reminding me
I should have played it straight in every case,
Not just when forced to. Far too casually
I broke faith when it suited me, and here
I am alone, and now the end is near.

All of my life I put my labour first.
I made my mark, but left no time between
The things achieved, so, at my heedless worst,
With no life, there was nothing I could mean.
But now I have slowed down. I breathe the air
As if there were not much more of it there

And write these poems, which are funeral songs
That have been taught to me by vanished time:
Not only to enumerate my wrongs
But to pay homage to the late sublime
That comes with seeing how the years have brought
A fitting end, if not the one I sought.

This Be The Verse

I kind of made this joke(?) on Twitter but seriously Philip Larkin's lovely poem, "This Be the Verse" is both a very good poem and a near perfect review of The Place Beyond the Pines, no?

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.

Note to self: try using the word "orgiastic" in conversation

I love The Great Gatsby a lot. It has occupied a place in my top three favourite novels since I re-read it in first year uni and suddenly realised what I had failed to the first time I read it: It's a perfect novel.

For a long time during my extremely pretentious years (yes, they have finished. Also: shut up) I had this quote - 

"And as I sat there, brooding on the old unknown world, I thought of Gatsby's wonder when he first picked out the green light at the end of Daisy’s dock. He had come a long way to this blue lawn and his dream must have seemed so close that he could hardly fail to grasp it. He did not know that it was already behind him, somewhere back in that vast obscurity beyond the city, where the dark fields of the republic rolled on under the night.
Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that’s no matter — tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning — So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

- on the wall of my bedroom as the centrepiece of this totally mad wall quotes thing I had going on for awhile and which my parents somehow greeted with endless patience. Yes I was an insufferable child but honestly I could read and re-read that little but all day it's just so gorgeous.

Once upon a time the prospect of having a favourite novel made into a movie would have terrified me. Lord knows, I have complained constantly about the string of shitty movies based on Philip K Dick short stories - another author over whom I feel a mild and entirely ridiculous sense of ownership. I don't like seeing things I love interpreted by someone else. I have no sense of generosity, only a burning feeling of entitlement that everything should belong to me and me only.

Yet somehow - how I do not know - I have achieved a zen like calm ahead of tomorrow night's screening of Gatsby. 

I like a lot of Baz Luhrmann's movies, I like his flashy, simultaneously sentimental and incredibly unsentimental style and I think it suits the source material well but that's not it. I have suitably lowered my expectations, thanks to a fair smattering of mixed reviews, but that's not it either. Somehow I have realised at the tender age of 30 what has eluded me thus far: the realisation that even if the movie is shit it doesn't actually diminish the book. At all. Even if it's a stinking pile of poo I will still have that book to read as many times as I want.

These lovely lines - 

"They're a rotten crowd," I shouted across the lawn. "You're worth the whole damn bunch put together." I’ve always been glad I said that. It was the only compliment I ever gave him, because I disapproved of him from beginning to end. First he nodded politely, and then his face broke into that radiant and understanding smile, as if we’d been in ecstatic cahoots on that fact all the time."

- will be mine for as long as I want them. Which is quite a comforting thought really.

This...

... little collection of authors' hand-written book outlines is entirely charming if you have read any of the books in question. And if you haven't why aren't you reading Catch 22 right now? Because. Holy Shit. That book. Is bananas.

It's a lot like my Is It Dinner Time face actually

Ok so it may seem like I spend all my time watching trailers and getting excited but I challenge you - I CHALLENGE you - to watch this trailer and not sort of agree with everything Lainey says. If you were here right now you would see my Is It November Yet face.

The preview clip that foiled my plan to keep my expectations basement level low:

Damn youuuu.

Overheard at my desk

Him: I saw a lot of girls in France that looked like you.

Me: (Barely hiding my delight) How so?

Him: Short dark hair, red lipstick.

Me: But the original is still the best, right?

Him: Well they speak French so....

Me: Oh.

Him: Yeah.

Ways I have justified not getting out of bed yet this morning:

1. I'm sick. I definitely need some extra rest time before work.

2. It's really cold.

3. I'll have a really short shower.

4. I'll get dressed really quickly.

5. My hair's so short now it hardly even needs a blowdry...

Questions

1. Why do I only ever seem to get sick on the weekends?

2. Why does my head feel like it's wrapped in cottonwool?

3. If I double dosed on cold and flu tablets that would totally be twice as effective, yes?

I think...

... the title of this tumblr, The Worst Room, says it all. But this photo really drives the point home.

Things to read

This charming, happy-sad article on sex and disability is worth reading for the line "George Clooney rendered as a Sesame Street Muppet" alone.

Famous people I have been told I look like in order of how happy-to-suicidal the comparison made me feel.

Rose Byrne

(YES SHUT UP THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED, IT IS A THING AND LOOKING AT ROSE BYRNE IS LIKE LOOKING INTO A MIRROR)

Pia Miranda

(Pretty sure this referred to me only in my (much) younger days and Pia Miranda cira Looking for Alibrandi but I'll take it)

Katie Holmes

(Yes this was from a gent who was trying to get into my knickers and yes he was very drunk and yes it was very dark but I'm TAKING IT ANYWAY. Also I will say this: we both have one slightly wonky eye. So... there.)

Elaine Benes

(Is this about the brogues? I think it's about the brogues)

Janeane Garofalo

(No the fact that she's nearly 20 years older than me doesn't make me want to kill myself, thanks for asking)

Nana Maskouri

(Fuck you, Stuey)

Reasons to like my friends #13

They (by which I mean the wonderful Clowney) sent me a link to this. Also we spent an afternoon drinking wine in the sun while her seriously ill father mowed the lawn. It was awesome.

Call me crazy...

... but I really think more girls would take advantage of our free work gym if it didn't require having one's boobs measured by a strange man every three months. Or possibly if the gym reconsidered its hiring policies.

Overheard in the office

"Thank God (high profile person) is dead, I've got no stories today."

Ads that pop up on my computer screen and make me realise it IS 1984 and Big Brother is all up in my business:

You Need More Dresses

ModCloth’s Dresses Cause Happiness! 

Hey, Can’t Argue With Science.

ModCloth.com

Don't trust their innocent faces...

How do you know you have found true love?

She leans over in the middle of a Post Secret show to grip your arm and roll her eyes in protest at the stranger who has just told the room about her battle with depression/escape from an abusive relationship/suicide attempts.

My Thursday gift to you

Is to tell you that if you've never seen Joss Whedon's Dr Horrible's Sing-Along Blog you are missing out. Act 1 is below and Acts 2 and 3 are on YouTube so have exactly zero excuses. And if you don't start to smile around 3:51 I don't even know...

On nights when you've just eaten two giant brownies...

... I thank the sweet Lord for the likes of Crystal Renn, Kelly Brook and Kate Upton, who remind me that a girl can be a little round of belly and soft of cheek* and still look hot as shit. Of course, eating this brownie isn't getting my any closer to having their faces but baby steps, Kate, baby steps.

* For the record, I'm not suggesting any of these hot bitches has an "average" body, sit around eating brownies all day or is anything close to plump. But, as a girl with a lot of soft corners, it's rather nice to see some saucy minxes who aren't entirely hard edges every once in awhile.

That glorious moment when...

... you forget all about the cameo Courtney Taylor Taylor, of Dandy Warhols fame, made on Veronica Mars and all of a sudden he shows up on your TV screen looking like the gayest rent boy in the world. Wonderful.

Blue shirts for all, she wrote

Dear readers, I hope you can understand why this website exploring the fashion of Jessica "Murder, She Wrote" Fletcher, is amazing. If not, my condolences.

Overheard in my office.

"Unless someone is dead or at least injured I just don't care."

Insults-at-work watch

Today I was accused of being a "Health Department stooge". Sigh. I don't even know where to begin. If only these people could see me in the morning when I wake up, tired and fuzzy headed; close my eyes in the shower I don't want to leave; scrabble for an unladdered pair of stockings and water my basil plant in stockinged feet perhaps they'd understand I'm not part of any kind of vast conspiracy, just a kinda sleepy journalist trying to do my job. And then perhaps they'd fuck off.

Sometimes

All you need after a shitty day is a picture of a cat kicking back on a chair. Okay, I'm sorry: you need multiple pictures of various cats kicking it in many various locations.

Further to...

... my I Don't Care For The Children post of the other day, The Hairpin brings its perspective.

There is a moment...

... in the quite silly but delightfully watchable film Trance when James McEvoy's character says to the object of his affection something like: "I miss you when I'm not here". Except he doesn't just say it, he says it in basically the cutest way ever, while sort of playing with her fingers and leaning it to kiss her cheek, all while not properly looking at her.

I fell for McEvoy in Atonement, where he not only used the word "cunt" in a love letter (swoon, although I guess a partial credit goes to Ian McEwan) but managed to convince me Keira Knightley was shaggable. Our love grew deeper in X-Men: First Class which I spent fantasising about a spin-off in which he and Michael Fassbender solved crimes by day and snogged in an armchair by night.

But it took me until Trance - that particular moment in the film - that I realised I would be prepared to give up the following if I could somehow force James McEvoy to fall in love with me.

• Trashy Magazines
• Cake
• Cider
• Singing in the shower (James, my neighbours thank you)
• My boxed sets of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer
• The Dandy Warhols' back catalogue
• Potato gems (wait, potato gems? Yes, think of his eyes)

Baby, shut the fuck up about children

Most of the time I try not to think about it. I push it out of my head. I deliberately avoid reflecting on it. But every now and again the subject of children comes up and I'm forced to consider what it says about me that I don't want kids and have pretty much never ever wanted them. I don't hate kids, exactly, I just don't feel about them the way everyone else seems to feel about them. Most of the time I find them either boring, irritating or - at best - just fine. It's a little bit different when it comes to those I'm related to - I'm very fond of my oldest nephew and godson because he's old enough to be able to hold a conversation and it's sorta neat to think that we share some genes. But when well-meaning friends or family members try to make me hold their baby all I can think of is how quickly I'm allowed to get rid of it.

You'll feel differently about kids when they're your own, someone says. Nothing feels as good as having a child say 'I love you', someone else says. And yet the idea of having one - just THINKING about it for 5 minutes - feels me with dread akin to being told you have to speak in public while naked and being attacked by a bear. A friend and I were discussing the subject while on a walk recently and she said something like: "Having kids just seems like that's the end of having your own life". I was so relieved to hear this sentiment come out of her mouth - a view I heartily endorsed - I felt I could happily have carried her the rest of the way of our walk. Barring the prospect of having someone look after me when I'm old (assuming of course that my kid is not an arsehole, doesn't die before me and isn't seriously disabled) absolutely nothing about it appeals to me on any level at all.

All of which is a long-winded way of saying you should read this. Coming via the Daily Mail it's sort of deliberately provocative and might be bullshit for all I know, but it still makes for some interesting reading. Personally I plan to circulate several copies among family members.

Twice

I'm not normally into muscles or a chap who takes his shirt off... AND YET. Well, you would, wouldn't you?

Photo is courtesy of The Sartorialist, which should should be reading like actually right now.

Bon Jovi, eh? Really?

I am slightly sceptical about the idea people can be "addicted" to shopping in much the same way that I am sceptical about the existence of "sex addiction".

(Prove me wrong people, prove me wrong but first read this article and tell me what you disagree with.)

That much said this GQ article but Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights, is one of the more fascinating things I've read in awhile. Ostensibly the article is about his shopping addiction but I found by far the most interesting stuff was about his interest in leather and his musings about masculinity and self-expression.

"Some of the clothing is men's. Some is women's. I make no distinction. Men's fashion is catching up, with high-end retailers such as Gucci and Burberry and Versace finally honoring us. But women's fashion is still infinitely more interesting and has an unfair monopoly on feeling sexy, and if the clothing you wear makes you feel the way you want to feel, liberated and alive, then fucking wear it. The opposite, to repress yourself as I did for the first fifty-five years of my life, is the worst price of all to pay. The United States is a country that has raged against enlightenment since 1776; puritanism, the guiding lantern, has cast its withering judgment on anything outside the narrow societal mainstream. Think it's easy to be different in America? Try something as benign as wearing stretch leather leggings or knee-high boots if you are a man."

It's a brave, at times rambling and distinctly odd piece but worth a read. It's also, in a very perverse way, made me want to go shopping. Because I am the worst.

Overheard in the office

Person A: "I think you might need to tweak that yarn. I'm pretty sure this guy is going to die soon. He might already be dead."

Person B: "What about it I change it to 'departed'? That could mean died but not necessarily."

Person A: "Fine."

(Two hours later)

Person A: "Oh he's dead."

Person B: "That makes life easier. I'm taking him out altogether."

Povertywatch or Woe Is Me and My First World Troubles

Paying $7 to park somewhere for a few hours is harder to take when you only have $20 in your bank account and you were hoping to get 2 glasses of wine out of it.

Things that are making me happy (or why I haven't shot myself in the head after the most stressful week or so ever)

1. Having a lovely colleague surprise me with a Cadbury Cream Egg today, just when I was feeling particularly stressed out and weary.

2. Interviewing someone who is rich and important and finding out he was lovely and sweet and almost in tears about his (fairly long) dead wife and now I may sort of... love him.

3. Interviewing someone else who was just... ok, Dear Lord I sound like the cheesiest cheese who ever cheesed but he was simply inspirational. That's the only word I can use to describe it. I know, I'm sorry, I hate myself.

4. Learning, thanks to the wonderful Belly, that Amazon.com has released a large chunk of Lawrence Sanders' back catalogue on kindle. Curling up with Archy McNally at night makes me very, very happy.

5. Booking myself a massage for my day off. I can almost feel Sven's powerful, muscular hands rolling me around like I'm some kind of rag doll.

Best things about the weather turning colder

1. Cardigans

2. Doonas at night

3. Red wine

4. Winter coats

5. Staying in

Have you seen Pitch Perfect yet?

If not you are missing out so much I can't even tell you right now. Yes, it's... dorky. Yes it's... silly. But find me a more enjoyable, make-you-smile movie released in the last 12 months and I'll call you a liar. Also I may hurt you. I'm kind of an angry person.

Things I regret snapping in the office after a lowly paid someone did something stupid that made life harder for me:

"Some people fucking deserve minimum wage!"

Things I said while watching Highlander for the first time last night

1. "Wow is that Christopher Lambert? And... is he wearing white sneakers with jeans?"

2. "Why is Sean Connery, who is supposed to be from Egypt or Spain or something, talking with a Scottish accent and Christopher Lambert, who is supposed to be Scottish, talking with a French accent again?"

3. "What was the wig budget on this movie, d'you reckon?"

4. "Um, there was a sequel to this?"

5. "And a TV series? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME?"

Things I regret doing

Trying to make the phrase "I'm going to Jill Meagher it" (ie: walk home alone) work. Even once was way, way too much.

Signs my cat, Mr Whiskerley, may not be The Outdoor Type

1. He got scared by a truck and ran inside the first time I let him outside.

2. He got kinda stuck up a tree the second time I let him outside.

3. He got kinda stuck up the same tree the third time I let him outside.

4. His name is Mr Whiskerley

Things that made me laugh today

1. This.

2. Having my wonderful friend, A, text me to ask if she can borrow Veronica Mars seasons 2 and 3 because she's obsessed with it while I am lying on my couch binge-watching the show.

3. Watching Mr Whiskerley dreaming.

Unfortunate Coincidence

By the time you swear you're his,

Shivering and sighing,

And he vows his passion is

Infinite, undying -

Lady, make a note of this:

One of you is lying. 

Dorothy Parker

Things I have learned after watching way way too much Veronica Mars in one day:

1. Your Dad is always right. Especially if he's a private eye.

2. Just because someone seems like kind of a dick doesn't mean you're not going to fall for him.

3. Just because someone is super good-looking doesn't mean you can bear to go out with him.

4. Girls are awesome.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeek

I die. I die. Also, this is totally coincidental because I just started rewatching Veronica Mars. Have you watched Veronica Mars? Why aren't you watching Veronica Mars right now? I'm sorry, we can't be friends until you go do that. I'll wait - it's just three seasons to get through.

Overheard in the office

"So your sister stole your identity? How did she do that?"

Get OUT

Oh my God. It's all true.

Things I regret doing

1. Eating a spoonful of honey out of the jar.

2. Eating a second spoonful of honey out of the jar.

3. Eating a third spoonful of honey out of the jar.

4. Blogging about eating three spoonfuls of honey out of the jar.

Can you blame me.

I'm a vegetarian and I care about animals: they're cute, adorable and I generally try to avoid having them killed or skinned so I can eat well and look pretty. But is it wrong that part of me wants that weird furry thing poking out from her gorgeous coat with the fire of a thousand suns? Even though - and here's the kicker - I have literally no idea what the hell it is.

Jealousy Is:

Listening to someone tell you how they're planning to buy a $4000 book from the 1700s in order to get their hands on some cool Japanese prints while you're worrying about getting scurvy from eating nought but cheese sandwiches for lunch five days a week because you're (very mildly, very non-seriously upper-middle-class and first world) poor.

Truth

Words cannot describe how much I really love this. Also there is nothing more boring than hearing people bitch about Girls. Seriously.

And silken tofu. Blerg.

If you aren't reading the wonderfully hilarious Belle Taylor's blog, Paper Lantern, then you are missing out. Her latest post actually made me nostalgic for the quite crap Asian supermarket I used to live near in Northbridge. The thing was it was so much closer than all the other supermarkets or delis or places selling food that I'd wind up going in and trying to come up with something I could make for dinner out of the ingredients stacked on the shelves, sometimes apparently at random. Ate a lot of average stir frys that year.

The other best thing someone said to me on the phone today

"You're not the person I want to talk to. I want to talk to someone to complain about you."

The best thing someone said to me on the phone today:

"I hope to meet some Muslim people myself, some day."

Red or white?

This is apropos of very little but while "researching" (read: googling) for an article, I stumbled anew upon this delightful little column by one of my favourite food writers and I thought I would improve your Wednesday by sharing it.

So the girls are a metaphor for... and the axe is... Well, the thing about the fish...

I don't know, sometimes you just need to start the day with a great song and a weird film clip full of half-naked hot girls that makes... very little sense. I can't explain it.

Things I told myself last night when I really really wanted to buy a pair of gorgeous heels of Modcloth.com

1. Yes I'm supposed to be clearing my debts, not accruing new ones, but I never buy shoes and I genuinely really very much need a pair of nude heels.

2. Okay so maybe I don't need them exactly but at least I don't own a pair already and just think of all the things I could wear them with. My green Alannah Hill dress, my black and red cherry Emily & Finn dress... Basically everything I own. It's an investment in my wardrobe, is what it is.

3. They only cost $50, which is a drop in the ocean. And, sure, yes these $50 purchases add up but is my happiness not worth $50? Is it not?

4. I could die tomorrow goddamnit. Can I not at least have a pretty pair of shoes for what is probably my last day on earth ever??

For the record, I did not purchase the shoes. Yet.

Tragedies of getting older #4

Increasingly I find that, when it comes to Jane Austen's classic, Pride and Prejudice, I identify not with the spunky and well-read Lizzy Bennett, nor even her slutty/fun sister Lydia, but with Charlotte bloody Lucas. How exactly did that happen?

There's more to life than being happy

That's the title of this fairly interesting article on The Atlantic website (thanks Joey).

It's also an idea that I, as someone prone to bouts of sadness and hopelessness, believe in. I gave up ages ago on the stupid idea that I could be happy all the time: these days I try for contentment, period of happiness and the absence of pain and/or despair. I find it to be quite achievable.

Happy Thursday.

Things that make me wake at 3am in a light sweat

The realisation that I still have not done my 2011-12 tax return. I mean, for fuck's sake.

Reasons I should not go to bed at 9.30pm even though I'm really tired:

1. I am 30.

2. 9.30pm is the time for children or people with children to go to bed.

3. I could - and should - be doing All The Things.

Save Me

I am poor. Except of course I'm not. Not really. At most I'm First World Poor. At best, I have a minor credit card debt that could be paid off with a few months of frugal living I don't particularly care to undertake and a complete lack of savings that troubles me only when I think about it at 2am in the morning.

Either way, I don't have as much money as I like and it sucks. Spending money is a delight and although I don't think of myself as insanely acquisitive I do like to buy things. Dresses, obviously. Expensive coffees, sure. Drinks and dinners and tickets to fun things, most definitely. These are the things that, to me, make life worth living at best and bearable at worst.

The prospect of tightening my belt - a process which has begun unpromisingly with the purchase of a 'new' (albeit secondhand) dress - makes the world around me seem grey and grim. I am mildly depressed with the process before it has properly begun. So far the only real concession I have made is to stop buying my lunch and that's bad enough. These days I eat the same toasted cheese sandwich, cooked in the machine at work, every day. Sometimes I add tomato. It's wild.

It's a funny thing, though, deciding what bits of your life you can live without and what you can't. I find I can live without bought lunches just fine. I like cheese. I like bread. I like toasted cheese and bread.

I can live without buying coffee every day: so far I'm down to about 3 a week, which feels like progress.

I can live with buying fewer things... probably. I don't need new dresses, given I have a lot. I don't require many new books, which I already have plenty I've never quite got around to reading.

I'm not sure I can live without my dinners and drinks and entertainment, though. That's the one thing I've not made any attempt to cut back on, when in theory I really probably should. I eat out a lot. I see a lot of movies and shows and plays and things. I pay for a lot of wine in a lot of bars and restaurants.

But I baulk when the prospect of Doing Without these things comes up. I don't want to do it and it's not just that I'm lazy and selfish and The Absolute Worst, it's that some part of me thinks that if I give up on those things - the ability to catch up over wine in the sun without feeling guilty, or splash out on a nice dinner with friends - I'll be not living so much as existing. And that would suck even more than my pseudo poverty does right now.

Things you don't want to hear the captain of your catamaran say:

1. "I'm Captain Jazz..."

2. "There are 50 or 60 lifejackets onboard. That's probably enough for everybody."

Overheard in my lounge room last night

Me: How can you not like a guy who screen prints a big pile of cats onto a jumper?

 

Her: You cannot.

What have I done?

Social media mishaps

That moment when your friend's fiance writes on Facebook:

"Those 2 Indian chicks on my kitchen rules need to just go find the biggest dick in the world and eat the shit out of it. Dumb sluts."

And you kinda want to call your friend and whisper: "Does he beat you?"

Overheard at The Brisbane

"Seriously, there is not a single guy here I would consider having sex with. That's really depressing."

Several things I wish I had said to the girl adjusting and readjusting her hat in the bathroom at The Brisbane last night:

1. Dude. It's 8pm at night. The hat's probably not necessary.

2. Also: all these girls around you? They're trying to get past you. To the sinks. So they can wash their hands.

3. Your hat is ugly.

4. It's not 1994.

5. I don't know you and yet I hate you. That's what your shitty, selfish behaviour and your ugly motherfucking hat have done to me. I'm sorry. Don't hate the player, hate the game.

Short version:

Marriage doomed. Sorry, man.

Also these 76 sex tips may not blow his mind. I'd say maybe 2 of them work - the rest is padding.

Holy shit, have you guys noticed that on the Cosmo website (not of course you haven't because you're not reading the fucking Cosmo website but honestly I was directed there via this) that it has the following disclaimer on it:

The models photographed in Cosmo are used for illustrative purposes only; Cosmopolitan does not suggest that the models actually engage in the conduct discussed in the stories they illustrate.

What the.... I would give money - real money - to find out the backstory to this. In my head it all started with a model called Adele whose beautiful frowning face was used to illustrate a story about having unprotected sex with your boyfriend even thought you're secretly rife with STDs and when the magazine came out her actual real life boyfriend was all "bitch have you got something tell m?e" because he, clearly, is a FUCKING MORON WHO DOESN'T UNDERSTAND WHAT THE WORD "MODEL" MEANS. In short: I love it.

Low point in an already fairly low day:

Having a lovely lady you've been speaking to regularly call you up to tell you the time has come for her to kill herself and she just wanted to let you know.

Even lower? Having to wait for an email the next day to learn if she did it or not.

Coming soon:

Something funny about all the stuff I've been up to that have made me too busy to blog. Um, honest.

The emails/texts that almost made me weep today after I wrote a thing about feminism that was published somewhere

1. From a father of 2 girls who said he'd never thought of himself as feminist but now he'd realised he was and he hoped his daughters would grow up to be femmos too.

2. From my father saying... basically the same thing. I have something in my eye.

Things people told me today about feminism

* Feminism = sexism.
* Feminism does not make sense because female tennis players do not have to play 5 sets.
* Feminism is not necessary because everything is equal and lovely now.

Every now and again

All it takes to make you realise how unhappy you have been is a gush of unexpected happiness. I am, as Lindsay might say, at the top of the rollercoaster right now but I am determined not to look down so there.

Girls on Girls

T.S.Eliot once quipped that television was a medium of entertainment that permitted millions of people to listen to the same joke at the same time and yet remain lonesome.

It's not quite up there with The Wasteland, I suppose, but he made a good point. Television can be an isolating medium. Unlike going out to the movies or a concert, television is most often consumed in our own homes, sometimes with friends and family but also, quite often, alone.

At the same time, it is also possible to make the exact opposite point to the one Eliot did and still be correct.

Enter: Girls, the HBO television series that has made waves overseas and which has just returned for its second series.

In theory, the series follows four girls in their twenties, living in New York, trying to make their way in the world. In practice, it offers the viewer an insight into the lives of four screw-ups who have no idea what they’re doing and are, more or less, thrashing about onscreen for our viewing pleasure.

It a series that, I say with no trace of hyperbole, every single girl ever should be watching.

The word “empowered” gets thrown around too much these days, particularly in relation to women. Once upon a time the Spice Girls were empowering women. Pole dancing is empowering women. A certain brand of lipstick, if you believe the cosmetic company ads, is empowering women.

That much said, as a woman I find the experience of watching Girls... empowering.

I love the fact that Hannah, played by the series creator and writer, takes off her clothes at every opportunity despite being in possession of a body best described as… squishy. I don't mean that as a slam: her boobs and stomach and bum look a lot like the female bodies I see in the gym changeroom or swimming in my local pool - they just don't look like the bodies I usually see on TV.

  

I love how directionless and lost they are, just how little idea any of them have about what they’re supposed to be doing. Sure, they're in their 20s where that kind of thing is more acceptable but as a girl in my *ahem* 30s now, it's a nice message to here that you don't have to necessarily have your shit together just because you're an adult.

I also love the fact that none of the characters are exactly… likeable. There are lots of pretty dicky and unlikeable guys on TV – Hugh Laurie on House, Joel McHale on Community for example – we are nevertheless supposed to, well, like, but I don’t feel like that happens with women very often. Women can be cute or sexy, bitchy or sweet, desperate or intriguing but they don’t often get to be weird and a bit annoying.

So this feels like a win.

To circle back to TS Eliot and, you know, raise the tone a little bit, Girls makes me feel less lonely in my weird little life, with my soft-edged body, my sense of anxiety that I'm wasting my life and my, well, let's call it not-always-likeable personality, shally we?

But don't listen to me: go and watch this shit, ladies and gents. It will make you less lonely too.

Part of me...

... wants to get behind this idea. The bigger part of me, however, thinks it sounds like the makings of a fairly shit night out.

Music to write your suicide note by #13

How not to spend your day

Reading through two weeks of death notices. Just... trust me on this one.

Overheard in the work bathroom

"A true friend will rub cream on your back in the bathroom during work hours."

Please leave your "worse than 50 Shades of Grey" jokes at the door.

I'm not into depressive literature these days to the same extent that I was ten, maybe even five, years ago. Back then I had an idea that if I read enough books or short stories or essays there would be some kind of solution for How To Have a Good Life... which, not so much. So these days I read what I fancy: things that interest and entertain me, make me think or happy or blah blah blah.

Which is all a long way of saying this essay/article by Elizabeth Wurtzel (of Prozac Nation fame) is genuinely one of the most depressing things I've read in years.

I nodded along with this, thinking I knew what the next 3000 words were going to be like -

"Convention serves a purpose: It gives life meaning, and without it, one is in a constant existential crisis."

Started to weep internally by the time I got to this - 

"I have no husband, no children, no real estate, no stocks, no bonds, no investments, no 401(k), no CDs, no IRAs, no emergency fund—I don’t even have a savings account. It’s not that I have not planned for the future; I have not planned for the present. I do have a royalty account, some decent skills, and, apparently, a lot of human capital. But because of choices I have made, wisely and idiotically, because I had principles or because I was crazy, I have no assets and no family. I have had the same friends since college, although as time has gone on, the daily nature of those relationships has changed, such that it is not daily at all. But then how many lost connections make up a life? There is my best friend from law school, too busy with her toddler; the people with whom I spent New Year’s in a Negril bungalow not so long ago, all lost to me now; every man who was the love of my life, just for today; roommates, officemates, classmates: For everyone who is near, there are others who are far gone."

And was more or less ready to end it by the time I got to this -

"I have lost my life. I had a lot of friends, saw people, had full days. I don’t know where anyone is anymore, and I can’t even remember who it is that is gone. I am not sure exactly how that happened: I was hiding, although it was not safe in the place where I was hiding, and life became impossible to explain, and too strange to explain, and finally I stopped talking to anyone."

I've read some criticism of this piece saying it reads like a nonsensical bit of nothing from a woman who is still deeply, deeply depressed but... I don't know. In as much as it is possible to write about depression I still think she's got it, unfortunately I just think "it" is the ability to engender in her readers a desire to open a vein. Which is still, you know, something. It's just not a brilliant thing to enliven one's Tuesday night, is all I'm saying.

"Depression, when it’s clinical, is not a metaphor. It runs in families, and it’s 

known to  respond to medication and to counseling. However truly you believe there’s 

a sickness to existence that can never be cured, if you’re depressed you will sooner or later 

surrender and say: I just don’t want to feel bad anymore. "

(Jonathan Franzen)

Highs and Lows: A Monday

High: Helping out (long distance) a chum in a scrabble game by suggesting the word Agio - meaning, of course, the difference between the nominal and actual values of a currency.

Low: Admitting that scrabblecheat.com's hands were all over my brilliant suggestion. I feel... shame.

Text THIS, Buster (is what I *should* text back)

Every now and again, I get a random text from a chap I was kinda friendly and a bit flirtatious with forever ago. Like: YEARS ago. Whatever. He's a nice guy but we basically have nothing to do with each other these days, except for the fact that he's still on my phone and we're probably, I don't know, Facebook friends. Anyway, every now and again I get a text from this chap that drive me crazy. It goes like this:

Him: Hey. How're you going. Saw/heard/smelt ________ and it reminded me I haven't seen you in forever. How's it going?

Me: [Appropriately thoughtful and friendly response]

Him: [Nothing].

Seriously, this happens every time. I hear from him out of the blue, politely text him back and then he fails to reply. I mean... why... BOTHER. What's the point? Does he just like to remind me that he still exists? Is it just to check that I haven't deleted him from my phone? Is he FUCKING WITH ME?

To clarify, I have nothing against the random out-of-the-blue text: there are plenty of people in my life I've lost touched with for periods over the years and I always enjoy hearing from them, even if it's just to touch base and see what's new. Sometimes I don't have time to catch up with someone I've been meaning to catch up with and a little text volley back and forth can serve as a placeholder, a way of popping the friendship onto a warming plate, if you will, so you can tuck in once you have the time. But this... this single text and then silence drives me insane, which is a completely out of proportion response, given that the rest of the time I don't give him two seconds thought. It also drives me crazy that I am, myself, incapable of NOT responding to his text. I mean, I can see that is the sensible course of action but I just can't. It seems so... rude. All of which is a long-winded way of saying you should be reading this very amusing (and short) Hairpin series, Reading Between the Texts. It is both hilarious and falls under the category Things I Wish I'd Written Even Thought I Couldn't Actually Have Done It That Well. Or, you know, TIWIWETICAHDITW for short.

Rules for life (or at least for a bar)

While doing some research (read: googling) for a story this week I stumbled upon a list of so-called "house rules" that had been put together the brains at Rockpool Bar & Grill. I was disinterested as I start reading them, prepared for the usual dull shit about not being drunk or wearing thongs inside the bar or whateeeever.

Instead I found not only a guide to good bar behaviour but also - dare I say it - a general handy guide for life. (Although, for the record, I have no objection to freebies so long as I am on the receiving end)

Rockpool Bar & Grill House Rules

Best manners and temperance are expected at all times.

Don’t look fiercely at people, or talk loudly or harshly, but cultivate a smiling

countenance and a quite, but firm tone of speech.

Gentlemen, don’t approach ladies; and if you are so lucky to have one approach you,

endear her as you would your mother.

No hooting, no hollering.

Don’t bring yourself into prominence before a crowd at the bar.

Be polite and approachable, but let them advance to you.

 

Gentlemen, don’t interrupt or join any conversation, but if it is general you may seem interested.

Leave your attitude, with your hat at the door.

Back slapping after six drinks should be tempered with mercy.

Remember, nothing is on the house but the roof.

Les Miserables, indeed

I have summarised this kinda irritating review of Les Miserables for you below but you are still welcome to click on the link if you care to.

1. I don't know the musical Les Miserables.
2. I don't even know the story of Les Miserables.
3. Having now seen the (movie) of the musical Les Miserables I am disappointed by it.
4. Having now seen the (movie) of the story of Les Miserables I am disappointed by it.
5. I am a joyless human being.

J'Adore

(Comes via Lindsay.)