This made me laugh

For True Detective fans only.

Falling asleep to a Russian woman folding towels? Ain't nothing weird about that.

This is not something with which I can particularly identify but for some reason just knowing this is A Thing makes me happy.

Katharine Pierce for the win

This one is for The Vampire Diaries fans only.

So...

...this cut of season three of Sherlock to fit the trailer of My Best Friend's Wedding is legit awesome. Mild spoilers (I guess maybe) if you haven't seen season 3 but WHY HAVEN'T YOU SEEN SEASON THREE IT'S AMAZING?

Things I have learned about myself after 2 months of dramatically increased exercise:

1. I need to buy sneakers. Continuing to wear my Fred Perrys like the gym hipster is now borderline unacceptable. Also I think the sole is starting to peel off one of them.

2. I am a cheapskate. At least when it comes to spending money on exercise clothes. See my point above: I think nothing of dropping pennies on a cute dress or pair of flats but will I shell out for a pair of running shoes that don't leave my feet aching after a body attack class? I will not. This also explains why I spend most gym classes loping around the room in a baggy tshirt I once got free with a copy of Marie Claire magazine. True story.

3. I cannot exercise alone in a gym and be reasonably trusted to tire myself out. I used to hate group fitness classes but they work because I am too shamed to stop when I'm tired when others are watching.

4. I'm not sure I believe in the whole post-exercise high thing. I mean endorphins... I guess they exist but when people talk about the amazing natural high they get after a grueling run or gym class I wonder what I'm doing wrong or what they're doing right. In no way does my feeling of smug satisfaction post-workout equate to a natural high. Possibly the closest the people who promote this bullshit have ever been to a not-so-natural high is a big glass of red cordial when they were 7.

5. I will never look as good as Olivia Newton John in a headband.

I die, basically

I don't know how I feel about this photo of Benedict Cumberbatch wearing a Sherlock Hemlock tshirt.

To clarify: I do know how I feel about this photo of Benedict Cumberbatch wearing a Sherlock Hemlock tshirt but I can't quite express my complex emotions on a, you know, public family-friendly blog.

There is really...

... nothing not to like here.

Overheard in my office

"It would just be nice to know whether they're just chatting or having, you know, paedophile play dates."

“Do you know what love is? I’ll tell you: it is whatever you can still betray.”
― John le Carré

Oh Sali

I think I fucking love you.

The Help I Need Is Not Available Here (a poem by Alli Warren)

I need help with long term hope

I need help with the dawn

of war and achieving

my new year's resolutions

This praise song

and the problem of pornography

structures this praise song

as speaking placement

I need help moving my chickens

I need help with girl problem

my dog, like, keeps marking the wrong areas?

and my breasts

this most pressing issue

like choosing between best friends

a distance problem involving constant

acceleration and tethering glitches

The party's all "descendant selectors, please!"

and me I'm in my handspring visor

and my bird plucking problem

I need help with a bat script for parsing

I need help with pricing with naming this

praise song I said

I seriously need help with the whole set up ASAP!

so it's

40.08 /100.09 (grams of molecular mass of calcium carbonate) ⁼

moles of calcium

then

(moles of Calcium x .1973ml (convert grams to ml)) / 0.05

I got 1.580 ml

is that right?

Bad days

I’ve been having a few bad days lately. It’s boring, work-related stuff but I’ve been down in the dumps, feeling a bit frazzled and generally sorry for myself. Then I read this on a random Tumblr:

“…imagine showing Arthur Weasley a gif for the first time. At first of course he’d just think it was a normal wizard photograph, but then you’d explain that muggles made it and his heart would just explode with joy over these muggles making such amazing shit even though they have no magic at all. How amazing. How inventive. Maybe whenever you’re feeling bad about yourself imagine how much Arthur Weasley would enjoy meeting you.”

It works. I was sitting here feeling grumpy and then I thought about how much Arthur Weasley would enjoy meeting me and I instantly felt better. I thought of the way he’d smile and how that smile would light up his eyes, I thought of the questions he’d ask me and how fascinated he would be by my stupid answers. This isn't sarcasm: this is honesty Okay, I may have cheated a little bit by kind of slipping into a side fantasy in which he also introduces me to his cute older son but I DIGRESS.

The main point is worth repeating: whenever you’re feeling bad about yourself imagine how much Arthur Wesley would enjoy meeting you.

I will never tire of Sherlock's reaction to John's description of his wedding day as the most important day of his life. Because: Ehhhhhh

(Originally posted at http://destinationtoast.tumblr.com/)

You might think this is a spoiler for season three of Sherlock but you're wrong (still not sorry)

This and the image below come from the wonderful Rainbow Rowell's Tumblr account, which you should most definitely check on out.

I'm sorry (but I'm not sorry)

My Sunday Reading

Is this Dorothy Parker short story. Because sometimes Sunday blues need company.

Kate Cumberbatch

I am a fan of Benedict Cumberbatch. To be specific: I am a big fan of Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock Holmes in the wonderful series Sherlock. To be maybe a little bit too specific: I would like to do terrible things to him. That much said, although Martin "Dr Watson" Freeman has never done anything for me I have to say that this photo could almost change my mind about that. The cuffed jeans... the cardigan... the expression on his face.... Don't get me wrong: I would still choose Cumberbatch 10 out of 10 times but, you know, maybe Freeman could stay in the room.

Things I said after a screening of 12 Years a Slave that summed up my reaction to the movie (Possible spoiler if you haven't seen it so, um, maybe stop reading now if you're likely to)

"So, Brad Pitt solved slavery, right?"

If you, like me, have missed Charlie Brooker

I know, right?

I will cut a bitch before I stop saying that I will cut a bitch.

Scenes from a journo life

Me: Hi, I'm from (my media organisation). Is there someone there who handles media queries.

Her: We're not commenting.

Me: But I haven't told you what I'm calling about.

Her: What are you calling about?

Me: I'm calling about (what I'm calling about).

Her: We're not commenting.

Dilemma

Do I want to be Anna Calvi or do I want to go gay and do Anna Calvi? It's a toughie.

“Because . . . most of us think that the point is something to do with work, or kids, or family, or whatever. But you don't have any of that. There's nothing between you and despair, and you don't seem a very desperate person.'

'Too stupid.'


'You're not stupid. So why don't you ever put your head in the oven?'


'I don't know. There's always a new Nirvana album to look forward to, or something happening in NYPD Blue to make you want to watch the next episode.'


'Exactly.'


'That's the point? NYPD Blue? Jesus.' It was worse than he thought.


'No, no. The point is you keep going. You want to. So all the things that make you want to are the point. I don't know if you even realize it, but on the quiet you don't think life's too bad. You love things. Telly. Music. Food.” 


― Nick Hornby, About a Boy

I didn't expect it...

... but this made me laugh. I'm an idiot.

I want to read...

.. all the books.

Winning the internet?

These guys.

The future of Amazon's sorry-we-missed you delivery slips...

Should this become reality.

(Image via Twitter user @QuantumPirate but you can get some background by reading these guys)

Things I really have to stop saying #23

"You haven't read Rainbow Rowell's books? You MUST read Rainbow Rowell. She's amazing. You'll love her. Here, borrow my copy of Eleanor and Park immediately so we can talk about it. I'll call you in an hour: read fast."

Dear Sam Rockwell

Please marry me and allow me to have 200 of your children. That is all.

Hats off

Even if I have never bored you with the story of The Time I Spent an Insane Amount of Money (for me, at the time) On a Fancy Hat you will understand, I hope, why this round-up of some of the world's best hats has sort of charmed me. Except for the Bieber and Lady Gaga. Ugh they're just the worst, no?

Conversations with my physio

Him: So then turn 180 degress.

Me: Uh huh.

Him: That's not 180 degrees.

Me: Oh yes I-

Him: That's 90 degrees.

My current obsession

Is the Man Repeller blog. You know MR: she blogs about the kind of clothes women love that men find a big fat snooze. And even though I find many - MANY - of her clothing choices to be... unfortunate I still love her with a fierceness that makes zero sense.

The Dream Boat

For anyone who hasn't already read this New York Times article written by a journalist who made a perilous boat trip from Indonesia to Australia, alongside a boatload of refugees, it is basically essential reading. I had avoided it for a little while because I knew it would make me sad and now yeah... that.

Thoughts I had while watching Thor 2

1. Chris Hemsworth's body is... too much. And not in a good "woah he's too much" kind of a way but in a THERE IS TOO MUCH OF IT kind of a way.

2. I don't know enough about physics to know whether any of what's going on makes any sense at all.

3. Asgard really needs to spend a little bit less of its time and money on the elaborate architecture and the robes and a little bit more on its defensive capabilities. Maybe don't leave the task of defending the entire city up to, say, ONE GUY.

4. I want to see a spin-off featuring just Kat Dennings and the dorky/cute intern where they solve mysteries and drive around in that shit-heap of a red Volvo.

5. Related: I could also watch stuff falling through wormholes in and out of various worlds with comedic results more or less forever. I'm simple that way.

"Just ask this scientician"

Fabulous Fashionistas

Like many people (I assume) I don't look forward to getting old. It's not so much about getting soft(er) corners and wrinkles so much as the feeling that the older I get the more my options narrow and the more boring those options become. So I can highly recommend this incredibly charming UK documentary (albeit with a slightly shit name), which follows some unconventional older women and has genuinely made me think - at least for a moment or two - well that doesn't seem so bad...

Overheard in my lounge room

Me: Do you mind if I watch an episode of Seinfeld?
Him: Can we watch the one with the funniness?
Me: The funny episode... of Seinfeld?

Things I did this evening:

Just this, basically.

Harken to this

In which Sam DB articulates some of the reasons I too love a bit of Dan Savage.

The Bridge

This one comes via the wonderful Lindsay and has kept me lying in bed this morning, watching it, when I should be sweating it out at the gym or doing a load of washing or something. The documentary looks at the phenomenon of people who kill themselves (or try to) by jumping off the Brooklyn Bridge and it is sad and fascinating.



Note: If you wound up at this page because you googled "suicide" or "how to kill yourself" and you're in a very bad place then you should a) call someone: Lifeline is a good place to start if you're in Australia - a friend or family member will do; b) believe me when I say I have done a pros and cons list many times and decided suicide is Not The Answer and c) read this because it is one of the best arguments for living I guess that I've read.

“The sense of unhappiness is so much easier to convey than that of happiness. In misery we seem aware of our own existence, even though it may be in the form of a monstrous egotism: this pain of mine is individual, this nerve that winces belongs to me and to no other. But happiness annihilates us: we lose our identity.” (Graham Green, The End of the Affair)

Star Flaws

If being able to watch this Star Wars blooper reel isn't exactly what the internet was made for then I don't know what is. Watching the storm troopers struggling to get through a hole in the wall has, well, I'm a sad person because it's made my day.

Words...

... cannot describe how much I enjoyed this article by Annabel Crabb on women on TV and make-up. If you like this little taster - 

"How did we get to the point, as an evolutionary species, where a woman who is intending to appear on television must first have her face coloured in by another human being, working intently at very close range, sometimes for up to 90 minutes? The experience itself is one of the most intimate encounters one can have - outside the medical, massage and cottaging fields - with a person one is not actually dating"

- then you will too.

Summer Reading Suggestions (even though it's not really summer)

I've been reading a fair bit lately and while there have been some books I've not enjoyed it feels like, for a change, I've enjoyed rather a lot of the books that have come my way - a pleasant surprise. So although it's technically not exactly summer it's close enough that you should all be thinking about books to curl up with in the Christmas holidays. These, for what they're worth, are my recommendations.

Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
The plot to this sounds like the kind of thing that would normally make me retch: a young woman goes to work for a quadriplegic who wants to die and tries to liven up his life. There's a good reason I have never read Tuesday's With Morrie, you know - sentimentality is tedious. But this is a gorgeous book and I devoured it.

Big Brother by Lionel Shriver
The premise of this book is that the protagonist goes to the airport to pick up her brother and finds out, to her horror, that he has gained hundreds of pounds since she saw him last. The book that follows from that premise is fascinating for anyone who is interested in the relationship between people and food and society and weight. I make it sound boring but it's a cracking read and - for my money - Shriver's best since the wonderful The Post Birthday World.

Reconstructing Amelia by Kimberly McCreight
This book stood out to me because someone had likened it to Gone Girl - Gillian Flynn's insanely addictive thriller that would be on this list except everyone's been talking about it for so long that I assume you've probably either read it or deliberately avoided it. It's not really like Gone Girl except that it requires a mystery to be solved and I don't think it's as cleverly put together but the story, which follows a mother's efforts to discover why her daughter threw herself off a building, is nonetheless compelling.

Night Film by Marisha Pesel
I had high hopes for this novel about a disgraced journalist who starts to investigate a prominent film director in the wake of the suicide of the director's daughter. Pesel's first book, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, had a lot of promise but fell a bit short of being a great book and I figured that this time around she probably had her shit together. Sadly, this contained some of the same shortcomings and it's not the great novel it could have been. Still, I would recommend for anyone planning on lounging by the pool with a cocktail in the foreseeable future.

Tampa by Alissa Nutting
This is one of those books that will probably wind up on book club lists and appal some people. It's been billed as Lolita told from a female perspective (a female teacher who likes to sleep with 14 year old boys) but, to be frank, that's an oversell: it's well written but nowhere near as funny and audacious and poetic as that book. But it is a slightly filthy romp that I tore through in an afternoon and think you could too.

The Last Letter From Your Lover by Jojo Moyes
It seems like cheating to include two novels by Moyes but reading Me Before You made me want to explore her back catalogue and this was the one I started with. The book is packaged very much as chick lit but if it falls into that category then it's one of the best examples of the genre. It's not a Great Novel and history will probably forget it but it completely entranced and charmed me while I was reading it and that's not something I can say about too many books.

The Dinner by Herman Koch
I'm a bit out of date with this one, since I think everyone was sort of talking about it a year or so ago, which was around about when I read it. For some reason, though, I've been thinking about it again lately, which is always a sign that a book has stayed with you. Despite being set in The Netherlands the set up - a couple go out for dinner to talk about... what? - is familiar enough to draw you in and the ultimate reveal is... well. Yikes. I loved it.

60,000

That's the word count milestone I've finally cracked on my Terrible Novel. Unfortunately the novel is still terrible but fuck it: I told myself I would finish it, regardless of how much I inevitably grew to hate it and I'm sticking to that game plan. I don't even hate it that much. Not all the time anyway. To conclude: yay me.

Things that suck about being sick on my holidays

1. I'm sick on my holidays.

2. The cash I had earmarked for something indulgent like a manicure or a haircut has been spent on cold meds and anti-inflammatory drugs.

3. I feel faintly blerg all the time but don't feel like I can justify staying in bed because I should be doing All The Things.

4. My pockets and bags are filled with tissues in various states of use.

5. I'm sick on my goddamn holidays.

Movies I am currently watching to cheer me up a little bit after Atonement

1. Celeste and Jesse Forever. Actually it's a little bit depressing too but it's funny and cute and I think my Andy Samberg crush is back with a vengeance.

Movies I have watched today that made me cry and cry and cry some more.

1. Atonement. Fuck. James McEvoy - only you could make me care about a movie with Pouty McPoutface as your love interest. (Also, I don't think I'm being blinded by lust but he does seem like quite a lovely chap, no?)

Things I Did Today:

1. Removed some tiles from the kitchen of the house I am attempting to renovate.
2. Fell through the hole in the floorboards of said kitchen.
3. Wrenched my shoulder.
4. Cut my leg in several nasty places.
5. Scraped my soft, innocent bottom.
6. Bled on my shoes.
7. Bled on the floor.
8. Destroyed a pair of Leona Edmiston stockings.
9. Humiliated myself in front of the property surveyor who witnessed several of the above acts.

"There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch. On nights like that every booze party ends in a fight. Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks. Anything can happen. You can even get a full glass of beer at a cocktail lounge." (Raymond Chandler, "The Red Wind")

Perspective

Reader, today has been a shitty day in a shitty week. A big story I have been working on for weeks has fallen over. I have too much to do and not enough time to do it. It looks like I may be out of the State for my birthday, and not for fun times but work-related travel.

Then two things happened. 

The first thing that happened was that someone I was dealing with was helpful. It's actually that simple. You wouldn't believe how many unhelpful dickheads I have to deal with on a regular basis, sometimes because they're, well, dickheads, sometimes because they're just normal people with busy lives. But I called someone up to ask them for a favour and they not only said yes but were sweet about it and made a bad situation easier.

The second thing that happened was that a friend of mine sent me a photo of a homeless guy curled up on a bench in the CBD wearing really really shitty shoes that were so old and worn through which you could see his feet through the soles. Like A LOT of his feet: he was practically barefoot. My friend took the photo because someone had bought a new pair of shoes (the tissue paper was still stuffed in the toes of the shoes) and put them beside the homeless guy for him to find when he wakes up. It's not a life changer. A pair of shoes isn't going to get the guy off the streets. They're not going to solve his problems, except for that problem he has with his current pair of shitty shoes. The shoes weren't even that amazing - they looked like  pair of inexpensive Dunlop Volleys or something pretty basic. 

But it was a sweet, kind, generous gesture that will hopefully make that guy's day a little bit easier. He might wake up a bit happier not just because he has a new pair of shoes but because he's had a little reminder that there are nice people in the world who will help others just for funsies. It also make me feel like, well, kind of a dick for whining about being sooooo busy with this job that pays my bills and sooooo frustrated at having to take an interstate trip to stay in a nice hotel. Quite possibly I've become a goddamn softie in my old age. No that's not a tear in my eye I've been cutting onions. Many onions.

Baby, no.

You may or may not have seen this story today about a toddler found dead in the back of a car a day care centre. Clearly it's way too early to say what happened to the kid. But it reminded of this amazing Washington Post article I read years ago and have thought about often since. It is a Pullitzer Prize winning article and maaaan does it feel like it. This is a story that stays with you and one you should read if you feel like feeling sad for a bit.

It's been...

... awhile since I posted a link to Sam de Brito's work but his latest column, which touches on issues of depression and how we treat depressed people, is good reading.

Fact: I want this otter in my arms yesterday.

Okay so some of these animal "facts" are more, um, facty than others. Nevertheless, this list has cheered up my bleak Friday so why don't you just click on the link and let it cheer up yours too?

Because who does not...

... love ze French kitty, non?

Yes. Yes.

A million times yes.

8 reasons to love Coco Chanel

1. “Dress shabbily and they remember the dress; dress impeccably and they remember the woman.”

2. “A girl should be two things: who and what she wants.”

3. “I don't care what you think about me. I don't think about you at all.”

4. “My life didn't please me, so I created my life.”

5. “Elegance is refusal.”

6. “You can be gorgeous at thirty, charmimg at forty, and irresistible for the rest of your life.”

7. “Some people think luxury is the opposite of poverty. It is not. It is the opposite of vulgarity.”

8. Just look at her: she's a fox.

I see...

... nothing to disagree with here.

End of the Line

$0

That is the balance on my credit card. $0. That probably doesn't seem like a big deal to anyone else but, given I've spent the past eight months paying it off, it means a lot to me.

I've never been a huge one for running up credit card bills but late last year, for various boring reasons, I had to use my card to cover a big transaction that got my card up to about $8K - a terrifying amount to me given I'd never had more than a few thousand bucks on it at a time and then only in unusual circumstances.

That it has taken 8 months to pay it off is probably an indictment on my spending habits. But it's also a fact of life that will, I hope, stop me from ever getting tempted to run up those kind of debts again. Because, as chuffed as I feel with myself for clearing it, I'm not so chuffed that I ever want to go through 8 months of penny-pinching again. Poverty blows.

Happy Friday

If I Could Tell You

Time will say nothing but I told you so
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

There are no fortunes to be sold, although,
Because I love you more than I can say,
If I could tell you I would let you know.

The winds must come from somewhere when they blow,
There must be reason why the leaves decay;
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

Perhaps the roses really want to grow,
The vision seriously intends to stay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

Suppose the lions all get up and go,
And the brooks and soldiers run away;
Will Time say nothing but I told you so?
If I could tell you I would let you know.

(WH Auden)

In David we trust

I don't often link to the Daily Fail without prefacing said link with a hate-filled rant but this article on David Attenborough, in which he suggests it's irresponsible to have big families and other interesting stuff, is worth reading if only to hear him use the phrase "swanning about" in the last paragraph.

Flames... on the side of my...

This article on the making of the wonderful, very silly movie Clue is long but worth reading if you are a saddo fan like me.

Bowls of fuck, served by friends

I think it was Gore Vidal who said "every time a friend succeeds I die a little". But Vidal, despite writing one of the great coming-of-age novels didn't know what he was talking about because I am, it must be said, tickled pink that my dear friend Lindsay has made her Vagenda debut with this witty and insightful gem.

Things that make me happy

That not one but two of my lovely friends invited me over to watch this Sunday's premiere of The (Australian) Bachelor. Them's good people.

Elementary

Life is a confusing, bewildering and often terrifying place. At least it is for me. So it is immensely comforting to realise, from time to time, that somewhere out there in a vast and hostile universe is another someone who thinks just as you do and loves the same things you do... in this case, that person is the gem who green-lit this absolutely marvelously fucking excellent idea.

Signs I may be a little too obsessed by my cat, Mr Whiskerley.

1. His name includes an honorific and I'm not as embarrassed about that as I should be.
2. I fall asleep with him beside me most nights and wake with him beside me most mornings.
3. I have (genuinely) put off getting out of bed because Mr W has just settled into a new (cute) position leaning against me and I don't want to... hurt his feelings.
4. I have given him nicknames, including “Whickers” and “Whickerley Woo”.
5. I imagine I can read his micro-expressions.
6. I ascribe to him complex emotions when what his “frowny face” probably means is “I am hungry” or “you are sitting in my chair, you bitch”.
7. I think of the armchair as “Mr Whiskerley’s chair”.
8. I may have more photos of him on my phone than I do of my husband (I’m too embarrassed to count).
9. I am writing this blog.

An open letter to the incredibly unhelpful security guy today who made my life ten times more difficult than it needs to be because he is lazy and stupid and incapable of listening:

FUUUUUUUUUUUUCK YOU, buddy. Enjoy minimum (I hope) wage.

Slow Dolly

If you haven't heard this awesome slowed down version of Dolly Parton singing "Joelene" you need to do that now.

Awkward conversations with myself

Me: Look, Guy, I know you want to go out for dinner again and buy that dress even though you have a lot of dresses and have soy mochas at Epic Espresso every morning even though that place is expensive but we are now officially in savings mode and you can no longer have whatever you want.

Myself: Sure. The thing is -

Me: No. There is no "thing". This is not a discussion - I'm telling you, buster, we are Tightening The Belt. There will be no frivolous purchase, no guilty pleasures, no what-the-hell acquisitions just because Alannah Hill has an exciting new range in store that may well be the last collection she ever designs under the label she created and it looks like magic and smells like rainbows.

Myself: Uh huh. It's just I couldn't help but...

Me: I said no. I know it hurts. I know you think "what's the harm" in having just one extra soy mocha than our weekly budget allows but every penny counts, dude - every fucking counts. This is sensible fiscal planning for a happier tomorrow.

Myself: I KNOW ABOUT THE CAT SCRATCHING POST.

(Silence)

Me: Oh.

Myself: Yes.

Me: You know about that?

Myself: Yes.

Me: You know that it was hand constructed in Portland?

Myself: Yes.

Me: From many tiny squares of eco-friendly cardboard?

Myself: Yes.

Me: And that the shipping cost turned out to be more than the actual scratching post?

Myself: Yes.

Me: And it doesn't matter to you that this was all organised well before savings mode commenced and that I was stupid and didn't look at how much the shipping costs would be and could have wept when I learned it was TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS and that I'd already been charged for it and there was nothing I could do about it now anyway?

Myself: No.

Me: Just checking. Carry on.

Slutty slut slut slut

I was going to try and write something clever about this but then I just got really, really depressed instead.

Sometimes it's hard to be a woman

Pretty much all the boys and men I spend any time with are great right-on sorts who are essentially feminists, even if they don't identify as such. That much said, I sometimes think that only a woman can know how exhausting, how relentless and how really tiring being a woman can be sometimes.

Evidence I am not as young as perhaps I once was:

1. I mentioned to my boss that if they need someone to interview the wonderful Kevin McCloud when he comes to town in October, I was super keen. His response: "Who's Kevin McCloud?"

2. I just laughed at a joke about franking credits. Let me repeat: FRANKING CREDITS.

3. I stayed in the car for longer than necessary last night so I could listen to the end of Don McLean's Vincent.

So this happened

I'm not saying that I'm proud of posting a link to this photo of Alexander Skarsgaard's, um, Good China, but I'm doing it anyway. The link contains a spoiler for the finale of True Blood (which I stopped watching a few seasons ago but which Aleisha assures me is good again) but it also contains "Eric's" junk so, you know, you make the call.

That sound you hear...

... is the last final remnants of my once fierce, mostly long-since burnt out, crush on Pete Doherty disappearing forever. Because no. Just no no no no no.

Last night I had a dream...

... that I woke up and could't figure out if it was 8.30am or 10.30am. Then I actually woke up. It was 2am. True story.

Evidence I am not a very nice person #12

Last night I tried very politely to move past a girl at a bar who was blocking my way but she was too busy bitching about someone to her friend (very loudly and obnoxiously) to hear my murmured "excuse me... do you mind... could I just...?" So when I sort of forced my way past her I accidentally jogged her elbow, spilling about half of her pricey looking cocktail on the floor and I sort of... smiled inside a little bit.

Things that have charmed me today:

#3 My former boss calling to see how devastated I was by this news.

Things I definitely should not do to perk myself up after a really awful day (that isn't over yet):

1. Gorge on leftover gnocchi and bread and butter pudding in one might carbfest that will leave me feeling faintly ill afterwards.

2. Buy myself an Alannah Hill cape. BECAUSE THAT WOULD BE WRONG ALTHOUGH I AM KINDA THINKING I MIGHT JUST TRY IT ON THIS WEEKEND BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, WHY NOT.

3. Stick head in oven. I mean, for starters, it's electric.

It is not enough for me to succeed, others must fail

Like I wasn't having a bad enough day already, now I'm basically sick with jealousy.

Things I have learned upon re-reading* the last four Harry Potter books

1. I really love the Harry Potter books**.

2. JK Rowling, for all the shit she takes over her prose style, writes really, really great fun plots.

3. The last couple of books could probably technically benefit from a far stricter edit but I'm sort of glad all that extra (read: semi-pointless) stuff I might have missed previously is in there to enjoy.

4. Ron is basically the true hero of the series, putting up with Harry being super famous and awesome all the time. Except of course for all those times he doesn't put up with him at all and, in fact, Loses His Shit.

5. Ron is also quite a shit wizard. Am I wrong?

6. George Weasley may be gay. AM I WRONG? I may be wrong and maybe it's just wishful thinking but Fred Weasley is the only one who ever seems to get any action.

7. Casting choices made in the (ugh) movie versions have coloured my view of the books forever. I now can't read the books without finding the characters of Sirius and Snape kinda, ummmmmm, hot. Thanks for nothing Gary Oldman and Alan Rickman (call me!)

8. I really love the Harry Potter books.


* re-reading is misleading because this time around I listened to them on audiobook, which was basically perfect.

** Not sure I can bear to go back and re-read the first two, though. Sure they're short but I do remember them being on the, um, simple side.

Weighty matters

I am embarrassed by the amount of time I spend thinking about my body, what it looks like, how it could look better and what I put into it. I feel lame-as-shit for letting the number I see on the scale determine how I feel about myself. I think it's kinda sad how happy losing a cheeky 5+ kilograms last year made me feel. Ditto how depressed I feel at having put 3kg back on.

These are all possible reasons why I really enjoyed this blog, which offers a slightly different perspective on weight loss not seen all that often.

The case of the 3 month wait

Bring on October 31.

My body is a genius.

It's true. My body is a genius. So genius, indeed, it's capable of gaining 3kg in one week of only moderately indulgent eating and drinking. I don't know what this means for my self esteem and ability to look at myself in the mirror without weeping but if I was a cavewoman or living off the land or something I would be CRUSHING IT survival-wise.

Unexpected lessons I have learned from watching the trashy UK TV series Mistresses #34

Ovarian cancer will probably solve all your problems.

Sell Out

So, yeah. This.

Things I thought but did not say to the only other guy in the gym at the weekend:

ARE YOU FUCKING SERIOUS YOU HAVE SWEATED ALL OVER THIS MACHINE SO COMPREHENSIVELY THAT I HAVE TO PUSH A BUTTON SOAKED IN YOUR SWEAT IN ORDER TO INCREASE OR DECREASE THE SPEED/INCLINE ON THE TREADMILL YOU FUCKING MONSTER YOU HAVE A TOWEL WITH YOU THAT'S THE WEIRDEST PART WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU WERE YOU RAISED IN A CAVE?

Today

Can just fuck the fucking fuck off today, basically. 

Sometimes

It is not worth getting out of bed in the morning. Especially if you have a cat curled on top of your head.

How to be a smug shit while meeting a new (religious) contact for work:

Him: (names a priest).

Me: Oh, he confirmed me.

Him: (names another priest).

Me: And he baptised me... and married my parents.

Pants

When I was eight or nine years old I was, like many girls of my age, obsessed with horses. I took horseriding lessons every weekend with my friend Kym and after school we would either play with our various toy horses - fastening and unfastening mini plastic saddles and "grooming" scratchy fake manes - or read the latest installment in the Saddle Club book series. (It was a good read, that series, although I'm still a bit disappointed to this day that they never outed Stevie. Who did they think they were kidding? I mean, sure, she got a boyfriend somewhere along the line but I like to think, even then, I knew he was just a beard).

I digress. As part of my obsession I loved to draw horses and, because I had very little talent in the drawing department, I also loved to trace far superior drawings of horses done by people who could actually draw and imagine it was my handiwork. I should stress that it could not have been more obvious, looking at the traced drawings, that they had been traced and not drawn freehand. For starters they were streets and miles ahead of what I could actually do by myself. Moreover they just looked...  well, very very traced. There was nothing natural about them, they looked exactly like what they were: the work of a half-arsed nine-year-old fraudster.

I don't remember whether I tried to pass the traced pictures off as my own explicitly or just hoped people would assume I'd done them but I do remember, very clearly, the day on which I was confronted by a classmate called Holly M. We were sitting outside the classroom - it must have been recess or lunch, I don't remember that part - and for some reason I had a pile of my "drawings" on my lap. I was probably showing them off. Because I was a little shit.

At some point in the proceedings Holly looked at the drawings, looked at me and said something like: "Are these traced?"

A long pause in which I must have summed up my options: tell the truth or lie. 

Ridiculously, stupidly, I went for the lie. I'm not a great liar now and I can't imagine I was much better back then.

Two decades and change later I still don't really know why I lied. I mean, I guess I wanted Holly to think I was really good at drawing horses or something but why, exactly, did I care? We weren't friends. More importantly, how did I plan to carry on that lie when I couldn't draw for shit unless I was alone in my room with my horse books and, you know, some tracing paper? It was a poorly thought out plan and, even at that young age, I feel like I should have known better.

What I still remember, many years later was the overwhelmingly ache of regret the moment I lied. I didn't want to lie. I didn't want to try and carry off the lie. The lie had been instinctive and I knew, looking at Holly's face, that she didn't believe me. I was embarrassed. My face must have been fleshed. I couldn't have looked more guilty if a sheaf of tracing paper had suddenly slid out of my school jumper.

I recount this story now not because it has anything to do with anything but because I had a flashback yesterday to that little incident when I told a very stupid lie and experienced the same ache of regret at my work gym.

I am, I must point out, now 30. Not eight or nine. I am an adult. I should be better than this. I am not.

First, some back story to fill you in on the basics. The work gym is very small - it's basically just a little room with some so-so gym equipment in it. Also, the day before the incident I'm about to relate occurred I had been to the gym before work and afterwards left my gym clothes balled up in my gym bag for future use. That ball of clothes included - and this part I have to stress - the knickers I'd been wearing at the time.

Okay, you're filled in and we're ready to go on. 

So, I finished work yesterday with an hour to kill before I had to meet some friends and decided, hey, my gym clothes are still here from the previous day - I should go to the gym. Not having too much time to spare I dressed as quickly as I could, grabbed my book and iPod and walked into the gym. At this point something important happened, although I didn't realise it was happening. The knickers I'd been wearing the previous day, which had been balled up with my gym pants, had somehow ended up in the leg of my gym pants without me noticing (I WAS IN A HURRY). The act of walking into the gym, however, had dislodged said knickers from their resting position, sending them sliding down my leg, past my foot and landing on the floor beside me. In the gym. In front of the other two people that were working out in it.

I didn't notice.

Instead, I wandered over to dump my swipe card on the nearest bench and settled myself onto an exercise bike with my Lawrence Sanders novel. The iPod connected to my ears meant I didn't hear anything when the guy on the treadmill tried to get my attention. It was up to the girl on the bike beside me to alert me to the fact that he was pointing. At me. And then at the knickers. I removed an earbud to hear what he was saying.

"Is that yours?" he panted, still running on the treadmill and pointing.

I climbed down from the exercise bike and walked over to where he was pointing. Beside the entrance to the gym sat a sad pair of knickers. They were white and pink. They had flowers. They were, um, fairly big. They were my knickers.

I straightened up. "No," I said.

He knew I was lying. I knew that he knew I was lying - the way the treadmill was positioned meant he almost certainly saw them drop out of my pants. At the very least he would have known that the knickers were not there before I arrived but mysteriously appeared when I did. I knew all this. And yet still I lied.

Why did I lie? I don't really know - it was instinct. The mature thing - laugh it off and retrieve my knickers - only occurred to me after the childish lie was out there. I cursed my stupidity but it was too late to either retrieve either my lie or my knickers. The silver lining was that there was really nothing my accuser could say either and so we exercised on in silence. If my face burned red I blamed it on the exercise. 

I waited until the others had gone, risking being late for dinner by staying on the exercise bike until the gym was empty. Only once I was alone on the bike did I retrieve my knickers, seen my nobody except my own shame. I looked at the flowery symbols of my disgrace and chucked them into the bin. It seemed like the only thing I could do.

Things my pharmacist said to me today that made me a little uncomfortable for no reason I could put my finger on.

1. "That's a nice dress you're wearing. Do you not have to go to work today?"

2. "Do you get tired sometimes at around 3pm? My partner does."

3. "Do you sometimes write things... for websites?"

The new porn...

... For old married ladies is here.

I'd hit that...

... what about you?



(The shorts are, do I even need to say, an utter tragedy).

Ode to the journo

My workplace is going through a fairly significant sweep of redundancies at the moment and, although they're all voluntary redundancies, it's still sort of a sad, gut-wrenching time.

Which is why most of us got together last week to get quietly (or not so quietly blathered). Drinking with journalists, by the way, is just about the most fun - and the most dangerous - thing to do. I confess I made a strategic retreat just before closing to stuff a kebab down my throat and collapse into bed. Because I am wise. Before that point, however, there were sad and funny speeches and it was simultaneously and lovely and depressing-as-hell. 

At one point in the night one of the paper's most senior journos stood up on a couch (apologies to the Oxford Hotel) and delivered this little beauty of his own creation. I had been meaning to post it and then I saw that the wonderful (and departing) Lindsay had beaten me to it. Nevertheless. Here it is anyway because, you know, it made me laugh. He's a great orator, too, this journo, so it probably loses something in not being delivered by a shouty middle-aged man on a soft and unstable velour(?) couch.

Ode to the journo

From typewriters, cigarettes, ashtrays and beer.
The newspaper journo is somehow still here.
They annoy, pester and demand to know.
But the Internet keeps telling them it is time to go.

“Piss off” they grumble as circulation looks stark,
“Without us lot the world would be kept in the dark.
Take your Twitter, your Facebook, your blogs and a text.
That scoop on newsprint is better than sex."

And how dare they call photographers relics of the past,
take your smart arse phones and shove ‘em up your arse.
Remember this ode because one day it’ll come true, us journos will rise up all shiny and new.
Until that day, there’s only one thing to do, charge your glasses cos there’s still drinking to do.

Yes. What he said.

Dress me now

This Sydney Morning Herald column about how men over 30 should dress (or not dress) has got me thinking about fashion. Or, more specifically, it has got me thinking about the female equivalent and what a woman should or shouldn't wear in her thirties.

It's a toughie. 

Fashion is a personal thing and I hate the idea of being a slave to other people's ideas about what a person can wear and when. And yet every time I go to pull on a pair of ankle socks with my brogues or a pair of heels I am gripped by the memory of a book I once read that said no woman over 29 should wear socks and heels together. I mean, I still wear them, I just feel kinda guilty about it.

Much depends, I feel, on what your individual style is, where you work, what you do and where you go. I've just finished watching the latest series of Project Runway, for example, and I really liked the style choices of one of the contestants, Michelle, who is from - of course - Portland. But Michelle is 34 and I'm not convinced that every 34 year old I know could carry her look off without looking like she was trying to recapture her misspent teenage years. I've got 4 years on her and I still don't think I could pull off her hair, even though on her I think it's charming.

I agree with the SMH article on the need to embrace good tailoring the older you get. Just about the only real change I've consciously made to my wardrobe in recognition of turning 30 is buying slightly more expensive dresses that tend to be better made. I still buy the odd cheapie from Target but increasingly I think it's worth it to shell out the bit extra for Alannah Hill or Review or Gorman or what-have-you because the end result is just so much better. A willowy 18-year-old might be able to look like a million bucks in a Kmart special. A soft-edged 30-year-old? Not so much.

I don't really have a point. Nor do I have a lesson to impart. However, it would remiss of me not to mention that I am currently wearing a) a pair of earrings made out of a miniature teapot and a miniature sugar pot and b) a giant woolly blue cardigan and therefore should probably not be writing about fashion at all. You be the judge.

Note: The picture above is NOT of Michelle from Project Runway - it's a model modelling some of Michelle's clothes in the season finale. But God I really fucking love that bleeding heart jumper.

Friday fun

“Depression presents itself as a realism regarding the rottenness of the world in general and the rottenness of your life in particular. But the realism is merely a mask for depression's actual essence, which is an overwhelming estrangement from humanity. The more persuaded you are of your unique access to the rottenness, the more afraid you become of engaging with the world; and the less you engage with the world, the more perfidiously happy-faced the rest of humanity seems for continuing to engage with it.”

(Jonathan Franzen, How to Be Alone)

How do I unwrap the cute? Let me count the ways.

1. San Antonio zoo has two new turtles.

2. The two new turtles are called Thelma and Louise.

3. THE TURTLES ARE ACTUALLY (healthy) UNSEPARATED TWINS SHARING THE SAME SHELL.