Surf Report

While I await news of a couple of people who were in the areas hit by the tsunami, here's a couple of links.

The South-East Asia Earthquake and Tsunami
Created by South-East Asian bloggers and featuring the latest news and information about the tsunami, agencies supporting the victims and involved in relief, places where donations can be made, volunteering information and much more. News from on the ground.

Ways for Australians to help out

...and opportunities for the rest of you.

Open your wallets, people!

You think I don't notice your eyes glaze over when I talk about my trip. I notice. I notice alright.

...and you needn't think you're getting a postcard, either.

Oh joy...

Yet another reason why it's just so goddamn great to work for an under-funded community health organisation: one of our airconditioning units fell through the flimsy ceiling today. Only the heroism of a two-inch PVC pipe prevented it hitting the floor. Had it hit the ground, it would have come down right next to the pool table where a crowd of people had been enjoying a game a couple of nights before.

*sigh*

Listless Christmas

Like the sucker I am, I volunteered yesterday to brave the crowds and finish up the Christmas shopping on behalf of the Family Suzette. Friends, if the Christian ideas on the afterlife are true, then you'd be well advised to amend your ways immediately. Those souls bound for eternal damnation will spend the hereafter in a crowded department store jostling with cranky shoppers, spoilt and fractious children, stomach-churningly schmaltzy plastic crap, obscene displays of frenzied consumption and inane Christmas carols. Hear me when I say to you that you really don't want to spend eternity this way.

Anyway... like the dutiful aunty I try so hard to be, I clenched my teeth and headed for our local shopping centre, Garden City. The person responsible for naming Garden City was clearly possessed of a mind marinated in a tart vinaigrette of irony: the only association with gardening I can make out is the notion that money grows on trees. Or perhaps it's that time spent there cultivates poor manners, aggression and an appetite for polyester clothing and acrylic fingernails.

Santa, darling that he is, had promised Miss 6 a Bratz doll - the Rubber Ho's, as my sister would have it. (Just quietly, I think she's on the money.) For the uninitiated, Bratz are ten inches of surly, heavily made-up harlotry. If they could talk - and even if they were made flesh I'm not convinced they could form coherent sentences - their vapid conversation would be heavily peppered with, "Like, y'know, what-EVERRRRR." You even have the opportunity to buy a Bratz sushi bar for them to, like, y'know, hang out in, dude. They have had a significant impact on me in that I now realise Barbie ain't so bad after all. But Santa said yes, so who the hell am I to argue with that kind of authority? So off shopping I went.


Coming soon: Bratz Botox Salon

In the not-too-distant past, public groupings of half a dozen or so were considered a Public Gathering in this state, and were illegal without a permit. Were that still the case the air would have been humming with riot police batons at the checkout yesterday. Soon-to-be-landfill bounty successfully located, I joined the snaking queues/scrums and passed the time waiting by watching my fellow shoppers shove, ram, push, grab, elbow, snap, frown, complain, bitch and spend, spend, spend. That the scene was dominated by instructions to Have a Merry Christmas almost made me smile.

The truth comes out.

It's no laughing matter.

Witness the magnitude of ferret oppression in Queensland. I urge you to write to Amnesty for the sake of decency.

History in the Making

When future generations reflect upon these troubled times of ours, they will speak the word ferret in hushed and reverent tones and they will envy us... for we were there to witness it.

Comrades, this car boasted five - yes, five! - of these glorious statements of wild-eyed revolutionary fervour.

STOP PRESS!

Let the chatter of speculation cease; let the nay-sayers become yay!-sayers; let my detractors redirect their focus to one of my myriad other flaws, for I have bought a plane ticket!

I fly these wattle-scented shores early 2005.

... told you I was going.

Ounc upon a time.

There was oun sun. The sun was makinge the peepall sewetee then. the sun broke. An peepll sivd hapee evaaftr.

- Meelele, aged 6

Every Barbie has her Ken

Indulge me, if you’d be so kind, in a few minutes on my soapbox, for something has raised my ire. This particular irritant is an old one, and like woollens at the beginning of winter, is long due a good airing.

Sexism.

Now those few of you who are still with me at this point… rela-a-a-ax! I’m not bearing witness to the hideous gynaecidal atrocities of the phallocentric overlords today. Quite the opposite.

Several years ago now, I pulled up a female friend who had spewed out some repellent stereotyping of the chaps. Once I had pointed out to her that what she had said was, in fact, completely idiotic and shameful, she took it in good humour. Ha, she said, thoughtfully. I suppose that’s like reverse sexism, isn’t it? Umm…well no, actually…

Sexism: discrimination against, stereotyping of, patronising or otherwise offensive behaviour on the grounds of sex. (NB: This definition doesn’t say on the grounds of being female, it says sex - of which we’ll say there are two, for the sake of this argument.)

Huh, another friend says, hands on hips and eyes rolling, if you want a job done properly give it to a woman. (Oh, fuck off! …but would you be so kind as to pass the bucket before you do?) I hear this brand of absurd, indolent dribble vomited up more often than I care to tell you. Perhaps this is a consequence of keeping the company of women who cut their chops in the bra-burning Seventies: lovely, intelligent women, fine company and generally quite socially astute, but for this one aberration. These are women who care passionately about equality yet don’t seem to have given a moment’s decent brain time to what that term might actually mean. Women who stamp their feet and demand to be treated with respect, rail with clenched fists against being judged on their looks, their clothes, their gender alone. Women who can say Typical male. Goes to pieces under the slightest pressure. They’re babies, aren’t they? and keep a straight face. Women who would have the castrating knife out and flashing in an instant should such a sentiment be uttered by a man about a woman. It’s lazy, ignorant and insulting; even more galling when sprayed about within earshot of their husbands or partners and, more particularly, their sons.

Feminism: advocacy of equal rights and opportunities for women, esp. the extension of their activities in social and political life.

Misandry: hatred of men.

For every perky-breasted, slim-waisted, long-legged, passive, self-sacrificing angel we see in the media there is a tall, confident, broad-chested, athletic he-man aggressively clawing his way up his career ladder. Ideal Man has a flashy car, money to spare and is a hit with the ladies – needless to say, he’s a cracker in the sack, knows what a woman wants better than she knows herself and never fails maintain a thundering erection all night. He’s tough, yet sensitive. He can hold his own in a dust-up, is both king of the kitchen and potentate of the power tools. Quite a tall order, wouldn’t you say? Every bit as anxiety-inducing as Ideal Woman, perhaps?

Women are still way behind in the race for equality of pay and status, are still sexualised, and a plethora of other injustices besides. But the cement shoes of stereotyping that hold us down come in men’s fittings, too.

*Ahem*…thanks for listening.

Meet the Neighbours

You've gotta love a Tent Spider - so attractive and such good builders; qualities I prefer in all my friends.

This lass is about 50 mm across from toe-to-toe, and is resident in our backyard.

Clearly in a lather of ecstasy, my niece met Santa at kindy this week. Or rather, Santa met the back of Lani's head. The old guy was obviously a bit on the nose, but she summoned enough benvolent tolerance to unburden him of a present nevertheless.

365 Days in Purgatory

I spotted this while browsing a calendar stand recently, and my thoughts shortly turned to matters of religion. The nature of Hell, specifically.

(Ignore All)

I ran the spell checker - always a Faustian venture - over my recent "My Hammer..." post and here is a selection of the fruits of wisdom it bore:

fuckin' – Puccini; Fijian; Fagin; buckskin; firkin
zephyr – Sperry (!?); zipper; cipher; gopher; Gopher; zebra
gunna – guano; Guiana; Guyana; Genoa; gnaw; Guinea; Goa
arse* - Ares; Aries; arose; ARQ (!?)
ya – yahoo; Yahoo
whinging – hinging; hanging; honking; ionizing; winking
y’know – Yukon; Yakima
trouble – trouble

I've a sneaking suspicion that the composer of this spell checker is a frustrated traveller with an interest in the classics.

*Australian spelling and pronunciation of “ass”

Life's Rich Tapestry

People are interesting creatures, aren't they?

In my time I have been fortunate enough to know people who've been:

A piano tuner.
A tatooist.
A theatre props maker.
An acupuncturist.
A reflexologist.
A professional juggler who later became captain of an oil tanker.
A professional flugelhorn player.
A cartoonist who works on The Phantom.
A motorbike riding holistic dentist.
A composer.
A novelist.
A Professor of Engineering specialising in sewage treatment.
A jeweller.
An animatronics maker.
A professional Santa.
A hypnotist.
An East Timor aid worker.
An Afghanistan aid worker.
Lapsed doctors (several).
A glassblower.
Potters (many).
A submariner.
A show dancer.
A politician.
A pro soccer player turned Persian carpet importer
A playwright

........hmmm..........should get up off my fundament and do something with my life, I suppose.

My Hammer Is An Extension Of My Penis

An update on my neighbours' renovations.

Mercifully, their enthusiasm for pre-dawn hammering has tailed off, and I think I see why. On Sunday morning the thunder of discord replaced the zephyr of harmonious industry. As I opened one sleepy eye I mistook it for cats brawling, but slowly my brain formed the screeches into words...

He: (On the verge of tears) Why should I keep going when he tears out everything I do? I know I'm not the best builder in the world, but I want to learn! He's emasculating me!!

She: (On the verge of braining him) Are ya gunna come and get ya fuckin' breakfast or sit on your arse whinging? I'm not ya fuckin' slave, y'know!

Oh dear... trouble in paradise!

Santa Cause

Christmas is on its way - as it has been since late September, if the commercial agitprop is to be believed - and so the time has come to make some decisions about what to put under the tree this time around. For weeks now the crappy catalogues have been choking our letterbox with the vigour of an algal bloom. One arrived in my hands today, though, that I have been looking forward to for some time: Arguably The World's Most Useful Gift Catalogue.

I defy you to find any other advertising this year that offers for purchase a goat, literacy or an orchard. Arguably The World's Most Useful Gift Catalogue is no run-of-the-mill parade of inane consumption - quite the opposite, in fact. The twist in this list is that the gifts are not for your loved ones as such, but for some of the poorest people around. Each item, such as a year’s worth of school supplies for a child has a fixed price; once you make the purchase you receive a stylish greeting card containing a description of the gift, which you can then give to the friend on whose behalf you’ve bought it. Better than a pair of socks, in my book.

And you don’t need to spend a fortune to feel the warm inner glow! A basic set of cooking utensils for a displaced family in Uganda will set you back a mere $7 – the amount I spent on a coffee and snack this afternoon. A paltry $15 will give a family in Bangladesh a well deep enough to draw water from below the level at which the arsenic sits in their local water table. Imagine - clean, safe water forever for the price of a pizza! And as someone who spent the best part of a year shivering through the clammy psychedelic misery of mosquito-borne Ross River Fever, I assure you that $10 for a mosquito net for a family in Burma is very good value indeed. Last year I even managed to brow-beat my colleagues into using the money we raised selling chocolate to ourselves in the office – a scheme I instigated then instantly regretted – to purchase health care training for an entire village. (It almost made the bitchy recriminations over the shortfall in the till worthwhile.) Most of the gifts are associated with an education programme, too - it’s not simply a handout, but a chance for people to improve their own lives, and in turn move their local communities forward.

It’s got everything, don’t you think? Low prices, great gifts and an effortless opportunity to take part in making the world a better place… and as a bonus you get to avoid the Christmas carols and fractious crowds altogether this year.

Questions from the Fridge

Call me churlish, but I can't help but raise a sceptical eyebrow when I read a phrase like "Selected Cuts" on a cat food packet. Are you telling me that an epicure is engaged to stand on the line at the abattoir and distinguish those morsels tasty enough for kitty's delicate palate from those less delectable? Or perhaps, just perhaps, this "selection" occurs when someone says, "See all that crap on the floor? Scrape it up and shove it in the pet food bucket, will ya?"

Before we close the refrigerator, there's a jam I buy regularly which helpfully informs us on the label that this product is "High Content Fruit Spread." Huh?! This jam contains a high level of contents? What's the remainder made up of - Essence of Void?

They’ll all be put up against the wall when I become Queen.

Six O'Clock Knock

Plumb bob. Post-hole digger. Circular saw. Triple grip. V-joint. Paint roller. Footings. Noggings. Spoken aloud these words will draw the renovators out of the crowd as helplessly as a moth to a bulb on a summer’s night. I tell you this with confidence because I am one of them.

My own residential labour of love was completed over a decade ago – insofar as they are ever complete – yet still I find the tang of fresh-sawn timber compelling. For eighteen obsessive months my beloved and I hacked and ripped at our little cottage. To say it was plain would be to indulge in the crudest of understatements: a butt-ugly eyesore is somewhat closer to reality. But to the soul possessed of enough imagination to see past the 70’s alterations – executed with all the sensitivity of a pig-shoot – it was a gem.

Slowly we lifted away the layers hiding our tiny home, and with that stepped into our local history. Thick skins of pink enamel paint peeled to reveal handcrafted brass fittings and silky oak frames. The reward for evicting the grimy nylon carpet and its vibrant flea community was a weave of satinay flooring in red, auburn and gold. In the kitchen the brittle and waxy lino held a prize altogether different: a lining of the local newspaper, The Chronicle, from the early 20’s, which occupied my evenings for weeks. Particularly revealing in its pages was the monthly "Vermin Count", which tallied the number of kills for troublesome rats, dingoes and "natives". (Yes, I’m quite serious.)

The traditional architectural style of Queensland is quite distinct. Evolving in the pre-airconditioned era, its aim was to maximise airflow and minimise heat retention, and to do so with frilly Victorian grace. The verandahs are wide. The windows are hooded. The walls a single skin of tongue-and-groove boards. Intricate fretwork panels above the doorways allow the air to move about freely.* Being perched high on poles makes a cool retreat underneath in the heat of the day – and somewhere to hang the laundry during a tropical downpour. In restoring our cottage I was single-minded in remaining faithful to this heritage. This architecture is a strong part of our culture and one of the few unique things we have; I hold it in a passionate reverence. So, naturally, the smile came readily to my face when our neighbours began giving their modest weatherboard shack some attention.

It’s not the first work they’ve done around the house; what they’ve done until now is perfectly agreeable, so I have every faith that their hours with the power tools will make our suburb a better place to be. My enthusiasm for their project waned, however, when I was woken by hammering on Wednesday at 6:05 am. Then 6:15 am Thursday. Then 6:08 Friday. Then 6:20 Saturday. Curiously enough, my sixty-plus hour working week has dropped cultural integrity to the bottom of my list of priorities.

* And the noise, too, for that matter. Amorous activity is a public affair in a share house in this city.

Exhibitionism - Part II

This is the first working draft in a series I began a couple of years ago. Later paintings captured a much better likeness of Muhammed Ali - this is quite lacking in that regard - but they weren't nearly as fun to do. The freedom and minimum of fussiness by comparision makes this one the pick of the series for me, regardless of its accuracy.

Exhibitionism - Part I

Cow Skull

This skull is one of my favorite things to draw. It was a gift from a former beau; he found it while we were camping outside Maryborough, and presented it with a flourish. I was rather chuffed, but less so when scorpions started pouring out of it.

This is not remotely reason I started this blog, but until I extract the digit and get the folio website happening this will have to do.

Greetings from lovely Hervey Bay!

This pretty much tells you all you need to know about my home town. I think someone needs a big hug.

- taken Torquay Road, Hervey Bay.

Fragment (consider revising)

Suggestions made by Microsoft Word when tackling the spelling of my surname:

• Wires
• Dirges
• Weirdos
• Wigs
• Wings

(I'm at a loss which one to pick.)

Marriage made in heaven...and Brisbane

This is one of my favorite recipes, and now you - you lucky thing, you - have the opportunity to get all the pleasure out of it that I do.

It's a marinade for lamb, which can be used on chops, cutlets or skewers (preferably with cubes of meat on them). If you are able to leave it to marinate overnight you'll be rewarded with lovely, tangy, tender pieces of sheep. Mmm!

• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh rosemary (or 1 tsp dried if you're really desperate)
• Slosh of olive oil
• Big squeeze of lemon juice
• Several large dollops of yoghurt (do I need to tell you that I mean the unsweetened variety?)
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 or 2 cloves garlic, finely chopped
  

Mix it all together in a bowl, then pour it over the lamb, coating it well. Cover and refrigerate at least four hours, preferably overnight.

Grill or barbeque as per usual, or, if you choose to pan fry, adding a little bit of yoghurt and lemon juice to the pan once the lamb's been removed results in a sauce to drizzle over the top. Fabulous!

Meditations on a Brick

What makes a Rubenesque lass pour her fulsome self into a tight nylon singlet and jeans low enough to squeeze out a spare tyre and a Tradesman's Grin? Or wear strappy slip-on "shoes" that require a Python-style Silly Walk to stay on? These are just two of the questions my brain put to me as we sat sipping an iced coffee in the city this evening.

It's Friday night in Bris Vegas, and I'm amid the hubbub of the after work/pre-drinks throng. Two things have lured me here this evening:
1) I was paid for the first time in a couple of months today.
2) My phone - The Brick, object of mirth on the part of others and anti-style pride on mine - is not well. I fear she may be terminal.

I only paid $20 for The Brick. The Boss had decided to replace her and her comrades because he thought - I suspect - they were a bit daggy-looking. They were offered around for staff to buy, starting optimistically at $50, later settling at $20. I am of Scottish inheritance, so recognised this as being just the right price for a mobile phone... and so it was that The Brick entered my life.

The mobile phone is very much an object of style, which irritates the absolute hell out of yours truly. All I ask of a phone is that it survive the rigors of being tumbled around in my backpack and having the odd bit of banana mashed into it from time to time.* I perused the stores tonight looking for The Brick's successor, but quickly grew annoyed by the sight of buttons so small you'd need a sharp pencil to press them, so stepped back on to the street with a lips pursed like a kitty's aft and feeling fratchy.

But I digress. Friday night is, as it is everywhere, the night when the young 'uns like to strut the streets in what I imagine to be the latest styles. I can't be too disdainful here; I did exactly the same thing at that age. (Actually, it's a duty to oneself to do so; what fun is there in looking back on photos of yourself dressed tastefully?) These days, however, my dress sense is somewhat more utilitarian.

Now, those of my three-dimensional acquaintance may wish to sit down before reading this: I am quite particular about what I wear. It's true! I'm not actually concerned with being fashionable - I can think for myself, thanks all the same - but I know what I like and what I don't, and no correspondence will be entered into. I'm not consciously trying to project any particular image, either, but there is one that I - apparently - have given consistently over the years: people often assume that I'm a lesbian.

I don't find this upsetting in the slightest. Dorothy and I move in the same circles; I’m employed in a predominantly gay workplace, for starters. I fancy that I am at ease enough with myself to be unaffected by these speculations. It simply makes me wonder.

My occasional sequins-and-eyelashes extravaganza aside, I tend to dress quite simply and practically. I generally favour jeans, and having feet like Homer Simpson's - a double E width fitting - means that Blundstones are a happy choice for me. Freakishly thick and wilfully wavy, my hair is at its best short. Very short.** And I confess to a modest piece of ink art on one shoulder. But despite a penchant for lipstick and painted toenails, it seems that all this adds up to looking like a sister's sister....whatever that means.

So what does this say about the "straight woman" look? To signal to the world's male populace that you're batting for the "right" side you're condemned to a lifetime in painful shoe purgatory? Of doing the Shoe Victim Shuffle? Of touching your face only to mop up the paint as it slides humidly south? Of sweltering in synthetic fabrics? Of restricting your movements for fear of your cleavage spilling onto the table? Of carrying a bag so tiny you can only fit your credit card and lip gloss in it? (But where does your Swiss Army Knife go, I'd like to know?) And how fast do you think you can run in your clacky mules if you’re in trouble?

If women feel compelled to arrange their lives around this charade, is it because it's what the gents seek in their feminine others? Someone who looks incapable of substantial movement? A woman who spends half her time and most of her income on preening? A girl who can't take two steps without risking ankle dislocation? Is Rose with her nose in Vogue more appealing than Jenny jostling with Joyce? (Or joists, for that matter?)

Sometimes I think I know the answer to these questions, sometimes I'm not so sure. What I do know is that when I had my gigantic cascade of wavy waist-length hair cropped short a year ago, men stopped chatting me up in pubs and started chatting to me instead.


*One of the occupants of my household is aged 2

** It's not dissimilar to a bright red coir doormat. At a pinch I could scrub my nails with it.

I'm curious - Part II

OK....right....this Brazil/Greenland thing is officially driving me insane.

The number of hits has overtaken those of my own timezone, which includes many squillion made by me in publishing and maintaining this site. Who the hell is this? What on earth does someone from one of those countries possibly get from the blog of some dull chick from the Brisbane suburbs? (Unless, of course, the map is not quite right, and it's actually the timezone that includes New York, etc. Could be my stepsister outside of Boston, I suppose.)

I'm way too prone to distraction at the moment.

Cheeses!

"Currently on eBay you have the rare opportunity to place bids on a cheese sandwich said to bear the image of the Virgin Mary.

Owner Diana Duyser, 52, of Hollywood, Florida, insists that what looks like a face on the grilled sandwich she kept by her bedside for the past 10 years "is the Virgin Mary, Mother of God" and that the sacred snack is miraculously mould-free.

Goddes au gratin - deitylicious!

The auction house itself had initially described the snack sale as a joke and cancelled bids, which had reached $US22,000. But amid widespread media attention, eBay reversed its decision, allowing Ms Duyser's sandwich to go back on sale on Tuesday.

The listing has a picture of a sandwich bearing what appears to be the image of a woman's face and a message from Ms Duyser. "I made this sandwich 10 years ago. When I took a bite out of it, I saw a face looking up at me; it was Virgin Mary starring (sic) back at me. I was in total shock; I would like to point out there is no mould or (disintegration)," Ms Duyser said.

She said the sandwich, preserved in a plastic box, has brought her "blessings". "I have won $US70,000 dollars (total) on different occasions at the casino nearby my house; I can show the receipts (sic) to the high bidder," Ms Duyser said."

- from ABC News Online

Stop avoiding The Issue

I love magazines.

I love their versatility, the way you can browse through, buffet-style, and find just the right thing to suit your mood: tired and skittish? Flick the pages and nibble the headlines. Right brain muscling in on the left? Enjoy the illustrations, the photos, let your discerning eye roam around the typesetting. Settled and thoughtful? Roll up your sleeves, fold back the cover and tuck into the feature editorial. Magazines are like that: skilfully designed to suit your fickle psyche and busy modern lifestyle.

My enthusiasm for magazines is thoroughly frustrated, however, by the choices available. I enjoy New Scientist from time to time, and before I lost my taste for cricket I could often be spotted trotting down the street with a copy of Inside Edge* tucked under my arm. It's a rare thing, though, if I step into a newsagent and find a rag that tempts me remotely. I have as much interest in the dizzying highs and gut-wrenching lows in the lives of the glitterati as I have in eating shards of glass. My need to be informed of which must-have garment is the new black this season is limited only to ensuring that I don't inadvertently wear one. Cross-stitching; dog breeding; being a beautiful bride; making furniture out of matchsticks; the latest plot by the CIA and their aliens cohorts to suppress the perpetual motion machine/cure for cancer - nup! They don't ring this gal's bell. So I'm in the strange position of running a magazine but not actually reading any.

Or I was until about a year ago.

For it was, gentle reader, around that time that I first stepped up to a fluoro-vested chap in Adelaide Street and exchanged $3 for a copy of The Big Issue. Have you ever read it? You really should. It's just like a magazine, but good. Printed on a flat stock, the layout is stylish and friendly and manages to avoid the self-consciously cool look I find faintly embarrassing in more pretentious publications. They employ illustrators, too; real, live artists, who use actual paints and inks, giving it an earthy humanity. No look-Mum-I-can-use-Illustrator graphics here. And the articles are fabulous! Witty, clever, well-crafted, socially conscious, intelligent and funny. Do you ever wonder what the delicious Helen Razer is doing these days? (Well, I'm not going to tell you - shell out $3 and find out.)

The Big Issue "provides people experiencing a range of disadvantages with an immediate opportunity to work, earn an income and rebuild their lives so that they can participate in a positive way in community life". The magazine is sold by people who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, thereby providing them with a means to generate an income; the entire operation was founded specifically to assist people in this situation make genuinely positive changes in their lives that would otherwise have been extremely difficult.

A dear friend of mine - who is a cynical prick - asked me once if I bought The Big Issuefor any reason other than guilt. While I could see the point he was making, it fairly got up my nose. This is not about treating someone like a pathetic charity case, giving them a shiny bauble so you sleep better at night. There is so much more to gain from employment than money: social contact; satisfaction; personal development; stimulation; dignity; self-esteem; developing and maintaining skills. In our culture your job is your identity. That The Big Issue has recognised this, and is doing something so positive about it, is only to be applauded. And supported, more to the point.

It comes out fortnightly - buy yourself a copy. In fact, buy two, and give one away to help spread the word. And if it relieves some of the guilt you feel as you rack up another designer garment on your fifth credit card, then that's a bonus, isn't it?

*Inside Edge, I'm ashamed to tell you, is the New Idea of cricket mags. It's horrid.

Sal-vation

My sister saved me today.

I won't bore you with the details, but she saved me from a complete disaster then made me a coffee and told me it was all going to be fine. And it was fine. I was on the verge of fainting from stress - I seriously thought at one point that something was going to short out in my brain and I'd just collapse, lifeless, on the floor. She waited quietly and read her book while I ran around freaking out, then put me in the car and drove me to where I needed to be.

Sally is a goddess.

vacation planner

"Hell is other people"
- Jean-Paul Sartre

I'm curious...

...why am I getting all these hits from the time zone that seems to include only Brazil and Greenland?

Jungle Bells

It's 39'C, 92% humidity, yet you're surrounded by snowmen.

If your head screeches in the glare off the sand, the creepy jingle of electronic sleighbells will surely tip it over the edge to aneurysm.

You pray pathetically for your liver to re-flood your bloodstream with even a small portion of the alcohol it was so carefully combing out at daybreak.

Meltingly listless in the hammock under the mango tree, the choking odour of roasting meats and heavy puddings stokes the dread clamping your glistening chest.

As Bing Crosby sings "White Christmas", sweat leaks from your every pore; rivulets of dye from your obligatory paper hat stream down your forehead like a scene from "Carrie".

The midday meal is laid out on the holly-covered table, festively embellished with more flies than the business end of a sheep, beginning the frantic Tourettes-style waving that somehow brings Yoko Ono to mind.

Welcome to Christmas, Queensland style!

Now don't get me wrong: I love Christmas food. I love it to the point of shameful. I could shovel plum pudding and brandy custard into my face until an ambulance is required. What I don't love is being expected to do so at the height of a subtropical summer. And I don't want my oven on for hours in the middle of the day, heating the house and seeping with lava flows of pig fat. It's summer, OK? The aim of the sane is to keep the house cool.

I'll let you into a little secret: it doesn't snow in Brisbane. Ever. We don't need to eat bricks of stodge to keep warm. We don't have reindeer, we don't have sleighs, we’ve never seen holly, and if some bearded guy tried to climb on the roof wearing a fur-lined suit and carrying a heavy load of toys, he'd have foam flecking off his lips in the grip of heat seizure before he could make it over the guttering - if the insects didn't drive him to insanity first.

...and we don't have chimneys, anyway.


- We had a violent electrical storm tonight, so I had to unplug the computer. I went fashionably retro and used a pen to write the first draft of this. It felt very strange.

Weather Report

Tokyo 11-16'C Windy
Vancouver 1-8'C Overcast
Copenhagen 7-9'C Windy
Berlin 9-14'C Rain
Edinburgh 3-10'C Windy

Brisbane 20-29'C Fine with an afternoon storm

My impending trip was my own idea, and is entirely voluntary, but I’m dreading it more and more.

How hard is it to break your own leg?

Shown to me - with a fearful twitch - by Corey and Greg.

The Designer's Lot

In my current incarnation I work as a graphic designer, mostly doing publications for organisations that deal with HIV. It's quite a strange niche to have hewn for myself. At the moment I'm working* on a recipe book written specifically for HIV positive people.

Now, our positive brothers and sisters have a variety of health quirks, so alongside each recipe are a variety of symbols that indicate which particular conditions the dish is appropriate for. As the designer, it's incumbent upon me to come up with these simple, friendly, easy-to-identify symbols to indicate, say, low glycaemic index, and so on. Not too much of a challenge, really. A little more brow-furrowing, I'm finding, is coming up with happy little graphics for diarrhoea, constipation, swallowing difficulties and nausea.

I can't believe I want to leave all this behind.

* procrastinating

Happy Monday

I have a wonderful, well-rounded and fulfilling life. Envy me my Monday.

• As I stepped into an elevator the only other occupant said, "I'm going to get a rope, wrap it around your neck and yank it 'til it snaps." Once my pulse rate dropped enough for me to realise that he was speaking to the automated voice announcing the floors, I tried to placate him by pointing out that at least she didn't have an American accent. He stared at me and left without another word.
• Bought a pineapple for a colleague. I think he was a little embarrassed by that.
• Found my missing underwear by raking through the mountain of shit on my bedroom floor.
• Considered hosing down the inferno of embarrassing enquiries about my travel plans by cancelling them altogether in favour of simply asking the nice boy who makes my coffee out for a drink. Cheaper, less effort and I might get sex out of it.
• Edited an article written by the manager of a community-based health care organisation that contained the line, We have no interest in contesting or opposing your basic human rights. (In the market for clean drinking water and freedom from slavery? No problem!)
• Despite a compelling urge to the contrary, managed to not tell my workmates what an obnoxious prat one of our number made of himself on Saturday night under the ruinous charm of Mistress Vodka, thereby benevolently keeping his reputation intact. Maybe I'll tell them tomorrow.
• Bought some diarrhoea medication for a loved one in the wake of the dinner I cooked last night.
• Had a six-year-old go hungry rather than eat the dinner I cooked tonight.
• Considered moving to Canada.
• Said "dick cheese" at a work lunch.
• Saved myself the awkwardness of asking a geeky friend to fix my computer by fixing it myself. I was inordinately proud of this, but my dirty secret is that it was a complete fluke.
• Did my laundry.
• Rolled over the cat’s tail with my chair.

Look upon my feats, ye mighty, and despair!

I'm Sold!

I am female. As such, I am a member of a group that makes up 50% of the population, and 80% of the nation’s purchasing decisions.*

I pondered these things as I watched an ad for Virgin Mobile during a break in The Simpsons last night . It seems that the fine folk at Virgin have been advised by their marketing people that showing me a pint-sized rapper surrounded by his bikini-clad ho’s rubbing their tits on the camera was inducement to purchase their latest mobile phone plan.

The Virgin Mobile ad - reach for your purses, ladies!

I don’t doubt that Virgin, being a large and successful international company, have done their research. If anyone could confidently assure you that a bunch of skinny chicks, droolingly randy, wearing slingshots and grinding their bums with the urgency of a dog with worms are going to make me their latest customer, it’s Virgin. I defer to their experience in these matters.

And while we're on the subject: it’s common knowledge that we ladies prefer West Coast Coolers to beer (…but don’t forget the straw! I won’t bag a husband with daggy lippy!). So when I saw an ad for a new beer at the bus stop telling me that It’s like finding out that Claudia Schiffer has a twin sister, I could see the wisdom in it: the only women who drink beer are nasty, hairy bull-dykes, so they had all their demographic covered with that one simple statement. Clever, huh?

But friends, I have a confession. Recently, when Heaven advertised their ice cream range with an image of a nubile miss bathing in chocolate and fellating an ice cream bar with a come-hither look, well… I dropped what I was doing and bought them in twos! Honest!

So, sisters, get with the programme. When a semi-clad woman is licking her glossy lips over the top of her pneumatic breasts on a billboard, she’s leering at YOU; not the randy-pants sixteen-year-old boy sitting next to you at the bus stop; not the frustrated and lonely middle-aged executive clawing at his bits in the car next to you at the lights. You. The advertisers know you hold the purse strings... so they must be talking to you. Mustn’t they?



* According to a Harris Interactive study, women control 75 percent of household finances and 80 percent of purchasing decisions.

Do the Op Shop Hop

As you may know, I am planning to head overseas soon *. I’ve always been a bit of an itchy-foot, and trial-and-error has settled me into a way of travel that sits very comfortably with me. Apart from all of the smaller details, such as packing a variety of comforts for the road, I find one of the most useful things to pack is a theme.

By trying to cram every must see attraction into a journey it ends up becoming an arduous checklist of obligations; somewhat less romantic than the free and joyful experience you saw when you were staring at the wall cobbling the plan together. By travelling by theme you can be more selective; you can see things that you would have missed out on had you simply taken the well-worn tourist path; understand a particular aspect of how the local people live their daily lives; taste the grassroots essence of a place. So, after some discussion with my travelling companion of this journey, Mr T, the theme is going to be op shopping**.

Now op shopping is no great leap of imagination for Mr T and I, granted; it’s been a way of life for me for twenty years or so now. Mr T and I have whiled away many a happy day fossicking about in junk shops, trying on strange garments for the other’s amusement, speculating on the actual purpose of some obscure object. A grand day’s entertainment. I take enormous satisfaction in replying to a comment on a recent purchase with the boast, Thanks, yes, I got it from the op shop for $4, and glow smugly at the astonishment and the questions and hums of approval that follow. As fabulous as that is, it’s nothing compared to the thrill of the hunt itself.

Yes, thrill, I say!

Op shopping is hunting,
Op shopping is your history,
Op shopping is voyeurism,
Op shopping is pop culture,
Op shopping is giving to charity,
Op shopping is entertaining,
Op shopping is recycling,
Op shopping is avoiding middleclass sweatshop guilt,
Op shopping is sticking it to the fashion fascists,
Op shopping gives you objects with soul,
Op shopping stimulates the imagination,
Op shopping stimulates your memory,
Op shopping is cheap,
Op shopping is always surprising.

And what better way to come to know the psyche of the countries I’ll be visiting? What on earth will they have on their jumble sale stalls in Tokyo? What bizarre delights are waiting for me in the charity shops of Prague? And Moscow...? Red Square be damned when the city’s second-hand vendors have a cornucopia of the inane and the baffling, just waiting for Mr T and I to squeal over.

I can’t wait.

* Yes, I know I’ve been leaving “in six weeks” for the past six months, but, hey, I’m getting there. I have a passport with a bad photo and a visa and everything. Really.

** Previous travel themes I could recommend include:

Big Things

Gardens

Cliffs (in Southern Victoria)

Art Deco (in Perth)

Devonshire Tea

Architecture (anywhere except Hervey Bay)

If you voted Liberal...

Good old Redfern. Thanks to Pauline from Wandering at Large for sending me this.

Mr Sheen, oh Mr Sheen!

In my salad days, fresh and crisp and dew-picked as I was, nothing made me happier than my record collection. Like a dog at a barbeque I hunted around, scavenging rarities, independent pressings, oddities, then burrowed myself away for hours, fondling them, sorting them, loving them.

Before the wriggling joy of that crackle as the stylus hit the groove I would go through the set ritual: plastic sleeve off; outer sleeve off; inner sleeve off; a polish with a soft cloth – not to be used for anything else – and, if required, a squirt of Mr Sheen.

Mr Sheen is quite the thing for records. It reduces the static on the vinyl, making it attract less dust; but best of all, it can repair small scratches that cause a track to jump. An essential piece of kit for the vinyl enthusiast.

But time moves on, a CD player has replaced my old turntable, and my little bald friend sits despondently in the laundry cupboard, dreaming of better days. On the rare occasion that I have cause to clean-wax-and-polish-as-I-dust, the scent of Mr Sheen puts me into a glassy-eyed reverie. How upsetting, then, that when I see him he brings to mind John Howard.

Damn you John Howard!

My Mr Sheen wanted nothing more than to make my work-a-day life less arduous, more fulfilling. His wholesome aim was to make my chores quicker and easier, giving me more precious time to live my life to the fullest. The very thought of border protection would have furrowed his lovely brow! At the mere mention of selling our creative intellectual property to the Yanks he would have blushed and looked politely away! And children overboard, well… a Bex and a good lie down, nothing less.

All my years of neglect have made my bespectacled friend bitter. In the dark, shoved between the Brasso and the bleach, he has been grinding his teeth, thinking on what was, what might have been, and plotting his revenge. While I was off flirting with my CD burner he crept out of the cupboard and into parliament; twisted, nasty, hate-filled and hateful, vowing to destroy everything I stood for.

People of Australia – it's all my fault. Please forgive me.

Dateline:Loungeroom

Well, after wasting many days farting about with Dreamweaver, and a supposedly easy online web builder, I've given in and gone Blogger. The Dreamweaver site was real pretty, mind you, but the logistics of maintaining it on the road, sans my own computer, would have been ridiculous. So now I have one less excuse to not do my work. Ce la vie. (There's always eBay.)

We're coming up to election time now, and to my very great shame have not followed it very closely at all this time around. My one concession to the political junky I once was is that I've been checking the odds on Centrebet on a regular basis. A couple of weeks ago they had the Coalition at $1.40 to win, and Labor $2.60. Checking in today it's now Coalition $1.20 and Labor $4.00! Good grief, what's going on? Apparently, Centrebet have been fairly accurate in predicting the outcomes of past elections, so it looks like we're in for another four years of the lying midget. Why? Why?

Ah, Centrebet, how I've grown to love you. I'm not actually a punter myself, but by golly, it's interesting looking at what's available to enliven the pulse of the fiscally adventurous. Take the Nobel Peace Prize, for example. Bono is, apparently, more likely to take it out than Tony Blair, and only the churlish amongst us would fail to see the sport in laying a dollar down on Fidel Castro, with odds of 1001:1. Same odds, incidently, as Slobodan Milosevic, and twice those of Willie Nelson (huh?) at 501:1. And I'd always scuttled past the TAB, thinking it was for dull old brylcreemed men named Reg. Goes to show.