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!