sunday night, after the game

well, the cats beat north, but what a dodgy, weird game with bizarre umpiring and decisions i just didn't understand. and a new nemesis presents himself to replace barry hall - north's number 31, david someone? i do so enjoy having someone to hate.

and the geelong skies remained dry - the clouds were threatening but we didn't suffer any rain. there was no wind, so while we didn't have the sunburningness of a couple of years ago, it was fine.

chinese last night was ok. it gets very busy in there, it has to be the most exotic restaurant for miles, and the only chinese place, so i guess all from everywhere go there on a saturday night. princess had fried ice cream for the first time. she had exactly the same questions about it as i did when i was her age.

doesn't the ice cream melt?

saturday we all lay about reading. princess is re-reading the last of the twilight series, you know, teenage vampire, wereworld, human tale. she read the entire 4 books within 10 days. and is re-reading the last one. for the 3rd time. it was only released 2 weeks ago. mad, i tell you. i thought i was a voracious reader.

so there we all were - my dad, my daughter and me. dad reading a new james bond written by some dude other than ian fleming. of course.

it's not half bad, he said.

me flicking between the 3rd vampire/werewolf/humanoid girl love triangle book and a couple of abba books i picked up at the 2nd hand book shop down there, and the papers.

and princess with her love story.

we didn't go to the beach. we didn't go for a walk. we didn't go for a horseride.

we read. and read. and read.

dad and i caught steve hooker's fabulous pole-vaulting on friday night. and last night i went to bed at 8, and to sleep at 9. pathetic i know. woke up at 10am this morning and ate breakfast out again.

oh, to not cook. it's divine.

but to my friday night, earlier.

i went in to the town hall to hear and see germaine. first, there were the age book awards - one to don watson who i have to say in his speech used quite a few swanky words, tim winton who was suitably down-to-earth and humble and normal, and an eccentric old poetess, with witch hair and stooped physique who was really interesting and different.

and then we settled down for the main course. the place was filled with ageing hippy women, with steel-grey in their hair, yet smart haircuts. there were also younger chicks, and a few men. i'm convinced i was sitting behind the actress who played bogan janelle on neighbours. she really didn't look like a bogan.

germaine swept onto the stage in a dramatic black cape, with legs up to there. she's so tall.

i'm not going to go through the whole thing, but she was all of the following: brilliant, fast-talking, learned, scholarly, boring (she did tend to go off into lengthy quotations of obscure shakespeare passages, and i would go to the bahamas for a minute), funny, self-deprecating, moved, natural, pithy, bitchy (a couple of swipes at the murdoch paper), restrained, goofy, provocative, humble.

but at all times she was sincere. and so invested in what she was saying, so passionate.

and i don't think you could say she was formally charming, because there were gaps in her presentation where she was a bit awkward, a bit at a loss. her charm is in her naturalness and her at times gawkiness. she certainly wasn't polished, though she was competent. she spoke so well, not reading verbatim, she probably just had notes scrawled, i wonder. she was dramatic and i wondered whether she either had ever acted, to aspired to.

these are the things that stand out:

* at one stage toward the end, there was a popping sound, like a car backfiring or something. she immediately spread out her arms and said "i've been shot!" the whole place cracked up, i couldn't stop laughing, it was such a gleeful laugh. she said "not that i'm expecting to be shot!" for her to make such a quick gag, so spontaneously was telling. it showed us that she is fully aware of the enmity that she produces in others. and possibly it crosses her mind that some nutter might take her out. but almost as quickly she wanted to show that she wasn't scared, wasn't vulnerable.

* at the end she was given a bunch of flowers. people were clapping and cheering, some standing up. she stood there and accepted the applause, also she looked very closely at the flowers, peering into the base of the bunch, digging around with her fingers. what was she doing? was she checking they were moist at the bottom? was there a card down there? i couldn't see but it was proof to me she is so in the moment, and not scared of being curious and herself. she allowed herself to be distracted by the flowers, even though there were 2,000 people clapping her.

* she ran over time. she would have talked all night. she didn't seem to have a watch, made a comment about there being no clock ("as usual in these places"). she took questions. she wasn't in a hurry to get out of there. she wasn't precious.

so it was a real privilege for me. i didn't catch up with AOF but we were both there, and texted each other after. i had to race off to drive down the beach.

what a fabulous weekend.

more germaine whimsy

and yes, it shall be whimsy. while it makes me a little nervous to just write a non-edited, unplanned piece on this topic, this woman - for it is indeed the week of the greer - i am just going to write my feelings out, and anybody who wants to be picky and neg me and say it's ill-structured, rambling and incoherent, can just bugger off. this is my blog, and i'll be incoherent if i want to.

the last time i did a week on someone, it was david hicks. back when i had hours of university master-avoiding that needed to be done every day. it was a requirement of full-time study, it was in the course guidelines.

i have no such excuses now, dear reader. i am working rather more than i would choose, but enjoying earning money for the first time, properly and regularly, in more years than i care to say. and while i like to say this is the week of germaine, i am aware that i haven't posted all week.
so, to germaine. or more precisely, this article which appeared last saturday in the age.

i've picked a bone with traceeeee before, over peter garrett's suiting up and seeming to forget all his old song lyrics. i'm sure it was her that wrote an article saying something like "leave him alone, he's gonna work it from the inside."

still waiting on that one, trace.

but to the latest. the headline is greer's latest rage more glib than lib.

i know that sub-editors write the headlines, so that's not traceeeee's fault, but the headline does announce the tone that she embraces in her article.

what does glib mean anyway? according to one source, it's any of the following:

smooth and slippery; speaking or spoken in a smooth manner; easily fluent; careless; insincere.

so it's a negative word, it seems, something suspect and something not altogether pleasant. exactly how many see greer it seems.

my reading of the hutchinson article made me think that she had missed the point. while she admits to being fascinated with the greer, and sees herself as benefitting from the social swathe the female eunuch cut through the world at that time, and the resonance since, she then goes on to methodically attempt to undermine germaine, and to cast her as suspect - geographically, politically and feministically.

she talks about the new essay on rage, particularly on aboriginal male rage. hutchison implies that germaine is wrong in thinking, from her lovely, far-away english residence, that indigenous men are self-destructing out of rage, and not grief. hutchison says that germaine was not at the sorry day in canberra, and obviously the broadcast that she watched in her lovely, far-away english residence didn't show all the aboriginal people who attended. hutchison was there, she saw that the indigenous people there were in the background, under trees, not pushing themselves to the front. so germaine must be wrong in thinking the aboriginal men were absent. ah, point scored. i haven't read the rage essay yet, so i don't know exactly what trace is referring to. but it's clear she thinks she scored over germaine about this. i'm also not sure why it's important for people to try to bring this woman down. to try to prove her wrong. and to try and cut her legs out from under her.

but going back to the rage vs grief thing - they aren't separate. they can and do co-exist. it could be argued that you can't have one without the other. what does rage come from, and how does it differ from anger. what are the degrees on the continuum. i need to read the essay to try to understand better. but back to the sorry day, perhaps on that day people showed their grief - grief is far more socially acceptable than rage. but surely the rage is there, in all of them (us?). to show rage at the sorry day would have been to show poor manners, lack of dignity, lack of good-heart. i don't know, but i guess that indigenous people like everyone else would pride themselves on their collective good-heart and their dignity.

hutchison then goes on to talk about the joanna murray-smith thing, where germaine called her "an insane reactionary who held feminism in contempt." again she tries to score points, saying the she knows that murray-smith's family are left-wing inellectuals, her mother taught hutchison english, and her father was "revered in literary intellectual circles." well, being literary, or left-wing doesn't automatically exclude a person from being an insane reactionary and anti-feminist. are all these states of being mutually exclusive? i think not.

but as usual, germaine has made her controversial comment, just a few words, and we don't know the context, she hasn't offered an explanation for it, we don't know what question she was asked to respond to. nothing. but it has to be noted that murray-smith has been criticised by other people for being right-wing and anti-feminist, eg. Alison Croggan, see article.

this is what really gets up people's noses about germaine as well. she doesn't give herself to us. she doesn't lay herself bare. we don't know anything about her. maybe in the past she was very open about her own personal experiences, couched within her writing on certain topics; sexuality, gender issues, menopause, father-daughter relationships. but in the media at large, she gives them nothing about herself. i have no idea if she's ever been married, ever been pregnant, ever had a lesbian tryst, ever been depressed, ever driven drunk, ever taken drugs, ever stalked anyone, ever plagiarised anything.

to me, she has never fallen. she has never done an insipid new idea interview. she doesn't give permission to bigraphers, but will call them parasites. why don't they create something for themselves, she wonders. why don't they get a life?

on the question and answer show last week, germaine was insulted most shockingly by the murdoch paper man. he called her old. someone whispered sotto voce that it was below the belt, perhaps it was carr. germaine threw out a facial reaction but nothing else. she doesn't seem to be affected by people trying to tear her down.
you have to admire the woman for that, if nothing else.
the whole traceeeee article just seemed to me a set-up for tearing greer down. scoring points.
oooh, look at me. i spat on germaine greer!

this was the big, green, slimy slagging at greer from hutchison, who said: "while her observations about the cultural and social crisis in aboriginal australia are astute, her cause-and-effect arguments fail spectacularly."

but where's the detail in your argument, traceeeee? you can't make a statement like that and then just leave your readers hanging. where's your proof?

at the end of the article, hutchison is getting quite bitchy, always a sure sign of someone who is desperately trying to make a point and has nothing of real substance to rely on.

"But it didn't stop Greer flying off in a rage - yes, rage - about [Murray-Smith]"

i don't know that greer has either said rage is a bad thing, or something that she doesn't feel. are you trying to highlight some sort of irony there, hutchison, by referring to geer flying off in a rage?

but finally, traceeeee writes that greer's closing comment "if i was more animal and less pseudo intellectual i'd be a much happier person" was profoundly sad and confronting to the feminist ideals she "trumpeted all those years ago."

sad? did you not see germaine's full cheek with quite a bit of tongue in it? i think she meant it literally, but she was also being funny, she was being self-deprecating and i understand what she meant. i wish i was a little more animal too. i wish i didn't analyse anything and everything, try to understand everything, get affected by everything. i wish i could just let things be, feel things, not have to work so damn hard every single day to exist without imploding.

and how on earth is that confronting - do you mean contradictory - to any feminist ideals? we all are animals, really. why can't i be a person who wants to be more in touch with my primal stuff, less living in my head, but also wants to choose about whether i wear lipstick, remove my body hair, wear what i like. it's all about choices, and choosing to react in a certain way when i realise that some things i can choose, some things i can't. and that's about it.

so tell me. do you fear the greer?

this is a post i've had sitting in drafts for about 2 years. i confess i was reluctant to post it back when i wrote it (shortly after steve irwin died) because i didn't want people criticising me for being a greer fan-girl. but two recent commenters have let me know that they too admire her, so with the numbers of support, and those two readers at my side, i want to open it up a bit. it's timely because she's here, and i'm going to see her keynote speech on rage at the mwf very soon. and also there are news articles creeping out of the woodwork each day it seems.

last night i watched germaine on channel 2 at 9.30. i can't remember the show - q and a?? - but there was bob carr, a murdoch-suit from the australian, julie bishop, and some young dude who was the only one that germaine really nodded in agreement at during the entire thing. they talked about a lot of different things, taking questions from the live audience.

i swear, it was like the germaine show. the audience clapped her several times, and while the others were so tightly held and robotic (and particularly bob carr with his fruity, snotty, pompous voice and self-serving attempts to be political towards the end of the show, bishop also tried this), germaine was reactive, animated, facially expressive, moving her body back and forward trying to see people's faces as they talked, rolling her eyes, gasping, laughing explosively at one point. and oh, the words out of her mouth were sublime. she was, quite simply, mesmerising. she was self-deprecating, referring to the female eunuch as just a book, a product of the times and that she wishes it were a better book, that it was too scholarly (i think that's what she said, i have the show taped and haven't watched it again) and that she wishes there were other books after that picked up the tempo and carried things forward. she said it wasn't the book that was important, it was the era and what was happening. and she was gracious - refusing to bite when the newspaper-turd insulted her by calling her old. while any old hack knows they can be guaranteed a good germaine quote, ie a controversial one, if they only ask the right question, she was remarkably restrained when provoked a couple of times on this particular occasion. she didn't bite, even though people were placing their metaphorical prodding fingers quite close to her sharp teeth.

and it made me think - who will we have when she is gone? i can't think of another smarty-pants in her league, who is such a light in the intellectual world. of course, there are brilliant, brilliant people everywhere. but there is no one quite like germaine.

anyway, i found this old draft and here it is. look her up on youtube. read her stuff. it's awesome.

* * *

in a world which seems to detest germaine greer, i wish to raise my hand, and say that i find it amusing, and slightly puzzling, that this one woman, who lives over the other side of the world, can arouse in all of us such a maelstrom of reaction.

let me state upfront: i admire the greer.

but then i have a habit of kind of going against the flow. while she's no underdog, i do tend to support underdogs. and while i don't agree with everything she says, i like the way she says everything. loudly and controversially. she calls it as she sees it, without seeming to have any real personal agenda. she seems to be a truth-seeker, trying to understand and to disseminate the products of her fierce intellectualisation of everything she comes across.

there are some reasons why i think she really affects people in such a visceral way. and you can't deny that she does.

with the whole steve irwin thing, the tone of the commentary at the time revealed the hate for this woman. it's funny to me that while she said something about him that many others had also said to that point, once germaine greer said it, the reaction was immediate and deafening. and let's be honest - she wasn't the only one who might have made an ironic connection between his pursuit of certain dangerous members of the animal kingdom, and his dramatic, watery end.

lying in bed this morning, i was thinking of reasons why greer affects people so strongly. this is what i came up with:

1. she is a woman and she is opinionated and she is outspoken. now before you get all femmo on my arse, think about this. while there has been a little sub-dialogue of whether we still need feminism, with the apparent thought that we have equality of the sexes, there is still a lot of inequality in many areas of society. but going beyond that, the fact remains. alot of people tend not to like an outspoken woman. what is forceful in a man, is perceived as somewhat less than attractive in a woman. and women like that are often targeted to be taken down.

2. she is not conventionally beautiful. fact: if germaine greer were typically beautiful, she would be easier to ignore. or easier for people to give what she says some credence. beautiful people have a power that others don't. people like to look at them, and they like to be friends with them and they like the beautiful person to think kindly of them. people want to be close to beautiful people. and i've got the idea that not only did greer not trade on her beauty in her youth, she railed against the conventions of beauty and challenging women and men to look at themselves and each other a bit more closely. i might have this bit wrong, about her and beauty. i think she was beautiful when she was younger, and she's still a looker in my opinion. and i'm still working out for myself my ideas about beauty and power.

3. she doesn't live here. she has abandoned this country so what right does she have to make comments about our affairs? greer has been an expat for yonks. some of our expats we like, for example... um. well, we like kylie. and barry humphries. but we love to hate germaine. she probably made a good decision to leave and go somewhere where people didn't hate her. i wonder how they feel about her in england.

4. she is childless. older women who haven't got children and who haven't done an interview with new idea moaning about their barren wombs are suspect. the thought that she might be voluntarily childless is even more confronting to us, and absolute proof that she is suspect. that there is something wrong with her. that she is nutty. what woman doesn't want a baby all of her own?

5. she is stubborn. greer, in addition to being outspoken, also seems to be impulsive. she talks without thinking, perhaps. maybe she makes statements that she would later revise, maybe not. but the fact that she sticks to her own party line, would annoy the shit out of a lot of people. other strong personalities like to be able to score points off a rival, but you can't score points off someone who won't engage.

6. she is fiercely intellectual. greer is a thinker, on which she has based her entire intellectual life and academic and journalistic output. this is what we have come to expect from men, but not women. again, she is bucking the system, and not behaving.

7. she is successful. quite simply, she has a voice. when germaine publishes an article, the whole world listens. perhaps this is because it is usually controversial, and contrary. contrariness seems guaranteed with germaine greer. there would be a lot of people who envy her reach, her audience (an audience which while mixed in its response, at least hears her).

8. she has never really fallen. apart from the incident when she was sat upon by a disgruntled student for a couple of hours and held hostage at her house, she has not really shown vulnerability. she is tough, rock hard, yet at times shows a weird tendency to do the unexpected, like appear on celebrity big brother.

9. she is a bit kooky. the aboriginal stuff fits in with this. she steps on people's toes. she gathers to her chest certain causes, appropriates them in perhaps inappropriate ways, such as saying she never steps off the plane when she travels to australia, never steps onto the tarmac without an express invitation by the local indigenous traditional landowner. if this isn't kooky, i don't know what is.

but as kids are saying these days, who gives? [in my youth it was who gives a shit? i'm glad to see the young are using cleaner expressions in some instances these days.]

people who take themselves too seriously give. and this is another thing germaine is guilty of. she seems to have little or no sense of humour. she will scoff at people and roll her eyes when she disagrees with them, or thinks them fools, and she will laugh loudly (and sometimes inappropriately) at something she thinks ludicrous. but is it funny? is she pleased and entertained or just thinking how the fuck can i exist amongst such idiots?

just because you've got a jaunty hat -

- don't think it makes you a better barista.


a strong latte should not taste like a normal latte.

and a normal-strength latte should not taste like HOT FUCKING MILK.

and if you are going to charge $3.40 a regular size, it has to be a good coffee.

inkr7, such a disappointment.

i know, i know

for someone who has said they have little interest in the olympics, two posts in as many days on that very topic.

unless something dramatic happens (something more than a rower lying down or another drug cheast bust) i PROMISE this will be it for me on the olympics.
i confess to watching about 20 mins of the mind-numbingly boring opening ceremony last night. immediately i noticed the military-feel of all the syncopated people, doing their big-group collectivist thing. surely we weren't being subjected to propoganda?
maybe it's my individualistic social conditioning, but after a very little while, the spectacle of it was diluted by the feeling that i was watching an army being put through its paces.
reading the paper this morning, it seems i was not the only one to have this feeling. there are reports of people being injured during rehearsals, practising for 48 hours and falling asleep in the grandstand.
yeah, human rights are so fixed now in china, all it took was the olympic games.
also, i saw a kind of bent sieg-heil from the children in costumes (were they regional wear? no tibet national costume i'm sure) while they were singing the national anthem, and having goose-stepping soldiers bring in the chinese flag. is that kosher? aren't the olympics meant to be a political-free zone? it all made me feel uncomfortable, and as if i were watching propoganda.
all this and more consume me this fine melbourne morning.
other thoughts for the day:
1. i am extremely happy with our new bordello-red velvet couch from going, going, gone. half price, just a few little fabric glue flaws. it's sitting very lushly in our lounge room now and i'm looking forward to watching the rest of west wing as a lie there like some hooker, eating my low-fat ice cream.
2. alannah hill's son was wearing a geelong jumper today. it made me think ever so much more of her. also the fact she had all sorts of crap spilling out of her black mercedes into the gutter. also her hair wasn't frou-froud, with nary a flower or feather in sight. she even smiled at me when i said "go cats".
3. where do i get the recipe for healthy'ish sausage rolls? all my cook books save one fancy-pants one are in storage. i guess i'll have to trawl the internet but i am finding net recipes can be SHIT and WRONG and DON'T WORK (witness creme brulees failure).
4. i should have gotten a coffee from d. chirico this morning. i broke the plunger last night, will have to buy another.
5. i'm happy to see a profile on chris lilley in the weekend magazine. just recently we were talking about how we'd not read much about him at all. my mum saw him recently at st. kilda library. she recognised him, and he saw that she saw. so we'll be looking out for a character like mum in his next series. will keep you posted.
6. we now have a plan involving a funky deco cbd pad.
7. i do love a good plan.
8. geelong slaughtered melbourne last night. i didn't watch any of the game. i suppose this makes me a bad geelong supporter, in addition to a bad australian
9. i really, really do hate gladiator sandals. they look especially bad on mary-kate olsen, now she's chunked up a bit.
10. even though we pay removalist men to move our heavy stuff, why do we feel so bad for them when it's a really bulky, difficult item? it's partly because they often make a big deal about access, and the object, and how tough a job it is. they are angling for a tip/more money. i say, it's your business, you're the professional. i don't care how hard it is, just do it. that's what you're being paid for.

11. love the couch.

let's get this straight

just because i am not creaming my jeans over the olympics, it doesn't mean i'm less of a good australian than any athletics-archery-swimming-groupie out there.
and by the way, i'm not a flag-hater because i think people who wear the australian flag are tossers. i'm actually quite indifferent to the australian flag.
i've never been that interested in watching sport, apart from tennis during the navratilova/mc enroe golden years, and football every since gary senior started kicking bagsful for the cats. i've always preferred to play sport than watch.
what is this nationalistic argument about some people being better australians, or more australian, than others, based on topics like sport. sport is good, i'm not against it, but why do i feel judged, somehow less belonging, when i say i'm not that interested in the olympics?
why do some people think that if you criticise this country, you automatically hate this country.
i hate gladiator sandals, but it doesn't mean i despise gladiators. they're alright in my book.

you've come a long way, baby.

really?

back when i was young and the kids drank big ms and the mothers drank tab and the fathers drank melbourne bitter, or vic bitter, none of that fancy shit, and when no one really thought much about going to the shops on your bike and buying a bag of lollies; when fish and chips were a weekly treat, when going out for dinner meant the local chinese restaurant, and chicken and sweet corn soup was exotic but not too outlandish so that it was the only thing, along with dim sims, that fussy 7-year-old male virgos would eat. back then, thinking back, it's easy to think that things were simpler.

that men and women were a little more cut and dried in their gender roles.

i know things were being challenged in the '60s and '70s - hell, at the moment i'm re-reading nancy friday, and i've read greer, as well as naomi wolf who kind of tries to pick up, along with paglia, the new wave of thinking.

but why, when all is said and done, am i still washing a man's underwear and hanging them up, working out what to eat for dinner, worrying about the management of the household, AS WELL AS THINKING ABOUT EARNING MONEY, thinking about my mortgage, trying to summon some sort of interest in sexual pleasure (fuck nancy friday and her libidinous life; she was/is childless).

at least i don't iron his shirts. what a fucking emancipated woman am i.

so, it's that time of year again.

it's time to do the french thing.

this time of year, the mind turns to french desserts and what other kind of main meal there might be that's not boeuf bourgignon, that's not belgian, that's french enough for our once-a-year tour de france night. minds turn to the bottle of absinth that is packed away in storage, left-over from the tour meal two years ago. hearts turn to cheese, and lots of it.

i know the tour is on every night for many nights at the moment (is it 2 weeks? 3? so shoot me, i don't know, i'm not a complete tour-head) and many of us are up until 1am, watching the boys in their lycra, and trying not to stare at their bulging crotches (some of us that is; others don't really care. about staring.)

so this year it's at my sister's, and they are doing main and i have said i will take dessert. for us and the kids. the kids don't get to eat the real french food. we fob them off with a quick pasta bake or something.

i've decided to make creme brulee, which was the dessert that we always ate in paris when we were there. it's like being in an italian restaurant. if they have tiramisu, we had to have that too.

so i've got the ingredients, i've got the little ramekins. i've got the friggin expensive vanilla beans. i don't have the blow torch cause i thought i'd see how i go just grilling them.

the test run is tonight. and the plan is to make meringues with the egg whites (because the brulees only require the yolks.)

so, that's the food.

last night was the second night for the tour to be passing through the mountains. i watched until 11.30, and by then i'd had my fill of crotches and it was making me tired just watching these dudes cycling up the mountain. how on earth do they do it. i reckon they are machines, they would just have to do that, and when they're not riding, they wouldn't be able to have a conversation with anyone, they'd be too used-up, don't you think? do they have wives? i know cadel does, she plays the piano or is a singer or something, but do you reckon she's over there? it seems such a hard thing to be doing, riding a bicycle up a mountain. he wouldn't be able to go back to the hotel and summon a smile for his wife, would he? would he be up for a romantic dinner on the terrace, with champagne and then some lovin'?

i think not.

i've blogged about the tour before*, but i have more questions now.

1. why are their crotches so prominent and big? my sister said that a few days ago one of the men had a big stiffy. BIG. HUGE. she said it was really distracting. i wonder if he was wearing white lycra. i bet he was. i swear, sometimes i reckon i can see the different parts of part, if you know what i mean in the white-suit boys.

2. the rest of them are so skinny. i know they probably have to consume three times as many calories or whatever than the rest of us who are sitting around on our arses. but they are still really skinny, in the arms mostly.

3. it bothers me that they just throw their rubbish to the side of the road - drink bottles, everything. i know people probably clean this up, do the cars do it? but what if they miss a few drink bottles. that hard plastic is just so bad, so ugly, and france is so pretty.

4. i still don't get how it works. when cadel had his crash and they were talking about robbie mc ewan (?) dropping back to get anti-inflammatories from the doctor and then taking them up to cadel. how does that work? wouldn't he have to be a better rider than cadel to drop back then catch up?

5. what do these people do for the rest of the year? there'd be other races, lots of other races i guess. do they travel the circuit like tennis players? how do the teams work? do they team up for certain races, and in other groups for others? are any races just a normal A to B first over the line wins race?

6. would you serve something with the creme brulee? probably not. i'll get some cheese i think for later when we are watching the race.

* several posts, july 2006 if you can be bothered looking.

do-re-me-me-me

so it's been a while between memes. and thanks to the delightful magical_m, we now have a new one.

i love that this is about clothes. ages ago i did a post about clothes i have loved and lost. i think the clothes and shoes we have worn and inhabited are as nostalgic as old photos and houses. does anyone dream of houses? i used to have a recurring dream which featured a building in the city which was unlike any i've seen, but seemed so real. i have never been to the nicholas building, but when i do finally go, and i will, i fully expect it to be the building from my dream.

to the meme.

WHEN I was 1, my parents dressed me in...

some sort of frilly shirt i imagine and wool tights? i don't know, ask my mother why don't you?

WHEN I was 5, I dressed myself in...

i don't think i was dressing myself at five. i would have been the spoilt and over-parented oldest child until i asserted my independence and moved away from mother at the age of 18. (just finished re-reading my mother, myself. by nancy friday. buy it and read it all you daughters/mothers.) what am i talking about, when i was five my bro was 2 and into the saucepan cupboard and under the sink and eating the toilet freshener and the cat food. i probably did dress myself. there is a photo of me in red woollen tights, mum's silk, spiky-heeled wedding shoes and a faux-fur ski hat, with glomesh evening bag, but i think that was "dress ups".

WHEN I was 7, my favourite outfit was...

it's a toss-up between my white, lace-up knee-length boots and cream knitted poncho which got spag bol sauce on it at leo's spaghetti bar one time; and an all-red outfit - a pants suit with flared trousers and a red top (with some white, horizontal bands across the chest) and white skivvie underneath. i remember i had pale brown boots that went over the pants, they were quite loose and went mid-calf. it was almost like the at-home-aboard-jupiter-2 outfits that the robinson girls wore, so i felt very penny in my red pantsuit.

MY favourite school photo outfit was...

the one when i was about 8 or so and i was wearing illicit gym boots (converse high-tops for you young people out there). my primary school had a uniform, but i would take my gym boots in my bag, and change into them on the street on the way to school, because my mother wouldn't let me wear them to school. but there i am, deceit fully displayed, right there in the front row of my grade 3 or 4 school photo.

IN high school the fashion trend I started was...

the school shoes with the t-bar strap. when i was in hsc everyone was still wearing the lace-up black school shoes. at the beginning of the year, i got a pair of the t-bars (well, me and another girl but I swear it was just us two and it was coincidental and a concurrent, non-conferenced decision). by the end of the year, many others did too. and then by the time my sister was in year 12, everyone had them. do you see the lace-ups anywhere now? i rest my case.

ON my first date the outfit I wore was...

i can't remember my first date. i don't think i had one (see '80s diaries). let me think...

nup. my first relationship went like this: i met a guy at a party, we pashed that night, i stayed at his place, but nothing else happened, honest, and after that we started hanging out. i was 18. then we moved in together. i wasn't a dating sort of person.

FOR my high school formal I wore...

a polyestery, burgundy-red frock with an elasticised waist, and some sort of shirring over the chest region. i think it had some sort of puffy sleeve as well. it wasn't awful, it was quite grown-up and mature and certainly not an '80s taffeta catastrophe. can't remember the shoes, but i think there was pantyhose involved. the shoe would have been a plain court-shoe with an ugly, conservative heel.

AT my 21st I wore...

i didn't have a 21st party. to celebrate my family and i went to tolarno's for dinner in st. kilda but i can't remember what i wore. i was living with my boyfriend at the time, and my mother gave me $300 to spend on myself. i spent it on bills. then later, when i was travelling i spent $300 on some gold jewellry, as a replacement present. then it all got stolen a few years after that while i was living overseas. (irrelevant information included because there is no substantial answer to this one).

THE oldest item of clothing I still wear is...

some fishnet stockings my mother had in the '60s. oh ok, i don't wear them, but i still have them. and sometimes, occasionally, almost never i do wear them. i plan to wear them next weekend, because we are going to a tour de france dinner, and while we eat french food, i will be wearing my fishnets.

THE item of clothing I wish I still had was...

those 2 mohair cardigans i bought more than 20 years ago, which have recently featured in the diary excerpts. also my shiny-lycra black full-length leggings - i reckon i could give them a red-hot go under a skirt with flat shoes.

MY current favourite item of clothing is...

the cheap ankle boots i picked up at dfo, but only teamed with my jag wide-leg jeans (the first i've had in years that aren't always slipping off my arse). i'm also still really digging the glossy black patent-leather handbag i got in florence (benetton). oh, and my geelong beanie - the hat of victory.

and i tag the following:

jo_blue

d-stah

AOF

and so the boys don't feel left out:

perseus

INC

BEVIS

gullybogan

do it or not. as you will. no pressure.

for my 360th post

let me list the ways:

1. i have a sore eye-socket. left.

2. my right arm is stiff, has been for ages. no i haven't been pumping iron.

3. i am cold.

4. i am eating too much ice cream.

5. i confess three and four may be connected. if not, they are evidence of my foolish, foolish nature.

6. i am housebound with 3 children.

7. i am bored.

8. i am wearing purple, velvet tracksuit pants, with a black skivvie.

9. i just forgot i'm heating the hair straightener in the bathroom.

10. i am going to straighten my hair.

11. then i am going to read the age.

12. we have two copies of the age today, because clokes put the copy bought in the morning on the table in the hall. i went out the back door and didn't see it.

13. last night we watched the first episode of dexter. i liked it except the ending was stupid. i hope it settles down with the stupid endings.

14. MY NAME IS MELBA AND I WILL BUY A MAGAZINE IF IT HAS BRAD PITT AND ANGELINA ON THE COVER.

15. we went back to mirka on friday night and had a bombe each. EACH. decadent and delish.

16. i bought some new undies recently. it hasn't helped.

17. the dog needs a wash.

18. the dog needs a flea treatment.

19. i enjoy the school holidays because i can sleep in. i don't enjoy them because i don't have my quiet space.

20. i need to earn some more money.

21. there is mould growing in the bathroom. see number 20.

22. ali asked if princess can go visit him again this year (either turkey, or the states over christmas. long term readers, this is a mistake, right? but she's older, right? not sure about it.)

23. ah the sun is trying to break through the clouds.

24. the hairstraightener might start to smell soon.

25. big brother is so fucking boring. i hate them all. especially cherry.

26. no, i don't hate them all. but they are all boring.

27. whatever happened to memes? i swear, i got sick of them for a while, but now they are nowhere. sociologically, are memes for newbies? did we all just go through that stage, or are there new ones out there? i'd be up for a meme. i miss meme'ing.

28. i feel that my little corner of blogworld is struggling. i know i can go on and on forever. i'll be blogging until i'm 90 and blind i think. but people who have more to do in their lives, are like living their lives, and falling off the blog-dar. it's ok, i understand, i am not bitter.

29. except for fits. i miss fits. this is what i've had in drafts regarding fits.

* * *

title: on the passing of ms. fits. it still hurts.


this is what happened on the fateful day. the same day as our first anniversary, may 26th, 2008

[melbournegirl is talking to husband clokes on their first anniversary, this evening about 6 o'clock]

mg: i'm devastated

clokes: yeah, i wondered how she'd keep it going. she's so busy.

mg: yeah i know, but it's so sad.

clokes: it's ok. another one'll come along...

mg: NOOOOOOOHHHH!!!!

clokes: yes!

mg: [leaves the room]

* * *

[later that night, during the festive and romantic celebrations]

clokes: are you on the computer?

[silence]

mg: you don't understand

clokes: yes, i do. it's our anniversary.

[sound of handbeater struggling to cream rock-hard western star in the kitchen. the kids are icing a cake.]

* * *

[later]

princess [opening new idea]: ok, this is an article on relationships, you guys need to read it.

mg: i don't need to read it, i've read it already.

princess: well, clokes, you need to, dude.

clokes: don't call me dude!

princess: i call everyone dude.

* * *

i still check her blog. i still hope. i am bereft. an abandoned child. she was my mother-ship. my touchstone. my corner-stone. my hero. my idol. my shiva.

and now she's gone. gone.

other "outlets" are not satisfying. i don't listen to her. i don't read the gg articles. i always forget about the book show. but for me it started with the blog. i need the bloggy goodness of ms fits.

is anyone else feeling this way?

it's a bit freaky, isn't it?

just call me mel.

* * *

30. sun is out now, i feel better. i have purged and now i go to straighten my hair.

don't judge me but when i was in paris

i bought a hermès scarf. or is that an hermès scarf.

whatever.

the point is, i have been reading for years that if you are to have one, just one, genuine designer fashion accessoire (let's face it, most of us can't afford a genuine designer fashion item, ie frock, coat, etc) then it has to be a/n hermès scarf.

so, when the family were at eurodisney (why didn't i want to go, you ask? are you mad? i hate theme parks. i even hate luna park. apart from the scenic railway the rest. is. crap. bring back the giggle palace, i say) i set off to look at the designer stores. mostly from the outside. i did go into chanel to see if they had those trashy studs with diamante interlocking c's - they didn't. maybe just as well. i found them in chinatown in new york for $4 and haven't worn them because they are so gaudy and wannabe.

then after chanel i walked to hermès. it was quite a hike. i had been walking all over paris, which was lovely. it's lovely in the spring-time. it's lovely in autumn. paris is just lovely anytime. even winter with snow on the ground. the only time i haven't been in summer. i bet it's... lovely.

so, i get to hermès. i look in the window. i look at the display of scarves. i go in. there is a bun fight at the scarf counters. women pushing in to look. i find a space and when a snotty lady asks me if she can help me, i say yes, i would like to look at a scarf. i can't remember if i said je voudrais voir une... er... un... [pointing madly at the scarves] or whether i said it in english. i think i just said it in english. as she had probably spoken in english to me. this last time in paris, i didn't even really try to speak french. it was woeful after being in turkey where i was proficient. my french isn't terrible, after all i did do it in hsc and i can still conjugate a verb like you wouldn't believe. my sister, who is a francophile and vce french teacher, is still amazed by my ability to read french text and translate it into english. but that's the thing, i can do the words in written form; spoken is (as always) more difficile.

so, back to hermès. and back to the snotty saleslady. i asked if i could look at a traditional print. she showed me a couple, not looking at me, not smiling, kind of looking over the top of my head. there was absolutely rien de politesse. i asked her if i could see a geometric print. she showed me a couple. after about 6 scarves, i asked to see something with animals. i just didn't know what i wanted. she thought i wasn't going to buy. she wasn't looking at me. she was looking around me. and huffily pulling out scarves.

when she laid out a gorgeous print in browns and yellows of leopards, i said i'll take that one.

she looked at me, eyebrows up somewhere near her hairline. well, maybe i'm exaggerating with that, she wouldn't have been so déclassé to show her distaste and scepticism that overtly.

i ignored her complete about face, her fawning smile, her of course, madame, follow me, madame. all of a sudden i was a madame, whereas before i was some sort of gypsy mama who had wandered into the great shop, smelling of onions and alcohol, with an unseen visa gold card in her shabby pocket.

i related this story recently to my sister and her husband. when i got up to the part about the saleslady being rude and offhand with me, before me saying i would buy the fucking thing, my brother-in-law said i wouldn't have stayed, i would have walked out, that would have been worthy of a door slam. you need to understand my brother-in-law has a great story about a friend of his storming out of paterson's cake shop in prahran, trying to slam an unslammable door which is on one of those airy piston things, so that he had to go back into the shop, after the door had exhaled its gush of quiet air and say consider the door slammed!

but i wasn't going to storm out of this place. it wasn't a simple matter of my order of party pies and sausage rolls not being ready. this was hermès. this was paris. i wouldn't have gotten my lovely, leopardy, hermès scarf. all done up nicely in its orange box with a brown ribbon tied just so. i wouldn't have gotten the story. i wouldn't have gotten the satisfaction. i would have been just standing out there on the street, going all teary. instead i skipped away, enjoying my once in a lifetime feeling of walking through paris with the distinctive orange shopping bag.

what would you have done? would you have walked out?

thoughts for wednesday

i've been carrying around an old envelope with points 2 - 4 below noted on it. must blog about them so i can throw the envelope away. i'm hoping none of the kids has inspected it too closely. you'll see what i mean.

anyway, first:

1. this is vlado taneski, a journalist in macedonia who reported on a series of rape-murders of old women, and then was arrested because in his articles he revealed details that the police had not made public.

he has been found dead in his jail cell. this is what the police spokesman had to say:

"he committed suicide. he put his head in a pail full of water. it is unclear how none of his cellmates or guards noticed."

you see what he did there?

2. cate blanchette's ukrainian accent in the latest indiana jones movie was flawless apart from her pronunciation of "jones" "know" and all other similarly rhyming words. it was too anglo, too flat, too nasal. it should have been more russian, pronouncing "jones" more as "johns" and "know" to rhyme with "cot" instead of "coat". it was distracting, and disturbing to me that i can do a better russian accent than cate blanchette.

3. i've always wondered what the lyrics to frankie goes to hollywood's relax means:

relax, don't do it, when you want to go to it,

relax, don't do it, when you want to come.

is it just me? there seems to be some sort of contradiction there. i checked on the internet, and there is talk of it referring to not using a condom when you want to come, to not coming to prolong the pleasure in a tantric way.

gah, i still don't get it.

4. er, somewhat related. i had no idea that there were so many different names for sexual stuff. i had no idea that the act of fisting was so varied and established. and that it's referred to in lots of songs, paintings through the ages, and it's like it's been around for ages, and it's not just a recent thing. i really didn't think that i was naive, but there is still stuff out there that shocks me. i mean the maine lobster? my god.

5. can i leave it there? no, let's have something nice to sweeten up the atmosphere.

these are my favourite flowers:

there's one i can't think of the name, nor find a picture. it's a bulb i think. it smells sweet and fills the room. it's white. it's common. it's cheap. can anyone remind me what it's called? the blooms are all bunched together at the top of the stem. it's scent is my favourite.

oh, to have a garden filled with these flowers. to have a peppercorn tree, lying under its shade. a rug. a book. a crisp apple. a warm, lilting breeze.

join me?

*****************************

UPDATE: the flower i was thinking of was erlicheer. thanks kittiminx.

I CHALLENGE YOU TO WATCH THIS AND NOT CRY

it's so beautiful: the music, the lion, the dudes.
thanks to audrey, i cried helplessly about 4 times today, which is a lot more than usual.
if you are not crying right now, you have a stone for a heart. and i hate you.*
* not really. i don't hate you. i feel sorry for you, you stone-hearted shell of a human.

[2012 note - seems like the video has gone. it was the one with the lion Christian and the two dudes who raised him from a cub they bought in Harrods? in swinging London]

foodish thoughts for today

1. i am so tired of seeing gordon ramsay's ugly mug everywhere i look.

2. take note racv club: i hereby declare a war on any dish with a menu description including the word "foam". it's not cool, it's so over, it's so common, it's not distinctive, it sounds REVOLTING, it does not tempt me, it puts me off. face it, when el bulli did it, it was "fresh, innovative and different." though i wouldn't have ordered a dish with foam then. now everyone else, including the racv club, is jumping on the old foam bandwagon, it just reeks of desperation and pathetic derivation.

[starts lobby group called "fuck foam, let's get back to real food"]

3. unless you order a la carte at di stasio, the staff will rush you along in quite a rude manner. won't go there again on principle.

4. at mirka's you can go and sit at the bar and have a coffee and one of their divine bombe glacees.

5. baked beans on rice with some cheese on top (and for moi, sea salt and cracked pepper) is a perfectly acceptable sunday night meal.

6. making traditional italian sausages is a somewhat erotically charged activity and weird when you "do it" with your in-laws.

7. 40+ kilos of pig meat MAKES A LOT OF SALAMIS.

8. aldi fruit is shit.

9. eating "potato jewels" from aldi, then south melbourne market dim sims, then 1/2 doz coffin bay oysters from south aus, is possibly the strangest meal i've had on a friday night for a while.

10. vegemite toast is just not the same without butter.

and isn't the weather glorious? love, love, love how the city looks, and the sky behind it, as we drive around the lake to msac on a monday night.

must. take. camera. next. week.

it's official

it's not porn. it's art. and it's rated pg.



but even so, i don't want to put the whole picture here.

why not? i'm not sure. i don't find it offensive - my god, i have a daughter and we've always been very relaxed with nudity around the house, as were my parents, and i think she's beautiful. there's something, though, about the power, the potential, of a child, a girl child, turning into a woman. as a mother i think it's lovely and gorgeous and natural. but i know there are people who take that admiration too far, and change it into something sick. maybe my reticence is about what people might think about me putting the whole picture here, and that people might judge me for doing that. i know my intentions are pure, but others don't. much like bill henson, perhaps?



in the main, this is why, i think, that charges couldn't be laid against bill henson:


pornography:

1 : the depiction of erotic behavior (as in pictures or writing) intended to cause sexual excitement 2 : material (as books or a photograph) that depicts erotic behavior and is intended to cause sexual excitement.



i don't believe that the photos are intended to cause sexual excitement. that's not to say that they wouldn't for some people. but then we've all heard about paedophiles using department store clothing catalogues and other advertising print matter as "stimulation material".


i feel slightly wrong putting the following interaction in the same post as the above - can groups of words be tainted by association? i feel weird even including my daughter in a post where i've talked about paedophilia - but i give you the conversation i had in the car this morning with my 11 year old daughter.





[radio news - story about world-wide child pornography arrests]





princess: what are they talking about?





mg: um it's about people who have downloaded photos of children that are inappropriate and show abuse, the police have arrested a lot of those people.





princess: gross!





mg: yes, it's a real problem. [goes off on tangent about how maybe it's like people addicted to gambling/drugs/alcohol and the compulsion to do it.]*





princess: i think being addicted to drugs is better than doing that. the children wouldn't want that, and at least with drugs you're not hurting other people.**





mg: yes, you're right there, though the effects on family and friends of drug addicts happen, it can affect everyone around you. if you're addicted to drugs.





princess: yeah...





mg: did you hear the story about the artist, the photographer who had some photos taken away from the gallery by the police-





princess: oh yeah!





mg: i just didn't want, these two stories are different. you know, the people who abuse children, the ones who were arrested for downloading pictures, and the bill henson artist who took photos.





princess: what were the photos of?





mg: well, he takes photos of landscapes, buildings and people. with the people, they are all ages, and sometimes they are clothed and sometimes they are naked.





princess: ew.





mg: remember when we went to all the galleries last year, in florence and paris, we saw so many naked humans, statues, remember david, he was so huge? with his huge penis? and all the naked cherubs and angels-





princess: the top of the vatican ceiling? heaps and heaps of naked-





mg: right!





princess: yeah, in the old days it wasn't a bad thing.





mg: even all those religious paintings we saw, with all the gold and crosses and jesuses, and he was often naked except for a little piece of material across his lap-





princess: yeah!





mg: right. so it's been like this for hundreds of years, the naked body is a natural thing, ok we don't walk around in public in the nude, but the body is beautiful and natural and normal.





princess: mmm [sounding doubtful. she's only 11]





mg: anyway, the photos that caused the problem were of a 13 year old girl and she's naked and in one you can see her little breasts, buds you know, and she has her hands in front of her private parts.





princess: did her parents- she would have given permission-





mg: yeah, and her parents did too.





princess: she would have had to sign forms and all that. the police can't say anything. it's her choice. and her parents said yes.





mg: i think a 13 year old would be able to give permission. especially a 13 year old who is willing to pose for a nude photo, that girl would probably be pretty mature and smart.





princess: yeah, at that age, girls are wanting to get more identity.





mg: what about at 11?





princess: i would never do that, gross, but at 11 you just want to fit in, not be different. at 13, you are being more different.





mg: mmm.





princess: so, now they've made a big deal about it and made everyone look at the photos? before it would have just been in the gallery and not many people would have even known about them.





mg: yeah, maybe the girl now is upset about it.





princess: maybe, i'd be mad at the police. anyway it's ART, definitely!









* this is the only parallel i can think of that allows my brain to process the idea of people gaining sexual gratification from viewing child pornography, that it becomes an obsession and a compulsion they can't control.





** look, she's only 11, no matter how smart she is.

when i was very young

i knew this family. back then, they looked like any other kids but they were called lady emma, lord alexander* and boppy. don't ask me about the boppy thing; he was the youngest, he was fat and that's what people called him.

their mother was lady mary montagu, aka mad mary as the geelong'ites used to refer to her. behind her back, or in front of her, i don't know.

one summer all of the following things happened:

1. i went to the circus with them twice. the first time, there was a bit where they got a volunteer from the audience, put the kid on top of one of the circus horses, tied a "safety" harness around his waist, which was attached to a rope, which then was fed up through a metal hook at the top of the tent above the sawdust ring. they got the horse to go around faster and faster and the kid got scared, from memory, but then the punchline was that they pulled the kid off the horse, hoisting him up by the rope around his waist. then the clowns ran on and "helped" him down to safety and in the process "accidentally" dacked the kid, so there he was in his undies, with the audience laughing at him.

nice. anyway, we left the circus, talking about how mean it was and what bastards they were and then boppy hatched a plan. we would go to another show, he would volunteer to be the sucker kid, it would all unfold as before, except when his dacks got pulled off, he would be wearing his bathers underneath, and the joke would be on the clowns. geddit? genius. we thought we were so smart, we were going to have the last laugh. on clowns, for godsake. ashton's circus clowns. real clowns!

so, we went to another show. boppy had his red speedos underneath. he was out of his seat and running down to volunteer before they'd even really selected him from the crowd. he was up on the horse, beaming fatly. it all went to plan, they hoisted him up, he was ready, he put up a show of fighting them a bit when they dacked him, but then he stood up, so pleased with himself -

ha, you fuckers, i'm wearing my bathers, nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!

except he didn't say that. that's just what we were all thinking, us who were in on it.

except, only problem was the clowns didn't realise. the bathers just looked like red jocks. the crowd didn't realise our victory either. so poor boppy still got laughed at, and came sheepishly back to his seat, calling out to no one and everyone they're my bathers! BATHERS!

2. i went around to their beach house one day to watch television. there were no parents there that i remember. i was probably about 10 or 11. emma was a little younger? boppy about 8. and alex was a bit older than me. say 12.

we sat in the lounge room, i don't remember who else was there, but i do remember alex took off all of his clothes, was lolling about, moving about the room, bending over in front of the tv to change the channel, so i got a really good look at his arse and balls. and i just sat there and didn't know what to do. so, i just pretended there was nothing wrong with him being nude and walking around like that, and posing.

so, there you go. next thing, his son is one of michael jackson's alleged victims.

* Alexander Charles David Francis George Edward Wiliam Kimble Drogo Montagu

can someone please explain

why can't this man have nuclear capability?
when all these people do:









APJ Abdul Kalam - India













George W Bush - United States












Hu Jintao - China














Jacques Chirac - France












Pervez Musharraf - Pakistan














Tony Blair - United Kingdom













Vladimir Putin - Russia (don't you just love him, he's so, I don't know - moody)

It's not confirmed that Israel does, but let's think that they do. Most probably.

So why can't Kim Jong-Il have some big guns?

It's the sunglasses, isn't it?

And also the fact that he's a freako and a film nut. Not that there's anything wrong with the film nut part.

And appeared in Team America too.

That must be it.

happiness, and sadness.

happy, fun, good, romantic, tipsy, full, lots of dishes, watch big brother, when will we do the presents, two slices of cake, evil-red berry juice, presents? champagne, hear hear to the future, oh what a good husband be he, but why am i on the computer while he does the dishes?


and sadness, end-of-an-era oh why do things have to change, i like things to always stay the same, people always there and nothing moving on. because i always, always find it hard to move on and say goodbye.


onwards and upwards, hey comrades?

continued, the art world

i'm not sure what i think about the goings-on in sydney with the photographs being removed by police from bill henson's exhibition, and the news that charges will be laid.

but my thoughts are:

1. i guess if he wanted to depict something special about vulnerability and youth, he could have used a scrawny, under-developed 18-year-old model.

2. it made me feel uncomfortable, while looking him up on the internet, thinking i might inadvertently download something "unacceptable". all in the name of research doesn't really cut it, hey pete townsend?

3. a quick google trying to find american photographer sally mann - who has had her share of controversy for publishing photographs of her children naked over the years - showed me that there have been court-cases in the states where parents dropping off rolls of film to be developed at k-mart and the like have been arrested and charged with child pornography over photos of their children naked.

4. don't all parents take snaps of their babies and kids naked, and in the bath, and rolling on the rug, and at the beach?

5. when i was a teenager, david hamilton was incredibly popular. hell, he was to the poster, card and calendar business in the '70s what anne geddes and her pumpkin-hatted cherubs was to the poster, card and calendar business in '90s. the girls used to love his photos, which were dreamy and romantic, shot through vaseline-coated lenses and usually featured pubescent girls and boys in "various stages of undress." there was even a movie bilitis, and while that was soft-core porn, the posters of ballerinas in tutus and sylvan-wood-nymph boys in pastel togas were not sexually arousing to me, anyway. but then i was that age myself, and not some paedo.

6. i'm nervous about even linking the names david hamilton and sally mann above to any webpages because what you can see is possibly inappropriate.

really melbourne city council?

i was going to write a post about the on-going censorship by this council, against young artists. but i can't be bothered, i haven't got time to go through all the archives trying to find pictures of this and that.

but just remember. the artist who had the palestine/israel installation. painted over.

the recent one, with the nude man and mickey mouse ears. stopped.

which of the above three am i most comfortable with? the first two. the ones where the images are connected to ideas and attitudes. do we not have freedom of thought?

the one i'm not that comfortable with is the nude man one. i don't know where it was displayed or where it was intended for display. if in the street, then i agree that people who don't want to see naked people in a public space shouldn't have to. if in a gallery, or a room, or even a little-used alley-way or lane, then it should be allowed. what the hull?

and when will it be over?

ps and the whole thing about john so never wanting to upset china shits me as well.

certain truths that must be faced:

1. i love my hot water bottle. love him. for he is bluey. mark II.

2. princess has started calling me dude.

3. your hair will not look or feel any different no matter how many wonderful and promising words are written on the shampoo bottle.

4. hello, my name is melbournegirl and i am a poached egg addict.

5. the gigi is famous? a stranger said hello to her on sunday as we walked st kilda. and used her name. and we didn't know her. blogger, peut-etre?


and finally...


6. watching the opening to simon townsend's wonderworld, it feels like i last watched it just the other night. this makes me feel a little bit happy and a little bit depressed.

who i want to be right now

i have always had a bit of a thang for john cusack. like the rest of the world. but because i'm a contemporary of his, my thing goes back to the first time i saw him in a movie.

and no, it wasn't say anything, the movie that people always cite as the movie they "discovered" and therefore for ever after owned john cusack.

it was the sure thing, in 1985, made a full 4 years before say anything. so you see, i own him.

but anyway. this post is more about the darling diablo cody than john. sort of. kind of. you see, she has gone from writing a blog, writing a book about being a stripper for a year, and then writing a screenplay for a movie that won academy awards a couple of months ago. i've been following her myspace page, and a recent offering was this:


Artist on Artist: John Cusack and Diablo Cody



there are just so many things i like about this video, this girl and of course, john.

1. the fact that they started chatting at some old function.

2. the fact that they stayed in touch. texting. calling. so sweet that he would do that.

3. the fact that she is wearing long, red socks and funny shoes, but she doesn't look try-hard.

4. the fact that she's got short hair at the nape of her neck, like me.

5. the fact that she mocks herself on her myspace page about the looks she gives the camera and that she fidgets in her chair like a romanian [attention-starved] orphan.

6. she's just so damn smart and quick.

7. he gives her a kiss at the end.

i think he likes her. the way he says "nice" after she describes her latest horror film project about a girl who literally consumes the men she seduces "she eats boys" is so telling.

and i want to be her.

it's official

i have less cellulite than mischa barton.

that is all.

come on pollsters. i need a few more.

so let's really get down to business, hey? there's a theme developing here, but the sample is still too small i have to admit.



i wish to prove my point that not only do collingwood indeed have the reputation of being the most-hated club, there are actual reasons beyond inter-generational-attitudes-inheritance; ie you saw a little tacker as above at the football, and he was giving the other team (or his own) the finger.

onto other matters:

annoying is:
... having to return a purchase to dobson's in glenferrie road. melburnians will know that glenferrie road can be as hard to travel as punt road.

interesting is:
... i'm sure there's a fight club in the park near here. on a sunday, late afternoon'ish. they don't go full on, but definitely, it's a fight club of sorts.

sad is:
... hearing about the young dog that got hit by a car and died on the weekend. i was told by the owner who was walking her remaining dog. sadness.

worrying is:
... the amount of jif cream cleaner dribbles on my funkoid grey exercise breeches.

worrying is also:
... HOW FREAKING FILTHY THE SHOWER WAS.

happiness is:
... the delish little salad i made for myself and ate just before. red salmon, a smidge of leftover rice, normal salad with a bit of fetta cheese crumbled, red onion slivers, few kalamata olives. salt. pepper. fresh thyme.

love is:
... I LOVE FRESH THYME. IF I HAD TO CHOOSE ONE HERB, IT WOULD BE THYME.

annoying is also:
... the amount of corniness in the west wing. forgive me, but i am a newbie, watching on dvd for the first time. I WAS OVERSEAS WHEN IT WAS ON, OKAY?

cute is:
... the way sam on west wing is trying not to fall for the escort girl/hooker.

yummy is:
... poached eggs. all the time. i love them.

worrying is also:
... reading recently that a doctor only ever eats quarter of an egg yolk at a time. he gives the rest to his dog. "let the dog have the heart attack" he quipped.

interesting is:
... reading the road by cormac mc carthy. i think i'm liking it more than no country, but you know what, it's reminding me of a stephen king story.

that's all for now. have to go to dobson's.

it's time

for another poll.

remember the last poll? about the bedtime-attire pecadilloes of bloggers, with particular focus on the under-pant wearing aspect thereof?

it was incredibly successful, with initial posts, follow-ups and a dissemination of results.

* * *


so here be the current question.

you know how everybody hates collingwood? and everybody hates their supporters?

if you disagree, then you are a collingwood supporter. but even you know that everybody else hates collingwood.

now i know this, and you know this, but a certain someone i live with does not seem to accept this. it was very hard tonight when he came home from the game against carlton, the most hated of rivals, to not smile and rub it in. i ended up doing so after really trying hard not to. there were crushed children's hearts involved as well. i waited until they were out of the room before i let my grin emerge. so what is it about collingwood losing that so thrills me? is it just me?

i don't believe so. people in the media perpetuate the hatred of collingwood, the bagging of the team and the supporters. even my dad, mild-mannered'ish and secure in the cats current domination can't help himself - he sneaks in a dig (to me, on the quiet) about collingwood being thugs. so i'm curious to know how widespread this really is. not that a blog-poll is anything but a small, and perhaps fairly skewed sample. but let's try, shall we?

please advise in the comments section the following:

1. which team do you support in afl. even if you don't give a rat's arse about football, there is a team, even deep within your psyche, which you are partial to. you know it's true.

actually, if it's NOT true, please advise. i may have to do some follow-up questioning.

2. having stated your team, if it's NOT collingwood, then please advise another team that you have a soft spot for. ie if your team has no chance to win the premiership, who would you like to win. we all have a fondness for other teams, and without biasing the study, i would suggest st. kilda is one of those teams.

3. if you would like to state outright that you hate collingwood and/or the supporters, please state why. there must be reasons. i want to try to tease out themes, ie is it generational perchance? are there personal reasons for this antipathy, were you sworn at by a toothless collingwood supporter when you were 6?

i think that's all. i may tweak as we go.

the spare room

in my mind, there are two sort of unpopular (at times) writers who emerged from australia. one is germaine greer and the other is helen garner. maybe unpopular is the wrong word. i guess i am trying to say that these two women seem to polarise people; people either love them or hate them, and firmly and unchangeably divided into camps, then argue for them or against them.

helen garner caused a lot of hullabaloo when her book the first stone was published. i remember standing at a party, drink in hand after reading - and thoroughly enjoying - this book with a small group of people. all of them were damning garner for the stance they perceived her to have taken with this book. all of them accused her of betraying her feminist sisters (ie the young women at the centre of the case) and, when i asked, all of them admitted to not having even read the book. from memory, there were a couple of women, and one man, and it was the man who was the most aggressively vocal in his anti-garner tirade.

i stood my ground and said that i'd read the book, and that if anyone came off badly in it is was helen herself, who seemed to be continually berating herself within the text, for her unkind feelings towards the girls and her wonderings - or suspicions - about why they wouldn't talk to her. she also agonised over the very issue of whether she was betraying the femininist "code" and seemed to leave it unresolved in her mind. i remember it as an honest and direct book, and being convinced that garner had really tried to do it to the best of her ability, and had wrestled with its complexities and been almost unhinged by it in some way. it was a book, i thought, surprisingly empty of judgment - she didn't seem to damn anyone, she was sincerely just trying to understand what happened, how it happened, and find the truth. she wrote about her difficulties with telling the story, and admitted it was one-sided because the young women wouldn't talk to her.

suddenly, liking helen garner became a kind of dangerous thing to do. not unlike saying that you like and admire germaine greer. everyone seems to either fear the greer, or love her. i want to resist getting into things germaine here, but suffice to say now i have finished on chesil beach, another very compelling book (but with a somewhat weak denouement) next on the list is shakespeare's wife. it's there, perched on the edge of my bedside table, waiting for me.

tonight.

but to the spare room. i read it in two days. i passed it to my mother. she read it in one. we are both big fans of garner's - going back years. my interest in her is buoyed by the fact that while she is my father's second cousin, i have never met her. i missed the funeral of my grandfather - i was overseas. should i feel shame at not regretting my inability to attend my grandfather's funeral as much as i regret not meeting helen garner on that day?

probably.

my father said to me 20 years ago, or more, when i first told him i was working on a story (a winsome and girlishly pathetic pirate romance, from memory) that he could get her phone number so i could call and see if she would read it. i'm so glad i didn't. that story wasn't a story - it was just some written down fantasy, exploring my love-lust for a certain english fop-singer who had a white line painted across his nose. best left behind.

so she's kind of like a mystery to me. she hovers there, in the family, distantly, but someone i feel i wish i knew. i would like to have met her once. maybe at my father's funeral. god i'm a bitch.

for me, the spare room, resonated with an awesome power. i have been the character helen, and her friend, nicola, was my mum. as i read the book, i made all the parallels in my mind. i didn't have the 3am sheet-washing or having to physically nurse her (only a couple of times did i have to help my mother get dressed, dried or wipe her bottom), but i had my mother live with me for 15 months one time, and the second time for about 6 months. i gave up my bed happily, i cooked and looked after her, taking her trays in bed, washing her clothes, ferrying her to peter mac. that was all easy. what was hard was dealing with the resentment, the anger, the rage that would build. and then the guilt - how could i be feeling like this when my poor, sick, cancer-stricken mother, with no hair, skin and bones, in pain, who gave me life, who gave me everything when i was growing up - how could i then repay her like this?

it was a more loaded relationship than the one the helen character in the book has with her friend. but alot of the emotions were the same. like the anger. like the suspicion that your loved one is being taken advantage of by charlatan health-gurus. my mother told me that she went to a clinic much like the one described in the book - the theodore institute - which actually had a fucking tepee thing for smoking you.

but i didn't want to go in there, she said.

oh my god, i said, i didn't know about that place.

the man there, the doctor, he was like she described in the book.

oh my GOD.

and the vitamin c, they wanted to inject me with it, but i didn't really want that, and they were too expensive, so i just took the tablets.

for me, for us i suspect, i was hard having the mother-daughter role reversed. i didn't want to be the grown up one, i wanted her to stay the same. always there for me, always the patient, kind, supportive mother that she'd always been. i didn't want to have to be selfless, and swallow my annoyances when her particular personality foibles bothered me. i went through a divorce, i had to work and earn money and rush around after a toddler. cook. clean.

and i worried that my mum would die. we had several crises - she had a stem cell transplant and wound up in icu for days. she got listeria and battled that with no immune system to speak of. she got a bad knee from the cancer spreading and it wasn't diagnosed or treated promptly enough.

but mostly i worried that i'd damaged our relationship beyond repair with my moodiness, and my snippiness, and my sharp tongue. that my mother's unconditional love might have become conditional upon the fact that i be nice to her, that i look after her with kindness, that i have compassion for a woman who was sick. isn't that the natural reaction to have when faced with the sickness of your mother?

at times the compassion was hard to feel. and even harder to show.

mum survived and now the cancer is gone. amazingly our relationship has gone back to mother and daughter, the way it was. but we have all learnt things. about compassion. about communication. we had the hard conversations, the ones you absolutely should have if you think a person you most love is going to maybe, possibly, might happen - no, surely it's not possible, yes it is - die. the words have to be said, where you tell them you love them, and this one is the hardest, that you will really really miss them when they aren't here anymore. usually this bit is prefaced with "whenever you do die, even if it's in 20 years" and accompanied with a wryly brave smile, because you are both thinking "it might be alot earlier than that" but you both choose to ignore that and pretend.

reading helen garner's novel made me think, fuck, perhaps i'm not the only one to have felt like this when caring for a loved one. maybe it's common? maybe it's normal?

you see, there's so much written about the sick people, not much about the carers. that's why i loved this book. because it was real, and it was true. and as for the arguments re fiction and non-fiction:

it just doesn't matter. i'm not interested. when something makes me feel, or validates my feelings, that's enough for me.

HE HASN'T FUCKED IT UP!!!!!!

he said it in china.

he said it to chinese.

he said it in chinese.


this was the best thing i could have seen on the front page of the age this morning.

the man has not fucked it up. he is not caving. he is not pussy-footing. he is not tap-dancing. he is not side-stepping. he is not demurring. he is not faltering. he is not puncey. he is not timid.

so i guess we'll see what kind of diplomat he really is now.

exciting times, friends.

i put papaya there...

my looney bun is fine benny lava