Life And Other Crises

Travelling With Chipmunks. Do NOT Try This At Home.

2012-01-31T13:46:00.000+11:00

It is fun to travel long distances with children. Also, there is a pig flying past my window. You should see it. It’s purple.

I have recently returned from a two week trip to the United States with my husband and three children. The trip was hours of fun and exhilaration, interspersed with moments of torture, and two days of chipmunk music.

For the first week of the holiday we were accompanied by my parents, in an arrangement that pleased me enormously. Partly, of course, I was happy to spend time with my Mum and Dad. Mainly, however, I was glad they flew with us to Los Angeles, so I could sent four year old Boo to sit with them on the plane when she began flinging herself around in psychotic exhaustion, and throwing her airline meal on the floor*.

After an adventure-filled week in California, my husband and I parted ways with my parents** and journeyed on with the kids to Las Vegas.

On my husband’s suggestion, we hired a car and took the trip by car. It is around a five hour drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, or much, much quicker by air, but who the hell would want to take the quick, easy option when you can drive five hours through the desert on the wrong side of the road with three kids in tow? I mean, that would just be silly, right?

Needless to say, I was apprehensive before the drive, until the miraculous discovery of a DVD player and two pull-down screens in our car. Fantastic, I thought. Problem solved!

I borrowed some DVDs from our American friends and popped them into the glove box ready to entertain the kids. It was a flawless plan, but for one tiny flaw. Twenty minutes onto the freeway, we discovered that most of the DVDs were Blue Ray*** and didn’t work in the standard-issue DVD player. In fact, only one DVDs worked: the ear-melting classic ‘Alvin And The Chipmunks 2 - The Squeaquel’.

So, for the entire five hour drive there, and then the entire five hour drive back, I was subjected to the excruciating sound of the Chipmunks singing Beyonce songs in falsetto, as I reminded my husband to stay on the right side of the six lane highway and not veer into oncoming traffic. Until three or four hours into the Chipmunks, at which point veering into oncoming traffic seemed highly desirable.

Still, we survived the journey, and I am sure that I will be able to get the sound of the Chipmunks out of my head eventually. After all, it’s only been a week, and, you know, if you like it then you should have put a ring on it, oh oh oh.... Ooops. Sorry. Just lapsed into song again.

Anyhow, the moral of this story is threefold. Firstly, don’t travel anywhere without grandparents. Secondly, don’t travel anywhere with children. Thirdly, Blue Ray technology is a crime. And fourthly, I know I can’t count, but I’m still traumatised from our journey.

And if you like it then you should have put a ring on it, oh oh oh.

*an act of tremendous selflessness, as I am aware that every hour with my child is a precious gift to my parents.

**which, incidentally, was planned, and not a response to them being burdened with a psychotically exhausted four year old.

***which sounds exciting and modern, but is clearly useless and stupid

An Announcement

2012-01-28T19:19:00.000+11:00

The other night I gave a 'Blog To Book' seminar at the Sydney Writers Centre. I was grateful for the opportunity, not least because I got to tell another room full of people that I had met Simon Baker.

At the end of the seminar, my co-convenor, the lovely Valerie Khoo, turned to me before the group and asked, "So, Kerri. What can you tell us all about your next book?"

I smiled and gave my usual response.

"Nothing at this stage," I said regretfully. "Until a bit closer to the publication date, I can't give you any details."

Valerie leaned in closely."Er.. Kerri," she whispered to me gently, "I read about it yesterday. I've even seen the cover. It's been announced in the Random House newsletter."

Oh. Okay! Well, that was a little awkward. Still, as I figured the cat was clearly out of the bag, I may as well tell them all about it. So I did.

So, seeing as everyone who received the Random House newsletter knows, and the people who attended my blog to book seminar now know too, I think it's only fair to share the details with you.

My second book, The Little Book Of Anxiety - Confessions From A Worried Life, will be released on May 1st this year. I am proud of it. It is a funny but very honest account of living with anxiety, in all of anxiety's different forms. I think an awful lot of you are going to be able to relate, and I hope it will help many of you to feel better about your own anxious lives.

However, the book is very, very revealing - even more so than When My Husband Does The Dishes... - and as the date of publication approaches, I can't help but feel a little.... anxious.

On the other hand, for those of you who didn't realise that I was an anxious person, I am thrilled to bits that I have fooled you for this long.

But as of the 1st of May, trust me, I won't be fooling you anymore.

On The Set Of Modern Family

2012-01-20T15:08:00.001+11:00

A strange thing happened after I met Simon Baker. I lost my awe of celebrities. It wasn't that I become jaded or world weary, it's just that, well, I had peaked. I had met my Celebrity Crush, my personal Mr Perfect, my owen Impossible Man, my He Who I Never Thought I'd Meet...

Okay, so maybe enough with the monikers.

My point is this: by the time my family and I visited the set of Modern Family the following week - one of my absolute favorite TV shows (along with Mad Men, 30 Rock and Young Talent Time) - I wasn't nervous at all. Excited, but not nervous. And I liked not feeling nervous. I was, like, totally Hollywood.

We were visiting Modern Family because our friend Michael is one of the directors of the show. (An Emmy winning director, mind you, and my god that statue is heavy).

Me with Mi(chael)'s Emmy

As we drove to Fox to meet him, the kids and my husband and I wondered who we'd get to see.

"Are we going to meet Sofia Vergara's breasts?" The Architect enquired.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"Are we meeting Sofia Vergara? The one who plays Gloria?"

"You asked if we were meeting her breasts!"

My husband rolled his eyes. "Don't be ridiculous. So are we or not?"

"What?"

"Meeting her breasts?"

Yup.

We arrived at the lot at 10am and were greeted by Rachael, the delightful production assistant assigned to shlep us around in a golf buggy and fetch us donuts whenever we were hungry.

And just in case you didn't read that the first time, we had a production assistant assigned to shlep us around the lot in a golf buggy and fetch us donuts whenever we were hungry. I may be comfortable around celebrities now, but my god that gave me a thrill.

We were shown onto the Modern Family set, and it looked exactly like it did on TV, which probably shouldn't have come as a surprise to someone as Hollywood as me. Though the rooms had no ceilings, they were completely enclosed, with four walls and doors and furniture. We posed for photos on the iconic couches in which the characters are 'interviewed', and examined the contents of the prop fridges and cupboards. My son was delighted to find real food in the refrigerator, and if I hadn't been such an old hand at visiting sets, I may have been a little delighted too.

On Jay & Gloria's couch

We watched some filming, a scene involving Claire (Julie Bowen) and Phil (Ty Burrell) and their daughter Haley (Sarah Hyland) and suddenly all my Hollywood coolness fell away. They were incredible. The scene was reshot at least eight or nine times, and every single time the actors' nuances were detailed, their performances were subtly different, and the scene was as freshly hilarious as it was the first time. They deserved every Emmy they have won and I was awed.

For a painful moment, I wished desperately I had not given up my promising career as an actress. And then, for an even more painful moment, I remembered how crap I had been, and how the only award I would possibly have won would have been Waitress of the Month (and as I'm clumsy, impatient and rude, it's doubtful I even would have won that).

Sarah Hyland & Ty Burrell & me

After the filming, Rachael took us on a tour of the Fox lot like the VIPs we (wished desperately we) were. Then we chugged back to the set, and met several cast members, which, had I not been so used to meeting big celebrities, might have given me a bit of a thrill.

Rico Rodriguez II

The kids of the show were all absolutely divine - poised and confident and polite and friendly - just like Boo is in my dreams of the future. Ty Burrell and Eric Stonestreet (who plays Cameron) were warm and approachable. And Julie Bowen was hilarious, cracking jokes, talking a million miles an hour, and taking it upon herself to plait Boo's hair and interview Boo about her special blanky. (It turns out, much to my surprise, that the blanky is a 'boy', and cannot turn into a girl because it is not a 'magic blanky'. I did not know this.)

Me & Eric Stonestreet

Sadly, we did not get to meet Jesse Tyler Ferguson, who plays Mitchell brilliantly, or Ed O'Neill, who I have worshipped ever since his days in 'Married... With Children'. And even more sadly for The Architect, we did not get to meet Sofia Vergara's breasts, or even Sofia Vergara herself.

The Architect was crushed, and for that I am sorry, by my god I was relieved.

Julie Bowen

All in all, it was a very pleasant day.

And if I wasn't so totally Hollywood, I might say it was bloody awesome.

Meeting Simon Baker

2012-01-16T07:48:00.001+11:00

Yes, it is true. After years of writing about my lust for Simon Baker (as is evidenced here, in any of these posts, and in my BOOK!), I did, in fact meet him. For real. And it was as magical as I had anticipated it to be. Except that I never had really anticipated meeting him. Meeting your celebrity fantasy man just doesn't happen in real life, you know? So I hadn't anticipated it at all.

But then it did happen. It really did.

Simon Loves Boo

So how did I meet him? Well, in an act of incredible foresight and cunning, my husband and I befriended an awesome American couple called Melanie and Michael by a pool in Fiji about seven years ago. We immediately clicked, our kids all got on brilliantly, and we've been close ever since.Mike became an Emmy award winning TV director, and Mel turned out to be a childhood friend of Robin Tunney, who plays Simon Baker's boss in The Mentalist.

In other words, contacts, my friends. It's all about contacts.

Mike and Mel organised a visit to The Mentalist set for my family during our visit to the States as a very special treat for me (and because I kind of begged them). Still, I didn't allow myself to believe it was going to happen until we were actually driving to the Warner Brothers lot, following the detailed instructions that Mike had emailed. And then it hit me.

"We're going to meet Simon Baker!" I yelled excitedly at the kids.

"Er, okay," said my son.

"You love Simon Baker!" said my daughter.

"I love Simon Bacon!" chorused Boo.

We showed our ID to the security guard at the gate and were issued with special passes, which was terribly exciting. Special passes! Oh my god! It was really happening!

Mike and Mel were waiting for us in the carpark, looking remarkably composed for people about to meet Simon Baker. (The fact that Mike has worked with a range of huge stars from Sarah Jessica Parker to Matt Dillon to Chloe Sevigny didn't seem relevant to me at all, given that none of them were Simon Baker.)

As we walked together to the stage where The Mentalist is shot, I began mentally rehearsing what I would say to Simon when I saw him. "Hey, you're my celebrity crush!" "Hello, I am a great fan of your work." "Because of your ads, I bank with ANZ!" "Hi, I fantasize about you when I'm having sex!" Hmmm. None of them seemed quite right. What about...

Suddenly, Mike interrupted my reverie.

"There they are!"

Huh? Who? Oh my god. THEM. It was them! Simon and Robin, walking right towards us. Robin was wearing her Mentalist costume of low-waisted pants and shirt; Simon was wearing his Patrick Jane three piece suit. And a luscious mane of blonde hair.

"Hi," said Robin, and kissed Mike and Mel, then turned to me and The Architect. "How are you?" she asked. "I'm Robin."

"Hi," I said, trying really hard to focus on her and not Simon. She was lovely. Okay, done. Simon time. I turned to look at him. He was gorgeous.

"Hi," said Simon, and held out his hand.

"I love you!" I cried, and kissed him full on the mouth.

Okay, not really. I'm not that ridiculous. "Hi," I said. "I'm Kerri Sackville." We shook hands. I felt good. I was in control. It was Simon, and he was gorgeous, but I was okay. So I proved I was okay. I started to talk. And once I started I couldn't stop, because I talk a lot when I'm nervous. Actually, I talk a lot all the time.

"I'm a writer," I told Simon. "I write a blog, and I write columns, and I write about you a lot." I paused for breath. "I wrote a book, too, about marriage and motherhood? And you're mentioned in it eleven times, and I brought a copy for you, but I'm not like a mad stalker or anything, it's just my thing, you know? Like Nutella? People know that I like you and I like Nutella? And I wish I'd been in the Young Talent Team. Remember the Young Talent Team?" (Yes, people, I really did say that.)

Simon held up his hand to stop me, and smiled. "I know who you are," he said. "I googled you."

Of course. He googled me.

HE GOOGLED ME.

Simon Baker googled me. That made me feel very, very good.

"Okay," I said, and grinned. "So can I have a picture with you?"

"Don't worry," Simon said. "There'll be plenty of time for that."

All right, then. If Simon says don't worry, I won't worry.

We all stood around chatting for a bit and I thought of some other spectacular things to say.

"Love the show," I told Simon, "but I'm REALLY loving those ANZ ads."

"Oh stop it," he said, and laughed. (Yes, I made him laugh.)

"But my favorite is still you dancing in that Euphoria music video," I said.

"Oh God," he said, and looked absolutely mortified.

Just then, ten year old Pinkela spoke up.

"Do you know that my little sister calls you Simon Bacon?" she asked.

"Simon Bacon!" chorused Boo. As you do.

Just then, Robin and Simon were called in for rehearsal. The Architect, the kids and I were shown inside the stage, and were given a chance to walk around The Mentalist set. It was utterly surreal to be sitting in the rooms I watch on TV, particularly the couch used by Patrick Jane.

Loving the couch

Eventually we were all ushered into a room, set up with headsets, and invited to watch the filming on video monitors, along with the director, makeup artists, script supervisors and other crew members. We were seated on director chairs with 'The Mentalist' written on the back, just like they use in Hollywood. Because... well... we were in Hollywood. I watched, entranced, as they filmed the same scene about 27 times from different angles, until I knew the whole scene backwards, and silently corrected Simon when he fluffed his lines.

Behind the scenes

During each break in filming Simon came and chatted to us, and I lapped up his words like the little puppy dog I am. After we'd been hanging around the set for about forty minutes, he beckoned to my kids.

"Come on guys, I want to show you something," he said. The kids followed him. I followed them. The Architect followed me. We all followed Simon. Simon said come on, so we came.

Simon showed my kids the backdrop behind the windows of the sets, and the lights that come on during nighttime scenes to replicate the night sky. Pinkela showed him her cartoons, and he signed an autograph for her. He seemed to love Boo, even when she persisted in calling him Simon Bacon, and he answered all of my son's questions graciously.

Simon chatted to The Architect and I for twenty minutes or more. We talked about the U.S. college system, about health care in America, about his love of Australia, about the paparazzi, and about the people who shop at Costco. I gave him a copy of my book, and told him that his wife would definitely enjoy it.

"Except that I think she's trying to get away from thinking about me," he pointed out, which just goes to prove that one woman's Simon Baker is just another woman's boring old non-fantasy material husband.

Finally, Simon posed for some photos, taken by The Architect, first with me, and then with me and the kids.

Simon Says Smile

"Dad's been replaced!" my son called out, and we all laughed, for he had no idea how right he was. (The Architect, however, probably had a fair idea.)

Simon was called back onto set, and we all trooped back to say our goodbyes. Just as I was repeating for the fifth time how lovely it was to meet him, the makeup artist came up and began powdering his nose.

"Oh great," said Simon, rolling his eyes, "I look so manly," and though I don't usually love a man in makeup, he looked pretty great to me.

"Don't worry," I said. "I'm sure you don't wake up in the morning looking like that." And then I pointed to his famous locks. "I'm sure your hair doesn't wake up in the morning looking like that either."

"It does!" he protested. "Touch it! You'll see!"

Simon said to touch his hair. Simon said to touch his hair! So I touched his hair. I even gave it a little tug. It was, indeed, very luscious.

I left Simon with a spring in my step, memories to last a lifetime, and some excellent pictures for Facebook. And the meeting was everything I could have dreamed it to be, if I ever had actually dreamed it would happen.

The weird thing, though, is that for a brief moment there, when he was chatting so easily with us, Simon Baker stopped being Simon Baker to me. I mean, don't get me wrong - the man is beautiful. But he was clearly normal. He is open, personable, and a genuine, down to earth, Aussie guy who appreciates his good fortune and can laugh at himself. He speaks with a regular Aussie accent - not the American accent of the ANZ ads - and could have been any Aussie expat who has become successful in the United States. He is a celebrity, but he is also just a normal person, who gets embarrassed, loves little kids, tells anecdotes about his family, and misses home. He is a normal person, and it is hard, if not impossible, to fantasize wildly about someone who is clearly just a normal guy.

Ah, who am I kidding. The man is a god. Simon, my fantasies live on. Thank you.

And to Mike and Mel, I love you guys xxxxxxxxxxxxx

Wish Me Luck As You Wave Me Goodbye....

2011-12-29T11:27:00.000+11:00

Tomorrow I am leaving on a fearsome adventure. I am travelling to a place filled with peril, a place fraught with danger, a place known to strike fear into the heart of even the most stalwart of human beings.

Disneyland.

I am not taking this journey alone. I am traveling with my husband The Architect and our three children (mainly because they insisted on going; I think it would be way easier to travel to Disneyland without them, though possibly there wouldn't be as much point).

What's worse, we are traveling by air. I am terrified of flying with kids. It's not that I'm scared of flying - I quite like an airplane trip when I'm by myself (particularly those cute little meals served in the plastic trays with all the compartments) - but put me on a plane with my kids and I fall apart. I agonize about it for weeks before we leave. How am I going to entertain them? What if their ears hurt? What if they vomit? What if they don't sleep? What if I don't sleep? What if I sleep and they wake me up? What if they sleep on me and I lose circulation and my legs fall off when I stand up? And, worst of all, how hideously awful am I going to feel when we get there, and I have to look after three exhausted children whilst wanting to curl into a ball and die quietly alone in a hotel room???

I know the trip is only a few (dozen) hours and it will be worth it when I get there. But the flight will be repulsive in the extreme, and whilst I could try not think about it until we board the plane, that would be a total waste of angst. So I am torturing myself thoroughly with visions of the horror, and will continue to do so until we have completed are holiday and are safely back home again. Because that's just what I do.

In the meantime, I have been making preparations - packing, buying every possible pharmaceutical item we could need on our trip (because obviously they don't have pharmacies in the United States), organizing a house/Spunky sitter, and giving copies of my passport and life insurance policies to friends in case of accident or misadventure overseas (you know, like getting trampled by Mickey Mouse or hit by a flying roller coaster or being bored to death in a four hour queue).

So if you don't hear from me for a couple of weeks, do not fear. I am having the time of my life with my kids in the ~~Scariest~~ Happiest Place On Earth.

Either that or I am trapped under Donald Duck, flailing helplessly, a chilli dog wedged in my mouth, and cotton candy clenched in each fist.

Either way, I'll have a lot to tell you upon my return.

Happy New Year everyone, and lots of love to you all.

Why I F*ked Up. Monumentally.

2011-12-22T13:31:00.004+11:00

So the other day I made the mother of all mistakes, a fuck up that officially catapulted me into the 'totally losing her mind' category.

It was Tuesday afternoon, and I was leaving with the kids to visit my parents at their holiday house on the Central Coast. That morning I'd been out shopping, packed our bags, made sure there was enough food in the house for my husband, paid some bills, answered some emails, and ran some errands. Then I loaded the kids, the bikes, and our bags into the car, drove down the road to the petrol station, and put petrol in the car.

And then I nearly fainted. Because I'd put the wrong petrol in the tank.

I own a diesel car. If you put unleaded petrol into a diesel car and start the engine, it dies. Literally. The engine blows up. It is a seriously bad thing to do. The fuel tank and the engine need to be taken out and flushed.

I stood there for about ten minutes, stock still, with the kids and the bags and the bikes in the car. I had no idea what to do. I knew I couldn't start the car, but I couldn't just sit there all day, and I couldn't exactly walk away.

Eventually, I realised there was a garage around the corner. I left the car where it was, with the kids and the bags and the bikes, and ran to the garage.

"Help me!" I begged the mechanic. "I've fucked up. I've put the wrong petrol in the car and we're meant to be going to the coast and I don't know what to do."

The mechanic shook his head. "Love, it's five days from Christmas, I'm booked up, I can't help you. You'll have to get the car towed somewhere else."

I couldn't get the car towed. You need to stay with the car when it's towed. I had three kids with me. And bags. And bikes. And where would I get it towed, anyway?

I started to sob. "I don't know what to do!" I cried. "I just don't know what to do!"

The mechanic shrugged. "Sorry." And I walked back to the car.

"What are we going to do, Mum?" asked my son.

"I'll fix it," I said. "I'll fix it." I tried to gather my thoughts.

Just then, the mechanic appeared at the window.

"Okay," he said. "I'll do it. It was the tears that got to me."

I jumped out of the car. "Oh my god I LOVE you," I yelled, and I really did.

Three of the mechanics pushed my car to the garage. I called a taxi, piled the kids and the bags in the boot, drove to my parents' house, took my dad's car, and drove to the Central Coast.

The next day, when the car was fixed, I drove back to Sydney, left the car at my parents', picked up my car, and drove back to the Central Coast, a round trip of about four hours. With the cost of the engine flush, chocolates for the mechanics, the wasted unleaded petrol, and the petrol for the journey, it cost well in excess of $550.

It was a monumental fuck up indeed.

But here's the thing - this is not my only fuck up this year. I've forgotten meetings. I've forgotten to pay bills. I've left money in an ATM. I've left groceries at the checkout. I've lost my iPhone. I've lost my chequebook. And the list goes on and on.

Life is too complicated. I have too much to remember. The kids, work, the house, my relationships, bills, the garden, the car, shopping, cooking, laundry, appointments, school.... There is never a second of down time, never a moment where my mind isn't racing, never a day without a To Do list a mile long.

It's modern life and I get that, I do. But I need to switch off. I need to shut down. I need to clear my mind of the clutter every now and then, or I'm going to keep putting the wrong petrol in my tank and forgetting important meetings and leaving my iPhone in the park.

Today, though, I am trying to calm down. And I don't want to see a petrol bowser for a long, long time.

What I Ate. As In, REALLY....

2011-12-14T09:45:00.000+11:00

The other night I was having drinks with a couple of girlfriends.

"You know what I hate?" asked one friend. (I'll call her Coupon, although clearly there is no-one in the world with such a silly name.) "Those stupid magazine articles which get people to say exactly what they've eaten in a day and then a nutritionist assesses their diet."

I was shocked.

"I love those articles!" I said. "I love hearing about what other people eat! And I love the nutritionist's feedback! It's fascinating!"

Coupon shook her head. (Seriously, what a ridiculous name.)"But they all eat mung beans and drink protein smoothies! I mean, who the hell eats mung beans or protein smoothies? They have to be lying. They're scared of getting in trouble with the nutritionist!"

Well, I couldn't argue with that. I, for one, hate mung beans, and the only smoothies I enjoy come with ice cream and chocolate and a swirl of cream on top. And if I don't eat them, surely no-one else would, either. They must, indeed, be lying.

So in the spirit of journalistic integrity, I decided to do my own 'What I Ate' column, including a full critique by a nutritionist.

Because someone out there has to tell the truth.

Oh, except that I don't have a nutritionist. So the critique may just have to be from me.

What I Ate On Sunday

7.30am - I ate an orange (because I like them) and a piece of toast with vegemite. Okay, toast with peanut butter. Crunchy!

8.00am - Boo didn't finish her vegemite toast, so I ate that too. With, er, some extra peanut butter on the top. Crunchy!

9.15am - Grabbed a cappuccino during Boo's swimming lesson. A skim cappuccino. Possibly with sugar. Just one sugar, though. Or maybe two.

11.00am - At a playcentre for a birthday party and starving. (Drinking coffee makes me hungry.) There was no adult food available so I was forced to steal a slice of pizza from the kids' table. This slice was so fantastically good that I was forced to steal another. And then eat Boo's leftovers, too.

4.00pm - Home. Decided I needed something healthy so I ate the remainder of last night's green salad. It was a little limp.

5.00pm - Drinks with friends. I had water. And, er, a gin and tonic. And, er, a glass of Cab Sav.

6.00pm - We were hungry. Ate a selection of breads and dips, and several tasty pieces of something fried. Crunchy!

10pm - Home in bed. Drank a soothing cup of tea. Okay, it wasn't tea. It was a cream of chicken cup-a-soup. I just love those delicious noodles!

Nutritionist's critique:
What can I say? I love those delicious noodles too! Well done, Kerri. You did good.

The Falling Prom Queen, or Don't Do Drugs

2011-12-07T17:15:00.000+11:00

Last Friday night The Architect and I were losing it at the Eminem concert. Okay, so I was losing it, and The Architect was sitting sedately with his legs crossed tolerating his wife's peculiar taste in music, but still...

Eminem has wide appeal and I had assumed that there would be people of all ages in the audience. And there were. There were 35,000 people between the ages of 15 and 25, and my husband, and me.

Most of the crowd was beautifully well behaved. The boy next to me - who couldn't have been more than 19 or so - kept asking considerately if he was giving me enough room. The young man in front of me quickly climbed off his seat when I explained he was blocking my view. And the row of girls behind us danced sedately in a row, and collected their litter before they left.

There was just one discordant element. One member of the crowd who stood out, and not in a good way. And she was off her little trolley.

The girl was sitting next to, but not with, the sedate girls behind me. She was, inexplicably, wearing a strapless chiffon prom dress, and (more explicably) braces on her teeth. I didn't see her drink any alcohol, and she seemed sober when she arrived, so I can only assume that she'd taken something before the show. Because as the evening progressed, Prom Queen got more and more out of control, until by the end of the night, she was quite literally on the floor.

Initially, Prom Queen was just chatting loudly to her friend, a Goth who seemed completely disinterested in her. When Eminem came on stage Prom Queen jumped up immediately and began swaying rather vigorously to the music. She raised her hands in the air, closed her eyes dramatically, and moved in a dance reminiscent of 'Swan Lake meets bullet to the chest', if the Swan was very uncoordinated, and the bullet wounded, but did not kill.

Then, when Eminem was about half way through his set, the Prom Queen suffered a decline. Up she would be, flailing around, and then suddenly woops! She'd fall over, right onto the girl beside her.

"Sorry!" she'd say, and jump back on her feet. (She was flying, she was unsteady, but she was unfailingly polite.)

Up would go the Swan hands, and off she'd fire again, moving emotively to the rhythm, braces clanging in the breeze. And then whoosh! Forward she would fall, right on to The Architect and me.

"Sorry!" she'd exclaim sincerely, and climb up again.

This went on and on and on, for songs and songs and songs, until I was tempted to tether the girl to a pole. But no, it got worse. Because shortly thereafer, Prom Queen lost the power of her legs. She'd be dancing away, and then whoa! Down she'd fall right to the floor, where she'd curl in the fetal position for a minute, maybe two. We'd look, we'd wait, we'd wonder whether to call the medicos (all of us but Goth, who just glanced at her in disdain)... and then bam! Up she'd jump again, pumping her fist into the air, like a phoenix from the ashes, to reclaim her dance.

Until two minutes later when she'd collapse again, and have a nice refreshing rest in between the seats.

I hope that Prom Queen had fun losing herself at the concert. I suspect, however, that she didn't. I suspect that all she lost was a few of Eminem's songs, and quite a significant amount of dignity.

As for me, if I never get struck by a falling Prom Queen again, well, I won't consider myself to have lost anything at all.

A Conversation. Of The Crazy Making Kind.

2011-12-05T09:39:00.001+11:00

“So Mum, did you like my performance best, or Johnny Li’s?”

My son was referring, of course, to his end-of-year school concert, which we had attended the night before. And the question wasn’t an easy one to answer. My son had read a beautiful poem about Maths that he composed himself (yes, about Maths. Numbers are very poetic, you know), but Johnny Li was a violin prodigy, and his performance had nearly brought me to tears.

The poem was possibly the best poem about Maths I had ever heard (and to be fair, I did hear three that night), but Johnny was a genius. How to answer?

“I always love your performances more than anyone else’s performances,” I said truthfully. My son rolled his eyes.

“Yes, I know that, Mum. You enjoy them because I'm your child. But which did you enjoy most?”

“They were both good! But I enjoyed yours most.”

He still wasn’t satisfied. “Okay, but if you didn’t know me, which would you think was the better performance?”

Oh for god’s sake. Why the fuck does he have to ask me these types of questions? How the hell am I supposed to answer that?

“How the hell am I supposed to answer that?” I asked, which possibly isn’t the approved way to speak to a twelve year old boy, but as he doesn’t seem to follow the rules when talking to me, I’m not sure I really care.

“Just tell me the truth, Mum. I can take it.”

“I can’t answer. I don’t know how to answer.”

“If Johnny did my performance and I did his, which would you think is better?”

Um... er.... “The one you did,” I said finally. I was pretty sure that was the right answer.

“So you’re saying his violin playing was better than my poem???”

“NO! I didn’t say that! I said I’d like the one you did better!”

He tried a different tack. “Okay, so what if a stranger read out my poem and then a stranger played Johnny’s violin?”

“Would the stranger be a good or bad violin player?” I asked. This was getting really confusing.

“Good. As good as him.”

“But did you still write the poem?”

“No, someone else wrote the poem.”

“I’d like the poem better. It was brilliant. Far better than that violin playing.”

My son looked satisfied, and he smiled. “Okay. Can you pass the milk?”

And I knew that – this time – I’d won.

Chatting In My Undies

2011-11-28T15:51:00.000+11:00

The other night, I participated in a ‘Meet The Authors’ evening at a local school. My kids don’t go to the school, but I was happy to go as a) I will take any excuse to get out of the house, and b) there was going to be food that I hadn’t prepared.

I was exhausted when I arrived at the school, but I pepped up the minute I saw the spread. This school was truly a top school. Oh, I have no idea what kind of grades the kids get, but my god they put on a good spread. I tucked in heartily, cramming smoked salmon blintzes and pesto ciabatta into my mouth.

I eyed the (very nice) red wine with longing, but refrained as I make it a rule not to drink before giving an author talk. Alcohol gets me very relaxed very quickly, and am likely to say something like ‘You should buy my book because it has a purple cover’ or ‘I write because I’m a show off’ when I am even slightly intoxicated.

Okay, so I wasn't quite this bad, but still....

I was appearing with a couple of other authors, including the novelist Nikki Gemmell, whose latest book, With My Body, is almost entirely about sex. We had all been asked to prepare a short excerpt from our books to read, so I figured that as Nikki would have to read something about sex, I may as well do the same. I prepared an extract from When My Husband Does The Dishes... called ‘Sleep Is Better Than Sex’ and sat happily on stage picking pesto out of my teeth, waiting for my turn to read.

Then things took a turn for the unexpected. The wife of the rabbi at my synagogue walked in, and sat in clear view in the audience. She wasn’t even a mother at the school! Now, I can talk about sex in front of practically anyone, but to a woman who is Holy By Proxy? Not so much. I was thrown into uncertainty. But still, it got worse. Nikki stood up to read her excerpt, and it wasn’t about sex at all. She read an utterly tame passage from her book about motherhood – quite possibly the only segment not about sex in the entire thing. Looked like I was going to be all on my own. I felt like I was about to be thrown to the lions.

Still, there was nothing to do but press on. Up I rose, and headed with trepidation to the microphone.

“This chapter is entitled ‘Sleep Is Better Than Sex’,” I said, and the entire room sat up straight. They laughed all the way through and applauded loudly at the end. I sat down in relief, and felt so happy that I relaxed a little too much, and ended up answering ‘Because I’m a show off’ when asked why I like to write. I may as well have just had the wine.

Afterwards, a girlfriend who was in the audience approached me.

“It was great, but you have to keep your legs together when you stand up,” she said. “The whole room could see your undies. Still, at least you were wearing some.”

I poured myself a huge glass of wine. I’m never doing an author talk again.

A Very Short Post About Sex

2011-11-25T13:19:00.000+11:00

Tomorrow is Boo's birthday and we bought her a rocking horse. For two weeks now I've been asking The Architect to assemble it, as I want Boo to open a horse, and not bits of tail, legs and a head. So far, The Architect has ignored me, as he is wont to do.

This morning, as he left the house, I looked at him meaningfully. Boo was clinging to his leg, so I couldn't say it directly, but I needed to make myself understood.

"Tonight you have to... you know..." I said, and I mimed the action for riding a horse.

The Architect looked delighted. "Have sex?" he asked.

"NO!" I said. "You have to make the thing! You know! The thing that goes giddyup?" and again I mimed riding a horse.

He grinned. "Sex! You want to have sex tonight! Okay!"

I sighed. "NO!!! You have to put together the thing!" and I mimed riding a horse, together with slapping my own butt and yelling "Neigh!"

In his dreams

He reached over and slapped my butt too. "Sex it is!" he said.

Looks like I'll be putting the damn horse together myself.

tickled by a magic pen.... or something.....

2011-11-23T09:13:00.000+11:00

Today I got tickled by a magical pen after I was caressed by a total stranger. Nothing weird about that. Right?

I'd booked myself in for a technologically advanced facial, with microdermabrasion, light therapy, and a massage. I've never had a facial before, but desperate times call for desperate measures. And if you saw me just after I rolled out of bed this morning you would know. The times, friends, they are a-desperate.

I walked into the salon and was introduced to my 'facialist' (as opposed to, say, my 'bottomlist'). Elizabeth was very friendly and asked me if I would like to use the toilet before my treatment (so, quite possibly, she actually was a bottomlist as well).

When I returned from my toilet trip, Elizabeth told me to relax, and then instructed me to take off my top. This surprised me as I assumed that, given that this was a 'facial' and not, say, a 'breastial', that Elizabeth would be working on my face. Apparently, however, she would be working on my shoulders too (which I guess made her a shoulderlist) and needed access to my 'decolletage'.

The first part of the facial wasn't so bad. Elizabeth cleansed my face with some kind of industrial strength potion, and then scraped a really rough rolling pin over my skin. This was, apparently, the 'microderm' portion of the treatment, and had something to do with exfoliation. It was scratchy and sandpapery and felt most uncomfortable and I enjoyed the process immensely.

MAKE IT STOP!

Then came the facial massage. Elizabeth tilted my head back and caressed my face gently all over in delicate circular motions. It was healing and loving and caring and nurturing and it made me want to run and scream. For - as I remembered at the exact moment Elizabeth started the massage - I cannot stand people touching my face. Unless you're one of my kids, or actually having sex with me (which, depending on how many readers I currently have, rules out at least 50% of you), I do not want your hands on my facial skin. There's no deep psychological reason. I just don't like it. I'd rather you touched my bottom. And quite frankly, I don't want you touching my bottom at all.

Of course, Elizabeth didn't know that, and kept on with her rubbing. And, because I'm so passive in the hands of beauty professionals, I let her do it. Really, I'm pathetic. The woman could have started shaving my head, or tattooing my chest with a giant panda, and I would have just sighed inwardly and said nothing.

To my relief, Elizabeth stopped massaging after about 15 minutes and began the next part of the session. This was the most important part of the treatment, the part that would radically change my skin for the better. The Pulsing Light Therapy (or, you know... words to that effect).

Elizabeth put patches over my eyes so I wouldn't be blinded by the light (or revved up like a deuce, another runner in the night). And then I lay on my back for about 30 minutes while she trailed something that felt like a slim metal pen all over my face as an important 'beep beep beep' sounded rythmically in my ears.

Now, presumably that pen did something special and magical, because I now look far better now than before the treatment. (Sadly that last stanza was a lie. I actually look exactly the same now as before, but as I paid lots of money, I'm not going to admit it.) Still, as I lay there on the bed, I couldn't help but wonder if the joke was on me - if there was no Light Therapy, if Elizabeth really was just trailing a slim metal pen all over my face whilst playing a 'beep beep beep' in my ear, and then giggling all the way to the bank.

Still, I'm not even sure it matters. I had a nice little snooze while I was being tickled by the pen, so the session wasn't entirely wasted.

And besides, the relief after the massage stopped was enormous. It was worth paying money just for that.

Marriage Equality. It Really Should Be This Simple.

2011-11-16T11:32:00.000+11:00

Yesterday I chatted to my ten year old daughter about gay marriage.

"What do you think about it?" I asked her. We'd listened to a news story about the PM's proposed conscience vote on the issue and I was genuinely interested to hear my daughter's opinion.

"I think gay people should be allowed to get married," she said, and I agreed. And then she continued.

"Eli's mums are gay, aren't they?" she asked, referring to a school friend of hers.

"Yes," I told her.

"Well, at first when I met them, I thought it was a bit weird, but now it's just normal to me." I nodded.

"You know, Australia still won't let gay people get married," I said. My daughter frowned.

"But Mum," she asked, "isn't not letting gay people get married just like not letting a black person marry a white person? In the old days black people and white people weren't even allowed to sit on the same bench. Now we'd think that was terrible!"

And I looked at my daughter and I thought, why? WHY can't adults think the way she does? Why can't adults be as clear and untainted and as lacking in prejudice as a child.

There are two sets of lesbian parents in my daughter's year at school, and to the best of my knowledge they have been as warmly embraced by the school community as any other set of parents. And whilst some of the kids may have initially thought it was 'weird', that sense of difference faded incredibly quickly.

I genuinely believe that kids are born without inherent prejudice. They will notice differences - different colour skin, scars, disabilities, family structure - but they don't attach meaning to those differences like we do. They may notice that their Asian friend has different shaped eyes, but they don't make assumptions about their friend's personality or attitude to money or ability to drive based on that eye shape. They may notice that their classmate has two mums, but they don't make judgements about the morality of that situation - they are far more concerned with what treats the mums keep in the pantry, and whether they let them stay up late during a sleepover.

We are the ones who pass on moral judgements to our children. We are the ones who teach them what is 'right' or 'acceptable' or 'normal' or 'appropriate' or 'God's will. Which means that if we stop - if just one generation stops indoctrinating our kids into believing gay marriage is 'wrong', or people wearing burqas are 'dangerous', or that refugees are 'criminals' - we can begin to eliminate prejudice.

Sure, this is simplistic, but you don't see a lot of kids from open, accepting homes wanting to ban the burqa, or stop the boats. We need to listen to our kids, and stop filling their heads with prejudice. And maybe one day, what was once as 'weird' or 'scary' to us as blacks and whites sitting on the same bench will be completely normal.

Hilarious

2011-11-09T11:04:00.000+11:00

I've had a rough couple of days (don't ask) and so I thought that instead of feeling sad I'd think about happy things. Even more specifically, things that make me laugh. A lot. So I have compiled a list. Please add your own!

Things That Make Me Go Ha!

Playing charades with nearly-four-year-old Boo. It goes something like this:Boo: Stands up in front of us, and makes some inexplicable sign with her left hand. Us: "Movie? Book? TV show?"Boo: "No!" Holds up three fingers.Us: "Three words?"Boo: "Yes!"Us: "Dora The Explorer?"Boo: "No!" Holds up one finger.Us: "Spongebob?"Boo: "No!" Holds up five fingers.Us: "The Simpsons?"Boo: Thinks for a minute. "Yes!"Us: "Hooray!"

The cable TV show "I Didn't Know I Was Pregnant", about women who had no idea they were pregnant till they started giving birth. I particularly loved the 20 year old who assumed she'd gained 25 pounds because she was eating so much junk food (you know, after the condom broke), and the 46-year-old mother-of-two who assumed that she was going through menopause and that her stomach was growing because of a 'tumour'. Oh, and I adore the re-enactments of the births with actors who are mysteriously far, far better looking than the real women themselves, and the 'newborn' babies who look like they've been at pre-school for a year.

Boo. Don't mess with her.

The iPhone app that puts tattoos all over my kids.

The outfit my husband dressed Boo in when I had to rush out of the house early before (think frilled pink summer dress over long sleeve navy jumper, worn fetchingly with purple sandals and Dora The Explora socks).

The cost of replacing my car door handle after it fell off in my hand (though admittedly I was laughing through my tears).

My husband's face when I explained that his daily morning 'coffee' was probably responsible for his bizarre, recent weight gain, given that it is a 'White Choc Rasberry Grande Frappucino'.

Penises. Have you ever looked up close? They're hilarious. I don't know how men walk around with those things.

How Can A Man With Such Taste Get It SOOO Wrong?

2011-11-02T11:16:00.000+11:00

My husband The Architect is a man of style. He chooses his clothes carefully, and has about 17 billion shirts in patterns ranging from subtle to bold. For the most part, I really like his clothes, with just a couple of notable exceptions.

The Architect focuses heavily on tops, and pays rather less attention to his legwear. In winter he chooses from black pants or black pants, exchanged for blue jeans or blue jeans on weekends.

In summer he wears black pants or black pants, exchanged for blue shorts on the weekend. But when I say 'blue shorts' I mean 'blue shorts, singular', because the man has a single pair of shorts. He has 20 zillion t-shirts in a trillion different styles, from plain white to The Dharma Initiative logo, but so busy is he purchasing tees for his massive collection that he has no time to cover his arse.

His one pair of shorts is an utter disgrace, bringing shame on our entire family. It is threadbare in the crotch and has a back pocket hanging off by the seams, and both legs are fraying at the knees. What's more, the front pockets have holes, so he is unable to carry money, which is fine as he'd just spend it on t-shirts.

It makes me crazy that The Architect only has one pair of shorts, and that other people can see his undies. It makes me especially crazy because his undies are also threadbare, but that, my friends, is another story. Still, the shorts were once nice, so the shame is solely in the upkeep, as opposed to bad taste, for which there is no excuse.

And speaking of 'no excuse', I come to the real problem, which is The Architect's Horrid Top. Yes, The Architect has many magnificent clothes, and he rarely gets it wrong. But no-one is infallible, not even my husband, and in recent times he has erred in the extreme.

My husband has a Horrid Top, and it is a long sleeved fawn knit tee. Yes people, you heard it right, it is a fawn knit tee, and I choke on the words as I write them.

There is nothing worse than long sleeve fawn, you think to yourself, but I assure you, you think very wrong. The long sleeve fawn knit has elbow pads to boot in a nasty, fake black leather. It is the most horrid thing you have ever seen, and The Architect will not give it up.

I hate the Horrid Top, and I have tried to convince The Architect to bin it, but The Architect has a mind of his own. And though I have tried to stamp it out of him, after 14 long years of marriage, he still clings to his self-determination. So I have resorted to the only thing I know how to do, and I have done it without a moment of doubt.

I have hidden the Horrid Top in a cupboard in the laundry, until such time as The Architect forgets about it. And if he doesn't forget it, if he asks after it some time, then I have absolutely no idea where it is.

Although... I do recall seeing something like it in the pocket of his shorts one day.... Perhaps the fawn knit fell out when he was out? Those bloody shorts, I'm so sorry about that. Do you think it's time to buy another pair?

I Want What She Has

2011-10-27T09:28:00.000+11:00

I am 43 years old and I am having a problem with jealousy.

No, I don't have any jealousy issues relating to my husband. The Architect is far too busy to engage in any kind of extra-curricular love life (and besides, he's not all that good at flirting). No, I am jealous of a person I have never even met, who has only been in the country for a few weeks.

So who is this person? Well, to understand, you'll need to know about J and K.

J and I have been friends for nearly 15 years, ever since she married a male friend of mine, the delightful Mr J. We all had our first babies within a couple of months of each other, and our kids have been good buddies for their entire lives.

J, K & L. But where am I?

Then there's K. K and I met around six years ago, when our sons struck up a friendship at school. Our daughters got along beautifully too, as did our husbands, so another family friendship was born.

Interestingly enough, it turned out that J and K had a mutual friend, a bestie, whose name begins with L (and no, I am not making these initials up). L has been a close friend of J and K since preschool, but she's lived overseas for over a decade, and I've never met her, or even been particularly aware of her existence.

Until now.

You see, L has moved back to Australia with her family, and suddenly, she's back on the agenda. J and K are both thrilled to have her back, and talk excitedly of all the good times ahead. And I "must" meet her, they say, once she's settled back into town.

"I'm sure you'll like each other," K told me the other day. "We'll jut take it slowly."

"I hope you two get along," J told me last night. "I think you will, but you never know."

And I'm thinking, okay, no pressure or anything, but what if she doesn't like me? What if we don't get along? What happens to J and K and I then???

And besides, all this talk of L is making me feel just a little left out. "It's just like having my sister back," said J. But... L has been out of the picture for years and years! I've been like a sister, haven't I? What does L give J that I don't?

"The kids are all getting on so beautifully," remarked K, and she's talking about her kids and L's, not mine. But... but... her kids and mine have been such close friends, I can't help but feel a bit slighted. Will there still be room for us in their lives now that the new kids are back in town?

I want to like L, I really truly do, but I can't help feel a tiny bit prejudiced against her. She has two of my best friends, and she's had them for much longer than me, and I know I'm sounding completely juvenile, but I just can't help myself. I'm jealous.

I know that both J and K are likely to read this post. I know that they will both contact me and tell me how much they love me, and that there is room in their lives for both of us. And I will believe them, because I know rationally that there is, and that we all have many friends, and that one precious friend doesn't replace another.

But I also know I really hope L and I like each other. For one thing, you can never have too many friends. For another thing, a foursome sounds like a lot of fun.

Take One Alex And Call Me In The Morning

2011-10-21T17:22:00.001+11:00

In recent times I have got myself a little stressed. I know that most of you think I am super cool and laid back (and the sound you can hear is the guffawing and eye-rolling of all my closest friends at the idea that I am a) super cool, or b) laid back [and yes, I know that 'eye-rolling' doesn't make a sound, it was just a figure of speech]) but I am quite a stressy little person (and yes, I know that 'little' is debatable, but let's not get picky here, okay?).

Well, a couple of days ago I decided it all had to change. Which is not quite true. My husband The Architect decided it all had to change. He sat me down, gently stroked my angsty brow, and said:

"Sweet honey pie of mine, if you feel you can't relax a little more I will have to send you to a resort alone for a few days. It pains me so deeply to see you so uptight."

And if you believed that, clearly you haven't read my book. Or this blog. Or have had much contact with the male of this species.

What he really did was sit me down, look at me firmly, and say:

"Can you pull yourself together please? You're a total nightmare at the moment."

(And that, friends, you can believe.)

So I decided I had to destress at once, not just because The Architect told me too, but because I really was feeling horribly tense. Over the past few days I have engaged in many attempts to relax my body and mind. Some have been successful, some less so, but I will share them all with you today.

Did online Sudoku puzzles. This worked wonderfully initially, as it refocussed my brain and gave me a rush of elation whenever I figured out where to put one of those little numbers. And then it backfired horribly when I got stuck about an eighth of the way through, and had to call my twelve year old son to help me finish it. And then, to rub salt into the wound, he got bored before it was completed, and wandered off with a breezy "You can take it from here, Mum". Which of course I couldn't. Bloody stupid Sudoku. Makes me bloody crazy.
Watched Alex Dimitriadis running around in his swimsuit in 'The Slap'. This made me feel fantastic.
Ate Nutella sandwiches for dinner, followed by spoonfuls of Nutella straight from the jar. This was fun and relaxing for the first twenty minutes, but rather less enjoyable when I lay moaning and bloated about ten minutes after I finished the jar.
Took my kids to the beach. This was really gorgeous. We played on the sand, they buried my feet, I read my book, they buried my legs, I lay in the sun, they threw sand in my hair, I got really thirsty, they drank all my water, it was really beautiful, I got hot and sandy and had to get out of there that minute.
Drank a great deal of alcohol. This has proven to be very effective.
Read some books, watched some TV. Particularly 'The Slap'. That was great.
Had a bath. Baths really do ease the body and soul. I just have remember to be more careful whilst acqua-texting. Still, I think the phone is drying out nicely.
Nah, that's it. Though did I mention Alex Dimitriades?

No Good Deed For Me

2011-10-14T19:49:00.000+11:00

At pick-up time at pre-school, three year old Boo tugged on my sleeve. “Mummy,” she said, “I want to have a good deed!”

“You want to do a good deed?” I asked. “Fantastic! What would you like to do?”

“No, Mummy, have a good deed. On the tree!”

She pointed to a stick tree at the back of the room, covered in little paper leaves, each with a couple of lines of handwriting.

“It’s the good deed tree!” she yelled. “I want a good deed on the tree!”

A good deed tree now? Clearly another memo I forgot to read. I frowned and went to check it out.

Joshy was kind to his sister this morning, read one leaf.

Bella helped to make her bed, read another.

“You write one and you put it on the tree!” Boo told me helpfully. “Then the teacher she reads them!”

I looked more closely. Max, Gemma, Zac, Eden... they all had their leaves on the tree. It seemed that poor little Boo was the only child with no good deed. Clearly, I had failed again. No good deed for Mummy.

“Can you write I make a bed?” Boo asked.

I thought for a minute. “Boo, you haven’t ever made the bed. I don’t think I can write that.”

“Just write it!” she said. I considered it for a moment, but didn’t feel comfortable lying about a good deed. Wasn’t that some sort of sin?

“Why don’t you make the bed?” I asked her. “Then I can write it for the tree!”

Boo shook her head. “I don’t want to make a bed. I just want a good deed!” I sighed.

We said goodbye to the teachers, and trudged outside to the car.

“Why don’t you clean up the Lego at home and I’ll write that on the good deed tree?” I suggested.

“I don’t want to clean up my Lego. Just write it!”

“But darling you have to actually do the good deed, that’s the whole point of the exercise.”

“Mum, I don’t think she really understands you,” ten year old Pinkela piped up from the backseat. She is always the voice of reason. I called on her for help.

“Will you explain the concept of the good deed tree to Boo?”

Pinkela put on her Big Sister face and her most reasonable voice. “Boo, you have to do a Good deed to get a leaf on the tree. What would you like to be your good deed? Would you like to help me make your bed and then we can write that on the tree?”

“NO!” Boo yelled. “I don’t want to make my bed. Just write it on the tree! Do it!”

“Er, Mum?” said Pinkela. “I think she understands.”

All the way home I contemplated the dilemma. Do I write Boo a good deed for doing nothing at all? Or do I withhold the leaf, and allow her to continue as the only child in the pre-school not featured on the tree?

In the end, I compromised. I didn’t lie, but I wasn’t scrupulously honest, either. I gave Boo her leaf, but it had a hopeful tone, and used ‘always’ in the sense of ‘sometimes’.

Boo always puts her dishes in the sink, I wrote, and I pinned the leaf to the tree.

Boo beamed, I smiled, and we both felt happy. And that was truly a good deed.

Mummy's Special Diet Biscuits & Other Acts Of Devious Brilliance

2011-10-09T18:59:00.000+11:00

I must say, Twitter teaches you the most amazing things. At least, it teaches me the most amazing things. I really can't speak for you. For all I know you're not even on Twitter, which means it's not teaching you anything at all.

What's more, it doesn't always teach me especially amazing things - it often teaches me things that are fairy mundane or just mildly amusing. But that's beside the point too.

What is my point actually is - and I really do have one - is that the other day, I had a very interesting Twitter discussion with some of my online buddies. It was about food, as many of my discussions with my online buddies tend to be. (To be honest, many of my discussions with my real life buddies tend to be about food too. I guess I'm just really interested in food [which is fascinating, as I'm not interested in cooking at all]).

I had Tweeted about my surprise that I had not lost weight, despite a week on the Central Coast with my mum and kids eating very little other than hot chips and apple pie (and, you know, breakfast, lunch and dinner). I thought that chips were one of those foods that have negative calories - the more you eat of them, the less you weigh. Apparently I was wrong. Apparently it's celery (or kiwi fruit, or potato scallops - there was some minor controversy).

My Special Vitamins (half a dose)

This led to a mind blowing disclosure about the peculiar misconceptions other people believe, or perpetrate, about food. One Tweep, @ptmaree, told me about her friend who grew up being told that Kingstons were his mum's special diet biscuits, which made me stand up on my seat and applaud this genius woman whom I'd never met (or even knew the name of, apart from 'ptmaree's mate's mum').

Another, @propinqua, revealed that she tells her kids that Vita Weets are called Tim Tams, which demostrates a level of devious brilliance I had only previously suspected she had.

And then @duckformation - poor, tragic @duckformation - told us how her mother had always described fried eggs as 'special cheese'. She confessed that she had always had a difficult relationship with cheese since. Quite frankly, if I was her I would have had a difficult relationship with eggs, too. And my mother.

Happily, my mother inflicted no such cruelties on me, though we did regularly eat a 'meal' consisting of tinned tuna covered by mashed potato known by the improbably sophisticated moniker of 'Fish Pie'. I still can't be in a room with potato and tuna at the same time.

I have never, ever attempted to trick my kids, though. Of course, I tell them that my packets of dark chocolate bullets are my 'special vitamin pills' and my bottles of red wine are 'Mummy's health drinks', but that's not a lie at all. It's the absolute, honest truth.

And now I'm going to have some schnitzel. My husband assures me that it's the key to good health, and I want to do the best by my family.

The $200 That Made My Life A Little Less Good

2011-10-03T12:01:00.002+11:00

Today I was robbed. At least I think I was robbed. It certainly feels like I've been robbed. Something that is rightfully mine was taken and I feel a tremendous sense of injustice. Except that the whole thing was really my fault, so I feel a tremendous sense of stupidity as well.

I had stopped at a petrol station to buy some snacks for the kids on route to my parents' holiday house on the coast. I wish I hadn't. I wish I'd just let the kids stay pekish or eat the two week old cheesestiks I'd found in my bag. But no, I didn't want them to feel the faintest growl of hunger for the long, long ninety minute drive - I mean, god forbid they should do something with their mouths other than chew - and so I stopped at the station.

I headed first to the ATM to withdraw some cash, then made a beeline for the biscuit aisle to grab some Shapes. (And no, I'm not proud of having bought my kids Shapes, but I'm not proud of anything that happened this morning, so there's no real discordance.)

Within a few seconds of picking up the Shapes I realized I'd forgotten to pick up my cash. I'd withdrawn $200, which isn't a massive amount, but it's not small change, either. I raced back the three metres to the ATM to grab my cash which was still waiting in the machine for me. Except that it wasn't waiting at all.

It had gone.

I couldn't believe it. I had been gone for all of 45 seconds and my cash was gone. Where the hell was my cash?

I looked around at all the people in the service station, and there were a few of them. Could any of them have taken my cash? I scanned their faces for signs of guilt. They all looked guilty, though perhaps they were just bored, or hungry; after all, it's not that easy reading the faces of complete strangers.

So I took the direct route. "Did any of you take my money?" I called out to the room at large. "My cash is missing! Did you pick it up?"

"No."

"Nope."

"Not me," they all answered, which meant that either none of them took it, or one of them was lying.

I pushed my way to the front of the counter and cried out to the cashier, "My money is gone! Someone took my money!"

"Are you sure?" he asked. "Maybe the transaction didn't go through."

I thought for a moment. It seemed possible, as I was old and demented, so I checked my bank records on my mobile phone. It had gone through all right. The money had been withdrawn. It just didn't make it to my pocket.

"Do you have a CCTV?" I asked.

"Yes," the man said.

"Well can you check it?" I asked.

"Yes," the man said. I waited a minute.

"Well, <i>will</i> you check it please?" I asked.

"Oh, yes," the man said, and murmured some instructions to the female cashier working next to him. She disappeared into the back room, and I waited.

Around fifteen minutes later, she reappeared. "Yes," she told me, "the footage shows a man coming up behind you, taking money, and walking straight out the door."

"Oh," I said. There didn't seem to be anything else to say.

"The bank won't reimburse you if someone else took your cash," the male cashier said helpfully.

"Great," I said. There didn't seem to be anything else to do. I walked back outside to where my husband and kids waited in the car. They ate the Shapes in silence, and I drove despondently to the coast, feeling violated and stupid and $200 worse off.

"Think how many Shapes we could have bought for $200, Mum," my son said helpfully, and I turned the radio on high.

I still can't believe that someone took my money. They would have seen me leave it there, and just decide to keep it for themselves. I'm not a perfect person - far, far from it - but If I saw someone leave their money in a cash machine, I would run after them immediately and give it back. I'm less upset about the money than people can be so incredibly selfish. If that person had told me I'd forgotten my money, I would have gushed with gratitude and felt warm towards humankind. As it is, I feel ripped off and angry, and sad at the lack of caring in this world.

I hope that $200 burns a hole in that man's conscience, I really do. And if by some strange coincidence he ever reads this, I hope he knows that he made this world just a little less good today.

When I Married The Architect

2011-09-28T14:38:00.003+10:00

Today is a very special day. Fourteen years ago today, I married my husband in a quaint beachside ceremony. Okay, so we didn't get married in a quaint beachside ceremony - we got married at the zoo surrounded by a giraffe and seven noisy chimps. Which isn't quite accurate - we got married in Vegas by a Justin Bieber impersonator after knowing each other for twenty minutes. Which is also not true, as Justin Bieber wasn't even born when we met, which shows how incredibly young he really is.

We actually got married on a pontoon moored in Rose Bay, Sydney, and that is the absolute truth. The Aquashell is a magnificent, architecturally designed floating stage that hosts rock concerts and the like, and is usually moored at places like Darling Harbour. We were the first wedding party to hire the Aquashell, mostly because my husband has incredible vision and style, but also because we were a little nuts.

The Aquashell (minus us)

The Architect and I told only my parents about the pontoon, as we wanted to keep it a surprise for everyone. Naturally the day was overcast and threatening rain, which caused consternation amongst the other guests. They all believed the wedding was being held at Rose Bay Wharf, so were worried that they were going to get wet. All morning I was fielding calls from worried friends: Do you have a contingency plan? What about rain? Smugly, I told them to relax, and that it was all taken care of, knowing the magnificent surprise that awaited.

The Architect was getting ready at his brother's house, and my brother-in-law was concerned about the rain situation.

"What if it rains?" he asked The Architect.

"It's not going to rain," The Architect assured him.

The clouds were darkening. My brother-in-law looked doubtful. My sister-in-law walked into the room.

"What if it rains?" she asked The Architect.

"It's not going to rain," The Architect assured her.

The clouds were getting fuller. My sister-in-law looked doubtful. She left the room in search of an umbrella.

A half an hour later, my brother-in-law was getting anxious.

"But what if it rains?" he asked The Architect.

My husband sighed. "Come on," he said.

He took my brother-in-law to Rose Bay, and showed him. My brother-in-law looked at The Aquashell, and nodded. They got back into the car, and drove home in silence.

"What if it rains?" my sister-in-law asked her husband.

"It's not going to rain," my brother-in-law said.

Later that afternoon, I walked on my father's arm to the Aquashell. The rain held off, and I got on the stage without incident. As the ceremony was being performed, I realized how nervous I was. I was so jittery I was swaying, the ground felt like it was moving under my feet.

And then I realized, I was standing on a pontoon. The ground really was moving under my feet.

It began to rain lightly as the ceremony ended. I stayed nice and dry under the cover of the Aquashell. The guests around the open sides weren't quite so lucky, and several of them got quite wet. It seems that I forgot in my excitement that rain doesn't always fall vertically.

Later that night, one of the interstate guests got set on fire. But that, my friends, is another story.

Happy Anniversary, Architect. x

The Dangerous Dinner Party Box Of Questions

2011-09-21T10:54:00.000+10:00

You know when you come up with a brilliant idea? Well, I just have.

One of the toys I brought back from the U.S. for my kids was a tiny little box of cards called (appropriately enough) The Tiny Family Dinner Box Of Questions. It includes fascinating questions to start family discussions, such as "Who at this table is most likely to borrow something and forget to give it back?" and "Describe a perfect weekend?" (which isn't technically a question, but is still a good conversation starter).

Now, you can, of course, get boxes of Dinner Party Questions for adult dinner parties, but these tend to be of the wholesome, stimulating-but-non-provoking variety - which, as we all know, is another word for 'boring'.

So I have come up with my own Dinner Party Questions, called (appropriately enough) The Dangerous Dinner Party Box Of Questions.

Feel free to add suggestions of your own.

The Dangerous Dinner Party Box Of Questions.

Name the most annoying characteristic of the person to your left.
Describe the last conversation you had about the person to your right.
How much money would you be prepared to lend the person sitting opposite you?
Who is the worst cook at this table?
Who is the worst dressed person at this table?
Who is the worst parent at this table?
Who at this table would you most like to sleep with?
Who at this table would you least like to sleep with?
Who at this table would your partner most like to sleep with?
Name the person at this table with whom you would most like to be stranded on a desert island.
Name the person at this table with whom you would least like to be stranded on a desert island.
Who at this table has the child who is the most badly behaved?
Who at this table do you think has the most sex with their partner?
Who at this table do you think has the least sex with their partner?
Who at this table is most likely to engage in shady business dealings?
Who at this table is most likely to end up in jail?
Who at this table is most likely to end up in rehab?
Who at this table is most likely to engage in kinky sexual practices?
If you could swap lives with one person at this table, whose would it be?
If you could swap partners with one person at this table, whose would it be?

Death By Chapter 19

2011-09-16T10:00:00.000+10:00

Many of you will know that I am currently writing my second book, the title of which is not 'When My Husband Does The Dishes...' because I have used that one already. Also, the book is not about my husband, or dishes (though the former may get the occasional mention).

My manuscript is due on the first of November, which is not far away at all, though obviously further away than, say, tomorrow.

I have been powering through the book so far. It is on a topic I know a great deal about (so definitely not fame or money) and one that is very close to my heart (so definitely not country and western music). So far I have written up to two chapters a week, pouring my words into the keyboard much like Boo poured water into my keyboard just a few days ago (with, hopefully, less disasterous results).

Still, all good things must come to an end, and this week, my writing has done just that. Because I am stuck. At Chapter 19.

I can't tell you what Chapter 19 is about because it would spoil Chapters 1 through 18 for you. And besides, you'll see for yourself when you buy the book next May. Except that Chapter 19 may not be Chapter 19 by then. After editing it may be Chapter 18 or 20, or even Chapter 1, though that would be unfortunate, as it would disrupt the flow of the entire book. But still...

I can't write Chapter 19. I don't know why, but I can't. In fact, if I knew why, then possibly I would be able to write it, so perhaps not knowing why I can't write it is the key. All I know is that I've been trying to write it for a week now, and have come up with nothing more than a few shopping lists, a letter to my daughter's school about why she needed to be excused early on Wednesday, and a video blog on beauty tips (which - as I know as much about beauty tips as I do about country and western music - really shows I was scraping the bottom of the barrel).

I have asked my husband repeatedly for advice and he has been as close to useless as one can get. He told me to skip Chapter 19 and move straight on to Chapter 20, which is completely untenable as far as I'm concerned. For one thing, Chapter 19 comes before Chapter 20 (the fact that '19' comes before '20' is a dead giveaway) and so I can't write the latter before writing the former. For another thing, I am completely obsessive, and can think of nothing else until I squeeze Chapter 19 out.

I told my husband he had been very unhelpful and he just shrugged. "What would you have liked me to do?" he asked.

I didn't respond, as I was too cranky, and besides, I was still trying to compose the first sentence for Chapter nine-fucking-teen. But now, for his elucidation and future reference, I shall outline ways he could actually have helped me. For his convenience, they are ordered from least to most useful:

Give me some writing exercises to get me inspired to write Chapter 19;
Give me the first line of Chapter 19;
Come up with an alternative to Chapter 19, for example 'Chapter 18.5';
Write a letter to my publisher excusing me from having to write Chapter 19, for example 'The bunny ate Chapter 19;
Write a letter to my readers excusing me from having to write Chapter 19, for example 'The book works far better without Chapter 19;
Write Chapter 19 for me;
Get Mark Dapin to write Chapter 19 for me;
Burn the whole bloody manuscript and get me a job in a cake shop. I like cake.

A Relieved Post

2011-09-08T11:08:00.000+10:00

A couple of years ago, I went to hear the writer Mark Dapin give a talk. I'd admired his work for years, and was terribly excited to meet him. I can't recall exactly what I said when I accosted him after his speech, but I do recall showing him my tattoos, which probably indicates that my introduction was not the most sophisticated. Or subtle. Then again, I do tend to show complete strangers my tattoos, so it wasn't particularly unusual either.

Still, I couldn't have made too bad an impression. Mark and I fell into regular email contact (by which I mean I relentlessly emailed him until he emailed back) and eventually became friends (by which I mean I relentlessly email him until he emails back). We've even been out to dinner with our respective spouses, a fun, if rather humiliating occasion which I discussed at length here.

Observant readers of this blog will note that I only really talk about three men, each of whom have their own categories. In the lead is my husband (who has scored 19 tags), following closely behind is Simon Baker (who has scored 13), and bringing up the rear is Mark (5 and counting). A friend of mine who noticed this suggested that perhaps I want to sleep with Mark, given that I certainly want to sleep with Simon, and already sleep with my husband*. The reality, however, is that I already have a short, balding Jewish man (except this week, when he is in China) and that I purely want Mark for his emails.

Last week one of Mark's emails mentioned that he'd recently written a novel, 'Spirit House', a fact I was vaguely aware of, as he mentions it in every single email he sends me. The book, he said, had actually hit the shelves, so I could read it if I liked.

Well, I wasn't sure. To be perfectly honest, I get nervous reading novels by my favourite columnists. They often turn out to be really crap, as writing columns is a very different skill to writing fiction. But I couldn't exactly say no, because that's rude, and I pride myself on my manners**. So I started reading.

'Spirit House' is a beautiful, funny, moving, evocative book. Thirteen year old David has been shipped off to his grandparents' house in Bondi so his mum can spend time with her much younger lover. His Jewish grandfather, Jimmy, a veteran of POW camps on the Thailand-Burma railway, is having flashbacks to the war, and eventually shares his stories with David. Jimmy's recounts of his war experiences are painfully evocative and insightful, but the ~~Greek~~ Jewish chorus of his old friends and drinking buddies Solly, Katz and Meyer, and Jimmy's long-suffering wife Frida, balance the narrative with levity, wit and genuine laugh-out-loud humour.

I am loving 'Spirit House', to my intense relief, because it would have been incredibly awkward to tell Mark it sucked. Buy it.

*Well, on occasion
**Except when flashing my tattoos at complete strangers

Life Without Husband

2011-09-05T11:19:00.000+10:00

On Sunday, my husband left for a two week business trip to China. This bothered me tremendously, as he had to leave the house at 5am, and the alarm woke me on a lazy Sunday morning at 4.30*.

Since then, I have been living life as a single mother of three, and contemplating the pros and cons thereof. And though it has only been just over 24 hours, I believe I have a pretty good handle on things.

No Husband: The Pros

I do not have to cook dinner for my husband, and so I am (hypothetically) free to feed the kids sausages, and myself vast quantities of chocolate covered rasberry licorice followed by, ahem, cheese.
There will be a lot less laundry.
There will be a lot less arguments.
I can sleep soundly without being woken by my husband's regular 2am nose-blowing session.
There will be no piles of horrid tissues next to my husband's side of the bed in the morning as there will be no 2am nose-blowing sessions.
I can get into bed with a pore cleansing strip on my nose without my husband recoiling in horror and yelling 'My eyes! My eyes!'
I can lounge on my bed in my undies without any expectation of sex.
I can lounge on my bed in my undies and a pore cleansing strip without my husband saying 'Oh for gods sake, make up your mind.'
I do not have to wait for the shower so I won't be late getting the kids to school.
I can watch whatever I want on TV without my husband grabbing the remote and switching channels every single commercial break.
I can leave mess everywhere without my husband coming home and asking what I 'did all day'.

Tomorrow night's dinner

No Husband: The Cons

I do not have to cook dinner for my husband and so I can (er... 'hypothetically') feed myself vast quantities of chocolate covered rasberry licorice followed by cheese. This is probably not an ideal way to eat in the long run.
I have to take all three kids to school.
I have to take Boo to swimming lessons in the wee-wee infested waters.
I have to take the rubbish out. Or would have, if I'd remembered to do so last night. Woops.
I get nervous without a big, strong man in bed with me in case of emergency. Except that my husband isn't big or strong, and he'd probably sleep through it anyway, so that doesn't really count.
I don't have to wait for the shower so when I get the kids to school late I can't blame it on their father.
There is no-one on whom to warm my feet before sleep.
There will be a lot less laughing.
I kind of miss him.

*of course I did go back to sleep, but I really do prefer not to be disturbed

Pain And Knobs In Melbourne

2011-09-01T08:35:00.001+10:00

Yesterday I flew home after a whirlwind 27 hours in Melbourne. I'd flown down to conduct an 'In Conversation' with my friend, the author Kylie Ladd, which consisted of Kylie and I sitting on high stools in front of an audience as I fired questions at her. This worked out very well for both of us. Kylie got to talk about her fabulous new book 'Last Summer', and I got to indulge my Oprah fantasies, only without any tiresome speculation about my sexuality, or the need to hand out cars to the gathered crowd.

The entire trip went almost perfectly. I had an excellent time after the 'In Conversation' at the nearby pub with Kylie and various friends from the online world, and then more fun the following day having breakfast with Kylie and her son, and later lunch with my aunt and cousin.

The problems came in between. And yes, there are always problems at some point. At least, there always are for me.

Kylie and I got back to her house about midnight, which is rather late for me. We'd also been drinking very heavily, which in my case meant two glasses of Cab Sav. It took me a little while to fall asleep in Kylie's daughter's bed, but once I did I slept the deep slumber of one pleased with a job well done, much as I suspect Oprah does after a satisfying interview with Tom Cruise.

Suddenly, at an unknown hour in the middle of the night, I woke with an agonising pain in my right eye. It felt like someone had taken a shard of glass, inserted it beneath my eyelid, and was punching my eye with a blunt fist. I was blinded with the pain, except that I was blinded anyway, because I couldn't open my eyes.

I covered my right eye with my right hand and opened the left eye. To my surprise, I was blinded anyway. Kylie's daughter's room was pitch black. I put my left hand out in front of me to feel for a landmark and groped around in the dark. I literally couldn't see my hand in front of my face, not that I could actually put my hand in front of my face, because one hand was clutching my right eye and the other was feeling around in the dark.

Eyepatch: Attractive and practical

I knew that I had to get to the bathroom, to look in the mirror and try to flush whatever it was out of my eye. Before I could get to the bathroom, however, I had to get out of the bedroom. And this wasn't easy in the utter blackness with an excruciating pain in my eye.

I floundered around endlessly until finally my hand landed on the door knob. It was round and large, which confused me a little as I remembered the knob as being horizontal and thin. Still, I didn't care about morphing door knobs at that point. My eye was burning and I had to get out of there.

I tried turning the handle but nothing happened, which could have had something to do with the fact that I was turning it with my left hand, and perhaps was turning it in the wrong direction. I tried to focus, foggy with sleep and pain, but to no avail. Finally I just pulled the damn thing and fell into Kylie's daughter's closet.

I was tempted to give up, but the pain in my eye was searing, and I needed to fight on. I negotiated myelf backwards back onto the bed and tried again. I plotted out the room in my mind, remembering that the door was to the left of the cupboard. I held on to the cupboard and felt my way along the wall, frogmarching through the bedroom until I hit the door. Thank god!

Now, I knew I had found the door because I could feel its outline, and Kylie's daughter's dressing gown hanging on a hook on the back. My problem now was to find the handle, because there didn't seem to be one. Or at least, my left hand couldn't find it.

After about a year, my hand found the door. Finally,with overwhelming relief, I tripped into the hall and made my way into the bathroom. Once there, I turned on the light, which was another shocking mistake. I nearly fell over in fright and agony as the glaring light burned into my one exposed retina.

When my eye finally adjusted I began the horrible task of flushing out my eye. It didn't work. I couldn't see anything in there, and it was making the pain worse. I tried crying, but that felt bloody uncomfortable too. I considered waking Kylie up, but I didn't know what she could do except for putting a bandaid on my eye, so I decided to let her sleep.

In the end, I took a couple of Panadol and went back to bed. By the morning, my eye was still sore but manageable. Today, it is all better.

Of course, there's something to learn from every experience and I learned something from this. For one thing, my body is utterly unpredictable and never fails to surprise with its range of ailments and discomforts.

For another thing, I should always travel with a night light. I'll never know when eye might need it.

The Shame Will Come

2011-08-29T11:04:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I tricked my husband. I'm not proud of it* but we have to do what we have to do.

I was having one of those weekends - you know, the kind when you have to take all three kids to the supermarket and clean up a weeks' worth of mess and do five loads of laundry and entertain other people's children and go to swimming lessons and pack for a school camp and attend a four-year-old's birthday party. And I couldn't face doing all of them alone.

I had to offload some of the work to my husband. Meaning, give him one chore and do the rest myself. As per normal.

Now, to be fair, The Architect does work on a Saturday, so he only gets one day of rest. But seeing as I get none days of rest, I do not feel guilty asking him to do something to help ease my burden.

So I gave him a choice. He could take three year old Boo to her swimming lesson at 8.30am, or he could take her to a Spiderman-themed birthday party at 10am.

Our conversation went a little like this:

Architect: Which activity will allow me the most time to engage with our daughter? Which do you feel will be the more bonding experience for us? Which would you consider, as a parent, to be the most personally fulfilling? Which would Boo prefer me to attend?

Ha! Are you kidding? The conversation went nothing like that. In fact, it went exactly like this:

Architect: How long is swimming? How long is the party?

Me: Swimming is only half an hour, the party is two hours.

Architect: Can I drop Boo at swimming or do I have to stay?

Me: You have to stay.

Architect: Can I drop Boo at the party or do I have to stay?

Me: You have to stay.

Architect: Do I have to talk to people at the party?

Me: No, you can sit in a corner on your own. YES YOU HAVE TO TALK TO PEOPLE. What, you want the other parents to think that Boo has a mute, psychopathic father?

Architect: I don't like talking to people.

Me: Yeah, I've noticed that.

Architect: Do I have to talk to people at swimming?

Me: No, you just have to make sure Boo doesn't drown.

Architect: Okay, I'll take swimming.

I got Boo dressed in her tiny little swimsuit and waited for my husband to come down the stairs. At 8.20am, the time he needed to leave, he walked out of the bedroom, said "Come on Boo! Let's go swimming!", grabbed our daughter's hand, and headed out the door.

"Um... you may want to take towels?" I suggested.

He turned around and the slightest hint of abashment crossed his face. He took a towel from the linen closet and headed back out again. "Okay Boo! We're going!"

"Just wanted to check you have your swimsuit on?" I called out.

"What do you mean my swimsuit on?" he asked. "I'm not getting in the water!"

I may have looked a little triumphant. "Oh yes you are," I told him. "It's a parent-child swimming group. And if you don't get your swimsuit on you're going to be swimming in your undies. Not that there's anything wrong with that..."

My husband shot me a wounded look. "You tricked me!" he said. "You didn't say I had to get in the water!"

"Really?" I asked. "Sorry, must have forgot." And he ran upstairs and got changed.

The Architect and Boo had a wonderful time at swimming, getting into gross, overheated water with a bunch of very young children with teeny weeny bladders. Lucky them.

And then I took Boo to a lovely party at which she was entertained by a delightful Spiderman (in a skin-tight suit, for those interested...), and I got to sit in the sun drinking coffee and eating hotdogs and cake, chatting to other mums and dads and generally not being in chlorinated, urinated water.

And if I used a little trickery to get there, well, I'll think about that over the laundry this evening. I'm sure the shame will come eventually.

*actually I'm extremely proud of it

Why I Need A TV In My Bedroom

2011-08-25T11:16:00.001+10:00

Those of you who follow me on Twitter will know that the television in my bedroom died the other day (and yes, I thank you in advance for your kind wishes at this very difficult time in my life).

I do not watch an enormous amount of TV, but the television in my room is irreplaceable (though I hope not literally so, as that would be bad news indeed). And having gone forty eight hours without it, I can specify why:

Top Reasons I Need A TV In My Bedroom

My husband and I have been married for nearly fifteen years, and our kids and work aren't interesting enough to sustain us through a long evening. Without television, we would run out of things to talk about within about ten minutes.
The door to our ensuite bathroom is not very sound proof. Without the television volume turned on high, I might hear souns emanating from that room that I just won't be able to ever unhear again.
When my husband and I both read in bed, he tries to read me passages from his book, I try to read him passages from my book, we both get annoyed at each other for not showing interest in each others' books, and the whole thing descends into chaos.
Without television in the bedroom, until we are ready to sleep there will be nothing to do in bed but talk (see point 1. above), read (see point 3. above), or have sex. As mentioned, we have been married for nearly fifteen years. There's only so many times a week we can have sex before it gets old.
Without a television in the bedroom, I can't warm up for sex by watching The Mentalist.
Without a television in the bedroom, my husband can't warm up for sex by watching one of those BBC 'Documentaries' he is so fond of (though quite frankly, Top Gear seems to do it for him just as effectively).
Without a television in the bedroom, there is nothing to watch while I actually am having sex.
Without a television in the bedroom, we can't turn on the morning shows as we get ready for the day, which means that all we can hear from 6.30am till 8am is the crazy-making sounds of Spongebob Squarepants.
If I can't turn on the the morning shows as I get ready, I don't know what the news of the day is, or, more importantly, what the temperature is going to be.
If I can't turn on the morning shows as I get ready, I can't pretend that I don't hear my kids above the noise of my television, and I might have to actually respond to their demands for food, bag-packing assistance, conflict mediation and retrieval of lost shoes, and quite frankly, I'm far too tired.

Do you have a TV in your bedroom?

Sartoriaphobia: My Shame

2011-08-22T12:25:00.000+10:00

When I was younger, I had satoriaphobia, a word I just made up that means 'Fear of wearing the same outfit as someone else'. It haunted me. Back when I was a kid, we didn't have Westfields (or computers) in which to shop for clothes. We had a couple of local stores and we all shopped at the same places. For me, it was a cute little boutique called The Individual Kid, and the kidswear department of Grace Bros* (David Jones being far too expensive back then).

My criteria for buying clothes as a child was simple. I wanted to look as trendy as Michelle*, the trendiest girl in my year, but not exactly the same as Michelle, because then I'd look like I'd copied her, and what I was really aiming for was a homage.

Well, this was not easy. For a start, I had no idea what Michelle was going to wear until she wore it, which made homages kind of tricky. For another thing, I had no sense of style or taste, and had to rely on my mother to choose my clothes for me. Now, my mother was great at choosing her own clothes, and great at helping my sister choose her clothes** but not so great when it came to choosing my clothes - which is why I was always slightly daggy at school and never got Josh Goldenbum**** to love me***.

Still, I never did wear exactly the same outfit as someone else, except for twice on the very same day.

I was attending a Barmitzvah celebration - that coming of age ceremony for Jewish boys when they turn thirteen. Barmitzvahs start with a synagogue service in the morning, and conclude with a party later that day. I went to the synagogue service in a brand new dress, and to this day I remember it with absolute clarity. It was pink and short sleeved, with a little belt and a bright floral print. And Monica Biggs was wearing the exact same dress. And she looked better than me. I was devastated.

Pink & Shakira deal with it better

Still, there was always the disco party that evening. I had a second dress, a gorgeous little number from The Individual Kid that I absolutely adored. It had a purple tank top, to which a green, pink and purple striped skirt was attached. I looked terrific in it. Sadly, though, Jessie Freed looked even better. Individual Kid my arse. I wanted to cry.

Happily, I have never again experienced such sartorial shame, though my sartoriaphobia has remained. Then on Saturday night, the unthinkable happened.

I was getting dressed to go out to a (you guessed it) Barmitzvah party, only this time as a friend of the mother. I had planned my outfit for weeks: a crisp, white, linen shift dress with three quarter sleeves and a hint of embroidery at the bust, worn with high brown boots and some beads. I got dressed and admired myself appreciatively in the mirror - I looked fresh, young and groovy. Then I walked into the bedroom to where my husband sat on the bed.

"Are you kidding me?" he exclaimed.

"Don't you like it?" I asked. I was crushed.

"It looks like a cultural exposition," he told me.

I did not wish to look like a cultural exposition. Quite frankly, I just wanted to look pretty. So - though I often ignore my husband's fashion advice - I ran back to my wardrobe and got changed.

At the party that night, I received many compliments on my new, New York purchased dress. I liked what I was wearing, but still thought longingly of my cultural exposition at home.

And then I saw her. Another woman, brunette, curly-haired like me, wearing my white, linen shift dress with high brown boots. She was wearing my cultural exposition! If I'd worn it too, we would have been twins. I felt a surge of relief. My husband had saved me from humiliation.

So the moral of the story is simple. Always listen to your husband's advice, for reasons you won't actually predict. And if you're trying to be trendy, don't go for a cultural exposition. It looks like a nightie anyway, and you'll never be as Individual as you think.

*not her real name, her real name was actually Nicole
**mainly because Tanya would say 'I want this' and my mum would pay
***or at least, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it.
****not his real name, but he knows who he is. Hi there! Why didn't you love me????

Flying And Punishment

2011-08-18T10:45:00.000+10:00

Those of you who read my blog regularly will know that I have recently returned from the United States. Those of you who don’t read my blog regularly really should. It’s very funny and it will make your hair lush and your skin glow (which isn’t true, but I can promise you that it definitely won’t hurt).

I had a wonderful time overseas but have been paying the price since I returned home. For one thing, I got my Visa bill, which gave me an immediate panic attack, and caused me to reach, shaking, for the Valium. Unfortunately, though, I had already taken my last Valium, when I had woken in a claustrophobic panic in our terrifyingly miniscule hotel room in New York, and had to either calm myself down pharmaceutically, or run to Central Park in my pyjamas.

(I did consider going to Central park, but a) according to Simon and Garfunkel you should not wander there after dark, and b) despite the streets being numbered, I wasn’t at all sure I could find it without my map. And I couldn’t find my map because it was night time.)

I truly hadn’t realised how much money we were spending in America because it was all so very cheap. I mean, how can you resist buying a top for US$60 which has been marked down from US$400, and works out to be more like AUS$55 after the conversion?

What I failed to grasp, of course, is that the US$60 is before tax, so that the final price is closer to US$70, which is over AUS$60. And what I also failed to grasp is that $60 is still $60, and works out to be more like $6000 when you spend it a hundred times. Still, I certainly grasp that now.

Since arriving back in Australia, I have also been paying an emotional price. Now, I’m not talking about jetlag, although it is most inconvenient to have to drop everything at lunchtime each day and sleep for a couple of hours (not to mention unpleasant for my kids, who are picked up by a mummy whose skin is pale and grey and who is drooling from the side of her mouth).

I’m talking about guilt.

Not my child. But a good likeness.

We went to the States without our three children, because – although we were desperate to take them with us – our work commitments precluded it. (And if you believe that, you’ll believe that my blog makes your hair lush, because we really just wanted to go alone.)

My kids were well looked after by their grandparents and babysitter, and behaved beautifully the whole time we were away. And the two older kids have been wonderful since we’ve been back, no doubt because they missed us terribly, although it may also have had something to do with their numerous gifts, also known as ‘Any excuse to visit the M&M store’.

Three year old Boo, on the other hand, has been rather less wonderful. Though she insists that she is ‘very happy’ to have us home, she has expressed this joy rather oddly, by crying when I don’t give her six chocolate wafers, crying when I pay attention to her siblings, and crying when asked to do a wee. Apparently, this is known as ‘punishing us for going away’.

As if the Visa bill wasn’t punishment enough.

The Force Was With Us

2011-08-14T13:36:00.001+10:00

Today has been absolutely exhausting. We have spent most of the day sitting on our balcony watching the City To Surf, the annual fun run from Sydney's CBD to Bondi Beach. Watching people jog and sweat has really taken it out of me. I should have done some training.

The race began with a trickle of runners, the serious sportspeople who would fight it out for the win. It was terribly exciting and the kids and I ran outside to cheer them on. We clapped, we waved, and I tried to go 'Woo hoo!' but had to stop after my son told me I was an embarrassment.

The Balcony Scene

Across the road, Boo's best friend, the delightful Sarah, appeared with her mum and dad, having walked up the hill from their home.

'There's Sarah!" cried Boo. "I want to play with her!"

"Okay, let me just get your coat," I said. I rushed inside and rushed out again.
"Alright, let's go."

Er... no. Slight problem. In that 30 seconds, about 20 billion people had flooded the road. They had come out of nowhere (actually, they had come out of the city, but that's just semantics), and were pounding the pavement, panting and grunting in a pumping wall of humanity. And there was no way we were getting past them in one piece.

"Sa-RAH!!!" my three year old wailed, reaching out pathetically across the road. It was tragic. So near, and yet so far. I tried to explain that we could simply not risk being trampled to death in the name of a playdate, but she was inconsolable.

Then beside me, an elderly woman appeared, dressed as if for church. She looked to her right, looked to her left, and then ran, ducking and weaving through the sea of joggers in her skirt and hat like a pious Pac Man. It was inspiring. That, my friends, is what Faith will do for you.

Over the couse of the morning, we saw a number of interesting competitors. There were Smurfs, Super Marios, and a blue Avatar person. There were Spidermen, Supermen and a limping Batman ("I guess I'm not invincible after all," he told me sadly). There were a couple of wrestlers, many Bananas (some peeled, some whole), and a Colonel Gadaffi (don't ask). There were Lego pieces, a Stig, aliens, and an awful lot of tutus. And there were a couple of Wonder Women, looking more than a little tired. ("Wonder Woman! All the world is waiting for you!" I said. "Well it'll have to wait a bit longer," one of them replied.)

Can you see Elmo?

About half way through the race my daughter posted a sign. KEEP GOING! it commanded. And then the sign fell off.

"Do you think I should play my violin?" she asked.

"Well that will certainly make them run a lot faster," I told her.

My husband and I brought out stools, sat down and continued to shout out encouragement to the passing masses. "Less talking, more running!" I yelled to a chattering group of girls.

"Less sitting, more running!" one of them yelled back. I guess I deserved that.

"Go ducky!!!" I shouted to a runner in a duck costume.

"For god sake, Kerri," said my husband. "You're embarrassing me."

"Why?" I asked. "I'm allowed to cheer!"

"Because it's a chicken," he said, and rolled his eyes.

Still, by the end of the race, it was my husband who was embarrassing me. "Disqualified!" he started calling out at random (although happily, no-one took notice). "Give up! There's no point! You'll never finish!" he said. And I dragged him into the house.

Eventually, the sea of runners trickled to a stream. We went inside, and watched the end of the race through the window. But the best was yet to come. A huge group of Star Wars Storm Troopers marched past our house in full costume. It was awesome. It was almost spiritual. I hoped the church lady had seen them.

May The Force Be With You

Later in the day I got to thinking. If I started training now, I could run the City To Surf next year. I too could be one of those joggers. I could be a Smurf, or a Batgirl, or a Banana. I could be an Elmo, or a Star Trooper, or a Duck. (I could even be a Chicken, but then I'd probably get confused.)

But it looked like really hard work, and even writing this post has made me tired. I think I'll just stick to the balcony.

Friends & Embarrassment

2011-08-07T22:25:00.002+10:00

On Saturday night my husband and I went to dinner with the writer Mark Dapin and his partner, Claire. We arrived at the restaurant perfectly on time, partly because I am very punctual, and partly because I like to be on time with Mark to remind him of the fact that he was half an hour late to my book launch. Which would have been fine, except that he was launching it.

I scanned the room, but Mark was nowhere to be seen.

"Shall I zeet you at yer tubble?" asked the waiter*.

"Sure," I said.

"You are tu?"

"No, we are four."

"You are fur?" he asked, and indicated a woman standing by the bar. "You are weez zis lady here?"

I looked at the lady. She was tall with long brown hair and long pale arms. I had never met Claire, so didn't know if it was her. However, I figured that as long term partners frequently ended up looking like each other, she would probably be short, balding and covered head to toe with tattoos.

"I don't think so," I said.

"But mebbe she iz weez you?" the waiter insisted.

So I had to ask.

I tapped the woman on the shoulder. "Are you Claire?" She shook her head haughtily, which I took as a 'no'. The waiter gave an unconvinced hurrumph, as if I was deliberately making things difficult.

"Come zees way," he said. We followed him to a table where a pretty, blonde woman sat alone.

"So. You are weez zis lady here?"

I hoped fervently that there weren't 25 single women in the restaurant because this could get old very quickly.

"Are you Claire?" I asked the woman.

"Yes," she told me, just as a short, balding, tattooed man appeared behind her. Thank god. The waiter looked triumphant. We were all seated.

The four of us chatted for a while, and then it was time to order drinks.

"I'll have a beer," said Mark.

"I'll have a champagne cocktail," said Claire.

"I'll have a glass of pinot noir," said I. And then I winced, bracing myself for the inevitable.

"I'll have a chocolate orange martini!" said my husband, and I felt a slight wave of relief. A choc orange martini wasn't that bad. Okay, so it wasn't exactly beer, but it also wasn't a 'Sunset Kiss', a 'Cosmopolitan' or a 'One For The Girls, all of which are cocktails my husband has ordered in the past**.

(Now, let me clarify: I am not implying that my husband should be a real man and order a beer. But... would it kill him just once in a while to be a real man and order a beer?)

The conversation drifted to New York, which we had all recently visited. Mark pointed out his shirt, which he had bought there for $150, after it was reduced from $850. I tell you this because he repeated it several times, and that snippet of information is now seared into my brain like the alphabet, or the names of all the Young Talent Time members.

He then mentioned to my husband the amount of his advance for his latest book, which was large, and also seared into my brain, because I had heard him tell me before, and you don't forget a figure like that.

Keenly aware of my own, comparitively small, advance, I struggled to say something impressive. "I read somewhere that it is the job of a good agent to ensure that your advance is so big that you will never get a royalty cheque," I said knowledgeably, confident that I would generate an interesting line of conversation.

"Er... yeah.... I told you that," said Mark. And that was that.

We chatted some more and ate an enormous amount of French food, which was lucky as I am wasting away after our recent holiday to the states***. And nothing else of note happened, which seemed to disappoint Mark, as he was hoping to get some material for his next column.

I, on the other hand, can make a blog post out of pretty much nothing, which is why you are reading this now.

*who was French, as I am attempting to demonstrate in my prose, but I am really shit at accents.
**except for the latter, which I made up.
***using 'wasting away' in the sense of 'gained three kilos'.

An Australian Girl In America: Flying High

2011-08-04T06:23:00.000+10:00

So we fly to Los Angeles on Sunday night and head straight to our friend Jack's 30th* birthday party. By the time we got to bed it was a conservative 12pm Los Angeles time, but 4am New York time, and I was delirious with exhaustion (and, er, alcohol).

The next day our flight was scheduled to leave at 10.15pm, by which time I was already about four hours past my need to crash*.

We arrived at LAX nice and early for our flight, and attempted to check in with V Australia at Terminal 1. The man behind the counter (labelled with 'Warning: This area contains carcinogenic chemicals' - you know, as it does...) cheerily told us the flight had been cancelled and that we must proceed to Air New Zealand in Terminal 2.

Well, Terminal 1 and Terminal 2 may only be adjacent, but they are bloody big terminals, and it was the equivalent of shlepping two ginormous suitcases from Sydney to Newcastle***.

We waited in line at Air New Zealand and were finally served by another man behind another counter which apparently also contained carcinogenic chemicals. He didn't seem fussed by the cancer risk, but he also didn't seem to have any idea where we could sit on the replacement flight or indeed if we were sitting at all.

And then it became a flat bed.....

After protracted exchanges, a clever-looking man in a dapper beard and a 'Team Leader' badge approached and I clung to him like a woman on a trek from Sydney to Newcastle clings to her water bottle.

'Please help to sort this out,' I begged him. 'I'm tired and I need to go home to my kids.'

And then I wept, just a little.

Within five minutes we were all sorted, we were seated on the 11.30pm flight to Sydney, and we were in Business Class, and I hugged my Team Leader like he was Simon Baker. He seemed unfussed.

We started boarding the plane at 10.30pm, except it wasn't a plane, it was a bus driving us to the plane, and I swear it took so long to get there I thought we were actually driving to Australia (though perhaps a ferry would take us over the troublesome water bit).

We finally boarded the actual plane at about 11.15pm, and then sat there for quite a while, during which time I delightedly (and deliriously) examined my Business Class box of goodies, which included cosmetics, toothbrush, eye mask, and some rather fashion-forward candy striped socks.

At 12.15pm we finally took off. I tossed back my complimentary champagne, donned my candy striped socks, converted my enormous seat into a flat bed, slipped on my eye mask, and cuddled under my doona like the Business Class princess I was.

I slept soundly for a bit, then stumbled out in a confused haze to go to the toilet (which was spacious and smelled like roses).

'Can you sell me the dime?' I slurred to the nearest flight attendant.

He looked at his watch. 'It's 2.20am,' he told me.

'Oh, tho we've been in de air for doo hours?' I asked.

'No,' he said carefully, clearly making a mental note not to serve me more alcohol. 'We've been in the air for nine hours.'

And suddenly, I was wide awake and happy as Larry****.

I spent the rest of the flight watching movies (Morning Glory, which was hilarious, and Black Swan, which most definitely was not), eating every course of the magnificent breakfast, and generally feeling delighted.

And we landed in Sydney, where we caught a cab back home to a beautiful Welcome Home sign from my kids, and real life began once more.

And it isn't Business Class. But it's mine.

*using '30th' in the sense of '50th'.
**'crash' as in 'sleep'; not crash as in 'plane crash', I would never have a need for that.
***okay, so perhaps not that bad, but I was exhausted and hungover and really cranky, and it felt very long.
****or at least, happy as my husband, who looked pretty damn comfortable in his flat bed.

An Australian Girl In America: The Safe Word

2011-07-31T07:21:00.000+10:00

So today was a real downer. My husband used the Safe word. You know the Safe word? When you're having kinky sex you agree on a Safe word, which when used by either party will bring an immediate halt to the proceedings.

Thing is, though, our Safe word wasn't related to sex. It was related to shopping. My husband used it, and now I have to stop.*

Other than my husband spoiling all my fun (I mean, I've only bought three pairs of pants, three dresses, six tops, a jacket, four pairs of shoes, five rings and a ton of cosmetics - really, I'm just getting started) it's been a wild couple of days.

For a start, I saw squirrels. I like squirrels. They have cute bushy tails and run up trees and are almost as special as koalas. But not quite, obviously. You can't cuddle a squirrel. (And I know that technically you shouldn't cuddle a koala either as they scratch and bite, but Americans don't know that.)

I ate at a gorgeous restaurant, which served little 'tasters' before each course. The one before entree (which is a 'starter' here) was this gorgeous cheesy puffy thing. The one before dessert, however, was granola with yoghurt. Not some 'interpretation' of granola and yoghurt; just granola and yoghurt. This is a seriously weird town.

I ate breakfast at a diner and was served fried potatos with my omelette. I love potatos. I could eat potatos with every meal. I reckon I could even eat potatos before dessert. It would be a damn sight more appropriate than granola, anyway.

I walked for hours and hours around Manhatten, without a scrap of make-up, without ever bumping into anyone I have ever known. I can be anonymous here in NY, unlike in Sydney, where I am constantly bumping into people I know. Like my kids. And my mum.

I visited the Lego shop, which was amazing. There were individual nooks for every colour and shape piece of Lego every invented (which may be a slight exaggeration, but only slight). My husband and I custom made Lego mini-figures for each of our kids, and it was one of the most fun things I'd ever done. Which is probably a pretty sad reflection of my life, but the truth nonetheless.

I shopped, an insane amount. Of course, I only bought things I really needed; I just didn't know that I needed them until I bought them. But travelling is all about discovery, right?

Oh, and I bought bandaids for the blisters on my feet, which was kind of hard to do, due to the cultural differences.

"I need bandaids," I told my husband. "What are they called here?"

"Um... plasters? Sticking plasters?" he told me.

"I need sticking plasters," I told the cashier at the pharmacy.

"Pasta?" the pharmacist asked. "You want pasta?"

"Plasters!" I told him. "For my feet!"

He looked blank.

"Blisters!" I said. "Look! I have blisters! I need to cover them up!"

"You don't want Bandaids?" he asked. And I paid and slunk out in shame.

Tomorrow we head back to LA, and then it's time for home. But I'll miss New York. I heart NY. Which is a really lame thing to say, but I'm anonymous here, so I can be as lame as I want.

*and for those who were wondering, the Safe word was 'MortgageDefault'. But seriously, mortgage shmortgage. We're in New York!!!

An Australian Girl In America: NEW YORK

2011-07-29T10:49:00.000+10:00

Some of you may have noticed that I ceased blogging about my American holiday at Day 3, and have not updated it since we arrived in New York. This is not because I am lazy or do not have access to the internet or have lost my mojo or have had my fingers amputated in a horrific subway accident. It simply means that I have been too busy shopping and eating cheesecake brownie icecream to write.

For this, I apologise. And I shall attempt to make amends with this comprehensive guide to All I Have Done In New York (which is actually only Some Of What I Have Done In New York, but I have shopping to do and cheesecake brownie icecream to eat, so it will have to do):

The room. The WHOLE room.

1. I have stayed in a hotel room the size of my bathroom at home. And it's not an especially big bathroom. Seriously. I have to climb over the bed to access the toilet. And when I do sit on the toilet, my knees bump up against the wall. Luckily, however, the room comes with an enormous balcony, so we don't get too claustrophobic. Oh, except it doesn't.

2. I have visited pretty much every Bloomingdales, H&M, Gap, Macy's, and *insert name of every American chain store and unique shop in NYC* in NYC. I have walked into each one, laughed out loud at the delightfully low prices, and walked out with a bag of something unreal. And then I've carried it back to the teeny weeny hotel, laid it out on the bed, and sighed with happiness.

3. I have nearly got run over about 25 times as I keep looking for traffic on the right side of the road, which here, unfortunately, is wrong. If you know what I mean.

4. I have tried to drink diet Cherry Coke. I failed.

5. I have perfected my Starbucks order, as drinking Starbucks is a necessity in this town that never sleeps, but has never, in all the years it has been awake, learned to make great coffee. For the record, my order is Full Fat Double Shot Grande Coffee Frappucino. It gets me through the day.

6. I have seen a beggar chatting animatedly on a mobile phone, and another with an iPod.

Yum Yum

7. I have seen Whole Pig Butt on a menu. I declined to order it.

8. I have sat at a table with a New York woman who spent 15 minutes instructing the waiter on how to prepare her meal without dairy or wheat as she is severely wheat and lactose intolerant. After eating her fish, she ate a slice of her friend's double-cheese pizza. I am not kidding.

Someone's idea of heaven. Not mine.

9. I have watched my husband buy chocolate-covered bacon. My response to it was much the same as my response to the Whole Pig Butt. I suspect the taste was too.

10. I have sat down at a window in a diner alone for 5 minutes and been approached by some crazy dude in a silk shirt and giant silver ring who announced that he and his 'special lady' have an arrangement and that he would like to make love to me. See responses to Pig Butt and choc-covered bacon.

11. I have felt dirtier than I have ever felt in my life. It's like a film of grot settles on me from the moment I leave the hotel until the moment I get back in the shower. New York in summer is steamy and smelly and grimy. But there is soap and there is water and there is H&M and cheesecake brownie icrecream so who the hell cares?

12. I have said 'Ya' several times a day, every day. It is the American version of 'Yeah', and it is catchy and contagious and I love it and am going to take it back home. You don't think I'm serious? Well YA. I am

13. I have missed my kids. Crazily. And however fabulous NY is, I cannot wait to get back home and see them again.

An Australian Girl In America: Day 3

2011-07-27T00:11:00.001+10:00

So Sunday morning we woke up at 12.22pm, which wasn't actually morning, when you come to think of it. We had been up partying with our LA friends till about 1.15am, and then decided not to bother being awake again for a long, long time.

When I finally regained consciousness I went to the mini-bar looking for coffee. There was none. There were, however, sleeping pills on sale for US$6, which was hardly what I needed, but a charming metaphor for the paradox that is the USA.

I wandered down to the diner beneath the hotel, and ordered an espresso. While I was waiting, I chatted to the waitress, a cute brunette in a pink diner uniform - you know, one of those nurse's style dresses buttoned up at the front with an apron around her waist (seriously, they actually wear those).

"Were you born here in LA?" I asked.

"No, I'm from Colorado," she answered.

"Why did you come here?" I asked.

"I came here to be an actress," she said. And my heart cracked a little for her broken dreams.

Fueled by coffee, I collected my husband and we proceeded to lunch with our friends to a lovely Italian bistro. My focacccia was very similar to an Australian focaccia, except that instead of being the size of, say, a small plate, it was the size of my daughter. Not my 3 year old daughter, either. My 10 year old daughter. Wearing platform heels and a hat.

After lunch, we browsed through the markets on Melrose (yes, the one from TV) and looked in some super funky shops that were far too super funky for a mother-of-three with stretch marks and saggy boobs. My husband tried on some retro 50's style shirts, which made him look like a tragic, try-hard, shrunken version of Charlie Sheen - unsurprising, given that the shirt labels read 'Charlie Sheen style'. I had to forcibly wrestle them out of his hands, much like he had to wrestle the seventeen pairs of silver sandals from mine. Except that my silver sandals looked GOOD.

That night we went with our friends Jack and Rhonda* to a majorly hip LA restaurant. I was very excited to see a super famous black dude in a fedora sitting with his back to the wall, and was crushed to realise that he wasn't famous at all; he was just a black dude in a fedora. I guess I assumed that to be bold enough to wear a fedora, you have to have something.

I ordered a chocolate dessert, which contained layers of different, geometrically shaped chocolatey things, including what looked like a large chocolate licorice bullet on a very fine straw.

"Do I eat it?" I asked Rhonda.

"Yes, you bite it!" she said. Well thanks a lot RHONDA, because I bit the bullet, which turned out to be some sort of plastic receptacle. The bullet shot a fine spray of molten chocolate through the straw and all over my pants and the table. Turns out you were meant to suck it. Bloody LA fancy pants restaurant.

We returned to our hotel and collapsed into bed. Tomorrow was another day, and we were leaving for NY, and god knows what molten adventures awaited us there.

*Not their real names, and Rhonda is most displeased with the pseudonym I chose for her. So if you prefer to think of her as 'Lolita' or 'Mirabella' or 'Aloicia' please do.

An Australian Girl In America: Days 1 & 2

2011-07-24T11:40:00.001+10:00

So we arrived at our hotel in LA at 10am (3am Australian time) after our long haul flight during which I may or may not have combined pills and alchohol (see previous blog). My husband and I immediately fell into deep sleeps (read 'comatose states') from which we awoke five hours later refreshed and rejuvenated (read 'jetlagged and feeling revolting'). We decided to get out and into the sun (read 'shop') so left our hotel and walked to the nearest shopping centre (read 'caught a taxi'). We were near Beverley Hills, and so the clothes were prohibitively expensive, but I still managed to find some sale bargains and bought a few items (read 'lots').

We were both hungry so we hit the diner scene for some food. It was a day of culinary firsts for me. I broke my chilli cheese fries cherry, and then I broke my cherry pie cherry (I am SO proud of that line. Let's say it again, shall we? 'I broke my cherry pie cherry'. Ah......)

The chilli cheese fries tasted great while I was eating it and then horrible five minutes later. The cherry pie tasted great fullstop, until I saw apple pie on the menu, and noticed that 'added melted cheese' was an additional $1.95. I was nauseated, and let me tell you, it wasn't because of the cost of the cheese. It was because of the concept. I mean, apple pie with cheese? Have some dignity, Americans!

We returned to our hotel, and discovered a girl in undies lying in a glass box behind the front desk. She had her back turned to us, so I assumed she was cranky, and didn't knock on the glass, despite being hugely tempted. I asked if perhaps I could be paid to lie in the glass box for the next couple of days, but my offer was politely declined (read 'declined with a look of horror').

And then we went to bed.

This morning we awoke and headed to meet our LA friends. We hopped in a taxi which was driven by a very angry Bulgarian, who abused us all the way there, claiming we were making him drive to another city, we didn't know what we were talking about (even though all we'd said was the address) and were grossly inconveniencing him. The ride took twenty minutes.

We ate at a very posh cafe which we were assured by excellent sources is frequented by Simon Baker. To my profound disappointment, Simon was not there, and the only other patron in the cafe was Steven Spielberg. Bummer.

I tried to photograph Steven but my friend Jack's* big head was in the way, so Jack's wife Rhonda took the photo for me. She was not pleased, as apparently it is 'very uncool' to photograph celebrities in LA, but I threatened to cry unless she did. So she took the picture as discreetly as she could, which turned out not to be very discreet as all as the flash went off on her iPhone. She then slunk in her chair muttering 'I'm so humiliated' for the next half hour, whilst I waved and tried to make eye contact with Steve.

My friends had business to attend to so my husband and I did another spot of shopping, during which time I picked up this important self help manual for him. Honestly, I don't know how we've survived so long without it.

We then proceeded to Venice Beach, which was just like Bondi Beach, only virtually everyone there was at least one of the following:

Black
Exceedingly well built
Obese
Covered head to toe in tattoos
Covered head to toe in gold jewellery
Eating a chilli cheese dog
On rollerblades.

Being none of the above, we stood out like sore thumbs. This is probably why I was chosen by two performing artists to dance with them. And because I'm on holidays and no-one will ever see the evidence, I did.

Later, dudes.

*Names changed in case Steven Spielberg reads this post.

An Australian Girl In America: Day Zero

2011-07-24T00:42:00.000+10:00

I arrived at the international airport on Friday morning with high hopes (that I had actually packed the right things in my suitcase). My husband and I checked in, went through customs, and then proceeded directly to the bookshop to check on the placement of my book (which, to be honest, was really the purpose of my trip – after all, you can’t visit the international airport bookshop without a boarding pass).

The book was placed appropriately and I took the opportunity to tell the salesman how utterly fantastic it was and that he should recommend it to all his customers. He seemed both unconvinced and unimpressed (his exact words being ‘Well, whatever rocks your boat) but I felt secure in the knowledge that he would not recognize me as the author, given that my makeup-free, eye-bag ridden* face bore no resemblance whatsoever to the glowing, heavily made-up woman on the cover.

After an hour delay (during which I didn’t pace or worry the plane was never going to take off) we entered the aircraft and took our seats. I immediately began investigating the on-board entertainment system, which was comprehensive indeed. I watched several episodes of ‘How I Met Your Mother’ before I began to experience difficulties. You see, the high-quality headphones were simply too small for my gigantic ears, and my ear-flaps were aching where they had to be folded back to fit.

Yes, like severely obese people who require two seats on a plane to accommodate their girth, I require special, giant-sized headphones to accommodate my ears. And the airline did not supply them. A clear example of discrimination.

In despair, I decided just to have a glass of wine and a sleeping pill and go to sleep (despite it being only 1pm Australian time). I ordered some red wine with my lunch and drank it all in a big gulp. Unfortunately, though I ordered red wine with my lunch, it actually arrived before my lunch, and I drank it on an empty stomach. With a sleeping pill. So by the time my lunch arrived, I had pretty much lost control of my limbs, and knocked the empty glass on the floor, shattering it into a thousand pieces. As the flight attendant picked it off the floor, I tried to offer to help, before realizing I couldn’t really speak properly, and focused on carefully eating my lamb-something-messy before lying comatose in my seat.

I awoke two hours later feeling remarkably refreshed and rejuvenated. At least, that’s what I thought, until I got up to go to the toilet and found I had troubles walking down the aisle. When I returned to my seat I asked my husband ‘What is time now confused?’, thought ‘That doesn’t sound right,’ then explained ‘I don’t think had enough tired still sleep’.

I lay down again for ten minutes, then suddenly felt much better. Except it turns out it wasn’t ten minutes at all. It was two and a half hours, and the trip was nearly over.

If you call ‘six hours of flying time left’ nearly over. Which I didn’t.

And I longingly eyed the sleeping pills…

Nearly Gone...

2011-07-21T15:37:00.000+10:00

So tomorrow I leave for the States, and I feel I am just about ready to go. I have written a checklist, rewritten it, lost it, written it again, rewritten it, and ticked most of the items off.

And I'm proud. When I consider what it has taken to get me on that plane tomorrow morning, sans children, I feel an enormous sense of achievement. Enormous enough to justify the generous amount of alcohol I plan to consume on the flight, in the hopes of drowning out the guilt I feel about leaving my kids behind.

So with tears in my eyes, and a vision of Cab Sav in a plastic cup in my mind, here is my checklist:

Write list of items to pack in suitcase.
Pack items on list.
Realise half the items on the list are completely inappropriate, and remove from suitcase.
Repack suitcase.
Repeat previous step several times.
Pour all cosmetics into tiny little bottles to take on the plane.
Wipe massive spills from numerous tiny little bottles and shudder at the wasted money (see previous blog post on Clinique).
Cuddle my kids.
Write extensive lists for my parents and the babysitter regarding kids' schedules, meal preferences and 'treat' allowances.
Panic about leaving my kids.
Cuddle my kids.
Get pedicure.
Shave legs.
Become temporarily blinded by dazzling whiteness of legs.
Attempt to lose three kilos as everyone in LA and NY is really skinny.
Gain two kilos as a result of failed diet attempt.
Decide everyone in LA and NY will have to love me for my intellect.
Buy four big books for the flight (one to read, one spare, and two extra in case either of the first are really crap).
Buy special 'facial rehydration mist' to spray on face during flight (knowing full well it is just fancy shmancy water).
Go to doctor to get script for sleeping pills.
Go to chemist to fill script for sleeping pills.
Ask chemist what the maximum dose of sleeping pills is.
Argue with chemist about what the maximum safe dose of sleeping pills really is.
Ask my husband 17000 times if he has booked the flights and hotel.
Discover 48 hours before we leave that one of the flights is wrong.
Discover 24 hours before the flight that I'd forgotten to arrange travel insurance.
Fix flight and buy insurance.
Criticise husband for nearly stuffing up flight. Neglect to inform husband I nearly stuffed up insurance.
Cuddle my children.
Buy combination locks for suitcases.
Spend an hour trying to figure out how to use combination locks for suitcases.
Collect recommendations from friends about where to go / eat / shop in NY. Currently we would have to stay in NY for around a year and a half to get to all the places.
Cuddle my children.
Leave.

And so far, I've done everything but the last. But I intend to do that tomorrow morning.

Speak to you from the United States, people!

Saved From The Elephant Woman

2011-07-19T11:44:00.001+10:00

Let me state for the record: this is not a sponsored post. I have never had a sponsored post on this blog, and never will*. I paid for everything mentioned in this blog, and will continue to pay for them**.

Before we get into paying for things, though... a confession. I am 42 years old (no, this is not the confession, I am very proud of my age and have no problem with it at all***) and I have never, ever taken care of my face.

It's disgraceful. Up until recently I would wake up in the morning, wash my face in the shower with some supermarket face wash, bung on some supermarket moisturiser, and be done with it. At night I would (usually) take off my (supermarket bought) makeup with a (supermarket bought) face wipe and go to sleep. And I would wake up looking like the crumpled eighty year old love child of Bette Midler and the Elephant Man. Except with pimples.

And then, ten days ago, it all changed. I had had Enough. It was time for Change.

I needed Products****.

I headed over to Myer, where I made a beeline for the Clinique counter. Why Clinique? Well, the one makeup product I have used religiously since I read about it in a Marian Keyes novel (which was fiction, though the product was real) is Clinique pore minimiser. I love it. It makes my pores look minimised (funny that). I don't go anywhere without it. And I figured if Clinique's pore minimiser was good, then their moisturiser should be good too. Plus there was no way I was spending eight hours trying products from every range. I'm a busy woman, you know.

I picked up a bottle of Clinique moisturiser and headed for the counter. "I'll take this, please," I said politely.

The saleswoman picked up the bottle and raised her eyebrows. "Well, sure, I can sell this to you, but it doesn't have any anti-aging properties," she said pointedly.

Ah. Right. That '42 years old' thing again. How did she know?

"So what moisturiser does have anti-aging properties?" I asked. Because god knows I need anti-aging properties. Lots of them. Anti-aging skyrises. Hell, anti-aging cities.

"Let me show you our three step program," she said. And my heart sank. Because I knew what 'three step' meant. It meant there were at least three steps. And I only wanted a moisturiser.

Well guess what. There were more than three steps. There were dozens of steps.

There was the moisturiser. There was the post-moisturiser night cream. There was the cleanser. There was the toner (oops! Sorry. 'Gentle exfoliant'). There were the lifting, soothing eye creams (one for day, one for night). And of course there was the tinted moisturiser, to give me that even skin tone I've always dreamed of.

And you know what? I needed them ALL.

But still, there was more. So much more. And I wanted all of it. I wanted the face scrubs and face masks and blemish fighting concealers and petentrating liposome bust firmers and pro-magnificence radiant extractors*****. Quite frankly, however, I wouldn't have been able to carry them all home. And our bathroom cabinets aren't big enough to contain them.

So I got the first lot - the.. er.. basic essentials - and took them home with high hopes. (Actually, I had no hopes at all; in fact I worried terribly that I'd been ripped off, and that I had been conned into spending a great deal of money for absolutely no reason).

Still, despite my misgivings, I used my 'regime' twice a day, every day. Faithfully. Without fail. And it has added at least 20 minutes each to my morning and bedtime routine, which is 40 minutes less time I spend interacting with my family, or - more importantly - browsing the internet.

But it is worth it. Truly, truly worth it. My investment has paid off. I look a zillion times better. I look glowing. Okay, so maybe not glowing, but I no longer look like mandarin peel left out in the sun to wither, so that is definitely a vast improvement.

So my message is this. To all you readers out there, look after your skin. Invest in some products. It does make a difference.

And to all you Clinique executives who are no doubt reading this post (because I have a huge following amongst the Clinique family******, I can be contacted via this blog and am happy to receive truckloads of free products at any time.

I wouldn't write a sponsored post, but I'd sell my soul for a youthful glow.

*unless I am offered a great deal of money, in which case I will happily reconsider.
**unless I am offered them for free, in which case I will happily accept.
***This is a lie. I would much rather be 30.
****Capitals intended.
*****I may have made those last two up.
******well, I did give my card to the saleslady....

Off I Fly. Soon. If I Make It. Which I Will. I Hope.

2011-07-14T17:55:00.000+10:00

Next week I am going overseas. I am going with my husband to Los Angeles and New York to spend time with my good friend Simon Baker and appear on Saturday Night Live.

Of course, I lied about the Simon Baker part, but the rest is true. Except for the SNL part, which is also a lie.

It's a heady feeling, knowing you've got an overseas trip coming up without the kids. I mean, it's not that I don't adore my children, but a long haul flight is bad enough without having to wipe up your family's regurgitated airline food from your lap. (Of course, that could still happen, but I'm hoping my husband would have the sense to vomit into a bag.)

And I really some alone time with my husband. We need to reconnect as people, not just parents and homemakers. We need to remember what it is we love about each other. We need to see each other as who we are, away from the pressures of work and home.

Oh, who am I kidding. I just want to go to the States and shop.

The only problem with travelling overseas (apart from the great expense, securing child care, and retrieving the Visas we accidentally threw out from the bin) is packing. I am an utterly useless packer. I inevitably pack seventeen pairs of undies and no bra, or six tee shirts and no warm jacket, or four bikini tops and no bottoms (and none of the seventeen pairs of undies match).

I forget my extra special face cream, without which I will immediately revert to looking 117 years old. Or I forget my extra special eye cream, without which my face will still look sparkling and fresh, but my eyes will recede into hollow, wrinkled sockets. Or I forget my extra special hair oil, without which I look like Afro Woman from Seventies Frizz Town, and give everyone an electric shock when they touch me.

I forget my phone charger. Or my phone. Or my laptop. Or my credit card. And I take three carefully chosen novels to read on the plane, one of which I finish in the first hour and a half, and the other two which turn out to be crap.

Worst of all, I forget my sleeping pills, and have to stay awake the whole flight, eating horrid airline food, watching stupid airline movies, and feeling sick about wasting $64 on books I discarded after the first paragraph, all the while worrying worrying every time I hear the engines change, and fearing we are going to die.

Still, apart from all that, I'm very excited about my holiday. If I can just get over the packing and worry and guilt and expense and fights with my husband (who presumably will want to do more than shop, though god knows I can't imagine why), it's going to be great.

Oh, and I'm especially looking forward to attending that Pilates session at Madonna's personal studio.

Except I lied about that. I mean, Pilates with Madonna? Please.

I would never do Pilates.

A Sex Dream.... About WHO???

2011-07-06T17:38:00.001+10:00

Have you ever had an inappropriate sex dream?

No? Oh.... er.... no, no, neither have I. But my... er... friend has. Her name is... um... Cherie. Yes, Cherie. And Cherie's had quite a few.

Now, some may argue that any sex dream that is not about one's partner is inappropriate. Others may argue that any sex dream about one's partner is inappropriate. Others may argue that any sex dream at all is excellent, and that we shouldn't be looking a gift bonk in the mouth.

In my Cherie's opinion, however, an 'inappropriate' sex dream is one which stars someone one should not be dreaming about - a relative, a close friend, a close friend's parent, someone of the same sex (if one is heterosexual), someone of the opposite sex (if one is gay) or just someone one finds really unattractive.

Cherie's inappropriate sex dream was the last kind. Oh, though she may have occasionally had the second kind too. And maybe, once or twice, the fourth. But if so, she didn't tell me.

It's always disconcerting to wake up from a dream in which you have done something utterly bizarre. I mean, dreams are not visited upon you from beyond. They arise from your subconscious. You create them. So when you dream that you're doing the wild thing with someone really, really unexpected - well, you can't help but re-examine your mind. You wake up and wince and think, where the hell did that come from?

At least, that's what Cherie tells me.

And then, when you see the person you had the dream about, you feel all weird. You look at them in a completely different way, because you've suddenly seen them without their clothes on (except that you haven't, of course, your subconscious has, and even your subconscious hasn't really seen them, it's just seen some version of them that it created). But it still feels weird. It's almost like you really have had sex with them, except that you haven't at all, or at least you have, but they haven't had sex with you (unless they have too, in a dream of their own, which is getting into a whole different realm of bizarre).

Or at least, that's what Cherie tells me.

Happily, though, I haven't had any such dreams. I dream only of my husband, and of failing my university exams (even though I finished uni about a hundred years ago). Oh, and of houses floating in the air, which really freaks me out. But that's a whole other story.

As for Cherie, however, I'll make sure she keeps me posted.

So tell me - have you ever had a totally inappropriate sex dream?

Chopsticks, Toreadors & A Luminescent Pudding

2011-07-04T10:59:00.000+10:00

On Saturday night, my husband and I dined with two friends of ours, a couple I’ll call Simon and Lilian (because that’s not actually their names). We went to the very latest cool restaurant in Sydney (or perhaps the fifth or sixth last latest cool restaurant – we’re just not that up-to-the-minute in terms of restaurant trends).

It was a Japanese Tapas restaurant (‘Japas’, you might call it), which makes perfect sense. Clearly there is a need for Japanese-Spanish fusion food in Australia; after all, where else could the Aussie-Japanese Toreadors and Aussie-Spanish Geisha Girls head for dinner after a hard day at work?
The experience was fascinating. We learned a great deal about the Japanese-Spanish culture; primarily, that Japanese-Spaniards are not interested in feeding people. We were completely ignored for the first hour of our stay, until we yelled for help and banged on our glasses, and staged a mock bullfight with serviettes, chopsticks and a bottle of soy.

Happily, after the mock bullfight, we did manage to grab a waitress’s attention. We ordered some Japanese Sangria, which was described on the menu as ‘Japanese Sangria’.
“Sangria? “ the waitress asked, and laughed heartily. “No no no – is Sakura. SAKURA! Ha ha!” I saw her walk back to the kitchen and where she laughed heartily again with the cooks. “Stupid lady at other table, she order Sangria! Ha! Is Sakura! Ha ha!” (Of course, I’m guessing that’s what she said as she was speaking in Japanese, but it certainly sounded like it.)

We ate our meal, which tasted exactly like Japanese food, except for the dishes that tasted Spanish. Oh, and the rice was served after the meal, which I presumed was a Japanese-Spanish cultural thing, but turned out to be because the waitress forgot.
After begging to pay the bill (because the waitress ignored us again) we headed to a beautiful chocolate specialty restaurant for dessert. Sadly, it was closed, using ‘closed’ in the sense of ‘no longer there’ (which proves just how not up-to-the-minute we really are). So we had to move to the restaurant next door, which had flags in the window, photos of boxers on the wall (that’s the punching kind of boxers, not the underwear kind of boxers that my husband throws on the floor) and pictures of all the different meals on the menu.

Now I usually make a point of never dining in an establishment in which reading is not a pre-requisite, but I was desperate for something sweet, and so I sat down with the others. I looked at all the pictures and chose the dish that looked most like ‘sticky date pudding’, which coincidentally was labeled as ‘sticky date pudding’. It was delicious, and looked almost as good as the photo, only not quite as luminescent.

All in all it was a most satisfying evening. I sampled food from three different cultures – Japanese, Spanish, and Cake –and enjoyed the company of my husband and two people whose names weren’t Simon or Lilian.

And I learned that I feel a great affinity with the Japanese-Spanish community. For one thing, I really enjoy a glass of ~~Sangria~~ ~~Sakura~~ weird potion in a bottle.

And for another thing, I don’t much like feeding people either.

The Naked Husband

2011-06-30T15:26:00.001+10:00

I'm coming to you live from Melbourne (at least, my upper body is; my feet have been dead with cold since I touched down at Tullamarine Airport).

I came down to temperate *insert snorts of laughter* Melbourne on Tuesday to give a keynote address at a charity function. My flight was delayed an hour by the Melbourne fog (at least, that's what they told us, and it's certainly a more comforting thought than 'for the pilot to sober up'), so I spent some time in Sydney airport browsing around the shops. I bought a scarf for extra warmth, a shawl for even more warmth, and a ring to remind me that my fingers still existed once they were dangling numb and frozen from my arms. All have served their purpose well.

I was put up at a lovely hotel, The Royce, although as delightful as it was I will never be staying there again. I was given a faulty key, and was forced to complain at the front desk, then suffered the hideous mortification of discovering that the only thing faulty in the whole failure-to-open-door manouvre was my brain. So as delightful as the room was, and as warm and welcoming the service, I can never return to an establishment which sees me to be the fool I really am.

On Tuesday evening I had dinner with my cousins, all 300,000 of them. We crammed into a Chinese restaurant and ate dumplings and compared photos of our 30 billion children, approximately none of whose names I still remember. (Okay, I remember two of their names. But they have really cute names. NOT that the others don't have cute names. I'm sure they do. I just can't remember them.)

On Wednesday morning I woke up and went outside, which was obviously an insane thing to do as it was about minus 100% and utterly freezing. (And yes, this is an exaggeration, but really only very slight.) So I ran back inside again, wrapped myself in scarf and shawl and ring, and waited to be picked up to go and give my talk.

My speech was quite successful, even the bits in which I wasn't talking about sex or vomit or breasts. And I didn't even need to use the special hand signal I had arranged with my aunt, in whch she had to laugh and applause rapturously whenever I touched my forehead.

Later, I did a book signing, where happily every single member of the audience approached me and bought my book (using 'every single' in it's lesser known sense of 'a small proportion'). Then I ate lots and lots of chocolate cake in my post-speech rush, because - as is commonly known - after a period of excitement nothing contains calories for at least an hour and a half.

After the function I was picked up by my darling friend Kylie Ladd and transported to her home, where I would be spending the night. We were met there by my other dear friend TheNDM, who took me out for coffee whilst Kylie attended to mundane things such as child rearing and finding me a towel.

When TheNDM and I returned, we chatted for a while with Kylie, and were joined shortly afterward's by Kylie's husband Craig. After introductions, and two minutes of chit chat, Craig retired to the bathroom for a shower, before appearing several minutes later stark naked in search of soap. Well, the guy has a great arse, but I probably didn't need to see it quite so soon. After all, I have known many of my friend's husbands for over a decade and are yet to see them stark naked. Still, it certainly accelerated the intimacy. I immediately felt comfortable brushing my teeth in the lounge room, announcing I needed to do a wee, and prancing naked in front of Kylie's family (although I refrained from doing the latter for fear of startling their neighbours).

I later fell asleep in Kylie's daughter's bed, surrounded by a team of Littlest Petshop centurians, who kept me safe all night, except for when I stepped on one on my way to the loo. All in all, it was a most successful visit.

Though when I come back again, I'm going to insist that Craig keeps his pants on at all times. Either that, or he can carry around a bar of soap. Intimacy is good, but I'm starting to think Kylie and I are close enough.

What Not To Blog About

2011-06-23T15:06:00.001+10:00

The other day I clicked onto my friend Mark Dapin's blog, and I was horrified. Mark had posted a picture of a man - presumably a fan of his - wearing nothing but his underwear, several bandaids, and a catheter strapped to his leg.

Now, Mark is a prominent Fairfax journalist, and the author of several excellent books. And yet the man clearly has not the slightest clue about how to write a blog - at least not one that will not induce the gag reflex in all but the strongest stomach-ed* of readers.

I had met with Mark the previous week to discuss his blog. I gave him several tips on how he could attract a wider blog readership, and 'include a picture of a man in his undies with a catheter strapped to his leg' was definitely not amongst them. However, clearly I had not been specific enough, because - as Mark pointed out to me in a subsequent email - I did not tell him not to post a picture of a man in his undies with a catheter strapped to his leg. So to Mark and his readers, I apologise. I have failed.

Still, I am nothing if not conscientious**, and I am determined to rectify the situation. So here is a comprehensive list of things for Mark to Not Blog About. Feel free to add your own points to the list, and of course you are all encouraged to Not Blog About these subjects yourself.

Mark, Do Not Blog About:

Men in undies with catheters strapped to their legs.
Your bowel habits. They may be utterly fascinating to you - I have noticed that many men are utterly fascinated by all of their bodily functions - but they truly are of no interest to the general population (except, of course, for colorectal specialists, but such a small percentage of your blog readers are likely to be colorectal specialists that this is entirely inconsequential).
Anything at all to do with breakfast cereal. Despite the best efforts of advertisers to convince us otherwise, breakfast cereal is intrinsically boring.
Your scrotum, or indeed any man's scrotum. Scrotums are silly and we don't want to read about them.
Bits of your body that have fallen off. That is just disgusting.
Things you have found between your teeth. That is also disgusting, and there are probably many more of them than bits of your body that have fallen off.
Things you have found in your navel. See above.
Delightful anecdotes about your kids. I mean, I'm sure they are very delightful, and there are many anecdotes about them, but we only want to hear about what they do wrong, so that we can feel better about how useless our own children are.
Delightful anecdotes about your partner. See above.
Anything at all to do with the Kardashians. Oh you'll get hits on your blog all right. But I will unfollow you like THAT.

*and no, I'm not sure this is actually a word, but you get my drift
**actually, I am many things if not conscientious, but this is not the forum to discuss exactly what things

Now THIS Is A Kiddie Beauty Pageant

2011-06-20T11:27:00.002+10:00

Kiddie beauty pageants are coming to Australia and we Aussies aren't pleased. We do not want our kids prematurely sexualised. We do not want them wearing makeup and beehive hairdos at the age of two (actually, we do not want them wearing beehive hairdos at all, because they look utterly ridiculous). We do not want them primping and preening and flirting with the judging panel when they should be making mud pies. And we certainly don't want them to wear those expensive sparkly dresses because they're just going to spill their Milo on them anyway.

However, I don't think we should dismiss kiddie beauty pageants altogether. I think there is a place for them in our country; they just need to be modified a little to better suit the Australian culture.

So I have come up with guidelines for the Australian Toddler's Beauty Pageant. All rules must be adhered to and the judge's decision is final. See terms and conditions* for more details.

Children are to be judged on appearance, performance and demeanor.

Appearance

All choices of clothing are to be made by the child themselves. Bonus points are awarded for creativity, colour and uniqueness of ensemble. A pink tutu worn with yellow gumboots and a bright green hoodie is excellent. Likewise a long sleeve, purple winter top worn under a white summer frock with pink leggings and Dora The Explorer novelty shoes. A designer dress worn with matching party shoes entails immediate disqualification.
Bonus points are awarded for vegemite smears on clothing and/or food remnants on face.
Extra bonus points are awarded for food remnants in hair.
Triple bonus points are awarded for stains of unknown origin anywhere on the competitor.

Performance

Children are to engage in a performance of their own creation. Sponteneity is preferable and props will be provided by event organisers. Suggestions are as follows:

Spinning around in circles until they fall over.
Spinning around in circles with a bin on their head until they fall over.
Lying on the floor kicking their legs.
Doing a toddler handstand (i.e. placing hands on the floor and looking at the world from between their legs).
Pulling up their top to show the judges their belly button.
Kicking down a Lego tower. (Bonus points if the Lego tower was built by another child).
Eating paste.

Demeanor

Children are judged on their demeanor, with points awarded for appropriateness and dramatic effect. For example:

Throwing a tantrum for absolutely no reason.
Running offstage to use the potty.
Actually using the potty onstage.
Running offstage in protest.
Embarrassing their parents ("Daddy does smelly poos!").
Embarrassing the judges ("Why does that lady have a beard?").
Standing there looking dazed and doing absolutely nothing at all.

If you are interested in enrolling your child, contact me via this blog. But I really wouldn't bother if I was you. My three year old is going to win for SURE.

*There are no terms or conditions.

Happy Birthday Tun

2011-06-17T09:31:00.000+10:00

Tomorrow is my sister's birthday. She would have been 41, except of course she will be forever frozen at 37. Tanya was only 20 months younger than me, so she always enjoyed the time between June and October, as it was the only four months of the year she could claim we were just a year apart in age.

It's a cliche, and I'm sure you've heard it before, but you never get over losing someone you love. It's not like a wound that heals over. It's more like losing a limb. You learn to live without the limb, but it never grows back, and you never, ever forget that it's gone.

What's more, grief is not at all as you'd expect it to be. My sister had been sick for many years and her death, though shocking, wasn't entirely unexpected. I had actually visualised myself at her funeral many times before. I assumed that I would wail; I'm a very emotional person and it seemed like the logical response. But I didn't wail. I didn't cry. I didn't even shed a tear for weeks.

And in the months and years afterwards, though I would break down on occasion in the privacy of my own home, I found that a wall built up around me in relation to my sister. I could talk about her with friends or my parents and stay completely devoid of emotion. Worse. I became guarded, defensive, almost hostile. I didn't want to visit her grave and I didn't want to meet with her friends to remember her. I'm sure the psychological explanation is that I was protecting myself from overwhelming emotion, but I still felt guilty for not opening up more. It seemed disloyal to Tanya not to demonstrate to the world how profoundly I missed her.

Strangely, though, the nature of my grief has changed over time. It's been three and a half years now, and the bodily tension I feel whenever I think or speak about my sister is starting to dissipate. And she's popping up in my sleep. Over the past several nights I've had recurring dreams about trying to contact Tanya - I have her phone, or I've lost mine, or I can't dial the number - and I wake up feeling like I've lost her all over again.

This morning my husband asked me if I'd like to visit Tanya's grave tomorrow, on her birthday. We could take the kids - they are young and unburdened by adult hang-ups, and always love to visit their auntie. I automatically said no, as I always do. I don't want to visit her grave. I don't want to see a headstone reminding me that my sister has died.

But then, suddenly, I started to cry. And I realised that I do want to go. I want to connect with my sister. I want to leave purple flowers, and Werther's Original Caramels, and Cote D'Or Bouchee chocolates. I want to acknowledge her life, and how much she is still with me. I want to demonstrate, in some small way, how much I still adore her.

Which is also the reason I am writing this post.

Happy Birthday Tun.

My Midnight Interview, And How I Nearly Broke Into 2DayFM

2011-06-15T11:22:00.000+10:00

Yesterday I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Iain Dale, of UK radio station LBC. It was a challenging interview, mainly because it began at 6am (to correspond with 9pm British time) and I had to get up at 4.45 in the morning to be there on time. Now, not only do I object to being awake at 4.45 in the morning, I object to the very concept of 4.45 in the morning. 4.45 is not 'morning'. 4.45 is 'night time'. Quite frankly, nothing before the hour of 6am is 'morning' in my book. If it is dark, it is not day. End of story.

The interview was held in Iain's temporary digs at the 2DayFM studios in Sydney's World Square. Having knocked back two black coffees just to get myself out of the house, by the time I arrived I I was desperate to use the... er.... facilities. Iain was on air and his male assistant had no idea where the bathroom was (clearly these British men have Bladders of Steel) so I was handed a security pass and allowed to roam the building in search of the elusive loo.

I ended up on the deserted top floor, dazed and busting. With no toilet in sight, I tried to open the door that looked most like a potential bathroom. It didn't open. I leaned against it, heavily. I pushed, hard. Still nothing. In my desperation, I considered knocking it down, until a passing cleaner informed me that it was Kyle and Jackie O's studio. I contemplating pounding on the door pleading for help (surely Jackie would occasionally need to use a toilet?) until the cleaner told me they were on hiatus and sent me to the bathroom downstairs.

Back on the ground floor, and feeling much lighter, I was ushered into the studio with Mark Dapin, my fellow author and interviewee. To my horror, the walls of the studio were painted in lurid shades of fluroscent pink, which at that unspeakable hour, literally made my eyes bleed. (Okay, so not literally, as that would have required hospitalisation, but certainly metaphorically). Mark and I sat there, blinking in the candy radiance, desperately trying to retrieve our brains. I clutched a Berocca, in the pathetic hope of being energised. Mark, a non-coffee drinker, sipped from a bottle of Vanilla Diet Coke. At 6 in the morning. As you do.

The interview went well, despite Mark and I being half asleep, and Iain - who had been awake for the past 24 hours - being three-quarters asleep. At one point Mark knocked his Vanilla Coke onto the floor, which bothered no-one, as it was not our studio. At several points Iain began coughing uncontrollably, but as he managed to locate the Mute button on his microphone this bothered no-one either. At another point I found a couple of pairs of Christmas reindeer ears, which Mark and I donned just as the conversation turned to Australia's native marsupials. We felt this carried a message of support for our animal friends, but probably baffled Iain's assitant when he came to peek through the window.

At 7am, it was all over and we stumbled out into the gloom. It was lovely to meet Iain, and to connect with my British fans (none of whom have actually heard of me, as my book is not yet available in the UK), but I never want to see that hour of the 'day' again.

Those reindeer ears, however.... I miss them already.

How PMS Saves The World

2011-06-13T13:58:00.000+10:00

The human body is remarkably complex, and the human psyche even more so. And most aspects of our bodily workings play a profound evolutionary role in the survival and propagation of the species.

When we are attacked or threatened, we experience the Fight Or Flight response. This releases adrenalin and allows us to move and act quickly.

When we fall in love, our brains release serotonin, or Happy Hormone, which encourages us to make a lifetime commitment to someone who will clear their throat loudly in the middle of the night and leave their boxer shorts on the floor.

When we ovulate, we feel a surge of sexual desire, which encourages us to have sex with the throat-clearer, and create a mini throat-clearer who will continue on our genetic line and leave their own underwear on the floor.

But what, I ask, oh what is the point of PMS????

I have had a shocking bout of PMS these past few days and have been racking my brains to determine its evolutionary purpose. A hankering to kill, pimples and sore boobs, a propensity to weep for no reason, and a massive appetite satisfied only by hot chips and ice cream... how, pray tell me, does this help the human species?

Well, I have come up with some theories, and have listed them below, in no apparent order.

Why PMS Is Necessary:

PMS is nature's way of redressing the gender imbalance in niceness. Women are, naturally, much more kind and selfless than men, which can result in us being taken advantage of by the opposite sex. PMS makes us temporarily shrew, cross and generally revolting, allowing us to snatch back some of the ground we have lost the previous month by being caring and considerate.
Monthly pimples allow us to keep the cosmetics industry afloat; after all, if it was only teenagers getting pimples, the market would be limited, and many pimple control products would become redundant. The adult hormonal pimple market is a multi-million dollar business, which creates jobs for other hormonal women like ourselves.
Kids benefit from their mothers' monthly mood swings. They see their caregiver snarling and growling and learn to Staying Away From The Crazy Lady for a few days. This teaches resilience and fosters independence, thus preparing them for adulthood.
Sore breasts are nature's way of reminding us that we have breasts, and to check them for lumps and bumps when our period is finished.
Being tearful is unpleasant at the time, but marvelously cleansing for the soul. Having an excuse to lose it every four weeks and sob heartily for no reason at all is as detoxing as one of those freaky herbal enemas, but without the inconvenience of having something placed in your bottom.
Eating junk food for several days results in a feeling of guilt, which results in a resolution to eat healthily after our period has arrived and the cravings are over. Though the resolution is not always carried out, the guilt feelings persist, which can only be helpful in spurring us on to action.
Being a total bitch to our partners for a few days a week serves as a test to separate the men from the boys. If our male partner runs at the first sign of irrational anger or baseless tears, then clearly they're not going to stick around for the hard times. If they take it all in their stride, providing support and slabs of Cadbury Dairy Milk, then they are worthy of all the wonders that Woman can bring.

Feel free to add your own reasons to the list. But don't criticise mine. I still have PMS and I'm either going to kill you or cry.

Free Advice From Kerri

2011-06-09T09:03:00.000+10:00

I expected a lot of things when I published my first book. I expected to be recognised in the street by adoring readers. I expected to make hundreds of thousands of dollars. I expected to be offered my own TV show. I expected to be treated with respect for the first time by my husband and kids.

Of course, none of these things have happened (though I was once recognised in Westfield by a friend of my mum).

However, one thing has happened that has been utterly unexpected. I have received emails requesting my parenting advice.

Now, these emails make me very despodant. Anyone who is requesting my parenting advice has clearly not read my book, as anyone who has read my book will realise that I have no parenting advice to offer whatsoever. However, I still feel compelled to answer the emails as I am a very nice person (and am hoping that at least my correspondants will recommend my book to others).

Still, I am a very busy* girl and do not have time to be answering thousands* of emails a month. So I have put together a list of commonly asked questions and my expert advice. Using 'expert' in the sense of 'who the hell am I to be giving advice anyway?'

How should I discipline my three year old?
Discipline never worked well for my older kids, so with three year old Boo, I have taken another tack. Instead of punishing her when she draws on the white couch with texta, I say 'stop doing that and I'll give you a Smartie'. Of course, some may argue that this just encourages her to engage in bad behaviour so she can be rewarded to stop, but at least it gives me an excuse to have Smarties in the house.

How can I get my kids to go to sleep?
Send them to their grandma's. My kids always sleep beautifully there.

How can I get my kids to eat broccoli?
What kind of sicko parent would force their kids to eat broccoli?

My two year old keeps having tantrums in the supermarket. What can I do?
Young children have a natural allergy to supermarkets. Even the sight of a trolley creates an extreme bodily agitation which can only be soothed by feeding the child continually until the shopping is finished, or he or she vomits - whichever comes first. Always carry a change of clothes and some wipes with you. Or consider online shopping.

My 12 year old is surly and gives me no affection.
Refuse to give him access to any technology (TV, Nintendo etc) until he says 'I love you, my beautiful Mummy'). Works for me.

Do you have any questions for me? Or any advice to give?

*meaning 'lazy'
*meaning 'three'

Whozaam

2011-06-06T10:34:00.000+10:00

The other day I was watching Love Actually in bed, and one of the bit-part actresses looked crazily familiar. I lay there, insanely irritated, trying to recall who she was, until I gave up and went downstairs to Google the movie. It was January Jones, from Mad Men. DUH.

This happens to me all the time. I'll see someone on the screen and know they're a famous actor but have no idea which famous actor they are. Last night, for example, I mistook Mathew Modine for James Van Der Beek, which I thought was quite understandable (they both have long chins), but which my husband took as a hilarious indication that I still fantasize regularly about Dawson's Creek*.

Of course, I don't just get confused about faces on the screen. I also get utterly confused about faces in the street (or, in my case, faces in Westfield). Either I'll know I know someone, but have no idea how, or I'll know exactly how I know someone, but cannot access her name from the dark recesses of my brain. Or I'll think I know someone, but she turns out to be someone quite different to the person I thought she was. Or I'll know how I know her, and I'll remember her name, but I can't remember the names of her kids, what work she does, or if she is the one whose husband just walked out on her for his personal trainer or if that was her sister.

Or in fact, if she has a sister.

And sometimes these occasions can be embarrassing. For example:

The time I bumped into an old friend and smiled and waved at her and was mortified when she threw me a patronising half smile, until I realised that she was actually a famous newsreader who I'd never met in my life.

The time I sat next to a celebrity in a cafe and was delighted when she smiled at me, until I realised hours later that she was actually my GP.

The time I was chatting to an acquaintance, and enquired about parents, only to be gently reminded that her mother had died about five years earlier.

The 17 billion times I've conducted animated discussions with people I bump into, pretending to know exactly who they are whilst having not the slightest bit of a clue.

There's only one thing that can help me. I need a Face Recognition app for my iPhone. You know how Shazaam will instantly tell you the name and artist of any song that's playing? I need an app - let's call it Whozaam - that will instantly tell me the name, personal details, and circumstances of meeting of any person I wave my phone at.

Of course, I do acknowledge that there may be some small privacy issues with this software. But let's face it: no-one has much privacy these days anyway. And the usefulness of my app will far exceed any minor concerns about having the details of one's life open to the entire world. Besides, I suppose an individual could always opt out of having their details on the Whozaam database.

But if they do, then they can't expect me to say hello to them. I know I know them, but I haven't the slightest clue how.

*Which I may or may not do.

The Morning Nose. I Mean Show!

2011-06-02T14:23:00.000+10:00

This morning I appeared on The Morning Show with the lovely Kylie Gillies and the dashingly handsome Larry Emdur. I was only contacted to do the segment yesterday afternoon, but I've known since Saturday that I'd be making a television appearance this week. It was inevitable.

Why? Well, there are days when you wake up in the morning and your hair looks great and your skin is clear. On these days, you know that you'll have nowhere to go but the supermarket and your perfect complexion and hairdo will be utterly wasted.

There are days when you wake up in the morning and you have a giant pimple on your nose and your hair is flat and you look absolutely awful. On these days, you know that you're going to run into your ex-boyfriend, the cute barista you're always flirting with, and that popular girl from your old school.

And then there are days when you wake up in the morning with a giant scab on your nose from where you got into a fight with a cupboard and you know without a shadow of a doubt that within a day or two you're going to be asked to go on national television and show your nose to the world. It's the law.

This morning did not go smoothly at all. Firstly, I woke with a very husky voice, which was marvellously sexy at 6.15am, but was heading alarmingly quickly towards 'unintelligible'. I prayed that it would hang in there till after the show, and conserved my voice as much as possible.

I got into a cab and gave directions to the Channel Seven studios.

"Shall we take Oxford St or William St?" asked the driver.

"I don't know," I said. "They're probably both the same at this hour."

"I know," he said. "That's why I asked you."

This wasn't really getting us very far.

"Fine," I told him. "Take William St."

"I think Oxford St would be better," he said. I rolled my eyes.

"Fine!" I yelled. Oops. Conserve voice. We drove in silence the rest of the way.

At the studios, I was delighted to note that none of the Channel 7 staff poked fun at my nose. Of course, they are probably trained to keep the 'talent' happy (wouldn't want me clutching my face and running tearily from the set) but still, I was most grateful. I spoke as little as possible (which for me meant 'still quite a lot compared to other people) and waited for makeup,

The makeup artist did a stellar job of further camouflaging my injury as I tried not to talk to her too. Of course, I did still manage to talk, even when she was applying lipstick, which is a pretty clever feat, I can assure you.

I was ushered onset and the filming went off without a hitch. I was positioned strategically with the wound facing away from the camera and my voice - now hovering somewhere between 'gravelly' and 'non-existent' held out for the duration of the segment.

Afterwards I joined my fellow interviewees Dr Ginni and Yvette Vignando of HappyChild for a coffee around the corner. All had gone well. It was time to relax.

"Er, excuse me," said the waiter, pointing at my face. "You have something stuck on your nose."

I may have got through the interview, but mortification is only ever a few steps away.

Please find the link to the segment here.

I Got Punched!

2011-05-30T11:45:00.001+10:00

On Saturday I got into a fight. I admit that I made the first move, but then I got slapped, hard, and I didn't like that at all. It got me right in the nose, and took off a big chunk of skin, and I bled all over my nice clean face.

It just goes to show. You should never muck around with a cupboard door.

For the record, I was the one opening the cupboard door. I was reaching up to take out a glass and leaned in just a little bit too close and WHAM. The damn thing swiped off the side of my nose. I felt the impact, but my nose immediately went numb, so I had no idea if there was any damage. I was too frightened to go and look in the mirror (I'm not scared of blood, but I am scared of gaping holes in my face) so I ventured out into the living room.

"Um... have I hurt myself?" I asked my husband.

His face said a thousand words, all of them starting with "AAAGGGGHHH!"

"AAAGGGGHHH!" he said.

"So that's a yes?"

He directed me to the bathroom where I noticed a sizeable piece of skin flapping in the breeze, as blood trickled down to my chin. It wasn't pretty, but it was strangely fascinating.

"Stop looking in the mirror and get down to the doctor's!" my husband commanded. Ah... doctor shmoctor. I couldn't be bothered, and besides, I had five boys turning up in 30 minutes for a slumber party. I didn't have time for facial surgery.

"I'll call Karen," I told him. Karen is my doctor friend and is delighted to take calls from me at all hours of the day and night to dispense medical advice. Or at least, that's what I tell myself when I call her at all hours of the day and night. I can't see why she'd have a problem with it. I mean, if she needed blogging advice I'd be very happy to give it. Of course, she doesn't actually have a blog, but that is completely beside the point.

Karen told me to gently ice the wound, stick the skin down, and get some steri-strips from the pharmacist to help the healing. I followed her advice to the letter, especially the bit about getting black jelly beans from the pharmacist to help with the trauma. (Karen may not have specifically advised that, but I know it was what she was thinking.)

So since Saturday afternoon, I have sported a bandaged nose with dried blood peeping out from around the edges. It's a very fashion-forward look, and I would recommend it to all who want to stand out from the crowd this winter. It's also done wonders for my husband's reputation, as the general consensus from friends and family that smacking oneself in the face with a cupboard door is utterly preposterous, which means that someone must have hit me. And, the only people in the house at the time were my husband and Boo - and Boo was sleeping - clearly he must have done it.

Now, it's not nice for people to think that my husband is a wife beater. However, it's even less nice for people to think that I'm a self-slapping moron. So yes, my husband did it. Bad, bad man.

Oh, and for the record, we were going to put the cupboard door down - after all, there's every chance it could strike again - but the cupboard looks pretty silly without it. So we've put it in the naughty corner. Conveniently, this is located in the back of the kitchen, right where the cupboard lives. It will stay there till it's learned its lesson.

Or until I work out how to open it without smacking myself in the face. May be a very long time.

BASTARD

2011-05-27T13:11:00.001+10:00

As conscientious blog readers will know, I set up an Elliptical Fucking Trainer in my office the other day. Aside from worries about whether I would ever get it assembled, and whether - if assembled - I would ever use the damn thing, my primary concern was how my husband The Architect would respond.

The Architect is a man of vision. Our home resembles a clean, white spaceship (or at least, in his vision it is. In reality, it's more like a messy white spaceship with Spongebob memorabilia scattered on the concrete floors, and Nutella smeared on the Improbably White Couch).

The Architect designed both the exteriors and interiors, and is very specific about what he will 'allow'* in the house. Minimalist white furniture is encouraged, despite the presence of three children and a bunny. Clear plastic stools are celebrated. A futuristic pod takes pride of place in the corner. And the dining table is made of steel and glass. Practical, I know. Sigh....

Wall hangings are few, and carefully chosen, and decorative items are sparse. At the beginning of our relationship The Architect even tried to limit the number of photos I could display to five at a time. Of course, I completely ignored him, but he really did try.

So given his delicate aesthetic sensibilities, how on earth would The Architect accept an Elliptical Fucking Trainer? It has no beauty, or designer features. It's a machine, and an ugly one at that.

But I wanted my EFT. I wanted it bad. And so I hatched a cunning plan. I decided to smuggle it into my office when The Architect wasn't home, assemble it myself, dispose of the packaging, and when he inevitably noticed it, pretend that it had been there for months. Sounds absolutely infallible, right?

I shared the cunning plan with the two older kids, and enlisted them to help. We practised saying "Dad, it's been here for months, are you going mad?" for a least a week before the EFT arrived. And on the day I brought it home, we practised again whilst waiting for The Architect to walk in the door. We were primed. We were ready. It was time to take him on.

"Hi," said The Architect, walking into my office and kissing me on the cheek. "How was your day?"

"Daddy!!!!" cried Boo, who had been standing on the EFT.

"Hi Boo!" he answered, and picked her up and swung her into his arms. "I missed you!"

Er... HELLO husband??? Are you BLIND???

"So what's going on?" he asked me again. I just shook my head blankly.

"Daddy, I been exercising!" said Boo. "On the machine!"

"Great!" said The Architect, leaning against the EFT. "So what's for dinner?" I scanned his face. No hint of recognition. No hint of surprise. NOTHING.

The big kids bounced into the room, ready to do their part. "Hi Dad!" they said uncertainly, waiting... waiting... nothing... nothing...

"Hi kids! Let's go play!" he answered. I couldn't take it any more.

"DO YOU NOT NOTICE ANYTHING?" I yelled.

"What?" he asked.

"THE THING YOU'RE LEANING AGAINST."

"You mean, our Elliptical Trainer? We've had it for months, right?"

I looked at him hard. And I had to admit. He got me. He got me GOOD.

I hate that Elliptical Fucking Trainer.

*I use inverted commas to represent his illusion that he is actually in control.

Kerri Vs The Machine: The Tears, The Triumph

2011-05-25T12:47:00.000+10:00

Yesterday my elliptical trainer arrived*. Unfortunately I wasn't home to receive the package, so I trooped to the Post Office with notice in hand to pick it up.

"Oh no," said the nice lady behind the counter, followed by a lot of things I couldn't actually understand as English was clearly her fifteenth language. "No no. Not heeya."

Through a combination of sign language and despair I intuited that the package was too big and had had to be rerouted back to the holding centre, which of course was out in Woop Woop**. After contacting the holding centre and failing to agree upon a time at which they could redeliver it (because I am busy and they are inflexible) I decided to schlep out there and pick it up myself.

Luckily my car is the size of a small town, because the elliptical trainer, described online as being 'compact', was in a box the size of a large house. I drove it home, dragged it inside, and proceeded to open the package.

Or at least, I tried to open the package. The damn thing was sealed in industrial strength cardboard and stapled together with metal clasps the size of my foot. It took every piece of kitchen equipment I had just to tear the damn thing open. I had to rest for about an hour as my whole body was shaking with exertion. Exercise equipment indeed.

Then it was time to assemble the machine. Well, the instruction manual provided with the equipment made the lady at the Post Office look like an English professor. It referred me to the 'Explosion Drawing', which was appropriate as the sight of it made my brain explode into a million tiny pieces. Much like the elliptical trainer on the floor.

Still, I made progress. I got the first two bits into the main thingamyjig without too much trouble. But then I had to insert the spindle bar through the connecting tube with a sharp washer and a spring washer using a hinge screw and a chain wheel shaft without damaging the crankshaft, and I completely lost my mind.

After sobbing in the corner for several minutes I continued my quest. I struggled through but was hindered by typos and spelling mistakes and ommissions. Was the Right Connecting Tube number 40 or 49? It was labelled as both. What on earth is a D Sharp Washer?*** And perhaps it would have been helpful to tell me to put piece 1 in between pieces 17 and 24 before I found out by myself and had to dismantle the whole thing and start again.

However, after a mere 147 minutes, my elliptical trainer was assembled (with only one slight crack on the footrest after I put it in the wrong way and broke it on my first pedal). And it's great. Not that I ever plan to use it.

Quite frankly, after the morning I've had, I never want to see that little fucker again.

*(the one I bought online without informing The Architect, who, as many of you will know, is a Minimalist and lover of stark white furniture, a category into which 'eliptical trainer' does not fall).
**(You know. Far away.)
***Turned out to be a D Shaped Washer. Sigh....

Rapture Fail

2011-05-23T12:26:00.002+10:00

So Saturday was supposed to be the Rapture. Hundreds of millions of believers were meant to ascend to heaven, naked and flapping their arms*. I didn't believe for a minute that the Rapture would take place, just like I never for a moment believed that the Y2K Bug would wipe out the world as we knew it**. Still, it did give me pause for thought.

How would you react if the Rapture actually happened? I mean, imagine walking outside and seeing dozens of your neighbours floating skywards in the nude.*** How would you feel? What would you do?

So far the only reactions I've experienced to truly fantastical events are on TV or in the movies, and, quite frankly, I don't buy them for a second. Whenever something mind-blowingly bizarre happens - a spaceship lands, a boy discovers he's a wizard, an alien turns up in a picnic basket - the heroes express disbelief for about 30 seconds, then accept the situation and move on. It's preposterous.

"Wow, an alien!" the lead character will cry, then shake his head with wonder, then help him back to his spaceship without a second thought. Or "We're flying!" a first-time witch will exclaim, then start to practice her technique as if she's just discovered a fabulous new cleasing bar with which to wash her face.

Yup. I don't think so. If I discovered an alien in my closet, I would close my eyes and block my ears and rock silently in a corner, convinced I was becoming psychotic and that I would spend the rest of my days in a locked room wrapped in a white dressing gown with very long arms. My brain is not geared to handle bizarre sights. I'm still freaked out by the TV show I saw about conjoined twins, and that was five years ago. An alien would utterly destroy my mind.

As for flying, well, as I would love to fly, actually put me up there in the sky and I would scream and vomit and quite probably faint with fear, which would not be at all good for aerodynamics. I get nervous on aeroplanes and they are real machines, with safety features and everything. There's no way you're getting me to trust just my wimpy little arms.

Now if the Rapture was to happen in the movies, it would go something like this:

People start floating skywards, never to be seen again. Our hero looks amazed for a count of three, after which he goes in search of his estranged wife, who he's suddenly decided he still loves. He finds her (not ascended, clearly they were both very naughty) after dodging some nasty natural disasters. They kiss passionately, and live happily ever after.

If the Rapture was to happen in my world, it would go something like this:

People start floating skywards, never to be seen again. Kerri looks out the window, screams, falls to the floor, and starts clutching her head crying 'It's a dream! It's a dream!' The Architect runs in the room and commands 'Help me find the rabbit!'**** He pulls Kerri to her feet. She runs around in circles howling wildly, before banging into a door and falling unconscious to the floor. The Architect revives her, she screams and faints, he revives her again, she faints again, and so on, until eventually he just leaves her on the floor and starts a new life with the rabbit.

Or something like that.

So what about you? How would you react to the Rapture? Do you think it would be like in the movies? Would you be freaked out by superpowers? Most importantly, do you want to fly???

*Okay, so I may have made up the flapping bit.
**(though I did, ahem, stock up on extra water just to be safe....)
***Or floating skywards yourself, though that seems a remote possibility for me...
****There's no WAY he'd ascend, the evil little bunny

My Morning Of Porn

2011-05-20T14:02:00.000+10:00

I have a confession to make. I've been watching porn all morning.

I tried to look away. Truly. But I couldn't. I became positively addicted. I watched vid after vid after vid, so intensely excited that I forgot to eat lunch, and lost hours sitting at the computer.

The players in the porn movies weren't particularly attractive, but that didn't bother me at all. They still knew how to move, they sounded great, and besides, it was the leather and metal hardware that drew me in. I could practically smell it, feel it, taste it (okay, not taste it, I wouldn't really taste leather or metal, but it was a very vivid sensory experience).

Now, normally I'm not into porn. Watching two (or three or seventeen) people have sex in a poorly lit room after a preposterous set-up just doesn't do it for me. But this porn wasn't your standard, male-on-female-on-female-on-cable-guy sex movie. It was one-on-one, and it was incredible. And it left me frenzied with desire and desperate for more.

Specifically, the vids were woman-on-bag, and featured on a fashion website I stumbled upon. Now I've been on many fashion websites, and I've looked at many bags. But I've never before seen movies of women holding the bags, playing with them, opening their flaps and unzipping their pockets. I'm shivering just thinking about it. Click here to see!

I loved the bag porn for the same reason that anyone loves porn. I could see myself in it. When men watch porn they relate to the male star, fantasizing about having sex with the three blonde flight attendants as voraciously as he. When I watched my bag porn, I related to the women. That could be me, I thought. I could be slinging that hobo over my arm. I could be sauntering down the road with the satchel in my hand. I could be caressing that sleek, smooth leather and sliding my cell phone in and out of the handy, fully lined inner pocket ("For organisation!" the girl beamed).

It was an amazingly satisfying morning. And for those of you wondering: yes, there was a climax. I got out my credit card and bought a beautiful Calvin Klein bag, which shall be delivered to me in just a few short days.

And unlike the other type of standard-issue orgasms, my bag will keep me twitching with delight for months.

So tell me: can your porn do that?

Let Me Go The F**k To Sleep: A Wife's Lament

2011-05-17T19:50:00.003+10:00

By now most of you should have heard of the magnificent new children's book (that is definitely NOT for children) "Go The F**K To Sleep". Author Adam Mansbach and illustrator Ricardo Cortes have captured the frustrations of parents everywhere, longing desperately for their kids to go the f**k to sleep so that they can get some f**king rest.

Well, I have come up with a new version of "Go The F**k To Sleep". I don't yet have illustrations, but you'll get the general idea.

"Let Me Go The F**k To Sleep: A Wife's Lament"

The kids are finally in bed
With sweet relief I weep.
I go up to the bedroom.
Time to go the fuck to sleep.

In only seven hours my
clock radio will beep.
I need to catch each minute
of my precious fucking sleep.

It's been a long, hard day
of work and chores and problems deep.
I cannot wait to get to bed
and go to fucking sleep.

I tiptoe through the door and
to my bed I softly creep.
Don't want to wake the hubby
who - thank god - is fast asleep.

I slide beneath the sheets
and fall into a crumpled heap.
I close my eyes then hear a voice:
"Hey babe, are you asleep?"

I lie there very still and then I
start to count some sheep.
I'm hoping he will take the hint
and let me fucking sleep.

Just as I drift into my dreams
his hand begins to creep.
He thinks it's time for making love!
It's time for fucking sleep!

He snuggles in and nuzzles me
and out of bed I leap.
"Don't even fucking THINK of sex!
I want to go to sleep!"

He looks at me so hopefully,
his boxers torn and cheap.
"I bet I can convince you
that you're not ready to sleep!"

I shake my head and climb back in
and lie on pillows deep.
"There's not a chance in hell," I say,
"now let me fucking sleep!"

"We never do it anymore,"
says hubby. But he'll keep.
Quite frankly I don't give a fuck.
I'm already asleep.

Who The F*k Doesn't Like PIZZA???

2011-05-16T10:55:00.001+10:00

Yesterday was Pinkela's tenth birthday, and on Saturday night I held a party for her. Ten girls, ten nailpolishes, pizza, movie and cake. Simple? Oh PLEASE. Have you ever met ten year old girls???

To be fair, the party began smoothly (or perhaps it was that I began drinking?*). The girls painted each other's nails with glee, and although they also managed to paint the table and the floor, I didn't mind as I knew I could get it off later (and, well, I was drunk).

It was only when I started taking orders for pizza that the trouble began.

"I don't like pizza," said two of the ten girls. Don't like pizza??? Who the fuck doesn't like pizza? Do they have some disability of the taste buds of which I wasn't aware ? If so, shouldn't their mothers have warned me? I mean, it was a pizza party after all!

"Okay, so Lulu and Saskia don't like pizza," I said. "Is everybody else normal?"**

"I like pizza," said another of the girls helpfully, "but just the base and cheese. No sauce."

No sauce? Just the base and cheese? Who the fuck likes just the base and cheese? Is she not aware that that is not pizza at all, but rather melted cheese on bread??????

"Um... I'm not sure they can do pizza with just the base and cheese," I said.

"Oh you can order it," the child said to me confidently. "My mum does it all the time."

I sighed. Of course she does.

I rang up the pizza shop and ordered a variety of pizzas, then took a deep breath and ordered one 'with just the base and cheese'. There was silence at the other end.

"Um.... you mean melted cheese on bread?" the pizza man asked.

I burned with shame. "Look, don't worry about it," I said. "I'll just make her something. You shouldn't have to prostitute your talents as a fine pizza maker to accommodate the finicky demands of an overly fussy eater."***

"Oh it's no problem at all," he told me. "We'll give you some of our cheesy-bread-bites. The kids love them."

I nodded mutely. So now I felt like a right meanie. And ignorant too. Who ever heard of cheesy-bread-bites?

While my husband went to pick up the pizza I made frankfurts and noodles for Lulu and Saskia (aka They Who Don't Eat Pizza) and allowed my friend Karen to top up my glass. Within twenty minutes, the pizza was on the table, the frankfurts were on a plate, and the noodles were in a bowl. The kids fell hungrily upon the food, like famished beasts who hadn't been fed in a month. The pizza disappeared, the cheesy-bread-bites were snatched up, and the frankfurts and noodles.... REMAINED???

"The pizza was good!" exclaimed Lulu and Saskia. "We like pizza!"

I nodded mutely again. Then I walked silently to the table, collected the frankfurts and noodles, and motioned for Karen to pour me more champagne. There was still cake to go, and I needed all the help I could get.

*and for that I thank my friend Karen, whose presence was the excuse I needed to crack open a bottle of champagne.
**Okay, so I didn't actually say it like that, but it's what I was thinking.
***Okay, so I didn't actually say it like that, but I should have.

Operation Dishes - UPDATED

2011-05-14T07:58:00.013+10:00

Scroll down for the latest pics.....

AND click here to discover my FABULOUS prize!!!!

My challenge to bring my book to the forefront of public consciousness has been issued, and already, a few brave soldiers have answered it's call. And while I was doing a bit of covert book placement in stores around Bondi Junction, three of you have yielded fabulous results elsewhere.

Anthropossum nestled me right between William and Catherine and William and Kate, which is about as regal a position as I could ever hope to have. What's more, people can buy the fairytale love story of the royal couple, then read my book to reassure them that even Wills and Kate will be arguing over boxer shorts in another few years.

As noted yesterday, BabyMacBeth got me two across on three whole shelves of a display, which is an excellent achievement in itself. She also got bonus points for placing me next to Kendra Wilkinson, Hugh Hefner's ex-girlfriend, bringing me just two degrees of separation from the great feminist himself.

And Miffysworld performed an extraordinary feat, getting me listed not only as the number one bestseller for the week, but also the number two! Which is quite possibly unprecedented. And illogical. But who cares!!!!!

Sar_wah made me Pick of the Month at Adelaide airport, which is about as much as I could hope for (except, I suppose, for being 'Pick of the Year', but I'm not even sure they have those...).

muchhyperbole had me in positions 1 through 4 in the Top New Releases!!! Which doesn't look odd at all, but simply implies that there are only 6 other new releases to compete with.

drdrdr09 came up with the ingenious solution of making my book the only available choice in the store. Of course, some of the more cynical amongst you may choose to believe that this photograph is digitally altered, but I have absolute faith that it is real.

My beloved sharpestpencil got me all Top 5 places in the new releases section*!!! All Top 5!!!! Thoughtfully, she ensured that the other books are still sort of visible behind mine, just in case anyone wanted to check them out too.

The remarkably resourceful denwise1 placed me in a supremely cool position, next to... wait for it.... Justin Bieber! Now every mother of a teenage girl will be inextricably drawn to me.

And the very dedicated easypeasykids has me as the number 1, number 2 AND number 3 bestseller!!!! I am not only beating everyone else, I am beating myself!!! How great is that???

So keep at it folks! A fabulous prize awaits the best book placement. And if the book isn't in the store you visit, order it in! A store without Dishes is no bookstore at all (and it certainly isn't a kitchenware store, either).

*which would make her the current front-runner except that she's one of my besties, which actually disqualifies her from winning the competition. But I 'may' have failed to mention that to her up until now....

Get The Dishes Out!!! A Cheeky Challenge....

2011-05-11T16:56:00.012+10:00

A few days ago, I casually mentioned on Twitter that I've surreptitiously been moving my books to more prominent positions in bookstores. Though this certainly carries a risk of being caught, it is not a concern if you're not the author of the book - after all, you can claim in your defence that the book is brilliant and you just wish to share it with the world. For me, however, the move carries the additional risk of personal humiliation, as my picture appears on the back of the book, and any sales assistant who catches me in the act will know immediately that I am trying to boost my own sales. Still, I'm not one to be put off by the threat of personal humiliation, as anyone who has read my book (particularly those sections about personal grooming and my sexual habits) will know.

Unfortunately for me, though, my influence is limited to bookstores in Sydney's Eastern Suburbs, and that cute Cammeray bookstore I stormed with my friend Mrs Woog the other day, demanding to know why they weren't stocking my book (an episode I now look back on with burning shame).

Which is why I equally as casually asked my Twitter buddies to help me out, and move my book to the forefront of shops to which I don't have access. Shops in airports. Shops in other suburbs. Shops in other cities. Shops in other states. Shops in far flung towns, with names like Why Why and Jimbedingding and Maroocheelala. Or shops in any location other than my local Westfield, which is pretty much the only place I visit these days.

Then today, I got this picture from BabyMacBeth, a Twitter buddy of mine who took book rearranging to the next level. Not only did she place my book forward and centre, she ensured it covered three full shelves. And I'm next to Kendra, Hugh Hefner's ex-girlfriend! HOW GOOD IS THAT????

Now, I'm not at all convinced that this product placement can be beaten. It can, however, most probably be equalled. So I have decided to issue a challenge. Get my book into the most fabulous position (I'm thinking centre table, shop window, entire front shelf...) and send me a pic (either on Twitter, in these blog comments, on Facebook, or via email at k.sack@live.com) and I will post it. A prize will be granted to the best pic, and though I'm not sure exactly what the prize will be, it will involve something extremely wonderful.

Good luck! Spread the word! And remember: if there are any books with Simon Baker on the cover, I'll be perfectly happy to rest next to him.

Am I Accusing Me Of Obfuscation?

2011-05-10T09:03:00.001+10:00

Recently I was asked by Kidspot to answer the following five questions. So I did. But then I needed clarification, so I had to ask myself some more questions. And then I got rather hostile, which caused me to get confused. And the following interview was born:

1. Why did you start blogging?

Well, to be honest, I started my blog because my many, many fans were begging me to do so. They can’t get enough of me.
Really? What fans are they?
Why do you ask? Are you implying I don’t have any fans???
No, I just...
I have tons of fans! And you know, I’ve been blogging for only two years and I’ve already made heaps of money!
Wow. Can you tell me a bit about earning money from blogging?
Why do you ask? Are you implying I haven’t made money from my blog?
No! I was just wondering....
I got some movie tickets last year, you know!! And a free pass to go bowling!!!
Er... great! Moving on....

2. What makes you keep blogging?

I have to say, it’s the beautiful feedback I get from my readers. I'm constantly getting emails telling me how I've changed people's lives, and I find that so deeply rewarding.
So in what ways do they say you’ve changed their life?
Oh.... you know... lots of ways. Important ways.
Can you give me an example?
Of course I can.
Will you give me an example?
What, now?
That’d be good.
Um... okay... Once a woman wrote to tell me she'd laughed so hard at my blog that she broke her collar bone.
Really?
No, not really, but she laughed very hard, and she had brittle bones, so it could have happened.
I see. So...

3. How do you find the inspiration to blog?

I know what you’re doing here. You’re accusing me of plagiarism, aren’t you?
I don't know what you're talking about.
Listen, that’s never even been proven! It was her word against mine and quite frankly I think we both know who is most credible here. Did you read that blog post on her “condition”? VERY unstable, she is.
Seriously, I wasn't referring to...
And besides, when are you people going to let me move on? You’re just so.... so PETTY.
Kerri, I honestly just wanted to know...
Do you know how hard it is, coming up with new topics, day after day after day? It’s a nightmare!!!
I believe you! Er... so tell me...

4. How do you overcome blogger's block?

I steal from other people’s blogs, of course!
Sorry?
Ha! Only joking. Nah, I actually do some meditation. I look inwards and find inspiration from within my soul.
Wow, really?
God no. Mediation’s for wimps! Nah, I just drink heavily and cry a bit and wait for the darkness to pass.
Gee. That sounds pretty grim.
You are SO gullible! I mean, sure, I drink heavily, but I do that most nights anyway. But I don’t cry. Why would I cry over a blog post?
Okay, for the last time, how DO you overcome blogger's block?
Um... Oh lord, I seem to have drawn a blank. Can I, uh, get back to you on that?

5. What's been your best blogging experience to date?

To be honest, the more I’ve blogged, the more inspired I’ve been to write. Last year I was so inspired that I actually wrote a book, a memoir of marriage and motherhood, called ‘When My Husband Does The Dishes’. It was recently published and it has been an incredibly exciting time for me.
Wow. So being inspired to write a book has been your best blogging experience to date?
No, not the best, but definitely the second best.
Interesting. So what has been the best?
Getting those free movie tickets. Do you know how expensive movie tickets are?

Behind The Scenes At Sunrise

2011-05-07T09:46:00.000+10:00

So my adventures on Sunrise started the night before, at 10pm, with a razor. I was lying in bed smiling at the cute little dress I'd picked out, when I realised with horror that I'd forgotten to shave my legs. Given that I wanted the world to laugh with me about my adventures in parenting, and not laugh at me about the fur on my legs, I realised that action needed to be taken, and quickly. I had to get up at some ungodly hour the next morning, so there was no time to waste. I jumped out of bed, grabbed my razor, and quickly scraped it up and down my legs. Dry.

Big mistake.

I woke up the next morning at the ungodly hour, and scrambled into my cute little dress. Then I looked in the mirror. And screamed.

Because my legs were stripey. Like a candy stick. Red and white stripes. I was going to make my Sunrise debut on candy stick legs. Fabulous.

I rummaged madly in my drawers for some tights but couldn't find any. Panicked, I grabbed the skinniest pair of black pants I could find and decided they would have to do. There was no time to waste, and I still had to do my makeup. The Sunrise producer had advised me to do my own hair and makeup and they would 'touch it up' at the studio. So I did my absolute best job, looked contentedly in the mirror, and headed off to the studio.*

Once at the Sunrise studio, I was ushered immediately into the makeup chair. "I've done my own makeup!" I told Ang, the makeup lady, proudly.

"Mmmm," she said, and spent the next 30 minutes 'touching it up'.** Once my makeup was done, it was time for my hair.

"I've done my own hair!" I told Ang proudly.

"Mmmm," she said. "It's hard with curly hair, isn't it?" and spent the next 15 minutes styling my hair. Sigh. I guess effort, not quality, counts.

At some stage Joe Hockey wandered into the makeup room. "Hello Joe!" I said cheerily. Because I could.

A few minutes later Larry Emdur ambled in. "Hello Larry!" I said cheerily. "You're so handsome!" Because he was.

Shortly afterwards I was ushered into the 'Green Room', which was essentially two couches (not green) beside a water cooler (also not green). There I sat with my publicist Shannon***, and the comedian Marty Wilson, who was appearing on the segment with me. Fifteen minutes later, totally composed and cool****, I was sitting on the couch with Mel and Kochie, chatting about motherhood.

And five minutes and 45 seconds later, it was all over. I said goodbye to Mel and Kochie, exchanged cards with the lovely Marty, and hopped into a cab with my publicist Shannon. My moment in the Sunrise had passed.

But even today, the stripes on my leg live on to tell the tale.

*How cool does that sound?
**Using 'touching it up' in the sense of 'reapplying from scratch as the poor girl clearly has no idea what she's doing'.
***How cool does that sound?
*****That may be a lie

See my Facebook page (button to the right) for the Sunrise interview.

A Short But Revealing One

2011-05-05T11:28:00.001+10:00

I feel really good about my book. I know it's going to sell well.

Or at least, that's what I thought I felt.

Turns out my subconscious is not nearly as confident as it would have me believe. For last night, it revealed itself to me in a dream. And it was not good.

I was away at a writers' festival with my agent Pippa, and my publisher, the Handsome Mark. I was speaking at the festival with another writer, a first-time author like me.

I was excited and positive about the turnout, until Pippa approached me, her face black with fury (metaphorically speaking. Even my dreams have some logic).

"You know you've blown it," she told me angrily.

"What do you mean?" I asked. I'd blown it? What exactly had I blown?

"You didn't get that story to me on time so now your book is ruined," she said. "It will never sell. It's all over."

I felt utterly crushed, and was overcome by a wave of panic. My hopes and dreams lay dying before me (again, metaphorically speaking. In the dream we were still at the writers' festival and everyone else was having a picnic).

I looked from Pippa to Mark. "But... but... what story are you talking about?"

"The one about you throwing the table through the window," Pippa said. "You promised it to me. You haven't delivered .So no-one will ever buy your book."

I looked pleadingly at Mark. He nodded, his face hard and cold.

"It's true," he said. "I can't help you. It's all finished. You should have written that story."

I started to cry, great racking sobs that actually woke me up from my dream. I shifted over in the bed, prodded my husband and asked him for a cuddle.

"I had a terrible nightmare!" I told him. "I dreamed that Pippa and Mark told me the book was finished because I forgot to write a story about throwing a table through a window!"

My husband pulled away and looked at me. "You forgot to write the story about the table?" he joked. "How could you forget to write the story about the table! Oh that's very bad....."

And he wonders why I have issues.....

Bashed, But Floating

2011-05-03T18:32:00.001+10:00

Have you heard of 'cognitive dissonance'? That's when your brain is struggling to reconcile two opposing thoughts. (Or at least I hope that's what it means. I'll feel really stupid if it turns out to mean something quite different. Like... you know... 'cheese platter'.)

Well, I'm suffering from cognitive dissonance at the moment. (My version of cognitive dissonance. Not cheese platter.)You see, on the one hand, I'm living this really exciting post-book launch life of doing interviews and signing books and appearing on Oprah (okay, so that last one was a lie, but it could happen); but on the other hand I'm still a mother of three and a wife of one and have laundry and cooking and cleaning and washing and schlepping and homework and all the monotonous mundanities of every day life to do. And it's not fair. Don't my family know I'm a PUBLISHED AUTHOR???

What's more, the normal irritations of life keep getting in the way of my temporary foray into glamour and fabulous. Just this morning, for example, I was driving the kids to school when another car slammed into us from the right hand side. We were all fine, which is the important thing, except that the car was not, which is kind of important too.

I jumped out of my car to confront the person who had wreaked such senseless damage, prepared to be cross. Didn't they know I'm a PUBLISHED AUTHOR?

A handsome young man approached me. Too handsome. I can't yell at a nice handsome man! (Er... not that I'm that good at yelling at mean ugly men, but it's much easier.)

"I'm sorry!" he said sincerely. "I didn't see you!" Well, duh. I mean, I didn't expect he would have bashed into me if he did see me. Unless he was really mean. And even then he'd need a good reason.

"Well that's very bad," I said. "I'm a published author and this is not acceptable." (Okay, so I didn't say that, because it would have been really idiotic and embarrassing. But I thought it.)

"I'm so sorry," he said. "Are the kids okay?" Oh yeah... the kids. I checked again. They were still fine.

"I feel so bad, I'm so sorry. But at least no-one was hurt!" Bugger. Now he was really being nice. How dare he be nice when he just banged into my car?

So in the end, we shook hands, I smiled warmly (I was cross, but he was handsome!), said goodbye, exchanged cards, and went our own separate ways. And as I drove away, I looked back at my beautiful children, and felt immensely lucky just to have them safe and sound, and knew a piece of metal on wheels didn't matter.

Except that's not really what I felt at all. I was still annoyed about the car. But then I went to do a radio interview to promote my book (Yes! I'm a PUBLISHED AUTHOR!), and though I may have been driving in a battered car, I was walking on air again.

This is not my car. Nor does it look like my car. Nor was the damage to my car as extensive as the damage to this car. But it's someone's car. And that's all that matters.

K-Sack TV

2011-05-02T15:15:00.003+10:00

The Launch

2011-04-30T13:02:00.005+10:00

Wow.

Well, my book launch was the Best Night Ever.

I have not been able to post before now,

because I haven't had time,
because I was drunk for much of Thursday and Friday
because around halfway through signing 100 books the synapses between my brain and fingers began to degenerate, and I lost the ability to write. In fact, I believe many of the last 30 of the books I signed bear the moniker 'Ken'.

There is much to be told about The Night. The fact that I panicked when my book launcher Mark Dapin* turned up a half hour late. The fact that I panicked when Mark Dapin did turn up, because he had threatened to just 'say the first thing that popped into' his head, and he has a background in girlie mags, and I was worried he'd just be thinking about porn. The fact that I had absolutely no idea what one writes when signing a book, and I 'may' have written inappropriate things about breasts and Simon Baker. The fact that said Simon Baker did not turn up, despite my publisher's assurances at the time of signing me to Random House that they would definitely find him for me. The fact that I met some of the most awesome bloggers and tweeps in the online world, and many of them travelled on planes and trains and even buses to be with me. The fact that the launch party progressed to a pub down the road where I proceeded to drink such copious amounts of champagne that my husband The Architect imposed a drinking curfew on me (which I proceeded to ignore once he was out of my sight). The fact that I became engrossed in a conversation about Young Talent Time and ending up leading a group of uber bloggers in a rousing chorus of 'Close your eyes and I'll kiss you'. The fact that I stumbled home with Kylie Ladd at around 1.20am after my husband The Architect gave up the ghost at around midnight, then stayed up talking till after 2am, then lay awake in bed till after 3am marvelling at the wonder of it all, then woke up as always at 6.15am despite the kids having slept at my mum's.

The fact that I am intensely grateful for the love and support that I have been shown by my family, my beautiful friends, my amazing Twitter buddies, and you, my blog readers.

The fact that whether my book sells five hundred or five thousand or fifty thousand copies, I have had the best time of my life.

*read his blog. No-one does, but the guy is a genius. Trust me.

I was showing Lana how well I had shaved under my arms.

Me and Kylie. She drank as much as me. Almost.....

This is not The Architect. He is The Publisher. Apparently the women at the launch found him attractive. I'd never noticed. (Ahem...)

Mark Dapin. I was thrilled he agreed to launch my book. And.... er.... dress up for the occasion.

What Could Possibly Go Wrong???

2011-04-25T07:32:00.000+10:00

It's book launch date on Thursday and I am excited as a pig in mud (er... if the pig hadn't been in mud ever before in his life and was really, really thrilled to see mud for the first time). Anyway.... This excitement co-exists with a healthy dose of nerves. Or at least it would, if I was the kind of person who had a healthy dose of nerves. Being the anxious person that I am, I have an unhealthy dose of nerves. But then, I have an unhealthy dose of nerves when I'm driving the kids to school, so it's pretty much to be expected.

So here, so you can reassure me that none of these will happen, are my top fears for what could go wrong at my book launch.

A water pipe bursts and the entire street is blocked off.
I leave my hair colourant in too long the night before and all my hair falls out.
I leave my nose pore strip on too long the night before and half my nose falls off.
The kids come out in chicken pox that day and we all quarantined.
As I leave for the launch I discover I am teeming with lice.
I'm so nervous I need to take valium to get out of the house.
I take too much valium and sleep through the entire launch.
I wear my new high heeled shoes, trip over on the way out of the house, and spend the entire launch evening at St Vincents' Emergency.
I get lost on the way to the launch and miss the whole thing.
Mark Dapin gets lost on the way to the launch and my mother has to launch the book instead.
The bookshop forgets to order my book and I have to sign copies of 'Cooking With Lentils, by the North Carolina Cooking Collective' instead.
I sign copies of 'Cooking With Lentils' and nobody notices the difference.
I have a drink to soothe my nerves and end up giggling through my speech and singing 'Like A Virgin'.
I have a drink to soothe my nerves and end up signing my name 'Spongebob Squarepants'.
No-one turns up.
Everyone turns up but no-one buys a book.
My publishers change their minds and cancel the whole thing.

Married. AGAIN????

2011-04-21T08:35:00.000+10:00

Two friends of mine in the U.S. recently got married. She wore white, with flowers in her hair, and was radiantly beautiful as she walked down the aisle. He wore a tux, and looked darkly handsome as he waited for his bride.

I was happy for them but I didn’t bother sending a gift. I thought the whole thing was a bit silly, really. You see, my friends were already married to each other. They were simply renewing their vows.

I cannot imagine anything that would inspire me to take a trip back down the aisle again, especially with the person I'm already married to. I love my husband, but marrying him once was more than enough. I know there are plenty of reasons to renew one's vows, but none of them make much sense to me.

For example:

To show that you would still choose to marry your husband, even if you just met him today.

Well, yes, I suppose I would marry my husband if I met him today, but this is largely because we have three kids together, not to mention a bank account, a mortgage and a rabbit, and it would be very inconvenient to marry someone else. But would I marry my husband if we weren’t already married? I don't know!!! Chances are I’d be married to someone else by now and have three kids and a mortgage with them, so no matter how fabulous my husband was I wouldn’t even notice him. And if I did somehow notice him, hopefully I’d be loyal enough to my alternate husband that I would just look away. After all, it would be kind of messy to change partners at this point, particularly with all those kids...

To show that you’re still happily married.

Well, some days I’m happy and some days I’m not. It depends on what kind of mood I’m in and whether my husband has remembered to put his boxers in the laundry.

To show that you’re still committed to your marriage.

Well obviously I’m committed. I’m still here, aren’t I? I mean, it’s not like I haven’t had other offers! (Okay, so I haven’t had other offers, but I’m sure I would if I just put some feelers out and maybe wore a padded bra once in a while.) The very fact of my presence is indication enough that I plan to stay married, at least for the rest of the day.

As an excuse to have a big party.

Well, there’s nothing at all wrong with throwing a party. But a wedding party? My god, we barely survived organising the first wedding, let alone a second. With all the decisions involved – choosing a cake, a venue, a menu, the flowers, the dress, not to mention settling on a guest list – we’d be lucky not to kill each other before the big day. Remember, neither of us is on our best behaviour any more. We’re married, after all.

For the romance.

Yeah, yeah. I’m sure that renewing one’s vows is no doubt very romantic, and no doubt my husband would look very nice in his suit. But realistically, it’s not like I haven’t seen him in his suit about twenty thousand times before. And as for the wedding night, well, it’s not like we haven’t had sex approximately twenty BILLION times before. I’m sure it would be nice, but hardly white-veil-and-garter-worthy material.

So in the end, Vow Renewal just doesn’t work for me. But a second honeymoon? Without the kids? Now that sounds like a mighty fine idea.

Please Send Cash

2011-04-18T07:42:00.000+10:00

On Saturday an interesting article ran in the Good Weekend about Munchausen By Internet....

I was discussing this phenomenon on Twitter with a couple of friends, Kate Hunter and Kylie Ladd. All three of us were deploring those people who lied online to gain sympathy and attention, and who made money under false pretences from the innocent and the gullible.

We chatted for a while and then Kate had to go as her prosthetic arm was aching. She had never mentioned it before (and, interestingly, it is not evident in her photos) but apparently her actual limb was amputed by a shark some time before. Very subtly, Kate mentioned that she needed a new prosthesis, and - without being at all pushy - that all donations were welcome, and that she accepted EFTPOS.

Well, I was flooded with sympathy for Kate, and considered sending her lots of money. However, I felt just slightly resentful, because it seemed hardly fair that Kate was whingeing about just having one limb amputated when I am completely limbless and am forced to type with my teeth. Obviously I have never brought this up before, because I really don't want to people feeling sorry for me. However, I figured that if we were finally being honest about our situations then it was time for me to be upfront about my own. And besides, my wheelchair desperately needs an update, so if people have spare cash to send my way, it would be very much appreciated. And I take bank cheques.

Kate didn't seem all that sympathetic. "Well did the shark gobble your entire family like it did mine?' she asked. "As well as your best friend? Who was PREGNANT?" Helpfully, she added that she accepted Paypal. That was good news.

Then Kylie chimed in. "At least you guys have your sight," she said (or something along those lines, I was still reeling from the news about the poor pregnant gobbled girl). "I'm blind and am tweeting from memory!" Wow. I had no idea. I mean, I've know Kylie for nearly two years now, and admittedly we haven't met in person, but I had no idea she was vision-impaired. "Please send cash," she continued.

Well that did it. Why should I continue to try to be brave when everyone else was just throwing out their sob stories and begging for money???

"Only blind?" I tweeted. "Lucky you. I'm blind AND deaf and am tweeting by sense of smell! And all donations gratefully accepted."

Kate, clearly wishing to change the topic (no doubt because it wasn't about her), decided to share her blog with us all. "It's called TheViewFromMyIronLung.blogspot.com," she tweeted. Oh please.

She wants sympathy? The woman doesn't know how lucky she is. I dream of living in an iron lung. My lung is made of cardboard, you know. It's highly flammable. I could burn down at any minute.

And if you want to send money my way, I'll be sure to forward you a receipt.

Marie Claire Interview - Oh K!

2011-04-15T08:51:00.001+10:00

I had an interview with Marie Claire magazine yesterday. Clearly someone high up in the echelons of the magazine has either forgotten or forgiven my ill-fated attempts to nominate myself for Marie Claire Cover Girl, for they are still prepared to feature me in their beautiful glossy pages.

Now, when I say 'interview', I mean 'a journalist from Marie Claire interviewed me for a story'. I did not, as some assumed, apply for a job at Marie Claire. Obviously if Marie Claire were to offer me a job I would grab it (I still have my eye on that position as Cover Girl) but this was not that kind of interview.

I was perfectly cool about being interviewed for a high end mag. I didn't obsess at all about what I was going to wear; I tried on three different outfits simply because I had time to kill. And I certainly didn't change my top after a friend suggested that what I was wearing was slightly too... well... 'wrong'. I changed because I was just ready to change. Fullstop. And I polished the 'K' in my 'K' necklace simply because I like it to look shiny. Nothing to do with the interview.

I didn't worry at all about my hair; I washed even though it wasn't washing day because I just felt like a good scrub. And I definitely didn't put on any make-up - just foundation, eyeliner, eyebrow groomer, two shades of eyeshadow, blush, lipstick and mascara - what experts call the 'natural' look (if 'natural' is wearing a shitload of makeup). And yes, it was annoying when I stabbed myself painfully in the eye with the mascara wand whilst applying the 17th coat, but I didn't even come close to having to cancel the interview; after all, my other eye was still perfectly functional.

It's true that my stomach was a little bit jittery before the big event, but that was no doubt because I hadn't eaten much that morning - just an orange, two pieces of toast, a couple of slices of cheese and a nice big cappucino. And I settled my tummy easily with an egg mayo sandwich and a Coke Zero, only smearing the smallest bit of egg over my beautiful MC ready top, and spilling just half a cup or so of Coke Zero over my lovely skinny jeans. Happily, it all dried before the interview and no-one noticed a thing. Or at least, if they did, they were polite enough not to tell me.

What made things even more exciting was that the interview was filmed by Channel 7. Which meant that the very charming sound guy got his hands down my bra to insert a microphone in my cleavage. Or at least he would have, if I had any cleavage. As it was, he kind of taped it to my ribcage. Poor guy. He was totally ripped off.

The interview went well. I was relaxed, witty and insightful, chatting easily about all sorts of fascinating subjects. At least, I desperately hope that's how I look when they edit the thing. And when I came home and ran to the mirror, I was thrilled to see that my mascara was still in place, my eyebrows were neat, and - best of all - there was no egg in my teeth.

It wasn't until this morning that I realised the horrible truth. The 'K' in my 'K' necklace had been turned the wrong way. I'd done the interview upside down.

Oh K! Guess that's just the kind of cover girl I am....

The Marriage Cure-All

2011-04-11T07:19:00.000+10:00

As you may have noticed, one of the main themes of my writing (actually, one of the main themes of my life) is that marriage is hard. Really hard. Living with the same person day in, day out for 150 years can be challenging, to say the least. Shoes on the bed, undies on the floor, hair in the sink, and major differences of opinion on everything from child care to whether Girls Of The Playboy Mansion is acceptable viewing entertainment.... It's tough.

Normally I just whinge about how difficult it all is, and offer nothing in the way of solutions. Today, however, is different. Today, I have a solution.

Before I offer you my cure-all for marriage discontent, though, I need to give you some background.

This past weekend, I have been the parent of an only child. My mum took my big kids to the coast for the weekend so I had only Boo to look after. And it was easy. Heavenly, in fact. Boo is an energetic three year old who enjoys noise and mess and chaos as much as the next child, but having her alone - without the additional noise and mess and chaos of her brother and sister - was a breeze.

When you have only one child, it seems hard (mainly because it is). However, when you have more than one child, being left with only one seems easy in comparison.

Which is how I stumbled upon my Marriage Cure-All.

Now, obviously we can't make marriage easier. Men and women living together in harmony??? That's just silly talk! But what we can do is to make marriage seem easier, by tricking ourselves with a bit of comparison.

What do I mean? Well, when your man is making you crazy, surround yourself with many men. You think living with one man is difficult? Try living with three or four or even five! Hell, try a dozen! Live with them for a week. Listen to them blowing their noses in the middle of the night. Argue with them over finances. Watch them hogging the TV remote. Negotiate with them over when to visit the in-laws. Hear them complain about not getting enough sex.

And then just when you think you've had as much as you can take, send all of them away except for your partner. He'll be the same old partner, and he won't be any easier to live with, but as there'll only be one of him, life will seem easier. I promise!

She Hates Me

2011-04-08T07:46:00.000+10:00

It's official. My daughter has outgrown me.

I honestly didn't expect it to happen so soon; after all, my daughter is only three. But Boo has obviously found her independence, and she is very clear that my role in her life has been considerably downgraded.

For a start, my daughter is no longer interested in lengthy embraces. "Enough cuddle time Mum!" she will pronounce sternly after seven or eight seconds, leaving me spurned and empty and yearning for more. Or a firm "No thanks, not now, I'm watching Spongeboy," when I offer to play Lego, which is really rather disheartening, as Lego is not at all fun alone.

What's more, Boo she has begun to deny my deep feelings for her. "You don't love me!" she'll yell when I do something to disappoint her, such as insist she has a bath or get into the car. And "You HATE ME!!!!" she'll howl when I do something really cruel, like ask her (very nicely, really) to stop scribbling on the couch.

Thankfully, though, she still retains some compassion. "Hug Mummy!" Boo will sing at random moments, when my arms are full of groceries, or she's sitting on the toilet. And I do it. I hug her, because I never knock back an opportunity, and because there's no way I can deal with another accusation of Not Loving Me.

But despite my unquestioning acquiesence to all of Boo's hug requests, god forbid I offer love at a time when it is not convenient for her. "Go way Mum" she'll tell me, if she's not in the mood. "No kiss! I wipe it all off !" It's not fair, I tell her, but she doesn't listen. Spongebob is on, and she has some scribbling to do on the couch.

At the end of the day, though, Boo is three, and she's old enough to make up her own mind. My role as her mother is to let her go, and respect the distance she has put between us.

When she's awake, that is. When she's asleep, well, that's a different story.

Have you ever kissed a sleeping child? BLISS.

Simontology

2011-04-04T07:13:00.000+10:00

After my evening in synagogue the other day, I began to contemplate the nature of religion. And I realised that each religion on offer today, despite having various major attractions - celebrations that involve trees and presents (Christianity), celebrations that involve fantastic amounts of food (Judaism), pilgrimages to interesting places (Islam), total oneness with the universe (Buddhism) and the potential for Hollywood superstardom (Scientology) - none of them offers the complete package.

Clearly, if I want to open myself to the perfect spiritual experience, I'm going to have to design it myself. So to this end I have come up with the Ultimate Religion, and I invite you all to follow.

So please find below the Ten Great Covenants of Simontology. Read. And Obey.

Simontologists worship Simon Baker as a god. We know he isn't god, and we don't expect him to have any actual powers, and for this reason we don't bother praying to him - we just fantasize about him a lot and hope to meet him one day. For those who don't wish to worship Simon Baker (or who are more inclined to worship female members of the species), then George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Justin Bieber or Natalie Portman are acceptable alternatives. Except Justin Bieber. I was just joking about him.
Simontologists drink the ritual Gin And Tonic at the Holy Hour of 5pm every night. This Gin And Tonic may be substituted with Wine or other Alcoholic Beverages with the special dispensation of the local Spirit(ual) Advisor (i.e. Bottle Shop).
Simontologists celebrate good news with spoonfuls of Nutella, which explains the alternate name of the Simontology faithful: Nutellites.
Simontologists are kind to each other, unless 'each other' has done something really mean, in which case feel free to give them hell.
Simontologists are kind to animals, except for rabbits, which are just annoying, and very bad value as pets.
Simontologists read lots of books, but never, ever lend them out to other people. They rave about the books and encourage their friends to buy them, but give them only a tantalising glimpse of the front cover before snatching the book away. This is because they know that if they lend the book out, then the author will not make her teeny tiny commission of $1.20 per book, and Simontologists want authors to be paid for their hard labour.
Simontologists do not do too much exercise because this makes other Simontologists feel bad about how unfit they are.
Simontologists engage in frequent Meditation sessions, during which they Zen Out in front of episodes of the Mentalist, episodes of Mad Men, episodes of Weeds, episodes of Top Gear, or in fact episodes of anything they like, provided it does not feature Justin Bieber.
Simontologists do not kill, unless absolutely necessary (for example, in a tussle over an extra large jar of Nutella).
Simontologists do not need a Tenth Covenant. We make our own rules..

So will you join me? Any other rules you wish to add?

God, That Hurts

2011-04-02T07:57:00.000+11:00

I don't publish pictures of my kids on my blog. Generally, this is for their own protection. Today, however, it is for mine.

This morning, three year old Boo looks like she's been in a war zone, and if the pictures were leaked, there would quite possibly be criminal investigations. And the whole thing happened in a House of God.

The family and I were in synagogue yesterday to witness the Batmitzvah of a close family friend. A Batmitzvah is the coming of age ceremony of a twelve year old Jewish girl, in which she addresses the congregation, and does not cause any injury to the three year old children who are there to celebrate with her. This, you see, is the job of the children's mothers.

At one point Boo wanted to stand on her (pull down) chair to better see what the Batmitzvah girl was doing. Being a completely irresponsible parent, I let her. The chair flipped into it's upwards position, and Boo sort of slid down the back feet first, leaving nothing but a blue-floral clad torso and a little blonde head peeping out.

She wasn't injured, so clearly I hadn't tried hard enough. I hauled her out, and she twisted her foot in the chair, causing minor pain but a rather loud squeal. Still, the recovery was quick and we returned our attention to the service.

Ten minutes later Boo needed to do a wee wee. Not a problem. I carefully lifted her out of her seat (no chair flipping for her again) and we walked to the loo. After she went to the toilet and washed her hands we went to leave the bathroom. Boo was right behind me as I went to open the heavy door. Except that she wasn't. She was right in front of me. And I opened the door directly onto her head. Hard. I'm telling you, I could hear the thump.

Boo howled in pain. I howled in remorse. We both stood and howled in the loo. Luckily, the congregants were by then singing a rousing song of praise to the lord, so no-one could hear us wail. Except for God, I assume. It was his house, after all.

Fifteen minutes later the festivities were over and we were walking back to our car. All was well, Boo had regained her cheer, and I had regained my composure. Which of course was unacceptable, so Boo fell flat on her face in the middle of the footpath and bashed up her forehead and both of her knees. God knows we couldn't get away that easily.

Now, I'm not especially religious, and I'm starting to know why. Visiting the Lord is far too dangerous. From now on, I'm going to worship from a safe distance.

DELETE

2011-03-30T20:25:00.001+11:00

Do you ever wish that there was a DELETE button for conversations?

It happens to me all the time. I'll blurt something out and immediately realise the words came out wrong, and I wish wish wish I could take them back. Or the words might come out exactly the way I meant them, but I really only meant them for a second or two, in anger or frustration or hurt. But when the second passes, and I don't mean them anymore, they hang in the air, spoken, forever. And I long to press DELETE. Just wipe out the moment and start the conversation again, all fresh and new and unsullied by my own emotion.

Or I'll have an entire discussion when I'm in an unhappy mood - overwhelmed or insecure or anxious or sad - and I'll just act overwhelmed or insecure or anxious or sad. All.... messy. All.... wrong. And then my overwhelmedness and insecurity and anxiety and sadness gets worse, because I know I've sounded pathetic, and I worry that the person I was speaking to will think less of me.

And I long long long for DELETE.

As for emails and texts, I'm starting to think there should be a compulsory waiting period of at least five full minutes between hitting SEND and the message's release into the interweb. How many times have I sent off an email on impulse, or in the heat of passion, or in the fire of anger, or in the sudden warmth of a memory, only to regret it a moment later? And how many times have I received a reply to a message sent in haste, only to cringe in hot embarrassment when I realise my message has been misunderstood?

I want a DELETE button for life. I want a remote control to carry around with me, to get rid of mistakes, to wipe out misunderstandings, to avoid the need to ever again feel regret and shame.

But then life wouldn't be life. It would be a story without a complication. And the complications are what make the story worth reading.

So I'll live without DELETE, and I'll suck up my mistakes. And today, as always, I'll just deal.

I Was Unsettled In Hobart. Read Why....

2011-03-28T12:52:00.001+11:00

This past weekend I had a lovely surprise trip to Hobart. The Architect wanted to visit MONA (not a whinging woman, as one might have thought, but an amazing museum built a few months ago), and he wanted me to accompany him, firstly because I am excellent company, and secondly to ensure he didn't have to sit next to a stranger on the plane. The Architect hates sitting next to strangers.

Hobart is a gorgeous city, but teeny tiny small. Seriously. They claim to have 250,000 people, but out of the four random people I exchanged small talk with on the Saturday, I bumped into all of them - yes ALL - at vaious locations the next day. And they weren't hotel staff. The place is weeny. Either that or people are magnetically drawn to me. Which is possible too.

But Hobart is truly beautiful. The food was great, the service was incredible, Salamanca markets were terrific value, and MONA was outstanding. Still, I did feel a little unsettled during my stay, and I'll tell you why:

1. Hobart does not have a Westfield. I know, it's unbelievable. I mean, what do people DO on a rainy day? Read? Talk to each other? Just knowing I was thousands of kilometres away from the familiar comfort of a mall made me feel out of sorts. It was Australia, but not as I knew it. Without a Westfield, we might as well have been in Uganda.

2. All the girls wore teeny tiny dresses to go out in the evening - possibly to match their teeny tiny city. Now, I have no problem with skimpy outfits. I'd wear them myself if I had skimpy legs. But it was FREEZING in Tasmania. I mean, single digit, three-layers-including-wool-and-leather freezing. And they were wearing boob tubes and mini-skirts. It bothered me. I wanted to take off my jacket and wrap it around their shoulders and put them in front of a nice warm fire. Only I didnt, because I needed my jacket myself. And besides, they'd think I was nuts.

3. There was rabbit on every single menu. 'Spunky with poached figs'. Braised Spunky with cream sauce'. 'Spunky ragout with lentils'. Now, I don't want to be a hypocrite. Obviously there are times I want to kill my bunny. But that doesn't mean other people should be killing theirs.

4. MONA had an art installation called 'C*** And Other Conversations'. It was a series of dozens of plaster casts of the female body part my daughter always refers to as her 'shiny'. I looked at them all. Very closely. And there were none that perfectly matched mine. Which made me feel good for being unique, but bad for being....well... unrepresented. Still, perhaps the conversation just hadn't gone on long enough.

5. Another art installation was a wall of TV screens, featuring fervent Madonna fans singing the lyrics to every song from her Immaculate Collection album. It was supposed to be an ironic social commentary on the nature of celebrity culture. But I just wanted to sing along.

Cranky Pants

2011-03-24T15:01:00.001+11:00

My husband has had his Cranky Pants* on for the past few days. And I’m fed up, because this bout of Foul-Moodedness has come after a particularly bad run in our family.

Just last week, Little Man was exceedingly grumpy for a period of several days, due to Too Much Homeworking, insufficient Nintendo Time, and other unspecified Dissatisfactions. Prior to that, three year old Boo was a nightmare for a week, from a combination of Exhaustion, Adjustment To Pre-School, and Spoiled Third-Childedness**.

And before that, well, I was in a bit of a bad mood, for no reason other than...well... I am me. And I seem to get into bad moods fairly regularly (using ‘fairly’ in the sense of ‘very’).

Sometimes, of course, I have reason to be grouchy. I may have had bad news that day. I might be pre-menstrual. Or menstrual. Or pre-menopausal. I might be tired. Or stressed. I may be suffering severely from Excessive-Offspringitis***.

I might have lost my keys in the cold aisle of the supermarket. I may have lost three year old Boo in the supermarket. I may have watched Pinkela eat the last spoon of Nutella and realised there’s none left for me.

On the other hand, I may be cross for no reason at all. I’m a temperamental person. Which is fine – charming, even – as it goes with my fiery, passionate nature. Except that my husband is fiery and passionate too. And to stir things up a bit, so is our son. And to tip us completely over the edge, so is Boo. Which makes for a hell of a lot of fire in just one family.

Thankfully, nine year old Pinkela is extremely even-tempered and calm (which actually is a bit of a worry, as I have no idea who her real parents are). However her older brother and baby sister more than compensate for her serenity, making my husband and I look like beacons of calm by comparison. Between the four of us, we are one big rollercoaster of emotion.

The problem, of course, is that this is utterly exhausting. I’m no expert on statistics, but it’s clear that if I’m in a bad mood around once a week (using ‘once a week’ in the sense of ‘a lot more than that’), and my husband, Little Man and Boo are each in a bad mood around once a week, then at least one of us is in a bad mood on nearly any given day. Which means that the family emotional rollercoaster tends to be a race downhill more often than it is coasting on the flat.

Still, the rollercoaster ride won’t last for long. We only have another 18 to 20 years before the kids will hop out of the car and leave my husband and I in the fun park alone. And then we will hobble over to the Merry-Go-Round, and circle gently in nostalgic quiet, as the families scream wildly around us.

And I shall look back upon our rollercoaster days, and smile.

*These are metaphorical, rather than literal, pants, although his choice of trousers has been somewhat limited by my failure to pick up the drycleaning earlier this week (a factor no doubt contributing to the donning of said Cranky Pants).

**(possibly not an actual diagnostic term.)

***( if this isn’t an actual term, it should be.)

After A Good Pillow Fight You Need A Massage

2011-03-21T13:47:00.000+11:00

Today my back is killing me. I injured my back several years ago during a lingerie pillow fight with Chelsea Handler* and it's never been the same since. Sometimes it feels fine, but then I will pick up Boo the wrong way or stand up too suddenly or sleep in a funny position or just BREATHE too hard and wham, my back will click out of place again. And then suddenly I am hideously crooked and horribly bent over like some sad old woman with too little time and tremendous burdens to endure**.

Still, the news isn't all bad. I mean, sure I'm in tremendous pain and have caused some consternation amongst Boo's pre-school friends ("Mum, why is that lady keep saying 'Owwwwwwwww' and making a scary face?") but there is always an upside. Several, actually. And after I take this dose of ibuprofen I will share them with you.

[Insert swallowing sound here]

Okay.....

1. My sore back gives me an excuse to lie on the floor with my knees apart moaning loudly without anyone trying to take sexual advantage of me or ease a baby out of my womb;

2. My sore back allows me to wear those fun stick-on heat packs you get from the chemist, which always give me a thrill of excitement (I still haven't worked out how they heat themselves up when you take the label off. It's just like magic.).

3. My sore back allows me to get away with being in a bad mood. ("Yes, I know I just yelled at you for asking where the salt is. Deal with it. My back is KILLING ME, okay?")

4. My sore back means that I don't have to do housework. The laundry piles up, the pantry runs dry, the towels are left on the floor, the dishes are left dirty, and if anyone has a problem with it, they can bloody well sort/shop/tidy/clean themselves. Or don't. I couldn't care less, OKAY? (er... did I mention I was in a bad mood?)

5. My sore back gives me a week's leave from all sexual duties. Maybe even two weeks.

6. My sore back gives me reason to take copious amounts of medication, which, when washed down with copious amounts of alcohol (which I need as I have had a very bad day as I have had a very sore back) give me a very nice buzz indeed.

7. My sore back means that I have to get a massage. And then another massage. And then, when it's all better, ongoing massages. Wouldn't want to have a sore back again....

*cause of injury is completely fictitious.
**which, of course, I actually am.