[The self indulgence continues] Nadia: The Soundtrack Part Two

[For those who came late, read Part One first - see below]

Track 11: "Deeply Dippy" Right Said Fred
Cripes, this is a goddamn chirpy little song! Picture this (Sicily, 1953 - no, not really) - Juneau, Alaska - 1994 - we were sharing a spare family car with my husband's sister and this tape (yes, tape) was in the player - we were hooked. The whole CD is great but this song in particular just stuck in my mind and heart. Funny and cheerful and when the brass section comes in, it's just wonderful stuff. And that guy had a terrific voice - whatever happened to them? [Gotta love those internets]

Track 12: "Skin Deep" The Stranglers
What is it about this song that I love so much? JJ Burnel's compelling voice? The great lyrics "better watch out for the skin deep" - haven't we all met some of those...? The way the song starts simply and ends on this great build-up? "Golden Brown" almost pipped this one out - it's a more beautiful song and I also love its almost Dave Brubeckian rhythm. Love them both actually.

Track 13: "Constant Craving" k.d. lang
One of my favourite singers. This is sheer gorgeousity. I love love love this whole CD - all the songs fit together so beautifully and this song is the most wonderful climactic end to a great ride about love, lust, disappointment and longing. Apart from Drew Barrymore, this is who I would turn gay for. [Sorry, M]

Track 14: "Mambo Italiano" Rosemary Clooney
What's not to love about an Irish-American sweetheart (who also happens to be the lovely George's aunt) singing about 'fisha baccala' and "if you gonna be a square you ain'ta gonna go-a now-a-where'? Love that Lurch-like harpsichord solo in the middle - what a crazy song. Also reminiscing about our swing-dancing days when we used to listen to the wonderful Libby Hammer and her delightfully young and handsome 16 piece Big Band - Hip Mo' Toast. SO many fantasies about being a singer in front of a band like that. Sigh.

Track 15: "The Chauffeur" Duran Duran, as interpreted by Powderfinger
[See - told you I was sneaky] What do I love more? The perverse flamenco reworking of this song or the fact that it's by Powderfinger? I love that Bernard Fanning has never apologised for being a huge Duran Duran fan. I feel in esteemed company. This song is part of a CD called 'Come Undone' - a collection of Duran Duran songs covered by Australian bands and singers. Lots of interesting song/artist pairings.
I first heard this in Brisbane in my friend A.'s car as she picked me up from the airport two days before going to the Duran Duran concert I had flown across the country for. Two days before sneaking through the security gate with my friend, R., and having our photo taken with Nick Rhodes. Sweet, sweet memories...

Track 16: "Get What You Give" New Radicals
This world IS gonna pull through. I hope.
This was the song I would dance to with my unborn baby. It is such an anthem and I still find it inspiring. I had actually burned a CD with this song on continuous loop thinking that I would listen to it while labouring. When it came time, I could barely ask for a glass of water, let alone articulate that I wanted a CD on the player. Listening to it 15 times in a row may have sent me quietly insane anyway. Still love it. A lot.

Track 17: "Going Gone" The Black Eyed Peas (featuring Jack Johnson)
A new addition to my personal favourites. The Peas are just an amazingly musically accomplished band with the most insightful and relevant lyrics (okay - maybe not "My Humps" but, hey). This is a great song that I think is about realising that all the stuff, all the bling is meaningless. Fun, but meaningless. Pretty obvious, I know, but it bears repeating.
Also - does Jack Johnson have one of the loveliest voices ever? He is honey and maple syrup, silk and clean sheets. Yummy.

Track 18: "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" Scissor Sisters
I defy you to not feel like dancin' to this. I think people in deep coma would be surreptitiously tapping their (mental) toes to this song in defiance of all things medical. Like all great pop tunes - it sticks in your head so that a week later you still have that piano thumping in the old craw. What total fun. What a great world.

Track 19: "Come Undone" Duran Duran, as interpreted by Bachelor Girl
Tricked ya! Yes, another offering from those poster boys for seemingly getting by on a modicum of talent and a bundle of good looks. I think that this song gives great proof that the opposite is true (except the good looking part - they are good looking - esp. Roger - growl!). This is a beautiful song - I love it better than the DD version (hope I don't get burned at the stake for heresy) - Simon Le Bon is whinier than usual in his effort but to give him credit, he did write the lyrics which I think are just wonderful. Bachelor Girl - another band on the whatever happened to...? list - let's check The Google: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bachelor_Girl
Is Wikipedia amazing, or what?

Track 20: "Going Home (Theme from "Local Hero")" Mark Knopfler
This is the song that I imagine will get played at my funeral. Brings tears to my eyes just thinking about it - I plan to have people heaving with great big dramatic weepy sobs... mmm. How sad.
But on a cheerier note - what a great film - definitely in my Top Ten of My All-Time Favourite Flicks. Great soundtrack. Great dialogue. Going home. Indeed.

Nadia: The Soundtrack Part One

As a party favour/bonbonniere for my dear friends who attended my "Last Day of My 30s Party", I put together the millenial version of the 'mixed tape' - remember those? - and burned a CD with twenty of my favourite songs - all which have a connection to some period in my life.

[My dear friend, S. suggested that I should have called it "Nadia: The Musical" which is just so funny, I can't believe I didn't think of it and she did]

So - just to add another chapter to the Nadia: The Narcissistic Years boxed set, here are the sleeve notes for the CD:

TRACK 1: "These Boots are Made for Walkin'" Nancy Sinatra
My parents owned this 45 (I have since stolen it and actually played it on my brand-new $59.95 record player on Saturday night) and I listened to it constantly as a child. I had NO idea what the lyrics really meant - I just thought Nancy sounded a little mean/a little pissed off and little did I know she would have such an influence on the way I speak to my husband most days. Not that he's "messin' where [he] shouldna been messin'". Love the thrumming bassline and who can resist going ape-shit crazy when she tells those boots to "start walkin'!"

TRACK 2: "Let's Stick Together" Bryan Ferry
From the opening one-note sax riff, this song is three-minutes of solid lust. Remember the film clip with Jerry Hall's slutty little animal-printed sashay through the curtain? Even better - here it is, thanks to youtube:



How did she possibly think sexing it up with Mick Jagger was better than sexing it up with Bryan Ferry - was she really that afraid of becoming Mrs Jerry Ferry? This song is embedded in the ole brain as the song my brother and his friends used to actually dance to. Although maybe 'dancing' is too loose an interpretation of their imitation of the almost non-moving bass player. The thin moustache, the white suit, the sexy slim-hipped Bryan - sigh. Bryan Ferry was my first concert experience in 1976 and I still remember going mad when this song came on - not bad for a nine-year old. (Even if I did miss the two-hour episode of the Return of the Bionic Woman - it was worth it!)

TRACK 3: "Don't Stand So Close to Me" The Police
[I'm starting to detect a very strong sexual subtext in the songs so far - for a 40-year-old virgin I was sure a subliminally sexually-aware kid - who knew?]I just knew that this song was WRONG - it was sexy and WRONG - and made me even more aware that my feelings for my Human Biology teacher were sexy and WRONG. Nothing like a good dose of Catholic guilt to suppress those urges. Sting, whatever you think of him - he is a bit of a pretentious dork, really - does certainly have a way with words and the ole vocal chords do make him one of the most distinctive voices of the era. I still love the song even now that I know who Nabokov is - that was a lightbulb moment!

TRACK 4: "Rio" Duran Duran
Aaaahhhh...Rio...like a birthday or a pretty view...two of a billion stars... you really do mean that much to me, you really do. I think my buddies thought the entire CD would be a playlist of Duran Duran songs (and see below for the sneaky way I snuck them in) but no. There was no need to have more because I am confident in my love for them [even Andy, although he is no longer in the band (thank God)]. No need to overdo the sheer exhilaration of basking in the glow of my boys. They are so "me in the 80s", it's not funny. I vowed that I would never look back on my sixteen-year-old self and laugh in derision and I haven't - I can't. I know it sounds ridiculous, but this band really did give me so much. They gave me friends (met half of them in the queue for tickets), they gave me a world view, they gave me lots of laughs and joy. And they'll continue to do so, because come 6 April, I will be able to laugh and remember and rejoice and revisit that 16-year-old-self and honour that girl.

Track 5: "Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now" The Smiths
So what happens to a girl who enters teenagerhood loving Duran Duran and leaves loving The Smiths? I remember getting about as rebellious as I got by listening to them on my Walkman in class and having the principal talk to me about anger issues sitting on a bench in the school playgound. I thought "I've fooled you all" because I really wasn't all that miserable, I just loved that someone else could articulate it for me. Morrissey is a brilliant lyricist - his words are funny and biting and true - and he gave another gift to me: Oscar Wilde - I ended up reading everything he wrote and even visited his grave in Paris to pay homage - so that's not all bad.

Track 6: "Vagabond Moon" Robyn Dale Ford
Skip forward a few years to being a newlywed living in a cabin in the middle of Alaska. Ford is a Fairbanksan and I heard her as a support act for Don McLean at the Fairbanks Hockey Stadium (and we think this city has no appropriate concert venues - hah!) I love her plucky heart and her plucky banjo. This CD was also lasered into my brain by my Juneau upstairs neighbours Eric and Kate, who played her seemingly non-stop. Robyn Dale Ford fired up an unlikely love for the banjo which Eric then proceeded to destroy over the 18 months by his incessant practicing of said instrument. The banjo, when played by a master, is actually a beautiful thing. The banjo, when played by an enthusiastic beginner, is not.

Track 7: "Where Do the Children Play? Cat Stevens
This song is all wrapped up in my love for the movie "Harold and Maude" which, if you haven't seen it,... well, I don't even know what to say to you...try and see it. That movie formed what I believe to be my true life-view although I don't always live up to it. It's the life-view I wish I could live. And this song is still so remarkably relevant. I also listened to this CD a LOT when I lived in Alaska. I remember listening to this sitting on my crappy couch in my little one-roomed log cabin and thinking to myself "I am really happy".
A true classic. A beautiful song. Go Yusuf.


Track 8: "Galileo" The Indigo Girls
Again, an Alaskan memory. Must have worn out whatever grooves exist on a CD playing this constantly. And again, it's all angst-y and existential-y and confused about life. Our actions do have repercussions and I hope I'm burning off some negative karma for the next one. And I truly, to quote Queen Julie Andrews "somewhere in my youth or childhood [or last life], I must have done something good" to get such a great life this time 'round.

Track 9: "Beggar on the Street of Love" Jenny Morris
Another early marriage song. Love these lyrics of Paul Kelly's. So plaintive and raw and lovely. I love to sing this song to Sam. He doesn't alway love it though.

Track 10: "Want You Back" Take That
Living in Alaska where the headline act was Don McLean or 'Weird Al' Yankovich, I missed the whole Take That phenomenon. When I heard this song, it must have been a few years old. It made me want to leave my husband just so he would stand under my window, holding up a boombox with this song blaring a la Lloyd Dobbler. I love it - it's so freakin' romantic. Great musical climax, beautiful harmonies and how funny that one of those voices is Robbie Williams.

It's the mid-lfe crisis talking, people...

It really is weird knowing almost to a certainty, given life expectancies and statistics and all that, that I actually only have up to half of my life left. I mean, I could be at 9/10s for all I know (hopefully not) but if I live an average lifespan, this is it. It's half over. Which is simultaneously horrifying and exciting.
Horrifying cause it's half over - and exciting because it's only half over. And I've always said that the first twenty years really don't count because you're learning all the basics - how to talk, walk and do algorithms ("You know what I don't understand?"). So adult life, which is really different to the protoplasm years - 0-19 - is really the start of your "life" so essentially, I may only be a third through my adult life, and when I was paying attention in math class, I did learn that a third is less than a half. So that's good news. And my life has seemed really long so far - in fact, to paraphrase Billy Connolly, it's the longest thing I've ever done - so the possibility that there are 40 more years ahead makes me tired.
But that could also be because I was up until 3am and awoken by a chorus of Happy Birthday accompanied by maraccas and bells by my kids at 7:30am. That could have more to do with it.

WHAT is going on?????

Oh my God!!!

Now I know that my horoscope said that I would be entering into a good and lucky phase but this is freakin' RIDICULOUS!!!

This is what I have gotten for my birthday - and this is only 'so far' as it's NOT EVEN MY BIRTHDAY YET!!!

• A new Prime Minister - really, Australia - you shouldn't have - but I'm really glad you did.
• [I won't dwell on also being able to witness the total humiliation of the opposing party as I have already detailed that in a previous post and I wouldn't want to dwell on also being able to witness the total humiliation of the opposing party because I already talked about witnessing the total humiliation of the opposing party already in another post and I don't want to dwell...]
• Tickets to Keating! The Musical which will be even sweeter because of the thing I didn't want to dwell on earlier...
• A trip to Melbourne/Hobart to rendezvous with my dearest friend, J. to see one of my favourite singers - Rufus Wainwright.
• My Mum is making my favourite cake for my birthday - Chocolate Prune Torte - YUM YUM YUM!!!
• I'm going to have a fun girly party with my best girl buddies.
• I am also going to have breakfast at my favourite beach-side cafe' with my family and even if it rains, it will even be more perfect as I love the rain and hate the heat.
• An offer from my dear friend N., to go to the Festival event of my choice.

BUT - this is the ICING ON THE CAKE - the CHERRY ON TOP - the CREME DE LA CREME - and other food-related superlatives:

DURAN DURAN IS COMING TO TOWN AND I ALREADY HAVE A TICKET!!!

My cup runneth over, it surely does... I can't breathe - it's all too, too much.

Thank God, and the Universe for showering me with such riches - IN ADDITION to the wonderful family and friends I have - I am truly blessed.

O Happy Day!

[CVW - you may not want to read this - you have been warned.]

I am a very happy woman today. I am blessed to live in a country that has a working political process. I've had to suck it up for the last twelve years but today I almost feel patriotic - I know - moi? I was watching John Howard concede last night and actually felt sorry for him for about a split-second but soon reminded myself that he was hoisted by his own petard - his megalomania got him in that situation - he really did have every chance to bow out gracefully but refused to. So hoist away!

And I really don't thank him for his 33 years of service, particularly the last twelve. I think he would have been terrific if he'd lived his political life in the 40s and 50s. He was perfectly suited in personality to a nation at war, a nation who clung to the White Australia policy, a nation living in fear. When I think of how he has been complicit in dividing this nation, it still angers me at all the time we've wasted shrinking in meanness instead of thriving with compassion.

Here's a little review of his 'finer' moments:

• Refusing to say 'sorry'
• The Children Overboard fiasco
• Sabotaging the referendum on the Republic
• Refusing to ratify Kyoto
• Getting us into Iraq and lying about WMDs
• Making people believe that the Federal Government controls interest rates
• WorkChoices
• Welfare to Work
• Backing the Gunns Pulp Mill (and yes, I do realise that Labor did also but I think things might change now that The Greens did so well for them - go, Bob Brown!)
• UPDATE - just remembered this one. The GST. And not just the GST but the GST on books. And not just the GST on books but the GST on educational texts. There is no justification for a tax on education. And the Democrats' karma bit them in the arse too.

Yep - back to not feeling sorry for him at all. Or his toadying sidekick, Smithers. What a pair - and we're rid of both of them - I haven't felt this happy since Karl Rove resigned. The next bit of good news would be that Malcolm Turnbull becomes Leader of the Opposition. We might actually get some bipartisan movement on climate change - and have a good chance of getting the Republic back on the agenda - shaking off the mantle of Mother England, once and for all.

O Happy Day, indeed!

I'm about to lose control and I think I like it...

I'M SO EXCITED!!!

I bought my new 2008 Diary and with it a WHOLE NEW LIFE!

It looks as though turning 40 will see me lose all sense of financial reason. Some may think this has already happened - and they'd be right.

I've just booked tickets for two, count 'em, TWO concerts/shows next year. Going to see the 'hilarious smash-hit comedy'* KEATING! in January (the '!' is part of the title and I had nothing to do with it) and RUFUS WAINWRIGHT in February. I LOVE him and his sweet little gay ways. But the BEST thing is that I will be seeing Rufus in a city that is not this one- yes! INTERSTATE TRAVEL!!! Yay!

Also thinking about purchasing tickets for my favourite lesbian who is coming to this city in April but thought I might do some food-shopping first, pay the electricity bill and whatnot. Along with the extortionate school fees I will now be paying, I may need to just say a big "Steady, Thunder..." to my own sweet self.

OH - WHAT THE HELL! Let me get that credit card....

OH! And I may sign up for a phone plan that includes 12 free movie tickets so my plans of being courted by my girlfriends may have to wait for 2009! Well - you know they say 'the greatest love of all...'

*according to someone

What a difference a letter makes...

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What I want for my birthday...

I'm having a Girls Only Party to celebrate my 40th Birthday and what I really really want for my birthday is to be courted by my girlfriends. At the party, I will have a 2008 Diary that I want my buddies to start filling in with our 'dates' throughout the year.
I want to be wined and dined and taken to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Taken to the movies, the theatre and museums. I've realised that I don't really need or want any more 'stuff' but what I do want is to enter into the next decade knowing that I will have time with the friends that I've loved, some for almost 40 years, some for only a few.
So that's what I want for my birthday. Your undivided attention. Time with you...and possibly new knickers - the knickers I have are TERRIBLE. I still have knickers from being pregnant - real Nanna/Partial-Eclipse-of-the-Sun-When-They're-Hung-Out knickers.

So time.

And underpants.

That's it.

My Man Bill

President Bill Clinton on The Daily Show - the full uncut interview. Jon and Bill - aaahhhh...like a song in my heart. Two of my favourite men. Buy Clinton's book Giving - How Each of Us Can Change the World - it will make you happy...

Anita Roddick

Anita Roddick died this week at age 64 of a brain haemorrhage.

I felt really saddened by this news. I met her at a public lecture and booksigning many years ago and she had that typical famous person's inability to look you in the eyes (I know a haven't met a lot of famous people but the ones I have met all exhibit this - maybe they think they'd turn to stone or something). Her energy was palpable. She was a 4'10" vortex. Very magnetic.

She ate my food (I catered the event). She signed my book "To Nadia. The last one!! Yea!! Anita Roddick" She was referring to me being last in the queue. She had signed hundreds of books by then - the lecture was one of the most successful we'd staged.

There is a photo of the bookshop staff and Anita somewhere. She was a wee lady who took up all the space in the room.

She was principled and strong. And had totally mad hair. I remembered thinking -bitchily - that she could have used some of her own product.

Not only will I miss her, I think the planet will in some way mourn. She was definitely on its side and it needs all the allies it can get these days.

Update on the Green Challenge...

Last week we had a solar hot water heating system installed - that was one of the things that I had on my list of many moons ago. And bloody hell - the water's frickin' HOT. We have a gas booster so I'll be really curious as to how the gas bill will drop over coming months. It's so pretty sitting up there on our silver roof. I love it.

Man - do I love me some Jon Stewart...

This is the BEST news I have heard in, oooh, let me think - about almost eight years now...

Click here for a laugh and break out the champagne.

We won't miss you, Turd Blossom.

Here we are again...

So I just discovered that you can back-date your blog entry so even though today is really the 8th of July, I could pretend that I am an incredibly devoted Picky Bitch (instead of the slacker that I really am) and date it any date I like.

Ooh...the power....

But I won't, because everyone that knows me, knows that I am a slacker and why lie to those you love?

I am facing down the barrel of two weeks of school vacation like it's a Glock - I love my kids but it's not even Monday of the first week and my previously very brown hair is streaking up a grey storm.

Mothers of the world, unite. The only thing you have to lose is your mind.

Bad attitude day.

I have actually been cooking (make that, baking) up a storm so if they were still giving out Betty Crocker Future Homemaker pins, I'd be in with a chance (and in some pretty esteemed company, hey J. and Barbara Kingsolver, if you're reading this...I know you are, J.)

Been baking pies out the kazoo - luscious apple pies with flaky, flaky crusts. Vegetable pies, savoury fruit pies (an intruiging apple/cheese pie - jury is still out on that one) and I am LOVING the pastry experience. I feel that same awe as when I first baked a loaf of bread. I made this. I MADE THIS.

Sort of like having children but not as edible.

Whatever happened to my blog???

Wow.



It's been a while since I wrote - 8 April. Now it's 26 May. Holy cow.



So what cheerful little tidbit do I have to share today?



You know - I don't even want to go there...

My hair is back to brown. Very brown. Probably too brown. After the past two months of having hair in every shade of blue, violet and red, I was heading for Skanky Ho Blonde Streak Land - it was time to get it back to the brown I was born with. I used a box dye from the supermarket in 'Darkest Brown' (because I'm worth it) so I can hardly be too surprised to discover it's very very brown indeed. I really didn't believe anything I bought from the store could cover all the bleachy bits, but it has. This whole exercise has made me realise that I really do love the natural colour of my hair and I doubt I'll ever dye my hair again. I always thought I would embrace the gray and I might have a spaz about that in years to come so the jury's out, really.

Okay, my dog died.

I thought I could get through this post without blurting that out cause I've just been Little Miss Sunshine ever since I started this blog but I couldn't.

I miss my beautiful Denali, my baby-dog, my first-born 'son', my buddy, my pal. I loved him a lot and I'll miss his sweet ways forever. Go sniff lots of whiffy things, wherever you are, sweet boy.

It does make you think...

I read Salon on a fairly regular basis I think it's gone through a few shifts - it had times when it was terrific - now it's in a not-so-terrific phase of its life. They mess with the layout all the time and it gets irritating. Isn't the fact that an online magazine changes everyday satisfying enough without having to change the layout every five seconds as well? Are people bored that easily?
Anyway, in Salon is a section called Broadsheet with which I have a love/hate relationship - there is a very smart-arse tone to the writing which I can appreciate at times but at others I find annoying (Pot? Meet Kettle) and the section is rife with "thinking women's"-style stories. They include a lot of crap but often a "I can't believe that happens anymore" piece comes along and then, every once in a while, they'll make mention of a story that just makes my jaw drop in wonder. Not always good wonder but wonder nonetheless.

Today they had one of those stories.

It references a op-ed piece in The New York Times by Thomas Friedman - I think you need to be a paid subscriber to access the full story - ya can't get nothin' for free anymore - but here is the blurb as posted in Broadsheet:

Life-changing Maxi-pads?
New York Times: Here's a no-nonsense approach to quickly improving the lot of Kenyan women and girls: Provide them with Maxi-pads. Thomas L. Friedman's Op-Ed suggests that access to sanitary napkins is much more than an issue of comfort or convenience. Naisiae Tobiko, a native to Kenya's Masai region, told Friedman that around puberty she started to notice some that some girls would miss a few consecutive days of class each month. Friedman writes, "When she finally asked, they confided that they did not come to school when they were menstruating -- because their parents could not afford sanitary napkins." Some tried to make due with "rags or soil or mud," says Tobiko. But, ultimately, many of her classmates dropped out of school because they had already missed too many days of school.

Wow.

WOW.

This planet houses so many different worlds. There is my world in which I can buy anything I want (and I mean pretty much anything, if I took full advantage of every credit card offer that came in the mail - I send 'buy', not 'pay for'). And then there is a world where girls don't go to school because they still have to use "rags or soil or mud" - RAGS! SOIL! MUD! to deal with their period. I mean - wow. I am a spoiled, privileged, RICH RICH RICH person compared to so many people on this planet. I kind of knew that on some level, but that story - knowing that those girls are halting their education every month, because they are still dealing with an age-old phenomenon in an age-old way. The thought of these girls at least being able to pursue an education is wonderful. The fact that they're staying home because of lack of pads or tampons is heartbreaking. What a juxtaposition for them. A 20th century right hampered by a 21st century wrong.

Don't it make your brown [hair] blue...continued

Isn't it amazing what relatively normal people will do for money?


Thanks for all the monetary and emotional support as I now navigate through life with blue hair.

I could say that it hasn't made all that much of a difference to my life but I'd be lying. I have had to question myself at length. I thought I had the kind of personality that would be able to take the stares and finger-pointing but I really don't. I am a bit freaked out to be honest.

When I think of why I did this, I feel better. Better to have blue hair than none at all. Unless you're my brother. And then you've just been screwed by genetics, not cancer.

All I'm saying now is that with my HUGE fundraising efforts (AUD$1300 and counting) they had better find a damn cure!

I knew there was a reason I didn't like her...

Just reading through Salon.com's story "Why do journalists suddenly love Al Gore?" (you may have to sign in with a day pass to the site, but it's worth reading) and along comes that name - and I suddenly feel even more justified for not kneeling at this woman's feet when she came to speak at the Festival a couple of years ago.

Yes - MAUREEN DOWD. Yeuck.

There's a great link to Media Matters which details (to quote salon.com) "[h]er past columns on the subject of Gore, replete with false accusations and trendy sneering, [which] is must reading."

I know that I'm am so off-topic with The Picky Bitch. This blog has turned more into an Al Gore lovefest - maybe I should rename it! I thought that I needed an outlet for all those nasty thoughts I had about life in general and how stupid people are in particular but maybe life is too short to bog down in that kind of thing. It's SO much more rewarding to bitch about Maureen Dowd.

Yay Yay Yippee Yahoo!

Although I missed this - set the tape for the wrong freakin' channel, thank you very much - I was very happy to see this on youtube. What a ham, but I love him anyhoo...

Don't it make your brown hair blue?

I have finally gotten up the nerve to enter The World's Greatest Shave (or in my case The World's Greatest Dye Job). Every year the Leukaemia Foundation gets people to ask others for sponsorship to shave or dye their hair. This year is my turn.


For the low, low price of $1,000 (can I even write that without thinking of Dr Evil? And yes - I know it was $1,000,000!) I will be dyeing my hair to match Al's tie (as below). (Who needs an excuse to drag THAT photo out for another airing!?)


To clarify - not the whole head of hair - just big old streaks of it - think Lily Munster.
So if you want to sponsor me (and let's face it - I already know that the 3 people who read The Picky Bitch already have sponsored me but I live in hope of hitting the big time!), click here.

What is it with people who...

...have vanity plates that are the variations on the make of the car? The worst offenders seem to be PT Cruiser drivers. I have seen: PTCRUZ PT, CRUZR, CRUISER (at least that one could spell) and CRUZ. WHY??? Do they think that we are unable to determine the make of the vehicle and literally need to (mis-) spell it out for us? It is not even that the shape of a PT Cruiser could easily be mistaken for any other car on the road either. It has a big fat ass and you know when one is bearing down at you. It is not often that I am peering down the road, thinking to myself, "Hmm, isn't that a....? Oh, what is it again? Oh darn, if only the driver were courteous enough to have a vanity plate that would tell me the name of that car!" Other offenders are Porsche owners - my favourite - "P911" - make AND model! Can't beat that! You will notice that the cars are usually at the higher end of the vehicular price range - not often will you see "HNDAIXEL" or DHATSWIFT? Funny, that.

Seven years...

I've spent most of the day wondering if I should post something about it being seven years since my Dad died. My posts have been so miserable lately and I really didn't want it to be a maudlin entry. But it's getting late and although I went to visit his grave this morning - something I always feel a little ambivalent about as although I don't really believe he's there (I actually believe he's been re-born as my daughter as the resemblance around the eyes is spooky to me sometimes - maybe that's what reincarnation actually is - genetics), I do believe there is a part of him there although I don't really want to think too closely about that without getting morbid AND gruesome - I did feel as though I should mark the day somehow and not only by creating the world's longest sentence in history.

My Dad was a terrific guy.

[J. - are you crying yet?]

He was about as stubborn as a human being can be without being an actual mule and boy, did he love to argue. But he also loved to laugh - you never heard my Dad laugh as much as felt him - he would convulse silently, in place, progressively turning more and more red in the face until he finally exploded. Seeing him laugh made me laugh all the harder myself.

I think the thing about him being gone that I find the hardest to deal with is that he is really gone. I don't dream about him that often but just about a month ago, I dreamt that he was still alive and he was explaining to me that he wasn't dead after all but had been on a deserted island in the Pacific as part of a reality TV show that he had entered. The problem was that the only person who knew where he was, my friend Virginia (who has been dead for 11 years this April) had died - and so he was stuck on this island but had made the best of it by becoming an expert in the island's eco-system and was now actually very famous and rich because of it.

Weird and crazy dream-shit. Sometimes I really wonder about my own capacity for dream-fantasy - no wonder I wake up exhausted most mornings.

The best thing about the dream was that I got to hug him and I smelled him again. Dad always smelled salty and humid but not in a yucky way - he was like an ocean with skin.

God I miss him.

I miss him being a grandfather to my kids. My Dad was grooming himself his entire life to be a Nonno and only got to be one to my nephew for a little over 4 years. It sucks and it's unfair and it sucks.

Don't post comments about this to me, please. I just needed a vehicle to get this out but I don't really want to hear anything about it.

Thanks.

Sorry for the delay...

My friend, J., brought to my attention that it's been a while since I bitched so I thought I had better shoot off a little something to keep her happy.

Seems that 2007 is shaping up to be a 'doing' year for me. I think, facing 40 later this year, I've finally come to realise that all those tired cliches - 'life isn't a dress rehearsal', 'Life is a journey, not a destination' - are immortalised in coffee cups and those cheesy PowerPoint slide shows I get in my email for a reason - they are true.

So what have I been waiting for??? When is my life going to start?

• When I lose 15 kilos, be svelte and have perky boobs? Maybe - but have I done anything to make this a reality? I've always wanted this to happen without engaging in any form of exercise, discipline or dieting. Now I need to get my head out of my sagging ass and face the fact that it ain't gonna happen unless I start to think about getting off said sagging ass.
• When I suddenly get 'discovered' as a major writing/singing/cooking talent? By a Broadway talent scout who happens to read The Picky Bitch and walks by my window one day while I'm singing show-tunes and baking cupcakes. You know, I think one of the biggest mistakes in my life was to believe my own press. When I was in high school, one of my English teachers wrote in my yearbook that he thought I was capable of great things and that he was sure he'd be reading about me one day. (My Religious Ed teacher also said that she thought I could be a great religious leader but I just think she was just recruiting for the nunnery). So I have always believed that one day I would be a published author, living in a loft in New York and dabbling in a little off-Broadway musical action in my spare time. Wow, what an imagination. The only writing I've ever done has been this blog - and it's been three weeks since my last entry. Such devotion to my craft.

I think I've come to realise that my life is already in progress and for some reason - hitting 40? a new year that ends in '7', one of my favourite numbers? finally getting it? - I've already packed in quite a lot this year.

Things I've already done this year:

• Repainted my hall which was a very dark blue (which I actually did like for a long time) to a celestial blue - for some reason named "Jockey" by the weirdos in the paint-name department at the paint factory - must be the fumes. It totally changes the feel of the house for me, highlighting all the other walls that needs repainting - it sets up an expectation that the rest of the house is actually nicer than it is but maybe that's the inspiration I need to keep going. But my heart lifts looking at it so I guess that's a good thing.
• Painted the tile in my kitchen. Not that I didn't like the avocado green swirl on the cream tile - I loathed it. Another thing that I've been looking at for the last 10 years while cooking, washing the dishes, boiling the kettle and thinking, "Ick." Well, we have the technology, we can rebuild him. I went to the hardware store and there it was - tile paint - and now it's just cream coloured, which a la hallway, just makes the kitchen walls look grimy and yucky. So painting the kitchen is next. I think.
• Sorted through the kids' clothing in order to sell them at a`swap meet. That was difficult. I am so goddamned sentimental, it's nuts. I remember my kids wearing every piece and I have to be honest, I've still kept a bunch but I managed to whittle down the stuff to 2 boxes from 4. It's progress.
• I cleaned out the area under my sink. David Attenborough should have been on hand to document the wildlife inhabiting it. Icky cockroach carapaces everywhere. I have basically not opened those cupboards for about 5 years in fear of what was under there. Totally justified fear, I'm afraid. I'm embarrassed to admit it but nothing like a little cyber-humiliation to ensure it'll never happen again.
• I have started to ride my bike - only a couple of times a week so far - but I am loving that bike. So far, no obvious weight loss, boob-perking or svelteness making an appearance but it's early days ( is that grammatically correct? - it's early days - to say 'they're early days' sounds weird - comments, people? PB has fallen off the grammar perch tonight.)

And it's only 23 January. Maybe I will be a Broadway-starring, loft-dwelling, perky-boobed novelist one day. Or maybe I won't. But it will be my life - and that's just good anyway it comes.

I goat you a gift...

This one is for TJ and RC...

I've told this story a number of times now and thought it so amusing that I've decided to share it with the world...

While at a New Year's Day breakfast, I was talking with one of my oldest and dearest friends, RC about Christmas and what Santa brought us. RC's husband is a GP and often gets showered with gifts all year long from his grateful patients who are mainly old aged ethnic pensioners - those cute little old nonni that seem sweet but would put out a hit on you so fast if you messed with their families you'd be in concrete shoes before you could blink - you know the ones. He especially gets inundated at Christmas - I often think of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird, where Atticus gets paid in potatoes and collard greens and imagine RC surrounded by bushels of whatever is growing locally in little old ladies' gardens that season. But she seemed particularly excited by one gift and so goes the exchange:

RC: We got a goat.

PB (that's me): Oh! I got a goat too! My friend TJ got me a goat through Oxfam. What a great idea - that's what we ended up buying for all our family overseas - we bought sewing lessons in Africa and a carpentry workshop and a business start-up...

I stopped speaking when I noticed my friend's expression as I was blathering on about Oxfam and goats and chickens...

RC: No, you don't understand - we got a goat.

And then I understood. We weren't talking Oxfam, we were talking carcasses.

RC then went on to describe the phone-call from her husband and the subsequent panic as she had to drive to his surgery to collect said goat. Like Laura Palmer, the goat (mercifully headless but otherwise intact) was wrapped in plastic. Luckily, she has a spare refrigerator (one of those half-fridge, half freezer jobs, I think) which she cleared out by taking out the shelves and found she had to shove the cadaver in vertically as it would not fit in any other way. While all the time shrieking "eeeuuuwww....eeeuuuwww..." as you would.

Now to most people, being on the receiving end of a goat would be an interesting space to be in. What the hell do you do with a whole goat? I don't even own a knife that would cut butter effectively let alone a cleaver that could do some damage to a real animal. My butchering skills lie on about a par with being able to tell the chicken thigh from a breast but even then sometimes those damned plump thighs will have me looking twice (damned hormone-injected chickens and their fat thighed ways!).

So what did RC do? What any self-respecting Italian girl does on receipt of a goat - she calls her dad.

[If my Dad were still alive, and I had made that phone-call, "Dad, someone gave me a fresh goat" - it would be news on a par with Italy winning the World Cup (AGAIN!) or them finally acknowledging that William Shakespeare was Italian after all (my father believed that anything good in this world naturally is of Italian origin).]

RC's dad sets a land-speed record for getting to her house and all is well. He has a wood-fired oven, people - this man knows what to do with a goat.

So all's well that ends well.

Now I'm hankering for a little marinated capretto....mmmmm...