Stood up. And fatigued. But definitely not crying.

There are times in my life when I think I'm cracking up. And there are times in my life when I know I'm cracking up. Fortunately, at the moment I'm pretty sure I only feel like I'm coming apart at the seams.

There are a few stresses in my life at the moment - job hunting, family stuff, household stuff - that I'm managing to hold at bay with a combination of demented optimism and baking. I tend towards certain Pollyanna tendencies that keep me afloat where otherwise I might not be so buoyant. It's a rather grimly determined policy of looking on the bright side, and making a conscious decision not to worry about things I can't immediately change and to focus instead on the smell of gingerbread, or the feel of clean sheets, or figs finally ripening on the tree.

It takes an effort though, I guess, and occasionally that effort is just too much effort. Tonight it feels as though I'm leaking out everywhere. I know it's not polite to talk about one's mental health, but I might as well put it on the table that there have been periods in my life where I have been, well, not so well. I've been pretty stable for the last couple of years, and I can tell when I'm going to hit a bad patch and ride it out, but it's the reason that I couldn't get out of bed this morning until no-one else was in the house. It's the reason I go for long stretches without sleeping more than two hours a night, and why I bake banana bread at three in the morning. And it's the reason why, after a friend called an hour before he was supposed to come over for dinner tonight to cancel, I started to cry, discreetly, on the tram.

I do tend to do things discreetly - most people would never notice that I was going through a patch, because when I am going through a patch I would rather die than let on that I'm not coping. And people aren't all that perceptive, either. Anyway, I never really considered writing about it on the internet, either, except that I just read this and something in me broke a little bit. This was me two years ago, right down to the baking. It explains things better than I could, anyway, so maybe you should just read it.

And then you should go bake a batch of cookies, and then be thankful either that you're not of a depressive disposition (why is it so hard for me to write that I might "suffer depression"?) or if you are, quietly remind yourself that there are other people out there who know how it feels to spend every day in a haze - to have a great cloud of static hanging over your emotions, to not be able to make even trivial decisions, to find yourself despairing that nothing - no matter how dramatic or self-destructive - will ever shatter the bell jar.

Like I said, I know I'm not falling apart. At least, not tonight. I'm going to brush my hair and go to a friend's gig and maybe have a quiet sulk when I get home, and then I'm going to wake up tomorrow feeling better and berating myself for being a drama queen. I'm probably going to dump the food I bought to cook tonight in the fridge, because my housemates aren't home and cooking a feast for one seems kind of laughable, and eat pickles out of the jar and finish off the so-pathetic-it's-charming(?) Weight Watchers brand cottage cheese in the fridge. I'll be fine. And if not, the world could always use another batch of gingerbread.

Somebody employ me plz? Kthxbye.

The weekend passed in a haze of gin and animal masks and backyard-hanging-out, as Jono and I went to visit the lovely Caroline for birthday shenanigans. Caroline is based in Frankston, and Jono's parents have a place in Rosebud West, so we packed up the car with various bits and pieces and took a winding and scenic drive to the beach. It was a particularly pleasant weekend, commencing with Jono and I splitting a bottle of Aldi-brand gin and making increasingly crude jokes, and concluding with my being dropped of at my grandmother's house for the traditional Channukah overfeeding.

Unfortunately, delightful sojourns from the real world can't last forever, and so now I am back in the office, eating leftover bagels and looking for a job. There seems to be depressingly little out there involving writing/editing/subbing and I am afraid that I will have to return to hospitality in a few weeks' time. I don't really mind waitressing too much, but I would prefer a writing jo for obvious reasons, not least because cafe work is so notoriously badly-paid.

So, if anyone knows of any wordy-type positions out there, can you give me the heads up? I've done freelance technical writing for a dental imaging company before, as well as fooling around with student media and small press, so I'm game for any sort of technical writing as well as fiction and journalistic writing, editing, and proofing. A job truly would be the bestest Christmas present a friend/reader/anonymous commenter could give me... with gin coming in a close second. Just kidding! I am not a sleazy delinquent but fully employable! Seriously, someone hire me?

Shorts for summer

I met the delightful Mary K this evening for dinner in the city, starting and culminating with free drinks at her place of work. Along the way we stopped at Pellegrini's for $13 pasta, and met up with our friend Ben for a quick cocktail at Madame Brussels, whereupon the conversation took a turn for the smutty. Amongst the printable things discussed, prompted by one waiter's incredibly hot shorts and blazer combination, was Ben's intention to bring short shorts in for summer.

I tell you, I could not be more pleased with this decision. Long have I been an advocate of trunks, shorts, and their leg-revealing ilk. I was recently mourning the fact that a man's well-turned leg is no longer considered worthy of attention or adulation, but hopefully a revival of short shorts for summer may help turn the tide back towards a celebration of the muscular calves and shapely thighs of our masculine friends.

What do you think? Are Ben and I alone in wanting to see more man leg? Personally, I feel that woman have shouldered the burden of legginess for too long. All I'm asking for is equality here. A little pin parity. After all, the fundamental tenets of feminism demand that men and women be treated equally. And men's legs, recently, have not been displayed, objectified, and lusted after as frequently as women's have. So it's only fair that mans flash a little gams. Preferably whilst wearing seersucker shirts, hats, and/or spectacles. And carrying a jug of Pimm's. That would just about make me pass out from happiness, I think.

Gingerbread jihad

So recently I have been on an absolute baking spree, and I have to say I am enjoying every minute of it. Usually my compulsive baking is linked to nerves or stress (don't tell me I'm the only one who whipped up a batch of election cupcakes!) but lately I've just had itchy baking fingers.

Tonight I found myself at my parents' place, drinking Baileys with my mama and baking an army of gingerbread stars and hearts. I amused myself by imagining a star/heart gingerbread war, with each side attacking and devouring the other until they realised the devastating (and cannabalistic) gingerbread cost. Grief-stricken, many of the remaining soldiers offered up their lives in a ritual fire. This explains why there were half as many biscuits left in the kitchen an hour after I baked them as there should have been and why a few where looking a little charry around the edges. Well, actually, my sisters were probably responsible for some of the devastation...

We don't have that many holiday traditions in my family, as we tend to alternate Christmas and Channukah as the Big Deal holiday and thus get lazy about every-year kind of things. But one thing we've done consistently, without fail, is make gingerbread houses, decorated austerely with dustings of icing sugar or riotously with raspberries, mint leaves, smarties and liquorice all-sorts. Christmas is really one of the few times of the year that it's socially accptable to bake like a motherfucker, so I tend to take full advantage of people's willingness to eat tiny gingerbread soldiers and proceed accordingly.

Recently the whole gingerbread thing has gotten a bit out of hand, and I've found myself manning gingerbread house construction lines staffed with neighbourhood children, tiny cousins and tipsy best friends. Which is nice. Although, when I think about it, one of the warmest, fuzziest parts of the experience, for me, is remembering making the houses as a child with a twinkly old German woman named Sigrid. These poor neighbourhood children are going to remember some vintage-dress-wearing twenty-year-old, hepped up on sugar, swearing in French, and making up songs about the various stages of baking. Oh dear.

Anyway, I have such nice memories connected to the gingerbreading, and that's probably part of my deepseated baking fetish. The other part is probably pathological. But what the hell! We will let them eat cake, or at least gingerbread. And then let them lie down on the couch with a strange craving for gherkins wondering how it is possible to ingest that much molasses in one sitting as they fall into a hyperglycaemic swoon. Er, not that I would know anything about that...

The battle continues

I scrolled through my newly acquired RSS list the other day to find that the world has acquired another holy warrior in the battle against insipid yet somehow wildly offensive bullshit. Reading Mary's post reminded me that I had attempted to post a comment in response to the very Ask Sam post she is denouncing. Mysteriously, it didn't get past the mods, and I forgot about it. Mary has requested that the text be reproduced in full here so as to strengthen the anti-Sam movement's internet presence. I am more than happy to oblige. The following rhetoric may contain ranting.

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Hey, imogen and Magoo [sole voices of reason at the time of attempted posting -- ed], you beat me to it. I've never commented on this blog before, although I've often commented upon it (mainly upon its poorly constructed prose, total conformity to retrograde stereotypes and inherent anti-feminism), but the de Beauvoir comment was just the final straw.

I doubt very much that Simone de Beauvoir would read a syndicated dating column, but were she a) not dead and b) to peruse this blog, I am sure that she would throw up her hands at having her seminal treatise cited alongside this excruciating tripe and utter something violent and French.

Apart from having authored one of the most influential feminist works around, and as well as being a formidable scholar and philosophe, de Beauvoir was famously progressive in her relationship with Sartre, with both of them taking lovers and participating in menages a trois. This was before "feminism, the pill, and books like Why Men Marry Bitches", which I'm sure is a charming tome, turned women into voracious sexual creatures who are - quelle horreur! - having sex on the first date. Somehow, I think she’d be okay with having sex in a nightclub toilet.

Like I said, I read Ask Sam fairly regularly and usually respond with an eye-roll and a snarky comment, because I accept that there's not much meat in a dating column that maintains that everyone is equal, unique and deserving of respect, and because I accept that Ask Sam represents the views of one woman with whom I disagree heartily but who nonetheless has the right to her own opinions. But as soon as one of the founding mothers of feminism is used to justify the whining of a man who doesn't understand why women leave him when he makes no attempt to "please them or live up to their expectations", I find that I can’t just leave things with an eye-roll.

Its disappointing and upsetting the short shift feminism is given on this blog – it seems most often to paint feminists as man-hating, embittered hags who bitch at other women and constantly emasculate their men. All of which is fine as long as you accept that Ask Sam inhabits the same artificial landscape as Cosmo or Ralph, where the dynamics of social interaction are distorted and exaggerated for a cheap 300 words and which seems to be about 25 years behind the rest of society. But as soon as you invoke de Beauvoir, you describe another landscape, one where women (and men) can be strong, opinionated, promiscuous and independent without fear of being labeled ‘dominating’ (although I strongly suspect the word Sam is grasping about for here is ‘domineering’).

Simone de Beauvoir was such a woman, and the women who follow in her footsteps probably do scare the fuck out of Sam’s friend, who seems to look at the richness and intricacy of sexual and romantic relationships and see only constant opportunities for petty point-scoring. As to the question of whether women or men should be more ‘dominating’, I think the answer we are looking for is that no person should ever ‘dominate’ another based on something as arbitrarily prescribed as, say, gender. Hey, that’s pretty much feminism in a nutshell! Sometimes, it really is that simple.

"I'm an arsehole. Love me."

Yesterday Jelly and I decided to indulge in a Winonathon, which consisted of sparkling rose, popcorn, Girl, Interrupted (remember when Angie used to be hot?!) and the inimitable Reality Bites. So much Winona! You know, it's a real pity she doesn't make movies anymore, what with the shoplifting and the court case and all. She may be kind of one-note, but she does doe-eyed waif with a French haircut like nobody's business.

Anyway, Reality Bites has always been a movie that I love to hate, partly because I was seven when it was released and the references grated by the time I saw it, and partly because I have met too many people like the kids in Reality Bites - self-obsessed, annoying, angst-filled and under the impression that an exchange of pop-culture references is a decent substitute for originality and wit. More specifically, I have met too many guys like Ethan Hawke's Troy Dyer - "brilliant", subversive, and total, irredeemable arseholes.

Why are we supposed to root for this character? He's nasty. He's jealous, petty, and condescending. His faux-Kerouac evangelising is supposed to be some kind of revelatory 'realness', but basically it smacks of the kind of arrogance that comes from a total disregard for everyone else. Troy, we're told, is some kind of disaffected genius, and because of that we're meant to think that his smart-arsery and mean-spiritedness about the world are somehow noble and pure - he's the savant that sees through the spin of the commercialised world and rejects it with a shrug and a quip.

Except, as mentioned, he's a total fucking prick. Winona Ryder's character isn't exactly sympathetic either, but at least she's flawed in a kind-of-identifiable-with way, and she's willing to see past the yuppie exterior of a woefully-miscast Ben Stiller and fall for his inherent sweetness. Of course, Ben Stiller is going to get a clunky nineties-style platform heel to the heart in this scenario - he wears a suit, for Christ's sake. That's part of the reason we know we're supposed to root for Troy. The other part is the speech he gives Winona when he tries desperately to make her love him. It goes, "I'm an arsehole. Love me."

Well, actually, it goes: "You can't navigate me. I may do mean things, and I may hurt you, and I may run away without your permission, and you may hate me forever, and I know that scares the living shit outta you 'cause you know I'm the only real thing you got." But the sentiment is the same. And let me tell you, Ethan Hawke - this is bullshit. Total, utter bullshit.

Disclaiming that you're likely to walk all over someone in a relationship does not, in fact, give you permission to walk all over them. Being 'upfront' about the fact that you're a prick does not give you a get-out-of-jail card for treating them with contempt. And telling someone that you're likely to treat them like shit because you're the only person that will love them is not in any way, shape, or form, romantic.

How many times have I heard variations of this speech? How many times have my friends? How many have you? And why do we keep putting up with this shit? In the end, Winona capitulates to Ethan's not-inconsiderable charms, because the dorky guy that adores her is worth less than the bad boy who treats her like dirt. Because she's not worth it - she doesn't deserve a guy who is charming and charismatic and emotionally functional. That's the implication.

She's not worth it, and hey, at least when Ethan cheats on her, ignores, hurts or condescends to her, it's not like she won't have been warned, right? Please. The fact that Winona Ryder falls for this shit - that we all, occasionally, seem to fall for this shit - is the number one, popcorn-throwing reason this movie makes me mad. That, and the fact that if you don't go out with Ethan Hawke, your only choice is Ben Stiller. But I don't even know where to start with that one.

Just a lovely day

I was walking down Johnston st today when a women dashed out of a hair salon and bailed me up on the footpath. Would I be interested in working as a hair model? Did I have time for a colour today? I was, and I did, and now my hair is a rich and chocolatey shade of brown.

I think I am going to have to accept the redhead experiment as somewhat of a failure... I loved the colour but every time I went to have it touched up it seemed to get darker and darker, inching back towards my natural colour. Perhaps I will accept defeat until I have grown my hair out a bit more, and then go somewhere really expensive (ie. competent) and emerge the mermaid-haired temptress of my dreams. Somehow I'm banking on mermaid hair, although mine is taking an excruciatingly long time to grow.

I had such a nice time walking around Collingwood. Somehow I've managed to spoil myself rotten today. I had breakfast with my lovely friend Josephine, real crumpets with blackberry butter and darky, muddy-coloured coffee, and some good conversation, then headed off towards Fitzroy, managing to make a small detour through a lovely little op shop and picking up a cheerful plaid summer jacker with cap sleeves, a scarf and some sunnies. Then hair-pampering, and a short walk to Per Square Metre, where I picked up my darling illustration. It is very darling. Shut up, it just is.

Getting peckish again I hit upon a lovely, tiny, jumbly cafe with antiques and furniture cluttering up the back and paintbrushes drying out in the bathroom. A five dollar plate of spaghetti napoli later (the proper kind, with olives and capers and chilli) and I was basking in the sunshine, happy and replete.

It made me think how happy I am to be able to have my own life at the moment. I've done a lot of bleating on this blog about being a dismal romantic failure, but being able to wander around Collingwood, slip in and out of galleries, sit in a park, whatever, without needing to make plans or be accountable for my whereabouts is just a wonderful feeling. That total satisfaction you get from a successful day's solitude... it's nice. And it's nice to remember that I've always liked my own company. Especially on a holiday, in the sunshine, with a freshly-shampooed head.