A Moment of Perfection

May 9, 2013 in Anecdotes, Family, Self, Stories

Standing on my parents’ balcony, looking over the edge. A whip bird cry some metres away. The distant sounds of a wallaby startled and bounding away through the bush. It’s warm, and I stand there in my red t-shirt and bike pants, baggy around my tiny little legs. I dip my cardboard toilet roll into a meadow lea margarine container full of water and morning fresh, the distinct smell fills my nostrils as I raise the roll to my mouth. I blow. Not too hard, not too soft. Just firm enough. The bubble forms at the end of the toilet [...]

My Mother, Margaret Thatcher and Me

April 11, 2013 in Celebrity, Current Affairs, Human Rights, News, Politics

My mother has this irritating habit of always seeing the good in people. I suppose it’s an admirable quality too – but sometimes I want to have a rant about some in-justice without having to see it from a different (and empathetic) perspective. There are a two exceptions to this… the ex-boyfriend who cheated on me and Margaret Thatcher. I won’t pretend to understand all the politics of the time. My family enjoyed a relatively comfortable lifestyle; we had overseas holidays, two cars. We didn’t experience financial suffering the way thousands of others in our country did. Perhaps it was my mother’s [...]

Confessions of a (Failed) Shoplifter

March 28, 2013 in Anecdotes, Humour, Stories

Growing up in a smallish town with little to do except wander around the shops on a Saturday, with a group of BFFs, boredom levels ran high. These Saturday afternoons were the highlight of my week. Armed with a small amount of pocket money, we’d try on clothes we couldn’t afford, giggle at boys over milkshakes and plaster each other in cheap tester perfumes and garish make up. Ah, the make-up. Rimmel was our friend. Or not. It was the 80s (electric blue mascara anyone?). My hands would be tattooed with smears of lipstick colours which I proudly wore like [...]

Bathroom Timers and Secret Listeners

March 4, 2013 in Health, Lifestyle, People, Self, Work

Women have been going to the bathroom in groups for as far back as human civilisation remembers. I have to admit, I don’t really understand this phenomena, especially in the case of two people going together who are either not particularly good friends, where only one person actually needs to go to the bathroom, or who have only just met. In the context of being out at night and doing it for safety, I understand, but just as a general thing at a cafe, a restaurant or food court, I just don’t get it. You see, I have a certain [...]

Why I Miss Being a Kid of the 90s

October 19, 2012 in Anecdotes, Books, Entertainment, Film & TV, Humour, Music, People, Self, Stories, Technology

I miss being a kid. I really do. I miss the feeling of not really knowing how the day was going to pan out and all the little things that made being a kid so much fun. But I won’t sell you a lie, I know being a kid can be terribly boring as well. One memory I have is sitting in my dad’s big green armchair; swiveling around during the commercial breaks of my favourite TV show screaming “boring! borrrrrinnnnggg!” over and over again. Charming kid, wasn’t I? There’s a scene in Puberty Blues where Debbie and her younger [...]

The Cold War Ripped Me Off!

September 27, 2012 in Anecdotes, News, Politics

When I recently read an article suggesting that Australian cities were probably never targeted by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, I was really upset. No seriously –  really upset. You might think I would be happy that Australia, as a whole, was probably never a target during the Cold War. But no! I felt ripped off! The Cold War stole my life – it OWES ME! Don’t they know how many times I thought about dying, or worse still, living through a nuclear war? Don’t they know how many sleepless nights I had as a kid and young adult? Don’t they realise [...]

Cartoons From the 80s are the Best Kind

May 29, 2012 in Entertainment, Film & TV, People

If you were a child in the 80s, you got to see some excellent cartoons. If I bring them up in conversation at a party with similar generation friends, you can guarantee they have seen them and we have a fun time reminiscing. I thought I’d share with you my personal top five, so you can see what you’ve been missing. 5. Voltron Robot lions that come together to make a super fighting machine! The series was created using footage from Japanese animations such as Beast King GoLion (much like how Power Rangers started). Originally the team is all guys [...]

A Lesson In Humility

May 25, 2012 in Anecdotes, Friendship, Human Rights, Lifestyle, Money, People, Pregnancy & Birth, Self, Stories

When I was 7 years old, my mother went to work at Atoifi in the Solomon Islands where there is an Adventist Hospital. She trains nurses & midwives for a living. It wasn’t the first time she was sent off shore and it wasn’t the last. The difference about this trip is that she took me. We were gone for a few months. During my time there, I felt welcomed by the community. They even had a feast in our honour – the only time I’ve enjoyed fish! They respected my mother a great deal and little blonde-haired blue-eyed me [...]

Are You One Of The Middle-Class Poor?

May 7, 2012 in Current Affairs, Finance, Society

I grew up poor. Not destitute, but poor. My dad worked as a cleaner up until I was 6, and then we lived on his invalid pension until I was 13. When he passed away, my mother and I lived on her widow’s pension until I started working at 19. The only thing that saved us from being destitute was the fact that my parents had managed to buy the house they were renting thanks to a post-war zero-interest loan that Dad qualified for as an ex-servicemen after WWII. Even then, I grew up without many luxuries. Things that you [...]

Get Happy (A tribute to Judy Garland)

April 23, 2012 in Body Image, Celebrity, Entertainment, Film & TV, Mental Health, Music

It’s no secret that I love Judy Garland. In my opinion, Judy Garland was the most beautiful woman who ever lived. I have loved Judy ever since I was a little girl, when I desperately wanted to look like her, to sing like her, to be her. A few years ago I bought the Judy Garland biography Get Happy. The best thing about Get Happy is that it is based on tapes and documents Judy recorded & wrote for her own autobiography, that was never finished. I haven’t finished it yet, it was so incredibly heartbreaking to read. Judy only [...]