Knowledge November - Day 15 - The Age of Awkward














Boys tend to be rather clumsy and clueless from about thirteen to seventeen years of age.

It is a time of cruel contradiction: puberty starts and so does an interest in (mostly) girls yet they themselves are physically and emotionally at their most unattractive.

Their butt-ugly faces are spotty which only serves to highlight their big noses; they have fuzzy chin hairs that can only seen against bright sunlight and overly-pointy Adam's apples that work overtime to produce embarrassing yelps and squeaks in the middle of sentences.

My friend Di, a battle-weary mother of two grown up sons, once sat down next to me, rearranged her pearls and said bluntly, "At fifteen they're tripping over their feet and using their hands to grab every bit of food they can see. Their willies grow far larger than their brain power or common sense can ever hope to catch up with." Yes, she adores her sons and would do anything for them, but even she could see that they were about as graceful as a truckload of plucked emus and about as pretty.














Teenage boys, like teenage girls, tend to congregate in packs, albeit ganglier ones. There's lots of self conscious hooting laughter, pushing, shoving and slouching. Armpit farts, spit balls out of bic pens and ear lobe flicking are their most natural habits when socialising together. They somehow manage to effectively communicate with each other, yet I've never seen a boy in this age-range sit up straight or raise his eyes further than crotch-level when he's speaking, mumbling or grunting a response.

Posh Spice has a lot in common with these fellas, believe it or not. Both breeds have skinny little pencil necks with huge soccer ball heads and concave (real) chests. Both tend to have legs the width of pipe cleaners and the fashion sense of retarded blind men. It is obvious that neither listens to the wise fashion advice of their mothers, nor pays attention to what other more sensible people around them are wearing.

Teenage boys’ hands, too, seem to be huge, way out of proportion to even their noses, heads, willies and feet. My theory is that God designed it so that they had the best gathering tools for food. Having two brothers, I can vouch for this - Mum had barely put the groceries away and they had already smelled it, scooped it, and eaten it. She got so desperate that she ended up storing the TimTams in the vegetable crisper, but even that didn't work: they ate their way through the meat tray, dairy case, plastic trays and cabbage in order to find the rewarding chocolate biscuit base.

Their massive mitts had amazing dexterity in terms of delicately buttering and spreading a dozen SAO biscuits without them so much as shedding a grain of salt let alone cracking; plus they could make up a cup of Milo Mud (half milk, half Milo) without spilling a drop on the counter. They could both reach the magical top 999 score on my palm-sized Donkey Kong II game, yet seemed to be physically incapable of being able to aim their jocks within a 50m radius of the dirty-clothes hamper or ascertain that the 5ml in the bottom of the orange juice carton might not be worth putting back in the fridge.

Shamefully, at the ages of 12, 13 and 14, I had yearned for men similar to these. Young, idiotic males who could barely open their lunch boxes, let alone pick up the vibe that bookishly quiet Katherine Read, two rows behind them, was desperately in love with their intelligent, sporty, funny, hunky side. Plus their ability to expertly throw chunks of chalk down Daniel Panizzi's unenviable bum cleavage during geography. 'Oh if only Anthony would notice me, he's the only guy in the class taller than my shoulder....'

The luxury of reminiscing about these painful crushes over two decades later has shown that I should be grateful that they were clueless. My husband tells me that, at that age, a girl would have to strip naked and write 'Take me NOW Stud' on her chest in liquid paper for a bloke to get the general idea that she might be interested in pashing him behind the agriculture wing after cricket practice. A shy prude like me would have died: my - admittedly unsuccessful - method of courtship was to ignore the object of my affection entirely.

Despite this, I now see these Pubescent Doofuses walking past our house on the way to the local high school, at Red Rooster and outside 'Game Zone' and want to reassure them. I want to clunk their shaggy heads together (to get their attention: otherwise they think I'm someone's mother about to embarrass them or lecture them) and say: "Look love, you're butt ugly now, but wait until you're eighteen. The girls (or boys) will be falling over you. In the meantime, eat well; don't pick your zits and PULL YOUR DAMN PANTS UP!"

Has there been a more ridiculous male fashion than to have your jeans so low that your boxer shorts are completely on show, and the bum pockets reside just above the knee? All this does is make the wearer look completely arseless, and not in a good way.














All is not doom and gloom for this teenage testosterone tribe however. Somehow, their bodies stretch up and they cease the self-conscious hunching of shoulders, their skin clears and their faces reassemble themselves into something worth gazing at. It's a mysterious process but nonetheless an amazing one. If they'd only outgrow the farting.... but that's a completely different story.

Knowledge November - Day 14 – The Cheap Seats

I was chatting to a father of a friend of Sapphire’s. We might live in the same neighbourhood, but it’s a small triangular-shaped pocket that consists of four towering blocks of Housing Commission flats and several million dollar-plus heritage listed mansions.

As such, we can see the Mysterious Monolith atop tower four from our place, but David is a throw of a tennis ball away from Cashed Up Crescent.

I mentioned that I had been invited to Ladies/Oaks Day at Flemington racecourse and was looking forward to going.

“What marquee will be you be in?” he asked.

I laughed and said, “Huh, that’ll be the day – nope, I’m in general admission, hoping for a patch of grass to lay down the picnic blanket.”

As I walked home with Sapphire, it dawned on me that I’m never going to be the girl (okay, woman) who’ll get to see the grand final in a corporate box, wear the coveted wrist band ID for entry into the Melbourne Cup birdcage extravaganza or be listed as a VIP on any guest list.

Growing up in a country town with a school teacher father and home-based and later-administrator mother gave us limited opportunities for anything other than sport, BBQs and school fund raising events. Mum recalls that the town had a social pecking order that featured doctors’ wives and parents whose children were packed off to boarding school but even they only got free note pads and syringe covers as gifts in the seventies.

I’ve never travelled business class let alone first and still feel a bit of a thrill when we’re on holiday as a family and Love Chunks uses his Qantas Club card (so that they don’t have to pay for a business class ticket when he flies overseas for work) and we get to go in and snack away to our hearts’ content.

My two years in London may have given me loads of opportunities to see many West End shows but all were paid for through the half-price ticket booth bought the same afternoon in Leicester Square or only cost five quid. All seats were situated so far up my knees quivered uncertainly if I leaned too far forward over the rail to see more than the top of the backdrop.

There have been freebie movies and comedy shows but the payment required has been the necessity to produce a reasonably eloquent written account of it afterwards. Books too have been enjoyed without any damage to my wallet but they tend to be an ‘Uncorrected Proof Copy For Promotional Use Only’ with a thin cover that creases easily and doesn’t add any colour or sophistication to my cheap pine bookshelves.

I was never a hot young chick that the bouncers waved through ahead of the line or dated anyone with access to a corporate box. Love Chunks can get slightly discounted weather bureau calendars but that’s about as far as his access to freebies and glitz extends.

So, on Oaks Day we dressed up, took along our nibbly things, had sensible shoes on to replace our heels when needed and set a ten dollar betting budget for the afternoon.

My shoulder wasn’t tapped to enter Myer’s Fashions on the Field; Rebecca Twigley didn’t rush over to interview me as I sashayed past with my blastic bottle of Yellowglen to enquire about the brand of my dress ($69 from Rockman’s as it happens) and none of my horses paid off the mortgage or required a return visit to the TAB.

In General Admission I instead met Ruprecht's Australian cousin, two women with hats taller than their own bodies, a bloke with the exact same hat as mine (my Mum's actually) that he snaffled from his sister, applauded a trilby-wearing bloke in pointy white shoes as he was shuffled off to the divvy van (the only one we saw for the entire day), had a chat with the winner of Best Shoes of the Oaks (yes, it's a separate category) in her $2900 Dolce and Gabbanas, photographed a young hopeful wearing a dress made out of pig face and turf grass and enjoyed Carmel's home made chicken wings with only the rose bushes separating us from the horsies.

I hope that I made my mother proud, who when she loaned me her hat and earrings said smiling, "Now I don't want to see photos of you getting drunk in the car park and being splashed all over the news and in those nasty My Face Web pages, you hear?"

Yep. I returned home sober, non-sunburned, un-arrested and ten bucks poorer and in time to meet up with Sapphire for the 3.30pm after school pick up. It was great fun.

Knowledge November - Day 13 - My Beholders

I'm still a bloke magnet

.... for the steak and lamb butchers at the Queen Vic Market: "Come over here darlin', I've got legs on sale that are even better than yours!"

.... for fat fifty-something guys driving white delivery vans: "Nice knockers for an old chick."

....for my local postie (as he handed me over my fifth parcel of chocolate samples): "I reckon that you could be my ideal woman."

.... for the toothless drunk who sits on the park bench by the railway station: "ShowushyertitshSchweetie, c'mere"

.... for male dogs who like to demonstrate their animal attraction against my leg or by actively sniffing my bum when I crouch down to pat them

.... for four year old boys who enjoy my fart jokes and, when visiting my house for the first time, rush into the bathroom and yell, "WOWee you've got toothbrushes that PLUG into the WALL!"

.... for anyone reeking of stale cigarettes and vodka but needing $2 to take the bus home

.... for Rain-Men in nipple-grazing high-pants who like to chat on trams. "I live by myself now you know, which is why I've got this shopping cart here, see?"

.... for old security guys temporarily plucked out of retirement who left their specs at home and insist on seeing ID before I can buy a champers at the races "Yer a spring chicken, yes you are love."

.... for the rotund bloke in the straining, too-small ACDC t-shirt who smokes on the balcony of the second floor flat next door and sees me burst out of the shed after my run; huffing, puffing and sweating profusely. "Morning mate, well done," and gives me the thumbs up signal.

.... for Love Chunks.

He leaves for an overseas work trip to France today and refused to let me come along as his 'other' and share his accommodation (of course I'd pay for the flight and sort out care for Sapphire and Milly and Skipper) because he's worried about abusing his travel privileges and the taxpayer dollar.

I'm frustrated at this sedate stance that sets him apart from nearly everyone else I know who travels for work (including everyone else attending the same conference that he is) and jealous about the location he's visiting (Toulouse) and sad when I realise that my own self-preserving career choices mean that generously funded-trips are never going to feature in my future so I snort and call him a POG which stands for Pompous Old Git and only partly mean it as a joke yet I'm already aching at the thought of him not being here with me for a week or so and miss his strong arms, smell, feel, voice, eyes, POGgy humour.........

Knowledge November - Day 12 - White washing














Fellow blogger Lorna Lilo was chatting about the warm weather we’ve had recently and reckons she gets sunburned sitting too close to the light bulb and spending “a day in the sun is something that would require major preparation to the point that by the time I was ready to go out summer would be over. Women can't just chuck on the shorts and head out.”

I realised that I also get burned standing on a railway platform in the middle of winter under heavy cloud and that too often I’ve noticed the ‘what the hell....?’ looks of passersby if I’m wearing my running shorts and feel morally obliged to stop, introduce myself and explain that my legs are indeed whiter than fluoro tubes but are a much less reliable source of illumination due to rarely having the covers taken off.

My face is so pale that – if my legs are hidden in jeans - people always furrow their brow in concern and think I’m recovering from a viral infection. This unwanted whiteness is never more apparent than around the pool wearing bathers.

One thing I’ve learned is that I owe my mother big time for insisting, even in the early seventies, that swimming in a t-shirt and slicking my face with zinc cream was a must. I didn’t appreciate it at the time, especially when frolicking with two brown brothers and bronzed, pool-owning neighbours, but she saved me countless peeled noses, raw shoulders and freckles.



















Although we have all known for years that a tan is risking sun damage and skin cancer, I defy anyone to line up two women of the same body size and appearance - with the only difference being that one is tanned and one is not - and not admit that the tanned one looks thinner, fitter and healthier. Carrying a little extra weight is easier to hide if you’re golden brown: cellulite is no friend of the cottage-cheese coloured.

On our last tropical Queensland holiday, I was naughty. I decided to do my utmost to get a tan. For the entire ten days I slathered every visible part of my body with factor 30+ sunscreen, rotisserating myself half-hourly like a lazy-boy-bound take-away chicken. I swam 40 laps every late afternoon with the sun beating down on my arms, back, shoulder and legs and moisturized every evening with a fevour that Mrs Nivea would be proud of. Sunburn did not dare venture my way once – surely I was attaining a tiny, tiny bit of pigment? Surely I was no longer the whitest one in the pool?

All too soon, our lovely holiday was at its end. Strolling back to reception to hand over the key, the porter remarked to me, “Welcome to our resort Mrs Plugger. Have you just arrived?”

I decided that it was time for some chemical assistance. The plastic tube’s promise of a Sunless, Golden Glow For An Ultra Natural Tanning Result was impossible to turn down. The morning after we arrived back home, the fake tanner came out. Or, as cosmetics companies prefer, ‘Moisturising Bronzer.’

The instructions, well, instructed me to get in the shower, shave everything worth shaving, exfoliate everything worth exfoliating, get out, dry off and moisturise everything worth moisturising. All was going swimmingly until.....

KNOCK KNOCK – “Mum! Can I come in to the bathroom to wash my hands?”
“Um, can you drag a chair into the laundry and use the tap in the trough?”
(uncertainly) “Oh, OK.”

The bronzer was applied in smooth, even strokes with very little applied to the dry areas of heels and knees. As I sparingly rubbed it into my elbows, it reminded me of what Billy Connolly once said: ‘Elbows are where God put his left over testicle skin. He thought it was a sin to waste it.’

Next step read ‘Let set for 30 mins before wearing any clothing.’
Thirty minutes, it was bloody freezing in there and I had to do the school drop off in twenty.....

Dammit, I’d forgotten to bring in my watch. One elephant, two elephants, three elephants, four….. My fingers were turning blue. Perhaps a jog on the spot would make things a bit warmer. Perhaps not. The lack of elasticated underwire support made things in the chest area rather painful and my buttocks were still reverberating a minute after I stopped.

Bing Bong Bing Bong went the front door bell.

Marvellous, that was just flippin’ marvellous. Our bathroom was directly in line with the front door, and I had no intention of providing any sort of visual comic relief to the hapless visitor.

In the meantime all I could do to keep warm was a sort of crippled side-to-side shuffle like a teenage boy at his first disco, and hope that the visitor would leave soon---

“Mum, there’s a guy from the post office here for you. He’s got a package that he says you’ve gotta sign for.”
Poo Bum Bugger Shit Fart. “Where’s your Dad? Can you get him to sign it?”
“Dad’s in the toilet.” And not likely to emerge until the first orange leaves of Autumn.
“TELL HIM I’LL BE THERE IN FIVE MINUTES,” I yelled to her through the keyhole. My lovely little one relayed the message.
“Mum he can’t wait around, he’s got other deliveries to do he says.”
Stuff all this – “Tell him I’ll be right there.”
“Sign here please.” He didn’t even look up. It felt nice and warm in my dressing gown and I no longer cared if the thirty minutes were up.

“Whew, what on earth is wrong with you?” said Love Chunks, sniffing at me suspiciously as we settled into bed that night.
“Bronzing lotion,” I muttered.
“FAKE TAN? Why? You’re a whitey and you can’t change that, it’ll look strange. It smells strange….”
“Yeah well, it’s OK for you, brown boy. You just have to think about wearing shorts and you’re nice and tanned. I hate being mistaken for the first full moon every time I bend over to pick up the newspaper.”
The bed was shaking slightly in the darkness. We weren’t doing any horizontal folk dancing, LC was laughing.

The next morning found me in the shower, frantically trying to exfoliate off the orange streaks. Clearly my application technique was not as smooth or even as I’d hoped. There were distinct finger print marks at the back of my neck and a generous amount of lotion run-off had decided to settle within my cleavage, forming a fetching fault-line of orange zig zags. My legs were golden but my feet looked as though they’d been varnished in a hailstorm. As for my arms, well, on their own they appeared sun-kissed, but I’d been too stringent in ensuring that my palms didn’t turn orange, so my hands were still pallid. It gave the impression of the gloves worn by Mickey Mouse.

Since that first and last dalliance with the fake stuff, I’ve often mused to Love Chunks that fellas have it easier on the physical side. Their clothes are functional, hair removal is optional, bodily excretions are actively celebrated and long board shorts and rashie vests are de-rigeur at the beach.

...which is why, at 41, I wear 'em too. It means that I only have to slather my face and feet with the dreaded 30+ and can hide my blinding white from others on the beach.

Knowledge November - Day 11 - Disgusting Dilemmas

I've read via several sources that a lung specialist in Innsbruck, Austria, believes that nose-pickers are generally healthier, happier and most likely to be better in tune with their bodies than non-nose-pickers.

Dr Friedrich Bischinger believes that society should encourage children to nose-pick-and-eat. "It's a great way of strengthening the body's immune system. Medically it makes sense and it's a perfectly natural thing to do."

Well, if it prevents cancer, heart attacks and AIDS, I'm all for it. I think......

Many many bloggings ago, I previously admitted to blowing my nose in the shower as one of my regular, bad habits. It clears everything out, saves on tissues and makes my groggy sleep-laden head feel about a kilogram lighter. That's right, I'm not ashamed of this daily spring-clean of the sinuses. However, I do not pick it out with my digits or eat it.

In my reception year, I remember seeing the object of my (somewhat misguided) affection, Matthew, sitting directly in front of me in the school Activity Room. We were at an assembly, held inside because of the rain, and Matthew was mostly focussed on the inner recesses of his nasal cavity as opposed anything our deputy principal Mr Miller had to say.

Sadly, I found his actions fascinating - I was only five-and-a-half, after all. Then, after surveying the glistening green globule on his index finger, he put it into his mouth. There were conflicting feelings of revulsion and fascination swirling within me as I saw the look of preoccupied enjoyment on his face. Perhaps I should have a go as well, I thought. And so I did. It didn't take me long to find something worth picking out, and I sucked it from my finger.

Bleccccch, it was salty, tiny and horrible. Even now, goosebumps are springing up on my arms and my scalp as I write this.... Any early stages of a crush for Matthew disappeared quicker than mum's chocolate crackles at a birthday party. How on earth could he do that?

Thirty six years later I still haven't worked out the answer to that particular question, and if I saw Matthew again (his parents still know my parents), it would take me at least six glasses of sparkling shiraz and a handful of funny mushrooms before I'd dare bring it up.

What I do know is that, mostly, the pick-and-eat debacle showed me at a very young and impressionable stage in my life that if something seems different but also disgusting, avoid it.

'Disgusting' is normally a pretty strong indicator that it's best to stay away. Key examples of this have included:

• Eating a bowlful of melted copha, icing sugar and cocoa powder. Mum had been in the procss of making up some chocolate crackles but for some reason went outside, distracted by something Dad was making in the shed. The first few mouthfuls tasted like heaven, the other 27 were disgusting. As were my pale pink-turned-bile-brown bed sheets, blankets, pillow, hair, teddy=-dog and face later on that night.....

• Trying Philippa's Dad's roll-your-own smokes during a sleepover when I was 13 - It was OK when Philippa tolerated me 'bum sucking' the first ten whilst we squinted at a section of the Rocky Horror Picture Show on the driveway screen visible from her bedroom window but thene then she insisted that I do the 'drawback' and suck the smoke in. Soon after ,'Sweet Transvestite' wasn't how I was feeling when the room began to spin and there was only the hood of my sleeping bag to unload in....

• Riding the 'whizzy' in the caravan park playground for a full half-hour before setting off on a 450km drive with my family - I was not alone in this episode of stupidity. My two brothers were with me as well. All three of us continued to sit there, grunting out smart stuff like, "I feel a bit woozy now," but not having the sense to get off. We hadn't even driven 10 kilometres through Coff's Harbor's banana farms before the sick cartons at the back of the landcruiser were full. Dave's even sloshed over a tiny bit and splashed the speaker in the door. Dad was not happy.

• Being served a home made steak-and-kidney pie by my boyfriend's mother the very first time I had met them and had a meal over at their house. I somehow ate it by cutting it into very small pieces and swallowing them whole (washed down with his Dad's throat-burning home-made wine). The evening got worse when I went to the toilet which was adjacent to the living room and in order to avoid making any discernible noises (the brick veneer walls were paper thin), I leaned forward on the seat to enable my yellow essence to roll quietly down the inside of the bowl. Not that night - somehow my spraying action was stronger than I anticipated and the wee shot up the edge, under the seat and started pooling onto the tiled floor at the base. This resulted in ten minutes of me mouthing OH SHIT to myself (ah the irony) and oh-so-silently mopping up the mess with toilet paper whilst trying not to retch from the smell or have the kidneys return up from whence they came from the constant bending over.

There you have it: just a few things that seemed sort of digusting at first and remained disgusting. Go with your first impressions always.

So, don't pick your nose and eat it. I'm betting that this Dr Friedrich Bischinger was a tubby guy with a lazy eye who ate sunday school paste. He may have a stronger immune system, but I betting also that his little black book isn't exactly bursting at the seams.

Knowledge November - Day 10 - Repeating myself

We've all sat at the dinner table during a family get-together as adults and said to our fathers as they launch into telling their favourite story "Yeah Dad, I remember you telling us that one before, it's great..." and listened as he continued to tell the tale, haven't we? I know I have.

Sadly, this apple has plopped dangerously close to the tree. So close it's touching the trunk and sort of going all rotten and soft and starting to get sticky and meld into the bark.

The other day Sapphire and I had finished chatting to some mutual friends at the school gate the other day and were walking home with Milly. Sapph sighed and said, "You know I've heard all your stories now Mum. I could recite them."

And the little insect did, in an accent that I can only describe as Hilda Ogden Gone Ocker. Am I that bad?

Yes. I'm that bad. Not with the accent but certainly with trotting out my trusty stand-by stories at dinner parties, getting-to-know-you stories at BBQs and making small talk before concerts, movies or meetings commence. Or blogs, if the full truth be told.

Love Chunks and Sapphire are resigned to enduring these tired tales when I'm waffling on to someone new, but have promised to raise a warning eyebrow or even kick me under the table if I'm in danger of repeating myself to them or friends who have progressed beyond the 'So I found myself trapped in the Cheops pyramid passageway with Abdul the tour guide behind me groping my arse' introductory story phase.

I'll try my best to stop if they or anyone else smiles tiredly and says, "Yeah, I remember you telling me that." I honestly will.

However Sapphire has also listed a few phrases that I overuse to the point of distraction around the house. These are:

Am I made of stone - of course I'd like some chocolate!
How come you're not ready yet Sapphire?
Whew-whee, did you just drop one?
And I mean that from the heart of my bottom
Thank God I'm no longer a teenager and have to pay attention to what's in fashion any more
Crikey!

Never let it be said that I don't do the least I can possibly do
There are some real shockers in this world, Sapphire
...... and that drop-kick over there throwing his rubbish out of the car window is one of them.

I can't give any of them up or I'll be silent. That's what I've learned.

Knowledge November - Day 9 - The original blonde Joke

Why was the blonde frowning at the orange juice carton? Because it said ‘concentrate’.

Har har har. No prizes for guessing that I am a blonde. I am also educated, a published writer, a trained teacher and facilitator, a qualified solo sky-diver and book reviewer who escaped a rape scene by punching the man so hard in the face and I'm considered acceptably intelligent by most people who know me.

Okay, so that’s nothing different to any other blonde out there trying to eradicate the dumb-blonde stereotype, but I’ll add this – it’s all true and I am a *natural* blonde.

No, my hair wasn’t just blonde as a child and now darker as an adult, it is still blonde. It is the colour that my hair-dresser says is the most sought-after shade by ex-blondes or brunette wannabes who go to her salon for highlights, touch-ups or a complete transformation. Unfortunately it is also extremely fine and cannot support even a coloured rinse through it without taking on the hue in a deeply fluorescent fashion (a painfully embarrassing lesson learned when putting through a henna highlight in high school). It does, however, get a few streaks put in to thicken up my hair slightly or I risk having it all fly off in a gust no more powerful than a kitten's hiccough.

In deference to my mantra of ‘One Minute Only,’ my hair is kept short and I avoid wearing make-up as much as Paris avoids a book store. When I do occasionally put on some mascara or lipstick, I either resemble an ageing Emo clown or the first female member of the Clockwork Orange Droogs (but minus the outfit!).

Instead, it is easier for me to play down the blonde hair/blonde brain perception by not placing much emphasis on my appearance. My clothes are neat, clean and allow me to fit into the crowd without looking like a wrinkly fashion victim or a fifty-something librarian. I’m no Katherine Heigl, but I’m no Pig Troll either; just a Low Maintenance Mother with a million more important matters on her mind (Where are my litter tongs? Why does Mark Dorman get paid to write a column? How come all the vegans I know are fat?)

Pamela Anderson is a mere year older than me and is the living embodiment of the Bottle Blonde with eyebrows and lips she has to draw on like a cartoon and painfully bloated breasts that ensure an ever-dwindling income from Tommy Lee's tape sales and the added bonus of being extra protected from impact if she ever finds herself in a car crash. Her career has mostly involved attending events wearing a smile and sequinned dental floss and having extremely poor taste in men (ditto for Paris).

Pammy and Paris reinforce the stereotype of the dumb blonde and encourage those who aren't yet featured on internet pages the world over. These acolytes are often ordinary suburban women who spend an inordinate amount of time on their physical appearance: dried, long yellow hair, ridiculously square manicured nails that clearly show that the hands are seldom used for anything more demanding than a straightening iron and outfits that scream out ‘Desperate Bar Maid’ instead of ‘Destined for the Boardroom.’

If blonde is your natural colour, then all well and good. If you’re paying for it to be your colour, then forget it: you’ll be taken about as seriously as Madonna at the Academy Awards.

Then again, I probably shouldn't have walked into the lounge room on way to getting a glass of water and asked Love Chunks "What's the dumbest question I've ever asked you?"

"Does now count?"

Knowledge November - Day 8 - Style by Stealth

I knew right from the start that Love Chunks wasn’t attracted to me because of my car (a Safari Orange-coloured 1971 Volvo) or my fashion sense:

“Hey Kath, bend down and touch your toes, will you?”
“Why?”
“So I can set the table.”

We both laughed and his dislike for my top would have carried a lot more weight if he hadn’t then sashayed – Swish Swish Swish Swish – out of the kitchen wearing his infernally noisy shell tracksuit pants.

It was 1993 when we fell for each other and my expensive, dark green corduroy and paisley patterned overshirt purchased in London in 1991 still had a fair bit of wear left in it in my opinion. Besides, living on Austudy whilst learning how to survive teaching high school kids Australian History and English meant that funds for clothes weren’t available.

Love Chunks’ wardrobe too had a few travesties that he clearly considered were still acceptable to wear in public, like his black leather ‘spray jacket’ style coat with the press-stud shoulder epaulettes, short-sleeved business shirts and stubbie shorts.

It was only at the end of the year when the weather bureau (and a better salary) in Melbourne beckoned LC back and I followed, scoring a debt collecting job at a security firm that was slightly less soul-destroying that performing paid acts of sodomy in bus shelters.

The move from Adelaide provided me with the opportunity to ‘lose’ a few of LC’s most objectionable items of clothing, such as his Speedos.

Sure, he had a fit physique but they were Speedos. Why not cover your genitals in Glad Wrap for all the modesty that tight-fitting, sky-blue lycra provided? And his too-snug, black and brown striped polo shirt that had been witness to key events in his young adult life – year 12, university, residential college, graduate traineeship in Darwin, student teaching in Adelaide, curries with me – had to go. Quietly and with dignity. And, of course, with utmost secrecy, being hastily buried under the lemon tree furthest from the back verandah of our student share house.
When we arrived in Melbourne to our crumbly 1960s flat, we had few boxes to unpack. It was our first home together, and it was fitting that our belongings complemented each other. LC had the sofa, me the dining table. He the VCR, me the telly. He the copper-bottomed saucepans, me the quilt.

Our right hand-side neighbours were silent, with delicious smells of fragrant curries and spices permanently seeping under our door whetting our appetites and the left-hand neighbour assailed us with poor renditions of ‘Smoke on the Water’ via his crackling amplifier. The people above us scraped their chairs on lino at 2am and the woman below at car-park level owned a mouthy cockatoo and liked to smash her own windows whenever she argued with her occasional boyfriend. It was perfect.

A month into the move, LC half-heartedly asked as to the whereabouts of his polo-shirt. Trying to avoid telling him the truth, I spun around, pointed my finger at his chest and said accusingly, “Not so fast, buddy. Where is my green shirt? I can read you like a book, Love Chunks.”
“Well I can read you like a fact-sheet Kath, ‘cos I saw you shove my shirt into the wheelie bin.”

Fast forward sixteen years and I found myself on the very same street as our first residence, attending an Open Inspection out of nosiness, not extra funds. Walking back to our house and towards our bird turd-splattered old Magna, I realised that style and cars are still not what keeps us together.

There’s my thong collection, my one concession to brand names:













Love Chunk’s Babboon Bum bike shorts that are always drying on the towel rack:




















And Milly’s hairs that festoon our clean socks.




















It is Sapphire these days that comments on our outfits, not us. She’ll say:
Hey Mum why don’t you buy those peacock feather earrings from Diva they’re only six dollars and more interesting than the boring hoops you’ve always got on
You should wear clothes like Simone’s Mum. She’s gone back to uni to study art and painting and has got these white boots that are really high heeled and go right up her thighs so that you just can see a bit of her black and purple striped tights under her velvet dress that reminds me of a princess like Rapunzel and she likes to wash her hair in henna
Or you could get your hair streaked a bit lighter like Juliet’s and Sarah’s Mums do and I have to ask - and I’m not trying to be rude or cheeky or answer you back – but why you always think that polar fleece is OK to wear to cafes when you won’t let me wear my crocs there and your running gear is fine to wear on the way to school but I really hate that Ben Lee ‘Love like the world is ending’ t-shirt because it says that you like having sex and I think that that’s a bit rude for someone as old as you......

I took her advice and got my hair streaked.



















Two hours later, I arrived home, did a “Ta Da” twirl in front of her, seeking her approval.
“Oh Mum, you look like a koala bear with those side bits of hair sticking out – why didn’t you get them cut off?”

Love Chunks saw my disappointment and came up and put his arm around my waist, hugging me to him. “Nah you look like Fozzy Bear.”

I bought a seventh pair of thongs as sartorial solace.

Knowledge November - Day 7 - You

"No one is in charge of your happiness but you."

I used to see that saying a lot via calendars, Granny-style greeting cards and email forwards but never really got it until a couple of years ago when my perceived value and contribution to this existence we commonly call 'life' seemed to be sliding out of reach and I was letting down everyone who mattered to me.

It took a bit of professional help, medication and the utmost understanding of experts, family and friends for me to get better and realise that my perception was not the true one and that life would in fact be a fair bit less bearable for those I left behind.

I wasn't 'failing', I just thought I was. I wasn't shaming or disappointing my family and friends; just not talking to them about it. My recovery saw me naturally using the stepping stone method my Dad talked about to see the light eventually appearing at the end of many tunnels and how many things - no matter how simple - were there to just appreciate, take note of or look forward to. The scent of Sapphire's hair, Milly's soft ears, Love Chunk's strong hugs, a mug of hot coffee sipped outside in the sunshine, clean sheets and a kind blog comment.

What really clicked was how I woke up each day. Did I need to feel resentful, grumpy or sad before my feet had even slid off the mattress and landed on the floor? If a blob of toothpaste plopped on my top or I spilt the cereal, was it really going to damage the outcome of my day?

This realisation gave me a choice. I could choose to smile, laugh and move on. And I did.

I can't control everything that happens to me or how I react to it, but I can actively search for beauty, comfort and truth.

And yes, blogging is a huge part of it for me. Thank you for reading!

Knowledge November - Day 6 - Fartin' Fridays

Normally, bottom humor is reserved for the males of our species, but not in this house. Love Chunks, a proud male who enjoys burping, the footy and food, is most definitely not a public or proud farter. He uses the modus operandi of the tooth fairy - we're pretty sure it happens, but have never actually seen or experienced it directly ourselves.

My butt-blasts are slightly less pristine, but most likely are more normal. My method is less Tooth Fairy and more the Tasmanian Tiger - we know that it exists, but anyone who was around to witness it is now crazy, dead or both.

Pregnancy was the exception in my case. I merely had to bend over without giving my ever-increasing body five minutes notice and a quick-but-loud 'Parrp!' would erupt. My poor work mates got sick and tired of my weak, "Oh dear, was it worth the two minutes of fun in Malaysia" line after its seventh uttering during the same meeting. When I was sitting still. If I was ever in the photocopying room loading the second tray with paper they'd stick an 'ENTER AT YOUR OWN RISK' sign on the door frame.

Sapphire, unfortunately, has the farting habits of a bogan's 1987 commodore - in your face, frequently loud and very proud. All she's missing is the backwards baseball cap, pounding Doof Doof music and the 'I'm Naked From the Waist Down' bumper sticker on her back.

Despite being raised by two extremely intelligent, kindly, supportive and well-mannered parents, the hidden Benny Hill gene seems to have established itself with about as much delicacy as a moose on a music stand. She may be the brightest in her class and have the ability to read a novel in one sitting but give her the opportunity to force out a fart and she's laughing so hard I can't tell where the joyous tears end and the snot trails begin.

I blame my brother David. I've mentioned before that my younger pest/turkey /brother would derive endless amusement from letting a ripsnorter off right in my face whilst I was ensconced in our huge velvet beanbag watching 'Mork and Mindy'. He and his easily-satisfied cackling laughter were long gone by the time I angrily struggled out of the bag and onto my feet.

He shared a room with me until I was ten, because older - and much stronger - older brother Rob wasn't a good sleeper and didn't tolerate Dave's regular night time asthma attacks with much sympathy. I merely slept through them unless Dave was coming off the Ventolin high and decided to treat himself - and me, only two metres away - to a few doona lifters and giggles. At that stage of my life, I learned early that farting and boys naturally go together like Ape and S**t.

When these sad scenes of childhood suffering are relayed back to Sapphire, she laughs in genuine merriment and admiration. Or should it be described as wicked delight, because she has a laugh that only emerges when Farts, Fluffs, Pop-offs, Bums, Butts, Snot, Boogers, Poos, Willies and Wees are mentioned, preferably in the same story.

Friday nights are the worst. Sapphire's had a busy and eventful week at school and LC and I have had our big weeks at work (yes, 'home' is indeed my workplace but with more loads of washing at break times instead of chats in the staff kitchen). If we don't have plans, we tend to flop out on the lounge and feel the lethargy and tiredness attack us from all fronts.

This increased state of relaxation clearly tempts Sapphire's sphincter section to let more than a few dozen go, echoing the rumble of the trams outside.

"For gods' sake Sapphire, stop doing that or you can go and sit in your room!"

Even Milly is roused from her sleep at our feet, and stares at Sapphire reproachfully. "See? You know you're being revolting when even the dog is annoyed!"

Sapphire laughs so hard that LC looks at her with concern, wondering if her chocolate milk or even a lung is going to come out of her nose and flop like a caught fish on the coffee table in front of us.

"Sapphire," I say quietly, trying another angle, "Do you do these at school?"
"Of course not Mum," she snorts, as if I'm a complete idiot.
"Then why do you do them here at home?"

Again, the 'Mum, You're A Total Mental Pgymy' look in response. "Because I'm at HOME. I can do what I like at home. I spend all day squashing 'em and pushing 'em back up and at home I can let 'em out. It's funny! Plus, I can't help it....." she trailed off, looking at me with her huge, innocent blue eyes that I forever feel as though I could jump into.

"But do Dad and I ever do it to you?"
"No, but Dad NEVER does them. YOU do them to Dad at night time, 'cos he told me," she said, her giggles starting up again. Then a new thought enters her head, and she snaps her head back to me, looking worried. "Mum, you're not going to tell anyone at school, are you?"

Hah, now I've got her! "Well that all depends...... wouldn't the boys in your class want to know about it?"

Sapphire's face wrestles with the conflicting humour of the idea and the sheer horror of its reality. "NO! It would be embarrassing! Josh and Lachie do them all the time and us girls just roll our eyes and say how unsophisticated they are."

I pause, remembering that this is what I told her to say when said boys continued to thump her in the arm and run away, hoping she'll chase after them. She'd come home feeling frustrated, asking me why they did it to her all the time. "Oh boys are very unsophisticated creatures," I said. After explaining to her what unsophisticated meant, she took the explanation to heart, and has used it ever since to account for any bit of silly boy behaviour she's endured.

"OK, it would be embarrassing for you, but is it fair for poor Dad and I to have to put up your pop-offs and their terrible stench---"
"Hey Mum, I can't help how they smell. If I could make nice like our rose toilet spray, I would you know."

It was my turn to laugh. "Fair enough, but you've got to stop playing it up, and you should only do them when you're on your own because it's a bad habit that will soon make you very unpopular. Besides," I added, in what I thought was an added 'load her down with the weight of fairness and dignity' flourish, "When have I ever shoved any of my bad habits in front of you?"

Oh dear, it was too late to retract that last, pompous utternance.

"Well," she shot back, with the beginnings of another wicked giggle session, "What about when I hear you blow your nose in the shower; or when you farted as you emptied the bins outside and then it followed you in? No, Mum don't interrupt me - what about when you kiss the dog and then try and kiss me straight after, or those times when Dad can't believe that you still use the big drawer to frisbee the tupperware lids into instead of stacking them; or when you get dressed into your tracksuit and ugg boots for work and don't put your bra back on and when you always lick the peanut butter off the knife ------"

"Er, OK sweetie, you've made your point. Perhaps I'll just move over to the other sofa where I'm closer to the open door...."

Knowledge November - Day 5 - My one and only dietary rule

.... is this: One good food eaten immediately before or after a bad food will completely eradicate the bad.

Don't pretend that you don't understand my logic because we all do it: inhale a king-sized KitKat chunky and follow it with an orange. Ta Da, you've eaten nothing! The vitamins, minerals and overall goodness of the fruit has effectively cancelled out the evil fats, sugars and carbs of the chocolate.

If those poor, award-wage, fifteen year old whopper wallahs at Hungry Fats and Maccas got a cent for every person who ordered a diet coke with their Whopper/Double Quarter Pounder/Large Fries/Grand Artery/Triple Fudge/Finger Lickin'/Deep Dish/ Fully- Fried Meal Deal deluxes, they'd be kicking James Packer out for not being wealthy enough.

I know that I'm not the only Foolish Foodie Hypocrite in this world - that diet coke tap isn't on constant drip for my purposes only you know. Last week I was enjoying a coffee with my visiting parents at a cafe near our house and Mum ever-so-helpfully noted that my pick-me-up of choice - a skinny latte - was accompanied by two melting moments. Yes, those pesky three grams of milk fat were to be avoided like a department store bra fitting if I was to fully appreciate my 50% butter biscuits.

Another method of using this food combining, self-delusional dietary system to your advantage - especially when time is of the essence and your cravings are not to be ignored - is to incorporate both the good and the bad in the same food item.

The berry flan is one such notable item. It is ridiculously easy to order a hefty slice of this delightful dessert, saying something out loud to your friend like, "Ooooh, fresh berries, my favourite! I'll definitely have this one."

Never mind that said fruits are only a stingy layer covering up a brick-thick wedge of cream-laden, full-fat cheesecake which again rests on top of the crushed butter'n'biscuit base. That's just what we all need - the calorific content of the biscuits to be doubled by crushing them up and resticking them together with butter.

But hey, you had at least three mouthfuls of berries, didn't you?

Another personal favourite is the Sunday roast. It all looks and sounds so good in theory: mouth-wateringly roasted meats (with the fats dripped off onto the rack underneath) with an array of delicately steamed and oven-cooked vegetables. All of which is immediately cancelled out by the salty, oily and delicious gravy that is poured over your plate until no colour is visible except brown. Made entirely from the fats swimming in the bottom of the roasting dish of course. However, you need to remind yourself - you did eat three brussels sprouts and half a parsnip, didn't you?

As I was drafting this I applied the theory in relation to beverages, alcoholic ones in particular. My gin and (of course) diet tonic was strictly medicinal because the fresh lemon juice in it is helping my current bout of the sniffles. I'm not the only one in our household who likes to cling precariously to this threadbare theory. My darling Love Chunks has frequently argued that the 'glass of red wine per day' is good for the heart plus it's chock-full of grape juice. What more could a hard workin' family man ask for. (Apart from a Jennifer Aniston and Angeline Jolie menage-a-trois inside his million dollar marlin fishing yacht but that's not for this blog).

Naturally, as I enjoy seeing Bear Grylls fight for survival in the SBS documentary 'Man vs Wild' by wearing his boxers on his head and drinking his own urine (again), the the fat content of the four rows of Nestle Club Dark I will undoubtedly inhale will be nullified by my merely witnessing his strenous, death-defying efforts and reaching down to pat the dog and resume my knittng.

But does my daring dietary theory actually work? I'd like to think so, at least in my very own KathLand. In hard, cold reality however I still seem to have love handles that you could gather up and tie in a bow behind my back.

Knowledge November - Day 4 - Hardcore Hangovers
























I've learned that drinking a 250ml bottle of St Agnes brandy at an eighteenth birthday party in less than an hour will leave me throwing up long after I thought it was physically possible to.

The same goes for holiday Ouzo purchased in sunny Greece and sipped in a freezing London bedsit and Sparkling Shiraz guzzled like cordial in 35C heat at an Adelaide BBQ that left me sunburned, septic and strung out under a pine tree.

........Or three pints of Guinness swilled at the Dublin factory immediately following a tour that left me so unsteady on my feet that I knocked over a shelf in their gift shop (cunningly placed just outside their pub) and ended up purchasing a Guiness beach towel as an apology before staggering up O'Connell street to my BnB and wishing that Satan would stop stirring my brains with chopsticks and squeezing my stomach like a bellows.

Those hellish styles of alcoholic beverages have never been yearned for, tasted or touched my me again.

It's not just booze that can give hangovers too frightening to ever contemplate risking again.

Tinned peaches were adored by me as a child up until the age of six. As is typical in small children, I ate too much and did the 'ol blanket vomit later on that night that had Mum changing my sheets in the dark and Dad rushing outside to fling the blankets over the Hills Hoist and blast off the chunky bits still clinging to the wool fibres with the garden hose. The over-riding taste and reminder was of the tinned peaches and not the fried lamb chops, vegetables or ice-cream that accompanied them and I can't even see a can of them being opened without feeling queasy to this day

Yet I can eat enough liqueur, dark, milk, nutty, fruity, nougatty, soft, melted, strong, cakey, ganachey, crunchy, crisp, flowing, hot, frozen and molded chocolate to give me a hangover that's rivalled any of my brandy, ouzo, sparkling shiraz or tinned peaches and literally wake up the next morning and think, "Geez I could go a few rows of chocolate right now."