Monday's Post Christmas 43 Year Old Is Full of Sugar and Chocolate

I am sure I will pilloried by indolent Christmas sloths everywhere, but my cousin Ngaire and I went walking Monday morning. Yes full on exercised to combat the seeming never-ending cascade of calories tumbling into my mouth (through no fault of my own I tell you! Cashews and Lindor Balls can be aggressive when they want to be, and who am I to deny them entry to my digestive tract?) and really enjoyed it... well everything bar the scorching sun that beat down on us as we walked.... there is something about the sun up here that is so much worse than Sydney... I feel somewhat like a fried egg on the griddle (love that word... I feel like I need to belt out a rendition of "Oh Susanna!" with my ukelele when I use it), and while I know there is a cooling shower awaiting me after the walks, I do sometimes question my sanity.... hmm, OK, I question my sanity most of the time, but especially when I am walking in brain melting heat.... still I did lay waste to a large number of evil Christmas calories, and I cleansed my pores with all that sweat, so I am ahead on points....

Big event of the day was my cousin Gayle calling in for a visit with her husband Steve and son Phillip on their way from Sydney to the bright lights of BrizVegas... Gayle is the eldest daughter of my Dad's sister Cath, and so with Ngaire here (eldest child of Dad's other sister Eileen), we had the three eldest children of all three siblings in my Dad's family.... and where were Guiness Book of Records when all this was happening? Conspicuously absent is where!!... Gayle, who I hadn't ever met properly (long story) is wonderfully loud and extrovertive and a joy to spend time with, and we spent a fun 3-4 hours eating (yeah big surprise there!! LOL), talking about New York, family etc, and getting to know each other better.... it will be brilliant to spend some quality time with her in Sydney especially since she has some fab gay friends, and has promised to take me to "some interesting places"..... I am assuming she doesn't mean a museum.... lol....

... and then sloth and indolence did return.... we just lazed around, are some more (including a delicious sticky sweet coconut rice that Mum made for dessert last night), and then talked when a pretty fierce electrical storm prevented us watching TV.... yes I couldn't believe we actually had to relate to each other in the absence of 21st Century media, but somehow we coped....lol... I even spent some time sprawled out on the carpet reading my book, and the Sydney Morning Herlad, just like I used to do when I was a kid.... of course, my body doesn't spring back quite so Tigg'r-ishly as it used to so getting up was an exercise in "Ow!, Ouch! and Aggh!", a reminder that though I exercise and eat well (except rather blatantly at Christmas when my body completely forgets all and every healthy dietary habit), that my body is a little less sprightly than it was when I was 10.... yeah go figure! Still one thing my body is doing remarkably well after a busy, tense year is relax, and it's nice to not feel tightness in my chest as I spent time with my folks, finish up some photo albums Mum put together on our Asia trip in 2007, and realise that life is not just the 8-6 commute but a whole lot more, something that's easy to forget in the blindingly busy headlong rush of every day life....

....oh yeah and did I mention we ate more food? Yeah just in case you were wondering....

On the 3rd Day of Christmas, VISA Gave To Me

One of the most wonderful things about liberation from the tyranny of Outlook, and it's nightmarish insistence on on-the-hour activities (with all the insistent charm and relaxed air of storm troopers raiding small defenceless villages in the middle of the night), is that days just take care of themselves. Amazing as it seems, you can actually go through an entire day without anyuthing being scripted, plotted or massively pre-planned! Get out you say! I am perfectly happy indoors, I retort, before realising you have used a cliched piece of pop culture speak, and moving on to assure you that yes indeed, a day can begin, crest over the middle and crash into the sleep arms of Morpheus without so much as an alarm sounding.....

That was the sort of day today was (yesterday too really when we thought briefly about going to Victoria Park but decided to sleep and sort of watch "The Italian Job" instead before heading out to a yummy Thai dinner at Mi Thai in Lennox Head) - a vague idea that we'd go to the Bangalow Markets, then maybe eat lunch, walk and go swimming at Byron Bay. We did all that but in no particular rush, and with the sort of unhurried gait that would make cows seems like commuters desperate to get home in time for the start of "The Bold and The Beautiful" (of course, there may be other reasons why people rush home but surely watching a trashy prime time soap must rank high on the list!) .... I bought a fabulous new painting (thankfully being shipped back to Sydney since it would have been a bitch on steroids to get into carry-on!), some funky glass ware and a great new T-shirt (to add to the Imelda Marcos-like quantities currently inhabting my wardrobes)....

The Markets were a ball too.... lots of gay boys in town for Tropical Fruits so much guy candy, stalls selling wonderfully authentic jewelry, arts and crafts and organic food, and the odd torrential downpour to remind you why the Far North Coast virtually never suffers drought.... and the people were all so friendly.... possibly all high on something but it beats the ambiguous nothingness of a lot of Sydneysiders (much as I love the place and it's people, it's not as warm and fuzzy as the hippie-fied locals of Bangalow etc)... we even sheltered in one of the stalls while the skies opened up, and the couple there were just delightful... I even bought some of their glass ware so clearly having a captive audience works!

With the Markets done and dusted (or mud-ded really given all the rain), we de-camped ( so true in my case!) to Byron Bay for more shopping, a delicious lunch with the smoothie to end all smoothies (large enough to end all world hunger I am fairly sure!), and lots more walking....before hitting the beach just as a strom hit.... and more rain! Yes our (my brother Steve, cousin Ngaire and me) timing was impeccable..... so the swimming has to wait till Tuesday since while I love swimming at the beach, I am not so much a fan of being BBQ'd in the water while I do it..... yes weird that I don't want to be electrocuted on holidays but there you go... colour me wildly eccentric....

.... and so on this day that Outlook was banished to the nether regions of Microsoft's evil domain, I am now ready to finish my book, eaten a yummy home cooked green Thai curry and slide into a stupified state, content in the knowledge that tomorrow will be just as unpredictably all over the shop..... zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz........ good night!

Boxing My Digestive Tract Into Submission

I am fairly certain my stomach is wondering what on earth has hit it. After weeks of mostly very healthy eating, and swimming and walking, not to mention frenetic forward momentum (I gave up running backwards when I kept hitting telegraph poles, and going backwards in time proved a tad problematic), it has been met with endless sloth, and indolence, and more food thatn you could poke a fork at..... I keep telling myself I will abstain and just eat vegetables on dry stale bread, but amazingly very aggressive handfuls, nay shover fulls, of cashews, Lindor Balls and jubes throw themselves, wantonly, and with complete disregard for my waistline, into my mouth.... and then hit a very confused stomach... I am inclined though to let it stay befuddled and enjoy this excess of fabulous food for as long as I can.... now for the pork roast Mum has just cooked, followed by pavlova.... with lots of fruit though, and fruit is undeniably fantastically good for you.... yes it is...

Anyway I need some nourishment after an exhausting afternoon of watching "The Wedding Planner" and parts of "Ocean's 11" and reading the 7th book in "The Saga of the Seven Suns", and napping.... yes napping is exhausting.... hmm perhaps I am doing it wrong....

Right well I hear crackling calling me... must run!

The Day After the Tinsel Monster Bestrides the Land...

Well I made it through Christmas and only devoured 2-3 truck loads of ham, turkey, chocolate crackles, salads and nuts & lollies.... quite an achievement really given the sheer volume of high fat foods stuck in every nook and cranny of my parents' kitchen... everywhere you turn, cashews, honey covered macadamias, Lindor balls by the gigaton (yes there are none left in Switzerland at ll - they are all in my parents' home , my kitchen in Sydney.... or more likely given my addictive personality, in my digestive tract somewhere!), jubes, and chocolate crackles beckon like so many high-caloric siren singers, all seducing you to come ashore on the Island of Yuletide Lard, and throw your carefully laid plans for stay somewhat thin past 40 into total disarray....naturally I took all my will power.. and told it to get the hell out of my way while I responded with alacrity to the nut-driven siren song, and made sure that very few, if any, of those Lindo balls will ever see the beautiful shores of Lake Geneva again....

In an attempt to behave a little bit - let's not get carried away! Just a smidgen of self-control, not a lot! - I went walking in the tropical heat this morning at 8 a.m.... and sweated buckets as my legs seized up on me.... I had forgotten just how hilly my darling home town is, and just how hot that sun can get so early in the morning.... I came back looking like I had been walking in a tropical downpour, which was true in a way...except that the down pour emanated solely from my forehead's sewat glands... still I have at least walked off some off yesterday's fatty intake (not that I regret one minute of it, trust me!), and I am not ready to.... yep, eat some more!! I figure I have 12 days when I get back to Sydney to swim every day and that should more than make up for all the excesses of a week at the Ancestral Estate....

As for the rest of the day, I foresee in my eerily Nostradamus-like holiday way, that I shall consume many Lindor balls, nuts, lollies, and crackles, stopping only to read more of my novel, and nap, with a brief detour to watch "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" and "The View"... a hectic schedule to be sure but it's important ot indulge yourself when you can and do it to excess....

Have a brilliantly great Boxing Day!!

Last Christmas I Gave You My Heart...Which Has Made Sending Blood to my Vital Organs a Tad Hard Ever Since

After a full-on year, when I was self-diagnosed with Forward Momentum Exhaustion (FME - yes it's a verifiable medical condition....possibly), I have finally made it to my parents Ancestral Estate in Alstonville, NSW, for Christmas, and I am doing my best to ingest more nuts and chocolate that the entire population of Switzerland on a Lindt bender (very messy yet well run)... my two sisters and brother have joined me, and in just a short while my Nanna and Great Aunt will be joining for yet more eating.... it's what we do well so why fight it?! LOL I even resisted exercising this morning and it was bliss to sleep in and get out of bed at the comparatively late time of 8 a.m...... at which time, I had the traditional breakfast of Lindt chocolate.... just the way to start a festive day! I fully expect that by the time the week here is over that I will have ballooned to the size of several small South American villages but I figure nothing that a few thousand laps in the pool won't cure.... the main thing as I see it is to get off the giddy nausea-inducing top-speed whirl of life's merry-go-round, and take some time to smell the Lindor balls....and eat them....

I spent Christmas Eve watching traditional fare such as "The Unit", which is a heart warming tale about a terrorist arrested in the USA for trying to bomb a tunnel, and his subsequent interrogation by the military (haha!), and completely missed the tacky cheesy exuberance of "Carols by Candlelight" which is bores me to tears but is always on the TV at our place on Christmas Eve, if only for 5 minutes... I also got to decorate the tree all by myself, with some artistic input from Mum, and we ended up with a light-saturated, tinsel, smothered riot of clour that looks like a lot of fun.... oh yeah, and we ate some chocolate.... quelle surprise!!

Well its time for more nutritionally deficient food, and so as yet another Lindo Ball begins the slippery slide into the acidic depths of my stomach, I wish you all a wonderful Christmas, and a fabulous 2009!!!

The 8 Days of My Birthday

I have never been a thoughtlessly traditional guy (I will embrace a tradition if it's still relevant and involves copious amounts of chocolate ingestion! Say Christmas, or Take Your Parrot to Work Day) so it should come as no surprise that not only do I not restrict my birthday to just one day, but by clever use of time zones and endless social outings, manage to make the day itself stretch to 43 hours, and the celebrations last 8 days. I mean I have to wait all year for it, and it's over in 24 hours? I don't think so!!

DAY 1 - Saturday Nov 22

Having fled the Not Me Anymore confines of Sutherland Shire a year ago, I have periodically returned to see some good friends there, and did just that on Saturday Nov 22 when I drove to sunny (and very windy that day!) Cronulla, picking my good friends Ellen & Tracy on the way, for a fun steak lunch at Hogs Breath cafe.... only again displaying a breathlessly brazen seditious streak, I didn't have steak! Oh OK I did eat steak, but it doesn't sound even remotely rebellious to say that..... fortunately in the midst of such culinary conformity, I had a brilliant catch up with my friends John & Susie, Ellen, and Tracy, and finished it all off with a walk down Cronulla mall.... the plan was a leisurely walk along the Esplanade but with the wind blowing like a madman chopping wood (no, I have no idea how that would look either), and the very real risk we'd be blown to somewhere just offshore Auckland, NZ, we opted for a walk on a tiled mall past shops to a car park..... very picturesque.... well the tiles are blue.... they're pretty... really...

I raced from there back home, changed clothes in a frighteningly fast 7 minutes (trust me that's scary quick!!) and drove like a mad man chopping wood in a car (OK an overused analogy and physically hard to do without risking artery severing or eunuch-dom ..... or both) to Cammeray to watch the delectably handsome Daniel Craig in "Quantum of Solace" (the official birthday movie) which was brainless but emotionally-tinged action fun, and would have been a good movie if all Daniel Craig had done was wear fabulously sexy clothes and stand there (YUM!).... followed that cinematic fun at the Cremorne Orpheum with a delicious dinner at Malabar, after some quick car repair after I detached a mudflap in a bout of reckless curb hugging by my car's left back tyre..... I do love my curbs, it's true..... and mad man analogies.... and parrots.... but I digress..... and Day 1 of Andrew's Birthday Festival 2008 was done and dusted....

Day 2 - Sunday Nov 23

It dawned bright and clear with visions of Yum Cha (Dim Sum) delicacies dancing in my mind.... all very disconcerting especially when they started pole dancing in a very suggestive manner not befitting Chinese food .... I met my dear friend Heather, one of the few Very Good things to emerge from my time at FedEx in the City for more pork buns, dumplings and egg tarts than you could poke a pole at (a well danced with pole if my fervent imagination is any guide) at the Palace restaurant in the Piccadilly Arcade.... followed by lots of fun holiday and birthday shopping... two gifts for me, one for someone else, three for me, one for someone else etc.... we had a lovely catch up away from the same telecommunications company we both now work at, and actually got to talk without the sense we had to run back to our cubicles and apologize to our PCs for neglecting them so......

Day 3 - Monday Nov 24

So it's Birthday Eve (usually celebrated by gaudily decorated camels racing around a dirt track chasing bagels on a stick..... a weird tradition but there you have it) and I did what anyone sensible person facing a fun birthday would do... I went to work! In an attempt to completely drain the day of any fun whatsoever with stress, over work, and sense of relentless foreboding (not to mention a needy PC who demands my everlasting attention), I raced from one email to another task to a meeting so fast that my head spun like a mad man chopping wood while possessed.... projectile vomit does not help with chopping accuracy let me tell you! .... the day was only saved by my dear friend, Sammi, who whisked me off to the trembling social environs of North Strathfield for a fabulously OTT dinner at the Outback Steakhouse, eating an American's idea of traditional Aussie food..... the waiter was wonderfully cute (sadly not our one but the cute guy walked past enough to make it seem like he was our guy.... how did he know it was almost my special day.. what a nice guy!), the food actually yummy and full of all the stuff I normally avoid eating (which is essential in any sort of celebratory eating), and the company a delight, as always..... and I had another steak.... clearly my commitment to vegetarianism was faltering.... mainly because I am not one... hmm, that could be it....

Day 4 - THE DAY ITSELF!! Nov 25 - Ring the bells! Sound the klaxons of joy! Hit a saucepan (till the neighbours come over and throttle you!)

I am an absolute stickler for always taking my birthday off work, mainly because my idea of a fun celebration is not endless piles of work to be done in a crushingly finite time frame with everyone standing around expecting everything to be done instantly, or even soon if the space-time continuum can be bent fast enough).... I know crazy idea but there you have it..... I am a wacky rebel, what can I say? Anyway my time-honoured tradition of telling work emails to go throw themselves off a very large cyber cliff and fall onto the jagged rocks of the Don't Care Inbox of Death went completely off the rails when my birthday (aided and abetted by nemesis Outlook, which controls all calendars) fell on a Tuesday, the busiest, longest, most frantic day of the week.... a usual Tuesday is a blur of Trade Report writing, information collating, agenda setting and a 4 hour management meeting that I sit in on to take notes etc.... more fun than a madman covering himself in fairy floss and running naked down a crowded street.... no, no it isn't.... this Tuesday initially bucked that trend by  showering me with tons of wonderful emails, phone calls and Facebook messages from wonderful friends, and keeping my good mood robust and intact.... my boss, who I really like working for (really!) even bought me a piece of Rocky Road for morning tea.... all seemed well till about 12 noon when the flood gates of overwork opened up, and I was swept downstream in a swirling mass of reports, impossible deadlines, and a meeting that went for 4.5 hours when I was due to head out for dinner.... 

I tried enormously hard to stay upbeat but was eventually defeated by the ennui of endless discussion points and droning agenda items.... thankfully the HR lady who sits in on the meeting offered to type up the notes from the meeting, and I raced to meet my good friend James who picked me up from work and whisked me (there is a lot of use of that fabulous kitchen item in this blog and rightly so..... it sounds like so much fun, and speedy too!) to a yummy dinner with another close friend, Jason at Chinta Ria, one of the best restaurants in Sydney and home to a funky fat Buddha, and a wine called Cockfighter's Ghost, which can be mispronounced in the most embarrassing way which I won't detail here.... James gave me a beautiful Italian pewter bowl, paid for dinner and made me feel very special indeed, and I finally relaxed and enjoyed the Best Day of the Year..... well for me anyway and on November 25, I get the make the decrees..... it's enshrined in law somewhere trust me.... 

Day 5 - Wednesday Nov 26

A day off!! Yes, my boss approved it, and I ran screaming from the building Tuesday night (not far off the truth - see above!) and claimed it as my own.... technically I still had my birthday off since although it was Nov 26 in Australia, it was Nov 25 till 9 p.m. my time in Hawai'i, USA.... so I swam 1.5 km to buy me some calorie space (after all the lunches and dinners the caloric storage areas were starting to bulge a little more than I would have liked) and headed into the City for lunch with my dear close friend, Justin..... and where did we end up? At the saucy end of pole-dancing Chinese cuisine.... Yum Cha! We talked about anything and everything, ate lots and followed it up with a wander through Tiffany's (I did my best Audrey Hepburn languid stroll and looked wistful as hell, trust me), and the cosmetics area of David Jones to hear the paino playing (Justin loves it), a trawl through Borders and JB HiFi and finished it all off with a delightful afternoon tea at the Tea Centre in the Glasshouse.... I even got to try Iced Turkish Apple tea.... served by a waiter with a sexy smile..... naturally we asked which tea was best for a good 5 minutes and flirted and made him laugh.... hey. it's my birthday in Hawai'i damn it! Why not?! LOL .... after all that shopping, eating and perambulating (never easy on a full stomach!), I met up with Warren and we ate up a storm (like a mad mad throwing lightning and hitting garbage cans lids together to simulate thunder!) at Tony Roma's, a bastion of American cooking and a great ribs.... yes oddly enough I again ate way too much, a hallmark of all my birthday outings thus far..... I was not only sentimentally embracing my birthday as special, but also enough calories several small Bolivian villages for a year....

Day 6 - Thursday Nov 27

Another day at the cubicle coal face, working like mad man who is... ah screw it, that analogy must be given at least one day's grace... followed by another a star-studded fabulous birthday gala... well there were no stars and it was reasonably gala-lite, but I did get to have a fabulous Indian meal, complete with great service, with my friend, Kevin, in between his stints flying overseas as a flight attendant at another restaurant called Malabar... yes it is a bizarre and strange thing that I can't escape restaurants with that name... fate? Or just great pappadums? Will I ever know? The only downside was the humongous hill we had to walk up to get to it in Darlinghurst but all the wine, food and great conversation soon made for all that... now as for that abrogated mad man analogy.... oh, OK I will leave it alone....

Day 7 - Friday Nov 28

This was not an official day of manic birthday celebration because (a) it's Friday and my usual state of TGIF-dom is exhaustion and a general overwhelming sense of relief that I have two days ahead of me that don't involve travel on Sydney's trains; and (b) I knew I would extra-exhausted, and like a seer of old predicting the future from a cup of sheep dung, I was indeed exhausted beyond belief.... and yet.... and yet.... I ventured forth into the pounding sock-soaking rain and met my friend Peter at St Leonards, and walked with him to the only marginally drier environs of Cammeray to have a general catch up and dinner at Pappaya, a brilliantly innovative Thai restaurant with some of the best entrees known to man.... and it was not raining inside the restaurant which was a major point in it's favour before we even got in the door..... add to the fact that a very hot guy was sitting at the table next to us, that Peter and I had a great conversation, and that Pappaya managed to do things with lime and tuna that my taste buds adored (in such a way that marriage to the chef was a distinct possibility, regardless of his or her sex!), and it made for a wonderful night out.... from which I was driven home where I could finally take off my drenched socks, which frankly did not fare anywhere near as well as my stomach that night, and the less said about that smelly mess the better ....

Day 8 - Saturday 29 Nov

The Big Night. The night when all is revealed. When worlds collide.... when destinies are revealed.... when all power.... oh OK so not that dramatic but you can't blame a guy for trying... tonight was the supposed Big Night Out.... drinks at The Colombian, a gay bar on Oxford Street, followed by a delicious dinner at Tandoori Palace across the street (and being flirted with by a very cute Indian waiter.... now that was a great present!) and then dancing our socks off (within acceptable hygiene levels of course) at Palms, just up the street.... and you know what? It was fun! I brought together my best friend Warren, close friends Ian, Peter and Fahmi, another good friend James and his friend Alison, while a soaking downpour screamed down outside... very atmospheric.... we even saw an Elvis (the real Elvis is working night shift at a 7-11 just outside of Des Moines, Iowa... trust me, Marilyn Monroe told me) doing cheesy Indian-pun laden versions of his songs and a Neil Diamond song too... what the?! Well the hens party downstairs in the karaoke bar didn't question it..... and neither did we... OK I did.... I'll admit it... but I danced away all those nagging questions at Palms till 3 a.m. with only Warren for company, everyone else having decided to leave by 12.30 a.m. to get, um, sleep..... I would have gone to sleep earlier too but I feared dreaming of a Tandoori coloured Elvis singing songs about Blue Suede Pappadums and who wants those kinds of nightmares on your birthday?

......... and so it ends for another year..... and I walk off into the sunset of my 43rd year on this planet, clutching my J B HiFi vouchers close to me, I think to myself.... only 4 more weeks and I get to eat more crappy food at Christmas!!!! Woohoo.... yes I dream big my friends, I dream BIG...... party on like a mad man.... well you know.....

Gonna Party Like It's My Birthday! OK it is....

Most people fear birthdays, running from them like they're knife-wielding attackers on a bloodthirsty rampage killing off all vestiges of their youth.... but most people aren't extrovertive Sagitarians that are young at heart and realise, without resorting to clumsy cliches, that age is just a paper thin number, and only defines you if you let it. That's not to say I spend my days in my personal sand pit playing with Tonka trunks in a bid to recapture my fleeting childhood (think of how much the Tonka trunks would be on Ebay to start with!!); what it does mean is that I refuse to let myself fossilize in place, preferring to charge ever forward, listen to new music, keep reading, listening, partying, exploring, having fun, and making sure life never enters some bizarre twisted Groundhog Day phase......

As I dash off to work (an act that in itself veers dangerously close to Groundhog Day land), I am thankful that I have a wonderful family, brilliant caring friends, a great place to live with a wonderful house mate, a fun job with an understanding boss and great colleagues.... and a partridge in a pear tree.... sadly no... all that to say that while life may definitely feel like a psychotic roller coaster screaming around one too many hairpin bends, and me without my vomit bag, that I am glad to be here, 43 years old, and still raring to kick the tires of life and see where it will take me.... OMG I just used a manly sporting metaphor.... in my birthday blog.... I am old.....LOL.... kidding...here's to the next 43!! OK how about the next one for now, and we'll see how we go with that.....

Mauled at the mall

I have had a lovely weekend......

Yes a thrilling statement isn't it? It speaks of daring adventure, risk, and a total disregard for my own personal safety.... actually, no.... no it doesn't.... BUT, and it's a capitalized 'BUT' because who doesn't like a melodramatic linguistic segue between sentences.... well calm people in zen-like states, and people on Prozac, but the rest of us love it.... anyway I digress, ramble, and b.s. on steroids.... I did indeed have a lovely weekend... some reading and chilling, dinner with my friend Peter on Friday night at a great Turkish restaurant, a date with a lovely man I am seeing on Saturday night...and then.... and then.... and I can barely type the words so traumatized am I... I went SHOPPING (Cue the overly ominous music that indicates imminent doom, apocalypse, and a bad hair day of epic proportions)..... 

Actually the shopping itself was fine and dandy.... some groceries, toiletries, Christmas ornaments, L'Occitane stuff (yes I pay close attention to my personal care regimen), and lunch with my very good friend, Fahmi..... then on the way out, feeling fit, healthy and good about myself (I had swam 1.2 km that morning so was still coasting on the whispers of endorphins past) when an Israeli brother and sister tried to interest me in their cosmetics range.... they did this by smearing mud supposedly from the floor of the Dead Sea (yes, and my cow Eunice wrote an award winning screenplay in between chewing her cud) on my hand, buttery stuff on my eyes and talking earnestly about how much.... and yes I think there were tears in his eyes.... how very deeply he wanted to see me rid of the blackheads, wrinkles and unsightly blemishes that scarred my.....and wait for this 48 year old face!!!! Fahmi just about doubled over with laughter as my face dropped, and all hopes of a sale faded like John McCain's good humour around Sarah "Caribou Barbie" Palin.... I don't respond well to high pressure sales techniques at the best of times but any glimmer of me caving to their high pressure mud-caked sales technique vanished so quickly that several people got whiplash watching it depart..... 

Needless to say the good people at Nivea will continue to get my business, and their product will keep being applied to my 42 year old face, which I am often told, and hear this Israeli siblings  peddling cosmetics of dubious origin, looks a decade younger..... and my suggestion to the would-be cosmetics czar at the mall? Always go younger..... always..... now where did I leave my avocado citrus apple guava pith face mask?

Them thar snippets of life

Yes I am invoking pirate-speak for my title today, and while I don't personally know any pirates, nor am I one, it seems quite fitting to use their lingo for the title..... OK it's not fitting at all....lol... I just like the way it sounds....

Melbourne Cup

After months of planning, budgetary issues, and last minute glitches, a group of co-workers and I threw a humdinger of a Melbourne Cup function at work.... we had a BBQ, sweeps (I got the winner, "Viewed" and the third place getter, "C'est la Guerre"... one of the few times I have not been left minding those horses destined for the glue factory!), prizes, funky fascinators, and everyone socializing up a storm...... it's always great when these things work, and everyone jumps in feet first... and gets totally smashed..... I mean participates....LOL (Nov 4)

President Barack... oh yeah!!!

I am rarely thrilled by political anything anymore, even though I am a political junkie (Yeah just one more hit of broken promises, man..c'mon, I am good for it..... you know I am man) but as I spent yesterday absolutely fascinated as I watched the unfolding march of Barack Obama towards the Presidency of the USA, and an historic first... and yes, I was profoundly moved by his speech and the groundswell of hope and joy that greeted his arrival on the stage at Grant Park, Chicago... I know reality can be cruel especially when you have a GFC (Global Financial Crisis), two pointless wars, and a divided national psyche on your hands, but you can only hope that Barack's only legacy won't be that he is the first African-American President of the USA.... that is an amazing, exciting thing in itself, but if it is joined by healing and real change in American society, then that will be something to truly get jazzed about! Go Barack!!! (Nov 5)

Pumping!

I am into the swimming in a big way hitting 1 km most days (except when people join my lane and force me to pick up the pace to the point where I just stop!) and back into the walking, and loving how fit and energized I feel.. not to mention fitting into a small... yes, small! .... shirt at Daly Male, my favourite clothing store in the world, last Saturday.... yes, I celebrate the small things! (Nov 6)

Dates, fruits, and a nice blended smoothie of love

I am back into dating after a hiatus and so far so interesting.... while I won't comment on what's happening with who (I am not a gossip guru! Hmm, maybe I should be....), it never ceases to fascinate me that the road to love is rarely smooth.... sometimes I think 'Damn it! It should be!"

But then life rarely responds well to petulant demands!! Suffice to say, I am meeting some beautiful men and we'll see if Mr Right is somewhere in the mix.... here's hoping.....

Apples..... and Seattle Oranges

Guess what I discovered? Oddly enough, not that I was adopted, or that Pink's hair isn't actually pink - for the record, I am not adopted and yes I know Pink's name is a nom de plume, or whatever the singing version is termed - but that the Australian Tax Office's much vaunted e-tax doesn't work on iMacs!! I know, what kind of wacko oversight is that? Here they are even sending me text messages urging me to get my tax in, and use e-tax to do it, and then this!! Admittedly I have left the joy of doing tax, and let's face it why holiday in the Bahamas when you can stay home and do tax right, to the very last day - I am either doing something the VERY moment you can do it, or leaving it to the last time-crushing minute (where I get to experience it with the rest of humanity - yippee!!) - and so now I am scrambling to get access to my house mate's PC. Thank goodness he hasn't seen the light and switched to an iMac, otherwise I'd be doing my tax at an internet cafe/jewelry store/pet supplies depot, and you just know the kitty litter will just get everywhere don't you? Thank goodness my house mate still worships at Bill Gate's possibly (and don't quote me on this) badly pedicured feet, instead of Steve Job's no doubt immaculate hoofers....

....I do wonder though why I pay my taxes...... well apart from the fact that if I don't I will get fined, thrown into jail, and possibly traded to another country in a carbon emissions trading scheme (and you just know it won't be a cool country like Iceland)..... when my very own tax office can't find someone somewhere who can program for iMacs! I may suggest they take one of those nifty courses at the Apple Temple in George Street, Sydney where you can learn all about using iMacs (as well as no doubt why Apple is quite likely the way to eternal salvation... no really.... that's what I have heard)...I may even use my tax return - and after all this stress there had better be one!! LOL - to purchase a gift certificate for them to attend said course..... ahhh, who am I kidding? LOL I will, as always, spend it on wine, men and singing, which as we all know, is a very sensible investment option in this financially unsettling times.... yes use denial to block out reality... it has always worked for me, and so too the Tax Office who apparently have been too busy carousing with wine, men & song to update e-tax!

POP GOZA!!! "WALL-E"

I am 42 years old. I have witnessed much.... and I have been exposed to much Hollywood-generated hype. It's effect on me is generally not what the rabid marketers intended (salivating as they are at all the expected sales they envisage will flow from their strenuous promotion) - I switch off, automatically assume the product being spruiked is a pop culture mongrel in desperate need of a decent and fast death & burial, and divert my attention elsewhere. It isn't hard to find something else to delight the senses in this pop-culture saturated world. 

But something about Wall-E kept capturing my attention. Yes I am a Pixar tragic from way back (with the odd exception of Cars) and yes, a quality movie, which this one clearly was judging by all the positive reviews it had garnered, will always draw me in, but there was something else that kept nagging at me. An intangible sense that this movie was something really special, and that's an unusual sensation in an era when quality is often swamped by mediocre quantity....

So last Tuesday night I took advantage of Tight Ass Tuesday, and went to see this movie that my inner pop culture bitch had proclaimed would be superlative, and worthy of the hype..... and it was! It was without a doubt one of the most intelligent, intellectually and emotionally, well-rounded, heartfelt movies I have seen in years, and with minimal dialogue too. Everything was handled with just the right amount of attention from the establishing of Wall-E's character at the start of the film to his romance with EVE to the return to Earth by the obese relics of the human race..... and suffused with a slapstick humour that complemented rather than detracted from the touching events that unfolded. This is a movie truly worthy of the word "classic", and I have already proclaimed it "DVD Worthy" (yes I know I should be hip and call it Download Legally Worthy but it just have the same ring!), and I dare say I shall be watching this long after the hype has subsided, and the frenzied marketers are drooling into their bedpans in a nursing home......

I Just Might Be The Lunatic You're Looking For

Dang Those Decibels of Death!

I think my ears have finally stopped ringing.... which is a good thing because Tinitis is not one of those fun things that you'll regale with fondness in your yearly Christmas newsletter to the folks back home, nor recount as an achievement worthy of accolades and a story on A Current Affair..... no, it's just very annoying, and feels much like having a miniature Hunchback of Notre Dame ringing his bells inside your head while your lie with your head under a pillow in 10m of water... so how did I come to have the Bells of St Clements peeling inside my head?

Dancing! Yes dancing! Well more specifically, spending three hours bopping away in a very small club on Oxford St, Sydney, just under a metre away from very large speakers, pumping out very loud remixes... in hindsight not the smartest thing to do, but at the time, eager to dance the early morning away, and hot men all around me, it seemed the very epitome of sense and sensibility..... I was out celebrating a friend's birthday and Palms, my favourite club on the now seedy strip, was jammin' and slammin' and.... nope, that's my dance-themed street language all tapped out!..... and Smirnoff Ice in hand, it was very easy to dirty dance and boogie and not notice the volume was deafening.....

...... until I stepped outside and oddly everyone was whispering, and the cars were gliding by silent as a mechanical lamb belching out noxious emissions (trust me such a thing exists... I am fairly certain the North Koreans have one hidden away somewhere), and my friends were speaking with this weird echoey lilt..... fairly certain that a silence bomb had not gone off, and that my friends were as Caucasian (and non-accented) as they moment we entered the club, I had to conclude that the boomin' beats had temporarily laid waste to my oh-so-tender 42 year old ears..... yes the ears that had once withstood decibels that would shred a monkey (I have never tried this but have it on good authority, such a thing is possible), now caved after a mere 3 hours in a crowded club about the size of a shoebox..... hmm, in retrospect, as I said, probably not the smartest move, but more fun that sticking the aforementioned shredded monkey back together with paper clips and super glue..... and that, my friends, makes it all worthwhile, especially now the Hunchback has stopped his blessed ringing, and my synapses have returned to their silent furiously-whirring selves.....

PARTY ON!!! Very, very quietly please....shhhhhh....

I will have my pigeon to go, please

Ah, life in Sydney.... caught the train home last night squashed like a sardine (actually I secretly envy sardines and their roomy abodes), swam 750m, ate a healthy dinner, downloaded some tunes from iTunes including Snow Patrol's brilliant new song "Take Back the City", went to bed early (OK early-ish...I am addicted to a sci-fi saga at the moment by Kevin J Anderson and I had to keep reading! ), woke up at 4.45 and walked for an hour........... and I saw pigeons feeding on vomit...... yes folks, not only was someone not able to hold their drink, but the by-product of their over-imbibing fed a family of Sydney pigeons, and oh frabjous day, I got to see it.... naturally this being Sydney, the drinker had no doubt just eaten a gourmet meal at a nearby restaurant and so at least the pigeons got to eat well.... they are gourmand rats of the sky here after all..... I can picture them on holidays in Paris eating baguette-infused protein spills (vomit to lay people) and following up with a few sips from a stagnant puddle in the gutter, which this being Paris, was probably spilled from an Evian bottle..... yes Sydney is where I am more than likely to see it all, even if I don't want to.....

"Run!" he said. "OK, well just walk quickly then"

In a clear sign that I have been consumed by a raging madness (as opposed to those calming, zen-like madnesses, I guess), I got up at 4.45 a.m. today to meet my friend, Fahmi, for an hour of full-on, footpath-pounding, other-hyphenated-words power walking.... the air was crisp and clean.... well, crisply cold at least... with all that smog, clean is highly unlikely.... and as always I actually enjoyed it. Of course, I would rather be snuggled in bed with a significant other, a few bars of chocolate, a novel and a rainy day, but given that unique confluence of events and items, I have more chance of marrying a Yeti and traveling with him to Mars on vacation, so walking is probably a more likely use of my time....

It's been weeks since I walked with Fahmi, stopping all exercise as he did for Ramadan, and after getting used to walking my butt off (disembodied body parts are a little talked-about side-effect of power walking, and more than a little unsightly) with just my iPod for company, it was great to get back to the somewhat surreal situation of walking along like a madman at 5 a.m. while having an animated conversation with a good friend..... Fahmi though did not seem to appreciate just how mad we are remarking as we passed some cyclists that "they're keen".... at this point, I pointed out to him that we were also out at the same time, which quieted him fairly quickly....

Alas this morning there was no sign of the regulars we see on our route, all of whom have a quirky nickname, which no doubt if they knew about them, they would embrace as signs of great affection on our part... no, not slight bitchiness.... affection .... there's quite a difference, thank you.... there was no sign of 'Red' (a woman who exercises at a nearby gym with bright red hair), or 'Pecs' ( a cute guy who passes us each day with a chest to die for.... although it's unlikely I would frankly) or even our old favourite, 'Zombie Gay", who is always immaculately attired but walks so ramrod straight and never blinks, that he is the harbinger of a zombie outbreak to come..... trust me, when the streets are overrun with well-dressed undead, remember where you read the prediction of their coming.....

Given that I am back into the swimming too, I am thrilled that I stand a very good chance of developing some sort of Exercise Addiction, which will cause me to exercise morning and night, forgoing all food, in the quest for the 'perfect body', my life consumed with the idea of being thinner and thinner till when I am almost almost skeletal, my friends intervene in a dramatic late night moment replete with stirring words and violin music, and save me from myself, shoving a jam donut and half a tub of Sara Lee French Vanilla ice cream in my mouth while they make me sit down in a comfy chair with my feet up...... phew! Gotta say that while it would make a great bestseller, as I describe my heroic return to sloth and fatty indolence from over-exercise and carrot-eating, it sounds like far too much hard work..... better to just get up at 4.45, walk like crazy for an hour before rushing off to work to almost my train.... hmm, the Exercise Addiction could almost be more relaxing......

When the wild blue waters swallowed me whole

Don't you just love a wildly melodramatic headline? So much better than "I swam 750m in the 25m pool in my apartment complex!".... Yep I am not exactly shaking in my boots either! But that's not really the point. Let's face it - swimming laps is not exactly the most scintillating of exercise forms...it's all up and down a water-filled trough of tile-covered concrete, your only distraction the fantastically blue line that threads down the centre of the tiles to... why the end of the lane of course! The crowd roars with excitement while over-excitable ladies, and men collapse with the heart-stopping thrill of it, only revived by the heady smell of enough chlorine to kill off a colony of seals somewhere in Bass Strait....

As predictable, and thrilling, as paint drying in the non day Summer sun, it is nonetheless one of the most soothing ways to chill out after a long day of sitting at my PC, a slave to Outlook and Bill Gates triumvirate of office horrors, Word, Excel and Powerpoint. There is an almost hypnotic element to pushing your way through the water, your wake lapping behind and around you, sharks nipping at your feet, giant barracudas...... OK getting carried away again! Truthfully, while it can be painful and boring, it is also one of the best way to wash all that corporate BS and reacquaint yourself with basic muscle-worn humanity..... making sure you have a hammer to get rid of those sharks, should they ever appear...and mark my words they will! All right they probably won't, but think of my times if they did..... I see a PB in the offing.....

**************************************************************

So today was not one of the worst in the Cubicle of Horrors it has to be said. My wonderful managed was having a well-deserved day off, and so instead of being manically busy, I was just rushed off my feet busy, a vast improvement, and one worthy of not one but two Chai Lattes! Yes I went overboard, and drank Chai Lattes like it was the 7th October, which amazingly it was.... so that worked out very serendipitously...... then I came home, beat off the sharks as I did my laps (c'mon when they do turn up, your ridicule will seem faintly ridiculous!) and chowed down on some Kanga Bangas (kangaroo sausages....yes I eat Skippy!).... I may even squeeze in some novel reading, shark attacks notwithstanding.......

I am an evil iPod parent and should be sold into slavery with Microsoft!

A dramatic headline it is true but I am prone to dramatic flourishes especially when emotions are running high.... and running high they are ever since I callously discarded my old iPod in the Apple Temple in George Street in Sydney City, all to get 10% discount on the brand new iPod I was buying.... the speed with which I handed over my first bought iPod was frightening and shocking especially since it had saved me from going quietly mad in many bland airport terminals - OK it is doubtful I would ever do anything quietly, including going mad, which let's face it, kind of cried out for a voluble soundtrack! - and came with me on various trips to Malaysia, Canada and to my parents' Ancestral Estate in Alstonville NSW... I loved that inanimate piece of technology with a devotion that my digital camera and PC could never quite muster.... here for the first time was a small tiny piece of metal and circuits that managed to contain all the precious music that has acted as the soundtrack to my lifestyle, and that selflessly (well I don't speak digital so I doubt I'd have understood if it had complained) kept playing year after year for 4.5 years until one day.... yes one day.....sob.... I....I...

.....traded it in for a newer model! I didn't mean to....OK well actually yes I did since my new iMac (fussy but wonderful thing that it is and far better than the PC ever was) refused to work with Ye Olde Original iPod (henceforth YOOI) and it was case of only ever listen to about 100 old tracks (all that was left after my disastrous attempt to reset YOOI to factory standard) or get a brand spanking new iPod (BSNI, which doesn't trip off the tongue like YOOI does it? Hmm let's call him Bruce then) ..... so I went to the Apple Temple, confident I could buy Bruce without YOOI suspecting a thing, but alas the evil tempters at the A.T. were offering 10% off if you surrendered in your old iPod....what a horrible dilemma.... how could I possibly give up YOOI for a measly 10% off..... apparently hideously easily it turns out as I whipped out YOOI so fast that I swear his circuits were thrown every which way inside his aging carapace and threw him onto the counter.... consumed with guilt, I dared to ask what would happen to YOOI and I was told by the devilishly cute guy behind the counter that YOOI would likely be pulled apart in some lab somewhere..... I didn't even dare ask why but I suspect there is an illicit trade in old iPods for use by Microsoft in nefarious experiments.... and just like that YOOI left my life...

Of course I told myself YOOI was just an inanimate object and I had freely surrendered up the digital camera and PC (which you will be relieved to know I never named) without any qualms, but YOOI was different....YOOI was fun, independence, music in 4200 shades of enjoyment tha I could soak up anytime anywhere....and now I had just callously given up my first bought iPod in a Faustian deal to get a cheaper deal on my new iPod....I was bizarrely upset in a way that confounded any logic to counteract it.....

That was until I got home, opened up Bruce and saw his pretty sleek lines, colourful screen, and the face that he synced up all 4200 songs on my iTunes database in 15 minutes flat..... to my increased shame all thoughts of YOOI raced from my mind.... and so while I love Bruce as my Second Bought, I can't help feeling like Mommy Dearest, dropping off my dearly treasured YOOI to be dissected like a piece of pigs bladder for whatever dark purpose Apple deems necessary.... Bruce would do well to be nervous because despite my protestations of devotion to my iPod, they can be dumped at a whim.... I am an evil iPod parent and should be hung, drawn and..... oh look Bruce's screen is lighting up...he's so pretty..... now what was I saying?

Mooses are voting Democrat this year I think!

Death and All His Friends......

Yes I have a new crowd of friends and frankly while they are a little morbid, they do a fine line in black eyeliner and white face paint..... seriously I am immersing myself in Coldplay's new CD, "Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends", and I find myself falling in love with it, something I didn't manage with "X & Y". I tried and tried to love "X & Y" as much as "Rush of Blood to the Head" but just like with "The Lion King" (yep didn't like that either despite repeat viewings....yep you may stone me now outside Sleeping Beauty's Castle), I just couldn't do it.....it lacked the sheer inventiveness and zest of "Rush...." and I finally had to admit that "X & Y" and I would never truly bond...... so imagine my trepidation (go on, imagine it!!) when I picked up "Viva La Vida" and discovered an album of exquisite beauty and sensitivity, lyrical vulnerability and gut-wrenching emotions married with heart-tugging melodies....in short, all the things I adored about Coldplay in the first place.....

In the wake of the disappointment that was "X & Y", I had mighty satisfying dalliances with Keane (still brilliantly good at capturing emotions in a song that stay with you long after listening) and Snow Patrol, but I suspect I now have to recommit my true Britpop love to Coldplay, who have returned to the sort of form that makes lesser bands weep.....

All this on a cold Winter's day with intermittent rain....perfect weather to soak in the emotionally-delicate ambience of the new Coldplay CD....

The Curious Beast That is a Weekend

So here's the thing.....

It's Friday night and you've survived another week in the hideous rat race that is corporate life. The cubicle has been left behind in a shower of sparks (this is not generally recommended Monday - Thursday on OH & S grounds but entirely OK on Fridays when frankly - who the hell cares if the carpet catches on fire?) as you accelerate out of the building bound for 48 hours of sheer unadulterated leisure (unless of course you are conducting an affair out of your relationship in which case it will be all adulterated I'm guessing). You decide that tonight, in direct contravention of social conventions worldwide that you will not go out tonight, and stop in at the Indian takeaway, liquor store for some wine, and convenience store for some dessert and go home to watch an episode or two of whatever TV show came out on DVD that week. You stay up late, mostly due to the sugar high from the wine and dessert, and look forward to a sleep in Saturday morning, ignoring the pleas from your exercise junkie friend to exercise on the weekend and run around a 50 hectare park at 4 a.m. Saturday morning ( who incidentally should be locked away for his own mental health)....

Saturday dawns (but naturally you decline to check it our for yourself and just accept that if the sun's come up when you wake up that the dawn did indeed happen) and you bound from bed - OK crawl in slow deliberate movements to the coffee - ready to face a day of running errands...after the sort of brunch that you never eat during the week and that will set off cholesterol alarms at the Heart Institute.... god bless the super grande el gigante breakfast of champions (and possible heart attack victims) that gets you set up for a day of grocery shopping, buying things you don't need (and never will) and driving to far flung parts of the city you live in to see dear and close friends where you will eat that will further trigger those already klaxon-like alarms at the Heart Institute...but you don't care because you have no timetable (other than the social opprobrium of turning up late for Uncle Carls' 80th birthday BBQ at the local RSL).... ah what a glorious thing is a Saturday!!

Then Sunday comes along, and if you are like half of Sydney, you head to Yum Cha in Chinatown..... there, if you are insane enough (and it's entirely possible most of us are stark raving bonkers), you arrive just as the crushing masses surge forward eager for their weekly fix of chicken's feet (I feel sorry for all those poor lame chickens in wheelchairs), eggplant/tofu (yum!), or pork buns (that I maintain look just like the pods in Alien/s....and I once ordered then using that name.....the Chinese waitress clearly was no pop culture addict and looked at me blankly).... or if you are like me, you turn up at 11 and have a brunch-type take on Yum Cha and are done in time to see a movie just after lunch..... of course somewhere in the middle of all the activity, you have to find time for that most sacred of weekend rituals.....The Nanna Nap...combine that with Saturday's Herald and you have the perfect afternoon....OK throw in some LindorBalls and you have the perfect afternoon..... right some Pinot Grigio, Lindor Balls, the Herald and nap and you have...well you get the idea....