So yeah

As you may have noticed I'm not really blogging any more.

I could write a self obsessed, long winded post about why, but really it's because I've got no time. Who knew working as an events manager was so bloody time consuming? Who knew living in London would mean I'm out every night? Who knew I'd meet the two most fabulous girls ever in my life and spend all my time hanging out with my new besties instead of over-analysing everything?

I may be back. I may not. Don't trash the place while I'm gone...

Why I Am An Idiot # (I've Lost Count)

I went to Edinburgh last weekend. I love Edinburgh. It's got great bars, great food, it's a cool mix of old and new, and the Scottish accent is fucking hot. It is on my top five places to live, even though it's bloody cold.

So I drove in on Saturday, parked my car at my mate's place, and set off to meet said friend at the local pub.

The Scottish are, generally, a friendly bunch. When I lived in Glasgow I could barely walk down the street without someone wanting to stop me for a chat. Or sell me The Big Issue. But mainly just have a chat.

So imagine my surprise when , traipsing through the streets of Edinburgh, I was being met with angry, hostile glares. And mutterings from locals. I was concerned. Did I have a big "I Heart England" tshirt on? No. Was I wearing a sandwich board proclaiming "Robert Burns Sucks"? No. "William Wallace Deserved What He Got"? Again, no. I was dressed quite normally in jeans, a tshirt and a jacket.

It wasn't until someone made a rude comment about my Irish luck coming to an end I realised the problem.

Ireland were playing Scotland in the rugby that night. And I was flitting through Edinburgh with my warm, comfortable, bright green winter jacket on.

I spent the rest of the night shivering in my cardigan, with my jacket shoved unceremoniously into my bag.

I Have So Much To Say

... but I can't get the right (or write?) words out.

I mean, it's all here.

I'm in love.

I have an exciting new job.

I feel "at home" in London.

And yet... nothing. No words come to me. The best I can do is some Bridget Jones-esque ranting about what will happen when it becomes clear I am in love with a man who has no interest in me. Eugh, derivative much?

Will this block never cease??

It's Not You, It's Me

So I need a break.

I'm in this weird head space at the moment where I seem to be veering from cutely cynical to bitter, and I don't know why. Maybe I just need to get back to my mates in London. Maybe I need to sort out my life. Maybe I just need... something.

All I know is that everything I write at the moment seems to make me mad. That and the fact I'm currently in New York City and completely underwhelmed. Whereas most people would be all "woo hoo, NYC baby! I heart NYC!" I'm just "eugh, it's London but with a bad attitude".

So in order to spare you all I'm having a hiatus. At least until the fun, frivolous me is back.

I'll let you know when that is.

Give Me a Home Among the Gum Trees

Even though my last post may have sounded like I was glad to be getting out of Australia and back to London, there are few things about Australia that I am definitely going to miss. Aside from the obvious like Vegemite, twisties, ginger nuts and my family. Mainly, the people. People from overseas just don't get how laid back and... not laconic but chilled Aussies are. Sure, there are fuckwits here, like anywhere, but generally the Aussie attitude of No Worries, Mate hasn't really changed.

This was made perfectly clear to me as I left Sydney airport for the USA. I always dread going through those X-Ray machines at the airport. I don't know why - I never, ever, EVER have anything I shouldn't on me. Well, except for that time I forgot my 110ml deodorant was in my handbag, but aside from that, nothing. I don't even carry a lighter in my hand bag for fear of it being confiscated. But nevertheless, there is something about the officious looking people with their big X-Ray machines and list of rules which send me cold with fear.

Of course, some international airports are worse than others. London Gatwick will only let you through with ONE item of hang luggage, even though the airlines let you have a carry on bag and a hand bag. Gatwick makes you shove your hand bag into your carry on luggage. And then they make you take off your shoes. London Stanstead made me X-Ray my Havaiana thongs on a weekend trip to Florence. Cairo airport practically had me down to my undies before they'd let me attempt the metal detectors. Every time I go through Kuala Lumpur I seem to get set off the machine and get patted down by a serious looking Malaysian woman.

So I approached the X-Ray machines at Sydney with a little fear in my heart. Especially since I looked, well, dodgy. It was about a thousand degrees Celsius the day I flew out. Everyone else in the airport was wearing thongs, singlet tops, shorts and baseball caps. I, on the other hand, was wearing knee high boots, jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt and carrying sweater AND a thick winter coat. Clearly heading to cooler climes than Sydney's current heat wave. I was also carrying a hand bag and a carry on bag which had my laptop in it. Which means I had to unpack the laptop before they could scan my bag, etc etc.

As I approached the X-Ray machine I smiled apprehensively at the official X-Ray Dude. At which point he cracked into a big smile and started joking with me about all my coats / jackets / sweaters. As I got my clear plastic bag with liquids not over 100mls out of my handbag he was chatting about how today would be a great beach day. As my laptop was scanned through the machine we discussed global warming.

Not once did he pay a scrap of attention to the image on the X-Ray machine. Not once. I could have had a bag full of rare bird eggs (not that I did, I'd like to point out) and he would have had no idea whatsoever. Instead we chatted about my inappropriate summer attire.

And that is why I love Australia. Even the people with terribly terribly serious jobs are still willing to have a chat about shit. In London you're doing well if they don't glare at you and treat you like a criminal. In the US they're more interested in trying to find out whether you were planning any illegal activities while you were in their country. In Australia they smile and chat about the bloody weather. Most excellent.

Sayonara Sydney

Well, I should be packing right now. But I'm not. I'm surfing the net looking for stupid jobs for when I get back to London. Sigh.

I leave for the US of A tomorrow, then on to London (Where it's apparently blizzarding. My tan will look even HOTTER!). While it's been good being back in Sydney, it's helped me realise, this is not where I'm meant to be right now.

I love this city. It's great. But the past six weeks have made me slowly go a little bit mad. I've come to the realisation many of my friends have gotten older and dull. I've talked about house prices, the rental market, the global financial crisis, hair straighteners, babies, tupperware, whether a paint was more lemon or tan, how I'm an insult to the feminist movement, the job market, etc etc. These were people I used to have fabulous discussions about fun topics with. They're now boring, career / relationship obsessed poseurs. But still my friends.

I've discovered Australia is becoming a nanny state. No shots after midnight?? Plastic glasses only? For fucks' sake, I went to the beach the other day and they had a sign banning ball games, kites and barbeques! Harden the fuck up, Australia, lest we become like the English and everything fun is banned.

I still don't have a plan. For which I have been largely crucified. Over and over again.

I'm leaving the country beyond broke. Some arsehole skimmed my credit card in South Africa and I'm STILL waiting for $1,500 of fraudulent transactions to be cleared. However, I'm kind of happy to be getting out of here, money or no.

So Sydney, it's been interesting. One day I'll be ready to come back, talk about property prices and my future, but not right now. Right now I just want to get to the bloody Walkabout for a snake bite or eight (in a glass glass, no less).

Bogans United

It used to be that you could spot a bogan at 50 paces by one distinguishing feature.

No, it wasn't their mullet. Or their ute. Or wearing a wife beater and stubbies. These items may all be owned by bogan, but are not necessarily always on their person. Even a mullet can be hidden under a hat.

No, it was the tattoo they all choose to have emblazoned somewhere on their bodies. The Southern Bloody Cross:-



I've seen Southern Cross tattoos on all manner of body parts. The shoulder blade. The whole back. The pecs. The lower arm. The calf. Even behind a guy's ear once. It is a common way of marking a bogan, so that an observer is able to see said tattoo, identify the owner and cross the street to avoid them.

However, since returning to Australia, I have discovered a new and horrifying tattoo embraced by bogans in at they very least our Eastern States.

It's what I like to call "Established" Tat.

I scoured the net looking for an appropriate example, but couldn't find any. Probably because anyone who has this tattoo almost immediately regrets it.

To give you a picture, imagine for a second I am born in 1981. Which shouldn't be so hard, because I am. Then imagine that I felt it was important for everyone to know this. How is the best way, I wonder to myself on a daily basis. A newspaper advertisement? A skywriter?

How about instead I tattoo the phrase Est. 1981 on my person and be done with it.

Bogan. Total bogan. There is nothing more to add. Except that asking for such a tattoo should be a prerequisite for being denied any form of government assistance for ever more. And possibly being ejected from your suburb to a suburb full of fellow bogans. Preferably with some form of birth control crushed into the water supply.

Unemployment Blues

Being unemployed sucks sometimes. Everyone else is at work, so there's no one to hang out with. You've got no money so you can't go out and do anything that requires funds of any sort at all. You're expected to cook and clean for your family.

But the worst part is, you can't afford a car. And therefore it takes you an hour to get to the beach by public transport. An hour, people.

I think The Australian government needs to implement a new housing relocation scheme. All unemployed people are moved into houses by the beach on weekdays, so they can actually enjoy it. Employed people have no time for the beach on weekdays, and yet they are the ones who live there. So they are shipped back in on the weekends when they can use the beach, and those who are unemployed have mates to hang out with again.

I think this is the platform that Kevin 07 should introduce for the new year. Forget budgets and deficits. Unemployed relocation to beaches.

Alcohol Control Gone Mad

I was at a pub in the city the other day, catching up with some mates. As I am currently on the world's most hardcore detox, I was drinking water. I am a party ANIMAL! The rest of my mates were drinking beer.

At one point, my mate from Germany went to the toilet. Since she was going past the bar, I asked her to grab me another glass of water on her way back. Two birds, one stone, etc.

When she got back she was empty handed. I just assumed she had forgotten the water. But no. She had been refused service at the bar because she didn't have her ID on her.

She turns 30 next week.

Is this the new method of preventing binge drinking in NSW? Cause Lord knows how crazy people get when they drink too much water.

The Anti-Feminist

I was at a dinner the other night with a group of my (female) friends.  Since everyone I know has either got partnered up, married or caught children since I left Australia, the talk soon turned to child rearing.  As in, if we had kids how we would raise them.  And I managed to go from all-round-pal t social soiree outsider in the space of one sentence.

I admitted that, should I ever have children, I would like to be a stay at home mum.

I have never been so quickly cast from a group in my life.  Not even when I told a movie nerd mate that I hate Pulp Fiction.  Not even when I admitted to a tv producer friend that my favourite tv show was Temptation Island.  Not even when I asked my friend's mother (who happens to run alcohol rehab for the state of Queensland) if she wanted some of the straight vodka we were drinking.

Apparently, by voicing my desire to become a stay at home mum, I have dissed the feminist cause.  There were many cries of "what did our foremothers fight for if you plan on abandoning your degrees to bring up kids?" and "why don't you just quit your job as soon as you get married like my grandmother did?".  But mainly, I was accused of being an Anti-Feminist.

Since when did feminism get so single minded?  I pride myself on being a feminist, but I thought the idea of feminism was equal rights.  As in the right to choose.  No longer did women have to be shackled to their place in the home, we could go out, get careers, do what we wanted to instead of being forced into a lifestyle many did not choose.  The main point of feminism though, I thought, was choice.  

Somewhere along the line though, this appears to have changed, at least amongst my friends, into the point of feminism being that women have to go out, get degrees, and careers, and eschew any "traditional" roles for women, including the raising and care of children.  In voicing my choice I was reverting back to stereotypical female/male roles and therefore didn't believe in equality.

When did this happen?  Why is it that by voicing what my choice would be did I become an outcast?  It goes further though - these are the same people give me grief every time I confirm that I don't want to be a lawyer any more.  Just because I have decided that the whole "must have career" lifestyle isn't for me, I am out.

I was reading a book recently which had a very poignant line in it (for me at least).  I can't recall it exactly but the essence was "I wonder if women knew that by fighting for equality they would actually get the worst of both worlds - expectations abound to have not only a career, but also a family, and there are still only 24 hours in the day".  More than ever at that dinner it struck a chord with me.

I'm not saying that I think we should revert back to the bad old days where women couldn't vote, were expected to be baby-making / house cleaning machines.  But where has the idea of equality gone?  Or choice?

Ad I'm not a fucking anti-feminist, thank you.  Bah!