The Last Scrunchie

You know that scene in crime shows, where the super-fit-actress-posing-as-detective enters a deserted house, accidentally backs into a cupboard, and screams as a skeleton clutching a paintbrush topples forward?

A similar thing happened to me recently.

By ‘similar’, I mean “has as much connection as an empty park bench does with Chernobyl”.

But still, there’s a common theme here: the abandoned. 

I was snooping around my childhood home the other day, sorting through a wardrobe of hoarded bit and bobs, when I came across a decorative metal tin about the size and shape of a roll of paper towels.

I’d recognized the tin, a childhood present from a friend – but couldn’t remember what was kept inside. The circular lid was on tight so I used my fingers to lever it off slowly, resisting against suction and then…*pop*.

I’d unleashed a spirit. The Spirit of the 1990s. 

For out flew, like pink lemonade bursting from a can that’d been strapped to a bucking bull, my childhood hair scrunchie collection: a dozen or more in a delicious assortment of colours!

There were the royal blue ones I wore to school. A purple Lycra one which matched my dancing leotard (back when I was fitter than a crime show actress). A holly-patterned one for Christmas. There was a lacy, periwinkle-blue one for the days I was feeling demure. Pink and silver disco-sequined ones for a splash of Eurovision. And my favourite – the most majestic of all – a cream velour masterpiece trimmed with tiny silver balls. If Princess Mary of Denmark were to don a scrunchie, I’m confident she’d pick this one.

I can already hear people typing “Who cares?” and “There are more important things to discuss than fabric-covered elastic hair ties!”. You’re right, there *are* more important things. But there are less important things too. Like…nope, can’t think of one.

Nevertheless, before we all die from involuntarily eating horse lasagne, I’d like to acknowledge that once upon a time, these scrunchies meant something to me. Because for a decade, they were a daily part of my life. 

Every morning begged the exciting question – which one will I wear today? That vital choice could make or break the day. Think about it: wearing a sparkly one to school on free-clothes day could be just the eye-grabbing catalyst needed to spark a new lifelong friendship. Even a lack-of-scrunchie could trigger uncomfortable emotions. Can you imagine being the only girl in a uniformly-dressed dance troupe who forgot to wear hers? The only girl with a naked ponytail? Why, a fear of social disconnection could throw a girl’s performance right off!

If you think the humble hair scrunchie has no impact on one’s public image, just ask Hillary Clinton. Last year, the Huffington Post reported that Ms Clinton’s staff had wanted to “ban” her scrunchies. The thing was, Hillary needed to look camera-ready at all times, and she thought the easiest way to do this was to grow her hair long. This gave her the option to quickly tie it back – with a white frilly scrunchie – at a moment’s notice. 

Hillary’s logic makes sense. Because a plain ponytail can look too casual. And ribbons untie. That can be a pain, especially if you’re, say, backflipping. Was I the only one who watched the 2012 London Olympic gymnastics competitions and thought, “Hmm. That Russian girl’s wearing a scrunchie. Hmm. Interesting.”?

So why are Hillary’s staff anti-scrunchie? And why did I stop wearing mine? Because nothing screams last century like a scrunchie! At some point, they naturally started to phase out. And I knew they were truly in danger the day I saw an Oprah episode in which a male “stylist” announced it was “tacky” to publicly wear a scrunchie in any shade other than your own natural hair colour.

Blasphemy. That has as much logic as hanging a plain beige painting on a plain beige wall.

Nevertheless, I realised I was becoming out of fashion. And this realisation coincided with the turn of a new century and a journey into adulthood. So, as I entered this new phase of life, I decided to enter it sans scrunchie. With respect and good wishes, I stuffed them into a tin, and hid them away. Note: Hid. Not threw away. I’m not crazy.

Or maybe I am. Because even now, I still can’t throw them out. I had too much fun wearing them. And in the same way that thinking about food makes you hungry – the more I think about scrunchies, the more I think a revival may be around the corner. All it takes is one brave leader. Does Hillary know something we don’t?

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Dating Games: A Good Girl’s Response to Rob Mills

Musical theatre singer/actor Rob Mills recently posted on Mia Freedman’s Mamamia site about the dating games that girls are playing on the “good guys of Australia”.

Well…I had a little something to say about that, so I wrote a response letter. The site couldn’t publish it (they don’t publish responses), so here it is instead.

PLEASE NOTE: My letter will only make sense if you read Rob’s blog first. Otherwise, you may as well watch the last Harry Potter film and none of the others…

 

“Dearest Robert,

Would you sit with me in a darkened room while we listen to sad Klezmer clarinet?

Because I share the pain of which you write. Honestly, I do. The game-playing dating world is brutal.

BUT…I’m a little offended.

Actually, when I read your article, I felt anger. I was ready to put rage to the page. Then I remembered something. Can you think of a group of people who attract more hate mail than angry female journalists? Aside from Facebook’s privacy department?

No? So Rob, I address you with compassion.

I’m sorry to hear about your friend John Smith whose girlfriend wants to hold hands on weekend IKEA expeditions yet dismisses him at work. Firstly, is he sure her hand-holding is a romantic gesture, not a survival tactic? Because it’s easy to get lost in that place, Rob. I don’t care HOW big the floor arrows are.

But seriously, poor John. Here he is, making himself vulnerable to this girl he adores (let’s call her Pocahontas) and she’s running hot and cold.

A psychologist once described this scenario to me as “Push-Pull”. Pocahontas is handing out tidbits of affection and attention, then when John responds in kind, Pocahontas pulls away. It’s not an equal partnership. She’s controlling the situation. And it’s likely to leave John in a heightened state of anxiety.

So good on you Rob for defending John in your cape and undies.

However, you write about the games girls play as though it’s ALL of us manipulating your humble male heads and not the other way around.

Well, Rob, I’m standing up for the good girls who ARE honest about their feelings and DO want to stay calm and DO want to talk ON THE PHONE LIKE MATURE ADULTS!

Except some guys are TURNED OFF BY THIS!

*Breathe in, breathe out*

You mention contradictions. Let’s talk about contradictions, shall we?! It’s nearly 2013, and humans have come a long way. Heck, we can now surf the internet while flying! As for women – our lives look very different even from the lives of our mothers. We’re in the workplace together with men and are expected to show just as much courage, ambition and initiative. This “seize the day” philosophy isn’t just present at work – it’s also thrust upon us by advertising and anyone wearing lycra.

But as I’m discovering, “carpe diem” doesn’t seem apply to dating. I thought that when a guy contacted me, he would appreciate my zippy response and my tech-savvy on all Macs, PCs and mobile devices.

Not so. It’s caveman days here. Society is telling me that guys still prefer to be able to chase girls. To call her when HE is ready. So we must wait.

The book Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus teaches us that men fear being controlled by women and we must let them disappear to their “man caves” so they can restore their strength to be able to talk to us again.

Female friends have told me I need to wait two days before responding to a guy so that I don’t freak him out.

Even a male friend’s admitted to dumping a girl for being too clingy and ringing him too often.

Yes Rob, remember that bit where you said “I am imploring you ladies to pick up the phone and talk to the person you like”? We’ve done that. It makes things worse!

Take for example, a guy I’d love to circumnavigate IKEA with. A game player.

He was the initiator – admitting he liked me, asking me out – and he probably got to feel like the chaser because I started out so painfully shy. But as I opened up, he became less communicative.

I’d heartbreakingly accept that he was “just not that into me”. Then he’d magically pop up again. Then disappear. Rinse and repeat.

But he encouraged phone calls. “Call me anytime you want!” he’d say. “Call me so that it becomes too much!”

Well, Rob, do you know what happened when I tried to have an honest, mature phone conversation with this guy? He found ways to avoid it for THREE WEEKS. When he finally decided HE was ready to talk, his reasoning was, “I’m busy at work and don’t always feel like having a heavy conversation afterwards”. This has happened again and again.

I told him I respected his work and said if he needed space, sure! He just needed to tell me. But no. I’d always get “Let’s talk tomorrow!”.

To quote you, Rob: “Could. Not. Be. More. Frustrating.”

So please, tell me what us good girls are meant to do. Because we don’t like games either.

And frankly, I couldn’t be more confused and emotionally exhausted than if I’d gotten lost in IKEA.”

Pleasure: I’ve found a new type and it needs a name

The English language needs another word.

“Another?” you ask, in an intimidating tone that would freak out any kid called Oliver.

Yes, another. I’ve identified a particular type of pleasure for which I can’t find an accurate, all-encompassing English word. This breed of delight is like the less-evil, younger sister of “Schadenfreude”. It’s a bit like the hippy best friend of “symbiosis”. And it hangs out with the cheeky cousin of “opportunism”. But none of these do it justice.

And no, this isn’t another opinion-piece inspired by 50 Shades of Grey.

Like most lightbulb moments, I had discovered this nameless brand of joy whilst riding on public transport. It goes a little something like this.

You know how on the floor of a bus, there’s that raised section to accommodate the height of the wheels? (Just say yes). Well, in my city, the local buses have two seats above these higher-floored sections, which means that anyone who sits there will have their legs pushed up, resulting in a more acute angle below the knee and a more obtuse angle below the thigh of the passenger. Confused? Well, it’d be like sitting on a bus in platform shoes – think The Spice Girls on a road trip. Anyway, everyone finds those seats awkward so they avoid them.

Everyone except ME!

I LOVE those seats! I find them so comfortable! And I haven’t a clue why, because I don’t think my leg proportions are too different from anyone else’s. And since I’m not a fan of the standard chair-to-floor ratio that society has dictated, those wheel seats suit me to a tee.

And this is what I’m talking about.

The fact that no-one else likes them means they’re always available. I don’t have to compete for them. I don’t have to sit next to anyone. Thanks to the misfortune of others (them finding my Spice-Girl-Platform Seats to be confining), I always get what I want. So I gloat. I feel like a maverick. I feel like a smug sheepdog in a flock of sheep. But I feel gratitude too and strangely, a sense of belonging. By filling those seats, I’m maintaining the delicate ecosystem of the bus. I give those seats a reason to live.

And I believe this mixture of feelings needs a name.

But it doesn’t just apply to buses. It could also apply to, say…Neapolitan ice-cream.

Imagine you live in a house with four other people. They covet the chocolate and vanilla stripes, but balk at the strawberry. It’s the one always left over, but luckily for you, the strawberry is your absolute favorite.

So, not only do you…

1.Get the delight of eating your ideal flavor of ice-cream, and

2.Feel victorious that you don’t have to have a freezer-side Sumo contest with your housemates for it; but also,

3.You get the satisfaction of knowing you have made a positive contribution to this world. Thanks to you, the strawberry ice-cream has found a home in your belly. You, my friend, are the clownfish to the sea anemone, protecting it from those anemone-eating fish while it in turn protects you from your predators.

See, don’t you think we need a word for this? A word which encompasses all these thoughts and feelings? Because when it happens, it’s really fun. It’s like having your head inserted into a miniature floating disco for three seconds.

“Schadenfreude” (the pleasure derived by someone from another person’s misfortune) isn’t sufficient. It’s too Hitler-ish in meaning.

Instead, this “Pleasure X” (again, I haven’t read 50 Shades) could be better described as:

“The pleasure felt by Person A which is derived from Person B’s slight dislike of an object, situation, or dairy product, the result of which is that Person A gets to enjoy, and feels grateful that they get to enjoy, their optimum scenario without confines or the opposition of Person B, while simultaneously feeling a delusional level of satisfaction that they have played a successful part in a symbiotic relationship, thus contributing to the continuation of the universe.”

Simple, huh?

And this is why we need a word for it.

Have you found yourself in a similar situation? And what would you call it?

The raised-floor-bus-seat. My favourite!

Conservatism and Orange Juice

I’m living on the edge.

No, really, I am.

I’m drinking orange juice.

Despite what all those gym instructors and nutritionists out there say, despite all the lectures they give you about how you may as well eat an actual orange instead because a glass of juice contains the sugar of 1000 oranges or whatever…I’m having a glass. It’s NOT the same as eating an orange! It’s refreshing, it’s tasty, and it lights up my life like a candle in the wind.

But this blog isn’t really about oranges. It’s about conservatism.

The other day, a friend called me “conservative”. But not in a laidback, “Yo lady, you’re conservative” way…but, “You’re CONSERVATIVE”, like, “You side with VOLDEMORT”. Like, “We SPIT on you!”. Like, “Thou art BANISHED”.

Ouch.

I haven’t felt this rejected since primary school, when the “cool” girls would laugh at me for not sneaking off with them into the big kids’ playground. Well, we weren’t allowed to! It was against school rules! And school rewarded you for not breaking the rules! You got stickers.

So, just as I felt socially isolated back then for following the rules…I find the same thing happening now. But…the conditions aren’t as simple. It’s not a matter of, “rule-breakers are in the cool group, squares are not”. It factors in religion, diet, politics, dress sense, music sense, the number of languages you speak, the city you live in, the money you earn, the type of job you have, your relationship status, your relationship experience, and the number of times you’ve had dinner with Barack Obama.

I can’t keep up. Now I’m eyeing that copy of Alain de Botton’s Status Anxiety on my bookshelf  and thinking I should probably read it.

Being called conservative has definitely hit a sore spot. And here are the three things that bother me the most about it:

1. I do not, and have never, sided with anyone called George Bush. In fact, I was pro-Dixie Chicks all the way in that documentary Shut Up and Sing.
2. I don’t even know what it means to be conservative in this day and age.
3. I thought it was hip to be conservative!

Let’s expand on that last point. Cardigans and 1960s’ housewife dresses are totes in. Tim Minchin irons (see below). Heck, even the Amish are getting their own reality TV shows. So why am I feeling so ostracized?

This is what my Apple dictionary says about being conservative:

conservative |kənˈsərvətiv; -vəˌtiv|adjective
holding to traditional attitudes and values and cautious about change or innovation, typically in relation to politics or religion.

Hellooo, I don’t even follow politics or religion. As for being cautious about change or innovation, that’s not relevant at all. I totes love and welcome every new Apple release. As for holding traditional attitudes and values? Traditional to who? And what?

In this day and age, it would be considered MORE rebellious to run off and live with the Amish, than to sleep around and party and take ecstasy. How is an Amish community in 2012 different from a hippy commune in the 1970s? They’re both poo-pooing convention. They both have long hair. They just wear different clothes.

I realise that I may be missing the point. I have not checked my facts. In fact, I have not listed any facts. I am merely drawing on my emotions, which is usually the best way to present a balanced argument.

But I don’t care. I’m a rebel. And I will do as I damn please. And I will pour myself a SECOND glass of orange juice.

So take that, world.

Mushroom Real Estate

It is now Spring (huzzah!), which means the birds are out, the bees are singing and the flowers are buzzing. It also means that I have been able to flip over to a new picture on my lovely calendar. This month’s image? An illustration of a homely looking mushroom.

It’s got me thinking. Are mushrooms the most whimsical of vegetables? She looks up “mushroom” in the dictionary so as not to start one of those fruit vs vegetable vs funghi debates. My mistake, it’s not a vegetable. Rewind, rewind. Are mushrooms the most whimsical of items found in a supermarket’s fresh produce department? Not counting the ready-made salads?

I say this because in children’s literature, the mushroom often appears as a small shelter which fairies or other magical beings live under. It’s possibly not a smart choice of housing – everyone knows you’re not even meant to wash mushrooms before making a stir-fry – so I shudder to think what happens when it rains and you’re living underneath one. Soggy practicalities aside, the idea is cute.

But what’s so special about the humble mushroom? Other fresh foods don’t get this sort of aura placed on them. Except for green beans in “Jack and the Beanstalk”. And the memorable stonefruit that appears in “James and the Giant Peach”. Also not forgetting the slightly more obscure Mexican fairytale “Pedro and the Fortune-Telling Corn Kernel”.

It makes sense though, right? To make fruit and vegetables sound more edible to children? (Without tipping them off on the hallucinogenic properties of certain mushrooms). Because let’s face it, the humble mushroom is hideous. It’s brown, it has a creepy texture, and the dictionary description hardly does it justice:

mushroom |ˈmə sh ˌroōm; -ˌroŏm|noun

a fungal growth that typically takes the form of a domed cap on a stalk, often with gills on the underside of the cap.

So, it’s a fungal growth with gills. Risotto, anyone?

But my favourite use of the the mushroom is as a form of seating for toads. We’re led to believe that in amphibian bars, toads pull up their mushrooms (hence why they are called “toadstools”), order a drink or five and moan about how David Linhagen had affairs with their wives. In modern fairytales, this is where Prince Ryan Gosling shows up to the rescue and turns the toad into Steve Carrell.

It all sounds delightful until a toad spills his drink and his seat turns to mush…

A Shaggy Soiree

Last night, the kids* next door held a soiree.

Except it wasn’t a soiree. It was a party. A soiree would have been much quieter. The kids would have sat in the parlour and performed songs from opera and talked about the time they thought the world was flat.

Nope, this was an actual party. Girls, boys, happiness – that kind of thing. But what surprised me was the music they were playing: Shaggy. Yes seriously, Shaggy, that reggae singer/rapper from the late 90’s who “sung” as though he was trying to hold marbles in his mouth.

Who plays Shaggy anymore? Hasn’t Gotye now set it up that we no longer need to listen to music written before 2011? It’s old news, but I maintain that his “Somebody That I Used To Know” is so catchy and universally appealing that it’s the only song that need ever be played, ever again. You know those late morning TV ads that urge you to discard your Pilates balls, resistance bands and free weights and replace them with one single piece of exercise machinery? It’s the same situation. Throw out all your other CDs. Just pop Gotye on repeat and everyone you’ll ever bring over to your house will enjoy it for hours. You don’t need other music. You just need this one song. ONE SONG TO RULE THEM ALL.

(Gotye, bless him, would shudder in his socks if he knew I’d said that. He *does* have other music, you know).

But alas, I did not hear any Gotye last night. In between the Shaggy marathon, Justin Timberlake made a visit. Or three. At one point I heard his “Senorita” repeated in the space of four songs. Clearly those kids are striving to be music programmers on the Austereo Network.

As much as I love Justin Timberlake (that’s not sarcasm), these “kids” and their “happiness” were so loud, and late at night, that we had to ask them to turn it down. It became quite the heated confrontation! We said, “Could you please turn it down?”. They said, “Sorry! Would you like to join us?”. We said, “No thanks, but we love Justin Timberlake” *thumbs up*. They said, “Okay, well come over next time”. We said, “Kthanksbye”.

They turned it down one decibel.

And now it’s the morning after and I have Shaggy’s “Angel” in my head.

There is only one remedy: Gotye, where are you my precious…?

*They were probably only five years younger than me, but young enough not to remember a world without “Glee”.

Half-hearted, or a monkey?

It’s best not to discuss one’s flaws online. That’s the impression I get. Potential employers scour the internet and choose not to hire you based on the ghastly things they find. But today, for the sake of this blog, I’m going to throw caution to the windflowers.

The other night, a friend accused me of pursuing projects “half-heartedly”.

Ouch. 

It was something I REALLY didn’t want to hear. Me! Half-hearted! Be still, my heart which only beats on the off-beat. 

How could he have said that? After all, I cannot STAND people who pursue things half-heartedly. For years I prided myself on being a perfectionist, because I thought that meant I wasn’t half-heartedly approaching my work. So of course, I got quite defensive and blurted out “I don’t do things half-heartedly! I just do things slowly!”. See The Tortoise and the Hare.

But it’s been nagging me ever since. Do I really have commitment issues? This morning, when I looked at this blog, I realised I’d written two posts in the space of a fortnight. I had intended to write daily. The guy may have a point. Even if it is the point of a rusty stake which he has stabbed through my semi-heart.

But see, it’s the plight of the perfectionist. It’s a problem I’ve not yet overcome. We’re all aiming to create this…

…but we aim so high that we tire ourselves out, ending up with bits of greatness amongst giant gaping holes…

…because, so badly, we want to avoid creating this….

 

This lovely painting is the handiwork of Cecilia Giménez, an elderly Spanish woman who made headlines recently when she “restored” this century-old fresco of Jesus. The paint had been peeling off substantially, so Cecilia took the initiative to try and salvage it. The monkey-like result has both mortified people, yet drawn crowds of thousands to the church.

She’s clearly a “get-it-done type”, that Cecilia. The sort who would say “don’t worry about it not being perfect – just get the thing done so we can all go out to tapas”. And who are we to criticize? Thanks to her, Jesus now has a whole face. It may look like he’s addicted to botox injections but nevertheless, He has a face. Even Steve Jobs used to tell his staff “real artists ship”. Cecilia has shipped.

I’m not going to get snarky here. Sure, I used to look down on people who cared more about “completing a task” than “aiming for transcendence via high quality work”. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve realised that if it weren’t for loved ones badgering me to finish things, I’d never have passed pre-school.

So, I think the key here is it’s okay to aim high and it’s also okay to allow yourself to paint a monkey – but keep painting those monkeys consistently. With enough practice, discipline and healthy ambition, your monkeys may start to look like Jesus.

Then, and only then, should you dare go anywhere near a 19th Century fresco.

And so…I will continue blogging.

When in doubt, add a Greek column

What is it about humans and the “exotic” – how we give everything a theme, a flavour of somewhere else? The other day I went for a long walk with a friend exploring the streets of my local suburbs. Lots of new houses were shooting up – many of them a little bit “pseudo-Spanish-villa” or “pseudo-Swiss-chalet”. Some actually did look inviting, others shouted “I am not in Tuscany but I wish I was so badly that I’ll put this curly wrought iron fence on the balcony whether it matches or not”.

The houses that were the most adorable (I say that because I’m trying to be the glass-half-full girl – secretly I wish someone would blow them up) are the brick boxes built in the 80s. They could be houses, they could be apartment buildings, or they could be a governmental test of my mental ability to endure poor aesthetics. “Let’s see how much ugliness she can survive before she snaps and vandalises – at which point we move in quickly and slap her with a monstrous fine”. Sorry, I don’t really think of the government in that manipulating way, but I caught a glimpse of Big Brother on TV last night and 1984 has been dredged up from my subconscious.

These buildings I speak of are the rectangular prisms which look as though, if you ate them, they’d taste like cheap rye crackers. They have no shape and the bricks are the colour of, um, clay. But not just any clay. Clay that is the colour of cheap biscuits! But it doesn’t stop there. It’s as though, on completion, the builders have realised that these boxy structures are lacking a little “something”, and have tried to remedy the situation by cementing Grecian columns-as-railings on the balconies.

If President Obama were to see this, he’d call it “putting lipstick on a pig”. Then he’d slow-jam the news.

Despite my put-downs, I do think it’s quite sweet. And let’s face it, a Greek column is better than no Greek column. But what is it about these other cultures that appeal to us so much? Are we that unhappy with our culture in Australia that we’ll do anything to brainwash ourselves into thinking we’re actually in the Greek Isles?

Perhaps this need for escapism is universal. Are there retired couples in Athens building Queenslander-esque wooden houses on stilts? Are Swiss farmers training their cows to squawk like cockatoos? (The “moo” is just so…ordinary).

And don’t get me started on the names people give their houses. One clay-coloured property had the words “Las Palmeras” glued to the front fence. But it wasn’t an exotic manor in the heart of Spain filled with the smell of tapas and the sounds of Flamenco. It was a small residential property with three palm trees out the front.

Truth be told, I actually do like these little tributes to the Mediterranean. Sure it may be putting lipstick on a pig – but everyone loves Miss Piggy!

Seize the day, Snazzles!

I’ve made a pact. Not with myself. There wasn’t a board meeting and my right hand didn’t shake my left hand. But I’ve made a pact with a close friend that we’ll both get up at 6am every morning. Over Winter, we’ve become lazy when we’d much rather “seize the day”, as they say. (Obviously the person who came up with that phrase managed to get a good sleep-in because at this point in time I couldn’t conceive of coming up with such a snazzling phrase). Is snazzling a word? *She looks it up*. No, it’s not. “Snazzy” is what I’m after. “Snazzling” sounds like the overly dressed-up child of “Dazzling” and “Snazzy” – the names of a bogan couple who are hoping their child will become the next Kim Kardashian.

My point to this paragraph of “z’s” (believe me, that’s what I’d like to be doing right now) is that I’m starting a new phase of my life, and with that comes this new blog. I’m going to seize the day! I’m going to look for new adventures! I’m going to push outside of my comfort zone! I don’t expect it to be easy. In fact, I take inspiration from the words of the late, great wizard Albus Dumbledore, who once said “We must choose between what is right, and what is easy”.

Right now, I could easily be sleeping.

Nevertheless, I’m drawing on every inch of willpower I have because this lifestyle change has been FAR from easy. But despite everything in my body telling me to do otherwise, I’ve stuck with it. Sure it’s only been two days – but that means I’ve had a 100% success rate! And yes, there’s a glass half full of water on my bedside table. Actually, there are two glasses half full of water and three mugs half full of tea. Some might call this “lazy housekeeping”, but I call it “real-life reminders of the power of positive thinking”. Next week I’ll be giving people the chance to witness this transcendental art installation piece for an entry price of $20. There’s also a one-off deluxe $50 ticket which will grant you entry to the cup gallery AND give you the exclusive opportunity to wash and put away the cups.

I digress.

Here, I’ll be documenting my thoughts and adventures – whether they actually BE adventures, or merely everyday experiences looked at through rose-coloured glasses. (Possibly the 3D glasses handed out at that preview screening of Brave). It’s really a writing exercise I guess, a place where I can consistently channel my creative energy. And no, I won’t be working my way through Julia Child’s cookbook, though I would be content for Amy Adams to play me in a movie. Even Snazzling Kardashian could do it if she stays away from lip fillers.

I hope you enjoy my quirky ramblings about the world. May the blogging begin!

P.S. The deal with my friend is that we both wake up, and stay up, at 6am – otherwise the sleeper-inner must bake for the other person. It’s entirely possible this may turn into a cooking blog after all…