the end was just the beginning
You really don't. Sure, it makes you rich (usually). But it also makes you paranoid, insecure and self-obsessed. And, if you're really unlucky, dead. Like poor Whitney Houston, with "recreated" photos of your corpse on the cover of The National Enquirer. The Aussie weekly magazines pay tribute to Whitney today. One is even on the stands three days early. Death sells. Well it did with Steve Irwin and Belinda... Continue Reading →
I have a cavewoman's grasp of technology. Leaning more to the Neanderthal than the Homo Sapien. My brain just isn't wired that way. Lots of room for random facts and gossip, not much space for complex tasks. I've only just learned to use a scanner, at age 43. It's been a revelation. I've been madly uploading old snapshots and posting them on my Facebook wall. (Some friends are... Continue Reading →
OK, technically this is a photo of me in infants school. I went a bit manky after that and I'm too shy to share. I was the girl with plastic bobbles and ribbons in my pigtails (until I was ooooh, 15). I had freckles and a nose that "matured" before the rest of my face. I hid my bananas behind a... Continue Reading →
I went to the gym yesterday. I am not a gym person. This is a gross understatement. I am hopelessly uncoordinated and I look awful in lycra. Group physical activity hasn't been my thing since primary school, when a teacher mimicked my bumbling basketball style for the amusement of my classmates. The last time I went to a gym was 12... Continue Reading →
After spending 500 gazillion hours on the internet, Googling "kids disco party" and goggling at paying Holly Hip Hop $310 for 90 minutes of jiggling and glitter tattoos, I've decided to kit Husband in only-gay-in-the-village attire and make him teach 16 six-year-old girls the Macarena and Time Warp instead. It's probably the last time we can act as DIY party entertainers without totally mortifying Sprog 2 - and we come super-cheap - so we might as well... Continue Reading →
I am a marketing department's wet dream. Give me 20 years and I'll be the crazy old lady with a house full of Franklin Mint porcelain dolls and plate. My latest collector madness has me alterately jogging or trudging to the newsagent at 6.30am every morning for the David-Attenborough-DVD-a-day offer from the Daily Telegraph. I must get... Continue Reading →
I was a bit shell-shocked after school drop-off yesterday, like I'd surived an attack. Birthday presents were the machine-gun-fire topic in the car. I tried to let the chatter wash over me, like white noise, but the little buggers are so persistent. When I don't respond to every single remark they make, they just repeat it again and again - louder and louder... Continue Reading →
Why are little girls so mean to each other? Sprog 1 came home from school yesterday, smiling brightly as she walked through the door. But when I asked about her day, she burst into tears. At lunchtime, her best friend told her she picks a new best friend every year, so see ya later. Holding her in my... Continue Reading →
A woman was standing at the school gates yesterday. She seemed vaguely familiar. Our eyes locked. We smiled tentatively. She said: "Do I know you from somewhere?" I replied: "Yes! Weight Watchers!" (She looked like someone who worked at Weight Watchers when it was an advertising client of my magazine.) The woman kind of froze, then said: "No, no, that wasn't it." It was only as I walked away... Continue Reading →
Sprog 1 has entered Year 3. Year 3 is NAPLAN year. This makes me slightly apprehensive - discovering how Sprog 1's brain compares to the rest of the state. But what I'm more anxious about is "volunteer year" - parents of Year 3 students are expected to run all fundraising events for the school. This is no small undertaking in a school of 700+ children. There's the disco,... Continue Reading →
