Junk food.

  Junk food – in case you missed all the celebrity macaron chefs, cake-based reality TV shows and YouTube clips dedicated to Doritos hacking – is really in. Oh sure, Team Health has boosted the profile of green smoothies, quinoa and kale in recent times, but they can’t hold an organic beeswax candle to junk food right now. Nothing can. Junk food is having a resurgence right now, and no artery is safe.
  But this isn’t the junk food you know/love/feel sick after eating; this is junk food squared. It’s experimental, nostalgic, theatrical, unthinkable, hyper. Old-school classics mingle with gooey hybrids and crispy new mutants – it’s grown-up and pared-back, reimagined and deconstructed. And, at a time when social media is booming, it’s the perfect source of OMFG I DIE!!! blog posts and sepia-tinged photo documentation.
  Obviously, being both a sweet-toothed rat and a chump, I’ve been entirely sucked in. I dream of salted caramel gelato and cronuts. I want to travel to NYC with a list of burgers I want to sample. I Google Snickers brownie recipies. I want to eat deep-fried Southern chicken and tacos for dinner because that’s all cool restaurants seem to serve. I expect my popcorn to taste of white chocolate and my cocktails to feature ground-up Oreos. It’s disgusting, embarrassing and delicious.
  Clearly, this high-calorie orgy must end. One cannot eat birthday-party food five times a week without repercussions, even if a lot of very slim, beautiful people Instagramming burgers and cupcakes each day indicate otherwise. Junk food is a sometimes food, if indeed it meets the requirements of “food” at all, so I’m cutting right back. I mean it guys! I will no longer count cinnamon scrolls as breakfast. Bacon is not a vegetable. I don’t need dessert every night – unless it’s peanut butter-based. And then I’m allowed a single, solitary taste (four of them).

They don’t make them like they used to. They make ‘em much better – like, really, really good.

  A friend of mine bought a brand-new car the other day – a zippy little Korean number that looks like a bunch of other zippy little Korean numbers – and it didn’t cost very much at all. It looks spunky, has plenty of bells and whistles, airbags everywhere and a tank that fills for less than $40. And it occurred to me: some things have become really really good.
  Cars weren’t always this way. The sight of a sedan parked by the side of the road with its hood up and steam coming from a pipe was a constant of my youth. You hardly see it anymore – and almost never with a new car. What would you do, anyway? Stand there staring at a computer chip? Even the warranty on a new car goes for five years. Five whole years! That’s seven iPhones away. No wonder roadside assistance companies now do house insurance.
  It made me think about the catergory, ‘really really good’. TV’s today are really really good. It feels like only a year back that they weighed more than 100kg and came in a cabinet. They’re now slim and sleek and you see people wheel them out of Costco in shopping trolleys.
  Budget air travel is really, really good. The days of saving up for your ‘big trip’ feel almost Downton Abbey-ish. I spoke to a 20-year-old recently who went to Bali for a weekend. Not that long ago you had to book months in advance just to get to Coolangatta. And it involved a travel agent and a ceremonial issuing of a triplicate ticket with its own pouch and clutch bag (I really, really miss those days!!!). My last boarding pass was flimsier than a shopper docket. (Mind you, as good as budget travel is, airport parking has become really, really bad.)
  Going to the dentist is really, really good. It used to be like airport parking, only worse – expensive AND painful. I sometimes wonder if I was unknowingly part of a secretly filmed pain-threshold experiment. Now I actually enjoy the visit somewhat. I don’t know who invented the stuff that numbs your gums before the needle goes in, but Madam or Sir, your invention is really, really good! And kudos to your colleagues who added the Perspex patient glasses, instant X-rays and auto-drink fountain. They’re all really, really good, too.
  Speaking of dreaded experiences, I used to dread camping – or anything involving a sleeping bag or a camp fire. But I like it now because camping equipment is really, really good. Inflatable mattresses, season-rated sleeping bags, non-leaky collapsible tents and portable toilets have made all the pain go away. You can forget the phrase ‘freeze-dried’ and opt for portable burners and fridges and 12-volt anything. An espresso after your warm camp shower?
  Dog owners are (generally) really, really good. They pick up their dogs’ poop and walk them on leads, and in summer you hardly ever see big wet sandy dogs freaking out kids on crowded beaches. I know we still have problems but, if only for further encouragement, I officially put dog owners in my really, really good category.
  Rubbish bins? Again, really, really good. They used to stink and have no capacity and bad handles and even worse, wonky lids. Now they’re big and super-wheelie and the lids shut and….anyway, they’re really, really good.
  So, I’d like to make a toast…and I’ll do that with a glass of really good, cheap beer in a really good, cheap big glass. Two more things that, rather wonderfully, have become really, really good.

Step away from the razor: pubic hair grooming injuries on the rise.

  When you think about it, putting a razor anywhere in the vicinity of your most sensitive parts is…well, a little bit bonkers. Risk-wise, it’s up there with walking on the ledge of a 50-storey building: one little slip and it’s all over. Okay, so a grooming injury probably won’t leave you flattened on the footpath, but it will be followed by obscene language, a few tears and days of discomfort. And yet, in the name of keeping things presentable in our pants, many of us regularly take that risk. Oh yes we do.
  A recent study has found public hair grooming injuries increased by 500 per cent between 2002 and 2010. 500 per cent. They say that beauty is pain, but this is just getting far too painful, guys. By monitoring Emergency Room visits, scientists at the University of California, San Francisco found genitourinary injuries – laceration, in most cases – rose by 247 incidents per year, with razors involved in 83 per cent of cases. Scissors and hot wax were also culprits.
  Although women made up only 56.7 per cent of the cohort, “external female genitalia” was the most common site of injury in the pubic region. Are your eyes watering yet? As for the cause of this increase, it’s safe to assume it comes down to one simple fact: hair down there has somehow become Pubic Enemy Number One (yes, I did just go there). Ouch.
  Where once the Brazilian wax was an exotic, underground trend, the hairless look has become mainstream over the last decade or so. And the “man-scaping” phenomenon indicates women aren’t the only ones getting a little wax-happy. It’s all a little strange considering pubic hair – like any body hair – serves a practical purpose. In fact, it is believed that the removal of pubic hair presents health risks of its own, increasing risk of infection and sexually transmitted diseases.
  Regardless, the decision of whether or not to leave things au naturel or to go bare is ultimately a personal one – influenced by factors like aesthetics, personal beliefs about grooming, or the purchase of a very skimpy bikini. If you’re a hair-free fan, all we’re suggesting is that perhaps the maintenance side of things is best left to the professionals. Yes, the experience of having a stranger spread hot wax between your legs, then rip it all off, is incredibly awkward. But surely this beats the more painful alternative?

 

Bra shopping gives me the shits big time!

Today I would like to talk about boobs. Specifically, my boobs. More specifically, how much my boobs shit me.
  If you’ve ever seen my boobs (hi there ex boyfriends, my doctor, and that group of people I walked past at the beach that time my left boob had magically freed itself from my bikini) your reaction to this statement would be on par with your reaction to hearing Miranda Kerr complain she’s having a fat day: smiling fixedly while mentally cataloging available pillows nearby you can punch.
  I am aware that my boobs are glorious. Completely natural, soft, bountiful bosoms that nestle in their E/F cup home. However trying to find them a happy home is the bane of my existence. Bra shopping for me is faced with the same fear and grudging acceptance as answering the door on Halloween: it’s something that has to be done, however I feel strangely panicky giving lollies to costumed children. I despise it, I even break out in boob sweat just thinking about it…bra shopping that is, not feeding lollies to children.
  A dreaded shopping trip is imminent considering I recently asked my mum to fix my bra strap with a safety pin and some strapping tape. He replied with, “I’m not bloody McGuiver. Go shopping.”
  If you believed bra advertisements, one would think bra shopping simply involves trying on dainty little scraps of perfectly fitted colourful lace while posing all sultry-like in the mirror and thoughtfully twirling my highlighted hair. It does not. It involves Valium.
  I am insanely jealous of girls who can skip joyously la la la into Kmart and pick up a three pack of bras for $25. My bras cost $50 minimum. I must buy architecturally designed monstrosities with heavy duty scaffolding and a complex rigging system to hold up my humps. They’re not attractive. They also require an engineering degree to fasten.
  Those cute/lacy/sexy bras you see on the rack (tee hee…rack) are designed for As, Bs and Cs. The D and DD bras are simply not structured for the larger lumped lass. So they don’t hold them in, don’t hold them up, or my lovely lady lumps are mashed together at unseemly angles with more bulging flesh than an early episode of The Biggest Loser…not the episodes at the end of the season that I refuse to watch because the contestants are all thinner than me.
  It’s not just bras. Bikinis? I need a size 18-20 to keep the ladies locked in, but this means the bottoms take a trip to Saggy McSagville. “Buy separates!” I hear you cry. Sure, I’ll just sell my first born child and my left kidney to finance said separates.
  There is no sports bra in the world that can stop my jubblies jubbling while jogging. My brokeback mountains must be laced in a straightjacket before any kind of up/down motion occurs. I have to wear at least 2 bras. And a crop top. And a tight shirt. I’m even contemplating hiring someone to jog behind me and cup my cups up with their hands. (Perverts need not apply.)
  What’s that you say, my perky little B cup sisters? “I try on dresses and they look horrid because I don’t fill out the top! Life is so gosh darn hard!” Pull up your big girl panties and buy a matching padded bra to pump up the jam. Me? I can’t magically flatten my breasticles. I have to go up to a larger size dress, which ends up fitting on the up top but with so much material everywhere else I could make a second dress for a child or a very small adult.
  Speaking of padding, bra designers need to remove all padding from bras larger than a D. We do not need the extra oomph. We are fine as is, thanks. Padding makes my chest look (as my mum frankly terms it) ‘like the cows have come home.’ Thanks Mum. I love when you compare me to cattle.

This may sound like a massive whinge-fest. It is. But I feel better now.

Which fashion magazine just put an actual curvy girl on the cover?

A plus-size fashion magazine. And it’s actually stylish. Stylish and freaking FABULOUS.

DARE Magazine is new fashion mag that’s just been launched in Canada. It began as a thesis project for fashion student Diana Di Poce in her final year and it was so fab that she received backing to launch the mag as an actual glossie. Check out the first cover:

G.O.R.G.E.O.U.S. Diana spoke to Thought Catalogue recently about why she created DARE:

 

DARE is dedicated to catering to curvy women sizes 12+. Although the magazine is targeted towards plus women, I didn’t find it necessary to label it as a plus-size magazine in the logo or in the aesthetic. The average woman in North America is a size 14, so I didn’t see a purpose in stamping a 12+ label on the website or on the cover of the first issue. Similar to how I flip through straight-size fashion magazines for trend inspiration knowing that I won’t be able to fit into these garments or shop at the stores mentioned, I want all women to be able to go to DARE as a fashion and beauty bible. And it really is a fashion bible. Check out some more pics:

 

 

 

 

HELLS YES. Well done DARE Magazine. Well done.

 

When it comes to grocery shopping, a good game’s a fast game – and the self-servers win it.

 I use those self-service checkouts at the supermarket. I like them. I like the people who use them too. I suspect we are a type. It’s not just about speed or convenience; it’s little things that everyone feels, but few admit. For a start, I avoid the dopey kid who looks at herbs like they’ve only recently come into the country. Honestly, there’s only about 10 of them – it’s not like I’ve been foraging. Would it kill you to study two types of parsley so I don’t get held up by a price check?

 Or the pause as I watch the newbie try to remember what the supervisor said about packing boxes and bottles. It’s not Tetris. And no, milk doesn’t go on top of bread. They’re trying to do the right thing and everyone has to learn, but that pause as they try to remember which apple code to enter does my head in. And EVERYONE hates to pick up the slow line. It’s pathetic, I know, but watching someone who arrived at the next check-out after you grab their shopper docket and go while you’re still staring at a stationary conveyor belt that remains full of someone else’s groceries...well, that’s just unbearable.

 We all have our tricks; we all have our shopper version of racial profiling. If you’ve never seen Up in the Air, it’s worth watching for one scene alone. George Clooney’s character does so much flying, he has security-check queue picking down to a science. In part, he avoids queuing behind old people (“Their bodies are littered with hidden metal and they never seem to appreciate how little time they have left”) and always tries to get behind Asian businessmen (“They pack light, travel efficiently and they have a thing for slip-on shoes”).

 But now, in supermarkets, we have a choice, and it’s separating people who hate slow queues from people who hate them with a passion and would train in a simulator if it helped avoid them. By picking the self-serve check-out, you can avoid the most painful queue of all: the short queue/slow payers. The most common type of slow payer is the lady who waits until the check-out chick states the price and only then gets out her purse. And after slowly extracting the right notes and the gold coins, she really aims for precision: “Now what have I given you...60...70...I do have a ten-cent piece here.” Yes, I’m sure you do Mrs Smith, it’s buried under the shillings, pence and war rations. Come on, get with the times lady. Hand over a note and let the girl with that huge cash register FULL OF CHANGE get you out of my way, quick sticks!

 The staff at my local supermarket are actually particularly polite and very friendly. But as you can tell from my above-mentioned mood, in ‘shopper mode’ I can live without polite and friendly. I’m happy not talking when I shop. I talk a lot during the day. By 6pm on a Thursday night I’m done with chit chat. The self-serve machine might “talk” to me, but only in that comforting recorded kind of way. The voice you associate with accurate GPS directions. The voice that cuts to the chase if you can press the buttons fast enough. As a self-server I sound grumpy, but grocery shopping’s not high on my “good times” list. So a fast game’s a good game, OK? And I have a queue of people who are just like me. And that queue’s fast.

My personal rules for a successful self-diagnosis using all the tools the internet has to offer.

 Sorry if you shouted “HI!” to me on the street the other day while you were getting what looked like a yoga mat out of the back seat of your car and I didn’t immediately respond, and when I did it was only half-heartedly. I didn’t mean to be rude, but that afternoon I was recovering from GORD. You could probably tell – I mean, heck, we’re all familiar with the tell-tale signs of GORD, but in case you didn’t pick up on my ailment, that’s what was wrong with me.

 To slightly complicate the matter I also had pancreatitis, a hernia, endometriosis, and kidney stones. On top of that, I had an ulcer (or possibly several, it was hard to tell in all the confusion), lactose intolerance, appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease and one of the more full-on cases of menstrual cramps I’ve ever had.

 How did I have all of these things? Because I had a sore tummy, and when I went online to diagnose myself, these are the things the internet told me were wrong with me. I don’t think I’m overreacting because the website had pictures of doctors on it. I don’t know if you’ve ever decided to diagnose yourself online, but if you’re ever feeling like your day is going too well and you could do with some extreme pessimism/borderline doomsday hysteria in your life, these are the websites for you.

 We live in an incredible age of medical technology where robots are able to perform microscopic surgery our clumsy stupid giant hands could never do, nanotechnology is able to scour our veins and scrape out nasties with the ease of a five year old picking his nose, and computer programs are able to hold more medical data on them than even my dad can pretend to know. However, none of that technology seems to have made it to self-diagnosis sites on the net, which basically consist of the following algorithm:

1.     Do you hurt anywhere, inside or outside your body? If yes go to 2. If no, go to 3.

2.    You will definitely die tonight.

3.    Go to 2 anyway.

 What may have seemed 98 percent like a scab with a bit of dirt in it when you jumped online 20 minutes ago is now almost for sure the start of the first of many sores you will develop as the bubonic plague takes over your body, gradually liquefying your organs as you implode into a horrific death. But at least you looked it up and have peace of mind now right?

 I’m sure if you asked Google what the most searched-for terms were from people who had recently been on a medical-diagnosis site, it would be “low-cost funerals that still look classy” and “if I’ve had my neighbour’s drill for three years and I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten I have it, can I leave it to my kids?”

 Oh, and the worst thing you can do is read the message boards! No one ever writes, “Thought it was Crohn’s disease, but just had gas. Ha ha. Silly me. Went to bed, next day found fifty bucks, good times.” All the stories basically follow the narrative of, “so after experiencing exactly the same pain you have at this instant, I decided to go to hospital even though I thought it was an overreaction. After I awoke from surgery the doctor said my colon was one second from exploding, and the pain I was feeling is known as The Certain Death Pangs, because everyone dies from it and it also pangs. May I remind you, it’s the exact pain you’re feeling right now that has brought you to this page. But it’s up to you if you want to go to hospital. See ya.”

 I can’t tell you what I found out was actually wrong with me, due to medical privacy reasons, but I will tell you that I plan on launching a website soon named dontdrinkyoursmoothietoofastyouidiot.com.au to advice people against doing what I did. And then tell them they’re going to die, just so my website doesn’t feel left out.

How much for one pair of socks? Five dollars, but if you spend $10 you get three pairs.

 “You can get three pairs for $10.” “Sure, but I only need one pair please. So how much for one?” “Five dollars, but if you spend $10 you get three pairs.” “Then the pair of socks costs me $10.” “But you get THREE!” At this point the conversation started to resemble something from an Abbott and Costello movie. “But I only want one!” “But you can get three.” And on it went…..
 Thank heavens I had a bus to catch and a $5 bill in my hand. I’m susceptible to a bit of up-selling at the best of times, but having a spare 20 minutes before I have to go home makes me a sitting duck. Up-selling, cross-selling, whatever they call it, is gradually losing its charm. You walk into a petrol station to pay for your petrol and walk out with a receipt and three Mars bars. You enter a hardware superstore chasing a small tine of paint, then exit juggling a jumbo pack of AA batteries, two cans of WD-40, and a garden lantern. I feel as if we’re being trained by a new class of evildoers.
 I understand the old school. Every optometrist graduated from that institution. A basic fee for assessment before you get to choose your polarised ($30) non-scratching ($20) titanium ($50) spare pair of frames always ends with “And would you like one of those modern and totally essential retinal scan-type premium packages with the glasses?” ($150). It’s not hard to see those ones coming, but it’s the new generation of up/down-sells I fear. Like the socks. Dropping the price but somehow making us spend more. That $30 DVD player seemed like a bargain until I bought an extra year’s warranty.
 And who’s the supermarket genius who invented the yellow specials tag? That’s the little discount slip that acts like a hare to a greyhound. What?! I can get 17 cents a unit off tasty cheese? Of course I’ll buy two for $5! And just next door is a yellow sticker with ‘Any 3 for $6’. Who cares if I don’t need English Lite Ham? Try telling my brain that. “Can’t you see the yellow discount sticker?” Low-fat toasted ham sandwiches can be served for dinner and breakfast for a week……can’t they?
 I’ll continue my own private resistance against the up-sell, but I admit it’s getting harder. I may even give in to the ‘buy two, get one free’ ink cartridge offer in the Officeworks catalogue. I do need at least one of those ink cartridges. And I do need at least four AAA batteries. A trip there wouldn’t hurt. At least they don’t sell socks.

Can we leave the grooming to the individual please?

  Like most people, I always try to look my best and often rely on others to tell me if I have a blob of mascara on my cheek or if an outfit makes my butt look big. But sometimes, this assistance crosses a line and what should merely be a suggestion becomes a hands-on invasion of personal space.
  A while back I became the victim of what I call “unwelcome grooming”. There I was standing in front of a mirror in a clothes store, trying on a pair of jeans, when a stranger walked up to me and pointed out that I had some stray hairs swaying above my head as though I’d stuck a fork in an electrical socket. “Darling,” she said “I’ve wanted to do this since you walked into the shop.” And with that, she licked the tips of her fingers and smoothed the offending hairs with her damp, sticky mitt.
  Yes, that’s right, a woman I’d never met before decided that, rather than suffer the embarrassment of a few stray split ends, I’d prefer her saliva smeared all over my head. To some, this might not be confronting but, as someone who has a borderline phobia of other people’s bodily fluids, it made me want to dip my head in a bath. In my defence, the average mouth carries more bacteria than a toilet seat.
  Her unwelcome grooming took me back to being five and having mum attack my chocolate-smeared face with a tissue she’d first saturated with spit. It’s bad enough to wake from a nap with your own drool on your face, but having someone else’s drool on my face sends my gross barometer soaring.
  Unfortunately, unwelcome grooming isn’t limited to hand-lickers. Look out for groomers who presume you don’t like your jeans low-slung and promptly pull them up on your behalf. This should only be permitted if the offender is showing an extreme degree of bum cleavage.
  Then there are those who insist on picking things off your face. A friend once leant in to pluck a fallen eyelash off my cheek, which turned out to be a long facial hair that was still attached to its follicle. Another pal doesn’t just point out something lodged in my teeth, she insists on scraping it out herself.
  It’s time for victims of unwelcome grooming to unite and stand up to this daring invasion of personal space. Once and for all, we say no to wet tissues on our cheeks and alien fingers plucking hairs from our faces and poppy seeds from between our teeth. Let’s all agree personal grooming is best left to the individual. If you ever find yourself compelled to lick your hand and wipe it on someone’s hair, for goodness sake, reach for a can of hair spray instead.

Confession: texting has taken over my life.

  It has recently occurred to me that my life revolves around one very anti-social activity. I indulge in it from the time I wake up until I go to bed at night. The irony is, I consider this activity as the most impersonal and laziest form of interaction. I’m referring to texting.
  When SMS messages first came on the scene, I thought there was no way I could be bothered typing messages on a tiny keypad that barely fit my thumb pads. It’s easier to dial a number. But somehow, over the years, texting has taken over my life.
  It got me to considering some of the pros and cons of sending text messages. It’s hard to go past the lack of warmth and emotion involved in texting. We’ve all received short, sharp messages that left us wondering what we had done to upset the other person. This demonstrates another problem with texting: how easily it results in misunderstandings and miscommunications between friends.
  Along with the damage done to our relationships, texting is also wreaking havoc on the English language. Let me put a final nail in the texting coffin by saying, omg how gr8 wud it be if the next generation cud actually spell? On the upside, when you’re busy, it’s much easier to type up a text than be weighed down by a long conversation. Even when I begin my calls with, “Hi I need to be quick,” my friends acknowledge this at first, but end their quick story an hour later.
  Texting also comes in handy when you have to let someone down. It’s easier to write “Can’t make it” than have a chat where you’re forced to admit you just can’t be bothered. There’s also the beauty of the group text. Instead of calling a raft of people, you can press ‘send’ and go for the scatter gun approach, hoping the recipients never catch on it wasn’t a personal message especially for them.
  Is it my imagination or are the pros rolling off my tongue quicker than the cons? Maybe it’s too late to overturn our reliance on the written word to sustain our relationships. Maybe the phone is best left for call centres. Or maybe this whole thing should be left to someone else. You see, as much as I’d love to continue defending the merits of personal communication, I really need to wrap this up – I have some tweets to send.

Ringing in the changes – phones are for texting, not talking.

  I don’t want to talk on the phone anymore. I used to love it, and in the past there were periods when I only got off the phone for meal breaks. Police would have given my description as “Caucasian, female, about 175cm tall with a black mobile phone attached to her left ear”. But that time is now over. Now I text.
  “See you in five” – done. “What time are we meeting up?” – tick. “Lol…got it” – simple! Convert any of those text messages to calls and I am losing up to 12 minutes of my day. A quick survey tells me that this is the new status quo. Unless it’s an emergency, you text. And to be honest, if triple zero actually accepted SMS as an SOS, I’d do it in an emergency. There’s been a revolution and girls love it.
  Unfortunately, someone forgot to tell men this. Guys make phone calls. I know this because they’re the only ones who still call me. Even if I text them, they call back. “Hi Salvatore, any chance you might be able to swing by this week? Our television is playing up again. Thanks! M.” RRRRRIIIIIIIINNNNG RRRINNNGGG!! Nooooo! A quick “Sure, no problem” would have made my day. But a call-back? I have to talk? This definitely was not the plan. I have a to-do list to focus on and two celebrity chef judges counting down from ten to zero in my head all day long. Why do you want to spoil things and have a conversation?
  And really, what do you need to tell me anyway? Surely just knowing the TV isn’t working properly pretty much covers it. Finding out why the TV could be kaput is information I’ll never retain. You might think girls are listening as you explain things like this, but we’re pretending. Trust me. And while we’re at it, you call me on my landline? What century are you from?
  So, why do men insist on using their mobile phone as an actual telephone? Well, firstly, it’s polite….I suppose. Secondly, guys love explaining things. And thirdly, guys are up for a chat. They’re like My Kitchen Rules judge Manu Fieldel, who comes into the kitchen to see how things are going. This is a classic men are from Mars, women are from Venus moment. The guys seem genuinely pleased to see him; they’re ready for a good old chinwag about the poaching time of their twice-cooked spatchcock.  The woman are silently screaming, “Get out of my kitchen, s’il vous plait.” The producer who thought up that idea is either clueless, or male. Women are time-coded during business hours. Our lives are planned to the minute. Texting is the magic wand that makes the Manus in our world go away.
 I can text and do; I can’t talk and do. Make no mistake, I do use the mobile phone for actual conversations, but it’s generally at 10pm and always preceded  by a text to my friends saying, “Got time for a chat?” And there’s the clue. It’s the end of the night, no interruptions, and no lists. Besides, it’s about really important stuff like food and Mad Men and even Manu. It’s never about anything that involves fixing stuff.

Indie-pendent spirits have their own jam.

  EVERYONE knows teenagers are a different species and need to be studied if we are to find a way to eliminate them. So, in the interests of science I will therefore seek to provide an understanding into the teenage mind. This will hopefully fulfil the twin functions of expanding the horizon of human knowledge and putting an end to parenting columns once and for all.
  Anyway, ladies and gentlemen I present Tess and Ocky. Tess is 15 years old and a neighbour of mine. She is kind of like an indie but her friend Ocky - 14 years old and by Tess’s analysis not as mature - thinks that maybe they’re just wannabe indies, which is to say windies.
  When they are not doing anything they are not chillin’ anymore, they are illchin’, which is like chillin’ but different and doesn’t rhyme with “like Bob Dylan”. Tess and Ocky are quite preoccupied with emos, which are kind of like goths. Some of them are stoners. Some of them make little cuts on themselves. They are called emos because they are rather emotional, which explains the little cuts.
  Not everyone can be an emo. There are wemos, which are wannabe emos, and memos, which are mistaken emos. The latter is someone who is not an emo but is confused for one. I can’t personally explain how this happens but apparently it does.
  There are also lads, who are, to quote Tess, “like mainstream guys and wear, like, the polo shirts”. There are also wiggers (white guys who think they are black) and chiggers (Chinese guys who think they are black). But Tess and Ocky are in no way racist. “We sit with the cool Asians,” they tell me. These are called hasians, which is short for hot Asians.
  There are skinny guys, who suffer from manorexia, and browned up girls who suffer from tanorexia. These are known as tandooris. The feral pretties at Tess and Ocky’s school, for example, are tandooris. It is reassuring that the 14-to-15-year-old demographic does not approve of drugs – apart from the occasional emo stoner. Cocaine, although never sighted, is referred to as the devil’s dandruff. How this comes up in conversation I do not know.
  If they care a lot about something - “I care about the music,” Tess assures me - they might say “this is my jam”. Something particularly good is a breeze of brill, something bad is flag. I do not believe this is an anti-patriotic statement but with kids today you can never be sure.
  They also employ a large amount of French, which I naturally find disturbing, but this is largely used to describe bad things, as in the phrase tres tragique. An unattractive person might be referred to as fugly but I am assured they are never unkind enough to say this to someone’s face. When they are experiencing high self-esteem the girls consider themselves to be indie-credible. I asked them to put this in a sentence and they said: “Tess and Ocky are indie-credible, fo’shizzle.” I am yet to clarify this further.
  On less positive days they wonder if perhaps they are just windies but on reflection Tess is more certain of her status. “We’re on the indie train, platform one coz I’m number one, sucka,” she explains. I had been under the impression that the term juicy was also used to describe something good, however it turns out this is a brand of clothing - albeit, I am informed, a good brand.
  The girls are also philosophical. Holding forth on the interplay between inner beauty and the aesthetic demands of an image-driven society, Tess observes: “You can’t polish a turd.” Asked to expound further, she says: “You can’t make somebody ugly look pretty. I never say that but. I’m not that mean, I’m a pretty cool chick.”
  Should you find Tess and Ocky at a soiree, you might see them crumping. This is a form of dance, as Tess explains: “It’s like in, um, like rap videos.” If you see them you might want to say “What’s the hap?” When you depart, you simply inform them “I’m outie”. I asked Tess and Ocky how normal people were ever supposed to understand them and both agreed they never would. This is, according to Ocky, because “we are the rulez” although Tess thought it was also perhaps due to the fact that “I am a free spirit”.
  But it was Tess’s final words that will stay with me forever, dancing around my mind full of promise and hidden meaning.
“Merc” she said, “make sure you publish my thoughts bee-yatch”.

Fashion

  If I had to come up with one word to describe my fashion style it would be “comfortable”. Others have more unkindly described it as more like “homeless chic”. The sad thing is, they are probably a little closer to the truth. I have to be honest sometimes when I venture out of the house the only thing separating me from the permanently-dwelling-challenged is a cardboard sign that reads: “Will tell jokes for food!”
  Forget accessories like watches and handbags, the only thing most of my clothes would accessorize with would be some cymbals between my knees and a couple of ice-cream containers to play as drums. Fashion experts say the way you present yourself says something about you, even before you speak. I think most of my outfits normally say either: “Keep me away from children” or “Would you like to buy The Big Issue?”
 When some people choose clothes, they dress to feel sexy, fashionable, or stylish. I like to dress to feel…comfy. Put it this way, I have never met a pair of tracksuits pants that I didn’t like. Forget the debate about whether the high waist or the low waist is in this season; I only care about the elastic waist. I don’t care about “the new black” I care about “the new track (ies)”.
  My problem with John Howard (former Australian Prime Minister) was never that he wore the Wallabies tracksuit when he went on his early morning power-walks. My problem was that he didn’t wear them all…the…time. When all the world leaders came to Australia for APEC, forget the Akubras and Drysabones I would have liked to see them all decked out in the Green and Gold trackies. I bet everyone in the room would have been a lot happier and in the mood to negotiate if after a long official lunch they didn’t have to let their belt out a couple of notches.
  You see that’s the thing about tracksuit pants, they are forgiving. If you buy a pair of skinny jeans and put on a couple of kilos, your legs end up looking like someone is trying to squeeze icing onto a cake. Tracksuit pants don’t even notice if you have gained weight, they are like the best friend you will ever have.
  Whether you need them for a jog or yoga, nursing a hangover, or getting over a broken relationship sitting on the couch eating icing sugar and crying at Sorbent ads…they will be there to support and comfort you. And tracksuits pants don’t demand much in return. They don’t need to be dry-cleaned, or steam-cleaned, or hung or folded like some “needy” clothes. Just pick them up from the floor where you left them the night before, give them a quick sniff test and away you go.
  I have to be honest, I think I love trackies so much, I would even consider getting married wearing them. Of course the only downside to that master plan being if you are the sort of person who thinks it is okay to wear tracksuit pants to a wedding…nobody is ever going to marry you. But really, suits and dresses may look good, but they are bloody uncomfortable. Nobody has ever said: “I’ll join you out on the couch in a minute…but I just want to change into my 3-piece Armani.”
  Personally my idea of getting dressed up is putting on my good tracksuits pants (the ones that have the rope tie at the waist as well as the elastic) and making sure they don’t have any suspicious stains on them. Unless you work at home I think there are only two jobs where it is okay for you to wear trackies all the time: professional sports person or professional drug dealer.
  Clearly tracksuit pants need a PR campaign and slogan. And so I thought I would come up with one: 

They are comfy, and dependable, and I think they’re cute. This is my ode to the humble tracksuit:

They are warm, and yet stylish, there is nothing sinister, worn by humble workers, sports stars, and even Prime Ministers. And if you are worried, they make you look crapper, then just add some bling and they become gangsta rapper. You can wear them all day, and there will be no dramas, and then wear them to bed and they become pyjamas. You can wear them while sober, drunk, awake or asleep, oh, and did I forget to mention, they are bloody cheap. They really are super to the humble tracksuits, if combined with some thongs or even Ugh Boots…
  So whether you’re Carl Williams or on So You Think You Can Dance? Let’s all stand and salute the wonder that is trackie pants!

Should you bubble-wrap your kids?

  Ok, so you’ve heard about the parents who attempt to bubble-wrap their children to protect them from every sniffle, skinned knee and bump on the head. I will never be one of them. Instead, I often look at teens and wonder  and secretly hope they’ll have at least a few impressive scars, scrapes and illnesses they can exaggerate into near-death experiences to relate at ”Who can top that?” dinner parties.
  I mention this because the Australian Medical Association, hardly known for its risk-taking behaviour, says the federal government has gone too far with an announcement that, in essence, seeks to ban snot and dribble from the nation’s childcare centres.
  For fear that kids spread their germs about like an infectious willy-willy, it has been judged there will be no blowing out of candles on shared birthday cakes; hand sanitiser will be used before and after the sandpit and there will be daily washing of cushions, toys, door knobs and floors. Ummmm…WTF? As if childcare workers don’t already do enough work?! And I am a childcare worker and have been for 18 years now, so I’ve seen it all and been through it all, and that is absolutely not the way to go.
  The AMA has ridiculed at the new regulations. ”It’s normal and healthy to be exposed to a certain amount of environmental antigens that build up our immune systems,” said its president, Steve Hambleton. Too late. Our governments have already caught the incurable ”zero-risk” disease spread by insurers and bio-corporations. All those writhing, nasty germs. KILL THEM!
  For years the pushers of disinfectants, deodorisers and antiseptic wipes have portrayed 99.9 per cent of household germs as an animated swarm of unsavoury critters you can actually see partying on your kitchen bench. Apparently you can whack them with a spatula if you’re quick enough.
  When it comes to playground safety, there are also hundreds of strict regulations for childcare centres: bouncy materials underneath climbing frames for a ”soft fall” and safety gear for tricycles – kiddie helmets that must be immediately doused with chemicals and incinerated (sorry, sanitised) after each use.
  At one parenting website I've seen, it’s recommended that there should be NO unsupervised play date with any animal, even a cat or bird, to avoid a dreadful scratch or peck. Heaven forbid if your kids come home after a malicious gnawing from next-door’s feral guinea pig. It’s fascinating to look back at the sweep of human history and seeing how our expectations have evolved…or devolved.
  Drop any bubble-headed modern parent into a traditional hunter-gather society and they’d be decking out their little ones with an asbestos jumpsuit and accessorised fire extinguisher. Bear Grylls would be a childcare worker.
  Recently, in an article in Newsweek, the US scientist and Pulitzer-prize winning author Jared Diamond wrote of the ancient societies he has observed for the past half a century in Papua New Guinea. ”Young children were considered to have responsibility for their own actions, and were allowed to do pretty much as they pleased,” writes Diamond. ”For example, if a baby was playing next to a fire, adults did not intervene. As a result, many adults in that society had burn scars, which were a legacy of their behaviour as infants.”
  In many such communities young children were regarded as ”autonomous individuals whose desires should not be thwarted”. They were allowed to play with sharp knives, hot pots, and fires, reports Diamond.
  Eeek! Surely no adult would let a child blunder into a burning fire. (I admit, you can’t always trust the observations of US anthropologists. In fact, just this week the indigenous leaders in West Papua have demanded an apology from Diamond for what they say is his portrayal of them as ”Stone Age” people in his latest book.)
  But, Diamond finds much to admire in the way hunter-gather communities raise their kids and suggests we can learn from their 100,000-year history. ”Other Westerners and I are struck by the emotional security, self-confidence, curiosity, and autonomy of members of small-scale societies, not only as adults but already as children,” he says.
  Children do gain their independence early but as babies are constantly stimulated, held, and in not one of 90 such societies he surveyed were mothers and babies sleeping in separate rooms.
  The Efe pygmies in the Congo leave their babies to cry for no more than 10 seconds before being attended to. Skin-to-skin contact with mothers is extraordinary by our standards – the Navajo carried their infants 70 per cent of the time to the age of six months. And then there are the number of ”allo-parents”, (non biological care-givers) who pass even newborns from hand-to-hand to be kissed and bounced – it can be up to 14 adults who share the baby-love over short periods of time. These parents talk to their children much more than we do. My favourite observation is that the Indian children of Peru take almost half their meals with other families. To have a wide network of supportive adults keeps us sane, Diamond concludes.
  No modern parent would dream of taking the risks with their children these ancient societies did. However, in seeking to eliminate all risks, we risk raising fearful children.
  I have a friend who has a ragged ”ouch” scar over one eye, from when she ran head-first into a barbed wire fence during a midnight game of chasey. And you should look at the scar on her big toe when she was chopping wood with an axe at age nine…and missed. It’s a story she’s fond of telling at dinner parties.

Dear EVERYTHING:

Dear long and complicated movie titles,

I realise you’re deliberately long, but please know we’ll never remember your name, and that your hashtag on Twitter will selfishly use up the entire tweet – both terrible marketing outcomes. Take the just released Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God, or rolls-off-the-tongue Charlie Sheen flick, A Glimpse Inside The Mind of Charles Swan III, which critics really enjoyed (if by “enjoyed” you mean “publicly thrashed”). Or even Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles II: The Secret of the Ooze – though, to be fair, that couldn’t be shortened, such is the importance of ooze secrecy. It must stop. Our ADD society demands snappy titles such as Taken, Oblivion, Parker, Goddess, Taken 2…Actually Taken 2 should probably be shorter.

Sincerely,

Merc.

Dear people who tell others that green smoothies taste delicious,

LIARS!

Sincerely,
Merc.

Dear the word “Literally”,

I am so sorry darling. When you started to become popular a few years ago, we thought all your spelling bees had come at once, didn’t we? Vocab flavour of the decade, star of the modern sentence. But how wrong we were! It’s not even that you’re overused so violently – Hannah Horvath and her girl crew can’t order a soy latte without dragging you on-board, and don’t get me started on the Kardashians. It’s the fact that you’re being used so incorrectly that’s annoying. It literally makes my blood boil. Which is a pity, because I’m now in serious danger of death, and must be immediately transporterd to the nearest hospital. Gotta fly (not literally),

Merc.

The fat woman.

Hey, yo Fatman, you got some business in the front room, dude wants to buy a ride.

Is that right? Tell him I said I'm eating a sandwich.

Man, what's it's gonna be? Me or the ham and Swiss?

You gonna miss your sale fat man, you gonna miss your sale you fat whale.

 Those are the lyrics of one of my favourite songs of the 90s, the relentlessly offensive “FATMAN” by Philadelphia hip hop act G. Love and Special Sauce. Those words came back to me last month as I watched a hugely overweight woman buying a drink at one of my local bars. She was squeezed into a bordering-on pornographic spandex dress that did absolutely everything to reveal her enormous bottom and vast, white dimpled thighs.

G. Love sang it like this:

I bet your face it has pocks like chicken croquettes.

Your jowls are like rotten red tomatoes.

I nodded towards the woman, asking my friend who I was drinking with, "Whattaya reckon's going on there?" And so began one of the finer dressing-downs I've experienced. Said my friend, "What she's saying is 'I'm a sexual being, I'm a soul sister and if you don't get it, f--- off, you're too superficial, you miss out'." I put my drink down, blushing a little as she continued. "She is amazing. She chose that dress on purpose. I could never wear that dress because I'm not that confident. She's accepting of her entire body. That is so rare," said my friend.

I glanced around the bar, occupied with beautiful people who looked like they'd never eaten cheese and reasoned if you combined the hours we'd worried about how our bodies "looked", you could stretch them back to the Big Bang. I've often argued you can't help who you're attracted to - that women are just as big a dupes of the constant cultural acceptance that you must be slender...must be toned...must be hot...or you're somehow worth less than people who are. And if that cultural pressure is enough to drive women into starving themselves or spending their lunch break in spin classes, then surely we can recognise it's also more than enough to shape what men do and do not find attractive?

The more I thought about it, however, her choice to let it all hang out struck me as the worship of what is, not what could or should or will be when I lose ten kilos or acquire A, B, C or marry he or she. When I said this to my friend, she patted me on the hand and said "That's why I love you. You're slow, but you get there eventually." Then we ordered a cheese plate.

Giggling, jiggling, and enjoying life.

  Have you ever noticed that joggers never look happy? There they are every morning, pounding the pavement, with grim looks of determination on their faces. I always feel like asking them whether they’d like a nice cup of tea and a lie down, but I’m scared I’d be steamrolled.
  As comedian Rita Rudner once said: “If morning joggers knew how tempting they looked to morning motorists, they would stay at home and do sit-ups.” Sure, there are plenty of benefits: a Danish study found people who jog an hour a week live on average, six years longer. But of course, this is six long years of knee pain, arch inflammation and shin splints. But it’s all worth it right?
  Maybe it’s jealousy. Watching their toned thighs, ripped stomachs and bulging biceps reminds me of the extra serving of chocolate ganache I had the previous night. I tried to jog once, but my jiggly bits got in the way. You have no idea how much wind resistance is caused by bingo flaps.
  I guess every attempt at downsizing has its downside. At the gym, you have to put up with grunting and groaning that puts Maria Sharapova to shame. The stench of sweat after a Bikram yoga class is enough to make you throw up your last meal, getting rid of at least two nasty kilos. And it’s no wonder most of our swimmers could bore for Australia after years of “black line, black line, follow the black line”.
  The fitness trends for 2013 are equally egregious. SH’BAM apparently helps you “strut your stuff” with a “simple yet sexy dance workout” and “sassy stretches”. While I enjoy the sounds of heavy breathing, sharing the experience with other middle-aged women is not really my cup of tea. Then there are “body-weight workouts”. This is where you use your own mass as resistance to do push-ups, planks, and pull-ups. God knows I fight my body enough trying to keep my hands away from the chocolate. I don’t want this to escalate into all-out warfare.
  Another trend is heavy lifting for women. I know, we already “hold up half the sky”, according to an ancient proverb. But I’m talking about barbells here. Big ones. Frankly, I’m manly enough with those mysterious hairs poking out of my chin.
  I think the secret to happiness is jiggling. “Laughter is the inner jogging” as American author Norman Cousins once said. Mushy marathoners might need to be reminded of this as they drag their sore and sorry selves over life’s finish line.

Some simple rules on how to behave when using public transport.

  Regular public transport users will know that far from evolving as a society we are in fact regressing to levels not seen since mammals grew legs. It appears that having invented penicillin and flown to the moon, humans have decided we can’t be expected to do all that and remember how to catch a train.
  How else does one explain the lumpen sacks of flesh who plonk themselves in front of the carriage doors and then look confused and affronted when people struggle to get past them? Or the more assertive traveller who prefers to plough into the passengers trying to exit like a front rower from the Canterbury Bulldogs?
  It appears that despite the various posters displayed around Central Station that look like they were designed by special needs kids, people still don’t know how to behave on public transport. So it’s time to go back to the drawing board. Here, at last, is the definitive public transport user’s guide to life:

Rule 1: Do not eat:

A friend of mine suggested that while travelling on public transport no one should be allowed to eat anything more complex than an apple, however after further consideration she concluded that even eating an apple was "gross". Instead people should wear stickers that say "I don’t do crosswords on your dinner plate so please don’t eat on my train".

Rule 2: Stand to the left:
An escalator is a means of increasing transport speed, not a facility for spotty teenagers to fondle their girlfriends. I know that when the average relationship length is two weeks every moment is precious, but this is not a place for clumsy groping and learning how to tongue-kiss. That’s what the food court at Westfield is for.

Rule 3: Move to the back:

Incredibly, this golden rule applies not just to buses but other forms of transport that are shaped like buses. This includes trams, train carriages and Volvos. It never fails to amaze me how many people step onto a carriage and then suddenly stop as though transfixed by the wonder of it all. No, you haven’t gone through a wormhole to a bizarre intergalactic dimension, you’ve just gotten on a train _ although granted in the case of the 12.05am to Liverpool it’s a little bit of both.

Rule 4: Don’t show off:

There has been a worrying tendency recently for ice junkies to show a certain unbecoming braggadocio when interfacing with transport. This is manifest mostly when they make a big show of crossing busy roads against the lights or defiantly leap over ticket barriers. Memo: While successive state governments have made it increasingly difficult to catch public transport, there is no need to strut around like Mick Jagger just because you successfully exited a train.

Rule 5: Do not look at anyone:

No good can ever come of looking at people on a train. If you are looking at someone because they are creepy it means you could end up in a dangerous or embarrassing situation. If you are looking at someone because they are attractive it means you are the creepy one.

Rule 6: Learn to walk properly:

When walking up the stairs to a platform where a train is departing in 30 seconds the correct protocol is to walk six abreast with your dumb fat friends as slowly as possible, taking pause to rest at every second step because you’re all in the early onset phase of type 2 diabetes. Obviously, I am being sarcastic. Get the @#$% out of the way. Some of us have loveless marriages to get home to.

Rule 7: Don’t talk on the phone:

Research shows there is nothing more annoying than listening to one side of a phone conversation from a fellow passenger. Not only that, if you are the sort of person who talks on the train it is almost guaranteed that your side of the conversation will be the most boring and obnoxious one. Moreover, nobody believes that:

A) You’re this close to sealing the deal on the Johnson file;

B) Your spoken word performance last night was really well received; or
C) Your girlfriend wants to know what time you’ll be home because she misses you and not because she’s having an affair with the plumber from next door.

By following these simple rules you and your fellow passengers can enjoy a peaceful and stress-free ride. Or at least you will if the @#$%ing train ever shows up.

*The only exception to this rule is if someone calls me, in which case it’s important and I really have to take it.

Being sick brings out the teenage in me.

  Just for a moment I am going to defect to enemy territory and declare that men get a bad rap when it comes to being sick. Although I’m not usually one to jump to their defence, I’m prepared to admit the general consensus that men are whinging, pathetic sooks when they’re unwell is unfair. This isn’t based on the fact I don’t think they whinge or sook; it’s because the implication is that women are superhuman soldiers who are tough enough to take on bacterial infections with the resilience of Xena, Warrior Princess – and I for one, am not.
  Right now, I have a chest infection. At the slightest swelling of a gland, I’m on the floor pleading for pain relief, saving what may be my last breath rather than crawling to the medicine cabinet. Headache, nausea, even a sniffle will see me laid up on the couch with a flannel on my forehead, a heat pack on my tummy and an pained  expression that would impress Meryl Streep.
  And when I say couch, I don’t mean my own – I’m back on mum’s couch, as if I’ve just stepped off the school bus. Yes, I admit it, I’m a woman in my 30’s who can’t endure an ailment without my mum bringing me hot soup and toast as I lie on her white sofa and turn her lounge room into a hospital ward.
  Knocked down a few months back with a virus that almost killed me (obviously this is an exaggeration of what most would call a garden-variety cold), I was on mum’s couch quicker than she could arrange a day trip out of town. That’s the thing about parents: they may think their work is done, but it’s us kids who decide when we’re capable of taking care of ourselves. And I’m hanging on to those frayed, heavily-tugged-upon apron strings for as long as I can.
  The funny thing about being sick is that not only do I fall apart in a very melodramatic fashion, but along with the dreaded illness, I become infected with the symptoms of an irresponsible teenager. In terms of what I can and can’t do, I can eat mum’s slaved-over meals, but I can’t manage to get the plates to the sink – that’s something only a healthy person can do; I’ll happily sneeze through a box of tissues, but transporting the snotty nose-rags to a bin is another matter; I can find the strength to take a shower, but picking up the towel off the floor would require bending down and I’m not sure that’s a good idea in my weakened condition.
  And no matter how sick I am, I can always muster the strength from somewhere deep inside that allows me to control a television. While mum spoon-feeds me soup because I’m too weak to lift utensils to my mouth, the first beat of the NCIS theme tune makes me pounce on the remote with the agility of a cheetah.
 While I get away with such adolescent behaviour for a few days, the minute I have the energy to tell mum she’s being a bit heavy-handed with the Vegemite on my sandwich, she knows I’ve turned a corner and it’s time for my eviction.

When fun is fraught with too much effort.

 Are you having fun yet? Is this the best time of your life? You’d better put on a corset; otherwise your sides may split. Sometimes I think the end of the year is one long Forced Fun Friday.

 If you are unfamiliar with FFF, this is the drinks session popular in city office blocks to help staff wind down at the end of the week. Everyone is supposed to instantly forget about their troubles and smile, smile, smile. Until their cheeks hurt. The pressure is intensified when five days becomes 365.

 Now don’t get me wrong. I love New Year’s Eve. Whether you go out or stay at home, it’s lovely to watch the fireworks and laugh at the awkward commentary on TV. It is a very fine tradition. But it’s stressful. Going out requires a logistical plan devised by the Israeli army. If you drive, where will you park? If not, how on earth will you get a taxi? Walking home is akin to an obstacle course dodging drunken teenagers, drugged up Gen-Y’s, and couples close to copulating. It really is a wild ride in some parts of town.

 Staying home is fraught with danger too. What if your pet poops itself at the frisson of fireworks? Will your earplugs dull the sounds of rowdy revellers returning home? And who will you share your special moments with? You know those moments. They generally go along the lines of: “I’ve had a terrific/terrible year and I hope 2013 will be the same/different”. I’ve always found it amusing that we chunk time in to bite-sized pieces.

 If something dreadful happens on January 1, it stains the entire year. Herein lies the significance of New Year’s Eve It’s as if we can wash away the horrors of the past. On weekend away years ago I was confronted by a huge sign on the wall of our cottage that said, RELAX. Immediately, I tensed up. It was like someone was pointing the finger at me saying “Oi! You! You look terrible! Shake off that city living and RELAX! Right now!” I felt like a failure. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t de-stress on demand.

 That’s how I feel about New Year’s Eve. Sure, it’s fun. But it’s forced fun. It’s supposed to be one of the best nights of your life. If it’s not, you feel like you’ve missed out on something. Or even that it’s a bad omen for the following year. We might have a little more fun if we lower our expectations. And try to relax.

And on that note – Happy New Year!