Malls.....

 Is it just me, or are malls now so confusing that you have to leave a trail of breadcrumbs so you can find your way back out again once you are done? I’m starting to think the reason you see so many old people on benches at the local shopping centre isn’t because they love shopping, it’s because they stumbled in when they were young, got lost, and now live in Bras and Things. In fact, I think I smell a TV show idea: Survivor Westfield.   “Your challenge today is to use your evasion skills to avoid being stopped by any of the mobile phone salespeople, or people selling really expensive sand you can wash your hands with, on your way to the food court. The first person there will be rewarded by getting to eat the free samples on the plate outside the Muffin Break!” My main problem at my local mall is I can never find the car. Forget having a GPS in the vehicle, I need to carry one around to find my way back to it. I swear the minute I walk through the automatic doors they spin the entire building around. And I am still convinced the carpark levels rotate on some sort of rotisserie.
  Of course I am sure you have guessed this design confusion is entirely intentional. What is meant to happen is the layout is so confusing that your eyes glaze and your jaw slackens and you buy anything no matter how ridiculous. Which is also kind of what happened to me during the movie Donnie Darko. (Seriously, can someone explain that film to me? You know those ads on the tele that say: “Marijuana: You don’t know what it will do to you”? I know what it will do, result in you making films like Donnie Darko!) You may have noticed most malls you go to have hexagonal floor plans. That’s because they are the most difficult to navigate.
  If retailers could get away with it, the minute you walked though the door of the mall they would blindfold you, spin you around in a circle three times, take off the blindfold and say: “Let’s go shopping!” Tricky bastards, aren’t they? I remember the old days where the only things you had to take shopping with you were a bag and your credit card. These days you also need a compass, trail mix and a Sherpa. Sometimes when I’m walking around my local mall I get so lost I half expect David Bowie to jump out and start singing: “Dance Magic Dance!” (Yes, that was a Labyrinth reference. What, too soon?)
 And of course there are no clocks. The only time you will ever see the time in a mall is if you try and buy a watch, and even then they are all set to London time, or New York time or Hammer Time. But all that said, I must confess there is also something completely compelling about a proper shopping mall. It’s a condensed consuming experience.
  I still remember when the first big shopping mall opened where I grew up. For the first ten or so years of my life if you wanted to buy different things you had to go to different shops in different places, but all that changed with the arrival of Leichhardt Marketplace. 
  I was so excited when it opened. Twenty years later I still remember the TV ads spruiking: “Leichhardt Marketplace, where it’s always 21 degrees and fine!” You know a place doesn’t have much going for it when the best thing they can come up with to promote the place is: “We have air-conditioning!”
 That would be the equivalent of Bunnings not mentioning they sell tools, and instead changing their slogan to: “Bunnings- we have doors that you can walk both in and out of!” I mean I can understand that being a selling point if they had been opening a mall on the surface of the sun, but on Earth is it really a surprise to anyone that an indoor shopping centre is climate controlled? Was there anyone thinking: “It has air-con? Whew, that is a relief! I mean I was at my local mall the other day and almost lost my kids in a tsunami!”
  “Well that’s nothing mate. You know that charcoal chicken you can smell in the air? That’s because there is currently a bushfire in Nandos!” “Well don’t go near the Pets Paradise then guys. There is a tornado in there and I just saw a shitzu fly by like that cow in Twister. Hey you know where we should go? Leichhardt Marketplace…I hear it’s always 21 degrees and fine.” 

The trusting country.

 A few weeks ago I went to a very alternative health food café (which was definitely a first for me!!!) which sported hand written-signs and was dairy-free, gluten-free, soy-free and almost nut-free, save for the two kooks dancing around the kitchen in gumboots. As I watched the cook prepare my meal, I saw he had a pretty impressive plumber’s crack poking out of his footy shorts and it struck me how much trust we put in strangers' hands. My trust on this occasion was assuming the cook hadn’t given the aforementioned orifice a quick scratch before he picked up my vegie patty or that he had not dropped a dreadlock or string of prayer beads in the salad dressing...

 We show even greater trust every time we drive our car and assume the people coming at us in the other direction at 100km/h are competent, not drunk or contemplating suicide by head-on collision.

 We do it when we get on a plane, trusting that the engineers weren’t pissed off when they refuelled the aircraft. We do it when we open a can, assuming the factory workers didn’t pee in the pea soup and we do it when we let our kiddies run off to day care with people we’ve never even met before.

 Trust is the basis of modern society because without it we wouldn't consume anything we didn't grow and prepare ourselves, live in any shelter we didn't build and wired and plumbed; swallow any medicine we didn't source and ground to paste in front of our eyes. Can you imagine going to the dentist without trust? The gynaecologist? The races?

 Suspicion and paranoia are with us to a certain degree in every person, but if they were widespread or complete, we couldn't function outside of tiny villages or tribes; we'd all starve and have to walk everywhere. Luckily for us, Australia is the Trusting Country.

 It’s one of the things I've heard foreigners comment on when they visit here - how trusting we are and, as a result, how trustworthy we are as a nation. Whether you agree with that blanket statement or not, it's a fact that every day of your life you put enormous trust and faith in complete strangers - yet so many of us are mistrusting of the people who are closest to us.

 Our parents, our lovers, neighbours and co-workers all come under particular suspicion, yet we're happy to shovel a take-away meal into our mouth prepared by someone we've never met and will probably never know. More bizarrely are those of us who'll blindly snort, shoot or swallow illegal drugs knocked up in some grubby crim's bathtub, then blue with the missus or a mate that they "can't be trusted!" because of a text message or missed appointment.

 Why do so many of us have trouble giving our intimates the benefit of the doubt when we extend it to strangers? This is pretty much the core of jealousy - an inability to trust that the people closest to you have your best interests at heart. When you extend that sort of obsessive suspicion beyond intimates, it becomes paranoia and anxiety and we shuffle the sufferers off to the doctor.

 Day to day, however, it's up to us to confront our trust issues and, more often than not, they start with the question - "can I trust myself?"

Bringing sexy back upstairs.

 If you've lived in a modern apartment building, you probably hear a little more than you'd like from your neighbours thanks to the 'miracle' lightweight materials used to construct developments. Sound travels and it's always the special noises like the occupant of 15C's toilet flushing five times a night or their alarm going off at 4am that you get to enjoy over and over and over again.
 If you're really fortunate, however, you live in a flat with just the right acoustics to pipe in the transmissions from the love machine, who lives above, so when they get lucky at midnight, so do you! Then you get to spend the next wide-eyed, half hour praying Casanova hasn't popped Viagra.   In my time, I've lived in some truly crap apartments on the Gold Coast (QLD - Australia), with some truly wonderful acoustics - the only benefit of which has been to make me a faux expert on the nocturnal emissions of my fellow residents. See if you can recognise any of these people...

Thumpers:
These two might as well be hammering nails above you. At least they have rhythm.

Squeakers:
Who illustrate nightly why you should not buy a cheap bed.

Rollers:
You really only get to appreciate this phenomenon if the people upstairs have floorboards. After a bit of discrete rumpy pumpy, something falls on the ground that sounds like a marble rolling across the floor. I reckon I've spent a solid three days of my life trying to work out what the hell it is?

Ron Jeremy:
Is there a creepier and/or funnier experience than hearing another couple's bedroom talk, especially if the guy thinks he's a porn star and his missus, a phone sex operator? Cries of "that's it tiger" and "you sweet, sick thing" pale next to the true champion of the genre who quotes the Hedgehog at the top of his voice, screaming "it's your dick, baby!"

Spiderman:
There's a distinctly different sound when someone is pounding away against the floor or against the wall and Spidey, well, he likes to get vertical.

The iPoders:
Who need to have THAT song on for the magic to happen. Hopefully it's not by Something For Kate.

The Mandelas:
Screaming, sobbing, moaning and arguing. You're not sure what's going on with this couple: is he killing her or teaching her the Kama Sutra?

Screamers:
Really annoy me.

Gigglers:
Ain't they cute?

Jerry Springers:
This is more of a visual experience. After you've spotted the very fat woman with the cabanossi-skinny boyfriend in the hallway, you get to imagine the intimate mechanics when they start to get it done next door.

Greg Birds/Wayne Careys:
I hate these guys. It always starts with breaking glass and ends with you having to give a statement to the cops in your undies.

Old MacDonalds:
All I'm saying is if there's bleating or barking going on in 15D you may wanna call the RSPCA. Or maybe Colour Climax Films. Thanks for hearing me out on this.

The powerpoints:
Because they have one in every room.

The onanists:
Same loop of video over and over again on their laptop or the friendly buzz of a certain appliance. Dead giveaway when the “rabbit” falls off the bed and razzes against the floorboards for 10 seconds.

The thespians:
I've never heard this breed in action but I did see my neighbours unloading fancy dress costumes out of their car one afternoon - naughty school girl for her, matador for him. When I raised a suggestive eyebrow at the lady of the house she merely smiled and said "it's his birthday."

The Todd McKenneys:
Also known as The Malcom Frasers. You may not see them in action but you'll find their pants in the hallway. Hopefully unsoiled.

The long-term married:
Best neighbours of all. Silent as a tomb, except for when the baby is crying.

Ps: If you're not familiar with some of the names of people on here, Google them.

FWB - Friends With Benefits.

 Last weekend, I decided to rent a DVD (first time in AGES!! OMFG!!!). So I asked my friends for suggestions, and one suggestion was Friends With Benefits featuring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis. I thought to myself “Ah what the heck! What have I got to lose?” So, after seeing the movie, it got me thinking: I wonder how many "friends with benefits" are really friends and how many "f--- buddies" are actually buddies?
  If you're unaware of what it means, a "friend with benefits" (FWB), also known as a "f--- buddy", is basically someone you have sex with and leave it at that - no obligations, no strings attached, no messy emotions. These, however, are misleading terms because a friend or a buddy is someone you want to hang around with and talk to, while the "f--- buddy" and "FWB" are usually just someone you lie on top of, or who lies on top of you, while you have an orgasm.
  You don't tend to buy a f--- buddy dinner or flowers. In fact, you're probably not gonna bother getting out of bed most mornings to drive them home, let alone have a cosy latte at your local cafe.
  There's nothing wrong with this; casual sex is as old as religion, and has been practised by enough holy men so you can be sure it doesn't send you to hell. Back in the day, it was known as a "fling" - no arguments from me there; I've done my fair share of flinging and being flung, but then I've always tried to avoid the pretence, when I call someone at 3am, that it's for anything other than sex.
  That's why I don't get the whole "friend with benefits" nickname. Are people just kidding themselves? Trying to pretty-up an unattractive fact because, let's face it, someone you shag on the side is rarely your friend. If you doubt this, fill out the guest list for a birthday dinner with your 20 closest mates and ask yourself if your f--- buddy makes the cut? No? Didn't think so.
  If you really wanted to spend time with an FWB - have them meet your inner circle and family, buy them dinner and flowers - well, they'd be your girlfriend (or boyfriend) and the FWB obviously doesn't check enough boxes for you to make that leap.
  I’m telling you, Hollywood has a lot to answer for in regards to building unrealistic romantic expectations, so it's somewhat pleasing the two recent stabs it's taken at this phenomenon, No Strings Attached (starring Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher) and Friends With Benefits (starring Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) - tell it like it is.
  The couples in both these films soon realise that two people having sex with each other, who also hang out and enjoy each other's company are not "f--- buddies" or "FWB". Indeed, the emotional strings are very firmly attached, because that's what you call a relationship. On the other hand, if you are having sex with someone but not hanging out together, not meeting their mates or doing anything other than turning up at their apartment to shag, try this experiment.
 Stop having sex and see if you remain "friends". My guess is there won't be a Hollywood ending.