Community swimming pools are the worst.  I mean seriously.  It’s  bad enough to have  step out of one’s clothes in public (always with the niggling thought that perhaps you forgot to actually put a swimming costume on underneath and yes now you’re standing there in the nude!), but then to be inspected surreptitiously (yes I can see you glancing sideways at me!!!) and then to be compared to every other female within a 500 kilometre radius. 

 Women and men strutting their stuff.  Seriously people…my gran looks better than most of you. 

 Harsh?  Yes!  An absolute falsehood without an ounce of truth?  I think not.

So listen up!  Here’s a shit load of stuff I don’t need to be seeing whilst I’m bathing in a chlorinated soup of germs and urine!

Number 1 – Pubic hair that makes even the hardiest of weed wackers run for the hills.  Ladies…if your pubes are making their own way to Woodstock via the inside of your thighs, perhaps it’s time to give up on the idea of community swimming.  I’m thinking a babbling brook..or tinkling stream might be more your speed.

 Number 2 – Anything inflatable ( no, correction- anything inflatable that you are not willing to share with the 300 other children utilising the pool!)  I have seriously been in the position of having to referee and eventually break up a mass toddler rumble that started over a giant inflatable thong!  And not just once, but several times.  Picture me stony faced attempting to chastise my own children through gritted teeth whilst other parents looked on, simpering superior looks on their faces. 

 ”Yes, my children are feral!  Does that make you feel any better about your clearly under-supervised, often pampered, smug faced little bastard that just floated past me on a giant thong!!!” 

Number 3 – Public displays of affection.  This mainly refers to snogging teenagers.

 ”I can see you there, hiding in the corner!  You’re not fooling anyone into thinking you’re sitting on his lap coz it’s comfortable”.   

Save your hormones for that moonlit beach…and keep your erections out of my kids swimming space!  I say this with the utmost authority, having been one of those teenagers…minus the erection!

 Number 4 – Don’t touch me in the pool.  Don’t touch my kids in the pool.  Simple, easy.  You see me, swim the other way!  Unless (bearded tattooed hairy man) you actually want to find out how hard I can kick you in the nuts underwater!

And finally a bit of changing  room etiquette. 

Despite popular believe, entering a women’s change room, only to be confronted by a  wall of naked ass…is NOT exactly like sneaking a peek at the naked models backstage at a Victorias Secret show!  In fact, it is exactly like looking at your own naked ass, if you could ever see it from that angle.

  Please, please, please, don’t make me look at my own ass!!!!!  I couldn’t in good conscience ever sleep with my husband again if I thought my pasty white, slighty spotty butt didn’t in fact look exactly like Kylie Minogue’s in gold hot pants!  So stop killing the dream!  I know it’s hard to wrangle a towel around your naked frame, never being too sure what to cover -  the butt or the boobies, but please people, practice at home if you have to!!! 

It’s not much to ask really. Don’t be comfortable with your own body. Don’t have fun!!  

Hmmmm…perhaps I need to move to China…..

It’s interesting how some insecurities never change, no matter how long you’ve known someone.  Once upon a time I might have wondered if my husband still found me attractive.  There were some extreme years consisting of lesbian hair cuts and flourescent socks that only the truly infatuated could have overlooked.  But  these days I tend to think if he doesn’t feign a cartoon heart bounding out of his chest whenever he sees me then  he’s a frikkin’ moron (coz I am awesomely, righteously schmokin’!)  I used to twist myself in knots worrying that he thought I was an intellectual retard.  Some might say I’m smart in a stupid way(or maybe that’s just a dumb persons way of rationalising the flukey-ness of getting something right now and then)  Now I’m pretty sure when God was handing out brains I was off fantasising over Robert Pattinson and narrowly avoided the “Engineering Genius” gene that The Man Of The House clearly overdosed on.

  Now, don’t get me wrong…this is not a Nikki “pity party”, coz if it was I’d be drunk by now and picking a fight with one of you.  All I’m saying is I’ve accepted my human failings and I think the MOTH has too (much as I have accepted his nose blowing escapades in the shower!).  So, this leaves me with an interesting case of “Can’t put my finger on it” insecurity ( CPMFOII – or Compounded Parchment May Flip Over In Italics – which if I’m not mistaken – and I rarely am- is one of the clues from the Da Vinci Code) 

 This newest insecurity manifested when the MOTH ventured hundreds of kilometres north, eventually settling with family (namely his sister and father).  So here’s the thing.  We’ve been apart ALOT.  Not just a bit, not just every now and then…but frequently and often… ALOT ALOT  ALOT!  So this insecurity doesn’t stem from distance…more familiarity.  He’s gone (soon to return) but I feel like I’ve lost him. Like he’s not mine anymore.  He’s theirs!  I hear them laughing in the background of our phone conversations, adding little bits here and there.  I hear a comfort in his voice, like he’s home.  He is their centre.  With him around their disjointed parts feel whole again.  I don’t resent it.   I guess I can understand it.  They accept him and his crap.  Me, on the other hand, well I  have tried to mold that crap into a fairly decent and respectable human form.  A form I could love and bare to live with. 

A primal part of me – the skanky part that wants to pull someone’s hair- wants to scream “That’s my man!”  To grab him and tie him to me with one of those hideous kid leashes.  “Back off world.  You don’t get to reap the benefits of my awesome wifelyness”.

  Instead, the zen Martha Stewart part of me, sighs, understands, and keeps the sadness to herself.  He wouldnt understand, so my heart breaks a little more everyday that he’s away. 

Picture this.

 It’s 1987.

 A school bus packed with teenagers rumbles along a windy rainforest road. It is twilight and the kids are rowdy. Dressed in their best gear, they are headed out for a once a year experience.

 Movie night at the Malanda picture theatre. The theatre is huge, the seats canvas and baggy. Rows upon rows of couples sit, snuggling and smooching. One couple in particular catches your eye.

She seems a bit tough, and he’s kinda goofy.

Even now though…he loves her.

She rests her head on his shoulder as the house lights lower, and the movie begins. She feels the tears well as she watches. Her heart swells as she imagines a man that could love her like the main characters loved each other.

 In the seat beside her, the boy squeezes her hand.

 He feels the same.

 The movie ends and they make the long bus trip home, this time snuggled on the vinyl seats, whispering to each other in the dark.

Years would pass, and the girl (now a grown woman) would hear of the movie characters passing.

 Memories of that night would come flooding back.

 Memories of the boy that squeezed her hand, and the way he had held her just as tightly on their wedding day.

RIP Patrick Swayze, and know that your memory has walked with me these many married years.

 God Bless.

Through the thick gravy of sleep, I can hear the chattering.  “Blah blah blah” says one.  “Blah blah blah laugh” says the other.  In my mind I hear Sonny and Cher singing “I got you babe” and have to remind myself that while I am stuck in Groundhog day, I am better looking than Bill Murray.  I reach over with frozen fingers and hit the snooze button.  “Goodbye squawkers…hear you in nine more minutes”.  In the haze and softness I assess the day ahead.  The pain in my fingers and feet tell me that the next hour will only survived through gritted teeth.  I swing my feet out of the covers, gingerly sidling towards the toilet.  The doorknob is hard, and the bathroom floor is cold and hateful.  I see myself in the mirror.  Some days I’m surprised that I look better than I feel…this morning…not so much…the Blair Witch is staring back.  After minutes of dozing on the loo, the Worlds Oldest Cat, and her friend, Second Worlds Oldest Cat, push the door open.  They see me, and start whinging.  To myself I think “Great, now I have a soundtrack to go with the pain”

  Walking on skeleton feet I hobble out to the children.  I attempt a sunny “Good Morning.”  Thankfully the children are not morning people (not at least for another hour anyway) and they virtually ignore me.  In silence I potter around.  School lunches and breakfast.  Fasten top buttons and scrounge through the washing for matching socks…grimaces hidden behind a mask of smiling, and high pitched reasurances.  The news comes on the tv.  I grab my keys and scan the children for food faces and scarecrow hair.  Like an army sargent I march them out to the car, all the while ignoring the pain that sizzles away. Through bickering voices my anger bubbles. ”Yes they are arguing but don’t over react” – just a simple warning will do.  I look at the garage roller door, imaging a way to open it that will not result in more pain.  It weighs more than a blue whale.  I stare at it.  I hate it. 

Second by second the day unfolds.  The ground is hard, hard, hard, but as we walk into school more seconds pass. I am surviving this step, then the next.  I squat to hug my boys, to wish them a great day, to tell them I love them.  And in our embrace, I think “I can’t enjoy this.”  All I want is for it to be over, to take the pressure of the joint, but I stay.  I wonder if they look into my eyes and see what I feel.  I wonder if they think it is about them? 

 As I do a skip shuffle out to the car,  I take a breath, a giant ballon breath. ” Thank you”, I say to myself.  “Thank you for keeping it in”.  “Thank you for not lashing out.”

For now, I retreat.  Six hours and I will do it all over again.  Pretend , pretend, pretend. 

This life, my life is lived moment to moment.

 A string of moments, each seperate from the next. 

 No future,

No past,

Only now.

Apparently, in some parts of the world “Vegemite“is a myth. 

 ”What is Vegemite?” a friend asked me the other day, “Is it like hummus?”

   Stone the crows ! 

 Like hummus? 

For those uneducated in the ways of Vegemite, it is most definitely NOT like hummus.

 Almost beyond description, Vegemite is an Australian breakfast staple.I falter at describing it as a yeast extract (yeast extracted from where?)  but there is no way of describing it without sounding like we spread shite on our toast. 

Salty axle grease!  There I said it……and yet we still eat it……and love it

And if you consider that some people (with more money than sense) imbibe coffee made from beans crapped out of ass of the Civet (a small cat like creature with a wicked caffeine addiction), our yeast based spread seems quite palatable.

So the Vegemite status has set me on the path of discovery.  What other hideous creations exist in the world that people are trying to pass of as food.

Here are a few (and for the record, if you eat any of these…you are a freak!)

Quee

a charming little delicacy consisting of a whole guinea pig……deep fried! 

 That’s right,  little Twinkle and Piggy dipped in batter, then turned into the South American equivalent of a Piggy Mc Nugget

Following a close second, is Quees cousin Monkey Toes.

 The phalanges are deep fried in oil and are comparable to eating grasshoppers or starfish (of course!). 

 Sounds doable, until you consider that monkeys stick their toes up other monkeys bums! 

Consider Birds Nest Soup on your next visit to the local Chinese takeaway. 

 Was there ever any of us who thought this stuff was made from actual birdsnest?

 Well think again.

  Apparently nests snatched from the loving bosom of the Swiflet are very tasty.  It’s the sweetness of the bird saliva that gives it that extra little kick.

  At $80 a bowl, don’t bother.  I’ll spit in it for free.

Codfish sperm.

  Can you imagine the dinner conversation I’d be having with my husband after I’ve tucked into a steaming bowl of Codfish sperm. 

 ”How come you’ll eat fish sperm……..”

Cheeseburger in a can.   This exists…….and I don’t know why!

Along a similar vein is Artichoke flavoured tea in a can. 

I didn’t know I needed Artichoke tea…apparently I’ve been missing out. 

 Need to get me some now!

 Peanut Butter powder. 

 Do I snort it, or shake some in my shoes?

Squid ink Ice cream.

  Ice cream = yum.  Ink = not yum. 

Crushed pearls in Lollipops! 

 Never heard of it?  Well switch on people coz this might just be the product that gives your love-life the kick in the pants it needs. 

Touted as an aphrodisiac, apparently rocks are food now!

Finally, In my own country, you can quite readily find Kangaroo Tails in the freezer section of the local supermarket.

  That’s right, a huge hairy tail.  Not as  popular as you’d think though ..it’s a bitch finding a pot to fit it in

So please, before you judge us harshly, consider the plethora of weirdos out there eating bugs and Pop Tarts.  Some pregnant women eat dirt!

  They are the crazies!  Not us!

For the record, no Vegemites were harmed in the writing of this article.

Picture this.  It’s 4pm on a Thursday afternoon.  Crazy after school traffic fills the streets, and the kids and I are off to swimming lessons. 

 My car, packed to the ceiling with swimming gear and schools bags, dodges in and out of traffic.  A feat in itself considering it’s a two and half ton 4wd and does zero to sixty in  three quarters of an hour.

 Silence has descended on the car after a heated discussion between myself and my three boys regarding the lyrics of Britney’s latest song “If you seek Amy” and why it’s inappropriate for them to be singing it.

 ”Just because!”  seems to  be sufficient enough answer…for now. 

I sigh, relieved and enjoy a moments silence as we wait for the lights to change.

  From the back seat I hear,  “Muuuuuum?” 

I reply “Yes matey?”

  “Is there such a thing as a quandong?” 

“Yes mate” I answer. 

 ”A quandong is a fruit native to Australia.  The Aborigines refer to it as Bush tucker and tastes a bit like a mango.” 

 I feel a bit like super mum with all the answers, and a bit proud of oldest boy for asking such an interesting and diverse question (of course he gets his natural curiosity from his mother) 

 Another moment of silence ensues, then Master Nine turns to his little brothers and says “Boys…..always wear a quandong.” 

Frikkin’ heck,  I think I just heard my sanity slam the car door and walk off!

I saw an angel once.

From my bed, third from the left. 

An endless row that sees us lined up like cattle awaiting a bolt through the head. 

Mrs Jenkins on my left, Mrs Smith on my right.  Both shallow little hillocks under their stiff, scratchy covers. 

 The nurses tiptoe past, their rubber soles squeaking on the shiny linoleum.  

  Grey ambient light settles over us, a gloom that blends us with the surrounds.

  The staff pass us by, camouflaged they pretend not to see us

There’s a lot of snoring tonight.  Old folk exhausted by endless days of sitting, and eating and dozing. 

The ward is a bus stop.  Somewhere to sit surrounded by strangers, while we wait for our ride..

Sister Andrews passes by.  I smile at her, knowing full well that she will wake me in two hours for my sleeping pill. 

 She is my only physical contact . 

 Impersonal activities of daily living. 

 Like washing ones car.  

In my earlier years I would have raged against the injustice. 

Now I am resigned and grateful.  

I have discovered  that death is not eternal, but the waiting is. 

 Waiting passes the time.  We wait for our pills, we wait for our meals.  We wait for our loved ones. 

 We wait for Christmas, and we wait for it to be over. 

 Every day is a new waiting. 

 Ripe with waiting potential.

Eventually my lids betray me.  Closing to open again tomorrow.  Through blurry slits, I see my lashes.

 My bed is like a coffin, and I am tucked in tight, like a child.

I rest for a time, feeling the rise and fall of my bird like chest. 

 I lay stiff and straight, a stranger in my bed, and eventually the sounds of commercialised care fade around me.

In a rush of heat, I am awake. 

  Through the murkiness of sleep a glow, incandescent  fills the room like a sunset

 An incredible pounding pushes forth from my chest,  and a sound comes at me like  a wind tunnel throbbing.

 Above me  like a full, ripe moon hangs beauty and terror.

Rising up with monolithic reverence, the air swirls and eddies, thick with angel dust

I gasp, sucking for escape, and feel  my body might burst apart.

The air is warm and sweet, and as I breath it in I taste buttterscotch

I feel the whoosh of blood pulse through me, and as she reaches ivory fingertips towards my salty tears, I am gone.

Fainting and floating.

In her embrace, I am limp

I feel her lips press against my tired brow

Sobbing,

Mother has returned to take me home

They all think that I’m gone. 

The police think that I’ve been taken.

 Snatched from the side of the road.

Rough hands grabbing my arm, covering my mouth. 

My feet scrambling for purchase in the dry dust.

Dragged backwards into a sinister looking car.

Taken from a loving Mother and Father,

Missed by distraught siblings.

Mother believes I am lost or late or something.

  Soon she will see me coming up the track as she looks through the kitchen window doing dishes.

 So she continues to look.

Father knows that I have run.

 His guilt tells him so.

 I hear them shuffling, chairs scraping. 

Through the looking glass  crack of the pantry door, I see father’s eyes.

 Preoccupied, he’s searching  for ghosts. 

I see his seething, a tide of crimson rising up from his collar line. 

With clenched fists he paces.

Frenzied by the presence of outsiders, he is curt in his responses.

With eyes down cast, my sisters huddle.

It is not our father that they see

But fury stitched into a suit.

 There was no sympathy for the potentially dead.  Even less for the disobedient.

They all wish me dead.

A detective lays a comforting hand on my Mothers shoulder.

 She writhes as if touched by death. 

But she is good at this, and the man is unaware that her insides are shriveling.

Silence ticks like a metronome.

We await the stranger’s departure, then the family’s real search will begin.

Father will strip the house bare till he finds me.

He knows my disdain, has seen contempt in my gaze.

I am not sure of my plan.

I am only 12 after all.

But I know strangers will be no help.

Crouched in my space, I listen for the screen doors shriek.

The mumbling reassurances of men tell me Father has ushered them all into the front yard.

I imagine his hand raised in farewell, as the car’s dust plumes blow a insolent raspberry.

The steps of the back porch bow and complain.

But my time there is brief.

Through the yard, and towards the fence

Dried old tufts of grass whip my legs.

They won’t stop me, I’m nearly there.

Freedom pumps through me like a rushing of blood as I pause at the fence line.

 A drum beat pounds from within. 

The bottom stringer sags under the weight of my foot, as I prepare to swing on over, to fly.

 As mean, cruel fingers bite into my arm, and I am yanked to the ground. 

The breath of relief knocks out of me.  So to the life imagined in a millisecond.

He stands over me, sneering.

Beady crow’s eyes are on me,

With vulpine lips parted, he breaths close to me.

With cunning, he takes his time.

There was no stepping back from the edge.

This time, Father was walking right off

And he was taking me with him.

There’s just something about the cleavage.  Hypnotic in its appearance, it draws the eye, both male and female. 

A soft, warm place that takes us back to our early years where we sojourned in our mothers embrace. 

These days the cleavage has popped up in the most unexpected ways. 

 And I’m not sure I’m happy about it!

Cleavage that I like to see: 

• A lovely set of jiggling jubblies spilling lusciously from a satin gown?  Nice……

Cleavage on a bikini clad celebrity (similarly aged as myself)  looking fiiiiine!

Cleavage that I don’t! : 

• Front  bum cleavage commonly seen in skin tight acid wash faber jabbers (Faberges jeans for those unfamiliar with social uniform of the “Westie” or “bogan”)  Also known as the “camel toe“ 

• Back fat cleavage

• Cleavage enhancements

Now I’m not a booby discriminant.  If you need help in that area (I know I do) please make sure your “boobie aides” dont make an unexpected appearance. 

There’s nothing more off putting during a nice night out, trying to enjoy your chicken parmigiana  only to look up to see the lovely lady across from you displaying her own chicken fillets! 

• Toe cleavage! 

 To my mind this suggests you need to buy a pair of shoes that fit!  I mean isn’t toe cleavage really pandering to all those foot fetishists out there (weirdos!)

• Any cleavage that involves nips! 

If your nip decides  to come up for air during a social outing or heaven forbid a photo opportunity you probably should just invite everyone round to watch you in the shower! 

Coz everyone’s imagining you naked anyway. 

I’m just sayin’!

• Butt cleavage that involves any type of underwear! 

Big granny undies bunching up the top of your jeans and you run the risk of looking like you’ve had an accident with a parachute! 

And a G string……well that just leaves me with the impression that somehow you’ve gotten your underwear confused with one of those cheese cutter thingies. 

I mean its not call bum floss for nothing!

•  Boobies that threaten to smother my children.

 These can generally be found on yummy mummy types volunteering for school  tuckshop duty.  Whilst it is true that all men are boys, all boys are not men! 

 Your breast are rated M 18 years and over.  Stop trying to seduce my kids! .

  Unless of course you’re interested in finding out what it feels like to be drowned in a cafeteria sink? 

• Butt cleavage and variations of  butt cleavage . 

 For example:  3 inches of crack sliding out of  a young mums low rise jeans as she squats down to attend to her children in the middle of Mothers Day Mass is INAPPROPRIATE!

• Bad boob job cleavage

This includes lopsided, sunken and hot air balloon proportions.

• Over tanned Granny cleavage! 

Think  Joan Collins and Sophia Loren and Bridgette Bardot……now…….not then!

• Acne cleavage

• Scary cleavage

This involves any Janet Jackson-like piercings that threaten to remove an eye or puncture jumping castles at childrens’ parties.

• And finally any type of cleavage occurring on the male body. 

There’s just something a little off putting about a hairy G-stringed butt that can be a real distraction from an awesome set of man boobs……………………….(cringe!)

 Wanted:  One Mother\wife – like person to adopt a menagerie of men children and various forms of pooping\puking domestic wildlife.  Successful applicants will be required to fulfill and undertake the following criteria-

• Be an arduous task master when it comes to scraping dried cereal from the floor and kitchen table

• Be adept at  scrambling under beds and finding missing school ties and 35 over -due library books

•  Expertly utilise an entire weeks worth of towels to sop up bathtub overflows.  Sometimes blaming  it on the kids, but occasionally confessing to  a  few too many wines and a little distraction known as Facebook

•  Maintain a grown up, respectable telephone conversation with an “out sourced” Indian telephone operator, whilst silently separating fighting offspring with an expert arm yank

• Be able to keep a straight face during the most excruciating conversations with 5 year old boys about testicles and why it’s not a good idea to try and “pop” them!

• Convincingly appreciate (and keep forever!) the entire recycled waste of a small country (think Sweden) creatively fashioned  into various forms of art presented to you on Mothers Day morning 

• Successfully pretend to be going off to an office job as you go through the McDonald’s drive through for a coffee when in reality you merely going home to blog and Facebook

• Successfully  feign interest when the MOTH (Man Of The House)  is extolling the virtues of a square pie over a round pie

• Expertly hide yourself and the children in a darkened house as Mormons knock incessantly on the  front door

• Be a Maven  of emotional blackmail, frequently making statements like “everything I do for you kids, and I never get a thank you…………………..”

• Be  able to forage through knee deep refuse on Xmas afternoon, looking for instructions for toys that were accidentally thrown out, despite the garbage bin smelling like a cat’s died in there!

• Happily provide expert medical care to pseudo sick family members whilst bleeding out ones’ own ears. 

Clearly an exciting career opportunity for a highly motivated go getter.  Wages are non existent, however the successful applicant will have unlimited access to mountains of cold leftovers.

Interested parties, should not bother contacting me, I’ve already left!