New opportunities (PM)

So this morning I was listening to the song Parklife and I don’t want to give away any spoilers for when K and I do our annual best of/worst of year round-up but ummmmmmm… the Blur concert was really good. Oh, sorry, that’s not what we’re talking about is it?! Well I hope that show  at the National Theatre that Damon wrote the musicfor is really good.

Meanwhile my December calendar is getting fuller every day. Just when I think I have a free weekend in my sights something gets slotted in there. I mean, all these things will be enjoyable. Hannukah – the Jewish feast of fried foods! A first birthday party – the gang’s feast of food cooked by David! But geez, a girl needs a rest now and again.

And I keep thinking that I should get a jump on things and do my Christmas shopping early, but as each day passes this whole ‘early’ thing becomes ‘timely’ and soon enough it will be ‘late’.

I had a Christmas overseas once. It was in Japan and I think it’s fair to say that Christmas is not a thing there. Sure there are the illuminations (Christmas lights) and a strange tradition of couples going on a date on Christmas eve. On Christmas night LB, Russeth and I went to a bar with some friends, which seemed like someone’s back room and got drunk. So you know, festive but also just like a bunch of other nights.

I think Christmas in the UK would be pretty sweet. There’d be all the recognisable cultural signs of Christmas cheer without all the commitments and pressure of all your family and friends and workplace. Mate, you are going to nail Christmas this year!

New opportunities (AM)

At this time of year I am usually overcome with two emotions: excitement that Christmas is coming and anxiety about the fact that there's so little time until Christmas. I always want to get really excited about Christmas...decorate shit, send Christmas cards, sing Christmas songs. But because December is the world's busiest month, I never get to do all that stuff, hence the anxiety. 

It occurred to me last week, as I was wondering around London's biggest shopping centre sheltering from the rain, that I get to do all that shit this year because my December is totally wide open.  All I have to do this month is go see a show at the National Theatre that Damonn Albarn wrote the music for. Appleheart very kindly bought me a ticket to see it to make up for the fact that we couldn't see blur in Melbourne. Obviously we all know that nothing can make up for that, absolutely nothing. But it's a lovely gesture. 

Anyway, to get the ball rolling on my Christmassy December, I bought KB a novelty Christmas onesie, which I desperately want to show you all but am going to hold off until Christmas Day. Suffice to say it's super adorable and going to make us all want to eat KB with a spoon. 

Bret Easton Ellis, I love you (PM)

This is great news. I'm pretty sick of all my podcasts. For a while there all I wanted to listen to was podcasts about babies. Then I got pretty tired of listening to podcasts about babies. All that information about babies and looking after them? Enough was enough.  I tired to return to my old favourites but my poor attention span meant it was hard to get anything out of them. So I've really been in the podcast wilderness. 

But I'm happy to give BEE a shot. Especially if he is talking to and about the Brat Pack. I made it to that talk J had to miss and he was a delightfully entertaining asshole. He talked about being on Grindr, which was in its very early days, and seemed super creepy and seedy to me but is now here to stay and part of people's lives. That pretty much sums up my feelings about BEE. Creepy and seedy but part of our lives. 

Meanwhile, it's 3am over here and I'm up feeding KB. I must say that life with a new(ish)born makes jetlag very easy to take as being awake at ridiculous hours is par for the course. He is so wide awake though. It's meant to be a dream fees where they barely open their eyes and go straight back to sleep once the eating is done. This guy looks like he wants to stay up all night and talk about his dreams and have a pillow fight and braid my hair. Go to sleep kid! 

Bret Easton Ellis, I love you (AM)

I really was not made for these internet days. I remember in the early days of internet, living with Miguel and David, Miguel had internet in his room. I’d use it sometimes to write an email, maybe look up a thing or two, but I couldn’t spend long hours in front of the computers like my housemates. They are still much better than me at the internet. I know this because they send me links to things I would never have the patience to find. As in, I would never have the patience to roam the 'net for hours on end through one obscure site to the next just to find some hilarious or gross thing.

I have websites I look at regularly but I rarely add to these. I may wander around the 'net for a while if I have purpose but I just don’t have the time or patience to spend a long time looking for potential  best new things. So too with podcasts. I have a few in my rotation but I’m more likely to drop ones I tire of than pick up new ones. But lately my regulars haven’t been giving me what I want, what I need. What do I need? You know what I want right now from my podcast? I want to listen for a good length of time to something enjoyable and immersive, fairly lighthearted but intelligent. But also that won’t punish me if I drift away from it for a couple of minutes. You know what I mean. That! That is what I’ve been wanting. Sure I’ve tried other podcasts outside my regular roster but it’s hard to really connect with one.

When I learned Bret Easton Ellis did podcasts a year or two ago of course I jumped at the chance to listen to it. I love his writing. His earlier books especially are among my all-time favourites and I often lament the fact that I had to miss seeing him speak a few years ago because I was bed-bound with a cold, so his podcast seemed like really a new best thing.  Back then I listened to an episode in which he interviewed BJ Novak. And by "interviewed" I mean he talked for an hour during which BJ Novak was occasionally given the opportunity to interject, answering a question ostensibly directed at him, but evidently posed so that Ellis could offer up his own thoughts on the matter.

This did not make the podcast unenjoyable. To the contrary, the ridiculous self importance of BEE was highly entertaining but I felt at the time like it didn't fit in to my podcast regime. A regime which was largely dedicated to podcast hosts with a much more understated sense of self-importance. 

Yesterday, though, I just knew it was time to really shake things up and that I needed to listen to a totally different kind of thing. No Fresh Air. No This American Life. I remembered The Bret Easton Ellis Podcast and I decided to give it a go and within minute I knew I'd made the right choice. 

I chose to listen to an interview with Judd Nelson which opened with about a 20-minute monologue by BEE, waxing lyrical about what actors are like, about how they play a part all the time, about the difference between them and the other public performance professions. About how they always want to please, always hide something. Nothing he was saying was in the least revelatory, but the guy really has a way with words and although, or because, he really seems like a douche bag it was highly enjoyable listening. It really suited my mood perfectly. It made me remember what it was like to read some of his beautifully crafted sentences for the first time. It made me remember, Bret Easton Ellis, I love you. 

But words are not a man. Of course I don't love him. I hate him. I find him equal parts wonderful and repulsive. Which is of course a balance for the ages. But I certainly enjoyed him. And if you have a passion for the 80s and the movies of the time, listening to Bret Easton Ellis talk to Judd Nelson about The Breakfast Club and St Elmo's Fire was always going to be a joy. Listening to BEE recount the way Emilio Estevez and other hot young things were perceived and presented in the media of the time is a great insight into the pop culture of a time I was too young to be aware of. I really felt like I gained an insight into a time and place listening to that episode. And I love that. It is basically my main thrill in intellectual life. 

Guys, I think BEE has found his way onto my podcast roster.

Day off

Ugh.

Today K is on a plane flying to London. I think. I mean that that is where she is going, I don't know how direct her flight is but let's hope for her sake it's pretty direct. I told her she should take a load off, not worry about today's post, I'd write something so good it would satisfy the AM and PM time slots. I've been half writing posts in my head all weekend. But instead of being able to come good on my promise I am lying sick in bed with a sick baby next to me. My fingers and brain can barely muster the energy to write these lame words and so let's just all take the day off. K? Great! See you Thursday.

Bye (PM)

Oh god, I need a bye so badly. That's basically why I took a day off work last week. But it just want enough. What I need, in footballing terms, is a suspension. A reason to not play for a couple of weeks without being crippled by injury. I'm never going to win the Brownlow anyway so what difference does a suspension make except for giving me a little time out. But I guess I wouldn't like the bad reputation so I just need some minor injury that will keep me out of play for a couple of weeks without being permanent or two painful. 

What I want, really, is just a secret day when I can get shut done without distractions. Dumbledore's time-turner would do the trick. I guess as I'm neither a footballer nor a wizard none I can make all the analogies I want, not gonna help me get shit done though is it?!

Bye (AM)

Sometimes I wish I could have a Bye, in the football sense of the word.
For those of you who don't know, there is one week during every AFL home and away season when a team doesn't have to play. It's their Bye. They play the week before and the week after and all the other weeks, just not that week. I guess it's the football equivalent of a public holiday, but I don't really see it like that when I fantasise about it. Public holidays are basically like an extra weekend day. While lovely, it's not what i'm talking about here. I see a Bye more like an opportunity to not front up for normal life for a few days. Maybe I would stay in a hotel and spend a lot of time in a robe. Maybe I would see lots of movies or just sleep for three days. Fundamentally it's about time out from normal life, for the purposes of replenishing.
Ferris Bueller was right. Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop to look around once in a while, you could miss it. And while taking Cameron's dad's car for a joy ride, seeing priceless works of art, posing as the sausage king of Chicago and signing in a parade are great ways of stopping to look around, so too is having a bit of a rest. A Bye!

The to-do list (PM)

When I was a teenager I worked at an ice-cream shop in Elsternwick. Actually I worked there into my very early twenties. You can bet that summertime was crazy time at an ice-cream shop. Often when I think of summer, I think of this one Saturday in early summer when I worked the morning shift which finished at around 1PM. Something you may not realise about an ice-cream shop is that in summer it gets effing hot in there, the heat and movement and exhaust of all the freezers. So this one Saturday was really busy, serving scoops, writing on ice-cream cakes, stocking the freezers. By the end of the shift I was really hot and sticky and after work I drove straight to Brighton beach and went swimming in my underwear and probably a t-shirt and then I went home. It was the first beach swim of that summer and I just remember it feeling like truly the best thing, the only way, really, to welcome summer. But that was a different time, without babies and with a beach only 5 minutes away.

We can’t all be so lucky all the time. Still, I guess goingto Europe for a couple of months is pretty good. The summeriest thing I’ll probably get up to this week will be a trip to Fitzy pool. If I’m lucky.

K, you should definitely eat those icy poles on the hot days. Maybe even a Slurpee. Also, I suggest wearing some ultimate summer outfits during the week. The benefit of missing out on summer is that you can wear your reallyt great summer kits all week and then not get a) tired of them by the end of summer; or b) disappointed in yourself for not staying true to your summer fashion vision when after 3 months of hot-ass heat all your dressing is about just getting by and not dressing well. 

By god, this could be a week of perfect summer outfits, and therefore a summer of perfect outfits. Mate, don't mess it up!