Where to begin? A weekend of many parts... at the beginning I suppose...

Friday night my sister J and I went to see one of our favourite authors speaking at the Sydney Writers' Festival. I discovered Edmund White about 15 years ago and he was my introduction into the world of "gay American authors". The first book I read "A Boy's Own Story" just blew me away. Not only was it my first foray into the world of man on man action (and Mr White does not muck about on this front) but there was something else which I found very enticing about his writing. His books are generally autobiographical and I found myself very drawn to the hedonistic gay lifestyle described in his books.

Seeing him live was wonderful. He was not at all how I had imagined. What I found was an elderly man (he's now in his 60s), white haired, short and somewhat portly, with a very gay American voice, delightful. What was upsetting was how he was presented, in interview format with the abysmal, smug, shithead David Marr as his "interviewer". Jeez, if you like the Molly Meldrum school of interviewing then David is your man, otherwise, watch out. As I am want to do I was squirming in my seat within minutes, it was that bad. It took all my strength not to leap onto the stage and start beating Mr Marr with my pathetic tiny fists when he ended a question with "... two men f*#king?" and a "wise" lear in the audience's general direction. What a fool! What a buffoon! We didn't want to hear his beyond pathetic witticisms, we were there to hear the words of Edmund White, a man who had lived a rich and amazing life... travelling from the suburban wilderness of Ohio to New York to Paris (where he worked for Vogue and wrote a biography of Jean Genet, which I am to finish reading... it's dense, brick-like bulk defeats me). For my money we got to hear way too little of his fascinating story and WAY too much of David Marr's droning tones (though it must be said he did find himself endlessly witty and entertaining).

Coming home J and I watched "In Her Shoes" on Foxtel. Having read the book I found the film disappointing. There is much more background and richness to the characters which the film ignores and a large (and I feel important) part of the story which is skipped altogether. Obviously this was done to avoid a "Lord of the Rings" style epic but I certainly found the film less than entertaining.

Saturday we awoke to 1st Birthday/Naming Day preparation chaos. Yep, it was Marianna's big day (her actual birthday was on Friday) and there was so much to do and so little time to do it. The day went wonderfully well. The rain (though much needed) luckily stayed away and we were able to make full use of the deck and the backyard. The ceremony was lovely and the clowns we ordered for the kids were a fabulous success - at least I assume so, the children were happy and quiet for two hours, money well spent if you ask me! Together with some very wonderful and much appreciated assistants I spent most of the afternoon in the kitchen. My new best friend the deep fryer was put to good use but the very cute mini chocolate fountain, purchased solely for this occassion, stayed unused after we burnt most of the 1kg block of Lindt chocolate I had bought for this purpose.
















After everyone had left on Saturday night we left the mess alone and settled down for the Swans' game. It was the perfect end to a tiring but wonderful day. The Swans' kicked some serious Hawthron bottom. It was fantastic!

Sunday started with breakfast with my dad and grandma at sunny Bondi. It was the usual family chaos. We then returned home to finish cleaning up and for a little rest. It was Big Brother overdose for me as I watched the Friday Night Live I had taped on Friday night and then the eviction show from last night. I am glad Michael got the boot, I seriously think he was mentally ill. What a doofus! I don't think anyone will miss his whacky antics and they might get their toothbrushes back.

Sunday night, quick weekend update.

Friday night... Big Brother Friday Night Live, my favourite. This week was Rock'n'Roll week. The best bit was when the two finalists had to finish band names with various props. There was a board on which part of a band was written and a table with props, they had to put the appropriate prop on the little shelf next to the name. Hilarious, especially when both boys (Dino and Gaelen) didn't know some pretty obvious ones (well, they were to me, a child of the 80s - White Snake, I mean, COME ON!). I am getting cranky that only boys have won so far. The physical aspect of most of the games do favour the boys, especially strong, ruthless ones (a noted fact is that David seems to "get out" very early on every week, piss weak or gentlemanly, you be the judge).

Another BB thought. So far (and I haven't seen much, so I'm prepared to turn if necessary) I quite like Rob, the gay-as hairdresser intruder, he of the arched eyebrows and hair extensions. Why do I like him? Not sure, but my gut feeling is that he is an 80s throwback. He is SO like some of the guys I used to know in my teens. Funny, extravagant, OTT in terms of style. He really presses a mysterious warm and fuzzy familiary button with me. Intersting to see his fate over the next few weeks. Normally intruders don't last long.

Saturday we spent pottering around the house and doing some shopping. Marianna now has her birthday party dress for next week (and at 25% off - who is the queen of sales, yep - you got it!). Late in the afternoon Will and Jay set off to watch the Swans' game at the SCG. After putting Marianna to bed I got my snacks and diet coke and I was set. What a game it was! I was prepared for anything after last week (what a tremendous win) and knowing that our opponents, Western Bulldogs, were also in top form and coming off a few straight wins. I couldn't have been prepared for the first fifteen minutes of the game 39-0 to the Swans. I was gob smacked and excited but the Bulldogs soon kicked a few goals and the game stabilised somewhat. However we only let them have a sniff of the lead a couple of times. Most of the game was all our way and we won with a decent (though not overly impressive) 26 point win. Good enough for me. I have to say it was a bloody entertaining game and our boys outdid themselves every minute of the game. It was so good to watch. I was sorry I didn't get to see it live but there are many more home games to look forward to this year.

Sunday we slept in and ran around like fools getting ready for the first party - Will's friend S's 5th birthday party. We had to fit in a haircut for Will beforehand so we were running behind the whole day. The magical themed party was fantastic, the family had gone to a lot of trouble with decorations, costumes, food and entertainment. It was a shame we had to leave early to get to my dad's girlfriend's daughter's 21st (did you get all that? there'll be a test later). That was a low key family affair which did involve much more food. We're SO back onto the CSIRO plan from tomorrow.

Well, Big Brother beckons. So goodnight and see you next week.

Are you desperately bored? Absolutely nothing to do? Picked all the lint out of your belly button? Rearranged your pantry in alphabetical order? Then try this...

http://www.bebo.com/inviteq/839869841a106258265b


You might surprise yourself at how little you really know me.

PS It's nothing bad. Just a little fun quiz about yours truly.

A few Big Brother thoughts...

Michael. He just shits me. OK, I feel for him (somewhat) being trapped into being BB's "Insider" but really he's just a schmuck. He carries on like a first class doofus. And the whole "Rueben" story... come on, give me a break! It'll be interesting to see what happens tonight when his "secret is revealed".

Katie. I hated her on sight but I think she will be popular with the general audience because she has that "folks are dumb where I come from" appeal. She is a classic Barbie beach girl and comes across as a total airhead but also "sweet" (in a way which sometimes appeals to me but generally shits me). Her "romance" with fellow nuclear physicist Jamie is just a car accident in slow motion. Not only is it fully cringe-making but it fully underlines her sad, little-girl insecurities.

Jamie. Like, you know, he's just really big hearted and shit. What is that guy about? That rag he wears on his head is just so damn ugly, which juxtaposes nicely with the fact that he thinks of himself as being so hot (anyone got a mirror, dude?). Currently he is coming across as being emotionally on a higher level than most of the other male life forms in the house but that's not hard, considering the others appear to be lower than pregnant snails (to use that quaint expression very popular with my 5th class contemporaries in 1978).

Gaelen. What the...? I call him Clarence-the-Lion-eyes-boy. He has these weird feline blue eyes which are almost crossed or something, bizarre. Typical surfie dude, brainless turd.

David. Don't know. At first I thought he was the nice, sensitive gay boy but now he's just the boring, sad, whinging gay boy. It will be interesting/fun to see how his atypical gay farm boy persona will come up against the gay intruder boy coming on tonight. This guy looks like the love child of Bobby Trendy and Liza Minelli, all arched eyebrows and whiplash tongue.

Dino, John, Ashley. Just typical crass dudes. No redeeming features that I have discovered yet. Yuck!

Camilla, Anna, Krystal, Claire. Generally annoying. Not a brain cell amongst them, except possibly Claire. Hard to seperate the wheat from the chaff with these bimbettes. Time will tell.

The evil twin has been removed. I have the pictures to prove it. The ovary it was attached to is also gone. I don't mind. My reproductive organs have played no role in my becoming a parent so "good ridence", I say. According to doc the cyst did have hair (gross) but I wasn't allowed to keep it in a glass to jar to scare the children as it has been sent off to pathology for testing. Oh well. That's the way the cookie crumbles.

It's Tuesday afternoon and I'm still feeling quite sore. I'm trying to soldier on but I feel like I've been stapled in my lower tummy and I can't quite stand up straight.

The way I feel right now I'm in no hurry to have the hysterectomy. Maybe I'll put it off till next year. I'll see the doc next week and see what he says.

I'm off to have my evil twin surgically removed today. It's otherwise known as a dermoid cyst.

"Dermoid cyst of the ovary: A bizarre tumor, usually benign, in the ovary that typically contains a diversity of tissues including hair, teeth, bone, thyroid, etc. " (MedicineNet.com)

So cool. I wonder if it looks like me. Hope they save it in a jar and I can use it to scare the children when the opportunity presents itself.

I will be glad to have today over with. I'm not worried but just anxious to have it done and finished. I think it's the skipping lunch bit which has me irritated the most. We can fly men to the moon but can't make an anesthetic which doesn't require one to be starving at the time of administration. Come ON, medical science, what's going on here??!!

I'll also be glad to stop all the worried looks on the faces of my family and all the questioning about my anxiety levels (which are generally fine until the questions start). For god's sake - this is a MINOR procedure people, get a grip! It's not that I don't appreciate the concern it's just that it freaks me out and I find it highly unnecessary.

Anyway, I'll be watching Big Brother Friday Night Live from the "comfort" of my over-priced private hospital bed tonight (it'd be cheaper to have the operation at the Grand Hyatt). Next time I write I'll be a few hundred grams lighter (am I taking this diet thing a bit too seriously, do you think?).

(I'm returning to finish this post on Friday morning, after starting it on Sunday afternoon - FYI)

The Swans won again this afternoon, against Brisbane. Oh, happy, happy, joy, joy! I hate the Brisbane Lions, well, let's rephrase that. I hate Jason Akermanis. He's a turd, whichever way you look at it. That stupid, stupid bleached blond hair and half-wit beard thingy, the smart-arse attitude. He just shits me - OK! To put the cherry on the already heavily iced cake he hit my beloved Jared Crouch in today's game. That's just not on Akers, you demented little toad.


He doesn't deserve a bigger picture.
He only deserves boos and hisses and
a good kick up the backside.


I spent the entire game yelling and pointing at the TV screen: "There, did you see that. I've always know he was a dick, but did you SEE THAT??!!"

I mean he really outdid himself today.

Friday update: There is talk Akers may be coming to Sydney next year. I won't stand for it! My membership money must count for something. I'm trying to keep my blood pressure down as sick rumours such as these do circulate once in a while and eventually prove to be fruitless. However I am prepared to march on Swans' headquarters with witty plackards and write stern letters if required.

Will's 7th birthday party has come and gone. There was bowling, there was mad giant slide/ball pitt/maze fun, there was disco dancing and there was sausage rolls, fairy bread, red cordial and cake. If that's not the definition of a perfect party, I don't know what is. Best of all there was no mess at home and only a minor dent in the credit card. Happy days!


The happy birthday boy
and his buddy, A.

"There's nothing I hate more than unintelligence..."
Jamie, Big Brother 06

Me too, Jamie. Me too!

However, that doesn't stop me from being totally addicted to the Big Brother experience. You couldn't find a television program with more unintelligence but I can't help myself. It's the best piece of turn-off, tune-out, get-into-a-zombie-like-trance-while-doing-the-obligatory-half-hour-on-the-walking-maachine television fluff there is.

I hate them all and yet I love them all. My BB feelings are totally illogical and inexplicable, the perfect love/hate relationship.

Mind you the Friday Night Live BB show is truly hilarious and makes me realise how funny it is to see people you don't care about fall over.

There must exist a parallel universe where people getting off planes get stopped by strange, tall women (who may or may not occassionally star on British police drama series) who insist on dragging their dirty laundry out of their suitcases, subjecting aforementioned laundry to further degredation by way of beetroot and then washing said laundry in some pink laundry detergent whose name can't be that memorable (because I still can't remember it). This parallel universe exists only in TV commercial land and its sole reason for existence is to drive me complete, absolutely friggin' bonkers. Everything about this ad drives me nuts. The ridiculous presenter woman in her ridiculous pink puffy jacket, her ridiculous smile, the smarmy way in which she smears beetroot (god help me if that was my laundry she was smearing she'd need a proctologist to remove that shitty pink puffy jacket!!!).

End of rant.

Update:

* CSIRO diet going well. We've both lost a couple of kgs and generally feel much better and more energetic, clothes are fitting better. Apart from a constant, overwhelming urge to stick my head in a bucket of deep fried something, anything, it's actually fairly easy.

* Friday night I went to see the comedian Dylan Moran (writer and star of Black Books) with my sister JB. I hadn't been a fan of Black Books (hadn't really seen it) but I heard him on the radio and JB loves the show and wanted to go... so there we were. He was excellent, very dark, very funny. We were upstairs at the State Theatre, which I normally love, but that night I felt very squashed in and uncomfortable. I kept trying to find a comfy position for my legs but it wasn't to be. Lately it seems so many shows are spoilt for me because of the environment (the Billy Connolly concert earlier this year, as an example). It's frustrating to pay big bucks to sit in cramped, crappy seating. Something should be done! I might start a "Better Seating for Concert Venues" Campaign.

* Saturday we ran around like headless chooks in the morning and finally headed over to mum's for my Grandmother's 94th birthday lunch. Poor old grandma doesn't know if she's coming or going and I fear the occasion caused more stress than enjoyment but at 94 I guess we need to make the best of these family times together, for how much longer could they go on for?!

* Saturday night we were off to a Colombian Family Dinner I had organised for our family adoption support group. I wasn't sure what to expect but it ended up being a chaotic but fun evening. The twenty kids were all going burko all night so the noise level in the tiny restaurant was at about 13. Don't you just love those ear-splitting shrieks that happy children tend to emit? The Colombian food was simple but wonderful and took us back to our Colombian trip. You have to love a food culture with so much emphasis on pork crackling - one of nature's wonder foods (just ask my thighs). They had also organised a Colombian dancing show which was fantastic, with all the guests (including Marianna on my lap) clapping along and having a ball.

* Sunday we awoke to the disappointment that the Swans' game I had attempted to tape the night before hadn't taped. Jason was manic. [I do love the Swans' but I hate footy season - it makes J even more nutty than usual and brings out his obsessive tendencies... and as I keep telling him there's only room for ONE person with obsessive tendencies in this relationship!] So as we were heading out on Sunday morning I attempted yet again to record the replay. It wasn't meant to be. For some reason we only managed to get the final quarter this time around. Luckily the Swans had a good win so J was in a good mood and all was forgiven.

* J's new nickname is "Princess". A funny nickname, you might think, for a 6'2" bear of a man with a red beard, but very suitable I think. The man who, when I first met him, owned one pair of work boots, one pair of very out of style "going out" shoes and one pair of worse-for-wear thongs (a crime against humanity right there, but that's another story), has gradually, over the years, become a regular clothes-horse. Not only is he constantly buying shoes and clothes (including five pairs of very nice, pricey shoes he bought in Colombia) but he gets fussier by the minute and his tastes are climbing higher and higher on the label and price ladder. This "personal development" was highlighted yesterday when J returned home from a trip to the movies with Will with a new winter jacket, a beautiful, cashmere coat, which apparently is just what he needs for that ride to work every morning. For the price I asked him if it came with it's own tiara but he was not amused... as royalty often aren't.