Wendyl Nissen

Recipes on www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz

2010-01-16T16:04:00.006+13:00

I'm having trouble keeping all my websites updated - anyone else have that problem? You can find all the latest recipes,information and my newsletter on www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz Once I work out how to link that with this, my blog will be a little more current - meanwhile apologies and please follow me on twitter, Facebook and the website.

Liquid Handwash Recipe

2010-01-01T12:34:00.005+13:00

Here's the liquid handwash recipe I mentioned on NewstalkZB this morning:

Easy liquid handwash.
This is one of my favourite and quickest recipes to make and while the mixture is a bit gluggy as it comes out of the dispenser the glycerine in it keeps your hands wonderful moisturised and they smell amazing.
250 ml boiling water
2 Tbsp grated Sunlight soap
2 tsp glycerine or glycerol (from the chemist or supermarket)
2 tsp rosewater (from the chemist of the specialty food stores)
Melt the grated soap in the boiling water and then stir in the glycerine and rosewater. Pour into the soap dispenser while still warm as it sets as a jelly.

On NewstalkZb this morning

2010-01-01T10:04:00.002+13:00

I'm on air sharing natural recipes for cleaning and beauty - also I've just put up my New Year's special on Trade Me - my 2 litre lavender laundry liquid and blueing powder to make your sheets whiter than white - both for just $16.00. Start the New Year, clean, green and no more chemicals.

How's this for a tub full of jersey bennes!

2009-12-30T10:53:00.002+13:00

How's this for an old recycling tub full of jersey benne potatoes! I just shoved them in before we went away in late October because I found them sprouting in the shed and when I went to harvest today I couldn't believe how many there are. I'm planning to have them for lunch sliced up with rosemary and garlic on a pizza. Yum!

If you've got any of these old bins lying around they make great planters as they are nice and deep for root growth and hold water well with good drainage.

Get planting today. I just refilled this one with some capsicum plants.

Thanks for your interest

2009-12-30T10:24:00.002+13:00

I just wanted to say how overwhelmed I am at the interest I'm getting for my Wendyls Green Goddess products on Trade Me. Thanks for your support everyone and for helping kickstart a new business. We're looking at going into retail soon on the strength of our sales and repeat orders.

Keep any eye on my website www.wendylsgreengoddess.co.nz for weekly newsletter updates and links to my columns. Also any news about my world. The newsletters will resume at the end of January but there are a few there to read meanwhile.

Have a great New Year's and a good start to 2010.

Wx

Launch of Wendyl's Green Goddess range.

2009-09-11T09:08:00.003+12:00

Very excited because today we launch Wendyl's Green Goddess range of natural cleaners at the Home Show. We've been making these products in the kitchen for the past week, my son Daniel designed the labels, daughters Hannah and Pearl helped stick them on and husband Paul and I spent hours stirring, sifting, pouring and bottling. A great sense of achievement and feedback so far has been amazing.

The difference between my cleaners and commercial ones is I say what is in them. As in soap, water, essential oils rather than the mumbo jumbo they put on their labels under terms like surfectants, humectants and non ionic this and that. Even the eco labels are doing it. I particularly like one range which says it is 99% natural. What's in the other one percent? Cyanide? Arsenic?

Wendyl's Green Goddess cleaners contain things like baking soda, washing soda, borax, essential oils, soap. All natural, all clearly on the label and all smell delicious. I'm particularly proud of the anti-bacterial spray which smells amazing.

Here's a sneak peak at the range -

Spray cleaner 1 litre

+ contains anti-bacterial, antiseptic and anti-viral oils

+ leaves kitchen and bathroom surfaces clean and refreshed

+ spray on kitchen cloths to clean and deodorise

Glass cleaner 1 litre

+ leaves glass and mirrors sparkling

+ easily removes soap build-up

+ pleasant natural fragrance

Anti-bacterial spray 250ml

+ contains anti-bacterial, anti-viral and antiseptic essential oils

+ nature’s ingredients, safe to use around children and pets

+pleasant natural fragrance

Lavender Laundry liquid 4 litres

*32 washes

+ no more white soap residue on black laundry items

+ leaves clothes soft and scented

+ green, natural product - no pollutants going down the drain

Bluing powder 500ml

*50 washes

+ Removes unsightly grey and yellow tinge from whites

+ All natural ingredients

All products come with no-questions-asked, money-back guarantee

Orders and enquiries: greengoddessnz@gmail.com
phone: 027 652 9800

Let's talk traffic jams with a hybrid.

2009-09-03T08:27:00.001+12:00

So I'm a bit amazed at how many people don't actually know how a hybrid works. It's easy. There's an engine and it's powered by petrol - just like a normal car - but also by battery as in electric car. And the Prius swaps between the two as it needs to depending on your needs as a drive. So, put the foot down and it's petrol, coast along and it's electric. You can actually push the EV button and make it drive totally on electric power but you can't go over 40km or do any mad acceleration. So...sitting in two traffic jams recently I smugly switched to EV and sat there not using any gas, not emitting much CO2 if any and feeling less frustrated at the wastage of it all.
I'm also averaging about 5 litres per 100km consumption around town which is pretty good and will fill up the tank for the first time since I got the car two weeks ago today.
Bloody marvelous!
Off to the caravan on Friday so the big test will be in consumption and performance on the open road...will report back.

Prius - the Man Magnet

2009-08-25T17:37:00.001+12:00

Incredibly girl-like observation number two since getting the Prius is that men stare at me. All the time. I began to think my new diet must really be having results until my husband pointed out that they're looking at the car...not me. I realised he was right when I came out of the supermarket and found three guys huddled around it muttering words like "hybrid" and "electric." I took great pleasure in demonstrating my no key unlocking technique, and I was right about that, men really do prefer keys.
We took the Prius for a Sunday afternoon drive today, like everyone used to do in the old days, except we skipped the bit where you visit old people for endless cups of tea. Pearl was already looking dismayed enough at the prospect of a drive. So we headed for Miranda taking the long route through Clevedon so that we could stop at the market. Unfortunately the oyster shop wasn't open but we did have fantastic fish and chips at Kaiaua. We left Pearl in the car and she said the group of guys over the fence were talking about the car, just like the ones at the supermarket. The Prius drove beautifully although the Sat Nav woman, who I'm beginning to dislike because she's very British and quite bossy, gave us a few wrong turns, but I think that may have had something to do with my destination inputting technique. We opened up the sun roof and let the fresh air in rather than use the air con, and the long drive was a great chance to see how my eco driving skills are developing. I managed to keep the graph on the dash mostly on the eco side, but it was pointed out to me that I was driving like a Grandma. There's definitely less foot to the floor and more gradual pedal pushing. But I like it!Who needs to hurry on a Sunday. Tell that to the cars backed up behind us, said my husband.
Forgot the camera, so thanks to R Abraham on the net for the shot.

Dear Diary - My First Day With My Prius Hybrid

2009-08-21T13:14:00.003+12:00

It's official. I am now an Ambassador for the Toyota Prius which means I get to drive a brand new Generation 3 Prius around and tell people how fabulous it is. At left is Giltrip City Toyota GM Graham McMullan handing over the keys. What a lovely, trusting man.

So here is day one of my diary as I discover the joys of hybrid ownership, and maybe help people understand what they are about.

First up, embarrassing as it is to admit, I'm a girl. So despite the fact that the two best features of my Prius are:
- 3.9l/100km. That's a lot of kms for $6
-89gm/km CO2 emissions compared to 162gm/km for the equivalent sized car, I have spent most of the day getting off on the fact that never again will I have to fumble in the bottom of my handbag for my keys while my hands are loaded down with shopping. You just sidle up, stroke the handle and it opens. Likewise locking it. Of course men are more likely to want to have an actual key and penetration thing happening but I love it. Hosking on ZB this morning posed the possibility that I might lock the keys inside should I leave my handbag in there, but I realised (too late to say it on the radio) that with the handbag and keys inside I can still stroke and open because the keys are still in range. Duh.

I'm also driving quite slowly because the way the hybrid works is that it constantly switches from the petrol engine to the battery powered electric engine and there's a gauge which tells you when you are driving to the maximum eco conditions. So naturally I'm crawling all over town trying to keep it in that range.

Tomorrow - some serious parking practice. Get this...it parks the car for you. Hands off the steering wheel and let it squeeze into the spot for you. Can you believe it!

Domestic Goddess on a Budget now on Trade Me

2009-08-02T08:57:00.002+12:00

Can't find it in the shops? I'm pushing for a reprint but not forthcoming, but I have some copies available on Trade Me

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Books/Nonfiction/Home-Garden/Other/auction-233232530.htm

I also have a SPECIAL OFFER! Buy Domestic Goddess on a Budget and get Bitch and Famous for $5.

http://www.trademe.co.nz/Books/Nonfiction/Home-Garden/Other/auction-233703797.htm

Great presents -buy now for Christmas!

Recipe for natural spray and wipe.

2009-07-17T08:54:00.002+12:00

If you haven't bought Domestic Goddess on a Budget yet, here's a reason why you should. Make this cleaner and you'll never go back.

Nearly fill a 1 litre spray bottle with water. Add 1 tsp baking soda, a few drops of liquid dishwashing soap (preferably eco friendly but Sunlight will do) and 10 drops of lavender or tea-tree essential oil. Shake together and away you go.

Save money, save the planet and still be gorgeous!

Girls' weekend hit

2009-07-02T16:25:00.001+12:00

"Hi I purchased the book 'Domestic Goddess on a Budget' and took it away on a girl weekend to Mokau. Now those girls have purchased it. It's wonderfully written and I love how you have written it as if you are speaking directly to me."

Thanks to Stephanie who sent me this message via Trade Me.

Domestic Goddess still on bestsellers

2009-06-27T10:31:00.002+12:00

Still on the non-fiction bestsellers top 10 after three weeks which is encouraging. I'm going to be doing some library events around town soon, so will keep you posted on those.

Reviews are coming in and all positive so far:

This from Margie Thomson in Next magazine:

"Absolutely brilliant, this handy little book will become a shouehold bible for beautifying your house and person in the greenest possible way."

Off to a novel writers' workshop next week to give me the confidence to do a first edit on the novel.

Domestic Goddess on a Budget at number 5 on bestsellers after only 5 days on sale!

2009-06-15T13:12:00.002+12:00

Thanks to everyone who is rushing out to buy Domestic Goddess on a Budget. The good news is that it went on sale on June 1 and when they counted the figures on June 6 it was already at number 5 on the non-fiction bestsellers list. I am really pleased

Have a look at the interview I did with Oliver and Carly on Sunrise if you want to know more about the book:

http://www.3news.co.nz/News/HealthNews/How-to-be-a-domestic-goddess/tabid/420/articleID/107623/cat/58/Default.aspx

Meanwhile the novel is back in the top drawer while I address some character issues. Will probably take another look at it after a 5 day workshop on novel writing I have signed up for.

One book on shelves, another one delivered.

2009-05-29T08:55:00.003+12:00

Domestic Goddess on a Budget hits the shelves this weekend, while I tackle my publisher's suggestions for my novel. It is very weird to have a book about cleaning recipes and life management out while I wrestle with my dark thriller. I've been very grumpy that the publisher didn't just accept it as is and requires changes, which just goes to show how naive I am about the novel writing process. Apparently this is what you do and my friend and successful novelist Nicky Pellegrino is helping me through it. I have also signed up for a novel writing workshop.

Anyway, Domestic Goddess on a Budget is only $25 and if you make all the cleaning recipes in it you will save about $35 a month so it will pay for itself! I'm also interested in any recipes anyone might have tucked away which I will post here and then put in the next edition if there is one. Reviews so far: my friend Jeremy Wells said he liked the relationship advice and the ZB newsroom like the lavender spray cleaner I delivered up there yesterday. Make it yourself by filling a 1 litre spray bottle with warm water, add 1 tsp baking soda, a few drops of dishwashing detergent and 10 drops of lavender essential oil.

New book Domestic Goddess on a Budget is out in June.

2009-03-09T08:26:00.003+13:00

Thanks to everyone who has been buying Bitch and Famous my memoir of my time editing women's magazines and wrangling celebrities on Trade Me - and don't forget $1 from each sale goes to fund Cot Death Research. You can also send me a cheque for $16.50 ($15 plus postage) to Wendyl Nissen, P.O. Box 78361, Grey Lynn, Auckland 1245 - with your name and address, who you want me to sign it to and I'll post you one out.

The good news is my next book Domestic Goddess on a Budget, published by Penguin is out in June. It's a response to all the NZ Woman's Weekly readers and April in the Afternoon viewers who asked me to put all my natural cleaning recipes and work/life balance advice into a book. It has ended up as a guide to cleaning your house with baking soda and vinegar, saving money, being green, living a sustainable life and taking control of the chaos in your life. Look out for it in bookshops for $25 and I'll be selling some on Trade Me as well.

I hope you enjoy it.

Just a reminder for anyone looking for my Herald on Sunday columns you can now read them online at www.nzherald.co.nz.

Plenty left

2008-12-04T10:54:00.003+13:00

Thanks Barbara for your comment. I have plenty of books left and am doing a roaring trade through Trade Me. A lot of women are buying it for themselves or a friend for Christmas, and many have commented that they couldn't find it in bookshops. And I'm getting a lot of lovely comments and feedback which makes me glad I put it up for sale in the first place.

Bitch and Famous special Christmas offer

2008-10-23T17:15:00.005+13:00

Good news. I can now offer some copies of my book Bitch and Famous at a special reduced price of only $15.00. You can get them on www.trademe.co.nz by searching Bitch and Famous or see other payment methods below. This is a significant saving as it retailed for $37.00 so if you haven't got around to buying it now is the time as I don't have many left. Perhaps there is a woman in your life who needs some work/life balance and would relate to my story or is interested in what goes on behind the scenes in the women's mags? It would make a great Christmas present for Mum, Grandma, your sister or girlfriend. Or maybe your book club would like to read it and you can take advantage of my special bulk offer which is $100 for 10 books. A bargain.

I'll also sign each copy and dedicate it to you or someone special.

Here's what the back cover says:

For more than 25 years, Wendyl Nissen has been at the front of the media pack, first as an eager young journalist, then as the influential editor of a string of high-profile women's magazines, a television producer and writer, and as a popular radio commetnator and columnist.

Throughout her career, she has crossed paths and swords with local and international celebrities. Now, she reveals the tricks of her trade, from espionage and arm-twisting to the creation of instant celebs and the truth about who gets paid how much in ‘cheque-book journalism’.But Bitch & Famous is not just about the glossy world of magazines and TV. Nissen also shares the personal challenges and heartaches she has faced throughout her turbulent career. She writes about her relationships and marriages, the demands of juggling motherhood with driving ambition and the despair of losing her baby daughter to cot death in 1992.In this raw, clever and funny memoir, Wendyl Nissen lifts the lid on the New Zealand magazine and TV industries, and lets us look into the life of a woman whose trademark no-nonsense approach has made her many friends – and enemies – along the way.

Go here for a TV interview about the book:

http://tvnz.co.nz/view/video_popup_windows_skin/1478886

Here's what the reviewers said about Bitch and Famous:

I have to say I really genuinely loved this book and I really didn’t expect to. I expected to gag at her bitchiness and shallowness and be irritated by an endless parade of pseudo macho conflict driven encounters by people who are famous only for being famous. There’s a bit of all that but Wendyl’s writing is so good and her personal insights so raw and honest that one simply can’t help responding to her as a human and not just the bitch of the title. Wendyl is best known as the editor of mega selling women’s magazines especially Woman’s Day right at the time when chequebook journalism came to town. So while this is very much Wendyl’s own story the loss of her child through cot death, her breakdowns, her husbands, her friendships it’s also the story of her industry - the media. She offers real insights into the daily life of magazine editors and journalists, their pre-occupations and the lengths that must be gone to, to secure stories. There are tonnes of famous people scattered through these pages. She seems to know or have known or no longer be speaking to many of our household names. Paul Holmes, Susan Wood,Lorraine and Aaron Cohen and many others. And she tells great stories about them, sometimes bitchy but often just sharply insightful and very fond. Often crass, always outspoken she is a woman of outrageous cheek and unusual sensibility and intelligence. I strongly recommend picking up a copy of Bitch and Famous.

Review by Margie Thomson, Easymix radio.

I bet there are a few A List celebs who’ve been trembling in their imported Italian shoes, wondering how they’ll fare in Wendyl Nissen’s expose of life behind the covers of the glossy magazines we see on our newsstands every week. Nissen is the ne plus ultra of magazine editors - at varying times, she’s been the brains behind Women’s Day and the New Zealand Women’s Weekly and during the eighties she was part of the process of creating celebs in this small town. Pre 1985, television presenters were heard not seen and it was considered a sign of poor story telling if you had to stick your face in front of the camera. By the end of the 1990s New Zealand’s small screen stars were commanding big bucks for selling their marriages and babies to the women’s mags and more often than not, it was Nissen who got the juiciest plums. This is an unflinching look at life at the top of the magazine publishing industry in New Zealand, and the people who help shift the mags. Nissen doesn’t pull her punches and the language would make a wharfie blush. Not only does the f word feature prominently, the c word even made it past the editors! But that’s Wendyl - colourful, strong, opinionated, brutally honest - especially about herself - and always fair. At times, the books a little confusing as Nissen doesn’t recount her life chronologically - but really, that’s not too much of a distraction as the book reads like a conversation with a particularly fabulous friend over lunch. And by the end of the book, you’ll be hoping to be one of the people on Wendyl’s lunch date list.

Review by Kerre Woodham, Paperplus.

All you have to do is send a cheque for $15 plus $2.50 postage to:

W Nissen

P.O. Box 78361,

Grey Lynn,

Auckland 2045.

Be sure to include your postal address, and the name of the person you would like me to dedicate it to.

If you'd like to pay by internet email me at wendyl.nissen@gmail.com for bank account details.

Retro Food May 4

2008-05-04T09:17:00.000+12:00

There’s nothing like a good old-fashioned panic about the price of food. The spectre of having to pay more for basics like bread and cheese can cause one to come over all retro and make like we are still in the middle of both World Wars and the Depression. Saving the roast fat for lard to use on bread instead of butter, plugging holes in shoes with newspaper, or taking a leaf out of Muriel Newman’s book of a few years ago which suggested making raincoats out of plastic bags.
Well maybe things aren’t quite that bad yet, but it’s an easy button to push. The announcement by the NZ Herald that we are paying 28% more for food would have sent a chill down most family hallways until we realised their exhaustive investigative team paid $5 for a bunch of broccoli. Shop around, Herald, shop around.
The only shortage I’ve ever faced was car less days in the 70s; and once I couldn’t find any kibbled wheat for my home made bread for months. So adjusting to not being able to get what I want when I want it, or having to pay more for it will be a toughie.
Which is when I rediscovered the Aunt Daisy Cookbook, given to us by friends and the edition my mother cooked from all my life.
“This,” I said holding it up for my family to witness, “will see us through the toughest of times.”
“Mmm,” they mumbled in unison. Which is what they do when I say things like: “Spiders are nature’s fly killers, we should learn to live with their cobwebs” as I gaze lovingly at the ceiling or “If we get three laying hens they’ll lay one egg each a day, that’s a total of 21 a week!” as I gaze adoringly at the back garden.
I eagerly read through the pages of Aunt Daisy putting Post It notes on all the recipes I remembered from my childhood, and that night in a rarely seen fit of penny pinching, decided that the few scraps of left over roast lamb were going into Aunt Daisy’s curry sauce. The one my dad used to make.
As he sipped his pinot gris (we’re not quite at cask wine yet) my husband tried to hide his astonishment at what I was throwing in the pot. This is a woman who prides herself on making her own curry powder by enthusiastically pounding various spices and seeds in her mortar and pestle, throws in curry leaves from her curry leaf tree and wouldn’t dream of making anything without her home-made chicken stock. Instead I was throwing in store bought curry powder, chutney, vinegar, cornflour, sultanas, sugar and plain old water.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” I muttered. “Not even a can of coconut cream,” I twittered as I chopped up bananas and rolled them in desiccated coconut for the accompaniment. And then we sat down. We tasted. We looked at each other long and hard.
“Delicious, just like my Mum used to make,” he glowed.
“It’s very good isn’t it?”
And so the retro food revival took off. Chicken Hawaiian anyone? Hokey Pokey biscuits? Or how about a nice Salmon (tinned) loaf with Cheese Sauce?
Slowly but surely, the cooking of my parents started to come back to me, as did the strict budgeting my mother used to do, inherited from her own parents. Now I visit the supermarket every morning, when the meat is on special. My freezer is chock full of gravy beef, corned beef and something called a lamb flap which I plan to thaw and investigate at a later date, when the world food shortage has really kicked in. There’s also a particularly attractive pig knuckle which I wrestled off another woman, simply because I spotted it first.
And if the freezer wasn’t so full already I’d be investigating a frozen side of mutton and bagging it up like my Mum used to do.
Next I’m planning to camp outside Foodtown and collect signatures for a petition supporting the removal of GST on fresh food items, like they do in Australia. And when Don Brash mutters to me about compliance costs I’ll answer: “I’ve got two words for you Don ‘computers’ and ‘coding.’”
I’m not sure if we’ve actually saved any money by going retro, but I do know that living like they used to in the old days isn’t a bad way to be. Bring on the car less days.

Grooming April 27

2008-04-27T11:11:00.000+12:00

Every woman has one moment in her life when she rates herself a 10 out of 10. Usually it’s at her wedding, when months of planning and hours of grooming have gone into the perfect image. For me it was neither wedding. It was the other day when I got out of my car at the Foodtown carpark having been shooting for TV all day. I had spent several hours in front of the camera filming some chat segments for April in the Afternoon on the Living Channel and I don’t mind telling you things were looking pretty good. Full make-up, straight hair, silk shirt care of top designer Claire Kingan Jones. As I strolled through the automatic doors I caught a glimpse of myself and thought: “Wow, where did that old chick with the frizzy hair go?”
As did the check-out operator who refused to engage in our usual daily banter, obviously not recognising the TV me. “Takes some getting used to, I guess,” was all I thought as I strolled confidently out into the carpark.
“Maybe one day someone will actually check me out after these shoots,” I wondered as I walked to my car. Even the most married of women appreciates the odd glance of interest. It had been years since anyone had looked at me for more that the standard perusal but I remember it being quite reinforcing the last time it happened, when I was 21.
And then it all went horribly wrong. As I unloaded my shopping I noticed a man sitting in the car next to me chugging a can of beer. He was old, bald, overweight, drunk and to top it all off had a unique growth obviously enjoying its stay on his cheek.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he yelled out his car window. “Wanna root?” At me. The one standing gob smacked in front of him, fixed to the spot in horror.
Great. I was looking the best I could for a 45-year-old woman, thanks to the ministrations of many. And the best I could do was an old, drunk Petri dish.
As I gathered my glamorous self up and carried her off, before my admirer worked out how to put two fingers in his mouth and wolf whistle, I heard a shriek from behind me.
“What the f…do you think you’re doing chatting up that old cow,” yelled a woman who was everything evolution’s little mistake was, minus the cheek growth.
“Wouldn’t you like to know you fat slut,” came his spirited reply.
She held up traffic at this point, hands on hips glaring at me, then him, then me again like John Wayne having a show down in the middle of a bad Western.
And there I was, the centre of a domestic incident in my local Foodtown carpark and I wasn’t sure which event was more offensive. The screaming drunks or the fact that I had just been described as an “old cow.” But there was no denying that in an instant I had become the other woman in a ménage a trios of bad genes, alcohol poisoning and a facial growth from outer space.
Which is when I craved the anonymity of bad grooming. It would seem that “looking your best”, as my mother used to say, comes with the dire consequences of an open invitation to be noticed. The old me wouldn’t have raised a glimmer of notice let alone hope from fungus face as I shuffled past beneath my hair.
Grooming also demands a high price. The necessity of having blow-dried and straightened hair, manicured and painted nails and make-up on most of the time has added an extra two hours to my day. Just to be able to face the cameras. I realise that for many people who aren’t on the TV being that groomed is a normal event. But for me it is a terrible effort.
And then there is the pressure of the show itself. The day I found myself looking down a camera and recommending a quick shot of hairspray to the buttocks to prevent undies giving you a wedgy my 25-year journalism career flashed before my eyes and glared at me with abject horror. The spirits of my mentors circled, laughing uproariously at what had become of me. The ghosts continued to follow me home cackling with glee from beyond the grave. I think it was the late Neil Roberts I heard saying “Stick to print.”

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Make It Stop April 20

2008-04-20T11:10:00.000+12:00

“Make it stop!” I screamed down the line to my friend Kerre, the one who sits on top of me in this newspaper every Sunday. The one you’ve probably just read before having a quick look at this.
“I keep running in the rain,” I moaned. “And it’s not just rain, it’s thunder and lightening and wind and there I am running in it, all wet and steamy.” I grumbled. “ And my hair keeps going frizzy.”
It all started when I read her book “Short Fat Chick to Marathon Runner” and exactly one hour later went for a run having first photocopied and pinned to my office wall “Appendix 1 – a marathon training programme for beginners.”
“You’ve planted a subliminal message in there somewhere, you’ve been watching too much Derren Brown, it’s something to do with neurolinguistic programming, like the politicians do to make the masses obey,” I muttered.
Finally Kerre could get a word in, a most unusual situation for her to be in.
“But doesn’t it feel great?”“Not really.”
My husband initially greeted the news that I was “training for a marathon” with enthusiasm. I think most husbands would as they visualise their 45-year-old wife morphing into something lithe, long and sinewy. Until I returned 10 minutes later.
“What’s wrong? Too difficult?” he inquired sympathetically.
“No it’s Monday, walk 5, run 5,” I snapped as I headed off to the couch to lie down for an hour in recovery mode.
I reported him to Kerre.
“Noted,’ she replied.
I take the dog with me. She came once around the park and then sat on the top field and waited for me to complete the second lap. I’ve never seen a black lab give an enthusiastic thumbs up of support but that’s what Shirl did as she sat on her haunches gazing at my disappearing arse. Which isn’t fair. In dog years Shirl and I are the same age, surely she could make more of an effort.
“She has dodgy hips and she doesn’t want to lose weight,” replied my husband. “She’s perfect as she is, aren’t you my sweetie, weety,” he gurgled at Shirl as she rolled on her back and kicked her legs in the air.
“It’ll be a while before you get me to do that,” I thought to myself as I stumbled to the shower wondering when the dog started getting more attention than I did.
I gave the book to my 19-year-old daughter who runs already and suggested we could team up. She hasn’t said a word to me, but I know she read the book because I heard her telling a friend how funny it was, especially the bit about Kerre saying she looked like a white rhino that had just been shot in the arse by hunters after her first half marathon. Which is fine, didn’t want to run with anyone anyway, I much prefer having some “me” time being the very busy woman I am.
My youngest daughter arrived home from school and gave me “the look.” It’s the one she gives when I have decided it might be nice to wear a bright floral dress for a change and present myself looking like a flowerpot. Or when I’m getting dressed and she asks if I deliberately buy my undies too big or do I like them that baggy? Don’t worry, missy, I think to myself, one day someone will say that to you and all you will think is “I must be losing weight.” Or in this case when she looks at me in my Grey Lynn School T shirt and leggings, my frizzy hair bursting out from the hair tie and says “Mum, did you forget to get dressed again?”Once, a long time ago, she got home from school and I was still in my nightie and slippers. Big deadline to meet, lots of writing, didn’t have time. Only two of that day’s couriers looked at me strangely.
Then Kerre rang and suggested we run together some time.
“Oh I can’t talk and run,” I protested. “Actually, Kerre, I think I might not run a marathon, I just want to run,” I pleaded.
“Good girl,” she replied.
“Didn’t last long,” added my husband.
“I am not bloody Kerre Woodham,” I said for the second time that week, having told her producer exactly the same thing when I filled in for her on her Sunday morning radio show.
But I’m still running in the rain.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Apology

2008-04-15T10:58:00.001+12:00

Hello everyone. Sorry I haven't posted in ages - been away, been writing, been busy. Will do a catch up in the next few days.

Wendyl.

Dancing Queen April 13

2008-04-13T11:08:00.000+12:00

Not so long ago former Knight Rider David Hasselhoff’s kids filmed him one night when he was horribly drunk, sprawled on the floor attempting to shove a hamburger in his mouth. The intention was to show him just how disgusting he was when he was drunk, but it eventually ended up on the net, showing the world just how disgusting he was when he was drunk.
My biggest fear is that someone will do that to me. Not when I’m on the floor smearing my face with tomato sauce because to my knowledge I’ve never done that, chocolate maybe, but not tomato sauce. I’m petrified that someone will film me when I’m drunk dancing. And every woman reading this knows exactly what I'm talking about. That shameful moment when you morph into the Dancing Queen, a rare undiscovered talent, lithe, graceful and full or artistry and decide that everyone should be lucky enough to see you in full flight thanks to a few too many vodkas.
I’ve always loved to dance, and can often be found doing it in the kitchen at home, or perhaps in quiet moments when I think no one is around and it’s been so long since David Bowie and I spent some time together.
But social dancing is a sport rarely indulged in unless you have had a few too many. We’ve all been at occasions when people have stared miserably at an empty dance floor while the band enthusiastically plays on hoping just one drunk woman will get up and start the dancing. Because it’s always the drunk woman. No sober person would see the logic of leaping up in front of people you know and start waving your arms around, thrusting your hips about and shaking your head wildly from side to side. But oh the joy of it all. The release as the music enters your body, the deep and secure knowledge that you look fantastic out there hitting every beat right on target.
“She must have done ballet as a child,” you hear the awed crowd whisper as they watch you execute a perfect pirouette.
“I haven’t seen anyone do that move since the 70s,” whispers another admirer as you shake your head backwards and forwards, hair wildly streaming all over your face.
“So creative,” says someone else as your arms weave and undulate over your head forming an imaginary tree complete with sparkly fingers.
You try to share the joy with your partner by occasionally indulging in the “you copy me I’ll copy you” dance routine where you both wave your arms in roughly the same way, in almost the same direction and finish with a triumphant twirl. But really you are lost in your own world of dance. A sublime place where you swirl and thrust, shape the air with your hands into tiny bubbles of perfection and choreograph your way into dance dreamland.
You close your eyes, all the better to be at one with the music and open them just for a second to see that the dancers have moved away to give you more room for your high kick, just like in the movies where two dancers wow the rest into submission and the camera moves in for the close up. You check to see that your partner is still enthusiastically keeping up with you and then you realise that your partner has been replaced by your husband who isn’t dancing, is holding your handbag and has that smile on his face which says: “Time to go home darling.”
“But I’m having such a gorgeous time, Nick is such a great dancer isn’t he? God this band is terrific. All the old hits eh!”
“I think you may have exhausted Nick, darling, he collapsed in the corner 10 minutes ago.”“Oh dear, well you’ll have to do, come on just one more dance, I just love Prince,” you shout before singing loudly “Purple Rain, Pu-urple Rain.”
He’s been here before my husband. Thank God. And half an hour later I’m at home, staring at my sweat laden lank hair in the mirror, the smudged mascara, the wet armpits staining my new silk dress and wondering if the damage done by my high heels to my arches will render me a cripple for the rest of my life.
“I had such a nice time,” I snuffle as I drift off to sleep.
“I know darling and so did the 50 people you scared off the dance floor.”

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Reformation April 6

2008-04-06T11:03:00.001+12:00

Reformation 06

It was Duran Duran that did it. “Are you going to Duran Duran?” someone asked with unrestrained excitement in their voice. “Such an iconic 80s band!”
And that was it. I threw my head back and howled. About how not iconic Duran Duran is. How they were an extremely light weight bunch of gits who put out ridiculous pop songs and spent far too much time putting highlights in their hair and poncing around in white linen suits to even make a dent in musical history. Has everyone forgotten this fact?
Apparently. Next someone will be telling me that Queen were such a great 80s band with that fabulous hit Fat Bottomed Girls, or that The Police were hot with that song Roxanne which young men insisted on singing falsetto ad nauseum and WHAM deserve a place in rock and roll history for Wake Me Up Before You Go Go.
These bands are not iconic, nor were they cool. Stop making my 80s memories angry.
Everyone has an era that is precious to them. A few years where you were young, wild, free and finally understanding what life was all about. And for most of us it was when we were in our early 20s before kids, travel and mortgages intruded on our reckless hedonism.
For me it was 1980 to 1985 when I went to Jazzercise class three times a week, had a great job, great flat, great boyfriend and loved my music. Which wasn’t Duran Duran. It was The Clash, the Cure, Violent Femmes, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Prince, the Eurythmics and the B52s to name a few. For post punk 20-year-olds the pop song was dead and would never be revived if we had our way.
Until now. I have no objection to a bunch of middle-aged people wishing to relive the 80s in their search for music they can relate to. I accept that since the 80s there hasn’t been a lot of great music made, although I actually prefer the stuff the 70s produced and spend far too much time listening to Van Morrison than is healthy.
But in their haste to relive the 80s do they have to only remember the stuff that floated to the top. The Duran Duran flotsam and jetsam. Perhaps the problem lies in the fact that these very people who turn up enthusiastically and pay out their hundred bucks for tickets were dorks in the 80s and still are. So you can’t really blame Duran Duran for meeting the demand. I’m sure 20 years ago they were quite happy to slink off to their country estates and hope the world quickly forgot the pop crap they had created. But what person approaching 50 and staring down the tunnel of life at the dim flame of retirement, would turn down a bit of cash to squeeze into some tight pants and hum a few tunes or bash a drum or two.?
And what fickle people make up their audience. How conveniently they forget that many of these bands broke up because they could no longer stand the sight of each other and swore they’d never play again. One can only wonder at the superior vision the fast talking promoter created as he convinced them all to have another go. The grim determination on the face of the drummer who hasn’t earned one cent of song writing royalties in the last two decades, squaring up to the lead singer who has, and what’s more is still with the model the two fought over when the band broke up. And so there they are, non iconic 80s bands parroting the terrible songs and struggling to remember words which their fans know off by heart.
The other reason these bands get back together is because that solo career just didn’t quite work out did it Sting with the release of your album of 16th century lute songs? I wonder how many people who rocked out to The Police concerts in January listened to that little gem.
It is true that some of my 80s iconic bands have reformed and I have simply chosen not to see them. The Cure’s Robert Smith used to be hot. He’s not now according to one reviewer who described him as looking “dead and bloated.” He’s old and fat, just like me. I don’t want to make my 80s memories angry.
So next time someone suggests I pay good money to see a crap supposedly iconic 80s band, I’ll simply reply that they belong where my Jazzercise high kick belongs…with my angry 80s memories.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

The Sound of Silence March 30

2008-03-30T11:01:00.002+13:00

I’ve often wondered what it would be like to live the life of a nun and take a vow of silence. For a chatty girl like myself with a penchant for very non nun activities, I’ve often looked over that grassy knoll and wondered if it is in fact greener in the nun’s world.
Then I found myself in Venice experiencing it for myself. Sister Wendyl arrived full of glee and excitement at the prospect of spending two weeks on her own, finishing that difficult first novel and within one hour realised that for the next 336 hours I would have no one to talk to, no one to drink with, no one would hug me and on top of it all I was determined to stay on my self imposed dietary restrictions which limited the intake of pasta, buffalo mozzarella and proscuitto, which some may argue is the only reason to go to Italy.
“Oh God, what have I done?” I muttered to myself as I gazed out of the window at the San Trovaso bell tower. “How will I ever get through two weeks of this?” I challenged myself as I peered miserably at the gently lapping canal which was enjoying an unusually high tide. “That’s it, I’m going home, this was all a huge mistake, I am obviously a complete nutter,” I thought to myself, having realised that there was no point in talking out loud anymore as I could hear myself perfectly clearly in my head.
My problem is that I have never been on my own. The single life, just me, hanging out and enjoying my own company. From the age of 18 I have been in serious relationships with the longest time in between men being a massive three weeks which was spent in such a haze of alcohol and “good times” I have only a very dim memory of it, which is probably a blessing. And from the age of 24 I have always had children around, who are great providers of hugs and silly conversations when the man of the house is away, distracted or getting the silent treatment.
My husband pointed out that this lack of single time may turn out to present a few problems in Venice. He has always thrown his single time out there as some of the best years of his life. I’ve never been sure what part of working two jobs, doing the ironing on Sunday nights, going to the gym and learning to cook casseroles out of recipe books amounted to the best fun a man can have. When I met him he used to put a list of the meals he was going to cook every night of the week up on the fridge, every Sunday after the ironing. I told him that my lack of single time has never presented itself as a problem before and I doubted that wearing crisp white shirts or making lists and putting them on fridges was a skill that a person really needed to survive on their own. But I did accept that I was rather unusual, and my relationship addiction is something I will deal with one day when I have to. Maybe when he’s dead, if not before.
So when I entered my Venice nunnery I had none of the skills necessary to survive. As the power of speech left me completely and I simply conversed with myself through my brain, I hit on it. Routine. It works for small babies, it works for troubled children, and surely it would work for Sister Wendyl.
And there I was sticking a list on the fridge which gave me regular times to write, times to go for walks, and times to have meals.
I felt much better and then totally ignored it. I started smoking. Then I drank whisky, which was neatly slotted into the 2pm to 6pm writing book slot, and I conveniently lost my appetite. It seems that Sister Wendyl only likes cooking for and eating with, other people.
And then one day, when my mouth’s only exercise for 14 days had been inhaling smoke and swilling Johnny Walker, I finished the book.
“Well done you,” were the first words I spoke in weeks, feeling that they deserved to be formed and spoken out loud, rather than reduced to a thought process.
Finishing the book was great, but what I really meant was “well done you” for learning to be on my own.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Bitch March 23

2008-03-23T11:00:00.000+13:00

Bitch
Being called a bitch has never worried me. Which must be really frustrating for the person hurling the insult. Ramping it up one level to the “c” word might be overdoing it, so instead they laterally think all the way over to “mentally ill.” I don’t mind being called mentally ill either, some of my favourite people are certifiable.
When my book Bitch and Famous was published the first question journalists asked was: “Why would you willingly refer to yourself as a bitch?”And the answer is simple. Because I am one and I’m proud of it. I was quite shocked to hear that people in 2008 still regard bitch as a bad word. Surely we have reached a point in our emancipation where we can claim it and own the power of it without feeling it brands us as an undesirable.
Over in the States there’s a magazine for people like me. BITCH magazine says:
“When it's being used as an insult, "bitch" is an epithet hurled at women who speak their minds, who have opinions and don't shy away from expressing them, and who don't sit by and smile uncomfortably if they're bothered or offended. If being an outspoken woman means being a bitch, we'll take that as a compliment, thanks.”
My favourite T shirt at the moment is one bought for me by a friend in a vintage shop which is bright purple and says: “WARNING: I go from zero to bitch in 4.3 seconds.”
Most women who own the bitch inside them found her one day while they were trying to get noticed. In my case it was the shoulder padded, briefcase clad 80s and 90s where women learned very quickly that if you acted like a man, strutted like a man and swore like one, people took you seriously. Whole careers were carved by women f-ing and blinding, yelling and barking, strutting and posturing. But as Bette Davis said: "When a man gives his opinion, he's a man; when a woman gives her opinion, she's a bitch."
Today my bitch has been tamed somewhat, and is only let out on special occasions for protection or simply to impress someone. She’s a great one trick pony my bitch. But she has left me with the social handicap that men will never hit on me. I must be the only 45-year-old pick-up line virgin. Not for me the “Quick call heaven, I heard they’d lost an angel and I’ve just found her” or even the more simplistic “Wanna root?” Instead men tend to hang around me for so long that in the end I simply say: “Did you want something?” And it turns out they did.
Men also regard you with all the warmth and enthusiasm of a postie with a wild dog gnashing at him over the fence. They stand poised and ready for you to bite their heads off at any moment. They’re nearly right, I tend to bite further down.
Men will also react in horror when you use the word “no” frequently. They don’t like women saying “no” that’s why we have rape crisis centres and women’s refuges.
The true bitch comes from a place of strength and often humour. But lately I’ve had to clarify what kind of bitch I’m being called because there’s another kind emerging who I’ll have nothing to do with. That snarling insecure woman whose self esteem is so low she can only look at other women with envy. This is the schoolyard bitch, the bully, the threatened one. There’s one in every workplace, in every social grouping.
Where was she when we were knocking our bitch into shape climbing the ladder, smashing a glass ceiling or two and storming in and out of meetings? Making the tea and draining the clothing boutiques of anything floral and the cosmetic stores of pink lipstick. Sticking around long enough for the dust to settle then offering herself at a reduced rate and an eighth of the attitude after all the hard work had been done. I don’t think this bitch has earned her stripes, or ever will. She’s a faux bitch and if you call me one of those bitches I’ll bite really hard.
The amazing thing about this bitch is that she is so subtle you sometimes miss her. And when you find one you can’t quite believe that the woman with no style, who wouldn’t send a ripple of interest across the pond of life and has a seeming inability to do anything of note, could find the wherewithal to be that hurtful. What a bitch.

SPQR meets Te Puke March 16

2008-03-16T10:58:00.001+13:00

It was one of those days you wished to dear God you had stopped long enough to at least drag a brush through your hair and maybe put on some shoes. But hey, it was Te Puke on a rainy Friday afternoon, who was I going to see?
“You look like something the cat dragged in,” murmured Judy at the camping ground shop as I checked out.
“You’d look like this too if you’d just dismantled an entire awning on your own in gale force winds and driving rain,” I mumbled miserably. I always enter the first stage of depression when I leave my caravan.
She gave me a look which said “you could at least have washed your face” and tallied up my ground fees.
“There’s a forest in your hair,” she added as she swiped my card in the machine.
“I know but no one cares down here, everyone’s so laid back, that’s what I love about this place,” I proffered trying to avoid my reflection in the window.
Judy gave me another look which I would have preferred not to decipher because it went something like “yeah and that’s why my hair is perfect and I’m wearing make-up and something on my feet.”
I then realised that I had dirt smeared all over my legs from when I fell down the bank thankfully still hanging on to the awning. And I’d forgotten that I went fishing in my denim skirt the day before and it still had a few fish scales on it.
“Go on you, get back to the city and get yourself cleaned up,” she laughed before giving me a kiss goodbye.
Oh well, I reasoned only a few hours and I’d be back in Auckland and my big bath.
But first there was a stop to be made at the Te Puke Op Shop which last time I looked had a rather special cake mixer for only $5. In I went with my forest, dirt and fish scales and within moments I heard his voice.
There’s only one place I hear it and that’s SPQR, my favourite restaurant, a place I never set foot in without make-up, brushed hair and occasionally even heels.
I hastily hid behind the “larger sizes” clothes rack and peered cautiously through a pair of size 24 elastic waist black polyester trousers to determine that yes, Auckland had caught up with me.
There examining an indeterminate appliance was my favourite waiter we’ll call Mike (not his real name) in his trademark hat and discussing the merits of the appliance with his girlfriend.
The guy who makes sure I try beautiful wines and pours them for me in the “special” glasses he gets from out the back. Who bothers to stop and have a chat with me, even if I am being lame and not at all funny.
I like him. I like him a lot. But until I found myself cowering behind the humongous pair of pants trying to avoid getting too near the crotch I had no idea I cared what he thought. Was I so shallow that the thought of a Ponsonby waiter seeing me looking less than groomed in Te Puke really mattered? Was it really so bad being outed by an Aucklander for looking a fright?
I had to admit that yes, I was indeed shallow and what’s more I had to get out of the shop and away from the pants which were now emitting a rather disturbing odour.
What to do? Tough it out by waltzing up and saying some pathetic line like: “Ha no Astrolabe chardonnay for me today eh!”
Bad approach on two counts. For a start I’m talking about work and he’s obviously on holiday, though why in Te Puke I have no idea. And secondly he’ll probably mistake me for the local homeless woman who wanders the streets begging for leftovers and cigarettes.
So I just got out of there fast. The dog looked a little surprised to see me back quite so soon, and then we were gone.
“God are you alright?” asked my husband on greeting me at our front door. “You didn’t have an accident did you?”
“You’d look like this too if you’d just dismantled an entire awning on your own in gale force winds and driving rain,” I repeated forcefully. “And been spotted by my SPQR waiter!”“I’ll get you a drink and you can tell me all about it,” he soothed before adding,
“What’s that fish smell?”

Library Love March 9

2008-03-09T10:55:00.000+13:00

I can’t quite believe that we get to read books for free. It’s one of the great joys of my life that I can walk up the road to my local library and pick up a book to read, the equivalent of several days entertainment, for nothing. It’s the only thing of real value we get free in this country which doesn’t involve extra fees or admission payments.
I spend a lot of time at my local library which conveniently presents itself as a gothic looking building giving me the immediate persona of a budding Jane Austen as I eagerly enter its doors. I’m always surprised that it’s not packed out, like the local shopping mall with people eager to take advantage of a good book for free. But perhaps reading still has a way to go in the “exciting ways to spend your weekend” stakes. The only problem with my library is that being a community gathering place I run into my husband’s former wife quite a lot. It’s always nice to see her so that’s not the problem. It’s the books I get out that are.
My library gets books “in” for me from other libraries for a small fee of one dollar. The librarian has to get them from behind the counter. And that’s the problem
Once, I was researching a piece I was writing about keeping the love alive in marriage. Honestly. I write an advice column. Truly. I had gathered a few interesting looking books off the shelves and went over to check them out and pick up the marriage book I had ordered earlier which proved elusive. While the librarian hunted I chatted to the former wife about this and that until we were interrupted with:
“Ah here it is. Under “L” instead of “N” for Nissen. Resurrecting Sex: Solving Sexual Problems and Revolutionizing Your Relationship’ – is that the one?”
“It’s for research!” I shouted a little too quickly and rather loudly. “Something I’m writing,” I attempted as I avoided looking at her face for fear of seeing either a commiserating look that often passes between women who have or had the same husband or a stunned: “what the hell?”By the time I had produced my card and checked the offending title out she had wandered off into the kids section, so I’ll never know which look she gave me.
The second time was a recent visit where the two of us met again, quite by chance, and were chatting amiably at the counter while once again I waited for the librarian to retrieve the book I ordered which once again seemed not to have been filed under “N” for Nissen.
We were discussing her recent trip to Europe and my upcoming one to Venice where I was vigorously defending my right to travel alone to work on my book to someone I knew would see it my way.
“Ah here it is. Venice for Lovers - is that the one?” shouted the librarian.This time I didn’t even attempt the research line.
“Yes that’s right, it’s a book for lovers of Venice you know. Not the other way around, ha, ha” I said weakly.
The librarian smiled. I knew she believed me. She is my favourite librarian.
I don’t know her name because I’ve never asked but she always makes me laugh and on this occasion rescued me from deep shame and humiliation in front of the ex by presenting yet another book she knows I’ll love. The last one was about how to ice cup cakes so that they look like body parts. This one was titled “I Like You, Hospitality Under the Influence,” by Amy Sedaris. I’m not sure how my favourite librarian got to know me so well, but I appreciate the fact that she takes the time to keep books aside that will amuse me.
As an author I’m supposed to dislike the library system because the 17 copies of my own book currently doing the rounds in the Auckland catalogue stop people going out and paying good money for it. I can see that’s a problem for publishers but I’m pathetically grateful people are reading it and have to resist the urge to bribe my favourite librarian to access the computer system and allow me to email a personal letter of appreciation to every lender. Knowing that they’re being entertained for free is one of the great joys of my life.

Alone March 2

2008-03-02T10:11:00.000+13:00

Despite believing that a woman can do what she likes and be who she wants it has become obvious to me that there is one thing a woman should never be. Alone.
I’m about to disappear for a few weeks to Venice, Italy. Alone. It’s the best news I’ve had in years that I’ll be free to wander the canals of Venice and tap away on my laptop for hours pausing only to cater to my needs, not anyone else’s.
But as news of my trip has spread the reaction has been overwhelmingly negative. One person close to me inquired if they had ashrams in Venice, dropping a huge dollop of suggestion that I might be having a mid-life crisis. Another person, also closely related, wondered why I would even consider travelling anywhere on my own when I had a nice husband to go with me, and suggested Hawaii would make more sense. I’m not sure why Hawaii, perhaps a woman is better alone wearing a coconut bra?
Someone else, on hearing my reasons for wanting some time out as translated by a friend: “she never gets a moment to herself,” managed to make me feel so much better by highlighting how awful, indeed, my life really is.
“I could never live your life,” she said with the dread more commonly used for conversations discussing cancer diagnosis.
A colleague, live on the radio, stated that he was worried about my family. The inference surely being that when the woman of the house was away the children starved, the power was cut off and the Ebola virus moved in.
And then there was the expense. “I thought you were paying off the mortgage,” smirked a very brave person. Necessitating a long explanation about my previous book proving a little controversial which meant I ended up with a bit of an unexpected windfall, most of which went on the mortgage actually and some of which I was putting into the next book. Beat that.
And then there were just the looks. From various people searching my face for signs of a marriage break-up, a terminal illness prompting me to get out my list of 100 things to do before I die, or an assignation with a lover of indeterminate nationality, but most probably Italian.
“No seriously, I just want some time alone to write my novel which is set in Venice,” I repeated until I was blue in the face.
Which then prompted a thought bubble above their heads which said: “She’s taking herself a bit seriously isn’t she?”
I will never be one of those pale women who waft across the stage at the Montana Book Awards looking like they need an intravenous drip for basic nutrients and a sense of humour. But I’ll be damned if I’ll let my novel be set in mystifying Karangahape Rd when I have Venice at my disposal. I’m a popular fiction writer with the sole aim that one day someone might curl up with my romantic thriller on a rainy winter’s afternoon and have a pleasant read.
But as the time draws near I am outraged that I have had so much damn explaining to do because I am stepping out of the antiquated expectation hat a woman’s place is in the home. We have obviously not progressed since the 60s when the only reasonable excuse for a mother to leave her family was to go into hospital for a hysterectomy or to attend the funeral of a distant aunt down country.
Hours were spent preparing freezer meals labelled: “Beef stew, Monday night, defrost then heat slowly on in the pot on medium” or “Macaroni cheese, Tuesday night, defrost then heat slowly in the oven on 150 degrees.” And brave souls left notes suggesting fish and chips on Friday. Other women in the neighbourhood rallied around and invited hubbie and the kids over for a meal to save them “fending for themselves.”
Men however, have always been allowed to travel alone. Far and wide they go conquering deals and takeovers. My travel writer husband does a fair bit of it with no such reaction from anyone about being alone or being any more odd than usual.
The only people who are quite happy for me to disappear are my five children. The very people I am escaping from with their love of interruption, need for nurture and givers of conversations I never regret finding time for. And that’s why I love them.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

The Privilege of Breeding February 24

2008-02-24T10:09:00.000+13:00

“Mum you can’t park here, it’s only for parents with babies,” said my youngest daughter in her patient voice. The one she uses to explain that I have my dress on inside out or I might be a little drunk.
“I don’t care, I’m making up for lost privilege,” I replied testily.
“Lost what?”
“The lost privilege of breeding, grab the shopping bags and lock your door.”
My local Foodtown has gone to the trouble of branding the 10 car parks closest to the door exclusively for use by parents with babies. It’s a fantastic idea especially for those working mums who dash in at 5.30 with overtired children recently retrieved from daycare and attempt to buy something resembling dinner.
I’ve been there, I know how they feel. Just as you finish one job you are about to start another, and it won’t end until dinner is cooked, babies are bathed and safely asleep. Approximately four hours to go and parking close is a great help.
But in my day we never had branded carparks. We had to park with the normal people, because in the 80s breeding was not a privilege. We didn’t even have those cute seats in the trollies and had to somehow fit the carseat in the trolley along with our 12 pack of Treasures and packets of mince.
Recently I’ve considered suing the government for that loss of privilege. I’d like to claim the 14 weeks paid paternal leave I never got for my four babies. The childcare subsidy which wasn’t available for my children, had there actually been childcare centres back then. The Working for Families tax subsidy which was non existent. I reckon it cost me $50,000 to choose to have a career and give birth to four children so where’s the back pay? Surely my babies are just as valid as today’s ones?
In 1986 when I had my first child there were only 52,823 of us breeding that year. And you didn’t’ really get much help especially if you insisted on being a working mum. Like many young women in the 80s I made the tragic mistake of believing I could combine the feminist dream of working full time and having children. I did it, but at a price thanks to Rogernomics, Ruthanasia and a Labour government more interested in free markets than free children. And it was very lonely. At 24 I was regarded as a bit eccentric having a baby, I had no friends who were pregnant, no one at work was pregnant, and there were no exceptions made for pregnancy in the newsroom. You still worked the late shift and if you went over your 10 days sick leave allowance because your other baby was in hospital with pneumonia your pay was docked.
It’s hard to believe employers could be so harsh when today they are falling over themselves to let mothers work part time, from home, up a tree if they want to all at full pay because there just aren’t enough workers out there to fill the jobs.
So, is it any wonder we are experiencing a baby boom not seen since 1963? Just over 64,000 babies were born last year to parents who planned their pregnancies knowing that they will receive everything a privileged couple should to help them add their precious bundle to our population.
But according to a shocked media obviously incapable of economic analysis, the baby boom can be explained by celebrities. Apparently women are more than happy to put themselves through nine months of strenuous baby growing, not drinking alcohol and limiting what they eat to look like Angelina Jolie and Heidi Klum. I don’t think so, Kiwi women just aren’t that thick. They know that Angelina and Heidi have an army of trainers, dieticians, beauty therapists and nannies ensuring they look fantastic during and two days after their pregnancy. But what pregnant celebrities have done is make it okay to walk around with your gorgeous naked belly exposing itself in a bikini or above low waist jeans. Gone are the days when we were reduced to hiding our bump under ridiculous gathered frocks and sewing wedges of elasticized material into the front of our jeans to make room.
There has never been a better time to have a baby, and it’s almost worth having another one just to make the most of all that privilege and the Foodtown carparks.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Sorry February 17

2008-02-17T10:07:00.000+13:00

Some people are a long time coming to the art of saying sorry. Volunteering an admission of guilt just seems wrong when you will most likely be able to argue your way out of it. “I only did that because you backed me into a corner” is a good one. “You just can’t accept the fact that I’m right” is another and “Get over it” a very useful statement to cover most situations.
I don’t think I used the word “sorry” once before the age of 40 and I still lapse back occasionally into the belief that people should accept me as I am and respect my right to be a pain in the arse on occasion. I am who I am, live and let live, that sort of thing. But in recent years I’ve found the wonderful panacea that saying sorry can be. Instead of days and sometimes weeks of stewing over a disagreement you just wake up the next morning pick up the phone and say you’re sorry. Problem disappears. Now I understand the whole confessional thing with the Catholics where you confess, say some Hail Mary’s and walk out feeling much lighter.
But saying sorry is more than just letting those two syllables escape from your mouth. It is widely regarded that a successful apology must have three elements. Regret for your actions, taking responsibility for them and being willing to remedy the situation by not doing it again.
Which is where Kevin Rudd and I part company. I’m very glad that seven years after I witnessed the march across the Sydney Harbour Bridge demanding an apology for the treatment of Aboriginals someone has finally got around to it.
But making it all about the lost generation is very convenient. It points the finger at a bunch of British influenced government officials who took Aboriginal children away from their families. Not good, definitely needs an apology but what about the rest of the past 200 years of deep racism, certain apartheid and wilful neglect shown by Australians towards these people?
Who is going to apologise for that situation and who is going to take responsibility and remedy the fact that every day in every way, white Australians, as they have done for the past two centuries, prefer their Aboriginals to be neither be seen nor heard.
I lived in Australia for 18 months which was about all I could stand. There were several reasons I came running home but one of the main concerns I had was their treatment of Aboriginals. In the white middle class circles I mixed in you just didn’t talk about it. At least in New Zealand when Tame Iti goes running around the bush with some guns most households would sit down over dinner and have an energetic discussion. The dialogue would happen because as New Zealanders we are engaged with its people. We care. Which is not to say we aren’t racist also, a mere 10 minutes with an ear to talkback will tell you that. But we have the passion to discuss and debate the issues which have the power to tear us apart. In Australia you sit down at a dinner and utter the words “so how about those Aboriginals?” and the room goes deathly silent. With that one topic you have stormed into a cultural territory which was fenced off years ago. They appear numb and in denial about the apartheid which is taking place in their very own land. They seem powerless, blinkered and unable to utter one word about the situation either through fear it would be the wrong word or a lack of information on which to make an informed comment. The most I ever got any Australian to say about the situation was that what was done is done. And it is no wonder that every time Germaine Greer puts pen to paper expressing an educated understanding of Aboriginal culture and their treatment by the Australian Government in the British media she is widely discredited by her home country’s media.
And if you do travel out in the desert you are likely to meet, as my husband did just a few months ago, a whole tribe of displaced Aboriginals who were living in a settlement while they waited for their homeland Maralinga to be cleaned up after the British tested atom bombs on their land in the 60s. The Australian Government has done some work, and forked out some money, but there is still a long way to go. Sorry.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

The Letterbox February 10

2008-02-10T10:04:00.000+13:00

It all started when my mother-in-law turned up on the doorstep out of breath and a little worse for wear.
“I was going to drop these off in the letterbox but there doesn’t appear to be any bottom in it,” she announced taking long lung filling gasps of air every three words.
It’s quite an effort to get to our front door involving a steep path, steps and a fair bit of fauna and flora clearing.
A cup of coffee and a sit down saw to my mother-in-law, but alas the letterbox on closer inspection did indeed have no bottom. Suddenly the mail which kept appearing in our garage, five metres to the right of the letterbox, delicately slipped under the locked door made sense. We had simply thought our mailman had gone a little odd and preferred the slot under the door than the slot in the box. We also understood why we frequently had to hunt in our overgrown garden looking for our mail.
Our letterbox was old when we moved in. It was possibly constructed at the same time as the garage which is pre-war. And like the garage which is barely standing, we just didn’t want to see that our letterbox was past it. We were convinced it was made from heart Kauri and so old and iconic we considered registering it as a historic place.
My mother-in-law offered to buy my husband a new one for his birthday but he couldn’t wait that long. Instead he instructed me to have a look on Trade Me, and a week later our marriage was severely strained. Who knew that men and women could think so differently about a letterbox?
“Not white, not metal, slot needs to be wider, too big, honestly how do you thank that is going to fit on our post?” he barked as I showed him my Trade Me selection of iconic and slightly weathered Kiwi letterboxes.
“Put in a search for ‘letterbox wooden’” he instructed (again) before marching off to address some literary crisis on librarything.com.
Unused to being instructed, let alone twice in one morning I went for a long walk to consider my options. Would I tear his heart out now or give him another 24 hours? As I walked I felt the same way I did when I got pregnant. Overnight you notice every pram, every baby, every other pregnant woman and that whole aisle in the supermarket with nappies in it where the day before they simply didn’t register on the radar. I stopped and admired every single letterbox, from the architect designed cedar and metal creations currently in vogue for Grey Lynn renovators, to various versions of the nice white metal one with room for four bottles of milk and a carrier I remembered from my childhood to the quirky artistic creations ranging from one painted to look like a TV and another involving pukekos and a great deal of ceramics. In Grey Lynn when people aren’t appearing on or making television, they express themselves with artistic letterboxes.
I returned home more confused than ever and stroked my broken letterbox. I’d never had to replace a letterbox before and you certainly don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. Perhaps I could patch it, but where would I find the right grade and age of heart Kauri to match?
“I need to talk to you about the letterbox,” I said to my husband in the voice I use for getting my own way. “You’re being bossy and unreasonable and I really want one of those white metal ones from my childhood.”
“I was not bossy,” he retorted. “I just thought you’d appreciate my input.”
“Next you’ll be blaming the full moon and the hot summer,” I snarled, instantly regretting it.
“Right, I can see there’s only one way to sort this, get in the car we’re going to Mitre 10,” he instructed (again).
The good news is that we now have another letterbox, even though we left a trail of helpful Mitre 10 staff in our wake as they all tried to help the war of the worlds taking place in the letterbox aisle, before sensibly retreating to the safety of the lawnmowers.
It’s a wooden version of the white one and if you squint your eyes you could almost call it iconic.
“Happy now?” he grumped, content only that he got to choose the number to put on it, which is quite frankly gaudy.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

"Tupperware" February 3

2008-02-03T10:03:00.001+13:00

Tupperware has always made me feel inadequate. It is the Scientology of kitchenware with it’s insistence on “burping” the lid, keeping matching sets in order with colour coding, stacking neatly in pantries and doing things with it which are just plain weird.
Does anyone really defrost meat in that plastic meat defroster, whip cream in that shaker thing, keep lettuces in that container with the spike which anal probes your lettuce and store half an onion in something which hangs from your fridge shelf?
I’ve only been to one Tupperware party in my life which scared me so thoroughly that the cream shaker I bought remained on my shelf for years unused and was regarded with deep suspicion every time I walked past it. I felt that if I succumbed and used it just once, I too would be hosting parties to sell bits of plastic which boss you around with Tom Cruise determination.
Women who have Tupperware also get quite shitty if you don’t give it back. Over the years they have given me baking or various left overs in Tupperware but never have they handed over the morsels without first saying: “I need the Tupperware back,” with a hard look I interpreted as meaning the Tupperware equivalent of L.J. Hubbard would impregnate them if they didn’t
Then the next time she’s at your house she rifles panic stricken through your cupboards looking for it while you attempt to stifle the vivid memory you have of throwing it in the bin, all the better to rid your house of it’s scary energy.
Recently, however, I’m seeing a new side to Tupperware. The cool vintage side. All those wonderful pastel colours which housewives in the early 60s bought en masse in the days when they also made frosted layer cakes and responded to advertising slogans which said: “calories, shmalories – as long as it’s fresh!” or “I can’t say I do, I don’t have my Tupperware.”
I’ve been seeing a lot of old Tupperware lately in Op Shops where they arrive in sad cardboard boxes each one still hanging onto their masking tape handwritten labels announcing that “cornflour” and “icing sugar” were once resident. I was immediately attracted to them because I knew they had come from a well ordered, old fashioned, good housewife type of kitchen, they have the nice old Tupperware logo on them and they are all in remarkably good nick because as we all know Tupperware lasts a lifetime.
Which is when I realised that the box of it I just bought for $5 probably came from a woman who recently died. All those Tupperware housewives who went to those parties in the 60s are now happily making angel cakes in heaven and Op Shops are overflowing with the stuff. Suddenly you can see the dusky pinks, sky blues and sea greens neatly stacked in her old cupboards housing baking ingredients which were regularly called upon to whip up a banana cake for the bowls tournament. You can see all the white lids happily burped sealing in the freshness and standing tall like good Tupperware living up to the slogan: “Stack neatly, save space!” I don’t mind using a dead housewife’s Tupperware because I see it as giving it a good home and out of respect I leave the masking tape labels with their former owner’s shaky old handwriting on them to preserve their former identity on my shelves. Which means I often find salt lurking in the one labelled cornflour but needs must.
So my kitchen is slowly filling up with the stuff which brings about a new problem. Where are you supposed to store it when not in use and how do you make sure you don’t lose the lids? Perhaps that’s what you learned if you hung out at Tupperware parties. I’ll never know.
What I do know is that slowly I’m becoming a born again Tupperware woman. I admired someone’s Pick a Deli container the other day which she was cleverly using to house tinned beetroot in its brine. No mess, can of beetroot lasts forever. I actually had the thought: “what a brilliant idea!” And when my daughter’s boyfriend’s mother sent some baking in a nice beige bit of Tupperware I made the effort not to lose the lid so that I could return it, such is my newfound respect.
I’m on the lookout for a beetroot storer and while I’m at it those ice-block makers, a cold cut keeper and one of those blue and red shape sorters for kids.

"Yummy Kids" January 27

2008-01-27T09:15:00.001+13:00

I always imagined that when my kids grew up into adults I would never see them. Pretty much like when I grew up, left home and got busy. I’ve talked to them at length about the great disappearing act of my generation but they’re not getting the hints and have continued to hang out at home. I quite liked having them around until I realised there is a distressing trend for parents with adult children to include them in their best mate circle. These once tiny little moppets with smelly nappies and food in the hair are suddenly the drinking buddy, travelling companion, confidante and cool flatmate.
“We do everything together,” gush these parents. “We just all get on so well and like the same things. Gosh some weekends it’s one big party at our house, you’d think we were still flatting!” they giggle outrageously.
Please don’t’ ever let me be one of them. I would rather swim naked across Cook Strait than wake up one morning and realise that I spent 21 years raising my children so that I could spend the next 20 years hanging out with them because my life is so empty.
God forbid the former little shits of these other parents should ever leave home and force their parents to spend time alone, getting to know each other again, walking around naked and having sex whenever they like, wherever they like before gorging on takeaways for two. Which will never happen because getting to know each other again just seems so boring when you have a constant stream of youth through your house teaching you how to use an iPhone and introducing you to music other than Steely Dan. You are mainlining cool 24/7 by association thanks to your yummy kids. And the kids are so onto it they have no intention of leaving home in the next decade. In our generation we left home to have sex, not so with this generation whose partners are welcomed with open arms into the family home and bedrooms. More the merrier you cool bundles of adulthood. Couple this liberalism with the free booze, free rent, free food, free overseas trips in return for a few hours of drunken rambling by their aging parents about how disappointing their life turned out to be and you have what we oldies term a win win situation.
I’m guilty of some of the above. I do drink with my adult children occasionally and pay for the booze. We even take them out to dinner and took them all to Paris. But they don’t have to be my confidante because I don’t’ believe they deserve it. Why would you expect adult children with their own lives to be remotely interested in, or be able to help with, the mad life you have made for yourself in the past 45 years? But in return I don’t expect to be judged for that life, and sadly when you hang out with your kids too much that’s exactly what you’ll get.
You may spend 99 percent of your time being the perfect parent, but that one percent when you totally screw up by drinking too much at lunch and allowing one of your mad friends to crash a family party you have hell to pay the next day. Yes, you read correctly. You become the teenager sent to Coventry for the day by your children because your behaviour was inappropriate. If they could send you to your room to think about your actions they would. But you’re already in your room because it’s the only place in your house, which you own, you feel free of judgement.
I’ve been told I need to have a long look at the kind of people I’m spending my time with (A type celebrity personalities), I should spend a bit more time considering the needs of others (not bringing said friends to family parties) and could they please have my credit card for their uni fees.

So I’m always more than ready for them to move out when they do. I miss them and throw myself around the house using phrases like “empty nest” and cook far too much food. But secretly I’m so relieved to be me again, a bit like that first time when I moved out of my parents’ house at the age of 17.
Meanwhile my husband points out that I only have myself to blame. I brought my kids up to have opinions, think for themselves and not take any shit. This apparently includes their mother.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Jet Ski Madness

2008-01-20T12:16:00.000+13:00

As our Cleopatra summer progresses, making hungry where most she satisfies, we bathe and sun ourselves as Kiwis who have known no summer similar for a decade.
“The weather!” we exclaim with a rare ferocious positivity to each other.
“Marvelous!” we reply, unused to such reason for joy.
And we cross our fingers behind our backs because we’re just not used to this kind of good luck.
“A true Kiwi summer,” we rejoice.
The Rugby World Cup seems a million years ago, our appalling child abuse statistics have surely been bleached away by such healthy heat and sunshine, and even Sir Ed’s death seems to have happened at the right time. A really Kiwi time full of freckles, sand in your sandwiches and cold beers on the beach.
Which leaves only one burning question from this perfect summer. Who signed off on jet skis?
It’s something I’ve pondered most days as my view from the caravan is interrupted by something smaller than a dinghy and larger than a surfboard, yet emitting a noise so loud it must surely have been created by a logging truck.
There are only two sounds you should have to hear during a true Kiwi summer. That of the lawnmower with its gentle low-pitched moan and tantalising smell of two stroke and fresh cut grass. And the contented chuckle of a Seagull outboard reliably ferrying fisherman out to sea from where they will return loaded down with snapper the size of newborn babies. Well that’s how I remember it. But both sounds are produced while doing something useful and most of us are okay with that.
The jet ski on the other hand makes a hell of a noise doing nothing. It’s not used to transport passengers form one destination to another. Nor can you fish from one, although I have seen it attempted.
Most water sports require some skill. Waterskiing is noisy and essentially a speed issue, but you have to try really hard to balance and might even manage to do it on one leg. Kayaking involves co-ordination and muscle power. Sailing needs a knowledge of the winds and currents and fishing needs a boat, which may go fast but also means you end up with a snapper or too.
Jet skis require no special skill except the ability to sit down and turn a switch. They are kayaks for fat guys, who hoist their huge gut onto them and proceed to go fast in one direction. Then come back in the other direction. Fine, get off. But they just love doing it again and again and again. Back and forth, back and forth stop suddenly, go fast suddenly, back and forth. Then they go around in circles. Starting with a really big one and then finishing with a really little one which just about causes their own wake to push them off. Cool.
To be fair I get the first five minutes. Wind in your hair, gliding over the water, that sort of thing. What I don’t get is an hour later when the repetitive back and forth and circle behaviour begins to take on an air of obsessive-compulsive retardation. Only the most minimal of brain function would find it stimulating.
Which is when the fat guy finds a new activity.The thrill that he is doing something “active” and with his neon life jacket looks slightly “sporty” means that he must now parade a few metres from the shore at a speed fast enough to slice a whale in half let alone your child who is having a swim.
But then the other day I saw him. A bronzed god, all rippling biceps and six pack, astride a slightly battered and worn jet ski which held its rider like a race horse on the last lap home. He leaned back into his machine, every bit the easy rider, his jet ski doing a sizeable impression of a waterborne Harley. No circles for him or speed races back and forth. Instead he headed straight out across the treacherous bar, sleekly weaving his way in and out of the two metre waves, occasionally airborne, turning and landing, sleek like a dolphin. I couldn’t take my eyes off him as his long hair trailed behind him in the wind and I wondered out loud if finally, this might be what jet skis are all about. The skill, the danger, the sheer sexiness of the guy.
“Hope he falls off,” snarled my husband, from behind his book. And he did.

Illustration Anthony Ellison

Jigsaw

2008-01-13T17:48:00.000+13:00

Jigsaw

I am very fortunate to have interesting friends. One is attempting to cross the border of Jordan into Syria for her summer holidays. She’ll come back even more knowledgeable about Middle East politics which will make our next conversation more challenging than the last one. Another has just returned from Hollywood where I like to think his life is one long episode of Californication and another lives in Brisbane, which isn’t at all interesting but they are having cyclonic weather conditions with fascinating daily updates.
Which makes my last four weeks at the caravan look exceptionally dull.
“So what have you been up to?” inquired Mr Hollywood, eventually.
“I just finished a jigsaw,” I volunteered hastily eliminating alternative recent activities such as gathering pipi, floating in the water and gathering pipi.
“Umm, we’re not going to tell anyone about that okay,” came his hasty reply.
“Why not?”
“Remember what happened with the caravan?”Indeed I do. A few years back I bought an old caravan, restored it back to it’s sparkly lino and then spent a lot of time there alone with the dog. My friends muttered amongst themselves, rumour spread that my marriage was over and all I got was the caravan in the settlement and when the dust settled my reputation as an interesting person was over. I was eccentric but in a boring way. Like Marcus Lush without the ice, the trains or Bluff.
Recently, however, I was saved from being an eccentric bore by the plethora of silly season newspapers screaming at me that caravans are cool! Caravaning is back! Interesting people with arts degrees have caravans!
One of the pieces was even written by my husband who, like Mr Hollywood and the rest of my friends regarded the caravan as an eccentricity at the time but because he loves me rode the wave and on the way back down agreed to spend some time there and got it.
So now the fact that I spend a lot of time in my 1968 Lightweight caravan is no longer evidence that I am uninteresting, I am suddenly cool.
Which is disappointing. I like being stationary and solitary and staying up to midnight without realising it to finish the sea part of my jigsaw. I didn’t even stay up to midnight on New Year’s Eve, in fact getting me to see the two hands on the number 12 requires vast amounts of persuasion these days. But when you’re half way through completing a picture of boats in a port you just have to finish the sea.
I have so far finished three jigsaws and discovered there are two provisos. They have to be vintage because the pictures are crazy. Guys sitting in front of the fire sucking on a pipe, holding a rifle with a dog at his feet, that sort of thing. And I prefer them to have a seaside theme. Apparently I like the colour blue and its many variants. The one I stayed up late for has the most astounding array of blues and greens. I am eagerly anticipating getting to work on the one of Venice during a gondola regatta from the 1960s. I have five more after that and I doubt I’ll ever run out because Op Shops keep me in constant supply for the average price of one dollar stretching to three dollars if there are no pieces missing. I am deeply indebted to the volunteer staff at the various Op Shops I haunt who sit in the back room completing the puzzles then write on a sticker “one piece missing.”
I don’t really care if it isn’t complete, it just makes it more challenging in those final moments when you have no pieces left and three holes. And that’s okay because it’s not like you get them framed and hang them or anything, although I was tempted with the beauty of the man with the dog and the pipe and the rifle and the fire.
I told Mr Hollywood that he may have been away a while and might need to remind himself that I am the antithesis of his new life. I am peace and quiet and smell nice.
I’ve just bought a jigsaw mat off Trade Me which you roll up and it magically keeps all the pieces in place and I’m not at all looking forward to a future silly season when my husband and several other journalists write moving pieces about the return of the jigsaw.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Fill Ins

2008-01-06T17:41:00.000+13:00

Boxing Day sales are for the insane. We all know this because we’ve tried it at least once and been crammed into bad air-conditioning with strangers farting turkey and burping Lindaur. But the biggest argument for staying away is the fact that you get the Fill In serving you behind the counter.
While retail bosses lounge around the beaches of New Zealand looking forward to counting their takings at the end of the day, their Fill Ins are using the time to bitch them out, big time.
I’m still not sure how I ended up shopping on Boxing Day, but I think it had something to do with needing a toasted sandwich maker or the fact that I was temporarily losing my sanity. By the end of my shopping spree I was absolutely certain that all retail bosses are absolute pricks. I would like to say I was eavesdropping shamelessly as I scanned the boutiques suddenly aware that I also needed a sundress, but the din of disgruntled sales assistants whining was so loud it was unavoidable.
“She’s so like, totally unreasonable. I hate it when she’s here, she’s so picky.”
“So I told him I’d already worked three days straight and he could just get stuffed.”
“I can’t believe he had security cameras installed to watch us, like I’d steal any of his crap clothes.”
And so it went. I felt as though I had arrived three hours into the staff Christmas party while the boss was unavoidably detained in the loo. Insults were hurled and accusations made all in that ear drum shattering pitch which takes hold of women when they’ve had a few. And the intense concentration required by all members of staff involved in the discussion meant that I could have stripped naked, had a picnic and conducted a séance on the shop floor without a flicker of interest. The only let up on dissing the boss was one shop where the Fill Ins were having a good old bitch session about that girl Lara the Fill In across the mall at the other dress shop She’s a real cow.
I only mention this Boxing Day saga because the trend for retail workers to share their feelings in front of customers has become worryingly prevalent. In recent times I’ve heard stories of thrush infections, several boyfriend sagas and also been the unwilling observer of a staff member being disciplined to the level of a second warning behind the counter while I was attempting to buy some stockings. Do they not have staff rooms anymore? Or perhaps it is just that I’m a hopeless nosey parker and most customers simply don’t notice the shame, humiliation, anger and emotional meltdowns worthy of a Coronation Street episode going on behind the till.
But I’m sure I’m not telling bosses anything they don’t already know. You can’t be on the job 24/7, every good boss knows to take time out, especially at Christmas. But when it comes to retail I have to disagree. Why would you leave your shop to the mercy of a bunch of 18-year-old morons at the busiest time of the year?
Especially when you know that Fill Ins just don’t give a shit.
I hate having to point out that the items I have just bought were actually on sale, but I did it three times that day managing to save a few hundred wrongly charged dollars in the process. And each time was met with:
“Oh are they? How much did you say? That’s a good price isn’t it? Don’t mind me, I’m just a Fill In. ” Oh that’s okay then. Fill Ins can’t be expected to do their job properly.
But my special award for Fill In Retail Worker of the Year goes to the girl in the honey shop. I just about bought the whole shop so keen was I to purchase the special honey which has more healing power than antibiotics that I was entitled to a free soap and my daughter demanded that I get one.
“Oh are you? Which one do you want?” “I don’t know,” I said pleasantly. “Which one do you like?”
“I don’t like them,” she replied deadpan as she gazed out the window longing for sun and surf. “They’re a stupid shape.”
I never found the right toasted sandwich maker but I did find a punch bowl fountain at K Mart which lights up. Which was almost worth the insanity.

Illustration by Anthony Ellison

Easy

2007-12-16T08:10:00.000+13:00

The approach of Christmas has put my plans to lose 10kg on hold. As I’m sure it has for many women. The intention was there until that first celebratory glass of champagne, and somewhere along the line, lost in a haze of drinking the decision to get a “fresh start’ on the weight loss plans in the New Year was made.
Which is why I ended up in Smith and Caughey’s lingerie department contorted, trapped and unable to free myself from a garment sometimes known as an “easy squeezy” also known as “magic knickers” and in my mother’s day as a “corset.”
The reasoning behind my solo and very clandestine visit was the reliable information that this garment would hold everything in, thus giving the illusion that you have lost weight, which is very useful at Christmas time when you are forced to get out your party frocks.
The woman beside me in the lingerie department accurately surmised that what we were trying to achieve was basically taking a sausage and squeezing it into a shape which had a waist. Where that sausage meat would end up was never discussed but laws of physics told me that it would either be the thighs or the breasts. I was about to find out. As I entered my changing room I heard my new friend rather ominously grunting and groaning next door.
Armed with a selection in black I proceeded to haul one over my head. It got as far as my shoulders where it settled one side under my arm, the other around my head so that only one eye was visible and every increasingly panic stricken breath I took was obtained through the thick gusset of lycra and some elastic substance so strong they should make car tyres out of it. Both arms were sticking straight up in the air and were locked in place by the band of black which seemed determined to squash my face into my armpit before it was done with me. And there I was. Stuck, like some interpretive dancer during the bit when she runs around the stage with her arms in the air cowering from the Komodo dragon .Only this was me, on my own at Smith and Caugheys. As I sat down awkwardly, arms akimbo on the gilt and velvet chair I realised with horror that I could die in here and no one would know where I was. So ashamed was I about my “easy squeezy” adventure that I had told no one, nor had I brought with me water, scrogan and my cell phone as one does on explorations into the unknown. I had another wriggle to see if the garment would budge and then I noticed that the red button by the door. As I pressed it I couldn’t help noticing my friend next door had gone strangely silent also. I waited and wrote the headline:
“Two fat women smothered at top department store.”
A very nice young girl who was yet to endure her first stretch mark peered around the door at me and did a very commendable job of stifling both a giggle and a shriek of horror. What eventually emerged from her mouth were the words “oh dear” with a tone I sensed she had used before in these very changing rooms.
It was at that moment I caught my reflection in the mirror. I now prefer to think of the red face, the sweaty brow, the sausage meat poking out in all directions as a nightmare, nearly as bad as the one in which Jennifer Ward-Lealand shot my horse and chopped down my fern tree.
The garment was eventually retrieved by much pulling over my head and I was instructed to try putting it on from the bottom up.
I now have two “easies” as I affectionately called them. And they’ve changed my life because the constriction on my body is also working on my mind with the psychological effect of making me a bit of a nana. While I have my “easies’ on there is no risk of taking my clothes off and jumping naked in a pool as I usually do about this time of the year, nor have I flirted outrageously with a younger man. And while my friends get drunk and disorderly around me I remain mentally rigid, squeezed and in control of all my faculties. I like the “easy” me, and if I ever do lose that elusive 10kg, I might just keep on wearing them.

Image by Anthony Ellison

"Avoidance"

2007-12-09T08:32:00.000+13:00

Christmas functions are designed to give everyone the chance to get a bit tipsy and bond with each other in a celebratory fashion. But they also present the danger that you will run into someone you’ve been avoiding all year. The woman you yelled at in accounts when you had the hangover from hell and discovered that your expenses for your last lunch had been declined. You’ve had to get off one floor above your office and take the stairs down all year just to avoid walking past her office.
Then there’s the guy in maintenance you pashed behind the air conditioning unit at the last Christmas function when you decided in a moment of enthusiasm that you like men with dirty fingernails and a mullet. If it’s good enough for Cheryl West, it’s choice for you when you’re five rum and Cokes down on an empty stomach. And then there’s the other woman in the office. The one you hate with a passion because she hates you with a passion and you’re both up for the same promotion next year. You won’t spend a second in her breathing space yet alone propel a thin-lipped word of Christmas cheer in her direction.
Avoidance is therefore a necessary skill to obtain prior to Christmas functions. The most common technique is to employ your back. With your back to a person you can create the illusion that you haven’t seen them. You spend your entire night swivelling on an axis rather like a weather vane, only stopping when your subject is safely behind you. Odd but effective. Of course if you are the one being avoided this can be a very strange experience indeed. I was recently “backed” by an editor whose magazine I had been critical of on the radio. I know a bit about magazines, I like to think my criticism is constructive, but you can’t get it right all of the time. On entering the room and joining a group of women I greeted her only to find that she turned to face the wall behind us as if admiring a rare and unique work of art hung there while the rest of us talked in the circle which now had one piece around the wrong way. Only problem was there was no art, just a blank wall so there she was staring at nothing while the rest of the group chatted about the weather, our frizzy hair and how much we planned to drink that day, as you do. The moment I moved on she swivelled back, champagne at the ready.
Another more successful technique is to hide behind pillars which may be dotted throughout the room. You can nonchalantly lean on said pillar and swivel around without looking quite so obvious.
The “excuse me I need another drink” statement is my personal favourite, and the one most commonly employed to avoid me. The person promptly downs the contents of their glass, makes the statement and heads off. Only problem with that one is you risk getting really pissed if you’re avoiding a lot of people. Someone once said to me: “excuse me but I see someone far more interesting I’d rather talk to” and headed off which was brutal but I admired the honesty in their expression.
But by far the most effective avoidance manoeuvre is the intense conversation. It’s similar to the inappropriate kiss they do in movies where a couple who aren’t together, but will be by the end of the movie pash madly so that they are not seen by aliens or FBI agents running past them at great speed. When you see someone you need to ignore heading in your direction you suddenly find the person who is telling you about the cute antics of their two-year-old on the potty so interesting that you simply can’t take your eyes of them, need to lean in with intense interest and laugh like a drain. The impression is that you are so engrossed you can’t possibly notice someone else walking past, or indeed standing next to you. This can also be achieved by talking on the cell phone with an intense attitude which says “I’m buying a million shares in a dairy farm which renders me incapable of recognising anyone.”
But the simplest method in avoidance is simply to avoid the function which has been my policy for many years. I have one night of drinking scheduled and there’s not a magazine editor in sight.

Image by Anthony Ellison

End of Year

2007-12-02T09:41:00.000+13:00

I’m sure there are many parents who find the end of the year flurry of prize givings and drama productions an exhilarating time. The prospect of rushing straight from work through peak hour traffic to school is immensely rewarding because once you get there and discover there are no seats in the hall, you can stand at the back for three hours immersing yourself in the creative and intellectual endeavours of several hundred children.
I’m not one of those parents. I’ve been doing end of year stuff for the past 16 years and every time I sit in the hot, stifling, overcrowded hall for three hours, my pampered bottom hurling abuse at me because of the harsh reality of wooden form seats, I tell myself never again. Because the only part of those achingly boring hours I would ever want back is the 75 seconds it took my child to receive an award, flit across the stage dressed as a sunburst, or swing a poi. I’d gladly keep that 75 seconds of pride wrapped up in ribbons in my mind forever. And I’m sure my child quite liked me being there. The other two hours, 58 minutes and 45 seconds I add to the ever increasing pile I like to call “Time which could have been used to cure cancer or at least read a book.”
This is the time you spend in waiting rooms, at bus stops, in queues when you come to understand why God put the backs of heads where he did so we would have something to look at when we get bored to the point of screaming. Is that nits or dandruff? Dyed or natural? Air dried of blow dried?
This isn’t restful time such as sitting on a beach and breathing deeply while de-stressing. This is time where you are locked in conflict with your brain arguing that a) you cannot simply get up and walk out, much as all your senses are screaming that you do so b) just because Helen Clark did it with the Queen, doesn’t mean you can start sending texts and c) yes we still have two hours, 58 minutes and 45 seconds to go.
I’ve always been really happy that my children go to a school full of talented children. I know that, I don’t need to see them play the flute, twirl pieces of ribbon, sing, and give speeches. I have no connection with 99 percent of these children, I will never see them again and I don’t think the kids themselves are really worried who is watching them, as long as they can do that weird half smile and fluttery semi-wave to Mum and Dad just before they go on.
Nor will I find myself lacking if I never hear another school principal bemoan lack of funding, NCEA drawbacks or in one rare case a treatise on the changing values of society since he was a nipper. (Turned out things hadn’t got any better.)
The end of year gathering is also a form of elder abuse as grandparents are expected to join the stifling, heaving, uncomfortable throng. There is a real possibility they are actually enjoying the interpretative dance solo set to the theme from Star Wars, but they are old. Which means their arses are screaming louder than yours and they are unlikely to be able to pick out their grandchild from the back in the hall for the required 75 seconds. The last time I put my parents through an end of year torture session, my mother was convinced my daughter was the pumpkin when in fact she was the tomato for the entire three hours. On discovering her mistake there was a palpable sense of loss in the air at having devoted so much reflected pride to a stranger’s child. I haven’t encouraged her to attend again and my husband later confessed he thought our daughter was the banana.
And I never, ever leave an end of year event without feeling enormously grateful that there are people on this earth who are prepared to be teachers. Because they rally, cajole and organise the very children who have tortured them throughout the year.
The only consolation left is that even if the space-time continuum is shattered or I fall through a wormhole into an alternative universe, sooner or later – well, later – the torture will come to an end. I can even tell you when – in exactly two hours, 58 minutes and 45 seconds.

Image by Anthony Ellison

The Volunteer

2007-11-25T16:52:00.000+13:00

When you’re white, middle-aged, middle-class and live in Grey Lynn and that’s most people in Grey Lynn these days you are likely to find the idea of becoming a volunteer exciting at least once in your life. Either you’ve read too many ethical living books and you feel the need to connect with your local community, or you’ve read too many Nigel Latta books and feel the need to rock up to your overworked local social workers and offer to help out.
The only problem when you’re white, middle-aged, middle class and live in Grey Lynn is that the actual act of volunteering will never be taken seriously. You see yourself rocking up exuding waves of charitable urges, dressed down in your non threatening third-best jeans, fair trade converse replica shoes and hand knitted cardie, and the thought bubble above the receptionist’s head reads loud and clear “Is SPQR closed today?” They explain to you that they would love someone to come in and patronise the needy, but sitting in on family conferences and working miracles with abused children in the window between the gym and your massage was not something volunteers were used for. You need a degree to perform miracles. Then you see the look on their face. It’s a tolerant expression which attempts to hide the sure knowledge that you will turn up enthusiastically for at least a week before the bach, that month in Europe and lunch get in the way. “Oh and by the way – we’re the charity. Not you.”
I’ve been determined to volunteer for some time now and for all the right reasons. Such as that my garden is begging me to stop weeding it obsessively five times a day, there are only so many books I can read in a week and then there is the ethical connecting with your local community thing. And apparently it’s a really good thing to do for your head, karma and sense of purpose. Over one million New Zealanders do it, so there has to be something in it, even if I think the definition of volunteer they used to get that figure included sending positive thoughts to the All Blacks.
Disturbingly some people like it too much. The Department of Corrections has recently had to address the problem of “volunteer groupies” by limiting their helpers to 20 hours a week. I guess there’s just something so damn attractive about stepping out of your white middle class life and sitting across from a really bad man covered in tattoos for half your week teaching him how to read. .
My problem, apart from the fact that I’ll get the look by the receptionist, is that I don’t know what I want to do. My husband suggested my idea of volunteering is being the one who gets the paper from the letter box in the morning. Although he did say that if there was a shortage of people to take old drunks out to lunch. I’d be in my element.
So I spent the day on the net and discovered a whole new world of opportunity. I could volunteer abroad and work with children in Ghana, Vietnam or Romania. Or I could help protect turtles in Costa Rica. The Fire Service needs people, as does the museum, and then I found the website for all volunteer hopefuls. http://www.volunteernow.org.nz/. where I found 359 possible positions in my area. The Ellerslie Flower show needs a lot of people to do some mail outs, although I’m not sure why I would volunteer for a privately owned business. Sylvia Park Mall needs Christmas gift wrappers for charity, and I could help out at indoor bowls where I would ‘mix with bowlers: chat and assist as needed and have fun. Group meets each Monday night from 7 to 8:15 pm.” Which sounds awfully like bowling.
.I quite like the idea of caring for a children’s play ground, raking leaves and such like (North Shore). And welcoming visitors in the arrivals hall of the airport would be nice, as would welcoming people at the Auckland Zoo.
And then I found it. Under the list of the type of volunteering I wanted to do I clicked on "Befriending." I’m tossing up between visiting a lady in a rest home in Epsom who is very disabled but can hold a good conversation and doesn’t have many visitors or reading a newspaper to a resident over morning tea at an Aged Care facility on week days.
My husband says he’ll be a befriender too, but we mustn’t tell our parents. They’ll get jealous.

Image by Anthony Ellison

The Return of the Leggings

2007-11-19T13:19:00.000+13:00

Sometimes there is one pressing subject which just won’t go away no matter how many lunches you attend. For the past month only one topic of conversation has been nagging my friends and me over our bottle or two of Vouvray at midday, even extending late into the evening on the phone and into the next day’s emails. I would like to say our concern was focused on the threat to free speech, rare white whales, and how to make a Molotov cocktail, but when it comes to the lunch ladies it’s all about footless tights, or leggings.
“How old is too old?” was the first question which needed solving. As women who wore them the first time around, in the late 80s, we have fond memories of slipping on a pair of leggings with a big baggy fluoro T-shirt and dancing around the lounge to Wake Me Up Before You Go Go. We also loved the lycra numbers to team with our leotards at the Les Mills Jazzercise classes as we high kicked it to It’s Raining Men. And it took me years to let go of my stirrup leggings which made me look like a cross between a show jumper and a ski jumper, which I rather liked in that jolly hockey sticks way I could never really pull off. It was fun, it was easy, it was when we had slim legs and not a dimple in sight.
The thing about leggings is they are one of those nightmare hybrids fashion often challenges us with, just to see if we’ll go there. They aren’t tights, nor are they trousers. They aren’t bicycle shorts, nor are they skinny leg pants. They’re, well, tights with the bottoms cut off and I have a nagging feeling they were invented for amputees. I can just see the Fashion Gods hooting their socks off as they shout: “fashion victim” down at us mere mortals.
“But they’re a great insurance for when you wear shorts and short jersey dresses,” someone suggested. The thought being that a layer of black lycra will hide the inch of flab which has planted itself on our thighs since we were in our 20s. Which seemed like a good theory until we realised that it all came to a nasty end at our cankles (when your calf blends into your ankle) and our wrinkly old chicken’s feet revealed themselves in all their puffy, ageing glory. We surmised that there was a high chance we would look like a brood of chickens dressed up as superheroes.
Then I attended a presentation designed to tell older women how to look after themselves and discovered to my horror that the only thing older women seemed to be doing en masse was wearing leggings. It wasn’t a brood of chickens it was a whole shed full of them squeezed into every superhero outfit you could imagine. I reported back.
“What about just ¾ ones then?” came the ladies’ response.
My friend bought some. She was going to give it a go. She looks as good as she did in the 80s so we decided she could be the first.
“So have you worn them yet?” I inquired a week later.
“Yes…” she said with just enough of a pause to indicate she was only telling me half the truth.
“Outside?” I persevered.
“Well no, but gosh they’re comfortable,” she responded.
At another lunch there were some ¾ leggings and my friend and I made inquiries of their wearers. Did they think this was a look better suited to the young? we inquired rudely.
“God no, why should they have all the fun!” was the response.
Spoken like a true feminist thinker. Why should we care about what we look like at our age, we have the right to do and wear what we like and they’re just so damn comfy.
In the end I handed over the casting vote to the most stylish people in my universe, my children. I appreciated their diplomacy, while wondering where they got it with a mother like me, and listened carefully. Their findings are that older women should stick to proper black tights with feet in them but if I was determined to restore an item of clothing from my past the 70s maxi dress is probably a safe bet.
I have one, and I’ve worn it, but not outside.

"Activators"

2007-11-11T14:59:00.000+13:00

It is a universal truth that for every action there will be a reaction. You throw a ball and it will hit the ground, or a window or a person’s head. You stick up for something and you will get a law changed, be ridiculed, shamed or totally ignored. Pretty soon we work out which person we will be. The person who acts, the person who reacts or the person who lives under the radar, dog paddling in increasingly smaller circles determined to never make a ripple in the pond of life.
Louise Nicholas acted. She put herself out there in an attempt to stop some policemen raping more women. Her case against police officers Clint Rickards, Brad Shipton, and Bob Schollum was one of the 94 per cent of rape case reported to the police that failed to achieve a conviction. The police reacted by protecting each other and portraying Louise as a slut. Meanwhile the rest of us dog paddled around our lives and read the court case reports eagerly
I’m not sure whether Tame Iti acted out there in the Urerweras or why he acted, but I know the police reacted and hauled out anti-terror legislation to do so. Meanwhile the rest of us dog paddled and tut tutted about terror in the bush.
And that’s about it for this country, because we’re no longer a great nation of activists. Somewhere along the way we have forgotten the watersider's strikes, the Springbok tour, the Vietnam War, the nuclear disarmament, the bra-burning. We have lost the will to act when we see systems failing us, children dying from abuse, a government taxing us into a groaning surplus, heritage buildings being razed to make way for shonky developments you wouldn’t let your dog live in, that sort of thing. Did we become too frightened to stick our head above the precipice and save the beautiful old building down the road? Did we discover that life is just so much easier dog paddling around in circles putting up with it all?
I think we did. And in doing so we gave way to the reactors in our society, or,
as I like to call them, bullies. These people call talkback from the safety of their homes and pull out the oft-used tools of hatred: racism, sexism and class. Much easier to fire off anonymous letters, create whispering campaigns, shut doors and glower at the world. And as Louis Nicholas has proved, even some of our boys in blue are bullies.
No wonder we are now battling a bullying epidemic in our schools. For years we have wrung our hands and sighed at the way our teenagers binge drink, without once looking at ourselves as the role models for that behaviour. Now we send our kids off to school with the instructions to “stick up for yourself” against the bully, without once looking at our supposed community leaders, the police and our politicians, thanks to Tau and Trevor, for the examples our children are being given.
I’ve had a bully for 25 years now and I know how hard it can be to “stick up for yourself.’ I’m an unusual person to bully, having a tendency to be a bit of a tough nut, but my bully likes a challenge and at times he’s been so successful I’ve wanted to crawl under the floorboards of my house and never come out. I’ve craved the anonymity and the soothing waters of the ripple-less pond, but you just can’t do the dog paddle when hostility and hatred towards you are brewing out there in various whispering campaigns. When you realise that in the village where you live, the bully will always be around the corner waiting for you and even your children, you have to stand up and make it go away.
Louise Nicholas did it. After many years of rape and abuse by police she took them to court. She lost the case, but she gained Dame Margaret Bazley and the Commission of Inquiry into Police Conduct, and former cop John Dewar is in jail guilty of attempting to obstruct or defeat the course of justice.
And it is not lost on me that Louise is a woman, because Kiwi women have always been good at leading the way.
We should be grateful that she acted. That despite the reactors and the dog paddlers, this woman has shown us that a life led free of the bully, even if it takes 20 years and putting your face on every newspaper in the country, is because, in the words of that cosmetic campaign. You’re worth it.

Image by Anthony Ellison

"Put Upon"

2007-11-04T16:04:00.000+13:00

There comes a stage in most women’s lives when we find ourselves at the centre of such extreme responsibility and dependability that we feel Put Upon. From where we are standing the earth would simply refuse to turn on its axis if we weren’t there to give it that much needed push. No one, it seems can do anything without our help. From finding the only pair of jeans someone can possibly ever wear to rescuing the pot of yoghurt from the back of the fridge someone absolutely must have for breakfast. Everyone wants you at the same time for a million reasons and before you know it you begin to use the Put Upon language you vaguely remember your own mother using once upon a time.
“I don’t know why I bother!” is the phrase for those times when you have tidied the kitchen and returned minutes later to find it in disarray.
“Do I have to do everything?” is for those times when there’s no milk, My Sky crashes and you’re the only one who knows how to fix it and no one seems able to identify parsley in the garden when you need it for dinner.
“What did your last slave die of?” is mainly for those times when you really don’t want to get up off the couch during Coro St.
In reality we all know that we are never really indispensable. We create the Put Upon rod for our own back by failing to teach other people in the family how to fix things, turn things on and identify plant life. And if we’re honest most weeks of caring and nurturing pass unnoticed but occasionally this particular week is Put Upon week and our family wonders out loud if it’s a full moon again so soon.
During one of my Put Upon weeks I’ve glared at a glass of water resenting its apparent neediness. I’ve sworn at a novel feeling it was deliberately taking too damn long to finish being read. I’ve resented my books being put on my bookshelf, somehow segregated from the other main bookshelf. I’ve “I don’t know why I bother”-ed over the fact no one said “yum dinner Mum” within two seconds of it being placed in front of them. And rather than simply swear out loud at Leighton Smith’s callers I’ve actually thrown a tea towel at the radio.
But the secret is to get over it. Hot baths, glasses of wine, time alone in the garden and an early night are usually sufficient to shift a Put Upon. Because if we don’t shift it then we risk becoming a Permanently Put Upon. This is the woman whose life has become such a chore that she ages prematurely, never walks but stomps and whose every utterance is preceded by a sigh.
So occasionally, a slight dose of the Permanently Put Upon requires drastic action. One simply has to disappear for a few weeks under the guise of writing a novel to get some Put Upon free time, leaving the husband and children, dog and cats to fend for themselves. I ate whole grains and strawberries, didn’t answer the phone and typed furiously on the laptop with my view of the sea. And then I was Put Upon by one of my rowdier characters who decided she absolutely had to be Russian. No amount of persuasion would have her be a Parisian or a Hamiltonian, both places I can write about confidently. So I had to find a library and books about Russia before I decided to let her cool off in her St Petersburg Summer Palace while I popped home for a night of peace and quiet.
“We might have to take the dog to the vet,” said my husband when he picked me up from the ferry with his trademark irritating calmness that always kicks in when everything is collapsing. “She hasn’t eaten for two days and my computer crashed this morning so you’ll have to find the receipt because I’m sure it’s under warranty and Pearl’s finger is swollen.”
Within half an hour of walking back into my house the dog was eating, the computer had leapt back into life and I have no idea if the finger was any better but Pearl was smiling.
“You’re a miracle,” I expected my husband to announce like a TV husband on the commercials.
But he wasn’t about to admit that things work better with me around.
“I just feel so put upon,” he announced. And stomped off to the gym.

"Superiors"

2007-10-28T16:01:00.000+13:00

The only problem with dining in exclusive posh restaurants is that it’s so damn quiet in there you can hear an egg crack in the kitchen and the Superior couple two tables away from you.
Superiors are a new breed of diner who recently emerged out of the mating of the nouveau riche and the fashionably challenged. When those two bred they produced a person who by necessity must dine in exclusive posh restaurants to illustrate their wealth, a trait inherited from their nouveau riche parent, and they must clothe themselves in ridiculous clothes simply because they have a label and cost a lot. Early Superiors dined at Number 5 and wore Trelise Cooper. Superiors these days dine at Dine and wear something obtained on their last trip to Paris in “one of those gorgeous designer boutiques in the Marais.”
Superiors are easy to spot in any restaurant as they adopt one of two positions. The first is a cool, cold gaze at their surroundings which says “I really can’t believe I’ve been forced to leave my world and join yours.” They sit in perfect silence as they wait for a perceived insult to occur. The second comes a mere 10 seconds later as the perceived insult is leapt on like a starving dog and kick starts and exhausting session of eye rolling, tittering and sighs.
My recent encounter with Superiors was something not only enjoyed by my table but the one next to it and the one next to that. We were all enormously entertained in our own private ways and reliant on each other to keep the collective group informed of the horrors taking place two tables away.
I was first alerted to the Superiors presence by the announcement of their waiter in a voice I felt was a little loud and possibly playing to his audience, which went something like:
“An offering from the kitchen by way of apology for the mistake with the asparagus!”
I paused momentarily as I munched through my asparagus, the first of the season, divine and perfectly presented.
The Superiors scowled, nibbled, then pushed their plates away.
We were there for our wedding anniversary. A particularly good one being the 10th but my attention was barely on my husband or his fond recollections of our honeymoon in Paris, something he likes to do on every anniversary (I was pregnant and too focussed on food to really be that romantic but I did cry at the Swan Lake.)
Instead I was drinking in the Superior woman. Short black hair perfectly styled to resemble Liza Minnelli in her early days. Crisp white shirt, something black, trim, stern and a few well placed pearls.
“She’s a lawyer,” I whispered to my husband as he was half way through his often told and engaging honeymoon story about the cheese. “Well he’s something intellectual or academic,” he jousted back. “Only intelligent men wear a pink striped shirt and get away with it.”
So there it was, the lawyer and the lecturer doing their best to have the worst night of their lives and pay $200 for the privilege.
We dined exquisitely, as always and every so often I could eavesdrop on my neighbours who, like us, spent most of the night commentating on the Superior table.
“She’s just sent back her glass of wine,” whispered the woman.
“But they’ve already drunk half the bottle!” replied the man.
In lesser restaurants we would have witnessed a meltdown by the staff. The chef storming out of the kitchen and giving them an ear full, the maitre D telling them to leave if they didn’t like it. But no. Dine and its staff kept on keeping on, even when Pink shirt asked that they bring him his jacket so that he could reach into the pocket and withdraw his stunning collection of platinum credit cards which he produced with a flourish. Apparently they can be made out of moon rock now.
And it was over. My husband gladly returned to his honeymoon stories but not before I had taken another look at my lawyer and seen the full extent of her outfit.
“She’s wearing a bloody curtain!” I shouted as my eyes took in the full splendour of her cream voluminous designer outfit making full use of the term “ruche” which had been hiding under the table all night.
I think she heard, because she threw a filthy look in our direction, but maybe she was wondering why the whole restaurant was in hysterics.

Image by Anthony Ellison

"Grand"

2007-10-21T10:45:00.000+13:00

There is nothing more unsettling than being the subject of a rumour especially when it is in the street you live in. I do my best to keep my nose clean down our street, but I’m willing to accept that lately there’re could be one going around about me which doesn’t involve alcohol for once.
It all started the day I bought home a bulk lot of baby gear in the back of the Mitsubishi Chariot. I had bought it off Trade Me and my nine-year-old daughter Pearl was excitedly helping me carry everything into the house.
“You have to tell them Mum,” she said seriously as I passed her the teenie weenie cute car seat.
“I’m too embarrassed,” I replied as I extricated the adorable high chair.
“Look Mum, you know the sooner you tell them, the better you’ll feel about it all,” Pearl advised making full use of her newfound tweeny wisdom.
“I know, I just can’t ye,.” I moaned as I wondered what colour to paint the tiny table and chairs.
At that moment I looked up over the box of gorgeous fluffy nappies and blankets and observed my neighbour staring in disbelief before hurriedly looking for something in the bottom of his car.
This is when my street came to the conclusion that I was pregnant. At 45 I was having a senior moment baby.
I now set off for my morning jog wondering how many people are peering over their lace curtains or yucca stone gardens as we get in Grey Lynn, to observe my tummy and the fact that I shouldn’t really be jogging so early in pregnancy at my age.
And of course it’s not true. Instead I’m going to be a Nana. And Pearl will be an aunty and it’s been such a long time since anything has excited me quite as much.
When my step-son Joel and his partner Gemma told us the news my husband and I leapt in the air and screamed with delight. I think we may have even high-fived but both of us have decided to blot that from our memory. The embarrassing bit is that days after, while the baby was still only 13 weeks into it’s gestation I bought a bulk load of baby gear. Shades of interfering mother-in-law crept in as a result of my eager purchase, the other kids just thought I’d gone mental, and even the woman I bought the gear off in Dannemora told me it was a bit odd. There are plans to tell Joel and Gemma, mainly because Pearl refuses to keep it a secret any longer, and I have been advised to show them one thing at a time rather than let them into my office which is now doing a very sizable impression of being a nursery.
I’m hoping they’ll think of my actions as a version of nesting which all women get when a baby is on the way. That fantastic fussing and knitting, folding and shopping and stroking of baby stuff.
I would like to say that the news that I would be a 45-year-old grandmother was met with resounding positivism and joy by my peers. But it seems no matter how excited you are and how many ways you tell people how excited you are there are always those in your age group who fire back the classic line: “I’m just not ready for grand-children yet.”
What part of not ready must you be at my age I wonder? Not ready to love a baby? Arms not ready to cuddle? Nose not ready to sniff the top of their little head and go ‘awww?’ Of course not. The problem seems to be that the very word “grand” placed in front of any noun denotes bad imagery. Grand old pooh bah, grand dame, a Starbucks grande latte, grand duchy, grand mal, grandiose. These are all bad things. So to be a grandmother means one must have a bad perm, a body resembling a lump of bread dough, the ability to do crosswords before, during and after lunch and to never shut up in a conversation.
We have seen the scan DVD and counted its delicious fingers and toes and we’ve already decided that the baby will sleep in our room when it stays. And my husband’s first words after the embarrassing high fives and large embraces of the new parents were: “We’ll be able to take it to the caravan.”

"Shell Union"

2007-10-14T11:34:00.000+13:00

“Have you read the ceremony?” a friend shouted. “God it’s all about shells and sea water…it’s so completely gay!” she squawked.
Normally my friend’s ability to put her foot in it is something I enjoy immensely. Watching her vocally stumbling across a minefield of human sensitivities is a big reason I like to hang out with her, but in this case it was my minefield and my sensitivities.
“I designed that ceremony, you bitch,” came my spirited reply. “And by the way it’s what they wanted, it’s not your wedding.”
“Oh I’m sorry and will you be wearing pink to blend in with the shells,” she guffawed deciding that now the hole was dug she might as well wallow in it. Another one of her attributes I enjoy. “And who gets to drink the seawater at the end?” she chortled.
This was to be my first civil union ceremony as a celebrant but there were two problems. I am not a celebrant. I am only two papers into my four paper celebrant certificate. And I’m not registered. I tried to get out of it several times, but my friends were insistent and I love them both very much so I drew heavily on the two papers I had completed and designed what I thought was a short, moving, deeply symbolic little ceremony and called on a proper celebrant to do the legal bits.
And yes, it involved shells because the wedding was by a beach, and each guest would be asked to place one in a bowl of sea water collected from the beach earlier. You don’t need a degree in symbolism to guess what that was all about. I asked my two friends to spend some time before the wedding wandering along a beach, collecting the shells as they thought of their family and friends and I would collect the sea water.
When I turned up to the rehearsal the shells looked suspiciously clean, perhaps even bleached. I sniffed them carefully, and reached the conclusion that the shells had possibly spent some time between the beach and the ceremony on a slow boat to China where they were processed and returned to be sold in a gift shop somewhere. Hey, they were shells I reasoned and my friends are busy people.
There were tears at the rehearsal and I mentally noted that I may have to draw on my funeral paper where we are taught how to stop people crying. I’m not telling you because it’s a celebrant secret but I was convinced I would be forced to use the manoeuvre during the ceremony.
Later that afternoon I waded into the sea and carefully collected a San Pellegrino water bottle – though other kinds of bottle can be used - full of sea water and went back to get dressed.
Which is when the third problem happened. I was late. I broke the first celebrant’s rule which is always to arrive early and help calm your couple’s nerves. Be their rock, or shell, in this case. I thought of my disappointed celebrant tutor and hoped she never found out.
“We’ve got nine minutes!” he shouted, sweat trickling down his well groomed face.
“Oh gosh have we, sorry.” I mumbled, noticing a small rip in the side of my dress achieved as I hurried out of the car.
“Where’s the sea water?” he screamed, eyes piercing mine in a menacing manner.
“Shit.”
With eight minutes to go there was no way I could make it back to get the lonely bottle of sea water sitting expectantly in my kitchen.
“Deep breaths, count to ten, you both look terrific, don’t worry about a thing,” I said confidently as I grabbed the empty glass bowl and ran in no particular direction as long as I looked like I was in charge.
Under the tap it went and I even sprinkled a bit of table salt in to make it almost authentic. And so it began.
It was beautiful, moving, inclusive and funny. Everything it was intended to be.
I was surprised to find that none of the same sex couples there had been to a civil union ceremony despite it becoming law in 2004. In fact last year there were only 397 civil unions registered compared to 21,500 marriages in the same year.
Civil unions, despite all the fuss from Brian Tamaki and the Catholics, seem to be a very new thing. Perhaps they just need some more shells.
I ended the night having rather enjoyed my role in it and having found the determination to finish that certificate and get registered. I’m thinking the business card will be pink with a shell on it.

Image by Anthony Ellison

Killing Jokes published Oct 7

2007-10-07T08:47:00.000+13:00

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, but there are some people for whom it can be a long journey before they come to the realisation that they can’t tell jokes. There are only so many times you can look at a sea of confused faces and announce: “you had to be there!” I am one of those people. Know me before you judge me.
The main problem appears to be the punch line. I forget it. Usually just after I’ve started telling the joke. But I sail on confident that it will come to me before I reach the end, like magic, and it never does.
This is a rare disability which is not so much short or long term memory loss, its important information memory loss of the creative kind.
I can sit through half a movie and read half a book before I realise I’ve seen or read it before. Don’t ever ask me if I’ve read or seen something because I just won’t know. I’ll have to ask you to describe it in detail, including all the action up till about half way through, when I’ll say “Oh yeah – and in the end she strips naked and floats away on the iceberg. That’s, like, my favourite movie of all time!!!”
On other occasions I give away the punch line before I’ve even told the joke. “I’ve got this great joke about a doctor having sex with his patient,” I’ll announce.
Fortunately in my world there are people who tell jokes very well indeed. One of my favourites is Kerre Woodham. Her jokes usually involve a lot of set up and every moment of it is exquisitely described as she captures the scene and takes you on a journey of marvellous humour. Passers by watching me listen to Kerre may mistake me for a love struck groupie, so heavenly is it to be entertained by her. I sit huddled in intense anticipation, like an addict about to get their fix and when it comes I shriek like a mad woman and ask for more. I’m ready to admit that I’ve become a bit of a Kerre cheerleader of late, recently interrupting a Paul Holmes lunch so that everyone could hear my Kerre tell her joke. As Kerre positioned herself at the head of the table, thrust her tits out and launched forth I took one look at Paul Holmes’ face and suddenly remembered with horror that it was a Paul Holmes lunch not a Kerre Woodham lunch and if anyone was going to be telling long funny jokes at the head of the table it was the star of the lunch thank you very much. Sorry Paul.
What Kerre and of course Paul have is timing. When you earn your living as a broadcaster you learn to take it easy and not rush into your joke with the sheer enthusiasm of a beginner. An immaculately told joke will always contain at least a pause or a brief silence for effect. And I’ve never been good at silence, even for that long.
A good joke teller will also have the desire to entertain. Years ago we decided as part of our blended family easing-in strategy to get everyone in our family of six to tell a joke at the dinner table. Everyone would swat swot up their joke books and deliver everything from “Why did the man throw his toast out the window? To watch his butterfly” to every knock knock joke you never wanted to hear. Except my son who when it came to his turn said: “Why did the chicken cross the road. Because he could” every night. His need to entertain was obviously very slight. Either that or his need not to feel like a dick was very high.
Recently I’ve been determined to end my long career in killing jokes. I just want to be one of those people at the dinner party who makes people laugh out loud because of a punch line not because I’m drunk and waving my skirt above my head. I’ve been receiving instruction from my husband who has learned not to shake his head in dismay quite so often as I stunningly destroy great jokes simply by telling them. I’m not quite comedy festival stand-up material yet and I’ll never be a Kerre, but if you hear me telling a joke in the future, please at least pretend to laugh.

Image by Anthony Ellison

Unexpected published Sept 30

2007-09-30T08:57:00.000+13:00

There are some events which happen in life that we are completely unprepared for. You think about such catastrophic happenings but you doubt that they will ever really take place. You use phrases such as “pigs can fly” or “I’m Marie of Romania” with reference to these things occurring and you go about your daily business confident that they won’t. Sure that in the ways of the universe it would never happen to you.
One of these events happened last week. To be fair I had been warned, and it should have been expected. But I just didn’t think it ever would.
My husband stopped smoking. After thirty years of devotion to tobacco he smells like a different man. Our house is smoke free for the first time and I’m looking forward to having him around ten years longer than the smoking version. It’s the coolest, sexiest most wonderful think he’s ever done. He’s told me to increase our mortgage payments by the $100 a week he’d normally spend on fags, but I’m secretly putting it into a savings account so that he can fulfil a life long dream of visiting Antarctica, something being a smoker would be difficult to do.
As it turns out it was quite the week for unexpected events.
We had a tyre blow out on the southern motorway and we didn’t swerve across the road into oncoming traffic at 100 km an hour and die. In fact within minutes a nice man stopped to offer help followed by a fine police officer who had the tyre off and spare on before you could say thank you very much. My husband nearly started smoking again from the stress but didn’t.
I caught my first fish in two years. It was only 20 cms long and requested that it be thrown back in the sea. I acquiesced, but only after securing from it a promise that it would send back a bigger member of its species next time I was fishing.
My best friend had her birthday. Which wasn’t unexpected but she did manage to eat her lunch while my Kumfs shoes, which she had previously declared she would not allow within a 100 metres of her own Miu Miu’s, had a nice rest under the table directly beneath her calamari.
My novel which is half written and has sat grumpily in my computer for the past few months untouched, put its hand up and requested a month in Venice to be completed. Apparently as half of it is set in Venice it needs to revisit the light, the churches, the canals and the food. It claims to have been inspired by watching the movie Don’t Look Now again, and denies it is obsessed with the sex scene between Donald Sutherland and Julie Christie. I’m delighted the novel is ready to be finished but unsure if I could stand a month in Venice away from my family nor am I prepared to filch the money out of my husband’s Antarctica account, even if he doesn't know it exists. My novel tells me to harden up.
My five-year-old huntaway/golden retriever cross decided to reveal her latent ability to kill possums. We’re not actually sure if the possum died but it was last seen swimming out to sea. The last time the dog showed any interest in wildlife a possum ran for dear life across a patch of grass and up the nearest thing which looked like a tree, which was me.
Oh and then to top it all off a frippery of a memoir I had tapped out over the summer more for my own amusement than anything else never left the warehouse where it was sitting eagerly awaiting a day out at the book stores.
I heard from friends and colleagues I hadn’t spoken to in years and we discussed themes of censorship, the defence of truth and we recalled our early years as fearless journalists when we got stories out there, no matter what. And then we laughed my old friends and me. Because with such a fuss I wished my book had died an honourable death having brought down a corrupt political party or some hidden truth like who really killed Princess Diana and where Madeleine McCann is. But instead it is still a frippery of a memoir which in its short life made people laugh and cry. My husband nearly started smoking again from the stress, but didn’t.

Souvenirs published Sept 23

2007-09-23T08:56:00.000+12:00

It’s strange the things people remember. Recollections of white hot arguments, mad dreams, romantic interludes and hot sex are all capable of hitting us at the most inconvenient times, simply because we triggered the memory.
A smell or an object can bring it all back in living colour which is quite cool. Embracing your memory and reliving events in your head, such as hot sex as an example are an essential way of getting through a bus ride or that phone call which just won't end. And that is why some of us collect souvenirs. Not the snow dome, fridge magnet, shot glass type souvenirs, but the ones the French meant when they invented the word souvenir which means to remember.
And while some may collect these memory prompters and put them away in little boxes, I prefer to have mine with me. If someone were to pounce upon me and shake my huge handbag upside down they would find the following:
A silver button found on a street in Paris on the way to a special dinner in 1997.
A piece of King Arthur’s Tintagel castle which found its way into my shoe (honest) in Britain on a special holiday in 1995.
A child’s tooth. I’m not sure which child this belonged to but it makes me remember all their gappy smiles, which is always nice.
A religious picture of Mary given to me by an old lady outside Pompeii in 2006. It’s very pretty.
A shell from the beach my youngest daughter took her first steps on.
And numerous business cards from restaurants I have adored eating in. As I fumble in my purse for loose change or a lipstick I often find these cards in various states of disarray and think straight back to the sardine, pine nut, raisin pasta or the crayfish. Yum.
I often gaze at other women and their immaculate handbags with nothing in them except a lipstick, a mirror, a cell phone and a purse. All placed just so. What chance do memories have of surviving in such sterility?
Of course there are other souvenirs we do not welcome. The smell of Kouros aftershave wafting off a man in the street will cause me to double over in revulsion, such is the gloomy sexual memory I have associated with that. The scent of Charlie reminds me of an operation my mother had when I was young and worried. . Five inch heel, drop dead gorgeous shoes in my wardrobe remind me of the two years I have spent under the care of a podiatrist after one particularly energetic night out and the fact that I will never again be truly glamorous. Two inch suede courts from Kumfs, remind me that I’ve really given up, and my friend is still recovering from the shock that I actually went into a Kumfs store yet alone tried some shoes on and bought them. She’s now banned me from wearing them anywhere near her, she claims she can smell them coming from 100 metres away, such is her distaste for anything other than Miu Miu or Manolo Blahnik.
Gold wrapping paper has its own special memory associations. Mainly of shop assistants who take as long to gift wrap something as it took for you to drive to the shop, find a park, look around the shop, decide on you purchase and pay for it.
No wonder I keep a piece of old castle in my bag to give me something to look at as I resign myself to the fact that I’ll never get that half hour back again.
And then there is food as a souvenir. I’ve found this quite an absorbing pastime as I’ve determinedly lugged wheels of Parmigiano Reggiano back from Italy and presented them to the nice man at customs. Tins of pate and terrine, spices, jam and chocolate. I’ve brought them all back from far flung destinations, proudly lining up in the “Something to Declare” cue and smiling sweetly at the customs man who sniffs, and attempts to read the French or Italian on the package and then finally lets me through with my gastro souvenirs. All except the duck confit. Two whopping tins of it, lugged in my hand baggage. I think I might have cried at the waste of it. The customs man patted my shoulder and said: “There, there.” I’ll never forget him.

Welcome to my blog

2007-09-20T14:06:00.000+12:00

I hope you enjoy the columns I am posting on this site. I came up with the idea after I backed up my computer and saw I had about three years' worth sitting on my hard disc. I figured someone other than the Herald on Sunday readers might like to read them. If you don't that's fine because in reality I'm just trying to avoid writing my novel, like most writers who have blogs. I've tried baking bread (see next week's column) and my garden is flourishing. Tomorrow I start on my writer's regime as advised by Stephen King and will write a little every day. That should help. I have done chapters one and two which my 18-year-old daughter tells me are very good but advises that I concentrate on showing the story rather than telling it. I'm not sure where she gets these things from but it is age old advice especially for journalists trying to write fiction and I think I'll keep her on as my novel tester. If I am looking for even more distraction I may start posting my Agony Aunt columns for your amusement. Off to bake more bread.

"Noticing Death" published September 16

2007-09-16T08:16:00.000+12:00

An obsession with death notices is something most often found in the elderly. The sure knowledge that someone you knew has passed away before you is enough to keep old people scanning them daily. I’m not sure if this is a good feeling to have, knowing that you have been pre-deceased, or a bad feeling knowing that your circle of friends is growing ever increasingly smaller.
Being obsessed with death notices when you’re my age, on the other hand, is a simple case of nosiness. It started in my early years as a journalist when you were trained to read every inch of a paper in case something popped up of interest. Now you have shows like Fair Go and What Ever Happened To….to do that. But it’s a hard habit to break because you can tell a lot about a person from their death notice. And in my opinion you can never know too much about strangers.
Popularity is always an important consideration after someone dies. If they get a lot of notices, for many days then you can be assured they were well-liked. One lonely notice detailing the rest home they died in, a few relatives mostly deceased and an age of 94 and you can pretty much assume it was a fairly lonesome old passing.
Personality has only a slim chance of making itself heard in the death notice because it comes down to the nickname. “ Plonker,” “Big Boy,” and “Stinky” are all self-explanatory and impart a certain sense of fun. Likewise “Shrimp,” “Jiggles” and “Fats” require little interpretation although their owners would probably have preferred “Twelve Inch”, “Tits” or “Boulder Boy.”
Frustrating is the insistence on olde worlde language which tells us death notice sleuths absolutely nothing. Like sex and bowel movements, our language around death is required to be in code. No one dies; they pass away or pass on. Dead people are deceased, and they are always cherished or treasured.
“Passed away peacefully” is fair enough as it most likely means someone just died of natural causes at a very old age. But words such as “suddenly” and “unexpectedly” leave the reader hanging somewhat. Suicide or heart failure? We need to know. Car accident, violent stabbing, fishing trip gone wrong, alien abduction? Could someone not tell us the story about how Bob left early to go hunting with his best friend Steve, who then shot him thinking he was a deer. Now that’s a good death notice read on any given day.
Poetry is also encouraging in it’s effort to impart a little more information about a person although I’m now sure the one about God only taking the bes, makes a lot of sense, death being the non selective beast it is. Or the bit about the dead person being needed elsewhere. What for? Being a bank manager for dead people? It’s the amateur poetry not provided by the bible, but inspired by the grieving relatives which can be a little frustrating for its tendency to rhyme stay and away, joke and bloke, go and flow and Kevin and Heaven. I haven’t seen pissed and missed yet but I live in hope.
And of course lately you can have a picture too. I’ve previously written about the care which must be taken in leaving behind a suitable shot of ourselves when we were hot in our 20s to accompany our death notice, but one must now leave instructions as to the clip art you would like to go with your notice. Will it be the red rose outline or just the red rose? The dove and window or the baby angel and dove. Frustratingly none of these illustrations give the nosy parker any more relevant information about the deceased, apart from the fact that their relatives or funeral director like to add that special touch.
And occasionally there are strokes – sorry - of sheer brilliance for the obsessive death notice follower. Times when someone has penned something so gorgeous you sigh with appreciation, such as the great grandchildren who recently said they would miss the cookies and lemonade and the beautiful garden.
Now that’s more like it. If I had it my way death notices would be more like a collection of mini obituaries along the lines of my own…
Nissen, Wendyl, aged 98. Suddenly, outside SPQR, after a short battle with the footpath. In lieu of flowers champagne may be brought to what should be a very interesting party.

"Irrational bad moods" published Sept 9

2007-09-09T13:38:00.000+12:00

There just aren’t enough bad moods in the world any longer. It used to be that you could wake up hating the world and people would leave you be. They’d describe you as being a bit “under the weather” or having “got up on the wrong side of the bed.” They would work around you, leaving you to sort out whatever demons were fighting it out in your head, bring you cups of tea and wait patiently for the storm clouds to clear. Before the age of “feel good” radio, television and magazines it was okay to be a bit down. No one ever put their hands on their hips and said: “cheer up!” or “don’t you think it’s time you had closure?”
Today, when you start the day glaring at your nine-year-old daughter who hops into bed, grabs the newspaper and reads out the weather in Rome (23 degrees), Paris (23 degrees) and Mecca (43 degrees!!!), you are forced to feel guilty about your irrational bad mood. How could you possibly be irritated by your darling daughter reading to you as she does every morning? Perhaps it has something to do with her kicking you, dropping her toast crumbs, elbowing you into the corner and spilling your cup of tea. That exact sequence of events happens every morning and you don’t mind. Too bad. I just want to be grumpy for once.
The modern day requirement to be consistently cheerful is one I’m able to fill most of the time. I’m generally quite an upbeat, wine glass three quarters full type of person who likes to see the good in everyone and everything. Which makes it all the more special when a bad mood does strike. It’s new, it’s exciting and absorbing, like a wild affair with a very bad boy without the sex. But deep down you know it’s not right, so you have to find the reason for it, deal with it, and attempt to please everyone by getting happy again.
For women our first thought is PMT. And 90 percent of the time that’s the culprit especially if you’ve been dropping things and crying. If not, then something has happened that has annoyed you like realising all the Auckland mayoral candidates are ridiculous or someone at the newspaper you work for ran the same column you wrote two weeks in a row. Perhaps it’s the weather? Those relentlessly grey, wet days just will not end at this time of the year. And if it’s none of those things then one must come to the realisation that you are just being a self indulgent cantankerous old bag. And you have no choice but to embrace, indulge and enjoy.
As the day progresses you dismiss your adult children’s conversations with curt phrases such as “get over yourself,” “whatever” and “are you home for dinner?” You remind your husband that a) he already kissed you goodbye and no he can’t have another b) no you don’t want a foot massage and c) life does not revolve around what’s for dinner.
Then some old person rings up to talk to your husband about something and you yell at them because they got confused and had the audacity to say in a rather loud voice, as old people do: “Who are you? I don’t want you. You’re not the person I rang to talk to!” Later you hope like hell they didn’t hear the words “rude” and “prick” which accompanied the phone as it was thrown across the room.
Then you turn down a job just because you can. Not because you didn’t have the time, the ability or the inclination. You just felt like it. So there. Later your friend reminds you that you’ll never pay off the mortgage with that attitude. You hope like hell she’s forgiven you for using the words “rude” and “prick” in the same sentence.
And then it’s over. Just like that. Nothing a quick lunch and a few glasses of wine at SPQR can’t fix. Miraculously you rejoin the land of the contented as you find yourself complimenting your daughter’s outfit, laughing at your other daughter’s joke, singing to yourself as you cook dinner and giving your husband a kiss just because you felt like it.
And you realise that irrationally bad moods are possibly sent to us for a reason.

"Diana a Decade of Dreariness" published Sept 2

2007-09-02T12:20:00.000+12:00

I sense I was not alone in my need to groan with despair at the manufacturing of recycled grief as we remembered Princess Diana a decade after her dreary death.
Okay so the actual death wasn’t dreary, surrounded as it is with tales of a missing white Fiat, paparazzi chases, a mystery foetus, a supposed engagement, a jealous heart surgeon, MI5, CIA. Brilliant. When will they make the movie and will Hugh Grant be the love interest or the driver of the Fiat?
But what has always been dreary is Diana. She was a dreadful bore from the moment she emerged from the dodgy Spencer clan into the even dodgier royal family. She showed nothing but a crippling shyness and naivety which fuelled by the rigorous protocol and emotional coldness of her husband and in-laws swiftly blossomed into a maniacal attention seeking loo loo la la nutbar.
In the last few years of her life she spent much of it asking for privacy from the very media she courted with exclusive “Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded” documentaries, secretly co-writing her own tell-all book which was described as the “longest divorce petition in history” and leaking stories to her preferred newspapers.
She was not the first celebrity to believe her own publicity but she was and still is the first celebrity to be crowned Queen of Media Manipulation.
She also managed to get a grip on her deplorable style. Who will ever forgive her for introducing knickerbockers let alone those dreadful drop-waisted Mother Hubbard dresses? And she made sure that the best photographers in the world took suitably gorgeous shots of her, for which the media are now eternally grateful as they all reprint that classic black and white Mario Testino shot over and over, year in and year out. Strange how we never see her in those demonic polka dot tents complete with ridiculous hats she got about in during the 80s anymore.
I never shed a tear for Diana, even though I knew her life intimately having sold thousands of magazines on the back of every story ever conceived about her. I just never really liked her because what’s to like?
While she moaned on about Charles and his relationship with Camilla, one had to wonder what part of British Royal History 101 she was reading before she signed up to the marriage? Did she not get the bit about mistresses and turning the other cheeks? I’m not saying its right, but no woman in her right mind would marry Charles or any royal for that matter and expect a conventional marriage. And while we’re at it let’s take a close look at just what she was doing with her fidelity while she was throwing up her dinner from the stress. She was hardly idle, choosing to entertain herself with such class acts as James Hewitt and other such bores in uniform.
Possibly the only thing you could like about the women was her way with kids. There was no doubting she loved her sons and could hug any old orphan in any old orphanage and mean it. But being a good mother is something 99 per cent of women do well, there are no medals available for that, it’s called instinct. And let’s just pause a moment and look back at how she treated William and Harry. If your children were being harassed by paparazzi because of wouldn’t you do something about it? Here’s a suggestion: retire from public life and stop jet setting around the world with dodgy billionaire’s sons. A quiet life in the country perhaps with some security help from her ex hubby’s staff. It might take a few years of fighting your addiction to fame but you’d still be alive for your sons.
Ten years on I think the rest of the world may be starting to catch up with me. Unlike the initial and astonishing outpouring of grief in Britain for Diana from a nation renowned for its emotional reserve and stiff upper lip her anniversary seems to have gone quietly past with no one having anything much more to say than “where is that white Fiat?” and “Gosh didn’t her death teach the Royal family something about being accessible to their public.”
Perhaps in 2007 we have other more pressing concerns to cry about and the media just aren’t doing their job. I haven’t heard a thing about Paris Hilton for weeks.

"Virtual Reality" published August 26

2007-08-26T15:21:00.000+12:00

I had just managed to change my shirt from purple to blue, make my hair blonde and change my pants from jeans to black when a friend rang suggesting we catch up for a drink in an hour.
I was hoping that in an hour I would have removed my blue shirt and my black pants and would be having sex, but that’s the great thing about the internet I could log out and do it later.
I am one of nearly 9 million registered members of a virtual colony called Second Life. I signed up because I read about it in Time magazine and I couldn’t quite believe anyone would seriously want to exist in a virtual world, buy land, build houses, go shopping or have sex. Pretty soon I was an “avatar” and while my co-“avatars” had names like “Echo” and “Wind.” I opted for a more Kiwi approach and called myself “Kauri.
My first session lasted four hours by which time I had managed to change my clothes so that I didn’t look like Paris Hilton, conversed with several other Second Lifers who were all new too and just having a look around (although one woman was practicing yoga and hid behind a tree when I said hi). Another man dressed in black sat on me, well virtually, and I got scared. Sitting at my laptop on a Sunday afternoon a man who doesn’t exist scared me shitless and I felt certain he was going to virtually rape me. So I flew away and landed at the bottom of the sea. But I didn’t drown I just walked out dry as a bone and fresh as a daisy, no blow dry needed.
It was about this time that my husband wandered in to see what I had just bought on Trade Me, that being the only other reason I would sit at my computer for hours without moving. I asked him if he’d mind if I had Second Life sex for research purposes. Call me old fashioned but I just had to see how you did it. The words “virtual” and “orgasm” were weighing heavily on my believability register. He wasn’t keen but did suggest that he could enter Second Life too and we could have virtual sex with each other. “Kauri” meets “Rubber Plant”, how sweet. He’s always been quick on his feet when it comes to problem solving, damn him.
The trend to live your life in your computer is something I have been battling to prevent others from doing for several months now. Friends send me emails saying they’ve signed me up for Facebook so instead of emailing, phoning or actually physically seeing me they can send messages from a website which seems to provide little else than a virtual community of like minded knob heads.
Why are we all avoiding real life?
Because in real life we are fat, and in cyberspace we can be thin. In real life we might not be as charming and witty as we would want to, but in cyberspace we have the time to think up the lines before we tap them out. I no longer visit Second Life, simply because things took forever to do and the Second Life community would often freeze while it caught up with my commands, which is probably more Telecom’s appalling broadband delivery problem than theirs. I just couldn’t face the thought of having sex and freezing at the wrong moment. It might send the wrong signal.
And I just couldn’t get my hair right. It insisted on looking like a dish mop after a big load of dishes, and quite frankly my hair looks like that in real life, so I wasn’t about to put up with it in virtual land.
Perhaps our computer is safer for many people. If you make a mistake, like landing in the ocean, then you’ll survive. You will always have something to do and people to meet who won’t judge you because you have a wart on your nose, big hips or a small dick. And at the end of day with your computer keyboard you will have had some emotional interaction of some kind. You may have been scared like I was, or you may have been loved, appreciated, listened to or played with.
Pretty soon you’d forget the joy of reading a good book, walking in the sun and meeting a friend for a glass of wine in an hour.

"Celebrity Do Gooders" published August 19

2007-08-19T15:20:00.000+12:00

When you spend your career writing about and therefore living off celebrities you tread a very narrow line if you turn on them. Welcome to my very narrow line.
On one side of the line is the right for all celebrities to be someone people recognise. Work on the tele, talk on the radio, star in a movie, read the news, learn to dance. Talk about these things in the magazines and give us some inside information on your personal life because people find you inspirational. They feel they own you and your star shines a little light on their ordinary lives. That’s celebrity culture and something I will always defend for its right to have a positive influence on people. I will also defend celebrities like Jools Topp to talk about her breast cancer and John Kirwan to talk about his depression. They are talking about their own experience of these issues.
But the other side of the line is where celebrities should not tread. Putting themselves out there to discuss issues they are not qualified to talk about, such as child abuse. There are doctors, social workers and Plunket nurses to do that. People who have actually met abusers and their victims and therefore have a reasonable understanding of why these atrocities happen and how one could go about starting to fix them. You don’t find many child abuse cases at a Trelise Cooper children’s fashion show. Well not the kind you read about in the paper anyway.
Celebrities do not own the exclusive rights to expressing their anger and concern either. We all have that in spades and don’t particularly need to watch them parroting how we feel on television. We have mirrors. If they have answers because their charity has invested its funds into research then let’s hear them, we’re interested. But don’t wring hands and talk about your embarrassment and the fact that you don’t know or don’t care about “the Maori problem.”
Recently we’ve seen celebrities emerge from behind their glamour and carefully maintained images to “protest.” Christine Rankin and her team of yummy mummies had the relatively easy job of turning up and saying nothing for three minutes to show their concern about child abuse. I was so deeply affected I went to Christine’s charity For the Sake of Our Children Trust on the net to see what I could do to help. I was encouraged to talk about the problem with friends and politicians, to sign up to the charity and get others to as well, to report incidences of child abuse and to become a positive role model. Who had any idea it was so easy to solve the child abuse problem?
Jonah Lomu recently reminded us to remind our power supplier if we might die if the electricity was turned off. Ta, Jonah. And let’s not forget Breast Cancer Awareness week when celebrities find a friend’s mother who once had a lump removed and recall the pain and agony this knowledge inflicted on them when they found out.
Some might suggest that celebrity wagons are being hitched to such shocking and disturbing issues as child abuse as a way of fleshing out their brand and getting them some much needed coverage. I prefer to see it as a misguided attempt on their part to use their celebrity status to draw attention to a cause they know little about. “If just one person stops beating a child because I’m embarrassed and I think it’s a Maori problem then it’s worth it because then I’ll feel better.” That might work for the correct way to put out a fire or not be killed on a railway crossing but child abuse? Such an endemic, historic, complex issue, will not be fixed by the stroke of a celebrity highlighter.
Celebrity causes are not new. Brigdet Bardot has devoted her life to saving little animals, Angelina Jolie’s work inflicting media intrusion on unsuspecting orphans is well documented and Diana Princess of Hearts tiptoed around a few land mines in her time.
But people are still cruel to animals, children are still suffering and people are still being blown up by landmines.
And Christine Rankin gets more news coverage for the alleged firing of a TVNZ security guard who challenged her racist views, than providing any useful suggestions for this nation’s child abuse recovery.

"Grandma Envy" published August 12

2007-08-12T12:20:00.000+12:00

Grandma envy is not something many women admit to. When you have adult children it is usually a signal to stop wearing underwear, remind yourself that “flirt” is not a dirty word and take up Ceroc dancing. I’m not one of those women. I can’t wait for grand children. My own kids grew up at SPQR so I figure it’ll be business as usual with the grand kids.
Which is why I’m practicing on Cleo. She’s four, and one of those kids you would repeat order if you could. She ticks all the right boxes from cute as a button right through to immaculate comic timing.
She came to stay for five nights. In anticipation I bought her a pink cuddly rug, a gypsy skirt, a bunny rabbit, two princess books and junk food. I’m not sure why I bought the baby rug but it was soft and cuddly and it made me feel grandma’ish.
What I didn’t realise was that no one else in my house was feeling remotely grandma’ish.
“Did you think about consulting the rest of us before bringing another child into our home?” said the indignant husband.
I think he was about to say: “A dog is not just for Christmas, it’s for life!” but thought better of it.
Men can be such pricks sometimes. Especially when proving points about consultative practice which is a theme we’re working on at present. Not to mention the new theme which emerged when Cleo came to stay called “doesn’t lift a finger.”
Non envious grandparent of the future chose to ignore the overwhelmingly positive and gorgeous presence of my practice grand-daughter.
So it was me and Cleo with some help from the adult kids who found her vastly amusing on the topic of nude male paintings.
“I have to move, I’m sick of looking at that man’s penis,” she announced.
Even the dog had something to say by urinating on the kitchen floor as she does when she’s emotionally unstable and coping with the realisation that she has just been relegated one notch further down the food chain. And Pearl the nine-year-old requested a day off at her friend’s house.
“I just need some space Mum. You know how it is.”
Meanwhile Cleo, sensing my acute aloneness in a house of many subtly worked on the husband in an impressively early display of sisterhood.
“Oh you are so tall,” she would say eyeballing him with her clear green eyes. “Uncle Paaauuulll can I have a cuddle.”
Good girl.
I tried to hide my exhaustion from Cleo. It’s been a long time since I’ve had to get my arse off the couch to watch a child have a bath, read bedtime stories or negotiate with a pre-schooler. “I don’t want to!” are four words Cleo uses a lot.
“I’ll give you a piece of chocolate!” were seven words I used a lot.
On the third night after I had cooked a meal for 10 (our usual contingent on a Sunday night) Cleo slipped in a puddle of emotionally unstable dog urine and everyone just kept on eating. As I calmed her and the dog down, changed her clothes and put dog out the back I caught a look of horror from the five big kids. And it was directed at Paul. The normally hands-on, can’t do enough Father of the Year. He was nonchalantly forking spaghetti into his mouth and looking the other way. Too nonchalantly. The kids were not impressed.
“Why is Mum behaving like a single parent?” my eldest daughter demanded to know in a reassuring display of sisterhood.
More spaghetti. More nonchalance.
“She saw me and ran up and gave me a huge hug!” he announced the next day after picking her up from day-care having casually mentioned that he could probably manage it on his way home from work.
“She’s soooooo gorgeous,” said Uncle Paaauuulll. “I’ve bought her a green umbrella. I can’t wait to be a grandpa,” he gurgled.
I put my feet up for the first time in days.
And then she was gone. Swept up by her tanned parents who reacted quite calmly to the news that “Aunty Wendyl gives me chocolate if I go wees before bed” which were the first words to tumble out of her deliciously funny mouth.
The dog is only just back to her normal non-urinating inside self and Cleo left behind the baby blanket and the green umbrella.
But they’ll be waiting anxiously for her next time, as we both are.

"Phones" published August 5

2007-08-05T09:55:00.000+12:00

There are three things in life which never happen. The first is having an overwhelmingly positive response when someone calls while you are on deadline to check “you’re happy with our service.” The second is having an overwhelmingly positive response when you’re on deadline and that person is calling from Telecom. And the third is being haunted by that phone call for months, day and night, dreaming and awake, so scary was your conversation.
Her name was Tania or Stacey or something like that. I told her I was unhappy paying hundreds of dollars a month for a phone line, broadband and two cell phones. I told her I couldn’t understand my bill no matter how many times I tried to analyse it Why is it that when you flick it over it is upside down and you have to turn it around and then you forget what you were looking at? And why is it 20 pages long? Why do 1D, 1W, 9D, and 9F in the “type of call” column all mean “mobile to mobile” What’s the difference? What do all my “plans” actually mean? I can’t remember. Tania or Stacey “pulled me up” on her screen. There was a silence. “It’s your cell phone, you’ve already spent $100 this month,” she announced.
“But I don’t use it that much, maybe you need to put me on another plan.”
Silence. Pause.
“Umm, look I’ve got to go into a meeting, I’ll call you back in an hour.”
Tania/Stacey never called back. I waited with an anticipation I found hard to justify to myself in my most confident moments. Why did it matter? Surely Tania/Stacey wasn’t keeping anything from me, like the fact that I was being ripped off and Tania/Stacey’s job was to upgrade me to spend more, not save me money. A nagging feeling planted itself on my shoulder from that day like some consumer time bomb ticking away. In moments of reason at 4am as I lay awake pretending to read but really wondering why she never called back I thought that perhaps the meeting she was called into could have been her last because she was fired for going too easy on the customers. Or maybe she was pregnant and working from home to make ends meet and she went into labour and obviously couldn't call me back.
There was nothing for it but to consult the kids. Not that any of them is particularly skilled in translating Telecom phone bills or was at all interested in a discussion as to why Tania/Stacy never called back. But they did know about Other Network charges. The fact that all my girlfriends, and therefore the ones I chat to are 021 people. When you’re an 027 calling 021 costs more than my life is worth.
“Change to Vodafone,” they announced on their way out the door oozing their particular brand of youth, vitality and cool.
But therein lies the rub. At the caravan only 027 works and I need that for my nifty email connection so that I can work and no one knows I’m actually down there. It’s amazing how many business conversations you can have in the gaps between seagull calls, crashing waves and camp mates dropping off buckets of kiwifruit.
Then Matt, the kids’ friend who just flew up from Dunedin for the holidays gave me the solution. Two phones. One for my 021 friends on prepay the other my 027. It’s not the most environmentally friendly option, he pointed out, but it saves you money. And as he actually flew the plane he just arrived on, I figured he knew a thing or two.
So the two phone option was adopted at the cost of $110 which I would no doubt save in a matter of weeks.
“Gosh it’ll be a bit embarrassing when both of them go off at the same time while I’m out at lunch,” I chortled to my daughter as I headed out to lunch.
“Has anyone seen my extra phone?” I yelled the next morning.
It was gone. It disappeared at lunch and SPQR report that it hasn’t turned up in the little draw under the cash register which so often minds the things I leave behind. I had used the phone for 24 hours.
I now have another one bringing the total money saving exercise into the red at -$220. Which will actually take months to make it worth my while even with my $6 Best Mate deal.
That’s the sort of thing I like to think Tania/Stacey would have warned me about if we’d ever got to have our chat.

"Status" published July 29

2007-07-29T10:08:00.000+12:00

Just once in my life you would think it possible to do something a little unusual and not have it become a trend. I’ve been catching buses consistently for 10 whole days. I’ve stood in the rain and waited for 20 minutes, I’ve caught the wrong one and I’ve forgotten to ring the button for my stop. But generally I’ve become quite the buster, complete with my 10 pass ticket and smug saving the environment face.
Distressingly I was recently in a very posh restaurant (having caught the bus and arrived a little early) and overheard a table of well heeled businessmen earnestly discussing their recent bus trips. The men had “my car cost as much as a small house” written all over them but they were telling tales of hopping on not one but two buses to get about the place. Surely rich white men were untouched by such hippy talk as using public transport? Surely my bus experiences were mine and mine alone not to be messed about with by people of that class and status? When my companions joined me one of them looked over at the table and explained away my dilemma.
“They own Stagecoach,” he announced in a matter-of-fact tone only news readers possess.
Obviously they’d been indulging in a fun corporate exercise of “getting down with the customers” and were celebrating in the relative safety of a restaurant none of their customers could afford.
But good on them. The more people who catch buses the better because then we might get more of them, on time and going our way more frequently. We’ll reduce traffic congestion, save petrol, and operate like a proper metropolitan city. We might also get buses free for students and old people which would be super.
There are some of us who adore public transport. I’ve been to Europe six times and never caught a taxi. Not even from the airport. Which sometimes means you’re in a carriage with dope smoking Nigerian teenagers who live in the outskirts of Paris, but they seemed quite nice. They were certainly laidback.
It also means you sometimes get told the train you’re on is the right one when it’s not. But how often do you get to see a quaint old train station in the middle of Sicily while a young woman (who later reveals she is a geriatric neurologist) screams at the top of her voice in staccato Italian at a station master to get her the right train and get it now.
But back in New Zealand if everyone becomes busters, there will be the problem of status anxiety. Without the buzz of sliding into your heated leather bucket seats, firing up the V8 and cruising around the streets in a car designed for fording rivers rather than negotiating traffic islands at an average speed of 40km, how are people going to know that you’re important? How will they know that you have six figure salary, a seven figure house and a really small penis?
I’ve been working on it. First you must wear your money in accessories. You don’t just plug into a 1GB iPod you have the mega 80 GB version. You also have headphones at least the size of your head if not bigger and every accessory you can find from skins to armbands. People will take one look at you and see the equivalent of at least a BMW 3 series or an Audi A4. But add a Blackberry and get busy with your emails and you can shift all the way up to a Porsche or even a Rolls Royce phantom if you score yourself a Vertu or an iPhone.
Then there is the problem of maintaining your status as in individual. By necessity public transport means you are not alone. You may have to sit next to a fat person or listen to rowdy children…yuck! But please don’t return to the solo haven of your vehicle. Consider this a good chance to mix with the “real” people and drop in funny anecdotes at work just to show that you’re “in touch.” You can even afford to become a little supercilious with it now you’re officially a buster.
And if you’re not a status seeking wanker, then it may be necessary to advertise your less materialistic attributes by reading intelligent literature. A newspaper is a good start, a Jane Austen if you’re into attracting the ladies, but why not go the whole hog and grab yourself a copy of “A Life Stripped Bare, my year of trying to live ethically” (available at all good Trade Aid shops.)

Age published July 22

2007-07-22T10:36:00.000+12:00

I turned 45 on Thursday the same week that cute little weather girl Toni Marsh was furiously trying to tell everyone she was no where near 40. Apparently she’s nearly 39 and someone had to rock up to Births, Deaths and Marriages to find out. I’m okay about admitting my age because secretly I know people really think I’m 35.
This year I’ve even started growing the grey streak back into the front of my hair, just so people will look at me and say: “Well she must be 45 she has that grey streak, if she was 35 she’d be dying it.”
And actually I’m more likely to tell people I’m older than I am because I can never quite remember what year I’m in or what year I was born.
I’m also quite happy for someone to look up my birth certificate to prove that I’m 10 years older than I am but to save you the bother it was July 19, 1962, North Shore Hospital. You’ll notice my name was originally Wendy, but it was altered to Wendyl when I was 10 months old. I tell people my parents had a huge weekend and decided to invent a new name for me. They deny this furiously (the bit about the huge weekend, the name is quite obviously made up) and while we’re at it Mum would like it if I mentioned something positive about her for once. She won at bridge this week. Got a silver cup and $50.
That same week I was also struck for the very first time with the knowledge that I had at least 40 years still to go if you take the average life expectancy for a Kiwi woman is 81.9. I’ve added 3.1 years for good behaviour. What an awfully long time to fill when you’ve already got a career, given birth four times, learned how to cook, sew, garden, read without moving your lips and have decent sex. What will I do with those 40 years? I’ve started doing the crossword.
Someone suggested affairs with younger men are all the go when you have a bit of time on your hands. I asked my husband what it would be like from the man’s point of view to watch an older woman take her clothes off in front of you. Would she be best to insist on lights out, take some E so that it didn’t really matter or give him a guided tour to the scars your life has left on you? Fell off the bike coming home from tennis, first baby stretch marks, second, third and fourth baby stretch marks, skin cancer removal, episiotomy scar times four. My husband suggested leaving out the episiotomy because young men don’t know what that is.
I had a dinner for my birthday. The friends I invited were different from the friends I invited the year before and the year before that. Some were the same, obviously I don’t go through friends quite that quickly, but none of them were at my 35th birthday. Age does that.
I refrained from screaming in a pissed way at my birthday lunch with the girls that I’d “bought myself Botox for my birthday!” as I once heard an older women in full flight at SPQR. If I did that I’d then have to scream: “And in 10 years when my liver gives up trying to cleanse my body of botulism I’ll die!”
At 45 my body has never been better. Not in a Nicky Watson tanned and terrific way,but in a healthy way because age tells you that it’s best if nothing goes in without evidence that it was created naturally. And that it’s quite good to do some exercise every day. A cold or flu contemplates settling in for a week of battle with my immune system and runs screaming from the room after 24 hours. And my body and brain have spent enough time working together that they combine to get me home before I start making a fool of myself in public places.
But the best thing about being 45 was turning up for a photo shoot for former editors of the New Zealand Woman’s Weekly where I was admonished by another former editor for not following the brief of wearing “black and white.” I hadn’t read the brief; at 45 you read books, not briefs. But it didn’t matter because at 45 you don’t have to do white. You can do whatever the f..k you like. Toni Marsh might quite like that when she gets there.

"On Being Interesting" published July 15

2007-07-15T10:15:00.000+12:00

The long cold days of winter are threatening to turn us all into tiresome, jumper wearing people with nothing better to do than read books in front of the fire, slow cook pieces of meat which should have been fed to the dog but masquerade as comfort food, and start doing the Herald crossword. By July it always becomes essential to find ways to make yourself more interesting when you are forced out into the cold and exposed to others. Here are some ideas:
If you’re a girl shave your head for charity and post a picture of yourself on the net. Guaranteed to generate a few gasps from your friends and colleagues but highly unlikely to get you laid in the very near future. In fact not even the near future, try next winter when you’re hair has grown an inch or two.
Tell everyone you’re on the Global Poverty diet. You’ve just read the No Nonsense guide to World Poverty and were so moved by the story of Farida Bibi from a village on the Bay of Bengal whose family chews rags to ease the hunger pains that you can no longer put anything in your mouth without tasting rags. You’ve already lost two kgs and you’re having talks with a publisher about a possible book deal. It could go global.
Consider the vest. A bullet proof vest sends a really intriguing message that you’ve just popped in from a hostage siege or perhaps you’re a duck hunter who is worried his mates might mistake you for a duck. Either way it makes for fairly interesting conversation and you can even buy one on Trade Me at the moment – closes tonight 6.31pm, $1 reserve. Or how about a visibility vest? Available at all good $2 shops this says you have an important job on the roads, you’re an ambulance driver or you lead the walking bus to school. All interesting pursuits guaranteed to keep the conversation flowing for a while and always leads to a spirited discussion on fluro choices for winter: yellow, orange or pink.
Email all your friends You Tube clips. Nothing says “interesting” quite like clips of TV shows they’ve never seen, or indeed never wanted to see. But it proves that you are “up with what’s happening” along with the other 100 million people who log on every day.
Email your friends obscure websites like www.librarything.com where you have catalogued your entire book collection, complete with the cover art and you just wanted them to know how many books you have. Fascinating and good for insurance purposes if the house burns down. You can also tell them a bit about yourself such as the fact that in the last year you’ve given a voice to the disposed homeless defended the dignity of the old and helped the anger of the young grow into understanding. Not to mention turning dreams of a future into a living experience and assisted others to connect and walk the talk.
Start “accidentally” wearing your work photo ID outside of work. It’s a great conversation starter as everyone in the pub reminds you you’ve got it on, it sends the message that you are employed and that you work for a really big firm and the words “Accounts Dept” or “Call Centre” are too small for anyone to read from a polite distance.
Don’t wear black. Nothing says “positive attitude” and “sunny disposition” quite like a splash of orange and lime on a dull winter’s day. You may be confused for Theresa Gattung “kicking back”, but hey you were noticed.
Get drunk. You’ll be interesting for approximately one hour so do realise that after that you need to get home fast to your comfort food, your fire and a soothing dose of Coro St.
Start a blog. I did (www.wendylnissen.blogspot.com) and the abuse was so overpowering I had to block the comments section for a few days just to get over it. The only person who was a bit nice to me confessed on another blog that he was just sucking up so I’d put his blog address in this column and get him a few more hits. It’s an ugly world but go there and you’ll at least have something to talk about even if your self-esteem has been reduced to the level of the rags starving children suck in India.

2007-07-09T10:46:00.000+12:00

Excuses published July 8
There comes a time in everyone’s life when certain behaviours we are not proud of insist on taking themselves for a walk on a repetitive basis. Eventually it becomes evident that you need to come up with an explanation for these stray puppies of abnormal conduct.
For celebrities this is not a problem. Paris? ADD. Lindsay? Addiction to painkillers. Britney? Addiction to painkillers and buying wigs.
It could be reasonably argued that celebrities actually need a bit of a disorder to do what they do so abnormal is the desire to be famous, to give up any pretence of privacy and find God.
But when it comes to being just a normal person with an annoying tendency towards bad behaviour then we have to work harder. Which is when the disorder de jour becomes very useful.
A few years ago Autism was all the go. Don’t feel like mixing and mingling? Keep laughing at the wrong place in the joke? Can’t look anyone in the eye? You’re not rude you’re Autistic. Feel free.
Then along came Attention Deficit Disorder or ADD. Can’t be bothered listening? Keep walking out of the room at the wrong time? Always on the go? This one can cover a lot of ground on any given day.
And lately Aspergers is all the rage. Bit clumsy? Not good in a social situations? Can’t read body language? Go for it.
The wonderful thing about having a disorder de jour in your back pocket is that no one questions it. You can be in the middle of the most disgraceful behaviour in a busy restaurant such as pulling a woman’s hair while screaming abuse at your boyfriend about supposed indiscretions and simply ask that people respect your behaviour due to a diagnosis of ADD combined with a touch of Dyslexia. You can guarantee they will back off in an instant in an effort to be seen to be a caring politically correct member of society. And no one will ask you to sign the bill thinking Dyslexia means you can’t write your own name and go around the place marking “X” on legal documents.
You can also use it for explaining away work issues such as boring everyone rigid with extensive logic arguments about the storage of paper clips (Asperger's) or repetitive behaviours such as insisting on stacking the toilet paper rolls neatly in the toilet (Asperger's, Autism) or just losing it on any given day (Autism).
Which takes care of the behavioural side of your demeanour. But there are still certain behaviours that require excuses such as not turning up at work. What you need then is the disease de jour.
For many years the two words “women’s” and “problems” were sufficient to buy you anything from a day off work to a full scale six weeks if “surgery” was required. Although it can also be categorised as a disorder de jour to explain away general moodiness and hypersensitivity.
But then male bosses stopped turning pale and shaky at the slightest mention of “down there” because they were cool and modern and with it. Suddenly they started actually asking how heavy your flow was and had you considered the possibility of fibroids? Apparently his wife has them. Now you’re pale and shaky.
These days we’ve had to be a bit more creative and call in Irritable Bowel Syndrome but even then they insist on suggesting that your farting was actually getting a little out of control in the office.
The key is to find something no one knows about. Can I suggest Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy Syndrome which according to Paula Abdul is why her behaviour on Idol was so loopy. Not the drugs after all. Hard to diagnose, this disease causes the nervous system to begin behaving erratically. Brilliant.
Or how about Simmering Kidney Disease or one of the many illnesses caused by mosquito bites? Allergies are also ensured a long life span due to pollution of our environment. All you need to do is sneeze a lot and remember not to eat dairy when the nibbles tray goes around at staff drinks.
At the moment I’m working on a suitable disease to explain why I went to the Kathmandu sale 10 days ago, bought six thermal tops and haven’t stopped wearing them since, even to bed. Ah yes, SAD. Seasonal Affective Disorder. Apparently I can also gain weight and refuse to get out of bed. Loving it.

"Trouble with Teens" published July 1

2007-07-01T17:17:00.000+12:00

When did teenagers become the new hated minority? In a unique sociological twist we’ve stopped turning on people because of their race, religion or sexuality and decided to turn on our own. Our kids.
They are not to be trusted and certainly shouldn't have the right to vote at 16 as proposed by Sue Bradford. Being a teenager is possibly the worst thing you can be because you are certain to become a hoodie wearing P addicted crime machine. Just read the papers.
Society insists that your children have two stages when you will want to hand them over to CYFS. When they are toddlers and when they are teenagers. God forbid you should get through either stage without incident, that’s just not normal. Whoever heard of a toddler who doesn’t have tantrums or a teenager who doesn’t turn sullen, uncommunicative and overindulge in alcohol and drugs? People insist on telling you that parenting teenagers is a minefield. A thankless task which will always end with a visit from the cops in the middle of the night.
And if they’re not destined for a life of crime they’re just so weird and whacky and self obsessed and off this planet. Really? Last time I looked this generation of teenagers is possibly the most well educated, well researched, most likely to have a debate and win type of people. And don’t even start talking about the environment, from the age of 12 these kids have a PhD on the subject.
Because what people over 40 fail to realise is that these kids have the internet. They Google, they You Tube, they My Space, they bebo, they Wikipedia, they chat online, they learn things at a rate only the speed of light could envy. They are little powerhouses of knowledge, even the poor ones. Don’t look now, but the internet is everywhere.
Readers of the NZ Herald need look no further than the College Herald, the outstanding newspaper written by high school kids to realise that on any given edition you will be confronted with opinion, knowledge and facts on everything from nuclear power and world poverty to globalisation. I doubt I even knew what globalisation meant at that age and I was on the debating team and everything.
I was apparently a terrible teenager. Before taking any new man to meet my mother I would have to warn him of two things: She will talk about my teenage years as if I was Carrie reincarnated and she will get out a poem I wrote at 14 and read it out loud in an attempt to mortify me. The last man I took to meet her smiled politely at these revelations, even though he was 38 and had two kids of his own. And I’m pretty sure that poem is still lurking somewhere at the bottom of her handbag to be used at a moment’s notice if I don’t watch my 44-year-old self.
But despite being a little naïve and idealistic teenagers of my generation were generally expected to be good kids and grow up to be valid human beings.
Then somewhere along the line society started saying teenagers were wrong. And so started the self fulfilling prophecy. If you tell any minority they suck, then that’s exactly what they’ll do.
And then we send them out with their self esteem around their ankles into a world where they are being offered more than the dope we smoked. They’re dealing with pharmaceuticals and while parenting guru Ian Grant tells parents to have a zero tolerance policy when it comes to drugs, that advice may have worked in the 18th century when it was still legal to lock your kids up, but surely giving them information and advice is a better course of action.
Even without Ian Grant to guide me on the path of righteousness, and despite my mother’s memory, I wasn’t a terrible teenager. My only crimes were that I left home at 17 to live with my boyfriend and put myself through a journalism course while I worked waitressing at the Hungry Horse Restaurant. And I was a bit lippy. Which I still am.
Today we need to stick up for our teenagers. To tell them that being a teenager is about experimentation, moderation, having the knowledge to make good decisions for themselves and others, that we trust them to make those good decisions and most importantly that we really like having them around. And never, ever leave poems lying around where your mother can find them.

"Money" published June 24

2007-06-26T11:35:00.000+12:00

Bill Gates has been listening to me. Finally someone with heaps of money has decided to make a full-time career out of philanthropy rather than build enormous houses, buy up chunks of beach and drive fast cars. The richest man in the world aims to take his money and his mind and do something about the worldwide crises we have in areas of sickness, death, ignorance and illiteracy. And as hard as I tried I couldn’t find funding for the War on Terror or a Microsoft yacht in the next America’s Cup challenge anywhere on his list.
Unlike that other rich guy Larry Ellison, who reportedly spent a quarter of a billion on his syndicate for the America’s Cup challenge and all those other rich people ( including the New Zealand Government) who by my calculation will have thrown into the America’s Cup pot close on $3 billion. Just so that a few of the world’s elite can get a short term thrill of some yachts going really, really fast. Isn’t Pirates of the Caribbean 3 on where they live?
It’s not hard to find out what $3 billion could have done for the world. It could have given food to some of the world’s 2.2 billion children who live in poverty. Or how about doing something for the 815 million people in developing countries who are suffering from acute hunger and the 10 million who will die of hunger each year? *
If you’re still reading then it’s safe to assume you are a realist or you are one of those boring Aucklanders who shout at me: “The America’s Cup created the Viaduct you moron!” as if that is something we can be proud of. A strip of bars where 17-year-old Westies practise being Paris Hilton watched by men in property development who have far too many white striped shirts in their wardrobe. Thank you America’s Cup for your cultural input, and next time you come let me take you on a day trip to South Auckland where people die because they can’t pay the power bill.
Now back to the realists. We’re the kind of crazy cats who talk about creating a future rather than killing it. About preservation, conservation, renewing, reducing … that sort of thing. Admittedly we tend to be middle class wankers who think that taking our own bags to Foodtown and donating to charity will save the world while we pay off our mortgages and plan our next world trip. But at least we are aware and prepeared to do more if needed which has to be better than living for the momentary thrill of piling material possessions one on top of the other in our own personal financial wasteland.
But the best bit about Bill is that someone who basically rules the world has stood up and said there’s nothing wrong with capitalism but there is something very wrong with greed. How many possessions does it take for a wealthy man to be satisfied? Can you not live with one of everything? Of course you can. And suddenly eccentric people like me who live in Grey Lynn, grow our own organic veges, sign petitions and buy books called Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World look a bit more normal.. No longer are we marginalised as greenie, hippy nutters who should have a bath and drive a real car. No longer is it just mad old Bono jumping up and down about the state of the world. Bill is leading the charge, and Bill may not be cool but he’s clever. Perhaps in mansions, super yachts and boardrooms around the world people might start to feel a little embarrassed about their wealth and set some aside for the planet.
Meanwhile back in New Zealand we still have children growing up in poverty. One in five say some, a quarter of all households say others. Either way you cut it we have food banks, breakfasts provided in some schools, overcrowded living conditions and the emergence of third world diseases. Not to mention our appalling domestic violence and child abuse record and the emergence of a phrase called “corporate manslaughter.” All point to poverty. But you can’t see all that from the Viaduct, so it mustn’t be happening. Tell that to Bill next time you see him. You could save him a fortune.

*Statistics from Beyond Terror, The Truth About the Real Threats to Our World, by Chris Abbott, Paul Rogers and John Sloboda. Published by Random House.

"Money

2007-06-24T13:47:00.001+12:00

"Money" published June 24

2007-06-24T13:44:00.000+12:00

"Grey Times" published June 17

2007-06-17T09:52:00.000+12:00

Grey Times

“We don’t do grey,” said my hairdresser.
I had warned her when I sat down that I would not be swayed from my mission.
“So does that mean you don’t have grey as a colour dye in the salon or you are politically opposed to doing grey on a woman my age?” I asked eager to turn the discussion into a philosophical debate not often found in a hairdressers.
“A bit of both,” she answered, shutting it down.
I looked around and saw that the entire salon had ground to a halt. Not in a silent, everyone stops what they are doing way that you see in the movies when the director needs emphasis. More in a still reading their magazines (clients) still snipping their scissors (hairdressers) but their ears had all just been rotated like huge satellite dishes in my direction.
“Jasmine, I want to be grey, and I want to be grey now!” I demanded raising my voice for the benefit of the eavesdroppers.
The hairdresser behind me smirked as he snipped away. “Another mad Grey Lynn woman worried about the cancer causing effects of hair dye,” I imagined he was thinking.
The “grey” thing as my friends and family call it began a few months ago when I did my accounts for the year. The wonderful thing about computerised accounting systems is that you can type in a code and see how much you spent in the past year on specific things like dining at SPQR, dining at Prego and getting your hair coloured. I would have been better off buying shares in SPQR and Prego. But hair colouring, while not as expensive as dining, was a return air ticket to Europe which is the currency I exist on at the moment. Every four weeks, three hours in the chair and a couple of hundred bucks later. Couple that with the fact that apart from the occasional TV appearance I no longer need to look groomed and sophisticated as I shuffle around my home in my ugg boots pretending to write for a living.
So it was off to the library on my bike, as you do in Grey Lynn, and home with a book called “Going Gray, Looking Great!” Billed as the modern woman’s guide to unfading glory I knew this was just the encouragement I needed. Being American it spelled “grey” as “gray” and neatly side-stepped the whole issue of cancer causing chemicals in hair dyes, but that’s okay because there isn’t actually much proof around. I’m just generally opposed to chemicals of any kind coming anywhere near my body, unless it’s Chanel No 5 which I won’t live without even if it does make me sneeze. The book concentrated more on Oprah style feel good messages like “there’s a whole new “cool” to grey. Works for celebrities, men and models” and “Silver is a fantastic background to showcase what God gave you” and my personal favourite “Like the lustre on fine pearls, silver hair is a woman’s patina.”
And then I looked at the pictures. Groomed hopeful women stared at me from the pages and it didn’t really matter how many ways I played it, silver, pearl or platinum they just looked, well, old. Nice, but old.
My friends did their best to talk me out of it.
“Do you ever want to have lunch with a man under 35 again?” I was asked.
“Well I think all the young men I know like me for my essence not for what colour my hair is,” I responded defiantly.
“Yeah, essence, young men are really into that,” they chortled.
My husband was encouraging. According to “Going Gray, Looking Great!” husbands may worry that you’ll let yourself go if you let your hair go grey. They may still see you as the “girl” they married and miss her when she’s grey. Perhaps my husband’s enthusiasm had to do with the fact that I’ve already “let myself go,” he married me when I was 35 and already sprouting a few greys and he rather likes the idea that lunch with young men might be off the menu.
And so we did it. Jasmine and I. Like all good intelligent women we compromised. She calls it ash blonde, I call it going grey gradually and she promises me I will reach a point in the future where dying my hair will be an occasional not an essential task and that air fare to Europe will be tucked firmly in my back pocket.
“Has anyone said anything about your hair?” my husband keeps asking on a daily basis
And the answer is no. Which is either a credit to Jasmine’s masterful colouring techniques or the fact that no one really gives a shit.

"New Residents" published June 10

2007-06-10T14:51:00.000+12:00

New Residents

Every suburb has its influx of new residents. That’s how suburbs grow and prosper and most new residents bring with them interesting new religions, cultures and best of all cool ethnic food.
But not in Grey Lynn. Our new residents come from that far away place called Middle White New Zealand and the only thing new they bring with them is the word “aspiration” and an attitude called superiority. Because what we quaint inner city types who have lived here for a while don’t understand is that the New Resident has paid good – actually, silly - money to join us. And in the cultural richness that is Middle White New Zealand money buys you the right to be pompous, insular, judgmental and wear really bad clothes.
We older Grey Lynners on the other hand have earned the right to stand up for ourselves so here for the New Residents who might be finding it hard to fit in is a guide:
There are dogs in our parks which are allowed to run free. Contrary to media reports they are highly unlikely to maul your children, nor is it their fault that your child falls off its bike at the shock of seeing a dog running free on the other side of the park. If you want to live somewhere without dogs there are things called gated communities. Failing that perhaps the council will allow you to have one end of the park fenced off where you and your children can play exclusively while we stare at you in disbelief.
When you meet another New Resident in the supermarket do not stand in the aisle discussing your latest valuation. No one is interested in the fact that your house has increased in value by 100k in one year. Especially the Samoan shelf stacker who now has to find room for 10 new flavours of organic cashew nuts since you moved up the road.
Do not try to engage us in conversation. That’s why we’re wearing headphones on our walks around the neighbourhood now. We are not interested in your petition to do away with inorganic rubbish collections which visually pollute the streets for a massive five days once every two years. Nor do we want to partake in a street party, a pot luck dinner or form a Neighbourhood Watch scheme. If you’re lonely you only have yourself to blame.
Do not wear those clothes. You know the ones I mean. They’re the ones you refer to as “funky street wear” and you keep folded away in your drawer called “weekend.” If we wanted living Esprit catalogues walking around the place we’d live in Florida.
Don’t take your kids to the cafes. We know your new house was advertised as “just minutes from trendy cafes” but that doesn’t mean you take your kids with you. Have you ever met a kid who likes sitting at a café table while it reads the paper and orders another soy latte? Bored kids are a menace and if you doubt me just ask yourself why fluffies are the approximate measurement of a tablespoon. Café owners designed them that way so your child would finish up and you would be forced to take them somewhere else to perform their cute gymnastics and impressive squealing.
On the café situation, they are for eating, talking to friends then pissing off. They are not bus shelters or park benches which were designed for people to sit on and wile away three hours. Move along. You’ve been seen at the trendy café, time’s up.
Get rid of one of your cars. We all have. There’s a reason your suburb is described as “inner” city. You can walk to work in 25 minutes. Do it.
Do not allow your children to poke and gawk at the sleeping tramps in the park. They are part of us, they belong there and are not an excuse to give your children an impromptu lesson on the likely outcome of abusing alcohol and drugs. They might look like they’re asleep but they can hear you. We like them, and some of us talk to them rather than about them. The least you can do is leave them alone.
Consider forming a club. You can organise day trips out to where you came from to gaze at the dog free, bland environment you left behind. You don’t want to lose touch with that place because you’ll be moving back there once we’ve driven you crazy with our menacing dogs and inner city ennui.

"Bread" published June 3

2007-06-03T09:11:00.000+12:00

They were starting to talk. About the bread. The bread I keep making like some haunted Romany woman in a Joanne Harris novel except thus far Johnny Depp hasn’t waltzed into my kitchen and started strumming a guitar meaningfully, more’s the pity.
The reason they are talking is that unsuspecting visitors are sent home with it, all hot and wrapped in newspaper. Friends trying to get me out of the house for some social time are told they’ll have to wait until the bread has risen. And the other day I was sprung at the supermarket by a former colleague from a glamorous world I’ve long forgotten with flour all over my black jumper and a wad of dough clinging for dear life to my unbrushed hair. “How the mighty have fallen,” the speech bubble above her head flashed as we exchanged pleasantries.
My family are being unusually quiet about this latest reincarnation from busy mother of many and occasional writer, to apron wearing, yeast sniffing, Van Morrison listening baker. To be fair they have lived through other reincarnations such as the several years spent as an amateur aromatherapist concocting healing oils for every ailment, which they suspected were all just a bit of lavender oil mixed with wheatgerm oil. The hangi-in-a-pot stage was thankfully short lived due to my husband’s refusal to eat any more of it and the adopt ex-battery hens scheme never quite took off despite the month of backyard preparation and long winded treatises on the taste of freshly laid eggs. Perhaps they were actually enjoying this one. During the first week of loaves my husband returned home after being asked to pick up a bag of flour from the supermarket with two 20kg bags of the stuff. One white and one wholemeal which sat glaring at me on the kitchen floor. I calculated that at my daily rate of 1kg of flour this meant I was committed to baking loaves for another 40 days and suddenly I felt trapped. Because baking bread is a free spirited thing. Something you do when you’re avoiding writing your novel which you promised everyone you’d start on May 1st, but you didn’t. You planted broad beans, shifted the pictures around on the walls and baked bread.
The mere act of baking bread is in itself deeply therapeutic and is more art than science. Anyone can throw together the flour, sugar, water oil and yeast to make a loaf but you need to be in the right head space to make a truly wonderful bread.
There must be Van Morrison on the stereo;Astral Weeks is good for white, and Best of Van Morrison does a good wholemeal. You must also be in a good mood. Not an “Oh what a beautiful morning” superficial good mood, more a feeling right with the world genuinely nurturing mood which radiates well being. Something mothers generally find able to slip into from time to time. And you must be gentle. With the yeast, with the kneading, everything must be peaceful, flowing and deeply entrenched in the Grey Lynn equivalent of Eastern mysticism. Which was all very well for the first few weeks of loaves. But then the family started leaving the crusts with the over confidence of people who were becoming used to having fresh bread baked every day. The novelty, which was me, had worn off. The only slightly diminished 40kgs of flour continued to cast menacing looks in my direction and threatened to become infested with weevils if I didn’t hurry up and use it. Suddenly the yeast refused to bubble, the kneading gave me a stitch so severe I momentarily thought I was having a heart attack, and the loaves came out stubbornly small like little hurt souls.
So the last batch of bread was made. Four loaves of cottage white (two with a light dusting of parmesan) one citrus rye and a multi grain. Van has been put to the back of the CD shelf and the novel has begun. But only after I planted the potatoes and went to the caravan, which is the way I started the last book. I have returned to my former self, busy mother of many and occasional writer and life continues on as usual while I attempt to adjust to the people who have moved into my head and insist that I sit down and write about them every day. You would not believe what they have been getting up to.

"Slamming" published May 27

2007-05-28T14:54:00.000+12:00

I’m not sure what the equivalent of slamming a phone down on someone was before they invented phones, but I’m sure it was something like slamming a door, or slamming a Bible closed or just slamming someone in the face.
Because the act of slamming down the phone is hostile. [can’t have a hostile art]. It leaves the person on the other end feeling rejected and every one of us sits there and stares at the phone in our hand in some misguided belief that it’s a technical fault. We hold it up to our ear again and say ‘hello?” even though we really know that the other person has slammed us. It might have had something to do with their last two words which began with “f” and ended with “u.” Or the fact that you were only half way through your treatise on the injustices that have been meted out upon yourself in recent days.
Some of us respond by ringing back and attempting to continue that conversation, of which there is a 99.9% chance of that happening while others simply dial our best friend and say: “I can’t believe he/she hung up on me!” before detailing the entire conversation and implying that the slammer was the loser.
Being slammed is still one of the rudest things anyone can do to you apart from getting out of bed and putting their clothes back on half way through sex, or leaving a restaurant in the middle of an intimate dinner for two. These actions break the rules of engagement and there are few things left in life that actually involve engagement. Conversation in person is a dying art as anyone who has recently been to a party will admit, wrestling just isn’t cool and sex with strangers is problematic. The most common form of engagement these days is on the telephone where we are giving each other our undivided attention, guaranteeing a few minutes or more of information swapping and leaving us both feeling a little better for the experience. So breaking that agreement is just plain nasty.
Deeper analysis of the slammer will reveal that they are certainly frustrated, probably angry and most likely couldn’t think of anything to say. If only real conversation were that simple. How useful would it be when you reach that crucial place in the arc of a heated discussion when you know you’ve lost? When you’re on the wrong side of the Bell curve and the only way is down, disappearing into thin air would be a merciful escape rather than having to do the mature thing and admit you were wrong or as I prefer to say: “I’m so over this conversation, I’ll get back to you.”
I’m deeply ashamed to admit that I am a slammer. It’s been a lifelong passion which began very early on with doors.
Phone slamming was a natural progression from doors, but you only do it with someone you care about. We never slam on the telemarketer ringing during dinner, we’re just too polite. But the boyfriend who went to the rugby instead of coming around to watch Four Weddings and A Funeral is fair game. As is the first husband who you know will slam on you first if you don’t get in soon. But you never slam on your grandmother or your best friend’s relationship crisis. That’s a different kind of phone etiquette involving holding it to your ear while you read a magazine and saying “mm” and “really” and “imagine that” during the three pauses in the half hour conversation. That’s called false engagement and along with faking an orgasm is just as rude as slamming, if only they knew you were doing it. I’ve done less slamming as I’ve got older, mainly because the only person I care enough to slam on refuses to play. He simply ignores it, gets on with his life and waits until I eventually need to phone back to remind him to get some milk on the way home. It’s only slightly annoying that at the age of 45 my husband’s parenting rule of not reinforcing bad behaviour in children is being used on me and working.
But the other day I got slammed. I was in the middle of reminding a friend to use the phrase: “And how was your day?” at least once in a conversation.
“You’d miss it if I didn’t ring,” he said, under the illusion that I needed yet more tedium in my obviously sad life.
“What’s to miss?” I replied.
“Miss this!” Silence.
And I’ve been trying to, honestly.

"Sisters" published May 20

2007-05-21T14:49:00.000+12:00

One of the benefits of being a sister of the revolution is that somewhere along the line, about 1976, it became okay for a woman to pick up a hammer.
We were allowed to swing it and get a nail home if we needed to fix something. We were also eventually allowed to buy power tools from the hardware store and use them to sand a table, chop down a small tree or drill holes for a curtain railing. But we could practise our new skills only occasionally because those of us who like to get a little handy know that you are well advised to keep your efforts to a minimum and make sure you do them when there are no men around. They are still a bit sensitive about it all (whisper).
Recently after a worrying night’s sleep caused by the total lack of hot water in the house the night before I ventured out into the pre-dawn darkness around the side of the house which is inhabited by a jungle of rampant weeds. Dressed in my pyjamas and gumboots and armed with nothing but a screwdriver I managed to work out that the pilot light on the gas heater had gone out after much clearing of convolvulus and the discovery of a lost tub of conditioner which had fallen out the bathroom window. I carefully followed the instructions and re-lit it. Emerging a little worse for wear I crashed into the bedroom and woke my husband with the fantastic news that I had fixed the hot water crisis!
“Yeah I knew that.”
“What?”
“It was the pilot light, I was going to do something about it today.”
“Oh so that’s why you said last night when I was wondering if we’d have to get a plumber out on a Sunday: ‘don’t worry it’s just the pilot light.’”
“If I had said that you would have had me out there in the dark to fix it and I needed my sleep.”
Let’s be clear about this. Urban men are never going to be on the level with their country counterparts when it comes to lugging bits of four by two. But when it comes to my urban man we are about equal in the handyman stakes. He not only chopped down the lime tree, he also pulled out the roots with his bare hands, which were then brandished with Fred Flinstonesque pride. He is also the more sensible one of us, pausing wisely at the prospect of ambitious home repairs and consulting the Yellow Pages. I on the other hand have been responsible for totally munting the kitchen faucet after trying to attach some unique spraying device I bought at the $2 shop for $5 which would shoot across the room whenever you turned the tap on. I have also drilled holes in plaster all over the house trying to find a piece of wood to hold a screw and therefore a picture. Who knew there were professional picture hangers? And I managed to water blast most of the paint off the house instead of giving it a wash. Is it my fault I never did woodwork or metalwork classes?
Clever women of the revolution just don’t go there. They have realised that as our men struggle with this whole equality thing they need something to write home about. No one is particularly impressed in boy town that he changed the baby’s nappies, nursed his wife back to health after a crippling bout of the flu or cooked a three course meal. They will be deeply affected if he built his own pergola or concreted the driveway, preferably in his short Stubbies, tool belt and flanny. So we women might be high flying executives hauling in twice as much cash as our hubby and that’s okay. But get out the hammer and fix something in front of him and he’ll be devastated. That’s just taking the revolution too bloody far.
So we do the little fix up jobs at dawn while they sleep, as my recent hot water escapade illustrates. And we never, ever skite about it. We know that they know things aren’t falling down around the place anymore, but no one will mention how that is happening. We learn to smile patiently as our fathers, who we use as our secret handyman advisors, respond to every question about how to fix things with: “You don’t want to be doing it like that.”
And we hope like hell every Mother’s Day as we are presented with our highly insulting bright pink “toolkit for Mum!” that no one discovers the arsenal of weapons grade tools you have hidden under the bed.

"Vandalism" published May 13

2007-05-14T14:57:00.000+12:00

It was just like any other Friday. My little green car sat patiently in its crumbling 1940s concrete garage waiting for me to open up the aged wooden doors and take it out to lunch. Friday is lunch day, and sometimes if I have a really, really good lunch it gets to spend the night up on Ponsonby Rd, which I understand is quite a thrill for a little car with a rag top which doesn’t get out much.
This Friday would not be the same, however. As I approached the garage something wasn’t right. That feeling you get when you leave the house either without the undies or still with the slippers. My garage door had been covered in graffiti. It was a large piece of work, about three metres by three metres, it was a ghastly monochromatic minimalist work of a very dated style in a very familiar colour. A certain mud olive green that I see around the place on park benches and fences. It was Auckland City Council green and it slowly dawned on me that I had been the victim of council vandalism.
A few years ago I had persuaded a “street” artist, as I understand they are called, to paint a work of art on the old garage doors. To the uninitiated one could refer to it as “graffiti” but to us it was a piece of art which eventually was worked on by other “street” artists. Think of it as a mural in progress which greets our visitors before they enter our jungle, my personal work of art in progress.
After the first work had been completed a very well dressed mother, who also happens to be a former city councillor parked outside it in her expensive car with her teenage son and informed me that her son was simply admiring the “cool graffiti”. More recently, I’ve heard that Eastern suburbs mothers are paying street artists to paint their son’s bedrooms to resemble a New York subway and an architect even hired them to paint the fence of a new house just to give it that “street” feel. Call me a trail blazer if you like, I just happen to think that art on the street is good.
My nine-year-old daughter was horrified and immediately suggested that I write “a strongly worded letter of complaint with exclamation marks!” to the council. She should probably stop watching Neighbours at War. My husband, being the calm one in the family, rang the council and pointed out that the garage was on private property. He was told a “pro-active” anti-graffiti volunteer had been the culprit. I look forward to following his court case after he or she is arrested for vandalism. Or do they just arrest young people wearing hoodies and backpacks full of spray cans for vandalism these days?
It would seem we must now spend our lives protecting the right to live and work in an environment which hasn’t just stepped out of the pages of an architectural digest immaculately groomed in beige tones and minimalist influences. If we wanted to live in an environment like that we’d all move to Dannemora where I’m sure many a pissed husband has climbed into bed with the wrong wife because all the houses are identical. But instead we choose to live in a neighbourhood where there are remnants of a past. The Tongan family over the road who laugh like a longed for melody most days and fill up a shipping container on the front verge every Christmas to send to the Pacific have been here longer than anyone. Will an over-enthusiastic volunteer be removing the container this year? The park that fills up every weekend with sports mad locals feeding on chips and sausages from the Richmond Rovers clubrooms which have already been the target of stone yucca lovers who regard them as an eyesore. They’ll be wanting to remove the billboards next.
My neighbourhood, like most is organic. It possesses a history of people, structures and colours that deserve to be preserved even if they’re not to our taste. But as property values get ridiculous the values of our houses are being pressured to become clean and tidy and provide a haven for stone garden yucca lovers. Billboards, fences, even my old garage are all part of the way our city grew and should be left to reassure us that, just like our traffic congestion, which I notice the council and its over enthusiastic volunteers are unable to fix, they make up our city. And, with the exception of Garth George, that is just the way we like it.

"Rich Men" published May 6

2007-05-07T15:53:00.000+12:00

I don’t think I’m the only woman who has asked herself: “Why the hell didn’t I marry a rich guy?” It’s a question that pops into your head from time to time when your husband “does the figures” on your mortgage and tells you exactly how much interest you paid the bank last year. When you read one of those French property magazines and see you could be the owner of a 20 room chateau in the Dordogne for a mere 1.5 million Euros if you had that kind of cash hanging around. When you meet Gilda Kirkpatrick.
But then you take a look at the guy you married and realize that when you marry for love you are best buddies, like meets like, able to overcome all sorts of obstacles together because, well you just love the guy.
Yeah, but how many more obstacles could you overcome with heaps of cash?
Most of us had a time in our lives when hooking a rich guy could have happened. When we were 20, stretchmarks were still something you only saw in magazines and you had the enthusiasm, energy and experimental nature to allow you to be reasonably interesting to hang out with. As a journalist I should have opted for business journalism rather than the popular press and thrown myself in the path of budding millionaires of the future, ready, willing and able to tag along for the ride.
But then I would have had to write about share markets and indexes instead of rock Gods and where’s the fun in that when you’re 20?
But that was then.
Today spending time with a man who has to wear black polo necks to hide his fabulously wealthy turtle neck and has a permanent smug aura doesn’t seem too much of a sacrifice. Listening to the details of his next property deal while you wonder if you can get that handbag in blue, seems like fun. You’ve already got the pink, white and gold, but you’re having a blue day. Beats paying a mortgage. And I’m told it’s not too late. There are millionaires out there, just waiting to be snapped up.
My plan is as follows.
1) Attend charity events. The Retired Polo Ponies Endowment Fund Ball looks like a good bet. And then there’s the America’s Cup,which certainly behaves like a charity.
2) Hang out with Gilda. Her husband James is apparently worth $80 million and when she was introduced to me recently with all the pomp and ceremony of an audience with Princess Diana I couldn’t help notice she had quite the coterie of ladies in waiting. It’s possible she won’t notice one more tagging along at the many social events she and the Sunday gossip columnists attend.
3) Develop a keen interest in polo and horse racing. Nicky Watson should be able to help with that.
4) Join the National Party. John Keys doesn’t pull in much doing his current job but he’d have rich friends from the old days.
5) Start collecting vintage cars. Rich guys love cars.
6) If all else fails become a flight attendant.
The only problem with all of the above is that I would have to submit to years of plastic surgery to hang out with Gilda and her mates and not stick out like the 44-year old I am. I could no sooner join the National party than cut my arms and legs off inch by agonizing inch, nor do I possess the grim patience to be a flight attendant, be interested in any sport or drag myself out to charity events which bore me rigid within minutes. The only thing I could possibly see myself enjoying is the vintage cars. After all I already own a 1997 Mitsubishi Chariot. So maybe I should just find a vintage rich guy with a big car collection. Chances are a nice steak, a quick lap dance and a kiss on the bald head should be enough to send him off to Dreamland so that I can have some “me” time most nights.
But then there are my two lifelong burdens “personality” and “independence.” Should I ever hook a rich man he would probably want to talk about himself and his money all the time, and that would not do. I like to talk about interesting things like art, books, politics and especially me. I also prefer to earn my own money, pay my own bills and look after myself. Not many rich men would find that very attractive. What function would that leave for them to serve? Offer to buy me that chateau in the Dordogne and I’ll insist that I pay half.
Which I guess is why I never married a rich man.

"Home Office Collapse" published April 29

2007-04-30T15:54:00.000+12:00

You read about it happening, but it’ll never happen to you. It was a Friday, I had just finished writing 75,000 words. A project which had taken me six months, a few counselling sessions and a great deal of recovered memory to finish. I felt strangely deflated at the longed for moment of completion. If only I knew that melancholic mood was a sign.
I set up the computer to print the bugger out. Loaded it up with reams of A4 and wandered into the kitchen to make a celebratory cup of coffee and ponder my newfound freedom. Never again would I need to find time for “the book.”
Back in my home office I glanced briefly at the printer which was happily spewing out completely blank sheets of paper where printed ones should be like some moronic computerised half wit. It had ink. It had died, on page 25. I bought the printer three years ago. I guess it was time.
I returned to my laptop to cancel the print job and experienced a premonition of impending home office disaster. Something to do with the words “three years” and a long overused phrase “planned obsolescence”. I panicked and began to back up. One would hate to lose those 75,000 words. You read about it happening all the time.
At 11.30 am that Friday morning my laptop crashed, hard drive melted, computer dead right in the middle of the back up. It’s amazing how quickly you can find that 0800 helpline number in times of crisis. It’s also amazing how quickly they tell you there is nothing they can do, in times of crisis.
By midday on that Friday my home office had died on me, and gone were those precious 75,000 words, apart from pages 1 to 25 which sat in the printer tray looking very pleased with themselves.
I retrieved my precious pages and reached for the hole punch so that I could at least place them in the brand new folder I had purchased to be the honoured recipient of the intended 119 pages. I just needed to be sure I had them safely filed away. The little green hole punch I bought three years ago, along with my computer and printer to set up my home office, made a mouse-like squeak and refused to punch. There was nothing to do except sit on the floor and summon every swear word that had ever found its way into my brain as well as a few I made up on the spot. For a moment I pondered the possibility that a poltergeist had entered the room and at any moment the lights would start flickering on and off. Would my portable telephone start flying around the room and repeatedly bang me on the head while the green stapler gunned me down?
And then I just cried. As I sat there dripping tears onto pages one through 25 I realised that I really wasn’t surprised that in factories all over the world laptops, printers, hole punches, telephones and staplers were being manufactured to give up the ghost at age three.
I regularly visit our caravan which was built in 1968, when they made things to last. It doesn’t leak, rust or collapse. The fridge clatters into action as it has done for the past 39 years as does the gas stove. The house I live in which is about to turn 100 and doesn’t leak or rot will no doubt still be standing in another 100 years if a property developer doesn’t bowl it over.
And then I just got angry at our acceptance of the sheer stupidity of planned obsolescence which while it helped end the depression in 1932 by creating jobs, has since meant that everything we buy will die, sooner rather than later.
My laptop recently returned home with a new hard drive, only after I had to endure the humiliation of telling the technician my password was “bigdick.” And my printer is still in “isolation.” When I asked what “isolation” meant it turns out it’s another way of saying the technician hasn’t got around to looking at it yet.
Meanwhile my 75,000 words were found by my husband at 1.30pm on that fateful Friday afternoon. Every one of those little darlings sitting in his Gmail account where I had sent them. Gmail is a web based email service which never downloads to a hard drive, it just exists in the internet ether. So in the end my book was preserved not on a hard drive or on 119 pieces of A4 paper. It sat, safe and sound in nothing but thin air.

"Cycling" published April 22

2007-04-23T15:56:00.000+12:00

When I took a long hard look at my carbon footprint recently I realised I have very sooty feet indeed. So much so that the the third car has been sold, which we had kept for the adult kids to borrow when they needed it, but otherwise was surplus to requirements. It went for a cool $700 to my son’s friends who have taken it on a fruit picking journey. Originally the idea was to reinvest that money in a motor scooter, which I would use on my excursions to the gym, Foodtown, lunch and the library. All short journeys not deserving of gas guzzling. Then we went to Rome. There we hired bikes and rode blissfully down the Appian Way, apart from my nine-year-old daughter who we had forgotten to teach how to ride a bike. None of us had realised this until the bike was hired and she looked at us with childlike anticipation that someone would soon explain to her exactly what she was doing with a bike she couldn’t ride. So I doubled her on my parcel rack illegally but it did the trick. In Rome a solid 44-year-old woman can ride a bike, because the chance of seeing anyone she knows is very slim and she can therefore pedal away enjoying a rare trip back to her carefree childhood and her much loved Raleigh 20.
Back in Auckland I wondered out loud about getting a bike and using it. The deafening laugher and guffaws from around the dinner table from people I loved and some I had raised to be polite individuals made me think twice. I visited the local Ponsonby bike shop where a very nice man showed me an $800 dollar neon sci fi machine with “enough gears to get YOU up Franklin Rd.” I told the man it looked a bit wanky and didn’t they stock nice old bikes like you see in French movies with baguettes and flowers in the wicker baskets and generous seating? “No we don’t.” he replied firmly before telling me that in the cycling world no one looks at you, they look at your bike. It is very important to have the “right” bike. And no doubt the cheesy lycra bodysuit and silly pointed hat I suggested. The look of disgust was enough to have me hurtling out the door and into the car for the short drive home.
Eventually I found the right bike. A Raleigh from the year 2000 bought at the Bike Barn by someone who sold it to me on Trade Me for $120. She threw in the helmet too although my ex husband tells me you must get a new helmet every 18 months because the plastic deteriorates. That’s just silly. All those landfills full of plastic helmets with an 18 month shelf life. Someone should have a word or at least set those Ribena girls onto it.
I then kitted it out with a sheepskin seat cover, a white wire basket for the front, a parcel rack for the back, a pump and a lock.
Then I just had to ride it. I was petrified someone would see me. Then I was afraid I wouldn’t last the distance all the way into the central library for my inaugural trip. But I did. On the footpath most of the way, and walking it up the steeper hills. When I stopped at lights I adopted a nonchalant attitude, gazing off into space reasoning that if I can’t see someone I might recognise who might laugh at me, they can’t see me.
Then my 18-year-old daughter sat me down and gave me a few tips. One was to think of central Auckland topographically. “Ride the rims” she advised rather than up and down the valleys. The other was to stay on the footpath, which I know is illegal but when someone makes some bike paths I’ll be happy to use them. I’ve only nearly run down one poor woman coming out of a shop, but I’m getting better and spotting them.
I haven’t quite ridden it to Ponsonby Rd for lunch yet, but when I stop sweating so copiously and my hair learns how to behave itself after a session in the helmet I will. And I’ll refrain from riding it right into SPQR and parking it next to the table as I once saw Matthew Ridge do.
As for the non bike riding nine-year-old, she has just come in from riding twice around the camping ground as I type away in our caravan.
“I love riding bikes, it’s very good for the legs,” she announced.
Indeed.

"Tweens" published April 15

2007-04-16T15:57:00.000+12:00

It used to be hilarious to describe your child as “16 going on 25!” Oh that used to get a right old laugh in the old days, the thought that a child might think she was older than she actually is. Hilarious. But it gets less funny when your child is nine, going on 25. When she regularly stops at a local café for a hot chocolate with her other nine-year-old friends. When she sits on the end of your bed and earnestly discusses the finer details of mascara application.
“You’re not allowed to wear make-up, you’re too young,” I say.
“Oh I know Mum, I totally hear what you’re saying, but there’s nothing wrong with getting in a bit of practice in my own time is there?”Where did my baby go?
And who operated on her overnight and transplanted her delightful Kiwi accent and unique colloquialisms like “bro” and “mate” with an American twang and the constant overuse of the word “like” as in “like I told her like I just didn’t think like that was like exactly what she meant like.” Not to mention the screeching. High pitched squeals accompanied by jumping on the spot and throwing arms in the air with joy just because the cat walked into the room.
“This house is not an American sit com,” I say 10 times a day. “We are not American, we do not shout when we talk and we do not call each other ‘dude’ and ‘girlfriend.’ Please talk in your normal voice.”
“Like totally chill out okay Mum,” comes the reply followed by the more meaningful “Are you stressed out with work, is that it? Do you want to take a break and talk about it?”When did a counsellor move into my baby?
Of course my daughter is manifesting all the signs of a new breed called the Tween. Kids aged eight to 12 who are old before their time. Who practice squeezing zits long before a pimple is even contemplating erupting on their perfect skin. Who know about the complexities of relationships and having a bad day, before they’ve had either.
She wants a mobile phone. She’s not getting it. She likes to eat sushi and prefers it over McDonalds. She happily contributes to adult conversations with astonishing knowledge gleaned from the History channel and reading the newspaper every day. In the old days the word “nerd” would have been rearing its ugly head, but today it’s all about the Tween. Her father and I look at each other with tight smiles of pride mixed with white hot fear. We never had this with the other kids. Did someone activate a nuclear bomb without us knowing and produce these mutant children?
The other kids showed a nagging preference for designer labels at her age but that was about it. They were essentially running, jumping, laughing, silly mites until they turned 13, woke up one morning and gave us a funny look. A look which said “what the hell is happening to me all of a sudden?” That we know how to deal with.
Fortunately our Tween seems to have skipped over the desire to wear G strings and underwear which say “Tease Me!” possibly because they were never allowed into the house. But more likely because she is already “over” the desire to look like Britney and Paris. Our Tween leaves the house looking more like her older brothers and sisters in her own deconstructed Op Shop boho look. I could live with out the ripped jeans and the tangled hair but I’m just thankful she’s not wearing a bra, baring her midriff and shaking her ass in low riders.
And despite the occasional drift into the precocious pit she’s a neat kid. Fun to have around, organises her homework, does what she’s told, wakes up with a smile and never tidies her room. Rather like a little adult.
Oh God where did my baby go?
We wonder what will happen when she turns 13. Will she get less of a shock because she’s had all that practice actually being a teenager before her time or will she crumple into a heap because her new life of hormones and emotional roller coasters just isn’t like it is on the American sitcoms. Where after half an hour of being bullied by a school friend, having to deal with a humungous zit and not getting the cute guy she’s got a crush on, everything is sorted and smoothed out in time for a happy ending before the final credits.

"Activism" published April 8

2007-04-08T16:42:00.000+12:00

You don’t have to be a school girl working on a science project to become a consumer activist. The recent discovery that there isn’t an ounce of Vitamin C in Ribena has inspired me to tell my own consumer activism story, mainly because no one else will.
I’ve tried to get the media interested but it just doesn’t have the same punch because I’m not a winsome school girl. I’m a hardened media battleaxe so no David and Goliath here. And someone in the newsroom might have had to go to Foodtown to check my story because it is about a biscuit whose label incorrectly gives the kilojoule reading for three biscuits instead of one. I’ve had it confirmed by Arnotts, the manufacturer in an email and everything:
Dear Wendyl,Thank you very much for bringing this to our attention. On SnackrightSultana and Chocolate the number of biscuits per serving should read one, not three. We are in the process of amending the packaging to correct thisoversight. Again, thank you for your getting in touch with us and weapologise for any inconvenience we may have caused.Regards,DragicaConsumer Contact Representative
Inspired by the Ribena story I reactivated my activism and set off to Foodtown to see if the offending packet is still on the shelves five weeks after I received that email. As I entered Foodtown I saw John Campbell outside talking animatedly on his cell phone like a good current affairs show host should on a Wednesday morning.This was a good omen “Channel John!” I told myself. “What would he do?” I asked myself. And there they were. The same packet of biscuits with the energy rating of 208kj per three biscuits instead of the correct 624kj. As I walked home in the rain John was still talking on his cell phone but I could feel his silent journalistic encouragement following me down the road: “Go get’em you go get girl!”
But then it dawned on me that I needed proof. Out came the Herald, the biscuit packet and my camera and one hour later I managed to get a reasonable picture where you could see both the date on the paper and the nutrition panel on the biscuits. Then my husband pointed out that I could have just grabbed the biscuits out of my cupboard and posed them with the paper. Out came the Foodtown receipt. All bases covered.
Some people close to me might suggest that I have better things to be doing than catching Arnotts out with their incorrect labelling. And I would reply that I have a book to finish by the weekend, which any writer knows is exactly when you become obsessed with biscuit labelling. Not to mention the temperature variation from one end of the house to the other and the height of your washing line. Anything to prevent you from sitting at your desk and writing.
There was also the fact that back when I made my first investigation I had been happily munching six of the offending biscuits at a time thinking I was doing about 416 kj [as stated on the label] when instead, in my ignorance I was taking on a massive 1248 kj [as effectively admitted in the nice email from Dragica], which seriously puts your diet out of whack.
Not that I didn’t have my suspicions something was wrong. Apart from the lack of weight loss any idiot can tell that something coated in chocolate is never going to be diet food.
But in my house we trust that people obey laws. My husband said exactly that as I voiced my calorie confusion: “Wendyl it has to be right, they are breaking the law if it isn’t, that’s why we have consumer laws darling.” Note the condescension creeping into the voice here. “That’s why we have the Commerce Commission, the Consumer’s Institute, Fair Go, they’d be mad to take them on.”
Oh, okay, munch munch slap it on the thighs.
And perhaps I would have let it all go if the packaging hadn’t been so directly targeted at people trying to be healthy with its “SnackRight” brand and its Low GI and Made with Real Fruit labels.
That’s when I got angry. Ribena just forgot to put in the Vitamin C. Surely as we struggle through the “obesity epidemic” misleading people who are actually trying to do something about their weight is just destructive.
p.s. My complaint is in with the Commerce Commission. I’m expecting John Campbell and a camera crew to pop around any day.

"Food" published April 1

2007-04-01T16:33:00.000+12:00

The tragic thing about trying to eat less is that you develop an unhealthy obsession with the Food Channel. There’s something about watching people fry stuff and stir things with a wooden spoon that gives a fake fullness to the stomach area without needing to actually eat anything. I may have hit on a new diet trend and could soon write a book which will be featured on Oprah entitled “Don’t Eat It, Watch It – how I lost 10 pounds sitting on the couch.” It’ll be a huge hit.
But food porn, just like real porn, has the unfortunate side effect of encouraging you to get up off the couch and attempt to do what you’ve been watching the television. Porn is a stimulant, so one day you find yourself in the kitchen throwing things into a pot with a newfound confidence.
Which again, like porn, is fine in theory but in the end it comes down to detail. And with food programmes these days none of the cooks use measurements. The old fashioned one cup is now a “healthy glug” for liquids and a “good handful” for dry goods. The tablespoon is a “sprinkling” and a teaspoon a “pinch.”
At first you feel quite complimented that Ramsey, Stein and Oliver think so much of your abilities as a cook that they no longer need to give you specific instructions. When you get to you’re their level it’s all about flavour, a dash of wine, a handful of fresh herbs and a flourish of grated of lemon peel. You can do it. You’re a good cook. You watch Ramsey, Stein and Oliver.
Well sort of. The problem is that when you spend $30 on a bit of organic pork, and throw things about in a decidedly creative and knowing manner you can end up with a very nice looking dish of pork which is tragically too salty, too runny or bland as pig swill because your hands are smaller and your glugs are bigger and it’s just not fair.
So you try to find the recipe. And that’s where you realise that you are being taken on one big food porn industry scam. You can’t find the recipes on the shows. You might be lucky to find one on the BBC website but if you really, really want to cook that Lancashire Hotpot you will have to cough up $70 for Rick Stein’s book which accompanies the Food Heroes series.
So it’s back to the TV and filling your entire My Sky planner with every episode of Rick Stein’s Food Heroes so that you can sit and replay it pausing often to gauge visually whether one of Rick’s hands is a cup or a cup and a half. The whole process takes two weeks by the time you finally record the episode you were looking for and your family is quite rightly wondering if you have too much time on your hands before realising that once again you are on deadline and avoiding.
Or you could spend a small fortune buying the books, necessitating a whole new shelf in your already cluttered kitchen. So far Jamie Oliver has eight books in print, of which I have five which means when a friend gives you some duck breasts he recently obtained with his gun out come all the Jamies. Half an hour later you find a duck recipe and wonder where the day went. Cunningly I recently paid the nine-year-old $15 to photocopy all the indexes and put them in a blue clear file so now I just have to flit through the “Jamie Oliver Index” which she has also illustrated with drawings of a bowl, a bunch of grapes and a bottle with the world “oil” on it. She has quite rightly picked up on Jamie’s’ Italian influence.
But now the wives are getting in on the act. I will not buy “Jools” Oliver’s book about the “sheer hard work” it is being a mum to Poppy and Daisy plus recipes. She’s obviously not heard about those women giving birth in the rice fields, thousands of them, every day and just getting on with it. Or those other women over in Africa who find it “sheer hard work” finding enough food to feed their starving children. Nor will I be buying Gordon Ramsay’s “hands on mother of four” wife Tana’s book which tells time pressed parents how easy it is to cook healthy meals. Ditto the rice fields and the not enough food in Africa thing for you too Tana. The only other book I ever want to read by any of these people is Poppy and Daisy’s upcoming scandalous tell-all “Jamie Dearest”.

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"Landfill Lessons" published March 25

2007-03-25T16:34:00.000+12:00

I’m not sure where the landfills live but wherever they are I’m sure they look like something out of a futuristic movie where tattered remains of Foodtown plastic bags flap menacingly in the post nuclear landscape of cockroaches and brooding skies. And I’m sure if there was a landfill at the end of my street I would have swapped to the green bag earlier, but instead I have a nine-year-old daughter to bring home the green bag message.
When my other kids were nine they came home with anti-smoking lectures. They both now smoke. My 18-year-old daughter was the dolphin girl of her generation so there were vague murmurings about only eating line caught fish for a while. When she went flatting last week she left her collection of porcelain/plastic/papier-mache dolphins behind in a box, all of them caught in dusty mid- leap no doubt wondering if the discarded Barbies in the box next door want to play sometime. These days my youngest daughter tells me that the Foodtown plastic bags will never biodegrade. Never, not even in a million years. Whereas wood will do it in a hundred and even metal will do it in a thousand years. All this ladled onto the guilt I still feel for using the 8760 (approximate figure only) disposable nappies which are steaming away in some North Shore landfill.
And so we have become a green bag household. We started with two a week ago, and now I’ve bought another five because a) the kids keep using them and b) I keep forgetting to take them with me.
And to be honest I’m not really that happy being seen with one casually draped over my shoulder because they are so damn ugly. Some genius obviously said to Foodtown: “Here’s a great idea, you sell your customers eco bags for 99c each, you save heaps of money by not having to provide your customers with the plastic bags and what’s more we’ll save on a designer fee because who cares if they’re ugly, they’re eco. And don’t forget we’re all working towards selling people something for free. It worked for water and Pay TV.” So as I head off to the shops I carry a bag which has a logo on it my nine-year-old might have drawn at the age of two. It’s a drawing of bag with two eyes and a vague smile. And circling the uncertain happy bag face are the words: HELP US CREATE A BETTER ENVIRONMENT. EVERY BAG COUNTS. It is also made out of another form of plastic commonly known as polypropylene which has a passing resemblance to a sanitary pad and according to Wikipedia has a recycling code of 5 which means it can only be recycled into auto parts and industrial fibres. What’s wrong with a bit of Hessian? I’m reliably informed by the nine-year-old that Hessian bags are produced from jute which is grown annually as a renewable crop. Also there’s just something about Hessian which says “I’ve been into saving the environment since the 70s” rather than the green polypropylene which says “My daughter talked me into this.”
Surely it can only be a matter of time before Karen Walker or WORLD decides that donating a decent design to Foodtown for their bags would be yet another cynical branding initiative and make my daily stroll down the road a little more stylish. If they can do it for Starship and cancer research surely the entire planet deserves a look in?
Recently I came home with a nice blue one from Brisbane Marketplace which has a graphic of the sun and some waves. And NOSH the gourmet food market has nice black ones although neither of them matches the Foodtown one for sheer size.
Which is great. You can fit the contents of three plastic bags into one green eco bag but then you’ve got to carry it home. Which is impossible because you’re weighted down with about 10 kilos of groceries in one hand. So you end up staggering along with it slung over your back with one hand supporting its bottom and the other hanging onto the handle, not unlike a Sherpa in the Himalayas only you’re in Grey Lynn and you look ridiculous.
But the good news and something which makes my nine-year-old very proud is that they work. Within two days we had no plastic bags left. A remarkable result but highlighting a rather tragic consequence. What are we going to use to pick up the dog shit?

"Intervention" published March 18

2007-03-18T16:35:00.000+12:00

It wasn’t one of the best lunches we’ve ever had. Me, my three friends and the intervention. From the moment I sat down I knew something was up. The nervous looks across the table, the stilted conversation followed by the hastily whispered “do it now!” from one to the other, and the silence which followed.
She cleared her throat. “Umm first of all I just want to say that we all love you, and care for you so please don’t take anything I’m about to say as a criticism of your behaviour. We’ve asked you here today to help. To help you make the changes to your life that we feel need to be made…now.”
I didn’t know where to look. What on earth were they going on about? It can’t be my drinking because I’ve halved that in the last year. It can’t be my drug abuse, because I don’t do drugs. So it must be my weight. Maybe I’ve developed that thing that anorexics have where they look in the mirror and see a fat person, despite being thin only I’ve got it the other way around. I’m actually huge and in danger of being too big to squeeze through my front door, but all the time I look in the mirror and see a size 14.
“It’s your lipstick,” she finally spat out. “It’s got to go”
They all sighed with relief now that it was finally out. The latest hurdle in our foursome friendship had been leapt and now they could all relax safe in the knowledge that change was on its way.
It’s called Deeply Chilli and it’s made by Revlon. It was discontinued but I managed to get 10 of them when I was in Norfolk Island once. Before that it was called Raisin, again by Revlon.
I’ve worn red lipstick as long as I can remember which is sometime in the 80s and I’ve always thought it went well with my brown eyes and gave me an air of sophistication. More Paloma Picasso than Marilyn Munroe. More Katherine Hepburn than Jean Harlow. There’s just something about red lips which says strong.
But they say that the tragedy of the ageing woman is that we refuse to give up the look we had when we were in our prime. We continue to wear the same eye-shadow, shape our eyebrows the same way, die our hair the same colour and wear the same coloured lipstick. And what precisely is wrong with that?
One must follow trends, apparently, which since the millennium rolled over has been to look “natural”. Precisely what part of “natural” means wearing make-up? Surely the whole point of making up is to hide how we look naturally? Especially at my age.
At my intervention I was presented with something Revlon also make. It’s a gloss with sparkles in it and a little bit of foam on the end of a stick and it’s called Coffee Gleam.
I was instructed to wear it. I was to banish my Norfolk Island stash of Deeply Chilli to Women’s Refuge and even though it would be hard and there would be times when I felt a little naked, it would all turn out for the best.
I should have seen it coming. I’d been in the TVNZ make-up room a few times for my brief appearances on the telly and had been asked in subdued but incredulous tones if “that” was the colour I wanted on m lips. When I insisted it was they had to leave the room and fossick in a draw labelled “Angela D’Audney” before reluctantly brushing it on.
So I wore Coffee Gleam. Strands of hair got stuck in it in the wind and began to form dismal clumps of Coffee Gleam, my lips looked shiny for about a minute before I ate or drank it into my system and concerned people said I looked a little washed out.
Just yesterday I found an old Deeply Chilli lurking under the seat in my car. It was like finding a dear old friend and before I knew it we were reunited.
“Nice lipstick!” shouted my nine-year-old daughter who was herself wearing Scandalous Gold on her lips having raided her friend’s mothers’ make-up drawer.
“Are we going out somewhere very dark?” asked my husband, so unaccustomed to seeing the red part of my face formerly known as my lips.
I looked in the mirror and saw a woman I hadn’t seen for six months and felt much better.

"Lost Love Songs" published March 11

2007-03-11T10:48:00.000+13:00

I miss the love song. Something from the 70s by James Taylor or Bread when women were gorgeous things who loved men and saved them from a life of emotional agony and uncertainty. When they sang to us:
“Baby I’m a want you, baby I’m a need you.” “I’m lost without your love.” “How sweet it is to be loved by you.” “Before the day I met you, life was so unkind, but your love was the key to my peace of mind.”
Oh happy days. An era when we were painted as the angels we truly are. Peaceful bearers of soft and soothing spirits, applicators of the salve of contentment, wafting about in a patchouli cloud and capable of mind altering sexual encounters. Sadly the 70s was the last great era of the love song, when, lying curled up next to our teal blue transistor radio listening to Radio Hauraki we could dream of a time when we would be that woman. The one with the long sandy hair, wearer of the muslin dress, living in one long eternal summer’s day and possessing a tanned body about to be ravaged in the wheat fields by a man with facial hair, a “Sh*t Happens” T-shirt and a joint in his back pocket. To listen at the age of 13 to Sammy Johns: Her long legs were tanned and brown …moonlight dancing off her hair.She woke up and took me by the hand. She's gonna love me in my Chevy van and that's alright with me.”
And then to wake up five years later and realise that there you were with your tanned legs in the back of a blue Holden EH stationwagon with your boyfriend living the love song dream. Shame you had to have two melanomas removed from those legs 10 years later, but so far the joints don’t seem to have done much harm.
Today there are no love songs to teach young girls that love can be a simple act of joy. Just misongynistic hip hop lyrics calling them “biatch”, and encouraging them to shake their ass and move their bomb ass pussy. Even pop rock darling John Meyer serves up an encouraging song title Your Body is a Wonderland but manages to insult our intelligence:
One mile to every inch of your skin like porcelain, one pair of candy lips and your bubblegum tongue.
And here’s James Blunt’s Your Beautiful: I saw your face in a crowded place and I don't know what to do,'cause I'll never be with you.
Whimp. Get hard man and find me.Nick Cave writes love songs but says: “All love songs must contain duende …It must first embrace the potential for pain. The love song must resonate with the susurration of sorrow, the tintinnabulation of grief.”
Really, why? When did pain, sorrow and grief become intertwined with happiness, elation and long tanned legs? Not to mention duende (translation: an evil spirit), susurration and tintinnabulation. Note to Nick: too much time with head in dictionary, not enough time getting laid.
But perhaps it is because back in the 70s men were still largely in control. Men were giddy with their newfound drug-enabled self expression and eagerly bestowed emotional largess on we not-yet-equal women. Only then do you find lyrics which display any appreciation of women, a sense that we hold the magical formula to happiness and completion in a man:
James Taylor: I close my eyes at night,wondering where would I be without you in my life.Everything I did was just a bore.Everywhere I went it seems I'd been there beforeBut you brighten up for me all of my days with a love so sweet in so many waysI want to stop and thank you baby.
Oh honey it was no trouble, really.
Men didn’t really like us through the 80s and the 90s, because we confused them with our refusal to let them open doors for us, we went to work, we insisted they change nappies, we emasculated them into a corner. And so when they spoke of love it was with hostility, confusion and darkness. From Gang of Four’s Love like Anthrax, to Nirvana’s Moist Vagina, it just got harder for those teenage girls to curl up and dream of being anything other than a sex object or a provider of torturous demons.
Fortunately some of us have our memories. Of James Taylor, of Bread, of simple love and adoration 70s style. How sweet that is.

"Rejected Mentors" published March 4

2007-03-04T10:50:00.000+13:00

There are people I live in awe of. They’re people who teach me things about myself, who inspire me to be a better person, encourage me to take a few risks, and generally create a career I think is worth having. I listen in awe, hanging on their every word and never once questioning their authority or knowledge, because there’s still stuff I need to learn, even at my age. It’s called having a mentor and to my mind no one should ever be without a couple tucked in their back pocket for various musings throughout the day when one is trying very hard to break their Trade Me addiction.
But lately I have come to realise that mentors are no longer cool. Apparently if you are a woman in your early 30s you are perfectly formed, immensely talented and destined for great things. It’s as if they all read Bridget Jones Diary and decided that they too could have a fabulous career even though they’ve never actually done anything to deserve it except flirt with Hugh Grant look-alikes and be unlucky in love.
Some social observers might suggest that this is a healthy sign. That women in their early 30s have a strong self esteem, a sense of self worth and a go get’im attitude which should make us proud. Well, yes, but they don’t actually do anything with all that. They totter from social gatherings to envelope openings and occasionally trip over something called work. And me and my mates aren’t happy, actually. Groups of us have recently begun seeking each other out in unhealthy grumpy old women covens to complain about this new breed who have all the trappings of success, but I’m sorry when did one of them go that extra mile, work that extra hour, achieve that extra target? What happened to “proving yourself” and “climbing the ladder? Apparently work is the mere conduit to the lifestyle and is no longer something women aspire to be good at. They look good, they’ve got the job, isn’t that what life is really about?
Well no actually, not if you care about your craft. But then maybe my friends, my mentors and I are just part of a fading breed of people who believe that every day you can do your job better. And if I’m honest we’re also mentor rejects. Every one of us has woken up one morning full of the joys of being alive and decided that when you get to our age it’s time to give something back. It’s a bit Eastern in origin but basically you return the favour your mentors did to you by turning around and passing your knowledge onto someone younger than you. So you gaze around your industry, select someone you think shows promise and take them out to lunch. Where you are astounded to learn that your great expectation has been there done that, bought the T-shirt, written the book, please tell her something she doesn’t know and then finishes it all off with a thinly veiled criticism of your own work. Ouch. So you blame the wine and give her your numbers and wait for that call you’ve made a hundred times:
“Oh my God I have no idea how to deal with this one, have you got time for a drink?”
And you wait, and you wait and you wait. And then you have no choice but come to the conclusion that your knowledge, and let’s throw in your career here too, is of little or no consequence to these perfectly formed beings.
C’est la vie. I guess they’ll never be told to take some risks in life so that when you’re in the rest home looking out at the rain you’ll have lots of memories to make you laugh.(Pauline) Or be taken to Patrick Steel two days before your wedding to get a the dress you forgot to organise(Angela). Or be told not to rush off to Canada with a pig farmer you just met because your career is too promising (Maggie). Or how to fight the last vestiges of male chauvinism lurking in the corridors of newspaper land (Vanya). Or how to charm your way into or out of anything (Cath) Or to swear like a trooper, work like a dog and fight tooth and nail for your magazine above all else (Nene). And be gently persuaded to write a book (Dorothy).
Shame.

"The Scent of a Man" published February 25

2007-02-25T10:51:00.000+13:00

I’ve often boasted that if I was blindfolded I could pick my husband out of a line-up simply by my unique sense of smell. I would need to smell all over you understand, but I would be looking for a sense of mahogany. An earthy combination of old smoke, sensible soap and the merest hint of cognac on his breath. A smell I suspect enjoyed it’s full bloom in the 50s when men smoked a pack a day, washed with Sunlight soap and brushed their teeth with salt. I imagine they also wore corduroy pants with pleats at the waist, tweed jackets with leather patches on the elbows and read Swift in their armchairs by the fire while the faithful Labrador lounged at his feet.
Exactly why I would ever need to pick my husband out of a line-up whilst blindfolded remains unclear. Perhaps he was arrested for smoking in a non-smoking restaurant and I wasn’t blindfolded I was actually blind following a recent accident involving a volatile combination of baking soda and vinegar to clean the toilet. Or perhaps Julie Christie has persuaded us to take part in a new reality series called “Sniff Him or Die.” Or something along those lines. And actually if I was close enough to sniff my husband from top to toe I’m thinking he’d be unable to resist a slap on the arse or that stroke on the back of my neck he does which would give the game away, and now it’s all getting a bit porno fantasy land and I need to get back to the topic of smell.
Men and their smells are as important in the rules of attraction as men and good shoes, men and a sense of humour or men and the ability to buy roses on Valentine’s Day.
Scientists will tell you that if a man doesn’t smell right it doesn’t matter how much you want to like him you’ll just never want to get within smelling distance which kind of prohibits a sex life. So finding his scent is an art I feel I must share for the sake of relationship perfection everywhere. There are three spots, each emitting a very different aroma, but like a good perfume each is an essential note of the man fragrance.
The top note is the sexiest smell a man can have, and unfortunately our modern metros spend most of their lives trying to wash it away. His sweat. Only the most prudish woman will deny that a good whiff of an armpit after his workout at the gym or a bout chopping the firewood is quite moreish. Not that you’d want to smear it on your pocket handkerchief and whiff it all day, but it’s tantalising and suggestive all in one whiff.
Sweat must not, however be confused with BO which is that same sweat going off, rotting, turning into something very unclean and disgusting. So the lesson here is to get it fresh. Straight off the rugby field, the golf course, but perhaps not the fishing trip, especially if he’s got a good haul and been doing a bit of fish gutting.
Then there’s the hair line. As long as he’s a real man and doesn’t steal your shampoo there will always be a distinctive identifier of your man around the nape of his neck. This is the maternal smell, not dissimilar to the one we mothers associate with that first primal whiff or our new baby’s head. It’s a soft smell, the one you find on his pillow after he gets up in the morning. Totally free of any stray Gucci or Calvin Klein. Just him from the roots up so to speak.
You have to travel further for the next smell which starts at the navel and really comes into its own as you head south. Musk is the predominate note here and let’s just say that like sweat there are varying stages of musk. The nice sweet version or the stale cheese-like smell which tells you he hasn’t had a good wash down there for a while. But when it’s fresh and musky there is nothing quite so overpowering and likely to glaze your eyes and make you go a bit silly.
And there you have it, your man’s essential perfume, made fresh every day, and just for you. If you’re not sure you’ve ever quite grasped the full three notes all at once then wait until he’s asleep, lift the sheets and have a good old sniff (providing he’s not a bed farter).
The smell you receive is the one you can safely copyright and know that in a line-up, you’ll be able to pick him out blindfolded …or something like that.

"Mid Life" published February 18

2007-02-18T10:55:00.000+13:00

“I just had to ring you to tell you I’m making breadcrumbs,” came the excited voice on the other end of the phone.
“Did you toast the bread first?” was my immediate if insensitive reply, knowing very well that the voice on the other end of the phone belonged to a woman who would need all the help she could get. The breadcrumbs were just the first phase of a very common affliction.
For me it was making my own laundry detergent, bottling it and distributing it to my friends who placed it gingerly in their designer handbags before phoning my husband to check on my mental health. .
Home made breadcrumbs and laundry detergent may be part and parcel for a woman living in Nelson, who crafts bead ear-rings to sell at the local cafe. But for the two of us, Auckland born and immersed for the past 20 years in busy and relentless careers, nothing could be more frightening to behold.
Just yesterday (in the 90s) we were shoulder padded to our eyeballs strutting around with stern looks and strong words. We were working girls, and proud of it, every day fulfilling the feminist movement’s expectation of a good keen woman. Earning good money, working long hours, marrying a good man and raising healthy children. At least on the surface. Underneath we were exhausted most of the time, we each lost a marriage, and when our 40th birthdays rolled around the nagging sense of loss took hold. Had we missed out on something? Like making breadcrumbs? Were we validating ourselves by what we did at the office?
And there it was. The longing for a life of simplicity, a life where your time is your own to spend working if you want, or planting potatoes.
Post Career Joy is most often experienced by women past 40, and sometimes by men of the same age. It happens when we leave full time employment, sit around at home for a while pondering our working-from-home options and discover the Aunt Daisy lurking in all of us. And for women who have worked all their life, it comes as a shocking but ultimately pleasant surprise to find that when one has the time, the kitchen becomes a fascinating place not the mere giver of heat for convenience food. And there’s this lump of ground outside which would make a very nice potager garden. And did I just spend an hour talking to my kids about life instead or nagging them to clean their rooms?
In the three years of Post Career Joy, I have baked bread and shaped intricate parcels of delicious ravioli, cooked bits of meat for 10 hours, you get the picture. Cooking with time. I’ve also grown my own lettuce and herbs, planted potatoes in the rain and cleaned the house with nothing but baking soda and vinegar.
My friend has now moved onto stuffing poultry. But Post Career Joy is not all bread and potatoes.
She hasn’t got a tattoo, which is next. Just a small one, no dragons or anything like that. Or written a book. Or priced solar power options for her home. Or bought a caravan in a remote location and spent hours there listening to the sea and doing all the thinking she never had time to do when she worked full time. Those things will come. As will picking up a bit of work she likes doing and not minding how much it pays.
Meanwhile those around us wait for our real selves to return. The women they have known for the past 20 years. Bursting with energy, vital and fascinating, always ready with a funny story from work. But she’s disappeared without warning, didn’t even leave a note. Only now, after three years, has my family become used to what they refer to as the “new” Wendyl. Every so often one of them will ask in a careful voice if I’d ever consider going back.
“Going back where darling?” comes my vague reply as I spray the roses. So lost to me is the memory of hard work and middle management arseholes.
The very relieved child trots off, but not before reminding me he’ll be home for dinner.
“Home made tortellini with salad from the garden!” comes my delighted response.
My friend on the other hand has some way to go before her former life leaves her to find a better home. She’s officially on Post Career Joy watch until she’s made it to six months without giving into upper management arsholes and returning to a job. But her garden is waiting and I’ll be there with my shovel. If only to bury the breadcrumbs that didn’t quite work.

"Sex and Middle Age" published February 11

2007-02-11T13:25:00.000+13:00

There is nothing more annoying than being told what you should be doing in your life. It is for this reason I detest those surveys which announce that “most” people have sex less than once a week. How can they possibly tell who is having sex with who and how often? I haven’t noticed any statisticians in my bed lately, have you?
So I was less than enthused to read the findings of New York psychologist Esther Perel who tells me that married couples have no sex at all. We’re in the midst of a sex drought leading lives which can no longer muster the slightest hint of eroticism and “many” of us go for a whole year without turning to our husbands and suggesting a root.
How can this be? Were we not the first generation to dip our eager genitals into the well of sexual freedom and emerge triumphant, if a little scarred by the accompanying herpes, Chlamydia and crabs? Our lives were always going to be rich and diverse in the area of sexual gratification as long as erectile dysfunction kept its limp tentacles at bay. We’re the ones who sit and watch those old couples in restaurants who have not only forgotten the art of conversation with each other but you just know Dad hasn’t been near Mum for a cuddle in years. You observe and rather smugly think that will never happen to you. You’re far too enlightened and motivated for that carry on.
But as it turns out the sexual revolution was a total waste of time. Sex has no place in the modern middle aged marriage.
But help, and a bestseller is on it’s way with Perel writing a book Mating in Captivity – Reconciling the Erotic and Domestic in which our sexless selves are encouraged to email our partners filthy billets doux in the hope of getting each other interested again. Personally I would set up your own web based email account in which to do these smutty pieces of creative writing because the last thing you want is the IT nerd at work bouncing the email he just read about he size and resilience of your husband’s member and what your are planning to do with it. Or mistakenly sending it to your boss. And I’m sure once you got started it could be quite fun pausing between staff announcements to whip up a frenzied piece of sexual erotica, but how long before the domestic interfered?
Dear Sex Ogre
I can’t wait until you get home so that I can strip you naked, cover you in oil and rub myself all over you.
Get milk on the way home and where did you put the scissors?
Love you long time
Pop Tart
Then Perel suggests a bit of motel room sex and sex in alleyways. Well, hello doesn’t everyone do that on a Tuesday night after Coro Street? Grey Lynn is teaming with smug marrieds ravaging each other behind Foodtown and hasn’t everyone noticed the kids sitting in the back of the Holden sipping their pink lemonades while Mum and Dad are in the Quality Inn getting their ends away?
Her suggestion that we turn up at parties and pretend not to recognize each other is just silly. What would your friends think? I doubt they would nod sagely and quote Mating in Captivity, instead they’d put it down to yet another crippling bout of the silent treatment.
What Perel fails to tell us is what to do with our other lives while we’re rekindling the eroticism. There’s a reason we spent our youth bonking our way through the alleyways and flats of Ponsonby and it had to do with the absence of a mortgage, a job to pay it and children. Screaming, demanding, exhausting children, and that’s jus the teenagers.
As we collapse into our marital bed, soft and well worn, sleep has become the most important activity in our well run lives. We become obsessed with getting at least eight hours because any less and we just can’t function. And sex has become the enemy of sleep because it takes time, and sometimes wakes us up.
So if one of us in the marital bed should be overcome by a nostalgic and usually subconscious grope in the dark, we’ll be met by a slap and the most unromantic or erotic words known to man: “I can’t believe you woke me up for that!”

"Style Counsel" published February 4

2007-02-04T13:26:00.000+13:00

No Kiwi girl got past her first Smith and Caughey’s training bra without learning several rules of style. Don’t wear horizontal stripes, black makes you thin, never wear white without a tan, and don’t mix purple with green.
All these tips were gleaned out of fashion mags as New Zelaand women clambered their way through the crazy psychedilia of the 70s into somethig a little more classic and European by the year 2000.
It has taken several decades for Kiwi women to find some sense of style, but today a casual stroll around the streets of Ponsonby will reveal some rather elegant women, as long as you ignore the visitors from West Auckland.
We can credit this eventual discovery of things chic to those who were lucky enough to travel to Europe and immerse themselves in a bucket so full of superior style that they would come home looking like a cross between Audry Hepburn and Jackie O. Eager Kiwi women greatfully left behind the crimplene trouser suits and marvelled at how well things fit when they were designed and cut well – no need for elastic waistbands in Europe.
But today, I can confidently pronounce after a month over there that the word “style” has undergone a slight change in meaning in Italy, where bling went to die. An entire reality show could be built around the challenge of finding a pair of jeans which doesn’t have diamantes glued to the butt. And don’t even get me started on the shoes. No style conscious Italian would be seen dead on their evening stroll around the piazza without a pair of silver trainers and a matching shiny silver puffer jacket wih fur trim giving the visitor an overwhelming impression that Italian youth has identified rather too strongly with American rap stars.
Out here in the colonies we have occasional glimpses of designers like Versace and Chirstian Dior with the odd handbag, pair of sunglasses, or belt and that’s all very nice as a one off item to go with our black. But it’s not until you get to Europe that you see a woman dressed out in top to toe Christian Dior. Shoes, jeans, belt, t shirt, jacket, necklace, ear-rings and sunglasses – all in wonderful glorious bright pink with sparkles. As you attempt to absorb this blinding designer vision you wonder if the designer himself ever imagined all that going together quite like that. In Europe the singular form of the noun accessory just doesn’t exist. It’s accessories, the plural at all times.
As I shopped exhaustively through the cities of Venice, Rome, Sorrento,
Syracuse and Palermo, I found myself craving and admiring our local designers. A well cut plain white shirt, a beautifully tailored pair of black pants, all part and parcel of all of our designer collections, even if you do have to go to the back of the shop to find them. In some weird cultural exchange New Zealanders have taken the simple well cut lines of European design and made them our own while Europe has become overwhelmed in Eurotrash bling, perhsaps inspired by the constan demands of Paris Hilton and her puppy, who, thanks to Paris’s ever diminishing weight, can now wear each other’s clothes.
Of course other things went to die in Italy. The tracksuit, which has undergone little adjustment since it was made popular by the likes of fitness guru Richard Simmons in the 70s and rap stars in the 90s, when the tracksuit found itself a little bit of bling down the trouser leg. It would appear containers full of them have been loaded up in West Auckland and shipped to Italy as emergency supplies.
Nothing went to die in Paris, on the other hand. If it had, the strictly styled Parisians would have wrinkled their noses, clasped it gingerly by the tips of two fingers and thrown it over the border to Italy. There are no tracksuits and the only bling is the diamonds weighing heavily and singularly on their fingers and ear lobes. Normally there are great fashion trends to be picked up on the streets of Paris but in winter one can barely move for the cushiony, soft mass that is fur coats. Tiny cobblstone lanes become a mass of undulating fur. There are no fat people in Paris. Paris is the only country in the world which makes you feel ugly, frumpy and fat from the moment you alight at Charles de Gaulle airport. Which is why I recommend, for the sake of your mental health, that you follow up any stay in Paris with at least a quick stop in Italy to take in the tracksuits.

"Facing the Music" published January 28

2007-01-28T13:27:00.000+13:00

One of the great injustices in the world is that men control the music. How many of us have endured hours of Lou Reed at full tit, longing for just a track or two of James Taylor to take the edge off? But James never makes an appearance because when you’re in a relationship you may think you wear the pants, but it’s the bloke who wears the music.
It’s an unfortunate situation which the feminist movement failed to address while they were dealing with equal wages and the right to have abortions. But I wish they had somehow found the time.
My musical life has been cluttered unnecessarily with the albums of my men. From the first one’s penchant for Devo, Talking Heads and Ian Dury to the last one’s Beach Boys, Lou Reed and opera. In-between there was George Thorogood, Ry Cooder, Neil Young (surfer), Leonard Cohen, Nick Cave, Bowie and Dylan (not surfers).
Because when you meet a man somehow any musical knowledge or taste you may have is immediately dismissed as insignificant. It’s the last stronghold of male domination as he flicks through your collection sniggering and tisking at your Eurhythmics, your Carole King, your Seal, your James Taylor, your Jazz and Blues collections and your Bridget Jones soundtracks. He’ll pause thoughtfully at the Violent Femmes, but when he comes to Hootie and the Blowfish he let’s out one long sigh and offers to whip around to his flat for some proper music.
Of course there is one practical reasons for this. In our early years the boys owned the stereos. While we spent our disposable income on Lindaur, shoes, hair dye and books, he saved up for a proper stereo with an amplifier and things on it which said EQ and had little displays with lots of colours which show how loud the bass and the treble are. Cool if you’re a guy.
Later when the relationships became more serious, the music decision was left to the man because by the time we’re ready to move in with him, we’ve learned to choose our battles. And after we’ve trained him to put the undies in the washing basket, change the bed sheets and make a cup of tea, listening to a bit of Lou Reed just doesn’t seem like a battle you’ll win in a hurry.
These days our music collection has long ago been relegated to the bottom of the pile. So eager are our men to impress other men, that his collection is racked impressively from A to Z while your meagre leftovers from the days you had any musical independence are stacked down the bottom somewhere gathering dust and cat hair.
We’ve also been beaten into submission over who actually operates the stereo. Apparently they are so complicated that only a man with the knowledge of a NASA scientist could possibly know exactly how to make it work properly. All of us have had that agitated “What are you doing!” yelled at us as we’ve gingerly tried to insert a CD into the stereo. “Not like that, let me do it.” So even in the unlikely event we got to play our own music, we can’t use the stereo.
Which is wrong. What I fail to understand is our overwhelming willingness to submit to the dictatorial attitude towards our aural environment. We seem unable to put up an argument which supports the rights of our ears, and our finely tuned musical taste to listen to what we want to.
And so thousands of women can be found every day hiding out in the bath just so they can listen to Ella Fitzgerald on our 8- year-old daughter’s mini stereo or driving to work with Joni Mitchell on full blast. Others attempt to slip something on the stereo when they’re men are too drunk to notice or under the guise that it makes her more relaxed, hint, hint. (Barry White).
But help is on it’s way, and it’s called the iPod. Few women have not seen the irony in their stereo-obsessed men devoting just as much time and expertise to something so tiny that the word masculine just romps straight over it. Now our men dream of the day they can put their entire music collection onto that little darling and dominate it to bits with their little headphones on.
Meanwhile we get to drag out our antiquated CD’s and have a good old listen while he’s nodding away in his own awfully cute little world.
Thank you Apple.

"Second Best Men" published January 21

2007-01-21T13:28:00.000+13:00

It always pays to start the year with a strong mental list of nice men to think about. There’s the screensaver to update, the traditional search through the old videos just to see the guy naked. (I once watched three movies just to see Clive Owen’s bum and wasn’t disappointed.)
But the problem with nice men is that they’re just too perfect and our motto for the year 2007 should surely be reality. After last year’s general theme of disasters from Don Brash to Marc Ellis, it’s time we women got used to the fact that life is full of imperfections. News that there is a man drought should also encourage us to throwaway our “perfect” list with it’s demands for good taste in shoes and wine, and substitute it with the “second best.” In this list the guys can still be as gorgeous, kind and lovely as a vintage Sam Neill, but the edge is there’s something just a little bit off. Which is why it’s useful to cast your eye over a second best list of gorgeous men.
Let’s start with the guy who plays Wolf on Outrageous Fortune. Grant Bowler comes in the list first for having the most beautiful body we’ve ever seen in a pair of stubbies on New Zealand television but being absent for most of the last series. Bummer
Then there’s Mike Hosking, who I’ve observed is very popular with the ladies when he’s out and about, but he comes in second best because he’s one of our best broadcasters and doesn’t have his own TV show. Shame on you TV people in charge.
Jeremy Wells really deserves to be on the Perfect Man list, but he rides his bike without a helmet in rush hour traffic down hills very fast which is very second best behaviour.
John Campbell comes into the list for being tiresome.
Simon Dallow for being tired.
Steve Maharey deserves a mention because he’s good looking in that lawyer on the telly way but he’s a politician which is so second best.
Leigh Hart comes in because we’ve all seen him in Speedos on the Golden Kiwi ads and he’ll just never get into the Perfect Man list even if he can make grown women cry with laughter over lunch.
Antony Starr because he had to play twins on Outrageous Fortune which must be the equivalent of double time in Actor World, before we noticed him. Shame on us.
Looking further a field Josh Hartnett deserves a mention for being such a second bester to think that we don’t take paparazzi photos down under.
Owen Wilson for not using last year to play a character other than the one he plays in every movie, apart from the war one were he just sucked.
Adrian Grenier for being unbearably cute on Entourage but unbearably misused in The Devil Wears Prada.
Daniel Craig for being a cute little blonde Bond which was nice but the words “cute” and “little” just don’t go with the word Bond.
Adrian Brody for looking great in Prada, but that nose, man, that nose.
The American Office guy Steve Carell because despite being the first American to make a British comedy work, he’s still really, really hairy.
Leo De Caprio for still looking like the little boy he was in Gilbert Grape. There’s just no getting over it.
And there it is. Something to ponder as you sit at your office desk wondering why the hell we all rush back to work in January when no one really starts doing anything till school’s back in February. Now you have the “second best” list to Google one by one and get screensaver busy.

"Kids at Home" published January 14

2007-01-14T13:30:00.000+13:00

Every mother has that moment at about day 10 when they look at the screaming bundle of supposed joy they just gave birth to and mentally calculate that there are only 18 years minus 10 days until it is an adult and will leave home.
Which gets you through another sleepless night, sure. But then 18 years minus 10 days later you wake up one morning and they’re still there. Still waking you up at 4am as they stumble home from a party, giggling with their mates who you later find dotted throughout the house with blankets thrown over them. And you realise that you are never, really rid of them.
My son did leave home for a minute last year, causing a premature plunge into empty nest syndrome. It only lasted a week by which time my two daughters pointed out that the wailing and moaning was unnecessary because they were still in the nest, so technically it wasn’t empty. Remember us?
But then he came home, with girlfriend. And while it is reassuring to have friends compliment us on the busy home we have: “always someone coming and going isn’t there? Such a mix of people, you’d never get lonely!” I’m not feeling the love.
The day I attempted to sit down and write my incredibly difficult but surprisingly engaging book and realised that I had just spent the morning cleaning up after two adult children, (I omit my son’s gorgeous girlfriend because she’s so organised and tidy it just wouldn’t be fair to moan) an 8-year-old child, a husband and our friend from Wellington who is staying for a month, was a very dark day indeed. Actually I’ll omit the friend from Wellington because he washes dishes and can cook fish with banana and coconut.
It is the curse of those who work at home that you simply cannot ignore the dishes, the washing, the mess, the dust and the animals getting run over. The rest of the family trot off to offices and jobs, universities and schools while you tell yourself to just ignore the shuddering pile of collective mess six adults and one child make in just five minutes let alone a day. You tell yourself that work comes first, not a tidy house, but the minute you say that someone pops in for a visit. That rare breed who knows that you work from home but you are really spending all day just waiting for them to entertain you with their stories which you do indeed find fascinating when you’re not working and obsessing about the mental clock in your head counting down to the moment you miss your deadline.
As I head into a new year of working from home and another house full of gifted, funny and entertaining children I’m dreaming of the following:
The day I can find the scissors. Any scissors will do whether they’re the ones I keep in the kitchen, in my office or in my sewing basket. Even the ones I hide in my undies drawer just so I an always find them. Somehow my children seek, find and eat scissors.
The day I can find one of the four phone handsets (it’s a big house) These days they seem to live in children’s beds, outside in the hydrangea bush and in the fridge.
The day I can stop cooking dinner for 10 every night because you never know whether the kids’ friends will be there. Then the kids forget they have a late lecture and there’s three of you staring at three lasagnes.
The day my friends don’t use the “children’s bathroom” and come out pale and shaking from the Ebola virus lurking within. Five years ago I stopped cleaning their bathroom in an attempt to make them learn about cleaning bathrooms. Now if we ever sell the house we’ll have to call in a Hazardous Substances Removal team.
The day you arrive home and the beer/wine/Coke Zero/bread/milk/fruit and other necessities of life that were there at 10am are still there at 11am.
The day you clean the kitchen floor and later that afternoon it isn’t riddled with spilled yoghurt, discarded shoes, bits of paper the scissors ate and a disgusted lizard which just escaped from the children’s bathroom.
And the day when I can sit in my office all day for eight hours or longer, writing without interruption from friends or family. Which will also be the day I miss my kids terribly and pine for a pair of lost scissors.

"Christmas Neighbours" published December 17

2006-12-17T13:31:00.000+13:00

A strange feeling overcame me during the onset of Christmas this year. The need to have the neighbours over for cocktails. I had the invite worked out in my head which went something along the cheery lines of “we’ve been here for five years and thought it was about time we got together for a drink or two!’” I’d design the invite on my computer with those clip-art party hats, and champagne bottles and put it in my neighbours’ letterboxes and one Saturday evening they’d all come over for nibbles and drinks and we’d talk about what kind of year it’s been, the local schools, cluck over the new baby at number 14 and all the kids would race around the lawn and eat all the chips and onion dip.
Then I told my husband of my plans and he gave me a look. A look that said he would go along with it, but only because he thought it wise to do so until the real Wendyl returned from whatever planet she was currently visiting.
I soon came crashing down to earth and realised that my cocktail party was something my parents did every Christmas. In the 60s when people actually drank cocktails and downed a good couple of martinis before dinner. In the 60s when the concept of neighbourhoods meant people of like age, interests and incomes lived together and became friends for life, borrowing cups of sugar and bits of string to repair the clothesline. In the 60s when all the men got together to concrete someone’s drive, and all the women got together to organise a gala day or spray the tomatoes. In the 60s when kids rode like wild things on their chopper bikes up and down the road with no helmets, no adult supervision and we survived.
For some reason I had been overcome by a moment of tragic nostalgia which inspired me to imitate the adult world I knew as a child. I’ve yet to commit myself to full psychoanalysis on the matter but I feel it may be a worrying trend.
Recently I’ve started straying off the usual wine list in restaurants. Instead of scanning down the chardonnays and the sauvignon blancs I’ve been having a long, lingering look at Gewürztraminer and Muller-thurgau. My wine guides tell me these are perfectly good wine styles and I will not be disappointed. But as I dare myself to order one, I get a blinding flash of those algae green dimpled bottles of Wohnseidler Muller-thurgau which my parents consumed in great quantities. Not to mention the sickly sweet Gewürztraminer and the Mateus Rose.
I’ve also been thinking about making that chicken casserole where you throw in a can of apricots and a packet of onion soup. Recently I bought ice cream slices with the pink biscuits and demonstrated to my startled children not only how to make an ice-cream sandwich with Milo sprinkles but how to eat it by squeezing the biscuits together slowly….you get the picture. Then there’s the coleslaw and that pizza where you tip a can of spaghetti onto scone dough, sprinkle on a bit of grated cheese and only half cook it so that everything is luke warm and mushy.
Then it came to me. My recent nostalgic leanings can be blamed on the militarisation of Christmas. In Auckland celebrating Christmas seems to have become all about what you can stick on your house and how brightly it flashes of a night. Forget drinks with the neighbours and the season of goodwill, it’s all out war as hectares of multi-coloured weapons of mass illumination furiously blink at each other through the night in their attempts to be the most Christmassy house on the street. It’s no longer enough to actually have the wherewithal to own a house in pricey old Auckland, but you now must be the most sparkly house for the month of December.
There’s no point trying to go against the glow at this stage. Instead of idle chit chat and stealing new babies for a cuddle at some social get together I will take myself to the Warehouse and buy the latest mechanical musical Santa and a reindeer for the roof. I’ll stay indoors wearing my illuminated Christmas tree ear-rings and throw tinsel about the place munching morosely on fruit cake.
Maybe next year we’ll all be over it, I’ll revert to my retro plans and everyone will fall on my egg nog in relief.

"Stupid" published December 10, 2006

2006-12-10T13:35:00.000+13:00

Stupidity is something all of us learn to tolerate, especially if we live in Auckland. Lately we’ve been surrounded by really stupid things such as proposals for stadiums on the waterfront, road systems which keep getting worse not better and everyone is drinking pre-mixes which taste like flavoured water but are actually vodka in some bizarre tastebud denial trend.
Which gets you to thinking about all the stupid things we put up with but don’t notice as they become slowly weaved into the tapestry that is the life we live today. Such asCar alarms that only ever go off when you’re trying to sleep and never when a car is actually being stolen.
-Believing that the polar ice cap isn’t really melting as people in the south look out their windows and see an iceberg float by.
-Sending a bunch of journalists to Antarctica for Christmas when we know only Marcus Lush will shoot anything worth watching.
-Walking around with silly looks of hopeful expectation on our faces dressed in sunhats, sunscreen and shorts expressing surprise that summer isn’t here in November when we know summer isn’t really here until February.
-Acronyms are a great idea if you’re swatting for an exam. They are not a great idea for your company motto because inevitably you’re going to have one letter that you can’t think of a word for. As your entire middle management team gathers to work on your company name of MEDCOM you come up with Making Energetic Decisions Cleverly On Medicine. Everyone knows that “Cleverly” doesn’t really fit but after someone got out the dictionary and went through the “c” section it seemed more believable than “Confidently.”
-Middle management. Apart from coming up with acronyms, holding meetings about the next meeting and writing reports about the meeting you had about the last meeting what do they actually do?
-ACC payments. Why do people who earn a living typing on a computer and sitting safely on a chair in their home office often not leaving the house for days in a work related capacity, pay thousands of dollars a year so that rugby players can get their groin strain treated for free?
-Plateau. Why is it that after you lose a big chunk of weight your body decides it needs to spend three months on a plateau? How the hell are we supposed to keep losing weight with that kind of encouragement?
-Middle aged peer pressure. Even grown-ups with a reputation for being sensible succumb to peer pressure and stay that extra hour at lunch when their friends say: “Go on you big woos have another glass of chardonnay!” Which turns into “what the hell!” and dinner as well.
-Don Brash
-The more TV channels you have the less there is to watch.
-Bras are uncomfortable. No matter what the commercial says they are still bits of elastic restraining your tits from wobbling and jangling like they have for millions of years. We must only be wearing them under the misguided perception that men think they look better trussed up like a chook.
-Newly popular restaurant. When sent the gift of a positive review in some hip magazine they never take on more staff in anticipation of trend conscious Auckland wankers arriving en masse. New customers who wait 40 minutes never come back no matter how nice your crème brulee is.
-Small talk. Do you really care what they are doing for their Christmas holidays?
-Revenge. It just puts the ball back in their court and you’ll be ducking all over the place. Take a ticket on the karma bus instead.
-Saying: “You could be run over by a bus tomorrow.” When did you last hear of anyone being run over by a bus?
-Writing emails and thinking they’re confidential. Say it face to face, it’s the last bastion of secrecy and much more fun..
-Saving for your retirement. Who retires anymore? 80 is the new 60.
-Living in Auckland.

ends

"The Rules" published December 3, 2006

2006-12-03T13:39:00.000+13:00

When did finding a man become so hard? Why is it that we look around and see beautiful, talented, funny single women and say to ourselves: “I don’t understand why that lovely woman hasn’t got a man?” Because she doesn’t want one, stupid.
In this crazy post-feminist world where we are given the choice of living with or without men, there seems to be unreasonable pressure being placed on women to find a man. And if they haven't found one, then there must be something horribly wrong with them.
This is where The Rules comes in. It’s a book which first appeared 10 years ago and is now enjoying a disturbing resurgence among young women about town.
It claims to contain the time tested secrets for capturing the heart of Mr Right.
Personally I’ve always had more fun with Mr Wrong, but apparently “The One” is someone for whom you must search longingly from the age of 15.
Basically The Rules is a return to the 50s dishonesty and manipulation - or playing hard to get - which popularised so many old romance movie plots entertaining women who continued to cook their man his eggs and lead the slave-like existence which passed for marriage in 1952.
Not surprising then to find that Rule 32 is “Don’t Discuss The Rules with Your Therapist.” Apparently your therapist might find it dishonest and manipulative and they just “don’t realise a woman’s capacity for forcing themselves on men who don’t want them.” We are a terrible burden on ourselves wandering around campus hoping to run into men, sending love poetry and getting friendly with men’s parents. Crikey
I’ll spare you the entire 35 rules but they go a bit like this. Don’t return phone calls. Don’t stare at him. Don’t have sex for ages and when you do be emotionally cool and don’t demand that he satisfies you. Where’s the fun in that rule? This is more like dating starvation than a guide to getting dates. My favourite is Rule 1 which involves “Being a Creature Unlike Any Other.” They don’t mean growing a wart on your nose or carrying around a third boob. Here’s how you do it: “When you hair falls in front of your face, you tilt your head back and comb back your hair with your hand from the top of your head in a slow, sweeping motion.” Man, that must really make you unlike any other. You must also dress in strong colours, because men like those. Be quiet and mysterious. And don’t ever tell him what to do, always follow his lead like a long slow dance.
And when it comes to conversation the rule is strict: “Don’t tell sarcastic jokes. Don’t be a loud, knee-slapping, hysterically funny girl….Remember, men fall in love with your essence, and not with anything in particular you say.”
In fact any poor woman who followed the 35 rules without breaking them might get a husband but along the way she will have lost her personality, her independent thought, her leadership qualities, any hope of a decent sex life and consequently the will to live. She will however know how to flick her hair in an odd manner and will have absolutely no risk of cancer from cell phone overuse. And as for her husband, what kind of prick must he be?
The Rules has it all wrong. Men just aren’t worth it. They are not Mr Right or The One. They arejust a species with which we occasionally enjoy our time and hopefully share the difficult job of raising children. But not at the expense of becoming nothing more than stoned mute Barbie dolls who make men feel important.
There should be just one rule to follow for women and here it is:
· Having a man in your life should make it better, not worse. If it’s worse, dump him.
And I’ll throw in these others just because this column isn’t quite long enough:
If he makes you laugh within five minutes of waking up every day he’s a keeper.
If you throw a baby into his arms and he looks at it with significant interest rather than passes it like a rugby ball to the next person with a look of disgust on his face, he’s a keeper
If he has a decent one and knows what to do with it, don’t let him go under any circumstances.

"Rural Guys" published November 26, 2006

2006-11-26T13:41:00.000+13:00

When you’re born and bred in the city it pays to take some time out once in a while. For some this means taking a helicopter to Waiheke, sitting in a vineyard restaurant and bunking down for the night in a 5 star. For others, like me, it involves a 1968 caravan and a drive no shorter than three hours out of Auckland, because that’s how far you have to go these days to rid yourself of jet skis, oxymoronic convertible four wheel drives and white shirts over jeans.
Someone happening upon my visage at the caravan will be hard put to recognise me with my salt water beach hair from the daily snorkelling excursions (oysters aplenty) and the absence of any make up. Sometimes I even forget to apply my Crème La Mer.
One friend suggested I was morphing into a Topp Twin, and another wondered if my time spent alone at the caravan was a cry for help.
Perhaps. Because when you’re an Aucklander who had kids young, there comes a time when you demand a few days to yourself in the country, alone. You can eat toast for dinner, read chick lit uninterrupted and swim naked in the moonlight (haven’t quite done that yet but fully intend to). And after two nights with nothing but a big black dog and the radio to keep you company the desire for conversation overwhelms but it’s always nice to get to the stage where you crave company rather than cope with it.
Which is when the city girl gets to sample the home made delights of the Rural Guy. He’s easy to spot in a plaid shirt (flannel with singlet combo in summer, Swanndri -not Karen -in winter).
Rural Guy will also have hair. More hair than you can spot on a good day in Ponsonby with its shaved heads and manicured lawns which pass for stylish man hair in the city. Rural Guy hasn’t had a hair cut since last summer and it’s all luxurious and bouncy and flowing and just everywhere. That goes for the face as well. Rural Guy doesn’t shave unless he’s got a wedding to attend and it’s his own. And again, it’s full beard action here, not your landing strip goatee employed by City Guy.
But by far the nicest thing about Rural Guy is his manners. Somewhere along the evolutionary chain, Rural Guy remembered the manners he was taught while City Guy just became a smart arse.
You can be having a beer with a Rural Guy and need to adjust your awning. Up he gets and does it for you: “Watch out love I’ll get that for you.” You can be having a glass of Pinot Gris with City Guy and need to adjust the sun umbrella. He’ll sit back and watch you struggle with the weight of the thing and attempt to impress you with a witty one liner about the inadequacies of the sun umbrella design. In fact take any group of City Guys in a social situation and they won’t get off their arses once, unless it’s to move under the sun umbrella to save their complexion.
Rural Guy will be up and down like a yo yo, offering a woman the last camp chair available (remember that), grabbing you another can of beer (remember that), whipping down to the beach to check the surf caster, starting up the barbie, cooking tea and lighting the bonfire afterwards. He also calls his missus “Baby” which is so sweet it hurts. And you wake up the next morning to find a flounder on your collapsible table.
Then there’s the conversation. Rural Guy has all these cool stories about near death experiences involving fishing, hunting and planks of wood at work. The kind of stories you just go: “Wow!” at. City Guy drones on about obscure movies, books, albums and how easy it is to grow rocket, all with a witty repartee rivalled only by Oscar Wilde on one of his off days wandering Europe shortly before his death. The kind of stories you just go: “Really?” at in a bored monotone.
But after a while at the caravan when your head starts itching from all the salt and your lips start cracking from lack of lipstick, you start to miss your child-minding, dinner cooking, breakfast in bed bringing, laugh-a-minute Oscar. And home you go where he flourishes a bottle of “Sensory Therapy Peace of Mind” and proceeds to massage it into your temples and neck.
“Better?” asks City Guy.
Much.

"Get out of jail free" published November 19,2006

2006-11-19T13:41:00.000+13:00

Imagine this. You have a weekend away from your partner. You are in a luxurious hotel suite and you are there with any man you like for two days and nights. The best bit is that when it’s over you go back to your life and it’s as if time stopped while you went away so your actions will never hurt anyone or alter your life in any way.
Welcome to Get Out of Jail Free. It’s the new game sweeping ladies lunches all over town as wined up women let rip with their imaginations and share their fantasies.
The initial list is fairly obvious. Johnny Depp, Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom turn up and drape themselves over the beige and mocha themed hotel couch, while you react with shock and amazement that you, yes you, are the one woman they’ve been looking for all their life.
Because that’s the other rule of the game. The man you choose is SO into you. There’s no need to flirt or reel your catch in, you basically hit the ground running.
But there’s a problem. Once you’ve had your way with Johnny, Brad and Orlando (and let’s be generous here we’re talking maybe six hours once you’ve consumed two bottles of Dom, taken Ecstasy and had the most glorious sex) what’s next?
Well, conversation obviously. Post-coital mind exploration which in our fantasy scenario involves bare chests, snuggles, cigarettes and discussions about how big your environmental footprint is on the beach of life.
Which is where Johnny, Brad and Orlando start to pale. Because even the most delusional woman knows that Johnny will mutter on about the joys of living in France and how he did Pirates of the Caribbean for his kids not the money, and he’s really sorry about the small dick but he’s never had any complaints before. Brad will be an absolute nightmare once he’s finished moaning about having to live in hot countries with starving children as Angelina insists on saving the world from poverty. And how she insists he actually changes nappies. Him, Brad Pitt, changing nappies! He just wants to be in Las Vegas with the Oceans 11 or 12 or whatever they are now team and cuddle up to George Clooney’s aura.
And then there’s Orlando who has never really got over Lord of the Rings and insisted on wearing his Huffer “I (heart) NZ” T-shirt while making love to you because you’re a Kiwi.
Crikey, you’ve got another 42 hours to get through, and on top of that they don’t seem to be hungry so you can’t even distract yourself with room service. Guys lose their appetite when they’re in Get Out Of Jail Free land.
So you need to have a rethink. It now becomes necessary to find a drop dead gorgeous man who has a brain which can enthral you for 42 hours. Comedians are an obvious choice but when have you ever met a gorgeous comedian? They’re usually short, fat or odd looking which is why they became a comedian in the first place because everyone treated them like shit at school. Ah, but there is Dylan Moran from Black Books who is a big favourite although it was noted at his live show here earlier this year that he had rather a big bottom. Big bottoms don’t feature in Get Out of Jail Free.
Which is the other rule. You have the body of a 15-year-old whose mother is a French model and father is an East European ballet dancer. Nice.
Some women get to this stage in the decision process and forget all about the sex, deciding that 48 hours in a hotel suite with Nelson Mandela, Ghandi, the Dalai Lama, Martin Luther King or Paul Holmes would be worth the sacrifice of not having sex in return for their vision and lessons learned, not to mention their entertaining delivery.
Others attempt a brain/good looks combo which is an extremely hard ask of the male species. But there is George Clooney, Clive Owen and Alain de Botton (pre-bald).
Personally I never participate in Get Out of Jail Free. I made up the game to entertain my friends. Honestly. But if my husband didn’t read this column I’d try out Clive Owen and have Dylan Moran after a diet in the next room on standby.
end