On babies. Again.

In the last few weeks, a set of water balloons popped up my under my eyes and they are not going away. Dem's apparently the breaks of getting old.

And in other news about getting old - kids! kids! kids! Mexicana chose to provide not one but two adorbs details about child birth (which I'm going to share with you oh-so lovingly) while I was eating.

1. Babies can tear you through all the way to the butthole- a fourth degree tear, leaving you incontinent forever. In other words, you and child will both be wearing nappies.

2. In order to prevent this, your helpful doctor will take a pair of scissors and cut your vahjayjay bigger. Without anasthetic. Snip snip.

Did I mention that I was spooning noodles into my mouth at the time of these fun factoids?

And then she preceded to tell me that if I didn't have kids I would die alone and no-one would visit me in hospital.

She was trying to sell me on the idea and instead she just made me want to pack up my Winnebago (with ND) and head for the open road.

I wish someone would give me the right reason for having kids, because I have extra love to give, because it will make my life better, because it will bring happiness to people's lives.

Not because a) I'm having one because I have reproductive organs
                     b) because I'm supposed to have one
                     c) hypothetical children will help me in the rice paddies

Do you see what I mean? No-one ever says anything about good, positive reasons to have kids. Only that this is some role I'm supposed to fill. And the more I hear, the more I'm tempted to just go the other way and live my life in an armchair with some books in my personal library.

Trolling, trolling

We just finished watching Sinister this afternoon and afterwards I was looking for (sigh) intelligent discussion of the movie on the internet.

This was pretty much the first comment I saw:

"Horrible, horrible movie. I DO NOT recommend bringing your children to view this disgusting piece of “entertainment”. I brought my 11 year old and her sleep pattern is still very much disturbed. Shame on you, the makers of this film. And a true testament to where we are heading as a society."

I also don't recommend you bring your kids to see this film! Shaniqua, your points are so pertinent, you are almost a genius (almost!)

Everyday Racism

I just got a random comment on strep throat foods. Thank you..person. I will keep that in mind if ever I get strep throat.

You know you think you live in a multicultural society and you surround yourself with (relatively) enlightened people, you don't read YouTube comments and then.. racism sneaks up on you anyway.

Bloggers.

"Who cares about Haiti? I mean what did this country bring to us except baby rape?"

"How come I don’t hear about the world demanding Germany to feed the whole Europe because the Nazi slashed some heads?"

Ok yeah, all I have to do is stop reading them completely and there will be no more angry rage on my end. However I do just want to drag them by the hair into a history classroom. Seriously, mandatory history lessons for idiots. Maybe throw in some documentaries if reading is too hard on their heads.

Workpeople.

I was walking down the street with my older workmate and her friend.

OW: There are just so many Aborigines everywhere *wrinkles nose* ruining this suburb.
Fr: I know! Oh My God! We should just get rid of them.. we give them too many things already. And what is with the whole speech thing that comes before every tv show-
Me: Excuse me, I really can't listen to this. Can we please change the subject? I am extremely uncomfortable right now.

OW and Fr exchange glances like I just requested to put cherry pie in my shoe. I have broken the racism sisterhood bonding code. I don't care. I can't do it.

Family (?!)

Sumo: God, I would never date an Indian. They smell funny and-
Me: What? Do you even have Indian friends?
Sumo: No, do you?
Me: No, but I'm not tarring them all with the same brush!
Sumo: We're all racist, there's no point in denying it. I don't like Indians.

Me: *turns to ND* What the hell? Since when dinner turn into a local chapter of the KKK?
ND: She's your family!

I don't deny that racism exists and people argue that racism is innate- a holdover from when we were all cavemen and trying to keep other clans off our patch. However many thousands years later, are we not more enlightened than that?? You'd think multiculturalism and globalisation would have opened people's eyes to more than just food and tv shows, there are some people that will never get it. At the end day, it feels like a losing fight, it is almost near to impossible to change someone's mentality from the sheer force of your words. If you can't talk them through it, then it's okay not to stick around and listen if you don't want to.

Prowlers and gratitude for small spaces

So I apparently live in one of the safest suburbs in Sydney, when ND and I don't have our heads screwed on and leave the door unlocked while we're sleeping- we generally awake to find we still have our lives and our possessions the next day.

Lately however, there have been small incidences of crime that are making me a bit nervous. A bag snatching (a bag snatching?!) and prowlers. It has become a thing, every month or so to leave a note on the downstairs bulletin board pointing out someone is impersonating a cop, or lurking. in the. dark. or wandering the stairways or whatever.

(I just want to say that I don't really want to post this, because people are always murdered right after they talk about feeling uneasy on their livejourmals. I feel like I'm poking fate.)

Anyway! Even though I often begrudge my 2x2 metre space apartment and I (more frequently than you know) wish for a larger space with a walk-in closet, I am never more grateful for my 2x2 than when I walk in from garbage disposal at night. I can see every nook and cranny and I know 100% that there's no-one in here but me. Prowler, you may remain downstairs. I think if I lived in a 22 bedroom mansion ala Adele, I would  waste a lot of electricity turning on every damn light in the house to feel safe.

Oh, and if you want to feel really unsafe while I'm talking about prowlers, I recommend you go and watch Funny Games and get back to me.

Le Doppelganger

I haven't thought of Le Doppelganger in a while (super speedy update: there's someone in Sydney who looks exactly like me and has been fooling my friends for years)

So I think I may have finally found out her name, crafty-face-imitator of mine. I was exiting brunch this morning, when someone calls:

Anna!

I turn around and a girl is looking at me (excitedly) and calls again: Anna!

I'm a bit confused so I point at myself and mouth 'me???'

She nods and I walk over to where her and hey boyfriend are sitting and she says 'Hi Anna!'

I am about to disappoint her - 'Sorry, I'm a Mush!'

She's mortified and her boyfriend pats her lovingly on the elbow.

'Sorry, you look like someone I know... Anna...'

'That's ok.. no worries!' and I lope off before I/evil doppelganger person can create more confusion.

Actually I'm probably the evil one because I don't mind the idea of making mischief. Le Doppelganger, please come out so we can recreate the Parent Trap.

The paranoid generation

A year or so ago, I caught this program on TV- I think it was called Las Vegas Beauty Queens/ True Beauty. Anyway the premise was that all these girls were applying to this show thinking they were competing on hair, makeup and bikini bodies but actually they were being secretly judged on morality. So the show would give them little tests such as whether they would open the door for a random grandma or whether they would accept a bribe.

Anyway, if they passed these tests, they automatically preceded to the next round and if they didn't, they would discover that they were an ethically challenged individual and booted unceremoniously from the show, all the while protesting meekly that they meant to save the puppy from the burning building but didn't see him. (Fun sidenote: I caught this on the second season so frankly I judge these girls for being idiots who are unable to even vaguely research what TV show they are due to appear on)


Which precedes onto that terrible 20/20 segment called ( rather originally) What Would You Do?
And of course, a plethora of homeless people, battered wives and racist rednecks are served up in situations to see .. ahem.. what would you do? (Besides you know, feeling smug that you would never do what those people did!)


Which leads me to .. this one that everyone is talking about.
I like the guy with the fire hydrant. That was smart thinking. Even though I'm pretty sure no one remembered to fill in that section of the worker's comp form. Anyway I am sure there are a trillion more examples of this morally-superior infotainment that we could go through. But alas no time.

Here's the thing, this stuff is becoming more and more regular, even if we don't presume we're going to end up punked on a tv show (and judged by everybody in the world), we are more than ever hyper aware that whatever we do will quite possibly end up on the internet via mobile (Thanks YouTube!) or on some sort of cctv camera. Our bad behaviour despite our best efforts to keep it underground, is going viral. You lest be vigilant that your drunken rant doesn't end up with a million views or that your bullying ways doesn't land you on the nightly news. Here a camera, there a camera, everywhere a camera.

Which is good for exposing asses (and once again, the smug thing) but bad for the rest of us who are relentlessly paranoid about not doing the right thing.

I gave up and I have a Twitter Account

Ever since I started this job, it feels like I'm laying out a cookie crumb trail to my personal identity.

Now if you just kind of look, you can find my LinkedIn, my Facebook, my mobile, the website I manage (I'm about ten minutes away from posting a video ala Kim Kardashian)  and now fer Gawdsakes my Twitter.

Yes, I know- I know. I have finally succumbed to creating a Twitter account and the reason for this is three-fold.

One, for my next working project I'd like to be able to prove that I can master Twitter and garner a successful following (see 12 followers. Needs some work)

And two, I kind of need evidence that I'm alive and kicking online from time to time, even if it is in 140 character format.

Three, I guess it's another avenue for me to tell bad jokes, make bad puns, talk all things pop culturey in a way that you don't really read about here. It's going to be useless Mush trivia time. Hurrah!

So um... yeah, if you're on Twitter, follow me and I promise I'll follow you back- unless you're nuts or a troll or both.

Well I'm binning *that* career option

I follow a few blogs - mostly Asian lifestyle ones and I normally read them and think:

"God, I would not mind being paid to write, to put on makeup, to go on holiday and record what I ate for dinner."

That really does sound like the life to me (yes, I know. I'm not aiming very high.)

 And then I bumped into a forum called Guru Gossip (not linking to it- sorrynotsorry)and it's essentially a forum where girls tear on girls.  More specifically it's a dumping ground for forum readers to rip female bloggers to shreds.

Absolutely everything is up for claw-swiping dissection. How often you wash your hair, whether you've photoshopped your last picture, how ugly you used to look, how ugly you look now, eyes are too big, eyes are too small, your makeup is not in fashion, your voice is annoying, you've switched jobs more than once.. I think you get the idea.

All of the stereotypes on girls being their own worst enemy brought to life- although I haven't seen the word slut yet. Which is nice.

And suddenly being a lifestyle blogger doesn't sound so appealing to me. I'm never 100% happy with my appearance, it's true. But I don't need it to be magnified with people telling me they hate my teeth or something and I don't need you to tell me that the last thing I wrote was really dumb. I imagine that if I had to deal with that kind of criticism every day, I would spend a lot of time writing from under my bed.

 So I guess I will keeps my posts untagged and keep doing things which are bad for SEO and be happy with the small amount of hits I have. Go your good self, little blog.

What happened in February

I have rediscovered my love of Britney (not that it ever really left me) and while it's more conducive to running, it doesn't really put me in the mood for writing (what would be good for writing? Enya?).

So if you've missed me (which I know is a mighty assumption) I've been:


 Busy ducking falling trees - That's next door's carport. The street wasn't much better. At 1:30 in the morning, there was a gigantic smashing noise which woke us up and ND hauled me flailing into the kitchen. Both of us thinking the stupid tree outside is finally going to fall and make its way through my window. Well it did, and it didn't, the tree(s) came down the other way- as you can see, some cars not so lucky. And you know at the very least I am reassured  that ND is going to schlepp me to safety if I ever need it.

Making homemade dumplings

 Not bad eh? Although I can't take credit for most of it (or all of it- I helped some!)

Celebrating CNY- It feels like I won't be getting red packets too much longer, so... I'm squirreling the excess money away. Like a miser. I can't think of any other instances where I get free money. Tax return? No, right?


Swallowing powdered collagen to stop my face from collapsing in on itself (kind of like a black hole)- the stuff is rank though and it smells like... I can't even describe the smell- 17 year old silica packets is the closest I can think of. The things I do to keep society from throwing me under a bus.

Watching a lot of River Monsters. It's my new favourite show. Five props for a program that can give that much serious profiling to Amazonian catfish that crawl up your butt in groups (groups!) and then eat you from the inside out in bullethole fashion (and for some reason everyone or another all these poor bodies wash up on a Monday. It's like they work on weekends.) - everyone else can keep their reality shows, I think I will stick with learning about violent parasitic, marine life. Huzzah!


Speaking of violent parasitic, marine life (that was an awkward segue) I tried watching Compliance yesterday. I made it through 15 minutes. I don't want to ruin it for you so I don't know how to explain it to you without my destroying it for you- I guess what I'm ineloquently trying to say is that I think everyone should have a go at watching it and then maybe reassess how susceptible we are to (intentionally or not) abusing our own personal power. If you come out and go, that's just dumb, I would never do that! Go back, take off your moral superiority hat and try again.

If you can't make it through the first fifteen though, I completely understand and this link will help you finish off the story- which is bizarre and insane. That's the only way I can describe it.

On being fanstruck

I don't get many (or any!) views on here since I stopped regularly writing and even fewer comments so I was expecting spam when I saw that I had comments on the Kurt Vonnegut post below.

Anyway the comment was: And where do we find Mush on Twitter? - Travis Langley.

I'm all 'why does that name sound so familiar?... *google google* OHMYGOD! He's the one who wrote the book I've been reading about Batman!'

If you just look to the right a little bit in the sidebar- there it is: "Batman and Psychology: A Dark and Stormy Knight"

So I sat there a little bit with stars in my eyes, dreaming of being whisked off to San Diego to write pop culture-y things. Maybe he'll know people at Comic Con. Maybe Comic Con will take me on board to help out with social media. Maybe he'll have read my blog and liked it and skipped past all the parts where I was embarrassing and awkward. And even having read my blog, he'll take me on as a sidekick (sidekicks are usually young right?).

Of course then my overworked brain decided to unfog for a second. What if I am being catfished? What if I am being Manti T'eo-ed? .. I don't even think SEO and or Google Alerts picks up on sidebars! Do they? (If so, I will have to get on that at work asap)

Ok well, if you ever come back Travis, I love your work! Please adopt me! I'll be good!



*I have two twitters for work but no personal one but seriously I am infinitely contactable on all other forms of social media.

**ND is watching me as I type this and said over my shoulder 'Can you please be careful- don't let that guy turn you into a nipple lamp.'

A lesson from Kurt Vonnegut

An hour before thirty.

For some reason, it looks like I liquefied my face on the right hand side! I didn't touch photoshop I swear. Maybe I'm finally growing in cheekbones- about damn time! (and thus I won't have to go in for cheek implants- woop woop.)

Anyway two hours to go and thirty it is. Thirty! Wth. I have an amazing boyfriend, a job that I really enjoy and some really good friends and of course, I love my family. But I just feel like there are milestones that I haven't hit yet (property? property?! everyone stop talking to me about property!! The great Australian dream has turned into the great Australian pressure) and I really have to make up my mind about kids because frankly I don't think these eggs are that fresh anymore and so forth, so forth, so forth.

I talked to some friends about it and they (Thank God!) were also angsty in the week beforehand, so it's nice to know that I am not the only one emo-ing it up in the room.

Quick, quick! A brief rundown of things I loved so I can leave the overly analytical post for later
 ---

 Things I loved in my tens: Cartoons, Dolly magazine, Roald Dahl, Prawn dumplings, The Lion King, The Grease Soundtrack, being in a clique, collecting stickers, slapbands, denim overalls, boys.

Things I loved in my teens: ICQ, Hanson, Empire Records, collared necklaces, headkerchiefs, sushi, silver clothing, my mobile,  Midori Illusions, Asian biographies, anime.

Things I loved in my twenties: Alcohol, bubble wrap, hot dogs with shaved haloumi, random trivia, my ipod, my apartment, food trucks, travelling, Murakami.

--

Actually looking at that list, nothing much has changed hey! Time to go to bed. Tomorrow is a brand new day so they say.

Mentally 17

I have moved onto signing my dates with 2013 but I haven't found the necessary courage to write how I felt about 2012.

I'm not ready to be 30. And yet it's ridiculously inevitable- ready or not, here it comes.

On 2012 last year

 On 2012 last year.

"Beyond the politicians, the rest of us were being reshaped too. The first serious media impacts of what some of us like to call interconnectedness were being felt. Alan Jones called social media campaigns against him “cyberterrorism” which was not entirely off the mark, for social media campaigns like #destroythejoint or more temporary ones like the waves of rage against the 2DayFm royal prank are indeed about power and its use. Traditionally dominant analog media increasingly find themselves trapped in the same rituals of apology over and over again as the people formerly known by that engagingly passive term “audience” use social media to undermine their business model. That’s accomplished not so much by directly challenging media outlets as by challenging advertisers, who invariably figure discretion is the better part of valour.

The media has been told for a long time that the internet will bugger their advertising revenue. But no one told them it would happen courtesy of social media campaigns as well.
This had a particularly amusing outcome of upsetting powerful old white men, the sort of people not merely used to running things, but doing so in an unchallenged, and definitely unmocked, fashion. No matter where you looked this year, there was some privileged old white guy angrily denouncing things. Gerry Harvey or Solomon Lew or Ray Hadley or Alan Jones (Old White Guy primus inter pares), or the entire Republican Party (brilliantly condensed into Clint Eastwood railing at an invisible person, an act so laden with symbolism it deconstructed itself in real time), or the old men of The Australian, from Chris Mitchell down, powerful elderly males infuriated that the world no longer gives them automatic deference, let alone allows them to run things unchallenged. The result: the rage of the prostatetariat." - Bernard Keane.

If you want to read the rest of this piece, click here. I can't put it any better than the: rage of the prostatetariat. What a sentence.

I've been at home for two days

Hastily cleaned just for you.

I am somewhat going out of my mind from being holed up in my apartment from rain for the last two days.

And then you know, I feel guilty because I have all the comforts of warmth, shelter and internet while I'm sitting here popping blueberries into my mouth and I'm not in a North Korean concentration camp digging ditches, slowly dying of malnutrition. And I'm complaining about rain of all things.

I often wonder what kind of quirk of fate sends one person here and one person there? If my great-great-great-grandfather had decided to walk on the left side of the street instead of the right, (assuming that my existence was somehow a given) would I be sitting in a hacienda in New Mexico instead? or skiing in Canada? or under someone's floorboards in Philadelphia a la Cold Case?

My mum followed my Aunty H here in the 70s because she just didn't want to be separated from her. At the time, Australia wasn't my Aunty H's first choice but for some reason or another, she changed her mind and here we all are... sitting here trying to wait out the rain.

I'm always thinking about what people are doing right now on the other side of the world, like that girl who served me at Aeropostale at Times Square (5:56am) I guess she's about to wake up? Or that pissy concierge from the hotel in Rome (11:52am), is he still standing there frowning pissily at papers? Probably. His is a 24 hour job and the tourists ave all checked out at ten. And then again it's 7:58pm in North Korea, so it's a late dinner for some family in Pyongyang- I can only guess at what they're eating.

The Food Truck Journey

Two posts in a day. I must be dying.

Last year I spent a lot of time chasing around food trucks. Also I spent a lot of time and effort dragging my friends out with me to look for them. I didn't really mind because it wasn't about the food but more on the pleasure of the company.

Also last year my little group of friends split in two and what can you do about it really.

I spotted the elusive food truck tonight and I think I must have squeaked in joy.The past is gone and that chasm will never be recovered but I like to think that when they see the photo on my facebook page, they feel a momentary fondness for the things that were.

I gripe.

So this is my resolution for this year.

I will not turn on any damn appliance on in the morning before I go to work. No iron. No curler. No stove.

Why? because even if I write it on my forehead or tattoo it on my hand, I am never 100% sure that I've switched anything off. Somehow a panic button flips in my head as soon as I reach the ferry and I have to turn back making me damn late. And the stupid thing is? the appliance is always off. Yeah I know.

This happened more than a couple of times last year and this morning was the final straw. By the time I did a circle back to the ferry, I was super sweaty and my hair (so painstakingly curled) had frizzed out to the before shot in a shampoo commercial.

Also I missed my ferry. again.

So never again, only cereal and baseball caps for me in the morning. Don't mention to me that my skirt is wrinkly lest I laserbeam you to death with my eyes.