Monthly Archives: August 2014

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The Brown One.

Published in On Our Selection News June 12, 2014

It is always interesting to hear what words people use to describe you when they’ve forgotten your name.

As a child, your name never really counts to many of the adults you encounter, as demonstrated by the general “and family” label/slap in the face that features on Christmas cards from my parents’ friends. While families with only one sibling have to put up with being called their brother’s or sister’s name, children from a larger litter are often referred to by characteristics they vaguely embody. Their entire being is whittled down to one generalised observation that may or may not be correct. Just as Marcia was the pretty one, Jan was bland and Cindy was the cute one, the Maguire girls each had their labels. My oldest sister was “The Smart One” (proof that generalised observations are not always correct), my second oldest sister was “The Pretty One”, and my youngest sister was “The Cute One”. All of them have hair of gold, except Dannielle, who was blessed with brown. The colour of my hair, apparently was my defining characteristic because it made me stand out from the blonde brood I hung out with.

While it is satisfying hearing a younger cousin guess my name right first go after struggling with my sister’s name, the victory is soon soured by the stab to the ego that is the admission that she knew you because “you’ve got the brown hair” – wounds that are clearly still oozing with disdain and crusting over with the yellowing infection of disappointment after being inflicted just last weekend. All I have to offer this world is my brownness. While my three sisters’ attributes are very positive, mine is incredibly bland. Brown is the colour of cardboard boxes and dirt. If you were to ask 100 people what their favourite colour was, I guarantee you that no one will mention brown. While it’s not the best label, it is the most effective, with 99 per cent of distant relations being able to guess my name correctly compared to my fair-haired womb-mates.

“The Brown One” is a label that has stuck, despite my best efforts. Whether it was dying my hair red or competing in a gluestick eating race when my group of friends went through our Jackass stage (as a side note, I did manage to beat my opponent, but looking back I don’t think any of us were winners in the end…), I made numerous ill- informed attempts to shape my identity. I fear this desire may have very much informed my actions at a subconscious level, which actually really explains a lot about my personality. As such, I have always been a believer in the old saying “Don’t judge a book by its cover”, mostly because if the cover is just “brown”, that book isn’t going to be much of a ripping read. Thankfully, as you get older, I’ve noticed people get better at labelling you.

These days, our labels are a little more attuned to who we are. There’s the nurse (fine, I suppose she had to be somewhat intelligent to get through uni), who can be spotted eying-off people’s veins for cannulation practice; the greenie, who can seen hoarding paper waste from work to recycle in her bin at home; the book worm, who reads in front of the TV; and the cynical journo, who can be spotted sitting in a corner judging people, and making generalised observations about them…

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War games

Published in On Our Selection News June 5, 2014

There’s a reason people say that you can’t go home again.

After four years of having another residential address, I am living back under my parents’ roof, and I must say that the experience has been challenging. I’m not just talking about the looks you get when you decide that a batch of black bean brownies is an acceptable choice for dinner (because you can eat it straight from the baking dish and then have the leftovers the next night, obviously). I’m talking about things that never used to be a big deal becoming a point of furious contention.

The simple placement of a toothbrush can be a declaration of opposition, the location of couch pillows an expression of dominance. Previously meaningless household items become weapons in a play for power. Currently, there’s a silent war raging between my father and I. As with many wars, the conflict stemmed from claims on resources, and this particular resourse is more valuable than gold and more useful than oil – bananas. They are located in no man’s land – the fridge – meaning anyone can make claim to their riches. When they are plentiful (after our beloved fruit man comes to town) there is peace – smoothies are blended and lunchboxes are filled and there is harmony in the region. However when the resource dwindles, things turn ugly and the situation becomes hostile. While going to the shops to buy more may be an option, neither party wants to lose face – no one wants to be seen giving in to terrorist demands. And so, bananas are smuggled into unchartered territory (behind the butter, out of the line of sight) and smuggled into secret stashes (inside an esky). In the interest of keeping relations diplomatic the issue is not mentioned, however when the resource is totally depleted, famine is avoided by striking a truce with joint funding initiatives. Eventually, we simply started ordering more bananas, and an armistice has been in place, securing peace.

But now, the war has escalated on the most controversial of issues – the placement of the kitchen bin. As a flag-waving freedom fighter, I believe it should be in a corner. My father’s fascist views involve placing the bin against cupboard doors. This means the lid bangs on the doors when he’s disposing of rubbish, loudly proclaiming to the entire house that he’s “taking out the trash” – which I can only assume is some kind of fear-inducing propaganda. My sister and mother carry on with their lives oblivious to the carnage, possibly because the degree of rotation of a bin actually makes no difference in their lives whatsoever or possibly because our attacks are so sophisticated. We engage in guerrilla tactics to undermine our opponent, choosing opportune times to strike, usually under the cover of darkenss. If I wake in the middle of the night, I will strike. By the time I’m up the next day, it has been shifted back into its oppressive position.

This kind of combat has been continuing for weeks, and there appears to be no end in sight without third party involvement. I suspect this may be on the cards, as my mother is making a roast, assumedly to facilitate peace talks as both parties will be at the table. Although this may backfire, as there could be tensions over the gravy jug.

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Pantastic

Published in On Our Selection News May 29, 2014

Nothing throws off a good morning quite like putting on a pair of pants.

Not only because this confirms that you’re no longer in bed, but because most pants (hippie pants, trackies and pyjama pants excluded) are designed to destroy your soul. I came across a picture on the internet that labelling pants as “leg prisons”, and I couldn’t agree more. Sure, they’re warmer than most skirts, dresses and kilts (for all our Scottish readers out there!) and they mean you don’t have to be as conscious of the distance between your knees when sitting, but there are many negatives when it comes to these things.

As a grown woman, I make the conscious choice to wear jeggings (a cross between leggings and jeans) instead of their non-stretchy, society-approved predecessors for one key benefit. For some reason, which may have to do with the fact that they were purchased at an infamous youth clothing brand that, according to urban legend, is the French term for “woman with loose morals” (although I’ve never confirmed this rumour, and I don’t intend to in case I disprove it, because I feel it gives the establishment a certain cultural charm), the crotch allows for the wearer to spread their legs as wide as they desire. Perhaps it’s my short stature, but I’ve always found that real jeans are just too restrictive in the way they allow you to move your legs. The crotch of jeans seems to hang at mid-thigh length, which makes me the think of the designer as a diabolical monster who has a personal crusade against my comfort.

It’s not as though I intend to climb trees at work (although I have climbed my fair share of fences while on the job), but I want the option to have full control over the movement of my legs. If I want to stop and bust out a few deep lunges on my way to the water cooler, then that is my prerogative and no pair of pre-approved denim tubes of constriction will get in the way of that. Perhaps this is an issue that only women face, or only short people face, but it is one that we don’t need. And that is why I don the jegs (just to be clear, they have pockets and a fly and resemble jeans more than they would yoga pants).

The fact that I’m even wearing pants is because it’s Winter and in Winter you have to moisturise. Moisturise everything. Especially when you just came out of the shower. Come into contact with water in Winter and forget to moisturise within 5.673 seconds of towelling off and your skin will immediately turn into fish flakes. So as a morning showerer and jegging wearer, I face the struggle of having to put on those clingy cylinders over my legs, which may as well be covered in glue. Because essentially it is a paste – the moisturiser mixes with the millions of dead skin cells coating your legs like a dust, thanks to the Winter winds and forms a thick white mixture, which makes hiking up tight pants a challenge. As you can imagine, this is not a glamorous or relaxing way to start the day. Yet, when faced with a restrictive crotch or paste pants, I’m going to pick the paste pants every time.

Clearly there is a reason that people say “cranky pants” and not “cranky skirt”.

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Meeting baby Esher

Published on On Our Selection News May 22, 2014

I avoid children for good reasons.

There is just too much that can go wrong, particularly in the infant stage. Firstly, you generally have to comment on the baby when you first are presented with it. This is usually done by a parent, who, in my mind, is presenting the baby like the baboon on The Lion King, offering their spawn for judgement. If the baby is cute, then this is no problem. But the world is an imperfect place, and occasionally one encounters an ugly baby. You have only a few seconds to respond and are usually left fumbling with “oh, he’s so… alert!” Safety issues are another concern for me around God’s tiniest creatures. Any accidental bump can have lifelong effects – whether it’s giving them a misshapen head after ramming them into a wall or embedding a debilitating fear of skivvies and happy people from overexposure to The Wiggles. I handle a baby like I’m taking something out of an oven – on the outside I am composed, but inside I am freaking out. A baby is much like a pie – you really shouldn’t drop them.

So, naturally I was a little nervous when I paid a visit to my friend and her baby son. After the first five minutes, everything appeared to be going swimmingly. I had the little fellow sitting on my lap, and had impressed him greatly by handing him my glasses to inspect. I sat there in sheer amazement that my friend, who was once known for wearing tight jumpsuits while gyrating on stage to Kiss songs at every talent show our school foolishly continued to hold could brew such a wholesome ball of adorable. Clearly, this thought must have distracted me, because the next thing I knew, the little lad was screaming. My glasses had acted as a gouge, poking him in the eye when I re-adjusted the way I was sitting. It was awful. It took the combined efforts of both parents to hush him.

Following the ordeal, my friend was less than helpful. “Have you ever heard him cry like that?” she asked his father. Later, she said “I have a theory that babies can’t remember being babies because everything is just so traumatic so they just block it out.” While the crying had quelled and the little guy was happily gnawing on a teething rusk, I sat with the heavy heart of a guilty man. When I left, the child was sleeping, huddled in the safety of his father’s arms in another room. Driving home, I was plagued with visions of cartoonishly violent ways the jabbing could have played out, with comically disturbing eye balls being tossed about like a yo-yo. As I drove, I spiralled into a fit of internal turmoil. It was like I was in the particularly intense minutes of Willy Wonker’s creepy boat ride in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, except my ride was chariot of guilt, paddled by screeching cyclops babies, floating on a river of infant tears. I knew which way the river was flowing; the fires of hell were indeed a glowing. I became particularly unhinged when my phone flashed a message notification from my friend.

Surprisingly, I was met with a friendly message, inviting me to come to another play date soon. I’ve since enquired about getting contact lenses, and am considering buying a pair of oven mitts to safely handle the baby during future visits.

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But I scream ice queen!

Published in On Our Selection News May 15, 2014

I’m currently embroiled in an ugly feud with my sister.

We’ve had fights before, but none have been so personal. Never have the cuts been so deep. It started about 9.47 minutes after we watched Frozen. The warm glow of Disney-inspired sister love faded and discussion promptly turned who was Elsa (the snow queen) and Anna (the brown one). And it got ugly.

This was inevitable. As soon as I heard Anna call her sister a “stinker” (a word my sister uses quite a bit), I knew this discussion would be had. We have a history of it. After we saw Wicked, it became apparent that our lives were abstracted (only slightly), put to a soundtrack, and performed on stage. My sister conceded that I was Elphaba (the green one), making her the pretty, but kind of shallow Glinda. It was very noble of her, and of course it makes the song “Changed for Good” just that little bit more emotional. Before this was the Olsen Twins issue – I have a feeling I bullied my sister into letting me be Mary Kate. However, this was a reasonably peaceful arrangement, and we happily took on our characters while pretending we were hosting our own imaginary series of Better Homes and Gardens. Because we were obviously very cool.

This character comparison obsession began many years ago. The root of this problem, as is the root of all problems, stemmed from our mother. The woman is obsessed with the movie Little Women. You may think that it couldn’t have had such an impact on her family planning decisions considering it only came out in 1994, but Mum also had the novel before then. We started out as The Maguire Five, with three darling daughters, but that changed. Now, I have a theory that when moving house, she came across the book, and remembered her desire to be Marmee and her love for Susan Sarandon – then in 1996 my youngest sister came along. And after years of watching the movie with Mum, we began to see certain similarities between the Maguires and the Marches.

The problem is, according to birth order, I would be Beth. Now while she’s nice and everything, Beth is the most boring character – even that dull old Mr Brooks lashed out and stole a glove! Beth is quiet and dies after visiting a child, who gave her scarlet fever, weakening her heart forever (oh yeah, spoiler alert!). I, however, am a giant show pony who usually goes out of her way to avoid children. Birth order or hair colour should not come into play; deciding which character you are should be based on your own characteristics. Therefore, I reason that I am Elsa. Like Elsa, my hobbies include being left alone, and being fabulous. I am also known to belt out a power ballad. My sister’s resemblance to Elsa is based on her blonde hair and propensity to seriously hurt her brown-haired little sister – although while Elsa’s wasn’t on purpose, my being struck on the head with the vacuum cleaner was nowhere near as accidental as you might think.

We eventually asked Mum to decide, and, after putting both our cases forward, no conclusion was reached. For the sake of peace, we decided that we are both Elsa and we are both Anna. But after watching Frozen again (for the 7,689th time), I am convinced I’m an Elsa. I’m sorry, but I just can’t Let it Go.

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Presence for a gift?

Published in On Our Selection News May 8, 2014

At what age are you supposed to stop giving birthday presents?

I’ve just come from what has been labelled #theyearof21, meaning that along with the joys of large bar tabs and parties that had actual food instead of a packet of stale chips and the vague promise of mi gorreng noodles before bed, I faced my fair share of gift buying. More often that not, I was auto- matically included in the godsend that is the group present. The present-buyers are usually the closest person to the birthday beb, and so take on the responsibility of buying the perfect gift. Not only do you get to ride on this excellent friend’s excellent gift idea, you also don’t have to pay too much for it. You can chip in a measly twenty bucks and still come out of it looking like a great mate. Usually, the only thought you have to put into the gift is the birthday greeting in the shared card (the inevitable dilemna of heartfelt or funny is a tough one, but depending on the card receiver, the standard “you’re beautiful inside and out babe, don’t ever change xx” can go either way).

But now that the year of slightly-too-lengthy slideshows and slab cake are behind me, I face unknown territory. I no longer know if I have to attempt to earn my keep at a party. Because as much as we don’t publicly admit it, party guests are a bit of a nuisance. They use avocado as an adhesive to stick illegible hand-written notes on fridges and eat all the novelty shaped chicken nuggets before anyone can get a hand on them. If you have put up with their company and mess, you’d want to get more out of it than a selfie in your now filthy bathroom mirror. First there’s the question of price, and then the actual gift itself. For example, if the host splashes out for some sushi platters and cake pops (kind of unnecessary and a little awkward because you generally have to eat it in one bite, which isn’t overly dignified – but it’s still cake!), am I supposed to try to cover the cost of my attendance at this gathering? Does the gift depend on the type of food served? Because it would make more sense to give the gift after the event. Because one person’s take on “nibblies provided” can be very different to another’s. A five layer nacho dip deserves much more than a box of half eaten fake Jatz biscuits. And do decorations come into the equation? Because those lengths of bunting and pastel coloured balloons can really add up – and don’t get me started on those cute but wildly impractical dotty paper straws.

Now that I am no longer covered by the automatic group gift clause, I am forced to make gifting choices on my own accord. I’ll try to play on a personal joke (which conveniently tends to be rather cheap) but I don’t have those kinds of jokes with everyone, so I give out a fair few scented candles. The good scented candles are kind of expensive, but I do take that into account when faced with the cheese platter.

Obviously there are many factors that come into play, which make the decision-making formula complicated. I can only conclude that if the provision of food is pre-established and someone is getting older, then it might be awkward if you don’t bring a small gift or at least make an empty promise to shout them a drink. Because there’s no such thing as a free cob loaf.

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Life lessons in confections

Published in On Our Selection News May 1, 2014

We can learn a lot from the way we consume easter eggs.

Clearly foods associated with Easter have had a massive impact on me as a person, shaping the way in which I see the world. Perhaps because they are already metaphors in their own rights (albeit the most fattening metaphor I have ever come into contact with), but I have had somewhat of an epiphany after un- packing/neurotically over-thinking my approach to Easter eggs.

In the weeks since that generous mammal made his/her rounds delivering cavities and slightly larger hips thinly veiled by coloured foil, I have been in a state of psychological warfare with myself. A constant and very heated debate rages inside me – to eat or not to eat? While this bunny (or contracted bilby) delivered what could be described as “big girl Easter” – a bunch of flowers and a chocolate small bunny (it was like Valentines’ Day without the annoying Facebook statuses about being showered with gifts or not needing a man to validate one’s existence) – I still managed to end up with far too much chocolate than I could handle. With four days of pyjama time, being in the presence of that much cocoa solids was dangerous. I managed to keep it down to a few mini eggs and the odd hot cross bun, but now that the weekend is over, I realised that I have made a terrible mistake. The Easter long weekend is sacred for many reasons, and one of those reasons is that it is a grace period when eating a hollow oval of chocolate the size of your head is justifiable. But now I am struggling to find excuses to eat one measly 25gram egg. I have one bunny on my bedside table which stares at me, mocking me. As soon as I wake up and just before I go to sleep, I am faced with the haunting notion that I let the chance to enjoy it guilt-free slip through my fingers. And I have to live with that.

You see, Easter eggs are like life opportunities. We all know what happens when you leave something too late. Like in life, there are a number of consequences of putting off eating your Easter eggs and/or novelty shaped chocolate statues.

Depending on your loving situation and the current climate, the outcomes are rarely great. The first is that said foil-wrapped confection is at risk of melting. If you put off the shiny opportunity for happiness for too long, it can dissolve in front of your eyes, leaving no chance of resurrection but a dark stain on your soul (or car seat) to remind you of what you let slip. There is also a real danger of someone else, usually a younger sibling, coming along and eating it. Like the well-dressed, savagely ambitious youth who are growing up to steal our jobs and probably our women too, your little sister is willing to get the opportunity you missed and devour it with a sinister glee. You might think you’re smarter than that and keep your chocolate loot in a cool place away from prying hands, but time is not on your side. A chance that has been pushed to the sidelines for too long can turn to a clump of white, powdery disappointment in your mouth. Stale chocolate (especially the Lindt kind) can be just as soul crushing. So in light of these revelations, I have decided not to put off until tomorrow what I can do today and grab life by the horns – with my face. That’s right, I am eating that bunny.

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