Confessions of a Bondi Blonde

It’s my birthday soon and I want a toy. A sex toy.

I want to buy a piece for some action because there’s been lots of sizzle but no steak in my nether regions recently.

I came to the idea of celibacy in a round-about way. First it was thrust upon me. I was dating a perfect Northern beaches gentleman but unfortunately getting horizontal was a bit of a problem. In between kids in our beds and life issues we just couldn’t get it on to get off. And he respected me too much to go for it in the back of my Volvo wagon, among the chip packets and footy boots. I was gagging for it, but his chivalry was like a wall I couldn’t throw a leg over no matter how hard I tried. Then operation fanny fix put me out of sex action for two whole months, 62 days. When it was time to remove the stitches of my chastity belt I looked for a Bondi rescuer to test my tubes to see if all was operational. Alas, the Sydney man drought was relentless, even though I was gasping.

I’ve been celibate for quite a while now. Caught between a rock and a hard place I want to start the next bit of my life with affection and kindness, maybe even the idea of love. So I don’t want casual sex.  But I’m not ready for big, deep meaningful relationship stuff. I’ve got a core of lovely friends who keep me safe and loved and I am enjoying being slovenly selfish after existing in a half-life of wife for 10 years.

As well the appeal of being single has started to gain momentum. I have turned into a bloke. I watch what I want, when I want, don’t cook but have a fridge full of beer, am growing hair from strange locations, hardly make the bed and put my hands down my pants for the odd scratch. My kids and I have weird face and farting competitions, which given the slapdash nature of our meals, are a very surround sound and smell event; a bit like IMAX but whiffier.

So for the last 15 minutes at least, I’ve loved being single.

But there’s still that perpetual tingle in my fruity bits.

Bondi blonde likes a logical answer to her problems, so I Google-d “buy a vibrator” and went onto adultshop.com.au.

Holy hell.

Red or yellow, or pink or green? Orange or purple or blue? There’s a rainbow spectrum of vibrators to fit any situation – ouch.

Battery operated seemed to me to be the way to go. I didn’t want an electric shock if it all started to get a bit wet down there. And I wasn’t into those called cute names like Waterproof Jack Rabbit or Purple Nubby; a bit too Cartoon Network for me.

Since it’s my birthday the pretty purple Birthday Wish Cum True vibrator seems a good choice and it’s great value at $29.95, plus handling. But should I splash out? The NEA Pearl Massager at $199.95 has got all the bells and whistles. It has 10 speeds and will last up to seven hours, and apparently it is ergonomically designed to accommodate all those special places. What the hell does that mean? What places? It’s quiet too, which is a good thing given the paper-like nature of the wall between my bedroom and the kids’. Imagine, “Mum, what’s that buzzing? It’s the fifth time this week. Turn it down a little, we’re trying to sleep in here.”

 The clincher for me was that the NEA Pearl has a safety switch, which means that if you pop it in your handbag, there’s no chance of it going off when you’re searching for the kids’ lunch money. Try explaining that one away to the tuckshop bitches.

So if I buy the pretty Pearl should I give it a name? After some sexy celebrity seems the obvious way to go, but Brad and Johnny are a bit too twee for me and I don’t think either packs a pistol like the NEA Pearl.

After an ex boyfriend? It’s an idea that’s got some merit, but the last one before husband was soooo long ago that I can hardly remember the dirty details. Also, I was drunk more often than not while bumping uglies, so trying to recall those times gives me a residual hangover and the taste of last decade’s wine rises in my mouth.

 Should I give it a functional name? Cum-motion machine? Battery-ing ram? Orgasmatron? A bit too Star Wars for me, and I hate sci-fi. I know NavMan; that handy GPS system in my Volvo that I trust to get me from point A to point B. And what is a self-administered orgasm if not a journey from Point A to point O? Also, NavMan gets you there every single time, just plug in the destination and sit back and enjoy the ride.

It was all very exciting I must say, looking at the array of lust machines on offer – a bit like a car show for girls. But then I started to think about if and when I get into a loving relationship will my new rubber friend be able to pop up in the bedroom?  How would a guy feel knowing he was being measured against the battery powered Duracell bunny’s ability to last up to six times longer? And as a guy likely to come into my parlour would be nearing the middle aged hump, it’s not like they’d stay as rock hard as my priceless plastic MasterCard purchase; no matter how sexy the lingerie or deep the fake tan. 

So where would that leave me? After the satisfaction of giving my lover satiation and sharing a cuddle, could I whip out NavMan to finish the job he’d so manfully tried to complete? Not a great way to build intimacy.  I could always pop off to the bathroom, whipping out my ever-ready friend from underneath the waxing strips. I could say the buzzing noise was my electric toothbrush.

Maybe purchasing a vibrator is not such a great idea after all if I want to develop a relationship with a person with a penis, rather than just a penis substitute. But…there’s only so much exercise a girl can do to burn off sexual frustration. I’m fitter than I’ve been in years but the urge to merge still surges through me. The Bondi blonde is at an age when feminine sexual need is at its ripest.  I’m rich with desire for a good, hard f… (and I don’t mean frock.)

Even a nice and gentle one would do. Sexual intimacy is so much more than the act of penetration. It’s the feel of stubble against your cheek after a night together, it’s the single person stretch that turns into a mutual cuddle, it’s someone pulling up the sheet to cover your cold shoulder. For me, it’s also the middle of the night visits to the toilet for a wee and then rolling towards the person still asleep, seeking body warmth.

So to vibrate or not to vibrate? I can’t decide at the moment. So I’ll just sit on the washing machine for a while to ponder, waiting for the spin cycle.

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To make it in Sydney, a woman over 40 needs f….ability.

No, not that one.

Frockability. The ability to dress to impress. Whether she’s competing in the career or love stakes, a Sydney woman needs to set herself apart from the other females teetering on the slippery high rungs of the ladder, just beneath the glass ceiling.

Frockability is about dressing like you’re a success. Expensive shoes, well cut clothes and quality accessories are the core tenets and you never display cleavage unless on a hopefully warm-to-hot date. Among the legion of well dressed business women, those with frockabililty set themselves apart with their own brand of je nais se quois.

Gail Kelly has a degree of frockability. She’s stepped up from being CEO of St George and slayed the dragons of the Westpac boardroom with her sheer pizzazz. She’s now stylishly set to head up Australia’s largest bank, merging her old stiletto stamping ground with Westpac.

Julie Bishop, Deputy Leader of the Opposition, dresses with more chutzpah and intellect than the rest of the Liberal party combined. She’s a sharp talker too and her dress sense adds an edge to the debates missing in the detritus delivered by her greige leader Brendan Nelson. I’d like to add Julia Gillard, but there’s something just too lawyerly about her, no matter how great the hairstyle may be that day. I think it’s the Sandler EasyStep comfort shoes that stops her from being frockable.

Kerri-Anne Kennerley? She’s got frockability in spades. Granted, sometimes there is a frocker-shocker when she looks like her outfit has been thrown together by Helen Keller on LSD. But generally the great KAK uses her outfits for goodness instead of the evil of belittling women by showing too much flesh. She’s been around for years, is effortlessly brilliant at her job and her frockability has been key to her prolonged success.

But is the average Aussie woman over 45 frockable? I took myself off to a session at The Sydney Writer’s Festival last month to assess the frockability factor among harried housewives sweating towards the menopause mile, the majority of the book buying public.

The Bondi blonde was shocked, needing a Bex powder and a good lie down.

I was in a room of close to 200 women. About three were frockable.  Almost to a North Shore woman, there wasn’t a sexy woman there; their femininity was hidden under layers of bland clothes and Nanna knits. They had become part of the score of “invisibles”; women who raise families and unite communities while being completely ignored by the powerbrokers, except at election time.  I was in shock and awe and was drowning in a sea of wash ‘n wear haircuts, sensible shoes and shapeless brown dresses.

What is the appropriate way for an “average” woman to dress when our fertility falls? If we don’t have a position of power or authority outside our home is it OK for us to still draw attention to ourselves in a sexual or otherwise womanly way?

And in this male-run world don’t women need to understand the laws of the jungle to stay in the game? Dressing well sets an older woman apart – in career and when searching for a mate and it stops us from being eaten by the lions as sport at a Friday afternoon drinks. 

 Have you seen a photo of Patricia Field?

She’s the woman behind the look of Sex in the City. She dresses those witches of the East Village, hiding their saggy butts and bony torsos in clothes that make them beautiful, ephemeral, inspirational to me and millions of average women like me across the globe.

Ms Field has been a stand-alone international celebrity now for a decade and has styled a legion of yesterday’s wannabes into today’s brightest stars, including Anne Hathaway from The Devil Wear’s Prada and Get Smart. But for some reason, I haven’t seen a photo or an interview with her until today, when I read a recent edition Who Weekly and almost choked on my cappuccino.

For Patricia Field is a truly shocking looking woman. And I mean shocking. Not ugly. Not beautiful. Just in your face, “look at me” shocking.

In the photo accompanying the usual movie pap article, Ms Field is wearing a leopard skin mini-dress so short the world could be her gynaecologist. Her brassy medical bandage strap shoes are hooker high. Her long hair is cochineal red.

And she’s 66 years old.

Miss Field’s off-beat approach to self expression is similar to that of Italian Vogue’s muse and columnist, Anna Piaggi and echoes that of the late Isabella Blow, who discovered designer John Galliano launching him into couture heaven via the pages of British Vogue.  All three women have been celebrated as style icons way past their menopause. They knock the strictures and rules of “age appropriate dressing” into a cocked, plumed and beribboned hat.

After that late Spring lavender drenched afternoon of tea and scones and books, I thank God they do.

Since my separation I have radically invested in lots and lots of new clothes and shoes. Cheaper than therapy and lots more fun, I have reclaimed my right to dress-ups. Shuffling out of the chrysalis of wife, my new me is less moth more butterfly. I now have a range of clothes that can reflect the mood I am in. Summer day fun at the library or park with the kids?  Cream frock, pretty flats and flowers in my hair. Off to City working mum? Black frock, diamond earrings, patent shoes. Writer in crisis in coffee shop? Black skinny jeans, black woollen turtle-neck, black boots, leather jacket – black, of course.

But I did consign my black miniskirt to the Salvos bin liner. Mini skirt and over 40 knees? Even Elle couldn’t pull it off, so I read.

But Ms Field has thrown my skirt a lifeline; she said in Who Weekly that she dressed Kim Cattrall, Samantha in Sex in the City in mini-skirts because they suited her body shape. Ms Cattrall is 51. I’ve been 39 for a few years now and have a similar body shape, if not her sex life.  So I’m retrieving the mini. I’ve had the OK to wear short skirts for as long as I frocking well like.

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Bjoergulfur Thor Bjoergulfsson.

Now there’s a name you don’t see every day.

Bjoergulfur (BTB) is an Icelandic multimillionaire who recently hit the headlines by offering to save a bear who had travelled to Iceland from Greenland on an ice floe.

Poor polar arrived with no MasterCard and, as it was considered a domestic Jetstar economy journey, he hadn’t had any food. Pissed off polar soon followed. Then in waltzed BTB, my Reykjavik warrior offering to save the polar, returning it to the wilds of Greenland or a nice comfy cage at the local zoo.

The waiting media were on the scent of a happy story. Save A Bear! How great for the last story of the day – uplifting and kind of environmental. But the bear got tired of the polar paparazzi and Britney-like lashed out.  A shot rang out into the below-freezing day. The snow stained red. One dead bear later and the camera shutters still clattered away. New story: emphasize global warming and animal rights.

BTB piqued my interest. Iceland’s knight in shining armour, almost coming to a bear’s rescue. Is he single?

You see, it’s not as silly as it may appear. Iceland would be a great place to live. It is the most developed country in the world, according to the International Humanitarian Index. It’s full of beautiful people who treat each other nicely. Iceland has been assessed as the most egalitarian country on earth. So if I hitched up with an Icelandic multimillionaire, I’d likely get a guy who’d cook dinner, talk about women in a wonderful way, hire a hoard of nannies and help for around the house (treating them all immaculately) and replace my salt rusted Volvo with a new seven seater one or a nice Toyota Prius.

It’s a long swim from Bondi, granted, but maybe we could spend six months here in my two bedroom redbrick flat and six months in his Reykjavik mansion.  An Icelandic summer hits the balmy heights of 13 degrees and the winters average around zero. Hey, I like a white Christmas.

BTB works for the investment manager Novator, which also has offices in Mayfair. So we could fly via London, allowing for a little time for a quick TopShop stop and a chance to show off BTB to my London friends. Ha-Ha, suckers! Look what the Bondi blonde has bagged the second time around.

But I don’t like international flying with kids. Economy is just hell. Business Class has more room, but the kids don’t appreciate people have paid just to get away from other people’s kids – it can get a little tense, needing an Air Marshall or two. A thirty hour flight a few times a year could place a little too much pressure on our nascent love.

Is there a version of BTB closer to home? 

 Hmm, John Symonds is single, but I don’t think he shares the same world view as darling BTB. If I recall correctly, Aussie John had around five taut and terrific girlfriends at his 60^th birthday party. Chuck in a bit of jelly, and there’s the evening’s entertainment for you. And his house is the size of my apartment building. I don’t think he’s an Icelandic style environmentalist, somehow. Aussie won’t save me.

What about Mark Bouris? Single. Rich. Gorgeous. He’s too rich for my blood. Sometimes the Bondi blonde knows where to draw the line. Anyway, he’s got FOUR BOYS. Add my tribe and it wouldn’t be pleasant. Seven a side every morning, noon and night.

Dick Pratt? He’s married but that hasn’t stopped him putting it about. He likes to play away in Sydney and I’m a faster, younger, stronger version of the last mistress. And I guarantee that I’ll use contraception – maybe a Visy condom. So no more Pratt-falls for him. But the cardboard King’s new home might be the big house, given his alleged propensity for price fixing.  Do they do conjugal visits for girlfriends?

Hmmm. Not looking good. A one way to Rekjavik is $2,500. I could sell the Volvo and go when the kids’ dad has my darlings on the school holidays. That will give me a week to woo BTB. How could he resist?

So the Bondi blonde is off. Wish me luck, while singing along:

I’m packing up my cares and woe,
Here I go, on ice floe
Bye-bye Bondi

Where somebody waits for me
And his name’s BTB
Bye-bye Bondi

Where somebody loves and understands me
And no more hard luck stories I will hand thee

Pack my bags and go on flight
I’ll arrive late at night
Bondi, bye-bye.

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My kids and I were at Bondi beach early yesterday when a fisherman reeled in a fat salmon. Trailing blood and fishing line, it skipped frenetically along the beach, seeking the water eddying less than a metre away. We danced alongside, urging the salmon to freedom.  The bearded fisherman looked away, trying to deny our appeals; he had earmarked the catch for his brother’s lunch. But my kids snagged his heart. Sighing, he removed the hook from the gasping fish, let the children touch the salmon’s silver scaled side and then threw it upwards. It arched through the air, sliced through the waves and swam free.

The kindness of strangers never fails to cheer or tear me up.  It had been a less than average week for the Bondi blonde.  I’ve been dumped on by divorce litigation and am drowning in debt. The lawyers call it a Less Adversorial Trial Process. Who are they kidding? Divorcing in “no fault” Australia is still a recipe for disaster. Take two people, a little money to share and a failed marriage. Add a lawyer or two and you quickly progress from sadness to madness.

Yesterday’s 7:00 a.m. swim was meant to wash away some of the hurt that had leaked like acid onto my precious children. The fisherman’s act of generosity in denying himself the thrill of giving his brother the  juicy fish was just plain nice. It salved our bruised souls and we celebrated the saving of the salmon with a glorious breakfast of pancakes, Golden Syrup and hot chocolate at Speedos Cafe. We were back home by 8:15 a.m., sleek and happy and ready for whatever the day had in store.

My fisherman friend was a gift. And don’t we all sometimes, when feeling a little blue, look for a sign that it’s all going to be fine?

Usually, when I am feeling a little sad, I call a CWA girl. They’re there to help.

I have a friend who’s my CWA insurance. Whenever the quicksand of life threatens to drag me down, I pop over to Sarah’s house for some tea, sympathy and lashings of creamy homemade cake. Sarah is beautiful and has the largest collection of accessories of any person I know; she has more jewellery than Jan Logan. Sarah is a breast Cancer survivor and no matter how many slings and arrows of outrageous fortune are sent in her general direction, she’s almost relentlessly pragmatic and upbeat, offering cups of tea or a stiff G&T, depending on the hour.

In fact, my policy to you is that you also invest in some 100% Australian owned CWA Insurance; no other country produces that wonderful blend of perfume and steel. If life throws them shit, not only do CWA girls make shit sandwiches, they ensure the crusts are neatly removed and they serve them with gold-edged side plates and napkins, never serviettes. They wear aprons to protect their feminine clothes and have lovely gardens, filled with snapdragons, roses and herbs for use in their always warm and welcoming kitchens. Making a lamb roast with perfectly crisp rosemary potatoes is embedded in a CWA girl’s DNA.

Sydney is a town where we all tend to hurtle forward at a million miles an hour, living life, paying bills, keeping up with the Horowitz’s or Maloufs. But it’s sometimes like we are living in a zero gravity environment – getting nowhere, fast. Sometimes it’s a little like those dreams where you’re trying to get the across a road, with a car hurtling towards you, but you just-can’t-move. You wake up more tired than 10 hours prior, when you rested your very weary head, seeking oblivion.

But, if you pause and look, there are oases of love and kindness even in the bleakest of days, like my fisherman friend.

Over a slab of jammy sponge cake and a cup of Earl Grey, I asked CWA girl Sarah the secret to her indomitable spirit.

Her answer? Keep it small and keep it busy. Sarah doesn’t mean the kind of frenetic busy I do so well, always out, using the house as a bounce pad if the kids aren’t in residence. She means use the house as a nest and build it safe, warm and welcoming. Sarah’s been doing this for years. When grieving the passing of a close relative, she broke a lot of plates. And made a lot of beautiful mosaics. When she was undergoing chemo and radiation, she made so many cushions and other fabric what-nots, entering her house was like a walk through Spotlight. Needless to say, she has a beautiful garden. Though when some crap is laid at her door, Sarah can sometimes be a little over zealous with the pruning. She takes the messes of life and puts them in perspective by making beautiful things, then shares them.

 Is this a lesson too late for the learning? I think of the little things I love. Fresh flowers. The smell of my children’s hair. Reading aloud from The Wind in the Willows on a cold and rainy night, the whole family snuggled in flannelette (a Bondi Blonde guilty secret – daggy PJ’s not lacy peignoirs if no chance of Knight at night). These are the things that a happy life is made of.

According to the 2000 National Survey of Mental Health and Wellbeing, depressive illnesses are the most disabling illnesses in Australia and make major contributions to premature death by suicide, injury and cardiovascular disease or other health problems. Community knowledge about the key risk factors, protective strategies and effective self-help or medical treatments for these disorders is limited. And about half of those affected do not seek medical care. *

But some of my friends are drowning in a mass of Zoloft and Stillnox. They can’t sleep, they can’t relax, and they can hardly breathe.  And then there are the spaced out ones; the ones who have found a supposedly successful blend of medication to help manage their barely there days and endless nights. They are so not in the moment, they scare me. They aren’t sad anymore. They aren’t anything anymore as they walk zombie-like through life.

It’s a place I’ll never ever go. The Bondi blonde is 70% water, 20% bones, Botox and stuff and 10% recycled steel.  If I feel blue, a big walk, chocolate, a laugh and a hug will cheer me up 99 times out of 100. The other time? A session on the Singstar and a bottle of white wine will do the trick. I am so grateful I don’t have a genetic marker or insurmountable life circumstances that for so many today, leads to depression.

I try to help whenever I can. In fact, helping someone else is a handy hint for feeling better. Fisherman friend was whistling when he packed up his tackle (I offered to help). He was one fish down, but seemed much happier for the trade.

But is the Bondi blonde a CWA girl?

 While the idea of country kitchen with an embedded adoring Labrador and home-made slow roasts has a dreamscape appeal, the reality is more instant dinners from one of the many healthy take-outs along the Bondi Road. I have reverted to student and am thinking of using the oven as a handy extra storage area. Maybe I can hide the kids Christmas presents in there.

But I can offer reliable love, a sympathetic ear and cuddles if required. Perhaps I need to provide something with a little more substance to reassure those I care about that life is a wonderful journey. And the bad bits? Well, you just have to get through them, with a spoonful of Sarah’s luscious peach and strawberry jam on her fluffy scones.

So I am dusting off my Women’s Weekly cookbooks that have been languishing in the bottom drawer for years, under my copy of The Rules of Dating and the microwave oven manual. I’m making cookies. I have travelled as far west as Parramatta for the Olympics, so maybe there’s a little CWA girl in me after all, underneath all the spitting and polish.  

Anzac bickie anyone?

*Source: http://www.mja.com.au/public/issues/181_07_041004/mac10800_fm.html

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I once dated a man called penis.

Well, not actually penis. His name was John Thomas. I was living in London at the time, so he may as well have been called prick or Willie as John Thomas was as much an accepted slang term for penis as any other.

John was an American investment banker, rich and living it large on ex-pat terms with an international investment bank. For him, the streets of London were still paved with gold. I was a prize to be won, and he pursued me with a trader’s focus.

He liked me, he really liked me. Expensive dinners, weekends in Paris, hardcover books I coveted were all used to woo me.

When I said I liked cottage roses, two dozen pink and cream perfumed blooms were delivered to where I was working at the time. When my colleagues read the note that came with the flowers (opening the envelope before me as I was lunching long and hard that day) they smelled blood when they saw who it was from. Dick jokes a-plenty rained down relentlessly on me for the next 10 days. Every morning I was greeted with a cock-a-doodle-do. Hilarious. There was no way in hell they’d ever be meeting him for after work drinks. The guy would not survive.

In many ways, John was perfect long term boyfriend material. He was polite, plied me with alcohol and was always on time. He listened to me, I think. Well I talked a lot and he didn’t interrupt too often.

Politically it was a bit sticky. A potatoe eater from Quayle, Minnesota, he was slightly to the right of Genghis Khan on most issues. His blanket solution to rid the world of crime was to fry the criminals, no matter how slight the misdemeanour; excepting Wall Street white collar crims, of course.  I on the other hand was a working class girl from Gympie, trying to make it good, but being waylaid on my upward journey by having too much of a good thing. I was a cider socialist, saving the champagne for when someone else paid.

Still, all John’s lovely moolah beckoned. I was tired of living from paycheck to paycheck. London was prohibitively expensive and any savings I managed to salt away between litres of wine and late night curries was spent on my yearly return to Australia to dry out and seek the sun, friends and sometimes, family.

And he was a woman fearing American. Surely that helped negate the name? Middle class American women have trained their menfolk well in the art of marriage. They have a God given right to consume, and the guys better provide, or it’s onto Dr Phil’s sofa before the guy has a chance to remove his balls from the insinkerator.

If I let John put me into a wife-sized box, we’d soon relocate to New York where I could spend and moan with the finest at the 92nd Street Y on the Upper East Side or at Cafe des Artistes on West 67^th Street. We’d only have to visit the scary religious freak family in Minnesota at Thanksgiving to eat turkey and glutinous pumpkin pie.

After a whirlwind time, when poor John Thomas was SONAPed  (Sex Only, No Appearances in Public) to death, he asked to meet my friends.  He wanted to take our relationship to the next level. I thought it mightn’t do too much harm as he was nicer than all my friends and was handsome in that “hey sports fans” big-headed American way.

So I thought about it. The friends could be forewarned and I’d be forearmed with the threat of killing them if one little penis joke eventuated.

But if the relationship was getting this serious, where could it lead? Next he’d want to talk about moving in together, engagement and finally – marriage. He was a straight guy, following a straight path. If he could stand my ability to slug grog by the bucket, belch like a wharfie and quickly walk away from a farty spot in a shop, letting him catch the nasty stares from English roses, surely the marriage aisle was a likely route?

But then the sad truth dawned. His pure American-ness was the killer blow. Like many from that country, he followed the tradition of sons being named after their fathers. He, in fact was John Thomas Jr. There was no way in hell I was going to saddle a kid of mine with the moniker John Thomas III. It sounded too much like the latest in a long line of porn films.

So I had to kill it with poor cock robin.

It was a sad day, but John didn’t grieve for too long. He met a nice girl from Slovakia and they now live, with John Thomas III and his sister, in an eight room Upper West Side apartment. The lucky woman’s name?  Imeena Völva.

When I found out I cried a little for the life of luxury I’d lost. Then I went to the pub, told my mates and they laughed like drains.

A friend of mine just dropped $14,000 to hitch her tits.

Shira works fourteen hour days, five days a week in a fast food store. She has done so for the past 10 years, since she was 23 and migrated with her family as a single mum, from Iran.

While watching blonde and tanned Aussies pass her Bondi Road shop window, carrying surfboards on their way to the beach, she stayed financially chained to the deep fat fryer, her youth congealing. In Tehran, Shira’s father was editor of the Shi’ite newspaper, in Sydney he works as a labourer at Flemington flower markets, swapping the rush of a daily deadline for the eerie pre-dawn world of the early shift. Shira has  suffered from the limitations of being a foreigner with the extra burden of being tied as a single mother.

But recently she started to get ahead. Managing the store, one of a chain of Portuguese food stores, owned by an Orthodox Jew, her decade of toil has given her relatively rich rights and privileges. She earns decent money, over $60,000 a year. She drives a huge, imported  4-wheel drive and mall crawls on her odd day off with her early teen daughter. Many of her clothes still have their store labels attached. Although she has the means to purchase the clothes, she doesn’t have the life to wear them. She works in the Eastern Suburbs, she commutes to beyond Parramatta, where she lives in an Iranian enclave, and she goes to bed. Repeat the next day.

Shira is beautiful. Half of the affluent divorced dads buying their single evening meal (or “family pack” if it’s an access weekend) would date her, given the slightest encouragement. But there aren’t that many Muslims in Bondi, so Shira’s opportunities to find a mate her parents would accept are next to none. And she has a natural charm. So many people buy her presents; books, candles, little what-nots. In the soullessness of Sydney survival, she has created a small, fragile community under the harsh, fluorescent shop lights.

Today she is bleeding, sore and suffering. She had her breasts lifted a couple of inches last Tuesday by one of Double Bay’s most friendly plastic surgeons. A one hour day surgery operation with no overnight in hospital didn’t sound so bad. One week later, she can’t move. She can hardly breathe without bloody hurting all over. Her breasts, swollen by the operation are of Dollywood proportions. They’ll deflate, but now she looks a lot like a blow up doll, rather than the pin-up perfection she was seeking.

There aren’t many statistics on plastic surgery in Australia, but international trends from the UK and the USA show a year on year increase of around 7% for cosmetic procedures such as liposuction and breast augmentation. A 1999 Committee of Enquiry into Plastic Surgery in NSW revealed that almost all patients – or consumers – of cosmetic surgery  were women. Mosman was the epicentre of excision and augmentation, followed by North Sydney and Vaucluse. Hang around  the Balmoral Pavilion or the Edgecliff Centre long enough and you’ll encounter some of the 4% of poor self-mutilating souls who’ve chosen to go under the knife 10 times or more.

In Shira’s case, it was so unnecessary. She’s a natural physical beauty and her real attractiveness has nothing to do with her nipple position. But I think that, because she spends so much time slaving over dead chickens and half cooked potatoes, on her few hours between work and sleep, she needs to assert her femininity. In her gentle way, she’s trying to buy a better future by being better anyway she can.

And she’s bought into the bullshit of our beauty being what defines us as women. Who hasn’t? I’m a regular Botox babe and wouldn’t say no to a little free liposuction, if the Nylex suction hose was being offered around by a lurking Extreme Makeover crew. But spending three years of savings from a go-nowhere job for a higher butt, bigger tits or a smaller nose? No fucking way. The money could have been Shira’s passport to a better life. The 14 grand would have gone some way towards getting a decent education for an easier, less life-owning occupation. And Svengali boss man probably would have cut her the slack to reduce her work hours to fit a study schedule. At the very least, Shira could have invested the money in an education fund for her only daughter.

Instead she’s bleeding and shocked that the nice surgeon’s promise for a zipless, almost painless operation was a crock. She’s not back to work yet. She’ll be off for at least another two weeks. Shira’s a wage slave, so there will be no money coming in during the self imposed sick leave. But the shop will survive. Shira’s sixteen-year-old sister recently increased her hours there. She’s earning decent money now, much better than the weekend pay she was getting before she left school, one year before doing her HSC.

Woy Woy boy and NSW Minister for Education John Della Bosca has ridden up on his bicycle and straight into my Eastern Suburbs heart.

Granted, he’s no knight in shining armour, coming to my emotional rescue. And he is a little facially challenged; looking at him reminds me of the pizza close-ups in the Dominos’ TV ad; and he looks like he’s sporting extra anchovies.

But boy, can he make me laugh. And if a man can make this Bondi Blonde laugh, “He’s in there”, as it was so delicately put in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

First there was the grumpy fat wombat on a bike incident.

When John cruelly had his licence stripped from him recently by moles in an opposing NSW Labor faction, he creatively found a better, more environmentally sensitive way to get to work. Enter man mountain on a kiddies’ bike. Wearing his dad’s too small Stubbies he teased me with wonderful amounts of dead-grey leg and arse crack. He strode up to his Malvern Star, mounted it manfully and gallantly strained toward the handlebars (replete with girlie streamers) over his NSW taxpayer funded gut. Pushing off into the waiting throng of media hacks and scared school children, he had a wobble on, let me tell you. It was touch and go that he didn’t wipe out the whole ABC crew. Indomitable, like the working class lad made good that he undoubtedly must be, he didn’t pause and rode off into the Sunrise crew instead, wheezing “fuck youse all” and similarly upper house level invective.  He’s been telling us NSW taxpayers the same thing for years, but usually with the two finger salute from the back of a Government limousine.

On that day, that blessed day, my Johnnie started a trend that has gone almost all the way to the White House. For today I saw footage of US Presidential hopeful Barack Obama riding a too small bicycle around Chicago, replete with classy bike helmet and bright white sandshoes. Barak’s PR men must have seen our local footage and agreed that channelling Della Bosca was a great way to make a visionary look like a very common man.

Well, the Bondi Blonde always gives married men a wide berth, so I dampened down my affections after bike-gate and tried to forget about dear John. I had my interest piqued for a while by chair sniffing W.A. Liberal Opposition leader Troy Buswell. Obviously the guy believes in the power of phemerones and, being a little shy, wanted to check out if he truly liked a woman before offering her a take-away curry and a long neck of Swan beer back at villa Buswell. Alas, my hopes were dashed when the appalling Quokka Soccer shocker unravelled and it was wrongly reported that Troy had been playing ball sports with native Australian marsupials. Revealed to be a cruel Internet hoax, we were finally assured that the Liberal MP keeps all his ball sport activities limited to his hand inside his trousers.

I thought what it would cost me in return flights to Perth to pursue the chair sniffer and my allegiance returned to local boy done absolutely no good, Della Bosca.

The night of the Iguanas was what sealed my adoration.

Johnny and his lucky wife Federal MP Belinda Neal were quietly enjoying a friend’s birthday celebration over lots and lots of mineral water at the waterfront restaurant on the Central Coast. After three hours of quiet dining and an ocean of water, they were rudely asked to move. Jesus. I’d get the fucking police in every week too if some snot nosed little wage slave asked me and me mates to move to make way for a bloody disco. But I believe John and Belinda and their good PR employee friends who were dining quietly with them that night. I’m sure John used his usual charm to try to diffuse the situation.

Because he has the kind of charm that’s hard to ignore. Just ask the six award wage members of staff who signed affidavits detailing just how thick he laid it on that night.

I can’t believe their sworn statements and the supporting stories of other diners that Della Bosca abused every staff member he could find, and then drove off into the night, licence suspended but not yet revoked, after failing to find a taxi driver to abuse.

He’s misunderstood. He wasn’t swearing, he was just having a laugh. I admire that my Johnnie is extending the colourful colloquialisms of our vast brown land. The Macquarie Dictionary must add in their next edition the colour he brings to Australian politics with the following entry:

Della (n) – being involved in, and usually be responsible for an incident which involves repeated swearing and threats. Often used in public places by people with unwarranted authority. Usually used as “to do a Della”.

It’s a handy term to use and so much more colourful than pissed off.

Consider the following uses.

“I’m telling you Doreen, the food was so crap, I did a Della and they cut the bill by 50% and gave us free beer all night. Then I drove home.”

 Or,

“The bloody stupid copper made me blow in the bag. Well any dildo-breath could see it was .0499999, not .05. So I did a Della and the cop let me off.”

Just imagine if our pollies did a Della everyday. Well, half of them probably do, but consider what it would do if our less colourful characters participated in Bosca behaviour.

Imagine Malcolm Turnbull riding up and down Wunulla Road on his daughter’s old scooter and Barbie helmet, wearing Lucy’s leggings and telling us all to go fuck ourselves. Make him more human than the 70,000 bucks of his own money he spent during the Federal election campaign sending out letters from Lucy, detailing his nice side. And if the K-RUDD had lost the cat’s bum mouth long enough for a stream of Della invective when he ate the dodgy party pie, well at least we’d know he was at home and not in Hiroshima defusing nuclear weapons or saving whales or whatever other pointless big picture stuff he fiddles at while his Fuel-Watch programme burns in a blaze of crap.

I have decided that the only thing stopping John and I doing Dellas together is Belinda, his wife in life and partner in dining Dellas. The woman is bloody scary. And is it just me, or is there a real hair/face mismatch going on? The neat blonde bob screams magazine editor or sleek lawyer. The face? Let’s just say Dominos must have been doing a two-for-one offer on the night John’s anchovies arrived.

She says she’s a feminist. Well, I believe her. Except she has a seemingly endless capacity for doing Dellas on her sisterhood when the grumpy mood strikes. Exhibit A – The soccer shocker, where Ms Neal mistook a rival player as the ball – could happen to anybody, surely?

But maybe, if John did a Della hard enough, I’ll give in to his aggression and go for a bit of blonde-on blonde-action. You might think that the Bondi Blonde likes a bit of rough.

But my Johnnie is not rough, for me he’s pure gold.

I’m considering converting to Catholicism.

World Youth Day is nigh, and it seems like it might be a great party.

On July 15, swinger Ratzinger is bringing his homies for a week long Holy Homebake. Cardinals, bishops and 200,000 plus pilgrims will be getting down in the House of the Lord, a carefully reconstructed and consecrated field at Randwick. Ah yes, on reflection, the Racecourse is the obvious place for the party, considering just how many prayers have been made, if not answered, there.

There has been muttering among the racing fraternity and all are not happy. After the equine flu plague and crappy, cold weather, the industry needs to fill its coffers again, handing around its collection plate at as many Randwick racing meetings as possible. The lock-down for his holiness takes away many money making racing opportunities. While the evils of gambling are well documented, we must consider having to feed the families of the racing fraternity. And they’re used to Moet, not loaves and mullet.

So, here’s some divine intervention that came to me in a dream last night. Combine the gambling with the meeting. Make it a new date on the calendar – a truly new Winter Carnival, supported by the TAB as well as the Lord. Obviously, the horses can’t race around the track as it will be filled with the pilgrims and their pitched tents, so here’s a few events for consideration:

• A Toss the Boss competition. See how far you can toss a cardboard cut out of Jesus. He who throws furthest, gets to the second phase of the game and gets a ticket to enter The Kingdom of Heaven.
• The Kingdom of Heaven. This is a special smoking room where South Sydney Juniors has relocated its pokies, handily placed outside the portaloos. Pilgrims can invest a dollar or two while waiting to spend a penny. Entertainment value is undisputed and the church gets a 10% tithe from the winnings.
• Immaculate Egg and Spoon races. A fun one for the whole extended Catholic family. Place an unfertilised egg on a spoon and race to the finish line, being cheered on with a catechism. The winner cannot drop their egg and replace it. This automatically disqualifies the pilgrim. Remember, every egg, as well as every sperm, is sacred.
• Holy Mary Two-Up. Pilgrims gather in a betting ring. The game is similar to two up with 20 cent pieces replaced with coins with Mary, Mother of Jesus on one side, and for colourful local flavour, a picture of local almost-saint Mary MacKillop on the other.

What’s not to like?

So I’m off to Target for my WYD08 T-shirt and matching drink bottle. My Kev07 shirt has lost its glow somehow. All the White King in the world won’t restore its sparkle.

And I’ve got to register pronto before the special Pilgrim offers run out. Don’t want to miss the 60% off for my self-inflating Pilgrim mat or sleeping bag-Sleep Out Solo Tent from Harvest Youth Tours, proud supporter of celibacy and the World Youth Day.

My only problem is that, at over 40, am I young enough to be considered a youth in the Catholic world?

I’ll take my chances and try via the WYD08 Egeria registration system, named after a nun who recorded her journey to the Holy Land, a-la Bridget Jones, in the 4^th Century . Using the Pilgrim username John Wayne, I fill in the form and I’m in.

Soon the registration pack with my special admission badge and passes will be delivered. This is a  massive event on the Sydney landscape and I feel a thrill similar to that of registering to go to the Olympics way back in 2000. This time I’ll get to see the events I want, and it’s much cheaper too!

WYD08 will bring in millions to the coffers of Sydney and its businesses. And how much harm can 200,000 Christians do? Hmmm. Don’t think I’ll ask any Aztecs that one.

So come on down, Pope. Bring your new pope mobile, spread your message and the money. The jaded local folk may not listen very closely, but financially the winner will be Syd-ern-ee.

“Look at me, I’m Deborah Lee,
Lousy with re-virginity
I won’t leave your bed, till you’ve given me head,
I can’t, I’m Deborah Lee!”

Apologies to Grease-lovers, but there’s nothing like a musical number to put me in a good mood.

And after this week’s encounters with the opposite sex, I need a cheer up. A rapid re-think of my game plan is required if I want to be considered more of a Playboy bunny, less a bunny-boiler.

Up till now I’ve been rabidly age-ist. Anyone younger than me has definitely been off-limits. I think that there are two reasons for this. First, I’m a mum of boys, so I automatically equate young men with lunch money, school sores and wrestling on TV. I tended to treat any guy sub-40 like a son, checking sureptiously for cooties if I run my fingers through their hair. Second, I’ve been conditioned to hunt in the land of the dinosaurs. I was married to a young fogey with favourite past-times of golf, golfing jokes and talking about what happened on the 15^th fairway. What a hoot, I can tell you. (Hmm nice brochure for aged retirement home overlooking golf course in the current edition of The Wentworth Courier, by the way).

This week I had an epiphany. And I’m with Deborah Lee.

 One night a gorgeous gym-friend tried to set me up with an old guy. He was just weeks away from Senior Card status, so we’d always be able to get a discount at Hoyts, as long as he got the tickets while I bought the popcorn. That didn’t seem such a bad offer, when the alternative was another night of CSI Bodrum or wherever. Kiss, kiss on the cheek hello and four of us (friend had brought hubby) settled down for a glass of red at a posh Woollahra bar.

Well, Viagra man was on a roll and I got squashed. The only seat available was beside him. That seemed OK. But the jerk saw it as an opportunity to indulge in the Olympic display sport of free grope. Hands on my legs, inexpertly massaging my back, placing my hand high on his thigh.  Ewww. Yuckie, yuckie. I had two choices, ignore and remove hand surreptitiously whenever possible or tell him to “shuffle off home, you old bugger, you’re missing Michael Palin on Channel 7.” No option really with friend looking on with massive guilt at putting me in this position and as shocked as me. I couldn’t do it to her, so he continued to do it to me.

And to make matters worse, granddad bus conductor man was wearing a poo-brown zip up leather jacket on a stretchy band, over a nice pair of comfy slacks and a striped polyester-look shirt. If I was brave enough to look down, I swear the shoes would have been grey pleather slip-ons. I on the other hand, had a sexy top and a fashion forward inverted pleat satin skirt, with Salvatore Ferragamo shoes and new pewter earrings. What the?

The icing on this particular 60^th birthday cake was when he told me (while not letting me get a word in) how much he could read my essence and understood what a truly special person I was. Here’s a clue, arsehole.  “GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME AND GET BACK TO THE POKIES, YOU OLD PERVE! I’D RATHER GO DOWN ON ALEXANDER DOWNER THAN HAVE A DATE WITH YOU!” Ewww. Ewww. Ewwww.

What the hell had my friend told this aged lothario, channelling Rupert Murdoch while missing the vital billions? Apparently she said that I was up for a friendship with a nice person who liked going to the theatre and art galleries, looking to pay Dutch in return for the company and friendship. I wanted a walker; whether gay or straight, I didn’t care. Obviously, what this really meant to Alzheimer man when hearing aid was switched on was that, as a single mum, I was gagging for it. Apparently the word around town is that getting a single woman to bed is as easy as shooting fish in a barrel. The only barrel I had in mind at this point in the evening came from Snowtown, S.A., handily filled with acid.

Contrast and compare this to situation number two. I have this lovely young male friend who called around yesterday because he was worried that, as my kids are away with daddy for the long-weekend, I’d be blue. He just wanted to make sure I was OK. He had a cup of herbal tea and was away. He is a true friend and a dear and a gentle man. And he’s not a one off. Early in the piece, just after my separation, I had a drink with a guy I had always fancied and whose goodness was just blindingly obvious.  He has three sisters and talked about women in a way that was respectful and quite nicely, I think, kind of awed. We chatted about his career and my kids. When I found out he was 33, I ran like the wind, wheezing a bit in my skinny jeans. Too young, old girl, I thought to myself. Get out of the playground.

Based on this scientific sample, the whole Deborah Lee, Hugh Jackman thing makes so much sense. Obviously he gets a talented, gorgeous wonderful woman who is an adult and lets him go play and develop his career, safe in the knowledge that she’s a big girl and can happily amuse herself till he returns. Granted she’s a bit of a Botox fiend, but that’s OK as long as she can still blink. (Hint, hint, Hugh types: That’s me, that’s me – well not the Botox, of course!!). And, apart from his scary physical perfection, with Hugh she gets Mr Nice and Easy. He’s kind, listens to her, seems a great dad and, being comfortable in his own gorgeous skin, wants a partner, not a plaything.

Apparently there are a lot of metro sexual men who are not hung up on dating an older woman. They want a peer, who’s in a similar life space, not arm candy. And this phenomena is so entrenched in the brave new world of dating, there’s a term for women who like younger guys. They’re called cougars. Hmm. I don’t love it, but it’s definitely an improvement on the superannuated term for older woman/younger man – slapper/toy boy.

So in summary;

Guys over 50 – it’s all them, them, them, when it should be you, me, you, me. They seem battle scarred and scared. Did I miss a war or something or is it purely that love is a battlefield for the fogey set?

Guys around 35 – they seem much more in touch with their feminine side. They care about the environment and watch Desperate Housewives as well as the footy, but never the Footy Show.

And you can’t blame divorce for the differential. I know some young divorced guys and they are lovely.

So, I’m recalibrating my internal attractiveness indicator, resetting it to 10 years younger. Cougar on the loose!

Fortuitously, the undisputed Queen of the Cougars, Elle Macpherson, is reportedly resettling in Sydney any day now. The word is that she’s returning home for her sons and an improved quality of life and maybe on the look out for a new man.

Well, Deidre Chambers, what a coincidence! I am a returned ex-pat too!  And we’re both mother of boys and both single. Surely she’ll be needing a little bit of advice from one in the know on choosing a good school and the best place for a brow wax? It’s Karma, baby. I’m definitely Elle’s new best friend. And on her nights off from the boys, relaxing with a drink or three in the VIP section of the Piano Bar, she’ll be needing a wingman.

Meow. Elle’s belles? I’m there.

Consider the clitoris.

Or rather, ignore it at your peril.

Mine sits there undemanding most of the time, letting me get on with my day, unless I’m wearing too tight jeans or am stuck in traffic on the 333 Bondi Express on my way to town. Throb, throb goes the engine. Oh, vicar!

For most women, it’s a happy little pussy cat appendage and appreciates being touched by self or other, gratefully responding and flowering with tender movements. If it is not treated right, it may not flare up but still has the potential to get us and our relationships into an awful lot of bother.

Usually, it’s ignored, like a good friend we like to see, but are too busy to spend much time reacquainting our self with.

For something so hidden, the clitoris gets an awful lot of bad press.

There are pubs’ full of stand-up comedy describing it as an island off Greece or a place so hard to find that you need a map, a flashlight or a compass to locate it. And if these pub dwellers are lucky enough to stumble across one late on a Saturday night, they often either twist it like a knob on a radio, hoping for a happy reception, or lap at it with the enthusiasm and technique of a Labrador.

Hands down pants. Pant, pant? I don’t think so.

But ladies and sometimes not so gentle men, the truth is, we’ve been sold a pup.

The clitoris isn’t a small, wee thing, sitting like a princess’ pea atop a vagina, waiting blushingly to be stroked to life. It’s huge.  The little pink bit we all see (with a mirror, in Playboy or otherwise) is only the nub of the matter. It’s the tip of a woman’s sexual iceberg.

Have a look at clitoris at its Wikipedia page  (warning: not at work or in front of kids unless you’re up to explaining it) . The little penis-like piece sitting like a cherry on top is what we normally consider to be the whole organ. But it’s really only the up periscope of a submarine, with the rest of the vessel hidden safely (even if one is sporting a Brazillian haircut down south).

The pink bit under the hood travels beneath the skin, up a couple of centimetres, before, just like a woman, changing its mind and turning around. It divides into two and hangs like a couple of bananas, fitting snugly around the vaginal opening.

In all mammals (excepting, bizzarely, the spotted Hyena) this connective tissue solely works together to maximise a woman’s sexual pleasure. That’s why we enjoy not just the rub, but the thrust too. Penetration stimulates the tissue, encouraging blood flow and arousal. Clever, clever clitoris!

That fun duo, sex experts Masters and Johnson, decided that all female orgasms are clitoral in nature. Further research by Aussie urologist Dr Helen O’Connell supports this theory. These guys all agree that vaginal orgasms result from clitoral stimulation. Must have been a great conversation when that agreement was reached. How did they celebrate, do you think? 

So you guys, relax and enjoy the ride.You don’t have to look for the G-spot anymore. Like Santa Claus, it doesn’t exist.

The Bondi Blonde (me) generously offers you a few other handy travel facts to have in mind if you are lucky enough to be heading south this winter.

• Unlike the penis, which wees as well (you are very clever, you multi-taskers), the clitoris functions solely to induce sexual pleasure.
• The tip of the clitoris, the bit we see, has the same number of nerve endings as the whole penis. And we’ve got all the other stuff too. So be gentle!
• Some women can sustain an intense orgasmic state for much longer than previously thought. So it’s not so much multiple orgasms, but one long one.

Sometimes it’s hard to be a woman. But facts like these more than make up for it.

P.S. I am so glad I am sworn to celibacy right now. Really glad.